Caltech

Last Day in Korea

This will be my final post, concerning our last day in Korea. Kelly and I had the same flight leaving Tuesday evening, so we planned our day carefully. Kelly needed to pick up a tea set in Insadong, so we returned there for the last time and bought our last few souvenirs. We did not want to be sweaty and disgusting for the long plane ride, so we decided to spend our afternoon inside the National Museum of Korea. However, we already felt sweaty just walking back and forth between the museum and the subway!

Anyway, the museum is huge. It is three stories tall and the building is really long. We had been to a lot of museums while we were in Korea, but this one was by far the largest. Nearly all of the placards were solely in Korean, so we were able to go through the exhibits pretty quickly since there was no reason to stop and read.

One thing I’ve noticed about Korean museums, and I assume this is probably true for most Asian museums, is that they are filled with Buddhas. So many Buddhas! Approximately 1/6 of the museum was taken up by Buddha statues.

We learned that the hand gestures made by the Buddha statues all mean various things, which I found interesting.

The museum focused on Korea, but there were also sections dedicated to Japan, China, India, and other countries in Southeast Asia. The carvings in the India section were pretty raunchy with suspiciously well-endowed women. They were also very intricate, especially the one below:

In the Japanese section, I really liked the samurai armor. It looked pretty badass.

There were also several national treasures in the museum, including this bell and this golden Buddha. I don’t know what criteria they use to decide what gets to be a national treasure versus what is merely a cool old thing.

There was a lot of pottery and paintings. Korea’s most famous pottery is celadon. For example, this celadon teapot which was made to look like a pile of pomegranates.

There was also a ten story stone pagoda that reached up to the second floor.

However, I have to say my favorite piece was this screen painting. The picture doesn’t really capture it properly, but the vines almost seemed like they were moving.

We had cold noodle soup for lunch. When I first arrived in Korea, I liked this dish, but on this day it seemed really bland to me. However, when I started alternating noodle soup with bites of a hot pepper it was so much better. I was so used to super spicy food that anything that didn’t burn my lips was bland!

We came back to Guesthouse Korea in the mid-afternoon to pick up our luggage. There are bus stops throughout Seoul where a special Incheon airport bus comes by every 30 minutes. It costs less than US$10 to take this bus, so we decided this was the best way to get to the airport. The nearest stop was between two and three blocks away. I had a large rolling bag, a small rolling bag and a backpack. Kelly had a large rolling bag, a small duffel bag, a backpack, and a tea set. There was some kind of convention at the big hotel across the street, so we could not cross to the correct side of the rode until the last block. However, one of the roads we needed to cross had no crosswalk. Instead, it had an underground cross which required going down and up a flight of stairs. Kelly took one look and said, “No way.” Our only other option was to dodge traffic and jaywalk across 5 lanes of traffic. Guess which option we took? We waited until there was a red light and the cars piled up. The moment there was a block of stationary cars we were off, weaving through spaces between cars. We made it across just before the light turned green. Yes, we’re that awesome.

We only had to wait a few minutes for the bus, but our dash across traffic had made both of us sweaty enough that we had sweat spots on our shirts. So much for staying dry for the flight!

It had rained during every other weekend trip the entire summer and we thought the Seoul trip was finally an exception. It was not to be; it started raining just five minutes into the bus ride. Since the rain did not actually affect any of the trip I’m not sure if it actually counts.

Just before we got on the highway the bus pulled over and the bus driver walked down the aisle reminding everyone to buckle up. In Korea, you are only required to wear a seatbelt if you are driving or if you are on the highway.

The airport was really awesome. It took us a while to check luggage and get through security, but we spent that time looking through the 27-page airport guide. The airport was huge.

At the security checkpoint we had to remove our shoes, as in the US, but we were given slippers to wear while we walked through the metal detector. It’s the little touches that I appreciate.

They had several restaurants with a really wide selection of food to choose from. As in US airports, the food was overpriced, but only by US$2-4. I had my favorite type of bibimbap. It had fish eggs on it instead of hot sauce and was served in a hot stone pot so that the rice got nice and crispy.

Afterwards, we went to one of the free cultural activities offered in the airport. This one let travelers paint their own roof tiles. I got the impression it was for young kids, but they let Kelly and me paint without trouble. The brushes were not very good, so it was kind of difficult, but I think the result turned out okay.

Then came the 12-hour flight and goodbye Korea. They briefly searched everyone’s carry-on before we could board. The same thing happened when I was flying back from China, so I wonder if it is just an Asian thing.

I got one last nice Korean meal on the flight and then I was back to American food.

I won’t bore you with the rest of travel back to Anchorage. Instead, here are some things I had trouble adjusting to:

Small talk. In Korea, the language barrier limited small talk with strangers to nods and smiles, so I had trouble remembering what kinds of things to say.

Speaking in English. I didn’t know a whole lot of Korean, but I used Korean in place of English whenever I could, so it was hard to adjust back to only speaking English.

Not eating rice at every meal. Weird. Also, not every meal being spicy.

Remembering to buckle up.

Eating meat without putting it in a leaf. I know this one sounds weird, but a lot of the meat dishes in Korea were served with leaves to wrap the meat and sauce in so it was weird for me to eat meat without leaves.

Being able to wear tank tops. I missed them, but I felt so scandalous the first few times I didn’t cover my shoulders.

Using a fork. It really did feel awkward at first. I honestly did not expect that. I joked about it, but I didn’t really think it would happen!

The time zone. I tried to force myself onto AK time right away, but in retrospect I should have eased into it more slowly.

In order to bring Korea to my family, I made them a Korean meal of bibimbap with bingsu for dessert. We actually have a significant Korean population in Anchorage, though I hadn’t realized it before. The Asian supermarket had all the ingredients I needed and a few of the things I had not expected to see outside of Korea, like a whole wall of different types of kimchi and a couple Korean sodas.

My family really enjoyed the Korean food and asked me to make it again. There are signs in Korean in Anchorage that I can read now and my brother took me to a pretty authentic Korean restaurant here, too. I guess I went across the world to discover some things that were right in my backyard. Of course, the US is still really different from Korea, but maybe we aren’t as separate as I once thought.

I am so grateful I was given this opportunity to travel abroad to do research. I learned so much and I think I understand more about what the culture of the US is. It was hard to know what made the US unique when I had nothing to compare it to. Now I think I have a better idea. There is a great difference between a country of immigrants and a country where everyone came from a similar cultural background. I strongly recommend that you future (or current) Caltech students go to the SURF office and the Study Abroad office to explore all the possibilities you have to go abroad as a student.

Thank you to everyone who made it possible for me to go abroad and to all the people I met in Korea who helped make my trip fun and interesting.

And, of course, thank you readers for reading! I hope you enjoyed.

Sunday in Seoul; So Much Walking! :)

After grabbing breakfast, Sylvia headed off to the airport to catch her plane while Kelly, Jaeeun, and I went to Myeongdong, another shopping district. While Insadong was more focused on street food and traditional Korean/souvenir type stuff, Myeongdong has more chain stores and focused more on clothes. While we wandered, we saw a Samsung clothing store! Kelly and I exclaimed, “Samsung has a clothing line?!” and Jaeeun replied, “Of course,” and her expression said, “Why wouldn’t they?” I asked her if there was anything Samsung didn't do, and she couldn't think of an answer off the top of her head!

Another unusual thing we noticed was that the vendors were as likely to speak to us in Japanese as in Korean. Jaeeun said Japanese people like to visit Seoul to shop, so the shopkeepers will often assume Koreans are Japanese and speak accordingly! Korea is supposed to be a nice Asian country to shop in relative to other Asian countries. The clothing quality is good but still cheaper than in Japan and better quality than most Chinese clothes, at least according to Jaeeun.

