Bidding A Final Adieu

"HAPPY HOLI"

Yes guys a enriching and fulfilling trip has come to an end unexpectedly. Initially a 3 month trip was scheduled but as per the work requirements my trip was rescheduled and it was made of 1.5 months..

Well so am I happy or am I sad?

Well I am more than happy. I have lived everyday here as it was my last day on earth. This is the best thing I learnt. The real meaning of this adage "Live everyday as if it is last day on earth." I will never forget the experiences of this trip. Especially this, the final one.....

Eating rice with chopsticks

To give a final 'Au rev our' a team dinner was organised by our Korean team mates. We were CORDIALLY(pun fully intended) invited to a PORK restaurant. We were like "HELL nnnnnnno". But then we thought lets see and have this experience also before leaving Korea....we nodded and went there.

ohhhhhhhh the smell itself was unbearable it was like choking ourselves to death. But still forbearance and gratitude is what my mother land has taught me ...so we restrained ourselves and entered the arena with full courage...(Yeah it was like a Gladiator fight for us )

but then what we will eat....they ordered cold drinks , soup and rice for us ... and what to eat with it ... chopsticks, of course.....

I thought after all it should not be that tough if these koreans can do we are far more better learners then these guys....I watched carefully the handling of chopsticks in a hand of korean and tried it with my chopsticks ....

Well at first it was damn difficult and all my friends ordered spoons but I relentlessly tried . Actually it requires a threshold strength in the left side of the right palm to hold a chopstick and eat with it. But still after few trials I was able to make it ..The trick was to handle it properly...I showed these Koreans what is Indian soil made of ... flexibility to so many religions, caste, creed is what we are taught from the nurseries so entry of one more culture should not be difficult at all...

BUT BUT BUT

But after some time I realized that no there are something that we, not as a hindu muslim or any other religious fanatics, but as a Indians, consider blasphemous...

They told me that in Korean culture there are four phases of dinner...

First phase is a starter phase... well thats fine whatever might be ur starters...

Second phase is Bear n chicken phase ....well whatever

Third phase is a disco (not a normal disco) phase

and fourth phase is a Group sex phase....

I was like stunned on hearing about this...now this is what these guys means here when they say "Sex is legal"

Well we finished our rice eating ceremony (first phase) and enjoyed our way back to home...discussing about the phases.... ;)

They continued with their dinner phases....

I don't know may be I am being a bit conservative or what but it was indigestible....but it is a culture....we also have many strange things in our culture....I was entangled between a fight of "Right vs Wrong" again..

Well what I concluded is respecting the culture, just doesn't mean to forget your owns and submit to it but it just mean to restrict yourself from saying or doing things that goes against the culture in which you are living....

It again gave me a practical lesson of life

"NO body is right no body is wrong but we are all just different".

Well guys this is it here I stand bidding a final adieu to Korea and opening my arms to receive a warm welcoming hug from India.

An Encounter with Korea

This weekend and the last weekend we have a real encounter with Korea , I am saying this because I believe that a nation is nothing but just a representation of its people and korean people just strived to make this encounter a really memorable one for me

THE LOVING AND ROMANTIC SEOUL TOWER

I am a very adventure loving person and the greatest adventure one can think of out here is to roam korea without anybody's help. That is because, the only thing you can understand here is the NUMBERS and that too you can't just speak to any natives as they speak it differently. So me and some of my like-minded friends came out right on the street and started thinking and calculating every milestone to reach our destination which was the awesome "Seoul Tower".

(http://picasaweb.google.com/shashankdass/RecentlyUpdated#)

We took a itinerary in our hand and started a tussle with seemingly earthworms type script.(Actually we couldn't get a english one). We gathered some basic information as to how to reach the place and started our journey.

We reached the nearest metro station (called Subway) and tried our hands for the first time on korean subway ticketing system.

Well it was fully automatic system no need of any human to guarantee the correct issue of tickets.

But it gave us a real tough time in the start as we didn't know how to convert the language to English .So came the people to rescue and they can meekly understand the station name as that was not properly accented by us .But still they just dont say "NO, I DON'T KNOW", I was just impressed . Then someone came to help and converted the system to English . After that it was pretty straight forward.

One thing I found very interesting with there entry system of subway...worth comparing with india.....

In India when one enters a metro he has to show a token to the machine embedded to the ground and then the door opens

But here the doors are always open and if you dare cross the door without showing ur card the door gets closed....

