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. 

Christmas drawing

The time to Christmas is coming nearer, as mention before its not yet visible in Daegu and Korea. In a few stores there is already advertisement displayed, but it looks more just as a trend then being festive.

Today in the morning hours I had a medical check up in city centre part of my internship which is due to start after this semster. So I was happy that the medical check up was as soon as possible in the morning hours as I did not ate and drink anything for the past 12 hours. 

Later in the day, I just kept sorting out the accommodation to stay in while being in Seoul and later in the afternoon I had the volunteer work in Buku-Youth Centre.

Today we had been decorating a Christmas tree and afterwards ate pizza. I am sure you are curious on what our Christmas tree may look like? Just have view on the left. Yes its not a real Christmas tree but it has all the functions of a Christmas tree with decoration of sweets and balls.

Youth Centre

Today is Friday and it means that in evening we had the volunteer work in the Youth Centre. We had created today picture frame by using traditional paper.  It was a great experience to experience on using traditional paper with the children to create a picture frame.

This picture on the left is what I had made - and the words actually have no meanings which I have cut of from a paper and stick onto them. The green paper is the traditional Korean paper.

After the volunteer work one of our volunteer friends had invited us to come along with him to the bar for a drink. Somehow every time before every journey I go out - and hope that I will wake early not to miss my friend and the bus. It shall hopefully be a great journey tomorrow and I already feel a bit scared on the way up to the north.

Halloween Night

It is Halloween weekend.

Today at the Buk-gu Youthcenter we had a halloween party most of us been dressed up and put some colour on our face. It was good fun to celebrate something in Korea what they do not celebrate.

We had drawn some pumpkin faces and ate chicken with the children.

After we had finish our work we gone to the bar with some friends.

In the morning before that my German friend and myself have met up with a Korean student who will be going soon to Germany for further studies. He had a few question on German life and of course on how to get the tickets for the Hamburg HSV Games.

Rainy Day

It was a rainy day in Daegu - it may also leads to positive. As next week is mid-term and it could give me some time to study more instant of travelling around. As it is really not a pleasure to walk outside in Korea in the rain with one hand a camera and the other hand an umbrella. 

Before the studies I also have meet up with my friends for some lunch in the Students Union Restaurant to get a change from the canteen food. We had planned to do actually a picknick- due to the weather it was moved inside a restaurant. As KNU campus has so many parks where you can relax and hang out with your friends.

In the evening I gone to the volunteering, and we had played a few funny games with the children for one hour. It was a good ending of this week to have a bit of fun - as all the week had been mostly concentrated on revision and preparing for the exams next week. 

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.

Duryu Park

After my morning class my girlfriend and I decided to go the local park on which myself also not yet have visited Duryu Park. It is easy to reach from the town - just getting on the subway which will lead direct to the park.

It is a nice a big park, we just walked any direction as many roads lead into different points and we found some statures of various people who either come from Daegu and important people to Korea. Nearby is also a baseball field, we heard some strange noises and found it. The game was unfortunately just finish - so we could not see the game in the park. As watching it on the TV is a bit boring, but if it is in front of you in the park is a bit more interesting.



We had taken a seat and I looked into my tourist map of Daegu and seen that in the city centre is a currency museum. We may could visit it before heading back to the university for a meeting which I will have.

We had asked the tourist information centre at Duryu Park on how to reach it the best - they mention to get on the subway and walk out a specific exit. There did not had been any information - we had asked then the subway information point on how to get there - but we had been pointed out the wrong bank. As when we walked down the road the city centre finished. The people here in Korea are very friendly and lucky own smart phones to show the way on a better map then tourist maps.

We had found the bank very easily. They have shown cased the old currency of Korea and how it has evolved to the latest currency on what we are using right now.  In the second hall we had International currency, and some of them are very nice from different countries. There was also a special section for North Korean currency.

It was already time to get back to university for an orientation session on the volunteering program which is due to start next week Friday. I will keep you posted.