ESL?

just before nap time

Considering teaching English as a Second Language . . .

       (it would be a good international experience)

Thoughts?

Much appreciated, thanks.

We visited a university's day care and a public elementary school, and learned about the importance of English classes in Korea. Look how cute these kids are.

lunch time

one public school's classroom

meeting with the public school's head staff

look what I found, mom and dad

so many violins in the daycare . . . love it

A day of hiking

Seeing the Pacific Ocean. Check.

Hiking a mountain. Check.

Running down a mountain.  Check.

I'm on top of a mountain!

On Saturday morning, I left my host family's house and walked through the streets of Seoul to meet my team at YPC, the church that frequently hosts Taylor students. Some members of the church volunteered to take us hiking up a small mountain, Bukhan Mountain. This hike normally takes 3-4 hours and has beautiful scenery.

Metal cleats saved Sangbin's life this day.
He was sliding everywhere.

Needless to say, I was excited. I love mountains, and now we officially had the chance to really spend time on one. I knew that I would have to really bundle to enjoy this hike. I wore four shirts, one winter jacket, leggings, jeans, two pairs of socks, a headband, scarf and mittens. In my backpack, I carried my camera (of course), bottle of water and the thoughtful "day's survival kit" provided by my host family. My home stay father gave me metal cleats to put on my shoes for slippery areas and my home stay mother packed my lunch: instant noodles, two tangerine-looking fruit and a healthy sandwich. I was ready for my hike.

snowball fight

Some of our host family leaders.

We had fun from the start. As we followed our hiking leader, a host family dad with a great sense of humor,  led us to a rocky pathway with railings along the side. He kept a good pace, which, thankfully, kept me warm (trust me, I did not want to slow down). During the hike, I noticed the leader eying the railing. I didn't understand why he kept looking at it until he slid his hand on the railing, accumulating a decent amount of snow, perfect for a snowball. I slowed down and took cover behind a friend. The leader turned around and launched the snowball at our team. Quickly, we gathered snow to fight back, but our snowballs were not packed tightly enough. We were literally throwing snow in the air. We laughed and continued our hike.
As we continued hiking, the pace no longer kept me warm. Once again, I couldn't feel my fingers or toes. Thanks, Korea. I kept on hiking, though, hoping there would be a coffee shop or something with heat at the top of the mountain, like the other mountains we visited.

When we reached the top, there was a small shelter. It had a platform and a roof, but no walls.

"This is where we will have lunch," said our hiking leader.

Our first break: a visit to Pine Tree Park

I hoped he was kidding and kept looking around for an actual building. There was none. Our team gathered near the shelter and waited for instruction. Another leader took off his shoes and jumped on to the large platform. The rest of us sat down on the edge of the platform, awkwardly turning the top half of our bodies to face him.

He laughed.

"No, no, we have lunch now," he said, motioning us to join him. "Take shoes off. Here, this is where we eat lunch."

 Our team looked at each other for support, but had no choice but to join the man under the shelter with no walls to block the wind and no heat to warm us. With no way of escaping, our team, slowly unlaced our shoes, jumped on the platform and made a circle to have lunch.

Josh's exercise break
on the mountain.

The hiking leaders brought portable water boilers for the instant noodles and handed out chopsticks. I had no control of my chopsticks or appetite. I was so cold and more than willing to skip lunch, but they kept giving us food. One food item was yogurt . . . cold yogurt. I politely said, "no thank you." Another team member's response was more straight forward.

"I'm so sorry," this student said with an are-you-kidding-me-look in his eyes. "That's yogurt. I really can't . . . Its really too cold."

Throughout the hike,
there were exercise stops.
The machines did most of
the work, though. 

Shivering, we laughed for probably two reasons: one reason being that his response was genuinely funny and the second, out of nervousness (fear of what was next). I couldn't believe our leaders were not freezing and couldn't understand why we were so cold.

When they offered us coffee at the end of lunch, I said "no" to the coffee and "yes" to holding a small cup of hot water. At this point, my whole body was shaking and the hot water wasn't really doing anything for me. The leader next to me kept asking me if I was okay. I told him "yes" each time, but I don't think the uncontrollable shaking of my body was convincing. He filled a water bottle with the rest of the hot water and switched it with my little small cup.

The north side of Seoul.

"There," he said. "That's better, no?"

