Wasting Away in Jeonju

After leaving Muju today, we headed back into Jeonju for a tour of the Jeonju Multimedia Promotion Agency.  Jeonju is working on becoming a Korean film mecca, and the local government has financially backed an agency devoted to cultivating film producers, sound technicians and editors.  The Jeonju International Film Festival starts just as we’re leaving at the end of this month.  We’re a little disappointed we’ll miss it!

We met up with a few rotary clubs for a nice lunch at a Chinese restaurant and then packed back into the yellow bus for a tour of the province’s waste incinerator center.  Some of you know about my heartfelt love for trash and what happens to it, so it’s definitely on my list for one of the best tours so far.

When I worked for Keep Tennessee Beautiful, I used to love touring landfills and incinerators.  This is the first plant I’ve been to though that converts waste into energy.  I was surprised to learn that Korea is the world’s tenth largest energy consumer (Geographically, South Korea is roughly the size of Indiana). Because of limited space, Korea is quickly running out of room to store its trash, and composting waste is phasing out because there is no where to put the sludge that is produced through compost.  Historically this sludge has been released into the ocean, which not only is toxic for fish and plant life, but produces huge amounts of methane when it mixes with seawater.  Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, has committed to a ban of waste water disposal into the ocean by 2013.

On top of all this, Korea imports 97% of its energy.  It’s become not only an environmental issue to invest in converting waste to energy, but a crucial economic one as well.

The type of plant we visited today is called RDF (refuse-derived fuel), which takes combustible solid waste to produce energy.  Thirty-five of these plants exist in Korea, and more are under development.  The Jeonju facility takes trash from 3 neighboring cities (which it has a tough time keeping up with that volume alone) and in addition, has a 10 year backlog of trash that has been compacted into white storage cells all waiting to be burned.

I took a really great video today (it involves giant cranes that look like transformers, breaking apart all the trash bags and shredding them to make them more incinerator friendly) but unfortunately I can’t get it uploaded due to size.  Here are a few photos of the plant.  Click here for a bit more info on RDF in Korea.

Oh, and if you’re interested in seeing how Tennessee composts our trash (in progressive East TN, that is...we landfill it in West TN), I found an old blog entry from when I visited the Sevier County plant a few years back.

A view of trash going in...

The incinerator control room where they monitor heat levels and if everything is burning as it should.

This is the guy that operates the shredding crane...so cool!

Group Study Exchange presentation

In case you're interested in seeing our team presentation, you can download our presentation. We'll hopefully present at the district conference later this week.

Catching up

I've pretty much lost hope in trying to keep up with this blog in a timely manner!  Our days have been long and time and availability of Internet access has been short.  Our days typically start around 7 a.m., breakfast at 8:00, meet with the group at 9:00 and first tour at 10:00.  Lunch starts at 11:30, another two tours in the afternoon and dinner at 6:00.  We meet up with our homestay families and we're off for a second dinner at 9:00!  By the time I get home, I'm usually so full and tired and probably have a bit of soju (Korean rice wine) or moccoli (another fermented rice drink) in my system that I'm ready to crash!

But, we're having a blast.  This weekend is being spent in a ski resort located in the city of Muju.  It is beautiful!  It's modeled after an Austrian resort.  Here's a view from our balcony.  The girls have a condo together (Ruth, Sophiya our translator and me), and the boys are a few doors down.  It has been so relaxing, which is just what we needed.  No tours!  We even ordered Dominos pizza last night.  Not quite the same as in the States, but it was sure nice to have pizza for a change.

Here is Ruth relaxing in the condo, reading her book.

We have a few hours in a coffee shop this afternoon, and are meeting up with the Muju rotary club for dinner tonight.  I have no idea how many rotary clubs there are in Jeollabuk-do (the province we're in) but there are a ton!  It seems like everyone we're introduced to is a president, past president, president elect, secretary, etc.  After two weeks, it's getting a little difficult to keep everyone straight...especially when people talk about Mr. Lee, Mr. Park or Mr. Kim.  We've met about 30 of each...they're very common last names!

It takes the computer connection awhile to upload photos on blogger from here, so maybe the best way to update everyone is through a Picasa album.  I'll go through and start writing captions for the photos and hopefully they'll stay somewhat in order.  Let's see if this works:



If you want to see the images larger or click through at your own pace, just click on one of the photos and it will take you to the Picasa site.

