Safe in Seoul

Hello from Seoul!

It's 11:53 pm and after figuring out how to manuever through my Taylor email--the buttons of which are now in Korean--in order to send an email to my family, I decided to turn it into a blogpost. It's nothing fancy, but after blog-burnout from sending 7 hours on 9-page single-spaced documents, my motto for blogposting needs to err on the side of "Anything is better than Nothing."

The 12 hour flight from Chicago to Tokyo was interminable. We shared it with several military personnel in street clothes only identifiable by their camoflage backpacks--although the tatoos would have given it away for some of them. I had very little sense of time or progress since I didn't have a window seat or a map by which to guage our progress. I read 6 chapters of David Block's book More than a Native Speaker, which is excellent. It made me very glad that I brought it along, a bit perturbed that I didn't look at it sooner, and intimidated by the prospect of putting all of his good advice into practice.

We had a 3 hour lay-over in Tokyo. I spent about 2 hours of it reading the most recent Time magazine in a duty-free shop. It was a good way to observe people, re-recognize how little I know about what's going on in international politics in this world of ours, and note "cultural specialties" such as green powdered tea, baby sardines, dried plums, dried octopus, vacuum sealed squid, and green tea Kit Kat bars which were for sale there. I purchased a keychain mainly so that I could get some change in Yen to add to the bowl of international coins that Anna and I have in our room. I got back more coins than I exected for the 40 cents change I needed. All of them are very lightweight.

Our flight out of Tokyo was actually early--they moved it up by 15 minutes, which is something I've never experienced before. Of the 9 Taylor students traveling together, I was the only one who was sent into the immigration office to have a security officer inspect my passport and documents since they were concerned that I was coming into the country for a long-term paying job as an English teacher without the proper visa. I'm fairly convinced that what we're doing is legal, but I didn't ask too many questions. My general rule of thumb is not to provide additional information or the opportunity for government officials to request it. Especially when I am entirely at the mercy of their proficiency in English.(Which was quite good, by the way.)

We waited a little while in the Incheon airport in Seoul before four students and the pastor came to pick us up and drive us about an hour to the church. I don't know how large this church is, but Dr. Chang (who drove me down to Indianapolis on Wednesday afternoon) said that the Yom Kwang church at which we will be teaching has 10,000 members. And that's an average sized church. According to him, five of the world's largest churches are in South Korea. Any guesses? Alright, since I know you're curious, I'll tell you: he said the largest has 500,000 mebers. I hope to exerience it. In some ways this one more like a compound/small apartment building with a gym in which a summer camp of elementary school students were chasing each other around with pillows at 11 pm.We've learned that this will be our home for the time we're here: two to a dorm room. I'm a bit disappointed that we won't be living with host families, since I hoped that would at least give me some inroad into getting to know the culture a bit more. But now I don't feel as bad for forgetting to purchase a gift for my host family.

Tomorrow morning at 10:00 we're leaving here to go to the church where we'll be teaching. I anticipate a day of meetings and orientation, and hopefully as little jet lag as possible. As I'm currently in the state beyond sensing exhaustion or hunger, my primary goal is to convince my body to "feel" enough to be able to sleep shortly after I find my pajamas, take a shower, and set up my Egyptian alarm clock to go off at 9:00 am.

Please continue to pray for me:
-A positive attitude toward team bonding as balanced with cultural integration
-The ability to plan lessons effectively rather than allowing myself to be paralyzed by the terror that comes from inexperience, the desire to be perfect, and a discumbobulated mind which hasn't really been taught how to systematically teach English.
-Discipline to blog and communicate with family more consistently than I did in Spain.
-Growth in my view of God and what he's doing around the world

Impressions

A few years ago I heard from Kelly Lashly (director of the YLP discipleship program in Sioux Falls, SD in which I participated for a month during the summer before my senior year of high school) that she once took a “blue book” essay exam in seminary which consisted of a single question. Sounds like a student’s dream come true, right? Not quite. It’s a fairly intimidating task to write a final exam essay to answer the question: “Who is God?” (All the same, it’s a question worth pondering.)

