STUDENT IN KOREA

Sorry!

2010-07-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

Hey all!

I guess I haven't been around to reply to most of my comments so I apologize for that. I am also sorry for not starting up a new StudentinHK blog, again, I have just been so busy.

Well, just a few updates about my personal life. I am still in HK, but working now as an English teacher. I enjoy my job as I can help enrich children's lives. When I go home after work, I feel satisfied that at least the knowledge I have gained can be passed to others. I am having a wonderful time in HK, love every moment. I hope I can set up my future here and would love to blog about that. My girlfriend and I, Wanjun, are planning for marriage which is great news. It is amazing to think that we both met in Korea and are from different countries and yet we can still maintain our relationship. Love has no boundaries!

If you guys want me to continue to blog about HK, I can do so. But I need to hear your input! Let me know what you guys think and I would love to write about the lifestyle here, the food, the culture, the people, basically everything! But you guys need to let me know.

Thanks!

Bryan Leung

2 years later...

2009-03-03T01:12:00.000-08:00

Well two year have past since my time in Korea. Well, not a full two years, just two years since the day I arrived in South Korea. Things have flown by quite fast and it seems like just yesterday I was at E-Z drinking some wonderful soju.

Anyways, to make a long story short:

A new blog will be made soon. This time, in Hong Kong........

-Bryan Leung

How to contact me

2007-10-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Well it has been a while since I have made a new update. I am now back in Canada studying at SFU and missing Korea everyday. I wont continue this blog because there is nothing really to say. But I will continue to answer questions and help those who are interested in studying in Korea, going to Korea or learning about Korea.

You can contact me through MSN at: studentinkorea@hotmail.com
I am also on Facebook.com and my name is Bryan Leung.

If you have any questions about anything, please don't hesitate to ask me. I really hope that if you are considering going to Korea, you actually do it. Korea is a beautiful country with lots of culture and things to do. I feel so bored now in Vancouver and one day I hope to go back to visit my friends there now.

Oasis Airline Review

2007-08-19T05:36:00.000-07:00

Here is my review of my flight from Hong Kong to Vancouver using the new low cost airline Oasis Airline

The process went pretty smooth I must say. My luggage ended up being 33kg but they let me go even though the allowance was only 30kg. I ended up shoving all my heavy stuff into my two carry on packages. One was at least 7kg and the other 10kg but the the airport did not seem to care.

After a bit of duty free shopping I lined up to go on board of my flight. They checked my ticket and passport and allowed me on the plane. Practically everyone had 2 or 3 carry on luggages so I guess their 1 carry on luggage rule does not apply.

The flight went off on schedule. Around 1.5 hours into the flight we received our first meals. It was either chicken or beef and I opted for the chicken. It came with some noodles, a bun, water and a apple pie dessert.

The cabin air was very dry so I took full advantage of the free non alcohol drinks by drinking plenty of orange juice. Alcohol drinks were of extra charge around $6 for a can of beer. Snacks were also $2 and cup of noodles were $3 which I did not get.

The seats were pretty tight. Of course it was a 747 so they had 3 seats per side and I believe 5 in the middle section. I sat near the window so I could sleep easier but I wasn't able to sleep much on my 11.5 hour flight. The leg space seemed limited, and the seats could not recline much.

My United Airlines flight from San Fran to Seoul was much more comfortable because it had more leg room for me to stretch (I am not a big guy, 177cm). There were roughly 10 video channels playing on the TV. I ended up watching Superman Returns, Aladin, Elizabethtown (sucked), Beauty and The beast, some chinese money (english name: Men Suddenly in Black 2) and Dukes Of Hazard. I am glad they played Dukes of Hazard because I was finally able to fall asleep, what a boring movie.

I woke up after around a 1.5 nap a bit hungry and I could see they were preparing breakfast. The option for breakfast was either Chinese dimsum or american eggs. I went for the dimsum which included an egg tart, fruit, and some other dishes which I do not know the english name. They microwaved the whole dish so the fruit inside was warm which didn't taste that good. They should of left the fruit out before zapping it.

It was another 2 hours until we would arrive at YVR so I just watch some TV but was mostly looking outside. The sky was amazing that day:

The flight ended up being 25 minutes late of our arrival time but that was ok. Overall, Oasis Airline is exactly what it is, a low frills airfare with great price. My ticket after taxes ended up being $474. I think it was worth it considering it got me from point A to B at a low cost and I feel satisfied with the service.

A tip to those traveling to Hong Kong and back. Book a one way airfare using the Canadian website but then book your return, another one way using the China English site. You will save over $100 after taxes! I was going to book from HK - Van on the English website and I told my girlfriend about Oasis. She went through the Chinese site using English and for the same flight, after tax and conversion, I saved just under $100! You can't book from Vancouver - HK using the Chinese site, only HK - Van or London so use the Canadian site to book outgoing flights but return use the Chinese one and that should help you save some money :)

Hello from Canada!

2007-08-19T04:35:00.000-07:00

Well I am finally back in Vancouver Canada after a 171 day hiatus in Asia. Too be continued....

Hello from China

2007-07-21T19:57:00.000-07:00

Hello from China!!! Sorry I have not been able to update my blog lately, I have no internet access in the apartment that I am staying at so I can only go to the university or lan café around the corner to go on the net. Still, I cannot access my blog (www.studentinkorea.blogspot.com) in the area of Beijing that I am living in. I do not know if it’s just the area (University District) or all of Beijing, but for some reason, if I try to go to my site, it is blocked and takes me to a search engine.

Well life here in Beijing is MUCH different than in Korea and Canada. It is very crowded and very hot. The temperatures lately have been above 32degrees but it is humid so I have been sweating a lot. One weird thing is that I was told it never or barely rains in Beijing during the summer, yet for the past 8 days (Today is June 27, 2007 and I arrived on June 19th, 2007) it has rained probably 4 times and today there was a lightning and thunderstorm. I was also told that Beijing has a water shortage so I think that since I have arrived in Beijing, I have given the people the gift of water. To help their fruits and vegetables grow and to give more water to the people. I am like the water god here I suppose. Kekeke. Anyways, the life style here is very different. I don’t want to sound to rude, but I must be honest. First, the driving here is insane. There are many people riding bikes on the road and there are lots of cars everywhere. The cars just cut each other off without worrying and they also cut off the busses to which the busses cut back. Honking here seems like the national anthem. You hear it every other second and its non stop. The cars don’t stop for people either and the people do not seem to worry. People on bikes ride infront of a car and the car just keeps going. The car inches by the bike leaving maybe 1 inch space and no one seems to care. The people are seem to be a bit rude as well. When asking for questions, even in mandarin they are hesitant to answer you even if that is their job. People seem reluclant to help each other and they do not care about manners. I am not one to judge because that is their style of life, I just find it different. Not better or not worse, just different. In Korea people were very respectful of each other and there were many cultural traditions to show respect to elders or customers. But in Beijing, nothing that I have seen so far.

Also in Beijing, smoking seems like it is allowed everywhere. It is very weird to see people smoke inside a restaurant, a school cafeteria, or even in an office. In Korea, smoking was allowed but many people still just smoked outside. The strangest must have been seeing people smoke inside the university cafeteria and also maybe the higher end restaurants.

These were the major cultural differences I have found so far. Beijing is still a great city. Items here are cheap for me but I assume they are expensive for the local people. When I arrived, Wanjun’s cousin treated us out for dinner at a upper scale restaurant. We had lots of food to eatsuch as Shark skin, fish, bbq goose, and many others and although I do not know the exact price, it wasn’t too expensive compared to what I am used too. At the cafeteria, I eat a big bowl of noodles in soup that taste great and also a big 1litre bottle of orange Juice for just over $1.20usd which is amazing. Oh, I have also been eating lots of fruits because there are tons of people selling them on the corner. I feel much more healthy here than I did back in Korea and much much more compared to Canada. In China, I have been doing LOTS of walking around but I don’t feel as tired as I did in Korea.

So far for the past week, we have not done too much. Wanjun has taken me around to show me some of the great food such as the Peking duck, congee, pizza and other things. Again, not too expensive for me (although I have very little money). I cant believe I would spend so much on a BBT drink back home when here it is less than 50 cents but in Canada it is $4.50. I have also bought some DVDs such as Ocean 13, Fantastic Four 2, and all 6 seasons of 24 for less than $6usd. The quality was pretty good except for FF2 and also I must go back because the 24 is in mandarin so I will change it to english. We have also been to a few malls to do some shopping and I bought some clothes that isn’t too expensive.

The major thing I have done so far was probably yesterday when we went to Tinanmen square and also the Forbidden City. The square was nice and big. There were many famous buildlings around it such as Mao’s tomb and also some museums. The Forbidden city was massive. I was told that there are 9999.5 buildings inside and a bunch of parks and shops. I really wanted to go to Starbucks inside the forbidden city so we went that. The thought that Starbucks is inside the FORBIDDEN city makes me laugh. The place where the kings are burried and there is a starbucks there. I ended up buying a Tuna sandwhich and Ice latte for 49rmb which is around $6usd which is pretty expensive in China. The same price is half of what we paid for on a BIG meal that Wanjun treated me. There we had Duck, curry, rice, vegetables, and two big fish heads. Anyways, going to those two places was very cool. Although there were many people there, Wanjun said it wasn’t that busy so it was lucky for me. We did do a lot of walking yesterday so we were both very sore. After we went to Wanfunjing for some more shopping and I bought some more gifts. That place was very nice and had a lot of high end shopping. Many watch stores that sold Rolexs, Tag Heur, Tissot and many other expensive brands.

Next week we will go to the great wall and do other touristy stuff. Hopefully I can post this post on my blog before we do it or else this will be even longer. I am just using a notepad and I will upload this post along with pictures when I can finally access my blog. Again, sorry for the lack of post but I just wanted to let everyone that whats up.

Oh, if you are in Beijing and want to meet me, my number is 15801255501 so just give me a call or text. Take care ^_^

My last post in Korea

2007-06-17T21:03:00.001-07:00

This will be my last post from The Republic of Korea. I will leave the dorms within two hours and head to Cheonan. From there, I will take a bus to Incheon and have Juno pick me up and I will stay at his house for the night and he will drop me off at the airport tomorrow. I will miss this place, it was a fun experience that I will never forget. Well, my next post will be made in China so good luck everyone ^_^

Summer Plans

2007-06-14T15:19:00.001-07:00

So I will leave Korea on Tuesday June 19th at 6:30pm from ICN and will fly to Beijing China. I will spend approximately one month in Beijing. I will also go to Tianjing to visit a few friends there and also maybe go to Shanghai. After a month or so, I will travel down to Guangzhou either from Beijing or Shanghai and spend a couple of weeks there and then travel south to Hong Kong. I will spend a week or two there and then finally leave from HKG to arrive at YVR. I have not booked any tickets besides my one way to Beijing from Korea. I will see how my financial status is to see what I can and cannot afford. But I do want to have lots of fun in China because I know it will be another great learning experience and also I will not have the same opportunity to do this again. I might as well enjoy it while I am young and free. Of course, I will be traveling with Wanjun ^_^. I will keep on posting about China if you guys want, or I might just stop this blog after I leave Korea. StudentInKorea is about Korea, but I can continue about China and just my life if you guys are interesting in reading. Let me know! Thanks ^_^

[edit] Oh if anyone is in China and wants to offer us a free place to stay, please contact me via msn or email at BryanL@hotmail.com Please and thanks ^_^

I's hard to say 'goodbye'...

2007-06-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Well it is finally over. English Village program is at it's end. 16 weeks have now passed since we all met each other for the first time.

