Solar Powered Buddhists

Greetings...

Above you will find a quick little tour of my apartment. I took a video of it the first morning I was here but it was a bit lengthy and had trouble uploading it ever since. I finally broke down and did another one. As you can see, moving to another continent has done nothing to improve my cleanliness.

It's been awhile since my last post but I've finally accrued enough material to justify another writing marathon. Let's begin:

Two weekends ago...

One of my new Korean friends, Aron, called me up one night and asked me if I wanted to join him for a little volunteering at a local orphanage. It was the last thing I was expecting to hear but the more I thought about it, the more my interest grew. I thought of cousin Leah and how cyclical this whole thing was. For those of you who don't know, my cousin Leah was adopted from Korea when she was just a little tot-tot. In fact, she is from Busan specifically. Before I left, I was instructed to do some research about the orphanages here and to see if I could find the one where our beloved Leah called home. Besides these instructions, I felt compelled to go. Obviously, I have a personal connection to the orphanage system here in Busan and I wanted to do my part, in honor of Leah and those before and after her.

I don't have any pictures of my trip. I took my camera with intentions of capturing images/video of this place but when I got there, I just didn't feel comfortable about it. I'm very sensitive when it comes to taking photos of people. Especially in a situation like this, I fear that it might border on exploitation (get over yourself, Brent) and it just didn't feel right. I had a great experience and I'd really like to go back so maybe I'll feel better about it then.

So...Aron heard about this little humanitarian mission through a website where there are forums for things to do. Someone suggests something to do and puts out an open call to those interested who either show up at the meeting place or not. We meet with about 15 other strangers (all American or Canadian English teachers like me) at a subway station and we took some taxis to the orphanage. We first met with the directors of the facility, an elderly Korean couple who just look like those people who dedicate their lives to helping others. They explained the facility and what we were expected to do. I was anticipating doing dishes or taking out the trash but all we did was sit in a room and play with toddlers. We broke up into groups of 5 or so and each went into a room where about 8 1-2 year olds were frolicking. They were a bit intimidated when we first walked in--one boy in particular got one look at us and started crying. We settled in and just let them come to us. I picked a corner and just sat and watched. Little by little, these kids came around and got more and more friendly.

They had a set of geometric cushions with velcro on the sides so you could build stuff with them. These became our ambassadors of friendship as we rolled them across the floor or tossed them in the air. The kids ended up gravitating to one volunteer and becoming inseparable. This was quite amusing--two of the female volunteers ended up with a kid in each arm with a third trying to climb a leg. Luckily for me, I ended up being paired with one boy. This little guy was a lotta fun and when I discovered that he was ticklish, it got even better. All these kids has runny noses as they were undoubtedly in some stage of a shared cold. I tried to keep my mouth closed and avoided rubbing my eyes but things got a little out of hand when this little boy decided the zipper on my sweatshirt was something edible. Every time he'd go for it, instead of pushing him away, I'd simply throw a tickle-finger into the side of his neck and he'd go down like sack of potatoes.

We were there for about 2 hours and, even though we were all done getting climbed on, I left with a heavy heart. While I was there, I did my best to not think about the situation very much. This was my first experience like this and it gave me a nice, cold glass of perspective. If I had stayed any longer, I probably would've tried to adopt that little boy.

The next day, Rob and I went on a hike with his co-teacher and her friend. I almost died. Some people define "hike" as "a walk outside" and some define it as "traversing mountains and entering a secondary layer of the atmosphere." I now know first hand that Koreans prefer that second definition. Mrs. Sung, Rob's co-teacher, has asked us to go hiking everyday and I couldn't decline more emphatically. Despite my reputation, I don't avoid exercise like the plague (maybe malaria) but it's all about context. "Hey Brent, do you wanna go to the batting cages?" "Sure." "Hey Brent, do you want climb a 1,000 foot mountain in your Vans? Everyday?" "Umm..." You know what I mean? I've been walking to school everyday lately so I'm getting at least 1.5 miles a day in (3 miles if I walk home) but I've been in some process of muscle damage/recovery ever since I set foot in Korea. Honestly, my feet and legs are constantly being worked and I've developed a soreness in my left Achilles and, just recently, my left knee's been singin'. Okay, I get it, I'm out of shape and that's why this is all happening but do you want me to permanently injure myself to prove this point? As I explained to Rob, I could either play baseball for 20 years and end up with "Catcher's Legs" or just live in Korea for 12 months.

