Nagin Dance, Crabs & Autumn

0835hrs
19^th  October 2012, Friday
HHI Office, Ulsan.

Right, so it’s been more than a week since I stated that I would post something in the next 2 days. I apologize. There are a lot of things I can blame for this tardiness – too much work, too much partying, too much alcohol, cold weather, too much cricket and most importantly Umang’s Nagin Dance (put me in shock for 3 days).

As promised the next few posts will be more visual than verbose. I haven’t had the time to process all the 1900 photos that I have taken so far in Korea. But I will share some of the best ones taken over the last one month.

There have been 4 weekends since my last detailed post. I will list down the highlights from those weekends here. Over the next few days I will most detailed posts/photos for each of those weekends too. Here is a small teaser of what you can expect:

Weekend # 1 (22-23^rd Sept):
–          Hair Cut debacle at Toni and Guy
–          Visit to a local fish market
–          Amethyst caves & lunch in a temple mess
–          Finding the mysterious Paraeso waterfalls
–          Hike Hike Hike in beach slippers

Weekend # 2 (28^th – 2 October):
–          Chuseok Long weekend trip to Seoul
–          We almost miss our KTX train
–          Overnight stay at a Jiljimbang (Korean Spa)
–          Partying at night clubs near Hongik University
–          Check in at Grand Hyatt
–          Night City Bus Tour & Party at JJ’s@Hyatt
–          Sightseeing Seoul’s palaces & hanok villages
–          Amusement park – Lotte World
–          Sightseeing Hooker and Homo Hill in Itaewon
–          Myeongdong and Namdaemun Markets

Weekend #3 (6^th– 7^th October):

–          Rented a car from Avis for road trip to Jinju Lantern Festival
–          Stuck in Traffic Jam on highway
–          Checked-in to a shady motel near Nam River (4 of us in one small room)
–          Battled the crowd at the lantern festival
–          Dinner: waffles, 2 crabs, one whole chicken, 15 bbq fish and soju
–          Next morning drove to Haedong Yonggung temple (gorgeous place by the sea)
–          Had lunch at Korean restaurant
–          Drove back to Ulsan and dinner at Namaskar restaurant

Weekend #4 (12^th – 13^th October):
–          Farewell party for some HHI friends on Friday night
–          Tried all sorts of alcohol – beer,soju,whiskey, tequila, rum & more!
–          Next morning – Slept well, but tummy wasn’t too happy about all that drinking
–          Hangover- headed for HHI Autumn Festival for expats (yes! autumn has arrived)
–          Hiking at Mt.Namsan – Gyeongju
–          Visit to Gyeongju National Museum
–          Dinner and entertainment at Hyundai Hotel Garden
–          Extremely cold conditions – worsened by equally bad rock band performance
–          Decent fireworks to close the night

1851 hrs
22^nd  October 2012, Monday
HHI Office, Ulsan

What is the word for toilet in Korean?

1430 hrs
18^th August 2012, Saturday
HHI Office, Ulsan. 

Yes, I am at office on a Saturday. There has been a lot of confusion over whether we should be working on Saturdays or not. When we signed our deputation contract it was told that we would be working overtime on Saturdays (and hence we and KBR would make more money). When we started working here, HHI told us that they didn’t want us to work on Saturdays (they want to save money I guess). Friday night arrived and there was no resolution to this issue and we received instructions from Singapore to go and do our 7 hours for Saturday (also, our timesheets are not approved yet). So here I am in office on a Saturday afternoon with no real work to do.

Let me quickly recap what we have been up to since my last entry. On 15^th (Wednesday) evening, Srini and I decided to check out the clubhouse after work. We knew from going through the HHI website that they had a gym and two squash courts; and we wanted to make full use of these during our stay (we had therefore brought squash racquets from Singapore). So for a mere 10,000 Won (refundable) we got access cards to the gym and the squash courts. We then played squash for an hour or so. It was good to get some exercise after a break of few weeks. (I hadn’t been to the gym or got any real exercise since 29^th July).

16^th (Thursday) was pretty uneventful, so I would like to use up this space to talk about some other random stuff. Firstly, I would like to discuss the office culture over here. Quite simply put -this place reminds me of primary school. Work starts at 8am and everyone is expected to be at their desks by 7:45am. At around 7:50am the small televisions installed all around the floor suddenly turn on and start an exercise video. Almost all the employees follow the woman on the screen and do some stretching exercises. At 7:56am the video stops. At 8am sharp every department has a meeting to kick off their day. At this point let me briefly explain to you the generic floor plan of their office (see figure below).

There are no cubicles or cabins. The only person on the floor who sits in a room is the senior vice president (he actually sits in a meeting room). Everyone sits on open desks. The arrangement of these desks is in the same fashion as that of a classroom. Departments are arranged in columns with the lead engineers (class teachers) seated at the front facing the rest of the engineers (students). Each department has around 4 to 5 columns (executing multiple projects). We are currently seated in the last row. Behind us is the meeting table. Around 10am there is a coffee/cigarette break. 12 to 1pm is the lunch break. At around 3 pm there is another coffee/cigarette break. Around 4:30pm some Korean snacks are delivered for our nourishment. And on the last working day of the week (which was Thursday this week) everyone has to clean their own working area. Brooms and mops are given to all engineers to clean their working area. I kind of liked the philosophy behind this routine – “You made the mess, so you have to clean it.” In the evening I played squash again. In the evening we watched the movie Se7en in Sashi’s room (connected laptop to the TV and sound system).

Friday (17^th) was a holiday. The Liberation Day (15^th) holiday from earlier in the week had been shifted to Friday by HHI. After a week of waking up at 6am, it was a welcome relief to laze in bed till noon. In the afternoon we decided to go to E-mart for shopping. This mall was around 10km from our place and we decided to take a taxi. Calling a cab is pretty simple at our apartment. We just go to the guard and tell him that we need a cab. He helps us call the cab company and it takes no more than 5 minutes for our ride to arrive. There were 5 of us, so we took two taxis. As expected the taxi driver didn’t know any English. Luckily we were ready for this scenario. We had the address of the shopping mall in Korean – we showed him the sheet and we were off. On the way to the mall I opened my Lonely Planet Korean phrasebook and tried learning a few new words. Toilet in Korean is “Hwajangshil”. We shopped for around 3 hours and then made our way back home with carton boxes full of stuff (in a taxi; we had our apartment’s address in Korean too). For dinner we revisited the Turkish restaurant we had been to a couple of days ago.

This morning we came to office at 9am. We have to do only 7 hours for the day. This evening Umang is cooking up a feast. There is chicken curry and Tandoori chicken on the menu. Right now, I am just waiting for evening to come.

Countdown: 90 days to go

1530 hrs
18^th August 2012, Saturday
HHI Office, Ulsan.