Eb In South Korea: Even the Pizza's Prettier Here

April 10th:

We began our day with breakfast, American style. Our host mom is pretty bomb. She drove over an hour away to the Costco in Seoul to get us some Raisin Bran and other stuff she thought we'd like. We also had mango juice which is pretty phenomenal and I hope they sell it at home.

Speaking of our host mom, let's take a tour of her digs, shall we?

Her high-rise

Hallway

My room, I didn't get pics of the master bedroom my other roomate

had but it freaking awesome.

Bathroom

Entryway

Living room. In case you were wondering, that television is 63 inches.

She made us a goody bag for the day and drove us to our destination while playing Whitney Houston and telling us that she enjoys Adele. Umm...our host mom is 62. Okay, host mom, we see you!!!

We met up with our group and began our day at the Buyeo National Museum. It featured a detailed history of Buyeo. (http://buyeo.museum.go.kr/lang/eng.do)

I'm going to take a moment to let you in on something - Our group takes pictures wherever we go. It's a little bit ridiculous. Well, we stopped for a pic at the Buyeo Museum and we caused a commotion. A group of high school boys were fascinated to see so many Americans. And so what was supposed to be a quick photo op turned into this:

Eventually they left and we go this shot:

We stopped for lunch

before heading to the ginseng factory.

Before we walked inside, we were told that no cell phones or cameras were allowed. We then had to was our hands, put on hairnets and shoe covers and walk through a machine that blew air on us to remove dirt particles.

This factory makes over 7,300 tons of ginseng products a year consisting of over 500 products.

We toured the production line from start to finish. There are 10 steps to create a ginseng product:

Wash it
Steam it
Dry it naturally
Trim it
Grade it by external appearance
Grade it by internal texture
Grade it by weight
Moisten and press it
Package it in a wooden box
Package it in a can

The boxes are all natural and wrapped with natural paper and glue and then hand-stamped.

We then viewed the ginseng museum.

Me at the ginseng museum.

A more serious pic at the ginseng museum

Did you know that ginseng can have an age? It can be anywhere from one to six years old (anything older than six years old is considered six)

The logo of the factory. FYI, ginseng is grown in other places around the world (including Virginia) but Korean Red Ginseng has a specific flavor.

We then visited Baekje Cultural Land (http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=1105880) and visited Sabigung Palace.

Only the King could walk on the tiles

Decorative awnings

Throne

I believe this is Neungsa (a representative temple)

It was then time for a Rotary meeting at the all female Rotary club. We gave our presentations, watched the meeting, celebrated the six year anniversary of two Rotarians, saw a scholarship presentation and then called it a night...