Merry Christmas!

From our tiny tree to yours, Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!  Our Christmas was so much better than last year (its not hard to beat a stomach flu Christmas) and thank you for remembering us!

We had a white Christmas this year!

Christmas in Korea is very different, unless you go to a church it is just a time where couples give each other gifts.  There are even events where singles can gather to try to find other single people.  Our Christmas was more normal.  We opened presents, baked cookies, and watched Christmas specials. 

This is a Christmas cake.  I think they got this tradition from Britain.

So, Riley and I are doing well.  We like our tiny apartment and can cook almost anything we miss from America in our tiny oven.  Riley is started to get his experiment up and running (he likes to make things glow in the furnace), and my projects are going well if a bit slow.  This next year will be busy for us.  Riley should graduate and we will be moving back to the US sometime in the fall.  Then we will have to get real jobs.  We are visiting in April for my sister's wedding, so we hope to see you people in the US then!

Different Perspectives

One of the best things about being in a different country is to meet people with different perspectives.  For instance, today I brought some homemade pumpkin pie to work and found out that my labmate from Malaysia had never tasted pie before.  Pie was something he had only seen on tv.
We also spent a while trying to explain what we do for Christmas to our friend from China.  It made me realize that most of the world doesn't know anything about Santa Claus or Christmas Trees, or even the nativity, except what they learn from movies.
Another interesting matter of perspective and communication came from talking to a Korean friend about how my mom had sent me a Pumpkin Spice cookie mix.  She did not know what pumpkin spice was, so I started explaining that it involves the spices that we put into pumpkin pie.  Apparently, in English classes here they only teach the word "spicy" and not "spices."  When she heard "pumpkin spice" she pictured a spicy-flavored pumpkin.  So, I explained what spices were, and which ones we put in pumpkin pie.  Then I brought up the cookies again and explained that these were the spices that were in the cookies.  She understood, but after more discussion I had to explain that there was not actually any pumpkin in the cookies, it was just the spices that we associate with pumpkin desserts.  Here, pumpkins are used in lots of dishes, especially soup, and are never combined with cinnamon and nutmeg.  I'm just glad I started explaining with pumpkin spice cookies and not pumpkin spice cappuccinos.

Typical Modern Korean Wedding

A few months ago, you may remember Riley and I went to a Traditional Korean wedding of one of our friends.  That is not the normal way people get married here.  According to a friend, weddings only go the traditional way if a foreigner is involved (and our friend who was married the traditional way was Chinese, so it fits).  We had the opportunity last weekend to go to a regular Korean wedding of our landlady's daughter.  Unfortunally my camera batteries died at the beginning of the ceremony, but I will describe it as best I can.
It takes place at a wedding hall.  These are large buildings with multiple rooms set up for weddings.  The one we went to (the VIP Wedding Hall http://www.vip-wedding.co.kr/) had 3 halls.  Our friend was married in the Deluxe Hall.  It was a nice room with a raised aisle town the center lines with real trees (not alive, but decorated with flowers), and it had an alter at the front. 
The first thing you do at the wedding was get your meal ticket.  You go to this counter where you give your gift to trade for a meal ticket.  More about the meal later.  There was no line and people were pushing their way to the counter to get their tickets as well as greet the family that was standing next to the counter.  I should also tell you about the gifts.  You give only money, nothing else.  They have special envelopes that you put the money in.  These envelopes are white with Chinese writing on them that I believe means "Congratulations." 
After getting the ticket, everyone crams into the wedding hall.  I say crams because we had to stand in the back against the wall.  Its lucky we are so tall.  We got to say hi to our friend as she got into place at the end of the aisle, since that basically where we were standing.  I should also mention that the room had a large entrance that had no door, and a side entrance that also had no door.  Throughout the ceremony people walked in and out of this place.  A large group of adjumas stayed about 10 minutes, then left to go eat.  Later, a large group of girls showed up and waved to the bride.  I'm glad we are tall and could see over the moving people. 
Meanwhile the ceremony was taking place.  First, the mothers (dressed in the traditional dress of Korea, Hanbok) walked down the aisle and bowed to the audience with much applause.  Then the groom walked to the front (with applause) and waited.  The bride was walked to the front by her father and given to the groom (all with much applause).  The bride and groom bowed to each other, also to much applause.  Pretty much everything that happened was applauded.  There was a guy behind the podium at the front who narrated everything and performed the ceremony.  They had to wait while the sister of the bride ran around trying to figure out where they had put the rings (eventually found in someone's pocketbook).  That wasn't part of the tradition, but it was memorable.
After the guy behind the podium finished talking, the bride and groom went to each set of parents and bowed.  The groom went all the way to the ground, but the bride just went as low as her dress would allow.
Then it was time to cut the cake.  They rolled a cake over (only the top tier was real cake).  Then the bride and groom blew the candles out.  Yes, there were two candles on top of the cake.  Then they got out this large knife/sword and cut the cake.  Then the cake was rolled back to the corner.  No one got to eat the cake.
After that came the singing.  I believe they were friends of the bride and groom.  First, a girl sang a couple songs that sounded like they were from musicals (she even wore a hat and fake mustache for one), and a guy sang a romantic song in which other guys continuously brought the bride roses.
I would like to mention that everything was taken care of by employees of the wedding hall.  Attendants ran around and fixed the bride's train.  A photographer and videographer were front and center all the time.  The only people who participated in the wedding were the bride and groom, their parents, and the singers.  The room was rented for only one hour, and it came already decorated.  Someone was married the hour before, and another wedding was schedule for the hour after.
After the wedding, everyone headed to the buffet.  It was on the top floor.  We turned in out ticket and went into a dining room with an all you can eat buffet.  The buffet served two dining rooms, and I think there were still people from the wedding before our eating.   The food was excellent!  Mostly Korean, but there was some spaghetti on one side.
And that is a typical Korean wedding.  No bouquet toss, no dancing, and no stressing about the reception.

Riley's Research

Hello All!

This is Riley the bad husband who doesn't help his wife with their blog.  I want to address the question that I get asked many times: "So Riley what do you do?" 

Well... I'm glad you asked.  I am a master's student in nuclear engineering at a university in Korea.  For my research project, I am researching how to split nuclear fuel into separate peices that are easier to deal with than nuclear fuel as a whole.

Connecticut Yankee dry storage from 38 years of operation.  If you look closely there are people walking around the containers which provide adequate shielding from the radiation. Website

Nuclear fuel can be though of as having 3 parts:

Natural Uranium 
About 96% of fuel
Extremely low radioactivity
Very very long half life (4 billion years)
Naturally occurring

Plutonium+Minor Actinides
About 1% of fuel
Medium radioactivity
Long Half Life (100,000 years-ish)

Fission Products
About 3 % of fuel  
High radioactivity
Short Half Life (30 years-ish)
This is why nuclear fuel is super dangerous


So if we can divide the fuel into these sections we can do some cool things:

Recycle the uranium, or return it to the environment in its original inert form.
Burn the plutonium and minor actinides in the reactor of your choice
Dispose of the fission products in a small short term facility that is easy to build (think size of school lunch room)

The US already has a technology called PUREX to recycle nuclear fuel, but it is a pain to use, and we choose not to use it for geo-political reasons.  Japan just built a PUREX type plant to do it and it cost $20 billion and the cost is still going up. 


