Korea Memories - Sunday, May 22nd

Sunday morning Susie had to do some work when we woke up, so I took off down the hill to see what I could find for breakfast. I am happy to report that Koreans are world leaders when it comes to waffles. Take a look at this next picture and tell me that doesn’t look good for any meal. They generally make their waffles from scratch (no Bisquik), then pile them high with ice cream and a ton of fresh cut fruit (no canned pie fillings, take that IHOP!). Sooooo good. All I know is that at least one house in Owensboro will be changing their waffle routine for good.
After I had breakfast, we headed to the Hanok traditional village to see what life was like in ancient Korea. On the way in we stopped at a traditional tea house and had a traditional tea setting, complete with Korean goodies. Another thing Koreans set the bar at is tea. We tried a number of different teas while in Korea, and even visited a tea farm on Jeju Island (that’s what those in the biz call “foreshadowing”).

As you can see, traditional homes were constructed very similarly to temples and palaces. The major difference, aside from size, was that only temples, palaces, and shrines were painted for the most part. In the front left of this picture you can see the chimney. More on that later.

The Koreans were very efficient with their indoor climate control from a very early time. See the hole near the ground in the picture below? Koreans used what is known as “ondol” heating, which is locating the furnace under the house at one end, then passing the flue gas under the house, which heats the floors, then passes out the chimney at the other end of the house. This picture shows wood, but most of the time coal was burned as the main source of heat. The floors were generally made from paper that was soaked in sesame oil. Koreans were historically light years ahead of other cultures when it came to making paper, so it wasn’t like curly fax paper on the floor. It was sturdy paper, and you can see it in the picture below as well.

This is a typical traditional Korean kitchen. Actually, this is a very large kitchen. You can see that they also routed the flue gas from the cooking fires out through the ondol system for home heating as well.

Ever heard of kimchi? If you go to Korea, you will. It’s fermented vegetables, usually cabbage or radish, that is served with every meal, bar none. If you like it, you can make any Korean meal taste good. This picture is of a kimchi refrigerator. They would take the raw kimchi, add seasonings, then put it in large ceramic pots that were buried in the ground up to their tops. I think it usually took a few weeks for the fermentation to finish. Nowadays they just use refrigerators just like what is found in western homes.

You can’t tell from this picture, but this is the room where they would sleep during the summer. This room is cantilevered out so it has good air flow underneath it to help keep it cool in the summer. Another kind of funny thing is that hanging up on the back wall is what our tour guide called the “bamboo wife.” It’s like a big hollow oblong basket shape, and they would hold it to their chests. This created another passageway for air to flow around them during hot summer nights. (It should be noted that even though traditionally the husband and wife slept in separate rooms or buildings, those families were still generally pretty large.)

This is a traditional kids game. Susie and I looked at each other and said “Korean cornhole.” It had bamboo shoots that had dull weighted tips. Think lawn darts, but not as lethal.

The day we were at the Hanok village there was also a traditional Korean wedding ceremony, and it was open to the public. It was very interesting to witness, and even though it was all in Korean I think we still comprehended the basics. The groom was a white guy, and I don’t think he understood everything that was going on either, because he made a couple whoopsies like bowing at the wrong time or bowing incorrectly. That usually brought a bunch of giggles from all the old Korean ladies.

After the wedding we went to a traditional tea ceremony. The woman hosting it only spoke slightly more English than I did Korean, but she was a very peaceful and kind person, and I think eventually most of the important messages were communicated. The traditional Korean tea ceremony is very specific, and we enjoyed getting to learn the different parts of it. It's a very relaxing time. You can see a demonstration here if you want.

The final thing we saw at the traditional village was a group of Korean dancers. They were extremely athletic and it was impressive to see them flying around while keeping a steady beat. There is a leader, and he is one of the guys that has a two-sided drum (in the middle of the first photo). Apparently, this traditional drum leader is legally allow to be tripping on some sort of chemical enhancement in an attempt to achieve nirvana, or an altered state of mind while leading the rhythms. There isn’t a specific order to the rhythm/dance, and the rest of the group reacts to beat and tempo changes made by the leader. I guess if you ask a leader what was played during the last performance there’s a good chance they won’t be able to tell you. What is impressive is how seamlessly the ensemble reacts to the tempo and rhythm changes and how athletic they all are. Susie and I were commenting that they really resembled some of the traditional dances done by Native Americans. Makes you wonder if the northeastern Asians weren’t at least partially responsible for populating North America way back in the day.

