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.