Frozen Fog and Lost in Korea....

Well I just arrived in Beijing. It was frigid! I think I slept 2 hours on the plane and they tried to feed us a meal at 2 this morning. Ahhh! I know that they want to break the flight up, but come on, who needs food at that time in the morning, let alone a whole dinner. I picked at my roll and my fruit and drifted off into sleep. I woke up to the loudspeaker informing us we were about to land. My neck had a serious crick in it. I was struggling to wake my mind up. Everything was fuzzy and I must have missed the whole part of the flight where you fill out those crazy forms for immigration purposes. I got off the plane to the shock of the 30 degrees. This was the first time I have worn a sweatshirt since I left Colorado. It definitely wasn’t enough. I was shaking, thinking all about Colorado and the recent blizzards and snowstorms they have been having. I might have said something about how I wasn’t sure I could go back! Seriously, after living in 90 degrees everyday, you start to feel cool even if the breeze blows your way. It is a bit ridiculous I know, but oh dear, I don’t know if I am looking forward to the chill of Colorado.

I should fill you in, I guess now that I think about it, not many of you know that I am traveling to South Korea today to visit a friend from Colorado. She is teaching English in Seoul and I was totally blown away that the opportunity to visit her presented itself. My visa for Thailand expires next week, so I had to leave the country no matter what, but I just happened to find a ticket that I could swing. It will be a treat for the both of us. To talk to a first language English speaker and someone that knows me. Let’s just say, I am beyond excited.

So after getting off the plane, I realized the airport was going to be a similar temperature. I am wearing sweat capris and the airline attendant point out to me that I was going to freeze. Too funny. I thought I would be fine, yeah, maybe not so much. Now, I am just typing in the cold. Brr…. So, I went through a series of customs, the usual. You all know probably a bit about airports, so I will spare you those details. Then, I notice that I have no gate number. No problem, this has happened before. So, I walk up to the desk and ask what my gate number is and the man proceeds to flip my ticket upside down and point to a series of letters and say “yeah, here.” huh? What?, those are all letter things, and all gates are a combination a letter and numbers(in the terminal I am in they all start with E). All I see is an I, backwards C, and upside down T. Oh right, yeah, makes complete sense. What language is that by the way. I was starting to wonder if they had a new way of writing Chinese characters. Okay, I said to the man. I felt beyond confused. I think he could tell, so he just pointed. Yeah, sure, pointing helps a lot there are only 60 gates, one of those has to be mine.

I decided at that point to find the screens that tell you departure times and arrivals. I at least had a flight number and a time it was leaving. I finally found one after wandering aimlessly for 15min. Yeah, so the direction he so politely pointed me in, not correct in any way. I was on the opposite side of the terminal. So, obviously the boarding pass turned upside down was an attempt that was no better than my own knowledge of where my gate was. I think I might have rolled my eyes a couple times, then proceeded to my gate.

This week was busy. I know, I know, I say that a lot, but it is crazy how busy you can stay all the time. I went to Loy Krathong on Monday. There were thousands of people worshipping the river. It was neat to see and a bit, well, it made you wonder who created this idea of a river god. They were bowing down at the edge of the river, offering it money and beautiful Krathongs, the little boat things with flowers and leaves woven into a small masterpiece. I will post pictures on facebook soon. Man, to see thousands of people though, thinking that this river would destroy them all if they didn’t offer up their money and Krathongs. I guess I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what kind of person could concoct such an idea. I mean that would take a lot of time, and what kind of power would you need to make everyone believe it. Weird, to say the least. They also offered different kinds of river animals to give back to the river. Turtles, eels, various fish, snakes, whatever they spent their whole week before fishing out, just to return. Now, I have to say what got me the most is, in the area I was in, there were men in the river taking the money off the Krathongs that people had just put in. They would literally shred these masterpieces searching for the money. Now, don’t get me wrong, they were probably making some serious money doing this, but it made me wonder, so if these people think this river god exists, then how does this make the river god feel. They are stealing the money that was an offering to him. I mean imagine, your sitting in church and the offering is being taken, and the guy next to you takes your offering out instead of putting it in. He isn’t even secretive about it. He practically is screaming and tearing the offering basket to pieces. What would you think? Just made me think a bit. Apparently these gods they so easily give their souls to seem to mean less to them than you would think.

Well, enough of that thought, the bars were good this week. As good as brothels go. I met a girl whose mother was the mama san. It caught me off guard. She introduced me too willingly. I had to hide the shock on my face. I mean, your own mother is the one who encouraged you to this life. Wow! I had some really good conversations though. Girls commented on the jewelry I was wearing and we were able to talk with them a bit about Rahab. They gave us their numbers and we, ours and we hope and pray that they will feel like there is hope for them. There were 3 girls, all had been there less than 6 months. One even had a 6 month old and was telling us she was only working there to provide for her family. Gosh, it is really heart breaking. You can feel the desperation. Hopefully a seed was planted, we will go back and visit again and see how they are doing.

I don’t know if I have mentioned before or not, but we have 6 new girls at Rahab that have joined us in the past 3 months. Other than the one I mentioned last time, they are doing really well. One of the new girls has found her niche in teaching the other girls how to crochet. She makes some incredible scarves and bags. She has been teaching the other girls how to do it and they are all doing really well! It is so neat to see them do really well at something and then thrive because of it. It builds their confidence in amazing ways.

Well, I just got lost in Korea for 3 hours. I am amazing I tell you. My friend Jackie even gave me great directions. I was within a block of her place the whole time…oh man! I am beat though, going to go catch her at the school she works at and enjoy a night on the town, so I have to end this for the day. I will catch you up on more soon. Hope you all have a good week!

Laura