Christmas Eve Cookies

The very pretty twin girls who live on our street came by on Christmas Eve day to give us a plate of delicious cookies they had made with their mother. They were accompanied by their dad and carried in a plate full of marvelous goodies --  English toffee crunch brownies, gingerbread spice cookies, sugary Christmas tree cookies and chocolate mint biscuits. They were the best cookies to have with either a cup of milk or a glass of white wine! I hadn't got around to making any sweets to nibble on throughout the Christmas holidays -- except for apple jelly and English plum pudding -- so it was wonderful to receive this gift. We've known these girls since they were three years old and now they are in college so it's wonderful to see what lovely young women they've turned out to be. Smart and pretty and know how to make cookies! Isn't that what girls should be! Thank God for girls who bring sweet gifts on Christmas Eve!

Toilet on the Street

This is what the corner of our street looks like for the past eight weeks as the workmen have been replacing some gas pipes. A big bright blue plastic toilet is the first thing you see when you turn into the road.  Not the tree, not the nice stone wall but a big you-can't-miss-this white-roofed Jiffy John. And it's a very nice street corner, overlooked by a cemetery filled with crosses and dead bodies. Of course, the workmen have to have a facility, but did it have to be situated right on the corner? And did they have to litter all the sidewalk with orange safety cones and leave curling yellow pipes scattered about. I suppose I should stop griping about this as at least they have stopped drilling and excavating in the morning and no longer wake me up as I mentioned in my previous post called "get me out of the drilling and digging noises" where I grinched about the machinery, dirt and noise but this street work is just going on too long.

No ancestor temples in Washington, DC, or are there?

Right in the middle of Seoul, Korea I visited what used to be the sacred shrine of a Chosun dynasty king from the fifteenth century who was buried in a tomb on the top of the hill. Standing next to his tomb are several stone figures of revered administrators as his dynasty was known for organizing the Korean culture and establishing stability in the kingdom. I don't think it likely that we would find such a memorial in Washington, DC to "administration" as it is our bent to make fun of federal employees and the federal government but maybe there is something here in terms of respect for God-given government which does in fact made our world safer and more stable.  I also visited the nearby Buddhist shrine where the the royal family would perform ritual services for their ancestors, such as this king. Of course, off in the background is modern-day Seoul, with residential apartment towers and office buildings scattered over the hillsides which once were agricultural lands owned by the king and the traditional administrative families, who lived in pavilions amid the plum trees, I was told. It looks very different today but this city of over 10 million people seems to be well-run and organized, and the people that these stone figures may commemorate may be proud of their reach into a bustling 21st century world.

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• Seoul 2 - Seoul, Korea Rep. (travelpod.com)