Exploring Seoul with the Park Family!

My day in Seoul with the Park family!

Click on the image above to view all the photos in the album

First of all, I don’t think I will ever be able to express my gratitude to the Parks for their kindness, generosity, openness, warmth, and hospitality! They made me feel incredibly welcome in the city of Seoul and were wonderful hosts to me! After I said farewell to my husband in the Guam airport, I had to clear Guam customs, and re-check in for my alternative itinerary. I then boarded a plane for Nagoya, Japan and braved a Japanese airport for a while (which was actually very clean, well labeled, and very pretty). From there I flew onto Seoul and was soon greeted by one of my MCC students (and one of my Model UNers), Jenny Park, Mrs. Park, and Jenny’s brother and sister.

In seconds I was transformed from being an English-speaking foreigner to being embraced as an honored guest by the Parks. They swept me up and made me feel incredibly welcome. Before I knew it, I had dropped my bags at my hotel and was at a beautiful dinner. The style of meal was called “kalbi” and consisted of a variety of delicious side dishes that you eat with grilled meat. Only…the meat is grilled at your table on a little mini grill in the center of your table. …So, think fondue, but with a grill instead. The waitress continually lays more beef or pork out and then cuts it into strips. You then eat the piece of beef with other side dishes, like sautéed peppers, raw onion strips, or greens in a sesame pepper sauce. You can also take the meat and wrap it in a piece of romaine. It’s delicious! (And!...Mrs. Hals managed to eat it all with chopsticks! My chopsticking ability was even praised by the Park family, although I have suspicions that they were just being kind). Mr. Park joined us for dinner as well and I was able to debate the strengths and weaknesses of the US law system with him – very intriguing!

After dinner we enjoyed some very delicious, light, refreshing desserts at a coffee shop. Jenny and I split a big bowl of shaved ice topped with raspberry syrup and fresh fruit. It was yummy and is a new favorite dessert of mine.

The next morning, Jenny, her brother, and her mom, met me at the hotel and took me sightseeing. They ran me ragged, but we had a fantastic day! I can’t possibly describe every second of it, but I’d like to share a few highlights with you:

One of our first stops of the day was Bongeunsa, a Buddhist temple in the heart of the city. It was my first Buddhist temple and was absolutely beautiful. Jenny’s mom told me lots of little details and patiently answered the multitude of questions I had as Jenny translated for the two of us. The interior of the temple was beautiful (I don’t have a picture, because it would have been rude), but the ceiling was lined with prayers, hanging from flowers, that people had paid money to have placed there. The right wall was lined with little golden Buddha statues that Jenny’s mother explained people had purchased and on the left wall were two big fancy ships that had boards with smaller papers added to them. I was told these were spots purchased by families to ensure their deceased family member had a seat on the boat that provided safe passage to the Buddhist version of heaven. There were many opportunities throughout the grounds to purchase prayers that would hang in various ways throughout the complex (check out the pictures). We walked the grounds and witnessed a monk’s funeral prayer going on in one of the temples, saw a very large Buddha statue, stopped by the pagoda that housed the large bell and drum that are sounded on festival days, and enjoyed the view of Seoul.

Shopping was quite an experience. As we traversed through the city, they showed me several different amazing shopping areas. First, Jenny shared Coex with me, which is her favorite place to meet her friends. Coex was a very cute mall with lots of fun stores (now I know where she gets her adorable pencil cases!) We visited several other shopping centers, some of which were malls, others were markets. The market was amazing. I’ve been to many foreign markets, but never to one like this. The quantity of goods available was absolutely astounding to me. And everything is clumped together by topic. So we walked through probably 100 or 200 stations selling jewelry. (I’m going back!) We walked by row after row of souvenirs, row after row of shoes, food, etc. It was really neat! We also went down to a grocery store (which was the basement level of a mall) and her mom showed me many different fish, fruits, vegetables, that were unique to Korea (or at least not normally found in the US). It was really interesting and gave me a great feel for the shopping opportunities in Seoul.

