New Friends-- like family!

The last Chuseok details I must write about involve the fun I had with my new Church. Our cell group wanted to show us newbies a few things around Seoul, so they set up a full itinerary and we had a blast seeing new sights, learning new things and getting to know our new brothers and sisters better.
One day held Geyongbokgung palace with a cultural museum on site. It should be noted that the day before was the mountain hike that left me so stiffly sore and this Palace/museum day required lots of walking! I paid about a dollar and gave up my identification card to rent one of those guided tour headsets and went into the exhibit with all my friends. This headset was quite amazing-- it's an mp3 player with a sensor on it so that it doesn't just rattle through explanations in a certain order, instead, the listener walks through the museum and when the MP3 "sees" one of the stickers on the floor, it begins the explanation of the specific part of the exhibit the listener is looking at! Amazing!
I'm sure it works really well, but I only listened to the guide in my ear for a few minutes because one of the Korean members of our group who is learning English, wanted to explain everything instead. We had a hard time understanding each other, but the work was well worth it as I slowly learned some Korean words and concepts that the guided tour wouldn't have been so patient to teach my thick head =)
After the museum, we went back out to the sunshine and walked around the rest of the palace grounds. Though I had been to one of the other palaces the first week I got here, I was still very trigger-happy with the camera-- the colors, lines, and newness of it all makes it fun to find new angles on these old buildings! And since it was a holiday week, multi-generational family groups were together and some even dressed in hanboks! (I heard a rumor that they get in free if they wear the traditional garb =) This made the whole atmosphere feel festive and old-world Korean.

Of course, any outing in Korea is not complete without loads of eating! We began our palace day together with a lunch that filled our tables with side dishes and various entrees as far as the eye could see! Soups, different Korean pancakes, rice dishes, kimchee and veggie varieties, many new flavors and all of them good! After our Palace excursion, we sampled many different rice cake varieties (the only thing they have in common is that the base ingredient is a white, doughy substance that used to be rice before it was beaten to death with a huge wooden mallet), Korean candy (made by vendors on the street-- sort of like taffy, but not) went to a noodle restaurant for the cut noodle soup (clams still in the shell, some veggies, and thick noodles in a clear broth) and steamed mandul (a little bit like won-tons). We were stuffed at lunch and stuffed with snacks throughout and really stuffed with dinner. After rolling ourselves to the subway station, we got on together and left at different stops to go on our way for the evening.

A few days later, the whole English ministry (Filipinos, Peruvians, Americans, Canadians, Indians, and the English speaking Koreans who make up the leadership team) went on an outing to Seoul Land (a big theme park right here in Seoul). It had everything including roller coasters, bumper cars, and another bungee drop ride! We quickly found out how a large Korean group gets around together-- slowly! We had to stop for pictures constantly and we found out the difference between Filipinos and everyone else: we all run away from pictures and they all run into pictures-- their way is really better because they get it over with faster and they look so much happier too! Once we got inside the park, we stayed in our cell groups and ran all over riding, eating and riding some more. Sue and I took the 2 girls who live in our building to give them a fun memory and their mom a break during the LONG vacation in their little apartment. Our Korean friends embraced the girls as their own and showed them a GREAT time! After Seoul Land, we took one more group picture (of course) and then split into 2 groups for an evening activity: ice skating! Yes, after a full day at the theme park, we went ice skating at the rink below LotteWorld (where I took our seniors on the class outing). One of the girls and I got matching battle scars on our knees when we took a spill on the ice, but overall, it was fun to get on ice skates for the first time in forever!
After our icy adventure, some of us went to Friday night service at church. It's not an English service, so Pastor Kang (the English ministry main pastor) translates through a headset for Sue and any other English speakers who come. It was great to be in a Korean service with Korean worship songs and a message from one of the missions ministers about what God is doing all over the world through Korean people! Some of it gets lost in translation, but the experience of worshipping with people who are speaking a different language, yet worshipping the same Lord, well, it's amazing really. The service doesn't get out until almost midnight, so it made for one very full and long day!