Aaju Maa

It has been a week since I came here to Gumi. At first, I was a little more apprehensive about the place, but it seems I have adapted quite nicely. The most amazing thing during this trip is my friendship with a Korean couple, who own a store near the motel I stay in. Never before had I come so close to any Korean, rather I had no chance to come any closer. Ever since I came to Korea, I stayed in the Indian guest house in Suwon. You find a large number of Indians there (mostly from my company) and the attendants are from Nepal who speak good Hindi. So, never before, had I got the necessity or the opportunity to get close to some Korean.

Now, let me tell you something about this generous and kind couple. They must be in their early fifties or late forties. They run a convenience store (a grocery store plus a place to warm your eatables and eat) and a restaurant. I was introduced at the store by one of my friends. Though they don't speak good English, they speak enough for us to understand what they mean. Same is the case when we talk. With the mixture of some crude Hangul (Korean language) and plain English, we are also able to communicate with them.

A day of mine typically goes like this. I come back from the office to the convenience store for lunch. As soon I reach there, I am warmly greeted by AajuMaa (aunt in Korean). I get some pre-cooked rice there; get it warmed in the microwave oven. By then, AajuMaa brings some bowls. I usually have rice with pickles or some ready-to-eat curries. As usual, she would offer some egg-omelets or other stuff, for free. But being a vegetarian, I respectfully deny every time. Today, she offered me some sea-weeds, called kim. It tastes like "Methi ka Patta". The appearance is something similar to a green paper. It is wrapped over a table-spoon of rice and eaten wholly. Was quite tasty! The same is the situation when I go there for dinner. She usually sits near the table when I am having food and keeps on talking. She often asks me about my family and life in India. I somehow manage to reply back. Then I buy some cakes for breakfast and get back to the motel for the night.

I tried out at her restaurant today. I went there for lunch. I had some bhaap (rice), curry and fried kim. After eating pre-cooked rice for 4 days, it was awesome. After lunch, she dropped me at my motel in her car.

You feel at home when you meet such warm people. I feel lucky for the love that she bestows upon me. It seems very unnatural for me; how can you like someone in just 3 days. It's pure luck to meet such nice persons in life. I got an important lesson from them. You can win the hearts with your gentle and kind attitude. Works well with strangers too. Tested on me and it worked!!! These nice moments can bind you with people whom you have met for only 3 days and even though you never expect to see them again.

This was my first chance to mingle with Korean people and I had a nice experience.

Trip to Gumi

Gumi!!! The name scared me. When someone talked about this not-so-popular place, terror shivered down my spine. I had heard a lot of reports (from my friends who had been to that place earlier) about Gumi, but never, till yesterday, had I got the chance to visit the dreaded kalapani. It was on 8th of September, I set out for Gumi with one of my colleagues for some project work. The bus journey was nice. The luxury buses on the nice express-ways give you an enjoyable as well as comfortable ride. These buses travel at an exciting 120 kmph on the express-ways; though the speed-limit is 100 kmph. With a break of around 20 minutes at the highway-stopover, it took us around 3 hours to reach the Gumi plant. After getting the security clearances, (tell you! the security is really very strict at Gumi, usual to a fabrication plant) we headed towards the building, where I was supposed to work during that trip. While entering into the campus, I had got a Visitor Card. I had to get another Visitor Card for that building. Now, that may seem a little cynic, but that is the level of security they have. Unless you are authorized, you cannot enter that building. It took me another 5 minutes to complete the protocol and get inside.

The workplace was a large room, with straight-lined cubicles. It was sort of an assembly-line unit, quite different from our usual block-like cubicles. A large number of my team-members were already present there, so I didn't feel out-of-place. Setting-up the environment didn't take much time. So, more or less, change of work-place was not an issue. It was all the same.

As an Indian vegetarian, food has always been a problem whenever I visit outside. Frankly speaking, in Suwon also, I have got only 2-3 places to go out and eat. So, when it was time for lunch, I was just optimistic to get something to survive. Thanks to God! I got rice and some dish with sweet corns. I completed the dish without even talking to anyone. Similar was the case during dinner. Better, I won't talk about it any further.

I met a few more Indians at the Gumi plant; actually they were working on the same floor. One of them was staying in a motel near-by. I opted to stay in that motel. I had pizza in the night (nice and heavy) and booked a room in "Top Motel". The room as well as the bed was pretty large to be called a single-bed room.