Also, I admit that I have trouble telling apart Korean, Chinese, and Japanese people. I assumed it was just because I’m not Asian myself, but Kelly and Jaeeun kept being mistaken for Japanese people by Koreans, and Kelly was often mistaken for Korean throughout the summer.

We stopped by a Forever 21 also but it was basically the same as a US Forever 21, though the Korean version has cuter socks! Jaeeun told me that the CEO is Korean, but I don’t know if Forever 21 is actually Korea based.

For lunch we went to an Italian restaurant. Their most famous/popular dish is a spicy cream pasta served in a bread bowl. We did have a pizza that was just like an American-Italian pizza.

After lunch we took the subway to get to Gyeongbokgung Palace. We were pretty tired of the heat and walking around, so we rested in the air conditioned museum nearby. It is actual a law/regulation that all national Korean museums must offer free admission, which I was sooo grateful for since we were more looking for a cold place to rest than a museum tour. ;)

Once we rested up, we took a tour of the palace. The tour guide spoke English, but combined with our exhaustion, the size of the tour group, her accent, and her limited English vocabulary, Kelly and I were having trouble following her. However, here are a few things I picked up. This palace was used up until the very end of the Korean monarchy. The throne room was pretty cool. There were pillars lined up in the courtyard outside it at lengthening distances from the throne to show nobles of different ranks how close to the throne they could stand. The four staircases leading up to the throne room were each decorated with a different animal representing the four cardinal directions. The guide said something about Buddhism having five colors that represented the four directions and the center…or was it Confucianism? We were pretty tired by this point.

Anyway, the five mountains behind the throne represent the five major mountains of Korea. Some of them are located in North Korea now, however.

Just past the palace was a banquet hall bordering a big pond. Apparently the first elected leader of Korea used to fish out of it!

It was at this point that Jaeeun had to leave us so she could get back to GIST. I was really sad to see her go. She was always kind to me and helped us with all of our language barrier/different culture troubles. She really made my time in Korea better than it could have been without her. Yay Jaeeun! And she said she will visit me in Alaska, so that should be fun, too.

After Jaeeun left us, Kelly and I abandoned the tour and explored the gardens on our own. They were very spacious and pretty nice. I particularly liked this pond-island-gazebo combo.

Next we crossed the street in front of the palace to Gwanghwamun Square where we made our way into the underground museum that focused on King Sejong, the man who created the Korean alphabet in the 1400s.  

The alphabet is actually really logical. Before his time, the Koreans were using the Chinese alphabet, so it was difficult for the commoners to become literate. The Korean alphabet is much simpler. The consonants are based on the shape the tongue and mouth make when making the sounds associated with the consonant, while the vowels are represented by combinations of a long vertical line, a long horizontal line, and a short line, representing man, the earth, and the heavens, respectively.

We also watched a short film with English subtitles about how King Sejong designed and installed sundials in most cities, charted stars, designed better weapons, including the turtle ships, invented the Korean alphabet despite going nearly blind, and had his kingdom mapped. Coincidentally, this mapping just so happened to claim Daegu Island as a part of Korea. Yes, the narrative went out of its way to tell us that.

The museum was actually pretty big. There were touch screens where English speakers could see how Korean words were spelled and there was a section devoted to turtle ships and the Japanese invasion the ships defeated in the 1400s. (The Imjin War)

The turtle ships were especially effective because of their shallow draft, which allowed them to turn quickly. There was a model of the ship, a station where kids could places a bunch of little ships in a couple different battle formations, and an AWESOME video enactment of several key battles in the war. It was pretty biased and they had some pointed things to say about the Japanese, let me tell you. They were extremely proud of Admiral Yi Sunshin, who led the fleet until he was killed near the end of the war, as he lived up to his motto, “’Sacrifice’ until the last moment.” He told his men that “if you fight with the mentality that you will die, you will live. If you fight focused solely on living, you will die.” He sounded pretty badass, and the battle video set him up versus the Japanese leader in a way that reminded me of that Street Fighter arcade game. It was great.

Just before we left the museum, we found a place where we could try calligraphy. I learned that I suck at calligraphy, but it was still fun. Kelly and I were some of the oldest people there, but that was okay. No shame in a foreign country; it’s not like we’re going to see the children waiting behind us again. Or if we do, hopefully they won’t recognize us as the adult foreigners who held up the line for a children’s activity… Ahem. Anyway, we surfaced on the opposite side of the street from the plaza, so we had to crossover again.

We passed one of those fountains made for people to play in. I was so hot and sweaty, I wished we could have jumped in, too, but that would have made for a soggy subway ride. On our way to the guesthouse, we passed a sign advertising the first dog-meat dish I’ve seen in Korea, so I had to snap a photo. Before I left the US, my dad teased me about how I would have to eat dog, but I guess it is just not as common in Korea as we had been led to believe back in the US of A. This was the only place I saw it advertised, so I wonder if it was more a tourist thing than an actual popular meal thing.

The restaurant we actually ate at was really delicious. It was a beef stew with several delicious and spicy side dishes, including some good kimchi.

We also found a restaurant and pub area just a few blocks from our guesthouse, so we went there for dessert in the form of a cute sweet potato-stuffed fish waffle!

Finally, we headed back to the guesthouse to rest. Our feet were so sore! I was glad to shower, but I missed all of the baths of the jjimjilbang.

Our Monday was even more packed, so I will save that for the next blog. But first, I want to leave you with this billboard. Jaeeun translated it for us; it was an ad telling Koreans to say hello to foreigners, not to run away.

Exploring the Other Side of Seoul, or Walking, Walking, Walking

On Monday we rode the subway a lot. It was pretty cheap, about a dollar to go anywhere in the city. I had not used public transport very much before I came to Korea, so it was interesting to me.

The subway was clean though very crowded. Apparently more than 90,000 people pass through Seoul Station every day! It is much faster than driving, I think, despite the number of passengers. The traffic in Seoul is terrible.

Kelly and I decided to cross the river to check out that side of Seoul. It was fun just wandering around. Seoul’s buildings have some really cool architecture and there was a nice greenbelt bordering the river. The river itself looked kind of dirty, but there were fish leaping out of it and we even saw someone waterskiing!

We also ran across the Olympic stadium from when Seoul hosted the summer Olympics in 1988. After spending a summer in Korea, I honestly have to ask what they were thinking. I like Korea, but the summer is so hot and humid that I feel gross just sitting outside, much less exercising!

Anyway, we were overheating, so we walked over to Coex, the largest underground mall in Asia. It was HUGE! And mazelike! It was easy to get trapped into walking the same small loop, until you notice a small hallway between a couple of stores, which leads you to another area, and then another, and another.

Our first mission, however, was to find a good bibimbap restaurant for one last taste before we went back to American food.  

After that, we wandered. We each bought a few gifts and souvenirs, but for the most part we just looked at everything. Just doing a rough count off of the map, there were over 200 stores! Plus a theater, an aquarium, and a ten story department store.

There were also a lot of cutesy accessory and notebook stores. I love how cheerful the Korean accessories are. For example, here is a sign that gives a taste of what was on all the actual merchandise:

We also found this card, which I can’t imagine anyone actually sending.

It’s nice to reassure people about their appearance, but a card? The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

We also searched for a place to get bingsu one last time. We looked all through the mall, but all of the bing su places there were relatively expensive. We finally settled for the cheapest one, ate, and left the mall. Of course, right after we walked out into the sun, we passed three cheaper bingsu places in a row. Irony?

