I had the privileged to join the research group for a conference on Jeju Island. If a research group cooperates with a company, the company gives the an amount of money for research and inventions. However, in Korea the research group also gets financial aid for social activities from the companies. Since my research group has saved enough money over the years, they have used their savings for the conference. In other words, the two-way flight, taxi drives, accommodation in a hotel and the food were all paid.
The conference was called "2014 Fall meeting of the Polymer Society of Korea". You can read more on the website: http://www.polymer.or.kr/english2/sub1/sub.php?p=d01
Day 1:
Jieun and I were meeting at Sadang Station and we went to Gimpo Airport (in Seoul) to meet the others. Jong Gil organized everything and he was the accountant during the trip. The airport was a bit different. They did not really care how much fluids you were caring. Since I did not know that, I drank 1 L in water before the control @.@ .We flew via EASTER airline to Jeju Island. At the airport at Jeju Island we took a bus which took us all to the other side of the island. The airport was north of Jeju Isalnd, whereas the hotel and the conference were south of Jeju Island.
After we lgot off the bus, we went to a famous restaurant, which serves black pork and special type of fish. This was my welcoming dinner party. We ordered the set 2 person for 60000 won. The boss of restaurant even came to us to serve us the food and to teach us how it was prepared and why it was so special. Jieun translated most of it for me.
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| Research group picture at the welcoming dinner party. |
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| Menu for special fish. |
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| Our set 2 person for 60000 won |
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| Hairtail fish sashimi called 갈치. |
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| Hyun Woo taking care of the black pork. |
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| Hallasan Soju. |
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| Seafood stew. |
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| Small abalone. |
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| Boss of the restaurant teaching us about food. |
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| Jieun and I in front of the restaurant. |
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| Spontaneous picture of the back of the bus. |
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| Boss of the restaurant drove us all to the hotel. |
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| The American in front of the hotel. |
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Our "cheap" hotel room with king size bed and kitchen.
I shared it with Jieun. |
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| Getting to know Korean culture -1. |
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| Getting to know Korean culture -2. |
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| Getting to know Korean culture -3. |
After getting to know the Korean culture, we all head back to our rooms and slept.
Day 2:
Taxi's, which we ordered by mobile phone, took us the the building complex where the conference took place. We ate donuts and drank tea/coffee for breakfast, which were free at the conference. After looking at some poster, Yoonbin, Kyoungmin, the American, Hyun Woo and I checked out the site and took a few pictures.
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| Kyoungmin, Yoonbin, the American and Hyun Woo facing to the entrance of the conference building. |
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| Kyoungmin, Yoonbin, the American and Hyun Woo at the garden. |
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| The garden was close to the beach. |
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| Yoonbin, Hyun Woo and Kyoungmin in the garden. |
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| A selfie in the garden of the conference building. |
In the early afternoon we spent our time in company booths, which were located in the big hall. The company wanted to recruit some student, but most of them couldn't speak English. After time has passed, we took three taxi's to go to a Chinese restaurant to eat lunch.
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| Research group in the Chinese restaurant for lunch. |
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| Sea food stew with fried crunchy rice. |
Jeju has a lot of stone statues. It is said that by touching its nose, one will get a son as the next child. So let us see if this is true. I might get two sons.
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| Stone statue in front of the Chinese restaurant. |
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| Stone statue close to a bus stop. |
Since we still had time after lunch, we went to the waterfall park. It was huge and there were many stairs. We took a lot of pictures.
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| At the entrance of the waterfall park. |
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| Kyoungmin in front of the waterfall, which was turnt off. |
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| Climbing rocks. |
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| Kyoungmin and the rocks. |
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| Hyun Woo next to the rock. |
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| Min Chul and the Captain taking pictures. |
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| The top of a waterfall. |
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| Standing in front of a waterfall. |
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The captain, Min Chul, Kyoungmin and the American
| standing in front of a waterfall. |
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| The whole research group standing in front of the waterfall. |
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| Jieun standing in front of the waterfall. |
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| Jieun, Kyoungmin and the American walking to the bridge. |
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| Jieun, Kyoungmin and the American walking on the bridge. |
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| Yoonbin and Hyun Woo on the famous bridge. |
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| Selfie on the famous bridge. |
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| At the exit of the waterfall park waiting for the taxi's. |
After the waterfall park we went back to the conference to visit some lecture. One lecture usually took an hour (45 minutes for the presentation and 15 minutes for questions). However, taking pictures was forbidden. On that day I only visited the English-speaking lectures. At 6:15 pm we went to an Korean restaurant to eat black pork noodle soup. It was delicious.
