Josh Friesen

Wow, what can I say? We’ve been back for 2 months now and it’s kinda hard to believe. I knew I would fall back into routine and Korea would just be a blur in the back of my mind but I was wrong. Every time I think about my trip to Korea I feel elated and my spirit revs up. I get these vivid pictures of us waiting for a bus, or a scene of one of the many field trips we took, or hanging out with the friends we made. Needless to say I really miss Korea. This trip has forever changed the way I feel and think about the world. Although it was only one place and time, I have definaltely been knocked off of my own perception of the world and it has been replaced with a more open one.

Basically, this trip’s value can not be measured with a price. The experience gained and the relationships formed can not be replaced or bought again. For sure I want to visit Korea again, but it would not and could not occur in the exact same way, with the same circumstances. It wouldn’t be the same. A first experience/impression can, as you know, only happen once. My trip to Korea (and as my friend said think of Korea as a part of Asia and further as a part of the world) will not be forgotten any time soon.

You know the saying “I wouldn’t wish that upon my greatest enemy”. It has a certain denotation and feeling attached to it. Well, I feel the exact opposite with my travel experience. I WISH everyone to travel and go out with an open mind and just experience. Don’t go with any expectations or premeditations; let the experience dictate what’s left in your mind after the trip ends.

Last but not least, I HAVE to thank all the people involved with sending us over there and taking care of us while we were there. Thank you Auburn Montgomery and specifically the Political Science and Public Administration department for choosing us and paying to send us over there. Without that huge help, I wouldn’t have been in a position to go myself. And thanks to the University of Ulsan for providing room, board, and meals and for taking us to all these cool places and letting us experience a tremendous time in Korea. Like, I said in a quote in the Montgomery East paper, you guys have a fantastic program. And like I said above, I WISH for this program to continue so that other people may have the chance to experience what we did in that wonderful month in July ‘08.

I leave you with some goodbye pictures at the airport coming home:

And here is where my roomate Gil Young and I left it:

Today we visited the Ulsan Metropolitan City Council to participate in a mock discussion about U.S. beef. A few American and Korean students spoke in front of everyone to give their opinion of the U.S. - Korea beef issue.

Last Tuesday, we visited a Hyundai factory. The only photography allowed was in the lobby. This is the Genesis. It’s awesome. 60,000 USD.

Today we learned a couple of Taekwondo moves. They ran out of belts before I got one. I wanted a black one .

Oh, and today a couple of us got interviewed for a radio program about our stay in Korea:

These are miscellaneous pictures.

Here is what the drink machines look like on campus and pretty much every where that I’ve seen.

Here is the type of classroom we’ve been visiting lately for the lectures

Here is a cool building on campus

We all just got back from Seoul today and I can say for sure that it seemed like a whirlwind! We did a lot of things in a very short time.

We stopped by a Korean folk village on the way to Seoul and then we went to a war museum, to the N Seoul Tower, a Korean ballet/musical (hip-hop style), Insadong Shopping District, Outback Steakhouse, the Korean White house (called the Blue house), an ancient (rebuilt) palace, Lotte World (just like Disney World), ASAN Hospital, and just above Seoul (about 1 hour) we went to a unification observatory tower where we could see
North Korea…. all in 4 days time. I know we did more but I can’t even remember everything at the moment.

Here is where we stayed:

Here is a snapshot of the ballet/musical we saw. The performers would periodically come off the stage to dance in front of us:

We also spent some time in a war memorial museum:

I know I should have a lot more pictures but the juice in my batteries ran out and I didn’t have the chance to get any more. Also, I need to exchange more money before I do so.

Recently, a group of us went to a local beach. It was foggy and cold so we didn’t stay long.

A participant saw an alive starfish washed up:

Two days ago, we got to see a Korean traditional orchestra perform at school:

Today we went to Gyungju Temple (just to visit this time):

If you stack a rock on top of the others, you can make a wish:

Keepers (Gods) of the temple:

Today after the first class (which was the founder of Hyundai - Chung, Ju Yung) the UIP staff members took us to a very nice Korean restaurant to eat lunch. The main dish was Bulgogi with many side dishes. It seemed as if there was a constant flow of waitresses/waiters bringing more and more side dishes during the meal. To let you see how complete the meal was, I took a picture:

If you didn’t notice, we are actually eating on the ground but there is room underneath the table to put our legs, which I thought was kind of cool.

Here is a close up of the spicy tofu soup dish:

After lunch, we hopped on the bus to go make pottery. Here is the guy that showed us how:

I didn’t take any pictures after that because all of our hands were dirty from the clay. I will take a picture of the bowl I made (or attempted to make) after we get all of ours back from the fire pit. We were told our finished pieces would be brought to us.

Temple stay happened last Thursday and Friday. The temple we stayed at is called Tongdosa. If you would like to read more about it and or to see pictures, click here.

When we arrived Thursday, we got suited up in some brown pants with a brown vest. I think the brown represents a training phase as some real lower level monks were wearing brown too, just not the same outfit we all were wearing.

