Yours Forever…

Yours Forever…

Kiran T. Nath – 20090113 0328

With simplicity as your name
‘n pure beauty as your fame,
gently, you came into my life,
where joys n’ delights, became rife.

Always have been dreaming,
thoughts had left me beaming
of meeting a girl like you,
‘n the new year made it true.

개인적인이유로비공개
개인적인이유로비공개
the day my life took a new turn,
and you became my magic urn.

My life euphoric ‘n days brighter,
felicity, I was only to uncover,
owe it all to you, my princess,
charmingly cute nature’s adeptness.

Owning a very pretty outside,
an even more delightful inside,
entered deep right into my heart,
smooth but firm, you gentle dart.

Words can’t reveal the exhilarating bliss,
that I feel with the morning wind’ kiss
knowing, someone like you is beside me,
Elysian thoughts fill in ‘n worries flee.

Dear, I hope we stay always together,
looking after ‘n caring for each other,
sharing joys, sorrows with no tether,
I pray to thee, with a love lasting forever.

Just an Update

2008-12-31 16:02Hours @ Nami Island

S. -> N.S. (I.A.R)

Finally I Played (Indoor) Golf!!!!

Hey there

Last weekend was pretty happening for me.. As you can see in my last post here, I attended the Asia Song Festival, a concert of such magnitude for the first time in my life. The day before that, My friend invited me over to meet her best friend. The latter was working in an indoor Golf Club, due to which we were allowed to play golf in there for free 🙂 (since her boss was not around.. hehe.. so nice of her) ..

Anyhoo.. Coming to the post, I played for about 30 minutes and it was really fun.. Before this, I have only seen the golf bat golf clubs and golf balls in movies and with Tiger Woods… For me it was a boring sports played only by the filthy rich people who had nothing else to do to while away their time (may be I was jealous since I could never ever afford one kit.. I remember looking at $2000 golf kits back in Hyderabad, India, wishfully… 😉 … ).. This was the first time I ever could hold one in my own hands.. With a little bit of introductory teaching from my friend, (Who is a good teacher btw, if the lessons could make me hit atleast a few shots right in my first day at golf), I started swinging. First shot, hit the rug.. bad.. second… same way.. third.. i tried to keep the bat club a li’l bit up, to avoid the previous mistakes, and successfully evaded the rug.. but on its way, it was able to “successfully” evade the ball as well.. 🙂 .. After many such shots, finally I could hit a few shots, which could be termed “just decent”.. After the end of our golfing session, there I was with an amused heart and a few lucky shots and a majority of miss-shots..:)

Here are a two pics of me in action.. hehehe

One thing for sure though..  would like to try it out again if I get a chance.. 🙂

Hak June and Sung Eun

Along with memoirs of true friendships, this post also contains brief references to Prostitution and Illegal Trading. Read along only if you are not offended by any of the above topics. If you belong to the other category, please click http://www.cartoonnetwork.com for an appropriate website. 🙂 🙂 🙂

Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating for this post: NC-17 (No one 17 and under admitted) / PG (Parental Guidance Suggested). Source: http://www.mpaa.org/FlmRat_Ratings.asp🙂

Am just kidding guys… I believe all the readers of my blog are adults.. Read on..

This post is the second in a series dedicated to some of the most beautiful people in my life and I don’t mean just the outsides alone. You can find the first one here. This one is about my Mentor became friend Kim Hak June (Korean: 김학준) and his girlfriend Kim Sung Eun (Korean: 김성은).

