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This day was sandwiched between the intense DMZ tour the day before and an all day trip to the other end of Korea the day after. The highlight of this day was meeting the third graders and teaching them for the first time. I also got to see Woo’s apartment and had a meal that Woo cooked in a restaurant with a charcoal grill.

I walked to Woo’s office down the steep road and then we took the subway. We had to change trains twice but it was very efficient and fast with short wait times. We then had a steep climb up to the school.

School I taught at

The school is in an upscale area and some of the students I will be teaching have lived in the US or another English speaking country. All students have an English class 3 days a week and some study it more after school. Woo is planning to translate but he thinks I might be able to let them try to understand the English if I keep it simple and talk slowly.

We introduced ourselves to the Principal and she gave us tea and chatted with Woo. I don’t think she spoke much English. We exchanged business cards and I tried to bow and also shake hands with my left hand supporting the right as a sign of respect. The teacher was there and the principal spoke of what good work the teacher had done in setting up a gifted program. I always appreciate a principal who is supportive of the teachers.

We them climbed up to the fourth floor where the class was. There were 5 third grade classes, each with about 25 students. The teacher was one of Woo’s doctoral students. Apparently, she is getting her doctorate just to learn and is not planning to become a professor, at least at this time. Woo spoke very highly of her. This was only her second week teaching third grade as she had been reassigned from sixth grade. The school year in Korea begins in March.

I was introduced to the students and they seemed very eager and excited. The teacher had made name tags with English names for each of them, which really helped. I started reading the Marilyn Burns story “Spaghetti and Meatballs for All” and passed out a set of 8 square tiles to each child. They used the tiles to represent tables for guests to sit at, which followed the story line.

About half of the students, working on perimeter and area with tiles I brought. The name tags really helped.

My main concern before doing the lesson was that the students would not be able to keep up with the activities relating to perimeter and area to the same extent as the older (fifth grade) students in Cyprus and the US. I worried that this would be compounded by the language barrier. My goal was to be close to the end of all the activities that come directly from the book by the end of the 1 hour 20 minute class.

Sophia, Dorothy, and Eddie were three of the stars of the group

My fears were quickly erased. These students whizzed through the activities. Not only were they getting the concepts and following the basic ideas but they were amazingly creative. They came up with many approaches for numbers of tables and different configurations. They blew me away! I had to quickly adjust my plans and both go a little further and go into more depth. Surprisingly, they were ahead of the US and Cyprus students even though they were 2 years younger and were not in an English language school.

Very surprised at the high level work coming from these third graders!

When the lesson was done and they were cleaning up, several of the students came around me to say hello. They were obviously excited to have me in their class as I was to be there also. I was planning to have two more days of 1 hour 20 minute classes but the teacher could only work out the two days for 40 minute classes. This was OK with me since I could tell that they would do all that I needed in this shorter time. I’ll have much more to write about this experience when I get home for my sabbatical work. All afternoon I was raving to Woo about these children.

Very friendly and very bright children

Next Woo and I got a taxi and had lunch at a place that put a grill on your table and an exhaust hood. Woo ended up doing the cooking of maybe three types of pork. There were also many side dishes, including the ever present Kim Chee (spiced cabbage). I ate too much.

Exhaust hoods installed at each table

Woo grilling the pork (left), I really liked the spicy noodles (right)

Next we got a taxi to see Woo’s apartment. They bought an apratment near a girl’s school they were planning to have their two girls go to. As it turned out, the girls didn’t go to that school and also they built the 1988 Olympic Stadium very close by. He said 2-3 bedroom apartents, small by US standards today go for about $1 million. They paid much less than that. You could buy a few blocks of houses in Indiana, PA for a million dollars. Woo’s house seemed very comfortable and it was just a 3 minute walk to the subway line that rings the city so that you can get anywhere quickly.

Woo’s dining room and part of the living room

Sitting on Woo’s couch, taking a picture of him taking a picture of me

After having seen the ancient Olympic stadium in Athens just a month ago, I enjoyed seeing the 1988 Seoul stadium.

Seoul Olympic Stadium, just a few minutes from Woo’s apartment

Woo had plans to do some sightseeing but he had a concern that I would be tired after the long day yesterday, and with our 6 AM start the next day. I agreed and we took a taxi back to the International House and had an early night.

I’m still amazed at the third graders!

At 9:15, my translators for the school and guides for the day, Dr. Kyung Mi Kim and Miss Jinkyoung Lee picked me up to go for my last day at the school. I’m going to write up my experiences in the school in separate blogs when I get back as part of the analysis of the comparison between Cyprus, US, and Korean children with this same 3-day lesson. The children were again so smart and so much on task, along with being very adorable. Here are just a few pictures.

