South Korea

I don't consider myslef much of an international traveler, but i was able to add some stamps to my passport recently. My fiance' and I traveled to South Korea to investigate possible job opportunities for teaching English abroad. We had been in contact with a recruiter from South Korea who acts as a liason betweem job hunters and schools looking to fill positions. After hearing some basic details and presented with several job opportunities in Seoul and Busan (Pusan), we decided it would be fun to take a week and see the country and meet with the schools.
I am glad we were able to use our spring break and have the opportunity to explore South Korea for the very first time. I had traveled abroad before, most recent spent several weeks in Japan in 2005. However, I was vastly more prepared for that trip as I had learned the language and culture beforehand and was able to experience japan with a great deal of ease. Korea was a different story. The only real knowledge I had befre going was stories from my Korean students in the United States, and some rudementary Korean phrases. I was under the impression that most Koreans could understand japanese, but it was something of a taboo since the relations between Korea and Japan are not always on friendly terms, therefore I tried keeping my Japanese to bare minimum.
The term culture shock, to someone that has not traveled abroad, does not completely encapsulate the experience my fiance' and I shared together over spring break. I was very wrongly under the assumption that because of the history and proximety of Korea and Japan, that Korea would be very similar in many ways to what I experienced in Japan. This was unfortunately not the case. In fact, I kept waiting for things to look familiar either to my western culture or Japan, but Korea has a very unique and distinct look and feel.
The first obstacle was of course, the language barrier. Apart from a few simple phrases, I could not communicate with the Koreans in Korean, and many of them could or would not communicate with us in English. This made getting around very difficult and frustrating. Add to the fact that Koreans have an idea of neighborhoods and not street names (thats right, they do not name or label their streets) Koreans themselves seem to have a difficult time locating things in their own city.
Fortunately, we had a guidebook in English, a rather large metro map, and underneath all the Korean Hangul, there was the names of the stations in English letters. So the metro system was (in a small way) very much like what I had experienced in Japan, and therefore very easy to navigate. Once above ground, however, it was a completely different story. We found ourselves frequently visiting police stations and banks as these were places we could expect at least one person that could speak to us in English. At the very least, they usually let us use their phone to call and ask for help.
Like any major city, Seoul was broken up into parts that consisted of historical older parts, business sections, and newer urban sprawl. We found ourselves staying in what we would consider and older part of Seoul (meaning it was far dirtier and more run down than the places we were visiting schools). Luckily, the schools where we visited were a part of the newer urban sprawl and looked much nicer and cleaner than other parts of the city. I was very glad to see this instead of the other school closer to our hostel that had seevral strings of barbed wire along the tops of the walls and in a very seedy neighborhood.
Overall, it was a very eye-opening experience and I feel blessed to have that experience I can look back upon. I guess the lesson learned for me off the bat was being prepared. I spent the time and energy for years in advance of going to Japan to learn the language and culture and it was a very exciting and plesant experience. I can only wonder if the same could have been said about South Korea given equal preparation beforehand.