signing off

I'll be on the road and away from the computer(probably) for the next few days, road tripping with my mom (umma), younger brother (nam dong seng), sam chon (uncle), and hal muh ni (grandmother) down the West Coast of Korea.

Two of my good friends here, Kaila and Jane, as well as the rest of the Light Fellows from Yale, won a week-and-a-half trip all over Korea sponsored by SK Telecom(one of the main cell phone service providers here) , so I'm a little jealous, but this should be fun. Last night, we shared some parting bing sus (traditional Korean summer dessert) at Milky Road, again, our favorite yogurt place. As happened last summer, bing su has frequently taken the place of dinner in both our budgets and stomachs.

Before: Jane topped her bing su(traditionally just ice, but Milky Road gives you yogurt, too!) with bat (red bean), sesame ice cream, creme de cacao, and blueberries; I, with strawberries, blueberries, cereal, and duk(kind of like mochi)

After: Love the face, Jane

(also, note: my hair is currently in a wonderful state of being)

food, food, tea.

The Light Fellowship is a wonderful fellowship at Yale that sends one-hundred-or-so undergrads out to China, Japan, or Korea every summer for language study. I got one for study in Seoul last summer, and a couple of my Light friends got the fellowship again to come back this summer.

The Fellowship also sends Yale representatives to conduct site visits each summer, to observe the language programs Light Fellows have chosen and make sure Light money is being well-spent. This year, Kyle Farley, the Dean of Jonathan Edwards College and his wife, Veronica did the Light visit and we've been busy spending time with them(mainly eating) since yesterday evening. We started their trip off last night with three giant-sized yogurts at Milky Road, our favorite yogurt shop. From there, we went to see Subway Line 1, Seoul's longest running musical. Then, this morning, we were up early for a trip up to the DMZ, and finally lunch and tea in Insadong, the, "street of traditional Korean culture," according to the Korea Tourism Office.

The photo regulations on DMZ tours are, more or less, that you can't take any photos. So, I don't have anything from our tour. But, here is Kaila enjoying our feast at Sanchon, a Buddhist temple vegetarian restaurant(reviewed in the New York Times twenty years ago, they'd like you to know). We ordered a set meal that cost about 18,900 per person(roughly $20) and had maybe a dozen or so different dishes.


Including six different varieties of spinach!


Dean Farley feeding Veronica a clove of garlic


Phillip and Presca adding some glamour to the back alleys of Insadong


After lunch, we showed the Dean and his wife around Insadong for a bit before returning to a tea house next to Sanchon where most of us ordered traditional Korean cold teas--pear, cinnamon punch, rice punch and--and relaxed. One of the fun of the parts of this tea house is the birds they have flying around inside that may also poop on you. Here, Kaila is fanning Phillip.