Third graders working on perimeter and area

Dorothy is a genius

Dorothy’s work up close (left)

The children were amazing both as mathematicians and as human beings. I’ll miss them.

The plan was then that my guides would take me to lunch, a tour of some highlights of Seoul, then dinner and home by 7 PM or so. As it turned out, I got home just before midnight. It was well worth the extra time.

Our first stop was for lunch and there were meatballs on the menu which was impossible to ignore after 3 days of lessons based on a story called Spaghetti and Meatballs for All. My guides are former students of Woo’s. Jinkyoung just finished her master’s in math ed and has been a Christian missionary in Kuwait. She’s looking to get certified to teach secondary math in the US so she can work as a math teacher in English abroad. Kyung Mi just finished her doctorate and is working as a Research Professor and manager of the Institute of Curriculum and Instruction at Korea University. Woo is the Director of that institute.

My guides, Jinkyoung (left) and Kyung Mi (right) with “meatballs”, actually more like what we would call swiss steak in the US

We then went to the Hyundai Department store in a very upscale area, which is like an upscale Macy’s in Manhattan, many floors and filled with expensive clothes. We went to the top floor which had several expensive restaurants. We were trying to get to a tea room there to get Potbingsoo, which is flavored ice with fruits, rice cake, and red beans on the top. The tea room had a long wait to get in so we ordered the desert take out and went to a simple coffee shop, which was probably more relaxed and quiet for talking.

I like the concept of the beer bank (left). Upscale Hyundai Department store where we got the red bean ice dessert (right).

Dessert with fruit, flavored ice, and red beans. Kyung Mi (right), Jinkyoung, and I like it.

I think I had a dessert with red beans in it during my previous trip to the Middle East and I didn’t like it. Somehow it really worked for me this time. There’s absolutely no reason why red beans would taste good with flavored ice and fruit. Somehow it just provided a rich texture to the sweetness. I wonder if I’ve become more open minded about foods (and life in general) during this trip. Will just plain ice cream seem boring? I doubt it.

Jinkyoung had to go tutor so Kyung Mi and I hung out at the coffee shop for a couple of hours. She brought about ten articles she had published and I read the abstracts that were in English. I could also understand some of the sketches and diagrams but the rest was in Korean. Several of the articles were co-authored with Woo. In some of her research, she looked at categories for how students learn a concept like addition of fractions. Some students just knew how to compute without any idea of what they were doing, others had more rich understandings of several different types. She interviewed children and in general found that those who understood more were more efficient and deep in their knowledge.

So much of what she was doing mirrored what I do in methods and content courses for undergraduate elementary education majors. Woo and I have common lineage and it was good to see someone even younger than me working with similar ideas. She loved research and publication and unfortunately I don’t have that love myself. She also had some really interesting ideas that were new to me.

We then took a taxi to go to the Nanta show. Kyung Mi had bought tickets for me and her and Jinkyoung was still tutoring. We hung out in the Myeoung-dong area, which was filled with fashion stores and people giving out samples to try to get us to go in their store. I will bring home a mask for women’s makeup even though I don’t understand what it does.

Animals in the Myeoung-dong area love me even if no one else does

Maybe she should give up her Research Professor job and become a fashion model

iPad 1 for sale on the left at similar prices to the US. It’s 500,000 Won (about $450 ) for the cheapest model compared to $499 at home. The most expensive model is 994,000 Won or about $850 compared to $829. On the right are knock off watches for 5,000 Won or $4.25. Hopefully, the iPads aren’t knock offs.

The Nanta show was very unique. It was 1 hour and 40 minutes of high energy drumming and dancing with a comic cooking theme. They would cut up vegetables that would fly all over the place. They would be banging on drums that were labelled with food names while pretending to be stuck inside vats. They came up with so many variations of the theme but my favorite was when they imitated slow motion. It was definitely not a quiet show. The choreography was very precise and it was good fun.

The Nanta set before the no picture sign came on. Kyung Mi had bought us 4th row center seats

They threw these little plastic balls at us so I got a souvenir to bring home

You might think with the atrocities that Japan did to Korea from 1907-1945 that Koreans would not feel bad for the problems that Japan is having now with the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear disaster. However, not a single one of the Koreans I talked to had anything but deep-felt sympathy for the Japanese people. They hated what had been done in the past and the fact that the government has not fully apologized but they realize the people are not at all to blame.

“Don’t give up, Japan. We are your neighbors” sign in the Myeong-dong area

They asked if I wanted to eat but I was still full from lunch and the red bean dessert so we took a taxi to the Namsan cable car. The cable car then took us to the foot of the Namsan tower hovering atop Seoul and visible almost everywhere.

