Saturday, October 11, 2008

In a pause between meals...


This time I have a good reason for not being able to blog! I've been in South Korea since Wednesday heading a delegation from the Presbytery of Lanark (Church of Scotland) to East Seoul Presbytery (Presbyterian Church in the Republic of Korea) and we have been very busy since we have arrived. Also I have not had much opportunity to get online.
The picture above is meant to back up this claim as it shows us standing outside the national Headquarters of the PROK with two of our Korean hosts.
To be honest, the trip so far has been like one long meal interrupted by occasional activity!!
We are certainly not going to starve, physically or spiritually.
Last night on top of the feast of food we were given a feast of culture as various churches and individuals from East Seoul Presbytery put on a spectacular concert for us in Dongkwang Church. Our hosts preferred to call it a cultural exchange as it gave them the excuse to insist that we had to sing something Scottish. (In the end we gave in and sang something Scottish followed by something Korean - but with English words) However, there was no way we could compete with the Korean Drumming group, the Korean fan dancing group, the duo playing traditional Korean intruments, the fabulous young opera singer, the dancers, the accordion band (complete with the former Moderator of the East Seoul Presbytery on the harmonica) OR the ten-piece saxophone band made up of Korean policemen!! There will be photographs to follow to show I am not making all of this up.
I'm not sure if there is a TV programme of this name yet but let me tell you KOREA'S GOT TALENT!
But most of all it has a warm-hearted and generous people who know how to offer hospitality in a big, BIG way... especially when it comes to food! (I'm glad the weight restrictions set by the airlines apply only to the baggage and not the passengers.)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

well its nice to know that you have great hits here.

Anonymous said...

thats amazing story.

Kerron said...

I don't have a mini excavator for sale, but I was wondering if you were a judge on Korea's Got Talent whether you would be Piers Morgan or maybe a David Hasselhoff? :-)

PS Been looking through some of Linsay's old photos today - fantastic moustache btw! ;-)

IAIN CUNNINGHAM said...

Hi Kerron, not sure which old photos you mean but I can imagine. One day you will look back at your own old photos and wonder about the fashions. :-)

Peter said...

Come on, Iain... spill the beans! What did you end up singing?

Sounds like a great trip.

IAIN CUNNINGHAM said...

Hi Pete, we ended up singing two hymns from CH4!! 'Blessing and honour and glory and power', then 'One is the Body' (which is set to a Korea folk tune) There you are... the beans have been spilled. Not very exciting though.
However, many of our experiences have been and hopefully I can share some of them in due course.