Look Alikes

When Blake and I first came to Korea, I thought I'd never be able to tell the difference between individual Koreans. They all looked so similar to me! (We are quite capable of telling people apart now!) I have often been told that the reverse is true for Koreans when looking at white people. Blake and I have giggled on numerous occasions when we were told that we look like brother and sister or that we look like so-and-so. Recently, we've had a bunch of Koreans tell Jordan that he looks like Tom Cruise and Blake that he looks like Matt Damon and Wayne Rooney. We laughed it off the first few times, but I decided to try to compare the similarities today. I was actually pretty surprised! Judge for yourself...I'm thinking the Koreans aren't so crazy after all!

Here's Jordo and Tom Cruise


Here's Blake and Matt Damon

Touring an Ancient Palace

This past weekend we took advantage of the beautiful weather and did some more touristy things in Seoul. We visited an ancient palace in the north end of the city. Here are some pics.






Boys got to dress up like Korean warriors. Girls were thankful that boys had each other to fight with so girls did not have to be included!






Yes this is me signing autographs. Not entirely sure why, but hey...I don't get asked often! There were a bunch of little girls asking for us to sign and the hilarity was that some older Koreans thought that the girls knew something they didn't. They approached us to ask if Jordan in particular was a movie star. It was really hard to say no! :)


Blake continues to practice his photography. Here are a few cool shots he got on the weekend.

Passion Korea 2008

Finally the pictures from the Passion Conference. Sorry this has taken so long! Passion was a fabulous conference! We were so blessed by the music and speakers and it was neat to be gathered with thousands of Korean young people all worshiping God together. Chris Tomlin and David Crowder shocked the crowd by singing a few of their songs in Korean- I was quite impressed!
Conference was held at Olympic Park in Seoul.




David Crowder



Some of the gang


Thanksgiving Dinner
Holidays can be a time for homesickness and this Thanksgiving was no exception. Jenn was especially missing her Markham Fair and pumpkin pie. In light of this, we decided to really make this Thanksgiving special by inviting a bunch of Canadian (and American) friends over and making a big dinner. With the help of our beloved Costco...we had chicken, pumpkin pie, we made dressing and potatoes and carrots and it was soooo good! Not quite the same as back home when you're eating with plastic plates and forks, but it was a pretty good celebration.
Here are the boys cutting up the chicken.


Heating up the pumpkin pie in our teeny toaster oven.

Reminiscing Thailand

Hey All,
This is Blake. I've been reminiscing about the good times we had in Thailand last spring and wanted to share a few of the pics I found, but didn't post. Sorry that the video is sideways, but it's from a ride called 'The Flight of the Gibbon' which was a zipline ride over the jungle. Please don't break your neck trying to watch. :)
Blake signing off.

Current state of Christianity

Embracing Accusation

Again...Crazy Konglish

Just saw this "English" phrase on a shirt and wanted to share. :)

"In your carears
you will meat
Many people
All are signllicant
All desaeve you allantion"

HUH?! I think this one will rank in as one of my favourite crazy Konglish phrases!

Passion Conference

So this coming weekend we're going to what's called the Passion Conference here in Seoul. We're going to see in concert...Chris Tomlin, David Crowder, Matt Redman, etc... and we're pretty excited about it.
Blake just called me a few minutes ago to say that while riding the subway to Costco he bumped into David Crowder! How crazy is it that we have to go to Korea to meet these guys?!

Funny English Signs

Sareung Church

Blake and I have been visiting a bunch of different churches in Seoul before we decide where we're gonna plunk down. This past Sunday was a special celebration for a church in the area so we decided to go see what it was all about. We took a few pics to show just how huge it was. This Sunday was a combined service where there is normally a bunch of different meetings, but this is one big massive church!

Jinju Lantern Festival

Last weekend we traveled to a southern city in Korea called Jinju for the lantern festival. For those interested, here's a quick history lesson.

This festival is to commemorate the resistance of the people of Jinju in the face of Japanese invasion in 1592. The soldiers defending the Jinjuseong Fortress sent signals to its back-up forces outside the fortress by flying lantern-kites in the sky or floating lamplights on the Namgang River. Leading only 3,800 troops, General(Chung-Mu Gong) kim Si-Min killed 20,000 Japanese troops who invaded Jinjuseong in October of 1592, heightening Korea's national pride.

During the Japanese invasion, the general raised a lantern in the sky and floated lamplights and torches on the river to send military signals to loyal troops and other support forces outside the castle.
Soldiers inside the castle sere able to use the lantern as a means of expressing their safety to their families. The city now remembers this difficult time of suffering by lighting thousands of lanterns on the Namgang River.





Below: Boys will be boys

Erin with Andrea






Jenn and Jord getting a portrait done. Doesn't the sketch look like Jordan?!?

Fireworks


Remembering history with a parade.










Captivated

Loving those sun visors.