We stopped by Insa-dong, which is a traditional Korean street market filled with lots of native things. If you can guess what the next picture is, I’ll figure out a way to order you some online and get it to you. I’ll give you a hint: it was the one thing I saw in Korea that I refused to try. Answer at the end of the post.

After the market, and after regaining our appetite, we went to eat dinner at Sungwon’s parents’ house. Sungwon’s parents were incredibly generous and hospitable and helped facilitate an extremely wonderful time for us in Korea. We are very grateful to them. Gamsahamnida! Sugo hashyeoseumnida!

(In case you were wondering, the picture up above is earthworm stew. Yep, imagine how bad you think earthworm stew would smell. Then multiply that awful smell by about two thousand. I didn’t actually see anyone eating it, but the smell honestly turned my stomach.)

Korea Memories - Saturday, May 21st

Our third day in Korea was a busy one. Susie and Sungwon had conference activities to do, so I spent quite a bit of the day exploring Seoul on my own. Seoul public transportation is very intelligently set up. The subway system is easy to use, even if you don’t speak any Korean, and it’s very cheap.

The first place I visited was Nam-san. This is a small mountain right in the middle of the city. When Seoul was first settled, they chose the spot because they had mountains to the north and a river to the south. In fact, many Korean cities are situated in this same configuration. The mountains to the north help protect from invasion and block the cold winds during the winter. The river (or water) to the south is another form of protection and assists with travel and commerce. Now, the Han river runs east/west through the middle of the Seoul area since the city has expanded south so much. But just north of the river sits the small mountain of Nam-san, and on top of this mountain sits the Seoul Tower, sort of a mini version of the Seattle space needle.

I took the cable car to the top of the mountain, and it was great to see the city kind of unfold in front of me (looking north).
This is the Seoul Tower standing at the top of Nam-san.

This picture is looking south over the Han river. Unfortunately it was a pretty rainy/cloudy/foggy/hazy/smoggy day. The view was still pretty outstanding.

I sort of took this picture as a joke. Many times the English in Korea would be loosely translated, which would result in some humorous grammar at times. I figured I was in for a pretty cool bathroom if it was entitled PLAZA toilet and had it’s own dedicated elevator.

Well, the plaza bathroom turned out to have the best view while relieving oneself I’d ever seen.

After leaving Nam-san I headed for Deoksu-gung, a palace used back in the late 1500’s. There are a few large palaces right in the middle of Seoul, and the juxtaposition of this ancient architecture with a modern skyline backdrop is stark.

This picture is of the Deoksu-gung throne room. I was continually amazed at the attention to detail in the painting on the palaces and temples. The colors were beautiful and the craftsmanship was second to none. I’ll post some more close-up pictures in a later post. Not only was the painting impressive, but except for a few rafter beams, all of the palaces and temples were constructed sans nails. All the pieces were interlocking. Unbelievable.

After meeting up with Susie and Sungwon, we walked over to Gyeongbok-gung, which is probably the most impressive and largest palace in Seoul. The buildings, fence, residences, etc., were mostly the same, but they were just much bigger. Also, there was a beautifully manicured garden in the back part of the palace.

We finished up the day at a Japanese restaurant and then walked along the Cheonggyecheon stream in downtown Seoul. This was a waterway that was actually uncovered during some construction work. They turned it into a very nice waterway with walking trails and lights.

Whew. We did a lot that day. With that much walking I wasn’t having much of a problem falling asleep on the floor in the hotel room.

Korea Memories - Friday, May 20th

Day 2 started pretty early since our bodies didn’t know what was going on. Seoul is 14 hours ahead of Central Daylight Time, so it took a few days before we were quite right from a sleep perspective. We walked around a bit and sort of took in our surroundings. We were staying in the Nakseongdae area of Seoul, and there was a shrine in a park built to the General Gang Gamchan. He lived way back around the year 900 and the name Nakseongdae carries meaning. Nakseongdae means the place where the star fell to earth, and according to legend, where that star fell is where he was born. And that’s where they built the shrine. What I kept coming back to was the fact that as Americans, we really don’t have a long historical perspective compared to most of the rest of the world.

This is a pagoda that dates back to the time of Gang Gamchan. I was continually amazed to be around artifacts that were at times 1500+ years old.

That day for lunch I met up with some fellow Air Liquide employees in the Air Liquide Korea office in Seoul. It was very interesting to see where our experiences and practices line up and where they differ. For me, doing this at the outset of the trip was a great way to almost center myself and have a stake in the ground. It was reassuring to see that even though we were far from home and in a strange country, I had something in common with a number of Seoul residents. I even met a guy that had graduated from Mines a few years before I did. The world is truly small.

