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.