Late Night Adventures

After a relaxing day of running some errands, drinking a delicious mango smoothie with the lovely Stacey, and  playing the Wii with my host brothers, I was getting ready for bed when suddenly my host mom knocked on the door and, while miming driving motions, said, "Drive now." The kids were already at the door and ready to go. So I did what I had to do:  I put on my sandals and helped put the baby in the car.

Here I was, watching Korean cartoons on an adventure to I-had-no-idea-where, wearing sports shorts and an old t-shirt, with wet hair, no bra on, and teen clear spot treatment patches placed all over my face. Needless to say, I was not looking my best, and was furiously hoping that wherever we were going did not involve people. I did not make my case any better by texting the Hwacheon 4 Kakao Group on the way, whose emoticon depictions of my night made me laugh out loud--which made my host mother give me questioning looks. About twenty minutes after we started, we ended up outside a Buddhist Temple, where my mother stopped the car. My heart dropped as I considered a late night worship service where people would actually see me in all of my bedtime attire glory.

However, that was not what my host mother had in mind at all! She had gone out of her way to bring me here to show me a pond full of lotuses that only bloom at night. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. We went farther along the trail to see the clear night sky full of thousands and thousands of stars, a close-up view of the lotuses, a small house located right next to the water, and the hazy skyline of dark mountains and scattered lights in the distance. We ended the night by going back up next to the temple, where she had each of us drink from a famous spring before we were yelled at by temple guards and asked to leave. I was so touched by my host mother's kindness, and loved that it was not only a teaching moment for me, but also for the kids. Actually, they probably got more out of it, because her explanations to me usually consisted of one simple word, hand motions, and an attempt to use google translate. We also said, "Wow!" and "Yeppoyo! (Beautiful)!" a lot.

I am so thankful that there are some languages that are much deeper than words. <3

The lotuses! I'm sorry the picture did not turn out very well.