week from hell = weekend of greatness (Saturday)
Knowing how attention spans are shit nowadays, I decided to split this into two parts: Saturday and Sunday. So here we go!
I taught two classes (the little kids - 5-8 probably - and the kids - 9-12) at the temple, which went pretty damn well! I'm finally getting a hang of this teaching thing. The way they teach kids here is completely different than in the US, and it takes some getting used to. I'm very glad I'm getting this opportunity to teach here before deciding if I want to come back after I graduate. Then Jen eventually showed up after the class was over and we had a wonderful chat with Sunim. We were discussing suffering, and how, if there was no suffering, there wouldn't ever really be happiness either (kind of the yin and yang concept), and also how we influence the moods of those around us and vice versa. If we're sad, those around us will become sad; if we're angry, they will be angry; if we're happy, they will be happy, etc. And so, we should always try to be happy, and think positively, as it will allow others to do the same. Very good words of advice, I think :)
After leaving the temple, we joined up with a few other friends (Amy, Liz and Allison)in Insa-dong at a Buddhist restaurant for some wonderful traditional Korean dance and drumming. Then it was out into Insa-dong to wander, and wander we did! After such a hot and humid day, it was a spectacular night; just nicely warm, with a decent breeze, though the humidity was still up there. First, me and Jen stopped at Baskin Robbin's, since we hadn't really eaten anything. They had the chai ice cream again! That stuff really is heavenly :) Then we set out to find some fun!
Our little adventure started at Cheonggyecheon Stream. The stream has an interesting history behind it, which, to conserve length, I shall let you discover through linkage ;) http://english.seoul.go.kr/cheonggye/ It's an incredibly beautiful area, with things constantly going on. We ended up stumbling across three Korean guys jammin' on some drums. They had a sign up saying "drum circle", so we asked if we could join in and the brought out some drums for us! We ended up sitting around with them for about 45 minutes. Everytime we'd finish something, they'd say "one more!"; it was very energizing! And my finger has almost healed! lol They were a great group of guys, and we had a blast!
And then onward! we decided, to Hyehwa, to discover that elusive Flamenco Club, or to at least listen to some good jazz. The only thing we discovered about the Flamenco Club was that it was only open from 1-9. So the jazz club it was! It was a pretty sweet place: good music, good company, not so good wine, but you can't have everything! Realizing that we hadn't eaten much more than icecream - and the club wasn't letting us order our nachos! - me and Jen hopped over to grab a little Micky D's so we wouldn't be drinking on empty stomachs. When we got back to our not-so-cold beverages, Amy decided that she wanted to play some games. After several failed attempts at soccer and rugby/football with bottle caps and 100 won, we switched over to some golf - which I must remember for school! You draw out a golf course on a piece of paper and each person takes a shot (draws a line). You take a shot by starting at one hole, closing your eyes, and trying to draw a line as close as possible to the next hole. It's brilliant! Before we realized, the band had stopped playing (they turned on some Louis Armstrong) and most of the place was empty. So we paid up and searched for the next place to go - either some more music, or a quiet place so we could sit around and talk.
We walked down the street and found a piano bar… minus the pianos. They had some seating outside and it was a lovely night, so we figured what the hell! And thus started our 2+ hour intellectual conversation over fresh kiwi juice and tea (well, beer for Jen and Liz). We talked about a lot of the things we’d been discussing at the temple earlier: that you can’t experience real happiness if you didn’t have bad things in your life, and that generally, there are more good things than bad that happy each day, but we tend to dwell on the negative rather than the positive, etc. So me and Jen started telling them about what Sunim had been telling us, and now they all want to go meet her :) From there, we moved on to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and relationships. The main point of the discussion was, with a relationship, can you start with the physical (as Maslow says you should with other aspects of your life), or do you have to start with the top and work your way down to the physical? I think we were pretty evenly split on this. Then Jen - remembering Sunim's words from a couple weeks ago about how everyone should think of themselves as movie stars, living out their own movie - noted that we were very much like a better L Word. Since I've only seen about 3 episodes of it, I took their word for it. Apparently I'm Tina... *shrugs* At around 3, we noticed that Allison looked like she was about to fall out of her chair in exhaustion, so we decided to head back to her and Amy's apartment building to figure out what to do next (meaning, where were we going to actually sleep, at some point). After about an hour of chilling on the roof and playing with Amy’s unbelievably small puppy, we came to the decision of going to Liz’s apartment in Hannam. So by 5 AM, I was completely on the opposite side of Seoul from my apartment, and totally loving it!
Side note... Said by Amy on the subway ride between Insa-dong and Hyehwa, this is what a conversation between me and my roommate this fall might be like:
me: banging on a drum and chanting
roomie: "Would you please stop, it's late and I have to wake up early for Sunday school."
me: "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize. I was praying to Buddha."
roomie: "You're going to hell!"
me: "Yes, but I'm coming back."
