Back at the 농장

My first week back from Vietnam I got to help chaperone another field trip: this time to the War Memorial museum in Seoul.  This was a really interesting museum to me as I was able to learn a lot about the Korean war which I hadn't even realized I didn't know before (having never thought about it much, outside of the context of M*A*S*H I guess).  My major takeaways were that the south was very poorly equipped and prepared at the beginning of the war which started when the north, heavily armed with Russian equipment, invaded and took Seoul in a matter of days.  I remember reading that the south, in their retreat, blew up "the bridge" across the Han to prevent the north from following.  Many civilians, of course, were unable to get away.  It's amazing, though, to think there was only one bridge across the Han at that time, as there are now scores.  I was also amazed to find out that the north pursued the south and almost captured the entire country initially.  The south was only able to make a last stand, with the help of the U.S., who had left the country but came rushing back after the initial attack by the north, in the immediate area of Busan, which is way on the southeastern coast.  Quickly, though, the front lines raced back to the north (especially after MacArthur landed behind enemy lines right here, in Incheon, as dramatized in the recent motion picture "Operation Chromite", which I have yet to see but want to), past Seoul again, and almost all the way to the Chinese border, which is when the Chinese got involved and pushed the front line back to about where it is now, which is where it underwent minor oscillations for the next couple years as various truce negotiations were attempted and failed..  So the entire country was a battleground at one point or another.  I would like to go back to this museum again sometime as I was only able to thoroughly investigate one of three floors.  But to think that 60 years ago this place was war ravaged and to see how developed it's become is pretty amazing.  And it's interesting to reflect on the sacrifice that was required of the forebears of the current generation and how that has shaped the culture (or maybe resulted from the culture) and see how the current generation is shrinking and is pampered and how many societal changes are potentially in the works.

The War Memorial museum in Seoul

Before we went in we were able to check out some of the sculpture and military hardware outside.

Three of my 8th grade students, from L to R, Grant, Joy, and Steven.

Lots of planes and tanks and artillery pieces outside the museum.

This is Adam Drews who joined us as a teacher just after winter break.  He teaches 8th grade social studies so he was leading this trip and he's also the leader of our WET (World Experience Tour) field trip to Japan next week which I'm also helping out as a chaperone along with two other teachers.

Can you tell who's face is hidden by the flash?

Why, it's Ban Ki Moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, and at one point a candidate in the current S. Korean presidential elections to replace Park Geun-Hye, who was just impeached and arrested!  Mr. Ban (Korean's list their Surname first) just happened to be touring the museum that day also, along with a security detail and his wife.  Mr. Drews pointed him out to me and several of our students were able to get in a picture with him but I was too shy to ask for a picture with him and just settled for taking a picture of him.

 

Here's our entire group, which is almost all of the 8th graders at our school except two who weren't with us that day.  This is the same group I'll be in Japan with next week.

It was finally spring, and cherry blossoms were blooming all around the area as were these magnolias (these are magnolias, aren't they?  I only think that because they look like the flowers on the tree in Darcy's front yard).

Not to be outdone, I took my seniors in Environmental Science on another field trip as well.  I thought we were going to a wastewater treatment plant but it turned out to be a solid waste disposal plant instead.  It's near enough to school that we were able to walk there, though I found it very frustrating that the students were just moseying along when I was trying to get them to power-walk so we would be on time.  It took me about half and hour to walk and it took them about 45 minutes.  Yes, I ended up ditching them I was so peeved.  But they eventually showed up, even though I had a few (15) nervous minutes worrying that they would get lost and I would get in trouble.  But they're seniors so it all worked out and I eventually got over it and we had a fun time.

Farthest away from L to R are Jeff, Sean, and GaEun (who was accepted and will be going to CU next year), and closest to us, from L to R are Minah, Min, Daniel, and Bum Joon.

Part of my requirements for these students, in an attempt to relate the course to their actual world and daily lives, is for them to write two "EJournal" entries per week in their Environment Science blogs. (Hmm, I wonder where I got that idea?).  Most of them have blown it off for the most part (and their grades reflect that) but some, like GaEun, have diligently pursued it and I've really enjoyed reading their posts as I've been able to get a much better idea of them and their lives than if they hadn't.  I'll put a link to the web page I maintain for their class here, which has links to some other course-related documents as well, but also has links to their blogs.  GaEun just wrote a very complimentary one about me and the class this last week in case you want to check that out.)
 

The presentation we got at the facility was very professional and nice but all in Korean, so Bum Joon (leftmost in this picture) tried to translate for me.  I remember learning that this plant is state-of-the-art, the second best solid waste disposal in Korea, and handles half of all the solid waste burning in Incheon (along with a sister plant in Songdo).  They also process food waste into animal feed here.

We got to go up in the control room where they control the giant grabber-claw that picks up the waste which has been dumped off the trucks and drops it into the incinerator. 

