St. Louis 4th of July vacation

Hmm, I posted these pictures up using blogspot's new image upload utility. Not bad - have to say that it is much easier to use than hello.

Finally got some pictures from the other families, so here they are. We met up with another family in Chicago and left for St. Louis early Saturday afternoon via rental Chrysler Town & Country. Not a bad car (surprisingly) - but not good enough to sway my opinions on American cars. But I digress. I have said before, and I will say again - I do not like road trips. Never mind the fact that I brought my laptop for movie watching, and never mind the fact that I did not drive the entire trip (the father of the other family was the official chauffeur) - I still do not like road trips...especially 5 hour road trips. My tolerance level is pretty low on these things, I guess.

The vacation was pretty eventful - maybe because we tried to pack in a lot of things in a short period of time. We attended Duksim's sister's church service on Sunday. The overall feel reminded me of Bethel - although they gave me a wireless headset for live translation during the service (not bad!)

We explored a cave that used to be the hideout of Jesse James. Very interesting to see all the stalagtites and stalagmites - and best of all - natural air-conditioning (60 degrees). Aaaahhh...

We went to check out the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis. It was ok, though it was pretty anticlimactic - although I don't know how much I really expected from an arch, but still. We emerged from the arch to a drenching downpour that followed us all the way back to the minivan. Just our luck...

We visited a VERY NICE lakefront house of Duksim's sister's churchmember family. I have to say, the property value in St. Louis is pretty low - in comparison to Chicago standards. Duksim's sister's house is equivalent to a house in Glenview/Northbrook. But this lakefront house was literally a mansion. Pretty nice! Also the owner had a speedboat, and took us out for a spin - it was pretty exhilirating when the boat gathered a full head of steam in the wide open areas. They had a norebang session later that evening (large projection tv, disco lights, etc) that went wayyyy longer than it should have - I dunno, Koreans are crazy like that, I guess. Duksim and I didn't join in, but acted as spectators.

We stopped by a local fireworks tent and purchased two shopping bags full of roman candles, mortar shells, and bottle rockets to set off. Mind you, this was not my idea - but everyone else was all gung-ho about it. Have to say one thing - money talks when it comes to fireworks...you literally get more bang for more bucks - and some of those gave off a pretty colorful and loud bang! One other note - when sticking rockets in the ground to light the fuse, make sure there is enough slack for the rocket to take off into the sky. The explosions are meant for the sky, not the ground - trust me on this! No casualties to report - but jeez, some pretty close calls.

All in all, a pretty nice trip. One last note - I cannot say enough about dvd entertainment in cars - they are a real lifesaver. If I didn't bring my laptop, I shudder to think what might have been, especially on 5 hour road trips like this.

But it was enough to keep me entertained, so everyone was happy.