May 30 - Day 2 in Korea

The sky is already bright at about 5am and it's really difficult to have a nice sleep with the sun light, as we do not have curtains in the room. The water in the morning is ice cold. The heater happens to be spoilt recently T.T The weather is also cold. But, it becomes warmer as time goes on.

At 10am, together with Wei Shi we went to see Ms Kim, the Head of International Student Affairs. She explained to us what we need to do to apply the Alien Card. We need 2 photos, the cert to proof that we are students in Dongseo University and 10,000 won for the stamping. Then, we went to meet the Proffesor incharge for the Internet Engineering Department. We realized that most Koreans, even lecturers have problem communicating in English. They only understand basic words and sentences. Their English pronounciation sometimes is very hard to understand as well. Then, Wei Shi brought us for a simple introduction to Ms Lee's, our industrial training supervisor and Ms Saw's professors, and his labmates.

Next, we have lunch in one of the canteens in the campus. In the canteen, there's some display of the food and also their price. However, we are still clueless on what the food is. Wei Shi gave us some explanation on it and lead us to the counter next to the display to purchase the coupon for the food. Then, we need to go to one of the many sections in the canteen to take our food. There are different sections to collect different food. Kimchi, plain water and tissue are available and it's self-service. I order a dish call Hamburger Steak. It is served with rice(very nice, not plain rice), a piece of meat (which we usually find in burgers) with tomato sauce-like sauce, salad sauce and a small bowl of soup. It cost 2,000 won and it's delicious. The set lunch served is also quite nice. It is served with rice and a few small dish.

Then, Wei Shi gave us a round the campus trip. We being to a few buildings, such as the Millenium Building. There are many hi-tech features there. For example, the lights are able to sensor and only on when there's people using the staircase. We also visited the Ubiquitoes Frontier there. There are many devices, for example the fridge can be control using software.

Next, we went to a photo shop to take the photos needed for the Alien Card application. It cost 6,000 won for 8 photos. Luckily, I got bring mine.

Our next destination is Home Plus, in another words Tesco. Perhaps, the name Home Plus sounds nicer. There are 2 ways to go there. Either by foot, which take about 20 minutes or by subway, which is less than 5 min from the station. The card for the subway is 2,000 won and the mininum amount for reload is 5,000 won. From here(Naengjeong station) to Gaegeom station, it cost 720 won. Unlike the LRT in Malaysia which have escalator, there's endless staircase here.

In Home Plus, there are some fishes and crabs in the aquarium for display, like the ones that can be found in the seafood restaurant in Malaysia. However, the fishes there are quite different and the crabs are extremely huge. Suddenly, we heard a music playing and the staffs started doing light exercise. It's very funny in a sense. The things here are very expensive. For example, the pail cost 2,000 won. We took a taxi back as we bought quite a number things. The taxi cost around 2,400 won.

Tonight we take our meals on our own without Wei Shi for the first time. We walked around the area on our own. We took our dinner at camp. The menu is all written in Korean characters with no pictures. We are problems ordering food. First, we ordered a gimbak and shared. Gimbak is like a long roll of uncut sushi. It cost 1,000 won. Then, we ordered a bowl of ramen each, which is actually instant noodles, cost 1,500 won. Then, we had a walk around the area. Since we always order food with pork and beef, we thought that there's no food with chicken. Surprisingly, we found the whole row of shops sealing mostly chicken related food.

May 29 - Day 1 in Korea

Now is already end of spring, so the weather is not very cold. The weather is almost like in Cameron Highlands. It is cold in the morning and at night, but cooling in the afternoon. The first thing that we noticed as arrived was the many tall buildings in the city. There are many buildings on the hill slopes as well. The cars here left hand driving. Most of the cars here are Hyundai. I didn’t see any Malaysian cars around.

Before we arrived at Dongseo University, we saw a lot of shops along the way. Dongseo University is located on the top part of the hill. The road up is quite steep. Yet, there are so many small shops along the way, located very close to each other and selling all sorts of things, especially food. We noticed that in such a small area, most of the buildings have their own design, even if it is a small shop. Cables for the lamp post is hanging everywhere, crossing here and there and it looks very untidy, this is very similar to same places in Japan.

