Very long post. Take your time.


Right… about the first Monday here! The morning started as usual, with Bernard and me going for breakfast… and would you believe it I totally forgot what we had. I remember I had coffee milk though… Wait! I think I remember… it was some beef burger cut into halves haha but I took both halves so yeah beef burger… by the way I’m now typing the blog in my com and transferring it online cos……………… I FOUND A LAN POINT! More on that later.

So after breakfast we had nothing to do as usual, cos we were meeting the Arts Council Korea people ~9.45am. Don’t know what the others did but I read my story book (Portrait of a Lady by Henry James) and fiddled with the com a while, looking at the pictures and organising them somewhat. Right…. So 9.45 we all were waiting in the lobby… but Jinju and Jiwon came slightly after 10. And you know why? Because we ALL left the rooms, and she was trying in vain to call us to tell us to come out of the rooms from her office! Too enthusiastic la we all haha. BTW their office is just 5 min walk away. So cool huh… So anyway they came, and brought us to the conference room at Arts Council Korea for the briefing… and there were mics at every seat haha. Naturally we all tried playing with them (Thank you for blah blah). And so the briefing began… the director of the International Team, which is the one in charge of all exchanges and everything international (duh) talked to us about the history of Arts Council Korea, and their structure and management and finances etc. More of that in my detailed report which I should be starting on soon… Don’t think anyone here wants to know how much Arts Council Korea spends and gets and where their money comes from right? And I don’t want to get arrested either.

So briefing for 2 hours… then lunch! We went this place eat Bulgogi again… but its ok I like it. Onion beef for those in the dark… oh and it’s cooked over this charcoal fire on a well… some form of pan. And of course lots and lots of side dishes, the most I’ve seen so far. There was again that yucky leaf which we confirmed WAS edible, but I’m so not going to try it again. Once is enough. But there was crab as a side dish! And it’s refillable! However it’s covered, no, smothered in chilli paste so I ate 2 only. And get this: the crab was raw! Hey it’s really nice and not mushy at all. The meat is soft and slips off the shell easily and has all the flavours of cooked crab.

Uh… I talk about food all the time cos its new all right… I’ll stop talking about it once I’ve sampled everything there is to sample.

Oh the weather is definitely turning colder. The morning temperature was the temperature of the night before. If this goes on it’ll snow really soon! I hope! Anyway so after lunch we went to open our bank accounts! Yay! The bank is like another 10 min walk away only… and all of us piled inside this small bank haha. So they called us up one by one (the director and Jiwon) and they basically did this: *point* write your name here. *point* sign here. *point* sign here also. *point* and here. Hahaha not that I’m complaining… I can’t read Korean yet… And while we were waiting we just talked, and now they know my bday is 17 dec! haha so I’m agonna have a celebration~ Malecio (I hope I got the spelling correct) has his bday in feb and so does Jinju haha but hers is after we leave… so she is going to change her bday to an earlier date so she can celebrate with us haha. She just wants 9 more presents I’m sure… and I told her just that. Jokingly of course. Still its nice to be able to celebrate your bday with people from so many countries. She’s shifting it to the 4th, same as Malecio. He’s so going to give her a kiss that day haha.

And then, after we all become millionaires (the money deposited was 1,248,400 Won) after deducting the accommodation and some little others which amounted 451,600 Won, we tried the ATM haha. Cos it’s all in Korean we have to memorise which button to press. Basically, push the card in, (have to push, it doesn’t suck it in very well) touch the touch screen top left button, touch a button in the center, touch how much you want, touch want receipt or not and voila, I had 30,000 more.

Sidetrack: clothes dry really fast here. This morning (Tuesday) I washed some small articles that I have before breakfast, around 8 in the morning, and left them to dry, and it’s dry now! Socks of course… what were you thinking? And uh now meaning 9.11am. So it takes 1 hr to dry socks here. On the heater. Cool wot?