Today, my roommate Lee Hunjoon had to leave due to an emergency. He was suppose to leave tomorrow but went back to Seoul today. I helped him carry his stuff and see him off in the taxi. It was very hard to say goodbye. He had taught me a lot of things, not only about Korean culture but about myself. I have never had an older brother but he was like one to me. He watched over me and helped me mature a bit. He was very kind and such a good guy. He treated me out for so many meals, gave me a USB drive for my bday, threw me into a piss filled dirty pond, and basically took care of me. I will really miss him. Joon, never give up on your dreams. Your english communication skills are great, do not worry about TOEIC, you will do fine. I believe in you and I know you will do good things in life. ^_^

Right now, I sit in the GV lounge awaiting to see all the Chinese Village people leave. They will take the 8am bus to Incheon Airport and depart back to China. I have met so many of them and they have all been very nice to me. Their english skills are amazingly good and we have become great friends.

Later tonight, Oscar, Ray and Jon will leave as well. It is very sad to see everyone go. I think it is harder to say goodbye to the Koreans and Chinese because the International students I am sure I will see again. Vegas next year right Team Swordfight? kekeke.

Well I just wanted to list a few names of all my friends that I have met. Here is to you guys, goodbye :(

Hunjoon
Jaechun
James
Mijeong
Heejin
Haelim
Sungdoon
Tae Young
Min Kim
Shin Jae
Korean Ray
Han Songho
Soju King
Dongwoo
Jin Ho
Juno
Ray's Roommate (lol)
Addison's Roommate
Daisy
Summer
Joyce
Maggie
Vera
Angelina
Tracy
Phillip
Donny
Celina
Anime
Yufai
Winter
Leishan
Jiangjun
Oscar
Keith
Addison
Ray
Jon
Josh
Ryan
Will
Ashlee
Melissa
Chris M Kim
Radomir
Lesly
Anna
Wendy Wu
Whitney
Deon
Henry
Carlos
Sadeed
Dajong

If I forgot your name, im sorry (it is 7am and I have not slept and drank a bit last night) but you know I will miss you too!

Special goodbye to Joon, Juno, Team Sword Fight, Han Songho (니가 D.T.A), and Jiangjun. Thank you guys for showing me around Korea and making this experience unforgetable. You guys are the best ^_^

English Village Closing Video Spring 2007

2007-06-11T12:16:00.000-07:00

Here is a link to the English Village closing video for spring 2007 that Deon Ong from Singapore made:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2404133053924160921&hl=en

The last week...

2007-06-11T12:09:00.000-07:00

As I sit here at 4am studying for my Korean Conversation final, I realize this is my last week here at SCH. We have finals all this week and then it will be over. 16 weeks have come and gone and they have been so many memories. All my friends here, both International from Western countries, Asian countries and also my Korean friends will be far away. It is amazing to think that so many people, from all different parts of the world would gather in one location, become such good friends and then dispurse back. To think, I come from Canada alone not knowing anyone in Korea and now I have countless of friends. Friends that I have met within Global Village, friends from school, friends that you meet through another friend who ends up being a Chinese born Canadian that lived in Vancouver and is now teaching here. Friends that you meet at a random club in Hongdae, talked briefly, and find out that 1 month later they find out your blog and write a comment, exchange MSN and are from different sides of the world. I will never forget this experience and the great bonds I have made. What a truly great learning experience this has been. I came to Korea to have fun, and what I got from it was being able to speak a little korean, reading and writing korean, great friends, great memories and a great girl.

EV closing ceremony

2007-06-09T01:32:00.000-07:00

On Thursday we had our EV closing ceremony for the spring 07 semester. They presented awards and certificates and also showed a movie recapping the year, made by fellow student, Deon. After the 1 hour ceremony, we all went out for dinner. It was at a new restaurant and the food was decent. The normal meats and seafood was served but this time they had some french fries, crappy sushi and some other dishes. As always, free soju and beer was served. I tried not to drink that much, but because it was the last time we would all be together, I couldn't say no. We played the normal drinking games such as the watermelon game, baskin robins, 3,6,9 and rock paper scissors. I didn't lose that much so I didn't get too drunk. We did manage to make our korean friend, Han, drink a Do Re Mi shot. He won "The best Korean student in English Village" award so we wanted to give him OUR prize. A Do Re Mi shot is basicallly three drinks. You must drink one shot of Soju, one glass of beer, and one glass of half beer and half soju. All this within a minute. It doesn't seem that hard, but trust me, it is. I know because I had to do it a day earlier for my birthday. Anyways, we kept drinking until the EV officers told us to continue back at the dorms so we all left.

When I got back to the dorms, I went to go see Wanjun (she is part of Chinese Village and not English Village). I met up with her until my hyong called me and ask me to meet him at the back gate of the school. I was a bit scared because I knew I would be forced to drink more since it was probably our last night of drinking until after finals. Well Wanjun and I both went and met up with Hunjoon and all three of us walked to a local restaurant. When we got there, I was very happy because it was a fresh sashimi restaurant. I told my roommate that I have been dying for Sushi this whole semester and he took us to a sushi place.

We sat down, ordered the set menu and got a glass of soju for us to share. We started to drink slow until the food arrived. The first dish that came was...raw octupus legs that were still moving around. They were chopped up unto sizes of probably 2cm and they all kept moving around. I have always wanted to try this, but never got a chance. Wanjun was a bit scared but my hyong and I dipped right in. The taste was a bit chewy and the suctions kept sticking to my tongue, but with a bit of soya sauce and lots of chewing, it finally went down. It was pretty good and Wanjun finally tried one. We also ate fresh raw clams, seasnails, some red thingy, and some fish that looked like hamachi. All the food was great. Halfway through the meal, Deon decided to join us and we all had fun. We finished off 5 Soju bottles for the 3.5 (.5 for Wanjun) of us. I got very drunk!

We then all went to the local Noreabang (KTV) to sing some songs. I was very tired from all the alcohol consumption and when we finished, we took a taxi back and I quickly passed out.

Sadly, none of us brought a camera to the sashimi restaurant. The photos posted are those at the EV ceremony and first restaurant.

Some information about me in korean..

2007-06-04T06:24:00.000-07:00

안녕하세요. 만나서반갑습니다. 저는 브라이언입니다. 캐나다 사람입니다. 대학생입니다. 저는 사이먼 프레이져대학교를 다닙니다. 그리고 전공은 경제학입니다. 나이가 23입니다. 안녕히 계세요. 감사합니다.

브라이언 렁

SCH Spring festival videos

2007-06-04T03:10:00.000-07:00

Thanks to good old www.youtube.com I was able to take these videos from the 2007 Soonchunhyang spring festival. Just a few of the concerts and firework display:
Psy Concert:

Fireworks:

[edit] Thanks Will Sanchez for posting these videos on youtube. I have now jacked them from you! keke ^_^

Lunch with old friends

2007-06-04T03:01:00.001-07:00

So this past Saturday I had met up with some old friends that I have not seen in over 5 months! They are my Korean friends who I had met from Vancouver. In one of my previous posts in December, I talked about 3 Korean students studying abroad in Vancouver and how we all went to have dinner together at Shabusen. Well, on Saturday, we all met up again for the first time. It was also their first time seeing each other since they arrived back in Korea. Andre, Hailly (although she has now changed her english name to Helen), and Sally along with some other friends went to eat lunch at a local restaurant. It was a fun time chatting with them again, now in their home country. The stories we all had to share was amazing. The first thing they all said to me was that I look much skinnier now, which is a good thing, I think. Sally had also mentioned that she really misses Vancouver and that she wants to go back. The food was also good. We had korean bbq (the usual) which was much cheaper than when we ate in Vancouver. Andre, being the oldest, was nice enough to pay for all 8 of us. Here are some pictures of the lunch:

My room

2007-06-02T01:12:00.000-07:00

Well I decided to take some pictures of my room just to show how it is like after all my stuff is here. Earlier, I took some pictures of my room with nothing and now it is filled with junk.

I am dreaming, but not of energy...

Onyang Hot Springs

2007-06-02T00:33:00.001-07:00

Well yesterday my friend Addison and I decided to do something new, so we went to Onyang to go to the famous hot springs. The Onyang Hotel and Hot Springs is a famous destination for many Koreans and internationals to go to relax in the natural mineral water. The hot springs offers 57 degree celcius weak alkali water directly from the hot spring hole on the natural rock layer. It helps with stress relief and skin treatment as well as diseases such as neuralgia and rheumatism. Addison and I were a bit nervous at first because everyone MUST be naked when in the hot springs and the walk fro the locker room to the water is a nervous walk. At first it was wierd, but after a while we just got adjusted to it. There were 4 pools inside and 1 outdoor with two powerful jets that would help massage your back. There was also a steam room inside and a sauna outside. Showers were also there of course to clean before entering and exiting the springs. It was a very relaxing experience. Something that I would do again. It was only 5000won which is very cheap.

A bit of history...

There are two improtant cultural properties in Onyang Hot spring hotel. The first one is Shinjeongbi(No. 229 Provincial Cultural property, December 31, 1990). In 1468, while Sejo, the 7th king of Chosun Dynasty took a bath with hot spring water, he discovered warm water came from one side near cold water. Then he named the spring Shinjeong and set up a Shinjeong Monumnet to commemorate it. It was repaired in 1483, 14th year of Seongjong.

The second one is Yeonggoedae. In 1760, 36th year of Yeongjo, the Prince Sado came to Onyang Rural Palace. It is the place where he practiced Court martial arts. Onyang Governor Yoon Yeom planted three pagoda trees at the time. Later on, in 1795(19th year of Jeongjo) King Jeongjo set up a Monument of Yeonggoedae to commemorate it. The characters "Yeonggoedae" on the front side is writings of King Jeongjo's own and inscriptions were written by Joon Haeing Im, son of Yeon Yeom.

Onyang palace was built provisionally in 5th years of Taejo, Josun Dynasty, was extended to a hot spring palace on September in 14th year of Sejong, was used exclusively by the royal family were Kings, Taejo, Sejong, Sejo, Hyunjong, Sukjong, and Youngjo, rest and performed their offical duties and a civil service examination called 'Onyang Byulsi' was carried out, and now is the Onyang hot spring Hotel where 6 former presidents including president Park Junghee stayed.

***Note: These pictures were taken off the website and not from our camera.***

Gaegogi

2007-05-29T11:18:00.000-07:00

So today a few of my friends and I decided to go eat some Gaegogi! For those of you who do not know what it is, it translates into dog meat. Gae = Dog and gogi = meat. We went to a local restaurant that serves gaegogi soup. The cost is 10,000won and it is enough to feed two people. So the 8 of us shared 4 bowls and it was pretty good. It came with rice and the side dishes such as kimchee of course. The meat itself was very soft. If I did not know it was dog meat, I would of thought it was lamb or some soft boiled meat. The soup base was a bit bitter. We added lots of pepper to the soup (that is how it is suppose to be eaten) so that might of affected the taste. Overall, it was something new and something that I really wanted to try. Now I can add to the list of wierd things I have tried. To name a few others, I have tried balut which is a baby duck fetus inside the egg and also horse sashimi which is thin slices of raw horse! Yummmy!

Pirates of The Caribbean 3

2007-05-26T06:14:00.000-07:00

Today Wanjun and I decided to go to Cheonan to watch the much hyped Pirates of The Caribbean 3. The first two Pirates movies were good, the third one, not so much. I found it to be boring. There was too much talk and not enough action. The storyline wasn't that good either. I even almost fell asleep. For those fans of the series, I suggest you watch it and maybe you would enjoy it more than me. I think I might of put too much hope into the movie but in the end, I was disappointed. I hope Ocean's 13 and Transformers will be much better.

Anyways, my day wasn't all full of disappointments. We went to McDonalds for lunch on a mission, to get a glass Coca Cola cup. McDonalds is having a promotion that if you buy a Big Mac meal and supersize it, you can get a Coca Cola glass cup as well! All for 4900won which is a pretty good deal. If you go from 11am-2pm it is only 3000won! I really wanted one because all my friends were able to get it. One of my friends even has 7 cups within the 3 week span of the promotion!

