Tater tots, waffles and Burger King

I welcomed day 3 with open arms as we got to sleep in later than usual and were going to have a leisurely day at the university listening to lectures and talking to students. The first lecture was on NK/SK relations. It was less of a lecture than it was a Q&A session where the answers seemed more convoluted than the politics behind them. It didn’t help that his accent was heavy and the microphone was echoey. Essentially it was a lecture set up for failure. The most entertaining part was listening to a room full of international studies, poly sci, pre-med, etc. students try to outsmart each other by seeing who could ask the most intricate question or question with the most background information required to explain the question in the first place.

Lunch for the day was buffet style with an interesting mix of Chinese, Japanese, Korean and American. On the same table, there were chips and dip, tater tots, sushi, kimchi and spicy orange chicken. I’m not going to lie when I say that I didn’t thoroughly enjoy the tater tots…Following lunch we had another Q&A session with a foreign service worker from the embassy office. Having a background in sports promotion, he was just as surprised as we were that he passed the foreign service entrance exam, but having brought the WWE to China, he was fluent in Chinese which helped his case. He said the exam consisted of a multiple choice with a wide range of various trivia questions about other countries that are necessary to know being an agent. His first service was in China, where he met his Korean wife at a language academy. Curious about his cross-cultural marriage, I asked if there were any interesting or funny cultural differences that they initially incurred in their marriage. He said initially his not being fluent in Korean yet led to some funny misunderstandings, “practicing Korean with her helped me get it up.” referring of course to his language skills in Korean, but of course you can’t say “get it up” in a room full of college students and expect us to not take it there. It took a minute before we calmed down and he looked completely mortified. Needless to say, I’m putting the Foreign Service on my potential to do list. Travel the world, master several languages, live abroad, gather cultural/social/political intel and maybe marry a foreigner? Sign me up.

After the interesting and innuendo laden Q&A, we got a chance to talk to actual Yonsei students. All of them introduced themselves, making careful note that their Korean names were “difficult, hard to pronounce, so just call me _________”. They seemed to take a lot of pride in their “English names”. The student at our table was named David and he was dressed in a perfectly fitted cardigan and tight jeans, and not a single strand of hair out of place, despite his thick head of hair. How do Koreans look so perfect all the time?! We had the opportunity to ask him whatever we wanted about Korean culture and all of us seemed to be interested in the school system in Korea. From their early years to high school, they get on a bus at 6:30am and don’t return home until around 10 or so. After they’re done with school for the day, they usually go a tutor to get ahead in their subjects. Generally the richer you are, the better tutor you can afford and the better you do in school, so poorer students can get left behind…Being that they have very few spare hours away from school and studying, this makes them very focused, however it also takes away many necessary outlets for them to explore other activities. Many of them will give up meal times to play sports or do other activities. Finally, senior year, there is one day arranged for the Korean equivalent of the SAT. It is a 10 hour test day with tests in every subject, and advantages of having studied abroad, high quality tutoring and extra hours spent on school work begin to show. It is rigorous. This test only occurs once a year, and if you do poorly on it, you have to wait til the next year before you can re-try. Those who get a near perfect score are the best candidates for schools like Yonsei, Seoul or Korea University. Those who don’t do as well go to lesser schools, but ultimately getting into a good university is the ultimate goal. So after years of intense studying and testing, university classes are somewhat of a joke. Students can take it a lot easier and not focus on school so much. But whether that means they completely slack off or just take the level down to a normal level, I’m not sure. Either way, it’s no wonder suicide rates for teens are so high here. Pressure to be perfect is high and the work load is even higher. Looking around at the Yonsei students, who are fluent in English, I suddenly realized how talented and devoted they were. Being that I’m a devoted student, I wonder how I would fare in South Korea…

