From Jeju to Uppsala: A Junior Year Abroad

A very rough summary of my last semester at Uppsala

2013-07-08T02:53:00.001-07:00

Sooo... are you guys still there? I am still alive in case you were wondering. My plan to update my blog every week has failed miserably. My excuse is that when you are studying abroad it is a lot harder to find motivation to write a blog. Because you are actually living in a place. Despite it being new and exciting at the start the motivation and inspiration dies down just as the initial excitement died down. Writing a blog about being abroad started to feel more like writing a blog about just living, a concept I am not entirely familiar or comfortable with. Nevertheless I am going to try to write a recap of my semester in this post. I will probably glance over details and feelings that came up during the moment but I think it will be good for me to write down as much as I can while I am still in Sweden and the memories are relatively fresh.

My second semester experience was dominated pretty much entirely by working as a “klubbvärd” or “jubileumsklubbvärd” because it is the the 350th anniversary of Kalmar and saying jubileumsklubbvärd makes me feel all european and exotic. The position of klubbvärd (in english club worker) means that you are in charge of the pub on certain nights. Every night there are two klubbvärds one who works in the bar and whose duties include; prepping the bar, counting the money, taking food orders, mixing drinks, dealing with drunks and training new people to work at the bar. And one who works in the kitchen, this position is slightly more hectic as you mange 4-6 temporary student workers of various levels of experience and motivation, you also had to make sure all the orders were going out in a timely manner, train new workers, keep records of hygiene, keep things clean and whenever there was a problem with an order you were responsible to fix it. You also have to make the kitchen somewhat fun. The pay for working a full night which usually lasts from 4PM to 1AM comes out to be 84 SEK after taxes, which is a whopping $12.57. For reference a meal at McDonalds or Burger King will run you 62 SEK and the cheapest beer at Kalmar is 28 SEK a pint. Clearly most people working are not doing it for monetary reasons, so we have to provide a fun environment so people will want to come back. Honestly it is a tough sell “come and work for ten hours setting up a pub, doing dishes and then cleaning that pub, no seriously guys it is fun!”

When I was a temporary employee, or a resource as we call them, I worked exclusively in the kitchen. This was mostly due to my fear of having to learn how to pour drinks, use a Swedish cash register and count all while customers stared at me. Also because I found the kitchen to be a more social place. During my first semester I slowly grew to prominence as a leader among the resources in the art of hamburger creation. So I had a pretty good idea of how the kitchen operated. That still didn’t prepare me for my first day being a club worker in the kitchen. Working as an employee and working as a manager has two completely different mindsets. When you're working as an employee you simply focus on the job that you are doing and you make sure that you do it right. You only need minimal awareness of what everyone else is doing. But when you are a manager you have to know what everyone is doing and have a rough idea of what everyone should do next as well as delegating some tasks that you yourself have to do. The abrupt transition from the two ways of thinking is quite hard. On my first day as a club worker I was shadowed by a former club worker who I could ask questions to but wouldn’t explicitly guide me. I was the one in charge. To make things more fun the beginning of the semester is not only the time when new club workers start working it is also the time that new students who want to work at the nations decide to try something new. This meant that in addition to telling people what to do you had to explain how they had to do them. This was slightly difficult especially when I didn’t know how to do what I was explaining. At this point I realized how much of being an authority figure is just pretending you know what you are doing. Learning how to work the bar was a daunting task for me. Like I said earlier I didn’t ever work the bar as a resource. I decided it would be best to just jump in the deep end and pick the first open mic night (Spela) to do my first bar club working shift. For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to go to a friends party the night before “just to check it out” so naturally I ended up going to bed at 5 am and waking up feeling a bit “tired”. Working Spela was hell. I didn’t know where any beers were, kept messing up the register and I am pretty sure I regularly shorted people about 20 SEK each transaction. On top of that the ventilation system in the kitchen decided to go out so the fire alarm went off... twice. This meant I had to refund all the orders for burgers which meant a lot of angry customers demanding food. It was easily the worst night I ever had working at Kalmar. Which was kind of a nice groundwork to lay the semester on. No matter how bad a night went it couldn’t be worse than my first bartending shift.

Despite the difficulty of the first few nights I fell in love with working at Kalmar. In the beginning of the semester I gladly filled in for different shifts and took up extra work just because I enjoyed it so much. Working gave me a sense of community along with a sense of accomplishment. It was a sense of community and belonging that I really have never had before this experience. In high school and my first two years of college I didn’t put myself out there simply because I presumed that I wouldn’t like the groups available to me. That mindset lead to a lack of community and I that void had a negative influence on my wellbeing. At Kalmar I got that community that I so craved in insane amounts, and I think during those first months I just wanted to lap up as much of it as I could. Even on nights off I would stop by the kitchen to say hello or go to the pub for a beer. Anytime I wanted to see a friendly face I could dip by Kalmar. It was like Cheers. I actually have no idea if it was like Cheers I have only heard the theme song, but it is what I imagine Cheers to be like.

Working at Kalmar also gave me the ability to really experience the traditional Uppsala student life. I was able to go to a number of gasques (formal dinners) where I could mumble along to the Swedish drinking songs and try to remember how to toast right. The gasques were fun the first few times but could get dull quick. Sitting through multiple speeches in language you don’t understand isn’t the most stimulating thing. But nevertheless they were still amazingly fun and interesting. There was always a point, usually towards the end of the night when we all were locking arms and swaying back and singing a song to commemorate the after drink where I would start laughing at how surreal it felt. A year ago I didn’t expect to be wearing a tail coat eating a formal dinner while singing about snaps. It is pretty much the opposite of what I did at Sonoma.

The pub closed for the summer on June 1st. I worked the last pub night, it was a nice feeling to have a little closure, but the truth was during the last month of club working I had started to get burnt out. Working one or two nights a week takes a toll on your psyche. Especially when the sun is out until 10 PM and it is warm spring weather and everyone is outside having barbecues. The first week of June was incredibly hectic. I spent most of my time preparing for the staff party, saying goodbye to friends, moving out of my apartment and into my girlfriends and preparing to go to London. Oh and the paper I had to have done by the seventh. It was a stressful but rewarding week, and finally being done with having any responsibility was liberating.

The last year have been by far the most meaningful and constructive time period of my life. I have become more confident, more open and overall more comfortable with myself. I hate stating things like that because it makes me sound like I am on the CSU International Program pamphlet, but it is completely true. It has helped me figure out who and what brings me happiness and what or who brings me unhappiness. At this time last year I felt like like an amorphous blob. The components were there but I had not really been able to develop them into something solid. Now I feel more defined. And I know myself better.

Right now I am writing this from Prague. I decided I needed to do some actual traveling while I was in Europe and took advantage of the fact that my brother Tommy was planning to live in Berlin for a few months. We decided to take a trip where we bought the outward tickets on a certain date and sort of figure out how to get to where our plane departs. We decided on Split, Crotia. So right now we are in the process of getting there. Our rough plan is to go Berlin-Prague-Krakow-Budapest-Belgrade-Sarjevo-Split. I thought that this would be an interesting area to explore because I don’t really know what it is like in most of these cities. I find it more interesting then doing more of western Europe. I will try to do a write up on Berlin and Prague on the way to Krakow so I can finally (somewhat) catch this blog up.

Working a Gasque on New Year’s Eve

2013-01-02T06:29:00.001-08:00

Updates on Working at Kalmar

So I have been working at Kalmar Nation a lot this semester, probably about once or twice a week since October. It has been awesome. I mostly work in the kitchen where I have become an efficient burger grilling machine. I mostly work because of the social aspect. Working at a nation is a great way to meet new people and eat free food. It is also the only way that I managed to meet any Swedish people. It seems like it is a common problem with studying abroad is that exchange students are usually isolated socially from the native student population. On top of that Swedes tend to be quiet people who keep to themselves. The nations break down these barriers. I think that pretty much all of the Swedes that I know I have met through working at Kalmar.

As the first semester was drawing to a close I was encouraged to apply for a position in the pub called “klubbvärd” or club worker. These are the workers who manage and run the day to day operations of the pub and kitchen; they were the ones who would tell me what to do when I was frying fifty burgers. I decided to apply for one of the positions next semester because I really enjoy working and working as a club worker is one of the best ways for someone who doesn't speak Swedish to get involved in a nation. There will be nine other club workers that I will work with next semester. What is interesting is that of the ten club workers only three of them are Swedish. The other seven are from Estonia, Germany, France, Bangladesh, Australia, The Åland Islands and of course The United States. It is pretty amazing to have such an international workforce, especially with this year being the 350th anniversary of Kalmar Nation. I don’t think the founders would have thought that in 350 years their pub would be run by mostly non-Swedes. I am really excited for the next semester despite the amount of work I will have to put in I think it will be a unique experience.

Working the New Year's Eve Gasque

Anyways on to New Year’s Eve. I decided to work on New Year’s Eve because I usually don’t enjoy going to New Year’s Eve parties they are usually overhyped and anti-climactic. I wanted to make my only New Year’s Eve in Sweden more memorable than drinking excessively in Flogsta and lighting off fireworks. I figured working was the polar opposite of what I usually do so I volunteered to work at the Kalmar New Year’s Eve gasque. A gasque is a Swedish student tradition. Basically it is a formal dinner where you sit down for a three course meal sing songs in Swedish and slowly get drunk off of Swedish schnapps. You can read a more detailed explanation of a gasque here.This was my first time working at a gasque, it was also my first time being at a real gasque. I went to the international gasque in October, but that didn’t really count. It was all in English and none of the internationals knew the procedure, the vibe was all off. So I was excited, it was my both my first time working at a gasque, being at a real gasque, and the gasque was to count down to the 350th anniversary of Kalmar.

The work was pretty standard. We set the tables which was harder than you would think because the setup had about six glasses and eight utensils along with napkins, songbooks and decorations. This made the table space extremely limited but it worked out fine. Once the guests actually arrived we brought them food, water and wine at set intervals. Everything was scheduled. That lead to a fair amount of downtime in between brining out food. During this time we would sit in the kitchen and twiddle our thumbs or ate delicious left over food. Since I usually eat noodles eating well marinated lamb was a welcome change. Towards the end of the dinner it is traditional for the guests to sing the kitchen staff a song of which we sing the last line and toast back. The line was in Swedish so I do what I always do whenever I have to sing in Swedish; I provide melodic humming in order to create a truly harmonious song. It is pretty bizarre experience having one hundred and fourteen people drunkenly sing to you. I didn't really know where to look or what to do. After the song we had to hurry to the entrance hall and fill glasses of champagne for our guests we had fifteen minutes to set up the tables and fill the glasses. We pulled through with time to spare.

The guests were ushered outside to the courtyard in order to bring in the New Year and the wait staff began the long task of cleaning the ridiculous number of dishes that we had laid out earlier that night. But at eleven fifty five we took a break to grab a glass of champagne and went out to the courtyard to countdown to 2013. The countdown was definitely the coolest New Year’s Eve countdown I have ever experienced. Everyone was dressed formally in the courtyard. Atop the steps of Kalmar a top official dressed in a tuxedo adorned with a medal which signified his position in the nation was addressing to the guests of the gasque. He was passionately speaking, yelling to have his voice heard while gesturing madly with his hands. As it drew closer to midnight fireworks began erupting all around us. There is no coordinated fireworks show in Uppsala, rather anyone who wants can purchase fireworks and shoot them off. This is Sweden everything is permanently wet anything that is outside will never catch on fire. Because it is uncoordinated this gives the fireworks a random chaotic feeling. We were surrounded by the pops of fireworks. This coupled with the speech and the suits made me feel like I was in the eve some sort revolution from the 1870s. I was waiting for hoards of the working class to come and destroy the bourgeois feast of excess that had just taken place. Of course this didn't happen and I was forced to pick up dishes rather than participate in a workers revolution.

We finished cleaning the dining hall at about one thirty in the morning. This meant that we could go downstairs and participate in the last hour and a half of celebrations. So I changed out of my work shirt and into my t-shirt and went down to the pub to celebrate the New Year in a wonderfully under-dressed fashion. It was a nice party afterwards. Since most of the people at the gasque were involved with Kalmar I probably knew about thirty percent of them. Overall I had a great time. It was definitely the most unique New Year’s Eve I have ever had and it was definitely my favorite New Year’s Eve.

Courses and Erasmus Students

2012-11-15T10:20:00.002-08:00

So for the past month I have been slowly getting used to living here. I am past the phase where everything I do is new and exciting. Meeting people from all over the world has grown to be the norm. I am no longer captured by the seemingly magical aurora that I was encapsulated with during the first months. To a certain extent it reminds me of how I felt during this time my first and second year of college. The newness and excitement of living somewhere new eventually fades. This change slightly killed my drive to write new blog posts because for me I feel like I am writing about the mundane, to get inspiration I have to look to myself on August 13^th who had really no idea what I was getting myself into. So what I am going to do is have a number of posts talking the different aspects of living as an international student in Uppsala to show you what my life is like here as well as reminding myself how different my life has been the last three months.

Courses

I’ll start with what is the “most important” part of studying abroad, the schooling. All of my classes here are taught in English and are specifically for international students. The courses are taught in a sort of block schedule. You take one course for four weeks and then you take another. My first course was “Swedish History”, an incredibly broad introductory course about the history of Sweden with each lecture covering an era of Swedish history. Our only assignment was to write a comparative essay comparing an element of Swedish history with an element of your home nation’s history. This meant that the only lectures that matter to me were the last two. The course was headed by a bearded Swedish professor with rounded turtle shell glasses who clearly had a fondness for nicotine. He looks exactly like I imagined Swedish professor to look. The entire course felt like it was a Frankenstein course, made up of lectures from more specific courses. It was hard to stay focused when I knew everything from the year 0 to at least the 1600s was entirely useless knowledge for the one paper that we had to turn in. The European university system seems to rely on the assumption that students are self-driven and requires much more reading to actually learn the material. Because of this reason a lot of European students are used to never going to class because it is much less necessary. Also they don’t pay for their education. But in Uppsala many of the courses require attendance. Most likely because if they didn’t nobody would go to class.

