SEP@KAIST - The Final Chapter

Here comes the final day my stay in KAIST, Daejeon. It has been 4 months since I came to Korea and a lot of things are just happened over this period. Aside from traveling around, I have experienced the Korean academic environment, made few awesome Korean friends, understanding their culture, fostered new friendship, gone through the dark period of campus series suicide and many more unforgettable ones.

In terms of academics,I have learned a lot through my group in Chemical Product Design and Sociology. As one of the best teams in product design class, I really glad that we able to design a 'Color Changing Bottle Cap' using piezoelectricity technology and design methods learned in class. We have gone through ups and downs as a team but finally everything comes to a peaceful ending. On the other side, I am really proud of our sociology presentation team, which has topped the class for all 3 presentations and appeared to be the elite of the class haha.

I have met friends of different nationalities especially of Korean. Besides my teammates, Dasom Kim and Eunsu Kim are my best classmate who always take good care of me (providing me the answers for assignment). Besides that, friends from the Chinese circle, especially from Singapore have made my SEP stint memorable one. We fostered our friendship through interaction, hangouts, trust and support. I am really sad to leave u all as you all have made an important chapter in my life.

I believe I will come back strong as what I believed I would be. Circumstances has made me more mature and ready for new challenges. The Korea SEP is a stepping stone of success and it is an integral part of life experience and memories.

Spring comes

Spring comes and winter is gone, a bunch of exchange students came and are going to left soon... We shall cherish the moment we left in KAIST and hope for a better future when all of us will meet again somewhere in the world :)





Good luck for exams everyone!

3rd World Food Festival

After trips to Cheongwadae, the President's Blue House, and DMZ (pictures check out at fb!), we are left with 2 weeks of school and exams. Today is public holiday and we participated the 3rd World Food Festival organized by the Hanbit Church. There are total 18 countries, including Malaysia and Singapore. I helped out in both stall and it was really a wonderful experience though it was hectic!

We prepared the food for Singapore stall since last week, with lots of times of trial and error, and finally came out with 1) Friend Hokkien Mee, 2) Prata Cheese Sausage and 3) Milo Dinosaur (this is really representing Singapore ha). Malaysian side we have Nasi Lemak, not much preparation as we got help from the Hanbit Church people, my only contribution to the Malaysia stall is just help to cook before the event starts! All credits to Suyi, our Malaysian Nasi Lemak tastes really best and good sales followed of course!

I slept last night 5 am in the hall after cooking (actually I was there to enjoy the atmosphere of cooking only) and woke up 7.30am to help out Suyi to prepare the food. I was so tired today but the event was successful, filled with fun and joy, and definitely wonderful memory for my exchange stint, aside from travelling, reveling in the binge, and whole new academic experience.

I am proud of myself, my country, and NUS in providing such opportunity to my life. As time passes, there are 2 weeks left and there will be less outing, I suppose.

I am an EXCHANGE STUDENT, however, this weekend I am heading to Seoul again to meet up with Zhen Tian, and other classmate from LAK NUS! Cant wait to meet you all :)

KTO Hanok Village Experience

16 April, a very fine day I was invited by the Korea Tourism Organization (KTO) to attend an event called KTO Hanok Village Experience. This is an event organized to create awareness of importance of korean traditional heritage and to promote Hanok (the korean traditional house) as a living heritage of Korea. The total team consists of 30 members, me and my friend from KU, are the two selected Malaysian members along with other members from China, US, Germany etc.

KTO Sign in front of the KTO building

After the opening ceremony by the Mayor of Jongno district, the day started with a Bukchon Culture Guide program where we strolled around the Hanok village, situated in Jongno district, Seoul. The Hanoks scattered here and there and the whole forms a vast area of Hanok village. We paid visit to the carpenters' houses, looking at their interior and exterior design of Hanok, some of them are newly conceptualized Hanok design. The distinctive feature of Hanok is the Cheoma (roof) which extends all the way out forming a curve, and it is said to resemble the wings of a flying bird.