Namsan cable car we took to get to the Namsun Tower (from Wikipedia)

Namsun Tower (from Wikipedia)

Our night view of the Tower (left), tree made up of love cards sealed with locks (right)

Kyung Mi then offered to buy us dinner at the revolving restaurant on the top of the tower. I couldn’t say no and it was an amazing experience. We rode a special elevator higher than the observation deck. The menu was Japanese and other steaks and seafood. After choosing a main dish, we had 3 sets of choices, each between two appetizers and a dessert choice. The cost of the meal is what you would expect but probably even more.

As I told them, there were three outstanding parts to this dinner for me. One was the food, another was the night view from the revolving restaurant, and the third was the company. At times, I almost felt a bit disoriented as our table moved yet the hallways and kitchens did not move or the boundary of the windows.

Views of Seoul from the revolving restaurant on top of the Namsun Tower. The tallest tower like this is the CN Tower in Toronto but I don’t think any tower starts so high up a mountain like this one does.

We got one of the last cable cars back down the mountain to where we took the taxi before. Unfortunately, around 11 PM is not a good time for taxis at this location. It was very cold and we hung out in a shed belonging to the person in charge of the parking lot. He was staying late just for us to stay warm. We gave up on getting a taxi and Kyung Mi called her husband to “rescue” us. Just another memorable part of the stories for this day.

They left me off at the parking lot of the International House just before midnight or 14.5 hours after they had picked me up. We had gotten to know each other quite well in that time. I’ll see them again in two days for dinner the night before I go to India. Rest sounded very good after a wonderful day like today. How do you thank people for being hosts like this?

I actually ate fish with speckles of gold on them today. Besides my Japanese meal with Woo and working on my blog, I did almost nothing today unless you count sleeping in. After the last very intense week and a half it felt good to severely cut back on the sensations coming at me. Tomorrow looks to be a similar day, then Friday I’m off to India. It’s starting to hit me what striking things I’ve done here in a short time in Korea. It’s also hitting me how much I’ve come to really like this country. The people are amazingly friendly, they seem to be very intelligent, and they’ve rebounded remarkably well from devastating historical events.

After sleeping until the late morning, I had lunch in the International House. I was the only one there and the choices were between the hamburger meal or the sandwich meal. I chose the hamburger meal and the woman brought me an American style hamburger with french fries and a coke with ketchup on the side. I haven’t had a meal anything like this since I got here. Strangely, this meal seemed exotic to me in a double negative kind of way, being exotically not exotic.

Margaret let me know she had gotten the Hittite-style tesselation wine carafe I bought in Turkey. She had a very good time injuring herself and making a mess opening the container.

Hittite tessellating wine carafe just arrived from Turkey (left), mess left by the obnoxious, but effective packing (right). I’m sure Margaret is glad I bought this so that she could enjoy her injury getting the package open.

I spent the afternoon finishing the blog of the day I was in the DMZ (Day 4). WordPress was fighting me particularly hard today. If there are any WordPress experts reading this, please let me know. I get paragraphs that do not have a blank line between them and nothing I do will fix it. I found a fix online that didn’t work.

The only highlight of my day was dinner with Woo. He called me in the afternoon to give me 4 options for dinner — a beef place, a Korean place, an Indian place, or a Japanese raw seafood place. He told me later that the one place he doubted I would choose was the Japanese place, which is what somehow intrigued me. He picked me up in a taxi at 5:30 and we drove to an alleyway filled with restaurants.

Alleyway filled with restaurants where Woo and I had Japanese food

Woo assured me he wasn’t kidding that this raw fish actually had speckles of gold on it. There were probably 25 dishes or so, brought out at 6 or 7 times.

Raw fish with speckles of gold on it

We were in a private room and sitting on the floor as is the Japanese custom. Some of the Korean restaurants I’ve been in also have the same format but they often also have a separate area with tables. There was no choice here and even though I have a hard time sitting on the floor, I could lean against the wall and stretch my legs out.

Sitting on the floor in our private room with the first few of many dishes to come

After I spilled some food on me, Woo got a vest from a hanger that was designed for slobs like me. It looked a bit ridiculous since it was too small. Even the server laughed at it.

A type of oyster which I had a hard time eating (left), ridiculous looking vest as a bib but it looks like I’m in bliss (right)

Sushi and maki (raw fish), which I’ve had at home but this was better

Ginko (which is supposed to have health benefits like counteracting Alzheimer’s) and garlic mixed together, both delicious

Looks barbaric to be chewing the head of a fish, sorry for the image

The only parts of the meal that someone who is not queasy about this type of food were the big pieces of lettuce, the garlic, the fried fish, the strawberries, the rice, and the potatoes. Actually that would be enough for a good meal but all that was maybe 1/4 of the meal. Every time I thought they were done. more came out. After I was sure we were done, they came out with rice and a delicious spicy soup.

