Christmas Events

Well, I suppose I should apologize for the month long delay. No excuse really. Life just took over.
You know when you feel like you are just hanging on to the edge of a roller coaster and can not pull yourself into a chair, but can only hang on and hope you can hold on until the ride is over?
That is what my life has felt like for the last month, and I am sure many of you have had the same feeling, or are there right now.

I will start with Christmas.
I spent the day at my Church singing English carols before and after the two main services (10am and 12pm.). I feel the need to take a break here and explain that most Korean churches are quite huge and hold many services in a day so people can attend. I then attended the English service and we had a small Christmas party. A handful of us then went skating at Olympic Park. Now, these outside rinks are about half the size as the ones we have in Canada, and they are generally filled with people. The skates are plastic and look like roller blades with actual blades on the bottom. On the plus side, it costs $1 to rent skates and go skating! Now, my legs, being longer then most, and growing up skating, I could not skate as slow as most of these people, so I practiced my whizzing side to side moves. Impressing most people, and knowing that when I go home, I will be on the lower level of most skaters, I enjoyed it!
I would post pictures, but well, I lost my other camera. It was stolen after I left it, as well as my Bible, in the church sanctuary. Too bad! No, I am not buying another one, as I obviously don't care enough, and will loose it.
I'm not sure what is happening to me. I am loosing so many things and I am staying far away from any commitments at all. I am having a hard time making commitments, and I want to say that it is because of my commitment to work. Whether that is because I never know when I will need to work overtime again, or if it is because I see what this commitment asked of me, and can't give that again, so don't want to make anymore commitments. Either way, I hate not being able to make commitments, and I hate making commitments. This goes from activities at church, to hanging out with friends. I am amazed at the community that God has given me here and the way that He is forever telling me to look back to Him. (haha. Just spell checked this paragraph and realized that I wrote commitments 6 times!)

Some things that I have done over the last month include going to a resort at Sol Beach, going to a jin-jee-bong (spelling is awful), attending another Korean wedding and learning more Korean.

Sol Beach: I went with some friends from church. This is an upscale place on the Eastern Sea that rents rooms for $600 a night if you are not a member. We went with a member and there were 12 of us in one suit so it was really cheap. They had hot springs outside. This means warm pools and hot tubs. Inside was a massage pool with different areas were the water shot differently and you stood, sat or lay and get a water massage. Three of us made use of these. IT was amazing. It was probably about 2 degrees outside so cold, and we saw the sun go down (well, as much as you can see on the Eastern Sea) and enjoyed some relaxing messages. The rules are in Korea that you must wear a swim cap, so that lent some fun pictures, unfortunately on my camera, which I promptly lost the next day.

Jin-Jee Bong: This is like a bath/sauna house. Sounds crazy, and it is, not all of it. I also went here with some church friends. What it is, is a place where you can shower and have a public bath, of which we did not partake, as well as a common area for men and women. They give you cotton clothes to wear, and you can sit in an area and sleep, read, watch TV or hang out. They have a restaurant and massage chairs, as well as a movie theater and manicure/pedicure places.
Then they have the spa area. There are salt rooms, and hot rooms and cold rooms. we went in the hot room, 69degrees, and I lasted the longest (I had to prove I was Korean:) and the cold room is about 6degrees.
There is also a room where males can sleep over night and females have a separate room, so really good if you come into the city and need as cheap place to sleep ($10). There is also a room where there is a shallow pool and they have these fish that will suck the dead skin off your feet. I tried it, but none of the fish came to me! Guess I don't have dry skin (hahahaha). Anyways, it is a very relaxing place.

Korean Wedding: A friend from church got married in Lotte Hotel, one of the biggest hotels in Korea, right by my place, actually. This was such a different wedding from the last one. Here you go to a special room and take pictures with the bride. Then you go to the ballroom. We sat at tables where they were going to serve the food for supper while they had the ceremony. There were about 300 people there. The ceremony was beautiful, I think (it was Korean) and two of my friends sang, Stacey and her group Incense, and Derick. We then had the fastest meal. The pictures are above. It was delicious, but I never got to finish because they were paid by the hour and I didn't eat fast enough!! It was very beautiful though. She wore a diff. dress for the reception, and they stood for all the speeches. Very nice time.

Korean: I am really bad at learning languages, but my Korean friends really encourage me to learn, so I am picking up many words, I just forget them often! Thankfully, they are really patient.
I would like to thank all of you who are praying for me and want you to know I love you all! This month I did not work overtime (well, just one class or two) and yet I don't know where the time goes. If you are thinking of me in your prayers please pray that I can learn time management and that God will bless me in my relationships with people here and lead me in His path through that! If you have a specific prayer request, please let me know by commenting, or emailing me: kris_jb_@hotmail.com!! God bless!