Zero Miles Apart

I'm home now, and I hope you enjoyed my little updates. I had an incredible time, and returned with fond memories from a beautiful country with a kind, outgoing, and welcoming people.
I thought you would enjoy this final list of various experiences to savor and to avoid should you ever travel to Korea, wish to laugh at or with me, or just hear a few last stories!

THINGS TO AVOID:
1. Toilet Slippers: These are rubber slippers that everyone is meant to wear while in a home bathroom. Before walking into the bathroom during the homestay, I took a moment to consider whether or not to wear these, as I was not totally convinced by the concept, and they looked far too big. But, throwing caution to the wind, I decided to immerse myself in all aspects of the culture, and so I slipped my feet into them. Recall that all the water from the shower leaks under the shower door, and you will not be surprised to hear that I went sliding down across the floor, the toilet slippers staying grounded for only a second, and before I knew it, I had righted myself once again, slightly disoriented and slightly farther from the part of the room where I had been just moments before.
2. Taking a run while jet-lagged: At 6:30am on our first morning in Korea, my friend Sarah and I took a run around the campus. Since we were still tired, plus had jumped 14 hours into the future, we decided to just take a short 30 minute run. We made a big deal about remembering each turn so that we could make our way back, but got caught up in our explorations and found ourselves turned around. We passed the same security booth 5 times, each time running past from a different angle, with confident smiles on our faces and polite nods to the amused guards. If you hadn't guessed, we did make it back, just a half hour later than expected, but we knew the campus and that area of Seoul inside and out afterwards!
3. Allowing the person next to you to lift up the arm rest on a 14 hour flight: On the flight home, my goal was to speed through my summer reading work, then rest and chat. I was in the middle seat in the middle section of the plane with a slightly larger woman on my right. She asked if she could lift up the arm rest between us, and I said yes. Big mistake. She proceeded to turn around to talk to the person behind us, slowly taking up more and more of my seat until I was practically sitting on the lap of my friend next to me. By the 10th hour, I had had quite enough of this, and when she put her neck rest on my lap while she bent down to look for something in her bag, I quickly and casually put the arm rest back down, and all was once again right with the world.


EXCEPTIONAL EXPERIENCES:
1.  Hiking a mountain in line with a large group of people: Huge groups of hikers are not normally my thing, but somehow it still felt peaceful to hike in the middle of a crowd of fully equipped hikers, all out enjoying their surroundings and spending time with friends doing what they love to do. The shared appreciation for nature extends between cultures, and even though we were the only non-natives there, other hikers took the time to point out trails to favorite destinations that we might not have otherwise found.
2. Being taken by the hand and led into a place of worship: I had just come across a mountain temple on a run, and was standing outside looking in. A woman approached, waited while I took off my shoes, and led me inside. We sat together in the temple, sharing the silence and finding a connection, however brief, through this meditation.
3. Discovering the city just as it wakes up, and discovering a friendship at the same time: No experience parallels a run along an unknown street, looking ahead as the road before you opens up through the morning fog. I moved fast, eager to discover what I might find, whether it was a temple, a village, a smell from a dried fish store (causing an increase in pace), or a pedestrian smiling and applauding as I passed. I formed friendships with those that I ran with, and developed a strong bond with my original running partner who I shared many similarities with and who was my perfect traveling partner as well.
4. Receiving a Korean name: Near the end of my homestay experience, Yejin and her friends wanted to decide on a Korean name for me. We were all riding on the subway, and as they swung back and forth on the handles, they pondered different possibilities, until they finally made their decision and started to jump up and down and cry out with delight. My name in Korean is Eun Sol Park, or "Silver Wind." Park is Yejin's last name, and they said that Eun Sol signified someone who is beautiful, smart, who has secrets inside, and who has many opportunities ahead. I was so touched by this, as I was by their hospitality and kindness while I stayed with them, but it still took me a while to adjust to this name, as we discovered as I failed to respond to it several times on the street, to their enjoyment as they called it out loudly next to me!
5. Hearing wisdom from my sponsor: The representative from the Korea Foundation spoke to us on one of our last nights, and if the trip wasn't a gift enough, he passed along knowledge to us as well. He ended by offering us a "heartfelt improvisation:" that the more rain there is, the more the rice grows. Hear this for what it means to you. To me, the message I find in it is that sometimes we are showered with goodness and opportunities, and other times we must face a thunderstorm, but either way, we grow and come out stronger, and our harvest is all the more abundant.

