DIU Blog

I was flying high with wings like the fairytale

What if you get the opportunity to go outside your country for the first time and the country is amazing South Korea? My feeling was like flying high with wings like the fairytale. I’m Tithee Chakma, Student of Computer Science & Engineering of Daffodil International University (DIU). The International Affairs of DIU brought me the opportunity to attend “Winter for International Learners & Leaders (WILL 2018)” program at Chungnam National University (CNU) of South Korea.

I started for Korea by air on 25th December 2018. Though it was my first plane journey, I felt normal unless the plane started to jerk thanks to the bad weather in China. I reached Daejon, Korea on 26th December and settled myself at the CNU dormitory on 27th December. Biting cold in Korea did not surprise me but the astounding beauty of snowfall did. The CNU looked like pristine beauty and extraordinarily clean. My roommate was a Japanese girl. She was too polite. She strictly followed the time schedule and all the rules. One of the important lessons I learned In Korea is to follow the time schedule and rules from my Japanese roommate. In the orientation ceremony, I got introduced with almost everyone there across the globe like U.S, Japan, Malaysia and obviously Korea. Everyone was given a Korean buddy who would guide us through the whole program. They formed different groups containing 5 members each. My group mates were from China.

We started our class on 29th December on Asian development. Every day the class used to start at 9 in the morning which was the most difficult task for me as the temperature was like -10°C and continued until 1 pm. The teachers were awesome in the class. They were like friends of us. But, I got a cultural shock we all of the teachers encouraged us to taste the Soju, the traditional alcohol of Korea. On 30 December, we all participated in a funny picture contest at Daejon city expo bridge. Then I had the opportunity to experience the traditional Korean Spa. The most amazing part of my visit was the new year celebration on 31 December. Colorful and spectacular fireworks continued for almost 20 minutes in that celebration. On the next day, I got the best opportunity to introduce the natural beauty, cultural heritage and tourist places of my beloved country, Bangladesh on International Day. Later on, I made some friends there who expressed their intention to visit Bangladesh. I also came across a lot of information about different countries. Every day, we had a field trip to different places. We visited the National Institute of Ecology and Ecorium and I was like “How adept and perfect they are in showcasing the objects!” Different species of plants and organisms. Korean parents take their children to museums and edutainment places. As part of our field trip we finally went to the capital city, Seoul, after staying on the CNU campus for a week. The whole
Seoul city is surrounded by Han River which needed to be crossed to enter the city. And from there you can see the Namsan Tower. The beauty of that scenery cannot be expressed in words. I was too much excited to visit the SM Town. Where you can find out the agency’s K-pop stars used staff and also awards of K-Pop as I am a fan of a girl group of that agency it was a great experience for me. There was different relics of K-POP artists which were expensive. Beside the SM Town, there is an architecturally beautiful library there amazed everyone. Anyone can read from the millions of book collection there.
On 6th January some of us decided to visit Jeonju on our own. The main attraction of Jeonju is Hanok village. We rented traditional Korean dresses called Hanbok and visited the whole Hanok village wearing it. Walking along the village road we experienced the antique buildings and the famous castle of the village. We have tasted different types of famous food in that village.
This place is famous for foods and castles. The following day, we visited the ICT Innovation Center and got introduced with the latest technological inventions. Then, we went for ice skating but fell 7 times on the way to my glorious failure! Among other activities, l learned to make the traditional seal and made my name seal in the Korean alphabet.
We also had Teak-won-do classes and learned some self-defense techniques and also got a certificate. After some days, it was a part of our routine to go outside at night to have dinner at restaurants outside the dormitory with friends.
On 10th January, we bagged our baggage to check out the dormitory. In the farewell ceremony, we were given a certificate. It was a sad day for me to depart from friends and amazing people there. But, I was satisfied to have gathered that much learning thanks to the DIU international affairs and CNU. I will always cherish these memories.