Welcome to Seoul!

We have arrived! After a long 27 hours of travelling, we are incredibly excited to be here in Seoul, South Korea! Thankfully, all of our flights were on time and we made it through unscathed. I’d have to say the one disappointment felt by the whole group was when we were boarding our enormous air bus in Minneapolis. I mean this thing was huge- 65 rows back and 10 seats across, not to mention the seats upstairs – very impressive. We couldn’t wait to find out what movies would be showing on our individual TV screens built into the seats in front of us. As we enter the bus, we notice that there are no individual TV screens. Hmmm… Quickly, we come to find out that our plane was a model built in the 1980’s and we all have to watch the same couple of movies shown on an outdated screen in the front of the cabin. Bummer. Part of the excitement of having a 12-hr international flight is watching movies on the individual built-ins, right? Oh well, we all made the best of it and if that is the ONE disappointment of the trip over here, I’d say we’re doing pretty well!

At this point, we’re all checked in and ready for the week. Tomorrow morning we will head to the bank to exchange our dollars into won, visit a palace and a folk museum, then head to SKKU – it’s going to be a great day!

More pictures to come soon!

Almost time!

This will be the last post before we take off for Korea! The buses depart Bloomington tomorrow morning at 6:30am. From the Indianapolis Airport, we have a short layover in Minneapolis. Twelve and a half hours later we stop off for another layover in Tokyo, Japan, and finally arrive in Seoul at 10:00pm on Sunday evening - approximately 24 hours after leaving Bloomington. Wow! This is going to be a great experience - we are all very excited!

Okay - off to pack and pick up last minute travel essentials!

Korean Cuisine

Since our last post, the Emerging Economies class has had the opportunity to sample Korean cuisine on two separate occasions. The first meal was provided by the Tudor Room at the Indiana Memorial Union. Local foods were prepared from each of the five countries being studied in BUS-G 256: Korea, Croatia, Hungary, Ghana, and China. At that point in the semester, we had not yet learned about popular Korean dishes, so we piled our plates high with a mix of curiosity and excitement. Professor Nam was kind enough to also provide our group with chopsticks – and some of us could definitely use the practice!

The food was delicious – not just the Korean fare, but the meals represented by each of the other countries, as well. It was all very good! The experience at the Tudor Room also gave our small group an opportunity to mingle with one another outside the classroom. Conversation topics ranged from major and year in school, to travel and study abroad experiences. The dinner really gave us a chance to get to know one another on a more personal level.

You can hear more thoughts on the dinner from Anna and Maggie in the video clip below.

During our next small group class, Professor Nam was able to shed a little more light on what it was we ate during our trip to the Tudor Room. Staples in Korea tend to be bab (rice), bul-go-gi (grilled beef), bi-bim-bab (mixed rice and vegetables), gim-chi (pickled vegetable-oftentimes cabbage), as well as many other combinations of noodles, meats, and vegetables. Gug (soup) is also oftentimes served at mealtime, along with many side dishes, or ban-chan.

Fortunately, our small group was able to sample traditional Korean cuisine, yet again. This time, our class met at Mama’s Korean Restaurant in Bloomington. Our trip leader, Angie Perry, is the Manager of Exchange Programs in the Kelley School, and she was able to coordinate our dinner with the Korean exchange students from Sung Kyun Kwan University in Seoul!

The dinner was a tremendous success! Korean students and American students all paired up at various tables to discuss the food, as well as places to visit and things to look forward to while in Seoul. We sampled bul-go-gi, bi-bim bab, naeng-myeon (cold noodles with beef and vegetables), gim-chi-jji-ge (gim-chi stew), along with several ban-chan. (Have you learned your Korean yet? If not, refer to the descriptions above.) The food was wonderful and the conversation was even better. I think every member of our group became even more about our trip to South Korea next month after this dinner!

Only two and a half more weeks to go! So long for now – we’ll check back in again soon!

An-nyeong-ha-se-yo!

Greetings from BUS-G 256: Emerging Economies, and the small group section heading to South Korea in March! “An-nyeong-ha-se-yo” is a common phrase in the Korean language used to express warm greetings. The literal translation means, “Are you at peace?”, but oftentimes substitutes for “Good morning”, “Good afternoon”, and “Good evening”. There is no literal translation for the English greeting “Hello”, therefore, we have been busy learning the correct pronunciation of “An-nyeong-ha-se-yo” in class!

Welcome, my name is Emily Dutton and I will be your guide through the March trip to Seoul, Korea. Along with the help of over a dozen students and two other Kelley faculty/staff members, I plan to document our experiences in Korea to give you as close to a firsthand account of our daily activities as possible.

We have already studied numerous Korean characters and phrases, and will soon be learning more about Korean food and culture from our small group instructor, Jihyun Nam. Many students will have their first taste of Korean cuisine during an outing at the Tudor Room at the Indiana Memorial Union this week. The restaurant staff has been gracious enough to prepare meals from all five trip destinations (Korea, China, Ghana, Croatia, and Hungary) to give us a sampling of what to expect come March.

The students have also been busy in Professor Jaffee’s large group section of BUS-G 256. The course content focuses on the concept of emerging economies and specifically focuses on all five countries mentioned above. Students will be able to better understand the success and challenges of the companies we visit during our trip to South Korea from the information learned in Dr. Jaffee’s class.

So, thank you for joining us! I hope you’ll stay tuned in as we share our adventures and experiences from Seoul, South Korea!

An-nyeong-hi ka-se-yo! (Goodbye!)