Korean Wedding

A friend from my church, Insik, got married on October 6. This was a big deal, as he is the lone son of 6 children. His family is very dear to me; I go to movies with his older sister, Inok, and I go to the fruit market or have dinner with Insun and Inson and their children. Insun tells me which fruits are in season and which are not, and she tells me what is a good deal and what is not at the market. Of course, every time I see them, they hand me a bag full of apples, mandarins, and Asian pears or persimmons!

Last Lunar New Year, I spent a weekend at their parents' home in the countryside. They made me feel like a member of the family - and they really enjoyed the apple pie I contributed to the feasting! Not typical food for them. They remind me a lot of my family - they sit and talk and laugh together.

Nikole and I attended the wedding with other Korean friends from our church.

Steps to attending a Korean wedding:
1) Enter the door of the wedding hall (where often more than one wedding is taking place at once, in different rooms) and go to the counter for your wedding party. Hand over your envelope of money and receive your meal ticket.

2) Enter the large dining hall with your ticket, and line up for the LONG buffet line that includes all kinds of meats, sushi, several kimchis, salad, soups (rice porridge and pumpkin soup, normally), and desserts (rice cakes and fruit). Sit down at a table, usually next to people you don't know, who are guests of another wedding party.

3) Eat your food before the wedding begins.

4) Try to get a seat, or just stand at the back of the hall and chat during the ceremony.

5) Listen to the recorded fanfare as the groom, then the bride with her husband, enter.

6) Parents are seated at either side of the bride and groom as witnesses to the wedding

7) Smoke, bubbles, or colored lights may initiate at various moments of the ceremony

8) Bride attempts to not smile, and she keeps her gaze down so as to not run the risk of giving birth to a girl instead of a boy as the first child.

9) Opt to leave before the ceremony ends, if you have other pressing engagements, or want to eat more food

10) Couple bows to both parents

11) Pictures ensue after the ceremony - families, then all friends. A female friend is "chosen" to catch the bride's bouquet for the picture. She stands in front of the group of friends, with everyone looking on (Hint: choose a friend that can catch so several photos do not have to be taken)

12) Everyone leaves

Somewhat cookie-cutter and procedural, but to me still just as special to see a good friend get married. Hurray!

Check out the pictures!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.bbfp1pi7&x=0&y=434ynt

Chuseok in Okinawa, Sept. 24-28, 2007

I finally made it to Okinawa, one of the southernmost islands of Japan, to visit my cousin, Shannon, who has now lived there for... 3-4 years with her husband and family. I was blessed to spend time with her and her newest son, Sammy, then only about 3 weeks old, and her 2-year-old son, Caleb. Shannon took me on a few outings, but the best part of the visit was just chatting with her and playing with Caleb. We had some good chats, didn't we, Shannon!

She also took me to the PX, where it was exciting to buy things like scented candles, greeting cards, and Cherry Coke! Yes, it's the little things.

Check out pictures from my trip. (I forgot to get a picture of Shannon and me! Tsk-tsk!
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.2ywr5yzj&x=0&y=77z9qv

Birthday Girl

Well, I've caught up with my three aunts - 29 years old! One group of students took me to a coffee shop for dessert (anything to get out of class!), my cross-country gave me notes, a piece of cake, a birthday hat, and doused me with water from our water relay (Fun Friday!)! Unbeknownst to me, a colleague snapped this picture while watching our Fun Friday relay day. I was modeling correct form (can't you tell??) for the backwards kick race... however, I seem to resemble a streaker in a cock-eyed hat who forgot the key step to streaking! Other than that, the photo is a fairly good representation of Coach Barrigar at cross-country practices - mouth wide open shouting something, at times comprehensible, at times not!

Friday night my fellow head coach and soon-to-be mommy, Jaci, held a birthday party for me, complete with snacks, cupcakes and ice cream, and good friends. On Saturday and Sunday, Ange, Chantal, Roni, Kirstin, and I made a run for Seoul, where we shopped, ate exotic foods (too exotic for some), and danced la salsa. ¡Increíble!

I'm ready for that next birthday - BRING IT!!! (but not right now... I can wait the required amount of time!)

Enjoy more birthday pix:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.2xorn4uf&x=0&y=-gwuxue

Back to the grindstone (and cross-country course)

After a 2-month stint back in the States, Christie is back in Korea, and has been for about a month. Crazy how fast time flies! One moment I'm awaiting my connecting flight to Flint from Detroit, eagerly anticipating my return home to family and friends, then before I know it I'm seated for another 15-hour flight back to Asia. (Of course, 2 1/2 of those hours were spent rather leisurely in first class, as I was bumped up for the first time in my life from Tokyo to Seoul! WOW!)

It feels good to be back, although being back at TCIS equals constantly having something to do. Still, in returning to this warm community and in the faces of my returning students, a sense of belonging struck me.

The rainy season has decided to linger longer than normal, and suddenly last weekend we went from hot and humid rainy days to cool rainy days - the cool that usually occurs in November! On my rainy walks home, I recall with a smile on my face the same sort of walk home last spring, when in the midst of the dreariness and grey, a Korean food delivery man on his motorcycle, raingear head to toe, passed by whistling a cheerful tune that might as well have cleared the skies above his treadmarks! I keep hoping to see the same delivery man again one of these dreary evenings on my way home!

