After an American style breakfast on the plane, we finally landed in Korea about 15 minutes early at 4:45 AM. Immigration and customs were quick and my bag was there, not like when I first got overseas in Cyprus on my last trip. Woo was there to meet me and it was a great feeling to see him. He had been our graduate assistant in 1988 at IUP. After his masters from IUP, he went on to the University of Georgia, which probably had the best math education program in the country. He then was hired by Korea University in math education. I saw on one list that Korea University was listed as the second best university in Korea, which is a very big deal since there are many very good universities in Korea. He took a sabbatical in 1995 as a visiting professor at IUP with his wife and two daughters.

Woo is not only obviously a very intelligent individual as you can figure out from his credentials and from talking to him but he’s just a fun and warm person to be around. I was a little stressed about some of the cultural issues like shaking hands either with two hands or with a bow and never pointing to someone (which I love to do). Woo made me feel more relaxed, telling me that they understand crass Americans (not really what he said or meant). I couldn’t ask for a better host.

Woo had arranged for me to stay at Korea University’s International House, which turned out to be a wonderful place to stay. The room was much larger than a hotel room and had a full refrigerator and stove. There was no room service since it’s a residence. I’m going to enjoy my 9 nights here.

My room at the Korea University International House (Margaret, don’t look at the sport coat not hung up on the left)

After checking in, we had the International House Breakfast, which cost 5,000 Won or about $4.50. They had a mix of American breakfasts and Korean ones, which seem to be just like lunch or dinner with meats over rice and spice, Kimchee, and other sidedishes.

My body was very confused at this point. Was this breakfast, lunch or dinner? The 8 AM meal was 7 PM Eastern Daylight Time (which we had just changed to at home a couple of days ago). I retreated to my room to get set up and think about where I was until about noon when Woo came to get me. We went over my itinerary. He had some great plans for me which I will enter in as they happen.

Since I had only had several meals in the last few hours, we went out for an amazing 25 dish meal. I should have been full but the food was so good and it felt so good to be with Woo that I ate some of everything. Woo was very happy that I knew how to use chopsticks and liked spicy Asian food. He said it would have made life much more complicated if we had to spend time searching for American style food.

There’s a retired professor from IUP who loved to travel. He was always finding exchanges with professors from other parts of the world and seemed to be somewhere overseas all the time. However, he hated food that wasn’t American. He would insist on steak or hamburgers in China and if nothing came along, he’d just eat rice. I shouldn’t knock it. He had the guts to travel and didn’t let the fact that he was not sdventurous with food stop him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Some of the approximately 25 dishes for lunch

Woo then took me on a tour of Korea University. He is the Director of the Institute of Continuing Education and also Chair of the Department of Mathematics Education and has two separate very large offices for the two positions.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Woo in one of his offices with banners from his undergraduate degree (Korea University), master’s degree (IUP), and doctorate (U. of Georgia)

Korea University is an impressive place. He showed me a classroom that had hidden microphones for the professor that followed you around so that you could walk around up front and be heard in the back of the room. The one study area he showed me was massive. It was interesting that they had machines for students to enter their ID card to reserve a seat in the study area. They also had an area that did not allow laptops since the noise of the keyboard would be disturbing.


Machine for students to reserve a seat in the study area

An atrium with bar code design

Woo bought some items from the bookstore for me, Margaret, and Keith. For Keith he got a Korea Tigers cap, which matches Keith’s RIT Tigers hat. After we got back to my room, he helped me figure out what to do with the gifts I had purchased from the IUP Bookstore. Besides gifts for Woo and his family, I had gifts to give to others who would be helping me. This was very useful since I’m clumsy with gift giving beyond buying someone a beer.

Hard for me to believe that we had another very large meal for dinner. We went to a Korean Chinese restaurant. It was laid out like Korean food but had a Chinese taste even though it was with thick noodles or bluish rice. Woo said the Chinese adapt their food to whatever culture they’re in which explains why American Chinese food looks very little like food in China. I should be able to speak more about this when I’m in China in a couple of weeks.

Woo took me back and I fell asleep around 8 PM, which was either early to bed or if you think of it as 7 AM at home, it was going to bed after an all-nighter. Whatever you call it, it was desperately needed. Too much food and too little sleep.

It’s great to be in Korea and Woo made me very welcome.