Five nutcases in the Big Apple

Recovering from the race, we had a quick meal with Ramers and then headed north to a graudation campout with the Studio. The Studio was an alternative school that I worked at for a year before going to Korea... there are about 15 students, 4 teachers, no grades given, and a strong sense of community. The most beautiful part of the campout was the final circle where the kids and adults of all ages gave secret gifts to each other including journals made from bark, poems, and heartfelt poetry.

We headed back to Ramers where JooYeon cooked a traditional Korean meal complete with kimbap, kim-chi, and a special tofu scramble.

Our next stop was New York City... with hopes of a more successful trip than our first one (check in the archives). JooYeon had a couple co-workers visiting on a business trip from her job in China (Just to clarify for anyone who is confused... JooYeon IS Korean, but she also spent a year in China, Vietnam, and Australia). The friends, Sam and Annie, spent a lot of time complaining about their job which was good for reminding JooYeon how glad she was to be free of the garment industry. They went to see an interactive broadway named Fuerzabruta while I took a long city walk with my old friend Lyle.

The next day was a slight flashback of the first NYC trip as we walked over 100 blocks to a festival which turned out to be non-existant and got a parking ticket for not moving our car to alternate sides of the roads every day. However, there's no medicine like friendships and this time we were able to take it all in stride as we cruised through thrift shops, walked onto a filmshoot with Sandra Bullock, wined and dined in an outdoor cafe, and had deep conversations about our range of thoughts being like a forest of trees (and how we tend to travel the same trails over and over)...