Wednesday

2007-05-24T04:15:00.000-07:00

So for Wednesday's festival activities, our English Village booth was a bust. We didn't have any more Jello Shots or any cocktails, only Soju bottles that did not sell. The Chinese Village booth, again, was doing well though. Anyways, Wednesday was the last day of the festival. Not only that, but Thursday is a national holiday (Buddah's Birthday) so everyone came out for the night. There were so many people and everyone was drinking and having fun. At 7:30 the tents were all empty and there were roughly 3000 people on the field preparing to watch the evening's concert. Some of the big names that were singing include: Chae Yeon, Baby Vox, and others that I cannot remember. The crowd was going crazy when Chae Yeon came on because I assume she was the most popular out of everyone. She was also last to perform. She was HOT! Anyways, after the concert there was a fireworks display that was pretty impressive. The whole festival was impressive. Having a free concert and fireworks and all the tents out, that is something that the schools back home would never do. Maybe the drinking part, but never getting famous singers to come to school to give a free show.

After the concert my friends and I decided to get our drink on. We were walking from tent to tent to drink Soju shots with our friends and playing games. I can't remember much of the night, but we ended up going back to the dorms at around 5:30am after many, many, many drinks. It was a fun night and pictures will be up shortly!
Chae Yeon:
Baby Vox:

Tuesday Festival

2007-05-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

So after waking up for an early morning class on Tuesday (11am) my friends and I just decided to relax before heading out to the festival. It was a big night because a famous korean singer by the name of Psy (싸이) was comming tonight. Everyone was excited and the festival was live and kicking. We sold the same products again but this time, things did not sell well. Our tent was pretty shameful and the chinese village tent beside us was doing very well. It seemed like everyone wanted chinese food over alcoholic beverages. Anyways, there were a bunch of performances on the center stage so many of the students decided to watch that intead of drinking. At around 8pm Psy took the stage and everyone was going crazy. There were probably 2000 people crammed on an astroturf field watching the Psy concert. He sang a bunch of songs and everyone was singing along. Even some of my international friends were singing because they knew the lyrics. This lasted until around 10pm when we all went back to our booth to have a few drinks before retiring for the night. We decided to take it easy because we knew we were going to drink heavily on Wednesday.
Here is a picture of Psy:

More pics will come once I can upload them. I've been feeling really lazy lately so sorry for my half assed posts with no pictures >.<

Soonchunhyang 2007 Spring Festival

2007-05-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

So as of Monday, May 21st SCH 2007 Spring Frestival has started. It is basically 3 days of partying and drinking and having fun. What happens is that every major sets up a tent booth and sells drinks and food to fundraise money for their major. It starts at 10am and ends until whenever people leave. There are tons of activities and games and things to buy. The school is united and it's very fun.

So yesterday, Monday, the English village set up our booth. We were selling Jello shots, Nachos, soju cocktails, rice pudding, hotdogs and rum&cokes. Our Jello shots sold the best but the other things were not as good. Although we did not make much money, we all had a blast just drinking and being together at our booth. There was tons of music being played around and the food in the other booths were much better than ours. People were just hanging around and chilling. This event is something that all SCH students look foward too. I ended up drinking until 4am with my roommate, we would of stayed longer, but I had an early class which I went too this (Tuesday) morning.

My first mail!

2007-05-20T22:30:00.000-07:00

Well, not 100% true keke. I have received mail from back home before, but that was from my bank sending me a new Visa credit card. But today, I went into the office and saw a postcard that was sent to me! I wondered who it was from and to my surprise, it was from Fei Wan, one of my avid blog readers! She sent me a postcard from her trip to Cambodia that she is on visiting Angtor Wat and the surrounding area. Thanks alot Fei Wan for the great post card!

More can be read about Fei Wan and her travels at her blog at: http://ai-wan.blogspot.com/

5kgs (11lbs) lost!

2007-05-17T18:59:00.000-07:00

So before comming to Korea I weighed around 75kgs or 165lbs. 1 month prior to leaving I was 77kgs (170lbs). Now, as of may 18th 2007, I am at 70kgs or 154lbs. Thats 5kgs (11lbs) lost in 3 months from eating kimchee and rice all the time. I think my arms are a bit skinnier but my gut is still there and my chubby cheeks are still there. Oh well, hopefully I can lose more and then start working out again, which I havn't been doing since I arrived in Korea.

Costume Party in May

2007-05-17T18:51:00.000-07:00

So last night the EV international students decided to hold a costume party in May. Why should we dress up only once a year on Halloween when we can do it anytime we want? So a lot of us gathered together with some costumes and just had a party. Beer, Soju and snacks were available of course and everyone was just having fun and dancing. I dressed up as a SWAT member and some other notable costumes were: Spiderman, an Arab, Korean soldier, and 50cent. We also had spring loaded BB guns that we bought from E-mart and had a mini gun fight. After the party, things esclated into the dorms where it was a mini 3vs4 battle in the hallways and rooms of the dorm. Because it was 1:30am, we decided to take the battle outside around the campus in the amphitheatre and continue from there. We got a bit tired and our battle ended at around 3:30am then we just continued to watch Discovery channel in the lounge until we all passed out. Pictures will be up shortly, although I do not have many.

梁彦希, Leung Yien Hei, Liang Yan Xi

2007-05-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

So while in Korea and talking to the many chinese students who are studying abroad here, I have been told one thing; my chinese name is good! In chinese characters, my name is: 梁彦希. In Cantonese, it is Leung Yien Hei. And in Mandarin it is Liang Yan Xi. From what I know, my name means "still hope". People seem to like the 希/Hei/Xi part which means hope. My Yeiyei gave me that name and I am glad he picked a good name ^_^

English is tough!

2007-05-16T01:29:00.000-07:00

While after being in Korea for almost 3 months, I have noticed one big thing; my English skills have decreased dramastically. Maybe it is because I have been speaking simplified and broken English everyday but I swear my vocab has shrunken. Also I have been speaking lots of Cantonese and some Korean so that can be a major factor on why I seem to be forgetting English words and speaking improperly. Oh well, one month in Canada can fix this, I hope!

Been a lazy week

2007-05-14T01:00:00.000-07:00

So an avid blogger just messaged me if I was on holidays because I have not posted much on my blog lately. Well I just wanted to let everyone know that I am not on holidays or sick, it is just that lately I have been being lazy around campus and thus nothing to post. The past week I have spent time relaxing with Wanjun or just my friends watching movies. I havn't drank in over 2 weeks (well I might have taken a Soju shot here or there) and I haven't really done anything exciting. I've been feeling really exhausted lately and tired so I am not in the mood to go out. The weather has also been a bit wacky. As I post it is cloudy but 20 minutes ago it was bright sunshine. When it is cloudy or rainy, I usually feel even more tired and just want to stay in my room or the lounge resting. I think I really need to sleep more. Everyone says I always look tired which is true, but it is hard for me to go to sleep at night. I just want to stay up chatting or surfing the net for useless information. Hopefully I will start to feel a bit more cheerful. This Thursday the International Students are having a Costume Party in May event but I still do not know what to dress up as. Any suggestions for a poor student with no costume? Well, just wanted to say 'sorry' for the lack of posts. I will try to put more up. I think this weekend Wanjun and I will go to Seoul so we will take lots of pictures again so keep reading my blog because I promise to update it more!

Cheap flights from Vancouver <-> Hong Kong

2007-05-08T01:54:00.000-07:00

So I was just browsing around on the net and I found this website for an airline company that had just opened up. They will be offering flights from YVR (Vancouver) to HKG (Hong Kong) and back for as cheap as $568usd round trip or $3,980HKD. That is pretty cheap for a round trip fare. So I am making this post to show all my family and my friends who frequently go to HK that they can start booking their tickets through Oasis Hong Kong. Their website is http://www.oasishongkong.com/hk/en/home.aspx and I suggest if you are interested, to go check them out.

Update on classes

2007-05-08T01:52:00.000-07:00

Because I am here for a STUDY abroad program, I thought I would update you guys on my marks so far. I got my midterms back a couple weeks ago but forgot to make a post about it. In my Korean writing class, I got a 64% on my midterm and my conversation class I got a 72%. They are both kind of low, but I am not a Korean major so I didn't really care nor did I study much for those tests. My Korean language is actually pretty good, but I find the things we learn in class to be a bit boring and not practical. I have picked up more things from the Koreans that I have talked too and I have applied that to real life situations. For my Korean Business and Finance class I got a 91% on my midterm. Because business is my major, I tried to study for the test. Although I did not get much studying done, I still did good so I am happy.

Seoul Weekend Part I - Friday

2007-05-07T09:24:00.000-07:00

Hmm..where to start? I had such a packed weekend this past 3 days that I am scared to start typing because I don't know where it will end. Ill try to keep it short, but there will be lots of pictures to help. So Wanjun and I decided to go to Seoul for the weekend and it was lots of fun. We left on Friday at around 1pm to take the 2pm KOrail from Onyang - Yeongdengpo. I brought 260,000 won thinking this should get me through the 3 days 2 nights. We arrived in Yeongdengpo station and took a transfer to Sigil the another to go to the 63 building in Yeouido. It is the 3rd tallest buildling in S.Korea with a skydeck to view the city from the top. We shopped around the building which didn't have many things inside. It was more of an office building with a few shops at the bottom, an Imax and Aqaurium. We decided to go only to the skydeck because we were running out of time. The top view was pretty nice, but we went when the sun was out so we couldn't see the pretty lights of Korea. Another problem was that the sky was very smoggy. I am not used to this because usually in Vancouver, when the sun is out, the sky is beautiful blue and there is no grey haze like here in Asia. It was very odd to see. We took tons of pictures and we had a light snack at the top. It is definiately worth the 5,000won ticket but I would suggest going when it is dark out. We had to leave early because we wanted to take the Yeouido - Jamsil ferry ride that takes us through the Han River under all the bridges at night. The ferry started at 7:20 and ended at around 8:30. By then it got dark and we could see all the decorated bridges from underneath. Something worth doing only once though. We got to Jamsil area and just walked along the water to find the subway station. We ended up at Olympic stadium and took a look around. We wanted to eat a nice meal but because it was already 9:30 before we got to the subway station, we decided to just eat something cheap later in our destination, Myeongdong. We took the subway to Myeongdong and was shopping around while looking for a motel to stay at. Even at 11am the streets were so lively and there were tons of people. Market vendors were still out and I ended up buying some "real" Gucci socks for 1000won each. I needed new ankle socks because I left all of mine in Vancouver. We walked around for around an hour and half and were searching for a motel to stay at. It is wierd, when I don't need to find a motel, there are tons around, but when I need to find one, there is never any around. Damn Murphy's Law. We finally found a motel near a Buy The Way convience store that costed 40,000 for the night. We didn't want to walk around anymore so we ended up taking it and rested for the night. Bellow are all the pictures we took for Friday:
63 Building:

A cool picture. The floor is also a see through plexi-glass that you can see to the bottom:

The nice blue sky...

The ferry to Jamsil:

Now back in Myeongdong:

The motel we stayed at had Starcraft TV!!!

That is it for Friday. I have alot more pictures but I could not add them all. Same applies to the following posts.