My journeys in Korea, although short, were very meaningful, and I returned not just a more confident traveler, but also strongly influenced by the experiences I had, the people that I met, and the elements of Korean culture so graciously shared with me. I am so grateful for this opportunity and for all that I have discovered about myself and my own culture through what I have experienced of others and theirs. Although Korea is a half a world away in distance, through shared experiences and understandings, we can become zero miles apart.

A Mountaintop Experience

Yesterday I found the most beautiful thing on our run. We started out looking for a market to buy dried seaweed (I've taken a strange liking to putting it on lots of things while here, and will be taking some specially-Korean-seasoned seaweed home with me!). We found a market, and then a really steep alleyway behind it, and ran up, past little shops just opening for the day. At the top of a long and winding road (musical interlude) I saw the top of a temple just peeking over the treeline. We ran up to it, and found a large shrine, complete with burial site, beautiful gardens, and large statues. It was silent, with the exception of the beating of a drum and a low chant coming from a ceremony being conducted in one of the temples. We took off our shoes and entered, standing at the back in our running shorts, but enjoying being a part of the prayer ritual. We then walked into different buildings, one with a large white buddhistava in the center of hundreds of lit tea lights, another with a gold Buddha surrounded by 3,000 smaller ones (I didn't count, there was a sign).
Unfortunately, we had to leave this peaceful place to come back down for a taekwondo lesson (perhaps not my strong point, but I made it work!), but we came back this morning as well, and tomorrow before my flight (I leave for the airport at 7:30 am), I am going to take a run up there very early with a friend, and we are just going to sit in one of the temples for a while, taking in the peaceful atmosphere around us.
Yesterday also took us on a pilgrimmage to find waffles, something I along with two friends have been craving here, as they are something of a fad, advertised at every cafe. They might have been the best waffles I've ever had, or perhaps just a major contrast from the kimchi. We also went shopping in the women's fashion district, then came back for the evening farewell ceremony, where we heard once again from our sponsors at the university and with the Korea Foundation.

Today was incredible, though. Our running group took a trip to Bukhansan National Park, the most popular in the area for good reason. The first adventure was getting there, and my big success for the day was navigating the Korean public transportation system through two subway changes and a city bus without error, and without losing anyone, a success in and of itself. As we got closer to the final subway station to go to the park, the train emptied of everyone except for Koreans carrying excessive hiking equipment (I, again, was in running shorts). The bus was packed far beyond the limit with hikers, and once we got to the mountain, the crowd at the base was unbelievable. I couldn't believe this huge appreciation for nature, that so many were taking the day to enjoy a walk in the woods.
This wasn't just any walk in the woods, however. With craggy mountains beyond anything I have ever seen coming into view at every turn, I instantly understood why hiking was so popular. The trails were all extraordinary. We wound on and off of the paths, taking little jut-offs to find temples concealed in the woods, or large Buddhas looking out across the valley, or water trickling down a rock face. It was on one of these jut-offs that we found ourselves not at a temple, but on someone's doorstep (there are small residences on the mountain, incredibly). A woman and her daughter were watering the flowers in front of their house, and, realizing our mistake, we bowed and headed back down the trail. As we left, though, she called to us, and we turned back. When we returned, she was holding a box of packaged little chocolate marshmallow cakes, which she proceeded to empty out into our daypacks. She offered the picnic bench outside her house, but, not wanting to overstay our welcome, we headed back down once again, thanking her profusely. She sent me off with a nice rub on the back and a smile. The kindness and helpfulness of the people here is overwhelming. Unlike the rushed mentality that surrounds us, everyone here is willing to take their time, listen to those around, and reach out. As we were heading down the mountain after our hike and picnic lunch off the trail by a waterfall, a monk coming down from a temple stopped, bowed to us, and took the time to teach us a proper bow in return. He will never see us again, but still, he took the time to share something of his life and culture with us.
I have felt so blessed to have had this opportunity to experience this culture, learn from the people of Korea, and share something of my life with them as well.
I leave tomorrow morning, but will post something when I get back as a final reflection, and will throw in some bonus stories for you to laugh and smile at as well, so check back in for that! Can't wait to see you all!

