Standing at the peak, the wind whipping my hair across my cheeks, I close my eyes and tilt my face to the sun. I stretch out my arms and turn up my palms and breathe. I open my eyes and try to absorb the techni-colored panorama of jagged, white mountain peaks, emerald pastures and shimmering diamond lakes reflecting back the exact impossible blue of the New Zealand sky and I think, Heaven looks like this.
I sit on the back of a scooter, hands gripping the waist of the twelve-year-old boy who is my driver as we zip down the jungle roads to a breakfast of green leaf pancakes with palm sugar. We dodge a rooster strutting cockily across the road and I can’t stop smiling from ear to ear because heaven feels like the wind blowing past my face as we bump over potholes, winding our way through the Balinese jungle.
In Canterbury Cathedral I kneel, dappled by colored light from the stained glass windows and thinking about Augustine and about Thomas Becket, crouching on these very stones, heart pounding as he waits, pleading with God to spare his life. I inhale and imagine Becket in heaven, smelling the aroma of this same sweet incense in the throne room of the Most High God.
On a mountain in Peru a whole village of Quechuan people, dressed in layers of wool in all the colors of the rainbow, sing a song about their beloved mountain, Huascaran. They sing in high-pitched nasal tones a song that sounds like some combination of zydeco and a tribal wail. The sound is harsh and grating to my ears and yet I can’t help thinking that this is what heaven sounds like – a great cacophony of sound.
Source: Wikimedia commons
In an old Communist youth camp beside the mighty Volga River hours north of Moscow, I tuck a room full of 9-year-old orphan boys into bed. I hug Dema’s freckly face to my chest and kiss the top of his head and think, The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these. “Spokie-Nokie,” I say, and turn out the light.
***
Once, a few years into our marriage, Jonathan and I had an argument about travel. We had hoped to take a trip, but car problems and taxes and medical bills had strained our very limited resources. It seemed like a trip was out of the question and I was profoundly disappointed. At some point during the conversation Jonathan said to me, “I know you’re disappointed, but there will be other opportunities in the future. I don’t understand why you are so incredibly upset.”
And I said (as dramatically as it sounds), “Because this is the purpose of my life!”
And he said, “You can’t be serious. You basically just told me your life’s purpose is to take vacations.”
What I was trying to say then but didn’t have the words to articulate at the time was that traveling is a deeply spiritual experience for me. Traveling moves me to worship in a way that nothing else does.
What does it mean that the mountains melt like wax in the presence of the Lord until you’ve stood at the top of a great and glorious mountain?
What does it mean that all of man’s accomplishments are like filthy rags beside God’s splendor until you’ve seen the Sistine Chapel or stood on the Great Wall of China?
Why does it matter that God is a father to the fatherless if you’ve never known the orphan?
How can you understand what it means that God holds the whole world in the span of his hand if you’ve never been outside your hometown?
What does it mean that heaven is filled with people from every tribe and tongue and nation if you’ve only known people from your own?
“The whole earth is filled with His glory,” cry the angels. I want my life to be about seeing and spreading that glory, even to the ends of the Earth.
I am linking up with Leigh Kramer for the very first What I’m Into post of 2015!
What I’m Reading:
I read 61 books in the year 2014 so this year I’ve set my sights high and set my goal at 60. Since we’ll be moving back to the US in the fall and I’ll have a few little things to do (like finding a job and a home and basically starting life over from scratch) I thought I’d be doing pretty good if I could match this year’s reading. If you count not-yet-published books (and I think we should) then I am on track so far.
Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain. I love food books and I really enjoyed Bourdain’s TV series, Parts Unknown which combines food AND travel in a completely addicting way. I enjoyed this book, though Bourdain is pretty rough around the edges. I will say, it makes me never want to work in the restaurant industry and gave me some nightmares about what’s going on in the kitchen when I’m sitting at the table of my favorite restaurant, but it was entertaining and informative and I enjoyed reading it. Be warned that it’s a little crass and vulgar at times.
Lizzy and Jane by Katherine Reay. I read some positive reviews of this book and actually read it because it was on sale for $1.99 and a book club on Goodreads picked it for their January book so I thought, why not? I was very underwhelmed. It’s got this very interesting set-up with the potential for a lot of emotional depth and tough and nuance. Lizzy and Jane are two sisters who have been estranged every since the death of their mother 15 years earlier. Lizzy, a chef in New York, comes home to Seattle for the first time in years to visit her sister who has just been diagnosed with the cancer that killed their mother. Unfortunately, the book itself falls very flat. The characters felt shallow and not well-developed for such a heavy plot. It’s not an awful book, there’s just nothing outstanding about it.
The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty. I would seriously read the back of a cereal box if it was written by Moriarty. I think her writing is technically very good and her stories are always unique and interesting and the characters are that perfect mix of relate-able and eccentric. Sophie Honeywell is 39, unmarried, and starting to wonder if she’s missed her opportunity to have a family when she unexpectedly inherits a house from her ex-boyfriend’s Great Aunt Connie – the woman who discovered the Munro baby. This book revolves around the secret of the Munro baby – a (fictional) famous unsolved mystery where the Munro couple mysteriously disappeared from their home with the tea kettle whistling and a warm cake fresh from the oven leaving their 2 week old baby behind. The story takes place far in the future and is centered on the family who raised the baby (now a grandmother herself) and her children and grandchildren who run a family business that capitalizes on the unsolved mystery of the Munro baby. At this point I only have one Moriarty novel left to read and I almost don’t want to because I’ll be so sad when it’s over.
