Landed in Daejeon

In the midst of my wedding preparation, i made an official trip to Daejeon, Republic of Korea to learn more about disability. The trip was fully covered by the Korean National Statistical Office (KNSO), thus I don't get any money from my Department.

For cost saving purpose, the KNSO people organised us in groups to ferry us from Incheon Airport to Daejeon. Before we left, the driver asked us for 10,000 won to buy food for us. He said that the burger is very nice. I suspect that is MacDonald's but paid anyway to see what he is up to. For your information, 10,000 won is approximately $13-$14 in our local currency.

After receiving the food, the representatives from Thailand and Laos were calculating how much the food is worth. It is definitely less than 6,000 korean won, meaning that the driver made a handsome profit of 40,000-50,000 won easily from the 10 of us. I suspect he even had some vouchers that gave us free drinks or something.

I initially wanted to get back our money but decided not to create trouble. I thought only the 3 of us knew about it. Oh boy, I was wrong.

(For infor, the dinner I took at a nearby university cost me 3,100, serving us Korean food)

Today, we went out for a welcome dinner. This is typically for overseas event to welcome people into their country to show their hospitality. As we were getting off the bus at the dinner venue, the Indonesian representative was saying that "see, got lunch promotion, price slashes from 15,000 won to 10,700 won, this should be better than MacDonald's."

Lesson: Don't try to trick tourist, they are not stupid. Not even when they are from the less developed countries. Its a disgrace to your country.

Shouxin's Wedding Dinner at Sheraton Tower on 31st Aug 2008

Today is the first day after the "Hungry Ghost Festival". Typically, couples will avoid getting married during the 7th lunar month as well. This is statistically proven.

It gives me great joy to attend a secondary school classmates wedding dinner tonight. It also marks the start of many wedding dinner to come for the class, with mine coming up in less than 2 months time as well.

I met up with an old classmate who is currently teaching at Xinmin Secondary School. He thanked me helping him to improve his mathematics during secondary school days, so that he is able to fulfill the requirement of his job now, teaching mathematics and physical education, although the latter is his preferred subject. I can't remember exactly how I helped during in the past. All I can remember was that he was made to sit beside me at the front of the class so that he can concentrate better and behave better (this is normal for a boy in a boy school).

It made me really happy that I have made a difference in other people's life. Later in the evening, 2 other classmates also shared that they still remember "copying" my homework during the schooldays. No doubt"copying" was not good but its important that they understand what they are copying and enable to keep up with class.

This really make my day today. :)