Sunday, May 31, 2009

장미꽃이 피는 초하

Roses blooming at a school's fence which I pass by every day.

I have no time to do blogging these days as my end-of-term test is just around the corner. On top of that, I have two more projects to complete.

I am just taking a breather. It's back to study again. 화이팅!

Thursday, May 28, 2009

단오인 오늘

It's Dano Festival (단오, 端午) today but the mood in Seoul is anything but celebratory.

First, the number of H1N1 Influenza A cases has risen to 29. There is fear that the number of cases will continue to rise as those infected were reported to have been in contact with the public before they were isolated.

Second, the North has nullified the Korean War armistice and threatened military action should the South attempts to intercept any of its ships under the ambit of the US-led Proliferation Security Initiative.

Third, the nation is mourning the sudden departure of their ex-president, Roh Moo-hyun. He entered the harsh world of politics because of people and he departed this world also because of people. He said that its his destiny but he left the nation in deep grief. After the national funeral tomorrow, a mass demonstration against the current president is expected to follow.

Am I feeling the heat? My answer is a positive 'yes' and I mean it in a literal way. The current temperature is 30.5degC and it feels like midsummer outside.

Perhaps all the happenings are just some midsummer madness. Whatever happens, I am not about to flee the country although I keep thinking about what happen if missiles from the North started raining down on Seoul. Guess what was the answer that came out from my mind? "Retreat to Busan" was the answer.

I wonder why I didn't think of going back home even though there are dumplings waiting for me.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

경희60주년축체

KHU is celebrating its 60th Anniversary this year. Celebration which started two weeks ago culminated in the 'mega' concert on Friday. Three big names of the Korean entertainment industry, Son Dambi, Lee Hyori and Rain, were invited as guest singers. Their combined popularity attracted about 50,000 people to fill up the amphitheatre and the buildings around it. The atmosphere was nothing short of electrifying.

The girl band, After School, though fast gaining popularity in Korea was overshadowed by the bigger stars that night.

Son Dambi

Lee Hyori

Jeong Ji-hun or more popularly known as Rain

Just to give you a feel of the atmosphere that night, I have included a video of Rain performing. Warning: Turn down the volume of your speakers first before playing the video if you do not want to turn deaf. The screaming by the fans is kinda loud.



냉면 이야기

I am too used to the thought that only hot food is delicious and so naturally cold noodle is not something which I think is delicious. When it comes to selecting food to eat, cold noodle has never been one of my consideration. I know I am carrying a biased thought. How can I have concluded that cold noodle is not delicious without first even trying it? So in the end, I still decided to give it a try.

It started when our teacher (who can be quite picky) recommended us a cold noodle shop in the vicinity of our campus. Then one of our classmates tried and came back raving about how good it was... blah blah blah. There is psychology of consumer at play here. First, our teacher acted like a credible spokesperson for cold noodle. When I didn't fall for that, our classmate's second opinion just nailed it.

The cold noodle (물냉면), which I ordered, looks presentable. The buckwheat noodle came as a ball with slices of cucumber and radish floating above the clear soup base. Crushed ice was added to make the soup cold. The soup has a sweet sour taste and the noodle is quite chewy. My verdict: it is edible. I mean I don't dislike eating it and perhaps if I eat it a few more times I may grow to like it. The only hurdle that prevented me from saying that it is good is I am still not used to eating cold food. I guess thing just needs time to change.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

여름에 접어든다

Rapeseed flowers in Seoul Grand Park.

Seasons come an and go and so do flowers. First, it was Plum and Cherry Blossoms. When they were gone, Royal Azaleas took over. Now that Royal Azaleas are gone, Roses are starting to bloom. Most of the rose plants should be in full bloom in a week of two. I shall be back with more pictures of them.

This rose is called Pink Peace. Country of origin is France.

By now, Plum Blossoms have turned into green plums. Be it sweet or sour plums, I have eaten them but this is the first time I am seeing plums growing on tree.

Monday, May 18, 2009

5월 15일 그날

May 15 is Teacher's Day (스승의날) in Korea. Our class bought our teachers each a basket of flower from one of the temporary flower stalls set up outside our campus's main gate. Gift for teacher is known as 촌지 (寸志) or "an inch of gratitude" here. But as a joke, we like to call it as 뇌물 (賂物) or bribe. In return, our teachers bought us lunch. So we are even.