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith by Barbara Brown Taylor. I had been looking forward to this book for a long time and I was not disappointed. Taylor’s story of her call to the Episcopalian priesthood and later her decision to leave the priesthood and become a professor was full of beautiful thoughts about how the world and the church need not be enemies – separate entities that are necessarily opposed to one another. She writes beautifully about the ways she encountered God and grace outside of the church as well as inside it. Among many great quotes, here was one I particularly enjoyed since it describes my current faith journey so well, “I wanted to recover the kind of faith that has nothing to do with being sure what I believe and everything to do with trusting God to catch me though I am not sure of anything.”
Storm Frontby Jim Butcher (The Dresden Files Book 1). The Dresden Files are the sort of books that most people either love or hate. They star Harry Dresden, a wizard who is also a private detective living in Chicago, and involve lots of paranormal activity and mystery solving. What’s not to love? I wold describe these books as a mixture of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (with the modern myth and the fantastic woven into the ordinary) coupled with Buffy the Vampire Slayer (extremely campy until you fall in love with the characters and then the camp simply adds to the charm). If you can’t stand completely unrealistic campy books, this isn’t for you. If you can buy some of the ridiculousness in exchange for the entertainment of a detective wizard who battles vampires, demons, an the occasional gangster, you can’t go wrong with this. And the great thing is, this is an ongoing series that is already 14 books long!
Love in Fast Cars (working title) by Briana Meade. I got to read this beautiful book in manuscript form – a first draft that my dear friend Briana has just submitted to her agent (!) and that will hopefully be published later this year. I am so incredibly proud of Briana and I think her book is wise and funny and tender and resonates deeply with me and I expect many of us millenials. This is a book about growing up as a millenial and that constantly shifting line between childhood and adulthood and how we reconcile a childhood faith that doesn’t seem to fit with our adult worlds. Be on the lookout for this book and in the meantime, follow Briana’s blog and show her some love!
i, church by Brett “Fish” Anderson. I got the privilege to read another book this month that is not yet in-print, but will be self-published very soon (how amazing are my friends?!) Brett is passionate about the Church while being completely honest about some of the very real flaws with it. He writes with conviction and wisdom and what it could look like for the Church to change and grow into what it is intended to be. His book strikes that perfect middle ground between criticizing the Church’s faults and praising its virtues. I’m so proud of all the work Brett’s put into this book and am excited to see where it goes from here. I will let you all know when it is available to purchase, but in the meantime you can reads all kinds of good stuff over at Brett’s blog.
If you are on Goodreads you can follow me to see what else I’m reading.
What I’m Watching:
Our internet (read: television) has not been working well this month and we’ve been traveling, so I’ve watched less TV than usual. I normally “watch” shows while I’m cooking, doing laundry, washing dishes, etc. so being on vacation cut out chore/tv time (not that I’m complaining!) I did manage to see a few episodes of Nashville, Parenthood, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, the Mindy Project, and Parks and Recreation now that it’s back on. We also watched the first few episodes of Friends on Netflix, which Jonathan has never really watched (though I think I’ve seen every episode).
We saw three movies in the past two months, but I don’t remember if it was December or January since I didn’t do a December What I’m Into post: The Hobbit (it was like watching the 20 minute final battle scene from a better movie stretched out for 2 hours), The Theory of Everything (cried buckets) and Into the Woods (I’d never seen it before so I can’t compare it to the play, but I liked it even though it’s a little weird).
What I’m Eating:
Mostly I’ve been eating out a ton since I’ve been traveling. But I did take a cooking class while in Chiang Mai, Thailand and learned to make cashew chicken, chicken in coconut milk, papaya salad, khao soi (a northern Thailand curry with egg noodles), and mango sticky rice. So delicious.
Khao Soi
Cashew Chicken
Mango Sticky Rice
Chicken in Coconut Milk
Papaya Salad
On the Internets:
This post from one of my most favorite writers, Addie Zierman reminding us that change is slow work:
“And I wonder if coming to your life is a little like coming to the page: open-hearted, brave, bringing everything you have, knowing that some days you’ll get it wrong, some days you’ll get nothing done,some days it will be the wrong words…but that it’s all part of the process. You don’t know exactly where you’re going, but you have the general idea of what you want it to feel like when you get there. So you come back again and again and again. Keep trying. Keep writing. Keep going.”
This beautiful post from my friend Karissa about death and grief and the need for people who can share our pain. “A real live person is better than a Scripture verse any day.”
Loved this post from my friend Meredith about putting up an empty frame and imagining what you’d like to fill it with.
Really needed this recent post from Ann Voskamp about letting go of perfectionism and celebrating your life.
My friend Ashleigh really inspired me with her words about how a wild and radical life doesn’t have to mean living in an exotic place.
“I tend to love extremity so then I start thinking, “Oh, we just need to move to Costa Rica. Or Hawaii. Or Australia.” I’m sure pretty much everyone who has spent an hour on instagram has thought the same thing. But that’s not the right answer for me. It’s taken me a lot of slow-growing to realize that it is also wild to stay put. It’s also radical to build a good, quiet life.”
And I just loved this fantastic clip from Dax Shepard talking about Kristen Bell’s C-Section on Ellen. (I think Dax Shepard and Kristen Bell are my all-time favorite celebrity couple, btw. Her sloth video is still my favorite thing on the internet).
