Birthday

Its Friday and its my birthday. I am really happy to celebrate mine birthday in S Korea. It adds some value on being here, as in the next years I will always experience UK or German style birthday. I believe also as older I will get the less fun the birthday parties would be - rather then just having coffee and cake. 

I greeted my friends at the North Gate for lunch and we had some good time together. I try to avoid to walk by fountains and lakes, as my birthday is just not in a good month to be thrown in one of them. Even I had mention I wanted to have the full experience on my birthday. 

Some of my friends still had classes or needed to study, so we stay not all to long in the restaurant. With other friends who did not need to go yet, I had some talks with them while walking along the campus and other I meet between there classes. Later on myself I needed to go to they Youth centre for volunteer work. It would be the last one today. I already could notice that the time has gone by past very quickly since arriving to Korea. 

We had a small farewell party in the Youth centre and been presented our certificates and provided a calender and video to memorize the good times. "We will never forget you" - had been the slogan of the children. It was a really great experience to volunteer abroad. 

In the evening we token a walk back to campus and meet up with my friends and more who had been invited by there friends for a small birthday party in one of the bars at the North Gate. It had been great that many of my friends come along to the party - even they had been busy with preparation for next week final exams. 

Wednesday

In the morning hours I had Strategic Management class. Afterwards I had sorted out my banking and payments. The banking issues here in S Korea are very easy and strict forward. If you want to do a payment, you just need to find an ATM machine and pay through the ATM a business or person. You don't need to fill out documents or stand in a queue. 

I transfer the payment to the host family and then received couple of hours later an email with the full contact details of the family so I could let them know where I will arrive and what time. 

The further along this day, I did a bit of studies and preparation for examination and video conference. Also not to forget my birthday is soon approaching. I try to figure out on what to do - to have two separate parties one with close friends and one with whom I knew. I went one of the restaurant to reserve a table (or big one) and also I given up an order on the food. Later this days I just informed my friends by face to face or text messaging to keep this lunch time free on Friday (clue).

Birthday Party

The Thursday morning was filled with studies but in the evening we had celebrated the birthday of one our Korean friends.

He did not wanted to celebrate so I token the initiative for him to create a small birthday party for him. Some of his friends come along and we had some food and drinks to celebrate his date of birth. He was very surprised that so many people come along to his birthday.

I was glad that he enjoyed his day - even though it was starting to rain by the end of his birthday.

On memories of his birthday I created a small video for it - it is not in best quality but it shall be doing good.

Group work and Birthday

Today we had group our group work meeting - but the internet connection had failure and we could not connect with our partner from Hungary we needed to move the international meeting over to Wednesday.

We still have analysed the case study and discuss on which tasks everyone shall do before meeting up on Wednesday to solve the issue. I taken the rest of the time to study and then in the evening we had another small birthday party just outside the dorm. One of our friend had his birthday.  He had been asked by the French students to come outside and have a small celebration.

The day did not had else much to offer, even though it was Monday.

Volunteer at Bu-ku Youth Centre

Today I had studied with my friends for the exam and quiz. We had gone afterwards to eat some traditional Korean dishes such as Ox blood and Ox bones. It is very delicious if you are not afraid of the names - which you shall not be - go for it and try it. It is very nice - even some Koreans are afraid of those dishes. I think everyone just has a different taste.

After the meal we gone back to university to finish off my Korean language homework before heading into the Karaoke Bar where we had spend a long time. We sang various music from British Pop to K-Pop.  It was great fun, as finally I also could think a few of the Korean music. I may have told you that on the second night here in Korea I spend a night in the Karaoke Bar with my friends. I was not able to sign the Korean music.

 In some occasion we managed to score 100% on the songs - which is pretty good! The time has gone so fast and now I needed to head to meet the volunteers at N Gate for the volunteering.

We had been picked up by school bus of the centre and introduce to the key members of staff. They told us why they are doing this events and who will join us. It shall be a great experience. We had also been offered free dinner in the canteen - which is similar to the dorm canteen just with radish and not just Kimchi as a side dish.

We had later been introduce to the children with whom we had drawn pictures of what they liked. I had three boys - and Korean boys like football and baseball. Therefore - yeah - they drawn footballs and baseballs. Afterwards we watch a film on what the children have done last year in the volunteer centre. The session had been very quickly over.

The final stage for me for the night was just to relax and celebrate the birthday of my friends.