Seoul Weekend Part II - Saturday

2007-05-07T08:37:00.000-07:00

The next morning Wanjun and I were very hungry because we skipped dinner. Well, we ate some chips and cookies before bed the earlier night, but that wasn't a good meal. We walked around Myeongdong for a bit and we went to this Hong Kong Dim Sum restaurant that we saw the night earlier. It was very delicious. Having some chinese food for the first time in 2 months was so good, especially dim sum. We ate...let me try to type this out.. Har Gow, Jook, Shrimp & Mushroom spring rolls, and fried rice. Although it sounds small, I was telling Wanjun that I think my stomach has adjusted to Korean size food so it was enough for the both of us. The meal ended up costing 19,800won for the four dishes plus the extra side dishes. Although the food was good, the atmosphere was amazing. The seats were cozy couche like chairs and the decorations were traditional unlike the dirty white clothed crowded dim sum restaurants I am used to in Richmond. After eating, we walked around Myeongdong for a bit of market shopping and then ended up going to Lotte Young Plaza which is a big department store. They had I believe 8 floors and tons of clothing. We just walked around and went to the Lotte Mart next door and saw some authentic Gucci, Prada, LV, Tiffany & Co, and Coach etc. I don't understand why people would shop there when they have the real stuff for $5 outsides on the street! Anyways we walked around and more pictures then decided to go Insadong area to look at the piano key floors and the pretty lights. We walked there and we decided to get some Baskin Robins Ice cream along the way. After arriving in Insadong, we took a short walk over to Tapol Park which has the monument of some artifacts from ancient Korea. It is also where the freedom speeches are held every year. The markets in Insadong are so packed. There were tons of people around and lots of performances because it was also Childrens day (05/05). After a long day of walking, we decided to go to Walker Hill Casino on the east side of Seoul. We took the Line 2 subway to the Technomart, and did some shopping there while waiting for the free shuttle bus. The casino was medicore, but the surrounding area was nice. The hotel there was the Sheraton and it had a nice lounge, Italian restaurant, and buffet. The hotel also had a bunch of dirty free shops that we walked around in. The casino was one small floor with only a few slots and table games. They also had two 2/5NL Texas holdem games running and the players looked pretty bad. I wanted to play, but time and Wanjun wouldnt allow me too so we decided to leave. I wanted to eat at one of the restaurants at the Casino, but we decided it was too costly so we head back to Dongdaemun area. We got off the free shuttle bus and I spotted a Pho restaurant called Pho L.A. and I really really miss pho so I wanted to eat there. The food was expensive there. A "large" (small in Canada) bowl of beef noodles was 9500won and 4 spring rolls was 5000won. Wanjun had some wierd vingerette think noodles for 9000won. The food was decent, but nothing amazing. The presentation of the food was good though and the cleaness of the restaurant was nice. Something I am not used to for a pho restaurant. The bathroom was super nice. Had lots of nice decorations and cloth towels to dry your hands. Usually at the pho restaurants in Richmond, the washrooms are dirty with flies around. Again, small food but we were full so we took the subway to Dongdaemun and we were determined to find a place to stay. The bag that I was carrying got really heavy after we shoved all of our (Wanjun) bought items. It took us forever to find a place to stay. We couldn't find a motel and we didn't want to stay at a Sauna or Best Western. We walked into one "motel" place but it ended up being a massage parlour. We finally found a place to stay for 25,000won after 1 hour of walking around. We put down our stuff and took an hour rest before heading out to the late night Dongdaemun shopping. We went to the complex malls to get some coffee first then walked around. It is wierd to see 8 floor buildings being open at 1am and it is even more wierd to see girls getting their nails done at 2am in the morning. Wanjun ended up buying a few shirts but I couldn't find anything that was nice for me. We walked around to the side markets and just shopping around. The time was around 4am and we were both tired so we decided to walk back to our motel room to sleep for the night. Bellow are all the pictures that we took for Saturday:
This was the chinese restaurant that we ate at:

Outside Myeongdong Area:

Some random performance:

mmmm ice cream in Insadong

Wanjun bored while waiting for me to try on clothes:

Canadian national...

Of Hong Kong decent..

At Technomart waiting for the shuttle bus to Walker Hill Casino:

Walker Hill Casino and Sheraton Resort:

The Vietnamese Pho restaurant we ate at:

Look at the cleaness of the washroom!

Back in Dongdaemun area:

My "real" Gucci socks:

Mmm coffee at like 1am:

And that's it for the night. We were too tired to take pictures (ok we forgot) of the motel in Dongdaemun. But just imagine a place for $25. Oh, I also saw a big cockroach in the room that scared the crap out of me!

Seoul Weekend Part III - Sunday

2007-05-07T07:56:00.000-07:00

After a nice short sleep, we decided we wanted to go to Coex building for Sunday. We ate lunch in Dongdaemun then took the subway over to the Coex area. The area is a rich area because Coex is just outside of Gangnam (pronounced kangnam) which is the rich area of Seoul. Many superstars live there and its expensive. Coex is a very nice and big shopping complex. They have an Imax there and also an Aqaurium which is pretty cool. 4 floors, tons of restaurants and tons of shops. We just walked around and browsed alot. I ended up buying 2 pairs of jeans and Wanjun bought a shirt and some hair accessories. We probably spent 4 hours in Coex just walking around twice and we also went outside to take pictures of the scenary. We ate dinner at some Omurice Fusion place that served pasta and rice. It was pretty good but a bit expensive. Coex is a place where I would want to go again forsure and I would recommend people to see. We ended up leaving at around 7:00pm and took the subway back to Yeongdengpo and then the KOrail back to Onyang. We had to take a taxi back to school because the bus lines close at I think 10pm which is early. We ended up splitting the cab 3 ways because we found some random korean guy that was going back to school so I asked if he wanted to come with us. Overall it was a very busy and fun weekend. For 3 days in Seoul, we did so much. Walked around lots and shopped alot. This weekend was the most fun I had in Seoul since my trip to Korea. Bellow are all the Sunday pictures that we took. Enjoy :)
This is the famous Cheonggyecheon River which flows through Seoul. Many Koreans are very proud of this river but it appears as just one big sewer:

Here we are arriving at Coex. The following pictures are all of Coex outside and inside:

HSBC ^_^

Restaurants inside:

Those penguins are so cute!

One nice McDonalds. Look at the chairs:

This is where I bought my jeans:

This was the place that we ate dinner at:

And finally back at the Yeongdengpo KOrail station:

It was a very exhausting weekend but well worth it. I had so much fun! We plan on going back to Seoul next weekend to visit Seoul Tower and more parks. So keep reading to find more updates ^_^

One more month..

2007-05-02T23:46:00.000-07:00

It is one more month until my 22nd birthday. I was born on 06/06/1985. Although I am already 23 in Korea and will maintain that way until Jan 1st 2008, interntionally, I am 21 turning 22 on June 6th. So, I just wanted to give people a heads up that they can mail me gifts to my current location. I want to give ample time just incase of shipping errors. So this is your one month warning! Oh, to ship me gifts, my address is:

BRYAN LEUNG
SOONCHUNHYANG UNIVERSITY
GLOBAL VILLAGE A201-1
646 EUPNAE-RI,SHINCHANG-MYUN
ASAN,CHUNGNAM 336-745
SOUTH KOREA

So buy quickly guys because it might take 2-3 weeks for shipping. Oh, also direct payments can be made to my Paypal account. The button is on the top right of the webpage. It accepts paypal-paypal and Mastercard and Visa. Thanks!!!
kekeke ^_^

Spiderman 3

2007-05-02T05:25:00.000-07:00

I am writing this post after a day out in Cheonan with Wanjun. I finished classes and we went to Cheonan to the movie complex at Yawoori to watch Spiderman 3. It came out in Korea on May 1st while it comes out in North America on May 5th. I wanted to watch it early so I could tell the world that at the end of the movie, Spiderman gets trapped on a space shuttle and sent out to space. Just joking! Hahaha, no spoilers in this post, I promise. Spiderman 3 was a great movie. The fight scenes were exciting and the sequences were well done. Lots of twists because there are 3 bad guys so it kept you on the edge of your seat. Like always, there were a few cheesy lines and lots of romantic, heart filled scenes. I dont wan't to spoil too much, but it is definately a theatre movie! Now I just can't wait for Transformers!

The theatre complex was pretty nice. It had 8 screens split on two sides. The tickets were 15,000 for two and 2 medium drinks with one medium popcorn for 5,000won. So total of 20,000 won not including the 7,800won transportation. 27,800won for two people on a good date. Oh, I also bought a 19,800won sweater from Giordano.

Pizza Hut Sunday

2007-04-29T01:04:00.000-07:00

Today Keith, Addison, Oscar, Wanjun and I decided to go to grab some western food, so we went to the Pizza Hut in Onyang. It was a mix date because Keith had invited 4 chinese girls who live off-campus but are here on exchange from China. It was pretty fun because there were 4 different languages being spoken: English, Korean, Mandarin and Cantonese (Only Wanjun and I). We ate 2 pizzas, one of them was a Korean deluxe and the other was a cheese stuff crust with cheese dipping sauce. You could tear off the crust bits to dip in the cheese. We also had the side dishes which had fruit and potatoe salad, pumpkin salad, pasta and chef salad. Also had unlimited coca-cola. The total bill came to 69,800 which wasn't too bad because we were all stuffed. We continued to walk around Onyang to buy some groceries and just take a look around. We spent a total of 4.5 hours there and now I am very tired. I only had 3 hours of sleep last night. Pictures will be up soon!

Again, I think asians are big on the arm heart thingy:

Bae Young Joon

2007-04-28T08:33:00.000-07:00

This picture is for my Aunt Christine ^^

Club Day

2007-04-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

After the Samunori event, around 15 international students and a few koreans decided to go to Seoul for Club Day. Club Day happens on the last Friday of every month. There are two locations, one in Hongdae and the other in a district that I do not know. It is basically a night where everyone comes out to go clubbing. People pay 15,000won and they can go to any club of the 40 clubs in the Hongdae area.

We got there at around 11pm and decided to go to a bar first to drink. The bar we went to was called HoBar which is pretty famous in the area because they have I think 4 locations all close to each order. We ordered 2 bottles of Jack Daniels for the 15 of us internationals and we polished that off pretty fast. I think I had around 9 shots which is alot for me. The set included a can of coke and some fruit and the price was 59,000 per set.

After HoBar, we decided to hit the clubs. We went to DD's at first and it really sucked. It was a small square room with one bar and they had I swear 100 people in that tiny room. You couldn't even get to the bar or the otherside of the room. No room to dance, no place to chill, just a dark jail type room. If there was a fire, everyone would of died in there.

We decided to just drink a bit outside the club on the streets (which is ok) and we ended up meeting some people from Singapore and America. We also saw this old man get into a fight with a younger guy but it got broken up pretty fast. The fight was not like a fight I have usually seen, it was more of a wack on the head and that was it. Supposedly the old man drunk man had hit a girl earlier. We decided to go to our second destination which was Sclub. We took the Americans and Singaporean girls with us and that club was not that good, but better than DD's. It had more open space but the smoke machine and smoke from ciggerettes was hurting my eyes. The guy to girl ratio inside was aroun 3-1 which also was not good. We decided to stay here for most of the night because this was the only club that had room to dance (although the space was quite small). I ended up chatting with the workers at the front door who had to check if people were wearing the clubday wrist band or not. Their english was really good because the guy, B.K., was born in Indonesia and studied at an international school and the girl, Jay, was born in South Africa. I ended up getting a free tequila shot from B.K. and a dance with Jay which was cool.

At around 4am some of my friends decided to leave but Keith and I stayed back and wandered the streets. We went into this club called The Hole and it was a bit bigger, but more packed. The place was very dark with no windows and black walls. There were no lights besides the stage lights that had a strobe effect that almost gave me a seizure because they were so bright but going on and off at a slow pace. Again, 3-1 guy ratio so we decided to go back to SClub. We just danced a bit more and Keith, Han, Joon and I decided to get some breakfast at 6am. We went to an Udon noodle place which helped our stomachs.

From there, we seperated our ways. Joon went home and Keith went to find Oscar, Ray, and Addison at the motel they picked. I went with Han to Sigil station where he went home and I had to transfer to Yeongdupo station to buy a KOrail train back to Onyang. I got lost at the station and ended up exiting and going back in, a 900won mistake. I made it safely to Onyang but I thought I had miss my stop so I was a bit worried. Out of the station I was too tired to get the bus so I paid 9000won to take a taxi back to the Global Village. When I got back, I just passed out.

