Wednesday, May 29, 2019 Two days of late start rudely interrupted by a 9am Wednesday. I shouldn’t be complaining. This is school, not vacation. We headed to the fancy part of town today, that’s right Gangnam. Yep, like the song. There are many neighborhoods in Seoul and Gangnam is the most elite, the most expensive,…
Month: May 2019
Day 10 – Burgers, Religion, and Business
Tuesday, May 28, 2019 A second late start day in a row?! Woah. Class didn’t start today until 1pm, which meant a whole morning to myself. After catching up with folks back home, thanks Facetime, and working on my project (this is a school trip) I did regular life things and ran a few errands….
Day 9 – Pomp, circumstance, and TV stations
Monday, May 27, 2019 How do you show someone you love them? How about waking up at 2:30am local time to watch your brother’s high school graduation? Yeah, I think that’s a good way too. Four years ago, I was on my baseball trip and missed my brother’s middle school graduation. This year, my required…
Day 8 – Let’s add another country or two to this trip
Sunday, May 26, 2019 Sunday started bright and early. Our group booked a bus tour to get out of the city for the day, and we had to meet the bus at 7:15am. All right, the title of this one is a bit misleading… First stop was Petite France. About 10 years ago, a South…
Day 7 – Take me out to the ball game, in Seoul!
Saturday, May 25, 2019 It’s the weekend! That means, no set schedule through our academic program. Before coming to Seoul, I had been given the recommendation to go to a South Korean baseball game, if that was something I was interested in. Four years ago, three friends and I piled into a Toyota Highlander, and…
Day 6 – Let’s go to a K-Pop show!
Friday, May 24, 2019 Today was a bit of a wake up call back to real life. Most of this week we have had later starts, today, we had to be up and going at 9. I know 9 isn’t that early. Most days I am already in the office for 30 minutes by 9,…
Day 5 – The DMZ and Me
Thursday, May 23, 2019 One of the parts of this trip I was most excited for was our scheduled DMZ tour. I had read up on this process online and was ready I wanted to walk into the neutral buildings and technically stand on North Korean ground and be terrified and exhilarated all at once….
Day 4 – Don’t tell me I’m not a princess
Wednesday, May 22, 2019 I slept through the night! Well, mostly. My body still thinks 1pm Chicago time is a great time to need the bathroom, so that happened around 3am, BUT I went right back to sleep. As someone who enjoys sleep, this is an important victory. Okay, onto the more important things. Today,…
Day 3 – Street markets, food, and fun
Tuesday, May 21, 2019 Day three started very early as I still wasn’t able to sleep through the night. I woke up around 3 again, and despite counting many, many sheep, wasn’t able to go back to bed. Perhaps I should have Googled what “South Koreans count when they can’t sleep” but it’s too late…
Day 2 – Blisters and BBQ
Monday, May 20, 2019 Well, as we learned from Day 1, I didn’t sleep through the night the first night (spoilers I didn’t sleep through the second night either). Today we didn’t have to be anywhere until 12:30 to give everyone time to adjust to the time change, settle in, unpack and all of that. …