This reflects it all .... In india everyone is a scoundrel and one who proves that he is not let him go...here nobody is a scoundrel but if he tries being one than hold him by the collar.....

NATIONALITY AND PERSONALITY

It is rightly said sometimes "IGNORANCE IS A BLISS". We knew a well defined path but just to confirm we asked many people of varying nationalities.

Various responses

KOREAN :- POP out their PDA's and try to make us understand those earthworms..But "NEVER SAY NO ".....If they are unable to help they say sorry as if they have committed a crime.... Oh relax dude.. its ok...

Indonesian :- Atleast understand English a bit and could say "I don't know...."

Amercan :- The Inglorioius Ba***** made us go back 5 stations resulting in loss of our one hour.

Pakistani:-"OH u guys will understand our language dear",and we emphatically nodded and finally they showed us the right way in our own language. They showed us that after all we all are "HINDUSTANI"--that is if these regional political parties get the real meaning and origin of this word.

"PRATIGYA"

Any ways we reached finally to our destination and it was really really worth the pain which we have taken..

but unfortunately it became too late and we have to return back that day without reaching the top of the tower.... we did a "charan sparsh" of Seoul tower and took a "PRATIGYA" (promise) it that we would come again here ....but whatever we saw was a chimerical play of lights covering whole of the tower so blissfully that the vista was not worth the blink of eye lashes....

SEOUL TOWER RELOADED

Again as promised to that immortal beauty we started our tour next weekend but this time we knew much more of Korean subway so reaching there was no more a quagmire for us...so we reached this time with a ample amount of time as well as hell lot of shopping in our hands....

When we reached up the Seoul tower the scene was speechless..it was feeling like whole Seoul city with that tinkling bridge was taking bath in the empyrean pond of queens. It was shining... as if  a child was given a hand full of "chamkili" (dont know what to call it in English) and he spread over the whole city in a not very thoughtful but scintillating pattern.

in one word

"FANTABULOUS"(Sorry one word is just not enough)

And the good part was we tried our hand on technical photography and did some settings in camera and it started capturing those scenes perfectly helping us to capture and make the vista immortal..

WOMEN RULES THE ROOST

Came to know of a very strange system of this matriarchal society in due coarse of talks.....

While boarding a bus I just noticed and asked one of my colleagues that in this bus the sex ratio is 80:20 (female:male) and I have noticed this ratio at many places....he enlightened me with a strange korean system( or say mayhem for korean boys ). He said that in korea when a man marries a woman his bank account and bank balance everything is transferred to wifes account...I was like dumbstruck....then I asked what happens in case of divorce...he riposted the women gives alumni to men....again a lightning...

My god then I thought of the whole system from this point of view.....this gives the whole sole thinking power and decision making power to women ... this makes husbands just a puppet in the hands of wife....my male ego was hurting me like hot piercing needles....but then suddenly someone inside me (perhaps the educated part of me) corrected me and I began to dig again ...and thought again in respect to Indian patriarchal society.... what difference does it make ...its the same thing...the roles obviously can not be interchanged but can be shared.....rather this is what can be called WOMEN EMPOWERMENT... THAT IS IT ...if women can think better why not give them a chance to do so...and that is why girls are very much preferred here...no female foeticide no problem in girl education...and this makes boys struggle more to strive for the Lion's Share in the economical space overall resulting into the building of a educated society and a prosperous nation....wow what a concept....

Well thats it for now... hope you guys enjoy this one ....and enjoy the photos.... :)

MY FIRST SNOWFALL OF LIFE

GO GO GO
Let The Beauty Flow
ordered the heaven
and here comes the snow

ice ice everywhere
not a sliver to waste
look at the earth smling
after having its wonderful taste

The feel of the snow was so pure
so virgin
no chance of any impurity
any margin

Fallin directly from the heaven's heaven
blowing the tempest of all the desires that are craven
giving a tough time to all philosophical mavens
thinking how can sthing be so calm and so even

the vista was so light so poise so ascetic
that has surely made all the evils feel pathetic

it felt like these featherweight cotton balls asking newton ,with all the fire on
"where the heck is gravity you idiot you moron ?
what if the the whole world is believing you and going into gloom
i will remove every ounce of it with a white and light broom"

the feel in the hand was so soft so fluffy
even the cutest of the teddy of ur girlfriend feel scruffy

falling snow snowballing the blanket snow
making the vista so enthralling to enlarge any falling brow
so that the tight bow of the sight arrow
craves for more and more flow

My first experience with snow
It was just like a fairy tale
in which a fairy holding a holy grail
descends on earth wearing a pure white bridal gown
to bring a smile on every frown....:)

JET.......SET.......VROOM.......

