Thank you, Korea

You've made some cool stuff happen the last few weeks. And as usual, it's good for me to focus on those awesome, once-in-a-lifetime things instead of the "ew, my boss is really inconsiderate and backwards" category of things. :)

Moment #1:

Swimming on Hyeopjae Beach on Jeju Island, with ANOTHER island behind me!


For my summer vacation in July, I went to Jeju-do with Bess and Danielle, and it was a.maz.ing. It was the perfect few days of fun, relaxation, beaching, sightseeing, and friends. And you know what, if I weren't in Korea for this year, I would NEVER have ended up goofing off in an ocean full of Koreans in rafts and life vests. 

Moment #2

Ariel came to visit on her way home from Laos!

Our good friend from EMU, Ariel, has been living in Laos doing MCC for the past 2 years, and we were so so so lucky to be able to see her on her way home!  I could hardly believe she would ever want to make a detour on her way to hugging her family and friends, but there we were, eating galbi and talking like no time had gone by! What a beautiful reminder of how enduring friendships can be. :) So, thanks again, Korea.

Moment #3

Boseong Green Tea Plantation covered in morning mist

 On a day trip with the Gwangju International Center to a ceramics festival in the southernmost part of Jeollanam-do, our province, we stopped at this amazing little place. It was completely shrouded in mist when we arrived, and although a lot of our fellow tourers were bummed, I think we might have qualified as GIDDY. The mist blanketed the rows and rows of tea, and coupled with the trees on the plantation, it was a wholly charming morning. Pretty sure there aren't any green tea farms readily available for misty touring back home. 

Moment #4

Wait, WHAT?!

So, I'm simultaneously not surprised to see something like this here and also completely baffled. Korea is doing weird things to the way I look at oddities. They seem more normal these days. Uh-oh. 

Moment #5 

Taste the Menu? The Safe Problem?

I can GUARANTEE you no restaurant back home would offer the chance to taste a menu. A menu item maybe, sample from a menu, perhaps. But not taste the menu. And while eating a colored fork might cause a safety problem anywhere, I wouldn't have ever seen the hilarious phrase, "it might cause the safe problem."

Moment #6 

Rainy Muddy Salsa Dancing with friends from Harrisonburg! (we're spelling H-b-U-r-g)

The above moment was probably one of the best. :) We had just salsa danced in the rain to a live band from Holland/Colombia at a music festival with friends, old and new, from a town we all had a major connection to. This is such a small world, and this moment such a wonderful manifestation of that fact! It was while we were dancing that I really stopped to appreciate some of the beautiful things Korea has brought me.