The agility of Koreans.

As I have been in Korea so far, I have noticed how important walking and "exercising" is to them (especially middle-aged and older adults). First of all, there are parks all over the city with padded walking circles that surround the parks. Inside of these parks, there are the normal things such as basketball hoops and fountains. But Korean parks seem to be a little different compared to American parks as they have outdoor exercise equipment. Now, I'm not really sure what these are supposed to do besides working your joints because there seems to be almost no resistence to help build muscle. Now, if seeing old men and women on these things that swing back and forth isn't entertaining enough, it's even better seeing them all decked out in special outdoor wear, large visors and mouth masks (like doctors wear). Needless to say, I make it a point to walk past these exercise fanatics on my way home from work and try to be subtle about watching them. I havne't been brave enough to stop and take pictures but below are some that I found online.
But, my main point of writing this post is to share with you the funniest thing I have yet seen in Korea, which I witnessed this morning. I was on my way to work, walking along the padded walkway. I look up and see these three middle-aged women walking towards me, one of which has this 15 foot hooked pole. I am immediately intrigued and slow down to see what they are going to do witht the pole. They step off the walking path and approach one of the small tangerine trees and the woman with the hook starts hitting the withered fruit hoping it will fall. All of a sudden, one of the women grabs the tree limbs and literally flings her body up, wraps her legs around the trunk and is hanging at a 90 degree angle. As this was happening, I decided it was okay for me to stop since other Koreans around me were slowing down to watch. Apparently, she couldn't quite pull herself all the way up to climb to the top of the tree so one of her friends had to push her back up closer to the trunk. I just stood there trying to hold my laughter in. I didn't know old women could be so spry and fly into trees like that, but apparently Korean women are a special kind. Personally, I think I stopped climbing trees after I re-broke my arm while it was in the cast while climbing a tree-congrats to me. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed my story and can picture it because I think I will always remember that tree in Paris Park where the old woman vaulted into the tree.

So, again, it has been a little while since we last posted. Oops. I see that some of you rioters have put down your signs and are now holding flaming torches in protest.
Since the last time we met, I had told you how sick Jonathon and I were. Jonathon seems to have healed up nicely but I have managed to keep the sore throat and invite other sickness including severe headache and nausea, a higher temp, chills and dizziness (and some kidney soreness, but hopefully no stone!). Yay! I seem to have this talent of moving from one sickness to the next. My closest friends seem to no longer be surprised when I contract some new ailment and I, as well, try to see it as something normal and move on. After all, everyone gets sick. But, hopefully whatever this bug is, it will run away quickly.
On Sunday night, Jonathon and I met with a Korean university student named Kyura. We met her through a language exchange program and decided to meet and see if we would be a good fit to teach each other our languages. Kyura spent almost a year in Montreal and her English is very good but she wants to work on her listening, which seems to be perfect as Jon and I can be talkers. Jonathon is very eager to learn Korean and I am so proud of him. I do want to learn some Korean, but in the past I haven't had the best success and I know it is difficult work. But, hopefully I can learn things here and there. We met in a very college-like area that was very busy and bright with lights. She took us to a nature cafe and it had waffles, pancakes and bagels. I was so excited to get a waffle (not exactly a Norske Nook pancake, but still very good). What was even more exciting was that this cafe had two young sheep in a little fenced-in area. I would have sat there all night and pet them! I immediately asked Jon if we could take one home and keep it in our bathroom and bed. I'm not sure why, but he just shook his head. It seemed like the Koreans also loved seeing the sheep and were constantly taking pictures. But, I feel that deep down, I was also one of the attractions with my blonde hair and blue eyes. This seemed especially true since they didn't care whether or not I was in the picture petting the sheep's head. The other highlight of the night was that it was snowing in big fluffy chunks and it was exactly like a winter wonderland. Snow isn't very common when compared to the Minnesota and Wisconsin we are used to. It was also fun to see Korean teenagers rolling balls of snow in the alleys in attempt to make a small snowman. The rest of the night ended up going very well and it was nice being with someone new who was also a university student.
We mentioned that we are in a Bible study at our Korean church and we are loving having good fellowship with one other American as well as several Korean men and women. It is wonderful hearing their insights and views of 1 Corinthians. I am also starting to help out the church's music and worship and I am really excited to work with some Korean people my age, older and younger who are Christians. Being a music student, I have thought for many hours and struggled a lot with having worship be "worship" and not being as concerned with the actual music part of it. I try to ask myself when I'm singing in the audience, am I singing to practice my harmony and focusing on that aspect, or am I singing/praying and not being concerned about how I sound or who is there but knowing that I am talking to God and thanking Him for who He is and what He has done. Through my years of music schooling, I was trained to have my ears of critique on and it being almost impossible to take them off. A professor once told me that even if I'm listening to the best orchestra in the world, my ears will be listening for what key the piece is in, does it modulate, what form it is in, if someone is slightly off pitch, if someone came in too early, all historical things that I know about the piece and relate it to the time it was written, as well as many other things. But, he also said that as we have been trained to have our ears open and on, we also have to train ourselves to put it all aside when we are playing or singing to/for God. So, I guess I am still in this learning process and I hope to separate these two sides of me when necessary. It is difficult for me to even describe my struggle with it, but I would appreciate if you could pray for me when you think of me.
This weekend, I am planning on going in search of a used couch so that we will have something else to sit on and something for visitors to sleep on. Also, I will go to Insadong, which is a great place to buy Christmas presents!**