More tales from the road trip

Sorry for the brief hiatus, the last hotel we were in didn't have a business center, but now I am back at the university and free to blog once again!
Quick update here of some highlights from the past few days, then I'm going to go plan a little hiking excursion with a friend.
A definite highlight was Thursday morning's breakfast buffet, where I totally lost my mind as one tends to do at lavish breakfast buffets. We began the day at a Buddhist mountain temple, and I could have spent all day in its peaceful confines. To enter, you pass through three gates, each symbolizing a level of purification from worldly desires and concerns, and at the heart is the temple (with a mighty large Buddha inside). This might have been my favorite place to visit on the trip so far.
As much as I would have loved to stay at the temple among the mountain flowers, we left to spend the afternoon at a cultural center learning traditional drumming (where I was used as the example for the video, so all those years of music lessons certainly have paid off!) and Korean mask dances. For the evening, we saw a performance of a classical Korean instrumental ensemble playing more modern style music, which was not only exciting to listen to, but I also find it reflective of the quickly advancing Korean society, where in each street the new merges with the old, and traditional styles mesh with modern trends.
Today, I started out with a run through a more traditional part of the city of Jeonju, where many still live in hanok, or traditional Korean houses. If only we had brought cameras, the run through the streets with buildings just peeking out from the morning fog could have certainly been a candidate for a Runner's World "rave run" shot! We traveled through this area today, and then, for an abrupt change of scene, went to Everland, rated 4th in the world for amusement parks, and with the world's steepest rollercoaster, which of course I had to ride (it was super fun, in case you were wondering!).
More updates to come!

6 am in the Gwangju Business Center

Good morning everyone! It is 6am here, and I am sitting in the business center of a strangely fancy hotel. There are only 2 computers, so the plan is that I am going to go back to sleep in about 3 minutes, if not on this keyboard. I' m sure you will forgive the brevity of this entry.
Yesterday we drove 4 hours down to the southern end of the country. We started in Damyang, which is the bamboo capital of South Korea and perhaps Asia, and went to a museum, wove little bamboo baskets, and walked through a bamboo forest. There was a little bamboo handicraft stand near the forest, and this brings me to my current predicament. I realized that I have only spent the equivalent of $18 in the week and a half that I have been here, but I don't want to lose on the exchange rate on the way back for the rest of the money that I exchanged. So, I am now trying to encourage myself to stray from my normal financial mindset, and just purchase things that I know I will enjoy. Two nights ago, I bought a sweater without trying it on (it fits and looks good, no worries, plus I bargained down the price, a cultural tradition in Korea). At the bamboo stand, I purchased a little sushi rolling bamboo mat and a large bamboo sleeping mat. Now, I will have to figure out how to take this bamboo mat on the plane, as it is about 3 ft tall (perhaps diagonally in my suitcase? or can always pretend it is my purse or blanket!). I have also aquired a ridiculous amount of souveniers of various shapes and sizes that they have given us, or that my host family has given me, and might need to invest in a duffel bag before leaving. We all seem to have similar packing difficulties. One of my friends ended up with a large straw teepee statue from her host family, another purchased an exceptionally large rice farming hat, and another is trying to figure out how to get 2 bottles of wine from her host family through customs.
Anyway, no need to worry about that now! We are now in the beautiful city of Gwangu, having traveled through the countryside through high mountains and rice paddies as far as the eye can see, with the occasional traditional looking factory, which I shall, for lack of a better word, refer to as a ricery. We saw the Soweason (forgive my spelling) Garden, a traditional garden created as a peaceful getaway for stressed royalty during the Joseon dynasty, and today will be heading off to a temple.
One more funny story before I stop rambling and head back to bed. Yesterday for lunch we had bamboo rice with unidentified nuts and tofu. Certainly up my alley, not so for many others. They thought people were still hungry, so for dinner, we had a pizza hut buffet. Yep, we were the bus of American tourists who drove past quaint Korean restaurants and all hopped out in front of Pizza Hut. The one nice addition in Korea is that there is a yogurt buffet there too, which I thouroughly enjoyed.
Speaking of yogurt, I am going to go back to sleep before getting up to have breakfast and using the very spiffy looking fitness center. Good night!