Throughout the semester I have been taking basic Swedish. My professor is a kind short kind older woman named Åsa. She is adorable when you see her you just want to give her a hug. I have never really taken a foreign language. I took German for one semester freshmen year of high school but promptly failed because it was right after lunch and I much preferred sleeping then speaking auf deutsch. I do still remember how to say ich bin hungrig, which has proved to be invaluable. The pronunciation of Swedish is incredibly difficult to get correctly; they have a number of extra vowels which to my untrained ear sound exactly the same. It is hard to get motivation to learn the language when I have only met two Swedes who do not speak English in the last three months I have been here. Most Swedes speak perfect English with little to no accent. I am going to try to improve my Swedish while I am here though, I don’t want to go back to California after being in Sweden for 10 months knowing only how to introduce myself.

Erasmus Students

The Erasmus (EuRopean Community Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) is a program in the EU designed to integrate Europe by giving funding to young students to study abroad for a semester or a year. The idea is to create a more unified European populace one which understands and accepts the cultural differences of other countries in the European Union. However education takes a back seat for many Erasmus students, credits don’t transfer over to their home universities so for many their main goal is to do well enough in order to receive their funding. So they focus more on “understanding cultural differences with their European brethren”, which boils down to getting drunk and making fun of each other’s cultures. I remember during our study abroad orientation one of the points that IP tried to hammer in is the idea that Europeans only drink “socially” and that they don’t binge drink. This notion is not rooted in any sort of reality as far as I can tell. They might hide it better, but they still drink to get drunk. Of course the Europeans that I have met are all twenty year old students who are living away from home for the first time and only staying abroad for a few months, so that might bias my perceptions.

One of the common topics during the nights of cultural understanding is World War II. Somehow the conversation inevitably leads to World War II, usually after talking about the Eurozone Crisis. The Germans are usually stuck saying nothing while everyone else pokes fun at them. I usually pipe up with uncharacteristic patriotism about how America saved Europe. To older readers this might seem bizarre that the youth of Europe joke about World War II, but for so many it is a long passed event. It was their grandparents and great grandparents that fought. It is partially a generational thing. My Polish corridor mate told me that if her grandfather knew that one of her good friends in Uppsala was German that he would roll over in his grave. For some people the Erasmus program may seem a bit wasteful. Why should the state give money to send students abroad to socialize? It is simple really; if you know somebody from another country you are less likely to have prejudice against the country as a whole. It is taking away the toxic notion of nationalism, which is creeping up even more during this time of uncertainty for the EU.

For the next post

I am sorry for the lack of updates. Like I said I have gotten used to things that I will look back on as being incredible. I’ll post more photos when I do worth wild things. The main thing that I have been doing is working more at Kalmar Nation. It is a wonderful community and I always come home with free food. Last night I got about a kilo of bacon. I will also talk more about various aspects of living here in Sweden, things like going to the grocery store and the Swedish tax code and of course the actual Swedes.

Working at Kalmar Nation

2012-10-08T08:26:00.000-07:00

Working at Kalmar Nation So I signed up for a shift at Kalmar Nation a few weeks ago. My job was to be the doorman and check IDs during an open mic night. I was stoked for this because I knew it would be a relatively easy job and it would be a good way to ease into working. Also because I love power. Checking IDs at the Nations is not as simple as making sure that the person is of age. I also have to check if the person has a “Nation’s Card” which shows that the person paid their dues and can have access to the nations. So I had to check if the names matched, if the person was of age and which nation the person was a member of. I then had to make note of if the person came from Kalmar Nation or a different nation. I figured this would be a pretty simple task. At 6PM the flood gates opened and it was go time. The problem is that in the beginning of night, when you don’t have the hang of checking the multitude of different IDs from different places is the time when most people arrive. I pretty much had a massive flow of people from 6 PM until 9 PM. There were a number of groups dressed in bizarre costumes taking part in pub crawls. Eventually the pub was too crowded and I was told that I had to start making people queue up and wait to get in. It was a pretty interesting experience, but also incredibly stressful because I couldn't leave the door to ask questions so I sort of just had to go with my gut. I only had a short shift though so once 1030 rolled around I was free to leave which I did because although it was a short shift it was an exhausting one. Despite the stress I enjoyed my experience, it was nice to meet people do something constructive during the night and to get free food and some extra spending money.

I signed up for another shift on the Saturday after my first shift, this time a much longer one. It is nice because if anyone flakes on their scheduled shifts people just post on the Facebook group that they need a replacement. If I don’t have plans for that night I can just sign up. This time I worked in the kitchen for the full night from 4PM to around 2AM. I made salad, washed dishes and checked the door. This night was much calmer even though there was a live band playing. I liked working in the kitchen more because it was less isolating, I met a bunch of people and had a great time. Everyone who works at Kalmar is aggressively friendly. For some reason we started listening to the soundtrack to Jesus Christ Superstar. This was another moment of my life that I did not foresee happening. These types of moments happened continuously over the past six months. Which is nice. Another benefit of working in the kitchen is that you can make your own burgers exactly how you like them. This means more cheese and more bacon. A lot more bacon. I still have my payment on reserve though because I need to go to the Tax Authority to get my tax number. I will also probably have to go back to the migration office because they messed up on my residency card. Now someone named “Jospeh Noonan” is a temporary resident of Sweden. Oh yippee.

Here is a list of question I generally get asked when people find out I am from America

2012-09-26T03:59:00.003-07:00

Do you own a gun?

No I don’t and I only know a handful of people who do.

Wait, so you’re old enough to own a gun and drive a car but you can’t drink?

Yep, got my license at 16. Now I see 16 year olds driving and it terrifies me.

Do you believe in evolution?

Yes, again I know very few people who don’t.

Why is your political system so weird?

Do you have three hours?

Have you seen snow before?

We have mountains.

Oh you must not be used to rain it always sunny in California right?

What the hell is rain?

Do you surf?

Only when I need to go to school.

There are a ton more questions that I get asked but I can't really remember them all. I always try to explain the vast size and diversity of America. Cultures very from state to state and America is geographically massive. I always tell people that I am from California rather than saying America partly because I generally get more positive reaction from people but also it is just more accurate. My experiences growing up in California are vastly different then people who grew up in the mid-west or the south.

Because America is so prominent in exporting media and because the only domestic news from America that reaches Europe is generally an embarrassing controversy. So people watch TV shows like "How I Met Your Mother" and hear things like Todd Akin's statement about "legitimate rape". But this isn't really a good representation of America. It has been a fun and enlightening experience talking to non-Americans about the American way of life. It really illustrates the differences between how different countries and cultures operate. It is much harder to examine your own culture when you have not been exposed to others. I think this perspective will be one of the greatest things I will gain from studying in Sweden.

Random photos of the city of Uppsala, Clouds from Flogsta, Ekoin Lake and Gamla Uppsala

2012-09-20T04:10:00.002-07:00

Here is a sampling of some of the other photos I have taken in the last few weeks.

Gloomy Uppsala

The Fyris River on a cloudy day.

Clouds from Flogsta

The clouds in Uppsala are much more intense than in California. It is awesome.

Grilling at Ekoin

On our way to Ekoin lake to grill up some burgers

Trying to figure out the where we are going.

Houses right next to the lake. It would be awesome having your front garden be a lake.

On the way to the beach

Rules

The view from the beach

View from the dock of the beach

Elias and Benni wait patiently for the burgers to cook. Benni jumped in the water and immediately jumped out.

Gamla Uppsala

Burial mounds in the distance

This building was right next to the church. I don't know exactly what it is but it looks super Scandinavian.

Uppsala's Classrooms and Nations

2012-09-14T08:36:00.003-07:00

School started last week. I was getting sick of the structureless lifestyle of exploring the area of Uppsala and meeting new people. I am glad that this is the main problem that I have had in Sweden. The classes in Uppsala are scheduled differently then back in America. Rather than taking four or five course congruently the courses in Uppsala are taken one at a time, with each course lasting about five weeks. My first course is Swedish History which meets twice a week and is only graded on two assignments. The class is very basic and each lecture covers an era of Swedish history. My assignment is to write a thirteen page paper comparing and contrasting an element from my home countries history with an element from Swedish history. So basically this limits me to the last three lectures. I can’t really compare the Christianization of the Vikings with anything from American history, unless I want to get really “creative”.

Okay so that gave me four hours of lectures I had to attend last week. Not exactly the most structured class schedule but that’s okay. I spent a few days figuring out the library and finding my book for the course. I really took for granted how much I relied on the ability to read to figure things out. Even though most everyone here speaks English everything is still in Swedish. This makes things like trying to find a book or figuring out directions somewhat challenging. Unlike Korea where everything was in a completely different script and in a language that bore no resemblance to English I can figure out what some words are in Swedish. For example history is “historia” and library is “bibliotek”. But it can be very frustrating when everything is in Swedish. It makes doing the mundane much more of a chore. The worst is laundry. The laundry machines are in Swedish from this I have learned that “torrt” means dry, but it confuses me why my clothes have not come out dry even when I chose “extra torrt”. Seriously someone should make a website which sole purpose is to translate washing machine instructions into a variety of language. But I am rambling mostly because I have to do my laundry after this.

To combat my lack of things to do I decided to join a nation. I didn’t really decide actually it is pretty much expected that students join a nation as they are the center of all social activities. A nation is essentially a student social society that is run by and for students. There are thirteen of them at Uppsala each being named after a region of Sweden. Traditionally students join the nations of their home regions but seeing as they do not have an East Bay nation I am free to choose whichever nation I like. When I first read about the nations I figured that they would be like Hogwarts houses with one being obviously evil and the others being obviously good. Also I thought we would dual with magic. But I also thought I would be riding a reindeer to class while receiving free healthcare by beautiful blonde people so my expectations of Uppsala were marred in obvious fantasy. In actuality the nations are all very similar and if you are a member of one nation you can go to most of the events put on by other nations. So even if you are a member of Göteborgs Nation which has about 500 members and rarely puts on events, you can still go to the club night at Norrlands Nation which has about 7,500 members. Of course if you join Norrlands you will get a discount on the club night that you wouldn’t get if you were a member of Göteborgs.

I decided to join Kalmar Nation for a variety of reasons. Primarily because I could pronounce the name. Seriously try to pronounce Gästrike-Hälsinge. I actually chose Kalmar because of its size and the general vibe of friendliness I got from the times I went there. There are only about 1,400 members of Kalmar making it one of the smallest four nations. I like this size though because it is big enough to have a diverse group of students and activities but not too large and overwhelming. I am excited to get more involved in the groups that Kalmar has to offer. I also hope to start working there semi-frequently. The pub is completely student run with only a few full time employees. The pay is awful. Like slave wages awful. You get about 150 SEK (23 USD) for 10 hours of work. But you also get free food and get to meet new people. From what I have heard it is really a blast. It is hard work but it pays off. Just not monetarily.

More updates to come.

My Living Area in Flogsta

2012-08-31T05:19:00.001-07:00

So I figured I would post some of the photos of the area where I am living for the year. I am living in a corridor which has twelve rooms, one of them is always unoccupied but a German man keeps paying the rent. There are a bunch of little weird things like that in Flogsta. But I digress. So far we have about eight people living here, with four of them being international students. None of the international students come from the same country. We have a Polish student who grew up in France, a German student and a student from Mozambique who has never seen snow, and of course me from 'Merica. It sounds like a wacky sitcom that Fox would put out for two episodes before promptly being cancelled.

My barren room that makes me feel like I am living in a meth den

View from my desk. The windows swing open so I can't really open the main window.

My bed and awkwardly placed chair that serves as a night stand

My book shelf with no books to fill it.

The kitchen. Flogsta kitchens tend to get dirty because of the sheer number of people who live and eat in them. Mine has been clean so far.

It is nice to sit in the morning and drink tea in the dining area. The rain makes the air oh so fresh.

The common room where I can watch six channels which are all in Swedish.

My corridor is decorated in Swedish versions of American movie posters. It is really funny to see taglines and sometimes titles translated into Swedish.

View from the balcony. Bikes on bikes.

This is August in Sweden.

Looking down the corridor.

Culture on the Rooftops

2012-08-30T04:51:00.002-07:00

I had my first real interaction with Swedish students the last few days. Obviously it has been the political science department that is apparently bringing the party. Yesterday we spotted them when we were barbequing near the ekonomikum. All of the students were wearing costumes ranging from the 1960s Soviet uniforms to Robin Hood. Oh and they were practicing some sort of choreographed dance routine. The German and Californian delegation obviously wanted to go and check out the festivities and integrate into the native Swedish culture so that is what we did. We hopped up on to the outskirts of tribal dance circle in attempt to integrate. We were slightly weary that the dancers were all part of some sort of Swedish cult and that we would soon be drinking Kool Aid to take us to our alien fathers. We all agreed it would be best not to drink anything the costume wearing swedes brought us. They were teaching everyone the dance moves to a Swedish dance song. I didn’t understand a word of the instructions about how to dance but as I learned in Korea dancing is something that you don’t need language to explain. This was the second time in as many months that I was in a foreign country trying to learn their synchronized dance moves I should probably keep this trend up and hit the Serbian Turbofolk clubs in November.

It turns out that the students were dressed that way and dancing because it was part of their university orientation called nollning. When we left the dance circle we figured it would be the last we would see of the costume wearing dancing Swedes… but we were wrong. The next night when we were coming back from an International Orientation Barbeque we heard music and saw lights coming from Flogsta building nine. Spinning LED lights and loud music universally attracts students like cats to canned tuna. When we got to the roof we were greeted again by the costume wearing Swedes dancing on the roof. As we are standing around observing the odd visual spectacle in front of us a couple of costumed Swedes a group of the participants came up and promptly said in perfect English “Oh you are exchange students right?” I first surprised that they could recognize us as foreigners so quickly. Then I realized it was because we were not dressed up as refuges from World War II or whatever the ecliptic theme of the night was.

It was very interesting to converse with the Swedes. My experiences with the Swedish people had at that point been mostly in passing. Whenever I would ask a question I would get a very detailed answer. The interactions were very polite but very businesslike. For some reason on the rooftop of the student dormitory the Swedish students were much friendlier. Some may point to the cartons of wine that they were all drinking like water. But I prefer to believe their friendliness came from excitement of international education.

