Annyong (Seoul Day 3)

On Wednesday morning Charlie and I hopped a cab to the Yantai Airport to fly Korean Air into Incheon, South Korea. The flight was really short, about 50 minutes and the flight attendants gave everyone newspapers which was cool. When we arrived at the Incheon airport, it was as if we landed on another planet. Korea is completely different from China. The airport was one of the nicest I've ever scene. All of the airport staff were really friendly and the facilities were top notch. Outside there were palm trees and lush vegetation welcoming its visitors to Korea. So we found the right limousine bus that supposedly would drop us off in downtown Seoul where our friend lives. When we got in the bus, Charlie and I were shocked to find seat belts. Korea actually has safety standards?!? After the bus driver checked everyone's seatbelt we were off toward downtown Seoul and proceeded to watch a half hour of models showing off all the latest fashions (we didn't choose to watch it, it was on a Samsung screen in front of us). Which brings me to why Seoul and Korea is so bang (great or amazing).

Why Seoul/Korea is So Bang:
1. Bakeries on every corner - Heavenly bakeries filled with things that make your body feel good. Real bread, bagels, pastries of all varieties, cream cheese filled bread...you can find it all here.

2. A great metro system - Reminds me of the NYC subway a hundred times cleaner and more high-tech. There are flat screen monitors showing live TV interspersed with safety videos featuring a man holding a bottle of liquid with one hand and using his other hand to light it on fire, and security guards tackling him before he can do anything. The metro cars also feature a luggage rack for anything you don't want to carry and either a Mario or Fanfare ring depending on if its just a regular stop (Mario ring) or if its a major transfer point (Fanfare ring). The rings tend to wake people up if they miss a stop.

3. Samsung controlling everything - Samsung literally owns Korea. Office buildings, cell phones, food, appliances, underwear, you name it and Samsung owns it.

4. Living in a high tech world - everyone is connected, finger print scanners are in and everywhere, small portable dvd players that fit in your hand, crazy mp3 players with antennae coming out of them, and the slide phones

5. The world's largest indoor amusement park - and it is called Lotte World. This park is not only indoor, it extends outside. Disney on steroids could be a good description of this place.

6. Everyone loves baseball - Koreans do not discriminate on which teams they support or unknowingly support by wearing a certain team's hat. I have seen every MLB team on either a shirt or hat here. People just love baseball which is a rare sight outside of the US.

7. Seoul has every American chain store - I mean every US chain restaurant/store, here's a rundown of what I've spotted so far: 7 Eleven, Dunkin' Donuts, Krispy Kreme, Outback Steakhouse, Tony Roma's, Domino's, Pizza Hut, Baskin Robbins, Starbucks, Au Bon Pain, and more.

8. Converse is hip - all of the college kids on down wear Converse, in the US Converse isn't as popular as it is here.

9. No Stares - No one stares at us in Korea. I'm not sure why, but people do not stop what they are doing and look us over for a long time. Korean culture value of respect and kindness is definitely involved here.

10. Bibimbap and Green Tea ice cream - Korean food is great. Bibimbap is a traditional Korean dish with rice and about 6 different vegetables. Green tea ice cream is green tea flavored ice cream. Both taste great.

11. Genuine courtesy and culture - People are polite and treat their elders with respect.

12. Beautiful people - A lot of Koreans wear designer clothing and sport the pop star look.

13. Cars that don't run you over - Cars yield for pedestrians most of the time.

14. Kong Tiao (AC) - Any place indoors in Seoul has air conditioning. This is a good thing since we are in Korea during the hottest time of the year.

15. Largest Museum in all of Asia - The National Museum of Korea in Seoul. It is massive, larger than any of the Smithsonians in DC. I can't describe the scale of this museum. It has everything you could imagine.

16. Orderly lines guiding all pedestrian traffic - Crosswalks have white painted arrows directing people to orderly cross the street. The metro directs people to walk to the left side of the stairs and escalators have a painted yellow line reminding people to stay to the right if people want to pass on the left. Most busy streets in Seoul don't have crosswalks but rather underground crosswalks.

