Stories from Seoul

The group of travelers out for the night- Julienne, Emerald, Kate and myself.









Early morning train ride













SERIOUS and FANTASTIC ELEMENT OF GLOBALIZATION *I know this is politcal and I am probably hated by many for loving this, but I am and always will be a strong and committed patron of Dunkin Donuts.




I just arrived home from Seoul and it was quite the trip. We arrived and immediately found ourselves trying to navigate a subway system comparable to the NY. Metro.
Fortunately signs were in English too; so the challenge was minimized.

We stayed at the emerald hotel and set off to see what we could. Our big adventure for the day was the most famous and most visited shaman temple. It was quite the experience trying to initially find its location. So much construction was going on that we ended up having to walk through a site in order to get to the bottom of the mountain we were about to climb. Prior to the construction we found a rockin moped!
The temple was beautiful and there were many areas to worship. We climbed to the top of the mountain where we were able to overlook the city and see the mountainous surroundings. Here are some pictures:









The weather was less than enjoyable, but it was a beautiful location and I look forward to hiking there again during the fall. Emerald almost fell off the rock she treacherously tried traversing. Many umbrellas were broken, but what can I say adventuring is worth it.

Seoul is more spread out than I had imagined. We walked around in the underground arcades. They are basically long walkways with kitschy shops and can be really confusing. We also indulged ourselves in American culture by visiting some well-known American establishments. I met a guy from Brandeis who actually knew Pam Leonard from Hingham. It's pretty amazing to meet people abroad 1/2 way across the world that are friends with people you know from the states; really makes the world a bit smaller.

During the evening we went to Itaewon. I have heard wonderful things about it; mainly that it has great shopping. I was gravely mistaken about the nightlife though. We arrived to see a ton of foreigners (meaning Americans). The military base was very close to the city so a ton of GI's were there as well. Itaewon apparently was a huge disappointment for all groups of fulbrighters who traveled there at night. There was a very present prostitution scene and I was very much under the impression that there is sex traffic-ing going on there too. We left early due to the torrential rain and less than appealing environment. Next time we hit up Seoul we will go to Sinchon, located near EWHA women's university. Supposedly it has great food/shopping and a kickin night life.

One of the strangely interesting things we did in our hotel was watch Korean television. There are three channels committed solely to test prep. Think GRE/MCAT/SAT Kaplan Princeton review on television. This is how seriously the Korean society takes testing. Although I am opposed to high stakes standardized tests, at least there is more accessibility for students to get test prep without attending pricey test prep courses.


One thing I have realized while living in Korea is when they say fresh beef, the do not mean cooked fresh beef; they mean fresh as in raw. We had some great meals, but I was definitely not ready to digest raw meat. I mean I don't really even eat tofu so that might take a while. We asked the women to cook it and she agreed though she looked confused. I think we created a new Korean entree that afternoon.

All in all a fantastic week. Perhaps people have seen Korea has even made the U.S. news waves because of the monsoon. There is a lot of flooding, but we are safe up on the hill in Chuncheon.