After the tour (which was shorter than we'd been led to believe, therefore I needn't have been in such a rush in the first place after all) we wandered through the adjacent park and botanical gardens which is very nice.  I had found this place long ago on one of my early explorations of the area and attentive readers of my blog may remember me mentioning that I'd found a place with a bunch of cacti and succulents the previous winter.  Well now I was finally able to visit when it was open. 

Bum Joon.  Another cool kid.  He'll be going to NYU next year to study sociology.  I wrote a recommendation for him too.

The kids were pretty fascinated by the fish and spent quite a while feeding them flower petals and watching the swarm.  We now had time to kill so I just hung back and let them do their thing.  During the week I see them in two separate 'sections' (groups) of 3 and 4 students (section A and section B) so it was fun to see them all interacting together.

Cherry Blossoms.  Some people at school were fixated on figuring out where to go to "see the Cherry blossoms" by which I guess they meant the best, or official, sites, but I thought that was pretty silly as they were all around us and lining the sides of the roads.

Eventually we meandered over to the coast, waiting for it to be lunch time,  because we had plans to eat at an Eel restaurant there, which was the only restaurant in the neighborhood.  We could have just gone back to school for lunch but these are Seniors so they relish any time away from school they can get.  I guess that's true of any grade level.  This, unfortunately, is what the coast looks like around here, which has dashed my hopes of kayaking on the Yellow Sea.  Not only is there lots of fortification (presumably against invasion by the north), but there's also decameters of mud flats as previously discussed.

Students doing what students do, which is to say looking at their phones most of the time.

This is the eel restaurant we went to.  Discriminating observers may note that this picture is taken at a different time of day than the preceding ones.  This is because I had to ride out here (notice my bike) one evening a couple days in advance to get some information about the exact name and address of the place (since I was unable to locate it on the internet) to tell administration where to send the bus to pick us up after lunch so I could get back to school in time for my afternoon 8th grade science class.  So this picture is chronologically out of sequence but belongs narratively at this location.

Inside the eel restaurant.

The eel being grilled.

Watch the eel being grilled in the video below.  Note the tale wriggling!  (Not that you could miss that).  I don't know if that's a mere effect of the heat or if it's because the eel is so fresh it's still basically alive.  It's kind of eerie either way, and perhaps this gives rise (pun intended) to the belief that eel (especially the tail) is good for 'male stamina'.

But wait!  I'm not done!  Shortly after this Eric (my across-the-hall friend) and I took a walk to the port area I've been to a few times before and had a drink and a bite to eat at the restaurant I've been wanting to go to at the top of one of the funky-looking buildings I mentioned in another previous post.

It was a lovely evening for a walk with the sun just going down.

I love the abstract shapes the water makes as the tide goes in and out across the mud flats.

From the restaurant where we had a great window table.  Some of the mountain tops to the north (the far right side of the photo) may be "you-know-where"!  I'm not sure.

Eric and me.  I think I look like my sister Julie in this picture.

Cheers!

Another day in the same area.  My friend Steve Levinsky and his wife Linda have a friend, Miranda Paley, who was in Seoul for a week on business (she's the general editor of the journal of the American Chemical Society and was attending a conference) and they suggested she contact me, which she did, so she stopped by for a bike ride on her way from Seoul to the airport on her way back to Washington D.C.  We had a nice ride on a beautiful afternoon and saw some more cherry blossoms.

 

And finally, this last weekend I went for a long-ish ride up north of the canal in an area I'd been wanting to explore.  I've been seeing a lot of pretty flowers like this around here lately and I don't know what they are but this is what they look like.

And I stopped for lunch and some soju and I read my book on my Kindle app on my phone.  I'm reading another Elmore Leonard at the moment.

My server was chopping onions.  They didn't have pictures at this restaurant so I basically just held up one finger to indicate it was just myself dining and I got what I got, which was sufficient under the circumstances.

While I was eating this guy came in who really intrigued me.  I figured him for a delivery driver (scooter) because of the mask on his face but I saw him checking things out in the kitchen and then sitting down at the desk and doing something on the computer so I eventually decided he must be the owner and doing all the various jobs, as an owner must.  I thought he was particularly interesting looking, though, with his red construction hard-hat (rather than motorcycle helmet), gray hair (like mine), road mask (the pollution was especially bad that day) weird nylon vest over orange jacket, sleeve 'gaiters', camouflage pants, and blue plastic sandals over thick gray (woolen?) socks.  I think he could have worn that for Halloween and been fine. 

I kept trying to surreptitiously get a picture of him without being too obvious so here I am using the camera in 'backward facing' (selfie) mode to try to get him at the front door while he's behind me.

 

On my way home again I had to cross the major canal just north of us again and coming down the south side of the bridge I took this picture which shows the name of my area in both Korean (Hangul is the name of the writing method) and English.

And that's all I have to say about that.  Next up: Japan!