On the Blog:
I started the month by writing about my One Word for 2015: wholehearted and was touched by the many comments I received from readers who were inspired to choose their own One Word for the year. I was also honored to have that post featured on Freshly Pressed.
I completed the first 4 weeks of my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure challenge. (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4)
I wrote here about how faith can be so slippery and tough to hold onto at times and here about friendship and social anxiety.
I also just created a writer page on Facebook to help people who are interested in my writing and writing-related news keep up with me. If you are on Facebook, you can like my page to connect there.
Beauty Bits:
So, I don’t usually write about these kinds of things because, well, they seem really shallow and materialistic, but it occurred to me recently that admitting that I’m interested in makeup does not discredit anything more serious I want to say. Do I think makeup is super important? No, of course not. But I enjoy it the same way I enjoy movies and tv shows and reading. And maybe some of you do too. And if not, you can skip this section. 🙂
Since the beginning of the fall I’ve been experimenting with lots of Korean makeup because Korea is known for its fabulous cosmetic and skincare products. If you are in Korea or elsewhere in Asia you can probably find these. If not, you can order them online if you really want to try them.
Etude House Precious Minerals Any Cushion BB cream – benefits of a BB cream (sun protection, anti-wrinkle, moisturizing, etc.) with pretty good coverage, applies flawlessly, and is not messy since the bb cream is in that sponge and you just press the sponge with the little to get the product out and basically stamp it on your face. So easy and it looks beautiful. Korea is where BB creams started and they are very different than western bb creams that are more like a tinted moisturizer. These BB creams have much higher coverage and work instead of a foundation.
Aritaum honey melting tints. These smell and taste amazing and go on like a very pigmented lip balm (more pigmented than the Revlon Lip Butters below). Very moisturizing which is important for me because my lips are like a desert!
Also, during our trip to Thailand/Singapore/Malaysia I had a chance to pick up a few Western products that aren’t easily available in Korea. Some of my favorites have been the Nyx matte lip creams and butter glosses. The lip creams are like a liquid lipstick with a matte finish – they are so soft they feel like you have nothing on and stay put all day. And the lip butters are beautiful glosses with good pigmentation that go perfectly over the lip cream if you want a little shine or need some hydration. In the US they are very affordable – $6 for the creams and $5 for the butters – and I think you can buy them at Target.
There is a huge color range – this is only half of them. I have #03 Tokyo, #04 London, and #08 Sao Paolo.
And these Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters which are like a very tinted lip balm – great for moisturizing your lips and you can wear them very lightly if you just want a little bit of color and nothing too dramatic.
You can get these at Target or any drugstore. The darker colors are more pigmented than the light ones. My favorite one that I own is Lollipop.
What I’ve Been Up To:
At the beginning of the month I finished up teaching winter English camps at school and then we spent 2.5 weeks traveling in Thailand, Singapore, and Malaysia which I’ve already told you all about.
Other than that, we’ve started to get some news on the “What Comes Next” front regarding what we’ll be doing after our contracts end in August. I’m not going to announce anything until we’ve made an official decision, but I can say that it’s looking like we’ll definitely be back in the US, at least for a while.
I also re-discovered instagram and have been trying to use it more in spite of my phone’s pitiful camera because I think it’s a fun way to document. You can find me there with the user name lilyellyn.
Sorry this post got sooooo long, but thanks for sticking with me!
Early Sunday morning we returned to Korea after a fantastic two-week vacation in southeast Asia. We had such a wonderful time with equal parts rest, relaxation, and excitement. All of our actual travel went really smoothly as well without delays or complications. If you travel much, you probably know that that almost never happens so it was a true blessing.
From Krabi we took a short 2-hour flight straight to Singapore. We went to Singapore in part to visit some friends who are living there. (Actually, it’s the family that I used to work for back in North Carolina – the same family we visited when they were living in Shanghai last year).
This is the view from our friends’ living room. Not too shabby!
We fell in love with Singapore. Everything in Singapore is so nice and clean and beautiful. It is a city built right in the middle of a jungle so there are lush gardens, trees, and flowers all around the skyscrapers and busy streets. Since it’s a tropical climate, it is green and warm all year round, something we are desperately missing in Korea.
English is the common language in Singapore which made it incredibly easy for us to get around. We found that people here were friendly and very polite. In Korea (and China in our experience) there is more of an “everyman-for-himself” mentality which comes out in the way everyone pushes their way to the front instead of waiting in line for things as well as the lack of personal space. In Singapore, while public transportation could be very crowded, people took care not to actually be touching those around them – and if they did, they immediately apologized. They said, “Excuse me” when they needed to pass instead of just pushing people out of the way. These little things really stood out to us and made us feel that if we ever moved to Asia again, Singapore would be at the top of our list of comfortable places to be.
Besides a truly enormous number of shopping malls, Singapore has a lot of other interesting things to do and see. Since the weather is so nice, many sights and activities are geared towards being outdoors.We went to the Botanic Gardens and had lunch at the top of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel – an iconic building overlooking the harbor.
The orchid garden at the Singapore Botanic Gardens
The Marina Bay Sands is the three towers with the cruise ship on top of it. Also pictured are the bridge designed to look like a double helix and a museum that looks sort of like a clam shell.
Very artsy picture by Jonathan. That statue is of, I kid you not, a “merlion,” as in half-mermaid, half-lion. It is the official symbol of Singapore.
