Monday, July 5, 2010

Airport, 1st week @KAIST, Kimbab ^^

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July, 2nd 2010,
Today is my first day at Korea.
--> My plane with flight number KE628 (Korean Airline with B777-200) was arrived at Incheon International Airport around 07.10 a.m. It was very rainy outside and also there’s some fog at the airport. After that I went through the quarantine post, and had a minor problem related to my abdominal pain as effect for my maag (stomach disorder). After that I have to pick my luggage at the baggage claim, and go through the immigration post. Just as I expect, my senior colleague, Byoma Argyoganendro (Agy) has waited for me there. Poor him (but I really thank him for picking me up, otherwise I’ll be a lost child -->:D), he has to take bus at 05.30 a.m. from his place to arrive at 06.30 a.m. at Incheon, and unfortunately for him, he has to wait for about 40 minutes because of my delayed time. After that we went to the bus ticket counter and we bought ticket for me (to Daejeon Government Complex) and him (to Konkuk University). My ticket priced 21,000 won for an Airport Deluxe Bus, and the trip took time for about 180 minutes. In the middle of the trip, the bus stop at some rest area named Cheonan Service Area, and almost 90% of people on the bus go down and do some muscle stretching. People here drive very fast; it was almost like 120-130 km/h at the free way. --> -->
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Do you notice that there’s two different plat numbers here? The green plat number is the older one and the white is the newer one. There’s also yellow plat number and it’s usually for taxi.
After that, I go down at Daejeon Government Complex, and after waiting for about 15 minutes or so, I was picked up by Park Jae Won (my second savior on this day :D). We then went by taxi to KAIST, and we dropped at the dormitory. It still rain so hard, and it is not a good thing when you have to take a 21 kg luggage with you.
She took cared all my dorm needs, like pillow (and etc like bed sheet, blanket (luckily I brought my own)). I got room number 250 and turn out that I have a roommate :D. She’s not at the place when I came in, but she went home on about 10.30 p.m. She’s a researcher and has just finished her master degree and about to apply for doctoral degree this year (I forgot what department she goes into). She’s 26 years old or 28 years old in Korean’s age, but she still looked young, almost looked like in the same age with me. And for Park Jae Won, she’s 23 years old or 25 years old in Korean’s age. I don’t know how they calculate the Korean’s age but I guess there must be something like Korean calendar, as well as there’s Chinese calendar.
After I finished arranged all my stuffs in my new room, I took bath, and I was very surprised because here, they just use shower curtain instead of usual bathroom doors like in Indonesia to cover the shower room. There’s no hangers in the shower room, and instead of it, you have to use cupboards that placed outside the shower room to place all your stuffs (clothes, underwear, and towel). I made my first mistake but I won’t tell you here ;). Fortunately they have water heater here...
At 1 p.m. I met again with Park Jae Won, and we had lunch together at the cafeteria named Kaimaru. Actually cafeteria pictures below were taken on my second day here. There’re two parts of this cafeteria, the right part is for buffet menu, and the left side is for ala-carte menu. I tried tuna-kimbab on the left side for just 2,000 won (my senior always said not to convert it to rupiahs otherwise you’ll get irritated). Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture of the tuna-kimbab but all I can describe about it is that it’s kinda like sushi; cucumber, radish, tuna, mayonnaise rolled in rice and wrapped with nori (dried seaweed). It’s eaten with kimchi, sour taste radish, and tasty soup as side dish.

--> -->After we had our lunch, we went to the Aerospace Department which located at the Mechanical Department Building (almost the same like we had at the ITB, only building is bigger here). Park Jae Won took me to her lab, Smart System and Structures Lab dedicated to Prof. Han’s students. There’re about seven until eight people worked in there and all of them are postgraduate students. We met with Prof. Han later and he asked much about me, my first time in Korea, my English competence, and Aerospace education at ITB. He said that they have lot of postgraduate Aerospace students in KAIST, but only about 50 undergraduate students for every year. Pictures below also took in my second day here (lucky it was Saturday so the place was deserted and I can take a lot of pictures).

2 comments:

  1. PERTAMAX!!! so glad reading your post, thx for tagging me. Have u learnt Korean Language before reaching there? According to your pics, i see so many hankuks are now written in english.. that's surely helpful for ppl who dont know hankuk at all.

    Just enjoy your stay lah, i envy you becoz korea is also one of the countries i put on my travel list (must go there someday).

    Anyway, what does KAIST stand for? I tot it was King Abdullah Institute of Science and Tech (and I wonder why it's located in Korea, instead of Saudi Arabia or somewhere in middle east) hahaha...

    Did u find something different with the cubicles? (orang korea kalo boker nyebok pake air ga maksud gw?) soalnya kalo di sg kemaren cuman dikasih tisu di toiletnya, no water at all hahaha..

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  2. huahahahhaha.... King Abdullah Institute of Science and Tech?????
    LOL

    It stand for Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology.. Fyi, many of lecturers here got their PhD degree from MIT, so they qualified KAIST itself as good as MIT. Friend of my friend professor even hesitate to give Letter of Recommendation unless his student go to MIT >.<

    never learn it before except for annyong haseo.. hehe
    how do you know that it is hankuk??
    have you learn it??
    wow...
    i'm speechless here..and I really miss to talk in Bahasa... :(

    huahahhah.... untung lo nambahin keterangan. tadinya g bingung cubicles... rubic cube kali ya :p
    yaahh.. i've prepared for that so my mom told me to wet a tissue before I want to boker.. hehe

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