With a good sleep and a bath, I was very fresh in the morning. With the help of my friend, I completed all the protocols of getting the security clearance. Now that we were a group of Indians together, we planned to go out for lunch today. With a nice company of my Indian friends and my team-mates, I am not having any bitter experience of Gumi. We had two sweets' break at work today; those rice-cakes were good. Now that, my work here is over and am going back tomorrow, I am feeling even better today.

Wauwoo Jhinsa

It was another summer morning in Korea. As usual, we (me and Sachin, my roomie in the Guest House) planned to go for an outing. It was decided that we would be visiting WauwooJhinsa, a Buddhist monastery.

We started off little late, had a good breakfast and then headed towards the Suwon Metro Station. We collected relevant information from the Tourists' Information Center, situated near the Suwon Metro Station. We had to take one bus to YongIn and change for WauwooJhinsa there. The frequency of the buses to YongIn was very less, had to wait for almost an hour to get the bus. From Suwon Metro Station, it was an hour's journey to YongIn Bus Terminal. YongIn is not as developed as Suwon. It is more like a small town, away from the city. This was the first time during our stay in Korea that we were outside city limit. The experience was a mixture of adventure and confusion. We were really very excited to see the common man's Korea, but at the same time, sensed helplessness with the thought that hardly anyone understood English there. It took us almost 30 minutes to figure out bus number. With all these troubles, we reached WauwooJhinsa at around 4:15pm, a good three and a half hour after we left the guest house.

WauwooJhinsa, the land of Buddha (not translated), is quite a sight. It is surrounded by thick forest in all the directions. The entrance was marked by a big 'head-only' statue of Lord Buddha. I don't have exact figures, but it must be around 20 ft tall. Between the entrance and the statue was a small pond with colored fished swimming freely. Few meters ahead, we saw a small pond with a good number of lazy turtles. We got to see a Sleeping Buddha temple. Though I don't have much knowledge about Buddhism, I felt a sense of calmness when I saw His face. It was definitely one of the best moments in Korea. There were also a few more temples in the vicinity. The view from the highest point of the monastery was very beautiful, a temple in the midst of a thick jungle. There is also a museum with Buddha statues and old books. One more thing I would like to share is the way Indians were treated there. People were very happy to see us there, as if someone from God's land has visited that place.

The return journey was less troubling than its counterpart. We met a nice couple who were generous enough to provide us a lift unto YongIn bus station. Luckily, we found a bus bound to Suwon blowing its horn. In the bus, we realized that we had last taken food during breakfast that morning. I had got some biscuits in my bag, which vanished as soon as it was noticed. We dropped down at Carrefour and took a cab to the guest house.

Bangalore to Seoul

I started from Bangalore on 25th of May. Couldn't get direct flight to Singapore, so had to fly to Mumbai to catch a flight to Singapore. So, it was like Bangalore-Mumbai-Singapore-Seoul. The flight to Mumbai was scheduled at 8pm. Due to bad weather in Bangalore; the flight got delayed by an hour. Reached the Mumbai International Airport at around 11pm. The check-in procedure for an international flight starts 3 hrs prior to its departure. We were lucky that we did not have any problem in checking-in the baggage. Then rushed through the immigrations and customs officials. When we reached to designated gate, the boarding process had already started. Had it been another 20 minutes, we would have surely missed the flight. We were almost on the edge.

Bangalore to Singapore flight was a much better one. The infrastructure provided by Singapore airlines is definitely better than that provided by the Thais, the one I traveled last with. Every seat had its own display system, with Audio/Video Broadcast (Streaming/On-demand), Games and News facility available. Watched Hulchul on-board. The flight had also got an Indian menu, unlike Thai counter-part where we had only continental food served. Enjoyed the food. It was a 5 hrs flight, so got enough time for a small nap too.

My experience in the flight from Singapore to Seoul was similar. It was a 6 hrs flight. In all, I was flying for almost 12 and half hours to reach to Seoul, 4 hrs more than I flew last time in Thai. But the experience was much better.

After collecting baggage from the airport, we headed towards Suwon, the place of our work, by bus. It took us around one and half hours to reach to the Suwon Bus Station. Pandey (Guest house guy) received my there and finally reached the guest house at around half past seven in the evening, that is 4pm in India. Got to see some of my old friends here, had a decent dinner and a good sleep in the night.