japanese food and romance

a weekend to remember.

friday night... japanese food in wonju with ESL buddies naomi and emma (both from new zealand, both of whom i run with)....

the ambiance was delightful: hanging lanterns, delicious sushi and korean girls getting drunk and throwing up food everywhere (thanks to the power of "Soju"... i've never been so grossed out)

saturday i treated my love to a weekend in icheon... it was a surprise. icheon is famous for its hot springs and its pottery. we stayed at a $195/night hotel called "miranda hotel" which is linked directly with the hot springs.

my favorite part was the weeping willow-lined lake which decorated the land next to the hotel... pink, purple and white flowers danced along the edges of the lake, and fish hungrily nibbled at the water's surface.

we did face masks (yes, trenton did a face mask lol.. that's why we look so ghost-like in this one picture), soaked in the hot springs, played poker and went bowling (i beat trenton two games out of three!!! yippee!!!) -- we bowled next to a group of potters who'd gathered for the international ceramic festival happening that very weekend in icheon. there were potters from denmark, japan, india, america... it was fascinating to even be near them and watch them bowl together.

we wrapped up the weekend by purchasing some handmade clay mugs, a tea pot, and a vase... all of which i'm sure will crack on their way over to canada. sigh.

what a lovely, romantic, albeit expensive getaway.

Dr. Jekyll Hides -- by Emily

I hide
Not from the dark
But from myself, miniscule, meandering, mind-full
Afraid of what I might do,
Say, think thoughtless thirsty thwarted
Afraid of this monster in my head
Dead to dread, genius, generating germs
This gargantuan hole hellish hidden
Filled with potential
Potent power
I have created a Frankenstein
He appears in my weakness, looming and large
He abides in my stride
Lurks in my shadow, shallow, deep, creep
Whispers “coward” until I cave
To the eerie green light
Some call me bright, a prodigy, a miracle
I call their bluff
My creativity spawns from madness badness sadness
The other side, this dark demonic side
The place I hide from
And in
And cannot live without, drought, no doubt I’m insane
Fear: an unholy terror
Camouflaged in the mundane
A tiny man with a wand who conducts
My daily moves grooves proving to no one I am everything
It’s fear which makes me wane, wanting, weary
“Normal”
Yet I question:
Is it normal to be enslaved to a concept? To a forty-hour work week inside white walls where everyone eats donuts and whispers?
Well, now I’m screaming…

meeting miya

the world is shrinking by the second...
and time is curling up like a cat on its rug ... for me anyway. i feel that way as i only have one month left in korea.

God is helping me make the most of that month -- and today was proof of that. today i met miya for the first time in person....

miya found me through our blog. she's a 26-year-old korean graduate student in seoul, whose english is better than mine some would say. she's studied in england, and taught in the phillipines.


we wandered the streets of 'insadong' and 'sam chung dung' together: artsy, europeanesque streets of seoul... we were surrounded by fellow artists with large cameras and funky clothing.

miya treated me to lunch (beepimbop -- my favourite, consisting of rice and vegetables) and then i shopped up a storm in preparation for returning home with armloads of useless souvenirs :)

afterwards we scoped out the library, some museums (the museum of tibet, and the national folk museum) and smelled some of spring's most delicate blossoms.

it was a wonderful day of putting a face to a name...

miya is a tender soul with a giant heart. thank God for our shrinking world...

Authenticity -- by Emily

Authenticity is
Found in the ironic laugh
Dripping from Al Gore’s patented shoes
Leaking from the diesel tank of David Suzuki’s bus,
Oozing from Edward Burtynsky’s photograph equipment as he snaps shot after shot of our manufactured landscape.

Authenticity is
Found in the salty tear
Dripping from a Chinese worker’s eye as she sews together Al Gore’s shoes
Leaking from the pores of Bangladesh laborers, shipping off diesel for Suzuki’s bus
Oozing from a hungry African girl, crouched in a diamond field, watching Burtynsky eat a sandwich and photograph her landscape.

Authenticity is the silence that falls on a casket after the final eulogy has been spoken.

