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The Korean man and his wife wanted us \u201cto feel their hearts.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span>And so, they took us on a tour of the Daejeon metropolis of Korea.\u00a0 <\/span>The salt and pepper haired 40-ish man was on a mission to show us the things he loved about Korea.\u00a0 <\/span>All five of us hopped in a church van and sped for two hours on a highway to a small town where we ate kimchi in a traditional Korean restaurant.\u00a0 <\/span>Next, we went to one of the many Caf\u00e9 Bene coffee houses \u00a0<\/span>where we sipped on caf\u00e9 mochas.\u00a0 <\/span>With unfinished drinks we rushed outside where he was motioning for us to jump in the van to head to our next adventure.\u00a0 <\/span>He drove us past a sculpture park with giant stone art pieces and led us to the edge of a river where we climbed on a traditional Korean boat. As we floated down the river with other passengers listening to old Korean pop music we noticed a Buddhist shrine built on the hillside in the forest.\u00a0 <\/span>We climbed winding wooden steps to the top where behind the shrine was a cave with dripping mineral water that, since we drank it, will make us three years younger.\u00a0 <\/span>After ringing a large Buddhist bell I probably wasn\u2019t supposed to ring and standing on the edge of the hill where several women jumped to their death to avoid servitude to a new king, and bowing to an old woman who sat next to the colorful shrine, I raced back down the stairs to catch up with our group.\u00a0 <\/span>Next he took us to the Baekje Historical Museum to share this ancient Korean culture which existed 18 BC-660 AD and whose artifacts have been restored and recreated for future generations to rememeber.<\/span><\/p>\n I felt as if our young tour guide was helping us experience Korea through him as fast as possible.\u00a0 <\/span>You see, doctors have done all they can for the cancer that plagues his body.\u00a0 <\/span>And although his skin is pale and his eyes are beginning to hollow, he loves and lives and speeds through life to share all he is.\u00a0 <\/span>He represents Korea for me; a country that has lived through the horrors of dictators and imperialism and still lives with humility, grace, beauty and vibrancy.\u00a0 <\/span>He is a deacon in his Presbyterian church, a direct result of Western Christian missionaries who<\/span> came to Korea approximately 120 years ago. He is a successful businessman who specializes in home design.\u00a0 <\/span>His wall panels decorate many of the sky-scraping apartments found in every major South Korean metropolis.\u00a0 <\/span>He is a husband; and like many traditional Korean marriages, his wife diligently serves him.\u00a0 <\/span>She seems to be treasuring this precious time with him.\u00a0 <\/span>He introduced us to the variety of Korean beliefs \u2013 Christianity, Buddhism and Confucianism.\u00a0 <\/span>Like many people on the streets and in the subways he is in a hurry, a hurry to embrace and experience all that Korea is right now.\u00a0 <\/span>This is a golden age, a moment in Korean history without war, a celebration of traditional ways and modern technology, an enjoyment of cultural foods and French pastries.\u00a0 <\/span>He is a reflection of Korea \u2013 embodying the tragedies and hope, the ancient and new, the simple and complex, the dark and the light.<\/span><\/p>\n #seouladvance #dminlgp #lgp3 The Korean man and his wife wanted us \u201cto feel their hearts.\u201d\u00a0 And so, they took us on a tour of the Daejeon metropolis of Korea.\u00a0 The salt and pepper haired 40-ish man was on a mission to show us the things he loved about Korea.\u00a0 All five of us hopped in a church van […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2,452,448],"class_list":["post-1189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-korea","tag-seouladvance","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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