Catch Up Post

So the trip is over and I have been home for a little over a week now.  When I started this blog I intended to post about every day or so...  this did not happen obviously.  I was too busy being busy and having fun to worry about blogging!

Since the last post, I have traveled all over Seoul and made so many memories and so many more friends that I will always cherish!  I have learned a lot about the Korean way of life as well as a lot about myself.  This trip has opened my mind in so many ways.  It feels a little different when YOU are the one that looks like an idiot trying to speak what little you know of a foreign language to order your food or simply pay at the grocery!  I also now know how it feels to stand out in a crowd.  I felt the stares and even though I could not speak the language; I knew when I was the topic of someone's conversation.  I never felt threatened though, Korean people are some of the most friendly people I have ever met.  They are so much more inviting and forgiving to foreigners than most of us are here in America sadly. 

This trip has made such an impact on me, that I am already in the process of planning for next year's trip to Korea!  I can honestly say that I was heartbroken to have to come back home so soon.  I did not want to leave all of the wonderful friends I had just met, or the new routine I had seemingly just settled myself into.  One month is just not enough time to experience Seoul.   



Since I have so much to catch you all up on, I am simply going to post some pictures and tell a brief story about each one to wrap up this blog...

07/12/14

My friends; Rachel, her father; Ross, Emma, Rui, and I hiked Mt. Bukhansan.

Below are some pictures of Hoeryongsa temple.  It is a Buddhist temple that was founded in 680 A.D. but has since been rebuilt and expanded several times with the last expansion taking place in 1630.  It is located about 1/4 of the way up the mountain.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we are at the top, catching our breath!

 

 





At this point I thought we had almost made it to the top... we still had an hour of hiking ahead of us!

 

 

07/16/14

 

 

Miwon, Sandra, Seollung, and I spent the whole day together exploring some of the things Seoul has to offer.  First, Sandra treated Miwon and I to one of the best buffet lunches I have ever eaten!  I might have overindulged just a bit... 

 

We then met up with Seollung at the Japanese embassy to see the statue that sits in front of it to honor the Korean comfort women that have yet to receive a proper apology from Japan. (more info here: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3594678 ) 

 

After that we went to a gallery exhibit of art from a girl named Yesuil.  She was one of the many high school students killed in the Sewolho ferry accident in April 2014.  This gallery was her family's way of honoring her.  There were artworks all the way from her kindergarten days up until her final days.

 

We then watched MISO, a traditional Korean performance show.  There were live actors as well as live musicians that played throughout the entire show.  It was very impressive, but unfortunately, photography was not allowed so I have nothing to share from it.

 

After the show, we took a cab to Insadong, probably one of my favorite places in Seoul!  Insadong is the Culture and Crafts district of Seoul.  There, you can purchase items that are unique to Korea.  I especially enjoyed the brush shops and the ceramic shops.  Most of the shop keepers are excited to tell you all about their craft, I really enjoyed their stories and advice.

 

After we had finished shopping, we had a massive dinner at a restaurant in Insadong.  I cannot even remember what we ordered, but there was a lot of food for four people and it was absolutely delicious.

 

Comfort Woman Statue

She faces the Japanese embassy

After Yesuil's passing, a shoe company took her designs (below)  and made actual shoes going from her designs (above).  They also named the shoes after her.

 

 Notes of love and grieving left on a window inside the gallery..

 

 

7/17/14

 

 

After class, my friends; Allison, Alan, Ed, and I made our way to Myeong-Dong to do some shopping, laugh at the funny t-shirts, and get some delicious street food.  While walking along the street, we saw a sign for a cat café!  Since none of us had been to one yet, we decided to give it a shot!  It was an odd but fun experience, cats were everywhere! 

 

 

Extremely sociable cats...

 

 

 



I think this is what heaven tastes like; a crepe rolled up with nutella, almonds, corn flakes, and a banana inside...



 

 

 

 

 07/19/14

 

Sandra, Miwon, Miwon's brother, wife and two daughters and I took a tour of the Changdeokgung Palace secret garden; courtesy of Miwon's brother! 

Changdeokgung is one of the Five Grand Palaces built by the kings of the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1897).  Behind the palace there is a 78-acre secret garden.  It was constructed for the royal family and palace women.  Not even high officials were allowed to enter enter the garden without the king's permission. It has a lotus pond, numerous pavilions, and landscaped lawns, trees, and flowers. There are over 26,000 trees of a hundred different species in the garden and some of them are over 300 years old. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

07/25/14

 

 

Graduation day.  It was so sad, I am glad we all got to see each other all in one place for one last time.  I told Miwon, the first time we were in that auditorium I didn't really notice any specific faces, just an enormous mass of people filling the room; this time though, I looked around and I could recognize a large part of the crowd.  I had encountered most of them some time throughout that month.  I will miss them all!

