Mom Does Seoul…Again

It's been a week since my mom safely touched down in America so I thought it was time to finish up this post!  On January 27th I rushed out of school, hopped the subway, and waited anxiously, welcome sign in hand, at the International arrivals gate for my little mom to emerge from the sliding doors.  When she finally walked out pushing a massive cart of luggage I found myself very relieved, as this was her first solo flight to Seoul, although not her first trip to Korea (the whole family visited together in September 2011).  With ticket prices at an all time low, I convinced her in November to book and she got a wicked deal.  For just $835 she scored a roundtrip ticket from Portland--that's nearly half of what I often pay to come home for Christmas.  Within twenty minutes we were seated on the 6005 bus and on our way "home" to Yonhi-dong and Seoul Foreign School.  

Here she is!  After a very long flight from Portland then through San Francisco, she made it!

The first couple of days were pretty low key.  Mom spent time hanging out at the apartment and getting used to the time difference while I worked (seventeen hours can really do a number on you), we went to my Tuesday night bible study, and prepared for the long Lunar New Year weekend with a trip to the grocery store.  Super exciting, right?  I knew she'd be exhausted from the trip and time change, but I hadn't realized how incredibly tired my body already was after just a few weeks back to teaching after the Christmas holiday so Lunar New Year gave us a good opportunity to catch up on sleep, do a bit of stamping/crafting, and see friends.  Plus it was an excellent opportunity for lots of mother/daughter bonding--time spent sitting in the living room, with a mug in hand just chatting.  When I'm home for Christmas or the summer we are usually just on the go.  I feel the pressure to see as many people as possible in the short amount of time I'm home, trying never to disappoint someone or forget to pick up something important that I'll need during my four to six month departure from my mother land.  To be honest, being "home" is usually really exhausting for me, but having my mom here was completely the opposite.  I don't think we even turned on the television once, except to watch a movie with a couple of the ladies who live on my floor.  Nope, not even to watch the Olympics!  It was great just to be.  We had Joy over for tea on Thursday to catch up and talk about her job fair experience in London--something I was quite keen to hear more about as I'm thinking about going in the next year or two myself.  My commitment to leaving SFS next year is wavering the more I learn about the process and what European schools are looking for…more on that later.  On Friday we attempted to take the cable car up Seoul Tower, but when we arrived at the cable car we found that scads of others had the same idea since it was a wonderfully sunny day, so we abandoned the notion and went home (some things in Seoul are NOT worth battling crowds for!).  Saturday was a fantastic day, despite some nasty weather, as we met up with the Sanderson family for a tasty Thai dinner at Buddha's Belly and Mamma Mia! at the Blue Square in Itaewon.  The musical was brilliant and it was mom's first time seeing it!  We had a blast at the show and even had a brush with fame when we met the stars of the show on the street as we drove home from the theater--it's an interesting story how this happened:).  Sunday saw another friendly dinner with Janie and some really wonderful cooking done by mom (another perk of visiting family).  As with all long weekends, Lunar New Year was over far too quickly!

Dancing Queens-Ruth, Colleen, and Donna at Mamma Mia!

Friday Night and the lights are low…:)

Back to school, mom occupied herself while I taught by volunteering in the elementary art room and thoroughly enjoyed working with the small kids.  After hearing about her experiences with paint, I'm quite happy to continue teaching big kids thanks very much!  We started a fantastic new book at bible study, Becoming More Than Just a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst and mom was becoming like one of the group.  Gigi does such a great job cooking and welcoming us each week!  The week seemed to fly by without much actually happening in the way of sightseeing.  We did manage to make it off the hill into Sinchon one afternoon and over to Hongdae to my favorite frame shop to get an etching from Venice framed for mom to take home.  We decided to follow the blue dot (on my iPhone) to the travel cafe that Ellie sent me the coordinates to a couple of weeks ago.  Amazingly enough, we actually ended up in the right spot and had a nice little field trip through the back alleys of Hongdae and Hapjeong.  The great thing about the neighborhoods here is that you can't really get lost--and if you do, you can just hop in a taxi, tell them to take you to Yonhi-dong, and you'll end up getting home!  It's great and incredibly safe.  

I took Friday off work so we could go exploring and we decided to spend a large portion of the day at Namdaemun market.  We took the bus and started out looking at camera lenses.  After a bit of sticker shock, I decided not to buy…yet!  Inside the market I remembered why I only go to Namdaemun when I need something!  There is just SO MUCH STUFF there (10,000 stalls and 50,000 vendors?!).  We wandered through Alpha for stationary supplies, then headed to the wholesale flower market (my favorite spot).  If you can't find something at Namdaemun, it probably doesn't exist.  Friday night we saw how incredible some of the high school students are at the NHS talent show.  These kids continually blow me away.  They are stellar at academics, they play sports and instruments, they dance, they sing…oh, and they are nice human beings.  I love it!  Saturday may have been our second best day of mom's visit.  We woke up to gently falling snow that persisted throughout the entire day.  In the afternoon a small group of us gathered in Jo's classroom for a Stampin' Up party where mom taught us how to make three different cards using a variety of products, then we all made two of the cards.  It was such a fun little event and a great time for the ladies to catch up and do something crafty!  Everyone had such a wonderful time and their cards turned out beautifully.  In a few weeks a big box of stamping supplies will be arriving in the ROK and once again I'll be getting the ladies together to play with their new goodies!  The snow picked up over night and we decided to nook in on Sunday morning.  When the sun came out in the afternoon, we went out to Insadong for a bit of traditional arts and crafts.  I love the vibe there and the shops are wonderful.

Here's mom at Namdaemun Gate before we entered the market.

