Peace Corps Revisit Tour

The official visit started Monday. We had a briefing at one of the Korean ministries. The talk by the Korean professor about education in  Korea was actually interesting. Almost 100% of the Korean students go to high school and graduate and more surprisingly over 70% go to college.The job market is tight for college grads unless you go to one of the big three schools. Competition is fierce for spots in those schools. Students study from 7am to 11pm in high school to prepare.Korean students score far higher on international tests in reading and math than US students.

Yongsei Digital Library

After the lecture we went to Yongsei University (one of the big three). Its Digital Library was amazing. From its central computer a student can look for a book on a topic, read 30+ pages of the book, order it, and then receive a text message when the book is ready for pick up. There were hundreds of computers and laptop connections in the building.

John and Heidi at the Ambassador's house

Traditional Korean garden at ambassador's

After lunch We went to the US Ambassador's residence to meet her. She was a former Peace Corps volunteer in Korea. She gave an interesting talk on the Free Trade Agreement with Korea  and about North/South Korea relations. It was very interesting and informative.






The Ambassador's residence was a recreation of a traditional Korean house. It was an impressive melding of old and new Korean style.

Dinner was a traditional Korean meal with mokoli (an alcoholic drink that tastes like fermented spit.) octopus cooked with seaweed, cold noodle soup, and many small  unidentifiable dishes. John kept giving his mokoli to me and they kept refilling his glass.

Tuesday has been a bit of a wash literally.  We were supposed to visit the folk village, but because it was raining they changed the schedule to go to two museums. At the Korean National Museum there were thousands of examples of Korean ceramics and thousands of Korean students on field trips. There was an interesting student band and dance group outside the museum. One student was playing the conch shell. Student bands are a little different here.

Last stop was the Korean War Museum which chronicled Korean history, which of course consisted mainly of wars--with each other, Japan, and China. It was somewhat interesting. Korea's most famous contribution to war was the turtle ship--an early iron-clad war ship