Last of the Korea report.

The poet Mary Oliver wrote.
Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be amazed.
Tell about it."

The last few pictures of some beautiful things we saw in the National Museum and the Folk Museum.  We paid attention, we were amazed and love to tell about the wonderful things we saw.
At the Folk Museum, we saw..
.

Old shoes and clogs.

Old hats for men.

These are bojagi-basically cloth to carry around daily goods.  Beautiful fabric with beautiful designs.

I also went to the National Museum.  Elisabeth was going to meet a friend so after the kimchi museum, we took off in different subway directions, agreeing to meet up downtown to go to a Good Friday Service.  The plus side of going to a museum by yourself is that you can look and see what you want.  When Paul and I lived in Europe, we discovered that we had different museum "styles." This occasionally led to conflict. With the National Museum, I started at the top in the Asian art and ended up quickly strolling through the history part on the first floor.

The negative part of being alone was that I got massively and frustratingly mixed up on the subway.  I went the wrong direction on my first train and it took forever to get back in the right direction.  I was an hour late to meet Elisabeth.

Here are some of the beautiful things in the National Museum.

Celadon pitcher

Japanese printwork.

Chinese bowls

Animal representing the calendar- really humorous faces.

Small statues from graves.

More beautiful Korean scrolls.

I will say that the pictures I took in Korea are some of my worst.  They were blurry- I'm not sure how much was me and how much was the camera.  But it's disappointing how few came out.

 Earlier in the week. I searched the internet for an English service.   I  also stopped by the Anglican church next to the British consulate to see if there was a service-there wasn't.  I sat in the church for a while and watched a nun prepare the altar for Holy Week.  The cross was covered in a purple cloth, signifying both the suffering of Jesus and his royalty.  They were changing the color of the cloth from purple to black for Good Friday. I didn't want to take too many pictures as it seemed disrespectful.

I finally searched for Presbyterian churches in Korea and found Young Nak Presbyterian church. They were having a good Friday service at 7 PM.     The church was packed with over a thousand people.  In the three years since we have lived in China, we have not been often able to go to "church."  So to worship with an international worship...in English no less was fantastic.  It was very emotional for me.  The preaching was fantastic-centered on the cross and what is good about Good Friday. Several people shared about issues of human trafficking and orphans in Korea.   The issues are both the same and very different than China and to hear people so passionate about these issues in Korea was very moving.  It was a good Good Friday service and I am so glad I kept searching.  I had such of feeling of being part of the global body of Christ- we didn't know a soul in the church and yet we were family

We are so thankful that we were able to go to Korea.  It was a dream of Elisabeth's since she goes to school with so many Koreans.  A generous gift from some friends last summer (thank you Doug and Becky and a tax return made it possible).  Next time. I like to see more cities and take Paul with us.