Immediately following my experiences in China, I’ve spent 21 days in the motherland of South Korea.  I spent most of my time staying with different relatives and eating delicious Korean foods, but did some interesting things like going to Jejudo, the Korean version of Hawaii, and Lotteworld, the Korean version of Disney World. 

So this is my last official day abroad.  I wish I had more to talk about on such an important day, but I kind of don’t.  Its bittersweet to say the least, but in truth I’m all Asia-ed out at this point.  I miss green money, relatively low population density, and the abundance of cheese.   

Cultural similarities between China and Korea is great.  I think this is because a lot of Korean culture is derived from the Confucian notion of respect and lifestyle.  There are things like respecting the elders, gender roles of men as workers and of women as house people and the like.  However, Korea is also very westernized too.  I would describe it as almost fully modernized with lots of flourishing industries with some trickles of Confucian culture remaining in everyday interactions.  I think it was a good transition between China and going back to the United States.

After successfully enduring 4 straight months of super intense Chinese, I thought Korean would be a piece of cake to catch up on during my 3 weeks here.  I was mistaken.  Korean is pretty hard too.  The alphabet system is a lot more straightforward than the Chinese character system, but everything sounds the same and all the letters look the same.  I’ve found I had a hard time memorize new words at the speed at which I was able to memorize Chinese words.  But maybe this is because in Korea I was just chilling and in China I studied the hardest I’ve ever studied in all my life.  In any case, I bought a bootlegged copy of a Korean drama called Secret Garden in China with Chinese subtitles, so maybe I’ll be able to practice my Korean listening and Chinese reading simultaneously. 

I hate the prices here.  It’s so similar to American prices, it’s almost disheartening.  I hate currency rates and their constant fluctuations that makes me regret not exchanging all my foreign cash earlier (and possible saving $30!!).  But travelling is good for the mind.  I feel like I understand the world more and would like to embrace the culture differences rather than squirm at it idea.  Cup successfully emptied and refilled.  

Location: Kimpo, South Korea