For various geo-political reasons,  South Korea cannot use PUREX.  So if they want to chop up their fuel into the three components, they need another way.  So they are trying to use a method that the Americans are not very serious about that involves melting salt.

Because no large scale facilities have ever operated that use this technology, the system still needs optimized for good operation.  And because we can't just build one to play around with, we need to make computer models to simulate what will happen.  However, the computer models need to be checked, to make sure that they are correct, and that is what I do. 

Over the past few years I have made 2 computer models of my own, and have helped the folks in the US use one of those models.  For my masters research work, I am building a pretend machine to process magnesium (instead of uranium) to test my models.  I think we will begin tests some time in the next two months.  Wish me luck.

Birthday Pie

As some of you may know, Riley's birthday was yesterday.  He requested pumpkin pie.  I thought I would describe the challenges it takes here to make one.  Of course, you can always go to the Costco and buy one.  Costco here has the largest amount of western food you can find in Korea (except for the area in Seoul near the army base).  However, it is halfway across town, I don't have a card, and its always packed with people.  So, I would need to make a pumpkin pie from scratch.
Pumpkins here are little and green.  Large orange ones are not common and very expensive.  They are the cooking type of pumpkin too, I have yet to see a carving pumpkin here.  Canned pumpkin is also elusive, and everything in cans here is much more expensive than the US (ex. heinz tomato sauce is $3).  So, I use the little green pumpkins.
Nutmeg, cloves, and all spice are either really expensive or just not here.  In America I usually make the recipe on the canned pumpkin label.  It involves using evaporated milk.  You can find evaporated milk here if you go to really big grocery stores or an international store.  Its also expensive, so I used a different recipe.
The rest of the ingredients are pretty easy to get (milk, eggs, cinnamon).  The recipe I used makes it fluffy with beaten egg whites, which is always interesting.
The last challenge was the crust.  You can't buy ready made crust here.  I've always avoided making it in the past because its annoying, but I found a recipe using oil that isn't too bad.
So, making a pumpkin pie in Korea is challenging and takes a long time, but the end is worth it.  Plus, I can now make a pumpkin pie from scratch!

We finally went to Seoul!

Last Saturday we went to Seoul as tourists.  Some people who visit South Korea never even leave Seoul, but we had been here over a year and have barely seen anything of the world's second biggest metropolitan area (Wikipedia).  It worked out really well.  I looked online and the top things to do in Seoul were things like "try the food" and "look at traditional dress."  All that we had left to do was visit historic palaces and visit our friend Sunny who had recently moved to Seoul for school (actually, this was more of a visit Sunny first and see historic stuff on the side). 
We went to the famous palace in Seoul, Gyeongbok Palace.  This was the last palace the king and queen of Korea ever lived in.

See all the pretty umbrellas?  It was pouring rain.  This turned out to be good, there were less people to wait behind to see the thrones.  We also got some free middle school tour guides to tell us about the palace.

The two girls on the ends were our tour guides, and the girl in the middle is our friend Sunny.

It was a really neat place.  We learned that the queen wasn't allowed to leave the inner palace, and there was a stream that commoners weren't allowed past into the outer palace.  They also had palace guards like they do at Buckingham palace, except their facial hair was painted on.

We then went to a historical area that had a lot of old restored buildings.  It was a nice place, full of winding roads and nice buildings.  They were all privately owned, we though it would be a nice place to live.

So, Seoul was a really nice place to visit.  They have 5 palaces in Seoul and we only got to see one.  We may have to go back and visit Sunny again.

Korean Roadkill

You can tell a lot about an area by what kind of roadkill it has.  Riley and I have been exploring the country roads around Daejeon lately on our bicycles.  In the city I have only seen a few mice and bird roadkill (the tiny dogs here seem well behaved and don't run out into the street much), but in the country I was shocked by the clean roads.  There were no funny smells along the way.  In the first trip, for the first part the biggest roadkills I saw were praying mantises.  After a while I finally saw a small snake squished in the road, but there wasn't anything big at all.  They don't have possums or armadillo-type animals, so that means less roadkill.  Their larger mammals (deer and racoon dogs) aren't very abundant, so I suppose they don't get hit much. 
On this latest trip I saw another small snake squished (it was really pretty, I think it is called a flower snake), but I also saw the most exciting roadkill yet!  I saw a very flat weasel!  I didn't even know they had weasels in Korea! 
Since I have seen little roadkill in Korea, I don't think there is abundant wildlife, but at least there are snakes and weasels!

Korean Red Pine

The Korean Red Pine is Korea's favorite tree.  If you see Asian pictures with the mountains and twisted pine trees, those are usually red pine.  I picked up a book about them recently and discovered something about the Korean ideal of forests that was completely different that what I had ever experienced in America.  For those of you who are not familiar with forestry, I will start at the basics.  The trees that make up a forest can tell you how long the forest has been there.  Fast growing species indicate a young forest, while slow growing species mean its been there a long time.  This is why most of the wood we use is pine, pine grows very quickly. 
I bring this up because in Korea, the red pine forests started appearing around areas of agriculture and towns.   The forests were logged for buildings and then continuously picked over for wood and cleared for farmland.  Pines were the trees that came back quickly and could be maintained to provide constant wood supply.  They became the symbol for civilization in Korea.
Since Korea stopped burning wood so much, the forests are turning back into the slow growing tree species and the red pine forests are starting to disappear.
The most interesting part of this story was the final chapter of the book I read.  It was all about how if we don't do something soon, all the red pine forests will disappear.  The Korean red pine forest is the ideal forest for Korea.  I was always taught that this natural progression to a climax forest dominated by hardwoods was inevitable (without regular fire anyway), and natural.  Instead of wanting to go back to the pre-people era of Korea, they want to go back to the wood-burning era of Korea.  The idea of how forested Korea should look is different than I am used to.  Its another interesting culture difference.

After 1 year in Korea

There were a few aspects of American life I have been away from so long that they surprised me on my recent trip back. 
The first thing is that everything is bigger.  Yards, houses, stores, cars, trees, dogs, and people are all bigger. 
The second thing is that everything is colder.  This doesn't refer to the outside temperature (which was amazing) but to the air conditioned areas.  For instance, the airport in Korea is not really air conditioned that much, it feels like it does outside.  Restaurants are kept a little cooler, but you have to be lucky to sit where the ac blows.  I almost froze at a Taco Bell in America.
The third thing it that all the food tastes like butter.  This is a little bit of an exaggeration, but not by much.  Butter isn't super common in Korea, and real butter is expensive ($8 for 2 cups).  When I was exposed to delicious casseroles and biscuits, the butter taste was almost overwhelming (but also very tasty). 
The last thing I really noticed was the diversity of people.  There are a lot of foreigners here in Korea, but the great majority is still Korean.  I have missed seeing lots of different shapes and colors of faces around me, and it was nice to blend in for a little while.