During mom's last week we upped that ante a bit when it came to sightseeing.  Monday was a beautiful day, so I made the executive decision that we were going to the Tower for our third attempt.  The cable car wasn't crowded and we made it up the mountain before sunset.  It was really beautiful, and still a bit snowy.  Being up on Mt. Namsan gives you a good idea of how big this city really is--a whole new perspective really.  On a clear day, the view is breath-taking and you can literally see for miles.  We took the elevator up to the top of the tower and saw the lights come on in the city.  It's stunning  seeing the city twinkling below you.  

Seoul at sunset is particularly beautiful!

Love locks at the tower 

Another city view...

More of those locks!

Still a bit snowy from the day before!

Looking straight up the tower

The sun has gone down now

View of the city lights from atop the tower

This view really does show you how massive this city is!

Mom and me at the top of the tower

The tower aglow at night!

Tuesday's bible study was wonderful, as usual.  On Wednesday, we took a trip with Gigi to Dongdaemun, which is the fabric market in the city.  Mom and I had gone on her first trip to buy fabric for some curtains I wanted to make, but it was a quick trip.  This time, Gigi was looking for quilt fabric.  This was no small task, but we were victorious and I managed to navigate my way through the market and find the vendors I like!  Did I mention there are also hundreds of stalls at this market on six or seven floors across three buildings?  Chaos!  On our way home we met my friend Erin for crepes at La Celtique, a favorite of ours (Daniel routinely requests this restaurant).  Lots more good conversation and tasty food!  Thursday night we had some down time…it's a good thing because we were back out in the city on Friday taking the Seoul City Bus Tour.  Essentially it's one of those hop-on, hop-off tours that makes a loop of the city.  We only hopped off once in Itaewon to check out Eden Pottery, a high end ceramic store with amazing pieces of celadon.  Although we were both pretty worn out, we managed to make it back in time for our weekly grocery shopping trip and to an 8:00pm Jersey Boys show back in Itaewon and we were so glad we did!  It was an absolute treat to see that musical about Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.  The singing was top notch and the story was fascinating!  Saturday morning we made one last trip to Hongdae to pick up our framing and grab a Starbucks and before we knew it mom's departure time was looming.  Down the hill to the airport bus!  As I write this I imagine mom is enjoying a really good night of sleep after she and Daniel drove from Portland to Eugene.

As usual, good-byes are always difficult for me and I was prepared for this to be particularly rough.  Luckily, I have good friends who provided ample distractions and I got out of the house to see Frozen just a few hours after putting mom on the bus.  Not surprisingly, a few tears were shed, and I was quite sad when the bus pulled away, but we did have a really wonderful three weeks together and I feel so blessed that my mom was able to take that time to spend with me (it also didn't hurt that a group of my students were standing on the corner across the street and I had to walk passed them up the hill on my way back--I didn't want to be crying my eyes out in front of the kids...awkward!).  What a lucky girl I am!  I think the best part about the visit is that I figured out how to really prioritize my time, I worked less, I enjoyed more, and not much really suffered at school because of it!  In fact, I think I saw my friends more in the last three weeks than I have in the last three months.  Although we didn't check all of the sights off of our to-do list, I think the most valuable part of my mom's visit was just getting to see what life is really like for me here in Seoul and getting to meet the truly lovely people who are part of my world on a daily basis.  Mom and I talked quite a lot about the difficult decision I'm facing in terms of whether to stay or go after next year and having her come here and see what I'm doing and where I'm living gave her new insight and perspective on why this is such a difficult choice…beyond the wonderful financial and travel benefits.  Whether I decide to stay or go, I hope my family will be able to visit me in Korea, or wherever I'm living, more often.  So far, Daniel and I have spent spring break together for two years running and we've got this year booked and I can't tell how meaningful that time has become.  I know that tickets are expensive and time off work can be hard to get, but getting to spending time together talking, exploring, and being a part of each other's lives is really worth the cost.  In the end, the things we cherish the most are our relationships and our memories!

Finding Joy in Sorrow

Today is February 5th, a difficult day for me as I remember my grandma on her birthday.  It would have been one of those milestone days, her 80th, one where people gather together to celebrate the end of one decade and the start of another. We did this for my grandpa not long ago. Even though she has been gone thirteen years, tears still spring to my eyes as I type this post and my heart feels a deep sense of sadness as I remember the wonderful woman that my grandma was and the relationship that I had with her from the time she held me in her arms just minutes after my birth. As I reach back in my memory, I am amazed by the things I remember so clearly about the time I spent with her from playing with pots and pans on the kitchen floor as a toddler to shopping trips and marathon lunches as a teenager...so many beautiful memories.  This year as I aim to focus on and discover Joy, even in the darkest and most sorrowful times, it is these memories that I cling to.  A year ago I wrote this birthday post as I remembered my grandma and as I re-read it and reflect on her life, I can't help but feel pain because of the silent struggles I know she faced. What gives me hope is that in the end I know her greatest joy was her family and the love I felt from her was indeed a testament to that--unconditional and unending.  In fact, I still feel it to this day and that brings joy to my heart as I remember her.  Shortly after my grandma died I heard a song sung by Guy Clarke and Emmylou Harris called "I Don't Love You Much Do I".  It's meant to be a love song, but when I listened to the lyrics, many of them expressed what I felt as a little girl whose hero was her grandma.  One in particular goes like this: "I don't love you much do I, just more than all the stars in the sky; I don't love you much do I, I think you hung the moon and that's all right; See how it sparkles in my eyes, I couldn't hide it if I tried, that's right; I don't love you much do I, just more than anything else in this whole world."  Here's a link to the rest of the song...it touches my heart every time I hear it and reminds me of my grandma, who loved a good country western love song.