Hanok snapshot

A flying wooden bird

After lunch, we had Kimchi and Tteokbokgi(fried rice cake) making class where we get to make Kimchi by our own hands! It is really a exciting experience as I always wanting to make Kimchi, after long mesmerized with the unique taste of it. The session lasted for 2 hours before we went to the Sachoom Hall in Insadong to watch a exhilarating dancing Sachoom performance (please take some time to google about it, it is really an awesome dancing performace with a plot).

Chief chef from Malaysia

We had our dinner in the Gwangjang market, which is one of the oldest market in Korea. There are stalls selling traditional food like bintetteok (the representative korean thick pancake), sundae (stuffed pig's intestine), and traditional cake for wedding, along with stalls selling traditional art crafts and Hanbok (the Korean traditional costume).

The Gwangjang traditional market

The day ends with the traditional performances such as Arirang and the Hanok stay in the Hanok Village region. Two people are assigned to one host family that live in a Hanok, me and another Indonesian member are assigned to a 30+ years old married couple who own a Hanok of 3 rooms. The Hanok is a very comfortable place to reside, for my host Hanok, there are two blocks separated by a small garden and each block serve for different purposes. We are allowed to sleep in the smaller block which is originally the host's office as a psychological cousellor. The floors of Hanok is warmed by Ondol (the Korean traditional heating system) and it is just no reason to sleep on a bed there! We had so much fun time with the host as we talked and played Kosutop (Hanafuda in Japanese, a traditional card game) till the midnight ;)

Traditional dance performance in the Hanok guesthouse

My stay of Hanok for the night

The second starts after we say Annyeong to our host hamilies. We went around Bukchon Hanok Village again to attend traditional crafts making classes. We are split into groups and my group attended the korean traditional box and mirror making class! It is a little awkward to make art craft after a long time since secondary school, however, and the class ended with much joy especially when our handmade pieces are done.

The Seongsaengnim is teaching us earnestly

My handmade Korean art box, which is going to send away as gift LOL

The whole trip is paid by the KTO, all credits to them, which including meals, transports, accomodations, tour guiding, and much free gifts from them. The trip is really a remarkable one where we are able to experience Korea from a different perspective, and able to appreciate and preserve the traditional beauty of Korea. I simply LOVE Korea!

Picture took with the host family

P/s: I went to Lotte World with my KAIST exhchange friend right after the trip ended. And we had so much fun there especially during the Angel Price Music Festival, where I watched SNSD for the second time in Korea. Taeyeon hwaiting!

In front of the Lotte World castle

Taeyeon is looking at me!

Gyeongju, Busan and Jinhae (SAKURA!!!)

The Jinhae station, Busan station and Gyeongju station

Last weekend was awesome with trips to 3 places each for one day: Gyeongju, the living history of Silla dynasty, Busan, the famous Haeundae beach and Jinhae, the town of cherry blossoms. The experiece is unforgettable as we went to many places, have lots of exciting activites (go cart racing, KTX experience, picnic under cherry blossoms, bicycle riding around Gyeongju, playing sand at Haeunde beach.. and so on!) Its time to back to study and plan for the next field trip:P!

The Fate of Suh Nam-pyo

After two days closing of school, KAIST is going to resume its normal operation on Wednesday of 13 April. The situation may not be turning any better, however, for the president Suh Nam-pyo, who has faced criticizm and forces for his resignation within the past few days after a series of suicides of sudent and a professor of KAIST.

KAIST is in the spotlight in that way it has never been. Alongside news reporters sprawling around the campus, the Ad-hoc Student Assembly is gaining heat with the petition for Suh Nam-pyo resignation and call for school policy reforms. The Ad-Hoc student Assembly, an immediate assembly formed under the Central Executive Committee of KAIST Student Association, aimed to fight for the rights of students in participating the school policy making procedure and right to vote for the next school presidential election.