Being back in Korea is pretty normal, except it smells different than America.  Even the soap smells different here.  Also, the lovely smell of kimchi greeted me at the airport (I'm not kidding, I do like the smell of kimchi).

Umbrellas

Umbrellas are extremely popular here.  If its rainy, up come the umbrellas.  Even when you are hiking through the woods.  We are very impressed with the people who bicycle holding their umbrella above their head, and here its normal!  People (except us) don't even look twice.  Its not just while its raining either.  People also use their umbrellas in the sun!  This isn't just a girl thing to try to keep their skin white, guys do it too. 

Riley and I do not use umbrellas.  The last time I used one was when I got one as a gift my freshman year of college.  Then I misplaced it and switched to raincoats.  I don't think Riley has ever had an umbrella.  In America, raincoats are normal.  Here, whenever we wear our raincoats, the Koreans around us get very concerned.  They ask where our umbrella is, so we try to explain that our coats are waterproof.  Sometimes I don't think they really believe us.  One of the street sweepers stopped us the other day and tried to give us his extra umbrella.  We turned him down pointing to our raincoats and trying to demonstrate their ability to shed water, but clearly raincoats are not normal here.

Because of all this, we were kind of smug this week when the typhoon hit.  It didn't hit Daejeon very hard, but there were many gusts of wind.  We walked around in our raincoats and watched all the people around us struggle with their umbrellas against the wind.  I think if typhoons were the norm around here, our raincoats would not stand out so much when it rains.

Car Phone Numbers

When you are walking around the small streets of Korea, there are usually lots of cars parked every which way.  I've noticed there is almost always a phone number in the window.  Some are just scribbled on a piece of paper, but there are also pillows with the phone number embroidered onto it.  People put their phone numbers on their car so that if they block in someone, the person can call them and get them to move!  Back home I would be afraid of random people calling me or putting my number on some call list, but here its normal!

Marshmellow Towers

As mentioned in the Sapshido blog, on our trip the children made marshmallow towers.  I only have a few pictures of them making the tower, not the finished products. 
Side note, I found out that our Pastor told them that the marshmallows were inedible at first, so that they would build the towers and not eat them.  After the building we told them they could eat the marshmallows now, but they were confused and said that they couldn't eat them, they are inedible.  Its interesting what kids listen to.

Making marshmallow towers of Babel.

Very focused!

Sapshido!

Last week Riley and I participated in a mission trip to one of the small islands off the west coast of South Korea called Sapshido.  The trip was part of a larger mission that had a medical team, a hair salon, and a maintenance team.  We were part of the English ministry group that had an English Camp/Vacation Bible School.  It was only a three day mission trip, with the last day saved to explore the island.  Riley was in charge of the music and I was in charge of crafts.  We also had a English learning session.  Preparing for the trip was interesting due to the amount of "This little light of mine" being sung.  As for crafts, we were doing Noah's arc and the tower of Babel.  Noah was easy, we just made rainbows and chickens (see picture), but what can you do with the tower of Babel?  I thought we could do gumdrop and toothpick towers, but they don't have gumdrops in Korea.  So, we did marshmallows!   More on this later.

We left early in the morning and took a ferry to the island.  The ferry was pretty much the same as the ones in the Outer Banks, just more crowded.  Most people did not take their car.  The seagulls still followed the boat, and some were very good at catching shrimp fries (common Korean snack) in mid-air.

Once we got to Sapshido, we piled in the back of a very hot truck and rode across the island to the main town (it took about 15 mins).  It was almost like being on the mainland, there were rice fields and mountains.  The only difference was the sudden appearance of a beach if you looked in some directions.

Island life!

We ate a fishy lunch, then headed over to the local Elementary School to start our VBS.  This was a very nice tiny school.  There were only 24 kids in the whole school, and most of them were in our VBS as well.  The first day went alright.  One of the groups was a little sleepy, but they did good with crafts.  I now appreciate what my friends who teach have to deal with.  Preschoolers are really well behaved for some reason.

Some of the kids had never really seen foreigners before, at least not in person.  They didn't understand why we couldn't speak with them.  They seemed to have a good time, though.  They really liked singing "Making Melodies in My Heart."

Chickens and rainbows!

Coast of Sapshido (can you see China? Its past the islands.)

After we got back and had dinner (by the way, the church kitchen ladies came with us and cooked.  The fed us so full that I think I gained weight on the trip.  Kitchen ladies everywhere have the same goal, feed everyone until they can't move.)  Then we went to the beach to watch the sunset.  It was really pretty, none of my pictures did it justice, so I just included a picture of the beach.  The water was warm and there were cliffs as well as beaches.  It sort of reminded me of Maine, but with more beaches.

Then we got back, had some debriefing, and went to sleep.  The next morning was really nice.  All the farmers started work early before the heat set in.  We had a Korean breakfast (kimchi, rice, beef and vegetable soup, eggplant stuff) then went to the school to get started.  The second day was much nicer, I think the kids were more awake.  We found out the marshmallows were foreign to even the teachers on the island.  They had read about them, but never had any.  I just wish we could have made smores (side note, Korea does not have graham crackers).  Marshmallow towers do work, they just don't last very long.  This actually fit the tower of Babel story really well since they never finished their tower either.

After the main sessions we had recreation outside, i.e. GIANT WATER FIGHT!  Everyone got water guns and had fun just getting people wet, but then some of the boys figured out it was easier just to fill up a bucket of water and dump it on people.  Specifically the teachers.  It felt really good actually, it was really hot.

Side Story: Riley was unable to participate in the water fight due to falling on cement the day before and scraping up his leg.  One of the most entertaining parts of the trip was watching the majority of the medical team grouped around Riley's knee watching one of the doctors bandage it up and giving advice.  So instead of water, he played with bubbles.

After the water fight we went back and ate lunch (once again delicious) and get ready to paint a room.  I'm not sure what this building was used for, but the church had a large room with a small kitchen attached to it.  We just cleaned and painted the kitchen part.  Lots of scraping, lots of primer (walls here are mostly cement), then lots of paint.  It didn't take too long.  The inner door was filthy, so I started wiping some of the dirt off and it was a beautiful traditional Korean door with solid wood in a grid.  If someone just washed it and put some stain on it, it would have looked amazing.  We didn't have time to do much but just wipe the door off.  The room looked a lot better at least.

Then another delicious supper and off to bed.  One of our group got up for the 3:00am Korea vs Brazil soccer match, but most of us just watched some Greco-roman wrestling and went to bed.
In the morning we had "Western breakfast."  It ended up being potato salad sandwiches.  We knew they were trying, and it was better than kimchi, so we ate them without complaint.  Then we headed to the beach!  The tide was out when we got there, and there was a giant expanse of crabs!  Tiny crabs that hid when you walked by, but popped up again if you didn't move.  I also caught some hermit crabs, and investigated some type of jellyfish-like creature I still can't figure out.  Most of my time was spent watching the tiny crabs feed on sand.  Then people would come over to see what I was staring at and the crabs would all disappear and I would look a little crazy.

After the beach was time to go.  We had to finish off the rest of the potato salad sandwiches so they wouldn't spoil (they were much better in the afternoon), and then we took the ferry back and ate another meal of various species of seafood (crab, shrimp, whelk, clam, fish, and unknown). 

