Korea - Land of Arirang

Arrrr Riiiiii Raannnnnnnnng Arrrr Riiiiiiiiiiii Raannnnnnnnnng Arrrrrrrrr Riiiiiiiiiiii Roooooooo~~

So what's up readers? How is your day?

Finally I managed to find some time to update about my Korea trip.

Anneyeong! 

Yours truly attended 24th International Youth Forum 2013 at Korea. There I met many awesome friends and bonded with everyone of them.

It was truly a memorable trip, the best overseas trip I have been so far.

Day 1: 7th August 2013
Arrived at Seoul as early as 5AM. From there we moved on to the Youth Hostel where the rest of the participants will assemble. It seemed me and Manish from India were the two persons to arrived first. By afternoon, almost everyone has assembled. So as usual, there's some ice breaking activities and getting to know other people. My craziness has not surfaced yet.

There we met a fellow Singaporean, Ling Han. She is studying in Beijing and was in Korea for another forum. Surprisingly, or rather not surprisingly, she is a classmate of a friend of mine in Singapore.


Day 2: 8th August 2013 (Selamat Hari Raya)
We went to Everland. HELL YEAH!

After having so much fun at Everland, we moved to Goesan Youth Center where we would be staying for the rest of the forum. Goesan is a small town located in central of Korean Peninsular. It is really peaceful and slow paced town surrounded by mountains. There are many insects especially grasshoppers flying around the area.

Day 3: 9th August 2013 to Day 6: 12 August 2013

From day 3 to 6, we spent our days at Goesan preparing for the forum and the planerary session. Sorry yeah, I am pretty lazy to type, it would be pretty long to type about the whole trip. Just so you know, it is really awesome.

To Be Continued

Greetings from Hanoi

Xin Chao! Hello from Noi Bai International Airport, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Oh yea! In case you are wondering what am I doing here, I am here waiting for my next flight to Korea.

YES! THE DAY IS HERE. THE LONG AWAITED AND MUCH ANTICIPATED DATE IS HERE FINALLY!

So, I started my journey from Changi, alone! Haha, my first time travelling alone, as in without any friends or school mates. Well, it's kind of emo thing man!

So, my journey was unique. And for the first time, I had quite an unique experience at Changi. First I went early to airport for early check in so I can get my choice of seat, which I did anyway. To my dismay, the system was down, have to wait about half an hour in queue to wait for the check in system to start working again.

After much delay, I finally got my boarding pass, seat 15A! Without further ado, I immediately went into immigration so I can spend some time at transit area.

Just fuck my life! I was stopped by the custom officers to do a spot check on my belongings, another half an hour wasted. I shall not go into detail but it's just FML! hahaha!

So is it over? NO!

After I passed the Automated Clearance, the officer at the end escorted to the immigration counter, for 'some security reason'. They said that they will conduct a random check once every 20 passengers. So, your truly is the "lucky" guy who strike the ball!

*As I was typing this, my plane to Korea, Korean Air has arrived! WHEEE, I JUST SAW IT LAND! AHHAHAHAHAHAHA*

After much angst moments, I went to boarding gate, just to get stopped by security officers again. Hahahah, man! Why so "lucky"! Just FML! Haha

If not for the friendly officers, I sure would have get pissed and angry!

Yes, I finally boarded the plane! It was a three hour journey to Vietnam, then I will transit to Korea.

I made friends with two passengers besides my seat along the way! Hehe! ^^

So, I arrived Vietnam, looking real lost, not understanding a single Vietnamese besides Xin Chao and Cam An. And people kept speaking to me in Vietnam, haahha! Cute or what!

Oh yeah, I managed to use the lounge, at 20 USD. Okay la, I would say worth it! (Oh yea, I paid VND instead of USD, cuz I want to keep USD first in case I might need it, so 20 USD = 420000 VND, almost half a million, haha).

Since I have about four hours to spare and Noi Bai Airport has poor facilities, using the lounge is a good idea.

They have comfortable sofas, free buffet, internet connection, friendly and gorgeous staff at the lounge.

If you are in Hanoi for transit and you have some times to spare, I would recommend you to use the lounge. The staff here are really nice! And the food is awesome too! Not forgetting to mention spacious area and comfortable seats, well, it is worth spending 20 USD here. OH THEY HAVE SHOWER HERE! HAHAH

Alright, I shall stop here. I gotta board soon. Meanwhile, shall enjoy my last serving of the lounge food. I seriously have no idea how many servings I had eaten here. OOPS! Cheapo King really lives up to his name. Hehe!

Checking in at Terminal 3

My boarding passes to Hanoi and Korea!

Vietnam Airlines Airbus 321 flight VN 660

The food in the lounge

Seafood noodle at the lounge

Spacious area and pleasant ambiance in the lounge.

I shall go off soon! Come back again for more update of my Korea trip! Thanks for your time, Cam An!

Signing Off!

Legend of Korra - Book Two

Hooray! After a year of long wait, the producer finally confirmed the release time for Legend of Korra Book 2 : Spirit.

It is finally coming out in September. AWESOME MAX!

Hope that the series is worth the wait. Something to look forward to after every book out from camp in Tekong. ^^

Looking forward to it!

What about you readers? Are you one of the Korra fans too? 

Signing Off.

My nugget for the day!

Monday blues, who else is sharing same sentiments with me?

