January 22, 2010

Hyun Ji has two weeks left here.  I asked if he might like to spend the end of his time staying at his Korean host family's house.  But he said, "No, I like it at our house a leeeetle bit better so I would like to stay at our house."  So okay then.  Hyun Ji will be here two more weeks and then he's back home to Korea.  Its been an education, let me tell you.  It is horrifying to me that people could be so cavalier with a child, to send him across the world alone to live with strangers.  But that is what happened and we've all gotten along well.  And everyone has learned bunches.  And that's that.  Off he goes back to his mysterious life.  And on we'll go with ours.

Today we went to the museum of Life and Science.  Oh My God, we all had so much fun.  One of my dearest oldest friends, Belinda, happened by the house and decided to come with us.  Did I say we had fun.  We had so much fun that half way through Hyun Ji shouted out to the world,  "I LIKE THIS PLACE!"  We started in the butterfly house.  It was a soft cloudy super fresh brisk day full of that glowing muted super light.  Know what I'm talking about, that light?  That was today's light.  And it electrified the colors of the butterflies.  Plus, all the tropical trees in there are blooming now--Spectacular. I saw a moth the size of my face.  All I can tell you is that I shouted when I saw it.  I looked at it and shouted, "Oh My God, I have never seen anything like that before!"   Looking back now, I see that it simply looks like Belinda: funky tropical unexpected wise magic.

Then we saw bears, wolves, lemurs, and a cow.  Yes, a cow.  We caught the wind.  We experimented with vapor (oh for my camera.  Where was my camera?)  We visited our old friends the owls.   It went on and on.  But the best was the sound room.  Its huge and black with a white grid on the floor.  It stands silent and empty.  Until you walk in.  Then sensors detect your movement and interpret that into music.  So, you move in the space and it fills with music.  And other people run in and add their music.  And the whole thing builds, but not to a noisy jumble.   They keep it rhythmic and delightful, low in the bottom, not shrill in the top, and interpretive all through.  You hear frogs croak.   You see children rolling around.  You move move move.  The room thrums.  Gosh, it was just great fun.

Then we went upstairs.  We zoomed in on Suwon Korea.  We zoomed in on our city.  We made origami and raced the glass elevator and centered wooden disks on a spinning table.   We checked out the Apollo space station.  We did all sorts of things.  Then we came home, milked the cow, ate some Chinese take out, watched a movie, and the kids have fallen to bed.  I'm right behind them now.  Good night.

3 comments:

Joe said...

sounds awesome -- wish I could have joined y'all...
-Joe

candyn said...

Wow! What a day! The sound room sounds amazing.

val said...

beautiful day, a memory to last forever for all of you... i love the way you write.