When Nathan was little, he would always tell his mother that he would grow up and they would fly to Hawaii. Well, ... he almost got it right, except that it wasn't Hawaii, it was Korea; and it wasn't for a vacation but two honeymoons, his and his wife's and our 36th marriage celebration.
Nathan met "Eunice" YunkYomg Lee at Wesley Seminary in Washington D.C.. Eunice and Nathan are almost exactly the same age, and they were married twice in Korea. First they had a Christian marriage, then they went through a Korean Traditional wedding, where they dressed up in the opulant outfits, and the parents sat behind a table, and threw nuts in the air to land on the large, ribbon of cloth they held between them.
The number of nuts that landed on the strip of cloth, would be the number of children they had. I screwed up and threw mine straight up in the air, and none landed on the cloth. Marcella did a bit better with 5 and both her mom and dad, threw in about 5 each. So that means they will have 5 boys and 10 girls. Is that cool or what?
Eunice's dad, WanSu Lee, and mom, Sung Hee Hong, were wonderful. They live in Inchion, in a cute second floor apartment that they share with Grandma. Grandma is about 4 ft 5 inches of wonderfulness. Although we couldn't speak her language, the language of hugs will always win out. Eunice has a younger sister, YunJu Lee , who lives in her room and on her computer.
The air-flight over there is 14 hours long. My back disability manifest itself, quickly. I lived on hydrocordone every 4 hours, standing, walking, and rearranging pillows the first 10 hours. The last 4 hours, I was all but in a stark panic on how in the world could I make those last 4 hours. But I did. When we arrived, Nathan, Eunice and family were there waiting with signs for Dale and Marcella. It was worth the pain.
We had our own taxi to drive us around, and the others took advantage of a boat trip to explore around the island. I bowed out on that the first day and used my thermophore and slept to get ready for the rest of the week. We lived in little cabins and ate our meals together.
On our last day, Eunice's mother fixed us a wonderful "Bone Fish" and rice. It was exquisite. I was amazed to see all the students going to school, then I realized that Korea didn't celebrate Thanksgiving. It was wonderful to see all the kids going to school in their school suits, ... not a bad idea for The United States. Many schools already use it. Millwood Public Schools in Oklahoma City, where I once taught, now requires school uniforms.
Hope you have fun looking at the pictures. Eunice taught me how to say, "I think this is the last day of my life," to get the attendants attention, and Marcella won the hero of the flight back helping an Indian family whose dad had fainted. The captain thanked her royally over the speakers, and having to have a wheel chair, we went last, so all the family members waved at us and gave us thumbs up.
A big thanks for the Lee family who were so gracious. Now, we will have one more marriage in Oklahoma, meaning 3 in a bit over a month and celebrate Christmas with Eunice's family and friends!
This is a picture of Eunice and her new camera, and Nathan, figuring out the settings before they take a picture of the ripe and beautiful tangerines behind them. On the island, very few people had lawns. Any extra space around the homes were tangerines. This has to be a million dollar business there. If we would take our house and transplant it on to the island, we would be chock-full of tangerines.
This is Eunice's grandma who lives with Eunice's parents and sister. She is a wonderful lady who we fell instantly in love with. We also met Eunice's uncle who had his own business. It seemed like everyone was working somewhere in Korea. It is hard to believe that not far north was the rest of Korea where people are dying of hunger every day. Of course, in Korea, we ate lots of fish and rice, and I love both.
Santa forgot his Santa Cap, but that didn't stop children from recognizing Santa even if he was traveling incognito. Just look at her and anyone can quickly tell that she knew this was the real Santa Clause. Go ahead and pull that beard or the mustache. This is the real thing. Notice, too, Santa's OU cup. Who said you can't get a water cup through the terminal and onto the airplane and back home again? This is not all. We will be adding more, but in the meantime, click on, ... I want to see more! At some point, Nathan and Eunice should be posting more pictures!
This was on our last day of the tangerine island, JeJu, and our driver took us by a simulated old time village, where the buildings were built out of wood and mud. They also sold some old time tea blend, which we purchased. The buildings were solid and so were their thatched roofs.
This is at the rim of the tea garden.
Then we visited a meteorite site. There is a huge indentation of the earth and it is covered with trees, so this one happened a long time ago. We have the same in the United States, but I believe ours are much younger. The trail led up to the top, with the use of cut pieces of tire tread, which was stapled together. Not at all easy on a wheel chair, which again I chose and Nathan pushed me.
Last but not least is a picture of our tour guide inside the green tea farm house, where you could try the different type of teas they grew. Our tour guide was wonderful and her name is YungLim. She took us to out-of-the-way places to eat. As Seth would say, "Yum, yum!"
Of course the main meal was rice and fish. After this stop, we drove over to a funny road constructed in such a way that when you stop your car going down hill, the car would start rolling back up the hill. Pop bottles would roll back up the hill as well. It had to do with the sea level and the actual, finality of the grade of the whole physicallity of the three hilled road. I bet a good road engineer could make a highway like that over here; it would be quite a fun draw. Hmm. I'll talk to our county commissioners.
This is not a "bunny sign" in Korea. It means "Great!" or "Okay," and this little girl was having trouble making it, but she finally was able to get her first two fingers to work right and gave me the V for VICTORY sign. I brought a lot of attention from the little ones because of my Santa beard. It was delightful, and there were lots of cars and people enjoying the novelty. Yes, we will be sending a big thank you to YungLim and her excellent driving.
Here is the group of us. Eunice's sister and dad and mom, and Nathan, Marcella and Dale. This is taken by using a little tripod. It was in the terminal. Terminals are killers on my back, with all the walking. Eunice made me change my behavior. Guess how?
I've got terminal activity down. What I will never have down, the rest of my life, is flying all over the world. It is an absolute killer for me. Pain pills may help. Next time we go somewhere, I will check to see if any open seat available together and I will switch and figure out a way to lay down.
A 14 hour trip on Korean Air, meant two meals. I always chose the Korean one, because of the rice. The lady next to me on the way back, used the green vegitable paper to wrap up her rice in the paper and eat it, using chop sticks without any trouble. I did the same thing, but without chopsticks. The lady next to me wasn't too friendly, either.
On the way over, we flew over Denver and through Alaska and down through the ice to the other side of the ocean, and then finally, after 14 hours, landed at Inchion. Funny, on the way back, Korean Are took us across the ocean to get home. Still the same time. Marcella liked to watch the map they put up between the movies. We landed safely at Dallas, the same day we started, only in the morning. So we gained nearly a day. In the car, I finally stretched out and fell asleep, something I could not do on the plane. Not enough leg room.