It’s a child’s gasp of horror, wonder or surprise as the world unfolds its mysteries, one gasp after another.

It’s the two coins donated by a woman on welfare, versus the piles of bills offered by the rich.

It’s the quiet heartbeat of humanity being dulled by
layer upon layer of fast food and greed.

It’s the groan of creation watching itself be stripped bare, unable to be heard.

Authenticity is a word whose definition we no longer understand.

the commercialism of christ

i love my dear Jesus.

i hate how we've once again crucified him.

in my latest painting, Jesus is surrounded by popular logos/corporate symbols.

His mouth has a band-aid over it; His hands are bound, and He too is plastered with "christian" logos...

let's stop marketing our savior.

let's kneel before God, void of corporate or institutional influence, and worship the real thing.

our mountain-top date

this weekend we abandoned report cards and the stuffy air of our apartment, and went on a 'trenton and emily excursion' to the TOP of chiaksan mountain (a 12 kilometre hike).

we started out taking the scooter, but it overheated, so then we climbed on the bus for the rest of the way...

spring is starting to bloom... we saw random purple flowers hedged by budding branches ... at the peak, snow loomed its ugly head.

this waterfall is full of coins people have tossed in for good luck. so we went fishing... (hee hee)

emily valiently rope climbs up the cliff...

trent pauses to look handsome...

then ponders life as we know it from the top of chiaksan. (behind us were a lot of korean families eating picnics)...

a memorable meeting was with a korean man who hiked the entire way with NO SHOES ON!

we congratulated ourselves by splurging on an evening at The Outback Steakhouse (such a foreigner thing to do, but man was it worth it.)

magnolia madness

whoever invented the phrase "stop and smell the roses" must never have taken the time to smell magnolias.
white winsome petals
delicate yellow core

sweet scent
like a miracle

growing outside our window

you know it's a remarkable flower if trent comments on it. he can't get over the magnitude of the magnolia. it radiates heavenward and outward, embracing us everytime we leave and enter our home.


on a side note, i spent some lovely time with a new friend named kerri last night... we strummed our guitars, and sang leonard cohen and simon and garfunkel.

she loves korean letter paper even more than i -- the poetry on it is so ... random. sporadically wonderful.














"weak up!" the eggs cry to the unsuspecting letter-recipient...
whoever thought eggs could have so much feeling?

"however, since it was passing together every day, the trouble appeared also in each egg."



and with these deep thoughts, we bid you adieu.

no chocolate bunnies this year

it was a rough day for trenton. no chocolate bunnies, no hockey tournament (he was supposed to play today in chucheon)... crummy weather combined with lack of communication forced him to wait.

nevertheless, he was appeased by a 'sunrise service' we held with friends dan and angela; whole-wheat blueberry pancakes, strawberries and whipped cream, along with some bible reading and hymn singing started off easter morn.

then we headed into seoul with emily's DEVILED EGGS (first-time folks! see pic -- i'm proud of my babies, lol) and we attended pastor john gurnett's church.

after that we all crowded into john's apartment (us along with a million other people) to devour ham, turkey, salad, chili and rice, perogies, gummy bears, carrot cake and ... well, my famous deviled eggs. :)



after that we waited around for our bus to show up so we could go home to sweet wonju. in the meantime, trent shared my old-man sweater because he was cold... ha ha.

while we miss the turkey, stuffing and good-friday vacation of home, we thank God for the moments we had today. have a happy and holy celebration of our Lord Jesus Christ, everyone!

Thoughts on Easter

(picture: blossoms outside our window)


Rolling Away the ‘White-Washed’ Tombs
By Emily T. Wierenga

“Come and listen … come and listen to what He’s done.”

These David-Crowder lyrics are a peaceful balm for my weeping heart.

I am crying not for those who don’t know Jesus; after all, they have yet to meet Him. I am crying for the many ‘Christians’ whose tomb remains sealed this Easter. For them, Christ may have never risen. And what is the force holding their stones in place? Hypocrisy.