On Unification

Today I went to North Korea. Pretty crazy, huh? Well, okay, so I only stepped in and turned around, but still, not a bad day trip.
This fantastic occurance took place on a tour of the DMZ. There are, understandably, many regulations as to what you can do while you are there, and we were led around by South Korean soldiers. You can only wear more conservative clothing, as there are North Koreans watching through binoculars, hoping to take pictures of people with holes in jeans or the like to use as propaganda as to why South Korea and more Western ways of life are inferior to life in North Korea. We traveled deep into the third tunnel that was found to have been dug through from North Korea to South Korea (they could prove this because of the direction of the dynamite holes, if it wasn't already clear enough), wearing helmets and crouching down to avoid hitting the top of the tunnel. Everywhere we went, not just the deep tunnel, was freezing cold (they really seemed to like air conditioning there, and my friend and I used a large plastic bag as an emergency blanket of sorts on the ride back!), and the fields and mountains were obscured by fog, covering everything in a mysterious veil, through which you could just barely see the tall North Korean flag pole in the distance, built 60m taller than the South Korean one to try to prove superiority.
I have heard various opinions on whether South Koreans expect unification in the future. A professor who spoke to us said that many of the older members of society think it is not only necessary, but inevitable, as they share a language and history, and as  many families were separated when the territories were split (we saw the Bridge of No Return that many crossed, choosing forever whether to stay in the North or the South). He believed that the younger generations saw how unification might not be practical, as the South might exploit the Northern workers who are already impoverished, and because unification might have to involve an aggressive takeover. Our guide through the DMZ said however that unification is the hope of all Koreans, almost a lifetime goal to right past wrongs, and that the country is only split in territory, but that there is still unity in the hearts of all Koreans.
My host sister seemed to think that unification would come in the near future as well. We raced a little two-seater bike cart through the Olympic Park (does this make us Olympians?), and as we sped past her friends' cart, she commented on how my competitiveness made me very Korean, as it is a part of the Korean identity.This competitiveness could keep both the South and the North from backing down, however, as both sides feel that they are correct in their actions and beliefs. Even before the line of demarcation was drawn, the South and North had distinct cultures, even language variations, simply because of natural geographic boundaries. Current tensions only widened the gap between the two. As I see it, how can two countries hope to negotiate unity if they are pointing guns at each other and creating boundaries with landmines? If unification were to happen, there would still be landmines to cross before full peace and trust could be achieved in the minds of both countries citizens.

