Korean Lantern Festival

While in Seoul, Korea, we were able to
walk through the special lantern festival 
they had set up along the Han river.

The lights were beautiful and very festive.



Looking down from on top at
the Lantern Festival.

Reindeer?



Almost like Elves?

Almost like Christmas!
We have so much to be for which we are very thankful.
We are especially grateful for such a wonderful family.
Also, we are thankful for you who are our very special friends.
We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving
and a wonderful Christmas season, too!
May our dear Heavenly Father bless you.

Korea

We had a wonderful few days in Seoul, Korea this past week.  It was the annual mission presidents' seminar which I (Gary) am in charge of planning and setting up.  Fortunately once we get there we don't have to do anything but just enjoy the meetings and activities.  We flew to Seoul on Tuesday morning.  Seoul is very different from Tokyo.  Where Tokyo is calm, orderly, quiet and clean, Seoul is vibrant, colorful, noisy and a little dirty.  It is at the same time more Western and more Asian.  More western because of the wide streets, all the American food chains, lots of tall new buildings, and they drive on the right side of the road.  More Asian because of the markets and foods on the street that you don't see in Japan.  We stayed at the Millenium Hilton Hotel which is sort of in the heart of Seoul.  Seoul is a very large city--the largest in the world inside a city limit (more than 10 million) and the second largest urban area in the world with about 26 million people.  That makes is second only to Tokyo.  There is a massive redevelopment program going on which is requiring that we relocate most of our churches.  There are literally hundreds of tall buildings under construction everywhere you look.  Seoul has many more tall buildings than Tokyo and much taller buildings because they don't have earthquakes there.  There are 80-90 story buildings under construction.  Traffic is about the same as Tokyo--terrible.  We had three days of wonderful meetings with the area presidency and David F. Evans of the First Quorum of  the Seventy and twelve mission presidents and their wives.  It was a great blessing to us to hear their messages about the Savior and salvation and the encouragement to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with everyone.  The dinners and activities were also wonderful.  We learned how to  make kimbap which is much like a California roll that was later delivered to the homeless.  Our contribution to the work is meager compared to the dedication and commitment of the general authorities and mission presidents but we do the best we can.  They are all far beyond us in spirituality and abilities so we just sit back and try to absorb all the wonderful messages that we hear.  And we did try kimchi for the first time.  There are many kinds of kimchi made from all kinds of vegetables including cabbage (fermented and the most common kind), radish, cucumber, hot peppers, and who knows what else.  Some of it is very spicy.  Overall I don't plan to rush out and open up a kimchi restaurant and if I don't eat any more while we are here I won't feel bad.

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Arriving at the airport in Seoul, Korea

Namdaemun Market

On the right is silk worm larvae for sale that they cook and eat.  Yum!
They kind of have a sweet sickly smell when they are cooking.

Another delicacy; pig head and snout

N

Meats and food for sale on the street

South gate of the city.  There used to be four gates with
the city surrounded by a wall.
Notice the Christmas tree.

Seoul Tower viewed from our hotel room.

View of new area of Seoul from our hotel room.

View of the Seoul Tower in the distance from the top of the 63 Building (63 stores high)

View of financial area of Seoul from 63 Building

 

View of the very crowded freeway running along the Han river.

View of our dinner cruise boat on the Han river.

There are many bridges on the Han river and we passed under several.

The nice dinning room on the ship where we ate.

The 63 building that we went to the top of.

Carol standing in front of  the Seoul Temple.

Both of us standing in front of the Seoul Temple and it was cold.



Seoul Temple

Unique evergreen ground cover at the temple.

Lantern festival in Korea

Yoyogi Park and Meiji Jungu Shrine

We had a sweet experience cheering up a man this week at McDonalds who seemed so sad.  He has been asked to retire from the military and he is going home soon to Louisiana where he has no family and seemed to maybe have no friends. He was sitting there for a long time with an empty coffee cup and looking pretty forlorn.  He brightened up when Gary talked to him, and we later invited him to attend church. We wish he would have come on Sunday, and we waited for him outside the church.  We wish so much that people who are sad and who seem to have no purpose in life could see just how much joy the gospel of Jesus Christ could bring to them if they would only open their hearts and minds and come and see.  The church is also a place where you have instant friends.  We have lived in several places and attended church in many places and this is always the case. I hope that we can all do our part to help others and to share the gospel with all of our friends and neighbors, also, those we meet on the street or even at McDonalds.
 



