Jet-lag Induced Post-Korea Thoughts

It is 8:00 in the morning, Tuesday, and I have been awake since 6:30. I thought jet-lag would be an excuse to sleep more, but my body is still acting like it is in Korea. I apologize one more time for my random blogs, I never seem to write these at normal times of the day so I do a bit of fatigue or excitement induced rambling, this final day won't be any different (although if you've made it this far reading, you know me already, I hope you've enjoyed).

I have finally eaten some American food successfully. I'm not sure this is a good thing because American food is very unhealthy and I'm eating at odd times. The first two days I couldn't eat anything, and was only craving spicy food. My first real food was a Primanti Brothers sandwich at midnight on Sunday. If you've seen a Primanti Brothers sandwich you will know how big of an accomplishment this was. I still think it would have been a little better with some Kimchi.

^^I don't know who this person is, but he had a Pittsburgh Pirates hat on so I had to ask him for a picture. I'm not even sure he knew where the hat was from.

Things I Miss:

-Korean Food (mmm: Samgyupsal/Korean BBQ)
-Saera, Amy, Shelby and Colin - the Waynesburg in Seoul crew

-ALL of my Korean friends
-Public transportation (although I love driving now that I'm home)
-meeting random people
-the challenge of watching a Korean movie without subtitles
-fast service (yesterday I waited 45minutes for a sandwich in a restaurant! The service was more personal, but Seoul made me a little impatient.)
and -ALOT more I'll probably be talking about when you see me.

On my way home, while sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my next flight, I started to miss Korea. Ironically, 30 Korean high school students, waiting for a flight, came and sat near me. I talked to a 15 year old boy in Korean (and English) for an hour!

I think my best friend understood that I would need to adjust to home again, so she's been keeping me busy. We even went salsa dancing! I do love my friends. However, they don't easily tolerate my random use of Korean language in everyday life, or the Korean pop music I've come to adore despite its horrific representation of art and poor use of English.

Before I left almost every phone call or voicemail from any family member started with "I know you're not ready to come home, I'm sorry you can't stay longer, etc....but we really miss you." I was starting to think I talked about how much I like Korea so much that everyone became convinced I would never be happy at home. I hope they understand that although I could have stayed and I'm not a person that gets homesick, I do love my family and home...I'm happy where ever I am.

Things I'm Happy about at Home
-My parents!!
-My best friends
-My home
-Salsa dancing and my ahjussi/ahjumma friends
-Christmas - the music in the malls, the desserts, plans to go to grandmas' houses
-Upcoming father-daughter trip to Texas




My Korean class, me and a professor, and one last shot on the subway ^^



Korea meant more to me than you can imagine. I got here with the help and push of my professors at Waynesburg and support of my family. I thrived with the great program at Ewha, and the endless opportunities to experience things. I made connections with many different people on many different levels that I can never forget. I learned alot about myself, and even changed a bit. Korea's seemingly perfect mix of old and new, traditional and modern, made this a great place to study abroad. I hope more people will follow Colin and myself and take on South Korea, and make their own stories (one already is on her way...good luck Bethany!). I lived in Seoul for four months, I played tourist at times but more importantly I lived in a new place as a student, I had my place there and group of friends that became like family. If and when I return it will not be the same, and I wouldn't want that, I simply want to see the people and keep those relationships, just as I do with everywhere I've traveled to and from. Now, I'm ready to visit family, share my experiences, enjoy my vacation and return to school to make the best of my last two semesters. Bring on the next chapter.

Saranghae - with love,
Alisha

I love people; "I want Alisha to come to Korea Again"

My favorite thing about studying abroad is meeting people. I have a few pen pals that I have kept in touch with, and I have met three while I've been here. Saturday I met Yulim for the first time, and had a blast. First we went to the Garak Market, a huge produce and fish market, to walk around. We weren't sure what to do, and it was already 1:30 so alot of the market was closed, but i was curious so we went. She thought it was entertaining when people stopped us and asked her where I was from and what I was doing. Since I wore long pants I got fish water up my legs but i survived. After that, we went to Konkuk university station for lunch, and had 보쌈 -- really good pork and rice for 2 people (21,000won). The we went to a coffee shop and ordered an exotic coffee and a hot choco and talked. Okay, it's an underestimate to say we talked, because we had a 6 hour conversation - 3:30-9:30pm. The coffee shop atmosphere was too good, the owner might have said. We discussed everything from how it felt to ask our parents for money, prostitution, church volunteering, and prejudices people hold about their neighboring countries, to what is considered "good" food in different countries, dating customs, and foreign language accent differences.
I could really impress you if I said that this whole conversation was in Korean, but Yulim's English was pretty good. She wanted me to meet her favorite cousin because he was home from the US, so we waited for his teaching job to finish. We met him and his three friends, all of whom were Koreans that went to college together in Pennsylvania. I believe a few of them were in Korea because they had to do their military service (In Korea, every man is required to serve in the army for two years.) We had dinner with them and spoke in lots of Konglish (a mess of Korean and English). Her cousin and friends didn't have accents, or rather had American accents, and spoke quickly so Yulim got shy about her English. Although it was hard to believe because we had just finished speaking together in English for six hours. No one could believe that we met on the Internet and this was the first time we've met in person, everyone thought we were best friends. At the coffee shop there were papers we could write our hopes and holiday wishes on to hang for Christmas decoration, and Yulim wrote "I want Alisha to come to Korea Again." Such a sweet friend. I love making connections with people.

Yulim was the third pen pal I've met in person, one in Pusan that took me to one of the best meals I've had, and the other is Kwangsoo. Kwangsoo is now affectionately called a "best friend." We chat about everything and he helps me find things around Seoul...hopefully he'll come visit the US so I can be as kind. We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace the last time we met.




Besides Pen pals I've met some great people just randomly. One day Pauline and I met a student at Seoul National University, that invited us to tour his school. Seoul National is the largest university in Korea, so it was worth seeing. He brought two friends to meet us, one of which could speak great English, and they showed us the campus. It was getting dark but we saw a good bit of things including the library and a few places couples go to hide out, haha. You can say it was an insider's view. he treated us to dinner in one of the dining rooms, that resembled a 3-star restuarant more than a college dining hall. After a great Korean dinner, we went to a coffee shop and headed home to celebrate a friends' birthday.

Other activities I've done with people I've met off-campus have included going to Lotte World amusement park, lots of dinners and coffee shop visits, batting cages, trips to the movie theater, and even one ridiculous random trip to a street-side fortune teller.

OH also recently I went to the DMZ, the border of North and South Korea. I could talk about the tour with the USO, how odd it felt traveling with 40 Americans, the feeling of being in a war zone and how much I learned, but I don't think I can do it justice in this setting. Here's a photo from Panmujeom, the UN building used for negotiations, that straddles the boarder...yes I crossed into North Korea for a few minutes. ^^