I arrived in Austria on Thursday last week. After letting reality sink in a bit, I come to the conclusion, that I have to revisit Korea.
It was a very good time. I enjoyed the country, the people and of course the food (Kimchi!!!!). But the next time will be a vacation and not a study program :-D

I also updated my photos :-D

As I said in my last entry, we went to Japan and by the way, if you go there, get the JR Railpass.

Tokyo
First we went to Tokyo, which is an aswome place. It is very busy all of the times, but manageble to get around pretty fast, despite some people claiming transportation takes forever (they have never been in Seoul). We were living in a hostel in Asakusa, which is one of the cheaper places, in terms of money, but a nice quarter. They have a nice temple there and the biggest paper lantern I have ever seen.
Other than that, we have been to Akihabara and a Maidcafe, the Robot Restaurant (which I really recommend, if you like crazy random stuff), Yoyogi Park, the Emporers Palace (which is closed on Mondays), some places around Shinjuku and much more stuff... If any of you is going to Tokyo, either make it an extended trip or really narrow it down :-D

Fuji
We tried to get to Mount Fuji (or Fuji-san, how the japanese say). There are several different ways to get there, the easiest one is the JR Rail which goes there, but there is also a JR Bus which goes there (I think from Shinjuku). The problem we had was, that It was really foggy that day, that you could not see the vulcano/mountain at all. Which is sad, because there is a bus going the the "Fifth Station" which is on around 3000 meters, so pretty near to the top.
Instead we took the tourist bus around the area and went into different magma caves, one was a batcave and one was an ice cave, both very nice. They also have a lot of natural hot springs around, so it is to recommend to take a bath there.

Kyoto
Kyoto is the old emperial capitiol, so naturally it has a lot of temples and palaces to look at. What I recommend is the Kiyomizudera temple and the Golden Pavillion, both awsome and beautiful structures. Also there is a guided english tour everyday at 14.00 (you have to get a ticket at least 20 minutes ahead) in the old emporers palace. What we missed in Kyoto are the thousand gates up the mountain trail, but one can not do everything.
Also Kyoto has one of the biggest Geisha districts in Japan (they call them Geiko in Kyoto). There is also a guided tour through Gion (one of the districts open to tourists), where you learn about Geiko and their history. In that district there is also a theatre which shows classical japanese arts, such as tea ceremony, puppet play, Geiko dance and much more.

Nara
Nara also used to be a emperial capitol, as I recollect. The nice part about it, is that it is pretty small, so you can easyly get around by foot (there are always busses ^.^). They have a park there were about more than 1000 tamed deer run around. They are very friendly and as it seems sometimes too friendly. The park is very good and to recommend is the largest wooden structure in the world the Toudai-Ji, a buddist temple which is absolutely amazing.

Hiroshima
Our last stop was Hiroshima, and there we had a full day to get into the horrible, but fascinating history of the Atombomb drop. They have a really good museum which shows the history and rebuilding of the city, which lifescale models and real exhibits. And NO there is no more radiation than every else in the world, due to the fact, that the bomb exploded in midair. There are also other attractions in this city, but that one is the most important to see.

After seeing all this things we returned to Korea for our last week. We won't do much, just the stuff we think we missed, such as the Seoul Tower, Carribean Bay and some other tourist stuff ^.^

I will update my pictures, when I get back to Austria, but I will keep you updated.

It's here ... the the last day of our semester in Suwon. In the last week we had 5 exams and one presentation. Three exams on Monday, they where messy, one on Wednesday, went good, and one today, which was also good. The presentation was about our project, which I wrote about in the last entry. The software is not complete, but its working ... somehow. Due to complications with the hardware and several issues with OpenCV its not even close to alpha release ... but still good enough to impress the professor and as it seems, one of the objective observers of the class also has issues with facial recognition :-D

All in all, the semester was good. There were several impressions, which I wrote about in my blog already. The living in Suwon was good. There are enough opportunities to go out, have fun or to do tourist stuff around. Apperently we were not that often in Seoul as I expected at first, that is mostly because of the curvew we have from 1.00 am to 5.00 am. We will make that up now.
The most challenging thing was probably the different learning methods and exams in Korea. There is a different aspect to them, which is not easy to grasp, but manageable.

Tomorrow it's going to Japan: Tokyo - Kyoto - Hiroshima and then back to Korea. I don't know what to expect, one guy we know said:" It is like Korea, only better." We will see :-D

Well, It's been a long time since my last update... Sorry about that ... Somehow I was quite busy the last weeks... I don't know how. At least I uploaded new pictures :-D

The last weeks there were several events and task:

• The university festival
• A small food fesitval
• Football match (again)
• A tour through a food market and a nice shopping area
• Raspberry Pi and IOIO-OTG setup
• Presentation and paper about Cybersecurity

