Sunday Afternoon

Today, as part of our regularly scheduled relaxed weekend routine, Jason and I took a few books and our journals out to a nearby park. We settled in on the bench and I read a few chapters of my book, frequently looking up to make sure the unsupervised little ones running around weren't going to fall to their death from the monkey bars or something. Not long after the little guys had scampered off and I had returned to my book, a group of older men showed up to the park. They gathered around a singular bench, playing a board game and pouring each other cups of Korean rice wine. It didn't take long for one of the men to take up an interest in us, sauntering over and offering us a cold bottle of beer--our personal favorite type of Korean beer, nonetheless. So we graciously accepted and hastily downed the bottle to show our appreciation... also maybe because it tasted and felt really good. But the gifts didn't stop there. The same man would return back again and again with new gifts. We tried his unwrapped mystery sweet, maybe a date or prune (they were pretty old). Then we shared a few cups of rice wine, which similarly needed to be chugged to satisfy this man's desire to please us. At this point, gift-less and feeling the distinct lack of reciprocity among our group of newfound friends, we decided to offer a few modest tea tree toothpicks and head back home. A refreshing interaction on an otherwise uneventful Sunday afternoon.