Korea.

It’s been a long time since I last made a post while I’m at home. I still remember the times when I would like make darn sure that I’ll slip something in before I go to bed every night. I think I started this habit when I was in university, and perhaps lasted until the earlier part of my working life. Nowadays, I would somehow forget all about that when I get home. This shows that times have changed. Haha.

Anyway I’ve made arrangements to go to Korea (again) with my mum, and we’ll be heading over to Seoul and Busan. I haven’t really got a detailed itinerary up yet, but I’ve got some places to go to already planned for. So I guess when we are there, we would pretty much be taking our own time to go around. This would be my fourth time in Seoul, but first time in Busan. Hopefully things are going to be easy for me. KTX beckons!

I’ve also signed up for my first ever proper Korean language class. I mean, I did learn the language at FTU, but I don’t think that could be considered as “proper”, if you know what I mean. Things were conducted rather haphazardly, so it’s quite a major miracle that I still remember a good deal of the things learned back then. But now that I’m going to be doing at HKU SPACE, it’s definitely going to be more intensive and requires more work and attention. I hope I can do well there, and perhaps continue learning the language upwards. I did a quick calculation, at this rate (2 courses per year), I should be able to finish all the Korean courses that HKU SPACE has to offer by early 2016!

Some friends have asked me why the urge to learn Korean – well, it’s true that besides South Korea, the only place that speaks Korean is the North, and chances are you don’t really have the chance to get yourself there. I guess for me, the main reason is that I’m always interested in learning languages, and God gave me a flair in that too. Of course, ultimately if I could land myself in a job posting to Korea, or using my Korean language knowledge to be deployed in positions in Hong Kong that would put me in Korea once in a while, that would be massive. But before that, I guess it doesn’t hurt to know another language, and at least it would give me an easier time watching “Running Man”!

Classes will begin next Wednesday, which is just nice for me to meet my new classmates for the first time before I fly off on Thursday – I would have to miss the second lesson though. Well, I guess one week in Korea should be a good compensation for the class missed!

Ji Seok-jin, Kim Jong-kook and former South Korean National Team captain Park Ji-sung laugh uncontrollably after they realize that many people start learning the Korean language because they want to understand what they talk about on Running Man.