First of the university festival: its an event which lasts for 3 days. There are food booths and some company give away free stuff (yay). I was kind of busy these days and only saw about half of the festival. In the evening the clubs on the campus have stalls, where they sell food, beer, soju and makgeolli to get some money for their activities. There are always some bands (not a actuall performance, but they where playing too) performing for free, which is awsome.
In this festival there is also a event, where we exchange students made a small food booth. We were selling Tacos (from the mexican delegation), Caipirinha (the brazillian devision) and Wiener Schnitzel (we made that ^.^). But as for korean tastes, the Tacos sold better than the Schnitzel ... I guess it was not exotic enough. But still was a good day.
Two weeks ago I joined a group of young foreingers and koreans for a tour through a food market near to Namdaemun. We were randomly shuffeled into groups of 5 and got some task to solve. One of the tasks was to get food. We had some korean pizza. Then we went towards another market. On the way we played dibidibidip. Our team was not the best ... but as the tides turned for us, as we changed the game to rock-scissor-paper, which we totally ruled.
That weekend I also went to another football game with some exchange students, but it was not that good as the last one, as both teams were playing very defensive. But it does not matter, as we had free tickets from the festival :-D

As for our studies: For our project in Capstone Design, we got a Raspberry Pi and a IOIO-OTG board. Both devices are used to connect blood-pulse sensors, a infrared thermometer and a breath-analyzer. All that combined with two cameras and a gaming stearing wheel becomes a driving ability detector (DAD, which is also the name of our project). As for the hardware issues, we have one electronical engineer and one mechanical engineer in our team.
The basic plan is, to get the drivers viewing direction to ensure that he is not distracted, the drivers pulse to analyze tiredness, to count the drivers blinks to see sleepyness, get the alcohol level in the breath and not start the (fictional) engine if it is too high. There is only one problem at the moment ... The library to communicate with the IOIO is written in Java, through native interfaces, but these are making a fuzz now, so we are struggling ... but we already have a workaround ... we'll see how it works out.
We also had to write a paper about cybersecurity issues in the 21st century and provide some insights or solutions. It was a team project, which I was assigned to with some guys from Malaysia and my roommate ... the teams were somehow not mixed well ^.^ Then last week on Wednesday we had to present the paper. I think the presentation was decent and in a good window of time (took 20 minutes and 40 seconds ^.^).

Next week are finals, and then we will leave for Japan. I will try to write something in the end of this week again. Maybe we make progress with the Raspberry Pi :-D

So long

Well, I did not write much the last days. It was rather busy. New projects were assigned, things to be visited, football matches to be watched, concerts to attend and festivals to be seen.

So two weekends ago we went to visit the palace in Seoul. It is a huge complex, with a park, a museeum, and of course the palace itself. The palace consits of several seperated houses for different seasons for the king to stay in. Then there is also the part of the queen, and she resides in, not to forget the palace for the kings mother. North to the palace is another palace, which used to be for the kings father... Lots of palaces and houses ...

The next day we went to the game Suwon VS Incheon at the World Cup stadium in Suwon. The stadium can hold about 48.000 people. The cheapest ticket is for 2000 Won and the most expensive was about 25.000 Won. We got a ticket for 12.000 in the Suwon fan sector(click me). The game itself was ok. The beer was cheep (4000 Won for a liter bottle). Curious things happend in the stadium:

1. You are able to buy fried chicken inside
2. The fans do not swear
3. The players do not swear

These things made the experience uncomparable to other football matches

The following week was the Sungkyunkwan festival for 4 Days (Thursday to Sunday) at the Seoul campus. The most interessting part is, that everyday from 19.00 till 23.00 there was a concert (for free) and even famous Kpop groups were participating (like Girls Day). We only attended the World Food Festival, which was an Friday. There were 5 nations preparing food:

• Germany --> Curry Wurst and mashed potatoes...
• Japan --> Onigiri, Dango and something I forgot ...
• Korea --> Never tried their food and forgot completely :-D
• Mexico --> Burritos and Tortilla Pizza ... which is both not mexican
• Brasil --> Churrasco (meat on a stick), some chocolate and caipirinha

I have been at the mexican booth, because I could not get myself to sell Curry Wurst ...

On Saturday we went to the "I love Korea! Dream Concert 2013". It is a concert were several Kpop groups perform and promote a theme. This years theme was "I love Korea" ... therefore the name :-D
The performances were at the World Cup stadium in Seoul, which holds about 70.000 people. We got seats at the side of the stadium in the 18th row. About 48.000 people attended this concert, mostly teenage girls ... and us... The seats were about 50$ each for the side, which was ok. The VIP section, directly at the stage, would have costed about 200$. The funny thing was, everything was seated with reserved seats, even at the stage.
All in all nearly every group did 2 songs. The performances were ok. You may even find some of the concert on Youtube (the concert of last year is also online). I also did some videos:

• Girls Generation
• Girls Day
• Secret

The worst part was leaving the concert with the subway... all the girls did not know how to behave and were trying to fit in one subway ... which did not work... but we arrived at the dorm in time.

