about this blog

the idea of blogging perfectly suits me. i seem to have a lot of things to tell ppl. not necessarily discuss. mind u. and its obviously unfair to find ppl who are willing to listen to all those thoughts. this blog atleast gives the space to talk. and i am happy to be in a deluded enough state to believe that ppl read what i ve been writing. :)

About Google AdSense

Here s a thought about google adsense:

would it evolve into something as useful as "related links elsewhere on the internet" ? considering that the ad links they post over there are customized according to the page content.

P.S: thats how i landed on the Jesus page. fyi.

About Jesus

Here s an interesting piece about Jesus Christ i found along the way:
http://y-jesus.com/jesuscomplex_1.php

Some ppl say he s only a moral teacher. not a God himself.
There s a line towards the end of the essay in which an expert ridicules that stance. i liked the observation.
the gist of that is that Jesus claimed he was god a fair few times apparently. So, if he was not actually god, then how can he be a great moral teacher when he was lying or, was he in some kinda delusion?

An evening for Seoul searching!

I wonder whether i am in a "foreign" and "prosperous" country. Atleast the subway ride didnt convince me that i am indeed in one of the few "developed" economies of the world. The stench at the subway [though a flavour different from the one that u would come across in chennai/mumbai]. The general crowd behaviour. The random beggar inside the compartment. Even the guy who sells those nifty things during a train journey. An almost rickety ride through the shantier parts of the country. [though the reasons for the last one are understandable]. Atleast you dont find the compartments jam packed. Nor would you be able to find that sack-in-the-corner where u ll try innocently, to rest ur ass.
Some nice things that you would find are pretty females wearing 4 inch long "shorts". And a heterosexual couple expressing their attraction towards each other more liberally.
It is also interesting to notice the density of shops in general. Even the Suwon subway station includes a massive shopping mall. The under-ground tunnels used to cross roads are massive shopping mazes as well. perhaps thats all cuz of capitalism, prosperity, higher circulation of money etc.
Perhaps the best[most embarassing for me as well] part of the day was when we banged into a korean who spoke much better hindi than i. he apparently had come all the way down to delhi university to pickup english and hindi language courses for 6 months. nice and exciting to meet a person who can speak hindi in korea. even more exciting when u bring in a dozen sweet looking females into the picture. they seemed all geed up to try their hand at hindi when they saw us.and seemed quite liberal about handshakes. and hugs. :) they were promoting some international youth film festival happening in the adjacent movie hall.
we got a free ticket to a romanian movie. which portrayed life and times during that communist/dictator/both ceaucescu's rule. movie was quite nice. [even excluding the juicy teenage sex that was part of the movie :)]not necessarily refreshing.
What was nice to see while we were returning home at 11pm was that it looked as lively as at 6pm. [Perhaps livelier. Especially when i noticed a bevy of women , standing in front of Hotel Ritz, twitching their feet the moment they saw us :D] [ I slept as late as 330am. :) ]
As u would ve noticed, i am struggling to end it in a half decent way. So. THE END. Huh!

PS: Even a Nike Showroom in downtown Seoul which looked like a proper man utd(read park ji sung) exclusive outlet doesnt have named jersey's for sale :( they apparently dont have the license to print the names or something like that.

HwaSong Fortress:

HwaSong Fortress:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwaseong_Fortress

pix:
http://picasaweb.google.com/arunsdevine/HwaSongFort
caution: there ll be a lot of pix with myself in shades and all that.

left for the place in the afternoon on sunday. we were warned that that place would be nothing more than an evening walk. i went just to satisfy my dad's cries for me to "explore the place". which i am frankly not interested in. what with the struggles involved in communicating and the omnipresent korean stench. and what would u generally find in korea that u wouldnt find in india? some tall buildings. and some korean cultural heritage sites. neither of which i am interested in. erm. and some korean hotties. well there are truckloads of them in our workplace. (i have a biiiiiig crush on my team mate. hoping to tell her tomo. :P at some disneyworld kinda place. named everland. ). [and.... forgot to add. u get named man utd jerseys here. :) ].

nadeem bhai[cook, driver, lahore, part of the hotel "establishment"] gave us a lift to the fort in some kia motors[u would ve seen their names all over the australian open courts. its been bought over by hyundai i think.] vehicle. and someone crooning loudly. [ Himesh Reshammiya for all you ppl from mars. ] we were welcomed by a long line of wannabe amateur archers practising their art on distant targets. we couldnt give it a shot as we were a bit late or too early for that round of attempts. we thought we ll try after the "evening walk". didnt really happen. as we set off towards the fort. even the roads within the fort region have proper traffic lights! and a dragon train which took ppl around the place. from what i saw.. the kids were definitely enjoying the ride.