Let me start with a funny and “weird” instance that I remember. Seoul is famous for prostitution, thanks to the US Army base here. And there is a US Army Base camped at Yongsan, where Hak June and Sung Eun lives. Once I visited Yongsan and told them that I want to see the red light street in Yongsan (since I never saw one before). Here in Seoul, I cant call it “Red Light Area”. It’s different and i believe it should be called “Pink Light Areas”. Such roads have arrays of rooms with one wall completely made of glass (facing the road), beautifully decorated. Each of these rooms is like a bedroom with a makeup table and a mirror. The sex-workers sit inside them wearing minimal to normal measure of clothing and acts out daily routines like doing a make up in front of the mirror, comb their hair etc. All these rooms have pink curtains in front and is is flanked with a  dim “enticing”??!!?? pinkish glow. Any “customer” who goes there, watches them through the glass walls and “selects” his “friend” for the night. I was really intrigued when i had heard about such a different system and was really longing to see one of such streets. Naughty Naughty Me!!! 🙂 Sung Eun was really bold and told “Kiran if you wanna see.. Lets” and we walked through a smaller version of the above described road, since if we dare to go through the main streets, the sex-workers will come to us and then you know what… 🙂

I first met him as a mentor when I came to SNU as a first semester student and our friendship has been growing ever since. It’s through him, of course, that I came to know of Sung Eun and we three became really good friends, in other words “clicked”. SNU, like many other universities had a tradition of assigning a Korean Mentor to every foreign student admitted here. It’s more important here in Korea due to a social handicap. That is, you cannot survive here (outside SNU), if you don’t know the basics of Korean language. As any newly admitted student, we had to do some bank work like opening an account and filling in all the details for internet banking, academic work like course registration, registering for dormitory, and the initial shopping for all the necessary things etc. could not have been done without his help. Thanks to him, the expected “few difficult months” in the beginning turned out to be not so difficult at all. Thanks bro. Thanks a lot.

Then through him, I met Sung Eun, another wonderful individual. We three became fast friends and months passed by; they are the people I meet the most excluding my lab mates at MWNL, whom I meet every weekday. Hak June even gifted me my first mobile phone in Korea. I still have that wonderful piece of technology with me and obviously it is an integral part of my daily life. Ever since we met, we have been visiting some places and we have also had opportunities to have dinner together. Since the couple stays at Yongsan, I have been there a lot of times and it has one of the biggest railway stations in Korea, as far as I know.

Did I tell you that Sung Eun plays good violin too? She is really good that she was invited to play as a part of a really famous concert at Yonsei University. SNU, Korea University and Yonsei University are called as SKY universities. The letters from the first letter of their names, and these three are the top universities in Korea (Though the other two are incomparable with SNU in the world ranking 🙂 ..). She was like a really kid playing violin amongst really old and thereby experienced people. I was invited for the concert and Hak June and I went to Yonsei University on 10th November 2007 to see her in action. I had uploaded some photographs of the concert, starting from here, in my online photo gallery (press the right arrow when you reach that page to see more photos).

As a dedication to these wonderful people I had also made a video composing of the photographs of that event. You can view the video here, on YouTube.

We three have shared lots of wonderful time together visiting new hangout locations and tasting different cuisines. Sung Eun is really an adroit person in shopping. She knows how to get things and from where. She has taken me to some amazing locations for certain daily-use purchases (I can’t reveal the details here due to some legal issues, and I am NOT kidding, and NO, it’s none of what you are thinking with your “dirty” mind hehe 🙂 🙂 ). From the road, no one can guess that such a shop exists, and I guess you need to be a known customer for the shopkeepers to let you into those clandestine shops. From outside, they are just old not-used-anymore dusty door covered rooms, but inside they are full-fledged shops with selections beyond your imaginations.

I can never forget the time Hak June helped me with a medical emergency I had. Now, don’t worry my readers. Nothing fatal. hehe 🙂 How can I leave you all so soon?? 🙂 He was with me all the time during the hardships I had faced just like my brother. That’s one thing I respect in Koreans. Accepted that its difficult to get accepted into their circle, but once you are in, you are like a family. I mean a real family. Not like those who say “we are like a family” but they mean “like a family only in terms of disagreements, not in terms of mutual prosperity” (A good example would be I*** for those who know what I mean). Hak June was by my side all the time and he even paid for my medicines, though medical bills are pretty high here in Korea. When I requested to take back the money from me, he just smiled and said “Kiran, This is the least I can do. You have paid a lot for the main treatments; Let me get the medicines for you”. So so so kind of him.

