I'm lazy

Yeah, so lazy.

I mean to write. Fucking lazy to write, but one does not put f-words into title, ha?

Anyway, I thought I would write at least once a week, but somehow...

Today I went for vaccine.

Typhoid and Hepatitis A and B. I know I should before but... Kinda I don't like needles. They are gonna rip your body in half and stuff like that. Pretty dangerous.

But then I seen something about shit that can happen to you and I changed my mind. Fuck being ripped apart, I need that.

What I've seen? People defecating in the bushes etc.  And in general India is fucked up dirty and so. I'm not gonna write about that, because there is not enough space here, but it's pissing me off so much. Damn.

So vaccination went OK. I called them yesterday and made appointment for today. Company was really good. Clean and shit. I mean no shit. Doctor spoke really good English and was in Ukraine so also Russian. And he recommended me not to eat spicy food. That's my man! Company takes care for a lot of foreigners so high standard. 

I didn't wanted to go some local doctor (could be not so clean), so I might paid a bit more. Maybe. 600rs for Typhoid and 2500 for AB Hepatitis.

Typhoid is for 3 years. AB will be forever when I will take 2 more doses. So yeah.

About malaria pills: he said no point as I stay here. Not good take some shit for one year so I just use shitload of anti-mosquito creams. 

Trains, part II

There was no part I, but who cares anyway?

I took some more pics I wanna share, so that's it. Lazy to write, and not good net at home to write poems and shit. Yeah...

So this is how you can make difference between first class and that stuff.

And this is how empty train looks like.
Can you see all those handles? That's Art. Seriously, looks like some modern art.

Someone asked me: "Trains got people on roof?". Nope. Not this electric ones.

And a video from last weekend ;] It's not always so crowded, but pretty much it's what you got to see here ;] Kinda fun.

 Yeah.

Soon to be week.

Like today or so. Doesn't matter anyway.

So what had happened?
I tried to understand how India works, to get my luggage back and I've been to work.

Good news first: I got my luggage. Sweet. I've already said goodbye to it. At the airport I waited like 2 hours and taxi drivers screwed my money, but who cares? Damn, I got it back. Thousands of lives saved. I mean one. Mine. I love my luggage so much, you can't even imagine.

Job.

So far I like it. I will learn Ruby on rails and do that stuff, but right now I am creating website for company with bootstrap (pretty much just changing template a bit and putting content, but good for start). Something that I wanna learn, so cool.

Company has like 25 employees, 10 or so coders and rest. 3 years old startup.


And trains.

Because that's how I travel to work.

I don't know how to describe it. Well... Trains don't have doors as you can imagine. And the closer you are to the place where doors should be, the more people. If you go to back of current wagon, you will even sit. But they don't care about sitting. You ether wanna get out, or get in the train. There is no such a thing as traveling. 2 constant movements. In, or out.

Trains stops normally, but they prefer to jump out (or jump in) when it is still moving. And if you did not manage to get to the rear part of train, someone will "help" you getting out. even you don't want to. They do it even train is empty.

First day they kicked me out pretty nasty (I was not prepared), but people at the station are nice, they usually try to catch you. In general, when they see that I am foreigner, they are not pushing me so hard like they do with each other.

Monthly tickets are cheap. 

Ahh, and they have extra wagons for women and people with baggage.

Rickshaws.

This is how I get around (eg. to station). Hunderds of them everywhere. You come to one and say the location, if they know, you go. 3 people can fit in. Can't imagine how it's gonna be when rain will come, but right now it's fine.

You start at 15rps and slowly go up depending how far you go.

So.. Yeah....

One does not simply walk into India

Or fly in that matter. Or whatever.

But as always, it all starts in Korea. Everything starts in there, right? I mean end. Damn, I don't mean anything. I guess I am still out of order. And I don't mean culture shock, I am a bit pissed off, and all that stuff that happens when you come to new place and things goes wrong.

But I'm a bit ahead, let me start again.

In Busan all went OK: I checked in and all the stuff. And I was also emailing with agency that I booked tickets with, because I found that my flight from Delhi to Mumbai was changed so I got only 5 minutes in between. Fuck yeah, 5 minutes to take my baggage, go via immigration and stuff. Ridiculous- even checking is not working anymore 5 minutes before a flight. What idiot could do such a dumb change?