Shark fins (left) and spicy soup (right)

 The very last part of the meal was 4 massive strawberries and some sweet green tea. Woo and I had begun the process of going over what the week had been like and how we could meet again. Every 4 years there is the International Conference of Mathematics Education. In 2012 it will be held in Seoul. I’ve been to ones in Budapest in 1988 and Quebec City in 1992 and they use a much better format than US conferences. Much more participation and working groups around themes as opposed to our conferences which have a bunch of people who present on mostly unrelated topics. Maybe I’ll go, possibly to present a paper with me and Woo and / or others I’ve met in Korea. Maybe somehow Woo can get to the US with a grant a maybe with a joint paper.

Strawberries to finish the meal

It’s been such a different day from the others, just hanging out at the International House and working on the blog. I’m starting to get my strength up to where it will need to be for the long flight to India and what is still to come beyond that.

Today was one of the most memorable days of all my travels. I was over the line of the border between North and South Korea and felt very strongly the tension and the heartbreak of a country that has been almost entirely separated for generations.

I had mentioned to Woo that I would like to go to the DMZ before I left home but he had heard from many people that it was not safe to go there with the increased tension. Just a few months ago, Kim Jong Il, the crazy leader of communist North Korea, announced which of his sons was chosen to be his successor sometime in the future. The son welcomed himself by having an attack on a South Korean island. At least that’s my memory of what happened. Hopefully, nothing like that will happen today.

The tour I’m taking is with the USO and is supposed to be the best one, since other ones do not go to Panmunjon. Koreans are not allowed to go to Panmunjon. When I found out that Koreans cannot go to a part of their own country but foreigners can go there, I felt bad. It should be the other way around. I’m guessing there’s the feeling that some Koreans might get so angry that they would cause an incident.

I woke up at 5:30 feeling surprisingly well rested. Getting there was a small adventure. I had about a 10 minute walk to the subway, almost all a steep downhill from the Korea University International House. Woo had shown me the way but I took a shortcut. The subway was easy enough to figure out. There were 12 stops and it went well until I got to the street. The directions were confusing on the map. It looked like I had to go 3 sides of a rectangle to get there but afterwards I realized that the red line on the picture below was for cars not for walkers. The bus was leaving at 7:30 but they wanted people there at 7. At 7:05, I hailed a taxi and he said it was too close for him to bother. I asked someone on the street and he pointed the direction I thought was correct. Soon I saw what looked to be a US military base and I got there on time.

Confusing map to get from the subway stop to the US Military Camp where the USO tour began It took a little over an hour to get to Panmunjom, also called the Joint Security Area (JSA). This is where the armistice stopping the fighting in the Korean war was signed in 1953. The tour guide said her grandmother’s siblings are all in the North and haven’t been heard from in decades. People in the North have no external Internet, phones, or mail. There have been reports of widespread hunger. Very sad. 

We entered the JSA visitor center in single file and were not allowed to bring in any backpacks, purses, etc. We could not put jackets over our arms since we could be concealing a weapon. They checked our passports. A US soldier read over a slide show of the history of the Korean war and of the JSA. We then were transferred to a US military bus. I think they wouldn’t let us use our civilian Korean bus since it wasn’t secured.

US soldier briefing us on the history of the Korean War and the Joint Security Area

Here is an extremely brief history of the DMZ, hopefully I’ve got it right.

• From 1907-1945, Japan occupied Korea and brutalized the country. Many Korean women were forced into prostitution, the Korean language was forbidden, and numerous other terrible crimes were committed by the Japanese Government.
• When Japan lost WW2 in 1945, the Russians controlled the north and the US the south, just as Europe was split between east and west.
• In 1950, the North Koreans invaded the South and took over almost all of the country.
• The UN entered the war on the side of the South and pushed the North back and also almost took over all the country.
• The Chinese entered the war on the side of the North and pushed the UN forces back.
• In 1953, an armistice was signed at Panmunjon creating 2 Koreas, a North under communist rule and a South under strong US influence.
• Technically, the war is still on and flare ups have occurred.

The Military Demarcation Line (MDL) is the border between the North and South, seen as the black line on the following map. For 2 kilometers on each side of the MDL is the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), in pink on the map. The 2 kilometers south of the DMZ are controlled by the South Koreans and the United Nations, while the 2 kilometers north of the DMZ are controlled by the North Koreans.

Map showing the MDL (the black line separating North from South) and the DMZ (the pink area 2 kilometers on each side of the MDL). You may need to double click on the map to see it well. 

