CONT"D

So... like I said, we were weighing the option of going to see the Van Gogh exhibit or going to meet up with some fellow board gamers. We called Gisela for directions to make sure Van Gogh wasn't going to be too far out of our way and she also mentioned that it was running until the next weekend. Being that we had an extra week to see it we decided to stick with the tenative plans of meeting these new people.

It all started when Curtis put a note up on www.boardgamegeek.com. We wanted to know if anyone had Korean translations for our boardgames so that we could teach Jiny and Sup because they are really interested in playing. Boardgames can be a little bit complicated even in one language, so we thought it would be best to get a translation for them. We got a response the same day from a guy that Curtis has noticed on that site before. It turns out he is a major boardgame reviewer and has a massive collection and has boardgame events every couple of months at his house. He's a part time english teacher and part time pastor for an english congregation in the north part of Seoul. His name is Tom and his wife is Larua. They have 5 little girls and have been living in Korea for about 7 years.

The visit was fascinating for me for many different reasons. First, their large family surprised me. I haven't heard of any young families that big in a while. Second it was neat to meet people who actually had a house in Korea. Third, I hadn't really heard of anyone staying more than 3 years 'till that point. Lastly, his boardgame collection would be the envy of a museum! It's HUGE! I think he has over 1,000!

Besides the fact that I was taken by surprise by so many things, they were really nice people and very hospitable. They invited us to stay for dinner, but because of the long train ride we declined. Tom said he'd keep us posted on when the next boardgame event would be so we'll probably hear from him in the next month.

We were headed through Itaewon and decided that Matt and Amber should be made aware so that we could meet up. We called them and they were just headed out the door to meet Leah (a foreign teacher from New Zealand we'd met about a month ago) in........ Itaewon! Crazy coincidence. So we met up and we had Quiznos and Cold Stone. It was so delicious!