Right now back to Monday… we all knew how to draw money its time for more briefings. This time it was much shorter. Introduction to the programme and stuff. Turns out we’re the pilot batch and the evaluations and reviews we give at the end will determine the fate of this programme! I hope this goes on… it’s such a wonderful programme. Right… so that was taken care of quite fast, and we were free from 3.30 onwards, and we went to this art space where we saw the demonstration (yes it’s that one reported in the news in Singapore) and lounged there awhile cos it was so beautiful… yellow leaves falling everywhere, pigeons flying around and stuff. After that we went to this place called Paris Croissant (Bernard, me, Tham, Chain and Ernest) for some tea haha. Cos Jinju recommended that place so now that we’re feeling rich we decided to go there. The bread was really nice… and the drinks good too… definitely worth the money, which is about same as Starbucks anyway. I’d choose Paris Croissant any day. I had this honey walnut triangle shaped block of bread, and hot chocolate. Really good hot chocolate but abit too sweet. Tham had this cake which was called ‘smooth’ or something. We all tried a little of it… tastes like pure egg white… but very pretty cake. Photo will be uploaded soon.

Ok after that we went the multimedia room and YES got USB! So I uploaded some photos… Yea I know I mentioned it in the previous post but this is in the right chronological order so there! The room was damn noisy… some guy had some yucky music on so loud, and others were also blasting their speakers. I heard a Korean or Japanese version of S.H.E’s Superstar. Wonder who copied who. Then some guys played counter strike. And the computers are still in Korean. I chose Imagestation cos it’s the site that is displayed with English commands haha. I might switch if I find better ones… seems Imagestation is hard to navigate somehow.

After that we went back to the hostel and waited for Jinju to bring us to our lesson place at around 6.30. But at 6 I heard her knocking at Tham or Chain’s door and calling out so I hurried out to my door and see haha. Turns out she will be late so she’s telling us first. Tham came running out after Jinju told me, all equipped and ready to go hahaha den I told him 6.45 then he laughed haha.
We had our lesson on the 5th floor cos there’s heating and none in the originally designated place in the main building. Good thing cos it was really cold… even by my standards. We learnt a lot today…. Cos we have 5 lessons of 2 hours to learn what others learn in 2 months everyday. Isn’t that cool… And then! During the break, I went toilet… and I saw someone using his laptop WITH A LAN CABLE ATTACHED! Whao!!! But we had to finish the lesson first and I was like so thoroughly distracted haha but luckily still can concentrate… after the lesson I went out the guy was still there. This is what happened:
Me: Is there a password to access using this cable?
He: What?
Me: Internet *point* password? Need?
He: Sorry no speak English
Me: Uh… what you speak?
He: Chinese…
Me: ORH! 中文! 这个需要密码吗? 还是插进cable 就行了?
Then he told me that no need haha and we talked a little and I said I was sorry I didn’t know he was a PRC haha.

The others around were so stunned that I can just switch to Chinese so fast heehee. Then Ernest asked me what we were talking about so I told him we can use the LAN upstairs yay!

Then we went out eat some things… I tried the roadside stall thingy… had this deep fried sausage in a thick dough coating… then a stick of some intestine I think haha not very sure what is cos it looks a bit weird on a long stick. Then walk walk around…. Really cold… got smoke when breathing out hot air liao! Haha. Then we went supermarket and Bernard bought lots of drinks again… oh then there’s a heater in the supermarket that looks like a fan! Haha. Then back to hostel I went upstairs… after trying for umpteenth time, I couldn’t get the connection to work. So I started to pack. The PRC was still there.
He: 可以了吗?
Me: 不可以…
He: 我给你这个 IP 你试试看.
Then I copied the numbers in and yay! Online! Hahaha
The 5th floor is so going to be my favourite place now.

Right then sleeping time… I came back the room and watched my two online animation which I downloaded just now. Luckily I did watch… cos like 3 doors away got this party going on so loud! Idiots la people want to sleep lo… by the time I finish watching… 1am here, they finally stopped.

More tomorrow!

(Word count: 1744)