We also went to Gardens by the Bay, super cool man-made gardens that are an interesting mix of plants and flowers and futuristic architectural elements. I think it would look really cool at night when it’s all lit up, but we unfortunately weren’t there for that.
Welcome to the Future!
Singapore Selfie!
One night we went to Singapore’s Night Zoo – a special zoo that’s only open at night to allow better viewing of the many nocturnal animals at the zoo. Everything is dark except for some perfectly placed spotlights to help you see the path and to illuminate the animals. It was a unique and fun experience, though not great for taking pictures.
Here I am walking down the dimly lit path.
The Night Zoo was not good for pictures since you can’t use a flash, but here’s on OK shot of a spotted hyena.
One of the things we loved most about Singapore was how truly international it feels. Singapore’s population is about 5.5 million people with nearly 25% being foreign-born or expats. Walking around Singapore felt like walking around New York City – a true melting pot of races, cultures, and religions. The only downside to Singapore is that everything is VERY EXPENSIVE so it was a good thing we were only there for a few days.
On Friday night we took a sleeper train across the border into Malaysia. We thought the sleeper train experience might be fun and it was a very cheap way to travel. While it wasn’t great for getting a lot of rest, it was still a fun experience.
We spent the day on Friday seeing a few things in Kuala Lumpur before heading out to the airport where we flew overnight back to Korea. Our general impression of Kuala Lumpur was very positive. Malaysia is a Muslim country which was evident in lots of ways – women wearing head coverings of course, but also things like signs in the subway saying “No Smoking,” “No Littering,” and “No Indecent Behavior” with a picture of a man and woman kissing. While we were only there a short time, the people in Kuala Lumpur were probably the friendliest we met on our travels – even strangers smiled at us if they made eye contact and everyone we interacted with was very polite, helpful, and welcoming. It would have been great to have more time there, but we were thankful that we at least got to spend the day.
The Patronus Towers. Apparently these were the tallest buildings in the world until 2004.
Elaborate Chinese New Year display inside one of the huge shopping malls in Kuala Lumpur.
Today was my first day back at work and next week’s post will start the real challenge – finding adventures in my everyday life. It’s easy to feel adventurous while traveling, but it’s much harder when you are back to the rhythms of ordinary life.
By the way, here are some of my favorite adventures from the posts you’ve shared over the past few weeks. Check them out!
Brenda decides to join a small-group (just loved how honest this one was – I can relate so well to that feeling that everyone else has it all together).
[If you are new to my fifty-two weeks of adventure project, you can read my introduction post and Brenda (the original creator)’s blog for background. You can participate in this link-up by writing your own post about your adventure and mentioning/linking to this post. Then simply use the button at the bottom of this post to add your link to the collection. Be sure to check out the other links for inspiration from your fellow adventurers! As always, you can add a link here even if you didn’t participate last week or aren’t planning to do all 52-posts. This is a no-pressure zone.]
Since I’m still on vacation, Week 3 flew by with lots of adventures big and small to embrace. If you are new to my fifty-two weeks of adventure project, you can read my introduction post and Brenda (the original creator)’s blog for background. You can participate in this link-up by writing your own post about your adventure and mentioning/linking to this post. Then simply use the button at the bottom of this post to add your link to the collection. Be sure to check out the other links for inspiration from your fellow adventurers! As always, you can add a link here even if you didn’t participate last week or aren’t planning to do all 52-posts. This is a no-pressure zone.
Adventure #3 – Elephant Riding and Island Hopping
After Bangkok, we headed north to Chiang Mai. I was especially excited to see Chiang Mai since a dear friend of mine (and fabulous writer whose blog you should go read NOW) grew up as a missionary kid here. It’s a totally different perspective to look at everything and imagine my friend calling this place home and wondering what it must have been for this place to be home and yet to never fully belong to the people and the culture.
Chiang Mai is a nice place to visit because the Old City (where there are about a bajillion temples and lots of touristy things) is quite small- just 2km by 2km square – so it’s very walkable. It’s much smaller than Bangkok, so even though it’s become very touristy in the past few years it still gives visitors a better idea what life is like in Northern Thailand. Chiang Mai is also very close to the border of Laos and Myanmar so it’s a popular stopover for people traveling to and from those countries.
Temple in Chiang Mai
I was wearing shorts which was “disrespectful to the Buddha” so I got to wear this sweet Harry Potter robe inside.
The Buddhas I was disrespecting. I believe the sign said these were the Buddhas in the posture for preventing family members from fighting.
Pathway up to the mountain temple
Temple on top of a mountain in Chiang Mai
Our biggest adventure in Chiang Mai was probably elephant-riding. Elephants are some of my favorite animals. They are so expressive and beautiful and graceful in spite of their size. There are many places that offer elephant riding and shows in and around Chiang Mai, but we researched a lot to find a place that we felt wasn’t just exploiting the animals or treating them cruelly. The group we went with is actually an elephant rescue facility. Their elephants have been rescued from villages further north and across the border in Myanmar where they were being used for hard labor. The trainers at this camp only use verbal commands with their elephants – no hitting of any kind – and the elephants spend most of the day freely wandering around the camp, not tied up or in pens. Tourists come in and ride them for 30-45 minutes a day and you ride bareback, not on one of those chairs which are bad for the elephant’s back. These elephants are not taught to do tricks like painting or any other unnatural elephant behaviors. I know there are people who feel like riding elephants at all is exploitative and I understand that, but we felt like this was a once in a lifetime experience and the money we paid for the experience went to paying the caretakers and providing food for the elephants who all seemed very happy.
