I'm all over Korea like egg on bibimbap

The Korea blog has officially started operations! I'd like to say hi to my family, Harvard homies, Washington, D.C.-area peeps, Brooklinians, and anyone else I've met in my travels through life who has stumbled across this blog. I will be here until September 3rd, so hopefully there'll be interesting things to read about along the way.


I've officially been in the Motherland for over a day now - it's 9:45pm on the 20th and I got here around 5pm yesterday (after leaving Boston at 8am on the 18th). I got off the plane and collected my heavy but super stylin' luggage, then met my "PEACE buddy" Hyun-jin outside baggage claim. Hyun-jin is pretty, petite, and super fluent in English, which is awesome. We took a bus to Ewha University in Seoul and found out that I'm staying in this dorm at the other side of campus from the International Dorm (of Pancakes?), which is kind of lame. The Ewha campus is extremely hilly and all the girls wear high heels ... this must violate some law of physics. My room is small but adequate and I have a nice roommate named Michelle who goes to Smith. I went out to dinner at this small noodle place with Hyun-jin and then barely had time to take a shower and settle in before I was overcome with jetlag (or ennui from being such a world-class traveler? who knows.). Today about 35 of us in the Ewha International Summer Co-Ed Program set off in a bus and with some guides on a "pre-orientation" field trip. We walked around a Buddhist temple named Haeinsa and a museum featuring artifacts from the Daekaya dynasty/kingdom and had some delicious food: the infamous bibimbap and shabu-shabu (Korean hot pot). Then we walked around the commercial center of Daegu, the third-largest city in South Korea, and now we're at a hotel.


Seoul and Daegu are cool but kind of smelly. Seoul in particular is sort of a cross between midtown Manhattan, Boston, and Singapore. Also the ceilings everywhere are like 6.5' high, and the toilets, while Western-style, only come up to my knees. I feel so tall!

This hotel, the Daegu Grand, is freakin amazing. The breakfast buffet not only had all the traditional American breakfast delights plus kimchi and various kinds of porridge, but also smoked salmon and black caviar. The caviar in particular was delicious. I wish I had a sturgeon farm so I could have my own supply. The buffet area had ceiling-high windows that looked out onto a beautiful little waterfall that was probably 3 feet away from the side of the building. Zak, you would've liked the minibar in the room - two kinds of whiskey plus a can (yes, a can) of beef jerky.

Speaking of waterfalls, this country is gorgeous. The upstart hills and rocky streams may not be wheelchair-friendly, but they certainly make for amazing vistas. I think I'm in love. I'll post pictures once I'm back at Ewha and figure out how to get online via my laptop.

I have only seen one television in this country so far that wasn't a state-of-the-art flat panel high-def. Even the public buses have them. I am in awe.

Most of the others in the summer program are a) girls, and b) ethnically Korean but grew up in the States/Canada. Why are we all here? What are we collectively searching for? I don't think it's as simple as a place to belong or a new language to speak. I'll think about it and get back to you all.