Blood and Sweat

Friday night was a little send off for a friend leaving Korea (all too common these days) and an outside party was planned with various fun (dangerous) events in most extreme elimination challenge style (hula hoops set on fire, etc). Sitting on the steps preparing for the festivities (by filling water balloons with coke), I  reached into Sean's bag (where there was apparently a tiny sword of some kind) and stabbed myself in the middle finger.

Naturally it bled all over the place and required a (very reluctant) hospital trip to get a few stitches. (Got that semi-annual hospital trip out of the way!) Luckily, my Korean friend Jiwon (who is also a nurse!) was able to come with me and translate everything to the attendants at the hospital- we were in and out in about 10 minutes! Korea's health care system always amazes me! I was only upset that I had to miss playing the game. After some McDonald's and rejoining my friends it was as if it didn't even happen.

Saturday, we headed to the beach in Samcheonpo for an afternoon of swimming, watermelon eating and grilling (delicious steaks.... yum). The beach was small but had ziplining available for only about $7! (Next time)

Sunday the girls and I went to Jackie's church to hear her give testimony. It was sunny and beautiful and after a hearty brunch, we went to the river and Emma and I swam. It was all in all refreshing and glorious.

Just keeping on with the goodness!
More soon,
<3 M

Shark Dive

This past weekend was my first SCUBA experience ever; it went far beyond what I expected. It was one of the most surreal moments of my life, having several gigantic sharks swim inches away from my face.

what i was in the water with- wearing no protection

Sean and I arrived in Busan Saturday morning and went immediately to the aquarium where we met his friend Ryan. We had to start off by taking "the driver's ed of diving"- an informative class (in a classroom) and squaring away our paperwork- it took about an hour- and then had a two hour wait (while the first group dove) to walk through the aquarium. We left the aquarium and got burgers and also free acupuncture (? I know, so weird but hey) on the beach while we waited.

When we came back, we were handed wet suits and changed. Then it was time to put on the 30 pound lead belt (to help us sink) and the oxygen tank. Altogether I'm estimating we tacked on an extra 50-60 pounds- it was so pretty hard to walk, and I kept almost falling over! Once we got into the water, though, the weight was nothing. We trained in a shallow pool for maybe an hour- I learned the basic skills of SCUBA! And then, before I knew it, there we were, in a huge 300 million gallon tank, surrounded by sharks, rays, and a huge grouper. It was weirdly peaceful- at no point was I ever afraid of being attacked. We foraged the bottom of the tank and came up with about 20 shark teeth- the sharks in the tank will each lose about 300,000 teeth in their lifetimes!

The change in pressure was very strange- it oddly enough didn't hurt my head at all, but instead it felt like one of my teeth was going to explode. I asked the diving instructor later about this, and he said it's rare but it happens, especially in military planes that can't pressurize (people have to jump out)- sometimes air gets trapped above your tooth, and rarely, people have actually had teeth explode. It was scary- and I had to resurface a little bit to equalize the pressure. After that, though, it was totally amazing.

not us.... but this is what we did! you can see the bright yellow lead belts that keep you "sunk"

We didn't get pictures, but we did get an HD video made- I can't wait to see it. It was so, so amazing and I would definitely recommend the program to anyone.
More to come,
<3 M