2014 Korea Study Tour -- TTMIK (Part 2)

Continued from the previous post...

I shall stray away from talking about classes from the start since I have only wrote about classes in my previous post.. Malaysians in kimchi-land... the main thing that we will be missing is.... nonetheless...

The food!!!!

and guess what, we actually had sambal and nasi lemak in kimchi-land!!! Thanks to our muslim friends who actually "imported" the rice and sambal over...

Yummy yummy yums... thousand apologies to the cafe staff... we brought outside food to a no-outside-food cafe and the staffs were kind enough to just ask us to enjoy our nasi lemak outside instead of kicking us out of the cafe altogether with our nasi, lemak and sambal.. A big thank you too!!! We will not do this again... We may be used to it but the smell of sambal might not be that tolerable to others... 미안해요....

And we did not have enough plates and utensils for so many of us so some of us have to use cups as plates and stirers as spoons.. and again.. I know we are not suppose to do this, so please don't try this at a no-outside-food-allowed cafe... Sorry again!!

This is the only day we had food from home.. during the rest of the days studying with TTMIK, our lunch will always have kimchi.. and sometimes (almost half of the times..) We will be spending our lunch at the convenience store nearby.. Too much ramyeon is not good for you but they have flavours that we couldn't find at home though... so... I'm still alive!!!

Alright.... back to classes... as mentioned we had 5 days of language classes and 2 days of outdoor culture activities where we get to explore and learn more about korean culture.. Here are some photos of the classroom...

There are 2 cute plushies at the back of the class... I just couldn't resist plushies...

And here's the front.. 

Hyunwoo seon seng nim taught us during the first 2 days of classes.. 

More photos of the classes ahead... because... i only have photos of Hyunwoo seon seng nim teaching... eeeksss...

He's a great teacher tho.. he even gave extra hours to teach students who were still new to korean...

The remaining 3 classes were taught by Kyunghwa seon seng nim.. but I didnt have any photos of her teaching in class, so just in case you're wondering.. here's how she look like..

Just ignore how awkward i was with the poses.. i just thought since she is posing i should maybe do something.. never actually expected everything came out as awkward.. oopss

She joined us during the first day to help Hyunwoo seon seng nim with a short quiz he was giving us..

Kyunghwa seon seng nim is as bubbly as you have seen her in the youtube videos of TTMIK... 

and just in case... you need to know.. here's a video of her "how do you say this in korean" series...

 

Her classes were lively and fun as she would sometimes unintentionally reveal the answer of the question and got shocked at her own mistake which was super cute... the teachers taught us a lot not only about korean language but the korean culture as well... 

these classes totally motivated me to wake up early in the morning even there are times when i only had around 4-5 hours of sleep, i still managed to wake myself up and head to class.. however, i think my sleepy eyes gave me away when KyungHwa seon seng nim suddenly asked if we were busy or did we have activities till late the day before because we looked tired.. I am not sure if i was the one whom she caught yawning or anything but i certainly did feel guilty... :P

There was another teacher during the trip.. Seokjin seon seng nim who also joined us during the first day for a brief introduction with Kyunghwa seon seng nim and helped out with the quiz..

He was with us during our guided culture tour around Seoul.. which I will blog about next time.. 

That's all for the classes part.. I have definitely learnt a lot and i think my korean listening skills has improved compared to the last time... 

Ah yes... I know they don't need much promoting but just in case...

I am not paid to promote anything but just... i thought it would be nice for more people to visit their website... 

One last photo before I stop typing....

Okay for now.. my next post will be about the culture activities during the study tour so stay tune till I grasp the mood to write.. hopefully that won't take too long..

Signing off...

crestfallen

Toodles!

2014 Korea Study Tour -- TTMIK (Part 1)

Hey there.. I wasn't really planning on having this post out so early.. although it's already super back-dated... but thanks to certain circumstances.. I have decided to put this on the top of my priority blog post list.. 

Here goes... I guess I have mentioned that I was going on another study tour to Korea last November... and yes.. I went to another one before I finished my travel post on my previous trip in 2012..

This round of posts will be different from how i usually write travel posts, iit will not be on day to day basis but by topics... for one, it will take too long for me to write and I will tend to procrastinate till I grow old and look nothing like how i was in the photos.. :P 

So, my first post will be on the main part of the whole trip.. the STUDY part... The study part of my 2014 November study tour is brought to you by Talk to me in Korean!! 

In case you didn't know or maybe you are not that into korean language.. Talk to me in Korean aka TTMIK is run by a bunch of Koreans who speaks superb English and many other languages as well, their mission is to teach korean language learners from all over the world the native way of reading, writing and speaking Korean... They even have a youtube channel of their lessons.. I have heard of this website about 2-3 years ago but then I just slighly browse through and watched some of their videos when I was checking out the website for the first time.. then after that... i kinda forgot about it until I was told that the next study tour that I signed up for will be collaborating with TTMIK... that's when I started to watch their videos and listen to their audio lessons on a more frequent basis...