Jenny also showed me the Korean spin on a photo booth (you know, like the one in Melbourne Mall that you sit in, make funny face, get a little strip of pictures…), only this booth was very high-tech in my opinion. We had an interactive touch screen and a green screen behind us. We picked out our backgrounds. We then went to a different booth and used a touch screen to decorate our photos, add cute little digital stickers, crop, label, you name it. Very fun! (You can see our final product in the album above…let’s just say I laughed, a lot).

The last thing I did with Jenny and her mom was go to the top of the Seoul Tower. To get to the base of the tower you have to find a way to get up a very long, very steep hill. Because of the intensity of the traffic, Korean residents are expected to walk or take a public bus. If you are a foreigner, you can take a taxi or a cable car. So, the Parks were very excited to use me as an excuse and to be able to take a taxi to the top (I was more than happy to oblige). :) At the top of the hill, we waited for the sun to go down with the idea that it would be prettiest to see the entire city at night. So we enjoyed the view from the lookout, watched teenage couples attach locks to the railings and throw away the key (thus locking in their love), snacked on frozen yogurts and coffees, and had great conversations. The view from the top of the tower was beautiful and was a perfect end to a great day!

The Parks gave me a wonderful inside look into the city of Seoul! It really is an awesome city and I am very excited to have two more weeks here! I still cannot thank them enough for their amazing hospitality!

PS – I have resigned myself to accepting that I will probably continually be about 2 days behind on this blog. Internet has not been reliable (the past two hotel rooms I have had do not have working internet in the room…what are the odds?) I’m trying! And will keep posting! But just realize it probably happened two days ago. I met up with the teachers program on July 7th and have had two easy days as everyone else is jetlagging, but tomorrow is the big day! We are leaving for Korea University at 7:15 am and have a FULL day planned, several seminars with KU professors, lunch, a meeting at a local foreign language high school, my guest teaching session with the students, a meeting with the principal, and an afternoon and dinner with a student’s family! A full, full, full day! Wish me luck! : )

Palau -- Part III: Stingless Jellyfish?!?!

Jellyfish Lake

Click on the link above to view the album

Stingless Jellyfish? Yeah right! They exist, they are awesome, and you can swim with them!

Visiting Jellyfish Lake was one of the coolest things my husband and I have ever done. When Daniel was in Palau ten years ago El Nino had damaged the jellyfish population enough that he didn’t get to visit the lake.

Palau has many marine lakes. Five of them contain jellyfish whose stings are so mild they do not harm you. So yes, they are considered stingless jellyfish! Not only did we get to visit the lake that the 13 million-ish jellyfish live in…we swam in it!

Now, to protect the jellyfish populations and preserve Palau’s natural habitats, the government only allows people to swim in one of the five lakes. So it is definitely a tourist-frequented destination (and you have to buy a permit to snorkel there). But, since we were used to diving at 7 am, getting to Jellyfish Lake at 7:30 was no big deal – and we beat all the other tourists and had the entire lake to ourselves.

We had to hike up and down a hill of craggy, sharp, slippery limestone rocks while carrying our snorkel gear and waterproof cameras. We all geared up and slipped into the lake. The jellyfish are drawn to the sun, they follow it out of survival. In the shade/shadows is the edge of the lake, so my following the sun, they stay in the center. Why does that matter? Because along the edge of the lake there are white anemones that eat the jellyfish. Really cool, right?

So we started swimming, because we were in the shade there weren’t any jellies and I was wondering if we were going to be disappointed, but sure enough, as we swam into the center of the lake more and more jellyfish appeared.

Swimming with them was awesome…for divers jellyfish are usually our worst enemy – they inflict so much pain! Many divers wear skins specifically to protect themselves from the potential stings. And most divers have been stung many times (Daniel and I certainly have). Instead of fearing them, we got to marvel at their propulsion system as they puttered around the lake. These jellyfish are a beautiful golden color too, so they are really beautiful to look at. Now, at first you catch yourself delicately avoiding the jellyfish, afraid to let them touch you, but the further into the center of the lake, the more inevitable it becomes for you to come in contact with them. You could pet them and hold them in the palm of your hand (well, kind of, because they continue pulsating away).

