Were They Really Here?

As I sit here and begin to type this, it's so strange to think that just a few days ago, my dad and two of my sisters were sitting in this same apartment with me watching Ghostbusters. Their week-and-a-half-long visit has come and gone now, and it went by so fast that it's still hard to believe that they were even here. We had such an amazing time though and it was so nice spending time with them again after five months of only phone conversations and e-mails.

The trip started with me arriving in Seoul the night before they flew in and enjoying a nice Mexican meal, which is hard to come by around these parts. After I checked into the hotel, I decided to take a walk in the surrounding area, because I wasn't yet familiar with the location the hotel was in. After about 10-15 minutes of walking down a major road, I came across a department store that let me to this massive underground shopping, dining and entertainment complex called COEX. It was while exploring here that I came across "On the Border" and quickly decided that was happening for dinner. After enjoying a stag meal at the bar I walked around a bit more and came across a Sbarro Pizza, solidifying COEX as a place to return to in the future. You have no idea how nice it is find these places. We just don't have the same selection here in Busan and it really is a bummer.

The next day I was off to the airport to pick up my family! That whole morning I just couldn't believe that I was actually going to be seeing my dad and sisters that day. It was very strange. As I was walking to the subway that morning I was able to get a great view of the eclipse. There were just enough clouds in the sky to make it visible. I really got a great picture of it, which I'm pretty excited about it. The major international airport for Korea is in a city called Incheon, which is next to Seoul, but still pretty far away. I used the subway and express train to get there, which probably took about an hour and a half total from our hotel. Upon my arrival, I saw that their plane was going to be about an hour late, so I thought I'd go check in with the information desk to see if they knew why. I kind of figured that they wouldn't know that information, but I decided to ask anyway, and ended up having a pretty funny exchange with the lady working there. When I got to the desk I told her that I saw that my family's flight was delayed and was wondering if she knew why. She looked up the flight number and said, "That flight is not delayed." So I said, "Oh, so it will be here at 2:05 then?" She then said no and pointed on her computer screen to the time that it would be arriving, which was 2:50. So I said, "Yeah, it was supposed to be here at 2:05, so it's delayed right?" She said, "Actually no, it's not delayed. A flight has to arrive over an hour after it's scheduled arrival time to be considered delayed." I looked at her and said, "So it's going to be a little late then." She kind of laughed and said, "Yes." So there's just a little bit of information for all of you the next time you're waiting for a flight to come in. Don't dare call it delayed unless it's over an hour.

I sat there waiting for their arrival in such anticipation it was ridiculous. I just watched the screen waiting for it to show that they had landed. The funny thing is that this screen was so accurate. It was literally adjusting their arrival time by the minute. So I'd be sitting there and it would show 2:50, then it would change to 2:45, then it would change to 2:53, then to 2:54, then 2:55 and finally 2:56 when it did in fact land. I was already all amped up about them getting there and this stupid screen was only making it worse! Anyway, it was about a half hour or so after the plane landed that they finally came walking through the exit. I immediately saw my two sisters and was greeted with the biggest of hugs from all of them. It was so awesome and just so unreal too. My family was in Korea with me.

I'll try not to go into too much detail about the trip, because I'd be here writing forever and frankly you would just lose interest after a while I'm sure. My family got a nice taste of what it's like to live in Korea within minutes of their arrival. As we were getting in the taxi to take us to our hotel, there were maybe four Korean kids nearby and they gave us the "hello" treatment. I know I've mentioned this before, but as a foreigner in Korea you can count on at least three or four "hellos" from Koreans a week. It was funny that it happened so quickly to my dad though. That night, they got another dose of the Korean lifestyle when we walked down to the COEX place that I mentioned above and had dinner at some random Italian restaurant. I've talked before about how the drink situation here is just plain wacky. I mean God forbid you order an iced tea, because the waiter never knows how to handle that situation, even when it's listed under the beverages section of the menu. Anyway, this place didn't have any iced tea, and for my dad that's an issue, because he has a difficult time with carbonated beverages. He's never enjoyed drinking them, even as a kid, because they burn his throat. So he went ahead and ordered a lemonade thinking that would be just fine. Well to his, and my, surprise what was served him, was a carbonated lemon beverage that didn't look carbonated in the glass. He took a big old swig of that thing and set his throat on fire. That's typically how you learn about something here in Korea though; the hard way. At that same dinner, we were given bread before the meal, but before my sisters and dad could touch it, I warned them about the black color. Now, I honestly don't know if the bread they gave us contained this at all, but as soon as I saw it, I remembered a story that Brent told me about. See he and a couple of our Korean friends went to dinner one night at an Italian restaurant and were served bread that was colored/flavored with squid ink. He said that it really didn't have much of a taste to it at all, but I still felt the need to warn my family. Heck I wasn't going to eat the stuff. I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to be eating squid ink anyway. I mean, isn't that what they use to thwart off their enemies? I've said it before and I'll say it again, Koreans will eat anything! So anyway, my dad was the only one that tried the bread and didn't seem to have a problem with it, but that didn't convince my sisters and me.

