My Blog is Koala Tea

It's so PUNNY! 

So besides finding awesomely punny pictures on the interwebs, what has Amy been up to?! Right now we are in an intense, curriculum-writing-mode for the big camp at the end of the summer. Next week we are helping teach preschoolers. The week after that we begin traveling to different churches to help lead 3 day English camps. 

We went to an American buffet restaurant. There were license plates everywhere. This was where I told the missionaries about the truck that I drive. They didn't believe I drive a big, black truck. And out of all of the license plates covering all the walls, only ONE was a Washington plate! Shame, shame.

We went to a big grocery store, almost like a Walmart. I found this movie! (My favorite Disney princess!) It's in FIVE different languages and was pretty inexpensive. Tiffany and Krista and I totally had a Disney princess movie night in our room. There were snacks. 

On Tuesday, the Awana office had a huge meeting, so they sent the Americans to Everland for the day, which is pretty much the Disneyland of South Korea. I took a lot of pictures, but they're mostly animals.

                                               

Yes, I saw a black swan.

This. Is. A. Liger. And yes, we all quoted Napoleon Dynamite at this point.

I love birds. I want to own a parrot some day. 

This is a larakeet. On my hand. How cool is that?!

Finally, a picture with all of the interns! We were at the back of the bus for the safari ride.

From left to right: Amy (that's me!), Tiffany, Scott, Krista, Katherine

We found a lot of animal ears and headbands!

(In Korea, V stands for Victory and is the typical gesture when taking pictures)

Just smile and wave, boys; smile and wave.

It rained towards dinner time. As you can see, we weren't uber prepared. 

Left to right: Krista, Katherine, Amy & Tiffany (standing away from the weirdos in trash bags)

Yesterday (Wednesday), after a long day of brainstorming and curriculum development, the missionaries wanted to treat us to a professional Korean soccer game! 

They had 4 mascot bluewings. Only two actually had wings.

The home team won, 5-4.

From what I hear, we get t-shirts for the camps we help out with. I'm really excited to add to my t-shirt collection :)

So these are the touristy things I have been up to. We ARE hard at work in the office! Today we pretty much came up with the entire camp curriculum. Now it's down to filing down details and writing up a leader manual for the American high schoolers who will be flying in for a couple weeks to help teach. We could use prayer for "EVERYTHING!"-Scott, "flying monkeys- as in protection from"-Scott, "flying monkeys, ownership of"-Katherine. But seriously, for focus, patience, wisdom in designing the lesson plans and execution thereof. 

When I have time away from distractions, I do plan on writing a more serious post beyond the American-tourist side of this trip. I'll make sure Scott ISN'T reading over my shoulder as I type out that one ;). 

Thank you for all of your prayers and support! This blog has gotten over 250 pageviews already (and I'm pretty sure only 200 of those are from my parents!) and I'm excited to see where the rest of this summer takes me. 

Romans 3:21-24, "But now a righteousness from God, apart from the law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus."

-The Journaling Sparrow

Awana Korea Games

Yesterday (Saturday) was the 3rd Awana Games in South Korea this summer. Next weekend we get to help with the fourth and final games. Yesterday we had around 1500 students and leaders! With families we had at least 2,000 in a giant stadium!

We had 8 game squares.

I tried taking a panorama with my fancy iphone, but my hand was pretty shaky. Then there's Krista looking like her usual fabulous self :)

I don't remember what game this was, but it looks pretty intense.

My favorite part of the day was when everyone stood up and sang the Awana theme song. Thousands of voices singing a song I grew up knowing, but this time it's being sung in Korean! I sang along in English. 

I took a few videos, but they won't upload on here, so you'll have to check my facebook for those.

At the games we led a couple of English songs at the beginning to promote the English camps. The 5 of us Americans each stood in different game circles and faced the stands. One of the songs we did I had learned maybe 5 minutes before we performed! They're keeping me on my toes :). While we danced and sang, a bunch of photographers were coming around us were taking pictures and videos of us. It was like I was a pop diva super star with the paparazzi all around. (This is what DREEEAAAMS are made of! Hey! Hey! Hey!) But I'm not Hillary Duff and I had to keep looking at my teammates to remember the motions. 

