Seoul - 19th July

很快的，三天就这样过去了。

第一天到达首尔下了一场雨；今天离开前，吹袭邻近台湾的台风从清晨也为首尔带来了一场微细但丝毫不会停歇的雨。来了四天，遇到了两天的雨天，我想在夏季 还真不常见。

上午十一时才起床，一发现已经快要到中午时，还差点从床上跳下来呢。昨晚还抱着恨不得马上回家的念头，今天起床后在洗澡时不知何故，心里突然有着有点不舍的心情。似乎每次要回返新加坡时，都会有这种感想。嗨，还不知是否还有在有生之年再次回到南韩好好的走一趟。

这场雨似乎很想把我们留下（哈哈，还真有点臭美嘞。）；再加上我们两儿各自多了两三袋 买回家孝敬亲戚朋友的韩国土产，这让 我们原本想乘搭地下铁去机场的计划化为泡影。在旅馆的接待处徘徊了一阵，才决定付多点钱请旅馆的老板载我们到金铺机场，然后我们再自己乘搭专程来回国际机场与金铺机场的机场快铁。

办了登机手续后，马上去解决早餐 – 我们已有大半天还没想享用到一个完完整整的正餐呢！如果说韩国的物价指数是世界最高之一的国家，那机场里所卖的东西都能为这句话作物证。买了一个新币十几元的日本套餐，然后饭后再来两个“C”，准备登机时，才发现起飞会有些延误。。。

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这次的飞行航程比去韩国时碰到更恶劣的气流。虽然次数少了些，但还是觉得惊险 （- 多亏我看了太多关于飞机失事的纪录片子。。。）。比如起飞后的半小时遇到了第二个气流。我正在投入于手中的那一本会议手册，突然从右眼角那边闪了一次非比寻常的亮灯。我抬了起头，本以为是隔壁的“自己人”在用闪亮灯来拍照，但，没人手里拿着相机。这时，又闪一次灯 – 灯原不是来自机内，而是在机外！在这一两分钟内，机身也不停地在摇摇晃晃，使得机内有了一段不安稳的平静。后来，飞机停止摇晃，服务员也恢复了服务，再过一阵子，机长也作出了广播，通知大家刚才飞机本身的确被雷电击中，但这没对机身造成任何损害。虽然他呼吁搭客无需感到惊惶，但还是不能不承认好像有点骗过死神的那种感觉似的。

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多时分钟就要降落了，这次的南韩之旅也将划上句号。短时期之内，应该不会再“远行出征”了吧哈哈。我想这儿会在短期内平静好一段阵子。谢谢你的“收看”，也恭喜自己终于能完成一个完整的旅游日记！

准备降落咯！

~RC~

Seoul - 18th July

0400 - Had a bowl of instant spaghetti ramen. Finally managed to sleep.
0830 - I woke up. Should be late.
0940 - The first speaker had just finished his talk.
1200 - Slack day. The "fire" seems to be gone; the trip, having served its purpose, seemed to be a formality, just counting down till Sat afternoon. Still, an eventful day ahead.
1215 - Lunch at the cafeteria. Had a nice chat with S-e-a-n W-i-t-t-y. Left Dongguk and headed back to our hotel.
1530 - Headed out to downtown. Pretty much spent the whole afternoon walking, looking for a bank/ATM so that Naga could withdraw money. Walked alot, saw alot. And the police force seemed to be out in full force, in preparation for the impending evening strikes. Caught the scenic Han River that runs through the heart of Seoul that provides a below-ground level extensive park for the people and tourists. Decided to head back to somewhere near our area after going round and round the Shenton-way like part of downtown, but not before taking a break at KFC. On the way back, the spree began. Had to trouble Naga to wait for me everytime I stumbled across a shop that sells skincare and cosmetic products. Bought some Korean kueh and went crazy at the minimart. Headed back to the room for a good shower.
2045 - Fell asleep for awhile, then woke up for dinner. Settled for some Korean steamboat which turned out to be spicy-sweet-salty. Not bad, but made us down alot of water. Walked around some more, bought some Starbucks before heading back.
2200 - Naga's out. Chatting online and planning in the mind about tml's plans. Seems like its gonna be pretty hectic, and HEAVY. Last night in Seoul le - time to reach out for my bowl of instant noodles.

