Practice Adventuring: Three Day Weekends are my JAM

Three day weekends are my jam.
(Missing Parks and Rec- Lou, we gotta skype while watching parks and rec so I can fill this hole in my heart.)

This weekend started out with a lecture about Korean Cinema organized by my program. After getting out of Korean Language class at 6 my friends and I grabbed snacks at the convenience store (a frequent and typical occurrence) before heading to the lecture. And it was pretty interesting! We even got to watch a short Korean film (20 min.) called "Sprout." The film centered on a little girl who gets lost on her way to the market to buy bean sprouts. Too cute.

Lecture time

After the lecture I went out with four friends for dinner and a movie.

The graffiti-covered tunnel we passed through.

We grabbed dinner at a small Korean restaurant near the theater. The women working there were so kind. In fact, the cook herself kept coming out to check on us. One of my friends is a vegetarian and the cook told us that she gave my friend extra vegetables in her bibimbap to make up for the lack of meat. Later on she came back out to our table and brought another of my friends extra rice because she had finished hers. So sweet! We'll definitely be returning to that restaurant.

We finished dinner with time to spare and took some time to walk around the Ewha/Sinchon area.

The theater, Megabox, is on the fifth floor of what appeared to me to be an abandoned mall. But the theater was pretty nice! We saw "Inside Out." To be honest, when I first saw the trailers for "Inside Out," I thought it looked kind of dumb. However, it completely exceeded my expectations and I really enjoyed it (and okay maybe I even cried). It was also nice to sit and watch something in English. It had Korean subtitles but I didn't notice them after a while. Actually, at the end of the movie when the lights came back on and people started getting up to leave I was shocked to realize I was in Korea! I had gotten caught up in the movie and had totally forgotten where I was. It hurt my heart a little bit to realize I was away from home- probably because the sentiments of the movie had softened me up. I blame Pixar for everything.

The next day, which was gloriously Friday (even though it felt like it should be a Saturday), I slept in and then my roommate, Nikki, and I grabbed lunch at one of the many cafeterias on campus. We tried the one cafeteria that's always too crowded to try on class days and discovered that it must be so crowded because it's mostly foreign food options.

The Pizza's Pasta. Um what?

Strange looking, but not bad tasting

I saw this awesome Bible verse inscribed on stone as we walked back to our dorm. Gotta love a Christian campus. <3

That evening Nikki joined me on a journey to Myeongdong and did some shopping while I went to daily mass.

A crazy giant sculpture we passed.

Another sculpture and- Look! It's the Cathedral spire!

Beautiful home-away-from-home.

St. Kim Tae-gon Andrew, the First Korean Priest Martyr

Little prayer garden area behind the cathedral with a statue of Our Lady

The history of Myeongdong Cathedral

Friday's daily mass was my first ever Korean mass. It was a little nerve-wracking to be the only foreigner in sight! But the mass was beautiful. I was able to follow along using the "Order of the Mass" part of my Word Among Us and understood almost everything that went on. It was really my first taste of what I'd previously read about Korean Catholicism. I'd heard about and read that Catholicism was growing fast in Korea and that, for the most part, Korean Catholics were very dedicated to the faith that they embraced. Apparently "Cafeteria Catholics" (who choose which parts of the faith they want to accept and live out) aren't as common. I was definitely impressed that the cathedral was pretty packed considering it was a weekday mass- and there are three a day! I followed along in the hymnal during the hymns and tried to recognize the hangul. By the end of the last song I was able to sing the refrain which was really cool.

Going to mass in Korean was such an interesting and humbling experience. I felt like a little child, not understanding the homily at all, having to use a book to follow along, and following the lyrics in the hymnal with my finger. But isn't that what we all are? Little children in front of our Father? And yet, even as we lack maturity and understanding we're given the gift of the Eucharist which unites us all. So much love.

After mass Nikki met me outside of the Cathedral and we walked around Myeongdong for a bit before stopping for dinner. The restaurant we chose had the cutest menu with little illustrations of each dish. Kimbap/Gimbap was their specialty. Kimbap is essentially the Korean sandwich. It's made with steamed white rice and other ingredients all rolled up in dried seaweed and cut into slices the slightly resemble rolled sushi. It's sold at restaurants and even convenience stores and often eaten for lunch and taken on picnics. It typically has rice, egg, pickled radish, spam, imitation crab, and carrots in it.

Good prices too!

There was a kitchen in the back and a kimbap-making-station-area-thingy at the front of the shop.

I got beef kimbap. The kimchi is self-serve, which is typical at lots of restaurants.

Then we got the best part of any meal- dessert! Nikki hadn't been to Seolbing yet (the best bingsu place) so obviously we had to go there. We got "Blueberry Cheese" bingsu, which had LOTS of blueberries, some fresh, some in syrup, vanilla ice cream, cheesecake bites, and what seemed to be lemon flavored sugar, all atop deliciously refreshing shaved milk ice. Oh, with sweet and condensed milk to pour over it on the side.