C

COMBO

Of course Koreans would come up with something super efficient like this:

[both Haejung 이모 and what she's holding]

What is it? A handy dandy Bible, hymnal, and responsive reading combo...complete with zipper! 

 다비 and 지혜 with the Bible section  

 은정 with the hymnal part

 and Joey and 진우 with the responsive readings

   available in a wide variety of colors [teal, pink, and black pictured here]

CORN CHIPS

all corn chips, all awesome 

B

BUS - BOW - BING SU

I take the bus quite a few places: to work, to Costco, to taekwondo, and home when I run far away and would rather not [or just can't] run back.

Merry Christmas!

 
Figuring out which bus to take to transfer to another bus [and possibly another] to get where I am going can be a fun puzzle. Goggle Maps can be helpful but also misleading, so it is best to rely on these:

I miss shaking hands but really enjoy the 'hello' bow. It just seems so respectful and graceful.


Bing su. Coffee shaved ice. Vanilla ice cream. Oreo crumbles. Corn flakes? Chocolate syrup. Milk. Yum.

A

A is for...alphabet!

but not the one I am blogging through this month...

The Korean language, very conveniently, has its own alphabet called Hangul. 

 [pic via]

Up to 70% of Korean vocabulary is shared with Chinese but just has different pronunciation. I still don't quite understand how that works but anyway...Korean was only written in [modified] Chinese characters until the 1440s when King Sejong the Great decided to create an alphabet. Thankfully. 

There are 24 basic consonants and vowels and then some double consonants and vowel combinations. Two to five letters are arranged into block syllables which makes trying to read new Korean words much easier than trying to read new English words.   

Just in case you want to learn [or really just look at] Hangul, here are the letters and how they are usually Romanized:

consonants:

ㄱ     ㄴ     ㄷ     ㄹ     ㅁ     ㅂ     ㅅ     ㅇ     ㅈ     ㅊ     ㅋ     ㅌ     ㅍ     ㅎ

       g/k    n     d/t    r/l    m     b/p     s      ng      j      ch      k       t       p      h

                                                             [or silent]                  

double consonants:

ㄲ     ㄸ     ㅃ     ㅆ     ㅉ

kk     tt     pp     ss     jj

[they're just kind of more aggressive]

vowels:

ㅏ     ㅑ     ㅓ     ㅕ     ㅗ     ㅛ     ㅜ     ㅠ     ㅡ     ㅣ

                        a     ya      eo    yeo     o      yo     u      yu     eu      i

vowel combos:

ㅐ     ㅒ     ㅔ     ㅖ     ㅘ     ㅙ     ㅚ     ㅝ     ㅞ     ㅟ     ㅢ

                   ae    yae     e      ye     wa   wae    oe    wo    we    wi     ui

[I think these are kind of tricky]

and Koreanizing English:
Anna Curl ---> 애나컬

[In the disclaimer on my last blog I said that some of these blogs might be serious, funny, random, and about food - I forgot to include the possibility of boring. If you feel asleep reading this one, don't worry, they won't all be this 재미없는!] 

alphabet challenge

So, I don't think this will be an exact picture of my life in Korea, but I really just hope to give you more insight. One of my good friends does blog challenges where she blogs everyday for a month, and I am going to try it. Knowing that I will probably never be able to exactly/articulately/thoroughly explain my YAV year, I decided [with a little encouragement from my Dad to blog more] to blog my way though the alphabet. I know, I know...there are only 26 letters and a few more days than that in March, but I'm just going to do it! Considering that if when I complete this challenge I will have blogged about twice as many times during one month than I have in my entire time here, I am both excited and rather nervous.

I'm thinking some posts might be kind of serious, some posts might be kind of funny, some posts might kind of random and...a lot will be about food. Enjoy!  

pic via

Nepal...in pictures and captions

Chinese food in China on Chinese [Lunar] New Year during our layover

 United Mission to Nepal 

 

powerlines!

Patan Durbar Square 

water

the five of us in a teeny tiny taxi

 

 people's homes on the river in Kathmandu

 

car free streets during Bandh [a common protest sort of day on which people are not allowed to drive or open shops]  

 

Lalitpur Nursing School  

lunch on the roof of the Nick Simons Institute - because of the weather and the fact that many homes have shops on the first floor, the kitchen is usually on the third floor and the eating area on the roof - it's GREAT!

  

 Happy Peanut Butter Day from Nepal!

Evervision School

playing volleyball in a traditional Newari village

  

Anna getting some yarn

 shower time!

 Korean dinner with some awesome Korean missionaries

rhino!