Hardly taking any time to rest and eat dinner, it was back out to the streets of Seoul. However, as we made our way to exchange money, it seemed that more and more people tacked on to our group to go out. Eventually there were about 12 of us, setting us back an hour while we waited for everybody to get their shit together. My natural instinct was to cut out from the group as soon as possible. I walked quickly, cutting ahead of everyone with my friend Brian, but they caught back up to us at a long stoplight. Once in the subway station, all but very few people were confused about what to do and where we were going, which only prompted me to move faster so I could get rid of them entirely. I navigated the crowded halls leading down to the trains like a gazelle, weaving in and out of the crowd with stealthy grace. But once again, they all caught up as the train wasn’t there yet. Many of them doubted that we were getting on the right train, but I assured them that we were going the right way. After one transfer and 3 stops, we took our first steps into the crowded streets of Dongdaemun. Immediately branching off from our group, Sam, Brian, Arjun and I took off in the direction towards the $10 suit jackets. Dongdaemun is an area of endless shopping. Not finding much to suit our interests in the area where the train let us out, we started heading off towards the skyscrapers full of shopping. Unfortunately, being a Monday night, most things started closing at 8 (which of course pissed me off because we could have been there earlier had it not been for our giant retarded group). One place was open, and there was an endless hallway stuffed with small stores as far as the eye could see. It took me back to my experiences in the Lohu Mall of Shenzhen, China. I filled with a flutter of nostalgia and my eyes opened wide. Despite the shops being stuffed with scarves, hats and belts, I didn’t see anything that caught my eye. Things started to get strange because the hall filled with a chemical smell and we were essentially the only people in the building and there was no exit in sight along this endless hallway. Finally, in a hat shop, we found a door out and were spit back onto the street, lined with bookstores, which had stacks and stacks of books. Imagine a house made of bricks, except instead of bricks, it’s books. Overwhelming doesn’t even begin to describe it. Luckily they were in Korean, so I wasn’t tempted to browse through all the literature. A stack of National Geographic caught my attention until I imagined trying to get the solid 20 pound stack of them in my luggage…

Feet tired and shopping senses dulled, we made our way back to the subway station to get back to the hotel. But before we reached the hotel, we were at the mouth of Insadong, and a purse was calling my name (for less than $10!!!!!!!). Not wanting to torture the boys, I told them to head back without me, but they refused and were willing to continue down the rest of the street with me. Most of the stores were closed, but peeking our heads down alleys and around corners we found some peculiar restaurants, “barber shops” and drunks. At the end of the street I finally found a waffle vendor. Often wafting through the streets or subway stations is the scent of fresh waffles. Apparently having a strong affinity for waffles, Koreans have taken them in as their own and made them into a delicious and diabetes inducing street food. The waffle is folded in half and spread, doused with a generous shower of maple syrup and smothered with sweet whipped cream. While I rejoiced about finding a waffle vendor, the guys were overjoyed when they saw a Burger King (especially Sam). Leaving me at the waffle vendor, I met back up with them at the Burger King, but was initially dismayed when I walked into the store and didn’t see them. I looked out of the corner of my eye and saw a stairwell and decided (against my better judgment, given my experience with Korean stairs) to head up and see if there was more of the restaurant. Turns out the guys were on the second floor, enjoying their burgers. Total, there were 3 floors to this BK. And it was actually kind of a nice establishment, overlooking Insadong and the boulevard below. There were many middle-aged women, too, which I found interesting. Many young couples shared a pile of fries and a soda. Definitely not the demographic you see enjoying BK in the U.S.

Coming off my waffle induced sugar high, I passed out as soon as I got home.

