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.