Nepal: the Adventure!

Our trip to Nepal wasn't all mission-related, of course. We managed to squeeze in all kinds of good things, enough to satisfy everyone's idea of fun. We wandered, we shopped, we met elephants. We also saw countless breathtaking sights, everything from houses to mountains. It was really easy for everything to seem exciting, because it was! When I signed up for this YAV year, I had no idea I would ever get to do anything like this. The Adventure was by far the most photo-heavy portion of our trip, contributing significantly to our 1500-picture collection. You'll get more than the usual in this post, with the rest in an album at the end.

In the midst of our mission tour of Kathmandu, we stopped at a village that hasn't changed (much) in centuries. Everywhere we looked there was something interesting to see, but by the end of the walk I began to wonder who was doing the real sightseeing - us or the locals. It was a fascinating trip all around, probably for everybody involved. The best part for me was watching women making wool into yarn, and I ended up buying some and making a friend in the process.

The village was a maze of buildings like these. I couldn't find a photo to
do them justice, but it really did feel like a step back in time.

In Nepal, it's pretty normal to have a view like this from your village.

There were groups of women like this all over the village - most of the day
is spent outside. I bought my yarn from the woman who isn't looking at the camera.

Leaving Kathmandu, we wound around mountains and forests and rivers on our way to balmy Chitwan. The drive itself was actually a highlight of the trip for me: hours of beautiful views and lots of time for reflection. While in Chitwan, we did all the touristy things: nature walks, canoe trips, and of course an elephant ride. We saw rhinos and alligators and monkeys, but unfortunately the tigers wouldn't come out to play. Maybe next time? Perhaps it's just as well. Our time in Chitwan was quite relaxing, and it was really nice just to be a goofy tourist for a while.

Goofy tourists photographing each other. Oh, and there's a rhino.

Finished with its bath, the rhino decided to come over and say hi to the
hundred or so tourists on the shore. We decided to flee. Calmly.

A whole family of elephants! Seems like elephant toddlers crave attention, too.

Our herd (parade?) of elephants converged on these two rhinos, who didn't
seem to care too much. They took a nap shortly after this pic was taken.

On a more enriching note, we spent a day at Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. Our tour guide, Raz, was super knowledgeable about pretty much everything. This was true about the whole trip, but was especially appreciated in Lumbini. We learned about Buddha's birth, first steps, and declaration (following which he became an ordinary baby). People from all over the world come to visit this place, and there are temples nearby built by many different countries - even Korea! The history was fascinating, and the whole atmosphere was a welcome respite from the (also-fascinating) chaos of Kathmandu.

The huge Bodhi tree on site. There were monks everywhere,
so naturally we acted like typical tourists.

These colorful prayer flags were all over the place. They're supposed
to promote peace, compassion, and other positive qualities among all people.

The Eternal Peace Flame, with the World Peace Pagoda in the (way-) background.

A closer look at the World Peace Pagoda, erected by Japanese Buddhists.

We ended our trip in Pokhara, which showcased the beauty of this really amazing country. It was pretty touristy, but with good reason. With the Annapurna Range constantly in view, we explored a big shopping and dining area, (of course,) had another canoe ride, and generally took it easy.

The shopkeepers of Nepal (and their wares) were entirely unlike anything
we had ever experienced.

How many people can they fit in one boat?

We didn't stick around to find out! Our valiant canoe captain was 11 years old.

One morning, we got up at way-too-early o'clock and made our way up to a crowded collection of parking lots and cafes, where we were treated to coffee while we waited for the sun to wake up, too. We set up camp with chairs and benches, with a large group of Koreans to our left having taken over an entire rooftop. While we were waiting, we watched dozens of other people head past for even higher ground. What was everybody waiting for that morning? See for yourself:

The Annapurna Range at dawn.

This sight was a truly lovely conclusion to an excellent trip, getting up early and everything. We flew back to Kathmandu that afternoon, getting another mountain view on the way. Getting back to Korea was a surprisingly important part of the whole experience, but that's for another day.

Nepal: the Mission

Hello again! About a month ago, we got home from the K-YAV trip to Nepal. So naturally, I'm writing about it now. 미안합니다!

