Attending the Global Youth Eco-Leadership Summit (GYELS) 2014 was really fun and so amazing. I got to meet new people, learn current issues on environment, go to fantastic places, and experience new things. The summit consisted of series of lectures, individual and group assignments, and outdoor activities.

The series of lectures raised my awareness on current important issues of 

environment. All lectures were very impressive although the translation was a bit slow so when the lecturer jokes, we were the last ones to laugh. However, all topics were great. I learned from Lee, Chang-hyun that the more civilization develops, the more that civilization hurts the earth Prof. Yun Sun-jin about the hardless of providing electricity so that we should save electricity Prof. Robert J. Fouser that the key to successful neighborhood activities is to share our concerns about the neighborhood with other neighbors. I loved when Cho, Sei-hon showed us some of his interesting photos on his session on ?Communicating Through Pictures?. We also 

watched films related to environmental issues. My favourite was ?Alex The Penguin? because Alex is so cute. I felt sad for him because he didn?t have a friend, a home, and later on he dies due to global warming.

In addition to present individual project and introduce each country, all participants assigned a group task to create a school campaign. My group decided to do a campaign about reducing carbon footprints namely ?The Oppa Environment Style?. We discussed about the play we were going to do for the school campaign presentation along with the chart that we were making. Due to a very tight schedule, we could only do the work group in the evening at the hotel lobby. On the presentation day, I did a little finishing up to the chart in the last row of bus seats on the way from the Everland amusement park to the Samsung Engineering headquarters. 

During the summit, we had a chance to visit Everland, the biggest amusement park in South Korea and Gyeongbook Palace. In the Everland, we were given a challenge to take great photos about the environment with all group members in the photo. We took a lot of great pictures and some selfies photos. We also went on lots of great rides, such as Hurricane and snow slope. Riding the snow slope was really fun because we experienced sliding down a hill of ice on a tire. 

In the Gyeongbook Palace, I took photos on the South Korea?s traditional clothes. It was great and very rare opportunity. I really loved the architecture of the palace and took lots of pictures of the architectures. 

I really missed my beloved friends, especially Nabiha, Amila, Thanapat, and Decharpol. We did a lot of fun and sometimes a little bit embarrassing. One night, we took a long walk to a grocery store far away from the hotel. We would like to enjoy the nice freezing air. None of us weared warm cloths except me. To drive out the cold, we run around on the sidewalk and also saying ?annyeong haseo? to every stranger that we met along the street. People were just staring at us when we said that to them. They might be thought that we were crazy little kids.

The GYELS 2014 was already done but I would always remember the wonderful moments in there. Korea is really a very pleasant country and Seoul is a very hi-tech city. The people are very friendly. All the committee members were very friendly and helpful. Although I've been back to Jakarta and returned to my routine activities, most of my heart is still lagging in Korea. I hope someday I will be back to Korea. I am Ayu Rizky from Indonesia and this is my story, where is yours?