It was a great trip, we experienced new areas, foods, and people, and hopefully there are some preschoolers who now know the word rainbow!

Olympics

As you well know, its time for the Olympics!  This time, I actually have my own television to watch them on!  I love Olympic season because there is always something good on tv.

However, in Korea, you don't watch the sports Americans dominate in, you watch the ones Koreans dominate in.  These are very different sports!  There is only a little bit of gymnastics, diving, or track and field.  Instead, the tv is full of Judo matches, fencing, archery, taekwando, and handball.  There is sometimes swimming, and I've seen a little beach volleyball, but there is no pommel horse in sight!  There was badmitten, but they've stopped replaying the women's team for some reason...

Inevitable Job

"You are an American English speaker?  Would you like a job?"

"We want to speak English with an American accent."

"Will you edit my paper?  I'll give you 50,000₩..."

As Americans living in Korea, we hear these sorts of things all the time.  Riley and I have been offered countless jobs teaching and tutoring English to all ages and situations.  I don't think people believe us when we tell them that we have no teaching experience and you probably don't want us to try to teach anyone English.  Most don't understand that just because we speak English, it doesn't mean we know how to teach it.  I do not remember all the words for grammar (like progressive tense?), or how to teach phonics (cat=kat).  I didn't even know what an idiom was until I came to Korea and was asked about them.  I suppose since the majority of foreigners here are English teachers, they assume all foreigners are born to teach English automatically.

The American accent thing is really interesting.  We have many friends from Europe and Africa who speak English fluently, either bilingual or as their only language, but they have a much harder time getting a job here.  For some reason, Koreans like the American accent better.  We have a Korean friend who learned British English, and she sounds really really neat when she speaks English.  However, she doesn't like her accent because its not American.

Even though we have gotten out of teaching English jobs, there is one job we cannot escape, editing.  I have edited thesis, brochures, speeches, presentations, applications, resumes, and essays many times since coming to Korea.  Sometimes they are for friends, but it seems more often they are friends of a friend.  These are not just Koreans either.  I've edited English writing of friends from China and the UAE as well.  The topics have ranged from Chinese-US trade relations, to lotus species, to reactor systems.  At least in editing writing I don't have to worry about explaining why a sentence sounds funny.

So, if you are a native English speaker in a foreign land, expect to have someone say "will you please check my grammar?"

Cousin?

I have discovered that when I mention a relative such as aunt, uncle, or cousin, people want to know exactly how they are related to me.  Then I have to try to remember how second cousins and removals work and describe the relationship.  This is because in Korean, every type of relative has their own name.  Your mom's sisters are a different name than your dad's sisters.  "Cousin" is not even a word they can really understand since your aunt and uncle's children have a different name depending on you mom or dad's side.  I don't know how second cousins work, but I suspect they have their own name too.  I have not memorized these at all since none of my family is Korean and I just use to opportunity to describe my family.
Another confusing aspect of naming relatives specifically comes in siblings.  Since I am a girl, I would call Laura (my older sister) Unni.  If Laura was Riley's older sister, she would be Nuna.  To Ruth, Riley (her older brother) would be Oppa, and if she were a boy, he would be Hyung.   Younger siblings are less important, so they are usually just called by name. 
If you have a friend more than a couple years older than you, you are supposed to call them by these names as well, not by their actual name. 
This gets very confusing.  I miss just calling everyone "kinfolk."

Rainy Season

A couple weeks ago I was woken up at 5 in the morning to FLASH! BOOM BOOM RUMBLE RUMBLE...  Welcome to the rainy season!  Even though that has been the only loud thunderstorm thus far, it rains almost every day.  Its one of those steady rains that is less than a downpour and more than a drizzle. 

The good thing about all the rain is, its almost always cloudy so the sun doesn't come out a lot to make the world into a sauna.  There are breaks in the rain.  Yesterday we woke up to a steady rain, but by the time we were ready to go to work it had stopped.  Then, it rained again that evening, stopped for a while, and started raining again this morning. 

It also doesn't help there is a typhoon on the way here weaving its way around Japan to hit only Korea.  Daejeon is in the middle of the country, so we will just get more rain and probably won't even notice its a typhoon.

The rivers are very happy and some of our rock bridges have disappeared.  But even then, its not as bad as we were expecting, we just take our raincoats with us where ever we go.  Raincoats are not the fashion here.  People only use umbrellas, they even bike with them.  Koreans get very concerned when we start to walk in the rain with only raincoats.  I think historically the rain may have carried bad things in it during the war, and this idea carried on in the minds of the adjumas and adjushies.  The rain is fine now, but raincoats are still "American style" rain protection!

Middle of Nowhere

Last Saturday I got the opportunity to join a group from my church and travel to a corner of Korea to help fix a floor.  Our church had a mission training course that Riley and I attended for the past 11 weeks.  Also in attendance was the pastor of this small country church.  When our church found out he needed help getting a new floor down, they organized a group to go fix it.
We drove 2 hours, 1 down the highway and the other weaving around mountains.  As we got closer, we went up and around a mountain, and a beautiful valley appeared.  It was a drizzly day and everything was green, it looked like a cloud rain forest with rice fields. 
We tackled the floor by putting plastic squares down to raise the floor so the damp wouldn't get in.  Then we layered it with plastic and vinyl and put all the furniture back.
They fed us delicious home cooked Korean food for lunch that had lots of fresh vegetables like zucchini (know here as "green pumpkin"). 

Misty mountains over rice paddies.

Just being in the middle of nowhere was so beautiful.  I got to catch little green frogs too!  I don't know how to get back there, but if I had a choice that was where I would live in Korea.

Kam Ja Tang

Kam ja tang

I have tried a new Korean dish lately and thought I would share.  Its called "Kam ja tang" with "kam ja" meaning potato.   Its main feature is the meaty beef backbone that is boiled with potatoes, mushrooms, dumplings, and greens (I think these were radish tops).  It has a soup in the bottom that is delicious, but the dish can't be called a soup since the food sticks up over the top of the bowl.  You get a mixture of wasabi and soy sauce to dip the meat in.  I like the potatoes dipped in it too. 
Yay for Korea to create a delicious dish out of leftover parts of meat!

Things people say

If you ever go to Asia, one of the first challenges you face it telling people apart.  Everyone here has dark eyes and dark hair.  People also have similar hair cuts to match the current fashion.  It takes a while to figure out how to tell people apart.  You would think it would be easier for them to tell Westerners apart since we have a variety of hair colors and eye colors, but they feel the same way about us as we do about them.  Everyone with brown hair looks like they are related.

This makes for interesting conversation.  In Korea, couples looking alike is a good thing (I don't really know why, their standards of beauty are very uniform).  People say Riley and I look alike all the time, and they don't seem to realize its not really a good thing since it implies we are related. 

By Korean standards I am beautiful because: my nose has a bridge, my eyes are wide, and I have blue eyes.  They would be surprised to know that in the US I am not considered a "beautiful person."

Koreans tend to call the odd things foreigners do as "cute" which is why lots of Koreans told me my dad was very cute (they call Riley cute too).

