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We had special guests from the intergalatic world attend Jedi Mark’s birthday party. Princess Leia (Jo, Jennifer and Joni) fixed up their buns

and Darth vader (Kyle) snuck up the stairs and surprised Jedi Mark.

The little ones were dressed and ready to surprise daddy when he got home. With Jo’s help in ordering on line for me and her friends who came from America bringing the surprise package, I got Mark the Star Wars Trilogy and Episode 3 to complete his collection of all the episodes!! The cake was great with Jennifer’s help. She baked a delicious cake and printed out a fun picture of Yoda that we stuck in the cake. And thanks to Josiah’s R2D2 lego pieces, it finished off the cake perfectly. The bigger R2D2 in the cake was Mark’s lego piece that he played with when he was a little boy. Mom kept it all these years and let us take it home with us. Thank you mom!


Happy 36th Mark! I love you!

We had a great trip in Korea. It was a very significant and emotional trip for me. Here’s our travel log:
Day 1: My cousin, Justin (mom’s 3rd brother’s son) met us at the airport and got on the bus with us to go to my brother Tim’s apartment in Osan to a small city, Sontang which was 2 hours away. Tim was working in another city so we wouldn’t see him until few days later. But his wife, Jung, was there to welcome us. We spent the night there. Jung treated us to the many food delivery meals – we had bulgoghi pizza and Korean spicy chicken wings. When I saw Justin, I just stared at him because he has mom’s features. Tears welled up missing mom and feeling like she should be here with me. She would have enjoyed this trip. Here’s a picture with Justin.

Day 2: We woke up and rented a minivan to drive down to KunSan (2 hour drive), my hometown where my grandmother and uncle lives. Justin drove us. We bought some Korean style sushi (rolled in sushi are different fillings of bulgoghi, cheese, tuna fish, salad – we got several kinds) to go to eat in the car. Mark and the children napped and Justin and I had fun getting to know each other. Justin’s English was pretty good. We drove straight to the hospital where my grandmother was staying. She broke her hip from a fall and got much more weaker and has been in the hospital for 8 months. Uncle Yongtaek met us there. It was a moving reunion with him. Again, he looked so much like mom, it was getting emotional for me. He had come with his youngest son, John. My first time meeting this cousin!! This is Justin’s family. As soon as we got to grandmother’s room and I saw her, I just wept and wept – thinking of and missing mom, and feeling so thankful to this grandmother who raised me for the first 8 years of my life and who is leaving me with a rich, rich spiritual legacy. My uncle wept with me as he grieves the loss of his dear sister. Uncle doesn’t want to tell her about my mom’s death as she’s so weak right now, but she keeps asking “did MunJa die?” She will have a great surprise reunion with her daughter in GLORY. My Korean was very very rusty so we mostly just stared at each other and smiled and did some conversing through Justin’s translations. Here are some pictures of my reunion with grandmother and uncle Yongtaek.

I prayed that the Lord would enable grandma to remember me and she did!! My uncle yelled into her ear, “mom, this is Jin. She came to see you.” She responded with “oh, Jin.” Then 5 minutes later, she yelled, “Oh, Jin!! It’s you? It feels like a dream!! You should see my house – it’s filled with pictures of all of you…”

This is grandma’s first time meeting Mark and the children who she prayed for almost everyday for many years.

After a good long visit with grandma, uncle took us to his home for a good Korean meal. We visited with his wife, my aunt, and the 2 cousins. The kids must have been super hungry, because they ate and ate. Aunt didn’t hardly eat and just delighted to feed Kayla and Josiah with rice wrapped in “gheem” roasted seaweed sesame oil and salt.

She also prepared simmered pork ribs (gal-bi-cheem), many kinds of sautéed vegetables (na-mul), and of course kimchee!! This was one of Mark’s favorite meal because it was so healthy. The spiritual heritage in this family is amazing. Uncle shared with us that he goes to early morning prayer meeting at church from 4am – 6am EVERYDAY then goes to work. And aunt goes to all night prayer meeting at church from midnight to 6am EVERYDAY, then goes home and sleeps until noon. The prayer meeting is more like personal devotional time where they sit and pray out loud with great passion and reads the Bible. They are praying about moving to Guatemala for long term missions after grandma passes away. Uncle said, “We want to live our life for the gospel!!” Cousin John (their youngest out of 4) is a missionary right now on a mission boat (Korean based missions organization) where missionaries from different nations come together and live on this ship that travels to different east Asian countries to share the gospel. Here’s a picture with uncle, aunt, and cousin John.

Their oldest daughter, Jisun lives in Seoul and is a professional pianist. Here are some pictures of her that Justin gave me:

She’s of course the pianist in the back. Here’s another picture of Jisun. Justin is such a photographer.

