I am Review!

Saturday mornings afternoons are a bitch. I’ve done nothing interesting during my free time since my last post other than watch movies (and going to office, and playing Quake, and… other private stuff thats not blog worthy ). So here’s the list (in random order) and my two cents:

City of God: (10/10) The best movie I’ve seen in a long time. The reason I liked it so much is that it is so absolutely different from anything I have or will ever see/experience in my entire life. Guns and drugs in the hands of little kids, unbelievable! makes me wonder what all the adults in the slum are doing… But what a story! Absolutely Legendary! and its based on a true story too.

3 10 to Yuma: (6/10) This I watched just now. It has brilliant performances by Crowe and Christian Bale., good direction too. But I gotta say, it has a very sloppy storyline. It is apparently a remake of a 1950s movie of the same name. I would only recommend it if you like the actors a lot.

Shoot ‘Em Up: (7/10) I wanted to watch this because of the repeated trailers I used to see of this movie on Zee Cafe. and of course, Monica Bellucci. I knew what to expect, so I enjoyed it. Full of Rajinikanth-equivalent action by Clive Owen, but entertaining to watch. Chamak! that’s what I call it. Gun fights while skydiving, I guess thats first. Strong dialogue. If you’re itching to see some action and guns, this will deliver!

Stardust: (7.5/10) A strong rating on IMDb made me watch this. Magical shit. The best part about this movie was watching Robert De Niro perform! Man, I’d never seen this side of him.. or rather I never knew there was this side to him! I was laughing my ass off. I can’t believe that the same man who played Don Vito Corleone would one day play this role. I am impress. Michelle Pfieffer is so hot, and then all of a sudden she turns into an ugly w(b)itch and looks scary! That effect is similar to the bathroom scene in “The Shining”. Other than these, the movie is not special. But it is at-least fast moving and doesn’t bore you.

Fountain(again): I just can’t forget this movie. The stunning visuals, the clever direction and camera tricks, the brilliant Hugh Jackman, the lingering music(as always), all these leave a very lasting impression on my mind. This movie has a very strong flavor to it, but I just can’t exactly point out what it is. I particularly can’t forget the sequence in space with that tree and the music that accompanies it. Darren Aronofsky knows, really knows how to make movies, but please somebody give him a decent coherent storyline. The only problem I have with this movie is that there is no clear flow of thought on what he expects the viewers to understand. There are too many loose ends in the parallels he draws between the 3 stories that are shown in the movie. But it is poetic and stunningly beautiful.

Chungking Express: (6/10) This Chinese movie is supposed to be one the top 100 movies of all time according to, who else, TIME. Well, I just don’t see it. It is random, and I don’t get it. It is a light, easy going movie which has two stories, both about love and such matters of the heart. The only thing I enjoyed was the song, “California Dreaming” which runs during the movie. Catchy song, that. It is watchable.

No Country for old men: (7/10) Now this movie is supposed to be all time top 250 on IMDb. It was very interesting thriller to watch. But the ending is not at all satisfactory. It is one of those lingering movies where the viewer is left to interpret what to make out of it. I couldn’t appreciate it. No Movie for young men like me??

The English Patient: (9/10) I had always thought that this movie would be one of those serious, slow, sober movies which would take a lot of patience to watch. But it was nothing like that. It was interesting right from the beginning. The love affair in the movie is portrayed very well. Definitely worth watching!

Infernal Affairs: (8/10) The Chinese original of “The Departed”. I felt much better about Bollywood after watching this movie. How, you ask? Well, for one, I didn’t know that Hollywood directors copied foreign movies so shamelessly, without even bothering to change the story. Sure, Martin Scorsese has jumbled up a few scenes and added one utterly useless character and changed the ending, but it sure as hell doesn’t make the story any better or more interesting! He so doesn’t deserve an Oscar for this! Coming to the chinese version, it is superbly directed. But I don’t like the story. Of course this story is better than Departed, but somehow I still cannot buy it. The way the cop boss is killed was too easy, how the rogue cop is never doubted and is promoted instead., not believable. Some of the most chilling scenes are when the 2 moles are talking to each other on the phone, when the good cop sees the envelope with his handwriting on it, and when the good cop almost catches up with the bad cop. I felt the story was too contrived, as if the story writer was forcing impractical things to happen so that he can show such chilling scenes to make it interesting. But it is one cool movie to watch.

SuperBad: (6.5/10) Now there are teen movies which are clearly funny, like American Pie, and there are such stupid ass movies, which just don’t make the mark. SuperBad misses the mark, but by a small margin. There are times in the movie when it is as funny as Pie, but then it just goes downhill. It doesn’t have enough humor but has enough juice/booze to make it interesting. Watching those retard cops and their dumb jokes was the worst part of the movie. It could’ve been made better.

American Gangster: (8.5/10) What a movie! Again, based on a true story. It moves from a district in New York City to poppy fields in Nam. One hell of a movie! Denzel Washington at his best!

