Seomyeom and Taejongdae

July 30, Saturday – We departed together with Ryan’s labmates, Joon Dal and Sung Kyun oppa at around 6pm to Seomyeom. We were having “syabu-syabu” for dinner. It was originally a Japanese dish and a bit like tomyam steamboat. The soap did not taste exactly like tomyam, but it is a bit spicy. There were some vegetables and mushrooms inside the soup. The dish is served with thinly sliced beef. Joon Dal oppa ordered extra noodles, 2 bottles of Sprite like soft drinks and 2 bottles of soju. Joon Dal oppa treated us for this meal. It costed 50,000 won! Thank you Joon Dal oppa! ^^

After dinner, we walked to Megabox, a cinema in a nearby shopping complex. There were quite a lot of people there. The place reminded me of Sungai Wang Plaza in Kuala Lumpur. However, the surveillance cameras at the entrance were surprisingly a lot. This cinema was really nice, compared to the lousy ones in Nampo Dong. Too bad, the tickets were almost sold out, only left the midnight slots. Then, we walked to another shopping complex.

It was quite far away from the crowded area that we visited before and there were hardly anyone people around the complex. Yet, the cinema was quite pack. The fast food restaurants and café at the same floor as the cinema were having good business. We even need to take numbers just to buy the tickets. Since no one has the discount cards, we need to pay 6,500 won each for the ticket.

While waiting for the movie at 9.45pm, we had some fruit juice at a small store. The aunty there even gave me a small glass of juice as “service” since I was the only one not ordering any drinks. Sung Kyun oppa treated us this time. Thanks! ^^

Then, we went to the game arcade. It was not as noisy and pack as those in Malaysia. There were not many people there. Well, the games were basically almost the same. We can actually change coins at a machine rather than at the counter. Each game cost around 500 won. We played basketball, recognized the difference etc.

The movie that we watched is called “The Island”. The title was really lame. I thought that the movie has something to do with Mother Nature, or perhaps something like Robinson Crusoe. But, it was totally different. The theme of the movie was about human cloning. The storyline was interesting and there was a twist in it, the actions for the movie was exciting though sometimes it was a bit too violent. Hehehe… do not want to give spoilers here. The movie is recommended ;)

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July 31, Sunday – Ryan, Yushu and I went to Taejongdae together. Since there was no direct bus to there, we need to change bus. First, we took the subway to Jagalci station and had lunch at a restaurant in Nampo Dong. I ordered “su tu bu” and it cost 2,500 won. The main ingredient for this dish was “to fu”. The price was okay as they gave me an extra egg with some seaweed as well. Yushu ordered a chicken “dong ka su”. It was a rather small plate for a big eater like him.

After lunch, we walked to almost all the bus stops around Nampo Dong and Jagalchi market for the bus to Taejongdae. In Korea, buses only stop at the designated bus stops. It was quite tiring as it was hot today. Everyone was sweating a lot.

We reached Taejongdae at around 2+pm. The admission fee was 300 won each. It was rather cheap. The area was quite huge. The route was a big circle, but there was nothing much to see as the seaview was mostly covered up by the trees. However, the view at Yeongdo light house was really nice. The far end of the sea was a bit misty, as if it was borderless. There were some small islands nearby. The beach was rocky and the landscape there was really nice. It looked like the rocky mountains in Australia. The wind there was nice as well, though it was not very cold. Some of the views were really amazing, even the pictures were unable to describe 100% of its true beauty. There was a small performance there. It was unique, though the dancers were not in their full costumes and most of them were over 40 years old.

We spent about 3.5 hours there and departed to Seomyeom at 6pm. We had our dinner at Burger King. I took the cheapest set, Mexican set, for 3,500 won. The burger was rather small and there was no refill for the drinks(there is refill in Malaysia). However, the taste was nice. Maybe it was because we were very hungry. Walking around under the sun for such a long time was no joke!

The buses that we took today were:
Nampo Dong to Taejongdae - Bus no. 13
Taejongdae to Seomyeom – Bus no. 88
Seomyeom to Dongseo University – Bus no. 67

Pictures in Korea - Batch 14

Here are some of the photos taken in Seomyeom and Taejongdae:
http://photobucket.com/albums/b378/dellachew04/Korea14/

Enjoy!

2 days 1 night trip at Gyeongju

July 23 and 24, Saturday and Sunday – Today, we departed to Gyeongju, a state which is located at the North of Busan. We departed at around 9am from the subway station to Busan Bus Terminal, which is located at Nopo Dong. It was actually Ryan’s lab’s training camp. We just joined them. Training camp doesn’t mean that they will be undergoing physical training or training related to computers, it was just an outing with all the lab members. We arrived at around 10am and waited for Ryan’s other labmates there.

At around 10.35am, all of them had arrived. There were a total of 12 people – 9 guys and 3 girls. We bought the tickets for the 10.50am bus to Gyeongju and it cost 4,000 won each. We had a small photo session before departing. I only happened to know 3 of Ryan’s labmates - Jong In, Dong Kyun and Joon Dal. The bus was a slightly different from the express bus that we normally took in Malaysia. There were belts for each seat. The way there took around 1.5 hour. Along the way, there was much breath-taking green scenery. I like the many layers of green paddy fields, white color birds in the paddy fields and ponds.

Gyeongju was the capital of the Shilla Kingdom for over 1,000 years. Thousands of historic buildings and objects have been maintained well throughout the city. As we arrived, we were able to see buildings with the traditional roofs. Gyeongju was the third biggest city in Korea. However, it was more to countryside, with more green scenery and very few concrete buildings. I had always thought of Korea being a country with only concrete buildings and advance technology. Well, I guess there is still nature here.

As we arrived at the bus station, a lady from the pension that we were going to stay fetched us there while some of Ryan’s labmates went off to buy food and drinks first. What is a pension? Pension is a regular payment to a person that is intended to allow them to subsist without working after they retired. However, pension here is something like a resort. Our pension was located inside a small village, just beside the paddy field, it was really wonderful. The pension was not a wooden house, but a concrete one. There were many pensions around the area as well. According to Jong In oppa, pension was the cheapest accommodation. The most expensive one is hotel, followed by motel and then mimbak. We were staying the area called HungHwa Condominium. The place that we were staying was a huge room with everything inside. It was quite decent, with a cupboard of mattresses and pillows, fridge, mini kitchen with stove and basin, a big mirror, television, air-conditioned and a toilet just beside it. It was rather different from what I imagined.

At around 1pm, the rest of them arrived with 2 boxes of food, beer, soju and soft drinks. The amount of drinks was actually more than food. The guys began cooking and arranging tables. Everyone was very cooperative. We had ramen, rice, kimchi and some seasoning food. It was very funny looking at how they ate with only ramen and rice. Some of them even mixed them together. I had tried that out as well, having rice after I finished the ramen and with some soup left. It tasted quite okay.

After lunch, we visited Gyeongju National Museum. The place was quite near to the bus terminal. The admission fee was 200 won. Dong Kyun sponsored us for this. The museum was very huge and nice. Too bad we were not allowed to take photos inside. Yet, I had secretly taken some and was spotted and being warned by the officer there. There were many clay figurines and potteries, with patterns in the shape of animals and humans. The ancient Silla also believed in Zodiacs and tombs of kings, queens and generals had those kinds of drawings on it. The design was rather different for each. The earrings and necklace were made of gold and it was very big. It must very uncomfortable when wearing them. Some of them were made of jade and the designs looked a lot like beans. There were many displays of Buddha statues as well as the kingdom of Silla was much affected by China. According to them, Silla conquered and united Korea with the help of China. Their main religion was Buddhism. We were able to notice many similarities they had for the design of their roof and some goods with China’s.

Our next destination was Anapji Pond. On our way there, we passed by a small place full of Lavenda. It was purple in color and really beautiful.

After that, we visited Anapji Pond. It was designed in such a way that the buildings were higher so that it was liked islands floating on the pond. It was very much like the palace in ancient China, where the noble sat beside the pond and reading poems. Only a small portion of the original place remained as most of them were burned down during the war. The admission fee for this place was rather expensive, 1,000 won. Ryan’s labmates sponsored us again for this. We spent of the time playing games inside rather than admiring the view. This game brought back a lot of my old memories during primary school. I am sure that most of us know about it. There are 3 keepers and will be chasing the rest of them. Before they are being caught, they must say “freeze” and stand still. If they are being caught, then they are out of the game. Those who are not freeze and are not keepers can run around unfreeze the others. One of them even bought us a small gift before leaving. We went back by bus number 10.

Everyone was taking turns to bath as there was only one bathroom/toilet. We had Samgeoksa(grilled pork) for dinner and the guys were doing a good job preparing the meal. Maybe this is the result of army training. It was funny looking at how Jong In and Dong Kyun oppa was eating while they were cooking. They must be very hungry. The dinner was very full as there were tones of supply for pork. There was an ice-breaking session as well. Most of Ryan’s labmates are actually engineering students.

After the meal, we played some games and those who lose need to drink soju. Jong In oppa was drunk very fast as he drank a lot before that. He even called himself a soju maniac. Sung Dong is very active, always in action. Dong Kyun is very shy, his face becomes red easily. He always gets the camera ready for photos. Joon Dal oppa was cold as usual. Jae Won oppa is always serious but actually a nice fellow. For the first time, I drank soju as I normally told them that I do not take alcohol drinks. After drinking 2 small glass of soju, my face became really red, but I was not drunk. They begun to worry about me and let me leave the game.

The game ended at around 2-3am. We did some major clean up after that. Song Jung oppa was really drunk and begun talking a lot in English. It was very funny as he was very quiet person. Some of them were washing the dishes while some were chatting outside. Jae Won oppa was the first one to sleep even though he hardly drank any soju. The next one was Dong Kyun oppa. BJun and I slept soon after that.

We woke up very early in the morning, around 8am. We were watching some television programs together. It was a word guessing show. Giving a word, the Koreans must give the foreigner a hint on the word using English and she guesses them. It was funny looking at how the Koreans described them in English. Some of them even made sounds and did some actions. Then, they watched a show on people playing a game, which I think it was Star Craft.

