Meeting Bohae's Family

Well, for the first time in a long time, I slept well past my normal waking time of 7:30, and even past any normal time I would wake up. The only problem with this is that I needed to leaving for the subway station AT 9:20 to make it to Bucheon (between Seoul and Inchon) by 10:30. I had woken up because I heard my roommate getting ready, but I figured it was still early, my alarm hadn't gone off so maybe she was just up early for her church, and fell back asleep. Then when I heard her leaving, I figured I should see what time it was. It was 9:02. Eighteen minutes to get ready?! I took the fastest shower and got dressed, thankful I had put my soccer bag together the night before and ran to the subway. I made it just as the train was arriving at the station.

I settled in knowing I had an hour long ride ahead of me. I tried to do a little bit of studying, but it's a bit distracting with all the people coming and going to really focus. As I was getting closer, I started wondering about if I needed to transfer because the line though stays the "same" split, so I contacted Bohae and she told me what the next stop was. I found those tracks and again made it just as the next train arrived. I had counted the stops and figured it should take me 50 minutes to get from my station to hers, but actually it took a little over an hour. I'm guessing having to transfer was part of the added time. I met Bohae at the station and then we walked to a bus stop to take a bus to her church. I don't know if I mentioned, but her father is a pastor of a Presbyterian church. We arrived at the church (which is actually in the basement of a building) with 3 minutes before it was to begin. I met her mother and younger brother before the service started. I sat through their service, having no idea what was going on of course. At the end, at their announcement section, they introduced all of the guests/visitors/newcomers, so I had to stand up and bow and everyone clapped.

When it was over, I met Bohae's father and her grandmother, along with some friends and other parishioners. Then they asked me if I wanted to eat there or out somewhere. I said it would be okay to have lunch at the church with everyone else. They told me because we were eating at the church, they wanted to take me out to eat another day. Unfortunately they picked the same day that I had already planned to meet Mr. Lee. They looked very upset and told me that they wanted to meet me then. It was left a bit unresolved and we found a place to sit and eat. One church member is Korean American who is an international lawyer. Since he is fluent in both languages they turned to him to translate and try to convince me to change my plans. As he was translating he stopped and told me he wanted to give me advice. He said, "Koreans are very pushy. They are basically saying you need to cancel your plans to meet with them. In my opinion, you just keep your plans if you would rather to that, but of course they want you to not keep it. Do whatever you want". They kept asking and asking and I was starting to get really upset because they weren't listening to WHY I couldn't meet with them and they couldn't seem to understand why Mr. Lee is so important to me. We finished eating and helped clean up. Bohae had to do a quick piano lesson, but her brother and I walked to a coffee shop. I ordered a lemon tea and it was really good. A little bit later Bohae joined us. They are both friendly and very sweet. Bohae came with an alternative option sent from her parents. They wanted to meet on the 13th and either 1. have us travel 2 hours to where Sion (Bohae's brother) goes to college to have dinner--and then drive 2 hours back... or 2. the parents and Bohae would meet me at Hoegi Station for dinner. I told her I would think about it and decide based on my school schedule.

We walked back to the church and chatted there a little. The next service started at 3, so I needed to leave before it. There was another member who drove me and Bohae to the subway station to drop me off, which was really nice. I got on the subway and headed to Yongsan to play soccer. At one point someone got up and even though I had 2 big bags I did not sit down--I rarely sit on the subway--and an ajushi maybe in his late 60's sat down and said "thank you" to me. I waved it off and said "it's okay". He then told me to give him my bag. (It is customary for strangers to hold other passengers bag's if one is sitting and the other is standing) I tried to tell him it's okay, but he kept telling me to give him my bag, so finally I conceded. He then started rambling rapid-fire Korean at me and I gave my (I'm sure) classic dear-in-headlights-I-don't-know-Korean look and told him "I can't speak Korean", however hearing MORE Korean come out of my mouth signaled to him I really DID know Korean. I tried to explain that I am Korean American and I am adopted. I don't think many older people know the word for adopted "ibyang"--a lot of people his generation or older give me a confused look and try and guess other words I'm saying-along with "ilbon" which is Japanese. Anyway, fortunately--unfortunately...the seat next to him opened up and he told me to sit. I figured I'd better sit. So, I tried my best to have a conversation with him telling him I'm a student at Kyunghee University. When we finally came to the end of the line at Yongsan station, he said something to me and an older lady next to me made some kind of empathic noise-then I heard him speaking to her and said something along the lines that I have no father and no mother-to which she made even more empathic noises. As we all exited the subway, he told her I was headed to Hoegi station and Kyunghee University, which happened to be the direction this lady was headed apparently because she told me "let's go together". THEN I had to try to explain that I play soccer at Yongsan. I had to say the word for soccer about 4 times and repeat my sentence (which I believed to be a relatively simple sentence that I have spoken many times) about 3 times for them to understand me.

After parting ways with my friendly ajuma and ajushi, I made my way to a bathroom to change into my soccer clothes and went to the field. There were only 5 of us-at one point there was a high schooler or maybe early college age boy standing around so the native Korean, Jin Won, that sometimes joins us invited him to play with us. I took a lot of shots on goal, but most were wide or over. I think I did make one goal. Towards the end of our time, a small group of 6-10 year old boys with their moms stopped and watched us play. Jin Won asked me "do you hear or understand what those boys are saying?" I told him no. He said they were saying stuff along the lines "Is that a girl? Woah, that's a girl! But, how can a girl be playing that well?!" Ha!! When we were done playing Jin Won asked if anyone was headed towards Sincheon, since he has a car. John, the captain of our team and I rode with Jin Won and were dropped off--it was really nice because I was going to walk all the way to Sogang again. As it turned out, I was early enough for church that I stopped at Isaac Toast for a sandwich before mass.

At mass, they announced that our priest has become an official member of the Sogang priest community-or something rather. He said basically he has decided that he wants to die in Korea--that he will spend the rest of his life serving at that church in that community.

I came home and had another hour + long skype chat with Amanda. Then I had to finish homework and finally head to bed quite late.