Open your heart, rip open your chicken

Day 2 began with a brief history of Korea. Legend has it that the first Korean was created when a bear and a tiger both desired to be humans. God told them to live in a cave and eat nothing but garlic for 100 days and when they emerged from the cave, they would be humans. The tiger gave up, but the bear emerged as a beautiful woman. However, being a woman-bear made it difficult for her to find a mate, so god decided to just give up his son to marry her (and I don’t mean Jesus; despite the fact that a LOT of Koreans are Christian). Bada-bing, bada-boom, the first Korean was made. Then, throughout much of their history, Koreans were divided into strict social classes (similar to the Hindu caste system). In the 20^th century, their royal system came to a halt when Japan decided to claim Korea as a territory. After imposing somewhat of a brutal regime upon the Koreans, they finally became free when Japan lost WWII. Like WWI, the victors of the war began to divvy up territories of the losing side. When it came to Korea, the US and then ally, USSR split Korea at the 38^th parallel (completely arbitrarily I might add) and decided that the US would look after the southern portion, with the USSR keeping tabs on the north. This worked pretty well until communism began to take hold in the northern portion. Tensions over this led to what became the Korean War. Although it may be a “forgotten” war, almost 3 million casualties were incurred, many of them from the US, and other countries (like Ethiopia!?). The keynote of the lecture seemed to be that despite Korean pride, they often times have been marginalized throughout history; whether by Japan, the US or a simple history book, Korea is left out. Even in international discourse, it seems like Korea gets pushed out of the picture, being that North Korea is a rogue state, Japan is even more tech oriented and developed and China is becoming a major powerhouse. There’s just not a lot of room for South Korea. So that’s one of the points of this trip is to show the reason why it should be a big part of the picture. Part of me is excited for that to happen, but it still has a long ways to go in terms of making itself more open to that possibility…

After the lecture, we got back on the bus for a city tour of Seoul. But first it was lunchtime! Ginseng chicken soup—a Korean classic typically enjoyed in the summertime (why sweat a lot, when you could eat soup and sweat more!? Apparently it’s cleansing…) was on the menu. Initially I didn’t know what to expect, only knowing that it was a whole small chicken stuffed with rice and ginseng root. I sat down to find exactly that sitting in front of me on my plate. Our server ripped open the entire chicken in one graceful slide of her chopsticks and we all followed suit to reveal the delightful innards of rice and root. The chicken had a simple chicken taste, which I was glad about and happily devoured both its little breasts. The broth was delicious, tasting of simple chicken broth, but with a refreshing taste that only can be described as “Asian-y”. You know the flavor, I guarantee!

Full of some cleansing ginseng soup, we drove over to the “blue house” which is where the president lives. It’s actually not a fully blue house. It just has a turquoise roof. But a spectacular palace nonetheless. Instead of touring through the blue house, we went to this—eh, museum? It wasn’t really a museum, though. It was mostly a high-tech info center promoting Seoul. Like the rest of Korea, everything was high tech with interactive booths, maps, graphs, photo booths and a robot that guided your tour if desired.

Then we drove over to Gyeongbokgung Palace, whose grounds seem to be endless and the magnificence of the palace just as endless. Even more remarkable was the fact that it was preserved next to the modern skyscrapers of downtown Seoul. A common motif of Asia—the battlegrounds where old meets new in a spectacular display of lights and centuries old practices. I definitely think my pictures of Gyeongbokgung Palace will display it better than I can describe.

Just a few blocks away from the palace is the bright, noisy, colorful and cultural Insadong street, with the greasy, sweet and fishy scents of street food to lure you in further. Many shops along the street sell the typical Asian kitschy souvenir stuffs. But if you can navigate your way through the been-there-done-that knick knacks, you can find some tea houses, art museums, delicious and/or interesting street food (there were 2 bug-roasting stands—where was Andrew Zimmern!?). While meandering down Insadong, I was approached by two girls who couldn’t have been much older than freshmen in high school. One asked if I didn’t mind answering a few questions, and being a sucker for surveys and true to my xenophilic roots, I wasn’t about to pass up a questionnaire from an adorable Korean student who probably had this as an assignment to practice her English. She asked basic questions and questions about my knowledge/appreciation of Korean culture while her friend recorded me with a cell phone. I was so impressed with her English; really anyone that speaks a language completely unrelated to English gets a lot of credit in my book. It took me 3 days just to master hello, good-bye and thank you…and that’s just speaking it, not even writing it in Hangul…