At around 10.30am, we had breakfast/lunch. We had ramen, rice and kimchi again. Then, we departed to Bulguksa, our last destination by bus number 10. Originally built in 528, Bulguk-sa provides an excellent example of architecture from the Shilla Dynasty. Literally meaning "Buddha Land," it remained intact for more than 1,000 years before the Japanese destroyed it in 1593. Only a few of the buildings were rebuilt until the 1970s when it was completely reconstructed. It is designated Historic and Scenic Place #1. UNESCO recognized it as an international cultural property in 1995(from Life in Korea). The architecture of the buildings here were indeed splendid, especially the interior design.

At around 3pm, we departed back to Busan.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 13

This weekend, we went to Gyeongju, which is a state just beside Busan, with Ryan's labmates. Here are some of the photos taken:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a9/dellachew03/Korea13/

Enjoy!

Lab seminar

From this week onwards, our lab will be having a seminar on every Monday from 3 to 5pm. Today was the first one. Daniel oppa and I were presenting for this session. We were allocated with 1 hour each. It was really long for me. Normally we had presentations for at most 30 minutes back in Malaysia.

Shortly before the seminar started, many of my labmates entered the lab one by one. My oppas were busy preparing the projector and projector screen. It was really funny indeed when I saw them playing with it.

Initially, I was supposed to present first. As I was a little bit scare(never present before in Korea), I requested Daniel oppa to present first. His topic was Labview. As his presentation was done in Korean, practically I did not understand what he was saying at all. Everyone was paying serious attention to the presentation, sitting straight and with both eyes looking straight at the screen. Some even took out a notepad to write down some information. Luckily, there were demonstrations on the software, else I am going to fall asleep for real(I was already half asleep at that time). His presentation lasted for about 45 minutes. Wow… he really can present for long…I was quite shock when Daniel oppa informed me about the time allocation.

There was a 5 minutes break in between before my presentation. My presentation topic was my project, Dragon stream cipher. Well, my presentation lasted only for about 20 minutes, a very short presentation for the Koreans indeed. I wonder if they really understand my presentation as they did not show any reaction indicating they understand or not. They just looked at me as if I got something for them to stare at, not something interesting of course. My professor did not show any reaction as well and I wondered if he was unhappy with my presentation. He was like having a shock when I told him that it was my last slide after 20 minutes. Then, he explained some parts again with reference to both his slides and mine in Korean. The explanation lasted more than 20 minutes. I wondered if I was the one presenting or him. After the session ended, he told me that I did a good work. Daniel oppa commented that it was okay. I really wondered if it was really that good.

At around 7pm, we had some delivery food at the lab. Star visited the lab as well. She was wearing spectacles today. We had Janjang meon again. They sure like it a lot I guess. Jang Chun oppa treated me for this meal ^^ Kamsahamnida(thank you).

Pictures in Korea - Batch 11

Here are the photos taken in Haeundae, not many though:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a9/dellachew03/Korea11/

Enjoy!

Pictures in Korea - Batch 12

Here are some of the photos taken during the outing with my labmates and Korean Traditional Paper Art:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a9/dellachew03/Korea12/

Enjoy!

p/s: will upload the photos taken in Haeundae soon.

Korean Traditional Paper Art

July 17, Sunday – BJun, Eileen, Ryan and I went to a temple in Nopo-Dong for their 86th monthly event, Korean Traditional Paper Art. We took a subway from Naengjeong to Nopo-Dong. Nopo-Dong is the last subway station of line 1. We changed line at Seomyeom. It took us around 1 hour to reach there.

Beside the Nopo-Dong subway station is Busan Bus Terminal. As we have some free time left before the shuttle bus at 1pm, we had lunch at Lotteria. The air-conditional was not on at that time and it was hot inside. The service was not good as well. It was a big mistake for me to order “hot squid burger” as it was really spicy. It was a really painful experience >__< The others had “rib sand” lunch set.

As we a new to the place, we were clueless on the location to wait for the shuttle bus. We accidentally took a shuttle for another event to a stadium near by. As we were aboard on the bus, we were curious why almost the whole bus was filled by senior citizens. We arrived at the stadium, realized that we were actually taking the wrong bus. We saw a few police cars as we were attempting to walk back to the bus station. We waived at them, hoping that they would stop and showed us the directions to the bus terminal, but they did not seem to bother and drove pass us. This was the first time that we were lost without anything as guidance. None of us remember the temple name and the old folks nearby do not understand English. Luckily, we managed to catch a taxi at a traffic junction and got ourselves back to the bus terminal.

Shortly after we reached the terminal, we met a China guy who was looking around for the shuttle bus as well. He had been to the temple before and knew where to wait for the bus. Well, it was a shuttle van rather than a shuttle bus. We met a few other foreigners there, such as Gregory and his mother. He was a lecturer in a university and has been in Korea for 3.5 years. He will be going back to America soon.

Nopo-Dong’s main activity is farming. We were able to see many vegetable fields along the way. The temple is surrounded by green scenery, with many trees, flowers and vegetables. It is a very nice place indeed. The event was held outdoor. There were tables and mat beneath the trees. The arrangements reminded me of the sittings for kindergarten students as they are having art classes. This paper art activity was different from what we imagined. Some expected it to be like an exhibition whereas I expected to be like folding animals and stuff with papers. But, we all got it wrong.

At first, we registered ourselves and were seated. We were given a set of stationeries and a fan without any design. We thought that we were about to do some paintings on the fan as a brush was provided each. But, we were actually going to tear off the Korean traditional paper given to us into pieces with shapes and then glue it on the fan to form a picture or art. These papers are different from normal color papers. Different parts of the paper are of different color, such as a dark green color paper will have some part with slightly darker or lighter green color. Before the activity started, Gregory told us that we were to follow the instructions given by the teacher closely. He even told us that he got scolded by the teacher by adding extra pedals to the flowers. The flower was supposed to have 8 petals and he made it with 9 petals instead. The paper is very thin, with different color tone and as we tore it off, there were something different to it. The sides being torn out become a bit fury. It was a fantastic feature of the paper that made great master piece. The arts are simple but it looks like as if it is alive. This event was sponsored by the Buddhist association

After the activity, we were provided with some desserts(watermelon cubes with soda and some Korean “kuih”) before having the group photo session. Then, we had a walk around the area. It is really nice as the whole place is covered by carpet grass, trees and flowers. The place is well maintained. We took some photos there before departed back to the bus terminal. Then, we took the subway back.

p/s: will upload the photos later.

1st outing with my labmates ^^

July 14, Saturday – Today I went out with Eileen, Ryan and my labmates – Jae Hoon, Jang Chun, Dong Hun and Jae Hoon’s girlfriend, Star. Star looked a bit different from the pictures that Jae Hoon oppa showed me before in his homepage. However, she still looks cute in a way, very much reminded me of Li Rong, Thai Sin’s younger sister. We met Jae Hoon, Star and Dong Hun in front of Baskin Robbins ice-cream shop. Ji Hyun onni who was supposed to go with us was unable to make it. We took bus 61 to Nampo Dong. My labmates wanted to watch “Magdagascar”. As we had watched it before, we decided to shop around the area instead. They offered to pay for our tickets, but it is not nice for us to let them do so. They bought the tickets for the movie in another cinema, which is located near to the cinema that we went to previously. This cinema is nicer, from the outside. The cinema is called CGV, reminded me of Tanjung Golden Village(TGV).

Our first target was tower, as I only brought one from Malaysia and it was difficult for me to change. Eileen led the way as she had been there for a whole day shopping before and knows the place better. However, we were still a bit lost. Ryan and Eileen tested out some hawker food along the way. After some time, we come across several shops selling towels. There are not many designs. They are normally in plain color with little patterns. I bought a blue towel, average size at 4,000 won. It is the cheapest I can get. The smaller ones ranged from 1,500 won to 3,000 won. Next, we visited some shops selling souvenirs. Stuff such as the box for keeping accessories is very nice. They are made of wood and sea shells. The inside of the box is shinning. The design is indeed very unique and beautiful. However, it is very expensive as well. The smallest one cost 50,000 won(around RM200). Eileen managed to get herself a green watch at the underground shopping complex at 6,000 won. The design is cute.

At 5pm, we met up with my labmates again in front of the cinema. Then, we went to a restaurant for dinner. It was a very grand one, with mini fountains and automatic doors. I was astonished by its interior design, it is really traditional-like. I like it very much. The next thing that comes into my mind was…”this meal is going to be an expensive one”. The waitress leaded us to a small room at the second floor. They were dressed in traditional Korea clothes. The utensils for the food were very different from the ones that I went before, such as the chopsticks and spoon was served differently. They were also heavier than the normal ones that we used. The meal was really nice, maybe also because I like seafood. We had many side dishes, a big serving of bean sprout with seafood and soup. I was really enjoying myself. Jae Hoon oppa was trying to be funny as usual. Jang Chun oppa did not seem to eat much. After dinner, we had dessert. It was called “Crystal Fruit Juice”, a direct translation from the Korean name. It tasted a bit weird but delicious. My guess was correct. My oppas were really going to treat Eileen, Ryan and I for the meal. Then, we headed back to Naengjeong by subway.

As we reached Naengjeong, Jae Hoon oppa treated us ice-creams. It was tasty. When I reached the lab, they treated me a can of aloe juice. Jae Hoon oppa sure has a good memory on things like this, such as people’s favorite food.

p/s: will upload the pictures soon.

Training: Week #7

Another week of my training is going to be over again. I only have 2.5 months left before going back to Malaysia. It is not raining so often nowadays, normally during midnight. The weather is not very hot as it is cloudy. Eileen and Wei Shi have temporary shifted to an office in the Millennium building. There are some renovations going on in the Design Hall.

Daniel missed out Tae Hoon oppa’s farewell party as he did not know about it. (p/s: oppa is a term used by female juniors referring to their senior males) He had shifted his PC over to Tae Hoon oppa’s seat now. It is a mess now as he has yet to clean up the place. Jae Hoon oppa is very funny as usual, saying good morning to me whenever he wakes up(normally he sleeps in the lab). Jang Chung and Kyung Kon oppa come to the lab once in a while. My professor is in the lab quite often these few days.