I tried to journal as thoroughly as possible, and I was successful for much of the trip. Near the end, there were so many things to say that I ended up not writing down any of them. Oops. But between the pictures and the subsequent reflection on this amazing trip, I think I can piece it together for you. I'll start with first impressions (dur) and a reflection on the mission work we witnessed there, and save the rest for later.*

Simply by getting to Nepal, I knew we were in for an adventure. I love traveling, and even getting on the bus out of Daejeon was exciting. Not knowing much about geography (I know, it's bad!) I wasn't entirely sure what we had ahead of us. We crossed a significant portion of China, pausing in Guangzhou for noodles and a passport stamp before finishing the journey. By the time we got to our hotel in Kathmandu, we were exhausted. But exhilarated! But exhausted. And goodness, but we weren't in Korea anymore.

It turns out we kind of did this.

That night, I wrote in my journal: "[Our room] is kind of drafty, the lights flickered, and apparently the toilet doesn't flush. But it's so great! We're in Nepal!!" That pretty much set the tone for the next few days, during which everything was new and shiny and really, really cool. Kathmandu was noisy and crowded, full of beautiful people and places and things. We stayed in a very touristy area, where the shopping and eating and sightseeing were plentiful, but much of our time in Kathmandu was devoted to looking back at how Uncle Simon and Haejung Imo spent their time there as missionaries a few years ago.

Let me tell you, they were seriously busy people during those three years. Our first stop on the old-haunts tour was the United Mission to Nepal, which acts as a support network with a variety of organizations aimed at helping the impoverished of Nepal.

It seemed like a pretty sweet place to work.**

Still in Kathmandu, we visited the Lalitpur Nursing Campus, which happened to be having exams that very afternoon. Getting there was an adventure in itself, but I'll address that soon enough. Even though our contact wasn't there that day, we got a lovely tour and experienced the kind of open hospitality that was a really charming feature of Nepal. (It was also across the street from a North Korean restaurant. Getting super lost Exploring Kathmandu was so interesting!)

Celebration and relief (exhaustion?) upon reaching our destination.

That same day we stopped by the Nick Simons Institute, a now-thriving organization that was just getting started when Uncle Simon was at work. We were given a tour by Dr. Mark Zimmerman, who worked personally with Uncle Simon and continues to lead the organization. This visit was especially interesting because of the work they do there: they took the time to identify a need, and are now providing training for doctors and assistants in rural hospitals.

A typical lunch at NSI includes excellent food and conversation at their rooftop cafeteria.

As a taste of Korean mission work, we visited the Ever Vision School which is supported by Korea Food for the Hungry International. It was definitely an unexpected connection, and seeing Korean in a Nepali school was really entertaining. The Children Development Program supports one child from each family in the area, which in turn benefits the whole family. Once the program is complete there, it will begin again someplace else as the school continues its basic work.

Look closely and you might see a YAV bonding with preschoolers through a window.

Finally, during our subsequent travels we visited the Tansen Hospital where they reconnected with fellow missionaries who were still working towards the same cause. It was amazing to see the places and people with which Simon and Haejung connected in just a few years.

Hospitals still squick me out, but I swear this is from Tansen. What a view!

To wrap things up, I'll share something that's likely to stick with me from Nepal. During our rooftop lunch, Dr. Zimmerman asked me if I was considering future mission work. I was surprised to find myself answering yes! Absolutely! I don't know when or where or how, but the future is pretty vague that way. It reminds me of our YAV slogan, "A year of service for a lifetime of change." I guess the good YAV people *did* try to warn me....

* Coming up: tourism, followed by fun facts, general impressions, and our action-packed return to Korea.
** I'll post a more complete collection of photos soon!

That's what it's all about!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, everyone! While most people are on break these days, we K-YAV types are just getting into things. Our students spend more time at our centers, so we do, too! This is a great opportunity to hang out with our kids more, and our centers are doing all kinds of exciting things to keep the students - and teachers - busy. For the students of Beobdong, what better way to celebrate the break than... English Camp!

This, I understand, is a rare opportunity. The center has had summer English Camp, or 영어 켐프 "Yeong-O Camp," but never with the benefit of a native English speaker. It's still strange to me that Native English is a valuable skill, but I was really excited to help out however I could. Thankfully, Myeong-Ju Unni, the director's daughter, was in charge. I may know how to speak English, but I'm still a far cry from teaching it with any real skill. The camp was 3 days long, with a wide variety of activities to get the kids playing with English. The kids were divided into teams, competing for fake dollars to be used at the marketplace on the last day. Phonics lessons were reinforced with Bingo games, vocab with charades. They had cooking lessons, trips to the pharmacy (really), and music class.

