Traffic, People & Food

As you probably know by now, I was blessed one other time before this to come to Korea before this trip. However, on that last trip, I only spent 1 day in Seoul. So I guess this reflection will have to deal with my first impressions of this city. I'll highlight a few points:

1. THE TRAFFIC. I will never be able to understand how this city operates like a school of fish; always moving around close to one another, but seemingly never hitting each other. I heard from Joon Hyuk that the driving test here to get your license to drive is super easy, even. How is it possible to avoid accidents like this? Driving in this country would stress me out to SPACE.

2. The people here are so nice!...at least I think so? A thought I struggle with when a Korean person is being super nice or forgiving towards me is, “are you really this nice or are you just saying this because you believe you have to?”. Due to the Korean ideal of respecting everyone around you and caring for others is so important, I wonder a lot if their interactions with others are genuine or not. But I really hope for my sake of making friends here that they do truly enjoy my presence, and it does seem like they do!..well, most of the time.

3. THE FOOOOOOD:) is so good. Korean’s have an ethereal way of making healthy food delicious and convincing to eat. This makes it easy to understand why most of them are in such good health all of the time. However, I find myself craving greasy, cheesy, unhealthy foods like burgers and pizza...this American part of my blood will never leave me. Coming from that, Korea….doesn't necessarily have the knack for making super unhealthy foods like this.This is both encouraging(to my health) but also really sad because my stomach needs to be satisfied with grease at least twice a month to keep my brain happy I guess!

All in all, I am still in love with this beautiful country and its people. I hope if I ever come here to live or teach, though, that I will have acclimated to these things a bit more!