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!