It is a culture here in Korea for them to treat foreigners nicely, especially female juniors. Normally, uppas like to treat their juniors for juice after they have lunch together. Daniel oppa treated BJun and I once this week after our lunch in sky lounge in the Millennium building. Jae Hoon oppa treated me some chocolate and rice cake that he brought from home. I do not really like it as there are beans inside.

I had done the major part of my project and is a bit relax now ^^

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Here are something funny to share:

#1
Tuesday afternoon, Daniel oppa treated BJun, Yushu and I to lunch at the sky lounge. Yushu was very tired as he had been working in the lab yesterday night. The topic of the day was prediction terrorist attacking Korea because of the coming APEC event. He warned us not to take public transport such as the subway and visited places like complex. His expression was really funny. Well, I do not think that terrorist is going to attack a private university like DSU or shopping complex like Lotte. Perhaps, places like Gwangali Bridge. So, we are rather safe from the attack, if it really happen. .

#2
As Daniel oppa was going to make some coffee, he asked me if I want. He asked me why I did not take the green tea. I told him that I prefer the pure green tea instead of the unpolished rice and green tea combo in the lab. Then, he told me that, “The professor has pure green tea, but he keep… don’t want to share”. His facial expression was very funny at that time ^^

#3
One afternoon, as usual, I took out a packet of the mixed instant coffee, tore it open and poured the powder into the paper cup. As I was about to pour some hot into the cup from the thermostat, suddenly all 3 of my labmates who are in the lab rushed to me and stopped. I got a shock. They kept on saying, “Cannot, cannot!” I begun to wonder if I am drinking too much of the coffee and they do not want me to have it. Well, there are 2 types of coffee in my lab; coffee mixed and ice coffee mixed. There are only 30 packets of the ice coffee mixed and it is more expensive than the normal coffee mixed. I started taking it early this week and am addicted to it. In less than a week, I finished almost 15 packets of them.

Then, they opened the thermostat and pointed inside. I thought they want to tell me that there was no more water inside. But, there was water. Maybe the water was not hot, but the status there was “keep boiled”. They kept on insisting me not to drink the water and I became very curious. Jae Hoon oppa even offered me to have his chocolate. I was very confused. Then, they showed me a bottle of vinegar. They told me that they poured some inside of the thermostat. I wondered why they did so. They seemed to have difficulty finding the right word to tell me. Then, Daniel oppa said, “Kill bugs! Kill bugs!” Their expressions were very funny at that time ^^

Farewell, Tae Hoon oppa!

Today, as I woke up early in the morning, the rain was not very heavy but the wind was very strong. On my way to the lab, I was struggling as I moved forward. I got myself a bit wet. When I arrived there, Jae Hoon oppa was sleeping in the lab again. Dong Hun oppa arrived shortly after that. Around 12pm, more and more of my labmates begun to gather at the lab. My professor was there as well. I haven’t really seen him for quite a long time already since he is always at 2nd floor, busy with the NURI project. We will be having lunch together this afternoon as a farewell party for Tae Hoon oppa as he will be departing to Malaysia tomorrow. Tae Hoon’s wife, Young Sil onni and I took Tae Hoon’s oppa car while the others took the professor’s car.

The restaurant was somewhere near Gaygeum, but the opposite direction. It was a traditional Korean restaurant. There were around 10 of us. The side dishes here were really nice – tofu with sauce, marinated onions. The main dish was Samgye-tang(Ginseng Chicken Soup). The body cavity of a small chicken is stuffed with rice, young ginseng shoots, and jujubes. Then, it is boiled in a clear stock and served in an individual earthenware pot (quoted from “Life in Korea”). A small bowl of salt was given to us. The soup was rather plain when I first tasted it. Later, I found out that we actually need to add salt into it. We can adjust the taste by ourselves as we decide the amount of salt to be put in. Each of us was actually given one bowl of it, with the whole chicken. Luckily that it was a small chicken, though it was not really that small. I had taken some photos on the food and my labmates, too bad Young Sil onni refused to take any pictures. Throughout the whole meal, they were talking to each other in Korean. I had no idea what they were talking about. Tae Hoon oppa was not talking much to me today as his wife was around :P My professor was sitting beside me and doing most of the talking. It was not nice to bug in him when he was talking as well. I looked around hoping that someone would translate what they were talking to me in English. But, none seemed to do so. I asked Tae Hoon oppa what they were talking about after they finished and he told me that they were talking about the seminar, presentation by the lab members.
(p/s: “onni” here is a term referring to older female senior by younger female junior)

After lunch, all my labmates went back to the lab. For the first time in a while, the lab was happening again. The guys were busy playing games whereas Young Sil onni was reading some stuff. Jae Hoon oppa was playing some games and making funny duck sounds. Jang Chun oppa was listening to mp3 as usual.

My labmates went back quite early today and for the first time, my professor was in lab with me. As usual, he was very quiet. But, at least he was in the lab ^^

Haeundae

July 10, Sunday – Ryan, Yushu, Eileen, Jong In, Jong In’s senior(Suk) and I went to Grand Hotel, Haeundae for swimming. Haeundae is a very famous beach in Busan. It is a hotspot during summer and daily visitors can reach up to around millions of people. We met Jong In and Suk at the subway and took the subway to Dongbaek station. The hotel is not right beside the beach, but very near to it.

The fee for the swimming pool is 6,000 won each for adult. However, since Soak oppa work there before, we were able to get a discount of 1,500 won, meaning 4,500 won each. The swimming pool is located at the 6th floor of the hotel. At reception, we collected the keys to our lockers. All the lockers have numbers. The entrance is divided into 2 parts – men and women. Inside the women entrance, there are many sections – lockers, places to dry hair, shower room and toilet. At the place to dry hair, hair dryers are provided. We are not allowed to wear shoes inside here. There are many lockers and mirrors in there. There is a vending machine for drinks inside as well, but it is rather expensive. The ladies here are very open minded. Most of them walk around naked and changed clothes right in front of the locker. It seems to be something normal for them. It is a must to wear swimming suits and caps when swimming.

The swimming pool is not very big, only average. Suk oppa helped us to borrow some swimming caps and goggles as most of us do not have them. There is a children’s swimming there with slides. There is a separated small pool with warm water only for women as well. There are 2 workers standing there, guarding. However, it does not seem to be a bother to them. The pool was rather crowded as there were many people swimming there. We tied the keys of our lockers to our legs and begun swimming

Towers are provided. Thus, we do not need to use our own towers. However, we need to use our own shampoo. In the shower room, everyone bath together, naked. It is very unusual in Malaysia, but it is something very normal here. They do not look at each other when bathing, so it is nothing to be embarrassed about. However, I am still unable to get use to it and bath in my swimming suit.

There is an ATM machine at the lobby with visa interlink. I tested out my Maybank card right before we departed at 5.30pm and it was working perfectly fine.

Next, we have a walk at a park beside Haeundae beach. It was a rocky beach, there are many pine trees there and the air is refreshing. The view is nice; too bad we cannot go down to have a closer look as they were having a small renovation there. We attempted to go down but were stopped by 2 young police officers. There are renovations going on for the coming APEC meeting that is going to be held in November.

After that, we went to have a walk at the famous Haeundae beach. It is plain beach, nothing special to be noted. The beach is very long beach and the sand is kind of rough. It was drizzling that day, the wind and waves are quite strong, quite windy. Not many people were doing sports activities there. The Haeundae aquarium is located just beside the beach. The entrance fee is rather expensive, around 12,000 won, so we did not visit it. There were a few safety guards sitting along the beach. There are many hotels near the beach, but none are right beside the beach, like in Tanjung Tokong, Penang.

Then, we had lunch at a shop near the beach. We had mandu and noodle with “lala” for dinner. It is not spicy and the taste is quite nice, not very salty or plain. It costs 4,000 won each.

We went to the shopping complex near by after dinner. The cinema there is very big and grand, totally different from the one we went before in Nampo Dong. There is a place called Horrorwood, to see real horror shows. It is expensive, around 8,000 won each. After a scroll, we headed back to Naengjong by subway.

On our way back, we visited Bluemoon, a Chinese Fusion Soju Club. It is a shop for soju and hof. Soju is Korean wine. I do not know what is hof, but it seems to be something close to beer. It was not a bad place, there are no disco or singing or drunken people there. It is like a restaurant, but the atmosphere is a bit different due to the lighting and interior design.

Suk oppa ordered 2 bottles of 7-up and a medium sized bottle of Chinese alcohol. The percentage of alcohol is 50%. I only took a sip of it; it was rather too much for me, so I took 7-up and plain water instead. There were some other side dishes and a big plate of “char siu” (barbecued pork) and slice cucumber. There was a small plate of sauce for that dish as well. The dish is not warm, rather old, but its taste is very Malaysia-like. We played some Korean games. Suk oppa ordered 2 more bottles of 7-up and a small bottle of alcohol drink later on. This bottle of alcohol contained 60% of alcohol. Jong In and Suk oppa treated us for this and it cost 22,000 won.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 10

Here are the photos for the CCAP Orientation:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a9/dellachew03/Korea10/

Enjoy!

Extra photos

Here are some extra photos to share with everyone:
http://photobucket.com/albums/a9/dellachew03/Extras/

Enjoy!

Cross Cultural Awareness Program (CCAP)

Cross Cultural Awareness Program is a program to help foreigners understand the Korean culture and communicate with Korean people. It is a join program by UNESCO and Education Department of Korea. On July 4(Monday), we went to Hauendae Education Office to attend its orientation. There were 9 of us in total - Sin, Gupta and Pooja from North India; Wei Shi, Ryan, Yushu, BJun, Eileen and I from Malaysia. We took a subway to Jangsan station, the education office is located very near to the subway, but we were kind of lost because it was our first time there.

