Back in minneapolis....

Today, officialy, marks the end of my travels to Asia after six long trips to Korea and one each to thailand and Malaysia..

Unforgettable moments? Of course there are. Here are a few of them among many...

- Visit to the Wat Pho temple complex in Bangkok
- Walking in the famous Patpong street, Bangkok
- Hurrying through the fish market in Masan, Korea :-)
- Looking out from the Petronas towers, Kuala lumpur
- Riding the subway trains in Seoul, Korea
- Savouring Mushroom spinach Ravioli at the Toscana Italian restaurant, Seoul
- Visiting the ancient buddhist temples in Ayuthaya, Thailand

Where I would go next ? I don't really know. But one thing is for sure. I will definitely go.

Happy Independence day...

to both India and Korea!!!

Wow..now thats one strange coincidence...Apparently Korea got its independence from Japan exactly two years before India did.

An Ocean..of tents and people and yellow coloured tubes

Here is a view of the beach this morning

Movie marathon

Over the last few months, I haven't really kept up with all the movies that were getting released..This weekend i thought i should see atleast a couple but ultimately ended up watching three of them. Sin city would probably rank among the most bloody and violent movies i've ever seen, Mr. and Mrs. Smith is a pretty stylish movie with a few one-liners worth noting..but the worst movie of the year has to be 'War of the worlds'..the less said about the movie the better..but i am going to say a lot about it anyway :-)...Its been quite sometime since i saw such a stupid movie..Its an insult not only to extra terrestrial intelligence but to 'intelligence' itself..If the aliens do come to our planet after waiting for a billion years with the only intent of destroying us, my only suggestion for saving us would be to show this movie to them. That would surely send them packing..They would be ashamed of themselves for having come so far only to find this!!. This defnitely is a new low point in spielberg's directing..Not a single scene made any sense and I was wondering which scene was more dumber, the previous one or the one that is going on at the moment..and top that with some laughable acting by Tom cruise as a 'family man'..I wonder what made some of the critics to give 'A' rating for this garbage..It deserves to be ranked right next to the silly 'C' grade godzilla movies.

An ocean...of tents and people

Here is a view of the beach as seen today...

Back again....

Its been quite some time since my last post..the only update i have is that in the last few days i made a trip to minneapolis, spent a week there and am back in Masan today. The only notable thing in my flight was the 80+ yr old flight attendant on the northwest flight to Narita, Tokyo. Over the past few months of my travelling, I have seen quite a few oldies on the northwest flights but the lady on this one gets the medal. It was pretty obvious that they don't really have any retirement age in the company. Compare this with most of the asian airliners and you would hardly find anyone over 30. Hey..I dont have anything against old people..its just that i dont like being served by them...Back in Masan there are no changes whatsover to take note of...I even got pretty much the same room in the same hotel..Its very hot and humid unlike my previous trip..This is my last trip to Korea and i hope to see whatever i can in this four weeks...most notably Jeju islands..the hawaii of korea!!!

Buddhist temple in Changwon

Today our hotel manager offered to take us to the nearby buddhist temple..As, we didn't really have anythinig to do today, myself and Eduardo readily agreed. Ravi and Jerry opted to stay in the room. We set out in the hotel van and reached the temple in 30 min. The temple was apparently constructed in around 800 AD but was later destroyed during japanese invasion and had been rebuilt during the 16th century. It was simple in construction, basically of wood, and had three halls of worship...All of them had numerous idols of buddha in deep meditation. After spending half an hour or so, we headed back home. On our way back, our manager stopped at a local Korean noodle place. It was more or less like an indian road side dhabha, and i should say i was kind of uneasy about eating in the place...especially because of the reputation of Korean eateries that consider shrimp and fish as vegetables..Thankfully, the noodle soup didn't have any sign of meat or fish in it..and although i would've preferred it piping hot, it was not too bad. Finally capped of my day and the weekend by watching Formula One British Grand Prix (nice to see Montoya win this one) and eating a pint of Baskin Robbins ice cream!!!!