친구 (chingu): Friend in Korean

Today, July 23rd, 2013, Keiko, one of the most humble and loving people I will probably ever meet, is moving away from Salt Lake City and all the way to Japan. I would have written a simple Facebook post about this, but the Facebook limit for how much I can write just wouldn't give me enough space to express how amazing this girl is and just how much I will miss her.

Mock trial will not be the same Keiko... ahh.

Let's start out simple. I've really only known Keiko for two years, and honestly, I didn't truly talk to her until this past year. But less than a full year was enough for Keiko to convince me that she's truly as good as a person can get, and I'm not exaggerating. Even in moments of your own fault, Keiko will try to take the fault on herself, and if not, she will immediately and eagerly accept your apology. Of all of the hundreds of individuals I have so far stumbled upon in my life, I personally have never met someone like this.

But beyond her amazing selflessness, there's one thing that I will always be linked to Keiko through, and of all the things in the world that it could be, it's a country. Specifically, it's Korea. Because of this, I didn't title the post "友達 (tomadachi): Friend in Japanese", regardless of the fact that she is 50% Japanese. Rather, I titled it with the Korean word, because Keiko is the one who first introduced me to Korea, she is the one that I started studying 한글 (hangul, the written language in Korea) with, she is the one I ate my first Korean meal with, and she is the one that I know I can always go to just to talk about Korea. And as simple as it all sounds, I absolutely love Keiko for being this person to me, for introducing me to Korea and exploring it to a greater extent with me.

The night Keiko learned I can't eat sushi with chopsticks...

Even though she is moving over 5,000 miles away from Salt Lake City, we still have Skype, Line, and Facebook to obsess together. And after studying and achieving a conversational level in Korean, we will definitely travel to Korea. I promise you Keiko, we will go.

So if you have been following my blog, or just know, I am in Spain right now, so I don't even have the opportunity to see Keiko before she boards the plane. But just a few days before I left, I made sure that I got to spend at least one last day with Keiko, and boy was it memorable. I mean, yes, it was the last time Keiko and I saw each other, but the reason why it was so memorable was because of the fact that Keiko and I went to a Korean restaurant for the first time... and we kind of had no idea how to eat the food.

Through the assistance of the waitress, we ordered 불고기 (bulgogi) and a vegetable bowl (actually, I really do not remember what it was called, but hey, I have a picture). When the waitress set down the food on our table, we eagerly took pictures and then started picking at our food. It looked absolutely delicious, but we still had some questions lingering about how it was that we should go about consuming it. The waitress, seeing us kind of staring at our food, came by and asked us how we were doing. Immediately, we started asking her questions, and it turns out, we would have never guessed how to eat any of the food. My dish, the 불고기, was to be eaten by putting the beef in a lettuce leaf with some rice and a bit of sauce, then rolling up the leaf and eating it. Keiko's dish, the bowl of something, was to be mixed quickly with a sauce in it. All this time while the waitress was explaining this, and we were attempting to follow her directions, a Korean family consisting of a young couple and two grandmas kept staring at us. Keiko and I just laughed and laughed because we had no idea what we were doing and we felt incredibly out of place... but hey, now we know. Now when we actually visit Korea, we won't be incredible tourists and just stare at our food. Wooh!

불고기

Vegetable bowl... thing.

Anyways, I could legitimately write a book about Keiko, but it would probably bore everyone, including Keiko herself. So let me just finish up by saying,사랑해 케이코, and I will miss you a lot. Expect lots and lots of Skype calls, and have an amazing time in Japan.