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 :)

Commencement day in KAIST

After having fun till midnight in Santa Claus, a home-styled korean underground bar, I woke up at 9.30 in the morning for my friday class. On the way to my lecture hall, I have seen stalls set up selling flowers, balloons, and some souvenir kind of thing. I have soon found out it is the KAIST Commencement Day!
Graduates are here and there taking photos with their family commemorating this meaningful day in life, which it will be my turn 1 year later:) I have filled with strong emotion looking at them holding a certificate or booklet while standing stiffly for the photographer to take the best portrait out of it.
I have ate wonderful lunch and dinner today, haha it is the famous Korean ramyeon with CHEESE! The cheese reduces the viscousity of the soup fluid thus making it smoothier while itself undergoes decomposition and finally everything adsorbs wonderfully on your taste buds!

Thats all for tonight and I have to prepare for the another exciting Seoul trip tomorrow! we are going to SKI!!!

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Adaptation to KAIST

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After 2 days of school life in KAIST, I am getting adapted to this new environment of knowledge! I have bought a phone costing 30,000 only and a bike which I spent only 12,000 for refurbishment, and I have figured out posting system, notes printing system (ah this make me feel nostalgic of NUS library!), student centre etc.

Today I have only 1 class from 11am to 12pm, I met a new classmate, a Korean guy who looks like no other friend in the class LOL, well we will form a team maybe. Then after class, me and the gang went to a Korean restaurant to get GundaeJjigae (Army Soup Pot)! Wow as you see in the picture, there are luncheon meat, sausages, mushroom, ricecake, minced beef, vegetable and the soup with cheese! It costs us 5,000 won each and it was a perfect lunch for me before my Korean class.

Why so I still need to attend Korean class? No, I was just attending a Korean class session with KI house (KAIST International House), where those retired ajumas give 1 to 1 tutorial on Korean according to your level and pace. My tutor is a middle age ajuma whom I forget her name LOL, wearing spec with good disposition. I continued study my Korean textbook from NUS and have had nice talking with her for the afternoon. She said that she is doing this kind of voluntary works as she is so thankful that she escaped death with a transplant and now she is giving back to the society now.

I have finally done with my Alien Registration card application which has engrossed me for a long time. As I have leaved Korea last week, my visa became obsolete because I must obtain a Alien Registration card before I leave Korea, so that is. I had my high-tea at coffee bean at the International Lounge, where the environment is way too comfortable to relax :).

At night just now, we had a birthday celebration for Moon Yee at Burger King. Again Baskin Robin ice cream cake bought for the celebration, it is delicious anyway. And this made my day:)

1st day of school in KAIST

7 Feb 2011, a new chapter of my life, which is also the first day of school in KAIST. It was an awful yet exciting day I would say. First in the morning, I went to settle my course registration at the registrar team office where I have to fill up a form which indicates the courses I am taking and we are required to obtain signature form the professors to complete the course registration. Well, everything done with a bit of difficulties, especially it deals with Korean lol.

Ok my first class was CBE342 Chemical Product Design held in the Creative Learning Building, one of the prominent building in KAIST. I was the only foreigner apparently in the class and the professor shoot off with Korean throughout the whole session, only when the class ended I could talk to the professor, telling him to teach in English and I was really nervous as there is assignment given on the first class so I bugged him about the assignments. I got my textbook for this module after my lunch at the cafeteria, where I had lunch of baked potatoes, fried chicken cutlet, and hotdogs with curry costs only 2,700 won. I was really worried that I would fail my module here in KAIST as everyone starts to mug hard and the kiasuism pervails all around the corner. Maybe I should start mugging too?

After dinner of Mapotofu 2,300 won, I decided to take a walk outside the campus to enquire about the mobile phones in Korea. But on our way, me and Ji Sin accidentally bumped into a rock band concert call KangJeok (Strong Rival) held in Taewulguan auditorium. It was an awesome rock band, where the standard is way beyond a school CCA (better than those in NUS)! The bass guitarist came out to greet us somemore after the show! LOL we wonder why too, maybe we are the only foreigner again. Overwhelmed with joy, songs of SNSD, free beer and coffee, we proceed to phone shops outside KAIST.

After visiting few shops, we knew that we need a ID card to register a phone legally. What is illegal then? haha which means buying a phone only with a passport, which at first I intended to do. After the detailed explanation provided from a English-spoken shopkeeper, we know that we can get prepaid and postpaid (mostly) phones in Korea from one of the 3 (SK, KT, LG) mobile phone service providers. So my plan now is to make a ID card first so that I could apply a phone legally LOL (more safe and with better phones that could be used in Singapore upon return). So this is my day and I would like to mug some pages before sleep and going to settle things like ID card registration, notes printing, and get a special gift for haha :x.

P/s: Got a free bicycle at the roadside, where there are lots of abandoned used bicycle. Going to change the tyre and it could be used then.