Don't Give Up

I have a Korean flatmate who is studying English at the language school in London. He also studied Mandarin before in Bei-Jing for 2 years in 2003. He started from not able to speak an English sentence, and now he's able to make conversation with British in 6 months time. In addtion, I think he's an adventurous, funny, ambitious and energetic person.

Occasionally he showed me some of the photos he took while he was travelling around UK on his bicycle in April. He cycled alone from London all the way to Edinburgh, slept on the pavements, under the bridge, train station and sometimes hostel. He also cycles to Oxford or Cambridge and outer London for sightseeing. Personally, I quite admire and respect this kind of people who have the gut to do this adventurous stuff.

Soon he's going back to Korea to serve the mandatory military service for 26 months. He shared his grief with me on this issue and we both agree we should strive hard to achieve our dream when we are still young. He has decided to do something extraordinary this summer --- travel on a scooter from London back to Korea via Europe, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, China.

I felt excited too when I heard this, although both of us know there are many obstacles lying ahead, in terms of financial, logistic and most importantly the security problem. Last night, we both worked on some sponsorship leaftlets. He was thinking to get some sponsors from company such as Honda, Canon, Shell etc etc to provide him some financial aid. I got a feeling it's not easy to get this but at least he is trying all the possibilities that exist.

Frankly, I have this urge to sponsor him a few hundred pounds if he gets nothing out of the sponsors. I see no reason to stop an ambitious youth like him to do great things for himself, coz I used to have this dream when I was young too. I would have joined him if this were 5 years ago.

Perhaps I should sponsor him to get the travel insurance, and pray for him.... : )