As you probably know, I have never been very musical. I quit violin when we had to start private lessons, and I was probably the best lip-sync-er in the Cherub Choir at church. Nevertheless, I was put in charge of planning and leading music class. My first reaction was that of mild terror, but it really got better from there. (I was also not alone - having co-teachers is great!) We learned two classic songs during camp: the Hokey Pokey, and Old McDonald. The singing was a little unorthodox with lyrics such as "everybody MOO MOO" (everybody WAS mooing...) - but the kids got super into the music. One of my greatest triumphs was seeing the surly kid dubbed "Tiny Old Man," grooving to the Hokey Pokey. (He denied it later, but I have evidence.) My students populated Old McDonald's farm with their classmates ("with a noona here and a noona there!") and those songs are still stuck in my head. All together, a great success.

They're doing the Hokey Pokey, I swear. Tiny Old Man is wearing the red belt.

 My second project was to prepare the cooking lesson. Each team had a recipe for sandwiches and hot chocolate, with specific instructions they would follow to get more points. I built for them a ham sandwich with cheese, lettuce, mayo... but what if they don't like mayo? We should add jam so the kids will actually eat the sandwiches. Jam? Did I hear that right? Does "jam" mean the same in Korean? Yep. I don't know if I'll ever do it again, but that ham, cheese, and jam sandwich was pretty darn tasty. The kids thought so, too, and I was reminded not to be so critical when things don't look "normal" to me. Who knew sandwiches could be so eye-opening?

Hard at work, making cheese-lettuce-mayo-jam sandwiches.

Another fun station was the pharmacy, which provided Jelly Belly "medicine" as a small reward for doing well during the lessons. The kids also reviewed their colors, and had to describe their requests. In preparation, we sorted two tubs of Jelly Belly by flavor, a task that was strangely relaxing. I happen to love the beans, so I'm proud of myself for leaving some for the kids! It was also a nice chance to get to know the other volunteers, Reverend Kim's granddaughters, both fairly close to my age. The kids went nuts for the pharmacy and they came back for more on Market Day.

Which of the 7 light-oranges did you mean?

What a Market Day it was! The kids were all loaded by the evening of the last day, and there were plenty of opportunities to blow that cash. They bought dinner, stationery, toys, accessories, and snacks. As is the case in the best markets, they had to haggle: sing an English song, and maybe I'll knock down the price. (You do the hokey pokey and you... turp yamerp amutter? I don't think so!) Most importantly, it was clear that the kids had fun. They felt pretty good about their English, too, as well they should.

I want to keep things up now that things are back to normal, especially since Korean class is over and I have more time on my hands. I'm also going to Beobdong more now: every Wednesday, I spend the afternoon with the kids without the pressure of class. I'm excited about this new routine, and English Camp was an excellent start to the rest of my time here. I'll have more stories soon!

 More highlights from camp:

Doesn't every Hokey Pokey end in a brawl?

Our cat, singing his heart out. Or cursing my stupid camera.

Vocab charades!

The snack market. Look at those prices!

Surprisingly scrumptious star-shaped sandwiches.

MOO MOO

Ta-da! Job well done, guys.

Are you ok? (part 2)

Long story short, the answer is still yes!

I found out about Kim Jong-Il's death over Facebook, when a concerned and curious friend wanted to know how people were reacting in South Korea. Surprisingly, that's still not a question I can answer.

There was talk about the news at work on Monday--some of the kids had heard things. Something about "leader," something about "dead."

In the middle of one of my lessons, my kids got really hyped up. They apparently had a distressing "realization" about the subject of this news.

"Teacher! Obama! Obama!"

Thankfully another teacher was able to explain things, but that got me wondering: what will that day look like from a few years in the future? How will those kids remember it, if at all? What about the other teachers, other average Korean adults? How will we remember it? I suppose I have to wait to find out. Until then, I'll be paying more attention to how people in this country are thinking, feeling, behaving. Right now, everything seems normal on this college campus.

I'll let you know if anything changes, but for now rest assured that things are continuing as usual over here. Now  back to studying for finals!

Are you ok?

"God, please keep me safe," I prayed, rather desperately, on Thursday. I felt alone, out of control, like I would fall at any moment. I didn't know who else I could turn to.

Ok, I was ice skating. Trying to, anyway. We went as a class, which was awesome. I've been a few times, never really getting the hang of it, but many of our classmates had never been at all. As fun as our class is, ice skating sounded like a much better idea than studying Korean, at least for one day. We left campus at 10, and were told we could stay however late we felt like staying.

I had started to get the hang of things (again) and was stumping around the ice on my own... until one classmate came whipping around the bend and we both ended up rather flat rather fast. The next few minutes are a little blurry, but my wrist felt like OW.

