Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Web album published
A web album has been published of our trip. Take a look. The link is under the title!!
Shopping
Hello again from Korea!
We went shopping saturday, and went to E-mart. On our way to E-mart, we went over the river and through a park, and encountered some public excersise machines. They felt really easy and we questioned their effectiveness at providing a good workout. Lately we've been thinking that they are for more isostatic (holding weird positions) exercises becuase those are harder.
We then went to E-mart which is very much like Walmart. Upon entering, you can come from the parking garage and get your shopping cart. The first floor was full of mostly yummy food. The second floor was appliances and the third floor was clothing. We browsed a few things and got a few things, and then we went to check and see what sizes men's pants came in. I looked, and thankfully, the largest size fits me. However, the lady standing there thought we needed help shopping and she knew no english, and we had no way of telling her we were fine.
The next several minutes were very awkward as this fine woman tried to figure out what we wanted. We didn't understand much of what she said. I got out our phrase book and looked up the phrase "We're just looking," but she was still intent on helping us. Next, Margaret tried looking up "help" and saying "no help." That didn't work eithier. Then she said "kantaneyo?" which we knew! We said "CANTANEYO! CANTANEYO!!" which means "We're fine! We're fine!!" She bowed, we bowed and we went on our way. We marked the spot in the book with that phrase in case the situation ever arose again.
Later, we passed the Rosetta Stone. We went ooh! we'll get this and learn Korean!! We looked closer, and it was for learning English!!! It was all for learning English! We were kind of shocked that English was the only language offered. Then we checked out and wandered.
The next event on our day of shopping was to get hungry. 2 miles of walking had given us an appetite and we were hungry. We went to a toast vendor. We tried practicing our orders, but before we could, and English speaker came out from the back of the store to take our order. His english was pretty good. I ordered pizza toast which was an amazing blend of cheese, green pepers, onions, and hot dogs. Margaret got the potato toast which was a little too spicy. We sat and ate, and the English speaker practiced with us. We found out that he had worked for LG as a chemist in his younger years, which was pretty cool.
We walked further, and were tired. We went by Dunkin Donuts (yes they're here too) and got some coffee. Sadly it came with no cream and didn't have that delicious donut flavor commonly found in their US coffee. (sniffle) We rested for a while and went on.
We wound up walking by a book store and going in to see what we could see. We found a book to learn Korean with, so we got it. Right now (Tuesday evening) Margaret is getting around to trying it--we've been busy. We also looked around and found that about a quarter of the books were for learning English, which was shocking to us as people who only 1.05 languages.
We then went home.
We went shopping saturday, and went to E-mart. On our way to E-mart, we went over the river and through a park, and encountered some public excersise machines. They felt really easy and we questioned their effectiveness at providing a good workout. Lately we've been thinking that they are for more isostatic (holding weird positions) exercises becuase those are harder.
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| A view of Expo Bridge on our way back from shopping. |
We then went to E-mart which is very much like Walmart. Upon entering, you can come from the parking garage and get your shopping cart. The first floor was full of mostly yummy food. The second floor was appliances and the third floor was clothing. We browsed a few things and got a few things, and then we went to check and see what sizes men's pants came in. I looked, and thankfully, the largest size fits me. However, the lady standing there thought we needed help shopping and she knew no english, and we had no way of telling her we were fine.
The next several minutes were very awkward as this fine woman tried to figure out what we wanted. We didn't understand much of what she said. I got out our phrase book and looked up the phrase "We're just looking," but she was still intent on helping us. Next, Margaret tried looking up "help" and saying "no help." That didn't work eithier. Then she said "kantaneyo?" which we knew! We said "CANTANEYO! CANTANEYO!!" which means "We're fine! We're fine!!" She bowed, we bowed and we went on our way. We marked the spot in the book with that phrase in case the situation ever arose again.
Later, we passed the Rosetta Stone. We went ooh! we'll get this and learn Korean!! We looked closer, and it was for learning English!!! It was all for learning English! We were kind of shocked that English was the only language offered. Then we checked out and wandered.
The next event on our day of shopping was to get hungry. 2 miles of walking had given us an appetite and we were hungry. We went to a toast vendor. We tried practicing our orders, but before we could, and English speaker came out from the back of the store to take our order. His english was pretty good. I ordered pizza toast which was an amazing blend of cheese, green pepers, onions, and hot dogs. Margaret got the potato toast which was a little too spicy. We sat and ate, and the English speaker practiced with us. We found out that he had worked for LG as a chemist in his younger years, which was pretty cool.
