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!

SHoppinggg!

What a beautiful morning it is today. Bright sunny and not hot. Weather here is pretty good now. :)

Yesterday i really had a super tiring day. We went to the Gyeongdeukgung Palace and after that roamed around the streets in Insadong- finding nothing much, we decided to head straight to a shopping paradise- Dongdaemun (in chinese its supposed to be North big gate literally).

The Gyeongdeukgung palace is a UNESCO registered world cultural heritage site and it totally deserves to be on that list. Not only does it look extravagant, it is also very well preserved. I learnt from the English guided tour (we were not allowed to roam ourselves..), that the chinese words inscribed on the nameboards on the palaces had quite a lame reason. The koreans were very influenced by the chinese at that time (abt 700 yrs ago) and so their temples, official buildings all had dragons and roof shaped like the chinese style. they even spoke chinese. But after King Taejong invented the korean language, the officials who were the more educated ones, refused to use it. Because the korean language is supp;osedly easier to learn than chinese, more of the lower class peasants could learn and master it. The officials, not wanting to be just like a peasant class, decided to stick with chinese and show off. Haha..this just proves that since all of us know how to speak chinese, we shld actually be super proud of it! hehe..

At Dongdaemun, wow man really a shopping paradise. They have 3 shoppings complexes over there, two opens up to 7pm and one start their business at 7pm. crazy right? haha..outside they even have macham pasar-malam shops. All these shops sell clothes, accessories, boots, hats...all the fashion stuff. Their style is somewhat similar to what Singapore have but sometimes when i say this, i think SIngapore style is very much copied from other countries. we have little or no style of our own la. MAybe the only difference i can point out is, they can play around more with their clothes esp when the weather there turns colder.

Today, Euwin plans to go to the beach coz he says summer is ending soon and after that, the beaches will be closed. Hmm we'll see.

i love korean food la.

I'm finally in Korea! Haha.. The plane ride was okay...couldnt catch much sleep coz of the not-so-comfy seats...so watched Ironman instead. haha. They served us a choice of either Egg & sausage or Korean rice. the former was quite horrible and i shld have chose the korean rice. Funny how they serve korean food on board. well actually 90% of the passengers were korean. good thing the air stewardess know how to speak very good english. :)

After we touched down, we chilled out at a cafe while waiting for the Airport Coaches to send us. The bus ride to Anguk (where the Banana Backpackers were located) tok approx 1hr! and it took the expressway. This really made me miss how pampered we are in spore!

It was quite horrible after that. coz it was raining and we were kinda lost. okok..we WERE lost. We asked for directions here and there, all the while being drenched under the rain, and finally we reached! argh..painful la..my bag was super heavy la..30kg is no joke to drag ard..

Well at least after we checked in at the backpackers, all was okay. we had a hot choco, a warm bath and sleep! haha..shiok la..when i woke up i actually thought it was night time when it was only 3pm! lol..pig

After the nap, we took the subway to Myeongdong, a place with many shops selling clothes and bags, just like a more complex version of Bugis street. Over there, we also chance upon Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Krispy Kreme! haha the supposedly best donut in the world. The interesting was when we went in Krispy Kreme, one of the staff actually offered all 3 of us a free original glazed donut each! haha..so as kian peng singaporeans, we happily accepted the free donuts! haha..eh of course we also bought more la. how can stop at only one! the donut was really super nice. crispy and sugary on the outside and soft on the inside. haha i feel like eating one now already. :)

Next we went to the shopping malls, namely Lotte Plaza or bldg. (i cant rmb haha) INside was mostly the same as SIngapore's malls...many shops, department style. But the style of clothes or should i say fashion is a bit different as compared to spore. More daring, more mix of bright colours and of course, there could afford to play ard with sweaters and jackets coz of the cooler climate.

When we were on the way back, we realised how tired our legs and butts were. I guess it was from climbing all the stairs when taking the subway and using the underpass. Not like spore, escalators were only seen in looooong flight of stairs..and yeahyeah, the koreans are made to stand on the right of the escalators. Singaporeans are made to stand on the left. but then driving is the other way round. Korea: left hand drive, Spore: Right hand. Soo confusing. i wonder who made all these rules.

It's really amazing you know if you think about it, how can 45 million pple reside in one country and speak only one language - korean and very little english. I mean, can u imagine not knowing a single word of english when the most common language in the world. 45 million pple speaking a special language - korean that maybe only they understand. Funny when u think about it huh.

Oh and the most interesting thing that happen today was during lunch at a korean house restaurant. We daringly went in, not knowing a single korean word that relates to food, and sat down. How stupid we mnust have looked la...esp when the woman asked us in korean what we want to eat. We looked ard for some picture menu but sadly couldnt find any. We even resorted to taking out the phrasebook for some help.HAh. it was embarassing but no choiee. In the end, the woman recommended us food. Bulgogi = beef (this we could understand) and all 3 of us ate the same thing due to the lack of words we knew. haha...

ANyway the rain here is really dampening la. Hopefully it wun rain tmr. then can go to the palaces. hehe