All in all it was an alright experience. Not really what I expected but it is ok. I do not think I will do it again though. Total money spent was 70,000won. 26,000won just for transportation.

On the way to the clubs:

Walking to the bar:

At the HObar with some friends:

I couldn't find any pictures of the clubs and etc but I took the following at around 6am. The streets were still pretty busy:

Mmmm breakfast of champions!

The subway we took back to Yeongdempo had some cool advertising. They had Pepsi cans attached to the hooks where you can hold if you have no seat. I thought it was pretty cool!

General Lee Parade

2007-04-28T05:28:00.000-07:00

On Friday April 27th there was a parade in Onyang to celebrate a great victory that General Lee commanded. Because General Lee was born and raised in Onyang, there was a big festival. The Samulnori class (Korean drumming) from Soonchunhyang participated in this event and they had to walk for 1.5 hours in the parade. I took many pictures but I am feeling lazy to upload them all. I have also a few videos as well. Give me time for the photos because there are over 70 so I will pick only the best to show. There was also a dinner afterwords which included all-you-can-eat korean BBQ with good meat!
Here are the 4 videos:

Here aer only a few pictures in no particular order:

And then dinner after:

Wow that was alot of pictures! I hope you guys enjoy looking at all of them. ^^

Thursday Volunteer

2007-04-28T05:21:00.000-07:00

One of my friends Melissa Gaare was able to organize with the local highschools and elementary schools some volunteer work for us international students. We can choose a day between Monday-Friday and spend 3.5 hours to help teach english to kids and/or their parents. This past Thursday, I decided to go volunteer with Wanjun. It was very fun, we were able to teach simple phrases to a kind girl and her mother. It was a great experience.
This is where they fed us:

The director, mother and daughter:

Dont ask...keke

Two shout outs!

2007-04-25T23:53:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post to say a belated happy birthday for JiangJun who turned 23 on April 20th. We went drinking on Sunday, just a little bit. And also congratulations to Keith for getting accepted to UCLA yesterday.

Unisex Washrooms

2007-04-25T22:58:00.000-07:00

Although I have been in Korea for 2 months now, I still find the unisex washrooms very funny. This is something I do not see back in Canada nor do I imagine it ever happening. At some of the pubs around the campus, they only have one washroom facility. It shows a picture of both the male and female doll and when you walk in there are 4 stalls. 2 of them for the females, 2 of them for males and then two urinals. Pretty funky idea, but I guess it saves on cost. Also, the sink to wash your hands is really dirty, if there is even a sink (sometimes there are none). But I guess that is how it works here and I must get used to it, which I have.

Oh for the americans reading this blog, many Canadians (well that I know of) say washroom instead of bathroom. Sometimes there is no bath so why would it be called a bathroom? But 99% of the time there is a place to wash your hands, hence, washroom!

WARNING!

2007-04-21T03:16:00.000-07:00

I wanted to make this post seperate from the Pyeongtek post because I wanted to give a warning for the following pictures.

WARNING WARNING WARNING: The following pictures may cause tears because all the puppies are soooo cute!

Arn't they so cute?

Good for dinner! j/k j/k

Another normal day

2007-04-21T02:49:00.000-07:00

I received this piece of paper back a couple days ago, just never had the chance to upload the picture. This is nothing out of the ordinary, I am used to seeing this on all my papers...

I am NOT an alcoholic!

2007-04-19T18:56:00.000-07:00

So it appears MANY people think that I am an alcoholic of some sort because in most of my posts I talk about drinking. Well let me get this fact straight, my name is Bryan and I am NOT an alcoholic! You see, in this small town, there is nothing to do except stay in the dorms or eat or drink. Most of the international students enjoy to go out and socialize so because there is no coffee shops or bubbletea places, we are forced to go the bars. I don't want to be anti-social nor be a party pooper so I agree to tag along to go because I rather not do nothing in the dorms. When I say we go drinking, it doesn't mean I always drink. It means I say no, then people force me to take a shot of soju, then I stop. One shot or one beer, it is harmless. I stay around for a bit to take care of my friends but I do not drink the whole night. Because I am asian, I have a weak enzyeme and thus resulting in the asian flush which is very embarassing.

So I just wanted to make it clear that when I say im going out drinking or juts came back from drinking, it does not always mean that I myself was drinking alot, just the group and I only went to socialize.

A trip to Pyeongtek

2007-04-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

Today a few friends and I had plan to go to Pyeongtek because we all have no classes due to midterm exams. We wanted to go to Pyeongtek because there is an American army base there so we wanted to buy some clothes from around there and also just take a look around. We left SCH at around 1 and went for lunch at our usual spot, Kimbap Nara. From there, we took the bus to Cheonan and then took the subway to Pyeongtek. Total travel time was probably around 1.5 hours. 1 hour to Cheonan and 30 minutes to Pyeongtek. When we arrived there, we just walked around the side streets to find some clothes. I wanted to buy a dress shirt and blazer but could not find any that would suit my style. My friends, Keith, Addison and Oscar, all seemed to be able to find something that they liked. At the end of the trip, I walked out with nothing except a bigger stomach because we ate at Burger King. It is ok, it was a fun trip and pictures will be posted soon!

Us having lunch before heading off:

The buses and station at SCH. They go to everywhere practically. It only cost us 1000won to go to Cheonan, an hour away.

I think this was a field trip for the kids to walk around the campus:

Cheonan:

Cheonan Subway Termainal:

After arriving in Pyeongtek, we just decided to walk around and shop. Here are just all the photos.

(they were trying to look casual just like the bear!)
Inside the market:

So here is a funny story. You see the guy behind the meat. I took this picture and he came running out to chase me and was screaming in Korean. He wanted me to delete the photo but I refused and just ran away. He kept following and was talking in Korean but I just ignored him and laughed at him until he went back to his meat. what a wierd guy.

Some Children's traditional clothes:

Does this sign look familiar? IGA!

Some Canadian style food in Korea? What is Canadian food though?

Dinner at Burger King. Whenever we go out, we usually eat at western fast food restaurants because we can get Korean food anywhere near campus. Look at how nice the takeout bag is and the ice cream!

Ya....Korean culture at its best ^^

While waiting for the train back to Onyang, we randomly saw Cherrel:

April 18th

2007-04-18T09:28:00.000-07:00

Today I went for a walk with my friend Wan Jun and went around to a nice garden area to light some incents for my late mother. It was her birthday today on 4/18/1956. Please, if you read this post, I would like to ask you to say a prayer for her. Thank-you.

2 down, 1 to go!

2007-04-17T10:45:00.000-07:00

I write this post while I am a bit buzzed and downloading my favourite TV show, Entourage. I have finished 2 exams (Korean writing and Korean conversation) and now I only have my Korean Business and Finance Midterm examination left. That is on Monday and I will study hard over the weekend to get a good grade. Although I am sure it will be easy considering I learned this stuff like 3 years ago! On Friday it will be my best chinese friend, Jiangjun's, birthday so we will go to celebrate that. I am not sure where we will be, but I do know it will be fun. Tonight I went out to the bars after a long hiatus. We drank to celebrate our 2 finished exams. Only Addison and my Hyeong (older brother [Hunjoon]) and two chinese girls, Lei Shan and Wu Wan Jun went. It was fun ^^. But I did not drink much, only a little bit, seriously! Pictures will be posted with permision of the girls. Well my episode just finished downloading, so I will go watch that now.

Oh hey Steph, I heard you did the SunRun a couple days ago. Great job! I am very impressed with you. I admire that you can run so much and stay fit. Good job big sis!

Korean Music

2007-04-15T17:34:00.000-07:00

So using my roommates computer, I have been listening to more Korean music. I still cannot understand the words but I think the music is very lovely. I have been listening (more like watching) to Boa and Ivy (my roommates favourite singer, besides Beyonce) and also a few random pieces. Here are two songs that I have been enjoying.

And although this song is Japanese, I still think its good:

Long Hair!

2007-04-15T08:53:00.000-07:00

Why does our hair grow so fast? Kekeke (Korean laughing of hehe/haha). I havn't had a haircut since Feb 18th by my good friend Tim Kuo. I was told that if I get a haircut around Soonchunhyang campus, it will be cheap but not good quality. They usually just give you a buzz cut and will ruin your hair. If I want a good haircut, I would have to go to Seoul and pay around $50usd! That is way too much considering Tim would give me a better job for free! So I guess I will wait till I go back home in the summer or possibly get a haircut in HK. I miss you Tim!!!

Here is how long my hair is now. It is not usually like this, but the wind is blowing my hair up on the left side. I have styled it different though because it is longer which I like. I do not spike it up, I let my bangs go down.

Oh I am so ugly >.<

Hyeonchungsa Shrine

2007-04-14T04:16:00.000-07:00

Today a few friends and I went to Onyang to help a friend get a cellphone. She ended up paying 50,000 won for a used phone and putting 20,000 won for prepaid minutes. After this, the four of us went to Hyeonchungsa Shrine which is a popular tourist destination in Onyang. The shrine was built for general Lee Sun-Shin who was a famous general during the 1932 Japanese occupation. More information can be found by clicking here. Here are a few pictures of us today:

Spring is here!

2007-04-12T00:56:00.000-07:00

The flowers around the campus and even around Korea have all been blooming. Last week there was a festival in Seoul to watch the flowers bloom and around SCH students have been in the fields drinking and partying while the flowers bloom. The major flower here is called the Sakura which is a Japanese flower. They are very pretty. Here are some pictures of them around campus:

Study Week

2007-04-10T01:30:00.000-07:00

Well next week is midterms so this week is study week. Although we do not get a week off classes, we get a two weeks off from exchanges and group meetings. This helps because now I can study every single minute. No more drinking, no more partying, just pure hardcore studying. Well, besides drinking at Khans last night and possibly tonight. Here is a picture of me hard at work:

Easter Sunday

2007-04-07T23:41:00.000-07:00

Today my roommate, Hunjoon, and Oscar, Addison and I went to church for Easter sunday. We took the church bus for 10 minutes to a church in a rural area where a bunch of farms are. The church was a Christian church of some sort and the service was in Korean. The priest did alot of preaching and the service was a bit different than how it is like back home, but just as good. They also gave us fruits and lunch which consisted of noodles and kimchi. No pictures because I didn't want to bring my camera.

Global Village field trip

2007-04-07T07:27:00.000-07:00

I am now back in the dorms after a Friday & Saturday G.V. field trip. There were around 150 people that consisted of English, Chinese and Korean students. It started off with us leaving campus at around 10:30 and then arriving at the ferry site at around 11:45ish.

We took a 10 minute ferry ride to the island were the trip was it. I forgot the name, but when I ask someone I will edit this. We ate lunch and then headed off to the beach to play some games. The sand was nice but the water was very dirty. Some of the games included the foot race were we tie our feet together (I think its a popular activity in Korea since we always play that) and piggy-back rides to get water to fill a bucket. There were no prizes, only for fun.

Cafteria:

My awesome hoolahoop skills!

We decided to make a volleyball net and play:

This was the view from outside the stairway window:

It is really cool to watch the sun set in Korea. It is always so red and full:

After we went to eat a light dinner and prepare for fireworks, bondfire, singing and LOTS of drinking. My roommate, Hunjoon, gave me this korean drink called Condition. What it is suppose to do is help for hangovers the next day. I drank the bottle which tasted really good and also took a Zantac (anti-acid) to help coat my stomach. After dinner we all headed to the sand pit to watch the display of fireworks. It consisted of a 8 roman candle like fireworks and then the lighting of the bondfire. There was 10 tables for the 10 groups and 2 big bottles of beer, coke, and fruit. My friends and I tried not to drink much of the beer because we did not want to ruin our stomachs before the Soju. There is an old saying, "Liquor before beer, have no fear. Beer before liquor, you'll never be sicker". With that in mind, I only drank a few cups full. The bondfire was cool because it was warm. The night was a bit cold but clear skys. You could actually see Venus on clear nights and I was able to spot it. Even in Vancouver, it is visible. Just look at the brightest and biggest object in the sky besides the moon and its Venus.