Did you miss me? :)

Hello again, back from the homestay experience! I stayed with a girl named Yejin, who couldn't have been sweeter. She took me to all corners of her city, exploring little side streets and neighborhoods that I might not have found on my own, and taking me along to do things that she likes to do with her friends. We went to a karaoke parlor (lyrics in Korean not my strong point, they did choose some English songs for me too, otherwise, I just danced around with them all!), took sticker photos (you go into a little booth, take a bunch of campy photos, then go into another booth and decorate them on a monitor, then it prints out little stickers for you), went into cute little stationary/writing supply stores (they go to school from 7am-10pm at a specialized high school, and even have to go in on Saturdays and in the summer, so they need something to make it more fun for them!), and went shopping. Yejin showed me her school and her classroom, took me to a local temple, brought me to places that served her favorite foods, and explained the subway system (much more confusing than in America, but also much more attractive, with malls in the subway tunnel, and glass walls that open to let you on to the train). She kept wanting to buy me gifts whereever we went, and never wanted to let me pay for anything, saying that we were in Korea, so she had to (I compromised by buying her gifts in return, but still, she sent me home with a bag of things that she gave me right before I left!). Her mom was sad that she couldn't talk with me more, since she couldn't understand English and I couldn't understand Korean, but she was delighted with the biscotti that I baked for her family, especially since she was a baker too (I will be coming home with her rice cake recipe...for those who know it, it's the sticky little rice balls filled with red bean paste, and for those who know me, I find these to be strangely appealing and addictive!). I also spent a night at one of Yejin's friends houses, and her father was very excited to find out that I was a vegetarian who enjoyed tofu, vegetables, and rice for breakfast. He brought out and dramatically presented a large cake of tofu for me in the morning, in addition to the large sampling of foods that make up a traditional Korean breakfast. I would list them for you, but I'm not really sure what they are, which sort of sums up eating here, where tasting everything and deciding if you like it after is much more exciting than trying to figure out what it all is first! For breakfast there was gimbap (sort of like thin sushi with lots of different vegetables in it), a peppery leaf which you wrap around rice, potatoes, mushrooms, rice, soup with sprouts in it, ttokboki (which is good, not quite sure what it is, but worth having), and, how could I forget, kim chi, which rather grows on you, and can be a nice way to wake up your taste buds.
Yejin and her friends were very sad to see me go. They want to travel to America to visit me and to see New York, and some wish that they could be a part of our educational system, since theirs is so competitive and all-absorbing. I gave each of her friends a little friendship bracelet to remember me by, and gave Yejin an "I love NY" t-shirt and map for when she comes to visit. They all dropped me off at the lobby of the university dorm, and to my surprise, they were all in tears and didn't want to see me go (got me a bit misty eyed as well). The three days I spent with them were just as meaningful to them as they were to me.

K-Pop

We made a quick transition from the historical side of Korea from yesterday, to its modern fads today. The first part of the day a Korean pop singer came to perform for us, then taught us a K-POP song by T-ara, and the more confident everyone became with the Korean lyrics, the crazier they became, and soon the lecture hall became a dance hall of sorts! Next, we went to a dance studio to learn the accompanying dance steps, and so by the afternoon, we had made our own little music video of dancing American travelers (there are cameramen accompanying us everywhere and recording us, who sometimes come out of nowhere and can be quite startling!)
Later on, we went to KBS, the sole broadcasting company for Korea, where we saw the final rehearsal for a top 15 groups production. Group after group came on, each with their own lighting and technical effects, and we could see how the concert on stage became something for television viewers. Ears ringing, we left to tour the rest of the studio, and then, after some downtime where I took a stroll with some friends down a street in a downpour, we watched the final television production.
What I find most unique about K-POP music is the amount of English lyrics mixed in with the Korean ones, almost representing the influence that America has had on Korea in recent history. Many public areas have things translated into English, too (even street signs, of which there are a strange absence!). Not all translations go well, however; an offering for the day was a spicy dish labeled "Chilly Shrimp."
Tomorrow starts the interactive activities with the Korean high school students, and I will be staying with a student through Monday. I probably won't be posting again until after that, but I look forward to telling you about my homestay experience afterwards!