Today marks the beginning of my last week working at SP Corp Comm Department. Time flies eh! Four months had passed since I last joined here. 2 more days and I will be leaving CCOM. #sad

So I was busy with mailing Escapade registrations (as usual) this afternoon. It was when I heard some commotion going on at front desk. I was at MySpace (literally) that time. This elderly lady was looking for her son who has not returned home since last weeks. Being a worried mother, she came looking for him at SP twice, last week and today.

The son is working at SP. Apparently, he has not gone home since last week and refused to let his mother know. He did not called his mother nor picked up any call from her.

After much callings were made, the supervisor of the son asked the lady to sit outside to wait for her son while they get him.

She waited nearly half an hour, and Jun was telling me she looked very frail and tired.

I couldn't bear any longer. I brought a bottle of water and some snacks to her. I bet she was really happy to see someone who cared about her.

Then the lady shared her woes with me. In fact, I was happy to lend her a listening hear, of course, hoping that she would feel better after she pouring her heart out.

After I sat down and accompanied her for a time being, her son appeared. So I left two of them alone to talk among themselves. Pray that she will be better now.

What amazed me was that she is very healthy and alert for an 83 years old lady. And that indescribable joyous feeling I got after accompanying and seeing her smile reminded me of the exact same feeling I felt back in Tibet.

It's just the same. And it also reminded me of why I wanted to do volunteering in the first place. To bring joy, and see someone smiles.

It is a simple random kindness that bringing joy not only to the people you helped, but yourself as well.

On a random note:

"After this particular phenomenon, I thought of my mother and my grandparents. I believe they pretty share the same sentiments.

Especially my mom, she has only me to depend on. I imagined her worries and woes over me and compared them with the lady, they are pretty much the same. Luckily for the grandma, she has 7 children to depend while my mom has only me.

And I thought of my father, who would always be excited and happy to see me whenever I returned Myanmar. If only he is still alive now, I would definitely treasure him more.

As of now, my mother is all I have in this world."

Let's get back to the topic!

Lesson learnt today, one act simple random kindness can bring joy, we might never know how big the impact is.

Join me, build a random kindness today.



Signing off.

Happy Ramadan

I know it's a little late but I wish all my Muslim friends a happy and blessed Ramadan. Pray that everything is fine and well in this holy month of fasting. You have my utmost respect. I too, look forward to celebrate Hari Raya.

In the meantime, once again, happy and blessed Ramadan to everyone. :)

Source: Evacomics

Signing off. 

Date with Jamie's

Thank god it was Friday. Benedict invited me join him and his girlfriend at Jamie's Italian for dinner on Friday.

'Hmm, I wouldn't mind. I get to know Ben's girlfriend too', I thought. But the food was expensive, as shown on the menu. I was preparing to order the lowest priced item, if possible.

Look at the price! Daylight robbery man!

SURPRISE! It was on the house. WAH HENG! PHEW!

That ass made a fool outta me, haha, told me I needa prepare at least 50 SGD, and my eyes were already twitching about spending so much. But hey, I was really glad man, and thankful of course. (I am just honored that Ben invited me to join them for 'once in a life time' chance. Thanks bro!)

Free food, happy cheapo. Of course. Zaylinn the Ultimate Cheapo never learns.

So we ordered, well, quite a spread of food. Haha, typical Singaporeans as we would always be.

 We ordered well, a lot of food. Can't remember what we order, haha. 

And not forgetting the liquor (cocktails) and wines too.

My first time drinking so much after a while. And my virgin cocktail experience. Hey, it's not bad. Haha, white wine was smooth.

A group photo: Denyse, myself, Ben and and Cherry (Left to right). Me and Denyse looked like the Jamie's Italian staff. 

Well, what do yea know. I met my former manager from Ambush here. Singapore is just too small. Wendy, my former manager at Ambush is working as a manager at this restaurant too. She looks much happier too. Well, the staff here are nice too. Almost everyone is friendly and attentive, except some. The girl who served our table is really nice and friendly, Ren Chi the name, if I am not wrong.

As we wanted to order dessert (we were willing to pay for the dessert), there's where things turned sour, a bit. The Caucasian supervisor (or trainer) came and told us that, well, you know, we can't order a lot because any 'normal customers' would not order that much. 

That's not the right attitude my lady. Screw you and your stupid stereotypes. Since your restaurant invite us and treat us, you should have been expecting this kind of order, am I right? 

What kind of attitude did you gave us? While I appreciate the friendliness, attentiveness and efficient service of the staff, I could not accept this kind of answer. 

To cut the story short, it was quite an unpleasant experience near the end. I shall not go into detail on how bad the experience was. 

Nevertheless, I really did had a great time there of course. The food was good (can be improve though), the service of the staff is good (except for some screwed up attitude by the higher people) and perhaps they can lower the pricing. 

Overall, it was great dining at Jamie's Italian, thanks to my bro. 

Well, the bill was more than I expected. Just wow!

Signing off. 

Feeling a little discouraged

Currently getting depressed and discouraged. Seriously I am having second thought if the trip to Korea is actually worth the expenses or not?

Even before I could actually go there, I already am spending closed to 1K, almost all of my last month pay. If only I have a some kind soul to sponsor me. (Oh well, the world is full of if only's, what if's, blah blah blah.)

Then comes additional expenses for visas for Korea and Vietnam (I am transiting one night at Vietnam, so I might as well apply for a visa and tour around Hanoi).

But after spending so much, I am just discouraged. Simply discouraged.

Is this trip gonna worth everything? 

Source: Google

Signing Off!