Oddly Comforting

This past Tuesday, I had a crew scheduled to arrive at 9am to replace hard wood floorboards throughout the kitchen and living room. I so LOVE my wood floors and during the past two months noticed that some were splitting. Although we were well past our 45 day follow-up walk through, I contacted our builder. He quickly responded, assessed the situation, and contacted the company who installed the floors. Not sure if we just got unlucky with a "bad" lot of wood, but, over 40+ boards needed replacing.

I was prepared for a LONG Day and had taken my Motrin in anticipation of the noise. When the crew of four arrived, they quickly removed their shoes, cautiously brought in their equipment, and scattered about the rooms to tackle the job. What was oddly soothing was how comforting it was to hear them communicate amongst one another in their native language.
I quickly assumed these gentlemen were Japanese as they bowed me up and down, inquired about photos hanging of the munchkins in kimono, and questioned me on the Japanese art acquired while in Okinawa. They quickly set to work and finished within 4 hours, not the projected 8.

As they were so carefully cleaning their mess, I quickly discovered it was not Japanese they were speaking amongst each other, but Korean. If anything, for a few hours my mind escaped to the sights, sounds, and smells of Japan.