An Inconvenient Truth(again): (9/10) Also called, “How to convince people”. Al Gore does have a point. But thats not the point. How he points it out to you, that, my friend, is the point. Now at what point did you get confused?

I am Legend: (7/10) Great Acting by Will Smith, great direction, chilling to watch zombies coming out of the darkness, New York looking like a ghost town, etc. The best scene was with those zombie dogs waiting for the sun to set so that they could attack Will Smith. And also, the one where he kills his dog. The second half turned out to be disappointing, because it ended so abruptly. Worth watching once. only.

Last, and of course the least, (how I’ve always wanted to say that!! :D) I would just like to mention the names of those movies which don’t deserve to be reviewed by me, coz they suck. High Fidelity (LL/10) and Taare Zameen Par(LLLLL/10). uh huh. That’s right. You heard me.

Operation SeineKumaarr!

Another success!

All the planning and effort didn’t go waste, after all.

Thanks for the post, sudhaam.

Here is the post.

Kumaarrs in Mullaingiri!

The Destination: Mullaingiri - Bababudangiri - Kemmangundi
The Date: 30th Nov, 2007.
The Boys: Anantha, Sandy, me, Rohit, Ranjan and Sudhaamshu

Mullaingiri had been explored by friends before and was highly recommended. Rogay took, or rather was asked to take initiative and find out details of how and where. We didn’t even book the bus, so the Plan, as one kumaarr put it, was not to have a plan! We met at the Bus Stand in Majestic at 10p.m on Friday, the 30th of November. We had a choice between the Volvo bus(Rs.260) which left at 11 and the red dabba bus(Rs.135/- only) which left a little later. We obviously choose the good ol’ Red bus. Found comfortable seats, chatted for some time, Sudhoom narrating his new found ‘passion’,(sumnirodu) and for the first time, Ranger was sleeping on the bus. We slept after a while, and woke up again in the middle of the night at a rest stop. We had hot ‘mensinkai bajji’(made Ranger’s taste buds singe) and some tea. We finally reached Chikmagalur at about 5.30 am, when we(Ranjan) realized that it was the birthday of K3 Zurich Kumaarr. Called him up and each one of us wished him on the phone. Then we got into a nearby lodge, and got ready by 7. The motel guy had already arranged for a taxi to take us to “Sarpandari” gate, which was where the trek was to begin. Anantha had brought a professional looking Canon Digicam with him. He practiced his 12x zooming skills as we alighted the taxi. After buying some water, frooti and bread, we were off along dusty bombed-out roads(was there a WAR here recently? ) , contrast that with the scenic landscape of the Western Ghats.

We reached the ‘Serpentine Gate’ by 8am. Thus began the great climb to Mullayanagiri, the highest peak in Karnataka. There were absolutely no leeches around, but only dry grass, which was quite prickly and got into my ‘running’ shoes. The climb was not too steep, the able guidance of our gang leader, Vasco da Dhaama, made us lose our way on more than one occasion. Some ‘cabaret’ by Ranger, and we would be on the right path again. We rested on the grass half way up, had some bread, with Jam too, thanks to Jam Dhaata kumaarr, and took some ‘Sandalwood’ poster type Pics, and started again. The incline got steeper now. There was a small idol of Basava and shade where we sat for a while again, when Dhaama went into Pro-wildlife-photographer mode, hoping that his ‘portfolio’ could add a bullet point in his resume. We also found some caves, where we found utensils used by the ‘cavemen’. I personally was hoping to take them with me and show them to the National Geographic, but others were thinking of making ‘maggi’ with it. Ahem. We left it alone instead and came to the top at 10 am, where there was a small temple. It didn’t seem much, being the highest point in Karnataka and all that. The view around was brilliant however. We spotted our destination, the BSNL tower at Bababudangiri. We visited the temple, asked people how long it would take to get there, transportation etc. , took some more pics, and started to our destination at 11.

The path from Mullayanagiri to Bababudangiri might seem like a simple route when you start out, but as we found out, the damn hill’s a mirage! We could see that there were a couple of hills in between, so we’d have to go up and down a coupla times, but damn! There are far more hills in between and far more distance to cover than what it looks like! Add to that the ‘estimate’ given by some dude at Mullaingiri that it would only take two hours! It took us four! But the trek was fun. We were walking right along the edge of the cliff! And there was no proper path, which added to the fun. But it was mid afternoon and very sunny and were were really tired at the end of it. We sat down next to the BSNL building in the shade(which is COLD though the sun is out!), ate banana chips, biscuits and finished all the frooti we had. We were really hungry by now, so went down to some tourist spot nearby where there was supposed to be a waterfall. There was no place to eat there. So, we got into an auto and went to a town called ‘Dattapeetha’. It was a shanty little town. Apart from one small temple, there were a few shops there. We went into a hotel, had not much of an option, had some rice and sambar and came out. We visited the temple/mosque, didn’t get the funda behind it. We negotiated the price for the taxi to take us to Kemmannugundi (Rs.700!). En route, we were blessed with the opportunity to see the shooting of some kannada film song! Bless whoever took these pics!

