Good Morning from Seoul Korea,

After 26 hours of travel, 46 teachers arrived in Seoul for the Korean Studies Workshop. We are here to learn about the history, culture and people of Korea. We are all feeling a little jet lagged. Everyone wakes up at 3 A.M. because your body says it's supposed to be daytime.

We hit the ground running. Our first day was at Yonsei University which is hosting our workshop. We were introduced to a huge staff of faculty and students who are running this event. They are all very helpful and are doing everything to make our trip a good one.

Our first lectures were about Korean Society, which is now ranked number ten in terms of economy. We had a wonderful professor who was very candid and also very humorous. We learned about Yonsei University which is one of the best in Korea. It is located on a beautiful campus. All classes are taught in English (and they speak it extremely well). Three high school girls (in the picture above) have joined us as interns.

There is a lot of pressure on Korean students. It is typical for girls like these to thrive on 5 hours of sleep. They are seniors in high school. These girls are looking to attend schools like Princeton, Harvard and Duke. It is no wonder that Korea is so far advanced in technology.

To finish our long day there was a welcoming banquet in our honor. The food was unbelievable. Once again, I'm not sure I like it all but it is so beautifully presented. I was enjoying something that I thought was "kosher" until I was told it was jelllyfish.

Chuckle of the Day: Our hotel is state of the art. So much so that it took me 10 minutes of walking around in the dark to realize that in order to make all the light sensors work you had to put your room card in a special slot. Once you do this lights are preprogramed and now everytime I walk in they are set just for me. I thought the phone was ringing but it was my security panel with an image of my neighbor Tracy (she was "in the dark" too).

Love to All,

Barbara