Day #0 - 3th July
My flight was at 10+pm. I am usually excited before travelling overseas but for this time around, I just felt very lazy and very tired to go. It seemed that all the enthusiasm had died down after months of waiting, months of no-replies, and bla bla bla.. On top of that I had a bad day with the taxi. It was damn hard to get a cab or even to call, and the one that was sent to me was rude. When I stepped on to the taxi, he was like "This taxi was on call you know". I was like "WTF". If it was not that hard to get a taxi that night and if I was not short of time, I would just ignore that bastard and called for another one.
Asiana Airline was pretty good although the in-flight entertainment was a bit of disappointment. In the in-flight entertainment guide, there were so many nice shows but in reality, there were only 4 available movies. I watched one and I hardly remembered what. Lol.. I had difficulty sleeping (even with the eye mask, the Mozart Ukulele songs, and changing position numerous times). I chose Bibimbap for dinner and I was noobish initially on how to eat it. Lol.. But it was good.
Day #1 - 4th July
After touched down, it was another crazy thing in Korea. The reception was damn bad. We were sent to the place we were staying by airport limousine (as good as public bus) with no guide. We were just told to get off at the final stop. And guess what, nobody picked up us there. Or rather, the people who were supposed to pick us up were late! Gosh.. We were thinking of walking to the place but after we saw the map of the university, it was not possible.
We all thought agony was over once we registered. But since we were there like 10am in the morning, the rooms were only ready for check-in at 12pm. O_o Tensions ran quite high (and it was only day 1! lol) because everyone was tired. We had not slept and bathed for the past 12+ hours and these really got onto our nerves. Thank goodness the room was good. It was hotel standard. Lol.. Initially I wanted to sleep awhile but my hunger took the better of me.. So we went out for lunch.
I find the Koreans to be very friendly. It was hard to find people who understand English but there were these 2 aunty in the subway who helped us to get the subway card. Then in the eatery, another patron actually helped us about the food. Lol.. This first meal in Korea was the best for me! Lol. I anyhow arrowed from the picture and I got a nice rice bowl with a good mix of seaweed and meat! Haha.. You will understand why I love the meat so much! The restaurant owner was so nice. He knew that we were foreigners and he gave us for free one of their traditional food. Wow...
With full stomach, next pit stop would be shopping. Haha.. The shopping place (Express Bus Terminal) was terrible. I hate crowded place with poor ventilation. To make things worse, it was all female stuff! And I was getting very tired (I need sleep!). And I was surprised that the locals just bulldoze their way through.. They never said "Excuse me" or anything.. They just walked through/brushed against other people. What an irony to see them actually forming lines in front of the train doors -_-
First day ended with a very lame Welcome Celebration. Firstly we had to WALK to the venue which was quite far.. and the terrain was quite hilly. Then the dinner was more like snacks o_0. Terrible.. We played lame games with our groups bla bla bla. So yeah, it was an extremely bad impression.
Day #2 - 5th July
Had to wear formal for official photo taking but guess what, the stage was too small and I was too short. So I was not even visible in the photo. What a waste of an extra formal shirt to bring. The talks were like useless to me. Afterall who cares about IPSF bla bla bla.. The PCE was ok I guess. But since the speaker is from Canada, I believe some things would not be applicable in Asian environment. So again, I don't think it was that useful.
At lunch time, there were more people to join the group. Apparently they arrived late and we didn't see them on the night before. So yeah there was this malaysian guy whom I thought was ok. I normally don't clique well with guys. So was quite surprised that we could talk about a lot of things from the start.
At night it was the International Night which was not too good for me. Haha.. The Korean Traditional Band was interesting. And the Indonesian put up a great item. Haha I am still proud as an Indonesian afterall. The rest was forgetable. So yeah, day #2 was still a disappointment. The only positive thing is to know new friends. That's it haha..
Day #3 - 6th July
It was Explore Korea day! We were brought to Yongin, Korean Traditional Folk Village. I was expecting to be able to camwhore but urgh.. I have nobody close enough in my group for me to ask for taking photos. So to be honest, I was quite bored at the start. The excitement began only after lunch. Haha.. There were horses. Lol.. I would not wanna miss the chance to take photo with horse! I even got the chance to ride one. That has been my childhood dream. Lol.. Though it would be better if the person accompanying the horse could speak English. At least I can tell when to slow down or run faster, or to pose for me to take picture.