The orientation was held in a conference room equipped with computers. Handouts, souvenirs and CDs were given to us as reference on how to conduct a class. These classes are conducted to promote our country and culture to Korean students, mainly primary and high school students. For each visit, we will be given 30,000 won for the expenses on the materials used in the class and other expenditures. They will bank in the allowance into our account the following month after the class. We will decide on our own the topics that we are going to present and how we conduct it. They will provide a translator during the class, so it is not a problem to conduct the class in English. Normally, the translator is the school teacher. I am looking forward to it in the coming September ^^

After the orientation, we had dinner at a Japanese restaurant, which the owner is a Korean. We had Korean food instead there, but it was nice. It must have been expensive. We had Bibimbak(mixed rice) and some side dishes such as Tian Zhang Chige and fried fish. It was really enjoyable.

Myeongnyun Dong

p/s: with reference to batch 9 pictures

June 3, Sunday - It was drizzling almost the whole day. At around 3pm, Eileen, Ryan and I departed to Bokcheon Museum at Myeongnyun Dong. We took the subway there and then we took bus no. 1. The bus was smaller than the normal bus we take. The charges are a bit cheaper as well, about 690 won. It took us around 5 minutes to reach the museum.

As we reached there, it was very misty. There was a hill slope there, forming a natural fortress. It was very beautiful, covered with green grass and trees. The architecture of the museum and the scenery there reminded me of the olden western era, where kings and queens still exist.

There are 3 levels in the museum open to the public. The last floor is the cafeteria. There is nothing much on the first floor. On the second floor, there are displays of the ancient potteries and tombs. There are 2 main types of tombs – made of stone and wood. These categories are further divided according to their designs. The explanations are further enhanced by the displays of the models of a variety of tombs, video demonstrations, models, pictures and miniatures on its process of making the tombs. However, the explanations are all done in Korean, only the labels are in both Korean and English. The third level exhibits the normal ancient pottery and royal clothing and accessories.

Then, we had a walk at the compound of the museum. There is a bridge connecting the museum to a small green meadow. The place is really wonderful. But, soon after that, we realized that it is actually the locations of the ancient tombs. We took some photos of it. Luckily, Ryan brought along his new transparent umbrella. Else, we would not be able to get nice pictures of it as it was drizzling at that time. Then, we walked further into the meadow. There is a “green house” there. Well, it is not a green house to be exact, but a show room of the ancient tombs. The whole place is actually the locations of the previous tombs. However, the scenery here is wonderful. The place seems to be resting in peace as it was drizzling and misty. It is like a little green garden in the middle of the busy town.

As we were exploring outside of the museum, we came across a Guang Yin temple. However, there was no one there and the place seemed to be deserted. It gave us an eerie feeling. As the place become misty, the Guang Yin statue looked like as if it is very holy and god itself had descended to Earth.

We walked further up the hill and found ourselves at an abandon fortress. The architecture is very temple like and the walls kind of represent a smaller version of the Great Wall of China. There was hardly anyone around there. We explored the area ourselves and climbed up the hill following the staircase along the wall. The scenery from the top is very beautiful and mysterious. There are flags along the path as well. After some distance, we found ourselves coming to an end of the road. The place is badly maintained and there is a signboard explaining the place. It seemed that it was a fortress traditionally built to keep the town safe from invasions. We made our way back by following the hiking trails and found ourselves in the middle of a residential area on the slope. There are some small vegetable farms there as well.

As we got out of the area, we walked around finding for the bus station for bus no. 1. We ended up enjoying ourselves sightseeing at a street market nearby. There are a lot of things selling there and some of the items are very cheap. 3 Hoptop are selling at 1,000 won and a loaf of sandwich bread is selling at 1,000 won(normally more than 1,500 won each). In the middle of this town, we found ourselves lost. Thus, we took a bus directly to Seomyeom.

Seomyeom is the central of Busan. We leaved the bus as we reached the Lotte Deparment Store. Lotte is a giant corporation in Korea. They have huge department stores, apartments scattered all over the towns in Busan. They even produced food products like milk, mayonis and biscuits. We had a walk around the area, hunting for something cheap to eat for our dinner. We ended up having dinner at a small shop mainly selling “dim sum” like food. We had Bulgogi burger(beef burger) at 1,000 won each. The taste is not bad, almost the same as the one in McDonalds, but it is not very filling.

After dinner, we had a scroll around the area. The streets nearby are very happening, in fact, even better than Nampo Dong. Some of the things there, such as clothes, are quite cheap. One of the shops is selling 3 short pants at 1,900 won, around RM8. However, the quality is not very good and thus I did not buy it. We found a shop with a lot of machines for taking photo stickers and decided to have a try. We took the cheapest one, which is 2,000 won. Since it was the first time for all of us taking such photos, it was quite a mess and we ended up having all the photos looking the same. We can actually choose more than one photo. Never, I guess we will just have to try it again next time.

Nampo Dong!

p/s: with reference to the batch 8 pictures

June 2, Saturday – I went to Nampo Dong with Eileen, Ryan, Yushu and Jong Ing(Ryan’s labmate), Dong Gyung(Jong Ing’s club friend) and Das(Jong Ing’s club friend). We departed at around 1.45pm. We went there by bus no. 61.

Nampo Dong is the second biggest city in Busan. There is an area where many cinemas are located there. It was also known as the cinema street. We bought the tickets on “Batman Begins” at PIFF Square for 4,000 won(around RM16) each as we had discount cards. The normal price for a ticket is 6,500 won. There are many street vendors there, selling all sorts of things, from food to hand bags and fashion accessories. Some of the vendors are offering attractive prices in order to draw customers.

Since the show was scheduled at 4.20pm and there was some time left, Jong Ing brought us for a walk at Mount Yongdun Park(Dragon’s head Park). Mount Yongdun Park is located in Nampo Dong as well. We can see the port from the top. There were a big bell, a statue of a famous hero of Korea who defeated the Japan’s invasion long time ago and a memorial stone to remember the people who had been sacrificed during the revolution. We also visited Yongdun Gallery. They were having an exhibition on Korean Lacquer.

Around 4pm, we headed back to the cinema. The place to buy ticket is located separately from the movie screen and place selling pop corn. We need to take the escalator up several floors in order to reach there. The movie screens are not on the same floor as the entrance and the place selling pop corn as well. They were located at different levels. We need to take the staircase up.

When we reached the cinema, we noticed that the cinema was hot instead of cold. There are fans there as well. But, it was not switch on. The movie screen is smaller as well. Suddenly, I feel that we were somehow going to a degraded cinema for a higher price. Before the movie was screened, we enjoyed ourselves watching the advertisements on banana milk instead of trailers. The advertisements are some what amusing. It is very cute when at the end of the advertisement, a male and a female was holding the milk and singing some songs. The concept of advertisements here is really different and creative. I do not like the pop corn here. It's salty instead of sweet.

The movie was dubbed English and subbed in Korean on the right, like the way the old Chinese books are written in. The show was quite boring in the beginning, with a lot of discussions on philosophy. Some of the scenes reminded me of “Star Wars” and “The Last Samurai”. But, it was interesting and funny later on.

After the movie, we had a walk around the area. Jong Ing showed us around some places where we can buy things. It is really like Petaling Street but the street is much narrow. We tried a hawker food called Hoptop. It was a bit like “ham chin bian”. It was salty outside but with some fillings inside, making it sweet. The little shops on both sides of the street are selling a variety of things. Normally shops selling the same items are located together. There are even shops selling only hats. There are a variety of design and color of hats there.

We had our dinner at a restaurant recommended by Jong Ing. There were many people there. It was kind of unique as there was a wok in the middle of the table. The food will be cooked by the waiter or waitress there. We ordered 5 plates of rice and noodles with chicken and vegetables.

Then, we walked over to Jagalchi Fish Market. It is located next to the Busan Harbor. It was one of the main attractions of Busan. Actually it has two main sections: one for fresh seafood, another for dried seafood. As we went there quite late, at around 9pm, most of the stalls were already closed. I felt like as if going to a wet market in Malaysia. But, the fish there are very fresh. I heard that the price there is reasonable as well. At around 9+pm, we took the same bus back to Naengjeong. On the way, we met my 2 uppa(male seniors, the term “uppa” is only used by female juniors). It was my first time to see my labmates outside of the campus.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 9

Here are some of the pictures taken in Bakcheon Museum, the little great wall near the museum, market in Myeongnyun Dong and a night view of Seomyeom, central of Busan:
http://photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Korea09/

Enjoy!

p/s: I will write about it later ^^

Pictures in Korea - Batch 8

Here are some of the pictures taken in Nampo Dong and Mount Yongdun Park(Dragon's head park) and Jagalci Market(a market selling fish) yesterday, June 2:
http://photobucket.com/albums/b199/dellachew02/Korea08/

Enjoy!

p/s: will write about it later. Just enjoy the pictures first ^^

Pictures in Korea - Batch 7

Here are some pictures of my lab and room:
http://photobucket.com/albums/b199/dellachew02/RoomLab/

Enjoy!

Treats by my labmates

Monday, June 27 – I was surprised that Daniel, Kim’s friend stayed in the lab for so long for the first time. Later, I got to know that he is a Master student under my professor and also Kim’s junior. His Korean age is 28 years old.

Daniel and my labmate, Kay joined me and BJun for dinner at night. I was surprised when he told me that we were going to have dinner at the sky lounge, Millennium building. He said that he would pay for it. I am very curious as the canteen only accepts coupons and not cash. Normally, only professors have those coupons. During dinner, we had a small chat. He actually knows my senior, Julie, who did her industrial training under Professor Lee as well. Daniel just quit his job in the sales. As he was working before that, I seldom saw him in the lab and always thought that he was Kim’s friend, hanging around in the lab. He also works in DSU as a lecturer for CCNA course. I guess that was how he got those coupons.

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Tuesday, June 28 – Kim told me that our lab is going to have a seminar, Master students and undergraduate students will have to present. Looks like Daniel is going to be the next lab boss after Kim go to Malaysia this coming July. Kim is going to depart on July 11, Monday.