After lunch I met back up with Susie and Sungwon at the National Museum of Korea. You could probably spend 2-3 days in that museum and not see it all. The best part: it was all free. We focused on the three kingdoms historical artifacts. I won’t post all the pictures here, but I do want to point out a couple things I found interesting.

This is a pair of shoes for a warrior. They are made of bronze and have spikes on the bottom for traction. I bet Ty Cobb would have had a heyday with a pair of these.

This is the headgear for a warrior. Look at the piece in the middle. I can’t imagine wrapping that around my head. I couldn’t have been comfortable, but it sure had to beat taking a sword to the earhole.

This is a gold crown that is about 1000 years old if I remember right. Pretty ornate. And the gold is extremely thin, so it wasn’t heavy to wear.

This is a bronze incense burner and is one of Korea’s national treasures. It was made maybe in the 600s and is incredibly detailed. It’s hard to see the detail in the picture, but each of the bumps on the top half of the burner is a different figure or character formed out of the bronze.

The museum was showing a special exhibit on traditional Korean musical instruments, so it was interesting to see those. Here are pictures of a drum, a “bass guitar,” a “12 string acoustic guitar,” and scores of music from sometime in the 1500’s.

For dinner we went to a famous restaurant called Yangmani and had a very traditional Korean dish called tae chang. Most Koreans we talked to were surprised that we had even tried it. Depending on what I read, it’s either intestine or stomach from a cow. They marinate it, then bring it out and cook it on a grill set down in the table. It really had a pretty good flavor, but the consistency was just a little too rubbery for my taste. I wish I’d taken a picture of it…

Korea Memories - Thursday, May 19

“Despite our differences we’re all actually very similar.” Or is it “Despite our similarities we’re all actually very different?” I don’t know if my mind is more simple than I like to think it is, but this is the debate that’s been bouncing around in my head since I took 2 weeks off and traveled halfway around the world to Korea with Susie. Now we’re sitting on our double-digit hour easterly flight across the Pacific Ocean, and I’m not quite sure about it yet. I think I have an inkling, but I’d like to explore it together over the next few days/weeks/however long it takes to walk through our trip here. I know this blog is normally devoted to Cade and our family, but it was set up to help keep our family and friends up to date on our lives, so I’m pretty sure this fits the bill. So Cade, I hope you don’t mind the blog getting hijacked (maybe not the best word to be using on a plane?) for a bit so we can record a number of the thoughts and stories we experienced on the other side of the world. And hopefully in working through the memories of our trip I can solidify my position on the question I lead off with.

I plan on writing about this trip in “chapters,” with each installment describing one or two days. We took over 550 pictures and videos over the course of our trip, and I think most fall into one of three categories: breathtaking beauty or craftsmanship, information about something, or they have a funny or interesting story behind them. I don’t think I’ll have the space or time to post them all, but I’ll do the best I can. I'll probably post a higher volume of pictures on my Facebook page for all of my Facebook friends reading this. Korea is a remarkable country with a long, fascinating history and is filled with beautiful, generous, and kind people. Susie and I would highly recommend Korea for anyone looking to expand their horizon (in food, in pace of life, of history, and much more). We were fortunate to have one of Susie’s classmates, Sungwon, a Seoul native, to help us communicate and show us around.

So this post serves as the introduction to this series of posts, as well as the description of our outbound trip. I hope you appreciate the stories and pictures and don’t mind a small break from Cade-centered posts.

In exchange for not spending a relative fortune on our plane tickets, we took sort of a roundabout route to Seoul, having layovers in Toronto and Hong Kong. Both were quick transfers, so of all the things I was a little concerned about, the transfer in Hong Kong was what I was thinking about the most. Our flights were fine, but we got into Hong Kong too late for us to make our transfer to our flight to Seoul. What made this transfer a little more interesting is that we flew Air Canada to Hong Kong and then were supposed to switch to Korean Air for the final leg. Well, the service and detail in Hong Kong blew us away. I was prepared for a steep learning curve in order to try and figure out where our bag would go, where we should go, etc. But as we walked down the jet way we saw a woman holding a sign with our names on it. She worked for Air Canada and escorted us to the ticket transfer counter. Air Canada had already transferred our ticket to a Cathay Pacific flight that got us into Seoul only an hour or two later than anticipated, and was in the process of confirming that our bag had also made the transfer between the airlines. After the tickets and bags were processed and everyone had a warm fuzzy feeling our escort pointed us in the right direction of the gate and everything was great. Unbelievable. And I was glad, because one of the first signs I encountered with flight information looked like this:

Of course, it also cycled to English, but it just reinforced the fact that we weren’t in Kansas any more. The assistance was much appreciated. Thanks Air Canada! And that’s something we noticed Korea (and, apparently, Hong Kong): service companies don’t seem to every skimp on service personnel. At each hotel, airport, store, heck, even in the subway, there were always multiple people directing people, assisting people, helping people enjoy their time. It was a very pleasant surprise, especially compared to the belt tightening in America that has seemed to squeeze the customer service right out of existence.

