Sunday, October 15, 2017

Suwon


This was the view outside Burger King Saturday!  It is one of the gates to the fortress in Suwon.


We have a nice new group of missionaries this week.  Elder A is giving a little training on their finances.



One of our favorite Korean elders came by to say hello!


 The office elders were playing a game of soccer / volleyball.  No hands!


The chicken restaurant was running low on daikon I guess!  They go through tons of it!



The trash really piled up this week due to the holidays!


On Saturday we took a little trip to Suwon.  These martial arts guys posed with some kids after their performance.



It was a pretty fun performance.


Afterwards, these kids needed to ask some questions in English for their school project.  They said we saved their project!

Suwon is the location of the Hwaseong Fortress which was a military training place built in the 1700s.  We thought it was going to be all a museum or historical place, but they have built a city within the walls.


On the way to the wall, we got distracted in the market.  They're selling off their summer clothes.  This man had to go find the "Big Size" for us.


There are four of these gates in the wall.






We saw several families taking the walk.  Some of the kids wanted to say "Hello!"


There were nice parks all along the wall.  This place has some exercise equipment in case the hiking isn't enough for you.


There is a tethered balloon ride.


The river comes through at this gate.


Inside the roof.




There are several places for cross bows and other defenses.  This one is at one of the gates.



This large area is for martial arts training.


This is inside the wall.  It had a nice walking path.  We didn't make it all the way around because we wanted to get back for the next show.

Look at that beautiful sky!  We didn't think about getting sunburned in October, but...it happens!


This guy was a fun acrobat to watch.  There was another show going on nearby that was different people singing. (Korean Idol?)  He had to compete with their music!


He walked across several times.  Jumping on one foot, running, dropping down and up.  Lots of fun.



This other festival was going on too.  Interesting food booths!  So, we ate at Burger King.

Some cute little ladies moved so we could sit together on the bus back to the subway.

When we got back to Seoul, we got on the bus back to our apartment and apparently some kind of protest was happening.  It took about an hour to go two miles!  Most had Korean and American flags going down the middle of the road.  We could have walked it faster.

I met a new sister at church today.  She has recently moved to Seoul to work at the US Embassy.  One of her previous assignments was in Kazakhstan!  She moved to Astana after we had left.  We've heard through the grapevine that President Russell M Nelson was going to be in Astana today.  Can't wait to hear about that!

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Life in the Big City


Who are the people in your neighborhood?  There was a house or a building anyway in this tiny little spot.  The building has been torn down and one day we see this little tractor shovel working on this site.


An older man and his wife collect boxes in this little site for recycling.



The new construction next door looks like the old style Korean building system.  It all interlocks like a big puzzle.


One day we were getting off the bus, but there was a group marching past the bus stop.  So, the driver just stopped in the middle of the street, opened the doors and let us out to fend for ourselves!


The curb is done, but all work has stopped for the Chuseok (Thanksgiving) Holidays.  The banks, post offices, lots of places just shut down for over a week.  So there should be some catching up to do.

Speaking of the holiday, the shopping has been crazy crowded.  We were getting some things at Costco for our conferences.  Everybody else had the same idea.


Get in a line to get into another line.  Wow!


Plus we had a flat tire!  Luckily the gas station was open.




Chuseok Conferences

This week has been a big holiday for Koreans.  Chuseok is a mid-autumn festival on the day of the full moon.  Like our Thanksgiving.  Families all gather together to celebrate.  Lots of people are out of town.  Our cute little neighbor brought some treats up for us.  Since it is hard for missionaries to have teaching appointments during the holidays, the Sonksens planned mission conferences on two different days.  We held it at the new chapel so everyone got to see how beautiful it is and what the future of the church is going to be here.


After the elders found out about the Hanbok shop, everybody wanted to get one too!



These two decided to come as farm workers.  Or prisoners?





Rolling a hoop relay race



Lots of fun learning traditional Korean games, jumping rope,




Tug of War,



Scripture Puzzles


Eating, and we celebrated Sister Anderson's birthday!


Sister Sonksen twirled her baton while we sang "The Big Brass Band"!

It was wonderful!