                             We want you to see what we did Saturday to celebrate Culture Day.

The entrance to Yoyogi Park



There were beautiful displays of long stemmed flowers

Bonzai Trees



This is the tiny display from the left side of the previous Bonzi picture.
Below is a good site to see a really old Bonzai tree.

                                        http://www.bonsaiempire.com/blog/great-bonsai

A familiar face in the crowd

Notice the beautiful packaging on all of the treats. 
In Japanese culture, people always bring
back a box of these individually wrapped cookies, etc.
to bring to their coworkers, family, etc.

This is Meiji Jungu Shrine that is in Yoyoi Park
Everyone was bowing and seemed to be praying
or perhaps making a wish.
There was display board close by where
people would buy a small board and
write a wish on the board and
hang it on the display board.
This is a Shinto Shrine built in the early 1900's to the
Emperor Meiji.  This was all destroyed during
World War II and rebuilt.  This sits on
175 acres of land, surrounded by 120,000
trees all planted by the Japanese people.
The trees are huge and beautiful so they
probably weren't destroyed during the war.

Sometimes the cooking is an art form

Bride and Groom who were there waiting for their wedding procession

Here comes the procession

Here they are walking across the square where we
presume they were going inside the shrine area
to be married.

Here they come

There they go!

This was a special day for the children who are age
3, 5, and 7 because their parents dress them up in the
traditional kimonos.
This was for Culture Day which is a National
Holiday in Japan.

        

HISTORY OF CULTURE DAY

from wikipedia

        

Culture Day was first held in 1948, to commemorate the announcement of the post-war Japanese constitution on November 3, 1946.
November 3 was first celebrated as a national holiday in 1868, when it was called Tenchō-setsu (天長節^?), a holiday held in honor of the birthday of the reigning emperor—at that time, the Meiji Emperor. (See also The Emperor's Birthday.) With the death of the Meiji Emperor in 1912, November 3 ceased to be a holiday until 1927, when his birthday was given its own specific holiday, known as Meiji-setsu (明治節^?). As Meiji-setsu was discontinued with the announcement of Culture Day in 1948, some see Culture Day as a continuation of this tradition as well—a mere renaming of Meiji-setsu—although they are ostensibly unrelated.

Current practice

As Culture Day exists to promote the arts and various fields of academic endeavor, local and prefectural governments typically choose this day to hold art exhibits, culture festivals, and parades. For example, Hakone in Kanagawa Prefecture holds the annual Feudal Lord's Parade (箱根大名行列, Hakone Daimyō Gyōretsu^?) to exhibit Edo Period clothing and costumes.^[1] It is common for universities to present new research and projects on Culture Day. Primary and secondary schools often have a "culture festival" on or near this day.^[2]
Since 1936, the award ceremony for the prestigious Order of Culture has been held on this day. Given by the Emperor himself to those who have significantly advanced science, the arts or culture, it is one of the highest honors bestowed by the Imperial Family.

The parents were happy to let us take a photo.
They were very proud of their children.

As we were preparing to leave the park, Gary reached into his pocket and
his keys were gone.  As he reached in further, there was a small
hole in his pocket from which his keys had escaped.
The area is huge and we were sure we were going to have a
very hard time getting into our apartment because it was the
weekend and everyone lives far away from our area
who might have access to duplicate keys.
We looked everywhere as we were walking out of this huge park
and had pretty much given up hope of seeing the keys again.
We weren't even sure if they might have fallen out
on one of the subway rides that it took to get there.
We stopped at the small police box called a Koban
just outside of the park.  The officers couldn't
speak English but they understood the word, 'keys'.
I was amazed that they brought forth our keys immediately.
Someone had found them and brought them
all the way to the police box.
Only in Japan.
We also believe our dear Heavenly Father
hears and answers our prayers.

Bidding you all Sayonara

O