Friday, May 18, 2007

Granted Wish

I am not sure who wishes for this; because i am half-hearted on it.
Since i just came back from a long break, i do wish to do a lot of things in the office.
But..
Another plan came in. I'll be in KL for the next 2 weeks.
So i will be seeing KL's buildings and cars soon.

thus i will prolong the next updates (esp. on the trip) to quite sometimes.

ok..now u can book my lunch times.
or tea-time, or dinner..can be considered.
so, who's first?:P

Wednesday, May 16, 2007

selamat hari guru

nothing much to say and update.
still tired after quite a long break.. just came into the office today.
went to south korea from night of 7th may till early morning of 13th May.
it was a good trip since i went there with good friends; went to different places and listened to view from different angles. get almost everything i want, so inshaAllah (unless everything is being paid and i was given pocket money) seoul will not be in my shortlist place to go in the next few years... anyway, being to a place where we are quite familiar does make a different.. :)

and for today.. i just want to wish everyone each and every single person who have taught me directly or indirectly, to my teachers who taught me to read and write, my ustaz & ustazah who taught me to read alQuran, to friends who taught me about life, to outsiders/foreigners in my life that make me learnt something, to my colleagues and my staff who taugh me to think, to the bloggers out there that keep on writting good stuff for me to read, think and practise; and foremost to Allah SWT for giving me the oppurtunity to have the knowledge - thank you and thank you and Thank You. AlHamdulillah.

to all teachers : Selamat Hari Guru. Happy Teacher's Day. May all of you and us too become good teachers for the future generations. Implant good things and teach good values to them, so that they will become wonderful great leaders in the future. InshaAllah.

:)

Wednesday, May 09, 2007

seoul 5

kali ini message bergambar sahaja.. a picture speaks a thousand words.. will update soon with long essay...


some of the side dishes eat with rice. the red coloured one is the so-called kimchi. different places has slightly different tastes of kimchi since preparing the kimchi has no standard measurement or compulsory standard ingredients except it must has cabbage, chili, and salt.












one of the cake (like cekodok) made from sweet potato (and milk and ,i guess) baked with peanut filling inside.


























snacks for the koreans. some crepe (kerepek) made from ginger and sugar. nice taste.

Amesyt factory...









Road in Korea.. View taken from (in the bus of course) a fly over




the trees along the way/highway.. even thou without leaves, they are still look beautiful. wonder how they would look like during spring & autumn. :D







Yangji, one of the place to play ski








bridge at the ski area









playing ski .. (:P very badly)










oh yes.. since i have not enough money, these are the pictures of sourvenires for you. choose which picture u like the most:P









another road in the city of seoul. look at the middle point road. they have no divider here, and u can make the u-turn just like that (i mean provided there is no car). see the U-Turn signed next to the white coloured car.










people crossed the road. most korean guys are busy working while the fruit of their hardwork are being enjoyed by the family.
p/s: it's a rule here for the male employees to provide the bank account of the wives for salary. heheheh





that's all for now..
and yes.. i am in korea (again?? oh my God.. ) but now not in seoul, outside the city visiting places like winter sonata shooting places (Namiseom Island); Autumn in My heart, Mount Seorak for film The King and The Clown.. etc etc.. err this time it's for the spring :P and yes i was offered to become part time tourist guide leader in Malaysia due to my experience here.. he he he not a bad offer, maybe i can come here the next 4months for the autumn season ;). Opss.. forgotten our planned trip to oriental country by end of the year.. maybe the next 10 months:D..
till then...

Thursday, May 03, 2007

Seoul 4


Pictures taken from my room.
(with closed window, of course)


Day 2
The night before it was snowing heavily. I caught bad cough and sign of flu. Cannot stand the cold; imagine I went to sleep with full attire � long wool sleeves (special attire you wore inside during winter); another long sleeves (you cannot wear this in Malacca during daytime, you are going to fall down due to the heat); winter coat; 2 pieces of long slack + wool slack; 2 pieces of socks � one ordinary cotton socks, another one wool socks and hand cover (sarung tangan?? Lupa la plak heheh). On top of that, the blanket/comforter fully covered my body. But still sejukkkkkk� i wore this special sleeping attire the whole nights there... huuhhu

I remembered to charge my camera battery.. only early of the morning on my last day i took few pictures from inside my room (and forgotten to take my room's picture). The room is quite small (if i can say it is really small..) , it is really like one room at home with attached bathroom except it is equipped with small kitchen.

