Lately in my Korean learning, I’ve been getting value out of generative AI to help learn grammar and read passages. I’m not convinced that my method of use is optimal, as I feel there’s a tradeoff to friction here. That is, if it is super easy to look things up when I forget them, I’m less likely to sit with it for a while and really try to force recall to occur, versus if I had to, say, flip through a paper dictionary. Regardless, in studying Korean connectives, ChatGPT gave me this nice table, so I figured I’d have it give me the raw markdown and post it here.
Over the last 2.5 weeks I’ve explored a good chunk of urban Korea and a few of it’s national parks. My ultimate conclusion is that it is an amazing country, with great people and very interesting history. Thank you to all of the people I met along the trip that made my visit the experience it was. To name a few in no particular order: Daniel, 준, Connor, 섭, 민, 진서, Michael, 재, Jason, David, and 진. Here are some miscellaneous photos from the trip that didn’t make it in other posts.
The last few days I spent on Jeju Island. The major highlights were walking on the coastal trail, where I met somebody that had trekked around the whole island, and hiking 한라산 (Hallasan Mountain). It was raining when I got to the top, which means that I didn’t get great panoramic views (but I did get cool shots with the clouds over the mountain).
Today I went to the Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, just northeast of the city of Busan. It was beautiful, and I was introduced to 호떡 (Hotteok). How I lived my life without this street food dessert before, I do not know.
Today I took the KTX Express Train from Seoul to Busan, and headed to the Jagalchi (자갈치) fish market.
Today I went to the DMZ on a guided tour. The highlight of the tour was going to the observation building, where you can look into North Korea and South Korea from just south of the Southern Limit Line (you can also glimpse the Joint Security Area from this building!). Afterwards, I had dinner and walked around town with a very fun and kind Australian man that I met on the tour. If you have limited time in Seoul, I wouldn’t put this super high on your to-do list, but if you have some time I think it was worth it.
Yesterday I went to a Korean bouldering gym called 드림캐처클라이밍짐 (Dreamcatcher Climbing Gym) near 노원 (Nowon) subway station. Afterwords had some noodles with a Korean guy I met there. Overall they had great sets.