Life in Korea

I'm back in my office after a full weekend here in Korea. On Friday afternoon, the three new Dordt professors went to a dinner/conference for important people and Kosin and the new faculty. It was long, and since we listened to translations of lectures spoken in Korean, listening became rather arduous. Fortunately, we were compensated with an excellent dinner. Although raw salmon was the first course, it was generally a very Western meal. It was definitely a change to have ten utensils sitting in front of me instead of just chopsticks. Work from the outside in, right?

After a couple of hours of lectures (and having already surpassed the time constraints), President Kim stood up to "take ten minutes for comments." To our shock, we gradually watched every new professor go up in front of the group and give a short speech about coming to Kosin. As we're watching, our translater says in our ears, "I didn't expect this, but I think you'll have to go up and make a speech as well." So, we got up one by one and said whatever nice things we could think of to the higher-ups at Kosin. I only hope my remarks were improved when translated into Korean.

Sunday, we hiked to the top of Kosin Mountain (the campus is towards the bottom of the mountain) and enjoyed the beautiful view at the top. There is also a Buddhist temple on the mountain which I enjoyhad a fun time exploring. Emily and I decided we'll be trekking up the mountain pretty often, if only to get away from the city.

For your viewing pleasure...

The view from the top of the mountain





My office.


The sign on my office door. As you can see, I've been relegated to the Department of E-Business. Fortunately, I still get to teach English classes.



The view from my office window.