Church in Korea

My translator is quite a spiritual person and after having watched my suffering for 90 minutes with the dentist she invited me to church this Sunday. Those that know me know that I sort of float between nice healthy atheism and confused agnosticism. I accepted her invitation, however, and whilst I cannot report a John Saffran event, I can report that what I had expected was somewhat different to the reality.

I had known that the Korean Church congregations were big, some of them really big and had thought that some of the "personal" contact necessary for a congregation to be a congregation would be missing. Well, Miss Lee took me to Korean Service with a simultaneous translation into English for those of us that were not Korean Speakers.

It was a good service. The preacher preached with power and charisma and humour. The choir sang with passion. The congregation congregated as only 500 to 1000 people can. One really nice touch for me, and one thing that I had not heard of in 50 years, was when the prayer for the offertory was being made, the preacher prayed for good use of the funds given and then prayed for "those who want to give but because of their circumstances cannot". That was a nice touch to me.

Teeth

Whilst I was in Kazakhstan, I loosened a tooth. It was a front tooth. I was eating Solyanka and drinking Vodka with a local or two and I caught one of my front teeth top with my front teeth bottom. Result? Loose tooth.

I got back to Seoul last Friday and with translator in hand, went to the dentist. Seems tsk tsking is the same in all languages. After prodding and poking as dentists have a want to do, he then started messing with the tooth.

"Ow" says Thomo. "What did he say" asks the Dentist. "Ow" says the translator. "Oh" says the denist.

So, tooth and Thomo were separated as the tooth had fractured. The dentist tried to glue the tooth back in but today it came out again after eating cheeseake of all things.

Result? Well Thomo is back to the dentist tomorrow so we shall see. Otherwise I shall need to learn to smile on the left side of my mouth only. 50 and he has finally lost a tooth.

Update from Early April

I have now been crowned. I went to a dentist in Bangkok whilst travelling and have had the tooth replaced as part of a crown. Smile is even again :-)

General Ramblings

It has been a couple of weeks. I have been in Kazakhstan and I could not get access to this personal space (or indeed, MSN). What a lovely place though. I am in love with the mountains that sit there behind Almaty - flat one way, glorious snow covered mountains the other.

I have also been lucky in picking up some new work. I will be working in Mongolia for the next 12 months or so. It will be great to move into this role as it takes me back into the IT centre for a period of time - sort of reintroducing myself to the coal face.

Did I mention how nice both Kazakhstan and the people there are? If you get a chance to visit, do take it.

Ramblings

Today was a pretty miserable day as I came to the realisation of how lonely I am from time to time. A cost of the type of work I have done and the travel is that my close friends are pretty much spread all over the globe. At the same time, the split with the wife has effectively removed me from near the kids who are at home at the moment - the ones I could ask for a hug when I needed one. Tomorrow will be better - today will just be a day of misery. No money, no friends, no one to talk to and Thomo is feeling sorry for himself. :-(