To wrap up the day, we headed to the Korean War Memorial Museum. I was shocked to see a whole hallway filled with the names of those lost to the war from top to bottom from all 50 states and several other countries as well; lives that I feel, while not lost in vain, were essentially lost for nothing as Korea ended up in the same position it had been in before the war (not geographically, but socially and politically). Maybe that’s why everyone tried to forget it? Regardless, this essentially the end of my day. I returned home and in lieu of going out, I stayed in to work on my first few entries. On that note, kam sam ni da for reading along, despite this not being updated everyday. I’m trying, given my busy schedule and limited time out. My entries come in waves. 

nikki interlude: notes on Korea--culture and people

Though I am not incredibly well versed in anthropology, I am well versed enough to know that simple observations do not necessarily define a culture. However, here are some peculiar things I found interesting, funny or different.

1. Taking pictures of Koreans could lead to a photo filled with Asians making peace signs, or to screaming. You should ask them for a picture, or just say screw it and stealthily snap a shot when they don't notice...
2. If you let meat burn in the stovetops that are present at your table, the Koreans advise against eating it, contesting that it is cancerous.
3. There's a BIG difference between "Sprite"and "Spri-tuh". Only one of these words will actually get you the beverage.
4. Shoes are just under $10 and cute accessories are under $10. This is a steal in my book. However, most other things aren't that much cheaper.
5. Shirts are one-size-fits-all and you can't try them on in stores. Only bottoms are allowed in the dressing rooms...
6. Prices are as marked. You can try haggling, but this is somewhat of an insult to Koreans. I've tried haggling on 3 separate occasions and each time I have gotten a death glare, followed by a "No, no, no! 20,000 [won]!". It's definitely not China over here.
7. Taking the stairs is dangerous for several reasons. One, the stairs are usually slick and the handrail is either just for show (thus you can't actually hold on to it, really) or just not there. Two, the stairs may lead you to a completely irrelevant part of the building, or part that you need a key to enter. Three, the door after the stairs probably locks behind you. Four, just take the elevator.
8. EVERYBODY IS IN A RELATIONSHIP!!!!!!!!!!!!! And everybody is holding hands all the time. If you are single, there is something horribly, horribly wrong with you. 
9. They do not make cups that hold more than 8oz. Idk how people aren't dehydrated around here, because every cup is TEENY TINY!! (Good for portion control for soda, bad for how much water I need to drink)
10. Everybody wears hipster glasses. And everybody is fashionable as hell. And everybody is probably a size 4 or smaller. 
11. There are no street names or addresses that are comprehensible. Yeah, you got me on that one. How people get around or explain where shit is is a mystery.
12. Paper isn't 8.5"x11". It's narrower and taller!
13. Nobody solicits you to buy stuff. If you don't want it, no sweat off the merchant's back. This is a nice break from China...
14. Blonde hair and blue eyes are still mystifying. A girl started petting my hair in a store and her jaw just about fell off when she saw my blue eyes...she continued to just stare at me until I walked away. 

These silly notes are one of my favorite parts of traveling :) I find culture shock and cultural differences absolutely thrilling. And I'm sure you can all imagine me, pen in hand, jotting down these notes as I go. 

Nerdily yours,

-n

High tech in Hangeul.

I woke up with a stranger staring me in the face. I asked for his name and he said, "Seoul". Instead of gentle morning whispers, I was greeted by the sporadic zooms and honks of city traffic. In the hazy blurriness I tried to put the puzzle pieces together to determine how I ended up thousands of miles away from home. I had doubts I was actually really in Korea, until my vision started to become a little clearer and I was staring down at dozens of Hangeul characters. "Land of the Morning Calm"? Land of the Morning Crazy more like it.

However, to counteract the craziness of the past two mornings, I downed a perfect breakfast at the hotel. Koreans appear to love waffles (you'd think it was Belgium over here) and their Froot Loops, instead of being rainbow colored, are pleasant tones of maroon, orange, yellow and a kind of chartreuse color. They are delicious.