Out.

~Ugly~

Seoul - 17th July 2008

0730 - Naga woke me up. Showered, get geared up for battle.
0810 - Head for Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and breakfast. Brought coffee and breakfast onto the Metro. Reached Dongguk at approx. 0850.
0910 - We got our hands on the proceedings - our work in a proper book! Well, most of it done by Naga and K. But it was pretty satisfying nonetheless.
0930 - Conference officially starts. J-a-s-o-n M-e-r-c-h-a-n-t spoke first.
1100 - The first two paper presentations. Content was pretty heavy, though not as heavy as that of the first guest speaker's. The 4 invited speakers sort of grilled the presenters with questions and the speakers seem to handle them pretty well. We is gotten worried.
1200 - Lunch. Collected lunch coupon. K-o H-e-e J-e-o-u-n-g was queuing behind us. A lady came up to us, introduced herself as Hyun-yu, who'd gotten her Ph.D from NUS. She said she specially came for this conference partly because she saw presenters (us) from NUS. She also revealed that she'd been Prof. Tara Mohanan's (last) Ph.D supervisee.
1245 - After lunch (some rice with tonkatsu and corn soup) at the "cookhouse", Ms. Hyun-yu offered to treat us to coffee. We chatted quite abit - about her academic journey (City University for BA and MA, Chris Manning as supervisor before he left for Stanford), her "leave" halfway through her Ph.D to give birth, her naughty little gal, the Mohanans... it was nice knowing how our affiliations with NUS had helped us make friends and our stays overseas much better, albeit indirectly (the insitution probably deserves 2nd mention, the people 1st).
1335 - Was late for the talk before us. Again, got much substance.
1405 - Our turn. It went pretty ok, at least we were done in abt 20 mins. Surprisingly, the onslaught never really came - the Big Four were quite "subdued", one of them even sat out our presentation I think. After all the tension and mention, it was not quite what we had expected. Either we overwhelmed them, or we underwhelmed - sadly, it seems to be the later.
1450 - Tea-break. M-a-r-c-e-l had some positive comments, but we didn't get to speak to the other 3. Instead, one of the guys that had his poster on display was explaining to us his stuff about Korean DPs - got the both of us =S =S.
1500 - Went back for part one of the plenary talk. Pretty heavy stuff that ended at 1810. Headed back to Anguk area for dinner. Learnt that the elderly, besides having seats reserved for them on the Metro, actually travels for free on the Metro!
1830 - BBQ again. One of the waitresses was Chinese, which made ordering and all easier. She even came up to me and asked for some translations, mainly because she encountered a group of English-speaking customers earlier on in the day and couldn't really communicate with them. Her Korean was impeccable - she even wrote the syllables of the words I'd translated into Korean syllables/characters that had roughly the same sound! AND, beef in Korea is really at a PREMIUM...
2000 - Back at hotel. Showered and chilled online, while Naga slept.
2200 - Decided to head out and explore new places. Central Seoul is still bustling with activity - 24 hour Macs, KFCs, BKs, coffee joints, food places both on and off the street - there's this satay that they are selling (amongst other things) that's longer than a foot-long Subs... AND the protestors are still on the streets at 10pm! Hundreds of them! Doing what they believe is right... that's democratic citizenship! Even the police were busy closing the streets for them to march on lol...
2315 - Dropped by the minimart, picked up some bowl noodles and foodstuff for home, and headed back to Yims'. Naga still out cold. Showered and typing now; I've been blogging and chatting for 2+ hours le.... It's Friday, our last full day... gonna find out where else is selling BB cream....

Out.

~Ugly~