Advertisement
Published: April 28th 2010
This past weekend was rather low key in comparison with the one before but I still have a pretty cool story worth sharing.
On Saturday I woke up and planned to have some alone time with coffee and a book on top of my roof. Then, 4 friends knocked on my door and said we were going to the beach. I was slightly confused because I couldn't think of any beaches anywhere near us. They didn't have many answers besides the fact that Jin (the Korean partner teacher to one of the guys in our group) and her friend were driving from Daejon to pick us up and drive us to the beach. We grabbed some Lotteria (korean fast food burgers) and headed to Dunkin Donuts to meet up with them. All of us were pretty unsure as to what we were supposed to wear to the beach because it isn't warm enough to swim...or really to wear sandals. So most of us were in jeans or sweats, and tennis shoes. We meet Jin at DD and of course she is looking cute as always complete with pink and brown polka dot heels with a pink bow on the toe.
Should have known!
We met up with her friend (English name Kate) and her friend Gina. They had to take two cars to the beach because there was 6 of us. It was really nice of them to drive 40 minutes just to pick us up and then about 2 hours to even get to the beach! The Koreans depend VERY highly on their navigation symstes. Using your brain or previous knowledge or common sense is not even an option. You just do what the computer tells you. All this to say, we got lost a few times and it ended up taking quite a while to get there. I enjoyed the ride for the most part because I got to see mountains all over, along with lakes, and very pretty trees. Everything is blooming around here so it was very nice to be able to see some of the country. We went over quite a few mountain passes.
We arrived at about 5:45 at night...ha ha. Just in time to watch the sunset and dip our toes into the Yellow Sea. I thought the Pacific Ocean was cold....I could barely put my toes in this water. It
was freezing! So after a brief interaction with the beach we took off in search of some dinner.
Background information: these my own statistics and they are completely made up but this is how I see it. 65% of people white (english speaking) people you meet abroad are way too cool for you. This is why: they have either been in the country longer than you, they may have traveled to more places in the world than you, or they have some other totally ridiculous reason why they will completely blow you off. 25% of the foreigners I've seen here are middle-aged men who possibly failed at life at home so they're trying again in a foreign place. (and may or may not be looking for a wife in that place). I realize this is harsh but these are my observations thus far and I am partly kididng. The other 10% are super cool. It's hard to find that 10%.
So we're walking along the street and we see 2 white girls. First thought, cool! Foreigners! Second thought, do NOT say anything. They are probably too cool and I'm sick of getting snubbed. One of the guys in
our group says, "English....Ya...ha ha" and they actually responded which was strange in itself. Seeing their apparent niceness, he said "do you guys live around here? where can we eat? we're looking for a good restaurant." They said "naw, sorry, we just got here and we're looking for food too." A minute or so later they are telling us where they are from. "Washington state" says the first. "South Africa" says the second. AHHHH FRIENDS! I get really excited at this point. "Where in WA?" She says Seattle. I'm like...ya I say that too but I know you aren't REALLY from Seattle. "Tacoma area." I'm like..." puyallup....?" She's like "ya actually my address is in puyallup." I'm like NO WAY sweet me too! ha ha pretty excited....then find she went to plu/played volleyball at plu/coached volleyball at plu. Nice! My brother went there. Who's your brother? Chris deVries. "Your brother is Chris deVries?" YES! "So you have a big family, right?" Yes, there are 7. "I have 7 kids in my family too!"
So that's pretty much how the conversation went. Sorry for bad punctuation. But anyway, she knew people I knew. She was president of FCA at PLU
Cheesy
yep, we had to do the cheesy asian photo booth thing. it was really fun!so she met Chris there and they talked about their families. Later, after talking to Lacey, I found out that Lacey had met her before too because STACEY McCaw was going to hire her to help with Puyallup Young Life but then she found out she was moving to Korea to teach, so she never did. Also, she went to the church Chris went to in Puyallup or Tacoma, the one that Lacey and Jorden go too, as well. She knew the Giengers, Mark Gunderson, Ryan Alwert, etc. It's funny because she lives in Daejon...which is where we tried to go the weekend before to meet up with Ryan Alwert and his wife. And when I met her she was like...ya him (Ryan) and his wife are teaching in the philippines...and I was like ya I know and they were in SK last week...in Daejon! And that's where she lives. Anyway, small world.
And we told the girl from South Africa that we met there and love it there and want to go back. She was really nice too, and I guess they have quite a big group of foreigners in Daejon from all over, australia, ZA, canada, US,
europe. So I'm hoping we can meet some of those people too!
Yesterday was Chris's birthday! And a day to remember Poppy. I can't believe 2 years ago this time I got the news about Poppy while I was eating dinner in Cape Town. Thought of him and Chris all day yesterday.
My other highlight of the weekend was skyping with Nyrie for 3 hours. Praise God for skype, huh?! It really is amazing that we can talk to anyone in the world for free. I also made my first trip to the Cheongju Starbucks! First time seeing it. I can hardly afford to make purchases there. It's unbelievable. 5,300 for a TALL drink and 3,000 for a scone. That's almost 8 US dollars! Yikes! We also went to our first movie in South Korea. The theater was amazing. So nice! The seats were comfortable and spacious and the inside of the theater was just really nice. Finding out which movies were playing proved to be quite challenging. I guess they always have 1 or 2 that are playing in English. We saw Clash of the Titans in 3-d. Not bad but definitely not my top choice. We
Red Bull
I wont tell you how much it cost for these were all hoping to see Disney's OCEANS documentary but it wasn't out here. They had never heard of it.
All in all, good weekend and it's already almost hump day. We are doing testing at work for this week and next so it's been fairly easy on my part. No fun for the kids though. Last week was great because 2 of my classes were canceled so I got to go home after working for only 3 hours. The middle school students have big exams going on right now in their regular schools so most of them skip the hagwons to study.
Shout out to Lacey for my first piece of mail! Awesome quote from Mother Teresa on it. "We have been created for greater things, not just to be a number in the world, not just to go for diplomas and degrees, this work and that work. we have been created in order to love and to be loved." I have it hanging by my computer at work. Thanks, Lacey!
Miss everyone at home. So excited about Isabel Grace! I finally figured out where her face was in the ultra sound picture with the help of
Destiny and Thomas. Ha ha... can't wait to meet her!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.097s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 8; qc: 51; dbt: 0.0602s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Jeanne Curtis
non-member comment
Bet! I'm sitting here at work with tears in my eyes reading your blog! What an amazing story that you would meet someone from your hometown who knows so many of the same people you know! And what an amazing quote from Lacey. Wow! Glad to see Jake got the package! Hope both of you can enjoy the contents!! Wonderful pictures, wonderful adventures! It makes me so happy!! Love you and thanks for keeping me in the loop of your excellant adventures!! Jeanne