VROOM vroom vroom ...........these guys with small red caps really take me to the world of MOTOCROSS MADNESS

JAMES BOND OF KOREA

Well in korea there is only one class of people which can break the traffic rules, these are delivery boys and that is why they are called JAMES BOND of KOREA. Their small two-wheelers are so much loaded with goods that even donkeys will beg for mercy. And after that their speed can easily give schumi (Micheal Schumacher) a thought on these guys' threat to his carrer.
There bikes are specially designed to get the goods fitted.And to save the drivers from having a snow bite driving in such dipping temperatures these bikes are fitted permanently with gargantuan gloves on the handles (Todays temperature -9 degree celcius).

So about these guys the most peculiar thing is they are typical "DILLIWALAS" where you have to watch for them and take utmost care to not to be within their reach.
Traffic rules...HA...HA...HA what a joke they are all ..."COLOR BLIND", it seems.
Moreover I being very much familiar with " Dilli Wala Mentality"think that these guys must be thinking that "if everyone else is thinking why should "I" ? KOREAN GAME THEORY GUYS "

A DEVELOPED CAR OF A DEVELOPED COUNTRY

Cars are less expensive, more sturdy and laced with all modern machinery available in the market. GPS is a must out here as there is such a labyrinthine of roads that even a local korean can get lost(well a "bit" exaggerated but only "BIT").

NEWSPAPER
Newspaper mostly contains news about measures and ways to adopt as to how to ease tensions between north and south korea. In India we see such news only when 26/11 happens, and that too turns out to be a political melodrama. no concrete results.
The crux of the point which I want to make is even if they fail these guys keep trying, trying to make peace with neighbours, thinking about ways as to what aids can be given, as what measures can make the northern counterpart back on track.

Let me illustrate this "NEVER SAY DIE"attitude by a very interesting thing which I noticed out here.
POLLUTION CONTROL....A REALITY
To control pollution and to manage parking and traffic these guys have devised a fantabulous way. They have made a rule that you can not park your vehicle on the day of the week with which your car number ends and + or -5 days after it.
IMAGINE JUST LEAVING YOUR CAR FOR TWO DAYS IN A WEEK What benefit it can offer
1) Pollution control
2) Parking Control
3) Health control as those two days you have to come walking or by cycle.

so not just talks like the COPENHAGEN SUMMIT but some actions need to be taken.

These guys have taken utmost care in building their city. And keep in mind guys, this is that country which is still on war officially and had seen tough times till 60's.
All roads are 8 lane. All buildings are so well planned and they are designed with utmost finickiness. Each and every minute details are taken care of, to illustrate :

1) The lights on the floor of a building are opened only when someone steps on the floor(example of Technology saving Resources)

2) Sirens are installed on the outside of a underground parking so that pedestrians get warning of incoming cars

3) CARS (Except JAMES BOND's) are told to respect PEDESTRIANS.

4) Free fitness instruments installed in the parks living perfectly upto the adage "Sit mens sana in corpore sano "

5)Despite of being a earthquake prone area this country houses some of the highest skyscrapers and not only the skyscrapers all the buildings are compulsorily made earthquake proof.


and the list goes on .....

There are many things that could be learnt from here......


Sorry guys I couldn't upload photo because, as commented by some experienced guys(;)),  I didnt get the weekend and have to work both days.

soon they will be coming .....I am expecting snow soon here till then .........keep enjoying....

MUNCH MUNCH MUNCH.....

Today I visited Samsung's office canteen and had some hands on... sorry... eyes on korean food. As I am a ovaterian so I had a real tough time with my vegetarian food getting it thorough my alimentary canal.Then something came to my rescue ....It was kept on my table besides me.

