Miscellaneous

I had fun getting my hair colored and cut. The place had been recommended by a British woman I met. It was 85,000 won for color and 25,000 won for cut - no tipping in Korea. It's a high end place. Justin's mom told me her area of town would cost about 50,000 won and downtown maybe 80,000. I couldn't bring myself to tell her I was going to pay more than 100,000 won. It's an Aveda salon!

There was a woman, Ban Seok, and two young male assistants tending to me. Two people applied the color while I sat at a long table in a chair with a back pillow and a pillow propped in front to hold up magazines. They brought me Korean Elle and Cosmo; I looked at some pictures to be polite. I selected OJ from a list of drinks, and it was accompanied by some rectangle shaped pieces of pound cake with a small plastic two pronged fork. I am glad the one of the guys sort of stabbed the end and handed it to me - I probably would have done American style and tried to break it into pieces first. But after stabbing, one is to take a bite at a time. I saw a guy at Paris Baguette do this with a 10 inch or so baguette. No touching food with hands!! The hair washing took awhile and was very relaxing - including a hot towel under my neck for awhile. One of the fellows dried my hair, and then Ban Seok cut it. She said it's sort of short already so she would trim it. Trim sounded just fine. Oh, and at one point one of the assistants sang a traditional song to me. They told me it was for new customers.

I poked around downtown a little longer - some time in Hyundai department store checking for shoes bigger than size 10 for Michael (no luck). Then I checked on a robe for me - more than 100,000 won. No way!! That store is so expensive. Then I walked a couple of blocks to the fish market, where there are also stalls set up for vegs. and fruit. There is also a small eating area. It reminded me of the market in Samoa. The contrast within a couple of blocks is such an intersting aspect of Korea. The old and the new are side by side. The Korean restaurants are traditional food (and often sitting on the floor), ladies are on the street with fruit or vegs to sell, and Pizza Hut is next door. And there is a store for every athletic name brand you can think of.

We've been observing that Korea is such a hard working society. The kids are in school day and night and many Saturdays (maybe it's erring on the side of quantity, but the Korean culture is not lazy). Even on campus many of the professors work late enough in the evening regularly that at lunch with a couple professors one of them asked if I go out for dinner too. Prof. Kim explained that I have Michael to take care of.... what a handy excuse for me! It was fun that they taught me to ask for more soup: guk chom da ju se yo. Luckily I already knew the last part. The sentence structure is soup more bring/give me.

Friday I picked up Michael and was pleased to find that he was named Star of the Week in Year 6 (different numbering compared to our grades). After the long PE on Friday afternoons, there is school assembly and the stars are named there. His home room (and math) teacher wrote on the back: for being a fantastic, hard-working student and a caring member of the Year 6 class. Of course, Michael didn't really think it was a big deal, but I told him I was especially proud of the "caring" part.

We went to the immigration office by taxi after school and are now official in Korea because we have our alien registration cards. I can now open a bank account (for direct deposit of my small stipend from university) and get point cards at Paris B and Lotte Mart - you can not do anything here as a foreigner without that card!! When we arrived home, we found a bag from Justin's family: gimbap, veg. pancakes, and Asian pears (though I bet they don't add "Asian" to the name). The pears are huge - size of large grapefruit - and jucier than we expected. It was a Chuseok gift.

The Ji family invited us to have dinner Friday evening to celebrate Song Jae's (mom's) birthday. She admired my hair :). We went to a place that specializes in a few things including a type of soup with thin, long noodles and shaved beef. Michael liked the dok gal bi a lot - one plate came for the table. It sort of has the texture of hamburger and is very moist with a tasty sauce. They were happy he liked it so much. They like to tell us Korean words, and Luna, the 9 year old girl, talks to me a lot. She showed me some of the names of items on the menu. They noticed us pray silently over our meals at their house, and Mr. Ji invited me to say a prayer for all of us. Please pray that in those opportunities I would use words that God would use to work in their hearts. We took a walk at the park after dinner with the boys kicking around a soccer ball. Jo-el wants to be a soccer player; Luna wants to be a doctor.

We had short notice about dinner, so there wasn't much time for gift shopping. The stores (including grocery) are full of boxed sets of various items, so I bought a 3 bottle set of fancy vinegars. I think that's what it was - maybe it is some kind of drink. Michael and I think a lot of the choices are odd - like a gift set of canned tuna. Just buying the cans of tuna on their own would be seem a smarter move financially. There is so much packaging to these sets, especially for how much recycling is expected here. We have to pay if we want a bag at the store. We even have a pail for food waste and threat of fine for not doing our garbage correctly. We will take a gift set of 3 Asian pears to Prof. Kim's. It seemed like a healthy option, and I bought them before the Jangs gave us some. So maybe it really is an appropriate gift!

We have other social plans for the weekend: dinner with Prof. Kim and his wife Saturday; lunch after church with the Bakers, and a birthday celebration dinner and cake with one of Michael's school mates, Mitchell and family. He is new and in Year 5 - and huge feet. I asked his mom to let us know if they find some big sizes. Their apartment is on the 51st floor - so we think that's going to be neat. I think the husband must have a pretty good job, and this is their 3rd overseas location.

There is a typhoon in the area that is causing a LOT of rain today, so we are thankful that a box arrived yesterday that Bethany had sent. It has several books for Michael, and he said he wants to have a relaxing day. He is off M-W for Chuseok holiday. The official holiday is Monday, and the day before and after are also holidays. The university is open on Wed.

Grace and peace to all of you. Love, Kim and Michael