Despite the weather, our grueling practices, and our yelling, Jaci and I, along with our new asst. coaches, Meredith and Emily, still have aroun 60 kids coming back to cross-country practice day after day for the past 4 weeks! It's incredible! Our first meet is Saturday, and I'm very excited... although I must retrieve my voice before then! The ability to pace myself running does not necessarily mean I can pace my vocal strength. Of course, when I go singing the likes of "Flashdance" (with choreography) or "Dream On" at the no-rae-bang (singing room) with friends on Friday nights, that doesn't exactly help my condition! (sheepish grin)

I will try to be more regular with my blog updates... enjoy!

April in Korea

Yes, I've been rather bad with the blogging this... semester. Catch-up time! Here are some pictures from the cherry blossom festival April in Korea, where I went with the Ham family, a special family from my church. It was nice to go to a park and not feel like we were in the middle of the city! Saw a no-rae-ma-dang music competition, with the traditional clothing, drums, and my personal favorite, the hat-streamer-spinners (I'm sure that is the exact translation) :) It was a beautiful Sunday that included music, culture, and many Korean families and couples wandering around the different booths and snacking picnic-style on ra-men, jja-jjang, kimchi, and sweet potatoes, to name a few options.

http://www.kodakgallery.com/I.jsp?c=4zp3vcn.647jjx8r&x=0&y=-yt6bbw

Marathon results and the next destination... tomorrow morning

Well, here are my results from the marathon. My goal was to run 4:15-4:30, so I reached my goal and kept a pretty steady pace! I was back to walking with my usual gait by Wednesday - only two days of hobbling!

471 (?? total place, I'm sure...) :)
Christie Barrigar (7390 - running number)
08:20:43am Start Time
08:49:19 5K
09:17:44 10K
09:46:12 15K
10:17:12 20K
10:47:18 25K
11:17:51 30K
11:50:22 35K
12:21:24 40K
10:24:15 Half-Marathon time
04:14:01 Total Time 42.195K

I really felt like running (strangely enough) on Wed., Thursday, and Friday, but I've been too busy with the end of the 3rd quarter, and getting ahead on my graduate classwork, since we have now begun spring break (March 23-April 1).

For spring break, I am headed to Bangalore, India, with four colleagues and a fantastic group of 8 students. We will be spending the week at an orphanage there with more than 100 precious children from Bangalore and even from northern India! We will play with them, make crafts (my duty was to plan crafts), sing and dance, and hold a vacation Bible school over the week. I'm so excited!!

I have a lot to catch up with on my blog, from Lunar New Year weekend, which I spent with friends from church at their parents' home in the country, to my weekend in Hong Kong for a conference. Unfortunately, my pictures will not load onto my blog at this moment, so I'll have to send them another time! I PROMISE!

The Seoul Int'l Marathon!

Well, I made it, although my lower body is NOT very happy with me at this moment.

Today, March 18, after training since the beginning of November, I ran my first marathon... and probably my last... It went very well, though! Although expecting the jitters I would equate to waiting in line for a monster rollercoaster with a dual sense of excited anticipation and fearful dread, I felt none of the latter. We - April, Virginia, Mike, and I - woke up and headed down to the starting line, which was a 15-minute walk from our hotel. Energetic Koreans were leading aerobic warm-ups for the participants, energy gels and shorts were for sale, as well as traditional Korean snacks (for pre-race??) such as bondeggi (silkworm larvae) and processed fish on a stick). I passed on that. Fireworks started the race at 8am, then approximately half an hour later we crossed the starting line and passed the statue of famed General Yi SungShin, officially beginning our race.

So mind-boggling that 23,000 runners reigned over so many main roads in Seoul! It was a pretty flat course that ended in the Olympic Stadium (awesome!). I felt great for most of the race with the exception of the last couple of kms (but hey, it's the last couple of kms!). Of course, I didn't walk through the water/gatorade stations located every 5 km (3 mi.) after the 30-km mark because I didn't think my quad muscles would allow me to start running again. I'm eager to see my splits and my official final time.

However, the best part of this marathon for me was the fact that I didn't fret about my finish time. Although I wanted to run it between 4:15-4:30, I saw the race as a sightseeing tour of Seoul by foot and enjoyed the many traditional Korean drumming groups that entertained us along the way, as well as the favorite cheer, "Hwa-ee-ting!!!!" (Fighting, Korean-style) I didn't even wear a running watch. Quite a step for me to not be competitive with myself and set high expectations. In the end, I think I met my goal, or even surpassed it, but the official results are not yet posted. My guess for my final time is about 4:05-4:10. WOOOHOOOOOOO!!!! I must say, we had an amazing fan club - Sally, Kirsten, and Jaci, Mike's wife and my co-cross country coach, who had been training with us up until 2 months ago when she found out she was pregnant (hurray, but what timing!). I think they should get medals for being the best cheerleaders of the day and ambassadors of goodwill!!

Pictures to come! And, with this post, I hope it's a start to catch up on the past three months, which include a trip to Germany and Austria, Lunar New Year holiday in the country with a warm and inviting Korean family from church (that spoke little English - an adventure!), and a weekend in Hong Kong for a Spanish conference (ole!).

To bed I go, with hopes of being able to get OUT of bed tomorrow morning!!