Goodbye Korea

Tonight is our last night in Korea.

The last few days haven’t necessarily been busier than our first few days, but I have felt more tired (hence fewer posts). However, I still have lots more pictures and a few more reflections to share, so stay tuned.

Much of today was spent doing last-minute gift shopping/retail therapy, and thus much of this evening was spent packing and figuring out how to squeeze our newly acquired bounty into our luggage. Everything pretty much fits, so in terms of my physical belongings it appears that I am ready to leave.

But psychologically, I’m not ready yet. There are still so many things that I didn’t have a chance to see or do, including many of the excellent suggestions from some of you. And there are still so many things that I don’t know.

When we told friends and family that we were going on our first trip to Korea, there was someone who insisted on referring to our upcoming journey as a “once-in-a-lifetime” experience. At the time I was both puzzled and annoyed, because even though we hadn’t even left, I had every intention of visiting again.

It’s the same way this time: I’m coming back. I don’t know when, for how long, or what exactly I’ll be doing. All I know is that I’m coming back.

So goodbye, Korea. Goodbye to all of the people I’ve met. Goodbye to family whose shadows I chased but never caught up with.

Goodbye… for now.

(I know that this stone Buddha isn’t actually waving goodbye, but it kind of looks that way, doesn’t it?)

Remembering Namdaemun

You may remember the blaze that destroyed Korea’s Great South Gate, or Namdaemun, back in February of this year. (If not, read about it here.)

Here’s a picture of Namdaemun before the fire, at night (this photo only courtesy of Wikipedia; all others are mine):

There is now a large temporary wall surrounding where Namdaemun once stood. While we were there, people were hanging panels on the wall to create a picture of how it used to look:

On one side of the wall there is a plexiglass window that we looked through to see the remains of the gate:

Beeswax: Not Yours, Inc.

Since I’ve been in Korea I have met many other adoptees, and on several occasions we have quickly fallen into deep, emotional, and intensely personal conversations about adoption. In these conversations, we will frequently talk about searching (or not), including what we’ve done so far or have been able to find out (or not). I am always interested in hearing people’s stories if they want to tell them, and have had no problem reciprocating by sharing my own story. I have even been able to connect with a couple of other adoptees who came through my orphanage.

The other night, however, I was approached by a (white) adoptive parent who

Picture Post – Lanterns at Jogyesa Temple

The other day we walked by Jogyesa temple, where preparations were in full swing for the upcoming Lotus Lantern Festival celebrating Buddha’s birthday. Unfortunately we won’t be here for the actual celebrations, but here is a picture of the lanterns anyway:

In case you’re wondering how they got the lanterns up there, note the scissor lift in the picture below:

I believe these white ones are hung for people who have died:

And here are sections of wire and bare lights still waiting to be dressed:

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Picture Post – Yeouido

Photographs (c) Sang-Shil Kim; please do not use without permission.

One Year Later

Last April I was taking a course in human development that focused specifically on college students. Two other classmates and I gave a group presentation called “Psychological Disturbance During the College Years.” It was fairly brief, but we talked about prevalence and statistics of mental illness in college, trends in what kinds of problems students were facing, and what those diagnoses looked like.

Although we role-played a few different types of mental disorders and how they might present in the college-age population, we didn’t address

Namhansanseong

A while back, junemoon tagged me for a book meme where you share a few sentences from a nearby book. I grabbed Lonely Planet Korea and wrote about Namhansanseong.

The other day I had a chance to actually visit Namhansanseon in person. After a slight mishap about which bus station to get off at, we finally found ourselves at the base of the mountain:

The stream was pretty dry, but had a little bridge going across it:

This is the view from about halfway up:

The mountain was just starting to come alive, with sap running and trees and flowers in bloom:

When we reached near the top there was a road where they were filming something — later on I think I heard that it was a movie:

Lastly, here’s my own picture of the gate that I included in my meme post, as well as a picture of the wall:

Picture Post – Samulnori

Pictures from a samulnori performance we attended (the pink flowers in the background are the same ones that are currently in my header photo):

Photographs (c) Sang-Shil Kim; all rights reserved.

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