noraebang

Any guesses what noraebang means?

In some of the east Asian countries especially in Seoul, South Korea, people are crazy about singing songs in mike with speaker system. They have lot of places like our internet browsing centers which will have separate rooms with speaker system and lyrics book for Korean and English songs. A small group if people can go there and spend their time after paying on hourly basis. They also serve soju and other drinks with snacks and dinner based on the order. People like to spend their time in these rooms happily singing songs throughout the night.
They call this place as Noraebang which in Korean means song room.

When I was in Seoul, I went to a noraebang with my colleagues over there. It was a nice room with a display system to display the lyrics. We can search for a song and select to play the music and display lyrics. Then pick up the mike and sing the song. After couple of songs sung by my colleagues they asked me to sing a song. I told them I do not know English songs. They asked me again. Suddenly I remembered the song sung by vadivelu in a Tamil movie - sing in the rain, I want more in the rain... I told them this song and we searched for it. It was available and we all sang that song

together. Thanks to vadivelu for exposing me to at least that song otherwise I would have known none.

Korean Temple Stay

Korean Buddhist temple offer "temple stay" wherein people can stay in the temple for certain period of time and do whatever the monks and the nuns do in the temple. I participated for a 24 hr temple stay when I was in Seoul. Thought of sharing my experience here(for me). Read through if you are interested...

More than the activities in the temple, the people whom I got to interact were more interesting. I got to meet people from different countries staying in temple for months together. Most of them keep traveling around the world-

• Almost Everybody said that Indian's have very smart brain. Not only because they know me :) This is a general statement infront of all nation people.
• A Korean guy was saying that Indians make many delicious vegetarian food, and he became veggie only after eating in India.
• When I joined the team, the Head monk gave few instructions and asked me to follow other people. Later when an American joined, the head monk explained him for almost 15 mins about the temple stay. Later told me that for Indians even if they donot give any instruction, they will do things right, but for other people even if they give somuch of instruction, they will have doubts :)
• A lady from Canada was very much excited that she will visit India this year. She told many good things about India like people, religion, intelligence, diversity etc.
• A Korean lady was very much worried about the caste system in india.
• There was a very old Korean man who doesn't speak english. Whenever he met me he use to say this - "Ajantaa Elloraa superr".
• The head monk who was pretty senior for meditation told that the way of meditation started from India and was very thankful for India.

The temple, though very much inside the city, was in the basement of a mountain filled with lot of trees. It was very calm over there. While in the temple, most of the time we were practicing meditation. We woke up at 3am, did chanting, bowing in front of Lord Buddha, cleaned the temple campus, 1 hr walk through the mountain forest. Also we were provided with korean style food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and some snacks, tea. Was in the temple from 2pm Friday to 2pm Saturday. Apart from these, there were lot of other spiritual learning's which I cannot put in words :(

basics in seoul

il, i, sam... start...

Food - I tried eating outside few times before I started cooking in Seoul. The Korean food was very different from what I was expecting before coming here. The food is spicy and the meat is well cooked. Though few people here like raw meat as well, it is not common. Usually they have salads with their food. Noodles and rice are their common food. They manage to eat everything other than liquid with a pair of chop stick. Even I am able to eat noodles with chop sticks now. I also went to a Delhi hotel, which served Indian dishes in modified to Korean form. There is also a chain of Indian hotel called "Ganga".
Shelter - Most of the buildings in Seoul are very big and the roads are very wide. The average speed of the taxi that I take would be around 100 kmph. One of the taxi driver asked me don't we study Korean in school:) The traffic is mixed Indian and American style.
Clothing - Most of the people in Seoul wear formals. My team mates come with coat, suit, tie everyday. Even the securities of big buildings are in coat suit. We saw few people with their traditional dress at the Buddha temple. The traditional dress is very big that it needs two hands to carry while walking.

il, i, sam....

il, i, sam.... don't bother. am just saying 1, 2, 3.... in korean language. Now Start.

I visited couple of places in Seoul this weekend. It is very good to see places here and it is also a wonderful mental experience for me to see the Korean lifestyle.
Seoul is supposedly a zero crime city. Even when I came back to hotel at 1am in the night, I could see many girls walking alone in the daunted streets. Here people doesn't bother about other people around, they just focus on what they do. Most of the koreans I see in public are couples. They keep on chatting with each other or hugging each other. Noone is going to stare at them. Even people who are alone are not alone. They are always busy with something. Either they read books or talk over phone or listen to music in their mp3 player or play video games or write something.

Me and my colleague went to Seoul's largest buddha temple. This temple has a triad statue of Buddha. And there is a Brahma bell pavilion - this has 4 instruments which are sounded everyday to call beings to hear the words of Buddha. Then we went to North Seoul tower. It is Korea's first integrated communication tower, transmitting TV and radio signals, constructed in 1969. Since 1980 it is opened for public as a recreational/ cultural complex. We were allowed to go till midway of the tower and we could get a good view of the city from there. We used the subway trains and local bus for visiting these places.
We had also been to a market where there are lot of handicraft items sold in streets as well as the shops. It is more like the Indian market.

And Koreans are supposedly the most hardworking of all the countries in the world. I will try to give my thoughts on this after few more weeks.

first time in seoul

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오시기 전에 2090 – 8013으로 전화해 주시면 안내해 드리겠습니다.

감사드립니다.

I still don't know what the above means. But this is what I gave to a taxi driver to reach Marriott hotel from airport in Seoul. I have come to Seoul on a business trip for my company. Its going to be a two months stay here. But the first day I reached here I wanted to go back home. Not many people here speak English. There were couple of my fellow colleagues in the hotel, who helped me a lot. But one of them is already back to India. I wish I also get back soon.

Some men in world, Cursed or Blessed, have all the time in world. They have no one to talk and they do all the stupid or divine things in world. I am one of them. I am not sure what I am doing here. Hoping to write all good experience at Seoul in my next coming blogs.