After breakfast, we made our way to Yonsei University (our "host" university) for our orientation. Our first lecture was on Hangeul characters (aka, the Korean alphabet) and basic phrases in Korean. Hangeul, unlike Chinese Kanji, is an alphabet. Although the characters might look like Japanese or Chinese characters, they are not representative of symbols, but of sounds--just like our alphabet. There are 14 consonants and 10 vowels (many of the vowel sounds are reeeeeeeally difficult to distinguish). Each word is broken up into syllables, with up to 3 Hangeul characters in each syllable. Many say that the Hangeul alphabet is the most "scientific" alphabet, and is the most comprehensive. Despite the difficulty of distinguishing/forming certain sounds present in the Korean language, I'd have to agree. Originally, Koreans spoke Korean, but used Kanji to write--making it very difficult to express themselves as the Kanji matched the meanings of phrases, but not the sounds. Thus, in the 15th century, King Sejong and his scholars created the Hangeul alphabet. Despite how comprehensive it was, it wasn't fully adopted until the 20th century...go figure...

As for speaking Korean, it's not as simple. First of all, even the Romanization of the pronunciation of their words doesn't accurately portray how a word is truly pronounced. For example, you might see 'gam-sa-hap-ni-da' as a way to say "thank you", but it actually sounds more like "kam sa ni da" and is very fast, each syllable getting slightly blended into the next. I'm still having trouble remembering phrases like hello, goodbye and thank you. Not to mention, a lot of the sounds I can't even pronounce with my boring English-speaking palate. Plus, all the words kind of start to sound the same...for being so scientific, it's not that easy.

Next, we had a campus tour around Yonsei. There is a park on campus that our tour guide said was a popular location for a romantic get-away. Sound like the arboretum, anyone?? Hehe :) However, a far more impressive part of the campus was the Samsung Library, which, as you can probably guess, was furnished by Samsung. They intended to have it as a paperless library (ironic, no?), thus there are tons of huge touch screens all over the library, each serving a different purpose. Some are used for the room/seat reservation system in the library (which I think we could use at UI since everytime I need a group study room, it's always taken by ONE guy who's just checking his Facebook...), sending/checking notes to/from other students, reading books, reading newspapers, searching student/university publications and much much more. It is by far the most high tech library I have ever seen. 

They kept our feet busy at work with another walking tour, but this time of the surrounding area of Sinchon. Sinchon is comprised of hundreds of cafes, clothing/accessory stores and just about anything else a person could want. It is street after street of bright colors and interesting things to look at. It looks like somebody sneezed next to an artist's paint pallet and threw in some rhinestones and flashing lights. It screams Asia. Just like most other things in this city. 

We finished off the official day with dinner at a typical Korean style restaurant. Ever present at every meal are different types of kimchi (pickled spicy cabbage), which is an essential staple of the Korean diet. I'm not exaggerating when I say they eat it at every meal, every day. It's like bread and butter to them. My first bite of kimchi was nervewracking. I like cabbage. I like pickles. I like spicy. But would I like it all together? My taste buds all said yes in a flurry of electric excitement on my tongue. Also important in a Korean meal is having many different side dishes (they probably have a full dishwasher after every meal, there's so many sides!). I pride myself in being able to say that I tried every single one! Did I like them all? No, but other than the "glass noodle" they were all actually pretty tasty. And despite how non-filling the cuisine sounds, I got full pretty fast and ate a lot more slowly, as everything is eaten with chopsticks (and a spoon for any broth, as soups are ever present at Korean meals). All the chopsticks here are metal, but I'm not really sure why...Luckily, I would say my chopsticks skills are well above par and eating with them has been delightful. I'll probably have to bring a set home.