The road from Bababudangiri to Kemmannugundi is non-existent. What there is, seems to be a jungle path created by a stampede of mad elephants. The driver was chatting with his friend and was reluctant to apply brakes, and we got our heads banged against the ceiling! Funny how head banging isn’t fun during such times. We finally reached the guest house in Kemmangundi. It wasn’t easy finding the dorm we ended up in. (Thanks to Michael!) We freshened up, devoured dinner in the only hotel closeby. It was cold as the devils heart that night.(Always wanted to say that!) We curled up under the blankets as soon as we got back to the room, and started chatting. We chatted for a while (and thus The 2.25 funda was Invented!) and gave in to sleep(in mid-conversation) by 10. We went to shanthi falls/z-point the next day early morning, took a lot of pics (Indian Emblem shtyle apparently!)

Now Don’t ask me where the Lions are, ok?

and had some lousy breakfast at the forest guest house. After packing up, we caught the 10.30 bus from Kemmangundi to Kallathgiri falls. Kallathgiri falls isn’t big, there’s a temple right next to the waterfall, which was quite crowded, so we went behind the temple and found another place which was relatively secluded. The water was cold and the small waterfall there powerful though not high. We changed, discovered Sudhaam’s potential to become Ganesh of the Mungaru Male fame

Onde Ondu Saari…, Kanmunde Baare!

and caught the bus to Birur. We also got to watch a Ravichandran movie in the video coach on the way. We wanted to take the train back to Bangalore, so walked to the Birur Railway Station, booked tickets, ate idlis and drank Maa instead of Elneeru(how artificial! :D) and found comfortable seats on the train. We chatted all the way back to Bangalore, about Vacheron Constantine and such new pseud aspirations of Sudhaam. We reached Bangalore at 8.30 and got down at Yeshwantpur station. The familiar sounds of Blaring horns and the stink of pollution welcomed us back once again into the ‘Desert’ of the Real. The “Quest for 2.25″ and “Sumnirodu” will forever remain ‘Etched in Memory’!

Week 6 & 7: Mojo in Jeju!

My best tour in Korea by far! It all began a week before, during lunch when an Indian employee here, Thomas, told me that they were going on a vacation to Jeju Island during the coming Chusok holidays. I asked some friends if it would be worth going before I jumped on board. 4 of us, Dharma, Nelson, Thomas and me. The trip was from 22nd september(sat) to 26th sept(wed). 5 days of vacation. The estimated approx cost was 200~250$.

Sat, the 22nd - We left from Samsung Gihyeung campus by bus to a southern port in Korea called Mokpo. The bus left at 1.45p.m. It usually takes 4 hours from Seoul to Mokpo by road, but due to the holiday season, it took us 7. Bad traffic, we’re talking about 6 lane expways, with slow moving(40-60kmph) traffic! I was hooked to the ipod, and slept most of the way. The countryside was beautiful. We reached Mokpo bus terminal, where it was raining. We took a taxi to a part of Mokpo close to the ferry terminal, where we found a decent hotel for 50KW. Spacious room, computer even. Went out to eat, roamed a lot, couldn’t find a good place, even Lotte Mart was closed. So had to go a long distance to a crowded street. There were lotsa pubs and restaurants there. We settled for pizza, where Brahma, who knew Korean very well, explained to the waitress what “VEG” is. He finally ordered a “veg” pizza with pepperoni. But little did we realize what a contradiction that was. After we had eaten a slice, Brahma realized that the pepperoni was meat. Ahem, I thought I didn’t care, but once I came to know about the meat, the pizza started tasting baadd. So, I had to remove the meat pieces and eat the rest of the pizza. Pepperoni is pork/beef/ slice(sometimes goat/fish/turkey too). No wonder the waitress found it confusing to understand what a veg pepperoni pizza is… We went back to the room walking all the way, slept around 12.

Sun, the 23rd - Got up at 7, and we were out of the room by 8. Found a taxi, and arrived at Mokpo ferry terminal at 8.30. Bought the already reserved tickets, got some chocolates and biscuits for breakfast. Got into our ferry, which was quite huge.