The 12th WKLSC (see the 3rd photo below for the full meaning) for Foreigners is also held on May 15. Our American classmate was one of the finalists. In order to show our support, our class spent about 1 hour in the morning preparing our placards. After some thought, we settled on the tagline: 꽃보다 재임스, 천하무적 재임스, 화이팅! As you can see, we are also affected by the '꽃보다 남자' 효과 (BOF Syndrome).

In the process of designing the placards.

Everyone busy with colouring and decorating the placards.


The 12th WKLSC was held at Crown Hall which has a seating capacity of about 1,000. This year, there were a total of 1,106 entries and of which only 20 were selected for the final contest. The finalists include students, workers, wives of Korean husbands and even a Buddhist monk from Nepal. Each finalist was given three minutes to present their speeches on one of the two themes -`Mother' and 'How to Enjoy in Korea'. The Grand prize went to a German student from the Korea University who spoke about his mother.

Director IIE giving the opening speech for the 12th WKLSC for Foreigners.

List of finalists and the their topics of presentation.

The pride of KHU - Taekwondo. About 30 minutes of high-octane action during the interval which was totally entertaining. Even if you are not good in Korean, watching the Taekwondo performance should be worth your trip down to KHU.

Cutie Alert! The finalist from UK.

The cultural icon of Korea - B-Boys entertaining the audience before the results were announced. Equally entertaining.

The Grand Prize winner - a German student from the Korea University.

Finalists taking group photo.

The Nepal monk spoke very good Korean but unfortunately he forgot his lines. The first 3 ladies from left in the front row are all wives of Korean. First from left, Indonesia, second, Georgia and third, Japan.

My classmate switched her loyalty after our classmate lost. The guy is the Grand Prize winner.


You can watch the Arirang news on the event below. For users of Firefox and Safari, I am afraid you will have to download Windows Media Player plugin to watch it.



Sunday, May 17, 2009

외국인 한마당

On Thursday (May 14), our campus held a festival for all foreign students. There was no lesson that morning. We were only required to attend the festival which started at 11am and ended at 5pm. The festival comprised a cooking and talent competition. Lucky draw was also thrown in with the top prize being electronic dictionary. Other prizes include MP3 player, USB Drive and Outback Steakhouse voucher.

But before the crowd arrived, a group of foreign students were already cooking up a storm at their make-shift kitchen beside the IIE building. Of all the food being prepared, I am only familiar with the chicken satay, Indian curry and dumpling. The rest of the dishes were kinda 'foreign' and exotic to me.

Chicken satay being prepared by Indonesian students. Smell really good.

Without looking at others, I picked this dish as the winning dish cos' I like satay. Satay definitely tastes much better than 닭꼬치 because of the spices used to marinate the meat.

A dish cooked by Japanese students using assorted vegetables and chicken meat. The dish, which originated from Kyushu, is called '치쿠잰니'. It is a healthy dish and quite unlike mainstream Japanese dishes. Usually healthy food tends to be less tasty and I honestly didn't expect them to win.

A curry dish (허루화) prepared by the combined team of Nepalese and Indian students. The dish is very fragrant because of the spices used. I wonder where they find all the spices in Seoul.


The festival was held at a small open-air amphitheatre (인간 교실, Human Classroom) in front of the College of Human Ecology. By 11am, the place was already packed with people. While we were waiting for the cooked dishes to be brought out for the cooking competition, a man in traditional clothing was pounding the rice dough near the stage. Students were later asked to join in the pounding. When the dough became 'ddeok', each class was asked to send a representative to collect their share.

'Ddeok' making in progress. The big mallet was used to pound the rice dough.


For the cooking competition, students were required to come dressed in their traditional costumes and for the food they cooked, they were required to give a brief introduction.

The Mongolian Team

The Saudi Arabian Team

The Chinese Team. Fortunately, there was a Chinese team or it would be quite embarrassing since Chinese students form the majority of the foreign students population.

The Kyrgyzstani Team. I always has problem spelling the name.

To the left of Saudi Arabian team is the Belize team from Central America and to the right is the Azerbaijani Team.

The Russian team is in the centre with the Taiwanese Team to the left

Mongolian and Vietnamese Team standing side by side.

The competition started with the Korean team giving an introduction of their dishes. Those guys in blue shirts are bound for Peking University and those guys in pink are bound for Japan. As explained by the guy in blue, the reason for their 'existence' is a political one.

The Kyrgyzstani Team introducing their dishes - 듬다마 and 오러모.