Our elephant was a spunky 14-year-old female named Pui Pui. Like most teenagers, she mostly wanted to not listen and eat everything in sight. We had many (terrifying) moments when she charged off the path to pull a small tree up by its roots and munch on it. 🙂
See where that other elephant is down in the corner? That’s where we were supposed to be at this point…
The only thing she seemed to like more than eating was bath time. What a cutie!
Another popular attraction in Chiang Mai is the Tiger Kingdom where you can pet and play with tigers of all ages. While it killed me to miss an opportunity to pet a tiger cub (I would have died with happiness), we felt like this was more exploitative as these animals are all bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being a tourist attraction. I was a little disappointed since tigers are so awesome, but ultimately I think we made the right decision.
While in Chiang Mai we also took a Thai cooking class that was delicious and loads of fun. We ended up being the only people who signed up for our time slot so it was a private class. We each learned to make 5 dishes. This was especially entertaining to me since Jonathan doesn’t cook at all. If you follow me on Instagram you’ve probably already seen some of these pictures. My favorite dishes were the khao soi and the mango sticky rice.
From Chiang Mai we flew down to Krabi on the south coast of Thailand for some beach time. We are staying at Ao Nang Beach and did a day trip out to some of the nearby islands and other beaches. It’s achingly, breathtakingly beautiful here. Today is our final day in Krabi and tomorrow we leave Thailand and fly to Singapore for a few days before heading back home to cold, gray Korea.
Maya Beach, only accessible by boat and most famous for being where the movie The Beach was shot (although that’s not a particularly good or well-known movie). As you can see, it was VERY crowded, but still stunning. This photo is a raw image – no editing at all – that’s how vivid the colors are by themselves.
Look at that stud! At Railay Beach
There’s nothing more satisfying than a coconut on a hot day.
Pranang Beach (or Phranang – I’ve seen it both ways)
Food Boats! Like food trucks that float.
Seeing places like this makes me feel overwhelmed with gratitude that such beauty exists and that I get the opportunity to see it. This afternoon we were swimming in this crystal clear water beside these limestone cliffs and I grabbed my husband and said, “Look around! We need to remember this moment forever!” Because there will be days when Korea is freezing and our students are little brats and our coworkers are making life difficult. There will be moments when we are back in the USA when we are stressing about getting the car fixed and paying our rent. There may be moments someday in the (distant) future when we have a baby that keeps us up all night crying and we can’t believe how exhausted we are. But these moments we are sharing here now can never be taken away. And I hope that in the mundane, stressful, and even exhausting days in our lives we can look back on these moments and remember that the world is so much bigger than whatever our current problem is. I hope these moments can be a reminder that we have been given a life filled with more beauty than we deserve. And if I’m ever having trouble seeing that in the present, I hope I can look back to these moments and remember that all of life is a gift.
What were your adventures this week? Click on the button to add your link below or to view other bloggers’ posts. As always, this link-up is available for one week.
I can’t believe it’s already time for my Week 2 adventure! If you didn’t catch last week’s introduction to my fifty-two weeks of adventure project, go check it out here. Also, be sure to check out Brenda (the original creator)’s blog about her week’s adventure and the blogs that were added to last week’s link-up (you can find these by visiting last week’s post and clicking on the button at the bottom of the page). Like last week, this is a link-up. If you have an adventure to share, you can add your link by clicking the button at the end of the post. You can also see other people’s links by clicking that button. You can add your link here even if you didn’t participate last week. There is no pressure to do all fifty-two posts.
So, on to Adventure #2. This week I got to visit Bangkok, Thailand for the first time. We have two weeks of vacation from school right now and wanted to travel somewhere warm and exotic and cheap. Thailand wins on all three counts.
One of the first things that struck me about Bangkok was how strange it felt to be in a place that was both tropical and a big city. I’ve been to places with a distinctly tropical feel (like Bali) and I’ve been to plenty of big cities (Seoul for example) but I think this was the first time I’ve been to a huge city that also has such a distinctly tropical feel.
While in Bangkok we got to meet up with a friend of Jonathan’s from high school who has been teaching in Bangkok for the past few years. It was great to see a friendly face and get some inside advice on what to see and how to get around.
Our first night in Bangkok we actually found a restaurant that had s’mores you could cook at your table. I know – it’s weird that we went to Thailand to get s’mores – but Jonathan and I realized that our experience traveling there as expats is so different than it would be if we’d come from the US. Because we live abroad and don’t have access to a lot of familiar foods and other things, finding some of these things in Bangkok was a treat. For example, I freaked out when I found a Sephora at one of the ENORMOUS malls that are a huge attraction in Bangkok and wanted to buy everything, but restrained myself to two Nyx matte lip creams and two of their butter glosses – if you haven’t tried these, get them. They are the best! And only like $6 in America. (Also, OK, I admit that I only restricted myself to two because they only had two colors in stock…)
S’mores over hot coals with homemade graham crackers, bananas, strawberries, apples, chocolate sauce, and butterscotch sauce. We ate every single bite.
Don’t worry, we’ve also been eating loads of pad thai and curry and all that good stuff.:)
We finished the night with a trip to the Red Sky Bar, one of many rooftop bars at the top of some of Bangkok’s tallest buildings. It was kind of surreal and totally beautiful.
While in Bangkok we also checked out some of the main tourist attractions – namely the Grand Palace and Wat Arun (the Temple of Dawn). We traveled by boat to the Grand Palace and then took a ferry across the river to Wat Arun for a mere 10 cents.