Hmm I can actually go on writing about these friends of mine you know, but the fact is, words cannot describe their character. I am proud to call them my best friends (or rather my bro and sis). Cheers to you guys and Cheers to our bond of friendship. Let us be friends for ever..

A Visit to Cheon-An

Hey there,

This post is basically a memory on the visit to my brother’s (Na Min Soo) home last weekend and goes right into my Pensieve (Harry Potter Fame).  If you are someone who likes to visualize places through another person’s eyes based on the descriptions, this post is suited for you. Else, please be my guest and and make some productive use of the 10 minutes you would have spent on reading this post.. 🙂

Something about Na Min Soo.. He is one of the best friends, alias brother, whom I gained from MWNL, my lab. It all started with an invitation from him last month “Hey Kiran. How about visiting my home and having some Chicken which my mom prepares?” I was like.. wow .. sure bro.. why not ?? I knew then that it would be an unforgettable experience to visit a Korean Home (My first by the way) and eat home made food after so long (I miss my family… 😦 ..) Due to exams and other commitments, we could not make it during the whole of last month but we decided to go last weekend, since it was the weekend right after our exams and we thought that this would be a good way to lay off some summer heat. As an icing to the cake, the day coincided with his dad’s birthday as well. What a pleasant set of coincidences. 🙂 It was Minsoo, Dongmyoung (another one of my good friends from SNU) and me, in Minsoo’s Matiz on a bright Sunday morning of June the 15th, 2008.

I was apprehensive about talking to his dad at first since i was not really good at Korean and here in Korea, respect is a must. Hence i was afraid if I would make some mistake and talk something thats not appropriate. But to my surprise, the first words Minsoo’s dad uttered after meeting me were in English. What a relief.. He made me feel really comfortable and after some time, i started behaving like the regular “non-stop-talking” me .. 🙂

As in the past, after coming to Korea, I did many things for the first time in my life. Today was not left out either. As a surprise to me, we decided to have Sam-Gyeop-Sal (삼겹살), Pork fried on coal, a very popular Korean Food and one of my favorites. The element of surprise did not lie in the food we ate, but where we ate. We decided to go to a stream originating from the mountain and cook the food on a coal fire right across it. Since it was summer, there was not much water in the stream and hence that removed all the hindrances of a nature friendly lunch. We went to the stream and found many many families and couples whiling away their Sunday afternoon in the pleasant warmth of nature. We found a suitable place for our “adventure” and the dad started making the food. We had brought Kimchi (Something like Indian Pickle), Fruit Juices, Soju (Traditional Korean Alcohol – 20% strength), Rice and Two kinds of meat. The lunch was splendid, thanks to dad, and we really enjoyed the nature friendly, on-the-stream eating experience. It was the first time for me to experience such a thing and I have taken some photographs which i will upload soon. I still have them in my D40x and hence the delay. We were given live entertainment by children playing in the water and doing their activities. It was a memorable lunch indeed.

After the lunch, we went to dad’s work place. Its a factory that makes cotton yarn. It was the first time for me to visit such a factory as well. When i saw the levels of automation, right from the feeding of raw cotton to the finished output, I, for a second was happy to be an engineer. The only human intervention that was needed was for the switching on and off and for occasional maintenance.  I was really impressed with the beauty of the machinery built by engineers like many of us, and as usual i took some photographs as well ( I never go anywhere with my D40x these days.. Am just addicted to the sweet li’l electronic marvel. 🙂 .. )

We had cold-ice coffee to beat the summer and went sight seeing around the industry campus. When i was looking into the lengths and breadths of Korean Suburbs i was able to find that they still depended to some extend on Agriculture. There were lush green fields all around me with small houses flanking them. This was a huge contrast compared to the tall sky scrappers in Seoul. I felt home. Seriously.. I felt as if i was in Viyoor (My hometown)  looking out of the window of my room, which opens the view to lush green fields as well. At that moment i really really really felt homesick. Thank god i would be visiting home sweet home in less than a month from now. Oh god.. One year passed by.. Cant believe that i am one year shy of being a professional engineer at the job i could only have dreamt of, one year ago.