Pretty much everyone asked me why I chose Sweden. I think they were kind of shocked when I said I wanted to go to a place where nobody made small talk and it snowed during winter. They were very modest about their country, almost to the point where it seemed they did not like or that they were not proud of Sweden. The few that I talked to also would apologize for talking too much or anytime they would stumble over a word or two. I think this was a display of The Law of Jante, which is the social idea that discourages being boastful, self-absorbed or cocky. This has a result of people being scared to have any modest pride about achievements. It is the complete opposite of the American cultural philosophy which encourages uniqueness and to stand out of the crowd. But then this has the extreme effect of the cocky arrogant American.

One of the students on the roof actually studied at Santa Barbra City College. Obviously she had a great time. She did say that she found the classes to be easy and most of the students not interested in learning but much more interested in how drunk or high they were the night before. That she found that there is much less of an interest in things outside of intoxication and socializing. I tried to explain how Santa Barbra City College is not a very representative sample of all American university students but she does have a point. When I am here socializing with the International Students I can have a forty minute long discussion on the Eurozone crisis and discuss the American political system in great detail. If I tried that at a party in Sonoma I would get blank stares and then everyone would go back to chugging Jack Daniels. But then again my experiences here have been mostly with International Students who have an interest in going abroad and learning about the world so it would be a silly generalization to say that all European university students are much more interested in the world compared to American students.

Ignoring any comparisons about cultural differences my last week and a half here has been a blur of meeting new people and doing new things. I have met people from all over the world and it is incredibly fun just asking questions about their culture and where they are from. Most of the international students who study at Uppsala actually chose Sweden so they could practice their English. This means that all of the international students speak English and makes communication a breeze. I sometimes forget I am not with native speakers and get blank stares when I say things like “I am hella down”. I also have started to speak slightly differently when I talk to non-natives. I don’t dumb down what I am saying but rather try to talk in a more formal way, clearer and less “jumpy”. It is good for me because I tend to speak quickly, slur my words jump around to multiple tangents of a conversation. Being the native speaker also has its perks, it is fun to try and figure out a word when someone has forgotten a word. It is almost like a game of charades.

I will post more pictures of Uppsala and the different places I have been going soon. It has been a blur of fun and it is hard to find the time to write updates.

Moving to Flogsta

2012-08-25T07:47:00.002-07:00

After a night in my cell it was time to move to Flogsta, my new home for the year. But first I had to eat breakfast. The breakfast from Centralstation Vandrarhem Uppsala cost 60 SEK but I really needed the convenience. It was very similar style to the complimentary breakfast at hotels in America. The only thing different was that everything was in Swedish. That really didn’t matter for things like orange juice or cereal I could pretty much guess by the pictures. The real problem is the dairy products. There were like six different milk containers and I had no idea which was which. So in my jet lagged haze I grabbed the nearest one and poured it on my cereal. What came out was a thick yogurt like paste which I think is just plain yogurt but I couldn’t be completely sure. I ate it anyways and spent the next twenty minutes watching people prepare their food in attempt to try and figure out the proper way to eat breakfast in Sweden. After breakfast I took some time to walk around the downtown area of Uppsala. I was still in a haze from the plane ride and didn't quite soak up what I was seeing but I did manage to take a number of photos.

Uppsala Cathedral it is a major landmark in the city skyline. Which makes it hard to lose your orientation. There were a bunch of Russian tourists checking out the cathedral when I walked by.

This is Uppsala University's library. A bit different from SSUs

The Fyris River cuts Uppsala into an east and west side. The university and cathedral are on the east. The newer downtown area is on the west side. Flogsta is east side.

Uppsala Castle is another land mark that dominates the skyline.

The clouds here are insane. They match the bipolar weather.

Getting to my student housing in Flogsta from downtown isn’t that hard at all. There is a direct bus that goes from downtown to Flogsta. The hard part is buying the bus ticket. You cannot buy the ticket on the bus with cash; you have to use a debit card. To buy a ticket with cash you have to go to a convenience store buy it from them. Once I figured that out the bus ride was smooth sailing. I did my best to try not to break any of the unwritten rules of public transit while taking up seat space while carrying my massive bags of luggage.

The housing office didn’t open until one but I arrived at around eleven thirty. So I plopped myself on a mossy rock next to a discarded bike and took in my surroundings. Luckily it was only a few minutes before an exchange student from Germany arrived and we got to chatting. Soon there were a few more exchange students milling about the rocks near the housing office. We chatted and after we got our keys agreed to meet up to explore the town. I’ll go more into more detail about the city of Uppsala and my interactions with other exchange students in a future post. Right now I want to talk about my home for the year.

Flogsta was built in the 1970s and looks the part. There are sixteen buildings in Flogsta with twelve of them being primarily used by students. Each building is seven stories high with two student corridors on each level. Each corridor houses about twelve students. This comes out to be around two thousand residents of Flogsta. That morning however it did not look as though this was densely populated living area. There were few people walking around but it was mostly empty… except for bikes, there are hundreds if not thousands of bikes around Flogsta. They are strewn across the ground in various states of decay or locked up to trees or filling up the lines of bike parking outside of each building.

My corridor is on the first floor of building one. My floor is odd in that there is only one corridor. In the space where there is normally a second corridor there is a kindergarten. Yeah there is a children’s school in the base of a student housing complex. In America I feel like a college dorm would be the last place you would want to send your small impressionable child. I guess living across from a kindergarten is better than living across the hall from rowdy neighbors. But apparently the little Swedes come marching in at about seven in the morning to a chorus of children’s laughter. Maybe I should take the eight AM basic Swedish course…

In contrast to the buildings the area surrounding Flogsta is beautiful. Flogsta seems to have been built in the middle of a forest, probably as an effort to hide the horrendously ugly architecture. There are bike paths snaking throughout the woods with beautiful fields of green grasses and communal gardens stretching for hundreds of meters before reaching more forest. The first few days when I kept waking up to bright sunshine at five in the morning, I took the time to walk around and explore the area around Flogsta. It is very peaceful and contrasts nicely with the student-project atmosphere of Flogsta. I think I am going to like living here.

The Swedish August. This is where I go shopping

Flogsta from the roof.

Dawn at 5:20 AM

Cell tower I think. There were a bunch of warning signs in Swedish leading up to it.

Another living area by the bike path. To the left there is a large communal garden.

The phrase left to the anarchy sign translates to "Sweden must die", a warm welcome when walking back from downtown

There are fields like this all around the surrounding area. It somehow makes the sky look bigger.

Flogsta emerging from the woods.

Main drag of Flogsta

"In An Airplane Above The Archipelago"

2012-08-18T21:04:00.001-07:00

It took just under 24 hours of travel time to get to Uppsala. It really did feel like it. I got bored on the plane somewhere over Ontario so the rest of the flight was spent taking thirty minute micronaps and jolting upright. I had the window seat which is nice for the view and having a wall to sleep on but it is incredibly claustrophobic. Just like on my flight to Seoul my attention span was non-existent. So I watched every Family Guy episode the entertainment station had. Seriously that is the only show they should have on airplanes, the plot doesn’t matter and you only need half of your brain to processes the jokes.

Heathrow is insanely large and confusing. After getting off the plane we had to walk for a good quarter mile in a windowless hallway never knowing when we would be able to sit. The terminals are separated and the only way to travel between them is with buses, so you’d better be damn sure which terminal you need to be in before you get on the bus. When I finally did get to through security and into the right terminal I was greeted with a giant mall catering to all earthly luxuries. Since I didn’t feel like buying an eight hundred dollar bottle of whiskey or a twelve hundred dollar suit I just bought a seven dollar latte from Starbucks and waited for my connecting flight to Stockholm.

On the flight to Stockholm I continued my micronaps from the first flight. I am pretty sure I am classically conditioned to sleep on flights now. I did wake up right as we started to fly over the coast of Sweden. The view from the plane gave a great perspective of the landscape of the Swedish coastline. Bodies of water seemed to warp in and out of the mainland with small islands dotted intermittently. I could see small villages connecting in a web of roads to much larger towns that surrounded bays and inlets of water. As I looked out at the countryside the fact that I would be living in a completely different country really set in.

The plane landed in Arlanda airport ahead of schedule. Customs was a breeze, I just showed them the print out confirmation that my residency permit was approved and that I would be receiving it in Sweden. I felt a little uncomfortable only having a printed out PDF that said I was allowed to enter the country for a year, but they said it was fine and within two minutes I was going to get my baggage. I still had to figure out where the train station was and how to get a ticket. I asked the helpful people at the tourism desk and they sold me the ticket right there. The station is actually underneath the airport. To get into the station I had to place the ticket which I bought in one machine then I was given another ticket which I had to swipe at the gates. Since everything was in Swedish it took me a few minutes of standing around with my ticket in my hand looking confused before the attendant told me what to do.

The station was refreshingly cool. I could finally breathe in cool air from a natural source. It reminded me of the lava tubes in Jeju, a massively tunnel with cool air. The station was also completely silent. I had gotten used to the constant sounds of travel; the chatter of hundreds of people in different languages, the announcements in the airport and the ever present dull roar of the airplane. In the Arlanda train station the silence was only punctured every ten minutes to announce the trains. It was peaceful.

The actual train ride only took about 20 minutes. The trains are impeccably clean and comfortable. The style of the interior reminds me more of BART than Amtrak, but with less urine stains. Once we got into Uppsala I went directly to where I knew the hostel was. I had already scoped out the block long route on Google Street View so I knew exactly where to go. I guess that kind of ruined the mystery of what I was looking for but also it made it so I could go right to bed without any accidental detours. I had a single hostel room booked and it was basically a large closet with a bathroom. I didn’t really mind I just grabbed the bare essentials from my suitcase and went straight to bed. I was relieved I was finally in Uppsala but I knew the next day would be a long one.

The song from where I got the title of this post.

Notes Before Leaving

2012-08-14T02:28:00.000-07:00

Today I leave the country for a year. I am pretty much packed. I just packed a lot of long johns, warm socks, thick shirts and coats. It was hard decide what clothes to buy for Sweden. I have lived in the Bay Area my entire life my winter wardrobe consist of a hoodie maybe two if I am feeling crazy. But describing what is in my suitcase isn't the most interesting thing in the world.

After my trip to Korea I pretty much sat around Moraga for four weeks “preparing” for Sweden. I have been incredibly bored. I went from an environment of always being busy to an environment of never being busy. But luckily this gave me time to get excited about Sweden. And time to loiter in front of various Moraga stores. Going to Jeju gave me confidence about traveling internationally and was an appetizer of the fun and personal growth that studying abroad brings.

I am going to be living in Uppsala (which is about 45 minutes north of Stockholm) and studying at Uppsala University. There are about 140,000 people in Uppsala and 21,000 students at the university. I do not speak any Swedish but I will be taking a class on basic Swedish while I am here. English is widley spoken as a second language so there shouldn’t be too much of a language barrier. I am mostly taking history classes for my history minor with a dabble of political science classes.

The question that I always get asked is why I chose Sweden. There are a number of specific reasons but essentially I want to go somewhere different. I want to see what a real winter is like, I want to learn the history of a country I know relatively little about, and I want to be immersed in a culture which has different views on individualism and the role of government. Sweden is just different. Also I want to eat reindeer.

I hope to update this blog every week. Whether mundane or not I am sure I will be able to write something interesting. Since my time in Sweden will be spread out I hope to write in more depth about cultural observations that I only just touched upon when I was writing in Korea. The first few weeks will probably equally as hectic and busy as my trip in Jeju was but it will level off and I will get a routine going. I would recommend subscribing by email if you want to stay updated. Thanks for reading.

A Short Summary of my Last Week in Jeju

2012-08-14T01:20:00.003-07:00

So I had planned to keep my blog completely up to date while I was in Jeju. I had the intention of writing in depth blog posts about my experiences in Jeju on pretty much a day to day basis while I was actually there. This obviously proved to be completely futile seeing as right now I am writing the last post about Jeju a full month after I left Jeju. I am going to give a significantly less detailed post about the last week in Jeju.

On Monday Professor McCuan informed us that we would be meeting with the mayor on Wednesday. It was finally time to rock the suit. Tuesday would be our last free day to wander around Jeju City without concrete plans so we took advantage of that by going to various air conditioned electronic stores and watching 3D K-Pop music videos. The humidity was the worst of the trip that Tuesday, every breath I took felt like it was pure moisture.

Wednesday the weather was about the same. Wearing a suit in humidity is hellish. Wearing a piece of fabric tightly around my neck didn’t particularly help the feeling that I was not getting enough oxygen. The meeting with the mayor went very well. Ko translated for us and Mayor Kim Sang Oh spoke to Professor McCuan directly. He jumped right into politics asking Professor McCuan if President Obama was going to win the upcoming election. Professor McCuan said “Oh that is what we are studying in class right now, why don’t I have my students explain the factors of the upcoming election.” So we went around the table and we each said a little blurb about a concept that we had learned in class. I was pretty nervous I felt out of my element and I was scared someone would choose the concept I had in mind before me. I said my blub about getting voters to the voting booth and the diplomatic meeting continued on. There were lots of photos taken and lots of gifts exchanged. The topic of conversation was mostly about the future relationships between Sonoma State University and Jeju University and how to increase sister city relations between Jeju City and Santa Rosa. I followed along but mostly I focused on not constantly fidgeting and tried to look cool calm and collective.

The mayor invited us to dinner and we gladly accepted. We went to a western style restaurant called “The White House” it had a beachfront view and was very fine dining. The cab driver to the White House drove incredibly aggressively speeding and cutting people off and almost killing a dog that was walking in the street. Turns out Ko had told him that we were late for a meeting with the mayor and that kicked him into crazy taxi mode. The dinner went fine; there were three booths with four people in each booth. They spread out the visting Americans so that each boot had a sampling of students. After steak and deep fried crab the head of tourism for Jeju City Yong Woo Kim invited us to go on a quick tour of Dragonhead Rock, insisting that we must see it before we left. Of course we agreed and walked around the beautiful rocky beach.