A Chinese friend told us that my mom sounded British, but my dad didn't.  We were also told that my parents were very calm people.  I was confused until I remembered this person used to live in New York City.

One other thing someone said, and I haven't had the chance to get her to explain more, it that she was very surprised to see how proud my parents are of Riley and I.  She said that Korean parents would never tell people they were proud of their children. 

Traditional Korean Wedding

Last weekend Riley and I got invited to a wedding for a friend of ours.  She is from China and she married a Korean guy.  We had heard the Korean weddings were strange combinations of Eastern and Western culture, but our friend insisted on a traditional Asian wedding. 
The beginning and ending of our journey was a long bus ride full of Chinese students.  It was strange not understanding a word anymore.  Not that we know Korean, but we can pick up words.

Once we got to Seoul, we drove into the War Museum parking deck.  We were very confused until we realized the wedding was going to take place in the War Museum courtyard.  They had everything set up for traditional weddings near all the missiles and tanks parked outside.  Luckily we got there early so Riley and I could look around the yard some at the tanks, airplanes, and boats.

Our friend had decided on a Royal wedding where the bride and groom were dressed as the prince and princess of Korea.  The dress was really elaborate.  The groom's hat kept getting in his eyes.

The bride and groom.  The colors of Korea are red, blue and yellow.

The first part was getting the bride and groom into chairs to be wheeled to the top of the aisle.  This took a long time for the bride since it meant getting her headdress off and on again.  Then the bride walked down the aisle first.  There was lots of yelling in Korean and drumming.  Then the groom joined her with more yelling and drumming.  They also brought the two wooden ducks down the aisle and set them on a table.  Speaking of tables, there were tables of fruits, candles, and incense arranged at the front. 

After the drumming and yelling (translated "Congratulations"  "May you live a thousand years") they walked back down the aisle.  Then they came back and took a lot of pictures.

We then went to an all you can eat buffet with sushi, fried mushrooms, fish, potato salad, and ice cream.  The bride and groom came back in more comfortable looking traditional Korean clothes (Hanbok) and greeting everyone.

It was really interesting, but the odd part was all the attendants were from the wedding set-up.  They were basically actors helping the couple through the ceremony.  They had really neat outfits, but I think I would prefer knowing the people who helped me get married.

I loved the colors, though, everything was really bright!  It was a beautiful wedding, and the couple looked really happy (especially when the groom got to change his hat).

Mom and Dad's Trip Concluded

After a whirlwind 10 day tour of Riley and Margaret's favorite places in Korea, Mom and Dad made it safely back home. 
We took them to see our work place and what a traditional market looks like.  The we took them for Sam Gap Sal that evening, but I think they were too jet lagged to enjoy it too much.  The next day was rainy, so we went to the Natural Science Museum so I could show them the Korean wildlife and how to make Kimchi.  Then we went to the Arboretum to see Korean plants.
The next few day we went to Gyeongju.  This is a town that used to be the capital of one of the three kingdoms, and it has huge tombs for the kings and queens.  There is also a famous temple and many famous Buddhas.  We climbed a mountain that was very steep and rocky, but the views were worth it.

Mom and Dad on top of Namsan

 Back in Daejeon, we visited the nearby national park for some hiking and souvenirs before heading back to get ready to have our bible study. 
We then visited Gong-ju to see the old fortress and some more museums. 
The next day we went to lunch at a Korean household.  The guy who had us over is our small group leader for our mission training classes.  It was delicious!  They even had cheesy pasta!
The rest of the time was just visiting and packing.  It was a great visit!  We didn't even have time to get to Seoul.  They wore Riley and I out!

Visit from Mom and Dad!

Mom and dad are here!  They survived the 13 hour flight and arrived in the airport yesterday!  We have a lot in store for them, including traditional markets, historical temples, and kimchi!  This morning we had them try our usual rice for breakfast (with sesame seeds).  They were a little out of it until they got a good night's sleep and a cup of coffee.  One of our friend's has an extra double bed, so they don't have to squeeze into our apartment. 
More to come!

Mom and dad arriving in the Incheon Airport in South Korea!  Don't they look happy?

I haven't posted many pictures in a while, so here are some of the flower pictures I took when the cherry blossoms were blooming.

This is one of my best Egret pictures.  They were really hard to take a good picture of, but there is one in the middle of the tree.  There were tons in the tops of trees, but white birds with a white sky in white flowers doesn't show up well.

This is the most common bird you see here.  They are a type of Magpie and sometimes flock in the hundreds.

Spring green maple leaves!

Cherry Blossoms

This is a type of Rubus (I don't know if it turns into an edible berry like blackberries or raspberries), but the leaves with water drops were pretty.

This is one of the famous cherry blossom trees that they have festivals about.

Traveling without a car in Korea

One of the interesting things for us living in Korea is the fact we do not own a car.  Since we live in the city it turns out okay.  Everything is close enough together here there is not much of a problem.  If you did not know, Daejeon, has over 1.5 million people, but has a land footprint that is half the diameter of Charlotte (Measured by belt line size.)  Charlotte has 0.7 million people.  So this makes living without a car very easy.  We do not even miss the things, except the powerful feeling we get when driving them.  So without the gas guzzling traffic generating machines that get our country into awkward political situations (See Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria etc) what do we do when we want to go somewhere?

Work: We usually walk the 3/4 mile journey to work.  It takes about 30 minutes.  Along the way we normally practice our Korean.  If we are late we bike.

Groceries: There is a grocery store that is a 5 minute walk away.  It has almost everything we need.  It carries a good stock of fruits and vegetables, and there are many mom and pop dealers outside too.  Shopping in Korea is halfway between a western supermarket, and a open air market.  The dealers outside sell fruit, vegetables, and grains.  We normally buy from them when we can because once they know you as a regular, they give you discounts :-).  Unfortunately, we still do not know the words for many food items, so we normally point, and ask how much it costs.  It's a little awkward, but it gets us food.  Note: the Korean fruit tastes, and the Korean milk taste much better than the American versions.  Every piece of fruit I have ever had here, has been perfectly ripe.  It's nice, but I wonder if it is because of GMO's, or if it is because their agriculture here is ran almost exclusively by small farmers who pay very close attention to their products.  On the apple trees here, they always wrap plastic bags around the apples to keep the insects off because the cost of labor is low ($5 per hour minimum wage, but given the work culture here (long hours, but slow work), it is probably equivalent to our $7.75 minimum wage).

Manufactured goods: There is a Super Walmart-like store here, called Home Plus.  It is operated by a British firm known as Tesco which has similar stores in Brittan.  We go there about once every 2 weeks to get special items.  It is a 30 minute walk away, but we sometimes bicycle (10 minutes).  There is also a Sam's Club-like store that requires no membership very close to it.  We get our bulk items (Prego Spaghetti Sauce and peanut butter) there.  Although we can get a lot of Prego for cheap, very few of our friends know what it is or how to use it, so they are often impressed when we make spaghetti.  We also use it to make pizza.

Church: This is our farthest destination.  It is a 45 minute walk, or a 20 minute bike ride.  There are other churches closer to our house, but this church is the first one we attended, and we liked it so we stayed.