It was really awesome. Just before we headed back Daniel and I discovered you could dive down in the shadows and rise up through the clouds of jellyfish – it was incredibly fun to do. We each took turns diving down with our fins and floating up through the pretty golden orbs that felt like jello.

The rest of the day was also a lot of fun. We careened in the skiff through the famously beautiful Rock Islands and then dove the Chandelier Caves. We dawned our scuba gear one last time and swam into a cave. But! This cave has air pockets! So we were able to swim into the cave and then resurface in caverns full of stalactites and beautiful rock formations. It was a fantastic last dive.

The next morning we disembarked from the boat and spent a portion of our day doing a river boat cruise and speaking with a local guide about the indigenous plants and animals on the island. Unlike Yap, Palau has saltwater crocodiles and some of the islands have monkeys. They have a few different non-poisonous snakes. It was really neat to learn about the different island creatures that exist between Yap and Palau. The islands are only a few hundred miles apart, but still have some stark differences in terms of animals and plants. Many of the plants in Palau were introduced by the Japanese during the early 1900’s occupation.

Palau - Part II: Visiting the WW II sites on the island of Peleliu

Peleliu

Click on the image above to view the album (I recommend you read the entry, then view the photos)

While most days I spent 4-5 hours under the water, the day our ship reached the South Dock inlet along the island of Peleliu, I took advantage of the opportunity to enjoy a land excursion to the historic WW II sites around the island.

Peleliu was a battle that incurred extremely high casualties during the war. To make matters worse, it’s relevance to the overall war effort in the Pacific has been highly debated, and thus, it is a fairly controversial battle. It is also a battle that has recently increased in popularity and awareness because of “The Pacific” series HBO debuted this spring. There is actually an entire episode on the marine’s contributions at Peleliu, so if you watched the series, you may find this especially interesting.

I’m going to summarize what I learned, but you may also enjoy looking through the pictures and reading through the captions. We had a wonderful guide named Tangie Hesus, who is truly the local historian. He has created and maintains an interesting museum with many artifacts and accounts from the battle. He was extremely knowledgeable and did his best to answer our questions and show us around.

The marines landed on Orange Beach, attempted to take the Japanese airfield and the Japanese administration building, and then worked their way up “Bloody Nose Ridge.” We visited Orange Beach, the monument where many soldiers were buried until 1957 (they were moved to Arlington), and the remaining walls of a chapel that had been built on site. Tangie told us of the struggles to gain position on Orange Beach and told us many stories of marines returning to Orange Beach and the nearby jungle and sharing stories of how their best friends perished. The beach was 118* the day of the battle (Palau is only 7 degrees from the equator). It was sobering to stand on a beach, now calm and peaceful, that had seen so much carnage and death. The monument to the fallen marines had plants arranged to actually spell “USA.” The island of Peleliu itself lost nearly all of its vegetation during the battle – it’s hard to imagine when you’re standing there because the island really feels like a jungle. After the battle, the US tried to plant a tree that grew extremely fast to create some cover for the locals. But they planted a pine that was toxic to the indigenous plants, so now they are centering efforts on removing the pesky pine. Much of the island’s vegetation has grown back, but when you look at pictures that were taken where you were standing and see no vegetation at all, it is astounding.

From there we drove through the airfield and onto the Japanese administration building. This building had definitely seen war. The concrete was riddled with mortar divets and bullet holes, there were gaping holes in the walls and ceiling, and rebar was jaggedly jutting out throughout the remains of the building. We got to explore a nearby Japanese bomb shelter – which I found especially eerie, because the men inside were probably forced out with a flame thrower. On some of the pillars there were tributes to the Japanese soldiers who had lost their lives with wreaths bearing a thousand paper cranes.