 

 

Miwon, Rui, Myself, Satria and Sandra at graduation

 



 

 

 

 

WARNING: Graphic content..

So once again, my busy schedule has kept me from posting for a couple days! Since I last updated you all, I have started my classes, explored more of the city, injured myself, and made many new friends!

My classes are great, my first period class; Understanding Art; is taught by Dr. Sandra Bird with her assistant Dr. Miwon Choe.  In this class we are learning how to analyze works of art more thoroughly and in a more unbiased manner.  The best part about this class is that every Thursday we take a field trip to a museum!  This past Thursday, I went to the National Folk Museum of Korea.  It was an amazing experience to see objects that  were created by humans so many centuries ago.

Bier:  frame for carrying coffin: a wooden frame on which a corpse or a coffin is carried to where it will be buriedJust think, this beautiful piece of art would have been buried with the coffin inside, this artists hard work never to be seen again!!

My second class is called Technical English Presentation Skills and Job Preparation.  Sounds pretty boring right?  Surprisingly it is not!  My professor is Mr. Mark McShea from the U.K.  He is very entertaining with his sense of humor along with the awesome British accent!  It is not an easy class for me since I am pretty backwards and shy, but the way he has it organized makes it not so intimidating. 
Just a funny side note; I wish I could have snapped a picture of Mr. McShea's face when he heard me speak for the first time, it was absolutely priceless.  His facial expression said; "Sweet mother of mercy, what am I going to do with this!".  Then just like everyone else and their brother, he had to ask where I was from, and his only advice to me:  Just be yourself.  Phew!!  That's all I know how to do anyway!

My evening class is Topics in Korean Art and Society.  This is also a very interesting class that explores the foundations of Korean cultural elements.  It is taught by Dr. Seungho Moon.  He is originally from South Korea, but he now teaches at Oklahoma State University.  He has an interesting perspective because of his background and I really enjoy his class.

On Wednesday; my free day,  I began by meeting Miwon in the art education room here at Hanyang!  We met with some faculty and art students that are interested in participating in the exchange program.  Most of them were art ed. students and one was an art therapy major.  We met with them to encourage them to come to WKU.  Even though I did not understand half of what was said at this meeting, I was excited to meet these girls that are pursuing the same degree as I am, 6,000 miles from where I normally am!

After this meeting, my friend Seokyung Park and I went on a small adventure in Seoul.  Seokyung was an exchange student at WKU for the 2013-2014 school year.

 

 

 

Our fun little adventure started out on a rough note however..  My lack of grace has left me with a nice little battle scar on my left knee =(  Whilst strolling down Hanyang Mountain, discussing the differences in American and Korean ways of life with Seokyung, my right foot magically slipped out from underneath me!  (As my dear mother always says; I could trip on air.)  Then it was girl down.  I am used to this kind of thing so I didn't think much of it or looking at my knee to see the damage.  I just brushed it off and jumped right back up!  Seokyung was quite concerned though, especially when she saw the blood running down my leg!  Thank goodness there was a pharmacy at the bottom of the hill that took excellent care of me!  They gave me what I needed so that our adventure could resume..
Disclaimer:  The next photo is the inspiration for today's post's title..  Proceed with caution!

   
 The first thing we did was find a restaurant with Korean barbeque.  I told Seokyung that I had been wanting to try it since I had arrived in Korea.  She took me to one of her favorite restaurants.  At this particular place, there is a charcoal grill built into the table, and you cook the barbeque yourself!

It was absolutely delicious!!  And dare I say this on America's very birthday... Korean barbeque is even better than the American version!  It has an amazing, smoky flavor and it is of course extremely spicy!  It was so spicy that I could barely eat it, but it was so darn delicious I ate it anyway.  It was served with lettuce and a slaw type dish.  To eat it, you place a few pieces of meat in the leaf of lettuce and top it with the slaw then wrap the lettuce around the whole thing.  Our side dishes were kimchi soup, rice, seasoned black beans, and seaweed soup.  The kimchi soup was also extremely spicy but it was so good. The seaweed soup and rice helped cool me down a little, along with the five glasses of water I downed!

After we ate all we could, we traveled by subway to MyeongDong to do some shopping!  The things here were very cheap!  Most of the clothes were not made to fit gals like me, Korean women as a collective, are very small.  They just don't need to make clothes much bigger than an American size 4!  I did find a few things though, and we had just as much fun looking at the stuff, as well as the sights along the street.  After we'd had enough of shopping, we decided it was time for a sweet treat!  We went to a little restaurant to get some bing soo.  What is bing soo you ask??  It is a little bowl of heaven, that's what it is!  Here's a picture to better describe what I cannot put into words...