So agency said they need some confirmation and bla-bla so they recommend me to talk straight to flight operator company, that they can do it faster and without me paying extra money. I had some more questions, but they did not bother to answer me. How nice. Student Agency, in case you are wondering about the name. Flight operator was China Eastern Airlines. And then Jet Airways for domestic flight in India.

So in Shanghai I talked to China Eastern, because I had more free time that I needed. Answer: nope, sorry, I can't change. So I was like WTF. I calmed down and seen that there is manager or so, so I went ask again. Few minutes of clicking and the same answer. Somehow they can not change, I should talk to agency, which recommended me to talk to them. But at the end we managed to agree that I should be able change it once I arrive in Delhi. Because that's how it should work:  they give you hotel, and put you on next flight. (That's how it was done in US, when I missed flight because of airlines.)

I was not satisfied, because I know those people usually don't give a fuck about you, but still... I was like: come on, you should trust them, it's not first time someone missed the flight, try to be more optimistic...

So I come to Delhi, kinda happy because plane was a bit earlier so if I am fast enough I might catch the next plane. So I run like crazy to take mu luggage, being first there, but also the last one leaving.

My baggage did not arrive.

I'll be damned, but that was exactly my thought before traveling. I was afraid that they will screw something, and here it was happening. So I filled the paper and run to try to catch the plane. It was about 7.20 or so, but check-in was already closed. Of course.

I went to Jet Airways but they told me they can only sell me new ticket, that I need to talk to China Eastern about getting new flight, as they are flight operator. So I went there (actually that's what they told me  to do in Shanghai), but they were like: go Jet, we can not do it, we don't have office here, you might wanna try to call some number next day after 10am. And screaming at me that it is my mistake that I have 5 minutes to change. Damn, I am flight operator or they? I did change my flight or them?

Fuck. 

So I ended up buying new ticket, because they said like you don't have ticket so you can't stay here (the airport) and bunch of crap. I still don't get what the fuck happened and shit, but...

Yea, I just don't get it. It happened pretty fast, and most of time they were screaming at me like it's all my mistake that they fucked up my tickets, and most of all, I was freaking tired. And I just wanted it all to stop.

So I had ticket for next day, around 6 in the morning. Another night at airport.

Flight was OK, except I fall asleep after check-in. But someone woke me up. Imagine Indian accent say: "Sir, Mumbai?".

I was tired like shit. But finally something good - they woke me up and I did catch the plane. I slept like baby and arrived to Mumbai. The AIESEC guy was waiting for me at airport. So we took taxi.

Taxi.

Seems like you pay before taking ride. And you need to keep ticket because you might change the car. We did once. At the airport you don't find taxi drivers, but guys who seems to be like pimps for taxi drivers. In taxi you got paper with prices and locations. And you need to have some navigation, because you navigate taxi driver. At least in this case we did.

We went to place where I should be living. Another story.

As I mentioned I really had bad feeling about my baggage before traveling, so I asked AIESEC about my address like week before. And for some reason they really had hard times to tell me. Later I found out why: they should be someone leaving before my arrival, but it changed so they didn't know where to put. I don't wanna make troubles, so I said: ok, I can do 2 nights at couch.

But when I arrived at place it changed to till 5th. No one really knows. And the person is girl, so other girls wont want me living in girls room, right? Tonight I slept on ground, because that's more comfortable than couch.

Place I will live.

Before arrival they told me name of building is "Evershine cosmic". If you click you will see some pics and text like:

Our galaxy comprises vast spaces, and Evershine Cosmic is designed with the same objective, to create an airy space for residents to take pleasure in and give you a slice of fine living. Evershine Cosmic is installed with a garden, swimming pool, health facilities, etc, and is ideal for residents looking to own a piece of Andheri, Mumbai’s most prosperous suburb.

Looks awesome, ha?

Yeah, but that's not what it is in reality. I don't have pics yet, but I shall have some day soon. So what it is, is not finished building surrounded by slum. No pool and stuff. Indeed. Flats I've seen are kinda OK, they have kitchen and so. But I still don't know where I will be, so let's save it for later.  

I will write something then. 

E-WORLD (or whatever it's called)

So we went to E-World.

It's amusement park in Daegu. And damn I love amusement parks. Not that I've been in many: in 2. How sweet is that?

So the park. (And I might compare with park that I've been in US: Kings Dominion)

Entrance is 28000 Won for Adult. With that you can play all the stuff inside (I guess). They start to sell tickets 9.30 and also open that time. The most of rides starts ( and I mean should start) at 10AM. Some 11.30AM and 1.30PM - as far as I remember.