Anyways, we got a bit bored without being drunk so we decided to open up the Soju bottles. There were 3 2litre bottles of Soju for the 5 of us and we were taking lots of shots. The organizers decided it was getting cold so everyone helped to move the tables and Karokee machine inside the gym. From there we had a karokee singing contest along with more food. My group and I decided we were going to sing Backstreet Boys - As long as you love me. I was already pretty drunk so I did not hesitate to take the mic and sing as loud as I could and my group mates seemed to enjoy it. During the contest my friends and I would constantly sneak outside to take more shots until I felt very drunk. I was dancing on the stage and singing with other groups, it was really fun. Our group ended up comming second which was pretty cool because we won a bottle of Whiskey, but I didnt drink any. I didn't want to mix soju with whiskey.

From there on we just drank more soju and was just having as much fun as we could. Things got pretty late and the singing died off so everyone retired back into the rooms of the place we were staying it. The rooms were just a flat floor with blankets and pillows in a closet. Being the smart guy that I am, I took some extra pillows and sheets from the other rooms to make sure the 8 people sleeping in that small room had enough. After we went back to the dorms, the remaining of the night was a blur to me. I was told I was going around to the girls rooms and just singing and being a drunk. I cannot remember a thing and when asked, I plead the 5th. I think I went to bed at around 3am but was not truly sure.
Here was one random drunk picture that I found. I do not remember taking this though:

I got up the next morning at 8:45 and got dressed to eat breakfast. I didn't really feel that I had a hangover, I think the Condition drink took a more physcological effect on me. Surprise surprise we ate kimchee and rice for breakfast along with some fresh friend fish. My friends and I just talked in our room until lunch were we ate noodles and kimchee and rice. After that we left the island to go back to the campus.
Mmm Breakfast:

The boat again:

And us going back to the bus:

Some random drummers:

Overall it was a pretty fun trip. I know if we did not buy the extra soju, it wouldn't be that fun. I couldn't imagine singing and doing all the things we did sober so the alcohol really made the weekend. Now I know I sound like an alcoholic, but trust me, I am far from it. Back in Canada I rarely drink but here, that is the only thing to do. And the field trip was a bit boring so we had to make our own fun.

Ill try to post as many pictures as I can. I didn't bring my camera with me while drinking but I will try to steal pictures from my friends when they upload it to post. So keep checking back because new pictures will be posted!

Here are just some random pictures that are in no particular order:
My roommate and I:

Our wierd asian pose:

Our DragonBall fusion pose:

More to come!

Preparing my liver

2007-04-05T09:26:00.000-07:00

I write this post before I go to bed for a nice sleep to prepare my body for this weekend. This weekend will be the Global Village Field trip. From what I was told, it consist of a lot of fun activities and LOTS and LOTS of drinking. All paid for by the school of course. We are going to a beach near by where we will have a BBQ, bonfire, and possibly rafting depending on the weather. I will post pictures when I get back, if I am alive.

Midterm Report

2007-04-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

For the English Village program, we have to do a midterm report on our first impressions of Korea. This is due in 2 weeks but I have already finished most of it. I just have to do some editing and grammar checks. Here it is so far:

My First Impressions of South Korea

It never really hit me that I was going to South Korea until after arriving at Vancouver International Airport (YVR) half drunk and ready to fly to San Francisco (SFO) and then to Incheon Airport (ICN). After a 3 hour flight to SFO, 2 hour wait, then a 13 hour flight on United Airlines 893 I finally arrived at ICN. A bit buzzed and tired, I managed my way approximately 5070 kms (4404 miles for you Americans) across the Pacific Ocean from North America to Asia.

At ICN, the airport looked similar to most airports I have seen (less than 5 that I can remember). Same procedure of going to baggage claim, finding my stuff and then going to the lobby. After getting my passport stamped I went on my way thinking how it was odd that I did not have to go through any custom check or anything. I guess the security is not as tight as back in Canada/America. When I exited the passport check area I saw many people with signs that were waiting for people. One sign that stuck out was ‘African pen pal’ or something in that nature. I assumed that the girl who was holding the sign had never actually seen the person, she was just waiting for someone to respond. I walked past the mob and quickly found the meeting spot which was across Mr. Kernal Sander’s KFC. I met with Steven and was told that we had to wait at the airport for around 2-3 hours for the others. That was not a problem because I wanted to explore the airport. I had walked around and found that it was pretty plain. Maybe it was just the area that I was in, but there were no good shops. I walked upstairs and found a few clothing shops, some Family Marts (local convenience store chain) and a Hyundai car display.

After the others arrived we took a bus from ICN to Soonchunhyang in Asan. This is where I got my first impressions of South Korea. The first thing that popped in my mind was that everything was so bright. There were many signs for restaurants and they all had florescent lights. I wonder what their electricity bill is like. While still on the bus I noticed that many of the cars, old and new, had a LCD screen to watch T.V. and I assume GPS. Lastly I noticed that there were many churches with bright red crosses on top of the buildings. There were around 10 churches that appeared to be next to each other, then nothing for a couple of minutes then another 10 churches. It was very odd seeing that.

With those three imagines in my mind (bright lights, LCD, and churches) I had my first impressions of Korea. I could tell that Korea was an advance city yet with still many rural areas. The city is very modernized but still very old. The bright lights on old buildings and the new LCD monitors on old cars showed this. Another thing when looking at the LCD monitors was that most of the vehicles were Korean cars. I believe that many Koreans are very patriotic to Korea and they only buy Korean products. This has been proved multiple times through-out my stay especially while attending the South Korea vs Uruguay soccer game when many of the Korean fans were screaming and yelling and eventually crying when they lost. The last first impression is of the churches. Seeing how many there were showed how big the population of Korea is. To have 10 churches so close to each other proves that there are many people and cannot all fit into one church. The church to me also symbolizes that many Koreans are turning into Christianity religion much like the Americans. I find that Korean has it’s unique culture but also has many mixed cultures with the United States. One of them is of course the term soccer. I am not a big soccer fan, but I do know most of the world uses the term football when referring to soccer except Canada, America and Korea. Why Korea? Because of it’s American influences. American influences are also shown by the many American companies in Korea. The church also shows how new technology coincides with the old. The crosses on the top of the church were all bright red florescent lights, sometimes you do not see back home.

Those were my first impressions of Korea and so far, they seem to hold true. My experience here has been great and I am enjoying every moment. They say first impressions last a life time and I believe it’s true.

Living off Ramen and Kimbap

2007-04-03T04:44:00.000-07:00

After spending $313 on airline tickets for Hong Kong, I am now dirt poor. I have in my wallet $4, $38 in my bank and $163 in debt to my roommate. So for the next few days, possibly weeks and even month I will be living off Cheese Ramen and Kimbap (Korean type of rolled sushi with vegetables inside). Spending money here is very easy. Everything is so cheap so you want to buy it thinking it wont be much, but it all adds up. Food, drinking and little items. Plus the weekend trips to Seoul that cost $100 with nothing to show for it. Sigh, time to save.

A day of hiking

2007-04-02T05:13:00.000-07:00

Today a few internationals and I decided to go hiking at the trails around school. There are quite a few trails to choose from so we took Carlos to help guide us around. We hiked for approximately 3 hours and it was fun.

At the side of the hills there were a few graves. Here is a less decorative one:

At the top of the hill and our last destination was this temple thingy.

On our way back to the school we passed by a farm that had a few animals and birds. I believe they were also growing asian pears.

Dinner?

New Shoes

2007-04-01T06:55:00.000-07:00

After the soccer games, my suitemate and I took a trip into Onyang which is only 10 minutes away. I wanted a pair of Converse shoes but settled for a pair of nice Fila ones. Ill post a picture later, they are really nice. 43,000won as well. And yes, they are REAL.

Sports Sunday

2007-04-01T06:43:00.000-07:00

Today a few internationals decided to play soccer on one of the dustiest days in Korea so far this year. The Koreans call it Yellow Dust and it's all the pollution from the factories in China comming over. This usually happens around spring time and today was a bad day. Yellow dust did not stop us, we were determained to get some excercise in. We played a game of soccer and it was 5v4. The 5 being Radomir, Leslie, Mel, and Hawk (korean) versus Carlos, Josh, Alisa and Me. I was put as goalie and with my awesome saves, we won with the score of 5-4.

We then played a game of Ultimate Frisbee and with the same teams, we slaughtered them by the score of 7-0. After that we played another round of soccer and won yet again 3-1. So 3 games, 3 victories! It was a fun day and 3 hours of excercise sure helps my big gut.

Corea

2007-03-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

While talking to my Korean friend, Juno, I had learned a very intersting fact. The country Korea was once spelled as Corea prior to Japanese control. Japan didn't want the country to be named Corea because they did not want the people to walk out before Japan for any international games like the Olympics and such. Because C is before J, Corea would always be ahead of Japan. So during Japanese ruling, they changed Corea to Korea to be behind Japan. I am sure you all know K is after J in the alphabet! So that was just a neat fact that was worthy of sharing.

As for updates on me, I have been keeping low lately. Money is running low because everytime I go to Seoul it's $100 for two days! Food, travel, accomendation etc. Another thing is that I just booked my flight tickets from ICN (Korea) - HKG (Hong Kong) for $313 so trying to save money for that to pay off my debt.

Weird weather

2007-03-31T00:48:00.000-07:00

The weather here in Asan has been really weird. In the morning the sun is out and somewhat warm then by mid afternoon, strong winds come in and rain accompanied with lightning and thunder. Last night the loud thunder woke me up at around 2am and it was pretty freaky. Ill try to post pictures if I can capture any.

Victory Dinner!

2007-03-30T01:39:00.000-07:00

So remember a while back my suite won the roommate challenge? Well we finally had our celebration dinner. It was at the local bar EZs. Sadly, not all of our suitemates could make it. It's ok, we had fun. I only have limited photos because I was too drunk to take more :)

After drinking we went to a norabang which is a KTV (Karoke T.V.) room. Again, only one picture.

Roommates presentation

2007-03-30T01:29:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday my roommate Hunjoon had to do a presentation for his Police Administration class. It was about anti-terrosim. His group mate was Falcon (Jiang Jun) so I was happy to help them by attending their class and participating. I also basically typed their whole project out for them and helped explain some difficult words. Their presentation needed to have their summary in English but they thought it would be good to type the whole thing in English.

I appologize in advance for the blurry and dark pictures:

After the sunseangnim (teacher) came in, the class got a bit more serious:

I think the teacher was very impressed with Hunjoon and Jiang Jun because they were able to bring international students to the class to participate. I hope my roommate gets an A+ for this project.

Saturday Dinner

2007-03-30T01:12:00.000-07:00

We got a bit hungry so we decided to grab some food. The following pictures are pretty cool because you can see all the signs hanging from the buildings and all the restaurants. Its very compact compared to back home.

Look how bright this street is. It has lights everywhere!

Then on the floor there are piano keys!

BAM! Hmm...where should we go?

We ended up going to a Korean BBQ house:

Sorry for the blurry picture. The total cost was 4500won per person which is pretty cheap for all the food we ate.

Saturday late afternoon!

2007-03-30T01:07:00.000-07:00

After shopping (oh I bought a cellphone accessory and a t-shirt) we walked to the independance day square where the speech was held for the independence of South Korea from Japanese control in 1945. More info can be found here:Wikipedia site for Gwangbokjeoul.

Saturday Afternoon, Myungdong Market

2007-03-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

After the Musuem last Saturday we continued to go shopping at Myundong Market. It was very vibrant and had lots of shops. There were also tons of vendors right in the middle of the streets selling cellphone accessories, fake DVDs, fake shirts and much more. It was pretty neat to see.