Anyways.. coming back to my post from the small diversion… There was another reason i felt home actually. After a one year gap, there i was, in a place resembling my home town, with two siblings and one dad., smelling the fresh countryside air, far away from the hustles and bustles of the busy Seoul Life. I wanted to buy a home an stay there, starting right then as a matter of fact.. 🙂 I was missing my home to that extent..

Since Minsoo knew that i never travelled in a Korean Train before and that I had really wanted to travel in one, if possible today, after departing from the factory, we went to a train station and he bought us, Dongmyoung and me the train tickets back to Seoul. I was really happy. It did feel like a big-bro buying the tickets and giving it to his younger bro saying “Here Kiran. Let your first train journey be a gift from me”.. So kind of him .. BTW .. the word “Kind” is used extensively in Korea as an adjective to a person. I haven’t used that word to describe my friends, even once in India. I guess that’s just Korean English..

Since we had about 2 hours before the departure of our train, we came back to Minsoo’s home and continued the birthday celebrations. We ate Tiramisu cake and watermelon and took some photo printouts using the hand-held USB photo printer Minsoo had gifted his dad today. Post, we started off for Cheon-An railway station to catch our train back to Seoul and with a pack of Walnut Cookies (traditionally popular with its origins in Cheon-An) gifted to us. En-route to Seoul I was able to take some pretty decent shots of Building 63 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/63_Building) , from an angle I had never had a chance to see it from.  Will upload them too soon @ my photo gallery in Picasa.

And yeah since we were so full with all the food, today we could not taste mom’s Chicken dish. Minsoo told me that he would eat my share in the night, on my behalf.. I am sure it was delicious.. wasn’t it Minsoo? 🙂 I hope i can taste it the next time i visit Cheon-An

Thank a million Minsoo.. Thank you for this memorable day where i felt a part of the wonderful family you have..

Kiran

PS : starting my internship at Samsung this thursday. I would be working in System R&D Center in Telecommunication Networks @ Samsung head quarters in Suwon. Will post about it once i start the internship. Pretty excited i must say. A first step to corporate life before starting my dream job 🙂

[Video] Me.. Speaking Korean ??? :)

One of my friends, Mattias Peterson, had taped my first speech attempt in a contest… EVER… It was on 14th May 2008 and as a part of the 46th Anniversary of Language Education Center, Seoul National University. The language of my speech was Korean and the topic was Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam.

Check the video here

I know that most of you (residing outside Korea) seeing this video will not be able to make out what i am saying .. But still, this is the first speech contest i had participated in .. EVER.. For the ppl who understand Korean, there might be mistakes.. I am still a level 2 student .. not even half-way through .. 🙂 Judge me with that heart.. 🙂

Adios,

Kiran

Oh My Dear, I Miss You!!

This is my first attempt at serious poetry.. I had written this some time ago.. Not boring you with lengthy forewards, here it is..  No dedications whatsoever and your comments are appreciated.

Oh my dear, I miss you.

You came to my life, out of the blue,
and left me without a clue
about how much i’ll miss you
and believe me its true.

May it be a minute or an hour
It makes my life little lour,
Without you around me,
My soul whimpers, get to thee.

Oh my dear, I miss you!

Little did i know when
I was with you then,
that I would miss you so much,
when you go away, leaving me in a hutch.

Come back soon to me, oh dear
I miss the times we had, when near,
Oh! what a happy place it was,
And, you were the root of that joyous cause.

Oh my dear, I miss you!

Come back to me, my dearest,
Miss you a lot, Oh! sweetheart,
Fly above the obstacles between us,
To hold my hand and to be together
Renew all the memories, precious,
Come to me, my heart’s desire!

Oh my dear, I miss you!

Oh my dear, I miss you!

