Is it ever HOT!!!!!!

There was a guest speaker at Simin yesterday, so the foreigners and the Koreans had church together.  The guy was an American in his 60s or 70s, with a slight southern accent.  He said a sentence, then the woman translated, another sentence, she translated again.  Despite that, it was good.  It was good for me to hear the Korean of the English that had just been said--I would pick out the words that I knew and guess at the meanings of others.  I'm pretty sure that at least a couple of times she translated incorrectly; I counted five times that she had to ask him for clarification/what a word meant before continuing.  At one point he said something about the scripture that had been read earlier, and added that we didn't need to read it again.  I didn't understand exactly what she said, but she said it while reaching for her Bible.  I think she probably translated that we were going to read it again.  But I don't imagine that that type of translating is easy.  I'm positive that they went over the sermon before the service, because she had no problem with words like "atonement" but did have a problem with an idiom like "a load on my shoulders."  Singing along with the Korean songs is a great way to improve pronunciation; they had the English words to most songs also on the board, so even though I was singing in Korean I knew what I was saying.  The air conditioning was AWESOME.  It was nice to hear a choir and see the orchestra.  I had a perfect view of the organist's feet--impressive.  After the service finished we met downstairs in our normal room to say goodbye to Holly and Jody.  They said they'd be back to visit, but that makes our small congregation even smaller.

Riding from Simin to Shinbok, John and I talked about the weather, among other things.  Ulsan is his hometown, and he said he's never seen it this hot before.  Usually it's around 30 degrees in the summer, but this year it's 35.  (That's in Celsius, people.  In Fahrenheit, it's HOT too.)

The Bible study was held in the kindergarten room today, so while the older elementary school kids were trying to listen and read English, younger elementary school kids and a few toddlers were running around, playing, screaming, etc.  I found it really hard to concentrate.  One boy around 2 years old took off his diaper but no one seemed to mind.  He was running around with only a t-shirt on, climbing up on things, rocking on a rocking horse type thing, being picked up and swung around by other kids, all half-naked.  At the end of the study we had orange juice.  To start one of the girls helped him drink from the cup, then she left him alone with it.  When there was a yellow puddle on the floor, the girl assumed it was spilt orange juice.  I looked at it--that's the wrong color for orange juice!  She thought maybe so, too, so inspected the boy, and found him still dripping.  She cried out to Octavia, who had started to clean up the mess, "Yuck!  It's baby pee!" then in English with a finger shaking at the boy, "Dirty!"

Octavia took me to McDonald's where we spent an hour and a half talking, eating ice cream, and drinking water (did I mention that it was really hot today?!).  The air conditioning on the 2nd floor was excellent.  She made me speak Korean a little, and explained a couple of things that I sort-of knew but didn't completely understand.  The first hour was nice, then I was ready to leave.  Another half hour, OK.  I dropped my bag off at home, then went for a walk at the soccer stadium.  There were tons of people out.  Some walking or riding bicycles, but many taking naps on the grassy hill or having picnics in any bit of shade that they could find.  In the passageway under the highway, a group of older people were having their picnic underground, complete with soju and a traditional Korean game (I didn't notice which one).  It was a bit cooler 3 flights of stairs down than on the surface.

At home I took a shower and ate a sandwich (I had lunch at Shinbok).  I did a little on the computer, but then turned on the TV and got comfortable in bed.  That was around 8 PM, and before long I was asleep.  I got up just before 10 to brush my teeth and turn everything off.  Going to sleep before midnight is extremely rare for me.  I guess all of the semi-sleepless nights caught up to me, because I slept the whole night until my alarm woke me at 8 AM.