I was shocked when he told me that our lab was going to have new people coming in. Shortly after that, I saw a very tall guy, bringing in his gigantic, server casing CPU and 17” LG monitor. I noticed that he is even taller than the lab’s door and need to lower his body a bit as he enters the room. I wanted to greet him but his weird appearance made me want to keep quiet and observed. This day, for the first time, I talked to my another onni (female senior), Yong-Sil. She is actually the same age as us. Before that, I seldom saw her and she seemed to be very busy. Around 7pm, Kay asked if I want to join them for dinner. He told me that they were going to have Chinese noodles, but it cost 3, 500 won. It was rather expensive for me, so I told him that I will take my dinner outside. Suddenly, he told me that my labmates will give me a treat.

It was a delivery and the food arrived very fast. Well, those noodles were actually Korean noodles. The noodles were not fine and the servings were a lot. The sauce for the noodle was of the size of a normal Chinese rice-bowl. The ingredients of the sauce were oyster sauce and lots of small pieces of onion. They poured the sauce into the noodle and mixed it like rojak. It was a normal way to eat like that. They like to mix everything together. There was a plate of mandu as well. The food was not spicy or sour at all. After dinner, they treated me for a drink.

Raining season is coming!

Our initial plan to go to Nampo Dong was cancelled due to the rain. It was not a heavy rain, but according to the weather forecast, there will be rain from today till Tuesday. Believe it or not, the weather forecast here is very accurate! It was raining on and off the whole day. The wind was very strong most of the time. Next time, we better check the weather forecast before doing any planning for trips. July is expected to have much rain and August we will have a dry summer.

Martin's farewell party

On Saturday night, as we came back from the CCAP program, we went to a farewell party at the sky lounge. It was a Martin’s farewell party. Martin is a German. They like to have their parties outdoor rather than indoor. They sure enjoy their life in Korea. They have their own grilled set and mini swimming pool. Their party was always very grand and had endless supply of food. They enjoy going to Nampo Dong as they can get many imitation products there. In Germany, selling pirated goods are strictly prohibited and can be sentenced to jail. Nampo Dong is the 2nd largest town in Korea after Seomyeom. It is actually like Petaling Street in Malaysia. The goods sold there changes very fast according to the trend and season. As usual, we had beer, soju, soft drinks, snacks and grilled pork. This night, we even have watermelons. It was really sweet indeed.

CCAP - Traditional Korean music concerto

This Saturday, we went to Busan Cultural Center to attend the Korean traditional music concerto, with Wei Shi and Sona and his gang. We took bus 68 and were able to reach there directly. We were kind lost as there were many buildings around. We met BJun who happened to come back from her one day trip in Seoul. Her 2 seniors, Com (a nickname, it means bear) and Ming Jung guided her there. We were able to meet a few foreigners around and they showed us the way. We even have a photo taking section with all of them.

We were quite excited as we reached the small hall where the concert was held. The performers were dressed in traditional Korean clothes. Their musical instruments are almost similar to the Chinese’s. However, their music is totally different from Chinese orchestral. The music was slow and kind of flat. It sounded as if those songs that Chinese played in one’s funeral or in Chinese traditional drama, which is held every year during the 7th month of the lunar calendar.

After the 2 hours concert, we had dinner with the other CCAP members in a restaurant near by. The setting of the restaurant is very traditional. The seats are like the ones in a Japanese restaurant. We need to take off our shoes before going in. They booked 2 rooms in the restaurant. We had traditional Korean food for dinner there. Most of the ingredients are vegetables. Chang-Yi demonstrated to us how to eat the food.

CCAP members consist of Koreans and foreigners from different countries, such as Turkey, Bangladesh and Japan. The Koreans are able to speak in English and most of them are female elementary school teachers. We got to know a few new friends there, such as Chang Yi and Dini. Chang Yi is a Korean and also Chi Yung’s godbrother. Dini is an Indonesian, will be taking Master in International Trading in Silla University under a company’s scholarship. She did her degree in Computer Science. She was born in Sumatera but stayed in Jakarta. She is the same as me, 21 years old. She actually thought that I am an Indonesian :p She talked to us in Malay. Although we can speak Malay, but Indonesia’s Malay is slightly different.

After the meal, we had a walk around the area before taking the subway back home. We took the subway from the station Daeyeon. We do not need to change line as Naengjeong and Daeyeon is at the same line.

Presentation by postgraduate students

I have never attended any presentation by PhD or Master students before in Malaysia. But, here is something to share from my experience of attending one here in DSU, Korea. It was the end of the semester and it was time for the presentation of the research topics by the postgraduate students. One of our seniors there invited us to see his presentation. The presentation was held in a small classroom and it was closed seminar. A few professors and postgraduate students were there. Some of the professors were from other universities. Korean students presented in Korean whereas international students presented in English.

The presenters were bombarded with questions from lecturers as they were presenting. All of a sudden, it is as if they were having discussions on the topic presented. Sometimes, the professor even came in front and wrote something on the whiteboard. I heard from my seniors that one Korean girl was bombarded with questions from her own professor. Her professor seemed to be unsatisfied with her explanation and seemed to be scolding her. His volume increased as he asked more and more questions. It seemed that she was not given any time to think or answer the question. The questions asked seems to be very detail, such as why a formula is like this etc.

Finally, it was the turn of international students to present. The atmosphere was definitely different from the previous presentations by Korean students. It is like a sudden change. The professor who keeps bombarding questions just now seems to keep quiet. Hardly any professors ask him questions. Or perhaps it is because that they do not really understand the presentation in English. After his presentation, another professor walked in front and explained the whole topic again in Korean. We were like having a shock. My seniors told us that sometimes they did so. The professors’ explanation seemed to be more detail. The way he explained was fascinating. He was very action when presenting and even use different level of volumes. It was as if he was navigating a story and there was climax.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 6

Here are the latest photos. It includes the photos taken in the university garden, church, stadium, Gaygeum market, Busan Cultural Center, CCAP dinner and Martin's farewell party etc.
http://photobucket.com/albums/b199/dellachew02/Korea06/

Enjoy!

Shopping in Gaygeum and Homeplus

Yesterday, we finally tried out the mysterious drink selling at the Gaygeum market. It seems to be popular among the locals and it looked tasty. We thought that it is soya drink and went to have a try. But, it did not taste anything like soya drink at all. It is more like bean drinks. The drink is very condensed with slices of jelly inside. Luckily she gave me another bowl of water, which is sweet; else I would not be able to finish it. At the bottom of the bowl of the sweet water, I saw some rice.

After that, we went to Homeplus for some groceries shopping. Unlike in Malaysia, we can try out many types of the food prepared by the promoters, such as sausage, ham and ice green tea. We actually got full by eating all those samples. Yum yum~ The tooth pick here is very nice. It is made of plastic one.

The promoters here are different from the ones in Malaysia as well. The atmosphere at the groceries section is like in the wet market, where hawkers are shouting to attract customers. The promoters here did the same thing. They can even give the customers more free gifts O_O As we went around testing the food, we saw the beef that is quite nice and cheap, about 6,600 won, buy 1 big packet and free 1 small packet. While we were thinking whether to buy it, the promoter said if we buy, she will give us another small packet one for free. Then, she took out a tape and wrapped the small packet to the other packets. The promoters also starting to offer us free gifts if we buy from them. It started to seem more like a market rather than a shopping complex. When we were paying at the counter, the cashier did not charge us extra for the extra gift as well. Wow… promoters here are like boss, can simply give free gift one.

The expiry date for the milk here is very weird as well. The milk can last till year 2006. Normally, milk in Malaysia can only last for a while. We started thinking what they add into the milk to make it last so long. We also analyzed the expiry date for other brand of milks. They all expire in the year 2006 as well. We also bought a few packets of banana milk to try out, as our MMU supervisor for this training and also a postgraduate of DSU, Ms Lee Yun Li recommended us.

It is summer holiday!

From next week onwards, it will mark the start of a 2 months summer holiday. The weather is very Malaysia-like, except that it is not as burning hot as in Malaysia. The daily temperature ranges from 27 Celsius to 29 Celsius in the morning, and around 20 Celsius at night. Only 2 out of the 3 canteens in the campus will open during the holiday. The canteens will close early as well. Most of the students in the dormitory had gone back to their home country or traveling. Students who are graduating soon in August still stay back. The dormitory is very quiet nowadays.

The mysterious hill behind my dormitory

There is a hill just behind my dormitory. I would not say that it is a small hill or a huge one. Many people went hiking there early in the morning and in the evening. I have never being there but I heard that the scenery from the top is very nice. It also seems that there is a few cemetery stone up there. Dogs are always barking around that area. It is really spooky. There is no clear trail and there are many divided paths. It can reach other places in Busan, such as Nampo Dong and Jurye through this hill.

People in Seoul vs Busan

According to Chi Yong and Deborah, most of the people in Seoul are able to speak in English. However, they are not as friendly and kind as the people in Busan. The standards of education between these 2 states differ as well. Seoul’s standard is much higher.

Turning point

Yesterday, around 4pm, suddenly my lab was packed with people again. Among them there are some new faces. They are not studying but enjoying themselves with comics, editing photos and playing NateOn. NateOn is an online messenger, just like MSN messenger and Yahoo messenger. But, there are more features. When click on one’s contact, we can view their photos etc, in another window just beside the messenger. It’s sort of like the MSN pop-up whenever we sign in. However, currently it’s only in Korean version. Last nigh, we watched Miss Congeniality 2. It was as humorous as the first one.

Today, Bee Jun, my trainingmate from Malaysia is in Seoul for a one day trip, as her professor will be there to attend an exhibition in the morning. In the afternoon, her labmates will bring her for a short trip around Seoul. Her expenses are sponsored by her professor (maximum 300 USD, meaning 300,000 won). She went there by flight and will be coming back tonight by bullet train. The bullet train cost 90,000 won for one way, which is about RM360. How I wish my professor could be kind enough to sponsor me as well…

Ryan will be going to Nampo Dong with one of his labmtes this evening. His labmate plans to get a cheap digital camera there. Meanwhile, Eileen, Yushu and I will be going to Gaygeum to get some groceries for tomorrow’s lunch as we will be cooking.