Oh my dear….

My First “Modeling” Experience (^o^)

Hello,

Couple of weeks ago, I had a chance to do a small scale modeling. You know, nothing professional nor serious, but just like that, when we had gone on a tour with an organization called International Student Fellowship (ISF). We had visited Namiseom, a beautiful.. Wait… did I say beautiful?? No no. that doesn’t do justice to that place… I mean B.E.A.UUUTIFUL (As Jim Carey would say – Bruce Almighty) and really really chilly as well. The professional photographer Mr. Kangchan Lee (who had came along with us ) had an idea that ended up with me and another girl (who was a part of the same group) pair up and take couple of “modeling” shots 😉 .. This was the closest to the real life modeling i guess i would ever get.. and hence this post with an intent of commemoration..

There is nothing much to explain but if you are interested (god save your senses !! lol! ^^) you may visit the following links to see three pics.. These pics were taken by another friend of mine using a regular camera and are not the actual outputs from the professional photographers camera.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kirantnath/KiranInKoreaKiKWithFriends/photo#5165196385723074482

http://picasaweb.google.com/kirantnath/KiranInKoreaKiKWithFriends/photo#5165936034926020770

http://picasaweb.google.com/kirantnath/KiranInKoreaKiKWithFriends/photo#5165196420082812930

In other news!! My life is going pretty hectic now with the Korean learning class taking most of my time, but i must admit its lots of fun to be there learning A.B.C.s of a new language instpite of being so called “engineers”.. Feels like we are all back in the good ol’ days… To do justice to my lab work and to compensate, I am having to struggle pretty much during the weekdays.. But its fun even then and much more on weekends when its indeed party time.. ^^ Last weekend, I went to a park called SeonYuDo along the magnificent Han River and also had a party with m Korean Classmates where we went partying with food and drinks.. Have posted the photos in my online gallery @ http://picasweb.google.com/kirantnath/ .. Check them out too when you get time.. 🙂

Adios Amigo,

Kiran

Most Memorable Day!!

Last week I had injured my ankle after playing soccer and was pretty much on bed since then so that my leg would heal quickly. Thank god it was nothing more than a muscle sprain. As a result of sitting in the cozy 25s, oblivious to the dynamic weather outside, I really had lost touch with the “outside” world.

Until yesterday that is .. .

Yesterday while looking out from my window i found the weather foggy. Really really foggy. Thats in the afternoon I am talking about.. Fog at this time of the day was quite strange to what I had experienced here so far. Within a few moments, it started snowing….

White magical snowflakes filled with nature’s purity had started its seemingly abysmal journey from its cushion-y-soft parents floating placidly watching over us from the tall heights of the endless ocean that is the sky. It seemed to me that it was showering us mortals with something so pure and majestic, spreading a beautiful white blanket slowly… on everything thats below… on everything thats so trivial and short lived, compared to the nature itself..The nature was blessing us with something so limpid inspite of all what we do to hurt it… It really is very wonderful just to look at the wonderful snowfall which is remarkably quieter compared to its other half in equatorial climates, the rain. To top it all, it was the longest snowfall i ever saw. It started sometime in the “hot” afternoon with sun shining in the sky till the late hours of the dark night.. I just kept wondering, why there was snowfall at this time (may be its usual in seoul.. but it seemed unusual to me.. ).. not knowing why.. i drifted off to my dream world on my soft and puffy mattress…

The strangest part was that it was really long since there was a snowfall. If i remember correctly, the last snowfall was sometime in january and i thought that i had to wait for another year to see yet another snowfall. But until now…

The next day, that it today, i decided to resume going to my lab to get back to my academic work there. As a result of the long snowfall yesterday, everything around me was white. The color of purity.. I felt so invigorated and started me walk to the bus stop to catch the shuttle bus which takes me to Building 302, room 510-1, the multimedia and wireless networking laboratory, (my second home in Korea). At the bus stop and along the roads, quite unusual to say the least, i saw atleast 30-50 grandma’s and grandpa’s shops selling blossoms to the people around them and i saw so many parents with their children in the graduation suits.. Wait!! Thats when i remembered that today, the 26th of February 2008, was the graduation day for the SNU students.

