The bug collector

On Sabbath after potluck Jonathan and I were just about to step into the elevator to go home when the pastor stopped us. "Elder Hong and his wife would love to have you over to their apartment," Pastor Lee said. "Can you go?" The request was so last-minute (or last-second, rather) that we weren't exactly sure what was actually going on, but finally, after much translation between the pastor and Elder Hong, we found out that the elder was hosting an AY (Adventist Youth) meeting for the young people of the church and hadn't remembered to ask us ahead of time. I had been planning to try to Skype with some friends from Tanzania that afternoon, but in the end we decided that it would be good to go and get to know some of the church members better. A few minutes later we were comfortably seated in the back of Elder Hong and his wife's car heading out of Cheonan to the smaller and more countryside town of Asan.

Almost as soon as we drove under KTX (Korean bullet train) tracks, we were out of Cheonan and in the country. It was so nice to see harvested fields and have a better view of the beautiful mountains that surround Cheonan! I didn't realize how much I missed the country until I saw it up close again. A few minutes later we pulled into the apartment complex where the Hong's live and soon were taking off our shoes in their entryway and sliding our socked feet down their wood-floor hallway. And then we entered their living room and suddenly I understood a comment the Pastor had made just before we left the church. Pastor Lee had said, "You can see a lot of bugs and learn all about them at Elder Hong's house." I hadn't had any idea what he'd meant then, but it had become clear. Bugs, neatly and creatively arranged in glass-and-wood boxes lined two opposite walls of the living room. Brightly coloured beetles standing in even rows in one box, frighteningly large horned insects lined up in another, grasshoppers and locusts organized with normal-sized beside gigantic in still another box and so many more! We soon found out that Elder Hong's hobby is bug-collecting. He told us, in his halting English, about which countries he and his wife had traveled to collect the insects and soon we learned that he has more than 20,000 bugs and butterflies in his collection, most of them from the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. He also showed us a cabinet along another wall containing hundreds of impressive and beautiful sea shells. Apparently, Elder and Mrs. Hong also snorkle and scuba dive to collect shells during their travels. Before Elder Hong had taken us on the full tour of his displays, more people arrived and we started all over again. And then another bunch showed up and we began again. As a grand finale he took us all into his office and opened plastic containers to show us his live specimen! It was certainly quite an interesting afternoon and we learned more about insects than we ever knew we would when we woke up that morning!

After sundown the Hongs took all eleven of us young people out to eat with at Mr. Pizza. All in all, it was a nice afternoon and evening seeing a new area of the valley, learning about insects and shells, and getting to know more about some of the members of the Seocheonan Church.

Beautiful iridescent beetles

Really large insects (the largest one's wingspan is at least 6 inches)

Two huge cicadas, with golden-gossamer wings. The label says Largest of the World

A leaf-like insect. There were three on display of different colors

Many beautiful butterflies

More butterflies

Beetle diorama with real wood from the same country as the beetles

A stuffed turtle and a scorpion below

Floor-to-ceiling shells

Another cabinet full of shells

Shell sculptures (took this pic for you, Bryn, cause of all the frogs :)

One of the live beetles

This one "hatched" just that morning

The menagerie

Sunset as we left the apartment (churches with steeples and crosses like this are very popular here)

We've seen this slogan several times and asked the waitress what it meant. She said that their pizzas are very healthy
(maybe low-fat??) so women like eating their pizza more than other brands. At least that's the translation we got...

Never really had live pizza before...

...or eaten from a live salad bar.