We live in a world of Pharisees. Churchgoers who wear large crosses around their necks, WWJD bracelets and Nike shoes. Individuals who slander other races and then thank God that they are not like those ‘sinners.’ People who claim to love Jesus yet hurt their environment, shun their neighbors, turn their back on the poor, divorce their spouses, ignore their children, and dance with the devil.

If we rewind 2,000 years and walk in the dusty footsteps of Jesus, we’ll encounter the same ‘holy-rollers.’ Pharisees believing they know the right way to the kingdom of God, and ignoring the hippy-rebel Jesus whose peaceful, loving lifestyle only makes them yearn for a powerful, demanding, ‘God-like’ King.

To risk crossing the line, I will compare Jesus to Shane Clairborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution and founder of ‘The Simple Way.’ Shane is a long-haired, plainly-dressed, ‘hippy’ follower of Jesus who lives with the poor and serves them, day and night. He cares for the environment, as obvious by his vegetable-oil fueled-van; he loves people – everyone from all walks of life – as evident by his open-home; he refuses to sell out to media’s voice by not watching TV (he plants flowers in old TV sets instead) and he speaks with firm yet gentle conviction to the ‘church.’

I will compare the Pharisees to the ‘Protestant Christian’ Walton Family, otherwise known as the richest family in the world. Ironically, Walmart-founder Sam Walton said one of his secrets to success was keeping the store open later than other stores – especially during the Easter season. My guess it wasn’t so he could share the true meaning of Easter with his customers.

Sam Walton was anti-charity; “We feel very strongly,” he wrote, “that Wal-Mart really is not, and should not be, in the charity business.” Money that Wal-Mart donated to charity, he reasoned, would only come out of the pockets of “either our shareholders or our customers.” He also refused to pay his workers more than he had to, and, as explained in his 1992 autobiography, Made in America, he didn’t believe in giving “any undeserving stranger a free ride.”

Add this to the fact that he professed to share the Christian faith and attended The Presbyterian Church every Sunday, and you have the ingredients for a powerful package of hypocrisy. Sadly, as everyone knows, hypocrisy is the father of disillusionment.

One of my favorite parts of the New Testament portrays Jesus walking through the fields on the Sabbath, picking grain for Him and His disciples to eat. Confronted by the Pharisees, he explained that the Sabbath was made for the Son of Man, not vice-versa. On another occasion, he blatantly healed a man on the holy day; turning to face the piercing looks of the ‘righteous,’ he asked them “Which is lawful on the Sabbath? To do good, or do evil? To save a life, or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9)

Jesus was a hippy-loving lover of the environment, of the poor, of the outcast. He hated hypocrisy. He despised the actions of those ‘white-washed tombs.’

For me, the miracle lays not so much in Jesus dying for the non-believers. After all, as previously stated, they have yet to meet him; they have yet to accept or deny Him. The miracle of the cross lies in him dying for the very people who professed to know God, who professed to be righteous. He died for “Christians” who will never understand the meaning of the word. He died for people who slandered him and praised His father.

As independent artist Elliot Smith sings, “I’ll never know you now, but I’ll love you anyhow.” For me, that is the message of Jesus for today’s ‘White-Washed Tombs.’

'bangs' and bowling

as you may have guessed, koreans take bowling as seriously as they take everything else.

we felt pretty silly today, showing up without our ball-bags, our own bowling shoes, snazzy pants or sleak wrist supporters. but then it was THEIR turn to feel silly when i scored strike after strike (see photo :))... actually, the funny part is that after trent took that picture, i DID score a strike!
that was it tho. i pretty much stink at bowling.
trent got a strike too --- but, it was foot-fowled during his victory dance. pretty funny.







saturday was rainy, but the gentle pitter patter helped me write an article, paint and write a song on my guitar.





saturday night we went with friends dan and angela to a 'dvd bang'... (bang in korean means room)... we watched 'ladder 49' on a huge projector screen slouched in comfy chairs and munching on sun chips. it was grand.

now it's back to a heavy week of teaching. i'm doing an extra adult class (monday and thursday nights, 9-10:30 pm) so they're long days. we're also being observed this week by our boss. sigh.

thanks for tuning in :)