TravelBio

 M ost of you who know me know that I love sports.  And so naturally the Olympics, especially the summer Olympics, are an exciting time for me.  There are widely recognized sports that I enjoy such as basketball, soccer, and tennis, as well as the ones that most people see only every four years.  How many people passionately watch archery or competitive walking any other time?  Only during the Olympics could a strait man ask the bartender to turn on rhythmic gymnastics without anyone batting an eye. Stateside the time difference for this year’s Olympics was convenient enough – you may have missed out on the morning sessions, but at least most of it was on during the day.  I heard though that NBC did a pretty good job of screwing up the coverage.  Korea, on the other hand, is 8 hours ahead of London.  So that means the primetime events, say at 8 pm, were on here at 4 am.  That really put a dent in my Olympics viewing time.  I saw some live coverage in the evenings, but a lot of it

Early Friday afternoon my dad ad uncle flew from Osaka to Seoul.  I had to teach until 6:40, so the plan was for them to look for a hotel or come back to my apartment if they didn’t find anything.  At around 4:30 I got a call from them telling me that they had booked a hotel in Myeongdong. After work I went to the hotel and spent the night there too. The Seoul metro map...crazy huh?  Myeongdong is centrally located (Jamsil is in the southeast, where the green and pink lines meet) Myeongdong is a busy shopping area of Seoul north of the Han River.  My apartment, south of the river, is not as centrally located.  Myeondong is close to downtown and the attractions that I wanted to show my dad and uncle, so it made more sense to stay there as opposed to Jamsil. By the time we got dinner and walked around the narrow, packed streets in the shopping district of Myeondong it was already after 10 pm.  The following morning we had to get up early for a DMZ trip with the USO,

Even before I left for Korea last November, my dad had mentioned that he might try and visit me.  In the past he has suggested trips only to say that it was just a hypothetical later on.  So when he finally booked a flight for a visit in the summer I was quite surprised.  Both he and my uncle flew in to Seoul on the 31 st of July and then also went to Japan together for four nights.  Here is a recap of their visit: My uncle (far right) and dad (second from right) were headed to Seoul! Korean public schools get over a month off for summer break in late June and August.  On the other hand, the private institutes (like the one I work for) often have much shorter breaks.  During the summer break from public school parents sign their kids up for extra classes at our school, so we actually are busier!  What a great vacation for the students – a full day of English classes!  My break was four days long (well six if you count the weekend), from Tuesday, July 31 st th