Fall MT
The major thing about Korean universities is definitely the MT, abbreviation for "Membership Training". It is fun short trip, usually 2 days 1 night, where new students get together and have fun together. It usually happens earlier in the semester. Famous places for MT like Gapyeong are fully booked around October because new semester starts in September. As part of the student council for GMBA, we were responsible to plan the whole event from finding accommodation, buying food to literally making MT happen!
So as expected, Gapyeong is where we chose as our destination. It is out of Seoul, it takes an hour by subway and 20mins ride of taxi from the last subway station to the pension that we rented. It was held over the weekend. We didn't leave as a class together because some students live further away, some had morning classes and some has a car. So we all set a time to meet at the accommodation.
I arrived there around 5pm by subway and then taxi. The weather was so good and there were other people who arrived earlier have started setting up posters and arranging groceries that they have brought. There were meat, snacks, chips, beer, soju and etc. While waiting for everybody to arrive, we each had a cup of beer and chat at the outdoor chill zone area. We even have a karaoke machine in the pension! So awesome!
As soon as everybody arrived, we started to prepare dinner around 6pm. The menu for dinner was pork belly 삼겹살! We had pork belly as the main, grilled kimchi, mushroom and onions as side dishes. Dinner was done in 15mins and we had food with beer, soju (duhh) and other beverages.
My Korean classmate brought homemade kimchi for us to try while some made us food such as soy bean paste soup and fried rice! The kimchi was so good.
We had so much fun eating great food and jamming to songs on speakers. We had alcohol so early, people get drunk so early haha After the dinner, we all literally went on our own way. People who were too drunk went to bed, some carried on with the karaoke, some played board games while some continue to drink. Most of the classmates who are parents went home instead of staying the night which was understandable. But one of them brought his baby girl and we had so much fun trying to entertain the princess :D
We also had some late night chat and drinking session because the night was still young. We ate the leftover seafood soy bean paste soup, store-bought cheesecake, snacks and hard-liquor. The weather got chilly at night but the air was fresh because we were out in the mountain with lots of trees. I've actually written about the MT in the GMBA website (I am the Editor-in-Chief so I was responsible to do post-event coverage on the website so) so you can check it out here! [GMBA EVENT] Fall MT at Gapyeong
Korean Day
The other event that we had in October was Korean Day where the corporate students organised a dinner after class in a restaurant nearby our university to introduce all the international students to Korean food and alcohol. We had Korean pancake 전 and rice wine 막걸리. It was my first time after almost 10 years to drink rice wine again. I didn't like it the first time I had it but I love the rice wine I had this time. It was the chestnut flavoured rice wine. I don't know whether is it because of the flavour or because I have grown up...
We had so much fun eating and talking together. Other than pancakes, they also served other food that goes well with rice wine like ramyeon, spicy stir-fried cartilage with rice balls. We also had lucky draw session where lucky people get Starbucks gift cards! The corporate students not only organised the event but also paid for it. It was a wonderful event. Our professor joined us and bought hangover solution drink for everybody just to make sure we get to class healthy the next day haha I also wrote article for the event in GMBA's website [GMBA EVENT] Korean Day, bonding through alcohol and snacks!
Voluntary Activities
So, as a student of GMBA, we have to complete 24 hours of voluntary services/activities offered or recognised by the school. So far, I have joined 3 of them: mural painting, Hongdae community service, and Babfor.
Mural painting was the most fun I would say. It required less labour work and the work done was satisfying! We actually went to a nearby high school to help them with mural painting on the entrance wall of their school. There were so many snacks and drinks prepared for us (almost 무한리필 of snacks haha) and lunch was provided too! It felt so good to see the end product of our hard work presenting itself on the wall. Of course, it was tiring to constantly bend and squat and tip toe while painting, but it was overall a great experience! We had to wear all the shoe protectors, sleeve protectors, plastic aprons, hand gloves and etc to avoid getting paint on our clothing. We had kimbap and instant noodles for lunch!
If you are interested to read more about the mural painting, feel free to read the article I did for GMBA's website here: [EVENT] Mural painting, Voluntary activity at 서연중학교
The second voluntary work I did was for Hongdae community service where we actually work on behalf of the Yeonnam Global Centre at Hongdae. We approach tourist at Hongdae that might need our help in literally anything! From translation to calling a taxi, finding locations to recommending restaurants. We had to take proof of shots that we had indeed help the tourist, and show it to the person-in-charge at the end of the day. It was the hardest work I would say, not because of the work that we do but we had to stand on the street as early as 9am under 0 degree Celcius of temperature.
And of course, since you are in Hongdae and work ended at lunch time, you couldn't resist to visit the cafes there after work. A warm meal before heading to class that day. The first cafe is called Moment Coffee, the second is The Famous Lamb.
Babfor
Last but not least, Babfor is a voluntary activity where we prepare and serve meals to the old people at Babfor centre. Old and poor people visits the centre everyday for a warm lunch. I was in charge of peeling potatoes and serving lunch, some others had to make kimchi, cook rice, do the dishes, manage food waste and etc. It was a long journey to Cheongnyangyi and it was raining in the morning.
We changed to our working clothes (apron, headbands, mouth covers, gloves, and boots) with padding because it was so cold and we had to stay outdoors. After working from morning until noon, we finally got a 5min break to eat our lunch. It was a tough job I would say, as we had a lot of chores to do other than preparing and serving food. We had to clean up the place after lunch time, wiping tables, mopping the floor, drying the gloves and aprons etc but it was a great experience as I get to see how "Kechara Soup Kitchen" of Korea works.
I also did a write-up on this event at GMBA website. You can check it out here: [EVENT] Babfor volunteer activity @ Cheongnyangni
Comments