On thursday the 5th was the internship ceremony. A few days before the ceremony, one of the internship coordinators asked Kraig to write out a 3 minute speech about his time in Seoul (I guess she noticed he doesn't mind talking in front of big groups). We got all dolled up for event and even got there on time, just to find out they knowingly told us to be there an hour early! When we did start, we were served orange juice and a plate of delicious fruit (yay!) They did some talking, but I was too bored to pay attention. After all the short, thankful speeches we moved onto the Q&A session with the vice mayor. Somewhat interesting, but I was thankful when it was done. We took some group pictures, then Kraig and the IU gang somehow got a picture with vice before he ran away. All the interns received really nice diplomas and a fancy usb memory card filled with pictures and videos from the internship.
After the ceremony we headed home and accidentally got on the wrong bus! We realized the bus was going to take forever to make a loop, so we hopped off, and what do you know? It starts raining cats and dogs! Even though we had an umbrella, we still got soaked. Poor Kraig, he was so tired and his feet hurt and he was starving and his clothes were drenched. I guess it goes without saying, we were extremely happy to make it back home that evening.
Friday the 6th was Kraig's last day of the internship. They took his group to get bulgogi for lunch, which Kraig was very thankful for.
Somehow Kraig and I remembered which date we got married on, maybe it was both of us saying "it's the 7th, not the 8th" every day the week before it happened. One of the girls in Kraig's intern group received 2 tickets to see the B-Boy show in Hongik (a university town), but couldn't make it, so she gave the tickets to us! We were very thankful since each ticket cost 50,000 won ($48). The show was slow at first, but picked up and was very entertaining. At the end, one of the dancers was playing announcer, picking on the crowd, when he asked if there were any foreigners. He was speaking in Korean, so he looked around to find people that were just sitting around, not really fitting into the crowd, and he spotted us. Eek, he asked some questions but I could hardly understand through his thick accent, but it made people laugh. We had such a great time at the show!
Afterward, we made our way back to the Wang Thai in Itaewon. I accidentally ordered 'extra spicy' instead of 'spicy.' Big mistake! My dish was delicious, but I could only eat it half a spoonful at a time. I'm pretty sure I drank a liter or two of water with my meal. It was even too hot for Kraig! I mean, we left an unlicked bowl at a Thai place, that's saying something. Well, we about keeled over on our way home, but we did survive (sans a few taste buds).
On sunday, we went to the afternoon service at Yoido Full Gospel Church, the largest church in Korea (about 800,000+ members). I think they have 5 services just to acomodate everyone. We sat in the foreigner section, which was equipped with headphones and a choice of 9 different languages. The pastor told a story about some students in the Philippines in Antipolo, although he didn't mention names, Kraig was very suspicious he was talking about his high school that is in Antipolo. The church was a bit on the Pentecostal side and since they weren't speaking in English, prayer time (with everyone praying aloud at the same time) was overwhelming. It was a very unique experience, to say the least.
Although it was a beautiful day and we were by the river (close to where we took that boat cruise on the intern fieldtrip), it was too hot to enjoy! We got some ice cream and headed back to Hongik, because I liked it so much the night before. Hongik reminded us of Itaewon in that it offered lots of western restaurants and many people speak English there. But we liked Hongik more since it's a slightly artsy town with way fewer foreigners than Itaewon.
Oops, this post is kinda long! Time to go to the beach, more later.
I love that you got to do so much
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