Tomorrow after lunch, we will be going to Busan Cultural Center to attend the Korean Traditional Indoor Music Concerto by CCAP. CCAP is a cross culture awareness program by UNESCO. On Sunday, we will be going to Nampo Dong for the first time for sightseeing and maybe some shopping (this will be the second time for Ryan). It will be a pack weekend ^^

My life after exam week

Last week and this week are exam weeks. Last week, the lab was quite pack as almost everyone are in the lab, busy revising. However, from yesterday onwards, the lab becomes even more quiet than usual, with only Kim and me in the lab most of the time. He is sitting at a corner, doing his readings whereas I am sitting near the entrance, reading the materials about my assignment and doing coding. Mino went for his backpack trip to Europe right after his exam already. The others are no where to be seen.

The day before, Yushu, Eileen and I went for lunch together and then had a walk around University Chapel. It is not a university but a church in the campus. The church is indeed very nice and clean. There is a grand piano as well. Then, we took a small trip to Minseok Sports Center, which is located just beside the church. There are basketball court, badminton court and tennis court in there. We even went to the gymnasium. The exercise machines there are very advance indeed. They even have machines there for checking blood pressure and height. We did try them out as they were easy to use than the other machines.

Yesterday, I got very frustrated about the coding as coding a generator in Java is something new to me. I used to study about Java in Object Oriented Programming but it is more related to graphics and it is different than this assignment that I have now. I lost my mood on coding and was chatting most of the time. But, everyone is busy and producing something whereas I am not producing anything functionable yet. My professor went back at around 4pm, leaving only Na and I in the lab. As Na is always very quiet (he can understand but is unable to speak in English), we did not talk to each other as usual. He started reading comics a while later and I was thinking of watching the latest episode of Bleach. I started downloading it via bittorent and the speed is surprisingly fast. It took me only around 10 minutes to complete the download of a 100MB file. The maximum speed is 500+kbps. For the first time, I watched anime in the lab ^^

However, I felt better after my Korean friends, Chi Yong and Deborah visited us and we had dinner together. We tried out a new dish called Dokpokki (rice cake cooked in red pepper sauce). It was quite okay. At the same time, news was on aired. Then, we started talking about the army training. The news reported that a soldier killed 8 of his friends and his superior. I guess real training is quite scary, compared to national service. There are many camps at different states for the army training and the location for each trainee is determined by the government.

Reckless drivers

Drivers here really reckless. In Malaysia, those huge vehicles such as bus and lorry normally drive as if they own the road. However, in Korea here, anyone who can drive here are behaving so. Motorcycle drivers do not wear helmet when driving. The taxi drivers always takeover and simply change lanes when driving up the slope. The bus drivers always drive across the traffic light when it is red. When the bus is stuck in a traffic, they may takeover and take the opposite lane, if there aren't traffic on the opposite lane. If you are standing when taking a bus, I am sure that you will have to be extra careful so that you won't fall down. The traffic here is also kinda messy as well.

27 years old?

Well, here is something interesting about a resident in the International House. He is a 27 years old Mongolian. But, he actually looks like as if he is 30+ to 40+ years old. We were actually very surprised that he told us so. We started to think that if he’s lying to us. He told us that he’s doing his PhD here and we were very surprised as well as all this while, we thought that he’s the hostel guard or hostel warden. Then, he told us that he was married and has a son. His wife is in Seoul now whereas his son is still in Mongolia. What…27 years old and married and has a son and doing PhD? Can you really believe this? Then, he told us that the Koreans are stupid because they do not believe in him >.> He told us that his professors like him as he work very hard and his labmates are jealous of him. Later, he told us that he was a bit drunk. Then, we started thinking whether he was telling the truth…

The next day, we found out from his roommate, Qiao Lei that he is 27 years old O_O

Visit to a church at Sipak Dong

Today, we followed Chi Yong to her church at Sipak Dong. Sipak Dong is located near to Seomyeom. For the first time, we took a bus from Naengjeong to Seomyeom instead of subway. We found that the bus is actually faster and we were able to see more things on our way there. Actually, Naengjeong is quite near to Seomyeom. Seomyeom is almost like KL. However, there are many things here that cannot be found in Malaysia, such as girls dancing outside of the shop in order to attract customers. The shop is neither a pub nor karaoke nor disco center, it's just a normal electric items shop.

Busan Asiad Stadium is located in Sipak Dong as well. We were able to see this grand building from the church. The church is located at the hill slope and has 3 storeys. The design of the building does not reflect its identity as well. The interior of design of the church is surprisingly different from the ones that I went before in Malaysia. It's more like a small hotel, rather than a church. We met Abraham, Anne and Deborah again there. Well, none of us here are Christians. We attended one of the services and to be frank, it's quite boring. I had attended some of these activities as well before in Malaysia. I find that Malaysia's one is far more better. They also invited us for dinner at their church's restaurant. As they had ran out of rice, we only have ramen, gimbak and some kimchi. We managed to get some pictures of the stadium before we went back. On the way back, I got to know a final year student of DSU. He can speak good English as his studies is on English literature. His name is "who".

The German's party

On Saturday night, we joined the Germans for their Korean class farewell party at the Sky Lounge, International House. However, we did not join them for the dinner as there are too many people and the area is very small and narrow. We only join them after that. There are Soju (Korean wine), beer and some other snacks there, such as potato chips. The potato chips here are very nice as it is not so salty. There is a type of soft drinks here that taste almost the same as 7up in Malaysia, but it’s not so sweet. I find it very nice. Finally, we were able to see Korean beauties there and they can speak very well English! I guess that they are language stream students. As we arrived, some of them are playing card game. The cards are very different, very Korean like. I guess it’s a Korean card game.

I also get to talk to a Japanese student who joined the party. I cannot really remember his name though. He studies Japanese language here under a scholarship from a university in Japan. But, I wonder why he’s taking such a course here as he is a Japanese… His hometown is in Hiroshima, Japan. He will be going back home for holidays with the other Indonesia students. The Indonesia students cannot speak Japanese but they can speak in Korean. In addition, he have interest in going to China for travel as he like Chinese food a lot and wish to visit one of the 7 wonders of the world, the Great Wall of China. He is able to name a few Chinese dishes. He knows how to speak a bit of Chinese, as Qiao Lei, one of the international students from China taught him. The living expenses in Japan are higher than in Korea. It seems that he enjoy his stay here.

Others' training

Well, let's have a look at what others are doing for their training: -

Jin: Currently, he's doing his training in My Furniture, a furniture shop in Batu Berendam, Malacca. It's an ordinary furniture shop with no PC. His task is to develop a management system for the shop. He's currently not doing any IT related job during office hours (10am-10pm). He even complains that his supervisor is abusing him. He do not have any offdays and also no allowance.

Mei Shin: Currently, doing her training in Netropolitan, a computer shop in Bukit Beruang, Malacca. Her tasks is related to web design. But, it seems that her supervisor, another MMU undergraduate who's our senior had done her part of the task and her boss is very blur about it. Sometimes, she also perform other tasks such as cutting cables.

Lee Chen: She's doing her training in Malacca. Her company is doing advertisement one. They are in charge to break the Malaysia Book of Records, designing logo, help ppl register the trademark, doing website, doing flash movie either for opening ceremony/closing and designing flyers/name card/banner etc. Her task is more to designing, something of her interest ^^

Daniel: He started his training almost right after the final exam. He's doing mostly paperwork such as writing proposals. He also perform demonstrations on new systems. His tasks are not related to programming.

Banking in Korea

In order to open a bank account here, we must first get our Alien Card. Unlike in Malaysia, we do not need a minimum amount of money in order to open an account there. When we went to the bank, we were surprised that the application is printed in only Korean and we need to fill it in Korean, even our names. Luckily, we asked our senior to accompany us. However, his command of Korean is not good enough to explain the contents of the form to us. The teller was having a difficult time explaining to us as she did not really understand English. Our senior communicated with her in Korean, which we do not understand at all. Then, the teller just took our Alien Card and helped us filled in. We just do what she asked us to do as she pointed. We can even get our ATM card immediately. The charges for ATM withdrawal here is also different. An extra charge of 600 won will be added if we withdraw during non office hours.

Street food in Korea

Along the way to Gaygeum, there are a lot of small stalls selling Korean type hawker food. The cheapest street food here cost 400 won per stick. There's something like “lok lok” kind of food here. Well, for “lok lok”, we put the stick into the boil water to cook it, and then eat it with some sauce. However, things are slightly different here. The food is fried instead, and then we eat it with some sauce (optional). The fried food here consists of octopus legs, chili and other vegetable slices. They also have hotdog with tomato sauce. The donut-like food, make of flour and some vegetable cost about 500 won. The semi-fried dumplings here cost 2,000 won for 10 pieces. The ingredients consist of mostly vegetables with some meat. The fried hotdog bread here is very unique. It comes in the style of a stick (“cucuk”). The middle is the hotdog, cover by a layer of bread. The outer layer of the bread is very crunchy. It tasted good when it's added together with the sauce. They do not have the black color cincau (“leung fan”) here, instead they have the transparent type. It looks nice but I didn't taste it as I am quite full at that time.

New discovery in the campus #1

As we were having a walk after our lunch, we discovered something very interesting in the campus. There’s a spot displaying shoes designed by students. It’s very creative indeed. Here are some of the pictures of those shoes and other pictures: http://photobucket.com/albums/b199/dellachew02/Korea05/

Enjoy!

Speaking with Koreans

Well, most Koreans are unable to speak proper English. Here's some experience to share when communicating with Koreans with poor English.

Most of the time, we use very basic english. Do not form compound sentence or use words such as "recently" and "normally" or difficult vocabulary such as "marvelous" as they will have problem understanding it. Very basic sentence will do. Do not worry about tenses and grammar, it's not important at all. Sometimes, using the correct tenses might even confuse them. When talking, we need to talk very slowly. If possible, emphasize word by word so that they are clear of what we are talking. In order to assist them on understanding what we are talking, we need to do some "actions". Else, they might become blur half way. These things seems to be automatically done whenever we talk to a Korean. They seems to understand "actions" better than words ^^

Raining day - umbrella?