On several occasions throughout the past few weeks, people asked me “What do you think of Egypt?” While I’m hesitant to claim that this question is as daunting as the former, at the time it seemed equally difficult to answer.

“What do I think of Egypt?”

Well, I liked it.

There’s a lot of fascinating history. The workmanship in the temples, tombs, statues, and monuments is astounding, and the artifacts are as beautiful as they are ancient. The waves of the Mediterranean and the current of the Nile were cleaner than I expected, and the scenery along both was breathtaking. The traffic was just as congested and crazy as I had been told it would be, although crossing six “lanes” of traffic was much more fun than others warned me it would be. The food was delectable, especially the stuffed pigeon, foul (it’s pronounced “fool”, and tastes a bit like refried beans, but better) and falafel (deep fried chickpeas with parsley), and koushary (lentils, rice, pasta, and some tomato sauce).

The experience of navigating a city of 20 million people (mostly) by myself filled me with an unexpectedly refreshing wave of confidence at my independence. True, it would have been nice to share my experiences with someone whom I know well, but there are a lot of advantages to traveling alone. One of the things that I liked most about it was meeting so many fascinating (that’s my new favorite word) people. Perhaps they were as accommodating as they were because they took pity on me. But I’m unwilling to grant that that was the only reason.

So, instead of telling you about the places I went and the things that I saw, I’m going to tell you a bit about the people I met. You can visit:

the Giza pyramids;

the Cheops Boat Museum;

Alexandria Community Church;

the Mediterranean sea;

the Alexandrian Roman Theatre;

Amud El-Sawari (aka Pompeii´s Pillar);

the Kom El-Shuqafa Monuments (aka Catacombs);

the Citadel of Fort Qaitbay;

the Alexandrian Library;

a Nile cruise;

the temple complexes at Karnak, Luxor, Edfu, Kom Ombo, and Philae;

the Papyrus, Alabaster, and Essences “Museums” (aka tourist trap gift shops);

the Valley of the Kings; Al-Deir Al-Bahari Temple (aka Hatshepsut´s Temple);

the High Dam in Aswan;

the 13-hour Egypt Rail overnight passenger train trip from Alexandria to Luxor and back from Aswan to Cairo;

the Anglican Diocese´s Guest House;

the Cairo Opera House (to see Aida);

the Egyptian Museum;

the Sound and Light show at the Pyramids from the rooftop of Pizza Hut across the street;

After Eight (an Cairene night club to which I went to hear an Egyptian band);

Khan-al Khalili (a huge maze of open air shops down narrow cobblestone streets in Cairo);

Felfela (a Cairene restaurant which I highly recommend);

and the Cairo, London, Madrid, and Sevilla airports for yourself.

But I doubt that the people who I met there will be there when you go. So soon I´ll tell you a bit about them.

Failed Egyptian Pick-Up Lines

One of the disadvantages of traveling alone. . .

(Although it gave me an excuse to perfect the art of ignoring people as I walked down the street.)

"So cute. Welcome to Egypt."

"Have a nice trip."

"How are you?"

"Hello. I love you, I love you."

"Welcome to Egypt."

[something indiscernible in German]

"Why no smile?"

"Hello."

"Where are you from?"

"So beautiful. . ."

"From Russia? От Russia?"

"Hello."

"Welcome to Egypt."

"Señora. . ."

"Beautiful."

"Why no smile?"

"Welcome to Egypt."

"Hello." (I started to wonder if they´d ever considered how unoriginal this one was.)

"Hello? Where smile?"

[As I walked back past a shop at which I had stopped previously to look at knives.] "You want knife to kill your husband?"

"Welcome to Egypt. Welcome to Aswan."

"Hello. What is your name?"

"Why so serious?"

"Cabello. . ."

"Hello. Hello? Hello. . . [And when I didn´t respond.] What language?"

"Welcome to Egypt."

"I am here. I am alone. And I am still alive."