By the time i stepped on the bus, my camera went out of battery again. Oh NO! How come this is happening again to me, scolding myself for buying that camera without properly checking it & scolding the camera attendant for selling me that camera (for i don't know whom shall i scold anymore), i switched of the camera hopping it will turn out ok later.

We went for a breakfast somewhere outside. Don't remember where.. Served in a buffet style, but obviously cannot eat much especially all the meat things, fried things. Saw few people took Char-koi, i also took few pcs. Tried to eat one, but just one bite and it tasted 'different' hehe so i took it out and opt for other vegetarians food. huuhuh Next days breakfast we ate at the hotel, so my main breakfast menu is fruits, rice with corn, salads and kimchi, and fresh juice/coffee for those particular days. uhuhuhhuh. btw i saw and ate a lot of vege that i never see before.

I saw people taking pictures, looked at them with those envy eyes.. uhuhu my camera. why why why.. it was then inside the bus i felt like checking the battery. And tada when i inserted the battery back, the camera was fully charge. Hmm maybe i have some kind of electricity inside me that able to charge back the battery.. heheh ok now with more pictures..
Reminder:
All the pictures taken are individual property. It would be much appreciated if you inform me if you have interest in any of the photos. Tak baik curi gambar orang tau.. :P

After the breakfast, we went to Presidential House.. The house of the President of Korea, the number one person there, second is the prime minister. The House is also known as The Blue House, because the colour of its roof is Blue - i forget but it holds some symbolic meaning in Korean culture and beliefs. The security there is strict, you cannot take picture just anywhere. They have restricted to certain area only or your camera will be taken. But we managed to take this picture before the guard asked us to move from that area. hehe so you can see that at the back of the blue house is a small mountain.

Photo of a few of the delegates at the Blue House Area


Pictures at the side of the road, Blue House

Next, we visited the National Folk Museum.

The Country of Korea actually is the merger of culture of 3 main kingdoms in the past. One of the Kingdom named Shilla Kingdom, the queen wore crown/tiara. The other 2 kingdoms had distinguished attire, but Shilla Kingdom's King and Queen attires somehow similar to most of the other features we saw in other kingdoms.
Korean culture values Knowledge; Creation of knowledge and preservation of Knowledge.

Picture here shows the steps to print letters and preserve the printed materials.


However, in the past only guys were able to learn how to write and read. While the girls have to prepare themselves to become a good housewives and mothers. Even they have separate learning places for the sons and daughters.


Replica of common people marriage festival.


Replica of common people who lives at the foot of the mountain, and main activities is farming.


The noble ladies attires inside the house
The greenish/blue dresses are noble lady dressed out attire. Notice they hide the face and hair when they go out. :) Reminds me of those Muslim noble ladies wore headscarf to distinguished themselves from the slaves, as the slaves did not wear headscarf.


Process in making Kimchi - a must to have dish for the Koreans; eat as the side dish (lauk) for rice, noodles etc. just like ikan masin, cencalok, sambal belacan, ulam etc. to the malays.

Next to the museum is Gyeongbokgoong - (Gyeong Bok Palace). Only part of the palace remains, the other was burnt during the Japanese invasion. There is one palace nearby remains untouched (not burnt) by the Japanese, it is declared by UNESCO as the world heritage. The palace name is Changdeokgung. The last King stayed there before he migrated to Japan and died there. So that is why Koreans has no more King. During the Japanese invasion, the crown prince at that time was forced to marry a Japanese lady and live in japan (i think in exchange of not hurting their people, so the crown prince agreed). This lady was particularly search so that she cannot pregnant the prince's child, but the Korean said the Japanese assigned was not-so-clever doctor. So she had a son. This son was living in Japan, cant speak Korean, continued his study in western and married to a western lady. But the Koreans doesn't like it, did not (do not?) want to recognize her as their queen and so they were forced to divorce. They were eventually divorced, and the last prince migrated to Japan.