The weather was perfect.., cloudy, windy and moist. The ferry set off from the dock right on schedule, 9.10a.m. There were looots of pics taken, the view around was nice, ships of all sizes, the town of Mokpo and many islands and lighthouses. Once the ferry picked up speed, there was a strong wind blowing on the deck. I spent a long time on the deck, Spent some time inside the ship, there was some restaurant inside and lots of arcade game machines everywhere. These korean kids are obsessed with these and I was surprised to see so many of them playing lame old outdated arcade games. There were even computers with slots for coins from which one could play some stupid game which looked like aoe! And half the people were sitting inside the ship sleeping in the halls. Towards the last one hour of the trip, it started raining and the weather became quite cold. Everyone left the deck. I couldn’t hold myself back, I was the only one standing on the deck and got drenched in the rain. The wind was really really strong too. One bone-chilling experience. I had to go back in and change my clothes. When we got down from the ferry at Jeju-si(1.45 pm), it was still raining slightly in Jeju. We found a taxi to the bus terminal, thanks to some friendly policemen. We had our lunch before getting on a bus. Lunch was Korean, something called Bibimbap. It is like sizzling rice, only different masala and vegetables. It wasn’t spicy, but tasted good bcoz i was very hungry. We got into the bus to Hallim Park from the bus terminal. After an hour, we were there. The place had a steep entrance fee of 7000Won. The park was quite big, and very green. There were a couple of Volcanic caves, that was really cool. There was also one Indian Peacock! The Bonsai Garden was also interesting to see. I bought some souvenirs at the shop and we headed for the beach close by. The beach we went to was not a proper tourist spot, it was deserted. We waded around in the water for a while, took some pics and left. We took another bus to Seogwipo, which is a city in the south end of jeju. We had already booked a room there, just had to get there. The room was brilliant, right next to the sea. Amazing view. Quite big. It had a small kitchen and 3 balconies. Impressive! We freshened up and headed back to the city(thanks to the lift given by the motel owner, a friendly lady). While searching for quite some time for a good place to eat, I found a nice bakery where I bought some cake and bread for later. Finaly, we went to some place famous for Bird meat. there was no chicken there I guess, so my friends ordered duck meat. Ahem.. they also served rice and some sidedishes with it, so I had to stick to that. It was BAD. But I was hungry, so ate something. All the time, I was really waiting to eat the bread and cake I had with me. I devoured most of it right after we left the ‘bird’ restaurant. We went back to the room, and took a walk to the coast. There was no beach there. It was like a small harbour for boats. We chatted for a while, my friends finished their beer and we headed back to the room and slept. We had a big day coming next and had to start early.

Mon, the 23rd - The plan for the day was to do the submarine ride in the morning, and head to the beach in Seogwipo and interesting places near by later. We took a taxi to the submarine place and booked tickets. After waiting for an hour, we got into a boat which took us to the pretty Yellow Submarine.

It was a small sub. It took us underwater to the sea bed around 30mts down. We could see a few fish, but nothing much. Then there was a diver who came around the submarine. He had food with him and all the fish gathered around him. He came around to all the windows one by one. There were tons of fish around him, including one cool Sting Ray that he was playing around with. Cool! Then the sub moved close to a coral reef. Very colorful. I wasn’t sure if the sub trip would be worth the steep entrance fee, but in retrospect, it totally was! We had pizzas for lunch back in Seogwipo and then headed straight to Jungmun beach. There were lots of people there too, apart from a few penguins, a seal, a camel and a sea lion. We played around in the water for a while, watched some surfers try surfing the low tide, and a few bikinis. There was obviously a shower place next to the beach where we could wash up. We then went to a botanical garden after that in order to see the pretty red bridge that we could see from the road the whole day.

We instead saw the French garden, japanese garden, glass house, etc. Not bad. But we just had to cross the bridge, so found out that the place next to the botanical garden was a waterfall, which was on the other side of the bridge! Yippee! The waterfall was ‘natural’ this time. We then went to the city to an american restaurant this time. We had some pasta-like thing which was quite good. When we returned to the room, I went alone for a night walk alone while my friends went to the sea-side for a beer. I took a deviation from the main road into a deserted road. The lilting music of Led Zepp, the pleasant evening weather and the adventurous mood lifted my spirit. Soon the path became very dark and a little scary. Half way along, a dog started barking like crazy. It was unnerving. Also, when I crossed it, I realized I couldn’t walk back coz I already knew it would start barking again. So here I was in some unknown street in some unknown city in a faraway island, of which I hadn’t even heard of a few days back, taking a walk in an ungodly hour of the day! I was going places I had never been to before, even in my head. I walked like crazy for quite some time, scary at times, feeling courageous and adventurous at times. I realized then that I didn’t even know the name of the hotel where I was staying, didn’t even have my wallet which had the phone number of my friends. Super. After about half an hour, I circled and got back to the hotel, and joined my friends who were just about done with their beer. Man, was I glad!

Tues, the 24rd - The best day of the best trip! The plan was to climb Halla-san, the highest peak in South Korea. We got up early hoping to catch a taxi, but since it was the day of Chusok, we called for a taxi. I learnt to make omlette for the first time in my life. We packed soon, left the room key on the door (coz the landlady also was on holiday that day) and waited outside for the taxi for a half hour, to no avail. So we went to the nearby police station and asked for help. The friendly neighbourhood cop took out his car and gave us a lift to a nearby bus-stop where he said we could find a bus to the mountain. We thanked him profusely and waited for the bus for another half hour. By now, my friends were starting to have second thoughts about the trek, but I was insisting on going to Halla. Just then, the bus arrived thankfully and we got to the trekking spot. We left the luggage at the checkpost place, and started the trek at about 11. After an hour of walking next to the road, we came to the rest stop from where, there was no road but only a path for walking. We re-fuelled, bought chocolates and started. I was too fast and enthu to wait for others. I was surprised to see really old people(60+ atleast) also attempting to climb the hill. Damn, these people are strong alright. The view was really cool all along the way, both of nature and of certain legs. Nice. However, I was a disappointed to find that the trip ended abruptly at some arbit point and the way up from there was not allowed for tourists.

