My Thoughts: January 2017

Well, this new year 2017 is kick started with Korea trip for supporting our customer. The stay was hardly 11 days but these were some really memorable days. I experienced several new horizons during this stay from Jan 9th to Jan 20th.

Just before 2 days of travel, while I was busy managing sister's wedding reception at Dharwad, my travel to Korea was planned and confirmed. The tickets were emailed. It felt like a reward for successfully completing the reception and its time to go celebrate. Once I was back to Bangalore, I realized, we have some serious issues lined up to be fixed in Korea and it may not be as easy I had thought. Nevertheless, the flight tickets were from Bangalore to Mumbai and then Mumbai to Seoul. While returning, it was Seoul to Delhi and Delhi to Bangalore. Both had 2 hours transfer time. I was excited to visit Mumbai and Delhi International terminals for the first time.

While leaving, I was a lone traveler. Due to unavailability of terminal in Mumbai, my flight was landed to some older airport which was around 45 mins far away from the new one. Almost an hour went in reaching back from old to new airport by bus. The Mumbai airport was really beautiful. Before I could enjoy the beauty, I was reminded that I was already running out of time for international transfer. With hardly one hour left, the queue in Mumbai airport for immigration was unbelievable. People were already in lengthy queue whose flight were after 3-4 hours and I hardly had my flight in just one hour. Patiently, I stood in long queue hoping, it could be moving fast and all would end up well. But, even after 40 mins, line had hardly moved. While standing in queue for 40 mins, I chit-chatted with 2-3 co-passengers standing in queue. We all were complaining on bad management of Mumbai Airport authority. There was only one common entrance for all international travelers. I was astonished thinking, the people whom I met for few mins now will be in different continents by tomorrow same time. One was travelling to US, another to Australia and one more to London. It was nice conversing with these people whom I will never ever meet in my life once again.

The US guy suggested me to try out to move ahead of queue and talk to officials about fast track entry as my flight was about to leave in 20 mins. I tried and struggled and with lot of difficulties, somehow managed to finish immigration,security,customs and ran towards the Gate.The last call of boarding was happening when I reached the Gate and boarded my flight with heavy breathing. I cannot explain all the difficulties faced but just to establish, the first time experience of Mumbai airport just didn't go all well for me. It will never be forgotten.

Generally I use to get severe pain in my ears during flight journey, especially during landing when air pressure begins to drop drastically. But this time, as it was my 2nd time international travel, I didn't face much problem with ears like first time. Looks like, with frequent travels, our ears get used to air pressure dynamics. I landed at Inchon airport, very huge, well maintained spacious airport, I finished all my formalities and took a local sim. I was told that its very cold in Korea and better to get winter wears. When I was buying sim card, I never felt any cold and looking outside, it was quite sunny as time was around 2:30 PM. I thought probably, its afternoon, hence no cold and during night, it might get cold. On this thought, I stepped outside and a rush of cold chilled wind hit my body as though I entered a large refrigerator. Damn, it was cold at 2:30 PM. Within few mins, my exposed hand started to get numb due to freeze. I am unable to operate mobile phone. It was pretty much cold. After sitting into the Limousine bus (which was quite luxurious compared to our regular Airport Vajra buses), I checked current temperature and it was just 1 degree and prediction for night was -5 !!!

The K-Hotel where I went and checked-in was quite near to office (almost 5 mins walk). After having dinner in an Indian Restaurant named Ganga at Gangnam Station (yes, the famous Gangnam style song place), walked to office at 9:30 PM casually where colleagues were still working. I finally met & saw faces of the people with whom I was working & talking through email from past one and half year. It was very warm meeting them. The customer reported issues were there and eventually closed but lets not talk about that. Well, its just routine work. BTW, it was bit hard to get used to time difference also (+3:30 mins to IST)

One of the most exciting part of my 11 day journey was exploring various Indian restaurants by travelling through metro. The country is very well developed and has good digital footprint which enables to easily navigate throughout the city. My favorite Indian restaurants that I visited in excellent to ok-ish order list are Chakra, LunaAsia, Jyothi, Dal, Ganga, Baba.

Over the weekend, I went with Indian colleague to Seoul N tower. We had to travel by cable car as to reach top of the tower from where city visuals where astonishingly awesome. It was like, all buildings are placed in neat order like matchboxes. Also there was a toy museum of superheros. I loved it and had good time over there.

One day before I left Korea, we 3 Indian colleagues went for a short outing at Lotteworld. This place was so huge, MY GOD. It had both indoor and outdoor rides,games & various other attractions. The latest attractions were French Revolution 2 VR, Gyro drop & air-venture. We couldn't try the last one but other two were scary and adventurous. There were several other (Jungle adventure, Sinbad adventure, Train ride across Lotteworld, Disney land, Ice skating etc) which we tried but most of them were missed due to lack of time. All in all, Lotteworld visit was very memorable evening and a must visit place in Seoul.

On the last day at office, I gave an hour KT to 20+ colleagues over there and they liked it very much and appreciated by clapping at the end of ppt. I felt so glad by there humble gesture. Finally, we went for a good-bye dinner. We took them to try out Indian food at "Baba Indian restaurant". We had some nice wide variety of topics to discuss on dinner table ranging from social, cultural, technical, military, economics, history etc. It was very pleasant time spent at dinner.

It was very emotional moment for me during check-out of The K-Hotel. I was feeling to stay and spend some more time.

On the day of travelling back, it had heavily snowed. BTW, it was my first time witnessing snow and snowfall. I had only seen it on screen, never felt it. It was really cool. Of-course due to snowfall, the Korea to Delhi flight was delayed by 2 hours. The connecting flight from Delhi to Bangalore had just 2 hours gap which was taken by this delay so it was obvious that Bangalore flight will be missed. When landed at Delhi airport, few guys from Spicejet/Korean airways were waiting for 5 of the passengers who had missed connecting flight to arrange for alternatives.

There was no proper planning and next flight tickets booked and had to spend the entire night in Delhi Airport Lounge. Although, delhi airport is really "the best" according to me, but we were stuck over there with no food, no rest and no idea about next flight. This was even more worse experience I faced than in Mumbai. Both Mumbai & Delhi are great airports but I had miserable experience in both during my first visit. Anyways, around 1AM, they managed to get Air India tickets to Delhi 6:10AM flight.

The co-passengers were so biased towards Air India complaining it just because it was from Govt of India. I felt were bad about it. As far as i experienced, it was better than SpieceJet. The Air India domestic flight was huge like international (unlike compact spicejet or any other). The breakfast given felt so desi after not eating proper desi food for so long. It had Idly, sambar, chatni, upma, bun, butter , jam, coffee. I loved the air india travel. Next time when someone has prejudice opinion of Air India, ask them to try it once with rational opinion.

Finally, landed Namma Bangalore airport by 9AM and took uber back to home. It was crazy traffic even on Satruday morning. Even last time and this time, my thoughts after returning to India will be same. When will India improve? And my answer is definitely not in this generation.

Anyways, it was certainly a memorable trip to Korea and would like to re-visit some time again. The real pain of travelling comes post travel, when we have to submit all the bills for reimbursement. In closing, the new year kicked off great with memorable Korea trip.

PS: I trimmed this blog to not make it much lengthy. I missed so many of my thoughts during this travel. Anyways, thank you for reading till the end :)

PS2: People ask, North Korea or South Korea, I mean who on earth with sane mind would visit North Korea ? Its like asking, do you like visiting India or Pakistan given a chance ?