The other royal families now lead the life as the normal/common people.
This is one of the backdoor to the palace






Different angles of the palace. Beautiful isn't it? If you can see, the snow is falling down during the time i took this pictures.

The palace from the backdoor; entry door from the museum.
to be continued...

Seoul Part 3

[1] My first Cupcakes


Who said chatting is bad? It is not bad at all.. heheh I was online in the middle of the night, when i saw Tauke Kek Cawan Kak Sity was online too. Chit-chatting with her about this and that, only to know she was baking cup cakes; while chatting with me.. huhuuh.




Wahh hebatnya kawan2 saya. Another cakes tauke in the group. In the end, the conclusion was because of that i received special cup cakes from her the next morning (yeah, provided i have to rush down to KL just to receive this special gift..eheh). Thank you very-very the very much kak sity. Muahhhs.




Here is the cupcakes for me!!








Those interested may give her a call. ;)


More of the cupcakes pic at http://sity29.fotopages.com




[2] Continue journey on day 1 in korea.. (bila nak abis da..)

Picture of a street in Seoul
(Rollie, this is my own photo, ok:P)






After the meal we went to the Seoul World Cup stadium. For someone who is not so keen in football, I think nothing much for me to see there. The stadium has setup boards on pictures of Korea/Japan final matches, shop selling souvenirs and yes, I found one big heater where it became the center of attraction for everyone. Heheh On our way here, the snow started to fall down. The cold wind strongly blew inside the stadium, made me (us?) unable to even put your hands out of the jacket. Thus, you can imagine how cold it was.

If I am not mistaken, there will only be snow when the temperature falls below 10Celcius (-10C). It was not supposed to snow anymore since it was the end of winter. But I think so many people in the busses were praying hard to see and feel snow; and their praying was granted. Nearby the stadium there is a booth, we assume it is a public phone booth but using cards. It looks sophisticated; until we cant figured out to the end how to use it:P. Nearby, there are also few public phones using coins. Now that we don’t even looked at it. (sorry, cant have the pic since my camera was not ok yet. Remember?).







(Picture of snows on top of the vehicles and on the road, after a heavy snowing on the night earlier)





After that, we went to Itaewon. By the time we departed from the bus, the snow was heavily falling down. I mean it was really heavy and everyone was like Hu Ha Hu Ha Yeah Yeah.. Well, a usual reaction from people who faces humid, hot and raining season through out the year:D.



Itaewon, a shopping district. This place is famous for two reasons; one because the only Mosque in Seoul is here and most of the Muslim’s communities are here ; and 2nd because (according to them) the US Army based is nearby Itaewon.

Since to my knowledge that the only mosque in Seoul located here, we were trying to look for that mosque. Unfortunately due to language barrier (most Koreans cannot speak English; and all Malaysians delegations there cannot speak Koreans:D); and ½ hour before due gathering-time we were informed that the mosque (they referred it as Muslim Temple.. err.. what to say?) was about 1km more. I don’t buy anything yet. (not planning to buy actually..not enough money..ehhehe).

We (the muslims) were so hungry since we dare not to simply eat anything on the streets. The non-muslims really enjoyed the food there. The only thing most of us did was went to the McD nearby. I bought a cup of Hot Chocolates only since not dare to ask for the others, they serve hamburgers –pork meat (that cost me about 2,000 won or RM7.6 if directly converted to RM).

Only when we were in the bus we saw a muslim restaurant across the road; a little bit up of a small hill (Seoul is surrounding by the ocean and has a number of mountains around; so geographically the road/land is not technically straight). But then we were already late. Since the dinner is not provided, thank you to all the instant noodles we brought from Malaysia – that is our dinner.

The end of Day 1.


P/s: 1. The end too for this posting. Did my writing too lengthy and too detail?
. Some friends complaining that I am not posting my own pictures, but photos taken from other websites. Well, dear friends, otherwise stated all the pictures are mine. I took it myself. :P