On Thursday morning we had our final and in the afternoon all of members of the 2012 Jeju International Summer School went to an early dinner where we feasted on stir-fried chicken. It was the first time that the whole group had been together at the same time and it a fun affair. Friday we all went to the beach and swam in the ocean and played on the sand underneath grey skies. In the evening we packed up our clothes and headed to FamilyMart to start an evening of karaoke and nightlife. I intended to stay up the whole night in order to be able to sleep on the plane ride back. I was completely successful on both counts.

Going to Jeju was an amazing experience. I loved the food, I loved the scenery, I loved the sounds, I loved exploring the culture but most of all I loved the people. Everyone in Jeju treated us with incredible kindness and hospitality. The street signs were not lying when they said “Jeju loves having you here”. It was an amazing trip filled with amazing people.

Watching Korean Students Learn About American Elections

2012-08-07T17:23:00.001-07:00

The official course name for Professor McCuan’s class is “Comparative Elections and Mass Political Behavior – U.S.” The course covers a number of different aspects of the American electoral processes, including the influence of media, how money has changed elections and how the American political landscape has changed in the last fifty years. It is an upper division political science class with advanced look at elections, it is not a basic course trying to teach the system of elections rather it is an in depth analysis of the various theories behind elections and examining various models to explain trends in elections. It is a complex class that assumes a firm understanding of the culture and political structure of the United States of America. We had two Korean students who decided to stay enrolled in the course. One is an English Literature major and the other is a Political Science major but this was her first class at university ever she is an incoming freshman next year. They both speak English very well, although there is a fair amount of political science jargon which they needed to have clarified.

Professor McCuan encouraged the Korean students to go first to the American students for help, as this class is in our major and we all enjoy and have an interest in the subject. I like trying to explain words and the structure of our government and culture when I get asked. It tests my knowledge on a given word or concept and helps me understand it better. I always thought the American political system was fairly straight forward but when I started to explain how our government works I realized how odd and confusing it really is. Explaining how the number of Representatives the each states gets in the house is proportional to the population but the number of Senators is set at two per a state was a difficult concept to explain. But that was not nearly as hard as trying to explain the electoral college, and this was just the base of knowledge needed to understand the larger concepts that we were learning about. The course expected all students to know these things about the American governmental system. In addition to organizational knowledge needed to understand elections there also must be an understanding of the social aspect of the American electorate. All of the American students know that the white working class votes for conservatives even though fiscally it is not in their benefit. How do we even begin to explain the social cleavages that make up America. It is completely foreign to them. We did our best to try and explain the American political landscape in the short amount of time that we had.

In the class we have a few sections that focus on campaign advertising. We are shown a number of classic campaign ads and we are asked to interpret them, to see what techniques they are using to convince the average person to vote a certain way. It was easy for me as a Political Sciences student to get caught up in how truthful the ad is or trying to place it into the context of the election. The Korean students however were viewing the ads for the first time ever with a limit knowledge about their context. Their perception of the ads provided valuable insight to the ads effect on neutral voters. One memorable moment was after we watched one of the "Swiftboat Veterans for Truth" ads that ran during the 2004 election. After we watched the ad one of the Korean students asked "So they are denigrating a war hero? Why would they do that?" The answer was because they wanted Bush to win. Her shock at the ads into perspective how divisive and cut-throat the American political system has become when attack ads of the likes "Swiftboat Veterans For Truth" are seen as a the norm. It is easy to get caught up in your own way of doing things so much so that you only have the insider view of how you do things.

I asked Kim how the Korean professors taught at Jeju University. She said that most professor lecture as the students take notes and the professor does not engage the students with questions or like to being asked questions. This is the polar opposite of Professor McCuan's teaching style. He is very animated constantly calling on students to answer questions to keep the students engaged and welcomes questions by his students. So along with taking a college course in a second language the Korean students also had to work in a completely different classroom environment. I really enjoyed the class it went from nine in the morning to noon which got us up early and allowed us to have the rest of the day to do as we please. It was engaging and I learned a great deal in a short amount of time. I have not talked to the Korean students about what they learned from the actual class but if it is something as simple as "the American election system is incredibly complex and nuanced" then they have learned a great deal about the American political system.

A badly posed class picture!

Professor McCuan giving us a compacted lecture on his specialty, direct democracy.

We made the newspaper!

Lectern from the future.

This is where I drank coffee drinks during the breaks in class. Probably the most interesting photo on this blog.

Markets and Beaches

2012-08-04T15:36:00.003-07:00

Thursday July 5^th was fairly uneventful, more delicious food and wandering around Jeju City. Friday most of us students hung out at the FamilyMart until the early hours of the morning before hitting the night clubs in the early hours of the morning. It was pretty much the same story as last Frinight lots of fun, lots of dancing and lots of drunk Koreans.

The Five Day Market

Saturday all of us foreign students and professors were invitedto go to the “Five Day Market” with our classmate Bogyeong Kim and her roommate Mini acting as tour guides. The Five Day Market is a traditional market that occurs every five days, starting the second of every month. We left around noon; much later then we had normally started our weekend adventures. It was nice to be able to sleep in and get a good five hours of sleep before venturing around town. We took the bus to the market and it was a long bus ride. It went through downtown made a left and meandered passed the airport cutting through a part of the city that I had never seen before in the daylight. Jeju City is much larger than it appears at first glance, I knew that about 450,000 people lived in Jeju City but I honestly have no idea what that translates into in actual cityscape. Seeing how much Jeju City sprawls out just reinforced the fact that I really only got a taste of the city during the last two weeks and that there was so much more out there to explore, but so little time left.

After about forty-five minutes riding in the increasingly hot and crammed bus, Kim tells us that we are going to get off at the next stop. As the bus began to slow it became clear that the majority of our fellow passengers were also getting off at our stop. As I stepped off the bus I could not immediately see any sort of market but Kim directed us to follow the moving masses of Koreans down a side street. After about 500 feet we were greeted with a large sign that crossed the entire street that read “Jeju City Traditional 5 Day Market.” Even though the sign was there I was still confused where the market actually was. As we walked down the street I started to see more and more vendors scattered about on the sidewalk a wide array of items. I am pretty sure we passed the Korean sidewalk vendor equivalent of OSH. As we walked the sidewalk grew more and more crowded with droves of people hurriedly walking to the market. Our fellow pedestrians were incredibly diverse in age and appearance. There were a large number of elderly women draped in sunhats and visors holding oversized bags speeding past us on the way to the market. There were also a number of families with small children running about in eager anticipation of the excitement of the market.

After about a quarter mile walk we finally reached the parking lot for the market. The market was covered by a permanent overhang providing shade and a feeling of being indoors. When I first stepped inside all of my senses were overloaded with stimuli. The smell of meat, fish, spices, fried donuts and fish all combined into an indescribable mash of a smell. All of this while staring at the seemingly endless sea of stands selling everything from knives to live chickens and everything in between. As we walked hurried shoppers kept running bumping into me as I stared at the various stands filled with interesting items. This was a running problem for me in South Korea, I wanted to absorb as much as a could when I was walking around I would not really pay attention to where I was walking, like a child at an amusement park.

What I found fun for in the market was people watching. The shoppers were mostly older and female; they hobbled about the market with their backs bent and their eyes intent. They had probably been shopping at this type of market for their entire lives; they knew what they wanted and where they wanted to get it from. They were just shopping, and they had to weave around us foreigners absentmindedly marveling at where they got their food. Some of the owners of the stands loudly promoted their stores repeating their daily deals to all those who passed. Others just sat back and prepared their food and watched the crowds of shoppers go by. It amazed me to think how different all of these people’s lives were from my own. This was something so normal to them but completely foreign to me.

We did a couple of laps around the market our guides kept buying us random fried foods for all of us as we walked. My favorite was this fried pancake like dessert which was honey filled creating a sugary concoction of deliciousness. After about an hour of walking about the market the horrendous heat started to get to us and we decided to make our way out. Professor McCuan and Professor Jung Lee suggested that we go to the beach to lounge about for the rest of the afternoon. Unfortunately Kim and Mini could not join us to the beach so they showed us to the bus stop that would take us to the beach, Professor Jung Lee was raised in Korea and speaks Korean so we were not worried about getting lost.

The welcome sign for the market. In English too!

Older women hustling to get to the market. I felt like I was always in their way.

The Pre-Market vendors. So you can pregame your shopping with shopping.

Here is another example of the randomness of the zoning in Jeju. This is a small farm operation next to houses and restaurants on the way to the market. It is like the city grew around the farm.

More Pre-Market vendors.

The massive market parking lot

Inside of the market.

Shirts on shirts. Although the quality was questionable.

I regret that I did not buy this pair of "Starbucks" socks.

The produce section.

Kim buying oranges from the orange vendor.

Down the market.

Bowls of spicy

More bowls of spicy

Fried things on sticks. Our cultures are not so different after all.

Mini hot dogs.

These puppies were for sale. We were not sure if they were for food or for pets. Their living conditions would have given PETA a collective stroke.

Chicks

The honey filled pancakes of the gods.

This guy knows how to party.

This older women was maybe four and a half feet tall hauling her goods from the market. The older generation seemed to be in incredibly good shape.

Beach!

After a crowded bus ride along the coast we finally arrived at the beach. The sands were wonderfully white and the beach was crowded with people lapping up the sunlight…sort of. In Korea you don’t wear only bathing suites into the water, you wear shirts as well. So there were always fully clothed running out of the water their clothes heavy and dark completely saturated with water. It reminded me of some sort of 1980s music video where youthful people high on Reaganomics and synthesized sound who threw caution to the wind and go swimming with clothes on. Honestly it looked pretty cool, and it allowed me to hide my blindingly pasty skin from the oh so destructive sun. We lapped around in the water and hung out under the umbrellas for a few hours relaxing and enjoying the rare sunshine. For dinner we took a taxi to yet another Korean BBQ restaurant indulging ourselves once again in the delicious pork that Jeju had to offer. Professor Jung Lee even gave us a brief lesson on the Korean language, something we realized we should have done from the very beginning. All and all it was a relaxing low energy day which was just what I needed.

The beach

More of the beach. There is some small island we were facing. I don't know exactly what it was.

Umbrellas on umbrellas.

You could rent all sorts of beach fun.

Stores along the beach front.

Our group getting ready to enjoy dinner, minus Professor McCuan who took this photo.

An Example of the Korean Social Structure During a Fourth of July Barbecue

2012-07-17T23:57:00.001-07:00

This was the second time that I have been abroad for the Fourth of July, the first time was four years ago when I was in Greece. My family has never really had a tradition when it comes to Independence Day; usually I just go with the flow and end up watching the sky catch on fire from a random hill in the east bay. So I am not one to get particularly homesick over missing the Fourth. But since we were in a foreign country we were all feeling about as patriotic as a group of Political Science enthusiasts could feel, so we figured we should do something special to celebrate. Professor McCuan decided to take us to a restaurant that he had gone to the week prior with the president and the dean of Jeju National University. Professor McCuan also invited Ko and insisted that he had to join us for dinner because it was the Fourth of July. Ko had no idea of the significance of the date and was probably wondering why the insane American professor kept raving about a random day in July. Unfortunately Ko could not attend the dinner because is infant daughter had developed a fever, we were sad that he could not attend but of course understood.

We took a pair of taxis down to the restaurant, as we drove into Jeju City it was apparent that we were not going to the main downtown area. Rather we were in a less dense and obviously more traditional area of the city filled with Korean restaurants and traditional Korean bars. There area was clear of the usual droves of high school students that convene around downtown.

Like the area around it the restaurant itself was also quiet and traditional. It was decorated with traditional Korean calligraphy which hung above the clean wooden floors. In the corner was entrance to the kitchen which framed by photos of the cuts of raw meat that the restaurant had to offer. When you don’t speak the local language menus with photos on them are your best friend. The owner with her popeye-like forearms sat down at our table, since we had made reservations the side dishes were already set up for us and the coals were already heating up the barbeque on the table in front of us. To the right of our table there was a long dining room filled with Korean businessmen but hidden from view by opaque screens.

Again we ate barbequed pork but this time we switched up the second course to include mouthwateringly savory beef. After each bite I was engulfed in carnivorous ecstasy, sending me into a Dionysian-like intoxication driven by my palate being overwhelmed with the taste of the supple flesh of young bovine. Okay I am exaggerating, slightly. Saying the food was delicious over and over again is dull. During the meal I began to noticed something; the owner was giving 85% of her attention to one side of the table, the side table that happened to be all male. She waited on us hand and foot; getting us forks, replenishing our drinks, replacing side dishes and helping us build our lettuce wraps. Erica and Holly received decent service but anywhere near the same amount of service we received. Our hostess actually took beef from Holly and Erica’s barbeque and gave it to us, I felt bad for this beef thievery by proxy.

When we finished up our meal the hostess thanked us in order of our hierarchical seniority, first Professor McCuan then Ethan then me and then a brief nod to Holly and Erica. It was an interesting cultural experience, it was the first time that I really noticed the hierarchy that I had read about prior to visiting Korea. I think that it is more relaxed in the youth culture or perhaps just not as obvious to foreigners. I think in America we still have a similar hierarchy which is much more passively “enforced” than the Koreans. This is a completely anecdotal account though so I don’t really want to make sweeping generalizations about the culture of Korea based on a single dining experience. I do think it will be interesting for me to compare the role of women in Korea and Sweden. They seem to be polar opposites, Korean culture encourages gender roles whereas Sweden actively tries to destroy any accidental socialization of gender stereo types and has gone as far as creating a gender neutral pronoun for a person. Maybe after a year in Sweden I will be ready to make sweeping generalizations about gender based solely on observations.

April Third Peace Park

2012-07-15T16:53:00.003-07:00

On Tuesday July 3^rd, Ko planned a much more somber trip then our previous excursions. We were going to the April Third Peace Park. The April Third Peace Park was built in the early 2000s after the Korean government formally acknowledged and apologized for the horrendous massacres that occurred on Jeju Island from April 1948 to 1953. As I explained in my previous post the Korean government covered up the massacre going as far as jailing those who tried to expose the truth. It was not until 2006 that the Korean government formally apologized for their role in the massacre.

Before leaving for the April Third Peace Park we were given an article which explained the history of the incident. The article was very critical of the American role in the massacre. At the time of the massacre the American military was the de-facto government of Korea and largely encouraged the suppression of the “uprising”. I was nervous that the peace park would be unfairly anti-American. But I decided to clear my head of this preconceived view of how the museum and Peace Park might portray the incident and try to view the museum as unbiased as I possibly could.

