Happy Midautumn Festival!

Has been more than a week since i blogged. Been busybusybusy. Part school work but mostly going out whenever there's no lessons. haha. It is our 3rd week of lessons here and they are getting tougher as the professors up their gear to teach heavier stuff and also to dish out the assignments.

The following are the modules im taking at Seoul National University:

1. Advance Building Construction Technology
2. Astronomy
3. English Poetry
4. Introduction to Photography
5. Korean Language

We could only managed to map one core because of limited number of building courses taught in english. furthermore, the only relevant courses are conducted by the graduate class. So actually one core from a graduate level is enough already. haha. Their further studies here is quite different. Singapore is graduate-masters-phd. Korea is graduate-graduate class (for abt 2 years)-masters-phd (in all is like 10 years plus minus...madness la..) by the time one reach phd already too old to think already....lol

Astronomy class is ahem..how shall i put it...XIONG. its basically astrophysics...first lesson taught by the prof and im drowning in mathematical equations...total 3 in all....MAD... and to think in NUS i try to avoid any electives with any hint of maths and physics.. T_T

English Poetry was alright at first because...no 1, the lecturer is an angmoh...a britain that speaks purrrfect Brit-glish...please lo, if you were here, you would understand too...english is like a treasure and would be much simpler to study right? wrong...English poetry....hmm somehow the english words i read dun mean much to me...haha...but it's way better than zero understanding with courses taught in korean. And of course, maybe this course will make me more *ahem* cultured. haha. oh and most importantly, no exam, only 4 graded assignments.

Phototography is fun. The lecturer is an angmoh too. Australian. This course is from a design school. SO basically we just take some artsy-fartsy pictures and hand them in. Voila! thats our assignments and this course also no exams. quite good eh? :D The only bad part: 3 hour lectures...sit there and listen to the prof drone on and on and on and on about supposedly famous photographers. boohoohoo.

Actually i wanted to blog about the weekend but somehow it started with my modules. Anyway this weekend was the Korean Thanksgiving holiday. It's called Chuseok and during this time, they all go back to their hometown and visit their families. Its macham like our CNY reunion. But the interesting thing is: it falls on the same date as our Midautumn Festival. (sidetrack- thanks Lynn for your heartwarming ecard.. :)) Seems like the Chinese and the koreans have much in common. Soo..during this time, all of us just went out and shopped, visit museums, palaces..and shopped somemore...haha but only the mega shopping malls were open. small shopping streets were all closed and walking through them make u feel like u are the only pple alive...really like ghost-town. Today was the worst..we couldnt even find a place to have dinner! So we ended up eating macs! They have this burger called the Big Bulgogi burger...my my my...it tastes verrry good...2 juicy, tender, sweet beef patties clasps in between 3 slices of bread..wow...its nth like carl's junior.. after that we went to Baskin Robbins for dessert! Who has heard of or tried Baskin RObbins tag the board! haha...their ice cream is very nice..reminds me of Ben and jerry's. Makes me wonder why singapore dun have Baskin RObbins...but then again..i dun see Ben and Jerry's here in Seoul.

"Maek-do-nal-dir"

Big Bulgogi Burger - Im lovin' it!

Yummy! ok it looks better in reality..

Baskin Robbins! Look at the anticipation on that face...

Wild Strawberry Banana yogurt ice-cream

Chocolate and rainbow sherbet ice-cream

the taste of home..finally

Boy do i miss western food! I have been having korean food everyday since the day i arrived here..white rice...kimchi...soup...ramen...i was craving for some fries and cheese and good'ol chicken wings when it was time for dinner today! After lesson, we decided to go out of school nearby to have dinner...partly coz it was late and the cafeterias all closed and partly coz we just needed to get OUTTA sch...even for a while.. haha.. Outside, we just zoomed in on all the angmoh restaurants and decided on PIZZA HUT! haha...we had BBQ chicken pizza and omg la...they taste so heavenly good...haha...melted cheese...toasted crust...capsicum..a real taste of home man...21000won. worth every cent. haha

Half eaten pizza. but still look ohhh soooo good..

First lesson today on our one and only core module in SNU. and a graduate course at that..the lesson was okay. Conducted thankfully in understandable english and wasnt too chim. The prof though was strangely nice. TOO nice. haha. i helped him complete his sentence coz he couldnt find the right word and he said: "wooo...10 pts to 조엘 (joel)" haha i also didnt know what it meant but i think he was joking. He also took the effort to ensure we (the singaporeans) were split up separately into groups with the koreans so that we get the chance to mix ard and the best part was..he even planned a mountain climbing expedition to the nearby mountain just beside our school! haha...it would sound just so absurb in sg la...but in korea..its just a welcome activity for the foreigners. ha..i'll be looking forward to it. :)

Korean lesson no 1

My first lesson in korean in Korea today! haha..it was very very good. the entire lessons is crafted so well, almost everyone learn very quickly and managed to pick up the basics quite fast. Come to think of it, the korean language lessons provided by the community centres really sucked man. I dun rememeber my korean teacher teaching me how to ping yin and all. But ya, the korean classes in SNU really is fun and spur me on to learn more! :)

I had the Astronomy class today again and once again, the class was conducted entirely in Korean. But thank God, the ppt was in English..so i managed to understand some stuff. My classmate, Jeon, also was really kind and took the time after class to explain to be carefully what was taught during the lecture. He did it even when his english was not good. He seriously tried his very best to make sure i understood. Really hard to find this kind of friend la...haha..

Then super funny after that...somehow, he and the Teaching Assistant (the one conducting the astronomy class in korean) started asking me to write chinese words on a piece of paper. (to koreans, they are actually quite surprised to find out that we learn both english and korean in sg) So i wrote chinse words and they actuallu can understand what im writing! later i learnt that many(about 50%) of the korean words originate from chinese words and some more educated pple can actually recognise chinese characters! Only thing is: they pronounce the chinese differe ntly from us.