It was a good eye opener about Korean culture. I enjoyed the traditional band and the horse riding show. I learnt about the delicious Korean Pancake. I tried (and regretted) their cold noodle. Previously my friends (who tried it before) had warned me about cold noodle. But you never know how gross it is before you try it. The texture was so chewy that it was hard to chew and swallow. I choked twice haha.. Terrible. I also experienced their traditional games and one was quite dangerous as one can make the partner fall (sorry partner).
At night, we were brought to Coex mall. It was a big disappointment. Haha I was expecting something wow since people were saying it was the biggest mall or something like that. I had Japanese Curry for dinner but wait.. it came with kimchi too!! Haha.. Now now.. that was surprising.. I guess everything in Korea will have kimchi as the side dish. After that it was free, so the nice Korean girl in my group brought us to see nightview of the Hangang River from the skygarden of a mall. The funny thing here was that there was alarm if someone were to lean against the glass panel. Another groupmate did that and we were like omg what was the alarm for. Lol. We talked about pharmacy stuff and I guess all over the world, pharmacy students and pharmacists are more or less facing the same issues.
The night ended with me trying Soju! Yup it's the famous Korean alcoholic beverage. I don't like it unfortunately. To me its taste was like ethanol in the lab. The smell and the burning sensation.. everything reminded me of lab. Lol..
Day #4 - 7th July
First day of proper symposium. I was quite eager to listen about the industries but the speakers were just too boring. Gosh.. So yeah.. Ended up sleeping through the talks haha.. There was a PCE competition too. The whole singapore contingent could not be bothered. Haha I signed up eventually because I thought: my classmates would be ponning that day and I could choose the offstage one. Holy crap la.. I don't know why they didn't pon in the end and I had to do onstage. Sian.. It was like embarassing myself.. To make matter worse, it was 'competition'. I had to lose.. To me it was like so embarassing to actually step up and lose.. Haiz disappointed with myself wor.. But anyway, I was the last one so more or less it was not very fair because I had a few friends telling me about the case.. Perhaps it's a good thing that I didn't win. If I won, it would be an unfair victory anyway.
The lunch was uber gross. I felt like a goat eating all the raw leaves and grass T_T Thank goodness dinner was pizza and fried chicked. Taste was ok but amount was not enough haha.. I was irritated that they bought many cartons of beers! Might as well use the money to buy food. Anyway it was a pretty disgusting sight for me to see many people drinking and get drunk and acting wild. Seriously, not the type of life I imagine haha.. I was willing to try beer actually. But since everything was in big bottle, there was no way I could finish.. And I would not risk myself getting drunk in public. So yeah, no no no haha...
It was auction night after that. Another lame event. And to end off the night, I decided to get myself drunk lol. Yup I was trying to drink the soju (the one I could not finish the night before). I failed to get drunk. I stopped because I felt that my stomach and face were warm. My whole body was red and it was kinda freaky. I got a bit tipsy but totally drunk to the point of losing consciousness or vomitting. Haha.. Looks like my body turning red is my personal defense against too much alcohol.
Day #5 - 8th July
We ponned symposiums and went out on our own. First stop was Coffee Prince Cafe. It was quite hard to locate the place and after we reached, it was not open yet. We decided to have lunch first. The concensus was: anything with meat! Lol.. apparently it was not only me who thought that we had enough of vegetables. After a sumptuous meal, we went back to the cafe. It was a huge disappointment. The service was terrible. in fact, it was rude! The items were expensive and not nice. The place was not nice even to take photo. All the initial excitement went to a complete waste!
After that it was shopping time. We went to Sichon, Ewha, and Itaewon. Itaewon was quite bad haha.. We arrived there pretty late so most of the shops were already closed. But hey it was still 830pm you know! It was unbelievable to travel far there only to have BK as dinner =.= Sichon and the Ewha street were pretty good shopping place. But I was not looking for shirt so I didn't really shop. I got a discounted green (yay!) vest from Uniqlo. Wanted to buy a fake Calvin Klein formal suit (only 20000 won! damn bloody cheap) but I decided not to since there would not be much chance to wear in in Singapore anyway. Before going to Itaewon, we went to Hangang River. This time it was really next to the river, not observing from a building. Too bad it was not dark enough to see night life and the weather was drizzling. So it was not very good. But still, a few photos as mementos are good enough.
Day #6 - 9th July
Last day yay! Lol.. I chose for industrial trip in the morning. 2 hour journey meant extra sleeping hours haha.. The Handok Pharmaceutical company was damn cool! They even had a soccer field and tennis courts! Not to mention a Pharmacy and Medicine Museum as well as a greenhouse! Wow.. They were really high-tech. Even the receiving goods area were damn clean! They mostly use robotics and magnetic wow. And the best part was in the building design. They actually considered that they would allow visitors to come and see so they specially made corridors. We could see the machines and the production lines without the need of gowning bla bla bla. Cool! The lunch was sensational: spagetti!! To make things even sweeter, they gave us a 4GB Thumbdrive as souvenir. Haha..