But that's not really worth a whole blog post. What I really want to talk about now is what happened next.

I'm pretty sure our entire class came to where I sat down to rest, wanting to see if I was ok. I don't think I was particularly gracious to them, (being convinced that a crowd of people was making my wrist hurt more,) but once things calmed down everyone was ridiculously patient and understanding.

Thomas and Anna got me comfortable, as classmates and teachers brought gifts of pain-relief spray, sustenance, and a bandage for my rapidly swelling wrist. Eventually it was determined that I should get to a hospital, so Man Teacher drove me and poor, guilt-ridden Classmate (who insisted on coming) to find a place that would take us during the lunch hour.

Lots of waiting, medical-picture taking, and translating later, I have a crunchy sort of wrist-hurt and an enormous cast-bandage thing. Classmate got no fewer than four phone calls from other students asking how I was doing. They wanted to come to the hospital, but (thankfully) that was deemed unnecessary. I was out by 3:00 with my cast-thingy and some medicine, and a whole lot of warm fuzzies.

I'll have this thing for about six weeks, and it's kind of frustrating sometimes. (For example, I look really funny trying to type right now.) But there are all kinds of things for which I am grateful through this experience, and I don't want to forget them. My dominant hand is ok; I can still walk; I didn't hit my head. I'm fortunate enough not to worry about paying for necessary care. My fellow YAVs were there to help, and will continue to be if I need them (right, guys?). Man Teacher speaks enough English to keep me informed, and all of my classmates are the kindest people. I may be kind of uncomfortable, but God really did keep me safe that day.

People see this thing and ask me, "Are you ok?"

Yes. Yes, I am.

See? Really!

Where has the time gone? (On a field trip!)

We had an interesting few weeks recently, and I'm only just starting to catch up with blogging--hence the series, "Where has the time gone?" A week after we went to Seoul, we went on a field trip with the whole Korean language school. In the days leading up to the trip, we had very little idea about what was in store--the words "sports," "mountain," and "dinner" were thrown around, mostly in Korean, and we knew we would be *somewhere* overnight (Thursday and Friday). Eventually, we understood that our class was to compete against the other classes in this Sports Festival, which led to an entire hour of class being spent ordering matching hoodies. (In the pictures below, we're the ones in red. 1B represent!)

On Wednesday, we learned a bit more about what it meant to participate in a Sports Festival. We each signed up to participate in the different events, a process which was conducted primarily in Korean, much to our confusion and entertainment. Very few of these activities could really be designated as "sports," and all of them were certainly... festive. As with any good Sports Festival, (I assume, this being my first,) there would be a three (plus one) legged race, an actual running sort of race, and arm wrestling. As for the rest... you'll understand soon.

After class on Thursday, (yes, they still made us learn,) we piled onto the buses and headed to our destination: a mountain near the city of 공주 (Gongju), about an hour's drive from Daejeon. (Unfortunately, none of us can remember the name of this mountain--simply that it had a snazzy Sports-Festival-appropriate setup and some nice cabins nearby.)

Getting super psyched for our field trip!

The festivities began shortly after we got off the buses--we dropped our bags nearby and gathered in a huge field where we would spend the rest of the afternoon. The teachers explained the rules--we were competing between classes for some events, and as the A team and B team for others. So it began! Once again, I think the pictures can explain things best on their own. Here are just a few highlights of the afternoon, some of which rather defy explanation.

Two-vs-one? Not fair!

Our classmate Cati rules at arm wrestling!

This might be the largest game of rock-paper-scissors in history.

The person in the middle mostly just sort of flopped around in this many-legged race.

This is supposed to be wrestling. Our teacher (affectionately
known as Man Teacher) is the one doing the lifting.

One... sport... involved spinning in circles and then hurling your shoe in the air.

You're supposed to catch it, but I thought falling
over was a better strategy.

I got it back eventually! That counts, right? .......right?

After a long afternoon of winning fun, the classes separated for dinner and relaxation. An excellent dinner of samgeopsal (again! score!) awaited us, complete with kimchi made by Man Teacher's own mother. We cooked dinner ourselves, sitting around a number of little grills scattered across the room.

Om nom nom :)

With such a sweet setup inside our cabin, and so many mosquitoes outside of it, we made the obvious choice--which is to say, we had a dance party outside with the help of Man Teacher's car stereo! Also, it turns out people dance more or less the same no matter where they're from, and in this day and age everybody has heard the same terrible pop songs. People from other classes joined in, too, and it was an excellent conclusion to a really great day.

