back in korea, october '08.

Every time I leave Japan I seem to gain a better understanding of the culture that I am living in. Going to Korea is interesting for me because for two nations that share some basic similarities, Korea and Japan are, in some ways, very, very different places.

On Friday afternoon I caught an early afternoon bus out of Naruto to Kansai Airport where I took the two hour flight into Seoul. Jon and I decided to meet at Yongsan Station, about an hour west of Incheon International Airport (where I flew in) and three hours North of Geumgang University, where he is studying Korean. We hit the streets right away and met up with some American friends who were waiting for us to arrive. I knew all of them from my trip to Korea last October and it was nice to feel welcomed right when I arrived. Jon lived in Seoul for a bit last winter so he knew what neighborhoods would be good to check out on the weekend. We ended up in Sinchon, or 'the Bloomfield of Seoul' as he calls it. Friday evening was a night full of convenience store mushroom wine, noraebang (Korean karaoke), makgeolli (Korean rice wine), late night gimbap (rice and vegetables rolled with nori seaweed), and finally giving into sleep at 6:30am.




On day number two we checked out the street life that makes Seoul such a cool city. The Namdaemun market district was amazing...there is no place in Japan where you can buy a kilogram bag of cashews for about $10 or find street vendors serving spicy food with attitudes to match. I kind of wish that Japanese cities had the bustle of a place like Seoul but urban areas here just hold a different kind of appeal. I think that for me at this particular time it was really good to see people display their emotions outwardly in public for a change, even though those emotions caused me to witness fistfights, arguing, and lots of spitting. Strangely, all of this was a relief from the isolation that I was feeling before I left home.





In the evening, we decided to head out early to a small town called Danyang where we planned on climbing Mt. Soebaeksan the next morning. We managed to see a bit of the Myeongdong shopping district before taking off on a three hour train ride south to the middle of the peninsula.




By far, my favorite part of my six days here was hiking Soebaeksan. It was around 15km (about 9 miles) round trip and the trail up the mountain was basically straight up without any switchbacks. We all had a good sleep that night.






Finally, we made it to Jon's new home at Geumgang University- a Buddhist school located at the foothills of Gyeoryong National Park. This is really out in the middle of nowhere. Before going to Jon's dorm, we didn't see any other westerners for days. There are a handful studying at the school, including Jeff- a 25 year old monk in training from Seattle who lives and works at a nearby temple.




(Below- the view from Jon's dorm room.)


After missing the last bus into town by seconds (literally), Jon and I took a taxi and then a train back to the city of Daejon where we slept for about one hour at a place called Hotel X and then at 6:00am I was on a three hour shuttle back to the airport. Getting back home is very routine at this point and I think that my patience while traveling has increased more than I had realized. This trip was an awesome six days of hanging out with one of my best friends while exploring a good amount of some really untouched parts of Korea. I was excited to come back to Japan mainly because I missed the food and I knew that I had only two days of work before the weekend. Landing back into Kansai once again made me realize how calm and orderly Japan is. In Korea, it's common to be pushed on the streets, have people jump ahead of you in line, see people sleeping at their jobs, etc. The big difference between last year's trip and this one is that I wasn't grossed out by this stuff this time. I find that I can more easily deal with cultural differences like this by (usually) just appreciating the uniqueness of it and taking things with a sense a humor. Actually, I would say that the latter is almost required for the life that I have been living for a little over a year.

So that's how I have come away from this recent experience. I'm really glad that I went to Korea again because I feel like I wasn't fully adjusted to living in Asia at the time that I went last year. Noticing how much better I deal with unknown (and often very strange) situations is a good measure of what I'm gaining with the more time I spend abroad. Day by day, you can see the relevance of things or places that once seemed overwhelming or uninteresting...whether that be a crowded street market or an empty Korean bus station at 5:30am.