As we arrived at the International House, Wei Shi introduced to us 2 of his friends here, one from China and the other one from Japan. They are very friendly and even helped us with our luggage to our dooms. Supposingly, 5th floor is the girls’ dormitory and 6th floor is the guys’ dormitory. However, due to the lack of rooms, some of the guys are staying in the girls’ dormitory. Eileen, Bee Jun and I share a room. Ryan and Yushu share another room and it is located just opposite our room. But, the guys still need to use the bathrooms and toilets on the 6th floor. The rooms are not as big as we imagine it to be, but bigger than the ones in the hostel. There are 2 double deckers, 4 wardrobes, 4 tables, 2 heaters, a fridge and an air-conditioner. The room is quite dusty, as if no one has being staying there for ages. As it’s reaching 2pm, we dropped our luggage in the room and then Wei Shi introduce us to some of the international students staying there as well. They are from Germany, Japan, China, Russia or India. They are very friendly. Then, we went for lunch.

Wei Shi guided us to a small restaurant or café located near the university. We need to walk a long way down the hill to get our lunch, looks like we’ll need a lot of walking, to be more specific, mountain climbing in the next 4 months. The price of the food there range from 2,000 won to 2,500 won. The taste is a bit weird, spicy and sour. Kimchi is served in all the meals, for free. There’s a variety of kimchi. Some taste okay but some too spicy or sour. I think of it as appetizer. I have Bibimbap for my lunch. It’s something like mixed rice, with eggs, some vegetables and rice. Somehow, it tasted a bit like rojak in Malaysia. It’s quite a big plate and we need to mix all the stuff in the bowl before eating. Water is free and it’s self-service. Then, we went back to our hostel to unpack our luggage and clean up the room.

At around 7.30pm, we went to dinner together with Wei Shi. He brought us to a newly open restaurant, which is located underground. The place is very small, with less than 10 tables. They showed us a menu with no pictures and written in Korean. Since Wei Shi was going to “belanja” us for this meal, he made the ordering. The food here is very modern and it taste almost like Malaysian food, with a bit of spicy or weird taste. There are a lot of side dishes with only some main dishes. We have sprout soup, a big plate of thin egg with carrot and other vegetable ingredients inside, corn with cheese(tasted almost like corn with butter, except that it’s using cheese instead and it’s a bit more sticky) for the side dishes. For the main dish, we have rice, a big sushi row like egg and seafood soup. The soup is rather salty and weird to me, but it’s okay. After dinner, we did some small shopping at a minimart nearby. Suprisingly, we need to pay 50 won for a plastic bag. It's FOC(Free of Charge) in Malaysia.

After that, we went back to our rooms and continue our cleaning.

Departure to Korea

May 28, I departed from Penang with my parents, brother and grandmother to KL. I am the last one arriving so it's a bit of paiseh. Under Ms Lee, my industrial training's supervisor guidance, we checked in our luggage together. Maybe due to the Skypass that Eileen, my industrial trainingmate have, and also the high demand for economy class for that flight, we were able to get the business class seats(we purchased the economy class seats). The flight depart at almost 2am May 29. The seats are located 6 per row and it's 2 seats located together. The distance between seats are quite spacious. In addition, pillows and blanket are provided. The service provided was satisfying as well. First, we are being served with Satay. Surprisingly, the food taste okay. Then, we are provided with set breakfast. The set that I had selected are provided with yogurt, sour mango and later seafood noodles was served. The seafood noodles was served in soup and it is rather tasteless and cold, but there were some prawns and unknown seafood inside. Overall, it's okay. We also have a nice view for the plasma screen. The flight took about 6 hours and we arrived at Incheon Airport, Seoul, South Korea at around 9am(Korean time).

As we arrived in Korea, we took the airport bus, Airport Limuosine to Gimpo Airport for the domestic flight to Pusan. The bus cost 4,500 won. The journey took about 30 minutes. The flight that we took to Pusan was economy class and the seats are quite close to each other, barely able to move, and we were unable to adjust the seats. The flight don't have many people and it's quite deserted. The weird part is ... the air hostess were the ones doing the demo for the safety features instead of playing the video on the screen. The air hostess there also doesn't look very friendly. We arrived at Kimhae Airport 40 minutes later and was welcomed by Ms Kim and Wei Shi, a senior who's now doing post graduate in Dongseo University.

