Ahn-nyeong hah-seh-yo!
While we are continuing to have a great time here in Korea, but I have to say some of the “uncontrollable” factors have been working in our favor to make the trip even better. We have had beautiful weather each day, with lows in the upper 50s and highs in the low eighties, with either sun or light cloud cover each day. Also, we didn’t really know what to expect when taking this trip with a tour group – we had not ever traveled with a group before. Overall so far it has exceeded my expectations. A lot of the others on the trip are around the same age, and the group seems to constantly be getting closer. Having a lot of others to talk to is nice, especially since the places we go we can’t have a lot of conversation with the locals without the help of a translator. The people we’ve met here keeps the trip even more interesting and fun, so thanks to all of the others here for helping make this awesome! 🙂
Wednesday’s activities were primarily focused on the Korean Folk Village. This was a “living” recreation of what Korea was like before modern culture. It featured old houses, a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, a jail, and several demonstrations of dances and other activities. There were a ton of young children there at the Korean Folk village exploring it like we were. They were very friendly and seemed well behaved for the most part. There was one point where one of the young Korean girls walked past me and said “Hello!”. Following suit, all the others in their group continued to say “Hello!”, I think just sort of practicing their English. It was very funny and cute.
Wednesday evening was a lot of fun also – I had the chance to meet with my old college roommate June. He came and met Meghann and some of the others on the tour and we chatted in the hotel courtyard for a while. After that, June drove us out to an area with some restaurants and bars where we had a few drinks and caught up. He’s in the process of launching his own company here in Korea and sounds like everything is going well for him. At the end of leaving, he called for some service which was very cool – someone met us in front of the bar and drove June’s car to drop me off at the hotel, and then drive June home. Sort of like a Taxi service, but uses your own car. I’ve never seen these in the US but seems like a very good service.
Thursday was the expecting single mother visit. This was probably one of the most interesting parts of the trip so far. We took our bus a little over an hour south of Seoul to a center where the single expecting mothers (or new mothers for up to three months) could live and receive help and education to get re-initiated into society. In Korea, there is a stigma against single mothers and they are looked down upon much more than in the US. There were also a few other interesting laws, such as abortion being illegal, as well as determining the gender of the baby prior to birth due to the preference towards males.
The group was a very interesting one. They ranged in age between late teens to as old as 45. Some of them had babies already, where many of the others were expecting over the next few months. Three of the mothers had actually defected from North Korea, which was pretty amazing. Most of those that are able to escape from North Korea to South Korea actually go through China, as the DMZ between North and South Korea is so secure. These three ladies had each taken that route, and two of them actually had husbands still in China. I did take some pictures, but because of the stigma we had all agreed not to post any of the photos online. One other funny thing happened at the very end – the translator came up and told me that the expecting mothers wanted me to take a picture with all of them because they thought I was handsome. Not very often I get to be considered “exotic” as a white guy! I was very flattered and am not really used to being the center of attention, so my face turned bright red. I was happy to take the photos with them though, it was a lot of fun. I always crack up when they say “Say Kimchi!.” The others on the trip gave me a hard time for a while after that. 🙂
Next on our agenda was another lunch of Korean BBQ, and then we went to a fortress which was pretty neat. There was another example of the Koreans doing something that I wouldn’t ever see flying in the US – a bunch of young kids shooting bows and arrows at targets, with a crowd of us watching from the side. Yep, one mis-flying arrow off to the side and I’m sure someone would have gotten hit. Anyways, we got to shoot the bows and arrows also, and it was a lot of fun, made me want to practice that some more when getting back to the US. We walked along the fortress walls and took some great photos as well.
Yesterday evening Meghann and I were on our own. We were going to eat at the nice Italian restaurant inside the hotel, but it was closed due to an event with the Panama Embassy. We decided to do some walking, and were wanting to try an “American” restaurant to see if we could spot the differences and ended up at the Outback Steakhouse. The menu was definitely very different, and they didn’t have any burgers which Meghann was hoping for! We ended up having pasta and bread, which was very good. The waitress spoke just enough English that we were able to complete the order and ended up having good service as well. Anyways, we are now off to Busan for the weekend! We are taking a two and a half hour ride on a bullet train to Busan, which is the city where Meghann was born. We will be visiting the orphanage where she was born, and then have the rest of the weekend pretty free to explore the city. I’m not sure what our connectivity will be like, so I may not write again until I return to Seoul on Monday. More to come!