It was actually very interesting/entertaining to watch them go through some of the things I went through when I first got here. Dealing with the rude behavior, strange restaurant policies and being stared at is all part of the lifestyle here. When you're first thrust into it however, it's a difficult thing to accept and adjust to. My poor sister Jana will probably never visit another Asian country for the rest of her life. She had the hardest time dealing with the somewhat uncomfortable feeling you have, knowing that other people are looking at you or talking about you. I don't think she was too happy about all the walking we did either. My sister Kalie seemed to have a great time. Though I think we could have been in the middle of the desert and she would have found a way to have fun, because that's just who she is. I made up some ridiculous game on one of our bus rides that I called Bees Knees, where she just matched what I would do with my hands on my knees and she loved it. She kept asking to play it throughout the trip! My dad seemed to really enjoy himself. He was taken aback by the massive, skyscraping apartment buildings everywhere and was more accepting of the cultural differences I think.

While in Seoul, we had a chance to take a bus trip to visit the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). This was something I was really looking forward to and ended up really enjoying. For those of you unfamiliar with the DMZ, this is the area that separates North and South Korea. Technically, the two countries are still in a state of war, because a peace treaty was never signed, only an armistice agreement. The DMZ was agreed upon by both nations as the official buffer zone. It's about two and half miles wide and runs 155 miles long. It truly is a one-of-a-kind thing and I was anxious to check it out. We had to gain security clearance to visit and were each individually checked with our passports by a South Korean soldier before entering. Our first stop in the DMZ was Imjingak. This is where the Bridge of Freedom is, which served as a crossing point for many refugees from the north, but is more famously known as the place where POWs were exchanged between the two countries. After Imjingak, we went to The Third Tunnel. After the armistice that stopped the fighting of the Korean War, the north made several attempts to sneak back into the south with a surprise attack. To date, four tunnels have been found underneath the DMZ, though there are believed to be many more. They are numbered by the order in which they were discovered. The first was discovered in 1974, the second in 1975 and the fourth in 1990. The Third Tunnel was discovered in 1978 and after watching a short movie, we were allowed to actually descend into the tunnel. It was quite the experience to be able to walk down this thing. It wasn't very tall, so my dad and I were hunched over pretty much the whole way down and back up, and if it wasn't for the hard hats we were required to wear, we'd have some pretty nasty lumps on our heads. Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures while inside the tunnel. After visiting The Third Tunnel, we were taken to an area where we could actually look out and see North Korea. There were binoculars that we were able to look through as well to get an up close view. Unfortunately we had to stay within this yellow box to take pictures, so it's really hard to get a good photo, but I did the best I could. There wasn't too much to see though. It was pretty much a lot of green, the North Korean flag and the propaganda village they built to try and lure defectors from the south back in the fifties. The next stop was Dorasan Station. This station was built along a railroad that leads directly into North Korea. It was constructed in anticipation of the day that the Koreas reunify, so that it would serve as the stop that takes you to not only North Korea, but beyond as well. They illustrate there how South Korea is cut off from Asia and Europe, because of the north. If the countries were united, passengers could essentially take a train all the way from Busan to Paris if they wanted to. I think a story that never really gets told in the media is that there are still many many people who hope for reunification of the Koreas. The Korean War was similar to the American Civil War in that families were split and homelands lost. You definitely get this story when you visit the DMZ. The ultimate desire is for the Korean peninsula to be one nation again, though the younger generations obviously feel less of an attachment to the north as the older ones do. There are many South Koreans who have relatives in the north that they've never met and even parents or grandparents buried there that they can't go visit. As much tension as there is between the two, there is a strong underlying hope for reunification one day.

Other Seoul highlights included stops at Seoul Tower, Gyeungbok Palace, Lotte World and the Korean souvenir heaven that is Insadong. We also took a couple bus tours throughout the city, which I hadn't done before. These were great for getting to see the city and were nice, because you could hop on and off at any major location, because buses would run every about 20 minutes or so. Overall, I really feel like there's nothing my family missed out on in Seoul. I think they got to see pretty much everything there is to see.

After three days, the trip moved to Jeju island, which was only about an hour plane ride away. I think the most exciting part of our time here was that for the first time in over five months, I got to drive! After my last trip to Jeju with my co-teacher and her family, I realized that renting a car was really the only way to get around the island. There's no subway system there and everything is so spaced out that you'd have to be taking taxis everywhere, which wouldn't be an easy task, because they aren't as readily available as they are in Seoul or Busan. So I obtained an International Driver's Permit, which allows me to drive in various countries around the world, including South Korea. It was tons of fun driving again and I can't wait to do it again next month when I go back with Mariana. Anyway, being in Jeju is really about two things: nature and museums. While there, we visited a chocolate museum, an automobile museum, a miniature landmark museum and a teddy bear museum. All were unique and fun in their own way, especially the teddy bear museum, which found all kinds of ways to display different kinds of teddy bears. On the nature side, we spent a little time at the beach and visited the Dragon Rock and Jeongbung Falls to get some nice scenic pictures. While in Jeju, which is known for its tangerines, we also discovered the wonderfulness that is tangerine chocolate. We all pretty much fell in love with the stuff and my dad even brought some home with him to share. I'll definitely be sure to stock up on it when I go back.