At promptly eleven o'clock, it was bed time. The girls headed further up the hill to our own sleeping quarters, where we fell asleep almost immediately after setting up the beds. It's really just as well--we were awakened at 8 am for the rest of our field trip... which I will get to. Sometime. Soon!

One more time... 1급B반!

Where has the time gone? (To Seoul!)

Hi, everyone! I apologize for the long absence--it's hard to believe it's been a month since I last wrote. It's also hard to think of what I've been doing with that time. It feels like I've been very busy, but it's hard to say how I've been spending my time. My free time is a lot like it was in college--until the weekend, there's usually something I need to work on every evening. One of the biggest reasons for my blog-absence, I suppose, is that my weekends have been pretty busy too lately! So busy, in fact, that I'm going to take a few posts to backtrack a bit. Thanks for your patience ^^

A few weeks ago, we took our first YAV retreat... to Seoul! Right after class on Friday, we headed to the station to catch our train that left at 2:00. Thanks to our YAV leaders' careful planning, we were on an express train that only took an hour to get to the big city. (For reference, it's about a 3-hour drive.) Our train reached speeds of nearly 300km/hr, but the scenery rushing by was the only indication we were going any faster than normal.

As soon as we arrived in Seoul, we headed to the center for our denomination (sort of like the Louisville of Korea?) and dropped off our stuff for the afternoon. After meeting a few of the great people who have been helping us this year, the three YAVs set off on our first adventure. That's right, Uncle Simon and Haejung-Imo set us loose in Seoul! What did we do? What anyone would do in a big city: we went sight-seeing! Most of those "sights" were actually shops, but the people watching was fun, too. A few of the sights were truly special...

EXTRA special. BAAAAAAA!

We didn't have any idea where we were, but we had the greatest time just wandering the area and looking at everything and everyone. I think we were all pretty tired at the end of the week, so everything was pretty overwhelming... in a great way. We stopped for dinner at the most delicious-smelling place, where we managed to communicate that we wanted whatever smelled so good. It was 삼겹실 (sam-gyeop-sal), which it turns out is sort of like bacon. We had bacon for dinner. It was amazing.

What's better than grilled vegetables? Vegetables grilled with bacon!

After all our adventuring, we ended up going back pretty early. Uncle Simon and Haejung Imo warned us that we had a big day ahead of us on Saturday, and we were not disappointed. I'll let the pictures take over for now--we saw a lot of great things that day!

Starting the day with a healthy breakfast at Paris Baguette.

Fair warning: I have a pretty bad sense of direction, so I wasn't entirely sure where we were most of the time. For example, I don't know where we were going by following the river--but it sure was fun.

Don't fall...!

Safe! But where's Uncle Simon?

Walking along the river... so pretty, even in a big city.

Even more shopping?!

Well, sort of.

Look at the pretties!

We stopped for lunch at a tiny restaurant in an alley in 인사동 (Insadong), the neighborhood where we spent most of the afternoon. The whole area is known for combining traditional and modern, and this restaurant did not disappoint. The food was delicious, and it was great to watch the people in the kitchen making the noodles themselves. It started raining while we were there, and the sound on the roof was pretty much perfect.

Not even a leak in the roof could dampen our spirits! (Come on, I had to say it.)

After lunch, we made our way to the Korean Folk Museum nearby where we spent most of the afternoon. There was a huge outdoor area, so of course we had to take heaps of posed pictures in front of all the fancy things.

Photos like this. Usually it's "Say kimchi!" but this time it was probably
more like "Take the stupid picture, Uncle Simon!"

A beautiful roof to shelter us from the rain. But seriously, the detail is amazing.

It was still raining, so we did get inside eventually. We managed to sneak a few pictures, but mostly I was focused on taking in all the history. I'm a sucker for old cultural stuff, so this museum was a real treat. It also made me realize how little I know about Korean history--something I'd like to change by the end of this year. Anyway, back to the pictures...

How much do you think it would cost to send one of these home?

We learned how to make twisty-straw things. I'm pretty sure this guy
is fixing my mistakes in this picture. Whoops.

Back outside, this time to a mid-(19th)-century Korean street.

Stopping for a 1960s-style Korean tea party!

By far the cutest picture of the day. Thanks so much for taking us to Seoul!

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering that museum, and we even got to see a (semi-)traditional Korean dance performance before we had to leave. We returned to Daejeon on Saturday evening, tired but content from such a great trip--and already looking forward to another adventure. Next time, on "Where has the time gone?" -- On a field trip!