When I was ready to tell my story, what I had discovered, to others at braekfast, the telling felt more comforting and protective all at once. Pat started to cry.
The fruit and bread in the Winstons room was fabulous. We headed to do some shopping afterward. I found some t-shirts for my family. Mary, George, Aengus, Carol, Mark and I waited until 11 a.m. for the Basic House to open. It was like a Korean Gap. We found some t-shirts that commemorated the Olympics with some hangul characters used to make figures representing different summer olympic sports. We had lunch at a McDonald's. I justified it with the fact that we had bulgogi burgers. Yum! We felt bad for Michael who wasn't feeling well at all.
We left for the train station to return to Seoul. Our stay in Pusan was over. Our team of four--June, Jen, Jenny and I sat together. We chatted with Mary, Aengus and George. It was raining. We heard that Tamiko had arrived in Seoul on Friday and was awaiting our arrival there. I was looking forward to meeting my roommate! She had gotten the dates and times confused and arrived at O'Hare 12 hours after our plane had left. Devastating, but she was pressing on.
As soon as we got back, our host family's husband, Mike, was there to pick up Jenny and me. Tamiko and I introduced ourselves and then I was off to have dinner with a Korean family. On the way to the apartment, Mike spoke a lot about housing prices--Jenny works in the mortgage business back in Minneapolis. He also mentioned that his wife wasn't a good cook.
When we arrived at the parking garage it was a comedy act as Jenny and I ransacked our bags for the gifts and gift bags with tissue paper to prepare the host family's gift. Unbeknownst to me at the time, my hot rollers were lost in the shuffle. Yikes!
We went upstairs in a big high rise apartment building to meet Mike's wife and 1-year-old son, Chun-ha which means "he's going to be rich." His name was selected with the help of Chun-ha's grandparents. Mike told us that on Chun-ha's first birthday, he reached for the money, which also predicts wealth. Koreans put a plate of different symbols in front of babies on their first birthday to see what they reach for, which they believe predicts their future. Mike told us some parents have been putting a gavel (lawyer), a stethoscope (doctor) and a computer mouse (ITT) on the plate as well as the more traditional items.
Soon, Mike's brother, Ed arrived. Ed is leaving for the University of Maryland on August 4, 2008. We discussed the perceptions of Asians in the US, car and housing prices, cell phone rates, etc. The family spoke perfect English. The 2 brothers had lived in Seattle for awhile when they were in middle school and they had also lived in England and other places around the world.
We had bulgogi ground beef burgers, teriaki chicken with potatoes and carrots, pancakes, zucchinis decorated with a carrot flower and parsley leaf, salad with homemade carrot dressing and rice. We started out with cold cucumber soup which is delicious. When we asked for the recipe, the wife told us she bought a soup packet for cold noodle soup at the grocery store. (c;
When we exchanged gifts, Jenny brought a cool stuffed loon (official bird of MN) that gave a loon call when pressed. Chun-ha began a frightened crying jag after a stunned silence. We were surprised and felt bad. We ended the evening with a tour of Seoul given by Ed while he drove us back to the hotel. I almost fell asleep.
After we got back at almost midnight, Tamiko and I introduced ourselves more fully. I started to look for Allison since it was her birthday. We were planning to go out, but most people had gone to bed. We talked for a bit in her room and then we agreed to go out on Sunday. To be continued . . .
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