I smiled because, still shaking, I couldn't even get a "yes" out this time. Then, I continued hiking. We walked through beautiful parks and saw the north side of Seoul on the way down the mountain. Near the end of the hike, some feeling came back into my hands and feet. I was good to go, which was perfect because the last part of the hike involved taking the stairs all the way down to the street. Our hiking leader, who started the snowball fight, started running. He grabbed my arm as he passed me.

"Run," he said, quickly and happily skipping down the stairs, "run, run, run . . . run!"

For some reason, I thought this was a good idea. There were a lot of stairs and, with my camera in one hand and my no-longer-hot water bottle in the other, I took off racing this leader down the stairs.

"Run," he kept shouting, trying to get other people to join the adventure.

Half of the rest of the team joined in. Laughing, which is not helpful while trying to run down a mountain, we wondered why we were even running in the first place. The leader later gave his reasoning: it was a faster way to get down the mountain. Pretty practical. And once you committed to that decision, it was hard to back out of it ...When you started running down the mountain, you really couldn't stop. My speed kept increasing and my backpack kept flopping, following me each time I fell forward. As I took corners and hopped from rock to rock, I could think of five reasons why I shouldn't have been running down a mountain.

Our group by a memorial for Korea's historical student uprising.
We saw this memorial in the middle of our hike.

I was thankful that by the end of the day no one on our team was injured. It was a great day that started with a great hike.

Korean food

No big deal, just eating kimchi at the Kimchi Museum.

"Say, 'Kimchi!'"  Koreans use this expression, instead of saying "cheese," when taking people's pictures. As we were served Kimchi at just about every meal, I noticed that this spicy, fermented vegetable dish is a big part of Korean culture.


Fresh fish, rice, noodles and many other veggies are  examples of Korean food. Normally, some form of spiciness is added to the overall meal to enhance the flavor. In fact, I experienced the power of Korean spice on Saturday. 

I went to a local restaurant with my host family. When we entered this small-roomed restaurant, we took off our shoes and were seated at a low table to the ground. The servers brought out dish after dish until our table was barely visible. I began to pick at the various dishes, intentionally taking small amounts. With my chopsticks, I tried some of the greens, rice and a couple of vegetables I couldn't really recognize. For the most part I could handle the dishes, but there were a few I knew I would probably avoid because it was a little too spicy. Then, my home stay father put meat on my plate and told me to try it. I did and thought it was a perfect addition to the meal. One server walked by and told me to add the sauce to the meat. I did just that: I, purposely, lightly-dabbed a small piece of meat into this unknown red sauce.

Immediately, my throat tingled and my eyes became watery. My over-cautiousness could not save me this time. That's right. I started crying at the dinner table, not because I was leaving Korea soon, but because I could not handle how spicy the sauce was. My host family kept asking me if I was okay. With tears streaming down my face and through every other cough, I tried to give them a convincing, "yes." Well, that failed. They set a huge box of tissue next to me and filled my cup with water. Not to mention, the little kids across the row couldn't stop staring at this crying foreigner. Don't worry, though, because as time passed, I'm pretty sure my sinuses were cleared and it was time to head home. 


Take a look at some of the other foods I encountered in South Korea.

In the market, or even in the most downtown areas of Seoul, we passed people cooking in big pots like this.

This meat is cooked in about ten seconds in a hot stew-like dish (like the following). You're expected to quickly take it out when it is done, to avoid overcooking and flavor loss.

a soup with various veggies and dumplings

pickled cucumbers and kimchi.

Kalbi-in-the-making. Korean barbeque is made on a grill located in the center  of the table.

Adding lettuce and other vegetables to a soup dish was very common at restaurants. They normally brought the table  a plate of veggies with scissors and tongues.

Mustard was also a common side sauce alongside of random dishes too.

Their salad dressings were light and sweet. I  tried a strawberry dressing and a kiwi one.

This is a crab, but much smaller than the first crab I had.

This was perhaps one of the most spiciest dishes of my life. H20 couldn't even help me. It contained mixed veggies, rice and an unmerciful spicy sauce. In Korea, there is a clear distinction between something that is hot (temperature) and spicy (pepper flavor). It's not like America, where we interchange both words to mean the same thing.

An even spicier dish.