now to the fort. a couple of peak points. the sights seemed pretty good for a person cuz of all the tall buildings with a mountain range as a nice backdrop. [i am deftly ignoring the fact that the civilization settled in the proximity of the fort was a proper slum :)] a few hundred yards in and a dhobi ghat seemed to re inforce my perception of the area. well. it was just a gentle stream of water. kids splashing water. getting wet. all that. and then to the peak point which was probably the best part of the visit. i took some 3 videos of the view from there. splendid. u could see the whole city from there. [not much of the slums as well.]. [noticed a lot of indians there as well. u are never really far from one are u?]
we then proceeded to "namoon". suwon's commercial street. [all that i was looking for was a Nike store to get a named jersey. found two. neither had it]. a big maze. distinct stench. lots of cheap buys [1000 WON [~ $1] buys]. i couldnt really find anything that i d get in korea for cheaper than india.[perhaps that ubiquitous stick that koreans use to scratch their backs :P] my colleagues over here had suggested leather goods. nah. watches. not really. clothes. no way! ended up buying a handbag and a nice looking watch for ma. a funkyish watch for bro. a nice bag for dad to put all his documents in. 56000 WON.

before retiring to bed the same day, i had uploaded the pix of the place, and of the things that i d bought. sent em home. discussed the trip and the things with the help of those pix with dad and mom over gtalk. quality life indeed. imho.

Korean Diary

pix link: http://picasaweb.google.com/arunsdevine/Korea

obvious things noted:
prosperity
luxury cars
massive wide roads
driving on the right side of the road (first sign of american influence :P)
engineering marvels
tunnels. just exited one :)
korea is a country barely bigger than kerala. its gdp is bigger than india
that all korean males sport a clean shave.

less obvious things:
seoul doesnt have an intl airport of its own. its in a place called incheon
and thats the only intl airport in korea. (acc to my boss)
korea. note the missing "south" prefix
samsung makes cars. ya. cars. in colaboration with renault. RENAULT. there s a service center right opposite my hotel.
usage of "world best" and not "world's best". now i know where dipesh is coming from.
incheon is a mountaneous region.
loadsa construction/destruction/development happening in that place: deforestation. flattening of mountains.
all apartments look the same. i tried to draw parallels to ngv, blr. then realised things are like that everywhere.
its difficult to find ppl over here who can speak/understand decent english. keywords alone should be used. drawings and acting it out would be useful too.
korean notes are in thousands. why cant they just divide everything by 1000? :P coins are almost worthless.
i would love to explore the kind of influence the americans have tried to exert in korea. cuz this place is much less individualistic than india fyi.
here s a top secret about samsung hq: there are no floors numbered 13 and 4. the reason for 13 is obvious. whereas for 4. i ve heard two possible explanations. one is 1+3. the other is that the symbol representing 4 resembles something to do with death. if the latter is the reason, i dunno why they created such a script intentionally. the hotel where i am staying has a floor numbered 4 though. but the lift displays "F" instead. :)
the hq is almost like a township. its massive in area. and it also feels like a factory. probably cuz of the large number of ppl working in that campus.
the campus has a few basketball courts, badminton courts, a classy looking football field and what not.
though i havent found out the extent of american influence in korea yet (may be their english accent perhaps?) , one thing i am sure of is the indian influence at samsung.
the only non korean food stall at the hq is an indian counter. food is average though. and the cafeteria stinks cuz of the korean food as well. the korean cafeteria wash basin reminds me of a boys hostel in the morning. a bevy(i wanted to use this word. :) ) of ppl brushing their teeth/cleaning their mouths.
and there are atleast 10 indian guest houses around the place. most of them are generally occupied. whatever be the time of the year.
most of the korean females look good. atleast the ones in the company. and they dress well.
my korean boss has invited me to a K-League football match. whenever it takes place. he loves manchester united as well. though not as much as me. :)
talking about manchester united, there s a street named after Park Ji Sung in Suwon.
talking about Park, most of the koreans are named Park, Lee or Kim. Irrespective of their sex.
talking about koreans... they seem genuinely nice.

in a short span of time, i figured out that booze is the best way to know ppl here. :)

now to my hotel room:
the korean stench is distinct as i enter the room. its got a tv, dvd, fridge, a/c (no fan :( ), hot/cold drinking water, hair dryer. bath tub. condoms. and two channels showing porn. CONDOMS. PORN CHANNELS. and the bed looks tempting for gummalam. i heard that this place has a prominent red light flavour to it. :) no internet service in the "motel" i am staying at :(. but my original destination has it :). wireless as well.

p.s: i am homesick. i want to go home! thrissur that is. mwahuauahuah :(