Park looks pretty much nice. I mean environment and stuff: trees, flowers and so. But compared with KD, it's more dirty. At some places. Where cleaning staff never go. Never.

Yes. I mean toilets. Pink ones.

 Both western and oriental style.

 With love orgies inside.


Rides.  Damn I did picture of only one.

KD had similar in US. But much better. In here, it's pretty long, but not interesting. You go upside down once(?). Or two.

They ain't have wooden coasters, and that's fine with me. They are rough on ones neck. But they got metal ones: I think 4. I mean for adults.

Bad luck - kinda - was that only one was working!
Shit. One of four. No cheaper entrance. No note anywhere that park is 75% not working. Not a shit. They still asked full price for entrance. How Korean.  Damn.

Anyway.

Sweet, ha?
We really enjoyed. No kidding.

The best part of park is zoo. Maybe because because rest of park was mostly closed, maybe some other reason. Zoo itself wasn't that big, but pretty cool anyway.

Even fish. Can't see it? Look closer. They put one for you at left side.

   

Seriously wtf. This is animal abuse. She can't even move. Not even fully in water. Damn. Korea. Damn.

And there were also games and restaurants and food and stuff - mostly closed - end of season? Who knows. Park was not empty for sure. And for sure not full.

So..

I will finish with saying that it's up to you whether you wanna go. And I will attach the map.

And damn, I did forget to attach the video of only working roller coaster. Good you read till the end ;]

Last weekend was kinda fun

And I will use term weekend, because I have troubles remembering when exactly it happened. Not that I was drunk, I just don't need to keep in mind what day it is, so I do not.

So weekend. 

Probably Friday, during evening, we decided we should go out somewhere. We have not been for any live music for quite some time, so we decided we should go Sugar Joes. I've mentioned it in some of my previous posts. It's near KNU, and they usually have live music during weekends. We went with some Chinese folks.

So beer and stuff. And we met one professor from our college. He played few songs with his wife. Some of them were Irish, so it was really good.

I really can't say how Irish music sounds like, as I have probably never heard it except last weekend,  and I didn't know which songs were Irish, but once you hear the rhythm, you are pretty sure where it comes from.

We talked some more and he was like "Jan, do you wanna play?", and my friends like "Yea, go play something!" , so 1+1 went 2 and I went and played few songs too. Can't say if it was good or bad, I didn't hear how it sounded, but it was pretty much fun, I enjoyed it.

And more beer and going home. It was after 2AM, I guess, we went early because next morning we wanted to go for some beach.

And we went.

Jeez, so many Koreans have cellphones, but still finger on picture?

Anyway, the train company was so happy when we made this pic. One does not need a lot to be happy. And trains are another story... The worst train in Korea is much more better than IC trains in Slovakia (the most expensive ones).

Well...

So we wanted beach. I think Pohang beach, where Pohang is city name. Or Busan. Damn I don't know. Girls have been there before, but they did not remember how to get there, so we asked locals. By one bus (1200W) and taxi (3000W) we got to the nearest beach.

Something doesn't feel right, ha?

But still, few meters away people were enjoying themselves, swimming in sea (full of shit, as I see it) and so on.

I did not.

So fully optimistic we went to search for another beach. Some not-so-sure girls pointed us to some direction, but we were so tired, and it started to rain, so we finally ended up on some rest-place. It was actually not so bad.

 

We spent some time there, and went back to city centre. Where we finally found clean water!

And even good food!

Except it was some Christian place, so when I asked for beer, and then for soju (typical Korean alcohol), waitres was surprised, and I was beer-thirsty. Then we walked a bit at centre and went home.



This might sound like bad trip, but it was ineed a lot of fun. The one with a lot of inside jokes and stuff. So hard to write about.

Anyway....I am pretty sure there are some nice beaches somewhere, we just failed to find them.

I can't get no...

Well, I really feel like in Korea one never gets what one was promised.

And specially with weather. It started some months ago: they promised typhoon but delivered small rain.

And it seems like we are out of luck seeing normal conditions again. Just before we ended semester, everyone was telling that summer rainy season is coming. Well, I hate rain, so I was not happy. You know, strong wind, water and all that rain shitty stuff. Me no like. My imagination worked well: humid day, cloudy, raining all the time, all my socks wet, all my t-shirts wet, all my pants. Guess what? All my shoes too!

But only in my imagination, as last few weeks showed.

So how it was?  