Next we took the subway to the Itaewon. This is a district bordering a US Army base and is famous for having foreigners. It is basically like a foreign-town in Korea, similar to the idea of a Chinatown in the US. On our way, we passed the War Memorial of Korea, so we stopped by there. It was Monday, so the museum itself was closed, but we could see the outdoor exhibits. They had a lot of military planes, tanks, boats, and weapons.

The outdoor halls were filled with rows of tablets covered with the names of fallen soldiers. I hope those lists weren’t just from the Korean War…

There were also flags from every nation that allied with South Korea during that war. There were a lot more diverse countries than I expected.

Once in Itaewon, we looked for Damotori Heeut, a semi-famous makgeolli bar. We wanted to go in the evening, but we wanted to find it first. Let me tell you, it was a good thing that we looked early. We wandered down narrow side streets for almost an hour trying to find it. We asked some people for directions, but most of the people we asked had not even heard of the place. Finally, an English speaking foreigner asked us what we were looking for and helped us look, and, eventually, we found it. We had passed the storefront only 15 minutes into our search, but the address implied that we still had a couple blocks to go, so we hadn’t even looked up!

Anyway, we still had an hour to kill before the place opened, so we went and found dinner. Once again we tried to order Korean barbeque, but I guess we misunderstood the menu because we ended up with something else. It was still good, but not what we were expecting. I think I've included a lot of food photos, so instead of our meal, here is a picture of the neighborhood.

After dinner, we walked around to kill time until we could go to the bar. I saw a big hill and said that we had to go to the top before we turned around since e had a running joke that every set of stairs or steep place we climbed meant more space in our stomachs for Korean food but then Kelly said we had to run to the top! Let me tell you, all this walking really does a number on your feet.

Then we backtracked to Damotori Heeut. We ordered some potato pancakes and then got down to the whole reason we had gone to so much trouble to find this place: For slightly less than US$2, you could get a sample tray of 5 different makgeollis. With over 50 types to choose from, we ended up trying 10. There was a booklet with all of the choices, but the English version had been stolen. All we could really understand from the Korean version was where each type came from, the strength, and sometimes we could piece together a few other words we knew. I still enjoyed trying all of these different types, and for so cheap, too!

After we finished we didn’t have time left to make our way to the more central part of Itaewon before sunset. We had heard that the whole area is pretty sketchy after dark, and I believe it, but it was fun to visit during the day. One funny thing we say was this grocery store sign, where they actually corrected the spelling with a caret!

Our next stop was N Seoul Tower. It is located on the top of small mountain in the middle of Seoul. Kelly had won two free tickets to get in the tower from a free website lottery, but that did not include the price of taking the tram up to the base of the tower. Being the cheapskates that we are, Kelly and I took the stairs instead. It only took twenty minutes, but straight up hill. We saved about US$8, and we also passed a stand selling sikhye, a cold, sweet, refreshing rice drink for cheap.

However, we were sweating in a really disgusting way when we made it to the top. I at least had actual drops of sweat running down my face. First stop was wiping off my face in the restroom. Once we felt slightly less disgusting, we made our way to the top of the tower. The view was incredible!

There was also a post office at the top. Kelly had brought some cards with her, so she wrote some friends from the highest post office in Korea. While she was occupied, I wandered around looking at the view. There were also signs posted stating the distance from Seoul to other cities. Anchorage, Alaska was 6,074.45 km away, while Los Angeles, U.S.A was 9,596.52 km away. So why did I have to fly from Seoul to LA to Anchorage? It’s an extra 3,500 km just getting to LA, plus 3767 km back up to Anchorage! Altogether, that’s over twice the distance, but I’m pretty sure I still saved money. I wish I had investigated more to see if there were any direct flights to Alaska. And also, why were all the other US cities listed as Blank, USA, while my hometown is Anchorage, Alaska? Since when was AK not part of the USA!?

At the base of the tower, there was an observation deck where lovers could attach locks to the railing together to symbolize locking their endless love. There were so many!

Anyway, we eventually hiked back to the subway station, stopping for ice cream on the way, and made our way back to Guesthouse Korea. However, the night wasn’t over yet! We dropped off our purchases , looked up the subway hours and directions, and headed off to the night markets.

We had gone briefly when we came to Seoul on the GIST trip, but this time we were able to look longer. I can’t believe how crowded the malls and streets were at midnight on a weeknight. It was incredible.

Kelly was able to find an extra bag to use as a second suitcase and I bought a nice watch. It wasn’t too expensive and it was the first watch I’ve found that I think is comfortable.

Once we finished, the subway had closed, so we had to walk back to Guesthouse Korea. I was so glad we were together; I would not have wanted to walk back alone. We stuck to the main roads, but it was still pretty dark and there were a lot of alleyways branching off into blackness. Fortunately, we were walking down a road that had the river-park running down the middle, so we walked on the sidewalk just above the river. With a cliff on one side and a three-lane road on the other, we were pretty confidant no one could sneak up on us.

Partway through we reached a coffee shop that was still open, so we ordered a gelato waffle. It was very delicious.

 

Soon after that we made it to the brightly lit bar-and-restaurant area near the guesthouse, so we stopped in a restaurant and ordered chicken. It was similar to the sesame chicken you can get at American Chinese restaurants, but so much better.

Finally, after a long, long day of sweating, stairs, eating, and walking (SO MUCH WALKING), we showered and rested up for our last day in Korea.

Last Week

Suddenly it was our last week at GIST and we had many invitations to many delicious meals. First the dean took all of us Caltech students out to lunch. We ate many different delicious dishes. At the end of dinner we had a very interesting porridge.  Rice is traditionally cooked in big wide iron pots (from before rice cookers) but some of the rice would adhere to the sides of the pot. In order to clean the pot and to not waste rice, they would pour water into the pot and scrape off the rice to make a porridge. The rice for our meal was served out of a hot iron pot, so they made us a little porridge at the end of the meal. It didn’t have a lot of flavor, but I liked it anyway. It was nice to have something plain and simple after all that spicy food.

Another interesting part was the wet wipes. Nearly all restaurants give you a wet wipe or wet washcloth to wipe your hands before the meal. Here they gave us short dry columns of some papery material. When we poured water on them, they grew into wipes. Despite the fact that we were all adults we still thought these were pretty fun.  I didn’t take a picture of the meal, but here is a photo of the room we ate in. Since we sat on the floor, we had to leave our shoes outside.

The next day my professor took me to a really cool restaurant. It was close to GIST but it was located in an old-style neighborhood. We turned off of a busy multi-lane row into a road just wide enough for one car that wound between low walled houses.

The restaurant itself was very crowded so we stood in their courtyard while we waited to be seated which was full of plants and fountains and statues. This was definitely a traditional restaurant. They had stacks of jars in their courtyard containing all the different fermented things they served, including several varieties of kimchi and various sauces. This is the way kimchi and sauce were originally fermented historically. When we were seated, we sat cross-legged on floor mats in an otherwise empty room. They brought us a bowl of (baked?) corn on the cob as an appetizer. Normally I despise corn but this was really delicious. Then they carried in a low table already laden with food for our main course. It was so stuffed with plates and dishes that they were nearly stacked on top of each other. We had so many dishes! There were two types of soup, several types of kimchi, jellyfish, lamb, duck, salad, rice, plus many dishes that I did not recognize. Professor Tae was really good at  dividing the soup equally between us. I was not as good but I tried my best.