According to the Ad-hoc Student Assembly, president Suh Nam-pyo is responsible for his 'failed' revolution of tuition fee system. Under his education policy, students are shoved into the realm of 'unlimited competition (무한경쟁)' and creativity is not anymore a product of education due to the fierce competition; The first priority would be the scores and there is no room left for creativity. The Ad-hoc Student Assembly is collecting signatures from students since early Monday, as 202 signatures (1/20 populaton of KAIST) are required to file a memorandum which is to be discussed and submitted on Wednesday 7pm during the student assembly.


A booth set up in front of cafeteria to collect comments and suggestions from students

There are 3 major points to be discussed in the upcoming student assembly:
1) The participation of students in the school policy making procedure
2) The implementation of students' proposition
3) The acknowledgement of president Suh Nam-pyo's failure of his educational
revolution

It will be a tough journey for president Suh's second presidential term of 4 years and it requires strength and wisdom to steer KAIST out of the troubled waters and continue to stand as the first ranked institution in South Korea. Pray for the souls of the deceased.

A last respect for the 4 studets and the professor who committed suicide in the last 3 months

로마에 가면 로마법에 따라라!

Perplexed by the title? It simply means, when you are in Rome, do as the Romans do! We had a wonderful weekend again in Daejoen (haven't been out from Daejeon for period of time). Out of a sudden wimp, we decided to take a night stroll over the central area of Daejeon at the friday night with BIkEs!

Central area of Daejeon

Designated area for bicycles

We rode to the so called McD bridge and have photoshooting session there before we head to Emart for night shopping! For you information, there is a nicely designated area for bicycle on the road sides and it is so bicycle-friendly in KOREA. We rode in a almost zero degree wether and yet feel heart-wamrming at the camaraderie we shared.

Korean super!

:) You won't believe this, we went to an arcade in Gungdong area where university students gathered around till 7am in the morning! We had lots of fun at playing drums, basketball, doll catching machine and time crisis 4! wow long saved money gone in one crazy night :) Before we back to dorm for belated sleep, we witnessed the first sunrise we have in KOREA, a good start for the day and for our sleep.

A dawn snapshot outside KAIST

Sunrise for hopes

Week 8!

Wow time flies and its week 8, which means our exam week starts soon! I have been a little bit busy these past few weeks, especially with assignment and project due. Lets have some intro about what module am I doing in KAIST so far:

CBE311 Chemical Molecular Engineering - An essential chemical engineering basic module! I am really aiming to score this super-hard core module. Could I?

HSS148 Intoduction to Sociology - Personally I love this module and I think will score this module and outbeat the Koreans?? (P/s: Koreans are hardworking and they could stay up whole day for studying, just like the Chinese)

CBE342 Chemical and Biological Product Design - Basically this module is a slack module without much homework and exams, but we have to come out with a product design idea and propose it in a professional way. We came out with a idea colour changing bottle cap but I am abit frustrated that one of my teammate is freeriding on our group, I am freerided while I am an exchange student!

CBE260 Biomolecular Engineering - Another bio module I have taken so far. I have to admit my weakness in bio-related modules.

MSB238 Organizational Behaviour - This module is really epic. Our professor is from Chungnam University and he is always crap based on the notes (the notes are not done by him some more!). Well, I would say this is one of the slackiest module as the prof is kind of easy-going person, with easily set exam questions and crappy lectures! Here are a few spots I like to hang out in KAIST, either studying or relaxing:)

Coffee BEAN at the International Lounge

Book Cafe at the KAIST library

P/s: some funny notes from our friend about Do's and Dont's in KOREA, http://www.facebook.com/#!/note.php?note_id=10150113071103807

Here is some extract,

...2.4) Try the street foods. Street foods are the best. And do eat with your hands haha.

2.5) Must try soju. Though, a lot of girls I met prefer Makkeolli. It is up to the person.

2.6) Try live octopus/squid. Live means live, they should be moving when you eat them.

2.7) Koreans (those in KAIST) don't really exercise... By that I mean I see more joggers/swimmers/gym-ers/etc. in every other country I have been to than in KAIST... and I have been to quite a few countries. I don't know how they stay so skinny. Maybe it has something to do with why I am permanently hungry.