After the journey back, there was still about 1.5hours free time. So I decided to go hunt for my green tie for the Gala Dinner at night. It was quite scary to travel in a foreign land on my own but hey I survived. Lol. And I got a green tie although not at the place where I saw it the first time.
At night was Gala Dinner, it was just camwhoring and food session. Food was good as compared to what we had for the past 5 days. But the dunno what duck meat made me vomitted. Ew.. It was quite interesting that one of my friends happened to celebrate his birthday too. Haha.. It was funny that he kept saying "thanks for these 300+ people to celebrate my birthday". Lol.. Would not expect him to be that kind of narcisstic type. Haha.. But oh well, he got a kiss from another guy so I guess that would leave him with a good memory of a lifetime.
Day 7 - 10th July
Bye bye APPS! Even up to the end, the organisers kept doing crazy things. My friends and I left pretty late at about 10am. And only by then notices about APPS cert was being posted. =.= So yeah, out of our goodwill, we decided to collect for the whole contingent..
This is the end of my APPS post ^^ 2 more posts on my experience in korea would be coming.. Not sure when since this post alone took me 4 days. Lol.. After not blogging for quite sometime, I get pretty rusty eh? And sorry for the lack of picture.. I camwhored too much that most of the picture got my face. And I don't intend on revealing my face on this blog lol
At lunch time, there were more people to join the group. Apparently they arrived late and we didn't see them on the night before. So yeah there was this malaysian guy whom I thought was ok. I normally don't clique well with guys. So was quite surprised that we could talk about a lot of things from the start.
At night it was the International Night which was not too good for me. Haha.. The Korean Traditional Band was interesting. And the Indonesian put up a great item. Haha I am still proud as an Indonesian afterall. The rest was forgetable. So yeah, day #2 was still a disappointment. The only positive thing is to know new friends. That's it haha..
Day #3 - 6th July
It was Explore Korea day! We were brought to Yongin, Korean Traditional Folk Village. I was expecting to be able to camwhore but urgh.. I have nobody close enough in my group for me to ask for taking photos. So to be honest, I was quite bored at the start. The excitement began only after lunch. Haha.. There were horses. Lol.. I would not wanna miss the chance to take photo with horse! I even got the chance to ride one. That has been my childhood dream. Lol.. Though it would be better if the person accompanying the horse could speak English. At least I can tell when to slow down or run faster, or to pose for me to take picture.
Riding a horse whee!!
It was a good eye opener about Korean culture. I enjoyed the traditional band and the horse riding show. I learnt about the delicious Korean Pancake. I tried (and regretted) their cold noodle. Previously my friends (who tried it before) had warned me about cold noodle. But you never know how gross it is before you try it. The texture was so chewy that it was hard to chew and swallow. I choked twice haha.. Terrible. I also experienced their traditional games and one was quite dangerous as one can make the partner fall (sorry partner).
Traditional Band.. The head movements are amazing!
At night, we were brought to Coex mall. It was a big disappointment. Haha I was expecting something wow since people were saying it was the biggest mall or something like that. I had Japanese Curry for dinner but wait.. it came with kimchi too!! Haha.. Now now.. that was surprising.. I guess everything in Korea will have kimchi as the side dish. After that it was free, so the nice Korean girl in my group brought us to see nightview of the Hangang River from the skygarden of a mall. The funny thing here was that there was alarm if someone were to lean against the glass panel. Another groupmate did that and we were like omg what was the alarm for. Lol. We talked about pharmacy stuff and I guess all over the world, pharmacy students and pharmacists are more or less facing the same issues.
The Hangang River as viewed from skygarden of Technomall (??)
The night ended with me trying Soju! Yup it's the famous Korean alcoholic beverage. I don't like it unfortunately. To me its taste was like ethanol in the lab. The smell and the burning sensation.. everything reminded me of lab. Lol..
Day #4 - 7th July
First day of proper symposium. I was quite eager to listen about the industries but the speakers were just too boring. Gosh.. So yeah.. Ended up sleeping through the talks haha.. There was a PCE competition too. The whole singapore contingent could not be bothered. Haha I signed up eventually because I thought: my classmates would be ponning that day and I could choose the offstage one. Holy crap la.. I don't know why they didn't pon in the end and I had to do onstage. Sian.. It was like embarassing myself.. To make matter worse, it was 'competition'. I had to lose.. To me it was like so embarassing to actually step up and lose.. Haiz disappointed with myself wor.. But anyway, I was the last one so more or less it was not very fair because I had a few friends telling me about the case.. Perhaps it's a good thing that I didn't win. If I won, it would be an unfair victory anyway.