We helped bring out the medals and banners. I have never been to such a huge Awana gathering! It was a ton of fun and very well organized. The kids knew what they were supposed to do and strived to do that with excellence. The kids were smiling and laughing and having a grand time! Whenever I walked by I would hear "Hello! Hi Amy!" (Before we sang songs, Scott announced our names. Amy is a common English name for Koreans. I even made a new Korean friend named Amy!) I absolutely fell in love with the kids. Everyone I met was so sweet and friendly. I could go on and on about the amazing people. 

A lot of these kids go to the English camps put on throughout the summer. We started helping with those at the beginning of July. Hopefully I'll see a lot of them again soon! 

2 Timothy 2:15, "Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth."

-The Journaling Sparrow

Ocean Animals

In the car going from the airport to the office talking about the interesting foods we might try:
Krista: "Well... I don't like fish, but Amy likes to eat ocean animals..."
Everyone else: "Huh? I think she means seafood..."

 Action shot of my first night using chopsticks (taken by Krista). Not my best picture, but you can see how I'm not holding the chopsticks right. And there's a whole bowl of kimchi in front of me. Oh, and in Korea you almost always use metal chopsticks which are longer and (obviously) heavier than the wooden ones we use in America.

Praise the Lord, as soon as I posted the last blog post about my lack of chopstick skillz, we went out to lunch. My chopstick skills miraculously tripled. I would say that at least 80% of the time I could pick up my food with the chopsticks on the first try! I'd call that an accomplishment! Then we went to a Japanese Bistro for dinner last night where the chopsticks are longer and way more frustrating... but I am okay with that now.

All that to say, I've eaten some pretty cool new foods. My favorite so far is squid! The kimchi only numbed my tongue for a minute. Octopus tasted fine, but it was really chewy and took insanely long to swallow. I'd eat it again... but only when I have time to chew and contemplate life before I can swallow. I have yet to eat anything that I immediately feel the urge to spit out.

We just got back from lunch. While chopsticks are still a little iffy, I have mastered the art of the spoon.

*Just so ya know... I don't merely sit around my laptop updating this blog. We are called for different tasks (including English tutoring with the Korean missionaries) throughout the day, so my time to work on these posts is very sporadic. So, even though I said I just finished lunch... now I've just finished breakfast the next day. And we're about to leave to help with the Awana games, so there might be a bigger gap within the writing of this post.*

For dinner last night we went to a seemingly American-style restaurant named Mr. Pizza. I've never had pizza like we did last night. One of our pizzas was barbecue with prime rib and barbecue sauce with cheese filled crust. The other was potato pizza with sweet potato filled crust. An interesting thing about Korean pizza is that corn is a very common topping.

Potato pizza with sweet potato filled crust

Prime rib pizza with cheese filled crust

Yogurt for dessert with cocoa puffs

everything is so pretty- takeout comes wrapped in an adorable Mr. Pizza ribbon.

*Huge gap in time*

At the Awana games, everyone was giving us food! As Americans we were like celebrities! We didn't need special passes to get on the floor or into the staff rooms because people could just look at us and know we're the Americans. Here are some of our snacks:

Kimbap! This is my favorite so far. It's like sushi, but without fish. I'm pretty sure this kimbap had pork. Or spam? It's delicious!

You can find canned coffee almost anywhere. Iced coffee is way more popular than hot. And almost all of the coffee I've had so far is pre-sweetened, even the packets of instant coffee.

I have no idea what this candy is, but it's fantastic! It tastes like a nougat and peanuts. 

Scott called these "Unicorn Dreams." 

Ice cream! It tasted like cotton candy! And this kind came in a wax bottle type container. Absolutely perfect for a hot and humid day full of Sparkies and T&T students running and competing.