Downtown: The movie theater, and a bible study that we often attend is downtown.  It is somewhat of a trek in the winter, when bicycling is not much fun at all.  What we normally do is bike to the subway station, and take the subway the remaining distance.  It is not efficient and takes about 30 minutes to make the 3 mile trip.  In the summer we normally bike and if traffic is nice, it takes 25 minutes.  We only go once a week.

Across town: Twice a year, an English speaking high school has really awesome festivals (think western food that is normally unavailable in Korea like hot dogs and tacos), so we go to them.  The bike ride is 45 minutes, and the bus ride is too, but the bus ride is often worse because the air gets stuffy.  I really enjoy biking, so we normally bike.  The taxi fare there is $6, but we like to save money.  The school also puts on a twice a year play which is also good.  Some of our church friends teach there.

The countryside:  This is the best part about a compact city.  There are parks everywhere, but if you want real trees, they are right outside town.  So we can take a 20 minute bus ride, and be in a national park (which is more like a state park), or a 10 minute walk and be on a forested mountain that is on the edge of town. 

Other cities/the airport: We take the Korean intercity bus.  It takes about 3 hours to get to Inchon (where the airport is).  We take the KTX sometimes too.  It takes 90 minutes to get to Seoul, but that is because we are going 150+ mph.  It runs on standard rails, but they have the concrete ties, so they are very stable.  Also its couplers are as tall as the car, so oscillations are greatly reduced.  I think that's how it goes so fast.

So that is how we survive without cars.  It's also nice that we pay no mechanic, no insurance, no fixing it ourselves, no gas and no traffic.  The nice thing about this city is that our rent is cheap and we have no grass to mow.  So we like our life here, but we really miss home because it is what we know and what we are used to.  I am coming home in June for two weeks, and I hope to see many of you.  Margaret is staying in Korea, but will visit in September.

Taken from a bike trip across town and over a mountain (no fossil fuels used!)

One Year!

First off, I want to thank everyone who wished us a happy anniversary!  Its still hard to believe its been a while year since we stood on the porch with everyone there.  I miss all of you and I wish we could have a similar occasion again to have everyone we love together in one place.

In Korea, to celebrate our anniversary we escaped from Daejeon and took a bus to a nearby small town for the weekend.  This town was once the capital of one of the three kingdoms in Korea around the 500s.  They have a beautiful fortress with stone walls and trails.  Though not as fancy, it reminded us of the Great Wall of China.  The town also had a lot of tombs with an underground tomb museum.  The really really nice thing about going to historical sites in Korea, is that almost all the informative signs are half in English!

We also had a delicious meal with grilled fish and lots of side dishes.  The quality of a restaurant in Korea depends on the amount and variety of side dishes.  There are normal ones that you pretty much always have (kimchi, sesame leaves, picked radishes), but in fancier restaurants you get quail eggs, tofu soup, crabs, and candied sweet potatoes.

To celebrate the actual day on Monday, we got a Baskin Robbins ice cream cake!  Yay for anniversaries!

Chungnam Cherry Blossom Festival

A couple weeks ago the trees finally blossomed!  The cherry trees are very famous here.  It seems that any place with a lot of cherry trees has a festival when they bloom.  I have heard people say it is one of the few good things that came from Japan.
In our town, one of the local universities has a nice abundance of cherry trees.  They have a festival every spring.  We wanted to see what Korea's idea of a festival was, so we decided to go. 

We went a little late and it was starting to get dark.  They turned on lots and lots of spotlights to shine up at the cherry blossoms.  It was very beautiful.  People were taking pictures everywhere.  All the lower blossoms ended up behind someone's ear.

There were some booths from the college making plaster casts or pottery, but mostly there were food booths.  They had corn on a stick, sugar-filled bread, cotton candy (or candy floss as my British friend calls it), roasted chestnuts, ice cream, Turkish kabobs (it was more like a Turkish taco), and roasted silk worms.  We had to try the worms for the sake of culture.  The texture wasn't that bad, but there was something about the taste that reminded me of the fruit fly experiments from genetics class.  They even sold boiled crabs that a friend of ours treated us to.

We found out that festivals do not usually have parades, but are usually several days long.  Most aren't that big, but are fun.  Also, don't get the bugs.

Fishies

Riley and I were out running the other day (yes, I have taken up running even though I still don't like it very much.  It is good for me, though, and it has some benefits as you will see shortly).  We run along a river where they have converted the banks into and long bike and running track.  Its a good place to run and travel around town without going on the sidewalks through the city.  My favorite part about the rivers is that they are the wildest places I have seen in the city.  They are always full of ducks, egrets, and herons with the occasional grebe!  This is one of the things that makes running ok, it is a good excuse to see the waterfowl in the river.
Back to the story, Riley ran ahead of me like usual, and I started watching the water looking for interesting ducks.  It was a drizzly day, so there weren't as many people out as usual.  Instead of dabbling ducks, I saw lots of splashing.  The water where the splashing was is very shallow, and I started seeing fins sticking out of the splashing.  It was a giant fish!  Actually, 4 giant fish!  I don't know what they were doing, but they were very determined about doing it.  I kept running, but every 30 meters or so (yes, I am started to convert to metric) I saw more splashing fish!  I finally had to stop and figure out what was going on, but all I know is that there were usually two fish splashing together.  They are the biggest fish I have ever seen in our urban river.  I'm glad they can live there.  They were about 1.5-2 ft long (ok, maybe not all metric). 
These little incidents help keep me running and in shape.

Election Day

Here in Korea, whenever there is an election, people get a holiday from work and classes!  This is so people will have time to vote, but for those of us who are not Daejeon citizens its a surprise holiday!  The election campaigning is nice here because its in a different language.  I think the most interesting part is that the colors for different parties range from yellow to blue and pink.  Its strange not just seeing red, white, and blue posters.  I saw people in red jackets stand on the side of the road and wave at people, and we also saw these trucks with either a video or a strange built into the side advertising one of the parties, but of course it was in Korean and sounded just like the trucks that broadcast food sales.  This election was for congressmen I believe, and all I know is the major party won. 

Riley had a paper to write, so I grabbed a camera and explored the woods on campus.  In Korea, almost all mountains (and hills) are left to the forests.  I think this is mainly due to the fact all the hill are really steep.  It would be really hard to build anything on the slopes, so there are hiking trails on all the mountains instead (with exercise equipment at the top).  The one on campus is small, but the flowers have started to bloom and I wanted pictures.  Also, for some reason all the egrets and herons in the area decided our mountain was where they wanted to raise their kids.  One part of the mountain is covered in giant white birds building nests.  While exploring and trying to get a good picture of the egrets, I went off the trail and scared up a Korean deer!  I have no idea how a deer lives on a mountain in the middle of a fenced-in college campus.  It was short and stocky, nothing like a white-tailed deer.  Two days later I met someone who hikes all the time in Korea and it took him 2 and a half years to see a deer.  It only took me 7 months!  Now I just need to see a Raccoon Dog...