It was fun talking to Professor Tae. I had not spoken with him a ton this summer because I did not want to bother him and I was unsure of how formally Korean students and professors interact. Professor Tae said they do not expect foreigners to know the appropriate social behaviors and he was always happy to talk to students. In retrospect, I do wish I would have sought him out more often, but the Korean students seemed to have a respect for him bordering on fear sometimes, so I was shy.

I did not have my camera with me when I went to the restaurant, but I biked back through that area a couple days later so I could photograph the neighborhood.

On another day Professor Yongdeok Kim and his wife took us out to dinner once more. This time we went to a seafood restaurant where we ate many different raw and cooked fish. The presentation was excellent.  We had so many dishes over the course of the night; they took away empty plates and replaced them with new dishes at least 3 or 4 times! We started off with sashimi and some tempura-like vegetables plus a few other types of raw seafood.

This was followed by a couple types of cooked whole fish—bones, skin, everything, a seaweed soup, a rice noodle stir fry, whole shrimp, beef ribs, more fish, rice porridge...

Of course, we had kimchi also, and they served hongeo. For those of you who have forgotten, hongeo is fermented skate fish that smells like ammonia. I nearly threw it up the first and only time I tried it during my second week in Korea. I refused to try it again, but they also gave us fresh steamed skate fish which I did try and it was delicious! I could not believe it was the same fish. They could not taste more different.

After this very filling meal, they brought us back to their apartment for a dessert of frozen bananas, grapes, nuts, tea, and chocolate. I was really full, but it was still delicious.

On my final day at GIST I was quite busy making sure I had all the data and information I needed to write my paper but in the evening my lab group took me out to dinner. We had some beef rice soup with an additional plate of beef and, of course, the ever-present kimchi.

I enjoyed it a lot but I was very sad that I was leaving just as I was beginning to understand and speak some Korean and becoming good friends with my lab group. Here is the last photo of my lab building that we took as we walked back to GIST through the park.

It was hard saying goodbye. I admit that I cried a bit. I had a great time in Korea and I really liked my lab mates. I hope I have a chance to return to Korea and see them again.

After some sad packing and room cleaning, some of the undergraduate GIST students took us Caltech students out to celebrate.  I think I mentioned this before, but in Korea big celebrations call for three parties. For our first party we went to a popular pub where we saw Rob Phillips, a Caltech professor who was visiting GIST and teaching a week-long intensive course. We drank, we ate, we played games… Around 1 or 2 am we headed to a karoke lounge for second party. It was so much fun! We danced and sang the whole time in both English and Korean. I definitely need to be able to read faster to keep up with the Korean songs! For our third party we ate even more. It was so much fun. One of the boys gave me a ride on his motorcycle. I had never ridden a motorcycle before so that was really fun, too.

We finally got back to the dorms around 5 am, so I caught a couple of hours of sleep before getting up and catching the bus to Seoul.

What followed was four action-packed days in Seoul, which I will tell you all about in the next few posts! I’ve almost caught up to the present.

Temple Stay

I noticed this post had a lot of text so I decided to add in pictures of the temple area to break up the text sometimes.

For our last GIST-organized trip, they planned for us to stay at a Buddhist temple. I was a little nervous because I’m a Christian, but it turned out to be pretty fun and very interesting.

On this trip, Mr. Hong and Ms. Kim (another administrator) drove Kelly, Sylvia, Wong, Seungbo, (two GIST students) and I to Baekyangsa Temple. We stopped for lunch on the way where we were given many many side dishes.

Here are some close-ups of some of the more unusual food we have eaten. The fish here is often served fried whole with bones and skin and all. I almost always pick around the bones, but the Koreans will usually just eat the bones if they are small enough.

We also often have tentacles and baby octopi, but usually not by themselves.

The temple was very beautiful, especially the mountain rising above it.

When we arrived we were directed to a big mostly empty building, where we received our uniforms.

There we met Monk Suan. Seungbo acted as our main translator. He addressed the religion issue right away by asking if any of us were Christians. He said that not many Korean Christians participate in a temple stay, but he thought that it was good for foreigners and Christians to come so that people could understand one another better, so my worries were relieved.

Then he taught us how to bow. There is a simple bow that involves just placing your hands together and bowing your head and shoulders slightly. This is used for greeting monks and the initial bow to a Buddha statue. He said that he went to visit some temples in India earlier and they were cold to him since he was a foreigner. However, since they used the same greeting bow, they were able to become friendly.

 The next bow we learned was more complicated. We started by placing our palms together in front of our chest. Then, keeping our palms together, we kneeled on the ground. Next, place your left hand on your chest and place the right hand on the floor and lower yourself into child’s pose. Now return to kneeling and place your palms together. Curl your toes so that they are on the on the ground and, keeping your palms together and your feet in place, maneuver into a squat and stand. This was difficult for me to do without losing my balance and stumbling.

He also taught us more general temple manners. For example, only monks can enter through the front doors of the temple. Everyone else must enter from the side. When you enter from the side, you must lead with your left foot and exit my leading with your right foot so that you never turn your back on the Buddha statue (It is on the right while entering and on the left while leaving). We also learned that during ceremonies, the timing and types of bows are indicated by different taps on a wood block.

Next, Monk Suan took us on a tour of the temple and the outlying temples built on the mountain nearby. It was raining so we all wore ponchos, but it was still hot. Here are some of the things I saw and learned about.

The Four Guardians’ Gate is a type of gate located at nearly all Buddhist temples. I remember seeing one at a temple I visited in Beijing, China, too. I will just quote the temple guide they gave us; I think it gives a good explanation. “At the Four Guardians’ Gate, the four celestial kings, in the world nearest to the Buddha, stand ready for war to protect the Buddha’s Dharma. Due to its importance as the guard post of the celestial kings, the Four Guardians’ Gate…is hardly ever missing from a temple.”

 

The drum tower was also really cool. It was located next to a tree that was decorated with a lot of colored lanterns. I don’t know what the lanterns were for.

Anyway, back to the drum tower… It was two stories. The top story contained a huge drum made from a cowhide. Hitting this drum symbolizes all four-footed creatures. I wondered though, since the monks are vegetarian, why did they use part of an animal for their drum? Did it die of old age?

Hanging on one side of the drum was a metal fish that represents all of the creatures in the sea while an image of a cloud hanging on the other side of the drum represented the creatures of the sky. On the bottom floor there was a giant bell. They ring it by hitting it with a big log a certain number of times twice a day to call the monks to ceremonies. The bell represents the people of hell.

After this we left the main temple area and hiked through the woods to the surrounding temple buildings. Monk Suan told us about the things we were passing. He called one of the trees a “Pija” tree. Since pizza becomes “pee-ja” in Korean, we all started to laugh and say yum, and he laughed too.

Monk Suan was a pretty chill guy. I expected the monks to be quiet and to hardly speak, but he was relatively talkative. He has an iPhone 4 and uses twitter! He called himself a “tweetorian” and said that he began his twitter account about a year previously and he already has 1,900 followers! When we expressed our surprise that a monk would do these things, he said there were two types of monks, those who study and meditate all the time and those who are “popular.” I don’t know if he really meant pop culture instead.

 
The scenery was really beautiful, but it was still pretty humid. Even though the temperature had suddenly cooled off by about 5°C in the last couple of days, we were still overheating. The first temple place we reached up on the mountain had little metal fish bells hanging from the corners just like the nobleman’s house we had seen in the Folk Village. We couldn’t go inside because some people were chanting inside.

We also walked past some flowers that had no leaves. I had seen them before and wondered how they survived without photosynthesis. Monk Suan told us that the leaves and flowers come out separately, so it is a symbol of people who miss each other and are lonely because the leaves and the flowers can never meet.