After stopping to see several different vehicles that had been damaged and abandoned (including a Japanese tank and a US Amtrak), we headed up the steps to Bloody Nose Ridge. Over 11,000 Japanese were entrenched in the ridge, hiding in 600 caves, as 800 snipers were perched, hidden, and ready. Our guide took us back to see a 200 mm rifle that had never been fired (it was about 90% assembled when the US arrived). We also got to go back to some of the caves where the Japanese had hidden, poised to attack.

Tangie Hesus has also created a museum full of artifacts, correspondence, and photographs documenting the perspective and experiences of both the Japanese and the American troops. We spent a little while walking through the museum and then headed up the hill on Bloody Nose Ridge and paid our respects to the Marine Monument and the Japanese Shrine.

Later on that afternoon we did a dive at Orange Beach and we saw rifle barrels, cargo boxes, fuel cells, remnants of ships…and all sorts of different war related carnage. It was all hidden with coral, but was really cool to see. I found my mind imagining how everything got there and also felt like a scuba-historian as I tried to discern whether I was seeing just coral, or historical artifacts.

It was really awesome to actually visit a WW II battle site and I was personally surprised when I realized I have never visited one before. Much of Europe was involved in the war, but nearly all of those sites have been repaired and rebuilt. There is only a small village in Peleliu, so much of the wreckage from the war remains intact. My grandfather was also on an aircraft carrier ship called the USS Cowpens, which fought in Palau, so it was really amazing to envision his ship at the ready in the waters our boat was traversing.

Palau – Part I: Diving in the Beautiful Blue Waters

The view from Ulong beach, where part of the Palau Survivor series occurred


Beautiful fish and coral at the world famous dive site, Blue Corner


Coral as far as the eye can see, again at Blue Corner


Thousands and thousands of colorful fish, swimming in our own aquarium


A beautiful sunset on the water

I apologize if I confuse anyone. I am safely in Korea now and have met up with The Korea Society teacher’s program and now hope to have a steady internet connection. I have two goals. First, to share a few highlights from my experiences in Palau, and second, to keep you posted on the many things I have the honor of learning about the history, culture, and people of Korea as a summer fellow.

Ten years ago for his sixteenth birthday, my husband’s dad took him on a dive trip to Palau. My husband loved it so much he hasn’t stopped talking about it ever since. And so, this year as we planned our summer vacation, and decided we really wanted to spend a few weeks scuba diving, Palau made it to the top of our list. Historically Palau has changed hands many times – the UK, Germany, Japan, and the United States all occupied Palau at different points in time before it became a truly independent country in 1994. Even still, there are many foreign influences – as my husband and I walked around Koror we passed a school that the US had helped construct and two other public buildings/elements of infrastructure that were sponsored by Taiwan and Japan.

From June 27 to July 5 we lived on what’s called a “live aboard” dive boat. …You literally live aboard the boat. It’s basically a large yacht that has several levels that include cabins to sleep in, a dive deck where we keep our gear and get ready for dives, a galley and dining area, and a sun deck. The daily schedule usually involves waking up around 6 am and grabbing a light breakfast; diving at 7 am; eating second breakfast (yes, we’re hobbits) that is a hot breakfast; diving again; eating lunch; diving again; afternoon tea (and something yummy and sweet to snack on); diving again; eating dinner and dessert; diving again…this time it’s a night dive; and then crashing from sheer exhaustion. You’ve earned it. There’s a reason the Aggressor advertises an “Eat-Sleep-Dive” life.

The diving in Palau has been phenomenal! The coral walls are absolutely amazing as they vertically span 90-150+ feet and stretch as far as the eye can see! There aren’t just a few reef fish, but hundreds of brightly colored fish bustling around the coral and thousands of fish swooping in schools around the reef’s edge and out in the deep blue. There’s entire underwater rolling hills and meadows of beautiful, bright, colorful corals! So…to sum it up, in Palau the coral and fishies are infinitely healthier, more diverse, more colorful, and there’s …just MORE of everything! We've gotten to do tunnel dives, cave dives, wreck dives, coral gardens, and drift dives along the coral wall - lots of fun!