The French Team introducing their dishes - Fricassĕe de Poulet. It is a family dish commonly eaten in Southern France. Its main ingredients are chicken meat, tomato, tomato sauce and onion.

The Chinese Team introducing their dishes - 'double-skin' milk and dumpling which won them the 3rd prize. 'Double-skin' milk is a dessert made by steaming a mixture of milk and egg. Sound very simple. Perhaps I will try it one day.

The person doing the introduction is a Nepalese student. There was a lot of food prepared by his team. He does not only cook, he can play the flute as well.

The Azerbaijani students introducing their traditional dishes of which one is Kebab. They won the 3rd prize.

The Saudi Arabian claimed that you will not forget the taste after you tasted their '캅싸'. 잊을 수 없는 그 맛, 캅싸!. I guess its true because they won the 2nd prize. The dish's main ingredients comprise rice, mutton, onions, garlic and seasonings.

The Vietnamese team introducing '반세오' and its recipe. Our teacher was all praise for the dish. This team won the 2nd prize together with the Saudi Arabian team.

The Mongolian team introducing '호쇼르' which looks like curry puff. The filling is meat instead of curry potato. This team won the 3rd prize.

The competition ended after the Russian and Taiwanese both presented their dishes. The next event is lunch.

Teachers and students queuing up to have a taste of all the dishes. However, only teachers are allowed to vote, or else the Chinese team will definitely come up top for obvious reason.

We were each given a 'dosirak' (lunch box) for our lunch. But that's not all, we also get to eat the food prepared by the students. Of course, the satay belongs to me.

Our class rep collected two plates full of food and our teacher gave us another plate. So we had 3 plates of food to share plus our dosirak. By the way, I also ate the Mongolian 'curry puff'. Quite nice.


After lunch, the '장기자랑' or talent competition commenced. The participants of this competition are mostly Korean, Chinese and Japanese. Though there was an apparent lack of international flavour, it was still quite entertaining. The first team to take the stage was a rock band formed by those Korean students who are bound for Japan's '일본공대'.

A guitarist of the rock band formed by Korean students bound for Japan's '일본공대'.

The rest of the guitarists.

Guitarist turns lead vocalist.

Belly dancer from Ubezkistan. She first arrived at KHU last Spring.

This is the 2nd time she is performing in the same event.

Traditional Chinese dance by a Chinese student from the Jiangsu province.

One of the Chinese students from a trio singing '거위의 꿈'.

The only guy in the trio. I don't know why he has this painful facial expression whilst singing the song. Isn't the song full of dream and hope. Cheer up guy.

You saw this Nepalese student cooking curry just now. He is now playing tunes from the Himalayas with his flute. To better his chance of winning, he even played the title track from the movie 'Titanic'.

This Japanese team comprises of two guitarists and one female vocalist.

This female vocalist sang the same song in both Japanese and Korean.

Keniji, the guitarist, used to be my classmate. A playful but yet a very honest person. I think he looks like Jay Chou but my friend disagrees.

She didn't have the flower just now. Some 'admirer' went on stage and gave her one.

Next come the hip-hop team from China. She has the style.

The complete Chinese hip-hop's group.

Another Chinese student singing and dancing to the tune of 'You Go Girl'.

An all-Japanese girls dancing group.

Gee gee gee gee, baby, baby...

The MC, a Korean language teacher, interviewing the group. He is quite hilarious. He can also dance reasonably well.

Representative from Thailand singing Davichi '8282'.

This guy is an ET (English Teacher) at IIE. He comes from New York and plays the keyboard almost like a pro. He probably can earn a living playing the keyboard.

An English Professor at IIE from Canada playing the guitar and singing.

This guy is a Korean. He formed the group 'Samurai' with 3 other students from US, China and Japan and their presentation item is breakdance. They are the most internationalised group in the competition.

The last group to perform. They are Korean students who are bound for Peking University. These are the 'lollipop' girls.

The 'lollipop' boys and girls. I thought they are good enough to be the first. But I guess it may not be nice to award them the 1st prize since they have home ground advantage. In the end, they got the 2nd prize for the talent competition.

Samulnori performers performed while we wait for the arrival of 원장님.

The talent competition ended too early so it was up to the Samulnori performers to drag the time until 원장님 arrives.

The first prize for the cooking competition goes to the Indonesian Team.

The first prize for the talent competition goes to the b-boys team. This Korean guy is the best dancer in the team.


It was a fulfilling day since we were both well fed and entertained. More campus activities coming up after this.