wonderful weekend

Saturday afternoon I went out to Insa-dong with some of the ladies I know from Meetup: Christie, Mihee, Fiona, and Diana. First, we went to an art gallery to see an installation by an artist that one of the girls has studied. We saw his piece (I don't remember his name or the name of the piece!) that he designed which was a replica of his home in the United States with a replica of his parents' Korean home within. It was made entirely of silk and it was really kind of haunting to see the smaller home "floating" inside the larger one. 

We decided not to walk through the rest of the gallery (because we didn't want to pay for tickets!), so we walked around the exterior of the very modern-looking gallery, and headed toward the main street of Insa-dong to do some window-shopping.

Ssamziegil was beautiful at sunset!

After a little shopping, we went to have coffee and warm up. I loved this photo that was hung in the coffee shop!

I left from there to go meet up with my friend Ka Hyeon, who I met in education classes at Edmonds Community College. She moved back to Korea right around the time that I arrived here! She only had about an hour to hang out before she had to head back to Ulsan, but we got to catch up and reconnect after not seeing each other for probably three or four years! I wish we had gotten a picture together, but that just means we'll have to hang out again soon, either in Seoul or Ulsan.

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On Sunday, my friend Christie and I went to volunteer at a soup kitchen in Yeongdeungpo. She heard about the opportunity on Meetup and invited me to come with her, and I'm so glad I went! There were about 18 volunteers, and we served meals to over 400 people!

Most of us were there from the Meetup group, but about 6 or 7 of the guys were there from the American military base. They do community service like helping at this soup kitchen or at orphanages, as an unofficial part of their tour. They were so nice and truly HILARIOUS! Everyone was so kind and we had a great time serving together.

Each tray of food that we gave out had kimchi, rice, soup, fermented squid, and beans. We had to learn the words for all of those foods so we could understand if someone was asking for more of a certain food. Of course I knew how to say "kimchi", but I also learned 밥 (bap, rice),국 (guk, soup), and 콩 (kong, beans). (But I can't remember how to say "fermented squid"! Can anyone remind me?)

The volunteers had an impressive assembly line for plating food, delivering it to the tables, clearing the tables, washing dishes, and loading the dishes up with food again. We were a well-oiled machine!

Dish duty.

Serving soup.

This is the director of the "Korea International Volunteers" Meetup and the "grandma" who organizes the soup kitchen. This lady was fiesty, and she worked three times as fast as anyone else! I want to be like her when I grow up!

Working at this soup kitchen was such a meaningful experience. I will definitely go back!

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My weekend ended with eating Mexican food and watching my favorite movie of all time ever: Ever After. Life is good.

Have a great week, everyone!