After a good meal and a dessert of fruits, uncle took us to our old church and our old house and it’s exactly as I remember it. I wanted to weep when I saw the steps to our church where uncle laid hands on us and prayed for us before we moved to America. He even mentioned it. The house has its old gate and walls just the way it was, but the house itself looked so much smaller and the big front yard is crowded in - looked much more run down and hadn’t been remodeled. The alleyway was more narrower than I remembered it too. I think the corner store is still there too. Mark said this was a significant time for him too and felt like he got to know me better. Here’s the pic of uncle and the stairs to the church.

Then Justin dropped us off at our hotel nearby. It was a very nice hotel which we wouldn’t have been able to afford, but uncle knew a man who worked in that hotel and was able to get us a discount. There were 2 full size beds and one sofa. The girls slept on one bed and Josiah on the sofa. Mark said he grew up always sleeping on the sofa on family vacation trips.

Day 3: Justin picked us up in the morning and we drove around looking for a place to eat. We asked him to take us to the most authentic Korean restaurant, a hole in the wall. He recommended we go to a “kukbop” restaurant (beef soup that’s been boiled with the bones for hours and is eaten with green onions and rice in it). When we got there, right outside the restaurant which is 30 plus years old, the old ladies were washing vegetables right there on the street!! There’s a high chance I might have eaten here when I was a child.

We question the sanitation, but the taste was amazing!! This also was one of Mark’s favorite meals from our time.


You have to cut the kimchee with scissors. Of course, right? Note the metal Korean chopsticks and spoons.

After breakfast, we went back to the hospital for another long visit with grandma while Mark took the kids to the nearby park and some exploring. I had prayed too that the Lord would enable my Korean to return and it somewhat did. I was able to converse with grandma myself and some with Justin’s help. She mentioned the old days and we talked about those memories. She kept saying, “oh Jin, I feel like this is a dream that you’re here!”. She asked a lot about mom and how she’s doing and can she talk due to the car accident? She told me to take good care of her. I just smiled. I asked grandma to pray for me and we recorded it. Her prayers are so deep and moving!!

Here we are having a conversation in Korean!! Yeah!!

One last picture with grandma. We said goodbye and I told her, “let’s meet in Heaven!!”. I turned to have one last look at her and my heart was filled with gratitude for all she did and for all she is. She raised 5 children being widowed right after she gave birth to her 5th child!! Mom was the oldest. She made a living making Korean kimonos.

Then Justin took us to the outdoor market in KunSan. We had fun taking in the sight and the smell!!

They sold 30 different kinds of kimchee, yum!!

This is dog meat. Don’t pass this email around to anyone in the humane society!

Here’s a futon and blankets shop.

Then Justin drove us to JunJoo city which is next to KunSan 45 minutes away – good tourist city as they have an old folk village and shops. Here are the pics of the folk village. Many of our Japanese friends said it looks like Japan.

This city, JunJoo is known worldwide for their bibimbop!! That’s right, we ate at the famous bibimbop restaurant!! Mark said my bibimbop tasted better. Good answer. What a smart husband.

In the restaurant, they had a mini-museum about the history of bibimbop and huge displays of model foods!! Josiah is such a jokster!! Is he a chip off the old block and bobpa block or what?

This is it – the world famous bibimbop. What do you think? Good enough to eat.

We loved all the side dishes and they bring out more if you need. Abbie is more fascinated by me posing for a silly picture.

This restaurant has an actual event where they make a gigantic bowl of bibimbop that takes a group of people to mix. So cool!!

Then we drove back to Tim’s place in Osan, arriving back about 10pm. Tim called us to say that he and Jung were at a restaurant down the street. So Justin and I walked down there to meet them. This is like a pub – very old traditional style with copper pots and metal tin drinking cups, they ate cow intenstines and stuff – no thank you!

Day 4:
The kids played with uncle Tim and uncle Justin as we all got ready to go to Jung’s niece’s 1 year old birthday party where they had catered food and guests from her brother in law’s company. We got to meet Jung’s whole family. I felt privileged to represent Tim’s family as they haven’t had a chance to meet any of Tim’s family members yet.

Here are the children playing at Uncle Tim’s apartment. He lived on the 10th floor. Sorry no pics from the birthday party. That night, we ate at a bulgoghi restaurant where the bulgoghi meat is pork – tasted so much better and tender. We ate it with nengmyun (cold noodle dish). Everyday, we ate to our fill!! We are trying to diet now.

The Rood Girls full and satisfied after a great meal!

Day 5:
Jung took me out for a day of facials, hair cut and color, and shopping!! Ooh!! What a treat!! The guys stayed home. Tim played with the children at the park and took them to the store and spoiled them rotten. The kids pointed to the lollipops and asked if they could get ONE each which is the usual for our family “only one!”, but uncle Tim said, “just one? Get 10! Get 20! Go on!!” Abbie’s eyed widened with surprise. Then she said, “we can only eat one but maybe we can save the rest for later!” What a good girl!! Here they are after sucking on blue fruit roll ups.