After the slide show they took us to Panmunjom, which was the highlight of the tour. They had us sign a release form first that stated in part:

“A visit to the Joint Security Area at Panmunjon will entail entry into a hostile area and possibility of injury or death as a direct result of enemy action. the Joint Security Area is a neutral but divided area guarded by United Nations Command military personnel on the one side (South), and Korean People’s Army personnel on the other (North). Guests of the UN Command are ppermitted to cross the Military Demarcation Line into the portion of the JSA under control of the Korean People’s Army. Although incidents are no (sic) anticipated, the UN Command, the United States of America, and the Republic of Korea cannot guarantee the safety of visitors and may not be held accountable in the event of a hostile enemy act.” 

It went on with instructions like “Fraternization, including speaking or any assocation with personnel from the Korean People’s Army / Chinese People’s Volunteers is strictly prohibited.” Also, “Visitors will not point, make gestures, or expressions which could be used by the North Korean side as propaganda material”. I wasn’t thinking of going for a beer with them but apparently people have been idiots in the past.

 

Not a warm fuzzy feeling coming from the release we had to sign. We didn’t have much time to read it but maybe that was better.

It was bizarre and breathtaking to actually be at the site that I had seen in pictures and movies before. A North Korean was standing on the opposite side. Several South Korean soldiers were protecting us. Two soldiers were half hidden behind a building. Apparently that’s to partially protect them if they are shot at and also so that they can use hand signals from their hidden hand.

The US soldier in the front was our guide. You can see a South Korean soldier on the edge of the blue building on the right. He’s half exposed and half protected by the building so that he can give signals to soldiers behind him. The nearer half of the blue buildings are in the South Korean side and the back half of the buildings are in North Korea. The white building in the back is the main North Korean observation area.

If you look carefully at the next picture, you can see a bump running from left to right half way back. This bump is the Military Demarcation Line (MDL), which is the border between the North and South. The blue building is controlled by the South Koreans but it is half on the southern side of the MDL and half north of the MDL.

Negotiations building at Panmunjon. The bump halfway back on the building is the MDL, the dividing line between North and South

They brought us into the blue negotiations building on the left of the previous pictures. There were two South Korean guards, one straddling the line and one at the very end of the North Korean side making sure we didn’t exit the wrong way. The US soldier made it clear that those two soldiers will not talk to us or make any gestures unless we try to go out the back to the North Korean building or harass them.

If you look carefully, you can see a North Korean soldier in the doorway immediately in front of the South Korean soldier in the white building in the back. I wish I had a better zoom.

South Korean soldier straddling the line between the North Korean side  and the South Korean side. Our guide is on the left.

I’m on the North Korean side, the soldier is right on the line. I’m protecting the soldier here. At least I’ve got the sun glasses for the job.

This is the guard at the far end of the North Korean side of the negotiations building. I would have defected to the North if he hadn’t have stopped me. Actually, trying to go past him to the North would be the biggest event of my life and by far the stupidest thing I could have done, even considering all the stupid things I’ve done in my life.

It was a surprisingly emotional experience to be on the North Korean side and to sense the ironically heavy feelings of these South Korean guards who were motionless.

View of the South Korean side from the North Korean building. This is not my picture, if it was you would be reading about me in the news. This picture was provided by the North Koreans. I have a picture from the road in front of the large building in the back but we were told not to take any pictures of the South Korean cameras near the top of the building. We were of course being closely watched and if we took a picture of those cameras, a soldier would have been there in seconds to take our camera.

Table that the Armistice was signed on in 1953. Hawkeye from MASH would have been happy to see that.

We were then taken to an observation area to see the North Korean “propaganda village” just over the border. Supposedly all the buildings in the village are fake, like Hollywood sets. The flag is the second tallest one on the world and weighs something like 600 pounds just for the flag itself. They had a smaller one but when the South installed one larger they installed this one. The South hasn’t retaliated so the flag war ended.

North Korean “propaganda village” with its false fronts and 600 pound flag

There were two buses, each with their own US soldier as a guide. I got the following picture of the guide for the other bus. I asked him where he was from and he said Pittsburgh. I asked for more details and he said he lived in a small town I wouldn’t have heard of. I told him I’m a professor at IUP and he said he’s from Kittanning and just bought a house in Homer City, which is only 5 miles from my house. I pressed him further and he was amazed that I had knew exactly where Coral is, which is actually where the house is. Small world.

Guide who lives in Coral, PA just a few miles from my house

It was weird to be just a few feet from the famous “Bridge of No Return”. I think they said Bill Clinton accidentally got on the bridge and was quickly brought back.

The famous “Bridge of No Return”. Prisoners of War were brought here and told they could cross the bridge to go home or stay. If they crossed they could never return.

