AMSC SEOUL 2007 - Cancer In Asia : Incident, Suffering and Prevention

AMSC SEOUL 2007!

My last conference of medical school was at AMSC SEOUL 2007… It’s sad having to say goodbye and not having to say ‘See you in next EAMSC, Thailand’ or ‘see you next summer in Japan’… I totally understood why Ryan attended so many conference, even after graduation, but considering my final year schedule,.. I knew pretty well that it is not possible…

Nevertheless, AMSC Seoul 2007 was certainly an unforgettable experience. Group 5 was the most happening group, still is… With our really nice GMs – the Pretty Vivian Park Young Jean, Cute Kate Choi Ye Ra, Cool June Park Jong Jun, Beautiful Kathy Kwon Su Hyon, Nice Robin Kim Seung Bin, Talented Edwin Shin Jung Hyun and the awesome members, Adorable Mary Toumura Misato, Wonderfully Happening Angela Chang Chih Hui, Sleeping Beauty Joanne Chan Pui Kwan, Magical Hamilton Chan Ho, Funny Xiang Salim, Crazy Yoshi Muto Yoshinori, Friendly Yessica Stefanie, Always-smiling Ooi(Ayui) Singsumpun Nontouch, Sweet Nic Thongdeethae Areeya, Stylish Ava Lee Sou Wing, Adventuress Daniel Su Chiung Jui, Musical Damarkusuma Arditya and of course my good-old-buddy-Aland Shum Koin Lon… Group 5 ROCKS!! ^_^

PreConference: Upon arrival at the airport, I met Hyerim. She cut her hair, but she’s still as sweet as ever… so nice meeting old friends again.. We checked in at Olympic ‘Parketel’.. The weather was great,.. summer felt cooling, unlike Malaysia. I went to Lotte World that day… it was AWESOME!! The rides were so scary, even watching it alone was scary.. I wished we had more time there… Visited
DeokDuGung Palace the next day...

DAY 1: Welcoming Party- To think that AMSC Korea 2007 welcoming party was at a pub,.. we had too much expectations… free flow of alcohol? You wished!! There were free flow of soft drinks and we had lotsa fun playing games…. And modifying games… ;)

DAY 2: Paper Presentation, Opening dinner.
Paper Presentation- With this year’s theme, Cancer in Asia, Incident, Suffering and Prevention, it’s really interesting to learnt about how each fellow countries struggle through in overcoming leading cancers in their country… This year’s paper presentation past unusually quick… I guess being in 4th year, I could follow the presentation and discussion easily… but i'll cut the academic-related-part off the blog so not to bore you ^_^

Opening dinner- Hmm.. delicious!! Performance by Arcadia was cool!! And the musical performance was impressive…. I never knew music instruments can be played in such a way…

DAY 3:Poster Presentation, Cultural Experience, Bimbimbap, Clubbing
Poster Presentation - it’s fun hopping around and looking at each country’s poster.. I still remember clearly of Hong Kong’s colon…

Cultural Experience- The organizing committee arranged this session so well, we got to play most of the Korean games… hopping on seesaw(Nolttwigi) was scary, I thought, nearly got off balance, played Yut-nori(with enormous dice), Kulrongshoe(hoop rolling), T’uho (arrow throwing), P’aengi Ch’igi (spinning top), Chegi ch’agi(kicking shuttlecock, similar to sepak takraw)… we drew Tal (Korean mask), Takbon (tapping patterns on paper with an ink pad), and making Deok(Korean rice cakes) the traditional way!! I thought Poong-mool, Sah-mool-nori Percussion best! I enjoyed playing the Jang-gu very much!!

Bimbimbap party in the rain… - Honestly, I was a little kimchi-phobia,.. but bimbimbap is a must experience,.. the rice design was rather impressive…

Clubbing- yeay! The Korean style!!

DAY 4: Hospital Visit, The Blue House, City Tour, Insadong
Hospital Visit- Interesting to visit and learn about Korean’s paperfree hospital...
Seoul National University Hospital, one of the most distinguished hospitals of the country!

The Blue House – Thanks to Kathy, we got to visit the President’s house!! It’s a very calm, serine’s place… but we could only take limited pictures though… national security… it’s okay,.. coz we even had souvenirs! From the President!! Yeay!!!

Insadong – Beautiful street famous for its many street performance and souvenirs…

DAY 5:Lecture at Seoul University, GyeongBokGung, Cheong Gek Chung River, Seoul Towel

GyeongBokGung- A Magnificent Palace!!

Cheong Gek Chung River- cooling river…

Seoul Towel – yeah, the one from My Girl,.. couldn’t find Lee Dong Wouk there though… ^_^

DAY 6:Closing Ceremony, Take off to Soong Woo resort…, AMSA Exhibition, AMSA Quiz

DAY 7: Rafting, Sauna, Cultural Night
Rafting was FUN!!
Cultural Night, was like always, the best event of the conference!!

PostConference: NamDaeMun, SinChon

Last minute shopping and good food…

Words are getting restricted towards the end, as i get sleepier...

...to be continue...

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I do crazy things in Korea

… I can’t believe I ran on stage and sang with an awful sore trout in front of over 300 audiences… WHAT WAS I THINKING?? And the weirdest thing was I actually got shortlisted, C-R-A-Z-Y!! My group people, especially Angela shouted like mad,.. May Luu and Queck was yelling down there too.. CheeYong commented, ‘Don’t do anything stupid again, you made me shout like mad!!’ and I was sorry for the other girl who obviously sang better, but I was just fishing votes from The Malaysians, the Indonesians and my group people… Aland managed to get thru while forgetting his lyrics despite having his cellphone playing the song on one hand, haha! poor Ricky… I still blame Aland for bursting my adrenaline and preventing me from chicken-ing-out,.. people think I was brave, I thought I was just stupid and crazy… arGhhh… thank God no picture was taken and I shall repress it for the rest of my life!!

The Sauna experience with Vivian, Kate, Kathy and Mary was another CRAZY one I find it hard to repress,.. but I shall not elaborate further on it…

Reuniting with old friends, way back from AMSC Kuala Lumpur 2005,.. friends from AMSC Hong Kong 2006, EAMSC Taiwan 2007 (Group 9 yeah!) all the way to AMSC Seoul 2007… it has been one HELL of an experience, I shall not exchange for any other…

(written on September 02, 2007 at 11:45 AM)