I waited there for my friends, took some patel pics with the help of some friendly korean female. After they had Noodles(Ramyan they call it). The way back was quite easy, I again rushed ahead. I reached the bus stop at 4.50 and the last bus was supposed to be at 5. The bus arrived exactly at 5, and my friends also came exactly when the bus arrived, luckily. We set off to Jeju-Si, the city where we had first when we had landed at Jeju, at the north of the island again. That bus ride was really cool. The rolling landscape and greenery around, the perfectly smooth narrow hilly roads and the pleasant windy weather made it a splendid unforgettable experience. We found a motel in the city quite soon, the room was quite costly for the small size that it had. We freshened up, went around to find that most places there were also closed due to the festival. We finally found some Korean food place where my friends decided to have food. Some soup thing was ordered. Just before I started to eat, Brahma told me that the white pieces in it were Octopus. Y.U.C.K. So I had to pick them out and throw them out and eat the rest of it. The soup was too pungent, raw and tasted yuck. I had an ice-cream outside, and that was dinner. We went to a beach closeby. It was deserted and calm. After a while there, we returned to the room. The trip was coming to an end. There was no plan for the next day. We just had to travel back.

Wed, the 25rd - This day was mainly traveling. We caught the ferry back to Mokpo in the morning. The return ride was interesting however. The boat was much smaller this time, and as the journey began, we were starting to get bored. Me and Brahma were idly chatting away when an Indian looking guy came and started talking to us. He was a second generation South African Indian, who was now working in South Korea as an English Teacher.

He was all excited to meet ‘real Indians’ as he put it. Pretty interesting chap, knew many Tamil and Hindi words. He asked me what matherchod meant in Hindi. When I told him right away, he was surprised. I couln’t help feel sorry for him, I could see the lack of cultural identity and the confusion it creates in him. His sister apparently knew Bharatanatyam, though neither of them have ever been to India. He watches Tamil movies sometimes, it seems. Anyway, all this time there was another guy with his professional camera standing close. This part I still cannot believe. He is of Indian Origin and is from Guyana. I didn’t know where that was. He told us all about the Jim Jones episode and his cult and the Peoples Temple and the mass suicide and how that was the only thing that made their country popular!! Anyway, his story was that he has nothing to do with India at all. He said he’s probably of Indian origin, there were some Indian slaves who’d been taken there a hundred years back apparently. (He looked like Inzamam ul Haq to me)

He had moved to Canada, where he’d been working in a bank, which he found very boring, and so he’d come to Korea to become a school teacher!!! beat that! He was into professional photography, had a huge camera. After taking photos with him, we got down from the ferry, went to the bus station in Mokpo to catch the bus back. Nothing interesting here after. It was 10 p.m when I came to my house. Being really starved, I ran to Mrs. Park to get food, but it was closed. So rushed back, borrowed bread from neighbour and gorged it down like a maniac. My friends came back late, they’d gone to an Indian Restaurant closeby, called Mayuri. They’d obviously had a boring holiday, I thought smugly! Anyway, what a trip, what a trip!

Week4: Lost In Seoul!

My fourth week here turned out to be fun, thanks to Saturday…
The weekdays were getting really boring, with our first assigned work completed, and us getting a little bored and impatient… Friday turned out to be especially bad. We had surprisingly bad luck that day. It all started with a lousy taxi driver. He already had a passenger in the front when we hailed it in the morning. We were stuffed in the back seat, and he came by a different route because of the other passenger sitting in front. He negotiated a high price to which we reluctantly agreed, but the worst part was that the asshole tried to increase the price half way through. He was also trying to make small talk in Korean which pissed us off even more… A day which starts like this only gets worse. Work in the office was really frustrating, more to my colleagues than me. They had to fight the whole day trying to install something, chat with our Indian colleagues to understand and help them with their issue, and it all ended up in a big confusion. A lot of effort was wasted. Finally, at around 8, we packed up for the day and came down to hail a taxi. The first taxi we wanted to get into had the driver talking on the phone. We got impatient and went to another one, by which time the first taxi guy was done talking. So we got into the second taxi and told him the directions. But this guy said he wouldn’t take us there. We were so damn frustrated. Now we had to get back to the first taxi again, and I’m pretty sure that the driver had a smug smile on his face when we got in…

Anyway, I knew that I was going to be really bored if I stayed at home for the weekend. So I’d made up my mind that I was going to Seoul on Saturday, alone. I woke before anyone else(10 a.m), got ready, recharged my batteries and left for Seoul.