Ko had commissioned a bus to take us to the Peace Park which is located east of Jeju National University but still deep in the interior of the island. The weather was perfect. The sky was deep blue with clouds cutting through the sky as the sun beamed down on us. We zoomed along the countryside passing horse farms and open fields of green. Eventually we cut into a wooded area of the interior which was incredibly tranquil and stunningly green. The bus driver seemed to know the roads well as he barreled around turns taking up the entire roadway; I figured he had some sort of psychic ability which allowed him to be confident that there were no cars coming in the opposite direction. I figured our ten tons of bus would protect us from any oncoming two door Hyundai so I was not too worried about the possibility of a violent death on the way to the Peace Park. As emerged from the forest we were again surrounded by the green fields of the foothills of Mt. Halla. After traveling down the mountain for a bit the bus pulled into a parking lot which sat adjacent to a building which looked like an upturned UFO, Ko announced that we had arrived at the Peace Park.

We went directly to the museum, it was getting late and we didn’t want to miss the last tour. The interior of the museum is very spacious, with polished stone pillars leading supporting the high ceilings and freshly buffered stone floors. Ko lead us to the front desk where there were five or six smiling museum attendants, he has a quick conversation in Korean and then tell us that we will have a tour guide and he will translate for her. We were then lead down a ramp which has been built to resemble a cave, a homage to those who hid in caves to avoid being killed during the massacre. At the end of the hallway is a circular room with a rectangular cut of marble in the center. The room had no ceiling rather the walls lead up about fifty feet to open air which allowed for natural light to penetrate into the otherwise dim room. The tour guide explained that the reason the cut of marble was lying flat and had no markings was because the April 3^rd Incident has no true name and the marble will only be lifted and engraved when there is an official name of the incident.

The tour guide led us from room to room which gave an overview of Jeju before the massacre, during the massacre and after the massacre. The exhibits were incredibly well done, providing original documents and sources. I am going to provide a brief summary of what I learned about the April 3^rd Incident from the peace park. On April 3^rd 1948, police from the mainland fired upon demonstrators at rally celebrating the emancipation over Japanese rule. The shootings occurred after a police officer’s horse accidently trampled a small child. The police officer did not stop to see if the condition of the child rather he kept moving forward. Demonstrators saw this and started to yell at the police officer, when the police officer continued to ignore them stones were thrown and the police officers retaliated by firing upon the protestors, killing nine.

This shooting caused cascading effects, Jeju had a somewhat strong socialist party. The shooting by the extreme right police officers, who were chosen by the US government, only strengthened the left leaning party as droves of people when to join them after the shooting. The left party organized and burned down several police stations and polling stations for the upcoming election. The US military saw this as an act of outright communist rebellion and brought far right dissenters from the north to go and stop the rebellion by any means necessary. Bringing in far right ideologues only exacerbated the conflict leading to a complete breakdown in peace talks. Moderate military officers who wanted to pursue peace talks were promptly fired by the US military and were replaced by officials who would follow orders. The interior of the island was designated “kill and burn zone” anything and anyone in that area was to be destroyed. This included the all of those who fled to the interior early on during the conflict when there was fighting in the city. By 1949, between 14,000 and 60,000 people were killed during the massacres that followed the April Third Incident. For the next fifty years the massacre was covered up. The official story was that there were communists in Jeju and they were killed. It was not until 2006 that the South Korean government apologized for the massacre and it was only in 2009 when an official report documenting the massacre was released.

The entrance to the April 3rd museum

A close up of the banner

A section of the Berlin Wall

Looking up from the room with the "Unnamed Monument"

A US Military map of Jeju Island

One of the many stops on our tour with Ko translating for our tour guide

Most of the exhibits were set up like this. Very well done with equal parts English and Korean. The lighting was very dim so a lot of my photos came out sub-par.

A part of an official US Military document regarding the massacre that has since been declassified.

A meeting with American generals and Korean generals on Jeju Island. The man on the far right wanted to take a more moderate route dealing with the any rebels. He was quickly reassigned.

More shots of the exhibits

The museum was incredibly fair and balanced. The purpose of the museum is not to assign blame or try to gain justice for those massacred rather it seeks to educate people on the existence of this massacre. The simple act of recognizing the fact that the massacre occurred is needed in order for families to reach peace about how their ancestors died. For nearly 60 years those who suffered through the massacre and those whose families were torn apart by the massacre were forbade from the simple act of acknowledging the event that shaped their families history. There was also a feeling of shame and guilt attached to having relatives who died during the massacre because the Korean government framed the massacre as a killing of communist rebels who were sympathetic to the north. So if you were to acknowledge that your relatives were killed during the massacre you were essentially saying your relatives were communist which is a horrible accusation in South Korea .

After our tour of the museum we walked around the park. The sun was beginning to set but the sky was still wonderfully blue and clear. The park is stunningly beautiful and peaceful. We only explored the area immediately outside of the museum but we could see even more monuments in the distance. It was nice to have an area of tranquility to reflect on the tragedy that had occurred on Jeju Island sixty years before. I asked Ko if anyone ever talked about the massacre when he was growing up, he told me that nobody spoke of the massacre and the few times that anyone did speak of the massacre they said that it was just the killing of communist rebels in Jeju and that it was a good thing. Jung Lee a professor from The Richard Stockton College of New Jersey who grew up on the mainland of Korea said she never learned anything about the massacre.

As an American walking through the museum and seeing the truth of the massacre is very unsettling. I am not at all a person who thinks that America is some god-like country who can do no wrong and has done no wrong. I have learned about the evils of that America has perpetuated throughout my country’s history. Even though I knew about the atrocities and were disgusted by them, I would always somehow rationalize them. Walking through the museum on the island where the massacre occurred made it impossible to rationalize the actions of the US government and be comfortable about it. The US military amplified the extremes of both the far right and far left on Jeju Island by arming the far right and allowing them to kill without discretion. Without the US intervention the April Third Incident may have been peacefully resolved rather than escalading into mass violence. But the museum was not trying to assign blame to the United States military; rather it just displayed the facts. It was clear that the only motive of the museum was to try to bring attention to the fact that this massacre occurred and that there was a cover up of the true story. The museum and the Peace Park are the start of a long delayed mourning process for those who died during the massacre over sixty years ago.

The plaza outside of the April 3rd museum

More shots of the plaza

A lily pond looking next to the plaza

The park stretched out farther in that direction but we did not have time to visit.

View of the museum from the lily pond. Apparently on the upper two decks there is a wall with the names of all of those who died during the massacre, unfortunately we did not have time to view the wall.

4.3 Incident. Americans are weird and count the day before the month.

Mexican Monday

2012-07-10T05:43:00.004-07:00

The Start of Week Two of Exploring Jeju

We decided to hit up Jeju City after class to get some early dinner at Zapata’s in Jeju City. Yes we decided to get Mexican food in Korea. Apparently Zapata's is one of the few Mexican restaurants on Jeju and generally considered the best. I like our track record of exploring the various foreign food restaurants in Jeju. It does give a good perspective; we see the Korean take on Mexican food. Largely in America we see the American take on Mexican food. I ordered a quesadilla which to my surprise was just two triangles of quesadilla, not the massive semi-circle I was expecting. But no matter, it was stuffed with beef and delicious delicious cheese. There really is not that much cuisine here which utilizes cheese and as soon as I bit into that quesadilla I remembered how much I had missed the melted and gooey dairy product. It speaks to how globalized the world is when a bunch of Americans can sit in a restaurant in Korea and eat Mexican food. The meal really hit the spot.

Afterwards we explored the city more looking to find a nice place to relax and perhaps grab a beer, unfortunately most places were closed, it being a Monday and all. We finally found a little coffee shop overlooking the street and had a cup of coffee and just relaxed. The rain and heat made walking fairly uncomfortable and we were all pretty beat. It was a nice slow Monday that was slightly less lazy then Sunday.

Inside of Zapata's, interesting choice of decor.

Zapata's menu, I do not think chili fries are a traditional Mexican meal.

Borris's Brewery was sadly closed

Shots of the rainy roadways of Jeju City

LEGO education center. Probably the most fun education center ever.

Karaoke Korean Style

2012-07-10T05:07:00.002-07:00

Saturday Night

Once we got back to the dorm I immediately took a three hour nap. I was exhausted from all of the climbing, speed boating and eating. I woke up at 8PM so the night was still young. All of the students decided that it would be fun to go to a noraebang (노래방) which is Korean Karaoke lounge. Karaoke in Asia works much differently than it does in America. Rather than going to a bar and getting blackout drunk to muster up the courage to stumble onto the stage and sing a slurred version of “Take on Me” to a group of strangers, Korean karaoke is done in small rooms which you rent out with a group of friends. This style of karaoke sounded awesome to me. I always like to sing horribly during weekend nights out. My friends may be less fond of my belting faux-falsetto, but it makes me happy.

We took two taxis down to downtown to go to karaoke. We met Kim so she acted as our guide taking us to the noraebang and communicating with her roommate Mini to meet up with us. We were greeted by the same scenes of vibrant night life on the streets of Jeju City that we had seen the previous night. We were led by Kim to the noreabang which was in a cool subterranean setting and we were given a room that fit all ten of us. The room looked like an entertainment room on crack. At the head the room was a large LCD TV draped with large speakers. Facing the TV are three couches, a number of microphones on a table, tambourines, and this crazy look console which was filled with Korean lettering and had about fifty different buttons on it and a catalog that is about a thousand pages long filled with songs. The vast majority of the songs are in Korean or Japanese however there are still about fifty pages dedicate music in English. Everyone immediately starts putting in their song that they want creating a long playlist of songs that had to be sung. I looked around the catalog to fine the most party killing songs I could find. I think The Door’s “The End” takes the cake with Radiohead’s “2 + 2 = 5” coming in a close second.

Once the playlist had started anyone who wanted to sing just picked up a microphone and sang. There was very little pressure and it was extremely fun just goofing off singing various popular songs. The easiest genre of course was rap, Ethan and I did a wonderful cover of 50 Cent’s “In Da Club”. During the songs the screen would project the lyrics but also show random scenes from what appeared to be short music videos that had no connection to the music playing. My favorite was a harrowing tale of two soldiers as they slogged through the winter battlefield and the eventual tragic demise of one of the soldiers, all of which set to the song “My Humps” by the Black Eyed Peas. Seeing a soldier scream with horror and singing “my lovely lady lumps” is a very odd juxtaposition. Holly has an extensive knowledge of Korean Pop and Japanese Pop and she did a great version of Japanese song. I was very impressed at both her ability to sing and her ability to sing in a foreign language. Mini and Kim also did a Korean song, standing up at the front of the room and singing together. It was a really fun experience; the way that the noreabang are set up fosters a comforting feeling and gives people a public space to just to get lose with their friends. After we were done singing our hearts out we went to a local pub across the street and just hung out in our exhausted state. It was a long and massively fun day.

Sunday

On the seventh day we rested.

A note about the chronology of the posts

These posts have been in chronological order but so far have documented the first week from 6/24 to 7/1. I am lagging a bit in posting but I plan to try and get the second week down by the end of this week, although it is looking like it might be a bit hectic with the schedule. Tomorrow the delegation from Sonoma State University is meeting the the mayor of Jeju City and on Thursday we have both an exam, a dinner and a presentation to go to. Friday we go to the beach and we leave Saturday. It is going to be a busy and fast week.

Exploring Jeju in a Transformer Van

2012-07-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

I woke up at 8AM on Saturday, nice and refreshed with a robust three hours of sleep under my belt. I walked down to the FamilyMart to get some breakfast and caffeine. The store clerk who served me at 10PM and 5AM was still working when I walked in at 8AM. When I paid he gave me a funny look and then pantomimed sleep while raising his eyebrows in a questioning manner. I told him I had very little and he laughed at my obvious sleep deprived state.

Mr. Ko brought the van to the dorms right at 9AM. The van fit twelve people and it was just enough room for all of the students from Sonoma State and Delaware State, one student from Jeju, Professor McCuan and Mr. Ko. Not to say that it was not a tight fit, the van had these seats which would fold to the side and could slide around laterally which made getting in and out of the van a complex ordeal filled with movable parts and confusion. After we all piled in we hit the road but not before going through the Jeju City McDonalds drive through for a quick morning snack. Our first stop was The Manjanggul Lava Tube, the largest lava tube on Jeju Island and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

As we drove the scenery changed from large apartments and busy streets into vast wetlands and fields of greenery with small villages scattered on both sides of the roadway. This was a very different Jeju than the urban Jeju that we had been exploring for the past week. The buildings were older, the streets less maintained the people more weathered. On the left side of the road we could see the vast ocean for miles before disappearing into the misty horizon. Near the shore there was a number of different industrial marine fishing tools scattered along the rocky coast. As we drove we saw divers bobbing down in the ocean gathering various sea creatures, older women drying out seaweed on the asphalt, and windmills generating power hundreds of meters off the coast. We passed rural village after rural village, their roofs hanging low and their streets crooked and steep twisting and conforming to the shape of the land beneath them. During ride we were listening and singing along to pop music which was about having drunken flings and the sadness of last love, which was slightly hilariously mismatched with the scenery.

Lava and Lunch

Soon we turned more inland and after driving through the lush greenery we reached Manjanggul. We were greeted by a pretty standard parking lot and welcome center, so we all disentangled ourselves out of the jigsaw of the Hyundai van and were welcomed by the hot humid of Jeju made our way to the tube. The entrance Manjanggul is steep staircase surrounded by overhanging trees and foliage, leading downwards to what appears to be a massive pit. With each step the temperature and the humidity went down substantially, it was like walking into an icebox and it felt amazing. At the bottom of the stairs we gathered slightly in the cave and were given an explanation of the network of lava tubes on Jeju. The entire time droplets of water would fall around us hitting the cobblestone pathway formed by ancient magma cooling and hardening. The ceiling was around 15 feet above us and the clearing was about 10 feet wide. On this clearing we were told by a tour guide speaking Korean and Ko translating that Manjanggul runs 7KM but only 1KM is open to the public, we were also given a more in depth explanation about how Manjanggul was formed.

