World Flavor

I moved to Incheon on Friday, August 26th. We met our coteachers and afterwards mine (Mr. Kim) took me to drop my stuff at my apartment. I had time to meet my landlord and discover that my apartment was brand new and then I was whisked off to a cold noodle lunch and then an all-teacher’s meeting where I introduced myself in Korean… then my officemates Youngeun and Sunhwa drove me to HomePlus (basically WalMart) to get stuff for the place. I had to buy a lot because it was a new place.

But now I am fairly settled in and ready to show some pictures! My building is also new, it is named Labendium and is located next to a big highway (but the highway is raised so you can’t hear it). From my house I turn right, walk past a church, and then I’m at school.

My door has no key. There is a keypad and it is a number code to get in. It feels really weird to leave my house without a key. That’s gotten better ever since I got spare keys to Jeff’s place. Jeff lives approximately 3 blocks away so it’s very convenient.

I don’t have an oven, just one electric burner in the counter top.

My bathroom is one room. You may notice the shower head. You just shut the door, roll the toilet paper behind its protective covering, turn a knob on the sink faucet, and take your shower. Needless to say the floor is often wet. I have a pair of flip-flops dedicated to using the bathroom when the floor is wet.

I have also created a short video tour of my apartment. I will post this when I’m able to.

During orientation, on August 23rd, we had a field trip to Ganghwa Island (강화도). Ganghwa Island is technically part of Incheon (but located closer to Gimpo, where the national airport is) and is located just by the northwest tip of mainland South Korea. Here is a handy map for reference.

Image courtesy of Wikipedia. Ganghwa Island is in red.

As you can see, Ganghwa Island is pretty close to North Korea. There is a small channel between them (about 2 km wide). The first place we went was the Peace Observatory.

The Peace Observatory is on a hill next to the channel facing North Korea, so you can see North Korea from there. We also got a small talk about the history of the area and about the one city in North Korea with South Korean factories (Kaesong). Then we had time to look at North Korea. We also stopped in the gift shop but opted not to buy any NK money because it was incredibly expensive.

Next we were taken to lunch. Lunch was bibimbap, and it was quite good.

Following lunch we took a short walk to the Hwamunseok experience. Hwamunseok is a reed mat traditionally woven with nice designs. We were shown how to make it and proceeded to create a small one. We were doing it for about two hours and only created small, simple mats. It was interesting and I like having my little mat as a keepsake.

The next place we went was the Bugeun-ri Dolmen site, a pre-historic burial ground which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

We spent a little while looking around the various dolmen, and then moved on to the Goryeo Gungji Palace site. This was where in the Goryeo dynasty, the government resisted the Mongol Invasion for quite a while. The Goryeo were eventually defeated but a peace treaty was struck, so that Korea was never fully taken over. Many of the buildings on this site were burnt down by the French navy in 1866 during the Byeongin Yangyo Conflict.

After that the group found a small shop selling ice cream and we bought pretty much all of their ice cream. Then we took the bus back to Seoul. It was a good but long day.

• In Korea, you are said to be one year old when you are born and you gain a year at each lunar new year. That means that I am 24 and turning 25 soon! Which is great since I keep forgetting I’m not 24 anyway.
• Korea is a Confucian society. This means that hierarchy is extremely important – elders are treated with respect, always. This also means that it is not at all inappropriate to ask people their age (male or female) and you can expect to be asked your age frequently. It is just the way that people figure out how to talk to you appropriately. Other personal questions like marital status are fair game as well because they also help place you in the hierarchy.
• Physical touching between friends of the same gender is appropriate and common here. You will see a lot of women walking around holding hands. There is no connotation of homosexuality; people are simply able to touch more.

That’s all for now; I wrote more but I lost it so I’ll think of more later.