17. 2-handed waves - For some reason a select group of people like to wave using 2 hands, shaking them from side to side in a rapid motion. I don't know what to make of this. It is a bit scary.

18. No censoring of any kind - No sites are banned so I can read my blog temporarily. Also newspapers are not controlled by the government which is nice for a little while.

19. Underground Stores/Restaurants - This is something that every country should have. Not only does it cut down on traffic above ground but its nice to be able to get out of the heat for a little while.

Well here's a quick rundown of what I've been doing in Seoul on my time off from classes: going to the Korean War Museum, riding the tram to the top of the Seoul Tower, stopping by the China Cultural Center and meeting some Chinese students, going to a Korean musical based on a popular drama, getting lost on the Seoul metro, trying to find banks that will actually accept my bank card, randomly finding a huge indoor mall with movie theaters and 9 other floors, playing mini-golf, touring the Seoul Museum of History for free, going on a tour of the Korean Parliament building, eating Green Tea Ice Cream, going to a giant indoor amusement park called Lotte World, walking along the new man-made river through downtown Seoul at night, exploring the largest museum in Asia, and seeing the only Chinese town in Korea.

Check out the new Korea/Seoul photo album that I uploaded a few days ago. I also put up some new links. Tomorrow (Thursday, August 30th) we're touring the DMZ. More posts on the way...

Although the summer weather is hot, Beijing people love to eat hotpot

The summer program is officially over now. Well it's been a few days now but it doesn't seem that way. It still hasn't hit me yet. The title of this post was a sentence we had to memorize at the beginning of the program. For some reason it seemed appropriate to call this post that but I don't really know why. Oh, the picture at the start of this post is of our class and our 1对1 teacher who is a student at Yantai U. He gave us all handmade traditional Chinese good luck pieces. I hope to keep in touch with Zhong laoshi. The next 10 days are going to a much needed break for me. This past week was relatively uneventful. We did go to the Korean bakery a few more times which was great. This bakery is really out of a different world. They have real bagels, cinnamon rolls, French bread, smoothies, it feels like paradise on Earth considering you can't find any of this in China. Today we took our 1-on-1 professor out to the bakery before he went back to his hometown. After the bakery, I walked around campus to take some last minute pictures. Later on in the day it was time to go back to the child labor Korean restaurant and visit the 3 cone in one ice cream stand. A bunch of us went to the lake and sat around enjoying the cool night. It was a nice, relaxing night before heading off to Korea. Tomorrow myself and Charlie have to hit the chuzuche (taxi) at 8:30. We have a plan to meet our friend at the Chinese embassy which is about 15 minutes away. It should be quite the adventure even though we have all of her information. So its a week and a half before we head back to Beijing to start the fall semester. Ha, it is crazy to think about how quickly the summer program passed. 2 months are down, 4 to go.

Monsoon Season Has Arrived

The last week and a half since the Qingdao trip has flown by. Some cool/interesting things that have transpired recently: a few bball games against Yantai U. students, the discovery of "Child Labor" (a Korean restaurant that only employs kids under 12), the discovery of a great jiaozi guan (dumpling restaurant), exploring the night market more, a new Chinese culture class that we have everyday taught in Chinese by a professor at Yantai U., discovering a Korean bakery that has real bagels and bread, and the coming of monsoon season. By monsoon, I seriously mean monsoon. It has been pouring for a week straight with practically no periods of sun. This past Friday we literally couldn't make it to class because there were 2 feet of water on the ground. You practically have to swim to get around. I've never seen anything like it. Tonight on our cab ride home we drive through a few feet of water on the road. Haha, luckily we didn't stall out and made it back to the dorm alright. The forecast says we're due for some better weather next week so hopefully we'll get some. On Friday we took our last test of the program (not counting the placement test that we took at the beginning of the program and the final exam). Another thing that transpired over the last week or so is the plan to go to Korea in between the Summer and Fall programs. Charlie and I are flying out from Yantai to Seoul and then back to Beijing for the fall program. We found out that we have to leave the country and reapply for a visa since the Chinese government changed their rules. I'm excited to explore Korea and see my friend there. It will be a nice break from the summer program which will definitely be needed. In the coming week I will talk more about what has been going on recently and change the blog around a bit with more links/pictures/different YouTube clips.

