Well, I totally passed out again last night before I could write anything, so this entry is all about yesterday. Tons of sight-seeing and I took a zillion pictures. Running out of space on my Picasa account. Not sure what I want to do about that… I’ll figure it out. It’s been really tough to keep it going around 7 or 8 pm… The other adoptees are having trouble, too. Guess it’s still some jet-lag? I keep waking up early, too. Right now, I’m going on 10 hours of sleep between two days – not good for me, but somehow I’m managing. Also, my appetite has sucked lately. I literally ate about seven bites of dinner last night. :S Still, those things aside… This trip has us so spoiled. The word of the day is definitely ‘grace.’ Everywhere we go, the Koreans in the program are so anxious to treat us and get us whatever we want. Last night at the welcome dinner, as I’ll explain later, we were VERY honored by the Daegu ‘club’ that is involved with KAMC. I felt more important than I ever have before, but I also felt like I didn’t do anything… And really, I haven’t. I was given the life I have, and I seemed to have been honored just for that. And in God’s perspective, that’s how it goes… I don’t deserve any of this. I deserve punishment, if anything. But God is anxious to pour grace on me. Right now, I feel like I just did something very, very good for somebody, and they are thanking me… You know that feeling? It feels good, but the moment lasts for just an evening, maybe. Except, I have done nothing, and I’ve had this feeling since I got to Korea… And the intensity of people’s outpouring of love has not diminished a bit. It’s almost overwhelming. I feel like God has to restrain the amount of grace He can give, else we might be squashed by goodness. When I get back home, life is going to go back to sweating, toil and issues, but thankfully, God is the same back home as He is here.
I woke up at 6am yesterday morning. Ate some quick breakfast with Hyeonbee and her mom. Mr. Yang had gone off to work, and Hyawnoo was helping out with VBS (I think he stayed overnight). Hyeonbee is doing a summer-program kind of thing, teaching elementary and middle school kids, so she had to leave after breakfast… Which just left me and Mrs. Yang, who would take me to the subway station to go to the KTX station. I don’t know why exactly, but I really love this woman. On occasion, my missing-mother-complex comes out, and I’ll find a woman that has certain characteristics and I’ll wish that she were my mom… Partially b/c I wish that my adoptive mom had been like her instead, but also b/c I hope that my biological mother were like that. I think about my biological mom the most… I would definitely like to meet my dad and brother, but mom is the most important by far. It’s almost to the point where if I think about meeting my ‘family,’ that really just means meeting my mom. Anyways… I can’t communicate with this woman, and even though she knows I don’t understand a lick of Korean, she still talks to me in Korean anyways. But something about her longs for her to be my mother. Maybe it was her gentleness, or her attentiveness to my needs and habits. I’m glad she spoke to me in Korean… And I’m glad that things worked out in such a way that it was just the two of us going to the train station together. I will never be able to express these kinds of feelings to her, or really even to other ‘moms’ I’ve felt the same way about… Partially out of fear that I’ll weird her out, and also just a lack of words to really describe my feelings.
We took the subway to the KTX station, and I got to experience a bit of Korean rush hour. It looked a lot like Japanese pictures of people on the subway – everyone has little gadgets (PSPs, phones, iPods) and are glued to them. They don’t really push, and people are very polite, letting women and older people sit. I wanted to take pics, but it would have been a little awkward.
Looking around the KTX station will reveal a Chinatown!
We got to the train station and met up in a little coffee shop. I got a kiwi drink…
Then we were off on the KTX to Daegu. The rail that we were going on was not built for the KTX, so it went a usual train speed… We’ll get to ride it again later, but on tracks that allow the train to go 150mph. [Ummm... I think that used to be part of the program, but we never got to do that.] It was very nice… And we were chatting and such, but the service lady came up to us and asked us to be quieter. :P “We’re not in America anymore…” Haha… Kind of embarrassing.
Getting comfortable on the KTX....
...A little too comfortable.
When we got to Daegu, we were greeted by our guides… Two older men, one of which would end up being my host family dad, one guy our age, and two younger kids, who were university students. They were studying English and would be our translators. The girl was Seo and the guy was Donghan.
Inside the train station... It looks just like an airport.
The energy of this group was entirely different… Their welcome was warm and more ‘hardy’ I guess is the best way to describe it. We tossed our luggage into a Rexton, and Pastor Park went with my host-dad-to-be, and the rest of us piled into a Hyundai van with four rows of seats. The guy driving was a funny guy. Very energetic and had one of those gung-ho demeanors… He had a cooler packed full of drinks and lots of Korean snacks and bombarded us with them (literally, haha). I’m not sure what it was, but we got pretty stupid after. I think his energy got us all woken up and we got loud and giggly.
Donghan getting us some snacks...
This turned into the party-van...
We went first to Daegu Stadium, home to the IAAF tournaments and the 2002 FIFA World Cup. It’s a pretty big deal.
Some big, abstract art thing just outside...
Triforce?
We drove around the inside and right up to the entrance to the field.
The VIP box.
