Scenes of Seoul

Ekonomy Hotel?  Here's what you get for $45 dollars.  It's small, but clean and comfortable.

And a nice bathroom!

Turns out that the suggested hotel location was located right in Myeongdong, a very busy street with lots of shops and quite touristy.  It was right outside my door!

So, this is Kim Hyun....Korea's IT guy.  (By the way Onions recognized him so apparently he's famous in China as well).  Kim Hyun is the face of EVERYTHING.

...he's so big he has his OWN MUSEUM!!!

The Seoul Subway is as advertised.  Clean, efficient (although not as frequent as Beijing) and EXTENSIVE!

Every station is supplied with emergency supplies.  Beijing, time to step up your game!

In Korea, of course it's time for Korean BBQ!

BBQ with a side of sweet beef noodles!

The newly opened Zaha Hadid designed Dongdaemun center.

In center Seoul there are still traditional houses.  Here in Bukchon village, most of it feels like a museum.

I liked the juxtaposition of the traditional and the modern in the background!

Over on a stop in Itaewon (near the American base and heart of the expat community), I stepped out of the subway and saw a demonstration/march by Muslims.  Not sure what the message was...

.....but I know there is NO WAY anything like this could ever happen in China!  Props to South Korea for honoring the concept of free speech.

Fried Meatballs!

I was wandering around Myeongdong and what's this?  The Chinese Embassy!

Before I left Seoul, I read on Tripadvisor that there was a great show called a NANTA near my hotel.

I was thinking it was a cooking show.....

But it turned out more to be a cross between lots of chopping of food and it being thrown around, drumming and audience participation.  It was ok....I was expecting more!

AP Calculus Conference

This past weekend I flew to Seoul, South Korea to attend a two day College Board AP Calculus conference held at the Korea International School.

Built within the last decade, it is built in the southern suburbs of Seoul and has all the amenities!

The conference covered Calculus, Psychology and Physics.  My class was 10 people, most from Korea, but a teacher from Hong Kong, Krygyzstan and myself from China.  Turns out, many of the teachers had never taught Calculus before so I didn't get as much out of it as I had hoped.

However, I did pick up some very valuable information on how the test is scored and learned how to teach some topics (a special case of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus, derivatives of inverse functions and I finally got a handle on how to teach LaGrange error) that I had never really understood well, so overall, the conference was useful.  The only torture?  The printed material and the overheads were in the font, COMIC SANS!  AAAAHHHGGGHHH!