Korea

I was able to go to Korea in early October to visit some friends who had moved there.  They are my former colleagues (from here in Macau).  It was so great to get to see them!

We were able to visit cultural hot spots, namely a palace and a preserved village. It was so cool to see what it used to be like.  I don't know if it would have been cool to live under a king or an emperor, but it was really neat to see the area and learn about the traditions.

The food there was delicious.  Most of the food was vegetables, and it was mostly spicy.  Every meal was accompanied by some sort of pickled vegetable and/or kimchi (which is pickled itself).  Most of the places where we ate served food that was cooked at your table.

One of the restaurants, however, didn't have that.  In fact, it was American: it was Taco Bell!  I was so excited to be able to eat at Taco Bell outside of America!  My Chinese friend who traveled with me had never eaten Taco Bell before, and was understanding when I said that it was my favorite fast food restaurant, because the taste was so delicious!

Something else that was super exciting was the baseball game.  We started off the day by going out to eat, but we had a 40 minute wait for a table.  Across the street there were some batting cages, so we crossed the street and hit some balls!  I hadn't played baseball in a LONG time, and it was fun to be able to do that!  Later that day, we went to a baseball game.  This game was so exciting!  Take the crowd from competative college basketball game and insert it into the baseball stadium.  It was jam packed, and the crowd was wild!  They were singing, dancing, clapping their inflatable clappers in different rhythms, and eating dried squid and Burger King.  It was so exciting to be able to be in the audience and watch a baseball game!  I didn't realize how much I missed that!

Something that I learned, by being there is how far I have come in China--with locations, the language, the culture, and more.  In Korea, I knew nothing, and I could have easily gotten very lost and unable to find my way back to the house we were staying at!  But it was such a great experience to be in a place where I knew nothing!  It helped me appreciate what I do know here!