It's end of July and I haven't seen rain that I am used on from Slovakia. To explain: in Slovakia we usually get what I wrote up there somewhere - few days or even weeks of constant rain during summer. And that's not what we understand as rainy season. It's normal summer with some rain, as my friend says.

Seems like Rainy Season in Korea means 3-5 one hour small rains.

A month.

That's what I've seen so far in July. This website says that "Most rainfall (rainy season) is seen in June, July, August and September.". I probably have to apply the answer of a lot of Koreans when we asked them about this "abnormalities": This year is special. We had this with typhoon, sand storms and we should use it about Rainy Season of 2013, too.

Other possibility is that their meaning of rain, typhoon etc. is pretty much different from ours. No rain means Rainy Season etc....    

But in the end I am happy- no rain, no problem. Except of damned humidity.    

Classes pt. II

Last time I wrote about 2 classes: Korean and Liberal Arts. I guess it's time to move on and write about the rest. And I planned to do that some days ago, but unfortunately I was busy doing nothing.

Here they are: 
      Special    창의공학설계기초 - Creative Engineering Drawing Basic          
     Special    기계부품설계 - Machine Parts Design          
     Special    기계공학기초 - Machine Engineering Basic          
     Special    프로젝트프레젠테이션 - Project Presentation  

I have to be guessing here a bit, because the names have usually not much in common with what we studied.

That's actually the joy of knowing names of classes at the beginning of semester. You are like: "shit, this is gonna be interesting class" but then you are like "that escalated quickly". And boredom begins.

Waking up is sometimes pretty hard. We were all hoping that being in special group will bring something that they promised us (2 semesters of practical training), but ... Well, I'll better stop myself from writing.

For example Project Presentation. Damn it, I remember we talked like "we will probably do some mechanical project, school got pretty good and new equipment, we can do some seriously interesting shit". I'm no mechanical engineer, but this stuff can get you excited. School got some 3D printers and so equipment. Jesus, I am pretty much imaginative. Don't ask me where my mind can go.

So, can you guess what we did in this class? I let you think. (And play first K-POP song that YouTube showed me.)

I hope you enjoyed. I did not.

Anyway the awesome class named Project Presentation was: tadaaaa Excel and PowerPoint. Very creative, ha?

Final project of my group was excel sheet, where you could write your +- of your money, and it would show you your balance.

Stop laughing, please, I am not kidding! 

The rest of classes counts 3:  Machine Engineering Basic, Machine Parts Design, Creative Engineering Drawing. And that somehow doesn't work. I only remember 2 more classes. It might change or whatever.

Anyway, one class, I would guess Machine Engineering Basic, was some basic stuff like Newton Laws and so. It was with Slovak teacher, so we actually studied. Only that I don't see reason why, but anyway, I am not one to judge whether it makes sense or not, right? The most of us remembered it from primary or secondary school, so you can guess class was extremely easy...  Car A and B meeting at the nearest pub.

Second class I would name Creative Engineering Drawing, because sometimes we were drawing. We had 4 classes a week. As teacher said, it was not enough time. And he was saying it almost every class. The same as repeating everything we studied every class. So you can imagine we were light-speed fast. We studied about drawing, stuff like 1st person view or kinda that. I don't know, it was mostly making fun of whatever (and mostly of some Korean student - and that's something I can't get through - Imagine teacher makes fun of you in front of whole class , noone would try in Slovakia ). But in fact, during some classes , like twice, teacher took us and showed 3D printer and stuff. At least something interesting.

So this was practical training they promised us. Ahhh, I see. Apologies. 

At the end, we had some exam.

I don't know my results, but I might find out one day. They are for school anyway. And made by school. So whatever. 

Classes and so...

Some long long time ago I wrote about how special my group is. And about what classes we have. Well, that was the beginning of semester, and I pretty much didn't know what we will study there.

And guess what? Now, after semester is over, I pretty much know what we studied. Not weird, ha?

Yea.

     Special/Regular    전공한국어 - Major Korean          
     Special/Regular    중급한국어 - Intermediate Korean          
     Regular    6-sigma(II)          
     Regular    PLC제어실습 - PLC Control Practice          
     Regular    도면해독 및 3D CAD - Drawing Info. And 3D CAD          
     Special    인문학강좌 - Liberal Arts          
     Special    창의공학설계기초 - Creative Engineering Drawing Basic          
     Special    기계부품설계 - Machine Parts Design          
     Special    기계공학기초 - Machine Engineering Basic          
     Special    프로젝트프레젠테이션 - Project Presentation        

So bold ones were my classes during last semester. As you know from my previous posts, what is written on paper, in Korea doesn't mean that it's really what's gonna happen, so you might wonder what we really did on those classes.

