Now And Then 1972-2009

We celebrated our 37th wedding anniversary on Tuesday. We were in Seoul for the day and enjoyed attending the Seoul temple, which I think was the first time we have gone to the temple ON our anniversary! As a young missionary Alan was out driving around with his mission president one day in about 1966 when they drove up on a little hill in the middle of nowhere with a view of the city aways off, and decided it would be a lovely place for a temple. President Palmer went ahead and purchased the land, and I think got a bit of a chewing out for doing something without any prior approval or authority for such a transaction, but what was done was done, and 20 years later a temple was indeed built on that land. It no longer has a view, being surrounded by taller structures which have expanded the boundaries of Seoul farther than could ever be imagined. But the grounds are lovely, and the temple is a wonderful place of peace and contemplation, enlightenment and service.
We had a great dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - the Il Ponte at the Hilton Hotel, and tried to do something new and different - I have never ridden the cable car to the top of Namsan Mountain in the middle of the city, so we went to the spot only to find hundreds of people lined up take the ride. We share our anniversary in Korea with Children's Day - yes, there really IS such a thing, and families do spend time together doing fun things. I remember asking my parents why there was no Children's Day - after all, there is Mother's Day and Father's Day, and my chlidren have asked us the same question. The answer was always, "Because every day is Children's Day"! Funny how that was always just accepted! Anyway, we chose not to stand in that line and so I still have never taken the cable car to the top of Namsan Mountain!