Annyung hayseo!
The adjustment to South Korea took me a few days, but I ended up really loving it. Seoul is a great city. The weather there was just like home in the day time - HOT. But at night it really cooled off and it felt nice.
The second night we were there, we had quite an interesting dinner. We went to a local sports bar and decided to order one of everything on the menu for the table to share. However, we had no idea what we were actually ordering. One menu item was “grilled various,” and “various” it was – including one dish that was actually some type of barbequed chicken feet. I am not making this up. We were also exposed to "kimchi" for the first time. (That is kimchi in the picture.) Wow, the Koreans love some kimchi. Kimchi is any form or flavor of pickled vegetables with seasoning, there are numerous varieties of it and it is served at every meal. Kimchi is usually a side dish but it can be the main ingredient in other things as well, like kimchi soup or kimchi water. Kimchi is sort of a national dish and the Koreans are very proud of it. Whenever a group of small children would see us approaching, they would recognize that we were Americans and yell, “Hi!!” We would say hello back to them and they would say, “What is your name? Do you like kimchi??”
We partnered with Sookmyung Women’s University for our program. The faculty and staff at Sookmyung were so gracious and helpful. They provided us with students from the University who went with us to different things to act as translators. It was really interesting getting to know them and seeing how college life in Korea differs from America.
Seoul, home to 23 million people, is a lot like the big cities in the United States. There were many distinct areas of the city, each with an atmosphere that was unique from the other areas. Itaewon was my favorite part of Seoul. Itaewon was very westernized with a Korean twist. A lot of foreigners lived in that area so it was a touristy district with lots of American food and shopping - carts and booths on the street plus good stores. The best part of Itaewon was the Cold Stone.
The public transit in Korea was impressive. In Seoul, the Metro system was pretty easy to navigate, it was well marked and very clean down in the stations. If you wanted to venture out of the city, you could get basically anywhere by train or bus. We took two beach trips, one to Suckcho which is on the Eastern coast of Korea on the East Sea. Then we went to Busan on the very Southern coast.
Our "apartment" was a fabulous setup. It was like a dorm, but it was located on the top floor of an administration building. Each room had bunk beds, desks, and a bathroom. There was big common area with a den, dining room, and kitchen. We also had a laundry room and computer room. We had a huge balcony that overlooked the campus. My last night in Korea was on the 4th of July. There were actually fireworks and we able to watch them from our balcony.
Over all it was a great experience and I encourage anyone who gets the chance to go.
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