Busy Sunday (last week)

Last Sunday was a very busy, but awesome day. It started off with some guy watching me take a shower for about a minute before I realized it and shut the window, so that's always a good start to the day - meh. Then Dallas came and picked me up and we went to a brunch place called Sammertisch (a random semi-German restaurant in P-dong). We each got a breakfast set with 2 eggs, a piece of French toast, some home fries, a piece of cut-up bacon, a sausage (a German one with mustard on it) and salad. They also give you a choice of beverages and we got peach tea because Dallas said their coffee wasn't very good. They brought the tea in mason jars which was cute.

Peach tea and our phone receipt holder

Breakfast - yum!

After eating, we walked 2 doors down and got coffee at Steiff cafe. Outside I wondered if it had anything to do with the teddy bears based on the name and basically my assumption was affirmed at the door when I saw these guys.

Dallas and a brown bear

Me and a waiter/host bear who is next to the front door

It also had bears all around the store, some collectible and others for sale. As well as a video showing how they were made. After getting take-out coffees, we walked down to the river because it was beautiful day and also because later that day there was supposed to be a bonfire or something (we weren't really sure) and we wanted to see where it was. Well we saw one of the huge set ups (there were apparently 3 of these set up along the river), then tried to figure out when they would be lit and didn't get too much help.

Coffee cheers in shadow

A taekwondo class around the tree

Mom riding her daughter's bike while the daughter ran along side. The dad and brother are coming back (in the far ground of the picture) and laughed when Dallas took this picture and told the mom that the foreigner just took her picture.

At that point, I hopped in a cab and went to church where Brandon gave a really good sermon about the importance of being in a good church community and being an active member of it. I decided I didn't really want to go out to lunch with everyone and instead met back up with Dallas and we walked back to the tree area to see what was happening. One of the groups of drum people showed up so we thought things were ready to start - we were wrong. This tree thing happens every year about 2 weeks after lunar new year (which is weird since this is the 3rd lunar new year I've been in Korea and it's the first time I've heard of or seen this). It's called the moon festival or something with the word moon in it. It's to ask for a good harvest for the year. We noticed people putting what we thought was trash, but turns out to be offerings (also probably some trash too) into the tree. (** I asked one of my classes about this later and they told me it was underwear that people burn for good health for the next year). Then we moved to the other side to get a better look and ended up meeting the mayor of Jinju. He came to open the ceremony and take pictures with the workers. He also wrote a wish or something and right before he did that he shook both mine and Dallas's hands and asked us where we were from and where we worked etc.  We weren't sure who he was so Dallas asked a guy next to us who responded with "the owner of Jinju".

The owner of Jinju shaking hands

Check out the dog in the box

Front side of the tree with fruit offerings, money and a prayer/bowing mat

At that point we had been waiting 45 minutes and I had to leave for a meeting across town. Dallas stayed for almost another hour and they still hadn't lit the trees, so he ended up leaving. Luckily I caught a brief glimpse of one later as I was coming back from my meeting and I rode past them in a cab. They looked pretty huge though from these pictures that a facebook friend of mine posted.

Picture from a friend - I wish I had seen one go up, but oh well.

The meeting I went to was for a play/series of monologues that my friends are putting on at the end of April. I am not doing a monologue, but offered to help in other ways and now apparently will be baking something in my toaster over and also helping with an Easter egg hunt. It's for a good cause and I like most of the people there, so I'm ok with that. I left the meeting a bit early and came back over to the Cafe Bene near my house. I got a bagel and latte and read for a little while. Then Dallas showed up and we skyped with Jayden for a bit and then Amanda showed up and the 3 of us played 2 games of Catan (Dallas won both but they were really good games). Before the second game we all got tea or coffee and split a cookie. It was fun playing in the coffee shop, but that one has narrow tables so we will probably switch it up next time. One good thing is that it closes at 1 (where most others close at 12) so when we left at 12:15, it was ok. Then Dallas and I got ice cream bars and he walked me home.

So while Sunday was very busy, I had a wonderful breakfast, spent time with some good friends, met some new ones, heard a great sermon, played a game and experienced some Korean culture - basically all of the reasons why I wanted to come back!