Don't be deceived. This tastes nothing like what you would find at the Cheesecake Factory. This is a cheese flavored bread. (Dad. Maddison. I really hope you see this! It's half cheese half cake! haha)

Last night, after the Awana games, we went to a traditional Korean meal with the Awana missionaries. In America we have chicken noodle soup. In Korea they have chicken soup. In America we have chunks or shredded bits of chicken. In Korea they have a whole chicken in the pot of soup. 

This is Krista's picture. It's a whole chicken minus the head (thankfully!) with rice for stuffing. Katherine (another American intern) tried to tell me the stuffing was maggots, but after careful examination I determined that my original diagnosis of rice was indeed correct. 

Craziest part: they expect us to use chopsticks to attack the whole chicken. Praise the Lord, I sat next to Charlie, one of the Korean Awana missionaries, who pretty much cut everything up for me. Me: "How can you take apart the chicken so easily?" Charlie: "I am Korean!" I was like the 5 year old allowed to sit at the grown up table for the first time. It was so exciting! Very funny, very humbling, very delicious.

There are so many other fun foods and snacks that we've enjoyed, but I don't think you want to read my entire dietary plan for the summer. 

John 4:34, "'My food,' said Jesus, 'is to do the will of Him who sent me and to finish His work.'"

-The Journaling Sparrow

The air smells nice

I love the rain... but I secretly don't love the smell after it rains. In Washington I think it smells stale. BUT, in Korea it smells sweet! Like a sauna. And the rain is warm. I love it! I am in love with South Korean rain.

I ate kimchi last night! It honestly tasted pretty good. I couldn't feel my mouth after awhile, but it tasted good. My chopstick skillz are severely lacking, but I successfully picked up scoops (spoonfulls? Chopstickfulls?) of noodles with my metal chopsticks! I'm praying for the Lord to give me the gift of chopstick skills. I'm still waiting on His timing.

-The Journaling Sparrow

Now is the Time for Rest

Hey there friend! I've made it to Korea! Where Starcraft has it's own TV channel, people play virtual golf, and kids stay in school until 9 or 10 at night (now you parents wish you lived in Korea, huh?). We took an 11.5 hour direct flight from Seattle to Incheon. Incheon is an island with a really long bridge connecting it to Seoul.

Here's a map of South Korea. In the top left corner you can see Incheon and Seoul. It's a seriously cool bridge and I wish I had taken pictures! I took a few pictures on the plane. They're on my facebook page. My favorite part of the plane ride were these awesome slippers that the airline gave us to wear on the flight! 

These are our feet. Krista is on my left and Tiffany is on my right.

The AWANA Korea office is in Seoul and that's where my team is staying for the first couple of weeks. After that, as far as I am aware, we will be traveling to stay at or around the churches we will be working at. Our schedule consists of multiple 3-day VEBS camps (Vacation English Bible School). We have two weeks before the first camp. Billy, one of the missionaries with an awesome game show host voice, told me that "now is the time to rest." The Lord has given us these two weeks to rest up, learn songs, go over camp schedules, and prepare for the crazy weeks to come. We wrap up the summer with a large, one-week camp. 

Culture shock hasn't quite hit me yet. I don't really notice that I'm a blonde girl in a sea of Koreans. I definitely feel at home, even though I don't understand the Korean conversations. I'll let you know when that changes. 

The room we're staying in has an amazing view! We are on the top, 36th floor!

Our balcony is more of a glass cage. I could sit on the balcony and stare at the view for hours! Don't worry mom, I haven't fallen off yet.

Scott just turned on the Starcraft 2 channel. South Korea has professional leagues with televised events. It's pretty intense. Apparently Buzz Lightyear's father was named after a race of bugs trying to invade the universe. 

On a side note- I never realized how late y'all stay up! I'm 14 hours ahead of you. I'm posting on facebook at 3 or 4 in the afternoon my time and you're liking my status  as late as 2:30 am your time! You're crazy. 

I'm still figuring out this whole blogging thing. Ask me any questions. Tell me if I'm boring. 

Time to dinner! 

Romans 1:16-17, "I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes; first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: 'The righteous will live by faith.'"

-The Journaling Sparrow