Wat Arun, an incredibly old temple with a terrifyingly steep staircase.
Aforementioned steep staircase
Made it to the top and struck a pose.
Yesterday we traveled to Chiang Mai in the northern part of Thailand, so next week’s adventure will take place here and [spoiler alert] will likely include elephants.
Jonathan and I keep looking at each other and asking, “Is this real life?” The travel we’ve been able to do from Korea has been such a gift and we are truly, deeply thankful for the opportunity.
What fabulous adventures have you been having this week?
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For the past few weeks every time I’ve logged onto Facebook I’ve gotten a message urging me to share my Year in Review with my friends. When I scrolled through the timeline the Facebook elves had strung together I found that while I did some photo-worthy things in January, I apparently did nothing at all between then and April. Actually, according to Facebook, there is only evidence of my living at all during 5 of the 12 months of this past year.
At first I was kind of indignant, “Hey, Facebook. I DO things. I’m pretty sure I did things in March and in July and October. I’m almost positive.” But then I realized that real life could never be summed up in a Facebook album. Real life is both grittier and more beautiful.
Normally at the end of each month I do a What I’m Into post to summarize what I’ve been reading, watching, eating, and doing over the previous month. For these last few days of December I’ve decided to do a few year-in-review posts about 2014 before writing about goals and dreams for the coming year.
This post is about the adventures we lived this year. Not every adventure was fun and exciting. Some were difficult and scary. And of course, some were just plain boring. Everyday life is full of mundane moments, but my hope in reflecting on this year is that I will see these moments as part of the story too instead of only remembering the highlights.
***
2014 was an epic travel year for the Dunns. Including Korea, we went to 7 countries this year – blowing our previous record (1 country) out of the water. 😉 Since our winter vacation from school comes in January we started the year with the trip of a lifetime – 18 days spent in China, New Zealand, and Australia. Jonathan and I agree that that trip (particularly New Zealand) was probably the greatest traveling experience we’ve had or will ever have. We were (and are) profoundly grateful for this opportunity and remind ourselves of it often when we have moments of frustration and homesickness because we never could have taken that trip if we hadn’t chosen to come to Korea. You can read about our trip and see more photos here and here and here.
Wanaka, New Zealand
Sydney, Australia
Great Wall of China
February and March were hard. They were long and cold and dark and especially after leaving the summer weather in Australia and New Zealand I struggled. I struggled with depression and with feeling like I didn’t belong. I struggled with my body and with my relationship with food. And I clung to my family and celebrated the beautiful friends whom I love so dearly.
In the spring, we did a bit of traveling around Korea to see the green tea fields and attend a cherry blossom festival. In May my parents came to visit us in Korea and we were able to do a little bit of in-country travel with them. Since the entire country of South Korea is about the size of the state of Indiana, it’s pretty easy to cover a lot of ground in a short time. We explored Seoul, Busan, and Gyeongju as well as our city, Daegu.
Green tea fields in Boseong
Hiking at Palgongsan with my parents
In the spring, I also joined a Bible study with one of the most delightfully diverse group of women I could imagine. There was both more eating and more cursing than any Bible study I’ve ever been a part of, but there was also more courage, more honesty, and more desire as well. The girls in this group have changed a bit from when we first started, but we are still meeting and it’s still one of the best things that happened to me this year.
In June I had an article published that went viral (in fact, I recently learned that it was Relevant’s most-read story of the year). To say I was unprepared for this is the understatement of the year. But I’ve learned so much through this experience and I’m deeply grateful for the opportunities I received as a result and am still amazed and humbled that something I wrote could have been seen by so many people.
In June we celebrated our 4th anniversary with a trip to the Busan Aquarium where I reminded Jonathan of how lucky he is to married to a girl who can do this with her face.
I can’t believe I ever got someone to marry me.
But in June my best friend’s dad was diagnosed with advanced terminal cancer and all I could do was sit on skype with her and cry.
July was the worst. It was hot and so, so wet and humid and gray all the time. The semester crawled by and after nearly a year in Korea we were feeling desperate for a change. We were tired and sad and not altogether excited about the fact that we had just signed a contract to stay in Korea for another year. And all summer long I prayed bold prayers that seemed to go unheard.
In August our best friends here in Korea had a perfect baby girl. It was a privilege to walk beside them through the entire pregnancy, to meet Genevieve hours after she was born, and to watch her grow over the past 4 months. As a bonus, both of the grandmas were able to come to Korea to meet their granddaughter and they were able to stay with us (because we have a bigger apartment) so we had moms with us for most of September and October which was nearly as good as having our own moms here.
Josh, Laura, and Genevieve Louise Rhoads
In August we also went home to America for 10 days to see our families and to stuff ourselves with enough of our favorite American foods to make it another year away from them. We spent 5 days in Louisiana with my family and 5 days in Ohio with my in-laws, but we didn’t make it to North Carolina where a lot of our friends and our cats are. Since we were already flying back to Asia, we stopped for a few days in Bali before getting back to Korea. The monkey forest was easily the highlight of that trip.
Family Photo, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
In September we took a long weekend trip to Osaka and Kyoto in Japan where I had an unfortunate stomach incident and where we got to see some real live geisha headed to work. (Geisha is the plural of geisha – fun fact for you).
The Golden Pavilion in Kyoto
In October I read like it was my job. I read to avoid writing and maybe other parts of my life and instead I sat back and let some friends do the writing for me. I ran a guest series on various aspects of sex and the church and was inspired and encouraged by the brave words of my friends.