This past weekend...

Friday, Rob and I went out for dinner and exploring. We had Outback again because by the end of the week, I just need a meal that is 100% satisfying. There's always one side dish or something in the school lunches that ends up ruining the whole meal. Rob finally admitted to understanding the term "comfort food." I told him, "Welcome to my world." We tried to see a movie but nothing but crap was playing. We ended up playing pool. This pool hall we went to had one official pool table and the rest were "pocket-less." Koreans don't actually play pool, they play some weird version where there are no pockets and they only use three balls on the table. We've kinda figured out how that's played but it doesn't look half as fun. Could you guess that the table with the pockets was the only one open when we walked in?

Saturday, I didn't do much because I was kinda under the weather. My sinuses have been on a dry streak and it just wipes me out. I'm considering purchasing a humidifier. That night, Mrs. Sung's friend, Mrs. Hwang, invited us over for dinner. If you've read Rob's posts about these dinners, you know how good they are. He was right. We met a girl there whose mom is friends with Mrs. Hwang and Mrs. Sung. Her name is Min-su but she goes by "Soo." She's 21 (Korean age--see below for an explanation) and speaks really good English. She offered to take us around and show us cool stuff to do which is exactly what we've been looking for. So, after dinner, she took us to play...pool! Two nights in a row! Mrs. Hwang's daughter (forgot her name again) went also. It was a lot of fun.

Sunday, Mrs. Sung offered to take us to see flowers. It's been "Cherry Blossom Season" the past couple weeks so everyone and their grandmother was out seeing flowers. We drove north to Tongdo where we visited a Buddhist temple. I'd show you pictures but I left my camera battery at home. Rob took some so they'll be coming soon. We saw solar panels at the temple (hence the title of the post...and the title of my next band) and we even caught a monk INSIDE the prayer room on his CELLPHONE!! Total Buddhist burn!! We wanted a pic so bad but he saw us and quickly removed it from his ear. This was our first official trip out of Busan since arriving and it was nice to be around more nature than concrete. Then we kept on our trek north to Gyeongju which is a very famous city in Korean history. Many moons ago, Korea was divided into 3 Kingdoms but they were finally united by one of these and its capital was Gyeongju. There's also lots of ruins and dead Kings buried here. We stopped at a lake that was lined with cherry blossoms and the sun was setting (Rob took a couple amazing pics). If we hadn't just spent a good 2 hours in traffic to get there (...everyone and their nana), it would've been even more spectacular.

Yesterday (Monday), Soo took us out for our first exploration. She took us to the Busan National University campus because that's where you're guaranteed to find cool stuff to do. It was a large and cool looking campus. Of course, it's built into the side of a mountain so you better believe I'd have a scooter if I was a student. We had dinner at a chicken restaurant and found a bowling alley with our name on it. It was Soo's first time but she started to get the hang of it by the end. We got some roadside smoothies (fruit and ice in a blender...simple but delicious) and did some more walking.

Korean age...

Korean's actually count your time in the womb as part of your age (a nice thought but very confusing at times) so when a Korean says, "I'm 21 (like Soo did)." She was actually born in 1989 so her "American Age" is only 19. As Rob pointed out, Koreans can always revert back to their American Age when they want to shed a few years but us Americans actually get older when we get here. I'm actually 28 here, soon to be 29.

That's enough for now, what do ya say?

Stay tuned...

-Brent