That night, we went out to eat at a soup restaurant “kal-bi-tang”. Yum!!
We also ordered this bulgoghi and mushroom nabe.

Cute couple!

Cuter couple!! Just kidding Tim. Notice my makeover and a little darker brown hair color – just glows baby!! When I came back wearing a fuschia jacket, Mark said I looked like a little Jung. Hee.

Thank you Tim and Jung for a phenomenal trip and thank you Justin for serving us so much!! I miss you guys!! Thank you Mark for this trip and for valueing this time as much as I did!! I love you!

Are you ready for some good food?

It was her present to us and it was my present to her as well. My mother is a great cook and years ago gave us her homemade cookbook of her best recipes. As a Christmas present I offered to help put together a web site of her recipes. I didn’t know that it would be such a big project, in all over 400 recipes. It would be a waste to keep all these mouth watering dishes to ourselves. So head on over to…

Go to: http://www.rood-awakening.com/justlikemoms
Be sure to bookmark the site! Your taste buds will thank you.

*As usual, my posts are often behind, but I thought you still might enjoy this.

After arriving back in Japan this winter we woke to a foot of wet Tokyo snow. The kids and I were delighted. (They love making snowmen, I love snowboarding.) I pulled the prank you see above and I enjoyed our neighbor’s reactions. Cars would stop, initially with a look of concern, then with chagrin at our American sense of humor.

Others expressed serious concern over our snowman. "Why three balls? With you Americans I guess bigger is always better!" You see, in Japan snowmen are always two balls.

Interestingly, the reason for the 2-ball snowman is not that the Japanese people are any shorter than westerners and seek to represent that in their snowman stature. The shape comes from the Daruma, a sort of weeble-wobble type of paper mache doll that is part of wish fulfillment sold at Shinto Shrines. It’s bottom is heavily weighted so it will always return to it’s standing position when knocked over. (A sign of enduring hope that our wishes will be fulfilled perhaps?) The think I can’t understand is why Japanese snowmen aren’t merely a round ball with a face on it if the name and shape comes from the Daruma doll. I guess some things are inscrutable to the western mind.

Anyway, the daruma itself is interesting as a cultural item itself. Families will buy one as a reminder of some deep seated wish, say that their 30 year old son will get married. They go to a famous shrine where the daruma can be purchased of various sizes. (The beach ball size variety go for about $100 or so.) After buying the daruma one eyeball is drawn in. The other eye will remain blank until the wish is fulfilled. Thus, every time the daruma is seen the yet to be fulfilled wish is remembered, or in the case of a fulfilled wish, the completed face reminds them of the fortunate outcome of their wishes.

Interesting, the Daruma is also the source of a popular Children’s game, “Darumasanga konronda”, literally, “Mr. Daruma has fallen down.” The closest equivalent would be Red Light green light, this time with the person who is “it” yelling, “Mr. Daruma has fallen”, (of course like a weeble wobble, he will soon rise again) While he is down the children must make their way towards the person who is ‘it’. The other main difference is that often a theme, such as ‘Chicken’ is given where everyone must act as a chicken as they make their way forward. Upon reaching the ‘it’ the game changes into a form of tag to decide who gets to go next and then repeats with the red light green light format again. It’s fun. In fact, often we play with the college students just for laughs.

Farewell to Jin’s Mom
We had a very meaningful time in the US. Jin’s mother’s home-going to heaven was both a particularly difficult time for us, particularly Jin. Leaving her Dad alone there in that big house was perhaps the most difficult thing we have had to do since we decided to work in Japan with the Navigators.

Deja vu
Being back in Japan is like experiencing deja vu constantly. That is mostly due to the fact that we did not speak a single word of Japanese for almost 2 months. It almost feels like superman as a kid when he is discovering super powers that he never knew that he knew. Japanese words are rushing back into our minds as we reengage our neighbors and student friends.

The sights and sounds of Japan are particularly enjoyable to experience again. I wish you could be here to but to give you a taste I found this tourism video that I felt really does capture the beauty and experience of living in Japan as well as a short video could. Enjoy.

Video: Yokoso Japan!

(BTW, yokoso means welcome if you were wondering.)

 

Jet Lag, Reverse culture shock, real English, big portions at restaurants, marginal service, Grandmama’s home cooking, football on T.V., free wireless at coffee shops, ranting customers, roadkill, baptist churches on most street corners. That’s right we are back in America. Though exhausted, we are glad to be home and enjoying things we missed over the past years.

Here is a video of our time thus far in the US. (mostly San Jose and Smith Mountain Lake)

Video:

Meanwhile as the kids play Dad and I are enjoying building a 15 x 15 foot storage shed. I’ve enjoyed swinging a hammer and pouring concrete and seeing tangible results in a short period of time.