At the end of the orientation week, all of us left to go to our respective universities. Three of the EAPSI participants are also studying at KAIST so we all hopped on a bullet train to Daejeon, the city we'll be staying in for the remaining 8 weeks.
Then there was the first week. Quick Summary: I got nothing accomplished. I'm in a dorm room. I have a great Korean roommate. I ran out of money because we haven't received the rest of the stipend. I exchanged some cash (American money) for Monopoly money (Korean won). Thats pretty much it.
The Hubo Lab is really nice. There's a kitchen and a 'resting room'. Genius. All the grad students are really nice and helpful. All of them have a good working knowledge of English because all of the classes at KAIST are taught in English. I'll have to take some pictures and do a separate entry.
For the first weekend, the four of us at KAIST decided we would wander around Daejeon. We went to Expo Park, which is a 'science park' that was built in 1993 when Daejeon hosted the "International Exposition Korea". Its a bunch of futuristic looking buildings with various attractions such as a dinosaur exhibit, some playgrounds, an IMAX theater, etc. But most of the attractions were closed. The buildings looked like they may have been futuristic looking in 1993, but now seem a bit dated and haven't been kept up too well. The 'Music Fountain' (bottom right) was drained. They had some sweat pedal carts. But they were expensive. Also, you had to pedal.
Kimberly and Dannielle decided to take pictures with every single statue there.
We then walked across the Expo Bridge to the Hanbat Arboretum. This is a huge garden in the middle of the city with trees, flowers, shrubs, etc.
By now we were quite hungry and went on a quest for food. Out of nowhere we see a shining beacon of hope...a building with a huge sign that says "Little America." Hoping this was some glorious American food oasis, we decided to check it out. Sadly, it was a travel agency. Oh well. We ended up eating at a place that served us soup with an entire chicken in it. My kind of soup.
Next we stopped by the Dunsan Prehistoric Site which is right in the middle of the city. This is the site of some prehistoric ruins from the Stone Age and Bronze Age. Not all that impressive looking, but kind of cool that they have kept them in place right in the middle of a big city.
One neat thing about Daejeon is that they have these outdoor exercise stations throughout the city for people to work out.
We wandered around some more, hoping to see the World Cup stadium from 2002. But it ended up being too much of a hassle because I messed up reading a bus map. So we called it a day.
For the complete photo album of everything in this post go here:
Feel free to ask questions if theres anything you want to know more about.
So Viktor, I have to do the "dumb American" thing and ask: Do the people there seem as worried about their neighbors to the North as the people here in the U.S. seem to be? Keep up the good work! I am enjoying my guided tour of S Korea!
ReplyDeleteJacky, They do seem as worried about the folks up there, but mostly about the government leadership. Many people here still identify with the folks in the north as family. During the world cup, a good portion of people were cheering for NK to win. Incidentally, we've planed a visit to the DMZ at the end of the month. Should be interesting.
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