KIMCHI

Yes it was called Kimchi. Indians call it in their own dialect as "KOREAN ACHHAR".
Well as my habbit goes the thing which I like I have to know it fully. But But But there were all korean around... oh my my then I have to play my toughest game of dumb shell arts with one of them who knew some english words (THANK GOD!!!!!!!!!)well I don't know how I was successful in asking him "What is this?" He replied "konchi konchu something something". Well I thought now this is gonna be tough. I picked up the bowl and used my hand gestures and asked him. He exhaled a really sighed breath giving a peculiar korean "aahhhhhhhh". I thought it worked. Then he said it is "CABBAGE Kimchi" . I said ok I didn't have the guts to ask him how is it made!!!
Fortunately I spotted an Indian there.... gr8 goodness!!!!!. I asked him and he expalined me that it is the korean achhar. I did a bit more digging and found its recepie. So ladies get ready to prepare kimchi :)
First u take lots of red chilli, garlic, onion and all the Indian spices like salt, cinnamon seeds and stuff and make a paste, then take cabbage cut it into long peices and apply the paste on each peice seperately and put it into a six feet long pot made of porcelain and forget it for 6 months.

Then eat and serve it with only non spicy boiled food "BIMARO KA KHANA" as we say in India. It will taste like AMBROSIA. Really guys try it :)

SPOOFY SPOON and DRACONIAN VEGETABLES

I dont know what is wrong with these spoons, they are elongated as if it is just for holding and not for eating stuff with it. They are a foot long seriously. I don't know wether they wanna play cricket with it or what?
Onion is a size of a Dragons eye and Carrots are size of Dragon's tail and Cucumber is like Dragons hands and Fruits.. oh conventional fruits are tasteless just like Dragons feelings.

Well some fruits are tasty. One I had was something like mango but I don't know the size as I was served chopped.
I dont know what makes me compare this korean Vegetables With Dragon :O ....I guess you know it... :)


VEG or NON VEG ? SORRY GUYS WRONG QUESTION CHICKEN or NON-CHICKEN

Yes the question of vegetarian or non vegetarian is really "Error 404 Page not Found!!!!".

I went to grocery shop and hunted for some vegetarian things voraciously but was unable to guess which one to pick, as on packs of everything it is written in Korean and as I have already told you have to be really good in nursery games to device ways to use your hand gestures to ask a question to a Korean.
So I picked some bread and milk and returned back as even noodles contained chicken
well CHICKEN and NON-CHICKEN "PAGE FOUND AND RENDERED WITH FLYING COLORs" well to cut the long story short I don't think they have left any animal that has not been used to flavor their savory buds. Well one animal i can think of ....."MAN"!!

Culture is different, agreed and accepted, nothing good nothing bad but just DIFFERENT ,but humanity should prevail..............
Well that is what I feel ....will keep updating...Photos arriving soon as TGIF(Thank god its Friday) is approaching ... TC

LESSONS TO LEARN

It has been two days of extraordinary tryst with korean culture.And i must tell you there are several lessons they carve for the world to follow .
SUWON and SAMSUNG
We (me and my seniors) reached a elctronic passway system and i out of inquisitiveness asked about Samsung office.
he politely smiled and said "The Samsung office extend from here to wherever your eyes can see in any direction except backwards."
i was stunned by the gigantic structures and the ubiquitiousness of the campus. and after digging a bit further i found that most of these structures are built by Samsung construction company ."Yaani is jeb ka maal us jeb mein".Great job.
PEOPLE,DISCIPLINE and FITNESS
well beleive it or not i havent seen a single cop on the streets and to my utter astonishment not a single car contains a scratch. the conclusion is people are themselves so much disciplined that they just dont need a police department to govern the movement of the vehicles.
As a cop is rare sight a "paunchy " is also news here .They all are so damn fit that we in india spent hours working out to get this dream figure.I asked some locals (who knew english :))as to how come everybody is so desciplined as well as fit. well for the descipline aspect they attributed it two years of cumpulsary military training after the college and fitness they attributed it commuting by bicycle and running.yes guys these people run literally to office.
"Running in a suit-boot is so not unproffessional for them" .
WATER COOLER
The most hilarious and very unorthodox way of drinking water.
I went to my water cooler in office to quench my thirst but returned like bewildered owl complaining that there is only paid colddrinks booth in the office but no glasses near water booth so that we who came from outside and do not have glass of their own should look like a buffon drinking water with "chullu" and these guys call us form the "land of snake charmers".On seeing by blistering face my indian counterpart in korea accompanied very politely to the water cooler and handed be 5mm long "envelope".Yes guys it was a paper envelop.i was like what is it i dont want to send so small a letter.then he took one in his own hand blew it open and pour a small amount of water and drank it, i was there watching him awestruck.i shooked my head again in dibeleif and tried it myself .then i thought what ingenuity they have shown to minimise wasting water if you pour little u waste little :).Well not very convincing but this is what i was told .
i dont know what more new things this life hasin store for me ... rite now this is it.... soon will be uploading some pics... keep commenting guys....

