Korean Writing Contest

20071008_Korean-writing-day

Yesterday there was a contest at Yonsei University for Foreigners to write an essay or some poetry in Korean. The first prize was a certificate, a medal and about 700$ and there were more than 1000 participants from a lot of universities in Seoul.
The contest took place on Yonsei Campus, in the amphitheater. Even though a little cold, the weather was quite nice, I even got a little sunburned in my face. I had picked to write an essay when applying, which turned out to be the worse choice, as the essay topic was "travel" and I really didn't know anything interesting to write about - whereas the poetry topic was "star", which I came up with some nice ideas. However, my Korean skills wouldn't have been sufficient for winning anyway, so after all it didn't matter. We were given two hours for writing (from 10 to 12am), then everyone could get some milk and some muffins as a lunch snack. While the teachers were reading the texts, there were shows of traditional Korean music and a quiz so a lot of students could win a little something. Then, winners were announced.

After the contest, I went to the main library for studying. Compared to the small libraries in Kaiserslautern, it was quite a change! First, you can only enter with your student ID card which has a bar code on the backside. Then, there's computer terminals where you have to reserve a seat in the study rooms, using your ID again. The ticket you get is valid for four hours and has to be renewed afterwards. If you leave earlier, you are to log out again so the seat will be shown vacant again. That's a nicely organized way for sure. I should shoot some pics of the study room and everything next time I go there, I guess :-)