I'm actually writing this post after I returned here to Florida. We were so busy the last five days I'll have to exercise brevity so this post doesn't last forever.
Last Tuesday: Our first lesson of the day was about the unique leadership techniques used by Chung Ju-yung (nickname Asan), the founder of Hyundai. After the Korean War, this man and the founder of Samsung basically rebuilt the entire country. Asan traveled to Germany to figure out how to build the roads for the country. After his construction company prospered he said, A ship is basically an engine contained in a welded steel box. Our company builds power plants like this all the time. Why should we not be building ships? So with no experience in shipbuilding, this man founded the Hyundai shipyard and evolved it into the world's best one. His story is very inspiring if you are looking for a good biography to read.
Our second class that day was taekwondo! It was way fun to get our butts kicked by tiny Korean girls but the students made us feel good by having us break boards with our newly learned punches and kicks. They put on an amazing show with spinning kicks and jumpkicking boards over six people laying down which made me realize after the hour of lessons, I still had a ways to go yet. But it did spark and interest in doing is here in the USA!
Wednesday: Today was chock full of tours and stuff. We began by going to a tiny village which makes a specialized pottery called Onggi. The vessels (small as a cup to huge jars which can contain a good five adults standing up) are made of a special clay which allows oxygen to escape and creating the ideal conditions for fermenting the vast array of foods Korea indulges in. Kimchi is served at every meal, no exceptions, and is a spiced fermented cabbage which is put in one of these jars and buried in the ground to "cook". We had a meal here and progressed to the whale museum in Ulsan. It was a tribute to whales but also described the extensive, yet now banned, whaling industry in Ulsan. It used to be huge here but now the only whales that can be eaten are ones that are accidentally caught in fishing nets, which is not that often. Next door to the whale museum was a fish and dolphin aquarium. When the dolphins were fed, they did each performed and in line with Korean custom, they bowed to the audience when they finished. Next stop was a traditional Korean market which turned out to be much different than what I was expecting. Think old buildings, crowded streets with pushcarts and this is the opposite of what we visited. The market was a series of themed warehouses (dead seafood, fruit, veggies, live seafood) which you could walk inbetween and was absolutely packed with products sold by individuals or a family. We ended up in the live seafood area to have a dinner of the freshest sashimi (raw fish) any of us had ever had. We also tried whale meat (which I feel really guilty about but our guides ordered it) which was really greasy but actually not bad. The sashimi included different local fish and octopus which is called nakji. Other dishes included cooked eel with scallops and boiled octopus. This was by far my favorite meal in Korea. That night we road the ferris wheel located in downtown Ulsan and visited a karaoke joint (locally called the singing room) and introduced our fellow Korean students to some classic American music.
Thursday: Our first class this day was about the social characteristics of Korea. Some interesting facts are that 90% of high school grads attend a 2 or 4 year college. Also, among the G20 nations, it has the lowest incident of teen pregnancy, less than 1%.
Saturday: Our flight from Ulsan to Seoul and from Seoul to Chicago were scheduled too close together so we took a 5.5 hour bus ride across the entire country to get to Incheon airport early. This consisted of a lot of sleeping but was like riding first class in a realllly slow airplane! The rest stops were pretty awesome and had massage chairs to relieve some of the stress from traveling! I grabbed some kimbap (kind of like sushi rolls but cooked meet or veggies instead of raw fish) for lunch and slept again until we reached the airport. We all enjoyed some Americanized food there and I indulged in a hot dog but, as usual, they were still a little bit off. My hot dog had avocado on it. Most of us were just about ready to go home, and once we all were on the plane, it was a comforting feeling knowing that in 12 hours, we would be back in the US after an amazing trip to Korea.
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