Day 16-20: Re-union

Saturday was a day to catch up with the in-laws. For lunch, I had a nice Japanese buffet at some hotel, and then a Korean BBQ place in the evening. It was good to see my sister-in-law, her husband and 2 little girls, along with my father-in-law and mother-in-law. Living so far apart, we don't get to see each other very often, so it's very special when we do catch up. :)

The following day was Sunday, and I'd arranged to go worship together with a group of old Saesoon high-schoolers who were now in Korea for various reasons. We were to meet up at Kangnam around 10:30am for the 11am English service at Sarang Church.

The "we" included Graham Bae, Injung Park, Bora Nam, and Eunji Kim. Jae-Ho Kong was to join up with us in the afternoon. I was really excited to see these guys, some of whom I haven't seen in years! I was so excited, I got there an hour early! :P

So I went to a cafe and sat down and waited...hehe




First to arrive was Eunji! As we were saying how good it was to see each other, Graham and Injung walked up. Bora had called Graham the night before to say she unfortunately couldn't make it. We still had a bit of time before the service started, so we went to a cafe nearby (The Coffee Bean) and yacked away.




I still remember vividly the emphatic "I so want to get out of this country!" from Eunji! And Graham's vigorous nods in agreement could not be missed either! :P

I guess Eunji couldn't wait to get out because she wanted to get married ASAP! As for Graham...well, if you've read his xanga in the recent months, you'd know why he wanted to leave! hehe




The English service was interesting. I was surprised that they'd have several services each Sunday, each one being filled out with worshippers. While there were a quite a few overseas people, I think most were Koreans who were attending with a view to improving their English.

After the service, I was surprised when a girl came up to me and asked, "Are you Steve Oh from JAMA in Australia?"

JAMA Jr in 2005 had a group of New Zealanders attending, and she was a part of that group. She was in Korea studying for a year. It was good to meet someone randomly like that, and we had a bit of a chat. :)

As I was saying bye to Grace (the Kiwi girl), Mr Ball (my nickname for Jae-Ho...his surname is Kong...) walked up to us. He had the afternoon off, and wanted to hang out with us, which I was very happy about. I'd seen him for a bit this past April when he was in Australia, but I didn't really get to talk with him, so this would be a good chance to catch up. :)

So we went off to this Korean-Chinese Fusion place for lunch and had this yummy chicken for lunch. Whiel we were having lunch, Injung got a call from Jung-Hwa Kim, and she came over to join up with us. I hadn't seen this girl in years either, and she'd changed a heap in that time! While I hadn't seen Injung in about 5 years, I would still be able to recognise her if I passed her on the street. She looked pretty much the same, her face hadn't changed that much. But Jung-Hwa! No way would I have been able to recognise her!




After lunch we headed over to Starbucks for coffee and to just hang out. BTW, there are so many Starbucks in Seoul...it seems as though there's at least one every block!




Jung-Hwa couldn't stay with us for long, and she had to go after coffee. But the rest of us still wanted to hang out, so we hopped on the subway and made our way to Coex Centre. Why there? Well, Mr Ball wanted to buy some jacket, and since none of us had anywhere specific we wanted to go, we decided to tag along! :)




Jae couldn't find anything he wanted. But in the meantime, some of us were feeling a bit hungry. Only about 3 hours had passed since lunch, and the lunch was a pretty filling one. But all this chattering and excitement at seeing each other must've aided the digestion... :P




So we went to some random pizza place and ordered some pizzas, pasta and salad. To be honest, the food wasn't that great. In general, I don't like Korean pizzas because the cheese tastes "uncheesy". And the pizza here was no different. But hey, we weren't here to eat, and the company more than made up for the less than scintillating food. :)




After the pizza, it was time to get Graham back to Seoul Station so he could catch his train back down to Daegu (I think that's where he's staying...).

But when we got there, we still had 90 minutes before his train was due to depart. So we decided to have a walk around. Jae said he'd give us a tour, and then proceeded to lead us on a walk...a long walk.




On that walk, we passed by Nam-dae-mun and through to the markets. Suddenly, Jae said he was hungry, and asked if anyone else was. And surprisingly, some us, including me, were. So he said he'd take us to this lady who sold the best dduk-bok-ki. Apparently, she was always at the same spot. But when we got there, there was no lady and no dduk-bok-ki.

So we backtracked, looking for a place to eat. We stumbled on a random place and were looking at the menu posted on the outside. We were a bit hesitant to go in, because there was absolutely no one in there. As we were umm-ing and ahh-ing, the lady running the place came out and asked us to come in. She had the best and yummiest food, she insisted.

Well, time was running out, so we just decided to try it out. And boy! Was it good! :)

We had a veritable feast!




Afterwards, we trekked back to the station to bid farewell to Graham. It was sad to see him leave...as one day was far too short.

At that point we headed back to the subway system and also said our farewells and slowly and reluctantly went our separate ways.

The rest of my stay in Korea involved meeting up with various other people who were now living in Korea. Unfortunately, I didn't take my camera around with me, and so could not get shots with them.

On Monday, I caught up with Tim Byun (formerly youth pastor at KCPC) and had a nice chat with him in the morning. He's probably in America by now, starting at his new job. After that, I had a long lunch with Jae-Ho Kong, talking in depth about life in general. He will be back in Sydney late December for a holiday, so looking forward to that. :)

And most random of all, on Tuesday, when I was out buying gifts for people back home, I bumped into an old school friend! Yes! That's right! High school friend! He'd been in Korea for some 18 months, working for a company. We didn't have that much time together, as he was off to a meeting and I had to go back and pack for the flight home that evening. But we had a quick coffee together. :)

I then got back to my sister-in-law's place to finish packing, and headed off to the airport. I'd again booked a seat with power access for my computer. But when I got on the plane, I was told it was an older plane that didn't have the satellite equipment installed to access the in-air internet. And to top it all off, I got seated right in the middle of a group of old (and I mean OLD) Korean tourists heading over to Australia.

Since I couldn't change my seating, I decided to do what I could and helped out with the elderly couple sitting next to me. They'd never been on a plane before, so needed help from the seat belt to working the audio and to recling the seat. But I wasn't too fussed.

The flight was pretty stock standard, with nothing untoward. And so I arrived home...glad to be back and overjoyed to see my wife! :)