So Korean was Korean Korean. 

A lot of words to learn, not much speaking. Why would I need it anyway.

Damn. They are totally right: I don't need to speak. Since I've arrived in Korea, I didn't use Korean language. (And phrases like "Hello", "How much?","Thanks", "1,2,3..." etc. I do not count as language use. We can all agree that that is knowledge that can one learn without having more than 5 hours of language every week; without actually understanding the language.) So I guess they system works fine. I go to school a lot, I don't speak, and everybody is happy. The only thing they didn't think through (at least it's like that at my school) is that they teach the English the same way: they know hundreds of words, but if you ask them any basic question (like what you did today, tell me short story about whatever, what is weather today) they wont be able to say more than OK, yes, good. You can consider yourself happy, if they understood you. Anyway...

If my memory works like it should, we had 8 hours of Korean every week. Plus twice a week 3 hours at evening. So 14 hours altogether. Sweet.

Liberal Arts 

Thinking, thinking...

 Ah yeah, that was one hour a week, we called it Humanities and it was time when teacher asked us "How are you?". At the end of semester we prepared small presentation about "Human and car" and that's it. Wasted time.

Next classes next time ;] Go grab some beer!

It's been some time (aka food in dorm)

Indeed it's been some time since I wrote something. I've been lazy, bored, and bored, and bored.

And bored.

Anyway. My memories tell me that last time I was writing about our new dorm. The one in forest, where is nowhere to go, nothing to do. Except school and forest.

I mentioned that we need to pay for breakfast and dinner, even we don't eat it. As semester is over, I can somehow summarize it.

So food. After week or two, they created special breakfast for us, I mean for foreigners: usually cornflakes and milk, coffee, sometimes bread and jam, or some weird stuff (sweet bread with kinda fish cream and raisin). I always ate breakfast. And it was not that enjoyable as one would thought. Because Koreans could not eat with us. We were separated and we had different food. That sucks. They wanted (and sometimes they stole our food) to eat our food, but they were not able to take it.

Once they gave us eggs, salt (SALT! after weeks!) and milk.

Launch was always some Korean stuff, cheap spicy meat without taste and rice with rice and rice. For whole semester I've been there maybe 3 times. Once they had chicken. But with no taste whatsoever, just plain chicken in soup without any taste with rice without taste neither. Damn. After that I've never even bothered to be optimistic about food. Sometimes they made spaghetti, but I don't like them anyway. And salty apple salad.

Dinner.  Pretty much like launch. Fish bones, fish, kimchi, pig skin, fat from meat and some weird salads I was afraid to try. I had to pay for it, so I tried to eat it sometimes, but just enough not to die hunger.

In dorm there is shop, but not so much to buy, sweets and ramen, milk and cereals.
    
But to be complete, they were foreigners that could eat food without as big problems as mine.

Not sure what was that, but probably dinner.

I've had some more pics of food, but no idea where I put them, so I will post them when I find them.

New Dorm: Part 3

So,

my blog has more than 2000 views. Well, that's awesome! Thanks for waisting your time here!

Some news:

I found inline skates. Yep, on random street in random part of Daegu. Just my size! Kinda old, but: Don't buy it for that price!?

We've also found out why water is cold in here.

Well, not hot.


And me:

Okay, not me, but that's definitely how I feel. Somebody take tree from West and try to make it East style. Wont work without fucking the tree up. A lot.

Some more shit had happend since writing here last time, but I am lazy to write it so I recommend you go get drunk!

New Dorm: part 2

There was no part 1, but whatever...

Anyway, I've been very successful in finding my location on Google maps. Finally. So here come the map! (Dorm is building in the middle, school is right top.  )

school and dorm

Everybody love forest.

I  took some pictures so you can see how it actually looks like.

Yep, graves. We are surrounded by a lot of them. And by a lot I do not mean 10 or 20. Few times  more.

Buildings are nice, as well. I made few pics:

(hall, elevator, emergency exit)

 (school, cafeteria, gym)

The moral?

Do not take any shit serious and get drunk! 


//sidenote://

Today i saw Korean computer-science guy prototype. And hot girls feeling awkward when he joined them during dinner. I guess some shit is the same everywhere.