So thats it :-D

Last week from Wednesday to Sunday. We went to Busan. Its a costal city in the South of Korea. It is supposed to be a summer vacation location (ryhmes ^.^), but luckily April is not the peak season.
The city itself is a lot smaller than Seoul, but still has a good transport system. Also it does not take that long to get from one end to another, which takes for ever in Seoul. The atmosphere of the city is more like a tourist place, like people talk English to you, when you look like a foreigner (not like here ^.^).
Busan itself is devided into different city parts, like normal, and also into different beaches. We stayed in the Indyhouse, which is located near to Haeundae beach. The cool part about the beaches is, they are all connected with a walkway ... which is sometimes a bit confusing, but manageable.
On the first day we were walking along this path: We followed the coastline from Haeundae to Songjeong (another beach). The path devides itself into smaller paths along the way making a few detours to viewpoints, pavillons or some hiking-tracks (not really hiking, more like a way through the forest). Reaching Songjeong, we went to Yonggungsa Temple, which is located directly at the sea (recommended to see). Its an awsome place, with stone carvings and a magnificant atmosphere.
On the second day we were a bit tired from all the walking (about 6 hours), so we took a short trip to Beomeo Temple. Also a nice place, but due to hurting feet, we did not explore much ^.^
After the temple we were supposed to Seokbul Temple, but due to bad weather conditions (wind, rain and insufficiant clothing) we went to the Trickeye Museum. It has nice features, which play with your mind :-D
On the third day, the two other guys went for a swim in the sea in the morning. Surprisingly they were not the only ones on this day. There was one other guy, but he left as soon as the went in... After getting warmed up, we headed for the biggest department store in the world: Shinsegae. About 12 floors of shops and on the top there is a spa and a ... GOLF DRIVING RANGE... and a park. Unlucky as we were, the spa and golf range is closed member and sadly the park was closed down, due to rearrangement. As a funny remark: We were looking for shower gel and deo for man. In the whole market we found three different kinds of deodorant, and no shower gel ...
All in all it was a rememberable trip, recommended to everyone in Korea or planing to go to Korea.

Also, photos of the trip are online.

It's finally spring in Korea and temperatures reach 20 degrees Celcius. In this time of the year ,especially now, Koreans go flower watching (Some locations :-D). So we went too.
We went to the Yeounido Station by Metro and walked to the Yeounido Park. This park has three different themes: Grassland, traditional korean forest and some "wildlife" park (no actual animals). The shape of the park is more long than wide. It has a roundtip for pedistriants and cyclists (there is even a cycle rental place, which also rents inline skates). The walking path for pedestriants is very nice, because it has some kind of rubber texture, which makes walking on it very enjoyable. The roundtrip is about 1.6 km long.
Along the trip are several passages were you can walk into the park. At this time of the year many of the trees did not have many leaves yet, so you easily could spot the cherry and plum trees. They bloom in a white light red color.
As it seems this time of the year is very popular for couples to go to the park ... good god, they were everywhere ^.^ So if you are easily depressed seeing other couples (what reason ever), I would not recommend going there ...
Also in Spring there is another big event: Midterm exams. So when korean students are not out for the cherry blossoms, they are in the library studying. And they are into it. Staying all night out in the library and read books, solve problems and no sleeping. But why the library, you may think: Because, as a korean said, there they can not easily go to bed, when they are tired, they just keep studying.
As for the exchange students, this time is very surreal. In the lectures half of the class is missing because of studying all night. More students then usual are sleeping in the class and the number of people with a ridiculous amout of books is increasing.
I hope we do well in the exams, because the only thing I can not imagine, is the style of tests they have here. We only had two short quizes for half an hour in one subject, and they were not that hard, but the time was running out to fast. Too many calculations and conversions to do by hand eat up your time.
Well, we will see what happens :-D

Also new pictures are online :-D

Well, as many of you already know, South and North Korea are not best friends. The north lives in a complete shut off state, only some foreingers get in, no korean gets out or in. In aspects of economy, language and culture they also split into different directions.
As for foreign affairs both countries have a very different approach. And as it seems now North Korea has taken drastic movements, in terms of threats and politics. They shut down the plant, which is a project of the north and the south. They are threatening the U.S. and an island east of North Korea, belonging to the south. They are positioning the army at the border and so on.
How did it get that far? The initial event was a nuke test by the north. The nuke had half of the strength what the nukes had, which were dropped over Japan in WW2. International politics reacted with a embargo, and now North Korea is low on supplies. As a reaction to that, the current situation developed and somewhat escalated.
But here in South Korea the people are not that in panic. You don't see army forces in the cities, no males were called into the army and no official alarm was issued by any embassy. All officials tell us, to keep calm, because that is not the first time, this happened. Somewhere I read that since North Korea exsits 430.000 threats were issued against the south and only a few real escalations with actual acts of war happened.
One of the worst was a incident, were the north attacked an island and serveral people died. During that time most of the koreans in the south were pretty frightened.
As for now, it seems that, if the north does nothing too stupid and the rest of the world keeps its cool, the whole "crisis" will get over with in a few weeks. Don't believe everything you read and don't let media manipulate you: Bad news is good news.

I updated my photos on Flikr. Be sure to check them out. Motor show in Seoul :-D

So long from Korea.