One of the clubs I'm part of is Global Angel, which does volunteer work in the community. Last week, they volunteered at a soup kitchen, but since I was at the Emmaus retreat, I couldn't make it out. This past Saturday though, we went to a senior's welfare center to do some community work for them. As we were a bigger group this time, we got split up into the kitchen, cleaning, and book keeping team. I was part of the cleaning team and we were in charge of mopping the floors and wiping railings and dust from framed paintings/signs on the walls. There was plenty of us, thus making the work load fairly simple and considerably "light" work, but regardless, it felt good to give back to the community and meet some seniors. I met a senior who graduated in '58 and has an English major who spoke to me in perfect English. Also, while cleaning, I got to go into the calligraphy room where seniors were practicing their calligraphy. Upon finding out that I was Chinese, this grandpa made me right in Chinese, so I wrote 'new year' and then he pointed to two other Chinese characters in a book and told me to write them as well. I apparently amused them, but they told my Korean unni (term for older 'sister'), that I needed to practice writing more haha. I feel my Chinese is deteriorating because I'm using it only once a week for less than 10 minutes on and off with my mother, so I'm not surprise my writing skills are a fail xP.A reason why we were such a large group today was because right after, we were heading straight to MT (Membership Training aka club retreat). MT is really common in the Korean university culture and I'm sure almost every club has one where the club members go away for a night or two and bond through group activities and games-more specifically, drinking games. We took a public bus ride that lasted about 90minutes to Gangwha Island in Incheon. It was more like a coach bus, but with no washrooms and if there was no seats, you would've had to stand the entire time. It was only $2 for the ride, and luckily, all of us got seats.After a long wait, we finally arrived to our traditional Korean house for our night's stay. It was located facing the beach front and a mud flat area (if it was warmer and more 'mud-like' we would've played in it). Despite the strong wind, we took lots of photos as it was around the time of sunset. The view was lovely and I would love to go back on a summer day just to sit and watch the airplanes depart from an airport at a land mass farther off across from where we were. The house consisted of a large open space with the traditional Korean heated floors, a kitchen for us to cook, respective bathrooms and rooms for females and males, and an outdoor area for us to grill food later. It was rather a small place, and not as convenient as we thought it would be in terms of showering as there was only one washroom/ gender for you to wash up, thus no one showered that night. It sounds gross, but since most people pull all nighter at MTs anyways, people usually wait until they get back home to wash up.

For dinner, the male volunteer leaders did the cooking and grilled pork for us to wrap in lettuce along with rice and gochujang, the ever popular red pepper paste in Korea (this dish was known as 삼 'sam'). The lovely adjumma who owns the house also hosted a mini tea ceremony for us to participate in. After dinner, she brought us to a small shack-like building behind the house and dressed us in hanboks. It was so much fun, we all felt like princesses ready to be married off LOL. We also found out that the adjumma is quite an artist herself, as the shack was covered with her own paintings, and one was even published in a book. After more photos and the adjumma convincing three male exchange students to dress up as well, she taught us how to bow in special settings, such as when you get married. I'm not going to lie, it was hard trying to cross my legs as I slowly sat on the floor and tried to bow forward.

That night, we initiated the infamous drinking games. We splitted up into four smaller groups as it was hard to play as one large mob. For the most part, my group was quite tamed as some people started leaving to go to sleep at 1am. Actually, majority of the people at this MT crashed and went to sleep by 3am, with only most of the leaders still playing and drinking. I, on the other hand, stopped after a while as I didn't want to drink that much, but for some reason, I didn't sleep either. Chloe and I just chilled and chit chatted with other people until 5am when we couldn't do it anymore.

Overall, it was a very interesting experience for my first MT and I learned that there is no need to pack so much when hygiene is not an issue. Also, MTs are a deprivation of sleep; our sleep was more like a nap as we woke up at 6:30am and decided that it be best to head back home earlier so that we could wash up and sleep for real. I had wanted to head back earlier as it was Easter Sunday and I had church to attend later. Some of the MT leaders actually left shortly after 5am as they had commitments with work or school today too. Anyhow, I had my getaway this weekend and look forward to my next one in the near future

Happy Easter Everyone!