They then took us to the axe murder scene. There was a tree blocking the view between two observation posts so the Americans and South Koreans came in 1976 to trim it. The North Koreans had a surprise attack and killed the Commander, Captain Boniface and a Lieutenant. Three days later, Operation Paul Bunyan had 850 men with air support to cut the tree down with North Koreans watching. The US camp is now called Camp Boniface. For much more detail on this incident, go to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axe_murder_incident

Mock up of the North Koreans killing 2 US soldiers during the “Poplar Tree” incident in 1976 (left), monument at the location of the incident (right)

We then went to the Third Infiltrarion Tunnel. They have discovered 4 tunnels built by the North Koreans that cross the DMZ and could be used have been used for an invasion. They think there are 10 or so more that are still undiscovered. This one was discovered in 1978 with information from a defector. It’s a little over a mile long and is only 52 kilometers (32 miles) from Seoul. We were not allowed to take pictures.

We got yellow hard hats and then went down a very long steep tunnel to get the 240 feet of elevation change for the entrance to the infiltration tunnel. The tunnel itself was a little claustrophobic. I hit my hard hat about 10 times and a couple of times it was enough to knock the hat off. I’m glad it was the hat that got knocked not my head. The literature said it was 2 meters wide (a little over 6 feet) and 2 meters high but at times it was narrower and lower than that. It was especially difficult when people came the other way. The walk ended at the first of three thick barricades. Going back up was also quite a challenge.

This was a scary event for me for the claustrophobia, banging my helmet, the steep climbs up and down, and for the realization that this was built for a North Korean invasion. I’m very glad to have done it though. Another unforgettable part of the trip.

Picture of the Third Tunnel found on the Internet. We were told not to take pictures.

Our next stop was the Dora Observatory,which had a great vista of the North Korean propaganda village, the South Korean model village, and the whole DMZ area. You could also see the industrial area in North Korea that was built with South Korean money. Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures in front of a yellow line, which meant the pictures were nowhere near as good as they would have been right at the wall. The person next to me took a picture at the wall and within about 10 seconds out of nowhere a soldier came up and took his camera to erase the picture.

Best pictures I could get from Dora station since they did not allow pictures beyond a yellow line several feet back from the wall

My iPhone 4 map from the Dora Observatory. We were at the blue pin and the red pin is where I was staying at Korea University, maybe 35 miles away. Notice how there is no map information for North Korea.

We went to the Dorasan Station for lunch. I had bi-bim-bap again like on the plane coming over. Beef, cabbage, vegetables, beef, and rice all mixed in with spicy red paste and the always present Kim Chi (spicy cabbage) and soup were also included.

As always, some of the most interesting times come when you meet a person with a unique story. The American I sat next to for lunch was living on a small Japanese island 1000 kilometers (625 miles) south of Tokyo. He went to Carnegie Mellon in computer science, had an internship with Microsoft in Seattle, then a job in Beijing with many of the same people from the internship. He seemed to have dropped out and was enjoying life on this small island with his girlfriend learning Japanese. He was eager to get back to the island and his girlfriend but was worried about travel in Japan in the wake of the nuclear disaster in northern Japan. We agreed that it should be OK since he would just have to pass through Tokyo, which is far away from the disaster. However, the island doesn’t grow much food and relies on supplies from the rest of the country. If there started to be shortages, they would not be in a good situation. If you’re reading this, please let me know what you’re up to. I forgot to get his email or even his name.

We then were able to go to the tracks of the Dora rail station. This was designed to go to North Korea, then on to Europe by way of the Trans Siberian Railway. Now it’s used for people coming from Seoul to administer the North Korean industrial village.

Sign at Dora Station, hoped to be a link to be able to get to Europe through the Trans-Siberian Railway but now the last stop

Resting on the tracks just a few hundred yards from North Korea, 35 miles from Seoul, and 130 miles from the North Korean capital

The trip back was uneventful. The bus took about one hour then I went to a small grocery store near the army base to get some food for dinner at my apartment. I took a taxi, ended up not eating anything, and went to bed early.

I admit to being a little shaken up by this experience, especially at Panmunjon. Not only was it disturbing to be in one of the scariest political locations in the world, I could sense the emotion of a country torn apart. I had only arrived in Korea the day before and this day made it clear I was no longer in Indiana, PA.

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.

This day only lasted 10 hours since there was a 14-hour time change. The day I come back, April 11, I’ll get those 14 hours back (-1 hour for the difference between Chicago and Indiana, PA) for a 37-hour day.

In those 10 hours, I did two things; from midnight to 1 AM, I was in the lounge and stood in line for the plane. The rest of the time was on the plane. At midnight between Tuesday and Wednesday, we were over Siberia and had another 5 hours before arriving in Seoul.

