As you might already perceive, when in a post I mention that I will write tomorrow it might not mean 24 hrs later. It seems this time was a week later, OMG! . Nevertheless, sooner or later I will show up 😉  Let’s summarise, because I confess there is much happening here, and I am a bit slow processing.

On Wednesday July 3^rd, which was my third day in Korea, we start our trip to Jeju island. The purpose of the trip is to integrate the group, and it worked. For me, this trip was remarkable fast and interesting. Here a brief summary.

Take the flight with Asian Airlines. First time in my life I travel in such a BIG group! 🙂

After almost an hour, one lands in Jeju.

Next it is to take our busses, which will drive us to a ferry that will take us to Udo island.

How life changes, now I sit at front instead of the back…. oh well! 🙂

We went by foot to the ferry from Jeju to Udo.

Once in Udo, which is a really small island,  I can proudly state that I bike it all around! 🙂 Here some prove, some sights from Udo:

Biking around the island. This is one of the “common” island “sculptures” or statues.

Honestly I could have stayed there for a weekend. An interesting island to discover. Nevertheless, let’s the trip to continue.  We needed to take the last ferry back to Jeju, for dinner.

For dinner the organisers took us to a very nice traditional restaurant! You will see.

entrance to the restaurant

The colour of the ocean is beautiful in Jeju.

While we were leaving the owner of the place – ok, I assume he was the owner – left a traditional paper balloon free. Very beautiful.

So, after an intense and fun day, finally we went to our hotel. This is the view from my  room, and I couldn’t go out anymore. I had energy, I confess but I needed to do some “real” work.

On Wednesday July 4^th the agenda was as follows:

Breakfast at the hotel, and as our guide told us, Koreans eat rice at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

First activity to swim 🙂  I was a fish in the tank with this heat!  Love the water and as I was swimming no photographic proof of the event.  (side note: next present a camera which can be used in the ocean 😉 )

After swimming we need energy so we should eat. In this occasion was  seafood.

Second activity to climb the Seongsan Sunrise peak, which is an UNESCO world heritage.

In the same location was a demonstration of the fisher-woman.

If you think that our day finalised here, you are mistaken. Next stop after hiking, riding a horse. Another of the attractions of Jeju island.

Next, 30 min refreshment at our hotel before dinner time! So just time for a fast shower then we walked to the dinner location.

Understanding how dinner works…

As it was 4^th of July, the students from USA got some fireworks and we gather at the beach before going back and recharge for the next day.

On Friday July 5th, our last day in Jeju island, we had also a busy agenda. After breakfast, we went to a Mazeland, very nice!

Next stop, a walk to the Bija-rim Forest

Next stop, the Manjag cave

Last but not least a mysterious road.

After our full agenda in Jeju, the guide told us we saw just a little bit of the island. Unquestionably, the let us craving for more. Finally, we head to the airport to go back to Korea mainland. This is the first airport were the X-rays to get inside the waiting area are divided between national and foreigners.

Bye bye Jeju, there is much I could tell about each one of these locations. It is a beautiful place, but as I said at the beginning of this post, life is busy and/or I am not that fast reporting :/ nevertheless doing my best. Now, to catch up with my course, company, papers, surveys, talking….  wish there was more time!

So, more news will come!

Yesterday I landed in Seoul, and by taxi I came to Suwon where Ajou University is located and where I will live for 39 days of my life. At the moment, it is warm in here with tendency to be hot. For example, last night around 9:30 pm, I read on the street we had  27°C. The humidity is present, as if I was in in Acapulco,  but without listening or smelling the ocean. At the moment I am in the adaptation phase, I will let you know how it goes 😉  Amazing planet we have! (with all its differences!)

This first post aims to summarize the journey from Joensuu to Suwon. I constantly marvel myself of the opportunity to use the mobility possibilities of our era.

Let’s see, I left Joensuu on a dry hot day (see photo, 31°C) by train on Thursday 27.06. at 12:17.

At 16:32 I reach Tikkurila, then I took a bus direction to the airport.

In Finland and Germany passengers mostly do self-check-in. This time I checked-in via internet, otherwise I often do it on those blue machines.

My next destination: München, where I had an EXTREMELY important event on Saturday 29.06.   In this flight I had a window seat 16F of a A320, it was ok. The person next to me was following the rules very closely in the flight and despite that the aisle was not occupied (it was a line of 3 seats), she did not move to leave the middle sit free. Oh well, the flight is not long, approximately 2:30 hrs.

On Sunday 30.06 I took my flight to Seoul, which took a bit more than 10.30 hrs to cross 8,508 km distance from München.

I needed to take the next photo because it looks as a LAN party isn’t it?

Reaching my destination…. Never have been this far east!

Voilà, I land in Korea.  So glad that I know at least one of those languages.

After landing, I looked for the exit. This automatic train took me to customs and then to the outside world 🙂

The electric stairs on the photo utilise a voice to guide visitors and it call my attention the sticker on the floor, which indicates to be careful if you have high-hills or if the lace of your shoes are undone. I haven’t pay attention to this stickers before, I confess.

So spoiled I am with my western european alphabet!

I need to put  together this photo with the one I took in Dubai some years ago, it is amazing to look to a “familiar” screen and have NO idea what it says!

Ajou University reserved a taxi to pick me up at the airport. Unfortunately, my Korean language skills are none, so there was no real conversation with the driver. However, hidden with the haze he pointed me out a large bridge, which later we crossed. It seems Samsung build it….

The taxi driver had a lot of ICT gadgets, inclusive the GPS that looked as video game, isn’t it? I particularly got interested with, I suppose, the possibility to pay via RFID.

My first impression is that there are considerable amount of white cars. No surprising the brands more often seen were Kia, Hundai and he busses Daewoo

It is a contrast when one is arriving from the land of Mercedes Benz, BMWs, Volkswagen and Audi, for example. International brands seem to have its local presence strong. I need to pay attention to which car brands are popular in Finland. I am no so certain about this, somehow I have the feeling is a little bit of everything.

However, what I did notice is traffic is a common universal fact in metropolis.

I notice that some cars have an interesting device on a rear…. Something to research what is that for….

Once in my destination, I could stop noticing that high buildings are a landscape constant across all my path, but more about this later.

I will close this post sharing a photo of our world, which I found at the student caffeteria, and shows me a world from another perspective 🙂