I taught two classes (the little kids - 5-8 probably - and the kids - 9-12) at the temple, which went pretty damn well! I'm finally getting a hang of this teaching thing. The way they teach kids here is completely different than in the US, and it takes some getting used to. I'm very glad I'm getting this opportunity to teach here before deciding if I want to come back after I graduate. Then Jen eventually showed up after the class was over and we had a wonderful chat with Sunim. We were discussing suffering, and how, if there was no suffering, there wouldn't ever really be happiness either (kind of the yin and yang concept), and also how we influence the moods of those around us and vice versa. If we're sad, those around us will become sad; if we're angry, they will be angry; if we're happy, they will be happy, etc. And so, we should always try to be happy, and think positively, as it will allow others to do the same. Very good words of advice, I think :)
After leaving the temple, we joined up with a few other friends (Amy, Liz and Allison)in Insa-dong at a Buddhist restaurant for some wonderful traditional Korean dance and drumming. Then it was out into Insa-dong to wander, and wander we did! After such a hot and humid day, it was a spectacular night; just nicely warm, with a decent breeze, though the humidity was still up there. First, me and Jen stopped at Baskin Robbin's, since we hadn't really eaten anything. They had the chai ice cream again! That stuff really is heavenly :) Then we set out to find some fun!
Our little adventure started at Cheonggyecheon Stream. The stream has an interesting history behind it, which, to conserve length, I shall let you discover through linkage ;) http://english.seoul.go.kr/cheonggye/ It's an incredibly beautiful area, with things constantly going on. We ended up stumbling across three Korean guys jammin' on some drums. They had a sign up saying "drum circle", so we asked if we could join in and the brought out some drums for us! We ended up sitting around with them for about 45 minutes. Everytime we'd finish something, they'd say "one more!"; it was very energizing! And my finger has almost healed! lol They were a great group of guys, and we had a blast!
And then onward! we decided, to Hyehwa, to discover that elusive Flamenco Club, or to at least listen to some good jazz. The only thing we discovered about the Flamenco Club was that it was only open from 1-9. So the jazz club it was! It was a pretty sweet place: good music, good company, not so good wine, but you can't have everything! Realizing that we hadn't eaten much more than icecream - and the club wasn't letting us order our nachos! - me and Jen hopped over to grab a little Micky D's so we wouldn't be drinking on empty stomachs. When we got back to our not-so-cold beverages, Amy decided that she wanted to play some games. After several failed attempts at soccer and rugby/football with bottle caps and 100 won, we switched over to some golf - which I must remember for school! You draw out a golf course on a piece of paper and each person takes a shot (draws a line). You take a shot by starting at one hole, closing your eyes, and trying to draw a line as close as possible to the next hole. It's brilliant! Before we realized, the band had stopped playing (they turned on some Louis Armstrong) and most of the place was empty. So we paid up and searched for the next place to go - either some more music, or a quiet place so we could sit around and talk.
We walked down the street and found a piano bar… minus the pianos. They had some seating outside and it was a lovely night, so we figured what the hell! And thus started our 2+ hour intellectual conversation over fresh kiwi juice and tea (well, beer for Jen and Liz). We talked about a lot of the things we’d been discussing at the temple earlier: that you can’t experience real happiness if you didn’t have bad things in your life, and that generally, there are more good things than bad that happy each day, but we tend to dwell on the negative rather than the positive, etc. So me and Jen started telling them about what Sunim had been telling us, and now they all want to go meet her :) From there, we moved on to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs and relationships. The main point of the discussion was, with a relationship, can you start with the physical (as Maslow says you should with other aspects of your life), or do you have to start with the top and work your way down to the physical? I think we were pretty evenly split on this. Then Jen - remembering Sunim's words from a couple weeks ago about how everyone should think of themselves as movie stars, living out their own movie - noted that we were very much like a better L Word. Since I've only seen about 3 episodes of it, I took their word for it. Apparently I'm Tina... *shrugs* At around 3, we noticed that Allison looked like she was about to fall out of her chair in exhaustion, so we decided to head back to her and Amy's apartment building to figure out what to do next (meaning, where were we going to actually sleep, at some point). After about an hour of chilling on the roof and playing with Amy’s unbelievably small puppy, we came to the decision of going to Liz’s apartment in Hannam. So by 5 AM, I was completely on the opposite side of Seoul from my apartment, and totally loving it!
Side note... Said by Amy on the subway ride between Insa-dong and Hyehwa, this is what a conversation between me and my roommate this fall might be like:
me: banging on a drum and chanting
roomie: "Would you please stop, it's late and I have to wake up early for Sunday school."
me: "Oh, sorry, I didn't realize. I was praying to Buddha."
roomie: "You're going to hell!"
me: "Yes, but I'm coming back."