ski trip

Today's the last day of the three day lunar new year vacation, the biggest holiday in Korea. A group of us went to a ski resort where one of our friend's family has a condo. We spent two nights there. Most of us skiied two half days. I hadn't skiied for about eight years, so it was a bit of a challenge, but I enjoyed it. We thought the traffic was going to be crazy, because millions of people leave Seoul at the same time to go to their hometown, or to go on vacation, but we didn't have too much traffic either way. Yay!

The place we stayed at was great. The basement floor of the condo building had so much stuff to do - a PC bang (computer room), a bath house, a supermarket, a game room, a small amusement park, a bowling alley, a pool and ping pong room, a nore bang (karaoke room), and more! It was a lot of fun.

It's interesting how cultures come together sometimes. A few of us have been on road trips with our Korean friends before, and I think we're kind of used to doing things the Korean way. We planned to take up money for groceries and cook and eat together in the condo. One of the things I love about the Korean culture is that they are so used to sharing and doing things as a group. I guess westerners are used to being more independent and do-what-you-wanna-do people. We planned on eating Korean style food, so it turned out that some of the non-Korean members of the group (who don't hang out with Koreans as much as the people on our team do), just decided to do their own thing. Everything turned out fine, it just reminds me that being culture-sensitive and culturally aware is such an important part of our ministry!

After we got the what's for dinner and who's going where stuff worked out last night, we decided to go bowling. The plan, to make the game a little more interesting, was to have the losers (of the best two out of three) pay for everything. We tried to make the teams fair, so I volunteered that I was probably the worst of the group. I was on a team with Jason and Joe, and Jim Bob, Adrielle, and Angie were on the other team. It turned out that I had the best night of bowling of my life and scored over a 100 on the first game and then 152 on the second game. I was only one point away from getting a turkey in the second game! The people who had never bowled with me before told me I must not have been telling the truth when I said I was the worst. Jim Bob and Jason vouched for me, though, and confirmed that for sure this was the best they'd ever seen me bowl. I guess a little competition (involving money) can up my performance!

Well, now I'm home in my apartment, listening to the "country valentine" station on yahoo launchcast and enjoying some pizza from the local delivery place. Home sweet home.