COEX Mall:
The first place I went to was COEX mall, which is supposed to be the largest underground shopping mall in Asia! It was really big, and underground. It was quite crowded. But there’s nothing much a guy can do in a big shopping mall especially when he doesn’t want to shop… So, I thought I could go into the aquarium, which is supposed to be good. And I thought if the Koreans have some spared some fish and think they would rather see it on display than eat it, well, there’s gotta be something about those fishes, u know what I mean… But the price was a little steep and I thought, I won’t look back at my trip to Korea and regret not going to a friggin’ aquarium, will I?? So I ditched that plan and thought I would rather watch a movie. There is a huge underground multiplex in the mall, which was showing a few english movie out of which “I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry” was the only one that seemed famous. I had heard it was quite a good comedy and decided to watch it. I really hated the movie. Though it was a little funny, it was too gay for my taste, it seemed like the movie is a pro-gay rights campaign which is trying to get people to accept gays and gay marriage. It was too contrived. Watching Ving Rhames turn gay almost made me puke! I used to like him. And Adam Sandler sucked, more than the usual amount. Jessica Biel looked hot and made the movie bearable.

Anyway, right after the movie(around 6.30), I was headed for the Cheong gye stream which , I knew was going to be a place worth visiting.

Cheonggyecheon:
After having got down at a station which, I guessed, was close to the stream(yes, its that simple), I just had to walk a couple of minutes in an arbit direction(guided by my gut feeling, of course) to find the stream. I got down to it and started walking in the direction opposite to the flow of water coz i wanted to find the ’source’! The path for walking was very pretty, and there were little stones on the river at regular places where one can cross over to the other side. The places under the bridge were especially beautiful and there was even enough space for an art exhibition under one! The place is obviously considered romantic, which is why I mostly saw couples holding hands most of the way. The source of the stream has a beautiful lit up fountain and is a nice place for children to play. Considering that the project cost 900 million$, I started wondering if it was worth the money.(it totally was) Hmmm…

Hongik University:
I found a brochure from the travel desk near the stream which had information about places to visit in Seoul. The surroundings of Hongik University campus was supposed to be famous for the night life. So I decided to go there. I asked a couple of strangers for directions on how to get to that place. They said that I would have to take a train there and that they were on their way to the station themselves. As we were walking together, I found out that they were professional photographers, on their way to work. While we were talking, one of them took pictures of us, and I still find it hard to believe this, He actually opened his bag, got a small looking printer out, and got a print-out of the pic he had just clicked and gave it to me!!!! I even remember thinking if I was being screwed over by them while the CMYK colours were getting printed slowly on the miniature printer!!! These guys were really helpful, I found out One of them was a network Engineer for Cisco! And when I told them what I did, they were totally in awe!!! I mean, they started praising my company as if it was their religion. One of them even proudly showed me his cellphone, which was obviously made by them. They were really nice people, they guided me very well about where exactly I had to get down and all that. I finally arrived at Hongik univ. station. (And they didn’t ask me for money or anything for the pic. Phew! )

The tourist brochure had a detailed map of the places to visit near the Hongik University.
So I thought i would just follow it, and find all the good places. But looking back, the map was so screwed up, I wasted two hours to find out that the map was no good! But the place had a good nightlife, and the university was HUGE. I roamed around for a long time, looking for a good place to eat/party. I guess I know that neighbourhood pretty well now. I spent an hour again searching for the illusive McD which was supposed to be there according to my map. It wasn’t. I went to Starbucks(expensive!!) to have a coffee and a tasty chocolate mousse. I spent the whole night there, and returned home at 6 the next morning. The friendly strangers who let me call my roommates and the incident at the bar will remain ‘etched in memory’!

Thought for the day:

Being an advanced/developed country obviously doesn’t mean that Koreans are any happier than we are. So I keep wondering if it matters at all. I’m getting philosophical here. It doesn’t matter if we have good roads or not. Korea has great roads but has traffic jams too! and they have pathetic personal lives, what with their video games and alcohol binges… I guess its not such a bad thing after all that India ain’t so advanced. Or am I just giving a pathetic excuse?

Week2 & 3: Lull after the storm?

The past 2 weeks have been half as much fun as the first week, hence the delayed post…

Weekdays have been mostly work here. The people at work are very friendly. But what has been on my mind the most is the difference, on every level, between HQ and India office. A manager here is the most technically competent person in his team, unlike India where managers never even see C code, let alone have any other technical skills… Thats really unbelievable! And all the engineers here are really good at what they do, and are specialists in their respective domains… Thats another big difference.
Anyway, work here has been really satisfying. I am happy that I am making a difference now, however small.