I'll leave off with a little video from our new bus (the pink bus started falling apart this week).  We miss our pink bus and our driver, Mr. Lee.  He was really awesome.  Poor Ruth doesn't have anyone to help her pick out clams from their shells anymore (Mr. Lee would always help her with his mad chopstick skills)...  So now, Mr. Song is our driver in a yellow bus.  It's a bit over the top.... (click on the small photo to load the video)

From korea

I'm a terrible blogger

I have no idea how to even summarize the past few days.  I feel a bit like I've been in silo with no internet!  I'm so jealous of the people on this trip with iPhones. They're able to catch connections here and there and  can update people a few times a day.  John's keeping a blog for his class at Hutchison...I highly recommend checking it out if you want to know where we are during the day: http://theadventuresofpetebigbear.blogspot.com/

So...people are really into Rotary here.  I mean, REALLY.  Suits are worn at all times (I think they thought it was odd when we asked to change into jeans the other day when walking in the mountains). There are matching Rotary ties, matching lapel pins, matching belt buckles. One of our coordinators apparently has Rotary silverware and glasses at home. Here's how we were greeted when we got off the bus in Jeonju (after traveling 27 hours at this point).

I am blown away by the hospitality.  We're not able to pay for anything, and the meals are extremely elaborate. I will say this about Korean food - they are not afraid of dirty dishes.  This is just one of our typical meals.

I've also learned that it's very important to finish your rice.  The problem is that we never know when the meal is finished...the courses keep coming and coming and coming. Just when we're completely stuffed, they'll bring out a huge bowl of noodles or rice or porridge.  It's pretty daunting. I'll have to upload the picture from our lunch the other day and we can discuss exactly what we're consuming then.

Our second night in town, we were welcomed with a banquet dinner.  There were ceremonious speeches, gifts, national anthems (we all kind of groaned when they stuck in the Star Spangled Banner/Leeanne Rhymes version).  Luckily they couldn't get it to work (it probably would have droned on for 6 uncomfortable minutes) and we were able to sub in a quick Navy band version that we grabbed off iTunes.

We've toured so many places already and are just getting started.  Jeonju has a rich history dating back to the early Joseon Dynasty (1382-1897).  The local shrine in town houses the portraits of each king.

I'll have to post more later...Ruth and I are sharing a new home stay family (and the same bed...which, just happens to be made out of stone.  Really.  Stone.)  It's lights out here.  So to close, did I mention we have our own bus?  The new one is hot pink, but here's the last one:

We've arrived!

After almost 23 hours of waiting in airports and flying, we've made it!  It's 5 a.m. here on Easter Sunday (3 p.m. Saturday there), and we're waiting for our ride to come get us.  We'll take a bus down to Jeonju (about 3 hours) and I have no idea what will happen after that....  I think we have today off to get settled with our first host family. Tomorrow we're scheduled to visit Jenondong Cathedral, Deokjin Welfare Center and we finish with a welcome party.

The airport has free WiFi which is great!  I'm sipping on a Dunkin Donuts latte and finished off a chocolate donut (no need to rush into the kimchi and bulgolgi just yet...it's a little early in the morning for that).

This is Ruth & John on the flight from Chicago (thankfully our Asiana flight was a little roomier).  More to come!

About the Team

Annyeonghaseyo (hello...or rather, "are you at peace?")

Korean lesson #1: "Annyeong" means peace, and the second half, "hasaeyo", generally means "to do".  Together, it's used as a greeting - morning, noon and night.

Now, if you can just help me remember that and not mix it up with some of the other 5+ syllable words floating around in my head, I'd sincerely appreciate the help. In a language where "k" sometimes sounds like "g", and "b" sometimes like "p", well, I'd say it's Greek to me, but I think Greek may be a bit easier.

On April 2, I'll be heading off to South Korea for a month as part of Rotary International's Group Study Exchange program.  I am so incredibly thankful for this opportunity.  Thankful for Rotary for providing such a wonderful program, and thankful for my colleagues at Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare, for allowing me to take the time to do this and supporting and encouraging me along the way.

The Group Study Exchange program is a unique cultural experience for young professionals, aged 25 - 40.  There are five of us from Memphis going this year, which includes four team members and one team leader.  Rotary District 6800 (the Mid-South district which encompasses Shelby County, TN and part of northern MS) has generously provided travel grants for all of us to visit a fellow Rotary district, located in the province of Jeollabuk Do, South Korea.  While we're there, we'll have the opportunity to tour several Korean companies, exchange ideas, present about our own professions and organizations, and generally, experience Korea's culture.

I'll post more in-depth information along the way, but anyone interested in learning more about the program and how to apply can visit the Rotary site by clicking here.