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| Eating black pork noodle soup. |
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| Group picture from the left side. |
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| Group picture from the right side. |
Then we walked to the beach. There were a lot of mosquitoes, but I had my mosquito spray in my bag as a prevention.
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| Area around the beach. |
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| Still walking to the beach when it got dark. |
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| The scariest place called "Monkey Beach". |
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| Research group at the beach. |
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| The captain squatting on the beach. |
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| The captain and the American squatting on the beach. |
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| Min Chul running away from the water. |
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| Yoonbin writing a love letter for his girlfriend. |
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| Kyoungmin and Jeong Min observing Yoonbin. |
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| Analysing the sand. |
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| The captain and the American waiting for the others to leave the beach. |
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| Yoonbin wanting to stay on the beach XD. |
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| Some directions. |
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| The captain and Yoonbin enjoying the dark view. |
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| Hyun Woo looking at his mobile phone. |
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| More directions. |
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| Jieun doing some sport. She is so energetic. |
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| Another stone statue. |
After the beach we went through a five-star hotel in order to get to a pub.
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| Jieun an I standing in front of a 5 star hotel. This is where Professors are staying. |
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| Kyoungmin in front of the horse statue. |
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| All the men of the research group were hurrying to get through the gate XD. |
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| A fountain with poison at the end of the honeymoon gate.. |
When we arrived at the pub, we ordered some food and most men ordered beer. In the pub they even sold German beer. I ordered the famous orange tea. Later a former meber from the research group arrived with a few men. His name was Kang Won Lee (이강원), who is working for KAIST. He was so kind that he paid our pub bill.
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| Orange tea. |
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| Yoonbin and the American with their beers. |
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| Some food in the pub. |
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| Research group picture at the pub. |
Day 3:
We had to take all our belonging to the conference. So when we waited for the taxi's, Yoobin and I took the opportunity to take some more pictures. He even touched the stone statue. However, it is not sure, if men can get a son by touching the nose. Normally women, especially pregnant women, used to touch the nose.
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| The yard of the hotel. |
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| Yoonbin between the stone statues. |
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| Let's see if Yoonbin gets a boy. |
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| Our colourful hotel. |
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| The entrance of the hotel. |
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| Waiting for the taxi's. |
In the building complex, where theconference took place, there were a few shops. There was even a bean dessert shop, where we could try the famous Jeju Island bean rice cake called Omaegi-tteok (오매기떡).
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| Omaegi-tteok. |
Unfortunately, all the lectures were hold in Korean. However some presentations hat a little bit of English writing on their slides. After two Korean lectures we went to eat lunch. Since Kang Won Lee paid for our pub visit, we still had some money left to eat the last speciality of Jeju Island dishes: horse dishes. I love horses, but these dishes tasted like beef. I could not distinguish them. Therefore, when ate them, I kept thinking it was beef.
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| Our menu was a horse table D'hote. |
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| Raw horse meat with an egg yolk. |
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| Horse stew. |
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| Side dishes. |
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| Horse hot pot. |
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| The American, the captain and Min Chul eating horse dishes. |
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| Hyun Woo and Kyoungmin eating horse hot pot. |
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| Jieun and I taking a selfie in the restaurant. |
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| Palm trees next to the horse restaurant. |
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| Pork dish with some salad leaves. |
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| Yoonbin, Jeong Min, the American and the captain eating horse dishes, |
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| Pork dish and seafood stew. |
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| A different abalone. |
After lunch Kyoungmin and I took a few pictures around the conference place. Since there were so many palm trees, it gave you a felling if you were in Florida.
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| Next to the building complex. |
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| Kyoungmin next to the building complex. |
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| Main entrance of the building complex. |
We even went on the roof of the building complex. It was a nice view. On the top we met the others.
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| The top of the building complex. |
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| Yoonbin and Kyoungmin on the roof of the building complex. |
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| According to Yoonbin you can see Japan :p . |
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| Yoonbin, Kyoungmin and I on the roof at the building complex. |
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| The uppest floor of the building complex. |
After visiting five Korean lectures we left the building to take the airport shuttle. Since the bus was already crowded. Jieun and I took a taxi to get to the airport. The taxi driver talked a lot about the island. I had the impression that he was a tourist guide. Jieun was a good interpreter. However, we were just 3 minutes earlier than the airport shuttle. Since we still had time, we ate dinner at the airport and then we checked in for our flight. The whole trip was awesome!!!
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| Sitting next to Jieun in the airplane to head back to Seoul. |