In November I ran the Dalgubeol Marathon (it’s only a half marathon so the name is misleading) here in Daegu and set a new PR at 1:57:06 beating my previous time by 7 1/2 minutes! I was so excited to break the 2-hour barrier, but I confess that I haven’t run a single time since then, haha. Maybe it’s time to set a new goal…
I also had a blog post that was Freshly Pressed in November leading to some lovely new blogging friends.
I celebrated my birthday at the beginning of the month with a visit to the coolest wine bar where we sat on cushions on the floor of this little alcove covered in thick carpets and sipped sparkly drinks and almost fell asleep because it was so warm and cozy and the only lights were from dozens of candles and it smelled like sweet spices from all the hookah (which, for the record, I did not smoke). I also dyed my hair brown and got these bangs that all the Korean girls have but that frankly feel way too cool for me.
To bang or not to bang…?
Most recently, Julie, a friend of mine from high school, came all the way out to Korea for a visit. We braved the cold in Seoul and made it to some of the big touristy spots and made an entertaining stop at the Trick Eye Museum.
Possibly my all-time favorite picture of Jonathan
I even got to bring her to school with me for our winter festival and my coteacher made us pose with this tiny tree.
All the little Christmas icons are also courtesy of my coteacher. Also, I messed up the timeline a little since clearly the bangs came after this.
We had a quiet Christmas alone together in our little apartment. Jonathan woke up with a fever on Christmas morning so we skyped with our families and exchanged presents and then we canceled our dinner plans and he got back in bed. It wasn’t romantic and it wasn’t a good story, but it was real and we were together.
Novelty socks are all the rage here so we did manage to find each other some pretty excellent footwear as Christmas gifts.
Reflecting like this fills me with gratitude for opportunities that are frankly undeserved and that sing of grace in my life. Thanks to the many of you who have been a part of that.
The last few weeks have felt like swimming through fog. Since the beginning of July I’ve felt like I was just trying to get by, just trying to push through my days as quickly as possible until our trip back the the US on August 12th. We all need a break from our routine and from our work now and then, and in my case, I also need a break from living in another culture. I need a few weeks where I can relax the part of my brain that’s always on the alert, trying to figure out what’s going on. A few weeks where everything is just easy.
This last week has been a perfect storm of emotions, both good and bad – the stress and then relief of finishing up my English camps, the sadness of saying good-bye to friends who are leaving Korea permanently, the incredible joy of welcoming our dear friends’ daughter into the world, the helplessness and distress we’ve felt learning that one of our indoor cats has gotten out and is missing, and of course all of the planning and excitement and stress of preparing for our trip. As someone who feels all the feels, I am reaching the point of complete emotional exhaustion.
We leave Korea tomorrow morning and, after a series of long flights and layovers, will arrive at my parents’ home in Louisiana where we will spend 5 days before heading on to my in-laws in Ohio. We are very much looking forward to seeing our families and enjoying the familiarity of home. We are also interested to see how living abroad for a year has changed our perspective on home – will we remember how to drive? Will we bow to greet people on accident? After Ohio we will fly back to this part of the world where we’ll spend a few days exploring Bali before settling in for a new semester of teaching.
(I know, I know, that sounds incredibly extravagant and exotic, and of course, I feel very blessed to have this opportunity, but before you give me the stink eye, keep in mind that Indonesia is quite close to Korea, and the entire country of Korea is the size of Indiana, so from here it’s more of an ordinary vacation spot, like living in the Midwest and going on vacation to Florida. Also remember that I did not complain (much) when you put up your pictures from all over Europe and the Caribbean while I was teaching school ALL SUMMER LONG).
With all of the upcoming travel I will likely be away from the blog for the next few weeks, but in the meantime I am hoping to hear from some of you. I am working on a new project related to my recent work on purity culture, saving sex for marriage, and the way the church handles pre and post-marital sex. I am collecting stories. Specifically, I want to hear about your experiences in your churches and faith communities – what you were taught about sex and abstinence (as many specific examples as you can remember), and- if it applies to you-how that positively or negatively affected your understanding and expectations of sex and sexuality in marriage. I will ask permission before using any information you share with me and am happy to change your name if you are uncomfortable using your own.
You can leave a comment here, link to a blog post you may have written on this topic, or send an email to lily.e.dunn at gmail.com. I can also provide a questionnaire with specific questions to answer if that would be easier. Looking forward to hearing from some of you!
Hellooooo world! I’m alive! It’s been a really, really, really, really, really long time (as some of you very loyal blog-readers have pointed out.) I kept thinking I’d eventually have a large chunk of time to write a nice catching-up post so that I could then start posting more regularly. But nope. Never found that large chunk of time. In fact, I’m not so sure it even exists. So, instead of a lovely well-thought-out catching up blog, here’s the basic run-down:
Go to work. Go home. Go to bed. Go to church. Friends visit us, we visit friends. Easter in Ohio with the inlaws. Dilemma: Go to school? Don’t go to school? Stress, confusion, crying ensues. Decide to do a compromise and plan to start online classes through Fuller in the fall. New dilemma ensues: Stay in this job or get a new job? Still working on this one. Hoping for the new job option to work out soon. Next dilemma ensues: move when our lease is up or stay in the same apartment? Decided it was the best decision finance-wise to stay. Take up hot yoga. Sweat more than I ever have ever. Dye hair strawberry blonde-ish. Start reading Game of Thrones. Bake a lot. Talk. Laugh. Travel to Dominican Republic. Celebrate 2nd wedding anniversary. Take anniversary pictures with friends/photographers Asharae and Tim (will let you know when these pics are available.) Mom and Anni drive up from Louisiana to visit. It is awesome. That’s pretty much it. Got it?
