11th July- Day 1 Korea

Totally shagged out after a night of economy class nightmare. NEVER sleep at all! but still surviving on adrenaline. Travellers A turned out to be decet though the street is kinda obscure and quiet at the wee hours and at night. The neighbourhood is all just shops selling lights. Really weird and downtown.


Rested for a short while in our room (after some planning for the day and reccee around the area) and headed down to myeongdong. Lunch was superb!!! We're really so deprived of good korean food back home. Had a cone of soft ice-cream. YUMMY! Great day shopping at Myeongdong area till my pocket starts bleeding..

Dinner was a simple yet awesome affair at an italian bistro. Had pizza and resling. more shopping after that and back at the hostel at 10 pm. Not too bad for day 1 :)

bogoshipo

sigh~~~

the feeling of missing people sucks. sigh~~~ and it's not about coming back to reality or waking up to reality or leaving my heart in korea or what. i guess it's really hard for u peeps to understand. marilyn and i can't understand ourselves too. and so does all our frenz at the forum. some how we just magically clicked and we are now missing each other so much. sigh~~

this is real bad. it's just 2 days without a phone call or msn, and i am really missing them so much. gosh...

and really it's not anything more than just pure frenship or even close to sibling love. can't be explained.

i know there's alot of speculation but it's really not as speculated. after some pondering i really think that it's just a special feeling of attachment that can't be explained. it's really a feeling of attachment between nuna and dong seng. :))

and after talkin to them more and knowing them more, i really feel ever more proud of them and motivated by them. really love them! their tenacity and determination has become my source of motivation to strive hard to realise my dream as well. no dream is too big to be fulfilled.

Blessing Roll

This trip has too much amazing moment that i really have to record down these wonders that God has blessed marilyn n i with:

Awesomeness in no particular ranking:

Snippets:
1) once marilyn and i just stepped into the subway shelter when it suddenly poured really heavily out of the blue. we were so shocked and amazed!

2) on our last night shopping ourselves crazy at dong dae mun in the wee hours of 3am, we were apprehensive about getting a cab back to the hostel. and there it was in front of our eyes, a cab with a female driver. And it was so crazy how nice she was in helping us in searching for the direction to send us home, and even crazier was how i managed to converse with her in broken korean and we understood each other, though it was only korean we spoke. No english involved. But we understood each other and we got back smoothly and safely.


3) We were really fat hoping for someone to drive us to our hostel from seoul hamilton hotel at the end of the forum cos our luggages are such great monsters. And our fren's dad who came to pick his son up actually offfered to send us to our hostel. my gosh. My fren and his dad totally burst the nice meter.

4) at hwasong fortress, we went to the tourist information counter to enquire about the closing time of the fortress but found out about the existence of the palace nearby which we would otherwise have missed.

5) while hunting for lunch after visiting a church, we stumbled upon the changing of guard ceremony which takes place on a specific time and day only and we got to witness it. darn cool

6) at a local church, we were so lost and we decided to approach a foreigner to see if we are in the right church and turned out that he's a permanent resident of korea and a regular attending member of the church and he brought us on a tour around his church.

7) At namsam tower with chan ik and marilyn, we chanced upon the laser show of the night though we didn't know the timing and just so coinsidentally reached there in time to witness the beauty of it.

8) Passing myself off as a high school student twice and paying a cheaper entrance fee for the horse riding at the korean folk village and up seoul tower at nansam. And for the horse riding, i just assumed by the uncle to be a high school student. Gosh

9) Just so much more~ ~ ~ All the awesome bargain, and great frenz. All the freebies given cos we are foreigners and students.

Anyeonghaseyo!

Back from Korea with my heart all shattered. Gosh. the wonders of a mere 8 days! The frenship forged truly unforgettable.

Day to day journal entry another time but for now it's just gonna be an overall journal-ing of my emotions and thoughts. Went to korea about 4 days earlier to shop and sight see with marilyn before we join the international youth forum officially from the 15th to 22th July, and another 3 days extra on our own to shop and play.

My gosh. I really heart my time at the forum though i didnt really achieve what i have set out or envision it to be. It was pretty different from the previous conference in thailand that i went for. There is less information feeding and more discussion among our sub-topic break out groups and the whole thing culminated with the drawing up of a Seoul Declaration that encompasses the proposed solutions and idea inputs on the identified 5 global issues by all of us youths from over 30 countries (over hundred of us). But the serious work felt a little airy-fairy and unrealistic as we all seriously doubt if our effort is gonna be worthwhile. but like the organisers said such conference is to nurture future leaders who can step up to solve these global issues and it is highly probable that future leaders are among us at the conference. So yeah i guess it is worthwhile to spend time to invest in ourselves.

Serious work aside, the other aspect of the conference was truly successful. The part of getting to know more youths from various countries and cultural exchange. My my i really love this sort of exchange. Got to know so many people and especially my korean frenz. I truly heart them and their culture. Really drop dead sweet and nice culture.

And i was also very very amazed by the korean frenz i have made. Most are younger than me, in high school but they are already so mature and so keen on learning more and contributing to global affairs. Gosh. i really dare not think back on my days in high school. they make me felt so small and ashame, and at the same time so proud of them and inspired by them to dream big dreams too!

Anyway i truly truly love this bunch of brothers and sisters that i have met. In just 8 days, we have gotten so close that we really felt that we're brothers and sisters indeed. And it doesnt help that they address u as their sister as well. It was just so sweet. and Korean guys really ROCKS! they r just so sweet, sensitive and thoughtful. Gosh. it's like in their genes or something to watch out for the girls and to really help them out. My my.

