That's what all the people say.

I don't know quite what to make of the past few weeks other than that they've made me very thoughtful. Coming here has been an experience that I will carry with me forever. I haven't met many people, but the ones I have are wonderful and I hope to know them for a long time to come. I feel I ride a roller coaster up and down within each month, week, day, etc. here. Life as a Seoulite is so unpredictable! I guess it's sort of like in old school WB cartoons when out of nowhere the character would get hit over the head with a frying pan... you know that reaction they have? That mix of mostly confusion, with a bit of bewilderment, anger and pain; and resulting in frustration is what sits at the lows of my roller coaster life in Seoul. But there are great highs too! And sometimes the rides down to the lows are exciting and fun - and sometimes they make you want to puke ... but either way, I know the roller coaster is going to go back up again.

Today after church I went for coffee and then did some Christmas shopping in Insadong. One American guy came up to me and asked if I knew where he could get guitar strings, and I actually knew! When you're new to somewhere, it's always great when someone thinks you look comfortable enough in your surroundings to ask you for help. Then, shortly after, this random Korean man with very good English really wanted to chat with me. He was walking along and really interested in what I had with me. ?? It was pretty bizarre. After that four Korean college students approached me to take a survey for their class. I figured what the heck, and went along and they ended up being really cool and friendly! Then they took turns taking my picture - VIP status over here!

Some other not so amusing things happened too- which would be the frying pan to the face part of my day. But what can you do? As Frank would say, THAT'S LIFE!