Bullo-dong and Dalseong Park

It is great to see that new readers are joining into my blog. I only can see so far on this posted day 15 people are following me, but you also can get email updates as soon a post had been posted onto the blog. I have set it out that it will arrive with all your other unwanted emails at 7am GMT. So you may like to read my instant of Fritz who tries to sell you something you don’t want.

My friends from the UK had decided to stay one day longer here in Daegu. So we had taken a look on the map off what we could visit in Daegu. I notice there are some ancient tombs around 5kms away from the university ground, so we could pay a visit to it.  The usage of Naver and Google is getting better, as Naver can tell us how to walk and with Google just douple check that it is the correct place which has been input. As soon I will be able to use Korean language, I just can use Naver.

What is Naver some off you might be now asking; it is nearly the same as Google just in Korean and for Korea. It is a good search information site and you can get even street view with Naver Map, whereas Google Maps did not yet pay a visit to Korea.  

The walk has taken us around half an hour along the street, most people I guess would take either the taxi or the bus, but then I think you miss out on Korean culture. A bus is useful if it is a long distance (>10km), as I am sure no one fancy to walk a long way. You can stop also anytime and take pictures, if you like me very slow in getting the camera set up for an image.

At the ancient tomb which is called Bullo-dong Ancient Tomb. It is free to visit, and there is not much information on the location, more a place to relax and have a look around and see the city from the top. I am sure I will find another place in Daegu to see the town further from the top. As there is many mountains around it shall be not a problem.

At Bullo-dong the peace does not get hold for long as just nearby is the Military Air Force, so if you like military air craft I guess it will be a good spot on to watch them start and land. We decided to move on backwards into Daegu and come by a residential area where we sat down on the children playground and had another look into the map on where we shall go. We had been recommended by the South Korean Telecom, on where we had given the free calls, that we shall visit Dalseong Park. We did not know actually what it would be, we thought is just a zoo.

It is a good park, it has a small zoo with animals you would expect and not expect, such as chicken and dogs.

We had spent there a good time and did some sport exercise on the material which had been provided there.  Some people have demonstrated us on how to do a few exercises on them, as the images did not been clear enough on what shall be done.  I would recommend visiting this park if you are close to down town.

Daegu

The weather in Daegu for me is not to warm but it is “ok” to walk with t-shirt. Occasionally it rains here in the afternoon. Last day I had woken up at six o’clock in the morning and just did a walk through the university campus before the breakfast session opens up at 730am. I come pass the stadium of the university and seen people doing sport. So I decided to wake up early on the next day and to see if I could join them.

I did wake up at 5am and walked to the stadium, but I could not see a coach as everyone just gone down on the track and started to walk. I wanted to do it correct, so I have waited a bit until I had a young person in front of me or a person who goes fast so I can see that I am doing it correct. It is actually very simple, what you need to do is just walk and breath. Some people did a small run, but most of them just walked for one hour and later two trainers have come for six o’clock where you could join them for some gymnastic. It is quite the same as in Taiwan; you choose which side you like to go to as on what your music taste is like.  It was very refreshing on doing this type of Korean morning sport. At least I could sleep very well on the upcoming night.

Later this afternoon I had welcomed two of my Northumbria University friends who come to visit Daegu and may take a look if also want to do an Exchange here.  We decided to go into down town as I did not have visited yet, so we had taken the local bus service. Now I understand why the buddies and university ask us to the taxi. I guess the taxi is just a comfortable way of traveling, where is with the bus you really need to use Korean language as only a few stops are in English Language.  After we successfully arrived in town, our tourist guide book said we shall visit the Medicine of Yangnyeongsi. This is where the best medicine is in Korea, and the king had been provided only with best from Daegu.

It was not easy to find the famous street as two maps shown different location, but luckily South Korean Telecom shown us the way and given us as well free calls back home.  The tourist or English Teachers from USA did not manage to find it in one year, we managed in one hour. You just need to go with the smell and keep your eyes open beyond the street as most places are behind buildings. We been told by a local that on this day will be no herb demonstration of the stores due to the rain, but there was a museum where we could get an insight of the culture place and the importance of the herb.

The staff member was very welcoming and had introduce us the medicine and shown us some videos to gives a deeper inside. After the tour of the museum we could try the 10 herb medicine which is good for your body to keep awake. Maybe this medicine let me put to sleep very well or not?

We had looked also for some good dinner in town and the good price shall not exceed 5,000 Won (£3). As we had found one, there was no English translation or any pictures of the meal. We had luck that a local person has helped us to choose us a good meal. It is very important to learn Korean language or you will be not able to eat while you are here. The same it goes for the bus service, they also only use Korean language, but they are very friendly and let you sometimes pay less then local people, or might even take you for free.

After dinner is good to take a walk, first we token the bus back to the university and then walked out from North Gate to explore the area and walked all the way to Dongdaegu Station and all the way back to the university. This might have been the reason on why I have sleep so well on this night due to the long walk.  