On our way to Myundong Market:

Some tall office buildings:

Look how busy the traffic is and how many signs there are:

Finally arrived at the Market:

Korean drivers are crazy! Or maybe it was us the pedestrians that are crazy. Cars drive through busy roads and everyone just gets out of their way. In Vancouver, that would never happen and that car would be stuck there for the whole day.

This was some wierd street performance. I think they were trying to promote the soccer game, but I am not too sure:

This was a cool direction sign that I found on the road. Those are all our feet!

Korea vs Uruguay- Soccer game!

2007-03-28T04:22:00.000-07:00

I was going to write football game because 95% of the world uses the term football to describe soccer, but in Korea, they use the term soccer so that is why I put that there. I believe only Korea, America, and Canada uses the term Soccer. Anyways, on Saturday there was a friendly match between Korea and Uruguay and I was lucky enough to attend. It was my first soccer game ever (in Canada, soccer is not big at all. I don't even think we have a national team) and it was so fun. We got to the World Cup Stadium (Korea co-hosted the 2002 World Cup with Japan) a bit late because we went shopping earlier. We had to run for 30 minutes and switch subways 3 times. It was a mess but we eventually got there. During the game, I was so determained to start the wave (Pado tagi 파도 타기) and I was able to get my section and the next two to do it but it died after that. I tried at lesat 5 times until I gave up :(. But at least I can say that I started the wave in Korea World Cup Stadium! During the end of the game, there were also a few Americans who ran across the field which I thought was very funny. Sadly, Uruguay won the game by the score of 2-0.

We kind of took our time eating and shopping so we were pretty late to meet our other peers. The following pictures are of us leaving Myundong Market.

Finally we arrived at World Cup Stadium:

And inside!

Here is a stolen picture of the subway train after the soccer game:

Blurry picture of my soccer ticket:

This is when my camera died. I will try to steal my friends pictures so I can show more of the game. My friend John also has a video file of me attempting to start the wave but he has been too lazy to upload it. I will go threaten him now.

Saturday - War Museum

2007-03-28T04:17:00.000-07:00

So last Saturday my friends and I went to the War Museum showing weapons, planes, tanks and other Korean war memoribillia in Seoul. It was amazing. Seeing tanks that were actually used in the war and planes was an unbelievable site. We spent approximently 3 hours just walking around and taking pictures. There was also the hall of names from those who were lost during the war. It was also neat to see all the countries' flags who helped South Korea between 1950 and 1953. More information about the war can be found here: Korean War (Wikipedia).

Here is a picture of a dragon that was near the museum:

Inside the gates:

Statues:

Some tanks and weapons:

Some Airplanes:

Helicopters:

Ships:

Radar back in the 1950:

The Hall of names:

There were four halls like this and I am sure more names inside the building.

Outside the building:

Some of the countries that helped fight in the Korean war. I was lucky enough to get a shot when the Canadian flag was waving nicely:

Some cool shots:

Some Random shots:

My friend Oscar and I saw this cool looking stage and we thought it really looked like a scene from Street Fighter:

FINISH HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It's really amazing seeing these artillery right infront of my eyes and knowing that they were used during the Korean War. I really suggest people to go to the war museum if they have a chance to visit Seoul.

Sorry!

2007-03-27T19:20:00.000-07:00

Sorry I havn't had time to post lately. I really wanted to make a post when I upload my pictures instead of post now, and upload later. The computer I have been using to upload my pictures from the compact flash card seems to be broken so I am having a hard time trying to find a computer that can upload my pictures. Even before it would take at least an hour to upload 60 pictures! So from now on, I will just write on events that I have done and then post pictures when I can. I still have over 150 pictures to post!

So again, sorry >.<

Friday- Trip to Seoul

2007-03-25T07:28:00.000-07:00

So a bunch of us decided to go to Seoul to do some late night shopping in Dongdaemun Market (the cheaper area) on Friday. Here are a lot of pictures of the trip:

We got a little hungry so we decided to go find some food:

Alaskan King Crap was a bit out of our budget:

This was more like it for our wallets!

Back outside:

Inside the shopping Complex:

And on our way out: (I bought a jacket by the way)

Back on the busy streets:

Then we ended up here:

To celebrate our night out and ending up in the Women's University, we decided to get drunk at a few bars:

Some late night munchies, McDonalds!

This was the Love Motel that we stayed at. A Love Motel is basically a cheap place ($35 a night) to stay for couples who want to have sex. We stayed here because it was cheap.

Pizza Hut

2007-03-25T07:24:00.000-07:00

Pizza Hut in Korea taste the same as Pizza hut back home, except that the take-out package is much nicer!

Roommate Challenge Champions!

2007-03-21T08:58:00.000-07:00

On Monday our dorms had a roommate challenge. What that consisted was 2 suites (one boys suite one girls suite) would team up and challenge each other in a competition that would test the best suite. Monday and Tuesday were qualifying days for the final competition on Wednesday (today). Our suite got matched with C502 (our suite being A201) and we ended up as 3rd place out of 6 on Monday. We were not sure if we would go on Wednesday because the top two teams on Monday and Tuesday go to finals and then there is a wildcard. Luckily, 3rd place was wildcard team and we went to the finals. The games consisted of the same games we played on Monday. Rock,Paper,Scissors challenge, 3leg (although we had 5 people) races, hoolahoop wave, and jump rope.

For Rock Paper Scissors, I told everyone that I was the best. I remember last summer watching the RPS championships in Las Vegas on ESPN so I was confident I would be the winner. Guess what, out of approximately 40 people, I was the last man standing. And my suitemate, Will, came second. How we played it was that we formed a big circle and the person in the middle would do either Rock, Paper, or Scissors and the outside circle would choose one. If you lost, you would step out, and I never lost thus comming first place!

The next challenge was the 3 legged race. We had to have 5 people and although they did not tell us the winner, we believe our time was the fastest. We just sprinted across the field!

After that was the hoolahoop wave. We had 7 people holding hands and we had to race to get 4 hoolahoops from one side to the other without breaking the chain. Although we did not come first, our time we pretty good.

The last event was the jump rope. We bombed that. We couldn't even get 1 jump out of our two tries.

So after the 4 competitions we weren't sure if we would win. Although we came 1st and 2nd in the RPS and 1st in the 3 legged race, we though that our hoolahoop and jump rope would be our downfall. Well it turns out that we did not even need the jump rope competition. We had already won by winning the RPS and 3legged race! That's right, Roommate Challenge CHAMPIONS!!! The prize? 150,000 won ($150usd) certificate to the local bar EZs for drinking. 150,000 will buy us ALOT of alcohol so we all plan on going maybe next Thursday. Pictures will be posted on that day of course.

SFU Acceptance

2007-03-19T18:43:00.000-07:00

Just wanted to say that I finally got my acceptance to SFU for the 2007 Fall semester! The bus ride/drive from Richmond to Burnaby mountain is going to kill me :(

My homework

2007-03-19T03:01:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to post some pictures of my homework. I have been posting drinking pictures and party pictures, and that is only 5% of my time. So here is what I do 95% of my time here, my studies!

A little sick

2007-03-19T02:38:00.000-07:00

So on Saturday I had a little stomach ache but I wasn't sure from what. Then it hit me and I knew what I had to do to solve this problem. I decided to ask my roommate to help guide me to find my medicine, so we took a bus to Cheonam:

Here is the public bus that we took for 2400won ($2.60usd)

We arrive at the Bus terminal and right into the shopping mall:

Coffee Bean inside the mall:

We had to walk outside the mall to our destination. Here is what the street looks like:

Finally! My medicine shop to make me feel better:

And my medcine! A Cheese Whooper supersized. The Large is the same size as the regular back at home. Maybe thats why North Americans are more overweight >.<

After my delicious meal we went back into the shopping mall. But along the street I recognized a few familiar signs:

And of course, the Golden Arches!

Also on the street they were doing some hairstyle competition. Maybe one day Tim Kuo, you could be doing this:

A cute little statue that I saw on the street:

The nain fast food chain in Korea:

And finally the bus terminal back home to Soonchunhyang:

The weekend is here!

2007-03-17T05:00:00.000-07:00

After a hard week of school (honest!) our suite decided to have a mini party to welcome the weekend. Pics will be uploaded soon!

:(

2007-03-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

This post is for my Grandpa who is currently in the hopsital. I wish I was there with him and I give him my strongest support. He is the best and I know he will get better. Don't worry Yaya, I will come back soon to massage your feet :)

Pictures of our weekend in Seoul

2007-03-14T22:04:00.000-07:00

Subway station:

Noodles for dinner:

More subway:

Seoul:

Oscar and I drinking and eating in a street tent:

More pictures:

Here is a short video of the traffic outside Costco:

Been a busy week

2007-03-13T06:23:00.000-07:00

I havn't had time to post much lately because I have been very busy with classes. I am taking Korean writing level 1, Korean converation 1, Taekwondo, and Business & Finance. The writing and converstaion classes have been [b]very[/b] hard for me. Korean language to some is very simple because they have an alphabet compared to chinese. They also have vowels to make things simplier. But still, the pronounciation is hard and remembering the characters is hard. My tounge cannot go in the right positions (even in chinese I cannot pronounce things right) so its difficult for me. My business class is easy, so far. The only problem is that it is 3 hours long!

As for teaching styles, I would say I enjoy being taught at Langara more than here. The class sizes are similar, small, but just the way the lessons are presented at Langara make them more interesting. Maybe it was because most of my business teachers were awesome and always had fun projects to do.

Parked Cars

2007-03-08T18:09:00.000-08:00

My friend Oscar from Hawaii showed me an interesting fact about parked cars in Korea. Because there are not enough spaces, people double park others but leave their cars in neutral so the blocked person can push the car to get out. See for yourself:

English Village ceremony dinner

2007-03-07T04:03:00.000-08:00

Today we had an English Villiage ceremony and after we all got together and had all you can eat bbq paid for by the school. It was delicious! I noticed that Korean food taste a bit better than food from Vancouver. Not just compared to the western food, but compared to all foods. The food here seems to have a bit more spice (not just hot spice, but peppers) and more flavour. This is done to make up for the small portions. I must admit, I rather take small portions with good flavour then big portions with no taste.

SCH Architecture

2007-03-07T03:56:00.000-08:00

Just some pictures of the buildings around Soonchunhyang University:

Library:

Stairs to the Foreign Language Education Center (Flec Building). We take these stairs everyday!

Suite party!

2007-03-06T05:57:00.000-08:00

Another suite party to get to know each other:

Soonchunhyang, the first few days

2007-03-06T05:50:00.000-08:00

On the first few days of class, I was able to meet my new teachers:

Here is the Stairway to Heaven that we must walk up and down to get to class:

The cafeteria:

Falcon and I:

Korean BBQ and PC bong (lan cafe)

2007-03-06T05:35:00.000-08:00

So a few internationals and I decided to grab some Korean BBQ on a snowy cold day here in Korea. I am used to cold living in Vancouver, but in Korea, the wind is way too much. It's bloody cold! Here are the pictures:

After playing some games, my chinese friend George and I decided to play some pool. But the table was busy, so we played 3v2 instead:

My new roommate!

2007-03-04T01:48:00.000-08:00

So I finally got my roomie last night. His name is Joon and he is a Police Administration major. He is 26 years old (28 in korea [in korean years, everyone is 2 years older than normal, don't ask me why] and a very friendly person. A few of my suitemates and I decided to eat dinner together to help get to know each other and it was a fun experience.

The first picture was from yesterday's dinner:

These pictures are of my suitemates and I eating our Pizza and fried chicken that we ordered.

