25th World Scout Jamboree WSJ Korea 1st - 16th August 2023.

31st JULY and 1st and 2nd August

At 4pm the bus left from saint George Havouzas church to go to Larnaca airport. When we arrived, we met up with the other scouts from Nicosia and checked into our patrols and had some free time to get our snacks. We then boarded the plane and made our way to Dubai which took four hours. At the Dubai airport, we were surprised to see just how big it is and we took a train to go to our gate. At the gate, we saw many scouts from Italy, Portugal and Eswatini. We finally boarded the plane and our painful 9 hour flight begun. 1st August When we finally made it to the Korean airport we were all excited but we still had a long way ahead of us .The four hour bus ride to the campsite was quite fun since we got to see the skyscrapers from the windows as well as the greenery surrounding the land. We did a stop for food. At 12 am now 2nd of august we arrived at SaeManGeum but there was another problem. Unfortunately, we were not allowed to enter our subcamp because quiet time was at 10pm so our leaders had to talk with the organizers for another hour while we were waiting . They finally moved us to another part of the campsite where we finally slept on the floor at around 3am there was also an ATM machine there that kept talking every few minutes so it kept a lot of us awake. When we all woke up at 5am we brought a wheelbarrow and moved our bags to our campsite. We brought our tents and equipment from the sub camp centre with the help of the Maltese unit leader and set our camp up. We spent the time until lunchtime exploring and adjusting to the new environment of coastal Korea. Right after lunch unit 2 was gathered together and we trekked our way to the international village to see where the Cyprus tent would be set up. For about an hour and a half we all got free time to discover the country tents, SDG tents, faith and belief centre and promotion centres. Some of us even started trading from the first night. Next we headed to our subcamp to cook dinner and go to bed since we were all sleep deprived.

3rd of August by Andrea

On the 3rd day of our trip for the first time we participated in jamboree activities. We walked for about 30 minutes to sector A where we chose between kayaking, canoeing and a rubber boat. We had a blast, had play fights with each other and had water fights with everyone in the lake .We also earned our first charm from this activity. Afterwards we went back to camp and has lunch. Later that day we all walked to the opening ceremony. We all got dressed in our full uniform, got our flags and stormed into the crowd, It took about 2 hours to reach the field but the wait was filled with singing and socializing. The ceremony was long but it was worth it at the end since there were kpop singers, fireworks, martial arts and we even saw the Korean President and Bear Grylls. We then walked back to camp and went to bed.

4th of August BY Eleni

On the 4th day of our trip we visited a traditional village called Hanok village in Jeonju. We took a 1 hour bus ride to get there once we arrived we were taken to a performance room where there was traditional performance with music and dances which was very cool to see. Once the performance was done we had the opportunity to try on their traditional clothes called hanbok. After that we explored the village where we saw the traditional buildings which were very fascinating. Once we were done exploring we walked back to the centre where we got the bus back to the jamboree. We made dinner and then had free time where we could go to the party that was hosted every night. Here we would all gather around a stage and anyone could perform a song or a dance on the stage for everyone. Which was lots of fun.

5th of August

On the 5th day of the jamboree we were assigned to sector B where there was different activities we could choose from. So we all had breakfast , got ready and started walking to sector B , while we were walking we were lucky enough to see an empty bus heading the same way we were, so we all hopped on the bus which had a/c so it definitely was amazing being in that bus. Once it arrived to section B we all got off and saw all the activities we could do, we noticed that we could get a badge if we did a certain amount of some activities. We all wanted to get the badge so we decided we were going to do that so our patrol leader got a paper that got stamped each time we did an activity, we needed to get 5 stamps. The first activity we did was trying to start a fire, we had to pick between 3 objects my team decided to try using a flint. Once each member of our team started a fire we got a stamp .The next activity we did was a team building activity so we had to make a song, a flag and a chant for our time and then present it to the people in charge of the activity. The next activity was the Kim’s game where there is a table with a lot of objects on and its covered with a cloth. The cloth is taken off for 10 seconds and we need to remember at least 10 items. We didn’t have enough time to do another 2 activities so we decided we’d go back another day to finish them. When we finished with these activities we were all given some strawberry ice cream and then we headed to the main area where we had free time to look around each countries tents and socialize. At night we prepared our dinner which we had with our neighbours from Malta.

6th of August

On the 6th day in the morning we attended a church service so we wore our full uniform, we started walking to the service which took us about 30 minutes. We stayed until the end of the service where we were given a cool badge too for attending. After that the whole Cyprus contingent walked together to the main area where we went to a field where we all took a photograph together. We then all walked to the main area where we were given free time to go watch the airshow which was very cool, there were planes in the sky which were doing tricks. After we headed back to our campsite where we got ready for cultural day. Everyone brought some traditional snacks from home for the other countries to try so we laid them out on the table and put up a flag and some of our traditional music. We also had the chance to go around to other countries campsites and try other countries traditional food and learn more about their culture. It was such an amazing experience since we got to explore different cultures but also make new friends.

7th of August

On the 7th day we woke up made breakfast and then went to finish the activities from the 5th day. So we started walking to section B where we had to do another 2 activities to get the badge so we played pantomime, archery and horse riding, there weren’t actual horses but that’s what made it really fun. They were blow up horses so it was really funny watching everyone doing it. After that we headed back to our subcamp where we had our lunch and found we were being evacuated the next day due to a typhoon coming our way. So we didn’t do much the rest of the day we were given time to do our last bit of trading and also say goodbye to the friends we made at the jamboree.

8th of August
In the morning, we all woke up around 6:20. Usually each of the patrols had a day long duty and we would rotate, but because were being evacuated, we were all on duty. Some people got breakfast ready while the rest sorted out the rubbish and packed tents. We were to be placed on a bus by 4pm, but we were all packed and ready to go around 11am so we just sat around in the shade and mixed together with our neighbouring Maltese unit. As a sign of our friendship between the two contingent units, we all signed our own countries flag and exchanged them. At 3:30 we were finally called up by a few ISTs to get our personal belongings and go across 3 subcamps to the bus stop. Our journey on the bus from Saemangeum took about 5.5 hours with a few stops for toilets. We got to the university at 930 pm and by the time we were placed in our dorms it was lights out at about 11:30pm .