So, backing up to one of the most interesting parts of that little rundown – our 2nd anniversary trip to the Dominican Republic. We got the most amazing deal through cheapcaribbean.com that was $12/night per person to stay at this all-inclusive resort in Puerto Plata. That meant that for the entire 6-night trip we paid $144. Which included unlimited food and drinks. Then we just had to pay air-fare (which was the hefty part, but still not so bad considering we flew right from Raleigh) and then extra for any additional excursions or items we wanted to buy. Neither of us had ever been to the Dominican Republic, so we were both excited to see a new place and get a new stamp in the old passport. That makes 13 countries for me. Getting gradually closer to my goal of 196. (Ok, but seriously, at LEAST 50.) I was particularly excited about this trip because, being in the Caribbean, I figured I would for sure meet a pirate as excellent as Jack Sparrow.
Incidentally, I was wrong. I did not in fact meet or even see anyone as remotely excellent as Jack Sparrow, despite being in the prime location for it.
As you can imagine, the Dominican Republic is beautiful! The town we stayed in (Puerto Plata) is on the north side of the island, the opposite side from Punta Cana, which is the more popular vacation destination. Punta Cana is known for its incredible beaches. The beach at our resort was also nice, but the sand was not as sparkling white and the water not as bright aquamarine as it is other places in the Caribbean. What is unique about the DR is that there are mountains basically right up til you get to the ocean. It looks a lot like I imagine Hawaii does (from the pictures I’ve seen of it.) Very lush and tropical.
Our resort had a great beach with these amazing canopy beds you could lay around on and read and nap and have nice people bring you fruity beverages and snacks. It was perfect for people like us (well, like Jonathan) who burn as soon as the sunlight hits their skin. (I actually burned too the first day, but that was only because I waited to long to put on my sunscreen.)
One day we took a cable car ride up to the top of the tallest mountain in the area. The mountain was called Isabel de Torres (not Mount Isabel, just Isabel de Torres.) I hated dangling from that heavy cable car thousands of feet in the air, but I loved the view.
Up on top of the mountain is this Jesus statue that is reminiscent of the giant one in Brazil. Our tour guide (Manny) was very experienced at photographing this historic icon appropriately.
Once we came back down the mountain in the scary cable car they took us on a tour of the city. It looks pretty much like all of the South American cities I’ve visited in the style of the architecture and the way random museums and factories are crammed in right next to houses and convenience stores. We went to a rum factory, but the machines weren’t running so there wasn’t much to see. Then we went to a jewelry “factory” which was actually just three people polishing stones in this little dugout. We also went to a cigar shop and watched a cigar maker roll up some cigars. And later we went to a fort that had been important in the DR’s war for independence. I did not get much out of the audio tour, but the fort had a beautiful view of the port.
Another day we ventured off the resort to go to Ocean World. Ocean World is like a dinky version of Sea World. It is small and has only a few attractions, like a dolphin show, a sea lion show, and a shark show. No Shamu. What they do have to offer is this exhibit called the Tiger Grotto. They randomly have two tigers (one is white, but he was sleeping the whole time) who live in this habitat with a pool in it. The pool has glass walls in parts and on the other side is a nice pool for people. So you can swim up to the glass and the tiger will swim back and forth on his side and you can feel like you are swimming with the tiger even though you are separated by a glass wall and are totally safe. It was the coolest thing ever. The tiger was soooo beautiful. I wanted to bring it home with me. If Princess Jasmine gets to have Rajah, why can’t I have a tiger? Just another way Disney has ruined me for real life.
See! No fair!
Another highlight of our trip was learning that we apparently love Indian food. At least the Indian food they served us at the resort restaurant, Moomtaz. We got reservations there because it was the only place available on the night of anniversary and we thought, “We can try it and if we don’t like it we’ll just go to the buffet later. “ I only wish it had not been our last night. It was the most delicious food ever. A total surprise since neither of us thought we liked Indian food. Now we are determined to find an Indian place here in Raleigh that’s up to par.
The only negative part of our trip was some travel delay on our way down that actually ended up cutting out a day of our trip, but we are working on getting some reimbursement for that.
It was so good to have time to relax and rest, to enjoy each other’s company in an un-rushed way. We were able to reflect on how far we have come together in the last two years and how excited we are about where we hope to go together in the future. In the last year we moved across the country, started new jobs, made new friends, visited old ones, learned to run 13.1 miles, worked, and played, shared excitement and laughter and frustration and disappointment. There are a lot of days when we feel frustrated that we don’t see the bigger picture of what we’re supposed to do in life – what careers we should pursue or where we should live or if we should be in school or if God really has a plan for us that doesn’t involve us wandering around aimlessly. And I especially panic that I’ll never do anything that matters, even to me. But at the end of the day, we are so, so thankful to have each other. And to know that even when we don’t know anything else, we are together and we are always for each other. And that makes us deeply joyful, even when we have to return from the beautiful tropical paradise and go back to spending 40 hrs a week staring at a computer screen.
Hope you enjoyed the travel spiel. Expect more from me soon! 🙂
Lily Ellyn 