방문하다- A different way to spell visit

I promised more on Korea so we will mostly leave the birds behind for this post as I have lots of pictures to share. The picture above is the first official night of our visit. I went as part of the COE (Council on Education) site team visit as part of the accreditation of Seoul National University's College of Veterinary Medicine. Each college that is accredited by the AVMA and by the Dept of Education gets a similar review at least every 7 years. SNU is the only accredited college in Asia, not to mention in Korea. It is one of ten colleges in Korea and the accreditation status lets its students practice in the US/Canada after passing NAVLE and state boards vs taking other longer and more expensive paths to practice. It isn't used much in that regard but does give the college a special level of esteem.  

Our team are the center group bookended by women. So two SNU folks on left side, then 7 of us, then three SNU folks on right. The SNU folks are the dean and associate deans. Cool fact -they change this team every 2 years. The current dean actually wanted this job, despite the accreditation visit. 

I can't talk much about the visit but can tell you about the great hospitality and our wonderful team. The two women on each end of our team are our regional representatives. Someone (they didn't know who) recruited them to join us to give the Korean perspective. They were the first female equine vet in Korea (Dr. Go, left side) and a research vet/patent examiner (Dr. Pyo, right). It helped in so many ways to have their knowledge and perspective. 

Jean-Yin Tan (ex LAM resident and locum) is next to Dr. Go. She was her usual efficient hard working self. Her husband, Al, came to join her on our last day. Thank heavens for Jean-Yin as we were unexpectedly down a person at the last minute so she and I did a lot of tag team work on write ups and interviews. Pat (other side of me) is a bovine vet from WI and our chair. He kept forgetting MN has dairy cows but other than that he was great. Plus a Packer backer. Next to him is Peter, dean of Ill CVM and current chair of the COE. He was our "observer" to make sure everything stayed kosher. Then Sam Morello as our admin staff. She was great at helping everything move forward! She says I am allowed to report that she was NOT responsible for the spreadsheet most colleges had to fill out on distance education. 

I arrived about a day and a half in advance to acclimate and sight see. Luckily, the jet lag was minimal as the time difference was only 2 hours. Dr. Han Soo Joo, a retired UMN swine faculty member, now lives in Korea even though he still has a house in Roseville. He took over my itinerary as soon as he heard I was coming. He has connections all over! Basically the student of one of his previous students runs an influenza lab at SNU. He sent his grad student and another student from his lab to escort me around the city for half the day (with his credit card). The young men were Matt's age and hadn't done much of the tourist things we did so seemed to enjoy the day. We toured the castle grounds for both thek king and queen (each had their own and there were 4 more across Seoul).

I learned to say "kimchi" for camera pics and to make small hearts with my fingers for photo ops. This one is with Dr. Ga

Dr. Ga researched as much as he could the night before we toured so was a very effective guide!

I learned the evergreens were brought in to the grounds because they symbol loyalty (no shedding of leaves)

The grounds also contain the largest pond in the city- with amazing fall colors

The building roof lines are typically 3D as flat is seen as boring and 3D more mimics nature. This is with Tague Joen - his degree is in animal technology. 

Every entrance has a step up to keep the ghosts out and many servant doorways are lower so the servants have to bow when moving through. Servants were also buried near the castle so they could keep up their protective duties

This painting is also famous and full of meaning for the castles (don't ask me more than that, though). This one was in the queens castle. 

Han Soo met us for the afternoon and the boys were dismissed for a bit. He took me up to Seoul tower and back across the river. My fitbit got happy 2x as we put in more than 20000 steps. I just realized I haven't found the pics he took from Seoul tower but the views were tremendous. Will add in later if I find them!

He enjoys being a special citizen for the subway but still rarely got a seat ;)

That said, Korean respect levels are super high. Anyone he stopped and asked would take time to help. We had quite the experience getting me a subway transit card but it worked! I loved watching the car move on the monitor. A video showed on the left side (blue part) while the train car moved between stations on the right side. 

As you might expect in a city with as much technical expertise as Seoul, there were similar things all over!

We did take the subway to various shopping centers and to dinner. 

No Thanksgiving to worry about so Christmas decorations are up. They did celebrate Black Friday though!

For dinner, we asked several people directions. One guy insisted on leading us to the restaurant. It was about 7 minutes away from where we started. He persisted even with Dr. Joo questioning his plan the entire way! We made it successfully. Han Soo called the boys back and fed us all a traditional Korean meal.

More food later but you can rarely escape without four courses. It was amazing. [Silverware in the drawer under the table top- very efficient!] I have never eaten as much sushi in my life. Also so many greens I had to adjust my warfarin! 

More on the visit later - this was just the first full day. The boys helped me take a bus back to my hostel and I crashed.