With tickets in hand, we were able to relax in front of a beautiful view of the mountains of Hong Kong. Just that glimpse made Susie and I want to come back and visit HK.

Seoul is a city of over 10 million people. That’s just within the city proper. If you include the entire metro area, you’re looking at nearly 21 million people, the second largest metro area in the world. Susie and I have spent our fair share of time living in and traveling to large cities, but neither of us had experienced a city quite as expansive and massive as Seoul. During our nights in Seoul, we stayed in the HoAm faculty house at Seoul National University. Despite being in such a large city, we were treated to this view out of our balcony.

Korea is a very beautiful mountainous country, and Seoul is no exception. It is a very hilly city, and there are pockets of green in various sections of town. Seoul National University is in a newer area of town, so we had nice clean mountain breezes coming down on us and loved the chance to sleep with the windows open every night. Speaking of sleeping, this is what a typical traditional hotel room looks like in Korea:

Beds are typically a thin mattress on the floor with one blanket and a pillow. This allows you to fold your bed up and use the space more efficiently. In traditional houses it also maximizes the effect of their traditional heating and cooling systems (more on that in a later post). I’ll be honest. I didn’t sleep great every single night, and I’m looking forward to my own bed at home, but I definitely appreciated the spartan décor typically employed in Korea.

You’ll hear me reference the little differences a lot, but there are so many. This picture shows the Korean outlet next to the American-style outlet. Fortunately, this hotel had some that our plugs worked with. That was rare, but many places had adapters available.

Here’s another thing: pushing this button guarantees a call to your room within 1.8 seconds.

And it’s just inside the bathroom door, where you would expect a light switch to be. Which brings me to another little difference. Korean structure normally puts the light switch on the outside of a room, so you can turn on the light before you enter it. So shortly after arriving, Susie walked past the bathroom light switch on the outside of the bathroom, reached into the dark bathroom, felt around the wall for the switch, and pushed the button. No light, but the phone immediately rang. In her defense, there were light switches all over that half of the room, so I would probably have done the same thing. I apologized to the man on the phone who spoke broken English, and we wondered if the desk employees had some sort of over/under on how long it would take the white couple to hit that button on accident. We both nearly hit it a few other times during our stay, but we managed to catch ourselves.

Even though we were sleeping on the floor, we were both so zonked from our travel that we had no problems falling asleep, thus ending day 1.

Thoughts on Seoul, Day 1

I'm terrible at sleeping on an airplane. I'm not sure if that's fortunate or not, but by the time we got to Seoul a couple nights ago, it was 11 pm and I was ready to sleep. I think the fact that I was ready to sleep at nighttime has helped keep the jetlag somewhat at bay, but I'm still waking up before 6. Since we have a while before we have to be anywhere today, here's a sort of mind dump from our first full day yesterday.

Seoul is an amazing city. Sorry America, we think we're big, but we don't have a city in the top ten. Seoul puts even New York to shame. It's huge and it just keeps on going. But what's astounding is how clean it feels. I saw a number of what must have been city workers going around a sweeping up what little trash there was on the ground. Also, the people are very friendly and walking around feels very safe.

I'm still not used to the fact that we are in a definite minority. Not only that, but Susie and I stick out incredibly. I've yet to notice someone as tall as me, and you don't see much blond hair, so I feel like we're a little bit of a curiosity here. I've noticed some people blatantly staring at me in the subway. We went to the National Museum yesterday and there were a number of school groups there. Twice we had middle schoolers come up and ask us where we were from. One girl wanted her picture taken with us.

Being a big city, the traffic can be a little crazy, and I'm not merely referring tot he roads. One thing I find interesting is that motorcycles and scooters drive on the sidewalks here. So you have to kind of keep your head on a swivel even when you're walking around.

