Namhae

Today we have left Jinju and travelled to Namhae by the sea. We have all been staying with hostfamilies for the weekend, and have all enjoyed the experience. It's been good to see how Koreans live, and good to spend time with the very welcoming and hospitable families.
We entered Namhae from the magnificent Namhae Bridge where we met our hosts for the day. We then visited the Mayor of Namhae and all recived fine gifts. Next stop was the beautyful Boriam temple in the mountains where we had a good look around. After a splendid lunch of grilled eel we headed for a butterfly museum, which was very interesting. So many varieties. / Elisabeth

Scrumptiolicious grilled eel.

Meeting the Korean version of Danish Tycoon Karsten Ree

The Tuesday program was arranged by Jinju Chokseok Rotary Club, which is Jinju´s largest Rotary Club. We started out with a visit to the City hall meeting the mayor of Jinju. We were all dressed up in suits and nice dresses except one member of the Korean delegation, who arrived in a Redface winter jacket. As we later learnt was he the Korean version of Karsten Ree – very rich, very interested in many different projects and a man who only does what he like and dresses as he cares.

The visit at city hall went well and after visiting a company making nature medicine from bell flower did we drive out to Korean Mr. Ree´s ranch. Here we attended a traditional Korean tea session, which was quite cool. (We hope to be able to perform such sessions in Denmark, with the tea sets received from a six time black belt Judo Master!!) Later did he invite Lotte for a horseback ride on an electronic horse! We had made a small house in his garden with the sole purpose of containing his electronic horse J We ended the visit with a half hour 4WD drive on the ranch, going up and down the mountains surrounding the ranch.
The day was successfully ended with a presentation of Denmark for the Rotary club and a trip to the local karaoke bar. The Koreans might seem very formal at first sight, but they for sure loosen up when the Karaoke gets going J
Roger and over – yet an inspiring day in Korea.
/ Kim

Meeting and greeting the Koreans!

After a nice resting day on Saturday, which was mostly used to explore the area near the motel we will stay in for the next 5 days, did we Sunday meet up with the local Women’s Rotary club. They had arranged for a tour to the local mall and afterwards a trip to Jinju Castle, which was used as a defense in one of the many wars between Korea and Japan. It is quite interesting to see how forgiving the Koreans are to the Japanese people and how worried they are around the atomic crisis in Japan.

After seeing a movie in the local Lotte cinema (almost every shopping and leisure shop is named after our team member Lotte Genz) did we have an Eel feast. We had Eel in many different styles, including Eel bones as a snack. The Korean women were in a very good mood, so we ended the night at the local karaoke bar singing a mix of English and Korean songs. / Kim

Wonderful day in Korea

We have had a wonderful day in Korea. The day started with a nice breakfast, soup with clams and rice. Then we went to a private girls highschool with 1100 students. The principal gave us a tour of the school which included the chemistry, English, art and PE department. They had excellent volleyball facilities and a few year ago the won the championship.

Teachers teach 4 hours everyday + time for preparation. Each teacher has their own workstation with computers at the teachers lounge. They do not have smartboards in their classrooms but instead they have overhead projectors and blackboards where they use a new invention - dustfree chalk. Usually there is app. 36 students in a classroom. The students also do their homework and studying at the school so they normally stay there from 8.00-22.00.

After the schoolvisit we had a wonderful lunch followed by a visit to the local city newspaper which is more than a 100 years old. It was very interesting to see how they printed the newspaper. In the editing room the had a big article on the wall about Bjørn Lomborg - we told them that he is Danish. The editor of the newspaper visited Copenhagen 20 years ago when he was a member of the Korean parliament.

We also visited a modern hospital and a clinic with traditional Korean medicine and we tried acupuncture which is actually a Korean invention, not a Chinese!

We give a big thank you to our Korean hosts for some exciting and fun days.

Finally here

After a couple of month of planning we are finally in South Korea.

The flight here went smoothly - and as a matter of fact we arrived in Pusan about one hour earlier than planned. We were greeted by the local Rotary district with flowers and a big banner and then headed towards Jinju city (population 340,000) - about 1½ hours drive west of Pusan. Here we will be staying for the first couple of days.

One of the things we've already found out is, that we will have lots of fantastic food while we are here - perfect for a group of foodies. /Lotte

Less than 48 hours to go

Now the suitcases have been packed and filled with new uniforms, gifts for our Korean hosts and great expectations. Fortunately the earthquake in Japan hasn't had any impact on South Korea so we are all set to go and look forward to meeting new Korean friends and seeing a lot of interesting places/Mette