Being the best institute in korea, let me quote couple of sentences from Wikipedia to emphasize the difficulty in getting in as a freshman here (I presume its much more difficult than IITs too.. correct me if i am wrong”.

Wikipedia says: “From 1981 to 1987, when an applicant could apply only to one university at a time, more than 80% of the top 0.5% scorers in the annual government-administered scholastic achievement test applied to SNU, many of them unsuccessfully. The fraction of SNU applicants among the top 0.1% scorers exceeded 95%. No comparable data are available for direct comparison between SNU and non-SNU applicants after 1988, due to an extensive change in South Korea’s college entrance system.”

I am sure that this fraction would have definitely become lesser and lesser year by year which resulted in SNU’s sudden incremental jumps in the Times Higher Education (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/) ranking over the last few years. Just for the record, in 2007, SNU stands on par with University of Texas, Austin. University of California San Diego, University of Washington, University of Winconsin Madison etc are the names of a few of the top 10-15 US Universities (according to usnews – http://www.usnews.com) which SNU has surpassed in academic excellence. I even heard that the Engineering Department in SNU is ranked even better. Since i don’t have much data to background it, i would limit the description of this point to what it is now..

As important as it is with the high rank of the college, the “lucky few” who get to pursue their studies in SNU are sent here with high hopes and anticipations from their near and dear ones. Though i am not in a position to say how many actually rises to it, I am pretty sure that pretty much most of them get through the grueling times successfully and TODAY WAS THE DAY!!

Yeah … today was the day when they could boastfully say to the world.. “Here we come. . Here we come to surpass the challenges you have laid for us in our lives. Here we come to make a difference in this world.”. Today was the day they could repay their parents who went through all the troubles to send them here with their achievements to make them happy. Today was the day when there would be proud tears in the eyes of all the parents to tell that “My son/daughter graduated.. now he is a professional with a Bachelors/Masters/Doctor degree”. Today was the day when each of the parents would be longing to see.. To see their sons/daughters in the black coat with the square hat.. The day they could see their children all grown up.. The children who are what they are, the way their parents dreamt of seeing as, when they were sent to SNU. The children who are placed in good companies or who would be going to other countries to pursue their passion for knowledge, in any case, with a career well structured. Any parent’s dream…. !!!

I rememberd my graduation day back in IIIT. Surely this day is one of the MOST MEMORABLE DAYS OF A STUDENT’S LIFE.. The culmination of all the hard work he has put in over the last few years.. To graduate.. Hence the title of this post..

May be the snowfall was the way nature showered its blessings on the budding to-be-successful professionals. May be it was the way for nature to show its happiness, inspite of all what humans do to ruin it. Every parent present in the ceremony today would have had happy tears in their eyes when their children’s names were called for awarding the certificate. May be this unexpected snow was our infinitely tolerant nature’s tears of happiness. As a mother who gave birth to each one of us, as a father who protects us and as a sibling to each and every one of us to play with.. May be nature was also shedding its happy tears and what else would be a better way to show it, that through its pure-white-magical snow….

First time in my life – Part 1

Hey,

After coming to Seoul, I did couple of things for the first time in my life. As painful (physically) it was in the beginning, but once these were overcame, the bitter experiences turned much more exhilarating than my wildest expectations.. Both the things I am about to describe here are winter sports..

The first sport I did was in December when our lab went for our Membership Training between 19th – 21st December 2007. We started off our journey to High One Ski Resort (Arguably one of the best ski resorts in Korea with respect to the quality of snow, which is really important for skiers on account of safety and control). After a 5 hour drive, we reached our destination. We had plans to ski for 4 sessions (19th night, 20th Morning, Noon and Night). Since I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA about skiing or any of the snow sports for that matter. After renting the snow gear (with all sorts of protection imaginable) we set off to the gondola from our condominium. If i remember right, there were roughly 20 odd slopes with different levels of expertise marked on them. Obviously I wanted to go to the beginner level and try my luck with skiing.