The public transportation system here is incredible. It's huge and ongoing, yet it's very easy to use. Even though we don't know much Korean, the signs are easy to follow and there's enough English to make transfers uneventful. I made quite a few transfers on my own yesterday and didn't get on any wrong trains, so that's doing ok, right? The buses are a little trickier since there's a lot less English on the bus signs and there are multiple types of buses, but we did alright there too. Another thing is that it's very cheap to use the public transportation. You could easily live here and not need a car.

I'm convinced that one would have to make an effort to be overweight in Seoul. Heavy people are just not the norm here. In America, you have to make the effort to find healthy foods that are fresh and not prepackaged with tons of preservatives. It's kind of the opposite in Seoul. Korean food is quite healthy for you, and very delicious as well, but since it's not loaded with starches and white flour and sugar, you don't feel bloated, even after a big meal. Now, after saying all that, not all of the food is what we'd eat in the US. Last night we had something that is pronounced dae chang (or tae chang, I'm not sure). It's either the stomach or intestine of a cow, and it's marinated in a lot of spices, then grilled at your table. Very interesting flavor, but kind of rubbery. But we didn't come to Korea to eat burgers and fries, so we're enjoying trying new things.

These are just a few of the many interesting cultural differences we've already noticed. I could go on about how interesting the National Museum was and how cool it was to see artifacts that were so OLD. But it's time to get ready for day 2! I don't have time to post pictures right now, but hopefully I can get some up in the next few days. Annyeong!

Spring Break

Well, this March marked Susie's final spring break as a student. Since she had just finished her dissertation draft she and Cade came along with me on my business trip to Charleston, SC. I know, it's a tough place to go on business, but someone has to. With all the traveling I do, it was so fun for me to have them come along with me one time. There's a big difference between coming back to an empty hotel room and coming back to your family.

I may have alluded to this in past posts, but Cade is a super independent kid. He rarely wants help, and usually gets cranked when you try to help him. He's very headstrong and wants to do it himself. Guess where this quality was put to good use? We had a small suitcase and he loved getting to pull it around just like daddy with his big suitcase. This killed two birds by alleviating the need to pull one suitcase and carry one child all at once. It had been a while since Cade had flown. We fly a lot less now that Cade's over two and we have to pay for his ticket as well. He had a blast seeing all the different airplanes. I'm becoming more and more of a Southwest guy as they continue to do such a better job of making the customer feel important than other airlines (a whole post in itself...or just follow me on Twitter for a month or two). In the Southwest wing of the Nashville airport they even have a large area like an indoor park for kids to play on. I'm not sure who's plane the pilot in the background was flying, but I have to say we were already questioning his decision making ability by his choice of nap location.

For the most part Cade was a very good boy when it came to sitting in his own seat and keeping his seat belt on. Sometimes it's hard for a two-year-old to sit still for so long, but we were very proud of him both heading out and coming back.

One day Susie and Cade went to the South Carolina Aquarium. What a great time they had. Here's a picture of Cade petting an alligator.

Getting ready for the 4D theater at the aquarium.

Just can't come up with a caption for this one. Trying to incorporate too little sleep, not enough coffee, turning the boat straight into the reef, and a lack of respect from the rest of the crew, but nothing's coming to mind. Anyone got anything?

One evening we took a carriage ride in downtown Charleston. It's really a very interesting city with a lot of history. We even heard an interesting story about the city's first elevator and the slightly fuller figured president Taft. Cade got a kick out of the mules that pulled us around (not literally, which is good of course).

Another evening we went to the beach on Isle of Palms. The water was pretty cold, so Cade kept busy by chasing the seagulls around. They wanted to stay close in case we had some food, but definitely didn't let Cade get too close.

So there was this small laptop board for keeping your laptop off your lap (to prevent burns). This board had a couple elastic bands on it to hold leaflets and the channel guide on it, but Cade found a different use for them....or maybe his daddy did. Either way, we had fun.

That Friday night when we got back we took Cade to his friend Emmie's second birthday party. It was held at a gymnastics gym, and it was the perfect venue for little kids to run around and jump in the foam pit and bounce on the trampolines. We were pretty amazed that he didn't cram a cupcake in his mouth before he was supposed to or anything like that.

Cade really is a big fan of birthdays. He sang the birthday song very well and very loud and made sure everyone around him knew who's birthday it was.

Can I brag on my wife for a minute? She had a kid a couple years ago and then had knee surgery last year. This year she's finishing her Ph.D. AND training for a half marathon. He she is finishing her first race in a number of years, a 10K here in Owensboro. She almost ran too fast for the camera and finished at a sub-8:30 pace, which is super amazing. Now if we can just get my ankle better I'm looking forward to trying to keep up with her. My goal is to run the half marathon in May with her.