After this we continued onwards to a really cool shrine that was built inside a cave. According to legend, in 1574 Zen Master Hwanyang was giving a sermon there about one of the sutras and a white mountain goat came to listen. After listening for several days, the goat told the monk that it used to be a man before it was reborn as a sheep and thanks to his sermon he could be reborn as a man again. The next day the goat was found dead so the temple changed its name from Jungtosa to Baekyangsa, meaning “Temple of the White Mountain Goat.” I liked the cave a lot. It was cool.

 

After we got back to the main temple it was time for dinner. Dinner was very stressful for me. We each grabbed a bowl set.

Then we sat cross-legged on the floor and we had to separate our dining utensils in a specific way. We untied the strip of fabric in a certain way and set it aside after folding it a certain way. Then we unfolded a small placemat one handed and took our bowls apart as silently as possible and set them up in a certain order on our placemat. Everyone is supposed to hand wash their own dishes after the meal using only water, so one of our four bowls was dedicated to holding the washing water. One of the GIST boys poured water for all of us. Since you are not supposed to speak during the meals, you were supposed to twist your bowl to signal them to stop pouring water. I missed that part so I ended up with a lot of water!

Then we poured the water in turn in each of the other bowls because the food sticks less if the bowl is slightly damp. Then we served ourselves rice and soup, but you could only serve yourself once, and you were not supposed to have leftovers, so you had to guess exactly how much you would eat. Then we could serve ourselves side dishes in the remaining bowl. At least with these we could always get more. We had to eat in silence without looking at anyone else and without making much noise with our utensils.

After we finished we received some more water in our big rice bowl. Theoretically we were supposed to use a radish slice to wipe the bowl clean the best we could, and then pour that water into the soup bowl and repeating the process until we drank the remains out of our side dish bowl. Unfortunately, we hadn’t realized this and we had already eaten our radishes, so we had to use our hands. Then we used our washing water and our washcloths to clean the bowls again before dumping the waste water and re-assembling our dining sets in a specific way. MonkSuan said that they used to make them drink the waste water if there were any food bits left in it.

After dinner they rang the bell to call everyone to evening chanting. We got to see a translation of a couple of the chants and it seemed like they were calling on past Buddhas. It was unclear whether they were straight-up praying to them or if they were just saying, “Hey, these guys reached nirvana so we can too!” We just copied Monk Suan as he bowed. I’m Christian, not Buddhist, so I had planned to pray to my God while we bowed before the Buddha statue, but the bowing was so complicated I could hardly think of anything at all! I was most impressed by how the monks could bow and chant simultaneously.

After the evending service, we watched an American movie called “Little Buddha” which was pretty interesting. This blog is way too long already so if you want a plot summary you’ll have to check Wikipedia. They also gave us watermelon which was great because I was still hungry after our stressful dinner.

Then we showered and went to bed. I finally have a good picture of a shower house. This was quite similar to the other showers I’ve seen in Korea but the monks had hot water.

We slept for a short time and then they woke us up at 3:30 am for the morning service!!!! I was sooo tired. We went back to the main temple and chanted and bowed some more before we came back to our building. We then meditated for half an hour. Monk Suan told us we should think about “what is me” i.e. if we felt pain from our crossed legs, we should consider who is feeling this pain. If we had a thought we should consider who is doing the thinking. I enjoyed meditating. It was calm and serene, though my legs fell asleep a few times. Then we had an hour to kill, so I think everyone in our group went back to sleep.

We got up again a little after 6 and ate breakfast. This was less stressful because we ate in a cafeteria setting. We had bibmbap and bean sprout soup but we still had to eat all the food we served for ourselves and we had to hand wash our dishes. I didn’t mind that part at all because we were allowed to talk while we ate.

Then Monk Suan took us on a walk around the river. It was so beautiful. The water was very calm and so reflective. Here are some pictures:

Poor SeungBo accidentally dropped his phone in this pond, just after he had finished paying his parents back for the last phone he broke. After we had a few minutes of horrified silence, Monk Suan joked that now the "inyeon" between SeungBo and his phone was broken, so SeungBo laughed. "Inyeon" is a Buddhist principle concerning the interconnectedness and relationships between things. Monk Suan said maybe he can form a new “relationship” with an iPhone 5.

We stopped near a sort of graveyard and Monk Suan played his ocarina for us. He can’t read music, but he plays very well by ear. In the graveyard there were tall pillars with the stories of famous monks inscribed on it and there were little stone towers that contained the ashes of famous monks.

For our final temple activity, we drank tea together with Monk Suan. It was still only 10 am or so. The way they make tea is interesting to me. They use a small teapot that has a lot of tea leaves in it. After letting the leaves steep in hot water for a bit, the tea is poured out through a strainer into a bowl and then the tea is served from the bowl into everyone’s cups. Remember how you use two hands to show respect? Well, Monk Suan had to use a hand to hold back his long sleeve, which is how this custom originated in the first place.

While we drank, Monk Suan told us about how Buddhists l believe that everything is connected and how when you meet someone you have a connection, as in you met in a past life and will meet again in the future. He also told us a story riddle, so read below.

Once there was a monk living deep in the woods. One day a rat ran to him saying, “Help me! Please help me!” A cat was chasing the rat, so the monk hid the rat in his house to keep him safe. However, the rat grew tired of hiding and wanted to go see the world, so the monk turned him into a cat. The cat left the monk and traveled the world.

One day, the cat ran back to the monk saying, “Help me! Please help me!” He was being chased by a dog, so the monk transformed the cat into a dog. The dog left to see the world. However, some time later the dog came running back saying, “Help me! Please help me!” He was still afraid, so the monk turned him into a tiger saying, “Now you will have nothing to fear.” The tiger went out unafraid to travel the world.

Despite this, one day the tiger came running back to the monk saying, “Help me! Please help me!” The question is, what was the tiger afraid of?

We guessed other tigers, man, guns, himself, etc but we were all wrong. Monk Suan gave us a hint by telling us to consider the beginning of the story.

Some people guessed rat, others guessed the monk, but we were wrong again. I guessed the cat as a joke because that was the only other thing I remembered from the beginning of the story but Monk Suan asked me why, so I used the great skills I learned from Caltech and BSed an answer. I said the tiger was afraid of the cat because he remembered being a rat. I had actually guessed right! Yay! Monk Suan explained that though the container was different, the mind was the same, just like in reincarnation.

After this we said our goodbyes and headed out. It was still morning, so first we went to a famous cypress grove. It was really cool, but the cicadas were so loud! Ms. Kim pointed one out to me and it was nearly as big as my thumb if you include the wings. There were also some beautiful dragonflies with teal bodies and black wings.

For out last stop before GIST we had a huge lunch of pork ribs because we missed eating meat. We barely made it two meals without it! I don’t think any of us were cut out for monkhood. I was too happy to eat meat to take a photo, so you will just have to imagine it.

Tell you more in the next blog! I’m almost done regaling my Korean adventures.

2011 Gyeongju World Culture Expo

After we caught the train to Gyeongju, we took a bus to the fair ground. While we rode the bus, some Korean high school students were laughing at me being a foreigner. This is the only time I was treated less than well for being a foreigner. I think they maybe wanted to practice their English with me because when I stumbled one of them asked if I was okay, so maybe they were just excited to see a foreigner.

The next official World Expo is also being held in Korea (in Yeosu) in the summer of 2012, so this World Expo was not an official universal expo, I think. It’s full name is the 2011 Gyeongju World Culture Expo.

