IMID Notes

For years, Jeju Island was one of the places in Korea I really wanted to visit. During my graduate school years, however, I never had the opportunity to go. Jeju remained one of those places I kept thinking I would visit someday. Our first summer trip to Jeju finally gave me the chance to experience an island I had wanted to see for years. That opportunity finally came after I started working in Seoul. I traveled to Jeju for work, and this time our families came along as well. It gave us a chance to combine the trip with some family time and finally experience the island I had wanted to visit for so long. We stayed for five days. It was my first time in Jeju, and it was also the children's first visit. After wanting to see the island for so long, finally arriving there felt special. I remember thinking, I finally made it to Jeju. Finally experiencing Jeju after wanting to visit the island for years. Jeju Felt Different One of th...

When my 10-year-old son asked me if we could go to Seodaemun Prison History Hall (서대문형무소역사관) in Seoul, the idea came from something he had learned at school. He already knew about Seodaemun Prison from his lessons and became curious about the actual place. He wanted to see for himself what he had studied, so we decided to go together. That made this visit feel different from the beginning. Instead of choosing a museum for him, I was following his curiosity. For him, it was a chance to connect something from a school lesson with a real historical place. For me, it became another opportunity to understand more about the history of the country where my children are growing up. Our visit began with something my 10-year-old son had learned at school and wanted to see for himself. A Place Connected to Korea's Modern History The history of this place goes back more than a century. The prison opened in 1908 as Gyeongseong Prison (경성감옥) and was renamed Seod...

N Seoul Tower rising above Namsan during our family visit in April 2024. Namsan Seoul Tower is one of those Seoul landmarks that I knew long before I ever stood beside it. Before coming to Korea, when I first started studying Korean in Uzbekistan, there were photographs of Korea on the walls where I studied. Namsan Seoul Tower was one of the landmarks I remember seeing there. At that time, it was simply one of those images that represented Korea to me. I think Namsan Tower is one of those places that many international visitors want to see when they come to Korea. Even before you know Seoul well, the tower can already feel familiar from photographs and images of the city. Years later, after Korea had become part of my everyday life, Namsan was no longer just a landmark in a photograph. It became somewhere our family visited more than once. Our family's first Namsan Tower visit was in September 2022, when my husband and children went without me. Two ...

Yesterday, while watching the news about the Central Asian presidents visiting Korea, I saw a very familiar place on the screen: Cheong Wa Dae (청와대) , Korea's famous Blue House. Seeing official meetings taking place there immediately reminded me of our own visit a few years ago. I went back to the photographs we had taken that day and realized that our visit now feels a little different from how it felt at the time. For decades, Cheong Wa Dae was closely associated with the Korean presidency. Most people knew its distinctive blue-tiled roofs from television news, official photographs and important national events. In 2022, after President Yoon Suk Yeol moved the presidential office away from the compound, Cheong Wa Dae was opened to the public. During that period, our family had the opportunity to visit. The Main Building of Cheong Wa Dae, with Bugaksan rising behind its distinctive blue-tiled roofs. At the time, I saw it mainly as a rare opportunity to enter ...