Observations...

Here are just some observations and things I've learned while being here:

• Koreans tend to smack when they eat their food and slurp loudly when they eat hot soups.  The slurping is a technique of breathing in and blowing out with your teeth to cool off the liquid/food.  I tried but could not get the technique down.  I'm not sure if the smacking is a sign of good food, if Koreans aren't concerned with the noise, or if it's because of another reason.
• Some Koreans (especially women) will go to great lengths to keep their face shaded and not get tan.  Being dark complected used to be a sign of working in the fields and not having a white color job.  It is still frowned on now.  I'm kind of hosed in that respect.
• Noel said she was very surprised with how westernized Seoul has gotten. Koreans have gotten bigger and the style has become very U.S. like.  
• The Korean language is beautiful to listen to (in my opinion).  It flows very fluid like with round sounds vs. harsh tones.  Reminiscent of the french language.
• Women are getting surgeries to give them larger looking eyes and to add a deeper eyelid fold.  They wear their makeup to enhance the look of their eyes to look larger like American eyes.  The woman at the salon today even had contacts with larger irises to make her eyeballs look larger.  It's almost to the point of looking like anime.  This bums me out.  Asian eyes are what gives them character and distinctly different from other races.  It is what many times gives us the "exotic" look that people say we have.  Maybe it's easy for me to say this because I was born with bigger eyes with eyelid folds, but it still bums me out.
• Koreans tend to be night owls.  
• Koreans like to throw up the 2 fingers in picture poses.  In America this means peace.  In Korea it means victory.