Pictures of Joon:

A trip to Onyang

2007-03-02T23:57:00.000-08:00

After a semi hang-over, my chinese friend, Falcon (like the bird), and I decided to do some shopping in the local town of Onyang. We took the bus which was 1100won (1.10usd), it took us roughly 10 minutes to get to our stop. Falcon had to pay his LG phone bill and it was very hard for him because the last time he paid, the guy who took his money did deposit it. So for him to explain that in Korean was VERY difficult. It took us around 20 minutes just to sort things out. The lady helping him at the LG store seemed to be very annoyed and rude, but I guess that is because of the language barrier. Falcon has studied 2 years of Korean language and has been in Korea for over 7 months, so he was able to communicate a bit.

We then went shopping around. I wanted to buy a pillow because the one that they gave me is very hard and it is hurting my neck and back when I sleep at night. Falcon bought some bed sheets and a blanket for 30,000won ($30usd) and then we just shopped around for clothes and such. The shirts were quite expensive, comparative to US brand name stuff back in Vancouver. Falcon told me to wait until we go to Seoul because there will be more selection for cheaper price. Here are the pictures of our trip:

Another heavy drinking night!

2007-03-02T12:59:00.000-08:00

Well again a bunch of us foreigers went out to E-Zs for a couple of drinks and we brought along some korean friends. We were playing some korean drinking games that include Titanic which involves putting a shot glass in the middle of a cup full of beer, then you pour Soju, which is rice wine (taste like vodka), into the middle of the shot glass. You go around a circle and you can pour as much as you want or as little as you want as long as one drop hits the center. You count to 5 seconds and then pass it off. If it sinks on your turn, you drink! It's a very fun game. We also played Baskin Robins. That game is easy. You basically count up to 31 by saying 1 or 3 numbers. So first person can go 1,2 then the next goes 3, then the next goes 4,5,6 or whatever number he wants to say as long as it doesn't go over 3 numbers. Then the person who says 31 must drink. We also played a Korean mix of quaters. That game is somewhat hard. We put all of our beer mugs in the middle forming a circle and then adding a shot glass in the middle. Everyone takes turns on flicking a 500won coin bouncing from the table to the glass. If you get it in someone's glass, they drink. If you get it in the middle shot glass, everyone drinks. Fun but hard game.

Dinner before drinking:

Quaters!:

Opening Ceremony

2007-03-01T19:15:00.000-08:00

So today, my 4th day here, we had to go for the opening ceremony for all freshmen students. That is first year for all non americans. I thought it was going to be boring, but it was pretty fun. They had a lazer show and pyro technics to make things interesting. I was really tired because I went out drinking last night at E-Zs again. That is my 4th night of drinking in a row. But it is so cheap here so it's cheap form of entertainment. Again, it was $5 for lots of beer and soju! I have also started to receive a few suitmates. I met three Korean guys that are staying in my dorm but still have not met my roommate. At the ceremony I saw one of my suitemates and his friends and met a few korean girls as well. They seemed very interested in the English language.

This is one of my suitmates.

This is the market that is at the basement of the dorm building beside the Global Village. This is where we buy our supplies and food. They serve NY style Hot Dogs! I ate a chilli dog today.

This is Mrs. Lee. She does the laundry in our dorms. It is very cheap to get things dry cleaned and washed here. They do offer free washers but they do not have dryers, so I just pay her $4 to get my stuff cleaned and dried. She also irons my shirts for $1 and dry cleans for $1 as well.

This is the opening ceremony at in the gym. Lots of people crammed into one small space.

These are the people that I met during the ceremony. They seemed very intersted in me because I could speak English.

And Finally, me eating dinner!

My first impressions

2007-02-28T17:51:00.000-08:00

So after entering Seoul and driving down to campus, I noticed three main things. 1) Everything is bright. I do not mean only lots of lights, I mean those lights are BRIGHT. Signs, posters, cars all so bright. It looks like NY time square everywhere. Even when we were on the highway then went to the rural area, I saw a row of restaurants and lan cafes with bright neon sights just in the middle of no where. I wonder what their electricity bill is like! 2) The second thing I noticed was that in Seoul, they seem to be very religeous. In one area I saw around 10 churches with big neon cross signs on the top bunched together and then a few later down. I think I counted around 50 churches from ICN airport to SCH. 3) The last thing is that the drivers are pretty crazy, or maybe it was just our bus driver. The roads were bumpy yet he kept maintaining the same speed. Red lights mean nothing to him as long as there was no cars comming. Just my 2 hour trip from the airport was a great experience to see many things. Now, another 2880 to go!

The First Day!

2007-02-27T22:59:00.001-08:00

We had to get up at 11am Korean time which is around 3pm Vancouver time. I did not experience any jet lag because I am used to staying up till 5-6am. Thanks Dota! haha. Anyways, we all met at 11am in the lobby for orientation. I met the rest of my classmates and all are very friendly. We then proceeded to take a mini tour of the campus and then promptly go to a classroom for some touch up info. I ate my first meal in Korea at a small little restaurant. The food was pretty good and cheap. I ate pork chop cutlet and rice which cost roughly $3.50 usd. The great thing about Korea is that there is no tax and no tip; so that helps saves money. We continued the rest of our orientation and then we were off. I met a few people and we decided to play some ultimate frisbee outfront. From there, a few of us went to grab dinner at the same restuarant. I ate some beef with rice which again, was $3.50. Plus of course all you can eat Kimchee! And the kimchee here is very spicey but delicious. At the restaurant, I saw a few familiar faces that were from China. They came to Korea to learn more Korean just as I cam from Canada. They all spoke mandarin so the language barier was tough, but we ended up all going to this bar which is well known around here called E-Z. We ended up drinking quite a bit and learned a few Korean drinking games which was very fun. All 8 of us then went back to one of the Chinese students dorm room and just chatted to get to know each other. They were all very friendly. Thank god we had a guy who can speak both english and chinese that helped us communicate with each other. Posting of pictures will be up asap.

Orientation classroom.

Hello from Korea!

2007-02-27T22:46:00.000-08:00

Well I safetly made it to Korea! After flying from YVR (Vancouver) to SFO (San Francisco) on a 2 hour flight, I had a 3 hour wait until my flight to ICN (Korea). The duty free shops there we nice, but I had to control myself to not buy too many things. My 13 hour flight from SFO - ICN was not that bad. I flew United Airlines which was ok. The problem was that my TV was broken so I could not watch any movies :(. I met a nice Korean mother who sat beside me and she had told me she went to visit her daughter who is studying in Las Vegas. The flight was pretty neat because we kept chasing the sun, meaning it was always bright out. When I arrived at ICN airport I met Steven and Il Jong who is Steven's helper. Steven is the main director for the Soonchunhyang University global exchange program. At the airport, I had met a few of my classmates. All very friendly and from all over the place. Mostly USA and Mexico though. We waited around 3 hours until our bus came, and that was another 2 hour ride to campus. We got assigned our rooms and I quickly showered and passed out. Pictures of my journy will be uploaded once I get my laptop working. Right now I am using the community computer in the lobby of the Global Village

Pictures of San Francisco airport and ICN airport. Didn't get much of a chance to take some nicer ones, so these will do!

This is my dorm room. Nice and neat, for now.

View from my window.

This picture is a scale model of an old war boat. One of the first in the world.

This is a scale model of SCH University.

My First meal in Korea was at this restaurant. It was very good and cheap. $3.50usd for a big plate of rice and pork cutlets.

Global Village

2007-01-11T03:01:00.000-08:00

While searching for pictures, I was able to find a few pictures of the dormitories at SCH. This what is looks like:

Inside the room:

Facebook

2007-01-11T02:52:00.000-08:00

I signed up for Facebook after a friend had showed me how it works. This site was able to connect me to other people going to Soonchunhyang University for the Spring 07 semester. It is a pretty neat site because it allows you to keep in touch with old friends and friends from far away through a bunch of networks. If you want to add me, you can find me under the name: Bryan Leung

새해 복 많이 받으세요

2007-01-01T03:00:00.000-08:00

Sehe Bokmanee Bateuseyo - Happy New Years!

Good-bye 2006 and hello 2007! Well, 2006 has been a big year for me. I was browsing one of my favourite forums, www.talksfu.ca, and I read a post with the topic "How Was 2006 For You?". It was basically a few questions and members could reply to them. Here are the questions and my answers:

1. What was the most memorable event of 2006 for you personally?
Going down on my road-trip to San Diego then to Vegas

2. What have you done this year that you feel was a real accomplishment?
Managed to raise my GPA and get accepted into SFU.

3. What do you regret most about this year?
Not trying hard for Spring 06 semester. Although regret is a funny thing. It is somewhat bad to think something you did in the past is a negative thing. Maybe because I didn't try hard for the Spring 06 semester, that made me try harder for the fall and helped me get into SFU. Or maybe by me trying harder for the fall it helped me find the opportunity to go to South Korea. So yes, I am quite upset that I didn't do too well in the spring, but maybe if I did do good I wouldn't be going to Korea. So I guess things happen for a reason, good or bad.

4. Did you stick to your new years resolutions? If so, what were they?
I don't think I made any. If so, it was to probably quit smoking (which I have somewhat) and try harder in school. I did bad in spring but good in fall, so I guess I didn't fully fulfill but didn't ignore my resolutions.

5. What was your favourite song of 2006?
James Blunt - You're Beautiful, Guang Liang - Tong Hua

6. Which band/ artist did you discover/ fall in love with this year?
Jay Chou/The Fray

7. Who are you most proud of this year and why? (can be a family member/ friend or a famous person!)
[To be determined]

8. Did you do anything new or do something for the first time this year?
I went on a road-trip down the coast to San Diego, then went to Vegas and back.

9. Have you learnt anything new about yourself in 2006?
If I try hard, I can accomplish anything.

10. What has your relationship status been like throughthe year? Did you find that "special someone?"
Nope, been trying but I am too shy. I have met some nice new friends whom are girls, but not that special someone, yet. :(

11. What do you want to do in 2007? What, if any, new years resolutions will you be making?
Quit smoking, work out more, eat healthier, do much better in school, quit gambling, get a girlfriend, make more money, make more friends, enjoy life, be more understanding, don't be judgmental, be less self conscious, and be a good person in general.

Finally.... sum up you year in a few sentences!
This year has been pretty big for me. I have realized that I am not a little kid anymore and I am a young adult. I now know that I want my degree and I want to succeed in life. I have changed from being a lazy slob to the total opposite. Started to go to the gym, make more friends, try hard in school. So I guess this year has played a pivotal point in my life and it has changed my views.

I think I have grown up a lot from Jan 1 2006 to Dec 31 2006. I just hope I can continue my ambition for 2007. So bring it on!!
- Bryan Leung

Costly preparations

2006-12-30T05:20:00.000-08:00

Well before I head to Korea, I have to get some things done that will cost me a shiny penny. Today I went to get my travel insurance done. I have it set for 6 months from February 25th -August 18th 2007. I went through BCAA because I am a member there, and the total came to $201cdn. What that includes is basically I am covered for most injuries and emergencies while I am traveling excluding America. If anything happens to me, my insurance will take of me instead of me having to spend money. They don't really call it insurance, but "peace of mind". I also had to spend $13 for a Korea Visa picture. That will add to the $65 for the actual visa itself. That is on top of my $1003 school semester tuition. So, so far it has been roughly $1832cdn(Langara tuition, airfare [one way], insurance, visa photo) for my trip to Korea. I will keep adding the total to find out the final cost and hopefully I can stay on budget.

메리 크리스마스

2006-12-25T00:06:00.000-08:00

Sung Tan Chuk Ha - Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday and I wish you guys all the best of luck in the new year as well.

Help a poor student out

2006-12-24T00:25:00.000-08:00

I have added some extra links on the side that will help my college fund. If you are a new blogger and want to find ways on how to share your blog to hundreds of others or want to learn how to make money, please help by clicking the links and you too can also add them to your blog. I have also added a PayPal donate button on the top. Please, if you can spare, help donate to my overpriced college tuition. Donations can be made with major credit cards or via PayPal. Anyone who donates will get a special post on my blog thanking them for their kindness. I will also add a side section listing all the names of those who have donated. Thanks alot :)