A Year in Korea
This is a photographic journal of my year in South Korea. It is certainly not all of the pictures I took, nor does it represent everything I did there. Instead, like a photo, it is a brief snapshot in time, which for me means much more than for someone who isn't me, but at least it allows me to share some of my memories, impressions and feelings of that year. I left the U.S. on December 26, 1995 to head to Seoul as a conversational English teacher and missionary volunteer with the SDA Language Institutes. My assignment (which I didn't learn until I was already in Korea) was Kwangju, the "City of Light," located in the southwest of the peninsula in South Cholla Province.
This is Nam San Tower, or Seoul Tower. It is one of the first "tourist" type place I visited after arriving in Korea. (More on Seoul Tower is available at the Seoul Metropolitan Government website). We also went to Kyongbokkung Palace, which at the time still had the old Japanese administration building smack dab in the middle of the palace grounds. The building was tehn housing the Korea National Museum, but not long after I got to Korea, they began dissassembling the building and restoring the Palace. When I went back in 2000, there was no trace of the old Japanese building anywhere.
We didn't stay in Seoul long before they put us on buses and sent us to our schools -- in my case to Kwangju, the "City of Light". There was little ceremony (or instructions) as we were sent our separate ways. Luckily, the Koreans are very kind, especially to single travelers who look perpetually lost, and some shared food with me on the bus.
When I arrived in Kwangju, however, I wasn't so lucky, and no one was there to meet me. Apparently Seoul forgot to tell them the time of my arrival. Anyway, after several phone calls and much waiting, JP (for Junior Pastor) came to pick me up. He said that he had called the bus station, and they told him there was a tall, handsome foreigner waiting there. But he said he had trouble finding me because I was not handsome. Swell greeting, but it certainly humbles one at the beginning of a journey...
This is the institute and my home for a year. My classroom and my apartment were both in the building, and we were just a few minutes walk from downtown Kwangju. It is just across the street from the Grand Hotel. At night, the disco in the basement of the Grand Hotel was rocking -- keeping many of the teachers awake. But since I once lived across the street from one of the largest train switching yards on the East Coast of the U.S., it didn't really bother me. More annoying, however, was the music stand that set up outside my window every night, which blasted pirated music collections -- Ace of Base was quite popular when I got there...over and over and over and over and over...
One of the nice things about Kwangju was Mudeung Mountain. pretty much every city in Korea has its own mountain, and ours was Mudeung. I climbed the mountain several times, with my students, friends or teachers. Everyone climbed the mountain. Some older men would be wearing full hiking gear, decked out like they were tackling the Himalayas, with their thick, multicolor wool socks pulled up over their pant legs to their knees and their steel-tipped hiking sticks. Others would be climbing in full suits, and some women were even hiking in dresses and heels. More information about Mudeung San (Mudung Mountain) is available at the Parandeul Tourism website or on the Kwangju (Gwangju) government webpage. On top of the mountain is the super secret radar installation, that my students would tell me doesn't exist, not that it is too hard to see... But in 1996, the sense of impending North Korean subversion still ran high. (That was the same year of the last major submarine incident, where like two dozen North Koreans were missing in the South Korean countryside for a few days.)
One other thing about Kwangju is its spirit of independence and protest. This is a city proud of its legacy of demonstrations and anti-government actions, not the least of which was the 1980 Kwangju Massacre. It considers itself a bastion of democracy and freedom, which, by 1996, meant that it was students' DUTY to demonstrate, even if they didn't really know why they were marching. My first taste of South Korean tear gas came not long after I got to Kwangju (the rumors have it that South Korean teargas is so strong, other countries won't buy it for fear of violating their citizens' human rights). This is a student demonstration on the street right in front of the institute. It was January 13, and I got off several pictures before the tear gas started flying. More demonstration pictures are on my site here. One of the first rules of tear gas I learned was NOT to wash your face right away. Contrary to its name, tear gas is not a gas, it is a very fine particulate and oil, and water just makes it flow all over your face and into every crack and pore...
This is Nam San Tower, or Seoul Tower. It is one of the first "tourist" type place I visited after arriving in Korea. (More on Seoul Tower is available at the Seoul Metropolitan Government website). We also went to Kyongbokkung Palace, which at the time still had the old Japanese administration building smack dab in the middle of the palace grounds. The building was tehn housing the Korea National Museum, but not long after I got to Korea, they began dissassembling the building and restoring the Palace. When I went back in 2000, there was no trace of the old Japanese building anywhere. 
One of the nice things about Kwangju was Mudeung Mountain. pretty much every city in Korea has its own mountain, and ours was Mudeung. I climbed the mountain several times, with my students, friends or teachers. Everyone climbed the mountain. Some older men would be wearing full hiking gear, decked out like they were tackling the Himalayas, with their thick, multicolor wool socks pulled up over their pant legs to their knees and their steel-tipped hiking sticks. Others would be climbing in full suits, and some women were even hiking in dresses and heels. More information about Mudeung San (Mudung Mountain) is available at the 
One other thing about Kwangju is its spirit of independence and protest. This is a city proud of its legacy of demonstrations and anti-government actions, not the least of which was the 1980 Kwangju Massacre. It considers itself a bastion of democracy and freedom, which, by 1996, meant that it was students' DUTY to demonstrate, even if they didn't really know why they were marching. My first taste of South Korean tear gas came not long after I got to Kwangju (the rumors have it that South Korean teargas is so strong, other countries won't buy it for fear of violating their citizens' human rights). 
This is a student demonstration on the street right in front of the institute. It was January 13, and I got off several pictures before the tear gas started flying. More demonstration pictures are on my site