On Saturday I went on a day trip with my church to pass out books with John and Romans in English and Korean. I actually have no idea where all we went, but the villages were somewhere in the mountains a few hours' drive away, and apparently they're near Korea's oldest currently-active Bhuddist seminary. The views there were amazing and the company on the way there and back was great. The small group I was in met a man who was apparently a Catholic and seemed so glad to see us. He welcomed us inside and fed us yellow melon, then sent us off with a bag brimming with yellow melons, peppers, eggplant, and sesame leaves he pulled straight from his garden while we watched.
This tree is over 400 years old. I'm told the locals believe the spirits of their dead go hang out in the tree, and they believe that it protects their village. Interestingly enough, a while ago the tree was dying, so they poured tons of money into saving the tree so it could keep on “saving” them.
For lunch we had MREs, apparently “meals ready-to-eat” made for the U.S. Military. I enjoyed some of their directions' terms.
The rest stop totally made me feel like I had stepped out of the Korea that I've so far known and stumbled across some remote stretch of the Amazon only seen in movies. Clearly, this is not the Amazon (wrong continent, I know!), but it was still a surreal experience for me nonetheless.
Waking up early to go on my only free day of the week was difficult for me, but the trip was lots of fun and I'd like to go again.