Nick H. was just told he looks like Stallon. :P
After, we had lunch reservations at a restaurant for bulgolgi… All the food was already out and cooking when we got there! It was nice, and sooo good…
A lot of meals are finished up with a bottle of sparkling cider or Coke, in a glass bottle! Which is awesome, b/c I always want a soda after eating Korean.
Hollywood?
The entrance to Keimyung University, our second destination in Daegu.
Visiting the Adams Chapel, built to commemorate one of the founding missionaries of Keimyung University.
Like all Korean churches, it is quite beautiful. The architecture is very old-school with a cross-shaped layout, pillared side aisles and the transept is topped by a dome. (This one is worth seeing in hi-res!)
Stained glass!
A girl was hired to just play organ there.
A balcony is an easy give-away that this was built recently.
That organ was amazing... (See a few photos down for more historical stuff.)
All the info you'd want to know about the chapel.
Cute and talented...
Uhhh... Yeah, I couldn't play that. :P
The dome at the transept.
Features Jesus and the 12 apostles.
Pastor Park's idea. :P
That block actually came from Israel.
I forget the name of this path, but it's sort of a play on words meaning, 'meeting at the center.' It's symbolic of completion of university studies and stuff. ...Yeah, I bought a notebook later and started writing stuff down. :P
They have some (new) traditional buildings on campus.
...And they have some interesting bugs in Korea. :P
A resting area... You have to take your shoes off to sit up there.
The Keimyung business school... "Practical, open-minded and moral"... About the opposite of the US, eh?
A cicada... They are SO LOUD. Except when a car drives by. Then they get all quiet. Then get loud again.
Keimyung's museum of Korean history.
These pots are everywhere. They make kimchi, taejang, hold water and lots of other things.
The founder of Hyundai. This whole exhibit is dedicated to his life. Definitely a rags-to-riches kind of story, but earned through hard work.
It was such a good picture that I had to take a picture of it. :P I hope to get at least one like this on my trip!
Outside, there's a rock-carving/painting replica.
The next bit is all about Keimyung University.
A chronology...
Some achievements... There were a lot more.
...And so begins the longgggggg exhibition of Korean history. Starting from hunter-gatherer life.
Back out on the street... I thought this was a clever name for a coffee shop.
Same here as everywhere... But, they are farrrrrrr from a monopoly here.
A Nike shop... Nike is apparently very expensive here.
Nick S. really got a kick out of the crazy-watermelon-guy... (He's 'Star King,' a famous TV show host.)
Next up was our visit to the missionary medical museum.
Never got an explanation for what was up with this building.
Instead of a grape arbor, you have an edamame arbor. :P
One of the houses of the medical-missionaries...
A lot of this stuff looked pretty familiar. This was all Western stuff.
I'm not sure what that was. :P
Umm... Horror movie stuff? No... That's all to aid child-birth.
Acupuncture. Not all Korean medicine is Western...
This picture is how this part of Daegu used to look 40 years ago. 40 years! Go down a bit (outside of the museum), and I took a picture of the same spot.
The living quarters of the house... It looked and smelled just like any other old house in the States.
A more recent picture of the missionaries.
Awards for them...
A commemorative thingy to the missionaries...
A famous song... Which I did not record... Dr. Kim and Pastor Park and all the other Korean guys were singing it.
Another house had a World Cup display.
On to the education portion of the museum...
First woman doctor....
Textile making machines...
Dr. Kim showing us one of the textbooks. Dr. Kim actually arranged for this museum to stay open longer just for us.
School uniforms.
This was an actual classroom.
Cameras have come quite a way. :P
Pretty self-explanatory.
This was a lit map of the independence march in Daegu.
These swords were used by the Japanese to slaughter Koreans.
Lots of torture and cruelty...
Same rock as before, but this is the pic of the men actually singing.
Our driver, (we never learned his name), Dr. Kim, Nick H., my host family father (Mr. Park), MeriKim, Pastor Park, David, Raia, Nick S., me and Seo. Dong-han was the photographer.
Honorary graves of the missionaries.
Same shot as the old picture before.
The hospital.
First time out at a market! This was the second largest in Daegu.
Lots of clothes and stuff... Not everything was cheap!
Street vendor food!
Dan bat bang [I wrote 'red bean bun', but the sign actually says 'Chrysanthemum bun'] vendor... Nick H. and I were waiting for Raia to finish looking at some shoes or something, and Dong-Han got stuck translating for her. So, we decided to try to buy something on our own... We stood in front of the vendor for a couple minutes discussing how we'd go about buying the mystery item (we didn't even know what it was, but it smelled good). We decided to just hand her 2000 won and see what would happen... After watching us chat like two boys at a middle school dance about to ask the girls to dance, she kindly took our money, and rather than one, she gave us seven (one was free!). So nice... The dan bat bang was pretty amazing, too. Reallllly freaking hot, though. Almost burned my tongue.
A street shop had Bacchus D! First sighting of it... Though I've seen it several other times after this.
Inside a drug-store. All those boxes up in front of the counter are health drinks.
Kids are wearing their high school uniforms.
