Sorry for the late start to this blog. It’s been a pretty crazy couple of weeks getting settled here in Seoul.
First off, I want to start off by telling everyone what exactly I’m doing here in Seoul. I submitted a proposal to the National Science Foundation and it got accepted. Now I’m here at Seoul National University working with Dr. Youngryel Ryu and his lab for 8 weeks. Him and his lab have developed a model that estimates evapotranspiration and carbon dioxide exchange between the land and atmosphere. This is important for my masters research because I collect that type of data with the instruments I’ve been working with the last couple of years. Now I have the opportunity to use what I’ve collected and combine it with a model to see how well this model estimates these phenomena over the Southern Great Plains.
In terms of Korean culture, I’ve noticed a lot of similarities and differences between American and Korea. For instance, Koreans love American music. Whenever I go to the gym, get a haircut, or even to the mall, there is usually uncensored rap/hip-hop music. And when I say uncensored I’m talking about very explicit music that you would never hear in public in America. Koreans are also obsessed with the Simpsons, Mickey Mouse, and American baseball. I also think it’s interesting how people tend to hold hands a lot more frequently here. And not just between couples, but friends will hold hands, usually same sex friends. The food has been really great. I think my favorite dishes so far have been kimchi pancakes, this donut like thing called a hotak, and these rice balls that I have no idea what is in them.
I’ve gotten to experience some really cool palaces, food, night life, and people. There aren’t as many foreigners in a city of 12 million as one would think. But English is written on everything so it’s not hard to get around. I’ll try to update this thing as frequently as possible. And I’ll put photos on here soon. But for now, I’m going to leave you all with this.
Geonbae (Cheers),
Hayden