This Friday, for the first time, I experienced rain in Korea. The rain downfall was not very heavy, but the wind is very strong. It was so strong that I was actually having a difficult to walk with an umbrella. In Malaysia, mostly guys are embarassed to use umbrella, even if the rain is very heavy. However, it seems that it's a norm here to use umbrella. Everyone has an umbrella in their hands. There are a lot of designs for umbrellas here. Mostly are very feminine, like the ones that we are able to see in movies with olden western as its background. There are even shops selling only umbrellas. Too bad, we are not allowed to take photos on it.

Shopping for groceries

Shopping for anything sure is expensive in Korea. Since we planned to cook this weekend, we went out to "hunt" for some groceries, such as onions. At first, we planned to go to Homeplus (Tesco). However, on the way there, we found a place which looks like the wet market in Malaysia, selling vegetables and fruits, with small shops at each side selling various things, such as shoes, hats and umbrellas. Most of the small stalls are selling the same things, such as potatoes, mushrooms, carrots and onions. Bargaining sure is tough as we cannot speak well in Korean. What we can do was, taken out a calculator and bargained the price using it ^^

It once happened that one of the hawkers mistaken us as Indonesians O_O Then, we said "No! No!". Then, he thought that we are Filipinos. We couldn’t help laughing. However, they were very friendly; the aunty selling some hawker food beside even gave us another “kuih” for free when we bought a “kuih” from her stall. Although it’s different, the “kuih” was made of flour, almost similar to the “cucuk udang” that we have in Malaysia. However, it does not have prawns in it. The other “kuih” that she gave us has a donut with sugar like texture, but has red bean sauce filling in side. Even though red bean sauce is not to my liking, the “kuih” tasted quite nice.

Everything in Korea sure is expensive, especially meat. 1 carrot cost about 500 won, which is about RM2. An egg here cost about 60 cents. The price is almost the same for each stall. However, some of goods selling are fresh than others. We bought some fruits on the way back for 3,000 won. It’s yellow in color (picture uploaded before), medium size and tasted almost like honey dew, but not so sweet and a bit crunchier. Banana and jagung in Korea is very expensive.

After a few days, we went to Hanaro, a minimart nearby to complete the ingredients for our meals this weekend. We found that some of the items are actually cheaper if we get from the minimart, rather than the market.

p/s: there’s hardly any chocolate milk around in Korea. They prefer coffee, cappuccino and tea over chocolate milk. There are many varieties of nice of coffee here in Korea. Even though I am not a coffee lover, I begin to have a liking for coffee.

What do Koreans think about Malaysia and Malaysians?

Well, normally I am alone in my lab, or with Mr Kim. However, this week, the lab seems to be more happening. Maybe it’s because that most classes have already ended as next week is final exam week. I get to have a long chat with Hong Ji-Hyun. I only saw her a few times. She had been in ELS, Malaysia for 4 months before to study English. Her English is not very good, but much more than the others who cannot even speak in English. She showed me her photos that she took in Malaysia. The places that she usually hangs out in Malaysia are KLCC, Sungai Wang and Megamall. In the eyes of Koreans, they feel that Malaysia is a poor country. However, she feels that it was different. She seems to enjoy her stay in KL, Malaysia. She’s surprise that Malaysians can actually speak good English. She’s very happy whenever she mentioned about the cheap stuff in Malaysia, such as imitation bag in Petaling Street. She even told me her experience as she bargained with the hawkers there. She likes to go shopping whenever there’s sale, especially those branded goods. As for food, she like the food at the Mamak stalls a lot. She commented that it’s cheap and nice.

There are a few things which she find it strange and surprise in Malaysia. There are no toilet papers in the toilet (most of them) and toilets in shopping complex need to pay. In Korea, there’s no “cicak”. She actually got a shock when she saw them in Malaysia. But, she likes them as they eat up the bugs. The weather in Malaysia is super hot for her. She commented that even summer in Korea is not so hot. Another professor who had been to Malaysia before also commented the same thing.

Koreans feel that we are very good in English as they are (normally) only good in their own mother tongue, Korean language. They do not study so many languages as us in Malaysia. Those who can speak good English are consider as clever and have a good future. Their image of Malaysian girls are short T.T

p/s: the electronic items in Korea is expensive as well. Luckily, I get my headset in Malacca, with help from Jin at a good bargain ^^

My labmates

Let me introduce some of my labmates:
Kim – 30+ years old, married and currently doing his Master in DSU. He will be going to Malaysia in the mid of July for 6 months to complete the rest of his Master. His English is quite good for a Korean. He's in China for 6 months before. Thus, he can read and talk a bit in Chinese as well. He's in the lab most of the time. He smokes and normally does so when he's tense. He always chat with me when I feel very bored.

Mino – Korean age 24 years old, actual age 23 years old. Currently, he's a 2nd year IT student. He likes traveling a lot. After his 2 years and 2 month's military service, he went and stayed in Australia for a year (backpack). Thus, his English is quite okay as well. He had taken up a part-time job when he's in Australia. It's tiring but the pay is good. He even showed me some of the pictures that he took when he travel around Australia and New Zealand. They are indeed stunning. It looks so nice and perfect that I feel like as if it's fake. He told me that traveling in Australia by bus is even more expensive than by plane. It took days to travel from one place to another if by bus. But, if by plane, it only takes about 1.5 hour. However, he prefers to travel by bus and he can see a lot of things. For this coming summer holiday, he's going to backpack to Europe. He also shares his experience thru his articles in an English magazine by the university. At first glance, many may feel that he's a fierce person as he's very serious when doing his work. But, he's actually very friendly and helpful.

Hong Ji-Hyun –Korean age 24 years old, actual age 23 years old. Currently, she's a last year IT student (4 years course). Her English is not as good as Kim and Mino. She had been in Malaysia for 4 months before. She's planning to have her last 4 months of studies in America. She's currently taking some English course at night in another language center. She has a boyfriend and he’s currently in Australia. She likes to use the translator whenever she couldn't recall the word that she want to use in English. She's very friendly and offer to guide me if I want to walk around in Busan ^^

Kim(another person) and Na –Korean age 24 years old, actual age 23 years old. Both 3rd year IT students. They cannot speak in English but I think they understand it. They always smile whenever they see me. I guess that the only way we can communicate with each other.

The others... I hardly see them around. Thus, I do not get to know them yet :P

My training environment

Many of you may wonder how's my training going, what I do everyday etc. Well, normally I wake up 8am in the morning and then bath, take my breakfast. The Internet Engineering building, the place where lab is situated, is very near to my hostel. It only takes 5-7 minutes if by foot. I normally go to my lab at around 10am and leave at around 6pm. My lab is actually my professors’ or supervisor’s room. My professor is Dr. Lee. He's quite a nice person, soft-spoken. He's usually not around. There are around 7 and more students in the lab, but they are usually not around as well as they need to attend classes. I heard from the lab boss, Mr Kim that they are normally in the lab at night. Some of the students like Mr Kim are postgraduates. The others are undergraduate students but they look very mature. The prof is their advisors. In MMU, we don't go and consult our advisors. Let alone giving us PC to use in his room. We can see that the culture of study here is indeed different. No one sleep in my lab as it’s very crowded, with so many people in the room. Everyone has the key to the room and we can access it anytime we want. There are coffee and hot water in the lab, so feel free to have a drink when you want to relax.

Mr Kim and Mino are the ones who usually talk to me. Most of my other labmates are male and they are poor in English, even the basic ones. I was given an assignment by the Prof. I was given 3 months to complete it. It's something new to me, plus I need to do it in a programming language that I dislike the most and poor in, which is C++. JAVA is still okay but I need to understand the whole algorithm before I can start the coding. I have gain some new inside and basic ideas on what it is and how it works. But as for the details, I am still very blur and confuse on the formulas for generation, initialization etc. I am cracking my head everyday. My prof is normally not free to attend to me. Mr Kim does not know about Dragon stream cipher as it's quite new. What I did everyday is read, analyze, and revise. I feel very sleepy most of the time, especially after lunch. Once, I even fall asleep in the lab. There's hardly anyone around to talk to as everyone is very busy. My labmates are not talkative people and they are very serious when doing their work. Or perhaps, it's because that they are unable communicate with me in English.

p/s: their IT course here is very advance. Even the 2nd year students here already very "geng". Their focus is more on practical rather than theory. Their research here also very "geng". There's indeed too much difference in our standard.

Weekends in Busan

June 4, Saturday - We went to Seomyeom for sightseeing. At night, we had potluck with the other international students in the dormitory. Students from China contributed the most; they cooked pan cake, Chinese style mushroom soup and prawns. For the Indians, they made Capati and some other vegetarian food. As for us, we have our “bak kuh teh”. The ingredients are 2 packets of instant “bah kuh teh”(by Wei Shi), some taufu, mushrooms and garlic. Too bad I cannot join the dinner as I went to the Musical Drama in the Millennium building. The fantastic performance was done by the Division of Performing Arts and the ticket cost 5,000 won each. Since the ticket is free (given by a professor), it would be a waste not to go, even though I do not understand what they are talking and singing in Korean. They even performed the kissing scenes live! In addition, there's a few of those scenes (the actors must be very lucky). I am sure that we won't get to see that in Malaysia. On the same day, I also found out that sky lounge, located at the top floor of the International House is a very nice spot for sightseeing ;)

June 5, Sunday – We visited Maritime University at Jo Island, Busan with our Indian friends. The public bus in Korea is different from in Malaysia. There's only 1 row of seats at left, right and back. There are many huge ports, around that area. The island is connected by a bridge, not very long though. It is very windy there. The wind is cold but nice. We can even notice some soft corals by the beach. The campus itself looks very empty. There’s a stone beach in the campus. The beach is made up of stones instead of sand, making us very hard to walk around. For once, I feel that Busan is a city make up of only buildings, nature still exists! On the same day, we walked to Taejongdae, a scenic spot for cliffs and rocks of fantastic shapes and is able to see Tsushima Island, Japan from there. However, due to the time constraint (we need at least 3 hours to walk to and fro and to enjoy the scenery there), we’ll just have to go another day. For dinner, we had BBQ pork at a restaurant near DSU. It's a very nice experience as I am sure that the way they BBQ is very different. It cost us 2,000 won each. The boss is very friendly and teaches us how to barbecue as well.
p/s: most of the food consist of either pork or beef. There’s hardly any chicken. Chicken is expensive in Korea. The ice-cream in Korea is very nice, very different from the ones in Malaysia, which is very plain. There's also a variety of nice biscuits.