Koreans are Church Crazy

Somehow, Riley and I found ourselves trying to sing "Give Thanks" in Chinese at 5am this morning.  This is not an easy thing to do. 
It all started when Riley got "volunteered" by someone to help with the special music at the 5:30am service that they have at church EVERY DAY!  They apparently takes turns doing special music and it was the foreign ministries' turn to do it.  Why people get up early every day to go to an hour long service at 5:30 in the morning is beyond me.  Riley's not sure how we ended up getting involved either, at least it was just one day.  We sang the song first in English, then Chinese, and then Korean.  The Korean wasn't too bad since I do know how to pronounce it, but I have no idea how to pronounce the Chinese ryn rion zu du, ping choing, xian xie, etc.  We tried to listen to the Chinese people, but I think most of us non-Chinese just sang very quietly.  The service was all in Korean, good practice for understanding Korean if we had been more awake.  I just managed to not fall asleep during the sermon, then we got home at 6:30 and went back to sleep.  Hopefully it will be a long time before its our turn to do the special music again.

Horseback Adventure

Unexpectedly, we got to ride horses in Korea!  One of our Korean friends (Juho) took a bunch of us foreigners to his hometown in the country to go horseback riding!  We took a train an hour South of Daejeon to a small town called Gimje.  His dad has connections there, so we got to stay in the community center.  It was nice to walk down country roads and look at cows. 
The horses were white and brown.  We just went around in a circle, but it was still fun.  Some of the people with us (a mixture of Americans, a Canadian, and a Brit).  We learned more about how to actually ride a horse instead of my past experience of letting the horse just follow other horses.  No one fell off, but it was close.  Horses are bouncy! 
Riding a horse is one of the many things we did not expect to do in Korea.

Glasses

After 8 years, I finally got new glasses this week.  Glasses are very popular in Korea.  They sell fashion glasses with normal glass in it for the people with good vision.  Here, looking geeky is actually makes you more in fashion.  Having big, thick plastic frames makes you apparently look younger and more attractive.  I prefer the older looking, wire frame glasses. 

A friend of mine and went after 9pm to a shop.  We found a frame I liked, then they examined my eyes to update my prescription.  We waited about 15mins where they had complimentary coffee and tea, then I got my new glasses.  Everything (lenses, frame, and examination) cost about $43, and it took less than an hour.  I think I may get another pair before I leave Korea.

My Birthday!

Thank you all for wishing me a happy birthday!  My birthday here was an extended celebration.  Saturday night we had a joint party at a friend's house.  The joint birthday party was for me and my friend Sujin who happens to be almost exactly the same age as me.  I was born in the afternoon of  March 11 in the US, and he was born March 12 in Korea.  They're the same day!  And the house we were at has an oven!  A real one!  As a treat to myself I baked chocolate chip cookies!  My first batch was gone before it cooled down.  The birthday cakes you buy here are interesting.  They have a whipped cream based icing (they don't have cream cheese icing here!) and its topped with fruit.  There is fruit between the layers too.  They come with candles and streamers that pop.  My friends here gave me a pretty bag, a neck pillow, and little cacti!  Sujin gave Riley and I a good luck charm for couples from China.

My actual birthday on Sunday was a normal Sunday, but it was a nice Sunday.  I opened birthday cards from home (Thank you Laura and Grandmother and Grandaddy!).  I had another cake at a bible study we go to. 

Monday I got a present from home!  Thank you Mom and Dad!  Hershey's is expensive here, and grits are impossible to find. 

Tuesday started normal, but Riley had told me not to make plans that night.  I have to admit he succeeded in surprising me.  He took me to a basement Indian restaurant.  There were cloth chandeliers, and we sat on big, purple couches.  It had atmosphere and the food was delicious!  I have a theory that ethnic food tastes better the closer geographically you are to the country of origin.  Afterwards we went to the Olive Garden, except the one they have here is a locally owned pie place.  I had apple and Riley had pumpkin with Ginseng Tea.  So ends my 4-day birthday!

General Update

I have been writing up all the things that we see different between the US and Korea, but its getting harder and harder as we get used to everything.  I'm even almost used the the hocking of lugies that happens very loudly here whenever you walk down the road.  I was trying to think of something to write about this week, and I realized you may want to know how Riley and I are actually doing.  Here is an update of our work lives:

Riley: He is starting his second semester as a graduate student.  Lately he has been having more fun because he is building a lab from scratch and now has "toys" (a glove box, electrical equipment, a tool box) to play with.  He is mostly trying to get everything organized and set up so that he can start actually doing his experiments (someday maybe he will write them up, they are a little complicated and require diagrams).  His furnace will arrive Monday, and he will put that in his glovebox.  His work has been slow due to his many responsibilities and his one class takes up about 1/5 of his working time.  The other quarter of his time is spent working on his computer code, and for the past two weeks, he has gone to many meetings, so the time he actually devotes to his experimental work is minimal.  At least its not the real world.  He often jokes about how someday he'll skip the meetings.  But he is generally happy.

Margaret: I am involved in 3 very different projects ranging from ecological restoration to economics to water spray dust capture.  I have realized that some people really do use differential equations in their work (which I have never learned).  I consider my time at work an opportunity to try to figure out the best way to get engineers and non-engineers to understand each other.  It mostly comes down to: engineers think everyone knows some things that only engineers know, and non-engineers think engineers should know everything about something they only know a part of.  I miss trees, but at least the weather is getting a little warmer.

Both: We have been here long enough that we now have commitments to things during the week.  We lead an english talking club once a week, and we also lead a bible study thorough our church where we cook supper.  We cook for a potluck once a week as well.  We are learning to cook lots of interesting things (not a lot of baking, but we have made a lot of friends with people who have ovens!). 

Life is becoming normal for us here in Korea, but we still can't eat kimchi for breakfast!

Valentine's Day

Last week we had Valentine's Day.  They have it in Korea too.  Riley gave me a box of peanut butter candy (with the restriction that he got half), and I gave him half a box of donuts.  You may be wondering why I gave Riley something?  In Korea, Valentine's Day is the day girls give the guy presents only (Riley just wanted candy).  One of our Korean friends told us it was the first time he got anything from his girlfriend. 
Korea makes things fair, though.  One month later, on March 14, they have White Day.  This is when the guys have to give the girl's a present.  (We will see if Riley thinks about it)
And to be really fair, one month after that, on April 14, they have Black Day.  This is the day to celebrate being single.  So, if you didn't have a good Valentine's or White Day, this is the holiday to make up for it.  I'm not exactly sure what they do to celebrate it, but if its interesting I will let you know.

Tofu

I wanted to write a quick note about tofu in Korea.  Here it is called "dubu."  Koreans have found an extremely delicious method of cooking tofu here, the secret is simply adding meat.  Even in tofu soup, there are bits of meat mixed into it.  Its not a vegetarian food in Korea, its just food.  We even had bacon wrapped tofu once, which I highly recommend.  Deep fried tofu is also very tasty.  I have always thought of tofu and something you use instead of meat, but I think tofu flavored with meat is much tastier.

