Korea

Over the Chinese New Year break (we have off two weeks for Chinese New Year) I went to Seoul, Korea to visit some of the students that used to attend TIS and to see what Korea was like. A former student (she graduated last year) went with me: This was a huge blessing as she not only found a place for us to stay but she arranged times to meet up with all the students that were around, made the calls, could navigate the subway system and was just made my time there really good. So I toured Seoul with my students. Most of them return to Korea and study study study till they graduate from high school and get into college so when we met up and went to places like the emporer's palace, the N'Seoul Tower, Insadong (a street with lots of art supplies and traditional Korean items), or the Folk museum it was a first for all of us.
Above is a traditional Korean store with lots of different types of paper - yes, those are all papers. Below I am having a traditional Korean lunch with some former students. Above, my students took me on a tour of one of the ancient palaces. Although it rained hard that day and we were pretty wet by the time it was over we had fun. The palace was actually quite similar in style to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Culturally there are definite similarities with China and Korea but Korea is distinct in many ways as well.
There are lots of pictures of eating with students because it was a good way to catch up with them. They are busy and meeting for a dinner or lunch in a restaurant or a mall was fairly easy.