Dinner for Two

Okay, here's the deal with pictures. It takes a lot longer to upload pics here than it does on Facebook. That's just the plain truth. And I have a LOT of pics so far. So I'm going to choose a few favorites to post here, and then if you want to see all of them, you can follow the link to the album on Facebook right here. Hopefully it works. I changed the album privacy setting to "everyone," so I think you should be able to see it, even if you don't have a Facebook account.

Here's the school I work at. Yea! It's real! The town in the distance is Janghowan. It's about a mile and a half away. There's another town, Gamgok, that is a little closer, but it's behind those trees.

The Philippino exchange students introduced us to an all-you-can-eat restaurant where you cook the food in a burner set in the middle of your table. From left to right, it's me, Jared, Michael, Becky and Jon-David.

Me, in front of the Jogyesu Temple, the main Buddhist Temple in Korea.

I hiked a trail by a nearby Catholic Church, and part of the trail was lined with about 15-20 of these reliefs of the life of Christ. This one is the Garden of Gethsemane...

...and this is the Resurrection.

My Temple =]

So, the funniest thing happened to me last night. I had gone to Seoul with Becky and Jon-David, two of the other English teachers. They showed me where the Temple was, and then I stayed to do a session. I was making my way back to Gamgok from there by myself--a 45-minute subway ride and another hour and a half+ bus ride. Anyhow, I stopped outside the bus station to get something to eat at a little burger shop (first burger I've had since I got here. And I ended up getting a chicken burger sandwich).

I was sitting there eating at a little table. In front of me was a couple facing me, and a woman with her little boy with their backs to me. The little boy, who was about 3 years old or so, got up to play. When he saw me his eyes got REALLY big. He pointed at me and then said something to his mom. When she didn't respond he began tugging on her sleeve. She turned to look at him, and he pointed at me again. I was laughing pretty hard by this point, and she looked at me a little embarrassed. She said "sorry" and I just waved and said "It's okay." The little boy said something again to his mom, and she told him to say "Hello!" He didn't really get it at first, and then all of a sudden he got shy and hid behind his chair. After a little bit he started looking at me from between the slats in his chair, and I bent over a bit so I could see him. We played a little international game of peek-a-boo for a bit. Then, with his mom engrossed in her conversation, he came over and climbed up onto the chair across from me. =] He had a little happy-meal-type toy car he was playing with, so I said "car" and he repeated it a couple of times. I told him my name (one of the few phrases I've learned is "Na-nun Rebekah imnida"--my name is Rebekah). Then I asked him what his name is (something like "irum-i mwo shimnikka?"). He told me--and I couldn't really understand him. It started with a "d" sound, but I couldn't make out the rest. But I asked him twice, and he said the same thing both times, so I'm pretty sure he understood me, even if I couldn't understand him. He just sat there playing with his car, driving it on the table and the wall next to us while I finished eating. His mom and her friend and I all finished at about the same time, and when she realized her little boy was just sitting there across from me she kind of laughed and said sorry again at the same time. I laughed, and said "bye-bye!" to her little boy. He said "bye-bye" a couple of times back to me as we both left.

So, even if my English students don't learn English, at least I taught a few words to a little three year old boy.