Ok back to earth... we had 5 days of lesson throughout the week and 2 days of culture activities.. Our first 2 lessons were taught by the very famous Hyunwoo Sun from TTMIK.. he's super famous (if you know the website though... although the website is visited by people all around the world but there are still people who doesn't know so i can't assume) Anyway... in case you don't know... here's how he look like..

and if one is not enough.... here's another..

The lessons were really interesting.. Hyunwoo seon seng nim(선생님, means teacher in Korean) started off with the basics and quickly amended his lessons after realising most of us have been learning korean for more than a year and have passed the beginner stage.. See, professionalism.. 

We had our lessons in a cafe called You Are Here Cafe, owned by EatYourKimchi Studios and TTMIK themselves...

Here's how the exterior looks like

We had a room reserved for ourselves from 10am to 3pm.. That's the duration of our classes including a one hour lunch break in between..

Alright, I guess I typed enough words for this posts.. so.. behold, pictures!! 

-in the classroom-

That's me with a cronic case of dark eye circles... Not much difference from my panda avatar that has been posing on my behalf in several pictures...

I shall stop typing here... stay tune for more posts about other teachers.. our guided culture tours and experience with TTMIK..

Signing off...

Toodles!

[T]adaa! Long time no see....... Balloons

Since the start of 2015, I have not blogged a single word here.. nor have I even logged into my Blogger account.. thinking of this really made me felt guilty... I should have at least post some new year resolutions (eventhough I havent really accomplished any or have any for this year) and I even missed my annual 1st of March post... 

Counting my long debts of travel posts... i barely started the 2012 Korea Study tour and now I have a 2014 Korea study tour + Jeju-Busan Free and Easy added into the load, not forgetting a Hatyai-Bangkok trip in between during 2013.. I really salute bloggers who could blog about their whole trip in detail right after they are back from where ever they've been... 

But... this post will NOT be a travel post... sorry to disappoint.. it is March anyway.. So... 

Thanks to everyone who made my birthday so meaningful.. Never had I expected there will be such a celebration with presents, balloons, and ribbons... all I thought was a dinner and k session which my colleagues had planned a week before... 

So, we went off for dinner... and then head to the karaoke... As I stepped into the room, I was surprised with the decorations... As far as I remember I hardly had any birthday parties before.. The only one that I remember was when i was 5.. which was a good... number or years ago..

I just realised I did not have any photos of the decorations without my face in it... 

Just so you know.. my colleagues did put a huge effort into decorating the place.. there are balloons everywhere, a shiny, glittery banner thingy wishing me a Happy Birthday.. and the stars hung around the lights.. Man!! this is the best birthday deco for my birthday I have ever seen!!

And then... that's not all.... my colleagues surprised me by inviting even more people to the party!! Oh yeah!! I actually have friends!! People whom I have known from events that my company have organised... 

And yes... There were presents!!!! Omaigot!! I haven't been receiving presents for quite a while.. except from myself.. haha.. 

Yeah, that's me opening my present... 

Let's just fast-forward the process.. so here's what I've got for my birthday.. from my colleagues and friends..

There were 3 presents altogether.. and they were all wrapped super nice!! The first one was the heart-shape pendant necklace in the centre.. Then the music box on the top left and the last one was the red cat plushie on the bottem left.. the photos on the right are also my presents when they were still wrapped.. and fyi.. the red plushie cat has a body, just its head is kinda huge that it kinda hides its body.. anyway.. who doesn't love presents?? I LOVE THEM!!

Thanks everyone who contributed!!

And of course, there's a cake.. one of the prettiest cake I have had on my birthday too!!

A summary of my cake... and my cutting the cake..

And this is a summary of my birthday...

After that we sang our lungs out.. we were in a karaoke anyway... I didn't sing much though but it's fun seeing everybody enjoying themselves.. 

I'm just so glad to have known all these people, their passion has really influenced me and made me a better person.. 

And not forgetting to have a great family who didn't mind me spending the whole day out without them... coming home to this...

This is my siblings' way of wishing me Happy Birthday.. hehehe

My birthday's day itself may be passed but I celebrated it with another bunch of friends the next day..

We had dinner at a very romantic Thai food place at One City.. it's on the rooftop.. where the famous skywalk is!!

A very nice place with the view of I-am-not-sure-which highway... 

After dinner, we had cake at the ground floor of One City.. 

And that, sums up my birthday for this year.. super heart-warming, super fulfilling... and... presents...

Until we meet again...

Signing off!

Toodles