Vacation

1. Give me your tots.
2. Korean fast food.
3. Korean national palace: roof.
4. Korean national palace: tourists.
5. Past meets present.



My house gets cozier every day. I am currently sprawled on my couch, now covered with a faded lavender blanket (making it feel as if it's been here all along, not out on the street, collecting rainwater). There's a fan hanging beside the bathroom door, and my new clothes, evidence of the disastrous shopping trip to Myeong-dong, stretch over the armchair.

I say disastrous in reference to finances. Myeong-dong is the SoHo/Paris/Milan of Korea. Michelle and I climbed the grey steps of the subway yesterday into a buzz of sunlight, blasting techno music, and streets lined with vendors, their sides stacked tall with stores. "Bizarre" was a dusty, rarely-used word in my vocabulary until recently. It peppered every sentence that came out of my mouth in Myeong-dong. Just as soon as I had finished looking at the rows and rows of leather boots and high-heels, a vendor smiled and explained to me that the trendy outfits hanging up were already put together, and you could buy them in a set. I walked by a young guy pulling a black sheet off of a case of fake Chanel earrings. I stopped, eyes-widened at the glittering replicas of such a weighty statement, and kept going. Not only was there a dizzying array of hats, belts, socks, dresses, shirts, fake fur, and knock-off bags, there was food. An old woman carefully melted sugar over a gas burner, making digi (one of my new favorites- it tastes like honeycomb mixed with caramel). Middle-aged men dramatically threw chicken pieces into burning vats of oil, skillfully scooping them out at just the right moment. I saw tater tots and had to buy them. They were the best tater tots I've ever had. I ate them out of a coffee cup.

Dried octopi lay like stiff little soldiers, in various sizes and colors, their flattened tentacles protruding out like a 5 year old's drawing. I gawked at a stack of dark red tentacles, longer than my forearm. How do you gracefully eat something like that?

It all went downhill when Michelle and I innocently walked up the steps towards Forever 21. Myeong-dong is not just an open air market. It has everything from Adidas to European Cosmetics to Ralph Lauren. Its buildings are European and middle-eastern at the same time, bending around corners, their sharp lines cutting the sky like cookie dough. A huge fountain caught the setting sun and splashed gold in the air. Forever 21 was a far cry from the American rendition of hastily shelved, too-much-stuff-for-one-store version of trendy, cheap clothes. It was four stories high, although it could have been more; Michelle and I only made it up to the third. A smiling Korean guy with a green button-up shirt and dyed, wavy-permed hair took my clothes for me and shooed away women to bring me to my dressing room.

Myeong-dong is dangerous. Next time I go I'm leaving my cards at home!

As if new clothes weren't enough, we dropped our bags off at home and let the Koreans have a run with our hair. Erin had hers straightened (a sensible, no-fail choice), and I opted for digital perm. It's not quite as anime as it sounds. In theory, it's just big ringlets. I now have nice Asian schwoopy bangs, and my hair is glossier and wavy. I'm not sure how I feel about it and I've been neurotically twisting it every few hours, entertaining flashbacks of my freshman year college perm. I came to college like a girl from Bedford should have: in jean shorts, a spaghetti strap shirt, and poodle hair. This isn't quite as terrifying, and I didn't get it done in someone's basement this time. I paid a little over the price of a haircut in the United States.

Today I went with a group of well-meaning foreigners to a beach about an hour away. We found a muddy inlet instead. Oh well, you can't win every day! I fell asleep on Meagan's towel, dried leaves from the tree above getting stuck in my newly digital-permed hair, and found time to tuck a few rocks in my purse. We keep talking about them in science, and it's time for my kids to have a rock of their own.

Lately God has been doing a good job of wrenching my heart open little by little and showing me that I am way too religious for my own good. I spend a lot of time trying to please Him, but even more mental energy feeling like I can't. Although it's still really blurry I'm starting to see that He's tired of me working to please Him and He would rather me just fall in love with Him instead. It's really easy for me to run my mouth about being in love with God and Jesus but really I'm just saying what I want and not so much what I have.

I'm chewing on mixed nuts, contemplating how to put this. Hmm, that one was a little burnt.

1 Thessalonians 4:11-12- "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody." I think like everyone I long for the profound. I want things to be deep, I don't want waste in my life, and I want to see clearly what matters and what doesn't.

I have a great list of answers for all of my and everyone else's questions, but I'm starting to realize that most of those answers are shallow and life isn't about answers anyways. Sometimes I feel like I'm gasping for air because I don't have any formulas to follow here. I try to make them. They fall apart. I am walking up the steps in between two places, I know where I left, but I have no idea where I'm going. I just feel God saying CALM DOWN.

I read in a book that real wisdom doesn't spell out all the solutions to our problems, it tells us what to do in the moment.

Thank you for all of your prayers!! God is answering them: I have a great apartment, I work with believers, I haven't been sick yet, I'm getting enough food, I'm not lonely...

Keep praying that God would break my heart for Koreans and give me real relationships with them. What I really want is to get into their heads and their hearts and see Korea through their eyes. Pray too that I would be obedient to God regardless of what's going on around me.

Tomorrow is Chusok, one of the biggest holidays of the year. I think I'm going to a Korean friend's apartment to cook dinner. I'm already really impressed with her because she can break apples in half with her bare hands. She said it's because she grew up in the countryside.

I'll let this apartment conclude my entry too. As cozy and safe as I feel, something is missing. Oh yeah- everyone I love! I wish I could stuff all of you in here right now. There's plenty of room. A couch, four chairs, a bed, and seven steps to sit on.