Seoul

Dear readers I had promise to start off from when I will arrive in Korea, in these days I did not had much time to open the computer and “Blogger”. I had been hit by cold water into Korean culture, as you may been aware I arrived in Seoul and stayed there for three days. Who actually knew it will take three hours by car to get into centre of Seoul. The roads had been all busy in Seoul themselves. The car drivers are very “ok” here, driving nice and gently, but if they break down they don’t make any effort to get off the road this might has caused the trouble on the motorway and then you have people standing on the road and try to sell you some sweets. So if someone buys sweets of them they probably make the traffic jam bigger as it used to be before.

It is good that I did not meet up with Northumbria folks at Seoul Tech University on this day, as we arranged for 8pm but we did not get back home for 9pm and felt all tired and just had a takeaway of Korean chicken and gone to sleep.

On the next day I visited my friend at Seoul Tech Uni who did the Cultural Exchange, he had been a bit busy as to say to everyone “anyeong ha ga se yo” (latin wrong spelling). In this case I went with my new KNU friend and close friend of my friend into Seoul down town where he had shown me the culture side before we go for the young culture.

I have a lot to learn about the young culture side aspect – at least I was happy to see that my Korean Crash Culture book was wrong in this aspect. It might have been an elderly person written.  It is not true that Koreans make your glass full – you decided if your glass is half empty or half full. You will maybe find out by yourself on the next day – just come to Korea.

 

 In Daegu itself I arrived today and did not seen much yet and the campus is really big. Why does East Asia never put a measurement on? Some of you may already know that I had a small complaint to Taiwan of this issue that measurement is missing.  In the next days I will explore the campus and get lost and then it shall hopefully become small. In the mean time I shall improve my Korean, it may does good to stay with a Korean guy – but I guess in five days I stay with someone else. The best option is only too hung around with Korean – even though today I been with people from Netherlands whom arrived as well three days ago.

At the airport

As I just sit on the Newcastle International Airport for the next 2 hours to wait for my flight. Yes, I am always a bit too early for my flights. It is just good training for 3 hours waiting time in Dubai when it comes to August.  I did not have slept at all this night, as I may would not have woken up for 5am to go to the airport as in the last days I had slept very tight. 

In the night before I went with Keirnail and Vic to Nandos for my final meal this year in Newcastle and afterwards we gone for a cup of tea at Sofia’s coffee house.  We had good fun in filling out the customer satisfaction survey of Nandos, which has kept us entertain for the rest of the night. We have concluded our night in the library with watching comedy clips and learning some educational marketing on Phd Level.

The next steps for me are in Germany to apply for visa to the Republic of South Korea, the nearest one shall be in Hamburg. Many people told me that I could get the visa in South Korea while entering on Visitor Visa (obtain on arrival), but I rather be save and will obtain it in Germany.  I only hope they accept English documents, if not then I may also need to translate them either to Korean or German.

Airport

Today I have paid a visit to the airport to collect my air tickets to Korea. There is now 100% no return, I will be going to Korea.

It shall be a fun journey, at least I manage to get the windows seat on all flights and I am looking forward to fly with the Airbus 380. I will enter Asia at least on the day I fly away, even though probably will not see much of Dubai. On the return flight I will be there during day light between 0505 and 0900, so hope to get a glance out the window on Dubai.

I hope you will enjoy the count down and keep a look on the progress of my journey beyond the countdown.

"Brush up your English"

It had been my last day at my part time work in Newcastle where I had been working for nearly two years. Many of the customers are asking on where I will go and question followed by if I was sure and if it was secure. I do not feel any danger leaving to South Korea. They may just hear the word Korea and bring it back into contrast with North Korea or recent nature event in Japan. If Korea was not save why did they kept their capital city so close to the border? Either they have learnt from Germany not to move capital cities from Bonn to Berlin in the 1990s. As still a few services are taken place in Bonn in Germany. Does it show South Korea people are strong, and not really feel afraid what could happen if North comes South? I think to answer any of those questions; I shall take a look into the history of South Korea instant making up statements on “why” and asking the right question.


 The second aspect was that I when I will come back after one year from Korea and Poland, I shall brush up my English (Geordie). I think, I will brush it up while learning the new language as I learn two languages in one go. I also will need to continue to write my assignments for the university back at home. The listening aspect of the English language will go a high step down, no more 24 hours English. Your question is if I will continue to dream in English? I shall inform you one day if I had my first dream in Korean language. I can now not to be sure if I will need to brush up my English and Geordie when I come back to Newcastle for the final year of studies. Actually I have brushed up my English in Taiwan last year when I been on the Travel Scholarship, I have learnt a different way of communication which I was able to apply in my work place only. The question is on who shall say “Thank you”, in my case the customer or me the employee. I cannot give you an answer, but you can think about it on who shall be thankfully. Please feel free to leave a comment below on what you think.

A small pictures on the words had been used so far on the four post:



I am surprised that the word "day" again stands out. As last year when I wrote a report on Taiwan the word "Day" stood out as well.