June 6, Monday – It's public holiday in Korea (Memorial Day). Under our new found Korean friend, Chi Yong's guidance, we went to Songjeong beach. They had a picnic gathering for lunch. The weather was not hot and very windy. We had gimbak, rice, BBQ pork, vegetable, taufu with rice (Japanese style) and watermelon for dessert. The watermelon there was really sweet and nice, though it doesn’t look very nice :P It’s actually a Church gathering. There we got to know some new friends, such as Abraham, Anne and David. They are Koreans. Abraham’s English is quite okay. He's very good in games as well. He introduced to us some Korean games and it’s very fun. We had boating after lunch and it’s a very funny and memorable experience. Before the boating, we need to line up in groups and do some warm up exercise. I am sure that in Malaysia we won't do so. There were even professionals there to guide us. But, they were poor in English. Luckily, Chi Yong is around to be our translator ^^ The water was cold that day, but we got use to it very fast. During, we even splashed water with other boats and singing. This is also the first trip, Natasha, a student from Russia joined us.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 4

Here's some photos take at Songjeong beach: http://photobucket.com/albums/b199/dellachew02/Korea04/

Enjoy!

Pictures in Korea - Batch 3

Here's some new pics taken in Maritime University and Seomyeom: http://photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Korea03/

Enjoy!

Pictures of the Ubiquitous Frontier in DSU

Ubiquitous computing is the method of enhancing computer use by making many computers available throughout the physical environment, but making them effectively invisible to the user. DSU is involve in many research on this field. Here's some exhibitions of their research:
http://photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/UbiquitoesFrontier/

Pictures in Korea - Batch 2

Here's the batch 2 of the pictures taken in Korea:
http://photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Korea02/

Enjoy!

Symposium

Today, after lunch, I went to the Concert Hall to attend a symposium/conference. The topics are related to AI and Virtual Reality. All the speakers are talking either in Japanese or Korean. I only understand a bit of Japanese and do not understand what the Korean speakers were talking about. Luckily, the slides were written in English. However, it's so boring that I slept thru almost the whole conference(hopefully no one spotted me sleeping >.> especially the professors). However, the ideas presented were very interesting and advanced. It's roughly how to fully utilize the technology, with sensors etc. Something like what we see in Star Wars and Matrix etc. The attendance was quite well. Many students attended it.

p/s: will not go to another conference in the future(if I still don't understand Korean).

Happy Hour!

Every Thursday from 5pm till 6pm, there will be a party held at the ground floor International Exchange Office for international students. The one that we attended was the last one for this semester. There's a lot of people and food there. A variety of biscuits, gimbak and drinks were served. Everyone was busy with the food rather than interacting. There's a China guy performing some Chinese songs and a group of Japanese students performing hand language.

Industrial Training in DSU

Trainees here are different from others, in the sense that each of us have different supervisors and are allocated with different tasks. We need to complete these tasks alone. Our assignments are related to the research fields, which our supervisors are involved in. My supervisor is Professor Lee Hoon Jae. His research field is data security. Yushu's task is related to networking. Ryan's task is related to embedded system. Eileen's task is related to computer graphics. Bee Jun's task is related to database system. What we learn in our previous semesters only provide us with little knowledge on the topic and it's insufficient to perform the assigned task.

Industrial Training - Day 1

As I was not assign to any supervisors yet, I consulted the Head of Internet Engineering department again. I was assigned to Professor Lee Hoon Jae. His research field is cryptography. He's quite a nice guy and his English is understandable. I will be sharing the same room with the professor and the students under him. One of my labmates is Mr Kim. His English is quite okay as well and he knows a bit of Chinese as he's been in China for 6 months before.

Everyone have a PC to use. They use Windows Server 2003 for their operating system(OS). The whole windows and software are installed in Korean language.

Mr Kim showed me around the campus at around 11am. He brought me to the library. There's a Japanese cafe just beside the library at the 3rd floor(total 8 levels). There's a total of 3 canteens in the campus. The management for each canteen is different. From our conversation, he told me that he's 30+ years old and married. Quite shocking for me.

At around 12pm, we went for lunch together with the other labmates at the Millenium building, last floor, the Sky Lounge. We need coupons to enter there. The food was served in buffet style. Towels were provided before we had our meals. The dishes served were curry chicken(not spicy at all), salad, coffee jelly-like food(taste differently from the coffee jelly), kimchi, sprout, soup and watermelon for dessert. The view there is very nice.

After that, they went to the vending machine to get some drinks. Then, we had a small introduction section. My other labmates are Mino, Na and another one I forget his name already :P Mino is quite okay in English. But, Na can only understand English. We had a small chat before goinng back to the research room. For Koreans, they are consider as 1 year old when they are born. Mino, Na and the other one is 24 years old, meaning that their actual age is 23 years old.

They do not have a fix working hour. We can come and leave anytime we want. The research room is open from around 7.30am till 12am. They all have the key to access the room. It seems that they treat the lab as their home. They spent most of their time, other than classes there. This reminded me of SPB(Student Publication Board). There are a lot of books in the lab, but in Korean language. There's also coffee, hot water, towels and also toothbrush. Some other labs, such as Wei Shi's one, even have a small bed there.

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My task during this training is to develop generators for Dragon stream cipher(a cryptography algorithm) in JAVA and Visual C++.

Pictures in Korea - Batch 1

For the photos taken in the end of May, please refer to the following link: http://photobucket.com/albums/v635/dellachew/Korea01/

Campus Life in Dongseo University

The students here are quite hardworking. I had seen quite a number of them holding on their textbooks when they go to class. The books that they use are all written in Korean language. There are hardly any books in English, even computer books.

They are very fashionable as well. As I walked around, I saw many people who dye their hair, mostly in gold color. You can see the students there, be it guys or girls in various hairstyle. I can say that 99% of the Korean girls do makeup, even the aunties selling noodles makeup. It's quite a norm here. The dress, clothes, glasses and hair accessories are very unique. Under such a cold weather(for Malaysians), the students here dress like as if they are in a tropical country like Malaysia. It seems to be normal for them here. But, I have not seen any Korean students wearing slippers when they go for class. (p/s: there's hardly any leng lui or leng chai here, but most of them are very fair, like flour and their skin is very smooth. Their eyes are mostly small and long, makes them look a bit fierce. They are quite tall, even girls.)

Student card is not a must to enter the library. No one will be checking your dress code as well. Bags can be brought into the library as well. There's 8 levels for the library, though the space for each level is relatively small. There are a few English magazines in the library for reading. But, we still need the card to borrow books. The maximum number of books that they can borrow is 2 or 3.

Unlike in Malaysia, students need to put the dishes, leftover food and cups to the appropriate place in the canteen after their meals. The same goes for McDonalds.

There's a lot students(male) here who smoke. Unlike in Malaysia, they can smoke anywhere they want in the campus. It’s quite easy to spot couples around the campus as well as you can see them holding hand in hand or putting their hands on the shoulder etc.

The students here are very active in clubs and societies. Even at around 7pm, we are able to hear people singing, playing band etc.

The bathroom in the International House is open. It doesn't mean that guys and girls bath together. But, the shower heads are not separated. Luckily, the number of girls is not many. Thus, we can have the bathroom to ourselves as we bath. The guys need to bath together :P They seems to get use to it.

The bandwidth here is very fast. I can download up to a max of 200+kps.

May 31 - Day 3 in Korea

At around 11.30am, Wei Shi guided us to the Immigration Office to do the Alien Card(it is necessary if we need to stay in Korea for more than 90 days). We took the subway to Seomyeon Station, then change line to Churyang Dong Station. The subway station is quite different than in Malaysia in the sense that they have a lot of decorative items, such as portraits around. There’s no damage done to these portraits. If it's in Malaysia, I am sure that it will be vandalized.

As we reached there, realized that we should have go down after the next 2 stations. The materials needed for the application are 2 passport size photos, 10,000 won stamp, and a certificate by Dongseo University stated that we are exchange students. After that, we need to wait for 15 days before we can collect our card. We had our lunch at McDonald, which is quite near to Jungang Dong Station and the Immigration Office. There are some burgers there which cannot be found in Malaysia, such as the Shrimp burger(2,500 won) and Bulgogi burger(pork burger). The set meals there cost around 3,500 won. Then, we took the subway back. p/s: the sundae con here is almost the same price as in Malaysia.

As we reached the station, Wei Shi showed us the way to Dongseo University shuttle bus station. It is located very near to the subway station. The shuttle bus is free. The shuttle bus station in the campus is located just beside the library or International Exchange Center building.

At around 6pm, Ryan, Yushu and I took our dinner at Green Hall(the canteen close at 7pm). We had problem reading the menu without any displays. We asked the cashier if they have any dishes with rice. Its kind of funny as we do not really understand what she was saying. Then, suddenly a Korean student came by and said, “Delicious”. We directly ordered that dish, Dongkasu. It’s almost like the hamburger steak that we ordered yesterday, but the servings were bigger and with smash potatoes.

Supper with seniors

The Korean class that was going to be conducted by Wei Shi somehow turned out to be a supper with his labmates. We gathered at the lab and they ordered 4 box of chicken pop corn, 1 bottle of 1.5 liter of Coke and 2 bottles of Soju( a type of Korean wine, with 25% alchohol). I didn't try out the wine as the alchohol is obviously too strong. The chicken pop corn is not of the size as we have in KFC, but consist of normal chicken wings and drumbsticks. It tasted quite okay. The English that they use is very simple. They kept asking us if we are happy and it's very funny in a sense. The seniors kept on pouring us wine. Luckily, I told them earlier that I didn't take wine and they didn't force me to drink it. When the seniors pour us wine, we must hold the cup with both of our hands. When we want to pour wine to them, we also need to do so with both hands.