T-minus 6 days until I am home sweet home! My, the time has gone by fast! It seems like just yesterday that my dad was giving me a pep talk in the airport before I left... and now I'm about to see him again! And all my family and friends! I am so excited. But enough about that, that is in the future and I'm blogging to tell you about the PRESENT and PAST.
This past week, we had class and did our final presentations for our St. Olaf class! So... we are officially done with THAT part of Global--so strange. We celebrated the end of our class on Wednesday night by going to a karaoke place called Sing Sing right down the road in Sinchon. It's a different type of karaoke joint--I had pictured a bar or restaurant where I'd have to stand up and humiliate myself in front of all sorts of people I didn't know, but instead you walk down some stairs and there are tiny rooms that a whole group can rent! So a huge group of 24 of us got our own room with a TV, a remote, and a book of songs and let me tell you, with only those three things we had a BLAST.
This past Thursday, I had to add another excursion to my list of favorites on Global... we went to the De-militarized Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea! It was AMAZING and also a little bit scary.We first went to get briefed on the North/South Korean relations, and then we visited the observation building that looks into North Korea. We could see North Korea from where we stood! We saw the fake village and the huge North Korean flag. We also got to check out the third tunnel that the North had started digging (it's the most dangerous one because it's closest to Seoul) and we walked down in it with hard hats on and saw how the North had painted coal dust on the walls to pretend it was an old mining tunnel (although there is no coal to be mined down there...hmmm). Then we went to the US military base and the demarcation line, where we actually had to take a bus through THREE layers of defense which included an anti-tank wall, a barbed wire checkpoint, and a live minefield! Our guide was a military police and he was very serious but he's from Davenport Iowa! We first went to the area that is like "no man's land" where the South and North meet (I can't really believe that they let tourists come here...seems dangerous) and so we saw the line that divides the two sides. There were guards facing the North Korean building and on the other side from where we stood there was a North Korean guard staring back at us and we were told they were monitoring and taking pictures of us from behind a curtain and in a building. They told us to smile for the camera--it was funny but also kind of scary. We weren't allowed to make any gestures at the North Korean guards so that they couldn't use it for anti-US or anti-S Korea propoganda. Then we went into one of the buildings that the North and South meet in and in the middle table there was a line of microphones that mark the line dividing the N and the S. We went and stood on the North side and we were in North Korea! So I was in North Korea that day. Surprise! Then we went to a checkpoint and looked out over the fields and forests. We were told that we were surrounded on three sides by Communist North Korea territory and only what was behind us was South Korean. Eek! It was such a great experience and we learned a LOT about the relationship N and S Korea have.
Since then, we've been to see a Nanta performance--South Korea's version of Stomp where they use every-day utensils to make music, except with a cooking twist thrown in. They even made soup and cut veggies rhythmically with sharp knives and there was food all over the stage! Some of our Global friends were brought up to participate. It was hilarious. Dancing, singing, love story, cooking, and music were all thrown into this amazing show, and we all loved it. We also have been using our weekend to shop at cute boutiques and appreciate South Korea's somewhat strange but extremely adorable style.
And for the finale, today we went to GANGNAM district! If you haven't heard, there is a famous song that has swept the world called Gangnam Style by a Korean pop artist, so we thought it wouldn't be right to leave Korea without traveling to this district that has become so famous. We met up with some of Rachel's friends from boarding school who live in Seoul and they took us to a auto-mechanic-themed restaurant, where we ate pizza with spoons. Then we shopped and took in the sights of Gangnam. It's pretty similar to other districts, but the excitement of being in a famous district was still there! Also, Gangnam is the prime spot for plastic surgery procedures in Seoul, and having done my research and finding that one in five Koreans in Seoul have had plastic surgery, I found myself scrutinizing faces around me to see whether this statistic was true. Surprisingly, I think it is. I've seen enough pictures of Korean eyelid surgery, jaw rounding, and nose jobs to possibly make a somewhat decent guess at whether or not someone has had it. It's such a skewed perception of beauty here. Overall, it was a great day.
This week is going to go by fast! I'm excited to go home, but I hope I can find enough time to finish up in Seoul and give it a warm farewell!
This past Thursday, I had to add another excursion to my list of favorites on Global... we went to the De-militarized Zone (DMZ) between South and North Korea! It was AMAZING and also a little bit scary.We first went to get briefed on the North/South Korean relations, and then we visited the observation building that looks into North Korea. We could see North Korea from where we stood! We saw the fake village and the huge North Korean flag. We also got to check out the third tunnel that the North had started digging (it's the most dangerous one because it's closest to Seoul) and we walked down in it with hard hats on and saw how the North had painted coal dust on the walls to pretend it was an old mining tunnel (although there is no coal to be mined down there...hmmm). Then we went to the US military base and the demarcation line, where we actually had to take a bus through THREE layers of defense which included an anti-tank wall, a barbed wire checkpoint, and a live minefield! Our guide was a military police and he was very serious but he's from Davenport Iowa! We first went to the area that is like "no man's land" where the South and North meet (I can't really believe that they let tourists come here...seems dangerous) and so we saw the line that divides the two sides. There were guards facing the North Korean building and on the other side from where we stood there was a North Korean guard staring back at us and we were told they were monitoring and taking pictures of us from behind a curtain and in a building. They told us to smile for the camera--it was funny but also kind of scary. We weren't allowed to make any gestures at the North Korean guards so that they couldn't use it for anti-US or anti-S Korea propoganda. Then we went into one of the buildings that the North and South meet in and in the middle table there was a line of microphones that mark the line dividing the N and the S. We went and stood on the North side and we were in North Korea! So I was in North Korea that day. Surprise! Then we went to a checkpoint and looked out over the fields and forests. We were told that we were surrounded on three sides by Communist North Korea territory and only what was behind us was South Korean. Eek! It was such a great experience and we learned a LOT about the relationship N and S Korea have.
Since then, we've been to see a Nanta performance--South Korea's version of Stomp where they use every-day utensils to make music, except with a cooking twist thrown in. They even made soup and cut veggies rhythmically with sharp knives and there was food all over the stage! Some of our Global friends were brought up to participate. It was hilarious. Dancing, singing, love story, cooking, and music were all thrown into this amazing show, and we all loved it. We also have been using our weekend to shop at cute boutiques and appreciate South Korea's somewhat strange but extremely adorable style.
And for the finale, today we went to GANGNAM district! If you haven't heard, there is a famous song that has swept the world called Gangnam Style by a Korean pop artist, so we thought it wouldn't be right to leave Korea without traveling to this district that has become so famous. We met up with some of Rachel's friends from boarding school who live in Seoul and they took us to a auto-mechanic-themed restaurant, where we ate pizza with spoons. Then we shopped and took in the sights of Gangnam. It's pretty similar to other districts, but the excitement of being in a famous district was still there! Also, Gangnam is the prime spot for plastic surgery procedures in Seoul, and having done my research and finding that one in five Koreans in Seoul have had plastic surgery, I found myself scrutinizing faces around me to see whether this statistic was true. Surprisingly, I think it is. I've seen enough pictures of Korean eyelid surgery, jaw rounding, and nose jobs to possibly make a somewhat decent guess at whether or not someone has had it. It's such a skewed perception of beauty here. Overall, it was a great day.
This week is going to go by fast! I'm excited to go home, but I hope I can find enough time to finish up in Seoul and give it a warm farewell!
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