Visual Errata

I have some photographic proof that I've gotten outside of Seoul a few times over the past weeks. I actually visited Jeonju, a city in the rural south of Korea that was hosting a film festival and paper clothing fashion show that weekend. Both were interesting, but I had a better time just getting to know some of the other foreign exchange students who came this semester. Among other interesting moments, a student I met from what used to be East Germany relayed the persistent distrust within his family of West Germans, not boding well for North Koreans. The same guy mentioned, probably more strongly than he intended, that a large reason why American prospered postwar was because of how it attracted many of Europe's brightest minds, I'll let you decide the merits of that claim. Another student from Kazakhstan added to my idea that people from former Soviet states are very friendly and make for good conversation. She spent a great deal of time arguing with anyone who brought up the Borat movie.

The Jeonju city tourism board paid for about twenty exchange students to go on the trip, hoping we will return to our home countries and sing the wonders of their city. It's actually a nice place to visit, they certainly try hard.


Jeonju is famous for its traditional-style paper. We stopped at a store that sells nothing but immense reams of colored paper.


Korea has a lot of very nice coffee shops that emphasize exteriors like this one. It's common knowledge among business people that looks matter at least as much as the content of the service that you provide.

Fastforward a few weeks later, I went hiking with a group of older Koreans that I've met, all of them foreign correspondents who love to finish off a hike with a pot of rice wine and pass out for a little while. They get a kick out of the fact that I like hiking with them and I learn a little about what it's like to be a journalist here.


The guy on the left specializes in North Korean affairs for the Korean Broadcast Station, the man on the right works as the Korean correspondent for Nippon Hoso Kyokai, a Japanese television station. They hike like it's a meth addicition, preferring to wake up at 5 and finish when most people are barely reaching the top.


I am in front of a boulder that looks a lot like a rhino, there are a strangely large number of rocks that look like things at the top of Korean mountains.

In case this blog has taken on the appearance of a catalog of Korean mountains, the reason is that they are some of the more photogenic places I go on weekends here. I finally realized that the reason why Koreans can claim to have the best mountains for climbing is not because they are the most beautiful, but because they are very easy to get to, summitable in one day's time, and offer their own social culture, like golf. I should start calling it Korean golf...

Until next time, hopefully I will have one more decent update before I leave for America at the end of June.