After we arrived we snacked on the yummy steamed red bean buns Kyung Ha’s mom bought for us.

It was really, really hot. We wandered around the grounds for a little bit because they were really pretty. This huge building dominated the grounds:

There was a stage at the base for concerts, too. However, the temperature drove us inside quickly, so we walked through a building with models of famous Korean buildings and an art gallery. The eaves of traditional Korean temples and important buildings are super detailed and fancy so there was also a description of how to construct the eaves. I couldn’t understand since it was in Korean, but it looked complicated.

I liked most of the paintings in the art gallery, but this is my favorite. I love the paper boats.

After this we braved the sun for a little bit and watched a music performance by a group from Cambodia, I think.

We were fanning ourselves, but we couldn’t take it anymore, so we escaped to a geology and fossil exhibit in an air-conditioned building. They had a lot of petrified wood and I really liked seeing all the rocks. Kelly’s dad is a geologist though, so she had seen it all before. Here are some of the things I saw:

There was so much petrified wood!

 

On our way see a drum show we saw some people blowing giant bubbles! I love bubbles, so here is a photo:

The drum show was also very cool. The drummers were from Taiwan, I believe and they made the drumming into almost a kind of dance.

Next we braved the sun again to look at the gardens on the Expo grounds. We used our umbrellas to shield ourselves from the sun, but it was still unpleasantly hot.

We also saw many sculptures around. Here are pictures of some of my favorites:

My very favorite was the CD wind chimes. I’d like to try to make it myself.

Kelly’s favorite part, I think, was when we stumbled upon a building that contained sets from the Korean drama Athena. I had never seen Athena, but I enjoyed it too because of the air conditioning. (:

We ate some really spicy gyros for lunch at one of the only places where there were booths from different countries. They were primarily Asian countries and you could buy souvenir-y type things there. There was only one other place with international booths, but that place included more information about the various countries. The majority of the expo was unrelated to the non-Korean things.

After lunch, we wandered through the remaining air conditioned buildings before taking the elevator to the top of that really big tower. There were a couple of interactive museums that told Korean legends about the birth of certain kings or the building of temples or other old stories. I was struck by how similar the themes were to Western stories. Once we reach the top of the tower we could see all of the grounds.

There was also a display of various cool rocks.

The most interesting thing, to me at least, was this handout they gave about Dokdo Island. It is a mostly uninhabited island located between Korea and Japan and both countries lay claim to it. Only two people officially live there. I don’t know the whole story, but the handout made a big deal about land surveys from as long ago as 1785 that referred to Dokdo as part of Korea.   They especially emphasized how a Japanese cartographer had regarded Dokdo as Korean. It is not the only thing I’ve seen that makes pointed comments about Japan and Dokdo, but it was definitely the most obvious.

After we came down, we headed to the entrance but we stopped to watch a strange parade on the way. I don’t know what countries the floats were supposed to represent. It was a little strange.

Overall, the whole expo was an eclectic collection of things. I’m still not sure what the overall goal of the expo was, but it was very fun to go see.

Afterwards we headed back to Gwangju. I wish we could have stayed longer in Gyeongju because there are a lot of tombs and other cultural things to see there, but we had to get back to Gwangju before 10 pm so that we could catch the last bus from the terminal to GIST.

When we tried to buy tickets on the first train we needed to take, they only had first class tickets left. Let me tell you, first class is not worth it. All we got was a little extra leg room when the normal seats had plenty anyway. It was very busy because it was the end of a holiday weekend.

While we were waiting for our bus at the Daegu terminal, it started to rain. We thought we had finally had a weekend without rain, but no luck. At least it only rained at the end!

On an unrelated note, here is a picture of a van I saw in Daegu. The Korean cars and trucks really have a different overall shape than the ones I see most commonly in the US, so I thought it might interest you all to see one.

In the next blog, I’ll tell you about the temple stay GIST organized for us. It was pretty interesting and not at all what I expected.

Yay for International Caltech Alums!

On Sunday August 14, Kelly and I took a bus to Daegu, a city several hours east of Gwangju, to visit a Caltech alum. Kyung Ha Lee graduated just last year and taught a year-long Korean class which Kelly had taken. For a snack on our long bus ride, we bought some triangle kimbap from one of the many convenience stores in the bus station. Traditional kimbap is rolled like a sushi roll, but with spam or other cooked meat and vegetables rather than raw fish. The triangle kimbap is cheap, only 800 won (US$0.75) and is actually really tasty even though it is convenience store food. I’ll miss it when I get back to the USA.

When we arrived, Kyung Ha and her mom picked us up at the bus terminal and took us to downtown Daegu. It was really cool. Many of the streets are blocked off for pedestrians only. Kyung Ha took us to a delicious lunch. We had soup and meat that we wrapped in leaves before eating. This is a common way of eating a lot of different meat dishes. Oftentimes there is also a salty bean paste that you put in the leaf with the meat.

Afterwards we did a lot of fun things that Kyung Ha treated us to. She told us that it is a Korean custom to pay for food and activities for visitors and guests. The further the guests traveled, the more the host pays for.

First we stopped by a fortune teller so Kelly could have her fortune told. Kyung Ha said that all the fortune tellers use the same book called "Tojeong Bigyeol," which was written long, long ago by Lee Ji Ham (1517-1578).. It is very complex and can be interpreted in different ways, but by knowing the date and time of one’s birth, they can use the book to tell one’s future. Kelly will supposedly never run out of money will marry optimally when she is 30. The fortune teller also recommended that she date “many men” before settling down!

Next we went to a karaoke place. It was really fun! The room was cute and we got two microphones, funny headbands, tambourines, and free ice cream! There were English and Korean songs that we could pick from but it was difficult for Kelly and I to read fast enough to sing the Korean songs. We had been hearing the more popular ones playing all the time for the last few weeks, so at least we knew the tunes. Also, many K-pop songs include English lyrics in some parts and those were easy for us to sing. I had a lot of fun. The backgrounds behind the lyrics were usually completely unrelated to the song, so that was pretty funny. We stayed for an hour and my throat was so tired at the end!

We walked around for about a while longer and ate delicious crepes that could be filled with fruit, red beans, chocolate, ice cream, and/or cake!

We also went to a store that was like a cross between Michaels, Pottery Barn, and Office Depo so Kyung Ha could buy the ribbons and flowers she needed to complete a diaper cake she was making for a friend’s baby shower. I think it is a really cute idea. I assumed it was a Korean thing, but she said that she got the idea from her time in the US. Here is a picture of the unfinished cake:

Kelly and I bought thank-you cards and just looked around the store. The store had a pretty eclectic collection of things, including scientific glassware:

Here, and at another store we went to later, I noticed that a lot of things had gratuitous French or English. Notebooks and other items tend to have cheerful and happy slogans on them, like "Do your best!" or "Fighting Spirit!" I really like that.

We also went to a photo booth place. There were many many booths that you could take photos at. You got to take 6 photos and then edit them by adding in sparkles and designs and animals.

Then we went and got manicures. The manicurist thought it was funny or interesting that my arm hair was blonde instead of black like the majority of Koreans. I really liked my nails. For most of the year I rock climb or play water polo so I have to keep my nails short, but this summer was a good time to have nice nails.

Finally we went to dinner at Pizza Hut. Now, in the US Pizza Hut is often sort of dirty and cheap and really greasy. Here Pizza Hut is a nice, upscale restaurant. They have a yummy salad bar and yogurt bar and the pizza was not nearly as greasy as it is in the US. It also had crust stuffed with cheese and sweet potato. In Korean, Pee-ja Mah-she-so-yo! (Pizza is delicious!)