Gosh i really heart korea. I'm missing the food, the language, the whining and sweet talk to bargain for things and to get people to give in, the open and warm way of showing your affection to others, the tv programmes, the frenz, the songs, the games we played in each other's room, the fireworks and sparklers at the rooftop, speaking in broken korean, picking up korean slangs.... ahhhh :(((( appo.....

Your Are Holy (Prince of Peace)

DAMN AWESOME SONG!!!



You Are Holy (Prince Of Peace)

You are holy (you are holy)
You are mighty (you are mighty)
You are worthy (you are worthy)
Worthy of praise (worthy of praise)
I will follow (I will follow)
I will listen (I will listen)
I will love you (I will love You)
All of my days (all of my days)

Chorus:
I will sing to
And worship
The King who is worthy
I will love and adore Him
And I will bow down before Him
And I will sing to and worship the King who is worthy
And I will love and adore Him
And I will bow down before Him
You're my prince of peace
And I will live my life for You

(Girls behind guys:)
You are lord of lords
You are king of kings
You are mighty God
Lord of everything

You are Emmanuel
You're the great I am
You're my Prince of Peace
Who is the Lamb

You are the saving God
You are my saving grace
You will reign forever
You are ancient of days

You are Alpha, Omega, Beginning and End
You are my Savior, Messiah, Redeemer, and Friend

(Both:)
You are my prince of peace and I will live my life for you.

Dance with my Father

After weeks of practice and the final week of practice everyday, the dance at the Singapore Anglican Community Service Charity Dinner in aid of Crisis Shelter was finally over.

It's really really amazing how God showed to us that He really chooses the weak to display His glory. Because we all are really not great dancers. We DONT dance and at ALL our rehearsals there would be parts where someone would just forget something. But it's really amazing that when you really just let God do the lifting.

We were all praying before the dance that we will do our best for Him and may the Holy Spirit do the wonders. It's really amazing how things worked out. The dance went really smoothly with no major hiccups at all! No one forgets any steps and everything was just good. And best of all, no one felt fear or nervousness once on stage. Instead everyone was just so happy to be dancing. It's was really joyful and it showed on all our faces and the audience felt it.

So Praise God. And after that, the group of us that were down went to chill out together. It feels sooo awesome to be chilling out as a cell group. It really feels like a cosy family. And Ivan brought us to this really funky place called Que Pasa. Man i HEART the place.

Yupz really funky. AND I LOVE MY CELL!!! REALLY MORE N MORE EACH DAY! :)

Adam's Role

Was having a discussion with my cell frenz during dance pract the other day. which brought to mind stuff that i have been thinking about recently and especially after i return frm Arts camp.

I am really having some culture shock and problems adapting lah. People are just so different in arts. I am not generalising here. i just meant the peeps i meet thus far. All are super crazy and there's no limit to their play. But ok lah they still nice peeps.

But anyway this culture shock thgy is just a trigger to stuff that i have been thinking about. so mich n jaime n i were discussing abt the general singaporean men. Once again not to generalized but it's really very tough to find a guy that embodies the spirit of a Godly man. A friend asked isn't it boring to be with someone serious and what's my idea of chivalry since i always bring it up.

I think being a Christ centered man doesn't mean that you have to be serious and no nonsense kind. It's not. It's knowing the limits to jokes and stuff. It's a fine line between joking and jeering. Quote an example, to a self-conscious girl a joke about her weight or appearance maybe putting her down. Of cos this is dependent on case by case basis. But in a nutshell it's just a fine line between the two. A Godly guy would joke but not jeer or put girls down.

It's God given role for Adam to love and to protect Eve. A Godly man should always love and protect the women around them. This is what i defined as chivalry. It's really chivalrous for a guy to think and be sensitive to a girl. Even things like checkin in on her when she return home late that she's safe. Sending her home when it's really too late. Defending her name. Protect her in not just physical sense but also her name spiritually or emotionally etc. It's like how Joseph defended Mary's name when he learnt that she was with child. He thought of divorcing her privately but not out in the open because he wanted to protect Mary's name. This is chivalry. To love and defend the fairer sex not just from physical bully, but also other aspects such as not putting her to shame or embarrassment. So simple things like offering to substitute the girl in playing those slightly adult content games during orientation camps are acts of chivalry which is sadly absent most of the time. Instead, most find pleasure in pushing the girls to the front line thinking of it as a joke.

Still on the same point, I absolutely abhor those who enjoy having ambiguous relationships. It's totally not respecting the girl. It's just a nicer way of saying I want to share a closer and more intimate relationship with you but minus the commitment. So girls out there it's really foolish to allow guys to have it their way. Such grey areas reduces the girl to just a fling and justifies the guy's act of having many other flings since they are all not their girl friends. So where is chivalry in this? The sad part is alot of us actually find grey areas acceptable. Also there are those who have no qualms with having ambiguous times with girls who are attached.

Lastly, a Godly man leads. But of course it doesn't mean to dominate. But a Godly man leads and advises the fairer sex. Genders are made to complement. However alot of guys have taken the back seat in leading and leaving the fickled minded girls to tear their hair out.

But of cos, ladies have a part to play too. We have to be willing to be led and to take advices. Be supportive appreciative of guys' effort in taking the lead, in trying their best to be the gentlemen in our lives. However it seemed that there's a vicious cycle going on. The girls gets turned off by the guys' passiveness and takes over the role of leading and all, and the guys gets even less motivated and turned more passive which turns girls off even more and making them more aggressive in playing the role of Adam.