Weekend 23 of 52.

Cheonggyecheon Stream: Revisited, Doctor Fish: Revisited, Dongdaemun Market: Revisited, Gyeongbokgung Palace: Revisited, Insadong: Revisited, The National Folk Museum: Revisited, Seoul Tower: Revisited, The War Memorial: Revisited, Banpo Bridge, Coex Aquarium, DMZ Tour, Namsan Hanok Village

We had our first visitors! Dan's mom and her friend Sharon made the long journey from Ohio to Seoul. They championed jet lag and immense summer heat and trooped all around the city for 9 solid days of fairly intense sight seeing. It was great to see family, and we tried to give them a good and varied view of this little country we've come to love.

We revisited many of our favorite or quintessential spots, but we even tried out several things Dan and I haven't yet had the chance to do. We hit up the Coex Aquarium on a rainy Saturday, and it was completely packed, but we got to see a two-headed turtle, so still cool. We got over to the Banpo Bridge to watch the fountain/light show. Dan made sure to inform us that it is the largest bridge fountain in the world. We happened upon the Namsan Hanok Village after the Makgeolli concert we wanted to attend was sold out, so we instead got to see how the locals used to live. And we finally went on a tour of the DMZ, which left us longing for reunification.

Right this very moment Jean and Sharon are flying their way back home, and I'm afraid we may now have to ward off some latent homesickness.

Weekend 20 of 52.

Soul Session at Cafe Soul Underground, Korean wedding noodles

This is Dan. We'll see how this goes.

School's out for Summer. Actually, it's out for the next few weeks. Summer camp is this week and then actual vacation time is the following two weeks. It's standard in Korea, and I genuinely feel for the kids. It seems like they should have more time off since they usually have 10-12 hour school days.

Regardless of how long break is, they were excited for it and this past weekend started a bit earlier than usual with a field trip to the War Memorial of Korea. That probably sounds familiar because Serenity, Korrine and I took a trip there during Weekend 9.

The 60th anniversary of the start of the Korean War was on June 25th, so the War Memorial had new exhibits even just a couple months since I had been there. Nearly everything we did with the kids I hadn't seen before. We watched a movie talking about how the war started and progressed. Oh, it talked about it in Korean. I still got the gist of it, but one of my students came up to me after it finished and asked if I understood the meaning. I said, "not exactly," and he paused for a minute to find the words in English.

He finally responded with "The movie's meaning is: War is Hell."

It really stuck with me the rest of the day. This was a 9th grade boy who felt weary about the effects and images of war. I don't know if his American equivalent would have responded the same way. There are people alive in Seoul who still remember their city being taken over and having to run from their homes in hope of a time when they could return to the life they had worked hard to make. It's hard to imagine as an American.

We then stepped into a DMZ exhibit and were led by a Korean tour guide. The kids behaved well and the exhibit was extremely well done. I have video footage that I will compile soon (read as: who knows when). It ended with a photo exhibit of life in the DMZ, of which there isn't much. Obviously there are just soldiers living along the line that divides North and South Korea. It was a bit depressing because it soon became clear that the land in the DMZ area is probably some of the most beautiful land in Korea without a doubt. But it's divided by a half-century-old scar. God constantly reminds me that this is a country that needs our prayers. And yours too.

Friday, we played another show. I think this was our 5th show? 4th show? I don't know. Anyway, we've been playing the same cafe/venue every time and we've been incredibly blessed by the owner, Shin Hyun Yo. Shin has been so gracious to us and treated us better than we've ever been treated as musicians and the whole process has really been a confirmation that we should continue doing music for the time being in whatever capacity possible. We're so happy that that seems to be playing in a small cafe on the west side of Seoul for a few Koreans and a few expats every month or so.

We've also been writing lately. It feels awesome and I hope we can continue to be inspired by our new (temporary) home. We've been playing one of our new songs the past couple shows and I finally got a video of it up. It's called "A Place" and I feel like it's a good commentary, musically and lyrically, on where we're at right now as a couple.



Anyway, shows are fun. Music is fun. This weekend was fun but we didn't do much else. Serenity took some photos of our food from this weekend. I promise I'll write more often than every 2 months from now on.

~Dan

Weekend 9 of 52.

The War Memorial of Korea, The Story of King Sejong Exhibition Hall, Admiral Yi Sun-Shin Musuem, Insadong

On Friday night, we were invited to A Passover Celebration put on by Ms. Teresa's class. It was our second Passover this year, and we really enjoyed it. The students had reading parts throughout the Haggadah and we witnessed some fine circle dancing. Dinner was sushi, fried chicken, and pizza. Totally kosher.

Saturday we met up with Korrine to see the War Memorial of Korea. War vehicles of all kinds are set up outdoors and absorbed a lot of our time. Korrine only had the morning free, so we decided to skip a lot of the indoor exhibits instead of rushing through. We aim to return, though, because I really want to see the Korean War room.

After lunch, which is always serendipitously amazing when we three are together (beef porridge), Dan and I went on our own to try and find Insadong. I had read about it in a "24 Hours in Seoul" article I found online, and we keep trying (and failing) to find it based on my hazy recollection of the vague directions given in the article. I knew the directions said something about Gwangwhamun and turning left, so went to the Gwhanghwamun Plaza and found that the statue of King Sejong had a gateway to the underground in it! We walked down and found The Story of King Sejong Exhibition Hall and, just beyond it, the Admiral Yi Sun-Shin Musuem. It was really, really cool. Everything was interactive, with puzzles and video games and walk throughs. We even got interviewed for a young man's college project. I hope we passed.

After our brief educational experience, we set out again for Insadong. Dan hijacked some wifi from a coffee shop and found real directions. We made our way through a winding maze to a veritable hub of souvenir and art dealings. It was teeming with Westerners and proved one of those quintessential experiences. I noted to Dan how culture shocked we'd be if we'd tried that earlier on, that our first night in Seoul we were completely stunned by just a grocery/department store. How far we've come.

So then we went to Myeongdong for some chicken galbi, the spiciest dinner of my lifetime. It is nice to have the odd chicken respite in this red meat (or no meat) country.