 

riding an elephant in Chitwan 

 

traditional dances

Namaste! [hello and good-bye in Nepali] 

and that's Raz, our awesome tour guide for the second half of the trip

 

Lumbini - Buddha's birthplace

waving to our friends in India 

there were so many beautiful fabrics, but I managed to take zero pictures because I was so busy checking them out

 

United Mission Hospital in Tansen

canoeing in Pokhara

 

 sunrise

and the Himalayas  

 

the end 

[we pooled our pictures, so photo credit for everyone: Uncle Simon, Haejung 이모, Thomas, Anna, Raz, and a few kind strangers]

Lessons From Nepal: Part II

NEPAL!?

Oh no! Where is Part I?

Applying for the YAV program I never would have guessed that I would get to spend 10 days in Nepal. But I did. And it was awesome.

Most YAV sites have a midyear retreat of some sort to get together and relax and process and...just be. Uncle Simon and Haejung 이모 spent three years in Nepal as mission co-workers, and we were lucky enough to have a midyear retreat/study trip in the foothills of the Himalayas. We got to see where they served and lived while learning about a different type of mission field and experiencing a totally different culture. It was just swell!

in front of their old house

Last week marked the middle of my YAV year in Korea. So, is the glass half full or half empty? I'm not really sure. Which one is more optimistic in this situation? Pessimistic? Again, I'm not really sure. Maybe it's both? Or all four I guess. All I really know is that I like the water, and I am pumped that I have a little more than five months to drink it!

1/2?

 

Time has gone quite quickly and sometimes rather slowly. It seems like forever ago and just yesterday that I walked into Korean class and couldn't tell which way was up on my name tag. 

"What very mysterious things days were.
Sometimes they fly by, and other times they just seem to last forever,
yet they are all exactly twenty-four hours.
There's quite a lot we don't know about them."

-Melanie Benjamin, Alice I Have Been

One thing that [I think] I am happy to be on the homeward stretch concerning is: Time For Young Disciples. I wrote about it a little in an earlier blog, but it is a sermonette at University Church that rotates between Uncle Simon, Thomas, Anna, and me. Once a month I do a few minute speech about whatever [church related] I want, in English [my native language]...it really should not be that big of a deal, but it is just something I stress out about. The week leading up to my monthly TYD Sunday is an interesting, queasy time. I enjoy spending time in prayer and thinking and reading, but the the thought of doing it just makes my stomach uneasy. Public speaking is just not my jam.


Sunday I delivered number 6 of 11. I was definitely still nervous, but it was the first day that I didn't feel like I was going to throw up sitting in the pew waiting for my time to speak. Progress. Awesome.


So, here is my TYD: Lessons From Nepal: Part II

[also, Thomas did Part I and Anna did Part III...they're just our impressions/lessons/thoughts]

 

BEAUTIFUL! The people I encountered were just so beautiful and joyful and hospitable and...just great! The scenery was breathtaking!


The food was SO GOOD! Nepali milk tea, momo, lentils, curry, chicken chili boneless, naan...delicious! Toward the end of our trip, my body had different feelings though. Shoot.


The place is dusty. So. Much. Dust.


Car horns mean different things in different places. I noticed that when I arrived in Korea and then again in Nepal. In Korea, a car horn seems to simply mean, "Move, you're in my way." In Nepal, car horns are used to say, "Hey, I'm right here. Please don't hit me." Finally, in the United States honking a car horn [typically] means, "YOU JUST MADE ME SO MAD. I KIND OF WANT TO PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE." Just my impressions...


The pace of life is totally different in Nepal compared to it in both Korea and the United States.


One thing that really stuck with me:

Uncle Simon was a part of the organization/beginnings of the Nick Simons Institute, so we got to visit, learn about its history, and hear about what it is doing now. This is straight from NSI's website because...well...they just know what they are talking about, and I would rather not paraphrase.

"Nick was a New York man who, having recently graduated from college, came to Nepal to work in 2002. He fell in love with the country, and returned home with the dream of becoming a doctor for the underserved. Tragically, Nick’s life ended some months later when he drowned while swimming in Indonesia.


Jim and Marilyn Simons came to Nepal to establish a project in their son Nick’s name. After funding the building of a new Maternity Ward for Kathmandu’s Patan Hospital, they challenged a group of health care professionals in Nepal to develop a new organization that would reach out to rural communities, principally through the training of health care workers. In March 2006, NSI was formed from this nucleus."

 

It may be an emergency room, a classroom, an office...anywhere really!

 ...to glorify God