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Unlike Cinco de mayo, May 5th is “Children’s Day” in Korea. 🙂
So we took the kids out… and they bungy jumped again! This time Suneun and Hisu came out to hang out with us.
I had forgotten how much Sungeun can eat!! 😛
Here we are waiting for the bungy jump yet again!
Chilling out with some gelato! 🙂
So on Sunday, after attending my in-laws’ church (way too big… friggin’ 8 floors!!), we hung out at, of all places, Pizza Hut!! In Korea!! LOL… Soojin wanted Korean flavor to pizza… basically less salty. And actually, it was decent!
After that, we went out and the kids wanted to do this bungy jumping! O_o
Anna just loooved it!! And of course, so did JJ!!
After that, we hung out at the central park and rode motorcycle! Cool part? They were battery powered! Awesome… ’cause there were about 50 to 100 of these roaming around the park!
And even Soojin got a chance to ride! Even if it was only for a minute!
And then hung out with Jyoung Ah and Ji Youn chatting away and hanging out.
And to think that I knew them since their freshmen year in college!!
In the morning, we met up with Soojin’s ?? (hoobae, meaning a fellow student that enrolled after you) Hisu at CoEx Mall. While waiting for her, we just hung around the mall area… one thing I noticed is a coffee place that had the same name as my ex co-worker, Joe Pascucci.
And I’ve heard that the pho had become popular in Korea, but this was ridiculous! This place was part of a food court!! I didn’t even bother checking out the taste! Maybe I should’ve for Chrisitine’s sake! 😛 NOT!
The kids seemed to enjoy the new experience… but only for an hour or so, after which, both grew tired… physically. My thighs are still sore from all the walking around!!
Soojin soaking it in…
And me looking tired and worn out from all the walking… and sooo many people!!!
That’s Hisu on the left.
Anna and JJ looking like pros but just waiting for daddy’s coffee to be done so that they could get their ice cream! 😀
Walking around the CoEx Mall looking for places…
This was a typical crowd given at anywhere in the mall!! After seeing her, we went to ?? ??? (Olympic Stadium) subway exit, at which was a junior/senior high school that my ?? ?? (youngest aunt mom’s side)
worked at. We met up with her to drive together to my ?? ?? (second aunt)’s place. They lived on way south of Seoul. The apartment was really nice and brand new. Both the 2nd aunt and uncle had retired and they had picked up some art as their hobbies. Well, my aunt picked up clay pot making and uncle was into oil painting. Here are some of their nice works.
After a very nice home cooked meal, we had some nice dessert that my cousins (from my youngest aunt) had brought. It was called “redmango”.
Getting a similar vibes? Fans of frozen yogurt stuff should recognize how similar it seems to our own Berripop and LA’s popular Pinkberry! Why? ‘Cause this is the one that supposedly started it all in from the motherland!
The taste wasn’t too bad… it was smoother tasting and not so tart or sweet.
And this is their motto… “?? ????” which translates to “Let’s love myself”. Korea has picked up on self-focused customer-oriented aspect of American consumerism! 🙁 But it was tasting so good!!
The group picture. On the back, from the left, is my cousin, Choong, Anna, youngest aunt, second aunt, second uncle, and in the front row holding JJ is my cousin Sun, also from youngest aunt. Missing are two cousins: Yong from the same aunt who was working still despite being a Saturday evening, and Hye-bok, from my second aunt. My youngest aunt gave us a ride back to my brother-in-law’s place and that was a two-hour ride! Yikes.
So for work reasons, I had to fly out here to Huntington Beach area.
My layover was in Las Vegas, and though I only had 10 minutes inbetween connection flights, I had time to take pictures…
Due to constricted schedule, I couldn’t go to the beach… so on Tuesday night when I flew in, I barely had time to eat dinner with a long-time friend of mine, Roland. He is now in southern Cali doing what he wants to do: counseling.
Then after horrendously long 8-hour presentations, I headed up to K-Town area to meet up another long-time friend of mine: Dan Suh. He was my roommate back in ’95 when Won Lee was our 3rd roomie.
And guess what?!! Won Lee calls me (that’s who Dan is talking to!) and he’s freakin’ getting married in Anaheim in August 16th!! Won Lee is a character… but Dan is now a college pastor at Onnuri in LA area. If you are looking for good down-to-earth pastor, check his church out.
Danny Rhee! Oh he was my favorite to hang out with when I was in Austin! Why? ‘Cause he was the only one that would laugh at my ssul-lung (off-the-wall, random) jokes!! 😛 Good kid, but I learned that he had a tough life. To talk more, we went to hang out at the infamous… Pinkberry!
We talked for about 3 hours there… God did some amazingly cool (and funny) stuff with (and in) Danny’s life!!
While it was great to see them, I still am bummed that I didn’t get to see KJ Ahn (now an associate EM pastor at Young Nak, I believe). Maybe next time… nonetheless, it was great to see them all…
After writing and sharing about Christine, it made me re-affirm about what it takes to develop great relationships. To refer to a cliché, “it takes two to make the things go right.” 😛 I always make the effort to reach out, but I can only reach out so much, and without any feedback or reciprocation, it’s hard to not only tell if the other person appreciates what you do, but also makes it hard to know if the other person wants more in a relationship. And I mean this in as generic tone as possible.
Friendships and relationships are a two-way street. If it’s only me that makes the effort, the relationship can only go so far. However, when both sides take chances at investing in the relationship, things really start to pick up. Also, being a human, I can only make so much of an effort in reaching out, and unless/until the other person takes a step closer to me (even if it’s only a tiny baby step), my relationship with that person won’t develop as much. Just a 2 cents. Any thoughts?
Christine has entered our lives in a flash and have really changed our lives! She has a very rare disease called Devic’s disease, one that affects one’s nervous system… well, as loyal readers would know, it has led her to temporary but lengthy blindness. She can see a bit and one would think that such rare and difficult disease would bring you down, but not our Christine!
She has been more than a trooper over the little over past year we have known her. She is very frank and honest and does not hold herself back. Well, one of her doctors recommended her for an experimental treatment using Rituxan, a medication used to treat cancer. The drug does similar things that needs to be done to treat someone like her.
Well, that was end of last year. She has been bravely, and patiently, trying to get an appointment to be treated. Yet, because her condition is so rare and the medication is for cancer patients, unlike herself, things have been… complicated. But she has shared that she finally got through the red tape and got the appointment scheduled for 26th of the month!! I am so happy for her… and how she has held herself through these past years. If I had to pick my own “Person of the Year”, she would definitely get it. Right Christine?! 😀 Hope this wasn’t out of line… Soojin and I couldn’t be happier or more thankful to God for introducing someone so amazing to our lives. I don’t think she sees how much an encouragement and challenge she has brought to us.
Daily Aztec Article at SDSU (pic courtesy of Daily Aztec)
Paul has been a great friend since the first day we met in ’96. He’s now a professor at SDSU teaching English. The school paper published an article on him and his “new ideas for teaching old English”. In it, he mentions the Korean word “jeong” and how that started his different approach in teaching.
It was very interesting… but I’m mainly writing here to show how proud I am of him. There’s a sense of kinship … “jeong” I have always felt between us. You go boy! 😀