Lora CP#5

I met with Jayoung for our fifth meeting on July 24^th.  We went to Canopy Roads Café for Sunday brunch.  We had determined last time that she would be gone on vacation and wouldn’t be able to meet again before my deadline for conversation meetings was up.  I was glad that we had spent extra time to make up for the sixth session and this last visit was no exception.  She ordered the funky monkey pancakes and I wanted to have an omelette with just a little bit of pancake and she graciously offered to share her order of pancakes as she admitted to having eaten a little earlier and really would like to share.  While we waited she gave me a gift from her tourism office in Korea.  It was given in a special bag that is traditionally used in a ceremony where children ask for money.  Inside the bag was a mirror with a beautifully decorated pearl front.  It was very sweet of her to give me this gift.

When the food came I shared some of my omelette with her and she said she liked it better as a meal rather than the pancakes.  She enjoyed the pancakes but they were a little too sweet as just a meal.  I always find that interesting people from others cultures finding our cuisine too sweet and find that Americans are very much more into things sweet/bread items – I think we tend to have sweet tooth’s here in America.  I also looked over one of her school presentations and helped her with a little error correction and why it needed correction which made us go over time.  We quickly gathered up our things and headed out to my car as I was giving her a ride to her church since her and her husband share one car and I know how challenging that can be – coincidentally buying a second car happened to be one of our topics during our meal. We took a nice ride and out to Killearn and I dropped her off and she was extremely appreciative of the ride, I’m glad that small act could be that meaningful to her.   

One of the things that really stood out to me during this meeting was when we were nearing the end of our meal she said that she considers me not just her conversation partner but her friend and that even though this is our last required meeting that she would like to continue to spend time together when she gets back from vacation.  I was really touched and the feeling was very much mutual.  I am really glad to have had this time to develop this friendship, learn about each other’s culture and differences and also learn that in some ways we aren’t all that different.