Day 2 – May 16, 2011 (Mission Tour, First Foods, and Words)

This morning we started off with a little orientation. We all sat around the kitchen table and Joon walked us through the schedule for the trip and our mission tour that day. This is when we first met Bella. She joined us at the apartment and we got to chat with her for a minute, but then we were off to our first event for the day.  Bella participated in the BSU as a long time student leader when she was in college. She now teaches English classes and brings a whole mountain worth of glory to God through her teaching.  Her classes were some of the main groups of students we actually got to have conversation with. Bella also did a lot of translating for us.

Bella

So we headed out on our "mission tour" where we got dropped off as a team at Mt. Yong Du park with a map, a list of things to get pictures with, and some helpful Korean sentences written down to show people if we asked directions. We first went into the visitors shop to look around, then cam out and got to see a large dragon statue, a  flower clock, a HUGE bell/gong, the statue of General Lee Sun-shin, lots of old people playing board games, an international instrument museum, and Busan Tower. We actually went up in the tower which was super high!!! You could see the sprawling city for miles and then when that ran out, you could see ocean out into the horizon. There is soooo much city!

Next we went into Beopmoon-sa, a Buddhist temple. It was so beautifully tragic with lotus lanterns suspended below the ceiling with prayers attached to gods who don't exist. The ceiling was so detailed and extravagant, the floor was straw mat, and in the front of the space were window scenes with different statures and idols. While in there, we saw a woman praying and worshiping... it was heartbreaking knowing she wasn't worshiping a real god, but just a wall. It was disheartening.

After that we went to PIFF Square (Pusan International Film Festival).  This area reminded me very much of the streets of New York City. There were many food vendors and the style of the area was very much like NY.  Next on our list was the Jalgachi Fish Market. It was everything I thought it would be, just like in my favorite Travel Channel tv shows! After we finished there, we met up with Joon and Bella at Busan's first Starbucks. It was about 4 or 5 levels tall! So much better than American Starbucks too.

At this point, it was diner time, so we got to experience our first traditional Korean meal! We sat floor style and had Pork Bygogie with whole garlic cloves, full jalapenos, shrimp, "Holy Spirit" Kimchi, and a bunch of other items to choose from. You take these different items and you put them in large lettuce or mint leaves kind of like a taco. Joon would always refer to something as "Holy Spirit" if it were spicy because it would set your tongue on fire like the believers in the first church when the Holy Spirit descended on them. After dinner, we went to a coffee shop called Bersheeba Coffee Shop. There we relaxed for a bit and had some great coffee related beverages! From there we popped over to the apartment to grab coats and we went to go see a light/water show!

So I learned that Rice (my last name) in Korean is pap (sounds like bap). Also, the name Bob with Korean pronunciation sounds just the same. It never failed that every Korean I told about that got a kick out of it. I would tell them about my name and then say "pap eat pap!" and it would make them laugh. Then I would tell them that my dad's name is Bob (which ironically it truly is!) and they would be floored. It was good clean fun. Another word we learned was "mah" which can mean bad, quit, just kidding, boooo, quiet!, come here now!, or just a friendly form of a nickname.  We used this quite a bit. It became Jennie's nickname too issued by Joon. Some other words are "jo ah" which means good, "Yeapudah" which means beautiful for girls and "meoshita" is handsome for guys, "gemsamhamida" is formal thank you and "kompowa" is informal thank you, "Jo em" is please, "moo" is help yourself, "mool" is water, "Je un iroem _____ imida" is my name is, and "doe" is the command to give.

We started off the evening with YouTube videos! We watched "habba babba", "would you look at that", "lick the rainbow", "fire ants song", "commercial worship song", "the guillotine arrow", "Epic Saxman", and "sexysaxmansaxagrams". We ended the evening with a Bible study led by Bill on the topic of worship, which was the theme for our discipleship time in the evenings. We ended by laying hands on Andrew who's grandfather died a few days before.

D-Rice