The tour of the lava tubes was very informative but for the most part I was wandering off and just staring at the sheer size of the cave. The word “tube” completely describes the shape and layout of the cave; it really is a giant tube. Walking through Manjanggul I felt as though I was on an alien planet, wandering around the halls of the palace of the queen. The entire place has an eerie organic feeling to it. The walls are made up of dripping magma and nothing is completely flat, yet it is a structure massive enough fit a fuselage of a large plane. Basically it reminded me of the tunnels on the alien planet in Prometheus so this made me weary of touching anything around the cave. It was a very otherworldly place.

When we walked out of Manjanggul all of our glasses and lenses fogged up as we were hit with the hot and humid air once again. It felt like walking into a sauna, I again realized how much harder it was to breathe in the humid air. We again piled into the jigsaw-van and made our way to a village by the coast to get some lunch before making our way to Seongsan Ilchulbong or Sunrise Peak. Again we took a route going along the coast and passing traditional villages allowing us to have a passing peek into their daily lives. For lunch went to a Korean barbeque place and again had delicious pork with a number of side dishes. The Korean student who was with us, Jae Hyuk, sat at the same table as I did and helped prepare the pork and explain the side dishes. Our meals here seem to always take about an hour if not more, it is a refreshing change for me to sit down and take my time eating rather than just stuffing my face with the most food as quickly as possible.

Mr. Ko and the Korean tour guide. Ko did a great job translating the tour guides geological jargon. The tour guide was actually a graduate of Jeju National University.

Some of the trees before the cave

More pictures of the descent.

Trees growing out from the pit.

From the landing of the cave

Most of my cave pictures are of textured darkness

The largest lava column in the world

I did create my Most Delicious happiness

Lunch, before the main dish of pork

These guys were hiking from the DMZ to the tip of Jeju. To experience all of South Korea

Diving Grandmas, speedboats and stairs

After our feast of a lunch we hopped back into the van and went to Seongsan Ilchulbong or Sunrise Peak. At this point in the journey I didn’t really know where I was going, I was just sort of going with the flow in my silly-stupor of sleep deprivation. Basically what I heard was “hike up mountain, cove, women divers and speed boat”, it sounded pretty awesome to me even though I did not know exactly where I was going. When we reach the parking lot it is clear that this place is a hot spot for tourists. The welcome area is completely packed with droves of mostly Asian tourists posing by the sign or heading to Dunkin Donuts to get their fill of fatty glazed deliciousness. Behind the packed chaos of the parking lot was a mystical looking mountain, its peak covered in dense hot fog so that only the base was visible. To the left of the peak was cliff leading down to a beach surrounded by the high walls of Sunrise Peak. Ko tells us that we need to hurry down or else we will miss the show. I don’t know what show he is talking about but I headed the warning and ran down the stairs to the beach below, stopping occasionally to take photos of the insanely beautiful scenery.

As I walked down I could hear singing and I could see see three or four figures in wetsuits preforming some sort of dance. When I got down to the beach I realized that these were the female divers of Jeju or haenyo. These particular divers where the most senior on the island, ranging from 60 to 80 years of age, but you would never guess by the way that they dived. They wore wet suites and weighted belts which allowed them to dive under for extended periods of time. All of the divers had been diving for decades and could hold the breath for an absurd amount of time. After ten or so minutes a diver swam back to the shore holding an octopus that she had caught. She emerged from the water with a giant smile on her face as the crowd clapped enthusiastically. She posed for pictures with the tourists jokingly swinging the octopus towards people who seemed at all scared of the multi-legged ocean beast. It was all in good fun until one tourist dropped the octopus and then put one of its legs in his mouth, everyone laughed and hooted but then he walked away with the octopus. All of the sudden the energy took an icy turn, people started yelling at the man in Korean and he seemed to brush off their jeers. Ko explained to us that he did not pay for the damaged octopus which put the diver out of about twenty dollars. It put a damper on the otherwise fun exchange that the divers were having with the tourists.

After we had all taken numerous photos of the divers Ko asked us if we wanted to ride on the speedboat, the ones that we had seen cutting in to the cove as we walked down the stairs. We all were game for a little adrenaline rush, although I was slightly nervous as I have never been a fan of harsh natural bodies of water, and after seemingly chaotic roadways in the city I didn’t know exactly how insane the speedboat driver would be. No doubt he would be fairly insane. We all put on our lifejackets and we scooted back, he waited until he got a safe distance from the shore before throttling back and jetting us up and over the waves. We all screamed and laughed as the boat bounced off the waves and cut right and left. Ko sat in the bow and was taking rapid fire photos to document our excited faces. We slowed down by the cliff side to take photos as the driver of the speedboat pointed out interesting aspects of the cliff. After a brief pause in the water we were off again, this time the driver veered left and right making extreme turns in the water, all the time with a giant golden toothed grin on his face.

When we docked we were all excitedly scampered off the boat still glowing with adrenaline induced happiness. The speedboat ride completely woke me up I felt as though I just awoke from a perfectly timed nap, and I was ready to climb Sunset Peak. We made our way out of the cove and started to head towards the peaks base where hundreds of stairs separated us from the top. We aggressively climbed that mountain, stopping occasionally to take pictures of the fog that surrounded us. The more I walked the more I sweated and absorbed the humid cloud we were walking through. But that did not matter. I wanted to get to the top just to get to the top; I knew the view would be non-existent but I didn’t care. The path itself was crowded with tourist and we had to awkwardly navigate around the slow walkers who were cramping our aggressive stair climbing style. The majority of time the view was only fog, but it just added to the ambience of the climb. It made the whole journey more mysterious I had no idea what I was looking at our how high we were. When we got to the top we all exchanged victory high fives and had a brief description of the things that we couldn’t see that were apparently all around us. On the route back we took care not to slip and fall 600+ stairs down to the base. We all piled into the van exhausted from the long day and drove back on the coastal road and back to our dorms.

The misty mountain of "Sunset Peak"

Erica hiding from the wind and the rain

Ko adjusting his camera and Jae Hyuk

Tourist gathering around the divers

Erica, Ethan and Holly posing in front of Sunset Peak

Ko taking photos of our insanity during the speedboat ride

The speedboat driver giving a big thumbs up, indicating that we were not to die

Heading up Sunset Peak

The crowded stairs up Sunset Peak

The route up Sunset Peak is crowded with tourists

Elijah and a random kid who decided to imitate the pose. Photo courtesy of Jae Hyuk

Ko and Elijah hugging at the peak. Photo courtesy of Jae Hyuk

Friday and Frinight

2012-07-05T07:50:00.002-07:00

Friday

After class on Friday one of the Korean students, Kim, invited the SSU students to go down to Jeju City with her and her roommate. We gladly accepted their invitation; it would be nice to know what we were looking at rather than just stumbling around the city guessing what and where things are. Also it would be the first time that we would be able to interact and get to know our Korean classmates outside of the classroom.

When we met up the rain was coming down hard. I didn’t bring an umbrella because I didn’t properly research what the weather was like here so I sort of just walked out of the dorm with my hood flipped on my head hoping for the rain to stop. I was prepared to just walk through the downpour without an umbrella, but luckily Holly had nice purple spare umbrella for me to use. The purple really spiced up my usual color choices for clothes which typically include shades rather than colors. It was probably 73 degrees out as we walked down to the bus stop. I have never really been in a place that is humid and the way that everyone who I asked described humidity as being sticky and hard to breathe. This is completely accurate. On the bus ride I especially noticed it, I felt as though each breath I was taken in was taking in more water than air. It kind of gave me a rush of anxiety to be aware of how thick the air was. It is suffocating.

As we rode the bus Kim asked us what we thought was most different about Korea compared to the United States of America. I thought for a moment, it was hard to narrow it down to a single difference. Everything is different here. From the food you eat, the cell phones used, the language spoken, the clothing style, the rules of etiquette, the chaos of the roads, the architecture, the people, everything is different. I tried to express the vastness of the difference but I sort of just mumbled something about the number of difference. I finally responded with cup sizes. It seems odd but in my everyday life here that is the biggest difference that has affected me. All the cup sizes are like 8oz rather than 32oz or whatever insane vessels us Americans use to store our sugar water in. I really liked the question and it got my mind thinking about the vastness of the simple differences between Korea and the United States.

Our first stop was Samseonghyeol (삼성혈) which is in the center of Jeju City and is a cultural site surrounding three holes where according to legend the three Gods of Jeju Island emerged from. The entire complex is walled in with a very beautiful traditional style. When we walked through the gates we were immediately greeted by a peaceful forest like park which had monuments and buildings scattered throughout with marauding paths cutting through the park. It is a very serene and peaceful place. The simple act of listening to the rain drip down onto the branches of the trees patter downwards towards the next leaf is incredibly peaceful. It was easy to forget that we were right next to a bustling city. The walls dampened any sound from the street. We walked around the museum and soaked up the scenery. Kim’s roommate Mini also brought this delicious bean cake dessert thing which had this gooey center of sugar and deliciousness.

Sign explaining Samseonghyeol

The wandering wet paths through the forest of discovery. I am going overboard now.

Puuuuurdy

I loved the root systems of these trees. They looked like they were ancient hands grabbing the ground. Very cool up close as well.

Area to pay homage to the gods

We ate those delicious gooballs under this neat gazebo type thing. This is the roof.

Me, Holly and Erica. The purple umbrella fits my swag.

We moved on to the Folklore and Natural History Museum in Jeju City. This museum was pretty neat; it basically gave an overview of the older cultural history of Jeju Island while also showing the natural history of the island which is incredibly diverse. They have a lot of animals that grow to smaller sizes because of the lack of any need to grow bigger; I think the term is the island effect or something like that. There was this bear that was the size of a large dog so that was awesome.

After the museum Kim and Mini took us to this street which was known for the noodle restaurants on the street. As we walked down the street Kim would point out different areas that she would visit when she was younger as she has lived on Jeju her entire life. She told us that it was common for people to go to university where they had grown up and that usually they will continue to live at home during their years at university. I got the impression that there is a much stronger tie to geographic location in Korea then there is in America. It is routine for families to live on opposite sides of the country and to move all across the country while growing up. There is much less of a generational tie to a geographic location.

We got to the noodle restaurant and I ordered some sort of delicious noodle dish. Most of my food descriptions are basically going to come down to “some tasty ass dish” I don’t know what I am eating and when I get told the name of the dish I forget it instantly because Korean is incredibly hard for me to remember. Kim and Mini kept trying to help us with how to properly use chopsticks and then laughing at our awkward inability to master the method. I thought I had it down pretty well but then I kept thinking about it and kept doing this weird grip that had my fingers contorted in a bizarre and mangled fashion. But we all stuck through it and nobody folded and used a fork. It becomes a matter of pride for me when I go to a restaurant and they ask me if I want a fork I am like “nah I got this” then I struggle for the entire meal.

Once we had our bellies filled with noodles and soup we made our way to the next stop, a traditional Korean Pub.

Erica and Kim, probably discussing chopstick technique

This is me staring at other food on the table even though I already have food.

Holly and Mini posing it up

This cute little kid kept trying to make a run for the park but his Mom wasn't having none of that.

We headed back down to the City Hall area and made a quick left at another narrow ally which was framed by bright vertical neon signs that were just beginning to turn on as the sun began to set. When we walked inside the first thing I noticed was the sweet smell of cedar and real wood. The lay out of the pub was a serious of long wooden tables and accompanied by matching wooden benches. It was incredibly pleasant and peaceful. Mini went and ordered this side dish which is like a pancake but its stuffed with vegetables and made with crushed beans and is amazingly delicious. I will edit in the name of it when I figure it out. Mini also ordered a bottle of makgeolli which is this carbonated rice wine that is weaker than regular rice wine and very sweet and dry. It was served in a teapot like vessel which is poured into shallow bowls. It is served cold and it is so nice and refreshing, especially after walking around in the hot and humid air for a couple of hours. The rain outside made the pub that much more cozy and it was a perfect place to finish the tour of the city.

The inside of the traditional bar. Cozy as a sheepskin jacket.

Bowls of makgeolli I didn't get a dish of that awesome fried bean sprout pancake thing, I guess I will just have to go and get some more.

It was 73 degrees when I took this. I can't get over hot rain.

Frinight

When I got back to the dorm I saw that Ethan had gone out. I figured he and Professor McCuan had gone out exploring the city. I got ready for a quieter Friday night; I was exhausted anyways so I didn’t really mind. But then I got a knock on my door, it was the Deleware State guys next door who were on the phone with Ko trying to get some details for the events the following day. After we hammered out the details I asked them what they were doing tonight, they told me they wanted to explore the nightlife and asked me if I wanted to go. I happily agreed even though we all had to get up at 8AM the next morning to hike around. You are only in Korea once I thought to myself, YOIKO.

We went down to the City Hall region of Jeju City, one of the guys Chrishod had spent a year in Korea and knew enough Korean to give instructions to the taxi driver. We get to City Hall and we don’t really know where to go. We know of one club in the area so we try to navigate the crooked streets to try and find the club. It was fun to watch the droves of drunken people wander around the streets. Koreans were much more eager to practice their English with us when they were drunk, but this creates a Catch-22 because their ability to speak English also decreases when they get drunk. It was truly a different place at night. There was an electricity of excitement generated by all of the different things happening, it was truly mesmerizing just people watching.

When we finally found the club that we were looking for and Chrishod goes and asks the bouncer how much it will cost. The bouncer says 8,000 WON which is about 8 USD. Chrishod then asks him how many people are in the club and the bouncer tells us very few. Then the bouncer gives us an address of another club which is about a 10 minute cab ride away and guaranteed to have a large crowd. I am completely baffled by having a bouncer tell the truth about the mediocrity of the crowd at his own club and then recommending another club to go to. We are all still very excited about discovering a new area of the city so we flag down and pile into a cab and we were on our way.