Safely in Korea and loving Seoul!

Visiting the beautiful Buddhist Temple, Bongeunsa, in the center of Seoul

Much much more will be posted very soon. But for now, I wanted to share that I am safely in Korea and am having a wonderful time with my dear student, Jenny Park, and her amazing family!

Lots more soon! Promise!

Exploring Yap

26 June 2010

After nearly 30 hours of flying, waiting in lines to board the planes, and sitting in airports, we were officially admitted to the Federated States of Micronesia! Success! We stepped off the plane onto island of Yap and were admitted into the country through an immigration office that was all outdoors. Once cleared by the immigration officer, we were given beautiful leis by two people dressed in traditional indigenous Yapese attire. We had made it!


Very tired, but very excited to have made it to Yap!

We spent Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday coping with jet-lag (it’s a fourteen hour time difference...basically while everyone on the East Coast of the US is sleeping we’re awake; when you guys are awake, we’re asleep) and diving in the beautiful waters around the islands of Yap. Highlights? We saw absolutely gorgeous underwater meadows full of incredibly diverse, colorful coral. The coral was all so healthy and there were so many different types along the walls. We saw many of the classic reef fish like “nemo”, angel fish, parrot fish, etc. The awesome finds were many sharks, (mainly grey reef and black tip), many colorful nudibranchs (colorful little underwater caterpillar type critters), several octopus (I’d never seen one while diving before!), leopard eel, squid (that change colors when you get close to them), and absolutely most magical of all – a twelve foot manta ray! We saw the twelve foot manta ray when we were in the Valley of the Rays, Stripes (the dive shop identifies their markings and has named most of them), emerged out of the blue and swept in six feet above our heads! She was incredibly majestic and beautiful and she absolutely made our trip to Yap! : )


Stripes gliding above us


Views of the islands and waters around Yap

Since we fly to Palau tonight, we had to observe the 24-hour no-fly rule as we waited for every last dive induced nitrogen to leave our blood stream. So we entertained ourselves in different ways and learned a lot more about the Yapese. We lazed about in the morning and enjoyed another breakfast in our room as early morning showers rippled through the harbor.

Kayaking started at 9:30 and we boarded a boat that held our kayaks and our guides, Iggy and Richard, who whisked us out to the mangroves. Then, we each clambered into our kayaks and headed into little channels with extensive mangroves rising up on either side of us. We spent an hour or two paddling through the mangrove tunnels as Richard pointed out fruit bats, identified different species of mangrove trees, village footpaths, and how different plants were used in the villages.

After our peaceful exploring, we headed to the “Men’s House” that belongs to one of the villages on the island. We passed the bank (which was a collection of stone money – large, round stones, with circles carved out of the center …like a doughnut) and were invited to sit on the porch of the Man’s House where we enjoyed a fantastic snack of local fruits – including the best passion fruit I have ever tasted – it was incredible! We sat on the porch of the house and peppered Richard with questions. Here are some of the things we learned:


One of the villages Man's House

The Man’s House is essentially the town hall for the village, only women are not allowed to enter. Boys are included once they are old enough to behave – usually around the age of ten. The frequency of meetings in the Man’s House depends on the village. It can be daily, weekly, monthly, etc. There are over a 120 villages on the island and their populations range anywhere from 30 to 100 to 500 people.

The Man’s House is made out of the strongest mangrove trees and has a thatched roof. They have to re-thatch the roof every five years to maintain the building – and it’s a village wide effort. The women sew the thatching the men lay the roof.
Stone Money. So I asked the obvious question. What’s to stop someone from making more stone money? Every piece of stone money that’s legit is recorded. No more can be made. When stone money is given as a gift or for payment, the giver/payer explains the recipient the entire history of all the transactions that stone has been a part of—and it is the recipient’s duty to learn the stone’s story and share it with the next person they impart the stone to. For marriages there are fancy shells that the male’s family gives to the female’s family to suggest that the male’s family will take care of the daughter.