We walked further, and were tired. We went by Dunkin Donuts (yes they're here too) and got some coffee. Sadly it came with no cream and didn't have that delicious donut flavor commonly found in their US coffee. (sniffle) We rested for a while and went on.
We wound up walking by a book store and going in to see what we could see. We found a book to learn Korean with, so we got it. Right now (Tuesday evening) Margaret is getting around to trying it--we've been busy. We also looked around and found that about a quarter of the books were for learning English, which was shocking to us as people who only 1.05 languages.
We then went home.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Daejeon! (or Daejon or Taejon)
Since the last posting we have experienced lots of new things. I don't think I will be able to cover them all in this post, but I am sure they will come out as we get used to how things work here on the other side of the world. Since our last posting, we have traveled south to our new home city. We rode on a limousine bus (which was just like a small tour bus) straight to Daejeon. The countryside was beautiful! In Incheon, the islands were mountainous and on the mainland the mountains went almost to the sea. Korea has mountains everywhere! The greatest thing about these mountains is the fact there are no giant housing developments on any of them! People live in the valleys only. Here is Daejeon the city is in the very flat river valleys and the little mountains (or hills depending on where you grew up) are forested, even if they are in the middle of the city! After arriving in Daejeon, we took a taxi to the Guest House, where we are staying until we move into our new apartment this afternoon.
I am so glad we are not going to drive here! They must not teach the leaving room between yourself and other cars rule I learned in drivers ed. For example, when you turn off your car here, the side mirrors fold in. Many cars here have blue foam stuck to the ends of their doors so they don't dent other cars when they inevitably hit them while getting out of the car.
Friday, we contacted Dr. Yim and the next few hours was a whirlwind of paperwork. Dr. Yim has a car, so it was quicker to get around, though still scary. We went out to eat with his family that evening to a Korean restaurant. If you don't know anything about Korean food, the most interesting thing is the side dishes. You usually order some sort of meat, but the rest of the food is relatively standard. you get a bowl of rice, sometimes soup and porridge, and then the side dishes. Usually there would be 3 or 4, but at this place we had over 20! Two kinds of kim-chee and various other vegetable prepared in different ways. Everything was delicious! Riley fell asleep at the dinner table, so they took us back to the Guest House!
Its good to be safely here in Daejeon! The next post will be about our Saturday shopping experiences!
I am so glad we are not going to drive here! They must not teach the leaving room between yourself and other cars rule I learned in drivers ed. For example, when you turn off your car here, the side mirrors fold in. Many cars here have blue foam stuck to the ends of their doors so they don't dent other cars when they inevitably hit them while getting out of the car.
Friday, we contacted Dr. Yim and the next few hours was a whirlwind of paperwork. Dr. Yim has a car, so it was quicker to get around, though still scary. We went out to eat with his family that evening to a Korean restaurant. If you don't know anything about Korean food, the most interesting thing is the side dishes. You usually order some sort of meat, but the rest of the food is relatively standard. you get a bowl of rice, sometimes soup and porridge, and then the side dishes. Usually there would be 3 or 4, but at this place we had over 20! Two kinds of kim-chee and various other vegetable prepared in different ways. Everything was delicious! Riley fell asleep at the dinner table, so they took us back to the Guest House!
Its good to be safely here in Daejeon! The next post will be about our Saturday shopping experiences!
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Our first Korean breakfast
We woke up at 4AM in Incheon, and got our things in order. At 7, we took a walk and decided we were hungry. I talked Margaret into walking straight into a Korean restaurant that was serving breakfast. The menu had some things in English, so we ordered beansprout and seafood soup (the cheapest thing on the menu). It came, and we ate it with our bowels of rice, kimchi and I ate the squid. Remember that this was all for breakfast.
We then went by Seven Eleven and got some coffee. The coffee only came in sizes that are unimaginably small in North America (think 8 oz). We had the coffee and walked some more. If all of South Korea is this way, I may be forced to give up my coffee addiction/love.
We looked at some plants. They have interesting plants much like the ones in NC. We are looking forward to learning about them.
안녕히 가세요! (goodbye!)