First Day in "SEOUL(SAA'OL)"

WELCOME TO SUWON
Yes guys, I am in Suwon South Korea and today begins the long journey of three months. I would like every "non Samsung" friend of mine to watch South Korea vicariously through me because
1) It is not a tourist spot where you will ever want to come leaving so many better places on earth.
2) Samsung is the only company to give a chance to see this wonderful archipelago right now enveloped in a blanket of snow.
Well to start with,
ASIANA AIRLINES AND THE "BAKSHAN"
hahaha... this is for those who know the meaning of bakshans and for others kindly guess, these are a typical class of posh Indian Society.
These Asiana guys showed me a tough time dealing with the extra luggage .I have to shed some extra pound of my luggage at the airport, a real painful job I must say and that too twice... eeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee eeeeeeeeeeee .
Because of this initial tussle I have to sit apart from my team and this is how I got seated besides a Bakshan. She was not leaving a single moment of flaunting her wealth and frequency of her international travel. For eg"OOO ji HUMARA BETA TOH AUDI CHALA RAHA THA EK DIN POLICE NE PAKAD LIYA TOH MERE HUSBAND NE APNE HI KAMRE SE , (BREAK OF DISCUSSION), HUMARA NAA CHAR STOREY KA GHAR HAI AUR HUM UPAR WALE PE REHTE HAI,HAAN TOH INHONE DEKHA KI PAKAD LIYA HAI, TOH FIR HUM GAYE AUR REQUEST KARI AUR CHUDWAYA." and "MEIN BACHPAN SE HI APNI BETI KO BOLTI THI KI ITNE MAHANGI MAHANGI CHEZEEIN NAA KAHRIDA KAR KABHI BHI CREDIT CARD USEE KARNE SE PEHLE NAHIN SOCHTI HAI WOH AND SHE IS SO VERY RICH.........."and the saga of ostentatious display of wealth continued for one or two hours in the start and then in the end..... hahaha
coming to the services
1) Food was ok types
2) Drinks were free (Sounds so "down-market".But sorry guys first international trip hehhehe)
3) Air-hostess were so typical chinkis ( :( .Well they gave me a trailer of the movie as they knew english. :P)
well most of the time I slept in flight (motion sickness :( ).

SEOUL INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

After 4 hrs of slumber and 4hrs of listening to the richie riches stories we reached SEOUL(pronounced "SAA'OL") International Airort
Well "Gamsha Ammeen Ida" is the first korean word which I learnt, as goes the expression of air-hostesses I guessed it must mean "Good bye". Well, later I came to know that it meant "Thank You".
Well now here was the real movie, the trailer of which I have seen in the flight.

First thing I noticed about them are they are soo damn white. It is like someone has deliberatly covered them with a paste of milk and forget to peel it off later.. even the non fairer sex is so fair that fairer part of the other countries will hide there face in guilt.....
Well to sum it off I would say a litle photoshop editing is required of their nose and eyes and they can put any Indian men on fire with there lissome and swelte figure and such a fair colour.....
After that we crossed INCHEON bridge and reached SUWON-THE SAMSUNG CITY. First thing i discovered here is Samsung makes auomobiles too :P .
Yes guys yes, this may come to many including me as shock but here Samsung has tried its hand on every spheres of business, from road construction to electronics...from automobile to house buildings.. everything.
After that we were made to stay in a motel which is saving us from the damn chilling weather outside. It is -2 degrees. and this is the highest in last two weeks.
Well motel guys received us all with open arms and yes some of them knew hindi even. Then they handed us the keys with some envelop sort of thing saying it has toothbrush and STUFF ... Well I didn't knew what that stuff meant but after launching into the room and opening it I knew what exactly he meant by STUFF .Well it contained a pair of "Condoms".

The most painful thing you can think of here is calling your parents with a calling card. On one side there is blazing impatience inside you to call them of your safe arrival and other side these monolithic codes which can easily make your finger tips ache. Well but in the end the blazing desire to call them wins and a talk to them pacifies every pain of the body.

Well this is the most vivid descriptions I can think of ... will keep updating.