The Village Bank of Stone Money

A few more facts… There are no firearms allowed in Yap. They also check all of the ships and flights for snakes, rats, frogs, insects – anything that could throw off the delicate ecological balance of the island. There are no crocodiles. There are also no snakes or monkeys on the island and they really want to keep it that way. Sometimes the locals kill and eat the fruit bats – it’s illegal but it happens.

We enjoyed the peacefulness of the mangroves and have enjoyed our very casual afternoon since then. We are 90% packed now, have paid our debt with the dive shop, and are enjoying one last afternoon with our friends on the Mnuw. We will soon be heading out for dinner and are then off to the airport for a quick flight to Palau! We board the Aggressor tomorrow evening! Woohoo! Yap has been a fantastic first half of the trip! Amazing :)



We celebrated our fourth wedding anniversary this week! It's been a fantastic trip so far!

All my bags are packed, I'm ready to go...

Above: over fifty postcards I have collected from my students at MCC to share with Korean students this summer

I am currently sitting in a hotel room in Orlando trying to go over my checklist one more time. I have the essentials. Passports? - Check. Dive cards? - Check. Itineraries, hotel information, flight confirmation numbers? - Check. But did I actually remember everything? If I did, I will be bragging of my mad packing skills for months to come. Preparing for this trip has been a monstrously daunting task.

As soon as school ended this year, I flew to Fort Collins, Colorado to read hundreds of AP World History essays for seven days straight. When I came home I was excited to finally experience my summer, but I also dove into trip preparation. I have spent the past week doing online research, communicating with the other teachers who will be participating in the Korea Fellowship program with me, attending an online orientation web-conference with the Korea Society, buying presents for the directors of the program, ordering dehydrated "astronaut ice cream" online and hoping that it arrived at my house before I left (it did!), and much much more.

My husband and I are first traveling to Yap, one of the Federated States of Micronesia, and to Palau to spend the next two weeks diving and enjoying the beautiful blue seas of the Pacific. Psyched would not begin to describe our emotions...I'm so excited I don't know if I will be able to sleep tonight. But I suppose I had better - because in the morning I have to endure a two or three hour flight to Houston, followed by a seventeen and a half hour flight to Guam, accompanied by a two or three hour flight to Yap. Yikes!

After our trip, my husband will be flying home and I will be flying on to Seoul, Korea by myself. Once I reach Seoul, one of my students, Jenny Park, will hopefully be meeting me in the airport to help me navigate the city! I will then have a day and a half in Seoul to visit with Jenny and her family before meeting up with the Korea Society program on July 7th. I'm really excited!

As I have looked over my checklist one last time, I feel more and more confident that I may have remembered all of the essentials! I have dozens of socks so I can enter the buildings in Korea (we were advised to pack a bunch and then pack more, and to always have a pair of socks in our purse/pocket.) When you enter buildings in Korea, you remove your shoes and put on socks. I also had to bring an umbrella and rain jacket because it will be monsoon season. For my school visit to a Korean classroom in which I will be working with a class of about fifty students, I am supposed to bring gifts, so I packed 10 packages of dehydrated ice cream and over fifty postcards with friendly messages from my MCC students. I also am supposed to have gift-wrapped gifts for the directors of the travel program, so I have gift bags, colorful "coffee table" books full of beautiful Florida scenery, tissue paper, and a Wynton Marsalis jazz CD (it's a Hals favorite). I have a semi-formal dress, professional clothes for our school visit and days at the university, semi-casual clothing...and then don't forget, we're diving for two weeks so I have fifty pounds of dive gear and two weeks of sun dresses and swimsuits. I think if security tries to figure out what I'm up to they will wind up very confused.

So to recap - I am packed, excited, and ready to go! Communication will be very spotty in Yap and Palau, but as of July 5th, I hope to be posting regularly about my adventures in Korea! :)