...And here is our welcome dinner from Daegu. Their gung-ho attitude carried over to everything, it seems... They really went all-out for us.
They reserved the ENTIRE restaurant for this occasion.
Buffet... Too bad I wasn't doing so hot. First, Pastor Park informed me that I would be playing guitar for everyone... Then I was fighting some motion-sickness from traveling, some heat exhaustion and my digestive system was still adjusting to the high increase of vegetables in my diet (if you know what I mean). I literally ate about seven bites of this. :(
The beginning of their presentation... I had a hard time picking out how everyone was related, but it seemed like this was a club of some sorts (from the church?). Didn't ever really catch the name of it (I have a hard time unless I see it written somewhere.)
First, they ALL knew our names, and they gave us small gifts and those neck things (I really can't remember what they're called) like we won some award. We all felt really under-dressed because everyone else had really dressed up for this. We had done nothing, but they welcomed us like returning heroes. We gave our brief introductions...
...And then they started hooking us up with our host families.
My host family dad came up to me and gave me a huge hug...
...And then grabbed me by the arm. He embraced me like I was his son... It was kind of weird because I'm not used to that, especially from a stranger (much less a Korean), but I liked it. Just goes completely along with their enthusiasm for supporting KAMC and the host-family program.
What have we accomplished? What have we done to deserve this? Nothing... That lady right above Raia gave us a speech about how our birth parents did not give us up because they wanted to abandon us, but they gave us up because they wanted to give us a better future. They would think about us everyday, and regret not being able to provide for us. She said that they did it out of love and desperation and that we should not be angry at them... It's hard to swallow because there is no one to point the finger at anymore. Our mothers/fathers were about our age, and I certainly know if I had a kid right now, I'd be in massive amounts of trouble. I don't know her story, but she was very sincere about her message, and she came up to each of us and hugged us after the picture.
This is the chief of the city!
This is me, making an arse of myself! I was not prepared to play at all, and wasn't really sure what to play... I decided on 'Signe' because it's easy, and I wasn't ready to play some of the other songs I am working on. But... the Baby Taylor is 3/4 scale and I know this song well enough for my fingers to be able to play it from muscle memory... And I couldn't even get the song started. I tried three times, and each time I got past the intro and slid into the E/G#, I missed and couldn't recover. So embarrassing! I just gave up, and went back to my seat. Total choke moment. Somehow... I still got applause? And people still gave me compliments and said I was a 'good guitar player'? Did they hear something different? B/c I couldn't even get the song started... I know there's sympathy for the nervous, choke-moments, but... :P I felt pretty terrible b/c had I known how much they would be doing for us, I would have worked a bit harder to have a 'play piece' prepared. I just thought I'd be noodling around on the Baby. :(
They brought out accordions and played three pieces for us... It was pretty cool. I've only ever heard an accordion once or twice in my life.
Nick H. was charged with giving a mini-speech thanking them... First time using a translator, I guess, b/c Dong-han was having a tough time... He ended up switching out with Seo.
My host dad wrapping things up...
One of about thirty group photos taken from probably 12 different cameras. :P After, all the members of the club came up to us to welcome us and say a couple words.
Daegu at night... Pics don't really do it justice.
My host family took me to go see a movie (Harry Potter)...
Yes, the service girls are wearing bunny ears.
Kah.
The theater is on multiple levels...
They wanted to buy me candy and popcorn and soda... But, my stomach still wasn't doing so well, so I just got a mul [water].
Fancy escalators...
Something felt really strange (in a good way) when I went to go see this movie with Mr. and Mrs. Park... See, normally I don't like seeing movies with people I just met because I would rather do something which would permit us to talk and get to know each other better... But, something was different. It took me a long while to place it. Even though it was 'just a movie,' and we didn't get to talk and stuff, I felt like this was a family-thing, like they were doing this to make me feel like I was their son and they were treating me out to a night-at-the-movies. Well... After a bit more thinking about why that felt strange, I realized I had never seen a movie in the theater with both of my parents before. This was actually... really nice.
Wow! Sounds like you saw and went through a lot the past days... Its your last weekend in Korea and I'm hoping it'll be the best one yet. The pictures don't do real justice I bet. It's amazing how Korean people you don't know will treat you like their own son right off the bat. I'm amazed and shocked by the words you right. It makes me really wanna go to Korea now and not Japan. I hope the best for you Daniel! Do you guys even get to see if you're family (Biological) is still around? Regardless, this seems like an experience of a lifetime. If I had the money, I would've gone w/ you just to experience what you write each time you do =P Have fun and we'll see you soon! I seriously miss ya dude... It's kind of weird not having you around...
ReplyDeleteAlso, I know Coffee Shops are pretty common in Korea aren't they? Starbucks shouldn't even be there =P hahaha... See ya back soon!
ReplyDeleteCertainly did... I have about a thousand more pictures! They do try to see if we can find our bio-parents, but the odds are slim.
ReplyDeleteYeah, maybe next time I go, you'll be with me!
And yeah, coffee shops are EVERYWHERE. I don't know how Starbucks survives.