Apologies for going so long without updating, I know you’ve all been waiting with bated breath.?
It’s been a very busy week here and suddenly it’s Friday morning and we leave tomorrow! I know it’s cliche but it is nonetheless true: I don’t know how it went by so fast!? It’s a grey and humid day here which is one of the main weather experiences of my time in Seoul. I can’t say I’ve gotten used to it exactly?but it certainly is something I’ve come to expect.? One of my strongest memories of this trip will be of the sea of umbrellas that seemed to be everywhere we went.
To catch up on this last week: Michele’s class started on Monday and finishes today. There will be blogs from Andrea and others about the class. Monday afternoon I took time off and went back to Insadong with Lori and Chris (who didn’t take Michele’s course). Much shopping was done and many gifts acquired. We also had an incredible vegetarian dinner at a Buddhist restaurant called Sanchon. It was a 20 course meal including the tea and it was quite lovely. We had no idea what we were eating much of the time but it really didn’t matter. The dishes kept coming and we kept eating.
Just some of the dishes at Sanchon
At 8pm the lights suddenly dimmed and in the center of the restaurant a woman in a traditional costume appeared. What followed was a variety of beautiful performances of all types including an elegant crane dance, a fan dance and drumming. It was a really neat evening.
Wednesday I went to Everland with Chris and Lori: http://www.everland.com/MultiLanguage/english/index.html?It was a day of regressing to our 12-year-old selves as we experienced a very fun day of amusement park rides. We rode the steepest wooden roller coaster in the world, I went upsidedown on more than one ride (a first for me), ate lots of frozen goodies and saw a fantastic light parade and fireworks show. We did choose not to try the peanut butter roasted squid which is a regret we’ll just have to live with.
Phoenix rising after it vanquished the evil dragon.
Lori, me and Chris
Yesterday was a day of work and class and then we visited the National Archives in the afternoon. That was a very cool site visit as we saw both the digital preservation aspect and the traditional conservation side as well. We got a full tour of their facilities and a lecture from the director. We learned about their disaster preparedness and saw restoration occuring on presidential papers that had recently been damaged by the flooding of the Han.
Conservationists at work at the National Archives
The whole Simmons crew and some of the Yonsei folks at the National Archives
After the tour of the National Archives we headed back to the city for our farewell dinner. As Jee Yeon said during her toast-it seems like yesterday that we just had our welcome gathering. It was a very fun evening and as usual, many tasty dishes were consumed. After dinner a bunch of us went out for drinks and we discovered through Juhee, one of the Yonsei students who will be at Simmons this fall, that we could order fresh pineapple juice with soju in it. It was a very tasty discovery.
Many types of pork and other goodies at the farewell dinner.
Now it’s Friday morning and I’m in the office wrapping stuff up and contemplating what I’ll eat for my last lunch and dinner in Seoul. Far too many good options. Tomorrow morning we fly back to Boston. We leave? Seoul at 10:30 on Saturday morning and we land in Boston at 5:30pm on Saturday evening. It’s like time travel!
Overall this has been a fantastic trip. We’ve learned a lot about library and information science in Korea, we’ve eaten incredible meals and we’ve made great new friends and colleagues. It’s been interesting to be here during such tumultous time in the world with the riots in London, international stock markets plunging up and down and a multitude of other chaos.? I don’t think it’s possible to understand a culture, a city or a people in only two weeks but I do feel I’ve gained much from my little glimpse into life in Seoul. I’m very grateful for the opportunity to be here and I look forward to coming back next year to continue the connection between Yonsei and Simmons.