The End

It may have taken me a little over two years, but I've finally fulfilled my commitment to myself and finished this blog! I'm proud to have seen this project through, even if it didn't quite live up to my lofty goals at the outset. I really wanted to focus on cultural commentary, but as time continued to remove me further from my experiences, and as I became more aware of just how little I actually knew about these complicated countries and the intricate interplay of their pasts and presents, I realized just how idealistic that goal had been. Probably one of the most important things I learned is that six weeks in a new region does not at all make one an authority on anything.

Here's the heart of this blog-- the little red notebook I carried with me every second of every day while I was abroad! This page shows some of the cool tourist stamps I got in Hiroshima

I'm glad that the pages upon pages of notes and gigs upon gigs of pictures that I brought back with me from Asia have a place to play together on the internet. I hope that if you've been here before, you've enjoyed the journey, or that if this is your first time here, you'll look around a bit. Be sure to explore the tabs in the navigation bar above, and look out for the "Older Posts" button in the bottom right of the site and the "read more" buttons on my lengthier posts. Don't want to miss any of the gold!

As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to contact me here.

And here's a playlist of all the videos I've made from my travels. Check them out!

Thanks for visiting!

Highlights from Korea

Table of Contents:

Beauty in Busan
History in Daegu
Seoul is Incredible

Here are some highlights in photo form from my adventures in Korea! Or watch the slideshows below!

Busan:

Daegu:

Seoul:

The End of the Adventure (6/24)

Assembling to roll out... for the last time!

From my notes:

Leaving day! Bussed to the airport without a hitch, although I didn't catch the part where Dr. Yi left-- she didn't say bye! There was a huge line to check in, which then took a long time too, including an extra wait for Jack and I for some unannounced reason for our boarding passes. Jack wanted window and didn't get it, so I traded him cause I'm kind like that. Security searched my souvenirs twice, and confiscated my bike chain [that I'd found at the art district in Beijing].

Saying goodbye to Seoul/Incheon!

I spent a good portion of the flight back to the States watching movies, a few of which were Korean, trying to soak up every last bit of the culture I could. The trip back didn't feel quite as magical as the trip there, and I definitely didn't have as interesting a project to occupy myself (I wasn't able to prepare a bunch of readings or anything of the sort, like I had for my first flight). I did do a lot of reflecting, thinking, and writing. I think my mind may have traveled even more than my body did! Here's another excerpt from my notes:

CRESTING THE PARABOLA CROSSING INTO CANADIA
FLYING FROM MYSELF YEAH I'M
FLYING BACK FROM ASIA
TRAVEL ISN'T DISTANCE TIME OR MONEY
TRAVEL IS FEAR, LOSS, DIFFERENCE, RUNNING 

The Me I was before is gone,
I left it there with you so long
Ago and I know the me I've been
could never make it through security
So brace yourself for change lover cause
nothing else exists,
Help me find myself and see what's left 

I'm soaring while I'm sitting cause my body isn't me
Neither is my past my pad my pennies my future
Who I am isn't a question, it's a lifetime 

Becoming--> being
Superficial-->substantial 

Cersting the parbola
Crossing to Canadia
Flying from myself, yeah
I'm flying back from Asia 

My last sight of Asia!

Studying abroad was definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made in my life. The breadth and depth of the exposure is completely unparalleled; the access and immersion were both irreplicatable. How could I go to so many places, do so many things, meet so many people, and be given so much context and history in any other context? I spent so much of my time flying back thinking about how thankful I was for the experience, and for everyone who had helped me along the way. I found myself committing to being different, to internalizing the experience, to learning and growing from it, but I knew to a degree that commitment was superfluous-- the changes had already happened, I was just figuring them out as I went along.

Flying over the Canadian tundra, if I recall correctly

The sun rises on my second day in the air

After landing, we said our goodbyes and went our separate ways without much ceremony. The magic was definitely over, and we all seemed a little shell-shocked as we wandered back towards our lives. And that is how my study abroad experience came to a close.

Even though we'd said our goodbyes, we weren't done with the academic side of things. The final for Dr. Tessman's class was a take-home essay he gave to us after we'd returned, so we wouldn't have to split our energies between it and our travels. The prompt was about the three most pressing threats to East Asian security. Because Tessman's was but one half of our education abroad, I decided to weave in Buddhist theory from Dr. Yi's portion of the trip as well, because that had been such a significant focus for us throughout our travels (particularly in Korea), because I'd taken such a liking to it, and because I wanted to prove that I'd been paying attention. It was a far better idea in concept than in practice, and kind of lead to a mess of a paper, but hey! I passed the class! Yay, me! And here's a link to the paper, if you'd like to check it out!

Last Day Abroad! (6/23)

It was really hard to wrap my head around the fact that this grand adventure wasn't going to go on forever, that there would come a time after which the experiences would stop; I'd have to get on a plane and go back home and leave behind this incredible world of new places, histories, thoughts, experiences. I guess I'm thankful that that day arrived unannounced, that it didn't agonizingly creep up on me, but instead unceremoniously appeared.

I took it pretty easy on my last day in Korea. My only real excursion was a trip to the Korean War Memorial/Museum. Someone had recommended that we check it out to learn more after our visit to the DMZ, so a few of us went on our own. My favorite part was the actual memorial to the Korean war-- it was a globe split in half along the 38th parallel, with two "brothers," soldiers in military garb, embracing atop it, across the line. Very powerful.

Statue of two brothers

Panmunjeom: The DMZ, and Nightlife in Seoul (6/22)

The day had finally come to see the Panmunjeom, better known as the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), and tensions increased steadily as the day went on. We were all a bit easy from the outset, having had an orientation meeting before leaving for the illustrious site. We were told to wear decent to nice clothes, not to bring anything with us, to keep our hands empty and at our sides, and not to make any eye contact or gestures with anyone at the DMZ itself. The women in the group were given a special talking-to wherein our chaperones awkwardly danced around some sort of seemingly sexist point about the soldiers there not being able to see women often and that the women should cover their bodies to prevent provoking anybody at this intense intersection of interests. I'm all about challenging norms like these, but the boundary between someone else's country and another country with which they are technically still at war did not seem like the best front on which to make a stand. So I didn't. I just felt uneasy about walking into someone else's military and political mess, especially one in which such an orientation is necessary.

Military helicopters near the DMZ

Seoul got progressively more militarized as we approached the border. My first such sighting was the six helicopters flying in formation, presumably patrolling the area. I'd never seen so many military machines in action. I then began to notice the fences, the guard towers, the signs and roadblocks. I couldn't wrap my head around just what exactly I was getting myself into-- I mean, by essence of being demilitarized, this was probably one of the most peaceful points of contention I could visit, but the potential for that demilitarization to be broken, for the trap to snap shut and the tensions to ignite that loomed over the whole strange arrangement stopped me from feeling like just another tourist going to just another tourist destination.