The most difficult part in skiing is to get up once you fall down. Its as difficult as its important. Neways.. coming to the part of my skiing experience, my friend Youngwoo (a classic skier nicknamed “speedstar”) spent a lot of time with Caihwa, Maria and Me as we were amateurs at skiing. Thanks to his patience and effort, we learned the basics of skiing, on how to stop (VERY IMPORTANT lest you wanna hit the barrier and RISK falling off the edge 🙂 ..), how to control your legs from splitting all the way etc etc. After this introduction from Youngwoo, I was ready to get-set-and-go on my FIRST skiing attempt. It all started smooth. I did not fall initially, but my run lasted just for 10-15 Seconds 🙂 .. Suddenly I lost control and WHAM!! There i was .. On my ass with the ski detached from my leg due to the force with which i fell down. 🙂 ..

Got up, assured my self that it happens to everyone 😉 , hiding my face to children who were not more than 7-8 years of age skiing like experts where I had fallen down :), I tried skiing again. My next venture did not even last another 10 seconds.. I found myself on my facing the sky.. AGAIN.. This vicious circle continued atleast a million times and if someone could break his ASS, I guess I was the first person in the world to achieve that “painful honor”. There were instances where I even skied “PERFECTLY” (sarcasm intended, if you did not notice) 😛 but the catch is that i did not do it the way I should actually have.. (I fell down on my back and skied my longest run using my back that day, at the cost of some sleepless hours at night due to the harsh body pain.. 🙂 ).

That night really made me feel “I HATE SNOW SPORTS” though i secretly admired those kids who did not even cross 8 years skiing like pros. I guess it was more like the wolf who said the grapes were sore as he could not eat it. An it cant be anymore right..

Next day I decided to try my luck at another beginner’s slope which posed less of a threat to my body (or as I thought). The day before, there were many instances where I felt so disappointed about my skiing skills, but all my friends kept on telling me, don’t loose heart kiran, its natural and once you get over this, you will enjoy it. And guess what.. On the second day .. I LOVED IT!!

Seriously.. Even though i did fall down many times the second day too, I could control my motion much more effectively than yesterday. The wind blowing against my face erased all my pains from the body.. LITERALLY… What a feeling it was.. Able to go some distance without falling down and literally zooming (with respect to my attempts, the day before).

You know.. There is NO FEELING in this world that i have experienced, compared to the one I felt when I was able to ski. The smooth surface of fresh snow, the lack of friction between the ski and the ground and the feeling of chilling breeze kissing your face combined does get you high. And I mean it.. a HIGH… I strongly suggest, if you get a chance to ski, don’t miss it for the world. It felt so nice, you were going as fast as you ever can travel without the assistance of any sort of motors. If you think driving a bike/car at high speed feels great, I suggest you to try a safer way to go fast.. ski.. though it cant compete with the speeds of the motor vehicles, you will be pleasantly surprised and exhilarated for sure.

My first skiing experience lasted 5 hours on 1st day and 12 hours on the second day. The only regret i had when i left the slope for going home on the third day, even after an exhausting 2nd day (skiing for 12 hours) and painful body muscles was that “If only I could get more time to ski” .. I loved it that much and so would you, if you are ever ready to try..

I am grateful to you Youngwoo, for all the hours you spent with me trying to help me learn skiing, and not losing patience even though i kept on making mistakes in the techniques again and again. Glad to be your friend. 🙂

Some tips for any beginners like me, who has plans to ski.

** When you ski, you need to keep your ski in the shape of an A where the pointed end is towards downhill

** Wear good protection for your waist and butt

** Have some muscle pain easers with you. Would be helpful in the night after your first attempts

** Most importantly dont lose heart. If you could master a li’l of the skill, you will love it.

I guess this post is already big and hence I will continue the second experience in the next one.