Now it was on to my hometown of Busan. I don't think I could have been happier than the first night there, when they all came over to my apartment and I made a pasta dinner for us all. It was so awesome having all of them in my tiny little apartment. I would look around and just think about how surreal it was that they were there. I mean, there's my dad on the computer, Kalie watching Pinnochio on the TV and Jana taking a nap on my bed. It really was a great moment for me. The hotel that we stayed at here was right on the beach, which was perfect for my two sisters who were really longing for some beach time at this point in the trip. Aside from that, we visited the Jagalchi Fish Market and Busan Tower in a day that I think Jana wanted to cut my legs off, because of how much I had us all walking. That night though, we saw a comedic martial arts performance called "Jump" at a theater near our hotel. Brent joined us that night too and we all shared some laughs and had a pretty good time at the show. The next day we went to my school, where my family got to meet my principal, co-teacher and some of my students. My co-teacher was nice enough to take us all to lunch at a good Korean barbecue restaurant too. This was my family's first experience with Korean food on the trip. Knowing that my sisters are pretty picky eaters, we avoided Korean-style restaurants the whole trip to this point. I did have plans to take them to this one pork restaurant that Brent and I really like, but we didn't end up having time to do that, so this ended up being their only Korean meal experience. The good news is that they enjoyed it. The meat was tasty enough for my sisters and I think my dad even enjoyed some of the side dishes as well. Watching my sisters try to use chopsticks was quite a treat too, especially my little sister Kalie who really had no clue how to even start holding those things. Luckily the place had forks we were able to special request. After this we went back to my apartment to do some laundry and again just hang out for a couple hours. Ghostbusters was the movie of choice this time, which is never a problem, because that movie rules. I can't wait for the third one, which I've heard from my inside movie source (Brent) is finally being scripted. My co-teacher actually picked us up from my place when we were finished and took us to the Buddhist temple that Brent and I visited way back when we first met Ji Won. I really wanted to take them there, because it's such a unique temple. Pretty much all of the temples I've visited look the same, but this one is built right on the rocks on the coastline and really has some breathtaking scenery. My dad pretty much agreed once we got there. Rounding out the time in Busan was a trip to the aquarium, APEC House and Shinsegae (the world's "largest" department store) to see the movie "Up." Now, lucky for me something was messed up with my family's flight back home, so they were to be leaving a day later than expected. I was soaking up all the time I got to spend with them and finding out that I had an extra day was just icing on the cake.

We took the KTX back to Seoul for their final night here and after some confusion with our taxi drivers where I almost lost my family in Seoul, we made it to our hotel. We walked to the California Pizza Kitchen that was nearby for dinner and took a stroll along Cheonggyecheon on the way back. Cheonggyecheon you may remember is the public recreation creek that runs right through the city. It was a nice final night with them.

The next day it was time to say goodbye and that was tough. I had such a great time and it was really just so much fun spending time with them again that I wished it could have been longer. In the end I'm just so thankful that they were not only able, but willing to come halfway across the world to visit me. I don't know how many other EPIK teachers are getting visits from their family members, but I know it definitely made me feel special to have mine here. It really was by far, my most enjoyable time since I've been here.

With the family gone and the first half of my summer vacation over, it was time to get back to school for summer English camp. Believe it or not, English camp has an even easier schedule than my regular school schedule. I teach two classes a day. That's it. And pretty much all we do is play games and sing songs. Cake. This week though, I was asked to help teach at a middle school, because their EPIK teacher went missing. As funny as that sounds, it happens more often than you'd think. The school is actually right next to mine, so I just walk over there in the afternoons and spend a couple hours with them. I was apprehensive at first, because I haven't had any experience teaching middle schoolers and I remember from training that everyone said they are the worst behaved, but the kids I have are great. They don't goof off too much and can almost understand everything I'm saying, which is a nice change from the elementary kids. I'm also getting paid extra to teach over there, so I'm really not complaining.

Anyway, tomorrow is Friday, which means movie day at both schools and usually an awesome dinner at a western-style restaurant at night. As they say in Korea, "Asahhh!"

I hope you're all doing well. Take care!

Jeongbeong Falls in Jeju

Dorasan Station at the DMZ

Behind my family you can see the yellow line that we had to stand behind to take pictures of North Korea.

This may be my favorite picture. Everyone just hanging out in my apartment.

The eclipse on July 22