Trains in Korea and Japan

I am sure that some people have wondered about the trains in East Asia.  We have taken two trips since we’ve gotten to Korea.  The first was to Tokyo for a conference, and the second was to Gyeonju, Korea for vacation.  On both trips we wound up using the trains.  First, east Asian trains are way way nicer than any American train.  Because of the high population density in Asia (think 50 million people stuffed in an area the size of North Carolina), the fact that cars are not as common, and the $8/gallon gas, and trains become a very attractive option.  In all cases the trains are electric ($8/gal gas).  There are several types of trains generally, and about 7 types in Japan.  Don’t ask me to name them, I just remember that they had many classifications of trains in Japan ranging from super express, to local express to commuter.  Generally we have seen 3 types.

The first type of train that we have encountered is the commuter train.  In Daejeon, it is the single subway line, and people use busses, bikes and cars for all other travel.  But in Seoul, the subway map looks like a plate of spaghetti, and I’ve no idea about the busses because I’ve never been to Seoul. 

Tokyo’s commuter rail system is much more developed, to the point where I wondered if they spent too much on it.  There is a train stop near every place of interest, and the trains ride on elevated tracks so that they do not interfere with traffic.  However, I must note that the Tokyo’s trains are used a lot.  When we rode to downtown during rush hour, we were squashed up against people.  I’ve never been in such a crowded place in my life.  I was wondering if one of us would get crushed, or if a door would bust open from the pressure, so I guess the Japanese got their money’s worth out of it since their gas is probably $8/gallon too.

The second train is a local train.  These trains run at about 50mph and take people between cities.  In some cases you can sit in unreserved seats (like a bus or subway), but the one I am on now, there are only reserved seats (like Amtrak or an airplane).  It goes between cities in a slow way.  They are very similar to the Amtrak lines in NC. 

The fastest trains in east Asia are the KTX (Korea) and the Shinkansen (Japan).  Neither is Mag-Lev, but they both go fast.  In Japan it took 3 hours (with one stop included) to get from Tokyo to Tsuruga (300 miles).  It would have been faster if we didn't switch to a slow train for the last 30 minutes of the trip.  It was also very expensive (130 each one way).  Japan was expensive generally, and we felt very poor when we left.  We were happy to smell the Kimchi as soon as we got back to Korea.  The ride was very pretty though.   Tsuruga is a beautiful place.

Korea’s KTX is a bit nicer than the Shinkansen, and much less expensive.  We paid $20 each to go a shorter distance to Daegu—the next city over.  It had televisions-which the Shinkansen did not, and they told how fast we were going.  Our speed maxed out at 304 kph (188 mph).  The trip took 50 minutes, and it was 85 miles long.   The scenery was hard to look at because you only had about 5 seconds to look at a vista before something else.  It was very nice, and there were lots of tunnels.  Korea is a very mouantanous place, so Koreans have no qualms about making tunnels.  Only very tiny roads don’t get tunnels.  Even 2 lane country roads get tunnels.  My opinion is that it is also part of Korea’s culture to not mess around on projects.  The bad side of that is that Koreans often go too far on projects. 

Age

I (Margaret) am 27 years old.  No, you have not forgotten my birthday.  In Korean age I gained two years.  My international age (everywhere but Korea) is still 25.  This is very confusing, but I'll see if I can explain why.  In Korea, everyone is born at age 1.  That is the easy part, you just add one to your age, and its your Korean age.  However, after the new year, people started saying their age was two years older than their international age.  So, everyone's birthday is the new year, even if your actual birthday is later.  So, in March I will turn 26 international age, but my Korean age will still be 27. 

If you visit Korea, the conversation when you meet someone will go"Hello, What is your name? Where are you from? How old are you?"  If you are sensitive about your age, this may not be the best place for you.  In Korea, the words you use to talk to a person is determined by how much older or younger they are to you.  If you are Korean you con only be friends with people your age, or at the most 2 years older or younger than you.  Otherwise, if they are older, you have to call them older brother or older sister (which are different if you yourself are a girl or boy) and use a more polite language.  Luckily, foreigners don't count!  Koreans like foreigners regardless of age to practice English on.  Riley and I are novelties here.  As we learn Korean, we will probably have to start paying more attention to what words we use when we talk to people older than us (you can be very informal to people younger than you).  Its nice being a foreigner, if you mess up and say the wrong words you are excused from being rude because you are expected not to know better!

Dok

There is a food here called "dok" that I am going to try to explain.  When I mentioned it to my family this Christmas I confused everyone trying to explain its like really chewy pasta.

The pronunciation is closer to "doc" with a really short "k" sound.  We ran into trouble the first time we told our Korean friends we had some.  They thought we said we had tried "duck" or "dog" (both of which are possible to eat here, we have only tried the duck).  Anyways, people say that dok is a rice cake, but that doesn't really explain it well.  There is a way you can make it so it looks like cake, but it is nothing like cake.  You make it from just rice flour and water, and the outcome is this really really chewy substance.

Its used here in a  similarly to pasta in sauce or soups, or it can have sugar and beans (beans are mostly used here in dessert) in it to make sweeter, chewy substance.  Its very filling.  The main point is that it is very very chewy.  Someone has described it as a Korean marshmallow minus the sugar.  When its in soups, it reminds me of a dumpling.  They can even make it in fun shapes like stars and hearts. 

The famous street food "dokboki" is mainly a spicy sauce with dok in it.  You can find dok in your local Asian supermarket, so if you feel adventurous next time you make soup, you can drop some in.

Snow and Chinese Food

It has been snowing a lot over here in South Korea.  It makes me very glad that we do not own a car here.  Its strange to have the world change color regularly.  I do not hate snow yet, but I have been assured that I will be very tired of it before winter is over.  I do admit, the icy roads haven't been fun.  What has been fun is seeing the pack of adjumas at work.  The term "adjuma" refers to women who are married and middle aged.  They have a reputation for acting very much in charge and having strong opinions.  Its mainly because they are the ones in charge of the family, and they extend that to the world.  We have heard stories of adjumas forcing people to take their seats in subways, for pushing their way through crowds, and in general being very feisty.  Our school employees about 10 adjumas to do various landscaping around campus.  We have seen them in the summer on the ground weeding, in the fall with tiny rakes getting the leaves, and now they are armed with twig brooms to get the snow off the sidewalks.  We saw them yesterday attacking a deck outside our building.

On another note, yesterday I went to a Chinese restaurant with some of my friends.  I have this theory that ethnic foods gt better the closer you are to the original country.  Indian food tastes better here than back in the US.  I had Korean-Chinese food before, but this time we went with a couple of our Chinese friends, and Chinese-American/British friends.  They all assured us that the restaurant tasted like real Chinese food.

The first few dishes were really good.  They tasted nothing like American-Chinese food.  The sauce was delicious, and we had eggplant and some type of roasted lamb on a skewer.  There was also a dish that contained cow intestine.  It really was not near as bad as I thought it would be.  The flavor was good, even if the texture was a little weird.  I think I like it better than tentacles. 

The best dish by far was the sweet and sour pork.  It was sooooo much better than the over-breaded pork with red sauce that I was used to.  This had a vinegary-sweet sauce that was normal colored and tasted amazing! None of the dishes were greasy like Chinese take out, not even the noodles. 

So, two new experiences I didn't expect to have in South Korea, authentic Chinese food, and regular snowfall.