Author: Geoffrey DeSena

As I was trying to snap a few photos of our approach to the port in Qingdao from the upper deck of the ferry, an attendant frantically got my attention and handed me an arrival card. It was immediately obvious that her English was limited, but she had brought help.

In the west, the sky is a brilliant orange fading to blue above. The sun has just slipped below the peaks of the low mountains of this southern Korean town. The color reflects in the ripples of the slow-moving river. Along the river, figurines of all shapes and sizes dot the water’s surface. As the blue sky above deepens with the fast-approaching night, the power goes on for the lights inside the lanterns, and the river takes on its own glow.

It was not the actual border, but it drew the southern boundary of the most ironically named place on the globe, the “De-Militarized Zone” or DMZ that separates North and South Korea.

As we wandered the streets of the now-famous Gangnam district in Seoul, South Korea, we could not help but notice the strangeness of the dark restaurant windows and the quiet streets. In my seven months in Seoul, I have not witnessed such calm on a Friday night.

Each year young Korean athletes, clad in their crimson or blue, face off in a series of competitions to prove their dominance over their rival. Korea University and Yonsei University are two of the oldest institutions in South Korea, founded in 1905 and 1885, respectively.

I’m sure we can all remember more than one class in high school or college in which we struggled to keep our heavy eyelids from shutting out an instructor droning on in an endless string of statements. Though the teacher or professor was doing their best to share the information in his/her head, very little of that information was entering ours.

The attitude, the rebelliousness, and the constant pushback teachers get from their middle schoolers often leave them with a bitter taste of those classes. I, however, find these classes incredibly satisfying. Here’s why.

Recently, I used a long weekend in Korea to travel to Japan, a destination also easy to access from China and Taiwan. With cheap flights readily available (Peach Airlines is probably the most popular), a few days is well worth the trip. Here are a few pointers on capitalizing on the opportunity.