Ms Kim rented a van and the guys together with Wei Shi and the luggage took the van and Ms Kim drove the rest of us to the campus.

Something to share from my friends

Here's something to share from Sasi, who is currently doing his industrial training in Finland, which is situated at the far North. The weather there is currently quite cold, about 4 to 5 celcius. The time there is about 5 hours slower than Malaysia's. The currency there is in euro. The price there is almost the same as Malaysia, except that it's euro instead of ringgit malaysia(RM). For example, a cup of soft drinks, cost 1.5 euro.

He's currently working under a university. Most of the time, he only need to go to the office when meetings are held, which is quite flexible. Though the people there do speak English, the products there are written in their language.

According to him, there are plenty of beautiful flowers there, which cannot be found in Malaysia. Hope that he can show me some photos of it soon ^^ Their shopping complex also differ from us in some way. For example, a shopping complex for food only, another shopping complex for clothes only. The competition is indeed very intense, but good for consumers as they can compare and get a better price. However, if one wants to buy many stuff, they will have to travel from one shopping complex to another to get their stuff. These complex are not located near to each other.
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Here's something to share for my classmates who went to Japan for a 7 days homestay early this month. They spent around 5 days with their host family in Nagoya, which means that they do not meet each other again until their trip to Kyoto. Their host families were very friendly and their meals were well taken care by their host family in Nagoya. I heard that it's very tasty and nice ^^ Their host families even bought them souvenirs to be taken back to Malaysia. So sweet...

The places that they visited during the stay was done according to their host family. Thus, the places that they visited was different. Of course, visiting temples is a must. Charms were sold as well, but according to Poong, they did not sell the type which have bells, like the one in the anime. The ones sold there cost about 300 yen, which is about RM10.

Most of them spent much only when they went to Kyoto as meals were on their own. The set meals there is about 600-1000 yen. How much they spent differ from each other. If do not buy much things, it cost about RM700 only. Of course, if buy more, spent more.

Weird Pizza Hut staff

Well, I have been to Pizza Hut for my meals many times before. The service normally range from good to excellent. However, today I experienced something different when I took my lunch there. When I visited the restaurant, as usual, they will give me a catalogue and asked me to take my time. Next, they should be taking orders. However, after a long time, they did not do so. Ok, fine. I waved my hand to call them. Normally, the waiter/waitress speak to their customers in English but instead, the waiter, Faris spoke to me in Malay. It's not a big deal anyway. But, he spoke like a robot, as if he's memorizing everything, with no expression on his face. He told me this, "it will take 3 minits for the drinks to arrive, 12-15 minutes for the pizza to arrive and the soup is served and it's self-service". The way he spoke was flat, really monotone.

The drinks was served almost immediately and the bread stick came later. The waiter who served the bread stick was a different one and he was extremely friendly, always put on a smile, but acted sissy in a way.

Finally, come the pizza. He asked us whether we wanted him to serve the 1st piece, we looked at him bluntly, then agreed(this is normally done automatically). He served the pizza while holding the pizza on his hand(which is normally done after putting the pizza on the table, I wonder if he's trying to show us some stunts).

While enjoying our pizza, suddenly another waitress came and checked if we receive all the items, which is normal. But the unusual part is, she asked us to call her when we want to pay. Wanted to leave, we asked the friendly waiter who happend to pass by for the bill. However, here comes along the waitress just now who asked us to call her when we want to pay and also the waiter. Why they need 2 person to bring over the bill? Anyway, the lunch ended well ^^

Illustration of the situation at Pusan, South Korea

Well, I haven't start my training there yet, so I don't much idea about the situation there(I am not a fan of Korean drama series or pop as well). I have collected some information from my lecturer incharge, Ms Lee, who went to Dongseo University before for training as well when she was a student. There are 5 of us in total going there for our industrial training, 3 girls and 2 guys(3 people from Cyberjaya campus and 2 from Malacca campus).

First of all, I am sure that everyone will ask this question, "what will they provide you?". They will provide us with the accommodation and some allowance(in US Dolar), which is not enough even for food. We will have to pay for the air ticket and insurance(optional) ourselves.