FOOD:

The thing I remember most about Thursday was the meal we had. The meal consisted of some traditional cold Korean food that included rice, spicy soup, vegtables, and seaweed (No meat, the monks are vegetarian). Before we got to eat, we all had to get a package of bowls and line them up perfectly in a specific order in front of us before we got to use them. The monks made sure of this. After this step was completed, the food buckets came around and we were to only take what we could eat because we had to eat it all. They told us “do not leave one grain of rice”. Well, I trudged through my meal –it wasn’t that good cold. I was relieved when they finally told us that because a lot of us were foreigners, we didn’t have to eat all the food. I had eaten everything but the soup that had a LOT of funky green vegetables in it. This wasn’t the wildest thing about the meal either. The most “fun” part about the meal was the clean-up. Some Korean students went around and poured a little water into one of our empty bowls. We were to then take that water and “swish” it around to sort of clean that bowl. After that, we then transferred the water and remains to the other three bowls repeating the process. And here is where it gets good: After cleaning the fourth bowl, we had to drink the dirty water with the remnants of our food. It was gross but I got the point of not wasting anything.

WORSHIP:

Yea, I know what you are thinking, but don’t worry. I said a little prayer before each worship session to the God we are more familiar with, praying that He knows who I am really acknowledging during worship. I also wanted to participate out of respect for the country, culture, and people that were kind enough to let us experience something a lot of people don’t get to.

For worship, we all trailed in to this beautiful temple with a ton of lanterns (as well as other stuff hanging from the ceiling) and lavish paintings (mostly green with sprinkles of red and yellow and a slew of others) on the structural elements. When we first got in, we sat on our legs going vertical underneath us and waiting for worship to start. When worship started, the monks in unison began singing out of the Korean Buddhist Bible (you know –all slow, deep, and monk like) Then we stood up and took a half-bow and then quickly got back in our original position and then put on forehead on the ground. This is called a prostration. We stood up and bowed on the ground, stood up again and bowed on the ground again many times during this service. All the while this is going on, there is a very simple drum being beaten on and a bamboo stick being rapped. In all, I think we participated in two of these formal services. After one of these services, we participated in something called 108 prostrations. This is where we went into a different room in the temple and did the prostrations I described above silently continuously for 20 minutes (or 108 times). It was really a workout, I was near sweating and my legs were about to give out at the end.

MEDITATION:

Of course we participated in some kind of meditation while we were there. The first night, we a general meditation practice and then a special one called walking meditation, and then an even more special one called Candle Meditation. This is where we all took bowls with water and a lit candle in it outside at night (sitting on red mats) around an area made of short concrete walls with a concrete bell in the middle. It is said that inside of the bell are ashes of Buddha’s head, teeth, and knee. After getting situated around this area, we got in a relaxed meditation pose while one of the monks guided us in getting comfortable as well as throughout the meditation session.

THE MOUNTAIN:

There was a mountain nearby that we hiked up on the second day with a monk that was really beautiful. It made all the stuff we went through worth it. When we got to the top of the mountain, we just rested near a smaller temple that was up there, and we were served coffee and candy. We then rested for maybe and hour and a half and then made our decent, ate lunch, played in a stream (only a few participants) , and then went home.

I’ve exhausted what I can remember for now, and there is no way I could describe everything that we experienced so I am just going to leave you with the main chunks described above.

If you want to see pictures or read more about a similar group of students doing almost the same program, click here . The author of the articles goes into more detail about the generalities of the program as well as specifics. Read it if you want to know more about what we went through.

I took these pictures before we went off to stay at a Buddhist temple. That is a long story, one that I will take some time to write. So for now, it’s just pictures.

Here is a telescope that can be seen from the University. It is a part of a collection of telescopes. Another one is in Seoul and I don’t know where the last one is.

I fortunately got to meet up with Ilsup from school. He attended AUM last year and is now back at the University of Ulsan. We went to the movie theater (MegaBox) ) to see “Hancock”.

This is a monument outside of a main building on campus. I think it stands for “volunteering”.

And here is the aforementioned main building on campus.

This can be seen from the roof of a building (like all these pictures). The mountains (that make up 70% of Korea) are beautiful

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Here is a street as seen from a balcony in the dorm:

I just wanted to show the Korean writing on the street and then my roommate (pictured below) told me that that car is parked in a firelane!

And here is my very nice roomate (Gil-Young):

Yesterday was fun, but I was really tired. I stayed up and pushed through the day because I wanted to try and sleep during the night as to synchronize my sleep schedule.

The orientation was informative, and after that, we all took a bus to the huge Hyundai Tigers soccer field. I was told there was a world cup game held there at one point. The stadium was huge (holds around 30,000 people) I wish I had my camera on me because it was beautiful, the grass looked awesome! There were even a couple of people on the field that looked like the were hand cleaning/patching it!

After that we walked to a very nearby man made lake and just chilled for 1-2 hours. Then, we went to get something to eat at a neat restaurant. We had pork dish that made ourselves using the ingredients provided on our table. First, someone grilled the port using a circular gas grill that was in the center of the table. Second, we took the cooked port and dipped it in some sauce and then put it on a piece of lettuce and then put a thin sheet of ginger on top of that and then put onions on top of that and finally put hot paste on top of that. Then, you fold it up and eat it whole (If you don’t eat it whole, it will drip on you. I learned that the hard way)

After dinner I went to the nearby supermarket with my roommate to get some face wash. Then I went home and crashed.