Easter in Seoul

Meg and I woke up around 6:30 on Sunday and made our way into Seoul for the Easter service at the Seoul Cathedral. We arrived just before 9:00 and Meg went off to the washroom before the service while I went to get us seats. I was greeted at the entrance by the ushers who informed me that they had run out of bulletins and hymnals. After two hours of travel, I was not impressed. Meg and I were fortunate because we both know the Anglican liturgy fairly well (though we're slightly off sometimes as they use the British and Episcopal versions rather than Canadian one) so we managed for the most part. The hymns were a little weak as the front half of the church sang along and the back half (without books) just stood there singing along to the parts they knew. There were probably about 120-140 people in attendance and only about 60-70 with the Order of Service. Meg and I sat around the middle and some of the people around us had books, but everyone behind us didn't. It made me a little sad. On a normal week the church probably gets about 50 people, meaning that about half the people there were visitors and the half with the books, for the most part, were the regulars. It made me think back to some of the courses I took at Wycliffe about growing congregations and the do's and don'ts. This service would have made my professor cry. If I was still taking courses at Wycliffe I could have written a paper on numerous mistakes made by this congregation. Instead, I just sit here thinking about all the people that will likely never return. Being the only Anglican church with English services within a few hundred kilometers this makes the situation even more depressing than if it had occurred in Toronto.

On a happier note, my parents arrive on Thursday. In lots of ways the past six months have flown by. It almost doesn't feel like we've been away long enough to have visitors, but we're both looking forward to their arrival (and not just for the long list of items I've asked them to bring over for us).

It should be an interesting visit. When they visited me in Japan I had a long list of places to take them and we traveled around a good deal of the country on the Bullet Train visiting three of Japan's ancient capitals (Kyoto, Nara, Kamakura), it's current capital (Tokyo), Hiroshima and the area where I lived. I had day trips planned for them to places nearby on the days I had to work with a train schedule and maps of the area. This time their visit will be split into three pieces. They arrive on Thursday and spend the weekend with us before departing for China on Monday. Then we'll meet them in Seoul the following weekend and on the Sunday they'll head off north of Seoul for their World Vision meeting for three days. After that they'll come back to Yongin for four more days.

While we're in Seoul we'll likely take them to a few of the palaces and the DMZ (demilitarized Zone - separating North and South Korea). As for the rest of their trip I'm not sure exactly where to take them. We might try and head down to Busan the last weekend they're here if they aren't too exhausted. Some how I doubt the sites of Korea will be able to compete with their week in China (Great Wall, Forbidden City, Terra Cotta Warriors, Temple of Heaven).