We ate rice . . . lots of rice. (Photograph by Felipe Bedon)

I'm not really sure what this is, but it was good. That's all you need to know.

noodles made from sweet potato

A community style of eating =  many small dishes + everyone sharing.
Dr. Chang is sitting on the left and Dr. Jessup is on the right. The man standing in the background is probably one of the servers showing us how to eat a certain food OR he could be warning us that our food choice is spicy. Also, notice how we are sitting on the floor. This was very common  in restaurants as well. The floors are heated to help keep everyone warm.

...and Here's to those octopus eaters...

 

Such Champs!

Guess what else I saw in Korea.

Friends. Awesome, right? I met two friends for dinner my last Sunday in Korea. Natalee lives and teaches English two hours southwest of Seoul and Jason lives and teaches near Incheon. I know both of these friends from my semester in Washington, D.C. When we realized how close we would be in a completely different country, we knew we had to see each other.

We decided to meet in Iteawon, the main ex-pat community of Seoul. There, we enjoyed Kalbi, Korean barbeque while my friends talked about their favorite students and shared some interesting stories about teaching "demon" classes, classes filled with misbehaving students. It was a rather entertaining conversation and we had a lot of good laughs.

When we finished the meal, my friends opened their gifts from me. I gave both of them Reeses, a difficult candy to find in Korea. Of the two of them, Jason was most excited about the Reeses. Natalee gets them from her mom in the mail, but I'm guessing Jason hadn't seen one in a long time because he kept bringing it up in Skype conversations before I left the U.S. Excited, he ate one right away. **Side note - I found Reeses in Namdamun Market, but one package was 7,000 won (about $7 in American currency).

After a great meal (and Jason ate his Reeses), we went to Coldstone so these two ex-pats could get their American-chocolate-fill. Even though the chocolaty selection was limited, we still enjoyed our richly-sweet ice cream.

The time we spent together was short, but good. It was great to catch up and see/hear how they have grown. It was truly a bittersweet dinner. I only wish I wasn't leaving Korea so soon.

f r i e n d s . s t o r i e s . c h o c o l a t e . k o r e a .

Mr. Ahn

Mr. Ahn is holding the candies he
imports. Dr. Chang is on the right.

"Honesty," Mr. Ahn said. "This is most important in the world of business . . . not profit."

Mr. Ahn is one of Professor Chang's good friends. Growing up, Mr. Ahn's friends called him "Elder Ahn" for his noble and religious lifestyle. He has a heart for others and has pursued a career where he strives to make a difference in his employees' lives.

Currently, Mr. Ahn is the CEO of Delifarm, a mid-sized Korean distribution business. Delifarm imports candy from the U.S., Italy and Scotland and distributes them to chain stores in South Korea. Some of these products include brand names like Tootsie, Loacker and Walker.

 For a man, with much power and who works in a bribery-driven Asian business market, Mr. Ahn humbly explained his company's history, present mission and future goals with our team. He described Asian business as "corrupt," giving examples of other CEO's offering women and drugs as an incentive for business deals. The businesses do not choose based on the best business offer; they choose the one that offers the most personal or immediate benefits, according to Mr. Ahn.


Mr. Ahn is interested in more than temporary business benefits; he cares about his employees' future. His business is a place where his self-motivated and honest employees can find peace in knowing they will not be forced to retire at age 55 as long as they continue to work on personal development. In Korea, forced retirement is a concern for most. If they cannot meet the skill level of younger employees entering the company, they are forced out.

In a society driven by educational hierarchy, employees are continually furthering their education to keep up with the latest skills for their position. However, a schedule filled with work and studying does not allow enough time for family, which was a major concern for Mr. Ahn. After retirement, the retired often face tensions with their spouse who has changed throughout the years while the other spouse was working. Thus, divorce is a common "problem-solver" for these situations.  Saddened by the divorce rate, Mr. Ahn has made it mandatory for employees to spend a certain amount of time with their family throughout the week. These employees do not have to sign in or out of a Delifarm building, though. Mr. Ahn's company relies on the trust of the individual employers, so he "trusts that they are working when they are supposed to."


"I got my philosophy for my business from the book of Proverbs," he said.

Mr. Ahn is a Christians who built his company's foundation on wisdom. He has never announced his faith to his employees, but he lives and humbly serves them based on his faith.

Dear Seoul, you just brought "cold" to a whole new level. This is not okay.

My toes are freezing, my nose is running, my eyes are tearing, and I can't help hoping all my fingers are still attached by the end of the day.

I repeat, "This is not okay."