I saw one of the strangest inventions I’ve ever seen, in the business class bathroom in Chicago. It’s a device to wash your rear end after using the toilet. From the description — “Because washing with water can be more hygienic than wiping with bathroom tissue, we invite you to experience the Washlet. With features such as gently aerated warm water cleansing and warm air drying, the Washlet helps clean your bottom better. Experience Washlet and see what you’ve been missing.” There were the following controls on the unit – Rear Cleansing, Rear Cleansing Soft, Front Cleansing, Dryer, Up and Down Position, More and Less Water Pressure, Pulsating, Oscillating, and maybe the most important one, Stop. I didn’t need to try it but maybe on the way back I can find it again and use it.

“Experience Washlet” an alternative to toilet paper with 11 controls

For dinner on the plane, they had three choices; steak, shrimp and scallops, or a Korean dish called Bi-Bim-Bab. I was up for the shrimp but decided to get used to Korean food and chose the Bi-Bim-Bab. I also got it because I loved the name. I was glad for the direction booklet, which was only given out to the non-Koreans. As is typical from what I read, they do not use a fork or knife, only a spoon and chopsticks.

The directions said to spoon the rice into the big bowl containing beef, carrots, cucumbers, noodles, zucchini, radish, and bean sprouts. You then add the spicy red paste sauce (second from the left in the picture) and sesame oil and mix it all up. There were side dishes of roasted anchovies, a clear soup, and the ever present Kimchee (upper left). From what I’ve heard, Kimchee (spicy pickled cabbage) is included with most meals and each cook makes it differently. I really liked the Bi-Bam-Bab. It was a needed distraction to have to partially put the meal together.

Dinner on the plane, a traditional Korean dish, “Bi-Bam-Bab”

I skipped the spicy noodle soup at 10 PM or so and was having a tough time sleeping. Even though the seats have 12 or so buttons, I still couldn’t quite find the right position. My shoulder was acting up and my legs were cramping a bit. I remember thinking I’d been on the plane a long time after 5 hours or so and realized I had 9 more hours to go.

I got a screen shot of my monitor showing us crossing the International Date Line. In late December, Margaret, Keith, and I stood at the Greenwich Observatory in London with one foot on the East of the Prime Meridian (0 degrees longitude) and one foot on the West. I was now at 180 degrees longitude or exactly half the way around the world from that point in London.

Screen shot showing us crossing the International Date Line near the North Pole

I caught the screen shot over Siberia at midnight, at the end of this 10 hour day. I could see Sarah Palin’s house from the airplane. Hey, if she can make stuff like that up so can I.

At the end of the shortest day of my life, over Siberia

The person sitting next to me was a Korean-American owner of a beauty salon in Chicago, going to visit her sick mother in Korea. She was a good conversation partner. I showed her some pictures of Jerusalem and she asked me if I was a Christian. I respect all religious views and was glad to get back to less controversial topics after just a few minutes. She ended it by suggesting I go to the Creationist museum in Kentucky to get my “questions answered”. With my others travels planned, it’s not a priority to get to the Creationist museum.

It felt so comfortable to be at home the last 3 weeks that it went by very quickly. It’s hard to leave. I had days of: catching up on the ridiculous amount of TV I tivoed while gone, watching Margaret work, taking care of small errants and doctor’s appointments, and just sliding through easy days. I’m ready to go with all the packing, travel plans, and critical errants, but I have two bad feelings. One is minor. There are things left undone like TV shows unwatched, newspapers unread, and 3 days of blogs from the last trip unwritten. The other is bigger. I don’t feel like leaving. I have an amazing expenditure of energy coming up; physical, intellectual, and psychic. The sedentary lifestyle from the last 20 days has given me the rest needed from the last trip but there’s not been enough mental preparation for this trip.

That being said, probably the only way to get prepared for a trip like this is to “just do it”. (Speaking of which I bought new Nike shoes for the trip). This is a massive trip, I’m going 200 degrees of longitude out of 360 it would be to go all the way around the world. Then I go another 200 degrees to get back so ultimately I’m going further than around the world would be. I’ll be on 12 airplanes, with two 14 hour flights and four flights of 4-6 hours each. I’ll be staying overnight in 4 countries besides the US with 4 currencies, 4 languages, and 4 time zones. I should stop writing this way, it’s freaking me out a bit.

It’s feels better now that I have the scary stuff out of my system. This is a trip of the lifetime like the last trip (can you have two trips of a lifetime or do you need two lifetimes for two such trips?). I have an amazing host in Woo in Korea. In China, India, and Thailand, I’ll have a private guide, business class flights, and great hotels. I’ll be seeing things I’ve always dreamt of seeing. While I don’t have any Asian roots to match the Jewish discovery I had in Israel, I have loved Asian culture for a long time. My top types of foods in order are Indian, Thai, and Chinese. Korean is not on that list because I’ve only had it once or twice but I loved it.

