South Korea: Old Memories And New Experiences

Apart from the knowledge learnt in school, I owed my first real contact with South Korea to two gentle Catholic missionaries who were in the same class with me in the language school in France in 1995. During eight years, I had other South Korean acquaintances who gave me a preview of this East Asian country through their language, food and passion for football.

On 21 May 2010 morning, after about six hours' flight with Korean Air,

I was physically in the southern half of the Korean Peninsula where we were going to travel around by bus.

We had come with our tour leader Addy, a sportive man from Johor Bahru. Our local tour guide Jeson in his coat was waiting for us at Incheon International Airport. He spoke so fluent Mandarin with a Taiwanese accent that if I did not look at his face, I could hardly believe that he was a Korean.

These two chaps provided assistance, information, cultural, historical and contemporary heritage interpretation as well as entertainment to our group of 25 people from different parts of Batu Pahat district. Thanks to them, our 7-day trip was going to be fun.