JeonJu

It was good to be back in JeonJu again, and see David in his own environment.  He's been here now for 10 years.  I am so amazed that he has adjusted so well to everything here.  As he says, he's been here for 10 years, he should be.  But I can imagine that the first year or so must have been very challenging for him.  Everything is so foreign!  The language isn't anything like what he is familiar with!  And the streets and traffic!  And the parking!  Wherever you can find a space!

I've been going walking in the morning.  When I was here 2 years ago, I was quite apprehensive about going out by myself.  David told me if I were to get lost, to look for the tall blue building (Korean Post Office)  close by his apartment.  You can see it in this picture way at the back.  But now, it's hard to see the building.  All these apartment buildings have been built since then!

I've been walking in the morning (while David is still asleep!) down by the river bed.  There is a lovely walking path there, and I see lots of people walking and biking there.  A few of the people wear masks--though the MERS scare is over now.  I guess they figure they need to protect themselves from pollution!  There is quite a bit of fitness equipment built right into the path and when I've been there, it has always been in use.

Another small park close to David's apartment.  Once again, there is fitness equipment and also a children's play structure--I haven't seen too many of those!  It's a lovely little park, but weeds have quite overtaken the place!

Yesterday's lunch.  Jeonju is known for it's restaurants and food.  There are streets where it seems every shop is a small restaurant!  And not only on ground level!  Sometimes there are 5 floors of restaurants!  This lunch was kimbab and mandoo.  The kimbab is rice, carrots, pickled radish, cucumbers, walnuts and cheese rolled in seaweed.  The mandoo is meat dumplings.  They were delicious!

Seoul

  Our hotel was close to the Han River.  It was a very warm evening, so we walked around to take in the sights.  Seoul is a very large city (24 million people), and most people live in high rise apartment buildings.  There are very few single family dwellings.  So on a hot day, people go down to the river to spend the day.  They bring their sun shelters with them--no they're not camping!  Korea is 70% mountain.  The mountains are very old, and are quite rounded, but still very high.  In order to make more land available for  farming and cities, the mountains (or parts of them) are removed and the ground levelled.  The mountain is then thrown into the sea--the main international airport is built on reclaimed land.

What I find so disappointing about what I have seen so far in Korea is that the landscaping is not maintained at all.  There is an initial attempt at planting trees and bushes, but everything is just overgrown--weeds everywhere.  I noticed it last time I was here, but it seems to be so much more now.

Our hotel was great!  It had a jacuzzi tub, which was wonderful for relaxing in after so many hours of travel!

Back Again! 2015 Yoido Full Gospel Church

Well, I'm back in Korea again!  I arrived Saturday afternoon in Incheon airport.  It was a very only day--I started off in Toronto at 5:30 am.  I'd gone to Marya's Thursday morning, so I could look after her boys while she was at school for her last day.  Then she took me to the airport bright and early Friday morning.  Since I was flying to Korea through Chicago, I had to go through American customs and immigration in Toronto, and that took a VERY LONG time.  But once I got into Chicago, I didn't have to go through all that again--so that was good.

Then, a 14 hour flight to Incheon.  That was very long as well.  It was so good to see David when I finally got there!  We took a hotel in Seoul since our plan was to go to the largest church in the world on Sunday.  The hotel we had was just around the corner from the church!

The church has 830,000 members.  They have 7 services on a Sunday, 3 services on Wednesdays, a Saturday service, daily all-Night services from11pm until 4 am, and 2 daily dawn services (at 5am and 7 am).  The church seats about 10,000 people.  It has simultaneous translations for Engllish, French, Japanses, Chinese, Spanish, Russian, Indonesian and Arabic.  One of the balconies is for foreigners, and each seat has head sets available.  Members are also encouraged to belong to cell groups--and there are hundreds of cell groups in the church.

It looks like any mega church in North America.  The choir is about 150 members, with a small orchestra, there are lots of ushers and hospitality people, traffic people to help you cross  the very busy street, and people who speak every language there so they can provide assistance to anyone who needs it.

It's a Full Gospel church--many of the songs were very traditional.  The translation was quite good, considering it was simultaneous--the translator had no time to perfect the translation!  The people were very friendly, and it was a good place to worship Sunday morning.