For the accommodation, if they arranged us to stay in the international house, then we will be able to save a lot as the use of washing machine is free and air-con is provided for each room. In the international house, for each room, there are beds, tables, cupboards, 2 internet connection ports, fridge, air-con and heater(for winter as Korea has 4 seasons). Bedsheets, pillow and mattress is provided. Cleaners will collect them every month for washing. Each room do not have their own balcony. A normal room is design for 4 people, but they normally allocate 2 people for a room. However, there are 3 girls here, so maybe the arrangement maybe different.

So, what's there in the international house or hostel? A common kitchen, place to hang clothes for all and place to watch TV, which is open to all(both male and female residents staying in the international house). Cooking utensils are provided there. There will be bathrooms and toilets for each floor, meaning for both male and female(1 floor is for female and the floor above is for male). Here's something shocking, the bathroom is open!!! Well, guess we need to make some preparation(whatever preparation that is needed) for that. The pin for the plugs in Korea is different as well, thus we need to prepare one or more converters. Else, the electric and electronic items will not be able to use :(

Pusan is the 2nd biggest city in Korea, after Seoul. This indicate that the standard of living is high as well. The food there sure is expensive. According to Ms Lee, the fried rice in campus cost around RM8. If outside, may cost around RM15. Looks like savings is essential in order to survive.

Opening a bank account in Korea sure is troublesome as well. Before we can do so, we need to do the Alien Card first. Weird e...

There's all the info available so far. Will keep you all up-to-date ^^

First post after a long time

I think it's being ages since I made my last post. Well, assignments and projects pass up as well as final exam was over almost a month ago. Say "bye bye" to the hard times :D After that I need to deal with my visa and air ticket, which actually cause me quite some trouble. Due to the sudden raise in the fuel price, the air fare was affected as well. When I checked the air fare on SIA(Singapore Airlines) again after doing my visa, I found that the air fare has zoom up to a few times. I checked out with several companies such as MAS and Thai, it is also the same case. Thinking that I am going to go broke and in financial crisis if I am really going to pay such a high fare, I went to check out the all the other options available. After going thru some trouble, we decided to get Korean Airline, which follows the route KLIA - Seoul - Pusan, one year open ticket. It cost slightly more than RM3K, not a bad choice since they are going to direct our luggage to Pusan(thinking of carrying the luggage makes me want to faint). The limit for the luggage is around 20kg.

After half settle with this air ticket issue, I went for a 3 days 2 nights trip to Redang with my bro, and my high schoolmate, Christine and her friends(pretty long relationship e..). Surprisingly we get along well, though we don't know each other at first. We have a total of 8 people; 4 girls and 4 guys, quite balance ^^ After years of non-swimming, I guess my sense of floating is way better than my swimming skills. However, I just keep on floating away at the beginning. The corals was quite a disappoinment as the soft corals had die off. But, quite happy to see some cute fishes and the blue beach, which the sand becomes blue when we step on it, they are like hiding themselves, waiting for us to make them glow. We also did some exploration, which seems to be quite spooky at the end. (p/s: always book a few months early before the peak season for island trips)

After the trip, I guess there aren't much adventure around. I was quite bored at home, facing my laptop everyday, downloading animes(the days of watching too much anime is also boring in a sense). Not forgetting, in charge of the laundry and washing the dishes. Suddenly, I feel like missing my school days. Even at the most boring lecture, I have someone to chat with(chat with my bro... be in your dreams, he is one lazy fellow who always sit around and let me do all the housework). Doing housework in such a way is not enjoyable indeed.

Don't know why, I don't quite miss Penang food for this holiday. Kind of like, I miss the Japanese food in Malacca instead. Will miss all my Japanese classmates(they are in Japan for homestay now) and partying at sensei's condominium. Recently, got hang out with Yi Wen and Audrey at Prangin Mall and surprised to see quite a number of high school friends. Some of them, I haven't seen them since graduated. They sure change a lot, I hardly recognize them though they just walked pass me. I watched "Kingdom of Heaven" there, which is quite the same genre movie as Alexander that I watched before. But, this is more interesting in my opinion(IMO). Orlando Boom's role was very contradictory to the one he played in "Troy".

Whenever I think of packing my luggage to Korea, I will get a headache. With such limited lugagges but so many things intended to bring, it really needs tough decisions(probably it is always something tough for girls). In a sense, I still haven't learn much Korean language, really going to be in trouble when there :P

I want the "black computer" ?!