Itaewon.
The 2nd weekend here, we decided to go to Seoul. To Itaewon specifically, coz we heard there are a lot of foreigners there, and it has a good night-life. So, on Saturday, after sleeping through almost the entire day, we left at around 7.30 to Itaewon. We went to a pub there, called Kings Pub.. Tasted Soju for the first and probably the last time… It was more like lemon flavored dilute alcohol solution. And I danced to some hip-hop music. which gets a little boring after a while. There were a lot of Americans in the pub. I think I saw 20$ worth of “50 Cent”s that day, if you know what I mean…
As they say, What happens in Itaewon, stays in Itaewon. We did a night-out there and returned the next morning…

Free Pizza.
The coolest thing happened a few days back..
Once every month, we get to have free pizza and watch a dvd movie in a big screen in the auditorium…
I thought there would be a big crowd of people there…
but i found out that this is only for foreigners in korea…
So there were some 100 people, with about 20 indians, many chinese people and some Europeans and Americans….
They gave us all free pizzas, with special veg pizzas for indians…
It was really good!!
After that, they screened the movie “Deja-Vu” dvd on a big screen…
It was a fun experience… the movie had a lot of time-travel bullshit sci-fi, but it was fun to watch.
I was wondering why this monthly meeting was only for foreigners…
I found out that the Koreans get a lot more, like musical nights, rock shows and such other events very often and that this initiative for foreigners is just so that we don’t feel left out!!!!
man, this Samsung office rocks!!
Here are some other quirks of our office…
>They play some pleasant music on loud speakers outdoors during the lunch break throughout the campus… (one day i heard “as long as u love me” ,bsb!!!!
>They not only water the plants and sprinkle the grass, they wash the trees!!!!!!!!! they sprinkle water on it using a tall weird machine…. so that the water falls from the top on to the trees, not from the ground….. ahem.
>They have a machine which pours water on the road when its hot! what for?? so that our shoes dont get hot when we cross the road??? i dont know…

Seoul Again.
I went to Seoul(Jong-gak station I think) one day from office to meet my senior.
I was alone, but I managed to get there easily. The place was like a business district. Very busy, lots of tall buildings around. I saw a beautiful stream there with benches on the sides all along the path, and small stones for crossing the river. It was a very nice place. I was told it was initially a road and had been converted into a river, part of a huge million$ government project! Ahem…
I also realized one thing. Dunkin’ Donuts makes great donuts!…

Beer.
I don’t really know whats so great about beer that people drink so much of it. But we went again, my friends drank, I watched, took pics. Isn’t that a lot of fun!

On Sunday, We went to the house of one Indian employee here, who is in our office. We made parathas and chatted a lot. The apartments here are Huge and the whole city is full of them. Its like a motif in urban Korea, you just can’t miss it. They all look similar from the outside. But apparently there are very different inside.

Thought for the week:
It seems to me that the reason India is nowhere near Korea has something to do with us siding with Russia during Cold War. Whatever prevented India from opening companies like Hyundai and Samsung must have been the cause, I figure.
If we had embraced the West more, maybe we could’ve been as advanced as Korea is today. More thoughts on this next week.

Week5: HikingKorea!

Inspired by my adventure to Seoul alone, I wanted to do something the next weekend too. During the week, I tried to find out if i could do some trekking here, and I found that, according to this website, Seoraksan would be the best place to visit. But since I didn’t have any company, I was asking people if anyone is going and was told by a friend that there is a club which goes trekking on weekends, called adventurekorea. I searched, and just as I had feared, the trip to Seoraksan had been done the previous week itself. Damn. So I just googled for trekking and seoraksan and found www.hikingkorea.com. This website said there was a hike to Seorak that weekend, on friday night. It didn’t seem too expensive. Contact mail id of a club member(Changdae Kim) was given on the site. So, i mailed him, got a reply same day saying I was welcome to hike with them. Well, that was easy. So, on thursday, I called him up and confirmed that I would be coming. And on friday night, left at 8.30 for the subway station from where the trek was about to start.(Hyehwa staion on line 4,Daehakro street station). I arrived there and met the gang. There were 3 Americans, and 3 Koreans for the trip.

Don: After initial introductions, I was talking to Don, a friendly American guy who, just 2 mins after I’d just met him, started talking about Indian food!!! He knew all about vegetarianism, he told me he had had Indian food once, that it was the best food he’d ever had. It seems he had gone to an Indian family’s house(his sister’s prof) in Philadelphia. He said he loved the masala dosas!! I couldn’t believe it. After this he told me that Indian food has the best spices, and that, though he eats a lot of meat, why indians do not need to eat non-veg food(bcoz of all the spices) and how our spices are the best and how we have been exporting spices to the whole world!!!
Damn, he just spoke my mind. I was shocked to see an American who knew and appreciated Indian food and culture so much. After that, I met Michael, another American, who didn’t know about Indian food and vegetarianism and I guess that made the whole thing real and believable.

Back to the story, we got into the rented van at 11.00, it was a four hour drive to Seorak. The initial plan was to start trekking right away, but had to be changed because it was raining outside. We got into a hotel room at 4.00 and got some rest. At 10.30 we woke up, had some noodles and kimchi and left for the hike at 11.00a.m. The weather was clear by now, and as we entered the national park, we saw a beautiful view of the mountains around and a big Buddha statue.