After dinner we met Kyung Ha’s parents at a nearby coffee shop and they drove us back to their home in the country. We picked up some beverages to drink first and then when we arrived they also served us some homemade rice alcohol. It is similar to makoli but while the sediment is kept in makoli it is removed for this rice alcohol so it is clear instead of cloudy. They both majored in food science and they really like to experiment in making their own food. Kyung Ha said they tried making ketchup once, and that it turns out orange and watery without all of the preservatives and things modern companies add. They said they would not try making the rice alcohol again because though it was delicious, it was also too much work!

They served us nuts and fruits while we sat and drank with them. Nuts and fruits are pretty expensive here so it was a special treat for us.

Kyung Ha let us sleep in her bed while we were there which was really kind of her. It had a soft mattress instead of a hard ground

Their house is unusual in that it is two floors. Traditionally, Korean houses have only one floor because of their underfloor heating system. Their bathroom was similar to other Korean bathrooms I’ve seen, with a hose shower and no tub, but they had hot water and a shower curtain, two things I like in a bathroom!

The next morning we got up really early so that we could go to a World Expo being held in Gyeongju, a town two hours from Daegu. A family friend had given Mr. and Mrs. Lee a pair of tickets to give to Kelly and I. First, we had bibimbap and bean sprout soup for breakfast. I liked being able to choose how much of each topping to use.

Afterwards Kyung Ha and her mom drove us to through the countryside to the train station in Daegu. I’m sorry I don’t have more pictures of the countryside; it was very beautiful but it is difficult to take good photos from a moving car, so here is the view from Kyung Ha's window instead.

Kyung Ha's home is surrounded by farmland in a little valley. Driving up out of the valley we could see how the green mountains were surrounding the little town and it was really beautiful and picturesque. We drove by a river for a while and I was amazed at how many people were out and about when it was still barely 7 am on a Sunday.

Before we left Kyung Ha and her mom gifted us with some delicious steamed buns stuffed with red beans to eat on our trip and Mrs. Lee even bought the tickets for the train to Gyeongju for us! They were so generous.

Next blog I’ll tell you about the World Expo!

Things I miss, things I will miss

For this blog I wanted to tell you some general things about my daily life here and share some more pictures of Korean food.

First off, here are some pictures of the GIST campus:

My building is the tall one on the left.

Usually for meals during the week I eat in the GIST cafeteria.

We always have soup of some kind, rice, and kimchi.

I think I might have said this before, but we don’t drink water with our meal. Instead, after we turn in our trays we chug one small glass of water. The other students say that they already have soup, so why would they need another liquid with their meal?

Dean Kwan H. Lee generously gave us Caltech students a deal where we can also eat lunch for free at several nearby restaurants, including an Italian one called Il Mare. The food is similar to American Italian food, but it is spicier and they serve it with pickled vegetables as a side dish.

In Korea, it is trendy to have English as a decoration on signs, t-shirts, etc, like we use Chinese characters in the US. However, they don’t always get it quite right…

One of my favorite foods here is bing su, or shaved ice. The serving is big enough for at least 2 or 3 people. It comes in many flavors, including fruit, red bean, coffee, and green tea. The base is of course ice, covered with condensed milk and rice cakes and flavoring and other toppings, sometimes ice cream. Here is one we ate the other day:

Actually, on our way home from eating the bing su, we stopped and listened to a concert in the park by GIST. They play music there almost every Sunday evening during the summer. This concert was relatively big, I think. Some vendors had set up food stands nearby and the stage was equipped with bubble makers and the crowd was much bigger than usual.

Another delicious food here is pizza. Korean pizza is NOT like US pizza. It is relatively expensive here, too, so people go for a treat, not when they are too lazy to cook. The crust is often stuffed with sweet potatoes and cheese and the pizzas include lots of toppings that we usually don’t have, including corn and shrimp.

The pizza places also have a salad bar and a yogurt bar. The salad bar includes a lot of kimchi, potato/pasta salads, fruit, and tossed salad ingredients. Instead of everyone paying for the salad bar individually, you just pay for one bowl which everyone fills and eats out of communally.

I loved the yogurt bar. It is plain yogurt, but you have your choice of nuts and aloe jelly and flavoring to use as toppings.

And now for an actual story: A couple weeks ago, some of the graduate students took us Techers to downtown Gwangju to explore the nightlife. First, we went to “German Bar,” but the G was upside down.

It turned out to be a karaoke bar which was really fun. There were only two microphones but many people would join in on each song.  There were more foreigners than I have seen since the Boryeong Mud Festival, so most of the songs were English. I can read Korean now, but not nearly quickly enough to keep up with karaoke.

Afterwards we went to a couple of bars where we could go in and dance for free. Those were pretty fun and had a more mixed crowd of foreigners and Koreans. We finally camp back to GIST at 5 am!

Although Gwangju is referred to as a “rural” area, the downtown was really lively.

In the next few blogs I will talk about the last two weekend trips I’ve taken, but since I’m leaving Korea soon I thought I would make a list of what I will miss about Korea and what I miss about the US.

I miss…

Cheese

Cooking

Food that is not Korean

Understanding what everyone says

Not having to sort my garbage. In Korea you have to separate food, glass, plastic, cans, burn-ables, and other. I don’t think this is a bad idea; I just hate using the food trash can because it has tons of little flies.

Having good paper towels or a nice hand dryer in public restrooms. The air dryers here are almost all terrible and paper towels are usually flimsy or unavailable. Most  people just let their hands air dry here.

Vegetables that aren’t fermented

English novels for me to read

Having all of my clothes. I did not pack enough outfits for how long I’ve been here.

My friends and family, of course

 

And now, here are some things I love and will miss about Korea:

Bing su (Korean shaved ice dessert)

Korean Barbecue

Some kinds of kimchi

Corn ice and the other strange ice creams here

Korean pizza

….let’s just say Korean food, or this list will be way too long!

The excellent public transportation

Being legal here

Being within walking distance of plenty of restaurants and places that stay open late

The mountains. The scenery here is some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring I’ve ever seen

Being surrounded by Korean so I can practice my own Korean

The food again. There are so many delicious things here. I like how many side dishes come with each meal.

Using chopsticks all the time

Eating together out of communal dishes instead of having separate individual dishes

Sitting on the floor; I like sitting cross-legged

The architecture

And, of course, all the wonderful people I’ve met here!

 

I think I could have added a lot more to my lists, but then they would be too long. Anyway, in the next blog I will talk about how Kelly and I went to visit a Caltech alum living in Daegu, South Korea.

Blue Skies

Before I tell you about our last day on Jeju Island, I want to talk about the floor mats we used, called “yo.” At first I found them difficult to sleep on. The pillow is harder and smaller than I am used to and the mattress is relatively thin on the hard floor. However, now that I have used them five or six times I am used to it and I actually like it. I still enjoy my Western style bed that I have in my dorm, but check out how much space the mats give us:

I imagine that these are cheaper than a Western bed and mattress. The mats are covered by sheets like a mattress is, so you can still wash them. As long as I replace the pillow with a bigger, softer western pillow I think I would rather have one of these beds when I have my own place. Again, so much space!

We slept in again this morning, and then we went to a black sand beach. The weather was perfect so I really wanted to swim again, but since Koreans wear clothes instead of swimsuits to the beach and we had stayed an extra day, we did not have clothes to spare so all we could do was wade.

After the beach we stopped by the smallest museum I have ever seen. I believe it is a private collection. This picture shows almost the entire museum.

