Danny's Birthday: the big two seven!

This past Sunday (Easter) we got to celebrate the birthday of the my favorite person! We started the day by going to church way earlier than usual...10:30. It was hard to get up, but we did it and experienced our first Easter Sunday in Andong. It seemed like any normal Easter, even though we couldn't understand what was being said in the sermon, but then after the service we walked out to the entire church gathering in front of the church. We thought that they must have heard that it was Danny's birthday, because everyone had colored balloons and we assumed that they would break into a Korean version of "Happy Birthday" at any moment. However, we then discovered that the group had in fact come together to celebrate Easter some more, but you can see where we might have gotten confused ; )

Apparently our church enjoys parading around town on Easter. The entire church followed a group of Korean drummers through the streets of Andong, and needless to say we didn't make many friends with the people trying to drive their cars that day. We walked with the parade to the center of downtown and were handed lots of eggs along the way. There are no Easter egg hunts here in Korea, people just hand out tons of hard boiled eggs and eat them in the streets so there are egg shells all over the ground.

Danny's birthday definitely started with yet another funny Korean cultural experience and so after we left the parade we went to continue the birthday festivities. We went to a movie, ate some delicious homemade fish tacos, and kept things pretty chill. The next day we went out to sushi with the people from our Bible study and ate fish head, jellyfish tentacles, and a few other slimy things that we still can't identify.

Still, the most exciting part of his birthday came on Wednesday thanks again to our amazingly generous Bible study. As our friends came over to discuss the book "Crazy Love", Danny answered the door and was surprised by a brand new bike! We had been looking for some cruiser bikes to ride around town and our friends Paul and Andrew found this awesome black cruiser for Danny... seriously, these are awesome people and we absolutely are so excited to have a new way to travel in style!

As many of you know, cruiser bikes are the "cool" way to ride around town in the States, but when Danny brought his bike to school the first day, his students proceeded to tell him he has an "old man" bike. Obviously, we both disagree with the Korean teenagers, but the most halarious thing that could have happened the first day we take our first big bike ride was this: as Danny walks out of our apartment building, a cute Korean old man rides by on the EXACT SAME BIKE! AMAZING!! I had to take a picture, but that old man was fast so I only got one of Danny riding behind him. Ha ha.

Just an interesting birthday fact about Korea: Korean age is different than "western" age. When a Korean is born, they are already considered one, then when a new year comes, they are immediately considered two years old. So if you were born on December 31st, you are one the day you are born, and then the next day, New Years Day, you are already 2! Kinda strange, because Danny and I have a different Korean age then an American age. Well anyways, we are so grateful to be surrounded by such great people. It definitely makes spending holidays and birthdays away from home easier and we are excited to see what the next holiday we experience in Korea brings. Happy Birthday Danny, I love ya buddy!