The lunch was uber gross. I felt like a goat eating all the raw leaves and grass T_T Thank goodness dinner was pizza and fried chicked. Taste was ok but amount was not enough haha.. I was irritated that they bought many cartons of beers! Might as well use the money to buy food. Anyway it was a pretty disgusting sight for me to see many people drinking and get drunk and acting wild. Seriously, not the type of life I imagine haha.. I was willing to try beer actually. But since everything was in big bottle, there was no way I could finish.. And I would not risk myself getting drunk in public. So yeah, no no no haha...
It was auction night after that. Another lame event. And to end off the night, I decided to get myself drunk lol. Yup I was trying to drink the soju (the one I could not finish the night before). I failed to get drunk. I stopped because I felt that my stomach and face were warm. My whole body was red and it was kinda freaky. I got a bit tipsy but totally drunk to the point of losing consciousness or vomitting. Haha.. Looks like my body turning red is my personal defense against too much alcohol.
Day #5 - 8th July
We ponned symposiums and went out on our own. First stop was Coffee Prince Cafe. It was quite hard to locate the place and after we reached, it was not open yet. We decided to have lunch first. The concensus was: anything with meat! Lol.. apparently it was not only me who thought that we had enough of vegetables. After a sumptuous meal, we went back to the cafe. It was a huge disappointment. The service was terrible. in fact, it was rude! The items were expensive and not nice. The place was not nice even to take photo. All the initial excitement went to a complete waste!
The Coffee Prince Cafe
I don't even watch the show so I have no sense of connection to this lousy place!
After that it was shopping time. We went to Sichon, Ewha, and Itaewon. Itaewon was quite bad haha.. We arrived there pretty late so most of the shops were already closed. But hey it was still 830pm you know! It was unbelievable to travel far there only to have BK as dinner =.= Sichon and the Ewha street were pretty good shopping place. But I was not looking for shirt so I didn't really shop. I got a discounted green (yay!) vest from Uniqlo. Wanted to buy a fake Calvin Klein formal suit (only 20000 won! damn bloody cheap) but I decided not to since there would not be much chance to wear in in Singapore anyway. Before going to Itaewon, we went to Hangang River. This time it was really next to the river, not observing from a building. Too bad it was not dark enough to see night life and the weather was drizzling. So it was not very good. But still, a few photos as mementos are good enough.
Day #6 - 9th July
Last day yay! Lol.. I chose for industrial trip in the morning. 2 hour journey meant extra sleeping hours haha.. The Handok Pharmaceutical company was damn cool! They even had a soccer field and tennis courts! Not to mention a Pharmacy and Medicine Museum as well as a greenhouse! Wow.. They were really high-tech. Even the receiving goods area were damn clean! They mostly use robotics and magnetic wow. And the best part was in the building design. They actually considered that they would allow visitors to come and see so they specially made corridors. We could see the machines and the production lines without the need of gowning bla bla bla. Cool! The lunch was sensational: spagetti!! To make things even sweeter, they gave us a 4GB Thumbdrive as souvenir. Haha..
After the journey back, there was still about 1.5hours free time. So I decided to go hunt for my green tie for the Gala Dinner at night. It was quite scary to travel in a foreign land on my own but hey I survived. Lol. And I got a green tie although not at the place where I saw it the first time.
At night was Gala Dinner, it was just camwhoring and food session. Food was good as compared to what we had for the past 5 days. But the dunno what duck meat made me vomitted. Ew.. It was quite interesting that one of my friends happened to celebrate his birthday too. Haha.. It was funny that he kept saying "thanks for these 300+ people to celebrate my birthday". Lol.. Would not expect him to be that kind of narcisstic type. Haha.. But oh well, he got a kiss from another guy so I guess that would leave him with a good memory of a lifetime.
Day 7 - 10th July
Bye bye APPS! Even up to the end, the organisers kept doing crazy things. My friends and I left pretty late at about 10am. And only by then notices about APPS cert was being posted. =.= So yeah, out of our goodwill, we decided to collect for the whole contingent..
This is the end of my APPS post ^^ 2 more posts on my experience in korea would be coming.. Not sure when since this post alone took me 4 days. Lol.. After not blogging for quite sometime, I get pretty rusty eh? And sorry for the lack of picture.. I camwhored too much that most of the picture got my face. And I don't intend on revealing my face on this blog lol
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