2.8) Travel cheaply by staying in jimjilbangs (saunas) instead of hostels/hotels. You won't sleep very well, but you get to save a ton lot of money and see local culture.

2.9) Don't look like an alien (though you really are one by definitions of the Korean Immigrations Bureau) and talk loudly on the streets. Humph! Who's that loud and uncultured young man/woman! ...

Meeting IU ♥ Daegu

I realized that I have given up my blog as time passes! For the whole last week, we had outings here and there and we went to alot of nice shops, cafes and restaurant! Is a bit troublesome to list down everything here, lets my pictures tell you some insights about it haha.

This cafe is just located outside the west gate and it is delicately designed. Their stock-in-trade, which is the HaagenDazs Waffle was utterly deliciousness!! Well, the main focus of my blog today is not about the HaagenDazs, although it is very tempting, but the White Day 3 Colors CONCERT with IU!

The concert was 3 hours long held in EXCO, Daegu, and consists of 3 parts! First, December brought us ballads, Lessang heat up the atmostphere with raps and hiphops, and finally IU just perfectly set in with her glamourous songs!

One thing to note that, Korean concert really different from what we have and see in our places. Here, the stage is designed really freakingly near to the audience, u can see from my photo and video that I really could go near the stage and shake hand with them. Second, the security guy will ask and please you for stop talking video but not pushing u or just grab your camera, instead they shine ur camera with torch light and ask politely 'Please stop that' LOL!


Final pic of the day, IU :)

Hello Jeonju!

I was too lazy to update my blog, so sorry to my avid reader, perhaps no one lol. Zzz Is 2am in the morning of thursday, which I have 8 hours lecture non-stop! Let me give u a brief summary of what we did in Jeonju.

Jeonju is a small town located south of Daejeon, it is famous of Bibimbap and TAEYEON! We have arrived Jeonju in the morning and we decided to talk a stroll in the Hanok Village. Nice place to sightsee, we walked around those traditional korean houses and witnessed a wedding ceremony there! The couple is tall, just like models. As a good start of the day, we had the famous Bibimbap (korean mixed rice) somewhere near the village. It just costs us 10,000 won per pax, and the taste really worth the price.

We walked around Jeonju for the afternoon, the streets are rather old and small compared to our lovely Daejeon and all the streets of attraction are just side by side. We walked through the chinatown, 'Street that you desired to walk', wedding street and jewelry street. Time passed so fast and we had to settle down for our night, after a korean style japanese dinner and wonderful entertainment of pool (it costs 1,300 won per 10 minutes), we spent our night in jimjjilbang again. But this time round there was something different, by paying a cheap fee of 7,500 won, we got to enjoy the sleep with mattress, blanket and pillow! what a great deal in Jeonju. Of course, we had our family night chit-chat before sleep.

FINALLY the next day came, we took a taxi and arrived at Eyebis spectacle shop, a special shop onwed by Taeyeon's father! There is a Taeyeon Shrine inside the shop, it is a must-visit place for all the Taengoo's fans. We had our sweet time there, with tons of picture taken of course. The shopkeeper gave us SNSD poster as gift (I requested, all credit to me yeah!) summore! Unfortunately, we didn't able to meet Taeyeon's parents as they went to Seoul for meetings with SM.

We went to ice-skating before our time back to Daejeon. Here's the last pic of that day:) Good night zZz

Summary of Week 2

It has been long from my last blog and I found out that it is really tiring and need much determination to keep a blog running alive lol. Here are some updates on what I have been doing in Week 2 besides intensive mugging lol!

Monday was Valentines Day! and my 3rd time drunk date lol. We went to our first POCHA in Korea in sumwhere near Emart and the POCHA here stands for korean style hangout especially it deals with SOJU! I have been throwing out and stick at the toilet bowl for 1 hour, again lol.