We then went by Seven Eleven and got some coffee. The coffee only came in sizes that are unimaginably small in North America (think 8 oz). We had the coffee and walked some more. If all of South Korea is this way, I may be forced to give up my coffee addiction/love.
We looked at some plants. They have interesting plants much like the ones in NC. We are looking forward to learning about them.
안녕히 가세요! (goodbye!)
We are Here!
Riley and I have made it to Souther Korea! I believe I can smell a wiff of kim-chee, and this keyboard (provided by the hotel) can do this: ㅜ포오다ㅕㅛ츄마뎌ㅛ. I do not know what I said, so don't try to translate. People here are super polite. Everytime we say "thank you" in Korean I think we surprise them. The language barrier is not too bad so far, but there is a random remote here that we have no idea what it controls because it is not the tv and it is all in Korean.
Strange things so far: The toliet is multi-functional, in addition to normal function it can clean you and give you a massage; there are two doors to our hotel room, in between there is a place to take off your shoes with sandels and shoe horn provided; and there is a tiny steam sterilization chamber for coffee cups, like a mini dishwasher. The 220V plugs are also strange (but expected)
All our worldly possessions for the next two years made it! Its currently 7:10 in the morning in the US, but I don't think I've had more than 3 hours of sleep since we boarded. We watched Kung Fu Panda 2, then I watched Rio and a Korean action film strangely similar to Kung Fu Panda. They also had neat language programs where we could play video games to practice words. Out the window we were able to see Alaska and Siberia. Since we didn't have window seats we had to go to the back and look through a tiny window near the bathrooms. This paid off when we made friends with a flight attendent who gave us free pens, postcards, and playing cards!
I'm so glad we make it here! I can't think of more to say, so I think I'll try to figure out how to use the shower using only buttons labeled in Korean.
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| Our worldly posessions |
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| Our hotel bathroom :-D |
I'm so glad we make it here! I can't think of more to say, so I think I'll try to figure out how to use the shower using only buttons labeled in Korean.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Our Last Day in the US
Hello Friends Family and other interested people!
This is our last day in the United States. We are making our final preparations to depart for South Korea. If you have not heard, I (Riley) am attending graduate school at KAIST in Daejeon South Korea. Margaret will be researching there as well. We are not entirely sure what she will be researching yet, but there is plenty of research to be done, so we are not worried.
We have been in Littleton, NC for the past week packing to leave. We are almost ready. The preparations have taken a long time. Getting all of the paperwork in order was hard. We also had to move out and store all of our stuff. All that took about 3 weeks!
Leaving the country has had its upsides too. It has given us a wonderful opportunity to indulge in everything American. We have eaten a lot: Pizza, shrimp, grits, steak, fried chicken and don't forget that Eastern NC Barbeque! We even had a goodbye party thrown for us and our cousin who is leaving for Egypt. Even after all that, we still don't feel like we have said goodbye enough.
We will be leaving in the weee hours of Wednesday morning, and arriving in Korea about 21 hours later. The time there is almost exactly the opposite of the time in the Eastern US. Depending on the time of year, it is either 12 or 13 hours time difference.
We will try and keep you all updated!
This is our last day in the United States. We are making our final preparations to depart for South Korea. If you have not heard, I (Riley) am attending graduate school at KAIST in Daejeon South Korea. Margaret will be researching there as well. We are not entirely sure what she will be researching yet, but there is plenty of research to be done, so we are not worried.
We have been in Littleton, NC for the past week packing to leave. We are almost ready. The preparations have taken a long time. Getting all of the paperwork in order was hard. We also had to move out and store all of our stuff. All that took about 3 weeks!
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| Us at the going away party thrown for Beth and Ourselves at Cousin Bill's. (The BBQ was GOOOOD!!!) |
Leaving the country has had its upsides too. It has given us a wonderful opportunity to indulge in everything American. We have eaten a lot: Pizza, shrimp, grits, steak, fried chicken and don't forget that Eastern NC Barbeque! We even had a goodbye party thrown for us and our cousin who is leaving for Egypt. Even after all that, we still don't feel like we have said goodbye enough.
We will be leaving in the weee hours of Wednesday morning, and arriving in Korea about 21 hours later. The time there is almost exactly the opposite of the time in the Eastern US. Depending on the time of year, it is either 12 or 13 hours time difference.
We will try and keep you all updated!
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