On the 12th of April, I took my wife and kids up to Incheon Airport for their flight home. On the bus ride there, as we were driving through Seoul, my wife looked out the window and saw a building done in old style Korean architecture and asked me what it was. I, in my infinite wisdom, said "I don't know, but I will try to find out." And find out I did. The next weekend I made a special trip up to Seoul for the express purpose of finding the building we had seen and discovering what it was for my wife.
Come to find out that the building is actually a church... the Catholic Martyr's Shrine at Saenamteo. Back in the 1800's it was a place used by those persecuting the Catholics for torture and execution. Later, the shrine was built to memorialize those who had given their lives at that place, including the first Catholic priest in Korea (Mun-Mo Chu (Chinese)) and the first native Korean priest (Andreas Tae-Gon Kim). There are numerous displays there, statuary of the Korean saints and a small museum about the history of the site including descriptions of the persecutions they had to go through.
It was a beautiful building and I spent quite a bit of time going around the building admiring the area. It certainly gave me a great appreciation for those who take stands for their faith in the face of overwhelming difficulties, and it makes me appreciate the freedom that our forefathers were wise enough to allow in the United States for all to worship as they see fit.
Following my adventure to find the building, I hopped back on the subway and headed back toward Songtan. On the way I decided that since I had a few hours before I needed to be back for our Branch activity I would stop in Suwon and see some more of the fortress there (since we hadn't gotten a chance to see the actual wall when my family was here). Anyway, I headed toward the wall and as I passed the palace I noticed a lot of people crowded around the entrance, so I stopped to see what was up.
To my delight I found that they were doing demonstrations of traditional music, dance, and tight rope walking. I spent the next hour snapping pictures of the amazing shows and really enjoying the talents that these people had. I will let the pictures speak for themselves. It was really quite entertaining and impressive.
By the time the show was finished I didn't have enough time to go up to the wall (guess I'll have to do that another time). So I jumped back on the subway and this time actually got to Songtan. I arrived just in time for our Branch activity -- a pinewood derby! I entered a car, which if you read our family blog was actually made by my wife. It was a fruit truck, patterned after the Bongos that the Koreans use. It was quite impressive, obviously so since it won the MacGyver Trophy -- the award for the most creative car. I just thought the name of the award was so cool!
After the pinewood derby I headed to my flight's Hail and Farewell activity. This month there was a fundraiser done with a pie in the face contest. Lucky for me, I was not nominated to get pied. But a good friend of mine, Spencer Edwards, was one of the unlucky few who received top votes to get one right in the nose. As you can see from the pictures, he was able to get a hit in of his own. All in all it was a good day. Long, but full of fun activities.