Lets Jump to Saturday then. This weekend miraculously we stayed in school as we ran out of money soon lol. I attended the TEDxKAIST event and this is really a great event just like what we did in TEDxNUS. I have to note that their presentation here is much more better, with fancy flash multimedia slides and English-Korean real time translation, wow is really like attending a world-class forum lol. We had dinner at the central area where the I finally found that Daejeon is really of its rank as the 5th largest city in Korea. We took the subway here too, first time riding outside seoul.

As the end of the weekend, we planned to have our first cooking session! With representative from all the Great Chinese Circle, Geri Tiew from Singapore, Ying from Malaysia, John, Arnold and Samson from Hong Kong, ZhiXiu from Taiwan and XinJing from China, we have made this night a wonderful one, full of fun and tastiness!

SnoW!

Wow it snowed last night! When we stepped out of the library, KAIST is already covered up in white white snow! We had our first snowman! haha and snow war too:) Today morning again KAIST is illuminated in its snow clothes.

Awesome Skiing Experience!

I have just had an epic weekends in Seoul and Ski Resort! Our day start on Saturday and we have organized a 18 ppl trip (6 NTU + 8 NUS + 4 others) LOL. We start the day by boarding the bus at 11.00am and we reached the East Seoul Bus Terminal at around 2. Our first station is anguk area where the Gyeongbokgung is just nearby! We got a free tour guide on the exit of the train station and it just awesome to have tourguide around. We entered the Gyeongbokgung area and we saw the Shift Changing Ceremony, what a lucky day! Ok lets talk about the history of this famous aeGyeongbokgung a little bit. This palace is build by the Taejong King and it has been burned down during Japanese Colonial Era and finally refurbished recently. There are alot of nice building design of Korean traditional style and there are some imaginary animals called? Ermm haha i have forgotten, nvm lets move on to the Hanbok wearing session! We got it free by just signing up at the both, by the way I was the last customer! What a lucky day indeed.

Guess where am I! haha I am the blue soldier!

Next, we head on to Insadong, an area reknown for its artistic atmosphere where there are plenty of shops selling DIY accesories, and all art-related goods such as chopstick, poultry etc. The night in Insadong was a memorable one as nights sprawled over the place, the subzero cold air was warmed by the hearts of all ppl walking through the road, some with laughter, some holding each other in couple. After an expensive yet delicious dinner (costs us around 17,000 won each), I ran to the mrt and took on a Incheon International Airport Railway in order to return my long-rent cellphone. The whole journey took me 2 hours to and fro and the cellphone charged me for around 126,000 won!

We have settled down for the night in Dragon Hill Spa (Sound impressive huh) for 12,000 won each. This place is really awesome and it has more entertainment than the one I went in Seoul. It provides arcade like DanceMania, House of the Death 4, basketball shooter, and they even have K-box inside. I spent another 7,500 won on this irresistible temptation to enjoy a K-box session (SNSD songs of course), a milk, and a ass massaging chair (I wonder why the massage chair focus on ass massaging lol). We slept at 3 and woke up at 6 plus to prepare ourself for the FUN SKIING DAY!

It was actually the last day of GangCheon Elysia Ski Resort promotion, and we spent only 36,600 won only for entrance fee+equipment+ski costume, and there is free shuttle bus and direct train all the way from Yongsan Station! What a great deal, special thanks to Geri Tiew's friend. It was my first skiing experience, full of surprises and joy! We spent 1 hour on selecting equipment, where we have to measure our foot size (mine is 260mm!), height, weight and some index according to the table given. After that, we started our journey of skiing! I spent only 2 hours on the beginner track and I challenged the intermediate track which is much much more steeper than the beginner one! Of course, I tumbled for several times and fell over the fence for once (with ppl shouting but no one is helping :()! Haha I could say that I have mastered the beginner skill of skiing and lets come and challenge me!

It was really a fun-filled day, and it ended with a wonderful meal at the bus terminal where we have to pay only 6,600 won each to enjoy the delicious Samgyeopsal (3 layer pork) and a seafood pot with all sorts of clamp, prawn and crab inside! Luckily we were able to catch our bus on 8.40pm exactly on time and here we went back safely to our lovely Daejeon :)