The hike was quite easy, there was a brook running close to the path, there were stairs inserted wherever the climb seemed a little steep, which was a little annoying, coz whats the fun in climbing stairs? but it was helpful in some places when there were bridges over the brook. After a while, we came to what seemed to be a Stairway to Heaven, as in, very steep stairs leading to the Mist Above.. well, a little exxaggerated, but see for yourself.

The climb was a little tiring, but, amidst the mist, we got to the top. The view from the top looked like this.

It cleared up a little after a while, but that was pretty much all we could see. We sat down for a while, had Don’s grapes, Steve’s dried mangoes, and some dry fruits. We even fed a little chipmunk.

After a while, we came down slowly, during which time, I had an interesting conversation with Changdae about Indian and Korean cultures. They were shocked to hear that I was a 23yr old virgin. Sigh. They were very interested to know about the caste system in India. They respect India a lot for Gandhiji and Peace and Religion. We then sat down at a hotel next to the brook, and while Don smoked his cigar, had some traditional Korean food and drank Makoli. It was bitter, and I didn’t like it. After a while, we went back to the car, went to Sokcho city nearby. There we took some pictures near the “East Sea” and then went to a hotel to have SUSHI! Thats right, I tasted raw fish(2 mouthfuls!! that too with a chopstick) for the first and hopefully the last time in my life. It tasted bland and was too chewy. While the others enjoyed it, I even had some soju. After this, they ordered some fish soup. I avoided the floating fish peices and took only the gravy, had it with rice. It wasn’t all bad. After we came out of the hotel, I found out from Changdae that the fish we had eaten looked like this.

Disgusting!! Damn, I was hoping it would atleast look eatable. But Changdae also told me that the uglier the fish, the tastier it is. ahem….

After taking a few more pics next to the East Sea, we started back to Seoul. We reached Seoul at around 10.30 and I took a subway back to Suwon.

Week1: Whatta place!!

My first week in Korea has been fun..
I came here by Thai Airways, it is supposed to be bad but I liked it because it was my first time.. Nothing special though.
The stops were in Bangkok and Taipei. Those airports were really awesome! Huge! (I hope Devanahalli Airport will be half as good some day.)
We landed in Incheon Airport in South Korea on Sunday evening…
My office there is close to “Suwon”, a satellite city of Seoul. Its an hour and a half from the airport. But the distance is far more than u’d expect. Awesome roads! not a single “road-hump” or pot-hole and till I reached my guest house, the bus stopped in just 2 traffic signals.
The weather is a little hot here. Worse than Bangalore. Reminds me of Surathkal. It seems it will get better in Sept. I hope it does..
The guest house we live in is run by Koreans, who also know how to make great Indian food. I’m shocked that the food here is as good as any good hotel in blore!!
The accomodation is fine. The room comes with a computer and internet at blazing speeds. I can’t believe the download speeds here. I could download 700MB in 40 mins.!!

Work: Samsung offices are HUGE here. There are lots of them spread around. The place where I work is as big as the entire Bagmane tech park, and the office holds the entire memory division, starting from Fabrication to software!
In office, for lunch, we have to take a bus to another Samsung office which serves Indian cuisine. The food is ok. Not as good as the guest house food.
The food that the Koreans eat SUCKS!! It stinks whenever we enter the cafeteria. Even my teammates who had thought they would try all kinds of food have stuck to Indian food after seeing their food. Its so bad.
The Koreans have a strange habit of brushing their teeth in the office. Some do it in the morning, but all of them do it in the afternoon right after lunch. Strange!

We went walking around the guest house the first day. On monday night, we went to a mall close-by called CGV. It was a small mall with a multiplex at the top. We watched Fantastic 4 and the rise of the Silver Surfer. It was not fantastic. It was arbit. And the only reason I watched it, Jessica Alba, was not looking pretty. It was 1 p.m when we got back home.

We went to Young san market on Independence day. (It was a holiday here too. Guess why.) That place is famous for its electronics market. We took a metro train there.(which is super efficient obviously) The market was right in the station! It looks like…imagine National Market in Forum Mall. Thats how it looks. I bought a Nikon camera. Lot of bargaining. But they can’t understand English, so we have to type the money on a calc.

And on saturday, we went to a shopping mall called Galleria in Suwon. It was like Bangalore Central, although a lot less crowded. The place closed down at 8.30 sharp!
Then we went to a bar and my friends had beer. I had french fries. (the only veg item on the menu). My friends said the beer was damn good, that it also tasted good, and kicked like vodka!
They had 5 liters. Hmmm… I had a sip. Yuck! as usual.
The bar gave us all free mugs as a gift. To drink more beers??

Thought for the week:
The Koreans started from scratch after world war II. And look at them now.
We’re not even close. Now tell me why, oh why, did we get left behind???
What the hell went wrong??
We discussed a lot about this. Bad government, politics, constitution, leaders?? or is it something about Indians in general that we cannot get asses to work hard enough??

I don’t have an answer.