After that, Jeon invited me to go out drinking with him and Nok-do (it means Green Pea in Korean coz a general that was damn short like a pea, died at that area..haha lame i know)
The entire drinking session was very interesting. We talked about our own countries...how expensive cars are in sg...HDB...govt policies about housing, babies...we even talked about religion and God. I told him sth that kinda got him thinking i think. I told him that ya although man can call themseleves their own God or rather, they are masters of their own lives- meaning that they can plan every single detail of their lives to make it as perfect as possible, they are eventually some things that cannot be anticipated and pre-planned. For eg like the weather, ur health...

bottom line: there is a God out there that pre-determine our lives. Believe it or not, it's true.

sch start lo....

School finally started today and i just moved in to the dorms yest noon..The dorm is alright..double decker bed with desk, cupboard and aircon even...condition of the building is overall not bad. Actually i have nothing much to complain about the dorm except that the pillow that i bought was just too high...couldnt sleep well last night as a result. Even my roommate was ok. Hongkong guy that is studying in Aussie...got slang and all but at least he speaks english..appears to be a cool dude..

Yest afternoon as i was unpacking my luggage and unfolding and hanging my clothes in the cupboard..i was thinking again...what am i doing here? Why am i putting mysef in an uncomfortable spot...far away from my family, my gf and my home? Sigh la. seems like the change of environment is getting to me. Maybe it'll be better after i made some good friends.

Soo..i just went for my first lesson in SNU...and it was quite horrid actually.
Firstly, it rained in the morning.(actually i like rain coz it's more cooling)
Then suppose to have breakdast with my roomate but i was too slow in preparing coz i wanted to check my email before gg out then in the end i had breakfast alone (some cheese toast with cold coffee...it tasted quite nice though)
After that i managed to find the class and reach on time..but horrors of horrors...the teacher was speaking in korean! Everybody was speaking in korean..even the handout was korean! i was like thinking: isnt this supposed to be a course taught in english??!
Thank God He provided this guy called Jeon to help me out with the language barrier...(he was a korean that could speak some english and was very helpful)
So in the end i found out that there was 2 classes each week. Both classes are conducted with relation to each other but one by a professor and the other by a vice-prof. The prof will conduct his class in english but the problem was that the vice-prof ( who is a girl and looks like a student) doesnt speak a single word of english! Which means her class will be in total korean!! Ahh..So after much chicken and duck talk...i found out that i have to go for both classes and she will help me out by providing me with a english textbook and a grp that is proficient in english.. hai so much for calling this course an english course...

I should really brush up on my korean..

BEACH!

Went to the beach today! haha it was very beautiful and was as such as what pple call it: Got hill, got water. hahaa...but in chinese of course. :)

Look at the Korean Beach. Even the air is different. haha

Starting our journey at 1030am, we took the subway and travelled all the way to Incheon station - the last stop of one of the lines. That took about 2 hours already. From there, we still had to take bus - a one hour bus ride all the way to Jung-do island! and we even passed the freaking Incheon International Airport. THAT was how far it was. Imagine: to get to the beach. we have to travel a total of 3 hours! crazy man...





Good thing was the beach was just excellent. The sand was clean, the water was clean, the sun was good. no clouds in the sky..we sun tanned, i swam...it was just pure relaxing la. haha..One problems though. ok 2. There was nothing much to do except suntan and swim. The other was: there were no chicks! ZERO. how sad was that. go to the beach and all we saw were aunties and teenagers and worst of all, the policemen were having some games day at the beach today. haha...but yinyee and christina were happy la. LOL

Yours truly

Sunset..picture taken from the restaurant

After that we had seafood dinner! We ate at the beachside with incredible view...with the sunset and all...haha. Dinner was a spread. The side dishes alone were enough to fill our stomachs. Kimchi, vege, bean sprouts, pumpkin with redbean. Our main dish was a spicy fish soup steamboat or some sort haha. The fish meat was not too bad. but the girls sad it was a bit old and coarse. i thought it was good la. fussy queens. oh brown rice was served instead. Nice la.

Euwin, Yinyee and Joel

Fenni and Christina Tay

Look at the Fish steamboat and spread. woot

Then we had to make the 3 hour journey back home. I wonder when will we be back. Hmm

Picture Frenzy

Some photos of my days in korea so far...

Oh man...the BBQ meat here just rocks la...check out the spread:

Night lights in Korea

Some street food! chicken!
Dongdaemun!

Inside on the shopping centres at Dongdaemun

Tired from all the walking

Gyeongdeukgung palace



Soju! tastes horrible! ywucks

haha joke man

whyyy

Im feeling so emo now...listening to Yiruma's Kiss the Rain piano piece..

I'm thinking to myself now...why did i choose to go for SEP? Putting myself out of my comfort zone. Putting myself in a foreign place, a new place, new friends, new culture..with hardly any friends im close to...with a language barrier that i will have to fight very hard to overcome or make it easier...and worst of all, why did i choose to be so far away from my Grace??? To be only able to see her on a computer screen..to hear her voice with alot of static? whyy??

I could just easily not entertain the thought of going for an exchange program. but will i stop thinking about it? will i not regret after my uni days? Will i envy those that took the challenge? Will i inhibit myself from growing, from learning more about myself?

Im totally awed at my courage la. maybe i like to take risks? maybe i have a hunger for new things? to experience a different lifestyle from tiny singapore? im not sure, maybe thats what i tell myself. I just hope that its worth all the effort and discomfort.

A temporal pain for a lifelong memory.

yup, it's definitely worth it. Fighting!