Alan Enterline, who takes loving care of our flowers and shrubs, took me to the airport. He’s a great guy and knows everything about everybody in Indiana, PA. If you’re looking for someone to lovingly take care of your flowers and shrubs, I highly recommend him. He really knows his stuff. He has a degree from Penn State in the “field.” He joked about being my “concierge”. It’s nice to know he’ll be at the airport to pick me up on April 11 at the end of the trip. Margaret is very happy that I didn’t need her to take me.

Alan Enterline. plant magician and  “concierge”

Even though I have a business class ticket, the flight to Chicago on United put me in coach since there was no business class. If it had been on US Airways, they would have put me in first class since that’s my frequent flyer company. I paid the $19 extra to get “economy plus” which gives a few extra inches of leg room though. The flight got in about 20 minutes early, which is not the worst thing an airline has done. I had fun on the airline talking with a CEO of an energy disposal company and a woman going for training in Chicago. When I explained where I was going and where I had been, it sounded more amazing than it was in my mind. The CEO was amazed that I was going near and would be going near trouble spots of the world. He recommended against going to the DMZ between North and South Korea (as had Woo), but I’m going there on Thursday.

I had 6 hours to kill in the Chicago airport. When I got off the plane, there was a list of airlines under the 4 terminals. My airline, Asiana was not on the list. As I wandered around the massive airport, I realized this was my first time in an airport that did not even list my airline. The terminal I was in was almost entirely for United so I just moved on to the next one.

While I was in the Middle East, I had a tradition of having a pomegranate juice every day. I saw a Jamba Juice at the airport and they did have a pomegranate smoothie. The people working there were from Nepal so I had a good talk with them about their monarchy, the Maoist uprisings, and their 9 hour and 45 minute time change from the US.

Nepalese pomegranate smoothie sellers

Last night I realized that my set of 4 power adapters did not include the adapter for India. I looked at a small electronics store at the Pittsburgh Airport and they didn’t really know what I was talking about. They had the same 4 adapters. Without much hope, I walked into a similar store in the Chicago airport and the guy said that they were one of the few places that actually had one. He also recommended I get a case for the Mac Book Air so that people didn’t see the Apple Logo and want to steal it, in addition to protecting it from the many times I drop things (he didn’t know that). These guys were having a good time listening to music and talking about the tech products they were selling. Again, I had a good time.

It took me a while to realize I had to leave the secure zone and take a train for a mile or two to the International Terminal, then wait and hour or so until the check-in counter opened. Maybe my highlight of the day was when the check-in staff came in, the 8-10 or so of them all lined up in a row facing us, bowed together, and all said something in Korean at the same time. Unfortunately I couldn’t get my camera out in time.

At the bar, I met a guy who owns a business that makes solar lights (lakelite.com). He was going to China to take care of problems at their manufacturing plant.  He had great stories of being regaled by an Indian couple they met in China who treated them to a meal costing thousands of dollars. He told stories of drinking competitions with Chinese businessmen with rot gut liquor. He had caught some of them emptying their glasses on the floor. Apparently, there are travel agents outside of the US who sell Asian flights for several hundred dollars below the lowest US price. You just need to call them overseas. He also had an iPhone 4 knock off he bought in China. Fascinating guy.

Christian and Jeff at their Techshowcase “Technology Experience” store. my heros for having an Indian plug adapter and finding a great MacBook Air case for me (left), Jeff, the owner of lakelite.com that makes solar lights for the home with his laptop tethered to his phone (right)

I had to try a Chicago Hot Dog with everything. This was my token experience of something native to Chicago. I had considered going into Chicago but decided to save my energy. From Wikipedia, “A Chicago-style hot dog is a steamed or water-simmered, kosher-style, all-beeffrankfurter^[1][3] on a poppy seed bun,^[4] originating from the city of Chicago, Illinois. The hot dog is topped with yellow mustard, chopped white onions, sweet pickle relish (often a dyed neon-green variety, sometimes called piccalilli^[5]), a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers, and a dash of celery salt.^[1][6][7][8] The complete assembly of a Chicago hot dog is said to be “dragged through the garden” because of the unique combination of condiments.”

Chicago-Style Hot Dog

I’m now in the Business class lounge at 11 PM waiting for my 1 AM flight. I realized I had a remarkably good time for just going to Pittsburgh, flying to Chicago and getting to the International gate. Who needs to go abroad? I can just spend a month flying back and forth to the Chicago airport instead.