We get to the club and is clearly more fun than the dingy expat club downtown. The building is massive with a giant flashing LED sign playing visualizations of the clubs name. We get in line to get our IDs checked but are quickly escorted to the side, Mini had told me earlier that they don’t card foreigners often because they can’t tell our age and often don’t feel like the hassle of trying to get someone to show their ID without using a common language. We get taken upstairs and into this massive auditorium with hundreds of tables with red lamps matched with puffy red chairs. The auditorium is easily four stories tall with a ceiling that clearly can open up to the sky. All of the tables were facing the stage which was backlit with a series of complicated LEDs and clearly was movable. As we are sitting down loud music starts to play and a band is slowly lowered from the ceiling down to the stage. They are not actually playing anything rather miming playing instruments to LMFAO’s “I am sexy and I know it” while the singer sings the lyrics he knows and also shouts out random Korean phrases. It was just very surreal. After the band finished “performing” very somber piano music played and everybody who was on the dance floor slowly walked back to their tables to rest and wait for the next set.

We stayed for almost the whole night it was terrific fun. The DJs would often not actually mix and just pump up the crowd sing certain lyrics and yell things in Korean. The mixing style of the DJs was insane they would jump from playing hip-hop to suddenly shifting and playing happy hardcore it was very jarring but the Koreans didn’t seem to mind. I, Elijah and Chrishod were literally the only foreigners in the place. This gave us a lot of attention especially from people who had overindulged. This older drunk Korean guy kept coming up to us and giving us hugs and trying to get us in farther into the dance floor, encouraging us to dance with the biggest grin on his face.

I felt like I experienced a very genuine example of Korean nightlife and it is very interesting to watch people and compare how their interactions are different from American nightclubs. One stark difference is that the people at the Korean club were actually dancing. In American nightclubs people tend to just grind on strangers pelvises on a dance floor so crowded it is hard to stand straight. In Korea everyone danced and everyone was good at it. On the dance floor there was a dance team performing complex organized sets. During certain songs everyone would start doing a step pattern, kind of like line dancing and it was incredibly difficult to try and follow along. The social interaction was very group oriented, this was a place where you would go with your friends, and there was not that much intermingling. There is an interesting service that this club and many other Korean clubs offer where groups of males will rent a private room upstairs and servers will go and find women so that the guys can buy the girls a drink and get to know them. It was a common site to see a club server holding a giggle girls hand to walk her to meet upstairs to do a blind meet and greet. It was an interesting cultural practice to watch and I honestly think going to a nightclub gives a really snapshot of what the younger generation is like of a different culture. Everyone is drunk and disinhibited and you can really watch how people interact in a very tribal group setting. Despite having a blast dancing and watching the insane theatrics I truly think it added to my knowledge of contemporary Korean culture. And that’s not just some bullshit I am spewing to try and skew my night of going into the clubs as some sort of quest for understanding aspects of culture, it just happened to be a side effect of a fun night out.

When we finally made it back to the dorms we realized we needed to get up in about three hours to go on a day long excursion throughout Jeju so we quickly tried to grab the precious few hours we could get. Saturday was just as long and fun as Friday.

Chrishod navigating, WiFi access here is great.

Inside of the arcade that I went in to use the restroom

Koreans playing this arcade game that measure the force of your kick. Looks fun I think I would end up kicking the rusting metal case and breaking every bone in my foot though.

The lightening made it hard to take good photos, here are some long exposure shots taken from our table.

On top of one of the balconies looking at the stage

This site goes into more detail about the club and the processes of "booking"

Loitering at 7/11 and the Mall (I feel like I am 14 again)

2012-07-03T07:21:00.002-07:00

We had so much fun exploring the city on Wednesday we decided to take the 500 down even farther on Thursday. We really wanted to see the actual ocean; we had been on Jeju Island for 3 days without ever seeing the ocean. Again we really only knew the general direction of the ocean and we had no idea of any of the districts or landmarks of Jeju City. We took the 500 down the main drag going past the bus stop where we had gotten off the day before. Once the bus turned off the main drag we figured it was time to get off. We walked down the waterfront and just admired the view of the vast emptiness of the ocean. We reached the end of the path and were greeted by a variety of different seafood restaurants and stores which had aquariums filled with living seafood. We all gathered around the different tanks marveling at the freakish looking creatures from the depths of the ocean. We found some outdoor tables outside of a 7/11 right next to the strip of seafood stores and decided to hang out and have a few snacks while enjoying in the sun that we had not seen since getting to Jeju.

The path along the waterway

There was this creepy abandoned carnival right on the water front

Statues on the waterfront

Buffer of cement before the shops on the waterfront

Rusted up punch o meter. These machines remind me of Final Fantasy VII.

The SSU Crew inspect the local maritime food

Shops along the pier-like end of the waterfront.

SNAILS!

7-11, our familiar convenience store. No Slurpee's though...

Our view from the 7-11

These souvenirs are everywhere, they look like they have licked a few too many toads.

The "white trash" selection at the local thrift store

After we got our fill of trail mix and vitamin D we moseyed back to where we had gotten off the bus. We walked through an outdoor mall like alley there were a few dingy little shops with shop keepers in them watching small tube TVs or just napping. When we emerged back onto the bustling street where we had gotten off Professor McCuan noticed stairs leading underneath the street, just like stairs leading to a subway. He suggested that it might be the underground mall which he had heard about a few days before. Of course we were all excited about going to a mall that was literally underneath the street so we hopped on down the less than glamorous staircase. When we walked onto the landing we were instantly mesmerized by what we saw. The mall is not like an American mall where you have a number of large stores which carry a wide variety of things; rather this mall had a hundreds of small stores that could barely fit any merchandise at all. Most of the stores were about the size of a standard dorm room, and the mall was designed so that you would walk down this hall and look into these tiny stores. When we were standing in the center of the mall looking down to the other end I originally thought there had to be mirrors somewhere to explain the depth of the mall. It was very interesting walking through the mall, although we had to be very careful to stick together as a group as to not get lost. The vast majority of the stores were for women’s clothes probably at a 5:1 ratio, so I rarely explored any of the stores further then a casual glance.

Our grand entrance to the underground mall

This picture does the mall no justice, you could look as and as far as you could see would be more mall. It was insane.

Each sign is a new store

ICE BURGER! Probably going to be one of my life's regrets that I did not buy this.

Once we arrived at the opposite end of the mall we decided it was time to leave the cave of consumerism and to return to the surface. Right as we exited the mall we saw another alley filled with small storefronts, however this market was selling various types of fresh seafood, a stark change from the underground mall. The crowd at the fish market was much older as were the storekeepers. It was immediately clear that the style of the underground mall was taken from the style of the traditional market, small storefronts with small selections. The street was littered with different types of fish, squids, mushrooms, oranges, and a variety of cooked food that was sitting in open containers on the street. All of the shop keepers were elderly women and would smile as they caught me staring at their exotic foods; a few were catching a quick nap while waiting for customers. We didn’t linger over any one store for too long slightly fearful of the samples that the storekeeper would hand us. I am an adventurous eater but I wasn’t feeling eating raw fish from street vendors.

The beginning the fish market

Open bowls of deliciousness

Waiting for customers

Decapitating fish

The market was expansive this is just one side of the market

Shoppers looking for the best deal on seafood

Buying the specialty dish

Shrimp?

Outside of the fish market, citrus is huge here.

Outside of the main fish market, I get the impression that these women could not make rent and were forced to have a unsanctioned market on a side street.

Moped drivers will kill you. They ride on the side walks and rev up when they want you to move over. Often times they are doing it just to decrease delivery time for hot burgers.

Another side alley thrift store. I want to go back to get a Korean T-Shirt or a T-Shirt with horribly mistranslated English phrases on it, those seem to be popular.

The market was a prime example of the amount of different sensory stimuli that I have felt as I have traveled around Jeju. The blended smell of the different fishes, various foods and the cars passing by was truly unique and is something that cannot be easily replicated. The smells on top of the sounds of mopeds whizzing through the alley at unsafe speeds, horns honking, the sound of knives cutting through fish and the chatter of hundreds of people chattering in a foreign language paired with the visual scenery of brightly lit signs, crooked buildings on crooked streets, tiny markets with storekeepers preparing the fish right in front of the storefront, and the people who grew up and lived in a different culture going about their daily business. Everything is different. It is an amazing feeling; it feels to me like I am a child again rediscovering the world around me. It is the fun “honeymoon” period of staying in a foreign country, and I am enjoying it immensely

After the fish market we headed back to the same restaurant that Ethan and I had gone to on Tuesday, lucky for us the same ROTC student who spoke English was there and acted as our defacto waiter. I asked him about the kimchee soup, the same style as the boiling magma soup from Monday, he warned that it may be too spicy for me so of course I took that as a challenge. Everyone else got the delicious grilled pork and we all stuffed our faces with deliciousness and went to bed with our stomachs happy.

More shots of Jeju City

Looks different with sun, eh?

These trees are dope

Student Union at Jeju National University

Another building at Jeju National University

Our dorm in the setting sun

From Delicious Korean Food to Delicious Indian Food

2012-07-01T07:27:00.002-07:00

Tuesday

On Tuesday I got up at like 630ish again. Went to the FamilyMart (a convenience store) up the street and grabbed some of the iced coffee shot things that I had wondrously discovered on Monday. Went to class at 9 and got out at 12. We had lunch in the student cafeteria-like restaurant where I again ate mysterious dishes which I knew nothing of their contents. Professor McCuan said told Ethan and I that he was going to have dinner with the dean and president of Jeju National University, as it is Korean tradition for the host of any institution who is having guests to meet with them in the first 48 hours. That left Ethan and I on our own for dinner, we stupidly didn’t create a plan to meet up with Erica and Holly after lunch. We figured we would keep it simple and just go to the cafeteria anyways. I took it easy, tried to get the internet set up and walked around a bit. The cafeteria was closed so we went up the street to this restaurant just off campus. We looked in and saw that there were pictures of the food so we knew we could eat there. We walked in and the hostess rattles of something in Korean. We just kind of stare stupidly other patrons start looking at us, then they all laughed at our blank faces. She then gestured to a table, with the bulk of the surface of the table being taken up by a massive iron skillet. We looked at the pictures and decided on the pork strips, a specialty on Jeju Island. The hostess came over to take our order and we awkwardly point at the picture of the pork on the wall, one of the patrons says “pork?” we nod yes and show on our hands that we want an order for two. Next thing I know she is firing up the grill and bringing us plate upon plate of side dishes filling our table space up to the breaking point. The last thing she brings out are these savory looking slabs of raw pork, tongs and scissors. She greases up the skillet using a chunk of pork fat and then we were left on our own to cook it. Luckily we ran into Ko who gave us a brief rundown on how to cook the meat and how to eat it. What you do is cut up the pork into chunks and then put them on a piece of lettuce adding desired side dishes and then rolling up the whole package to make a delicious carb-free wrap. Towards the end of the meal the hostess came to our table again and asked us a question, a ROTC student next to our table saw that we were struggling to communicate and offered to translate with perfect English, he helped us order rice and soup which was tremendously because otherwise we would have just starred stupidly. The total cost of the meal was like $6.50 which was a bargain considering how good the food was and the portion size. We went back to the dorm and called it a night.

Sizzling pork

Wednesday

After class on Wednesday, we all decided to walk down to the bus stop at the foot of campus and try to figure out which bus to take down into Jeju City, or just hop on any bus and see where we would end up. All of the bus maps in Jeju are in Korean so we really couldn’t plan anything even if we wanted to. Luckily one bus had a sign on it that said “Jeju City – City Hall” written in English, we knew that was the downtown area so we hopped on not really knowing where we were going to end up. The interior of the bus was like a hybrid between a long distance bus and a normal city bus. The interior had sort of frilly curtains draping the windows and had seats that were actually seats rather than the plastic chairs that are designed to be incredibly easy to wash off bodily fluids from. As we approached the city the bus stops started to be announced in not only Korean but English and Chinese, whichh was a welcome relief. We decided to get off around city hall which is the downtown area of Jeju City.

When we got off the bus we walked down the main drag ducking down side streets we found interesting. It was nice to walk around with a group of people who also are completely oblivious to the language and can only guess what certain things are. Every new storefront is like a mini-mystery that we get to solve. It is more stimulating than just simply having a guide explain every little detail. We walked through a small market area which was either winding down or starting up. There were numerous stands set up usually with elderly women manning them. Due to some odd tax laws women in Jeju are traditionally the ones dealing with certain businesses. We kept walking and we stumbled upon an elementary school which is markedly bigger then elementary schools in the states. As we walked I pointed out that the Korean Airline Hotel which is one of the bigger buildings dominating Jeju City’s skyline, had what appeared to be a sky bar on the top floor. We figured the view from the top would be incredibly even in the fog so we all decided to go up and check it out. We reached the top and walked down a hallway where there were beautiful banquet rooms which gave incredibly views of Jeju City. We reached the end of the hallway and were greeted with these brightly glowing stairs leading up to the sky lounge. The effect was heavenly, I felt as though I was walking up the pearly gates. The skylounge was completely empty; it was like 4PM on a Wednesday which is not exactly peak business hours for a ritzy sky bar. The view from the table was incredible. But the best view was from the male urinals, which were facing a panoramic view of the sea. Pretty much the best view I have ever had while peeing.

After we left the sky bar we wandered through some parks. The parks are incredibly green with lots of tree cover. The park seemed to be populated by older Koreans going for walks and enjoying the park. We walked past a group of men who were yelling excitedly and surrounding a table as they were playing a game. We thought about investigating further but they were giving us some mean looks so we just kept on our merry way. We decided to try and find a Indian restaurant called the “Baghdad Café” that Ethan had read about online. Using Google Maps and wifi we were able to decipher the narrow streets and find the restaurant. It was a nice change of pace at the Baghdad Café, everyone spoke English and we were given forks. The food was amazing. The restaurant seemed to be a favorite of the islands Muslim population. While we were eating there was a group of about 15-20 who came in ate and left all in a span of about 45 minutes. Apparently they like the restaurant because they serve food Hallah. It was easy to lose yourself in the restaurant; it truly felt as though we were back in America. Everyone was speaking English we were using forks and there was a diverse group of people inside of the restaurant. But once we left we were back in Korea back to fun miscommunications and unknown foods.

This stuff is exactly the same as Red Bull but only 80 cents

Inside of the bus

Professor McCuan, Ethan and Holly trying to figure out where to head

A statue by the bus stop.