February 23, after lunch at Plaza Siswa, I went to the library for revision as I will be having a test on the same day, later at night. Thinking that there's such a short duration remaining before my next class at 3pm, I decided to browse through the intranet in search of past years' computer auditing final exam papers at the ground floor. The PC that I am using (Dell model) sure is giving me a lot of headache. The response is slow and it seems to take me ages to open a browser, leave alone, downloading the papers. After restarting the PC, things seemed to get better. I managed to open the browser and download the papers quickly.

After saving a few papers, suddenly I heard the voice of a girl talking loudly behind me. I turned my head over and noticed that there were 2 girls standing right behind me. They looked more like seniors rather than juniors. Their dressing made me thinked that they are management students. "I want to use the black computer!", which is the first thing I heard from the girl. I stared at her, "black computer?", these girls definately are not IT students. They could have refer to these PCs (the ones that are black in colour in the library) as Dell computers. "Are you using the PC to download past year papers? Can please use the other PCs? I need to use this PC because I cannot access it using the other PCs. I must use the black computer", they proceed. Why can't they use the other PCs? Though the Dell PCs are newer and generally faster than those old PCs around, they sure have the same functionality. While waiting for me, one of the girls made a phone call. In the phone, she kept on mentioning the "black PC". I was holding my laugh at that time. After attaching the papers via my email and sent, I let them used the PC that I had been using. They started using it for a while and left it. After a while, they came back and the PC was now occupied by an Indian guy. However, this did not stop them. The other "black computer" seemed to be targeted by them. That PC was been used by a group of Malay girls discussing their projects, I assumed. The two girls proceed them once again to request for the use of the "black computer".

Long way back to Penang

Yesterday, I took a 10am bas back to Penang. I expected to arrive in Penang at around 6-7pm. However, something unpredictable had happened. The bas that I took was suprisingly slow and it stopped at many places to pick up and drop passengers. So, I predicted that I will reach Penang later than expected. At around 7.30pm, I arrived at Butterworth. Normally, the bas will stop at Butterwoth and then procceed to Penang. I was very happy back then as I was about to reach home. After leaving Butterworth bas station, I noticed something strange as it does not take such a long time to reach Penang Island from there. I was surprised and asked the bus driver when I saw the road signboard going to Sungai Dua. To my horror, the bas driver claimed that the bas will not stop in Penang Island. Fearing that the bas will go to Alor Setar and it will took a long time to go back to Penang, I immediately phoned my dad and asked him to fetch me at Sungai Petani. I haven't been to Sungai Petani since around more than 10 years ago. Luckily the place did not change much though the it has well develop since I went there the last time. There are more shopping complex and shop lots, but the bas station was still the same as ever. Old and there are barely any lights along the road. There are quite a number of people there but they looked like as if they're going to "attack" me anytime. Maybe it is just a piece of my imagination. Hence, I waited for my dad's arrival at a small coffee shop situated at the road junction. It took my dad around half an hour to actually get to find me since I arrived at Sungai Petani. After a long wait, we went to have our dinner. It's the place that I last went to to have my dinner last time. It is kind of memorable and I kind of miss the roasted bread there. But, too bad, most of the stalls there were closed when I reached there. The wanton mee that I had for my dinner was not anything delicious but considerably eatable. There aren't many cars when we were on the way home using the highway, but the number of cars surely have increase due to Chinese New Year. Finally, at around 11pm, we safely reached Penang.

Purpose of my blog

Currently, I am still using a template. Hopefully I can learn to customize the settings soon. Last Thursday, I was confirmed by Dongseo University, Korea for my industrial training for 4 months. I was very happy and excited about it(even though it's just 4 months), of course not everyone think of it as so. Many people are frightened of its indefinities but I would like to take it as a new exploration in my life(and perhaps as a long vacation). I have always thinking of going to overseas to further my studies, but due to several reasons, I am unable to do so. Now, a golden opportunity lay in front of me. I would have been a fool and regret about it in my life if I just let it go. Of course, I would like to thank my friends who have supported me throughout the way. Their encouragements have made me walk longer than I thought. As a token of appreciation, I have created this blog in order to share out my experience to them ^^

My second blog

2 February 2005, 11:52pm, I create my second blog. Something "weird" happen to the first one. Unforeseen circumstances T___T Hopefully I don't need to re-create one later.