Faces from the Village of Peace Orphanage...

Here are some of the beautiful children we spent Saturday afternoon with.

The Oldest Book in the World...

On Friday, April 18, Brian and I played hookie and took a personal day to explore the nearby town of Cheongju. The thing that really drew us there was an early printing museum, located on the site of the temple where the first recorded book in the world was printed with moveable metal type. For publisher-types, this was a fascinating little museum! The book, which recorded some Buddhist sayings, was printed in the year 1377 (78 years before Gutenberg printed his Bible in Europe). Apparently there are historical records that indicate books were printed in Korea in the late 1200s with metal type technology, but no copies have been found to authenticate that claim. The book pictured in this post is a copy, as the original is in a museum in France, and the funny-looking object with several arms is a beeswax form used to make early metal type casts. Combined with a huge and delicious lunch, a jaunt up the mountain, and 25 degree celcius weather, it was a great day.

A Celebration of Spring!

The annual Sintanjin cherry blossom festival was held on the outskirts of Daejeon this weekend. Many spring blossoms are out in full force now, and the cherry blossoms in this location were beautiful. There was a festive atmosphere in the air, with abundant food tents and cultural drumming shows happening all over the site. One large group of performers told the story of rice planting and harvesting. Using just their drums and various chants and dances, it was like a re-enactment story (kind of like what our War of 1812 Re-enactment groups might do at home). We were amazed at how similar traditional Korean drum patterns are to First Nation drumming at home. Even some of the basic dance steps are very much the same. So interesting!

Food as Art & other interesting photos...

At the Cherry Blossom Festival there was a food tent set up to feature various dishes from local restaurants. The dishes seemed more like art than edible offerings! Also in this post: a roadside chicken roaster and a military-grade traffic cop.

Oops... faulty Korean

On Saturday evening LeeAnne ordered pizza and thought she had executed the order with pretty good clarity (all in Korean, of course). Alas, when the pizza arrived we realized we had four pizzas to consume, not two! Hmmm... perhaps more language lessons are in order!

Warm up your palate... for scorpions and sea horses

In Beijing there is a big street called Wanfujing Dalie, and a lot of people come there to shop, wander and experience the night life of the city. On a little side street we ran into several food stalls that featured interesting snacks such as skewered scorpions and sea horses, grilled duck liver and other organ meats. Wow. A gentleman running one stall picked up a live scorpion and showed it to my students. A chorus of screeches registered how they felt about coming face to face with the creepy-crawly insect!

Embracing Global Issues in Beijing...

Last weekend I (LeeAnne) had the privilege of taking six students to the first-ever Global Issues Network conference in the Asia region. It was held in Beijing and hundreds of students gathered to explore global issues like environmental sustainability, global warming, poverty, humanitarianism and so much more. It was an amazing weekend! The speakers were inspiring and their stories were gripping, and I know each student who participated was challenged and changed in substantial ways. One speaker who really touched the kids was Canadian Mark Keilburger. He and his brother run Free the Children and he was an incredible orator. As the result of his speech, everybody in that auditorium was thoroughly challenged to make a difference in our world. It was a fabulous weekend in Beijing, complete with some exploring and a Beijing opera performance at the Lao She Teahouse.