Part II

Friday night my host mom came and picked me up, showed me around the house (they have a very nice appartment), I unpacked, then watched the World Cup with my host brother, then went to bed.



Saturday I woke up, and we took the bus over to my school to make sure I could find it, and my mom and I chatted for a bit.


Then we took the bus back the other direction but got off at Emart (a big grocery store) to go shopping for dinner, then went home. Oops, before we went home we had lunch at a resturant, something I've never had before.
 
THEN we went home, I played on the computer for a bit (it's in the room I'm using, which is nice when I wake up really early like this). 


Then we packed up our dinner (Korean BBQ) and went across the street to a little historical monument place where some dead people are buried (a long time ago, like burial mounds I think they might be kings?) and had a nice picnic where they made me eat until I almost died. Remember, this is Saturday still.



After that, we came home and my mom's nephew, who's also my brother's tutor, was here, he's a few years younger than me and was VERY surprised that I spoke to him in Korean.


My mom decided we needed to play some games as a family, so we played a couple and had a lot of fun, and they let me off easy so I only lost once. Then we watched more World Cup.


Anyway, that's only through Saturday night, believe it or not.



Yesterday morning before I went to church we made our own kimbap, my first time trying, and it was pretty good if I do say so myself.



Of course, all I did was put it together and roll it up, not actually prepare the ingredients. But it was still good.


After church, we went straight to see a production of Mama Mia! that's touring from Seoul. In Korean, of course. It was really good, and lots of fun. After that is when we went for bing, you know, the shaved ice stuff?


And my mom, actually, she wants me to call her aunt, anyway she ordered a waffle, too. And it came topped with a scoop of strawberry and a scoop of vanilla ice cream covered with chocolate syurp...and a sliced tomato. Koreans definitely view tomatos as fruit here.

대한민국! The Story, Part I

I'm finally here. After being over-orientated and hearded around like a middle-schooler, I'm finally with my host family in Jeonju, South Korea. It's early Sunday morning here -- Fathers' Day back in the States -- so this the beginning of the second full day with them, and already I have a lot to talk about.

Our family at Corky's in Memphis, one of the best BBQ places in the States

Just a short outline of what occured prior to this: I left Martin early last Saturday morning with my family for a vacation to Memphis, necessitated by the fact that the State Department booked me a flight out of that airport at 600. We went to a museum, ate lunch at Corky's, walked the entire length of the Mississippi and its tributaries at Mud Island, visited Beale Street, went grocery shopping, and swam at the hotel. Sunday Dad and I were up at 400 (me at 330, actually) and I was off to Chicago at 600. I finally arrived in DC around 1400, made my way to the hotel after meeting up with some of the other CLS people, spent the time before the icebreaker/first orientation catching up with a friend, then attended the first of many orientations that evening before going to bed. In the morning we started our day-long orientation at promptly 900, sat in one room for almost the entire time until 1700, then went out for a yummy Malaysian dinner on good ol' Uncle Sam (your tax dollars at work, people!). I met up with another friend for ice cream and a chat, called a few people, then went to bed.

We left early the next morning for Korea, flying out of Dulles on a United 777. I was stuck in the back of the plane in the middle of a row of five peple, between two rather large guys, for 13 hours with nothing really interesting to do and unable to sleep. (I don't recommend that you ever fly overseas on an American carrier. Foreign is totally the way to go: better service, better food, better entertainment, better accomodations...) We had a short layover in Japan, and then it was on another plane to Seoul, where we finally landed and met up with our director around 2030. By the time we made it to the hostel, it was late and we were exhausted. Sadly our room had a few quite loud snorers, which didn't really help me feel any more rested when I was woken at around 600 the next morning by my overly-anal, but well-intentioned, roommates to get ready for the day.

Our hostel

Our first full day in Korea was filled with more orientations: we made a trip to the US Embassy for one on safety and for an introduction to the country, then went to have lunch at the Seoul YWCA. After that we finally had some free time to explore Myongdong, one of the most famous shopping areas in Seoul, for an hour; Katey and I headed out and explored (and bought Korea soccer jerseys! Go Korea!) to the point that we got all turned around and lost. Good thing I speak Korean and have had lots of practice asking for directions. Bad thing that there are apparently two YWCAs in Myongdong, and people were directing me to the wrong one. Good thing Korean people are way nice and a very amused but still helpful 아저씨 (an older man) took us to the right one -- which turned out to be right behind the one we were directed to. We were only about 20 minutes late, but hey, it was only another orientaton anyway. After that one, we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen, to the relief of many of the kids who haven't spent 1.5 years living in Korea, then trooped over to a bank in the area who had set up a big projector screen and chairs for their employees to watch the Korea/Argentina game. We got to cheer on Korea wearing the red jerseys and the big air-filled noise-making sticks and the songs and the chants and surrounded by probably more than a thousand completely patriotic Koreans who were very disappointed by Korea's 4-1 loss to Argentina. I was pretty disappointed, too. I think I was the most into it, but I also had the most fun. :)

Some of my group before the game started; in the background you can see one of the many, many huge posters that are plastered on almost every single large building in Seoul. EVERYTHING is World Cup-themed right now, down to almost every commerical on TV.

The crowd at the pregame activities - sorry, my camera doesn't record sound.



The crowd at half time, right after the only Korean goal of the game - still no sound, sorry.

Random Thought

"The course of true love never did run smooth."

I think I feel a junior essay topic coming on. Something about sources of conflict in love stories? Pride and Prejudice as the text, maybe? Hmmm, I must muse on this. But it sounds compelling, at least to me. I like using quotes in my titles, and heaven knows I definitely do not want to write on anything philosophical for any essay. I always end up disagreeing with the author and my papers are never broadminded enough for my tutors. Plus, I'm interested in writing and the mechanics of plot and storytelling, so that would be intersting to examine. Hmmm...

Communication, Or The Lack Thereof

image found here

The frustrating thing about writing -- or any kind of creation, really -- is that it never turns out the way it was in your head. Sometimes this can be a good thing; the inspiration of the moment may hit and change everything in one fell swoop, or a serendipitous happening could send you off in a more productive direction. But often, at least for me, what actually appears behind the blinking cursor is but a pale immitation of the idea that captivated my mind.

Whenever I complained about papers or essays in high school, my dad would say someting along these lines: "The ability to communicate effectively in the most important thing you can learn. If you can write well, if you can make your ideas and your opinions understood by other people, that will help you more than almost anything else." And you know, it's true. So many of the problems in the world are because of miscommunication in one form or another, problems all the way from the personal to the global. God wasn't messing around when he cursed the people at Babel. Understanding each other is difficult enough even in the same language, but add in the language barrier and differences in thinking born of different cultures and BAM! You've got all kinds of wars and conflicts. All because we either couldn't, or didn't want to, understand each other. Ponder that for a bit. And then think about the abysmal state of language education -- both English and foreign -- in the majority of this country. All the science and the math in this world will be of no use to us if we can't talk to and understand each other.