Yes, Mom. I have adequate attire for this season. The weather is just, seriously, this cold.

Today, we met up with future Taylor students from Seoul. They will be studying English as a Second Language (ESL) at Taylor in the Spring. The students took us to a bartering market, a fantastic restaurant (where I dominated in chopstick skills) and, then, to an amusement park. '

The amusement park's ticket window was located near the kids' part of the park, which gave us all a scare, especially the guys. We saw many cartoons and glittered decorations, surrounded by a number of princess pink and baby blue shades. Fearful of having to spend four hours in a kiddie park, the guys excitement immediately turned to worry.

"I don't know about this," one guy said, "there is pink - everywhere . . . lots of pink."

The Korean students laughed and assured us that there would be fun rides. Our group discussed it one more time and could not think of anything else to do in the four hour time period. Thus, we decided to go. We later learned that the park had a number of indoor and outdoor rides for people our age.

Our first choice was the Giant Drop, which, at the time, we did not register that it was an outdoor ride. Scurrying along, we followed our student "tour guides." We followed them all the way to a door that led to the outside park, where most of the fun rides were. Bad idea. We stood in line for 30 min., shivering and thinking this is probably not the smartest idea we've ever had. The ride's title was Giant Drop. It raised people really high in the air and then quickly dropped them back down near to the ground. The adrenaline rush was appealing, but the high altitude and dropping-wind effect was not.  However, for some reason, we decided to go on the ride. We were in this together. Our Korean friends shared their scarves and hats with us, saying they were sorry they didn't know we would be this cold. Laughing, we said it was okay and knew this would be a great experience to talk about later.

As minutes passed, the workers by the Giant Drop said that the ride would not be running anymore, due to the wind. They gave us a special ticket in return for our long wait. We used this free ticket to go on an indoor fast ride. Great idea. It was definitely fast, gave us an adrenaline rush and made us more excited for the rides to follow. However, this fast roller coaster was entitled "The French Revolution." I have no idea why they named it that.

"The Viking Ship," another fun ride, involved a big boat swinging back and forth, while getting higher and faster each time. When the boat first moved, it did not go high at all, but my friend, who was sitting across from me on the other side of the boat hit a soprano-pitched  scream, causing all the girls around him to scream too. I immediately started laughing, knowing he was not scared at all. As the boat got higher, the girls continued to scream. My friend joined in, over-exaggerating his "fear" of height and waving his hand in the air. I think it was the facial expressions of everyone around him that made me laugh. I enjoyed the ride and was still laughing when it was over. This was probably one of the funniest rides I went on.

Below is a picture of the ice rink in Lotte World, the amusement park we enjoyed.

a seafood experience

my plate.

We went to a city known for its crab. The paintings and statues in town were pictures of crabs. As a person who is not a fan of seafood, I've never had crab, nor the desire to try it. However, I was willing to make an exception to enhance my cultural experience in Korea. In return for being so willing to try something new, they prepared the crab meat and, literally, put the crab - the whole crab - on my plate. I sat next to Prof. Chang, who coached me on how to eat a crab. 

He lifted the crab, holding four legs in each hand. I thought he was going to make a joke, name it or, even, show me something new (this was no joke and I definitely learned something new). Prof. Chang, in one motion, pulled the legs of the crab down. The structure cracked. I don't think I will ever forget the sound. He ripped off the legs and used the scissors to get to the meat. Then, he looked at me. 

"See, its easy," he said. "Now you try it." 

Although I started this particular experience with a positive, willing mindset, I do not think I was prepared for this part. Somehow, I did it (I may have even closed my eyes). As the rest of the team continued to crack and cut open the crab for meat, I joined in. I only ate the crab legs. The meat was tender and not really fishy at all, which was perfect for me. Thus, I enjoyed my first crab meal. I just can't get over the fact that they gave me a whole crab.

And that would be prof. Chang in the left corner. Anyways, check out how big this crab is.
It doesn't even fit on the plate. This was nuts!

We wrote our names on the wall in the restaurant.
(Don't worry, we were allowed to.)

Mountains and Cities

. . . the best of both worlds <3.

My favorite place in Korea is Seorak Mountain. It is truly beautiful.

We took a cable car up and climbed the rest of the way to the top.

Our group climbing back down the mountain.

random fact: over 80 percent of Korea is mountainous.

Oh yea, and there's snow. I'm just loving this place :-)