Almost all the captions were only in Korean, but it seemed like a collection of many different old Jeju Island artifacts including horsehair hats, a bamboo wife, a sea diving outfit, old coins, and much more.

Outside there was a collection of stone totems. I’m not sure exactly what their purpose was originally but I liked them a lot. Many of the ones that were not too worn had happy expressions.

Finally, we said goodbye to Jeju and went to the boat terminal to wait for our ferry to Wando Ferry Terminal. At first I thought we had come too early, but we played a fun traditional Korean game while we waited and the terminal soon filled up with a lot of other travelers who had been delayed by the typhoon.

The game we played is called Yut (Four-stick game) and is traditionally played by Koreans on the first day of the Lunar New Year. We played with only two teams at a time, but according to the internet you can play with up to four teams.

This picture and more detailed rules can be found at < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yut>

Each team has four pieces, called “horses” that need to travel all the way around the board. To quote < http://www.lifeinkorea.com/activities/traditional.cfm>, “Four sticks, flat on one side and curved on the other, are tossed in the air for each side's turn. The combination of flat and curved faces pointing upwards determines the number of spaces moved along a board…Landing on an intersection circle enables the side to take the shorter path. The first person/team to travel all the way around the board wins.” Also, if one of your pieces lands on the same space as another of your pieces you can move them together on future turns. If one of your pieces lands on the same space as a “horse” of the other team their “horse” gets kicked back to the start. Also, if you roll high enough, you get another toss of the yut sticks.

Inseok Ham arranged it tournament-style and upped the ante by having each of the four teams bet 1000 won (US$0.92) My team lost our first game, so we were out right away. We were almost winning but Binnie was on the opposing team and she rolled “5” three times in a row!

We had to get on the boat before the final round so we never actually finished playing it. I don’t know what happened to the money.

The sea was a lot calmer Monday than it was on Friday and the ferry we planned to take was a lot bigger, so I wasn’t as worried about getting sick. I was really surprised by the boat, though. We had second class tickets and here is a picture of the second class deck:

There were no chairs! I’ve never been on transportation without seats before. I knew that Korea had a floor-based society but I was still taken aback. I liked that theoretically we could lie down, but it was too crowded for us to do more than sit.

Inseok Ham said he was a friend of the captain, but I thought he was joking. However, he disappeared for a few minutes and when he came back he led us to a private room where we had plenty of space to sleep and eat.

As long as I was lying down I didn’t feel sick, so this was good for me. I did go out on deck at one point where I got these pictures of the sun, the sea, and an island.

I still didn’t have my sea legs though and I had to go back and lie down after only a short time. I can’t decide if I want to ride more boats until I get the hang of it or never take a sea voyage again! Then, at last, we made it back to GIST. I loved this trip to Jeju. It was really fun and I don’t think I would have been able to afford it without the help of GIST. I’d like to thank whoever allocated the funds for these trips GIST had organized for us and a special thanks to Hong Namgil, Binnie, and Inseok Ham for all of their hard work and planning. This trip is definitely one of my favorite Korean memories.

Typhoon!!!

I’m not used to sleeping on a relatively hard bed, so I woke up a few times throughout the night. Every time I woke up I could hear the wind and rain pounding outside. The students who planned to fly out on Sunday got up really early, but all of the flights were canceled, so they went back to sleep. When we did finally get up, the storm was still in full force. The palm trees were bent over, the rain was pouring down, and the rain drops on our window were scooting along at a 45° angle.

Looking outside, we could literally see sheets of rain blowing through the air. The wind was howling. We had snack food which we ate for breakfast, but eventually we had to leave the hotel for lunch. The water was three inches deep on the street; it was more like going down a river than a road. I saw a staircase outside that had basically become a waterfall.

We had lunch at an “American” Buffet restaurant, but it was not very American at all. There was spaghetti with tomato sauce, but it was spicy and included tentacles. All of the other dishes were distinctly Asian. Even the salads were not like American salads. My favorite was the tomato-tofu salad. It was light and fresh. In the US, people really treat tomatoes like a vegetable, but here Koreans treat them more like apples; they will eat them whole or slice them to eat as a snack. Actually, later that night back at the hotel we snacked on slices of peaches, apples, and tomatoes.

Next we went to the Jeju National Museum. We had to park the car about 50 meters away from the entrance and just getting across this distance got us soaking wet. We had cheap raincoats with hoods that went down to our knees, but the wind was blowing them everywhere; even having the car door open while we got out soaked the seats. We only had twenty minutes to look around, so the museum is kind of a blur. Most of the captions were also solely in Korean, so it was difficult to know what a lot of the displays were. Here are some of the things that I understood and thought were interesting:

Apparently the Jeju Island people used to use vase coffins like so:

However, I thought these seemed too small to fit a person in.

At the cemeteries themselves there were these stone boy guardians. A pair of these statues would stand facing the tomb or each other. Their job was to guide the souls in the right direction after death and guard their graves.

These hats were made from horsehair. Apparently horses have been raised on Jeju since time immemorial. I was impressed that such structures could be made from hair. Maybe horsehair is stiffer than human hair.

There was also a book, A voyage of Discovery to the West Coast of Corea & the Great Loo-choo Island written by Basil Hall in 1818. His ship accidentally drifted to Jeju and he wrote about his interactions with the natives of Jeju. On the page that the book was open to it described how they first met with the Jeju natives. The leader they met spoke to them very gravely and seriously at length but they dared not interrupt him even though they could not understand his speech at all. Then the Europeans replied, just as seriously, in their own tongue at which point both parties realized they could not understand one another. I don’t know what happened next because that is where the page ended, but it reminds me of many of my interactions when I first arrived in Korea. I’m much better now at communicating because I’ve learned some Korean and I’ve learned how to speak more slowly and clearly so that the Koreans who know a little English will understand me better.

The above photo is a woman’s diving outfit to be worn while collecting shellfish. According to the internet, on Jeju women were valued more than elsewhere in Korea because of their diving abilities, which included holding their breath for up to three minutes! I don’t know why women held this job but men did not, but it gave the women a lot more freedom and independence.

The ceiling of the museum was very beautiful:

Running out the car was incredible. The wind was pushing us to the sides and rain was still whipping through the air. It was the kind of weather that made feel like climbing a mountain or somehow taking on the worst of nature and coming out on top. I know it’s cheesy, but “exhilarating” is the best word I can think of.

After the museum we went to the theater to catch the last Harry Potter movie because it was the only English movie they were showing. The subtitles were much too fast for me to read with my slow Korean literacy, but sometimes I could catch a word here or there. It was fun to see how they phonetically spelled the names of the characters.

The theater was attached to a large Lotte, which is essentially a Korean Wal-mart or Target, so we wandered around there for a while after the movie. The groceries were distinctly asian and prices were different from the US. For example, nuts and dried fruit are relatively cheap in America but they are very expensive here. It is almost US$20 to buy maybe 1.5 cups of dried blueberries and the nut prices aren’t much better.

Cereal is also fairly expensive here. In fact, if you buy cereal sometimes you can get free Tupperware. In the US I think it would be the opposite way around and you would probably get a cereal coupon, not a literal box of ceral taped to the tupperware.

Spam is another popular food here. They like to eat it fried in egg. We saw alcohol that came with cans of spam attached because it is such a popular drinking snack!

For dinner we had budae jjigae. It is the same dish we had for dinner at the Boryeoung Mud Festival, but to refresh… It was invented during WWII as a way of using up all of the leftover cheap food or whatever food you could find.

When we went back to the hotel, the rain had finally slowed down, but the wind was still pretty strong. Fortunately, the typhoon moved on in the night and we woke to beautiful blue skies.