Bing soo is a Korean dessert.  Essentially, it is ground ice.  It is so fine though, its like ice cream but better!  Especially in this heat!  This particular bowl of bing soo is blueberry/red bean bing soo.  Sounds gross right?  The red bean actually makes it!  There's not a lot of it, just a little patch in the middle of all that ice.  They also give you a little bowl of sweetened condensed milk to pour on top as you go.  You can never go wrong with sweetened condensed milk!!

              ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Something Seokyung told me to make me feel better about my knee is that there is a Korean saying that if something bad happens at the beginning of your journey, that the rest of your journey will be good from then on.  I hope this is true about my trip to Korea, hopefully nothing worse than that will happen to me!

An inspiring message I came across on my walk back to the dorm yesterday...

Busy, Busy, Busy!

Sorry it's been a couple days since I have posted, they are not going to allow me to get bored while I am here at Hanyang!  I am ready for tomorrow so I can get caught up on some sleep!  (we don't have class on Wednesdays =)

Yesterday, (Monday) morning, I traveled to Hanyang for the first time for our opening ceremony and orientation.  They talked about the history of the summer school program and how it keeps growing year to year.  They also gave us free t-shirts!  Yay, my favorite!!  Everyone from the university is extremely friendly and they seem genuinely excited for us all to be here.
The campus is very much like WKU; it is beautifully nestled on a steep "little" hill that I will have the pleasure of dragging myself up 2-3 times daily in this wonderfully sticky humid/ sweltering hot/OCCASIONALLY breezy, South Korean climate!  It is a beautiful campus though, they keep it very clean and they have put a lot of effort into the layout of the campus as well as their landscaping.

                                                          Rui and I at the ceremony..

                                               Walking up one side of "Hanyang Mountain"

After the ceremony and orientation the staff split us up onto 13 different buses and took us on an intense 6 hour tour of the city of Seoul.
    First we went to a cultural park where there were several traditional Korean houses.  Our Hanyang tour guide walked us through and told us everything we could ever want to know about traditional Korean life.

Grace, our precious guide, in front of a hut that would be placed over the site where winter kimchi was buried in order to keep it warm and let it cure even in the bitter cold winter months in Korea.

We visited Namsan tower, a landmark in Seoul.  It is about the equivalent of Las Vegas's Stratosphere, only Namsan tower is also on top of a mountain which makes for an even more expansive view of the Seoul Area.

As you can see, Seoul just keeps going, and going, and going, an...

 

 

We visited Gyeongbukgung Palace in Seoul.  This palace was built in 1395, but was later burned and abandoned for almost three centuries, then reconstructed in 1867.  It was the main and largest palace of the Five Grand Palaces built by the Joseon Dynasty.  The meaning of the name; "Palace" [Gung] "Greatly Blessed by Heaven" [Gyeongbok].  It was very interesting to be in this place, I think I will have to make it a point to go there again to take my time and enjoy it at my own pace.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Getting Settled in...

For the month of July, I will be studying at Hanyang University in Seoul, South Korea as part of a summer student exchange program with Western Kentucky University.  I will be taking three courses; Understanding Art; Topics in Korean Arts, Culture, and Society; and Techno English.  I owe many thanks to my professor, Dr. Miwon Choe.  She, along with many many friends, WKU faculty and family members have been so generous in helping with the funding of this trip.  I would love to list everyone but it would take a page and a half to cover all of my contributors!  Thank you all so much!  There is no way I could ever fully express my gratitude to you all for giving me this amazing opportunity! 

06/29/2014--  It has been a long trying adventure trying to make it here but I have finally settled into my dorm room at Konkuk University. (There are so many students enrolled in the program that Hanyang University ran out of rooms in their own dorms!)  I have met my roommate, her name Rui.  She is from China but studies in Connecticut, very sweet girl thank goodness!

So on Friday, (yesterday), I woke up at 4 am in home sweet home Sugar Grove, Kentucky, USA.  I had made it to the Detroit airport by 12:30 their time expecting to get on the plane to Seoul by about 4.  However, there were some maintenance issues with our plane coming from Japan and we ended up with a five hour delay, not leaving for Seoul until about 9.  Then there was the gruesome 14 hour flight.  I have never been so glad to stand up on solid ground in my life!! We arrived in South Korea at 12am SUNDAY!   Because of the delay, Delta paid for a hotel room since we could not check into our dorms.  So Dr. Choe, Dr. Sandra Bird ( Dr. Choe's colleague from Kennesaw State University whom we met up with in Detroit ) and I got a hotel together to stay in until we could check into our dorms.  Our hotel had an enormous continental breakfast buffet.  They served Korean style breakfast which consisted of salad, kimchi, porridge, omlet (with mushrooms, ham, and tomato) and some other spicy looking dishes.  I opted for the more American style breakfast of fruit, waffles, yogurt and cereal.  I will be more adventurous for lunch and dinner, I promise!

 Views from the hotel..

 The plane and stats from the flight...