After dinner, we were free to roam about the city. Being a girl that loves accessories and came with $600, I'm sure it's no surprise that I had to go back to Sinchon. However, I faced a problem, realizing that I didn't make any official plans to go shopping with anyone and I didn't know what rooms people were in...I decided to just randomly wander down to the lobby in hopes there would be a group meeting up there to go to Sinchon. There was! But they were all guys...Champions, I might say. They walked around Sinchon for 3+ hours, most of that time occupied by me wanting to go look at shoes, clothes and "girly stuff". And none of them complained. They actually seemed to be enjoying themselves and we all delighted in my failures at haggling (see next entry about haggling) and made fun of my obsession with cheap shoes. We found some strange things (shady motels, men lighting flares outside of a mall) and navigated using not a map but gut feelings and "hey, should we turn right?" "yeah sure, that looks good!". Our trail probably looked like a game of Snake. 

But now I must rest these tired little feet--gotta let them get some beauty sleep so they can look good in the 4 new pairs of shoes I got...

-n

15 months in the making...

And I'm finally in Korea!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 
I applied for this trip last year, but was not chosen. This year I came back with a vengeance and was the first person to get my application in. After months of dreaming of the moment where I first laid eyes on Korea, it finally happened. Though the air was beige colored, there was still something romantic about it all. Like meeting someone you've heard a lot about for the first time. Your expectations are always wrong, but it hardly matters when you let yourself get wrapped up in the moment. 

Despite the 13 hour flight, I managed to keep my sanity in tact. I’m not sure how. And aside from being a little greasy, I didn’t look all that haggard, either. What a miracle. Stepping out from the airport, I expected to see the bustling city limits of Seoul in the background, but was instead greeted by a landscape you’d expect to see in the outskirts of LA. Desert, barren land. It doesn’t help that I’m visiting at perhaps the ugliest time of year (too warm for snow cover, too cold for blossoms). Everyone on our bus was nearly delusional and slightly confused. Is this the Korea we had been dreaming of for months? Of course not. And slowly but surely as we got closer and closer, we felt the heartbeat of Seoul pulsing through our veins, not knowing of the adventure to come.

안녕하세요

-n

nikki interlude 3

nikkilude #3: Have you ever wondered what’s outside your window on a flight to Southeast/East Asia? I’ll give you a hint: It’s the Pacific Ocean. For 13 hours. And it looks the EXACT same for 13 hours. And if it's going to be daytime for the entirety of your flight, there's not going to be anything like a sunset/rise that you need to look out the window for. Thus, THERE'S NOTHING TO LOOK AT. So I’m going to save you from being “that guy” that opens the window every hour to peek out the window and kill everybody with a laserbeam of sunlight. 

I can't sleep between the turbulence announcements/window openings. Figures.

Korean Encounters of the Food Kind

Airline food is the vengeful creation of a chef whose culinary talents were never recognized, yet his business savvy swindled all the airlines of the world into serving his abominations to people as edible food. Having no other options aboard the plane, passengers complied (reluctantly). We can never truly be sure what constitutes the meals that airlines actually have the gall to serve us.

That being said, you can understand how hesitant I was about the first meal of the day. Korean airline food? (In a related side note, Chinese airline food en route to Hong Kong was so nauseating it had neurological as well as gastrointestinal effects) Could it be suicide? Starvation?...Edible?

All factors considered, the bibimpap was actually, dare I say, kind of good? A dish comprised of the mixture of assorted vegetables (mushrooms, cucumbers, bean sprouts, bamboo shoots), rice, a sprinkle of beef and a spicy red pepper paste called kochujang, it embodies the Korean idea of intricately linking color to cuisine. Neither the colors nor the taste were bland and it was the perfect introduction to a typical Korean dish. I can only imagine that if it was edible on the plane, the version in real life must be a symphony of chromatic and palatable sensations. Trying to conjure the fearless culinary spirits of wordly foodies, Anthony Bordain and Andrew Zimmern, I made a pact to myself to eat a bite of any food that makes its way onto my plate. And to photograph it all. No reservations, right?

Kimchi here I come!

-n

P.S. Stay tuned for photos on my Facebook. I really don't think I'm going to have the time to post photos in both places.