Chuar Never Tasted So Good

On Monday and Tuesday after the 7 day work week we were in Qingdao, a coastal town that is heavily influenced by the Germans. In the early 20th century German claimed the town so today there is a distinct German quarter and the Qingdao Beer Factory. Qingdao beer is the best in all of China because it was developed by Germans, who picked Qingdao to start a beer factory because of the great mineral water in the area. We all hopped on a bus to Qingdao early Monday morning. After checking into the 30+ story hotel I walked around the city with some friends before finding a place to eat for lunch. I was happy to find that Germans did indeed live in Qingdao when I spotted a few chowing down on some squid chuar (squid on a stick). We walked by the Catholic Church built during the German occupation that somehow saved from destruction during the Cultural Revolution. I learned that the staples were hidden in the hills so that the authorities couldn't take them. The architecture in Qingdao looked as if it was taken right from München. When we all met back at the hotel after lunch it was time to take a tour of the Qingdao Pijiu Chang (Qingdao Beer Factory). Driving up to the factory, we were greeted with 30 foot bottles of Qingdao covering the roof of the building. Outside the factory was a giant fountain with a bottle of Qingdao and mugs placed around it. A little later we went into the museum detailing the history of the company and showing how the beer was made and the current processes. I was surprised that they decided to use switch from German to Chinese hops about 20 years ago because it tastes just like German beer. After the tour, which included an exhibition featuring Qingdao commercials from all over the world which were pretty hilarious, we went to the tasting room. Along with a fresh bei of pijiu, the tour guide gave us Qingdao branded "Beer Peanuts." They were pretty darn tasty. Next we entered a room that simulated what it feels like to be in a drunken state. The ceiling was actually tilted along with the floor so that your body couldn't stabilize. It was a wild room. Next we were off to the free bar which was all you can drink Qingdao Pijiu. After the factory tour, a few of us headed off to the Qingdao beach to swim and see the actual temple the Qingdao logo is based on. I brought my frisbee along and it was a big hit. We attracted a lot of attention and a lot of the kids wanted to try their shot at throwing.

At night, we went to a real, authentic Italian fanguan. When they brought out bruschetta and fresh bread everyone at the table was salivating. One bad aspect of Chinese cuisine is that you can't find real bread! You can't even find it at a grocery store here. Me and my friends came to the consensus that Chinese bread is made out of cardboard. It has to be. How else does the bread last for days without refrigeration? Anyway, I ended up ordering pasta with bolognese sauce and devoured it. It was the best and most expensive meal I've had in China. Let's just say that we were all "dropping the kuai" (this means a lot of bills we're used at the meal). At the end of the meal we asked the waiter where she would recommend to go out to. We ended up going to the the "New York Bar" which had a Phillipino band covering popular western songs. They did a killer version of Bohemian Rhapsody in all its 6 minute glory. We actually randomly met up with a lot of kids on the program so it was a really fun night.

The next morning we all woke up early for breakfast and took the bus to Laoshan Mountain. On the way, the kong tiao (AC) broke and we had to pull into a really sketchy repair shop in the middle of nowhere. While we were waiting around, I found some human hair and kuaizi (chopsticks) on the ground along with lots of other junk. We threw around the frisbee for a while and someone ended up throwing it into a pond. The retrieval of the frisbee consisted of some kids on the program riding a borrowed dingy out to the middle of the pond. It was a funny scene. The hike was a nice and relaxing but we didn't have enough time to make it to the top. We did have time to be carried up the mountain for a little while by two "people-carriers", and see a Taoist temple a little over the halfway point up the mountain. After the hike it was back to Yantai. Everyone was drained after the Qingdao trip but it was a nice break from Yantai.