I took a bunch of photos of the streets, I think it conveys the feeling of the city the best.

Ducks mourning their fallen brethren

View from our table on top of the Korean Airlines Hotel

Best urinals ever.

It feels good peeing with this view. I felt like Scarface.

Walking up to the pearly gates

Outdoor gym in the park. Getting tons of use, in America it would probably be tagged up with MS13 tags and used as a sleeping area for drug addicts. But it works here as an outdoor curves.

Thinking statue in the park. There were lots of statues scattered around the park.

Aww you guys!

Interesting use of the second-person narrative. Very post-modern.

Passengers running to the waiting bus

A small house with a garden in the middle of the city. This was a common sight, an incredibly old village looking building surrounded by modern buildings. I think Jeju City just grew around them but the occupants didn't want to change their habits and move.

Marriage castle.

Bagdad Cafe, an Indian restaurant. In Korea.

So good.

Arcade's are big here. I need to spend some more time exploring them these next few weeks.

A bar named after the exotic land of "Kansas".

The First Day in Jeju

2012-06-28T07:43:00.000-07:00

The first morning I woke up at what I thought was 645AM, perfect timing we were going to meet Ko at 8AM for a tour of Jeju National University. Turns out that I actually woke up at 545AM my clock was on daylight savings time. Ethan and I decided to explore the campus and as we walked down the hall we ran into Professor McCuan who also had gotten up during the wee-hours of the morning, we wondered around the empty campus walking into different buildings and exploring. Nothing was locked and hardly anything had signs in English so we mostly spent our time trying to figure out what buildings were what. The campus is interesting, the architectural design is not consistent at all and the entire campus is on a hill. This combined with the early morning mist made for a very interesting and unique atmosphere that is hard to describe. At 8 we met up with Ko and he gave us the full tour, explaining what each building was as he lead us to go get breakfast at Dunkin Donuts. Yes there is a Dunkin Donuts on Jeju. They can’t expand onto the west coast but they can expand onto an island off the coast of South Korea. However the Dunkin Donuts was closed so we went to a local bakery which served pastries Korean style. Their pastries are incredibly sweet and they all seem to have creamlike fillings. I was glad that we got to eat at the local bakery; going half way across the world to eat an American chain just feels wrong. But oh so sweet.

Walking down towards the base of campus

Once your name is on a banner you know you have hit the big leagues

These guys were playing this weird volleyball game using only their feet and heads. It was super interesting to watch and looks quite fun.

This is a green on campus with some gardeners tending to it. The campus is quite beautiful but the weather has been drissly and it is hard to caputure the atmosphere with a simple point and shoot camera, so I am just putting up a bunch of photos so that you might be able to glimpse the beauty of the campus.

The Dunkin Donuts that was closed which is attached to a 7-11 and a Baskin Robbins.

The base of the campus where the bus stop to the city is and where our bakery was.

These deer statues must have some significance unfortunately the plaques are all in Korean so I cannot tell you what they mean. They look good though.

I really like the wooded look that Jeju National University has. All the foliage around the campus makes the air fresher and gives the campus a very earthy feeling.

As we left the bakery to start our arduous walk from the base of campus to our class room, Ko seemed fairly agitated, he kept telling us that class was at 9AM.He leads the way to the classroom probably a good ten minutes late, again this was after traveling for 20ish hours and my sense of time still lacked sense. When we arrived there were already five people waiting for us, three female Korean students, one male Korean student and a female Korean professor. The Korean professor pointed at her wrist as we arrived to draw attention to our lateness. Apparently Korean Professors are never late, the students can arrive late but the professors are always on time. From my two years of experience at SSU I would say the professors are on time 50% of the time. An interesting cultural norm as in most of Korean society elders are given the utmost respect, I figured a professor could arrive whenever they wanted but evidently not. As Professor McCuan began setting up his computer on the complex Korean podium/classroom control center, the Korean professor suggested that all the Americans meet the Korean students. I went over to the nervous looking guy and introduced myself. It became clear almost immediately that this guy spoke almost no English. I asked him why he was interested in this class and he said because he needed it for his “report card” which I took to mean he needed it to fulfill his credits. I sat awkwardly as he searches for the words to express what he is thinking. Finally he blurts “I didn’t know this class was in English.” I gave him a wide eyed look and simply said “shit” and we both kind of laughed. Once class began to resume he leans in and says “Nice meeting you Joe” and he then bolts out of the classroom. The rest of the class session just seems like a normal class taught by my Professor. But we are in Korea. It is kind of surreal but I got over that quick as I became more and more engaged by the class.

The cafeteria at Jeju. It is much larger than this with probably 15 to 20 tables running back from where I took this photo.

Boiling molten hell soup harnessed from the lava tubes of Jeju, and side dishes. The Koreans always have side dishes.

During each break I would go out to the vending machines and binge on the 500 WON (50 cent) sweet canned coffee drinks that are sold in vending machines all over campus. The thing is that they are like 150ML and pretty weak. I generally drink half a pot of coffee a day back at home and I make it strong and drink it constantly. I need to make up for the lack of giant cups here by taking the equivalent of caffeine methadone hits during the class breaks.

After the 3 hour class session all the American students and Professor McCuan went with Ko to the cafeteria. They were serving kimchi soup with side dishes. The kimchi soup was dark red and came directly from a massive pot where it was stewing and placed into a cast iron bowl that resembled a potions cauldron. I carefully walked to a table carefully holding my tray of side dishes and the boiling cauldron of magma. Once we were all seated Ko explained the side dishes and told us that the soup was even spicy for him. I devoured everything on the plate sweating profusely when I was scooping through the kimchi soup. I quite enjoy kimchi which I am told is not something foreigners typically enjoy. I guess others palette’s are not sophisticated enough to enjoy fermented cabbage. Or my palette is so unsophisticated that the whole spectrum has come full circle and I will literally eat anything in front of me. I am pretty sure it is the ladder but I like to pretend it is the former.

This is how the mornings pretty much have worked since the first day. Go to class at 9, drink 175ML coffee drinks in the vein attempt to chase the caffeine buzz I knew in America, go and eat some spicy food of which I know none of the main ingredients. Then the afternoons are free for us to go and explore this exotic and different land. The first night Ko guided us to go to Jeju City’s Lotte Mart a sort of supermarket on steroids, like Wal-Mart but with less elderly greeters and sadness. It is owned by the Lotte Corporation a conglomerate that owns a variety of stores and makes a variety of products. Sort of like a Korean Costco or Siemens, one of the companies that are kind of scary in their variety of products. All of the Sonoma State students, Professor McCuan and two of the Delaware State students went down with Ko to Lotte Mart. Ko had to go to attend to some other business but he gave us a note to give to the taxis in order to get back to Jeju National University.

The Lotte Mart was amazing; simply because of how different it was to anything American. The bottom floor was the fresh grocery area. There were all sorts of live sea-creatures, dead sea-creatures, refrigerated Korean dishes that only needed to be heated to unleash their potential deliciousness power, and exotic fruits. Erica, Holly and the Delaware State girls all went different directions to explore the exotic supermarket while Ethan, Professor McCuan and I slowly perused the supermarket. There were friendly Lotte Mart associates giving out free samples all around the store, they were aggressively friendly giving out samples. We were all looking at the seafood and we spotted these small little crabs that were for sale. Professor McCuan was incredibly excited at the little fellas and the attendant noticed his excitement. She quickly skewered one for each of us and not wanting to be rude we all ate the full miniature crab. The best way to describe it was “earthy” it kind of tasted like the earth. It was good and the shell was soft but the consistency was definitely that of a full crustacean. Each level was filled with new discoveries. On the sporting goods level we found incredibly cheap sets of high quality golf clubs. On the level with electronics we saw the newest in Samsung’s TV technology. On the top level we saw an “American style restaurant” which looked as if they modeled their interior on both a Marie Callender's and Nancy Regan’s favorite bedspread. We decided we should probably put that on the places to go for the Fourth of July.

After we were done exploring we all met back up to go and eat some of the local cuisine. So we went to the local Burger King, which was a few doors away from the Krispy Kreme. I got a whopper at 7,000 WON and it tasted just like an American whopper. I guess it was a good move to ease my gut flora onto Korean food. After our dinner of Burger King we grabbed a taxi and headed back to our dorm. The taxi driver was very dedicated to keeping our travelling cost low. So dedicated that he decided to pass two cars on a blind turn, forcing a car coming the other direction to bail into a turnout. So kind of him. He did keep the cost low only about 7,000 WON (7 dollars) to get from the city to Jeju National University. Props to him. I went to bed with my body tired and confused only to wake up again at 630AM.

The entrance to Lotte Mart. The stone guradians on the left and right are traditional Jeju symbols.

Fresh fish frozen and packed for you.

Samples on samples.

They have these little bins where you put your small dog while you shop. I don't know what happens if you lose the key...

Krispy Kremes!

Sorry for the lack of substantial updates while I have been in Jeju I have just been really busy enjoying and exploring the island. Now that the routine is established I plan to post summaries of what we all did in the afternoon and then also have the less regular post about cultural things I have noticed. By Sunday I hope to blog summarizing my expierences inside the classroom and what is challenging about teaching advanced American election concepts to foreigners. It is truly a unique and eye opening experience for me and my fellow Sonoma State Students. I also hope to post some random cultural differences and some funny and awkward communication challenges we have faced. If there are any suggestions about what you want me to post about let me know.

Journeying West

2012-06-26T01:34:00.000-07:00

SFO to Seoul

I arrived at SFO at 9AM ready for the 19 hours of travel in front of me. Sort of the longest flight I have ever taken was going from SFO to Munich which is around 10 hours long. SFO to Seoul takes about twelve to thirteen hours. Everything went smoothly at SFO, the airport was not busy at all we quickly checked our luggage and went through security with enough time to grab some food. We flew Asiana Air which is one of the two major airlines in Korea. The trip was to Seoul was smooth but horribly long. The entertainment system boasted a plethora of Korean dramas and probably a good 40 hours of golf footages. The on demand selection of “American Pop” featured mostly 80s classics such as Culture Club, Duran Duran, Kansas and A-Ha. Although most of those bands are not American, the synthy 80s feel was the perfect soundtrack to the slow decent into madness that a 12 hour journey inevitably brings. However to calm yourself down they do have the incredible album “Men Playing Piano” which features a collection of piano pieces... played by men. Being on an airplane for that long is very surreal. They have everyone close the blinds to simulate night but we are literally chasing the sun, it was constantly sunny outside and whenever anyone would open the window. The light would pierce in through the darkness and shatter the illusion of night. For the majority of the flight I watched movies like “Cowboys and Aliens” because I wanted to preserve my purgatory-like mind state of being only half cognizant. Trust me if you want to feel like a post-op lobotomy patient watching “Cowboys and Aliens” will do the trick.

Seoul to Jeju

We landed in Seoul about 20 minutes late around 5:10 in the afternoon. By the time the flight ended the dry air had gotten to me and I felt like I was on the verge of getting a bloody nose. When we got off the plane we were hit with hot muggy air. I liked how the weather contrasted so greatly with the plane. It really made me feel like I was in a foreign land. My excitement with finally arriving in Korea was short lived however as we had to get to our connecting flight to Jeju at 7. However we still had to go through customs and immigration and recheck our bags, even though our connecting flight was on the same airline. When we get off the flight and queue up in the immigration and customs line Professor McCuan joked “You should never follow me I always pick the slow line”, we all chuckle until we realize that he was right and our current line was moving aggravatingly slow. At this point I don’t have a watch and time has no meaning to me having been sitting for 12 hours without any outside cues to clueing me into the passage of time. But apparently we were in line for about 40 minutes before we got through. They took a photo of us and our fingerprints and we were off to get our luggage. Ethan had switched to the other line having seen how slow ours was moving so he got through first and went to grab our luggage. He only just got there in time, they were about to cart all of our luggage off to unclaimed baggage. We grabbed our bags and tried to find the Asiana domestic gate. We soon realized that we were still in the international area of the airport Gate “F” and we needed to Gate “A”. So we hauled our asses through the Seoul airport. It was like 80 degrees in the airport and so we just half walked half ran through the sea of travelers, strategically weaving our way around slow walkers trying not to run into anyone. We checked in quickly went through security and then we were finally where we were supposed to be with twenty minutes to spare. We saw a group of other Americans in the waiting area of the terminal and turns out that they were students from Delaware State University in Dover who were also going to the International Summer School at Jeju. The flight from Seoul to Jeju was only about an hour and by that point I was straight up loopy. I was giggling as I made inane statements and just saying straight up silliness to my fellow travellers.

We landed in Jeju around 9PM Sunday. When we got off the plane did not go through the usual moveable hall like thing that is common on international flights, rather we walked off the plane directly onto the tarmac. As soon as we got off we were engulfed in a heavy mist like rain. Wind and warm mist was hitting us from all directions as the idling engine growled next to us. I was just amazed that I was finally there. The airport seemed to have an orange glow surrounding, and being pummeled by water energized me enough to wake me up from my zombie like state. Right as we reached the luggage carousel Professor McCuan spotted one of the officials who had interviewed him for the teaching position. A younger man dressed in a sport coat and jeans he introduced himself as Ko and told us that he would be the official responsible for our stay at Jeju. He directed us to the airport parking lot where a bus waited to take us to the University. On the ride there Ko whipped out a few bags of Korean snacks and encouraged us to take as much as we wanted. I took a sweet pastry thing with cheese and sausage and a box of drinkable apple yogurt which was delicious. The ride lasted probably about 30 minutes, again I cannot say for sure because at that point I had no sense of time. During the ride Ko gave us an incredibly informative rundown on the island and the school. When we got to our dorms we were given our keys and were told that we didn’t have a Korean roommate but instead would room with one another. I was relieved, I was in no state to meet a new roommate and get settled in, I just wanted to shower and try to get as much sleep before the 8AM tour of campus the next morning. As soon as my head hit the pillow I was out. 20 hours of travel and I was finally at my destination and it felt so good.

View from outside of our dorm

Inside of the dorm room. Most exciting photo ever.

Down the street from our dorm

The next post I will detail the classroom environment and some fun and interesting stories of communication and cultural norms.