Lunch after Class

So, what's lunch for today? What about trying out Indian food? OH, yeaach..who wouldn't want Indian food..after all since I am a vegetarian myself..I couldn't help but wanting to try it out myself. On my Professor's invitation, we headed to 'Namaste'--seemingly the only Indian restaurant near campus. Well, pratta and biryani rice (of course the vegetable one) were what we ordered. 

I wanted actually to show the picture of my friend as well on this blog..but I got to make sure that I got her approval, first. So, I just might as well put the picture of the food first.

Oh...right, Thursdays is always a busy day for me..morning to night.

classes, work, teach, study...and running back and forth from HUFS to Youido and back again to campus. 

Gee...that needs a tremendous energy from my part..

*Oh, back to Namaste: it's a great way to 'escape' for a moment ...the daily diet of Korean food. Right? 

What is THAT???

Just walking by Imun street when I got a glimpse of what i thought to be a tractor on top of the rooftop. It turned out to be what I thought it was.

It IS a tractor. Well, for some other people, it may not be a surprising thing. But for me, it was.^^ 

They were demolishing a building to make a better new one, of course. I just wonder how the tractor could end up being up there? Of course, some huge crane must've put it there. But how? For an ordinary people like me who know nothing about how such thing came to work...I was just spell bound.^^

A trivial thing that does not seem too trivial for me.^^

It's Been A Year ....Being Right in the Middle of This Neighborhood

This is exactly where we live. I took this picture from the 10th floor of my campus where I could see my home right in the middle of those buildings. Clamped or stuck in the midst of concrete jungles, full of housing complexes between two campuses. 

We moved to this neighborhood on December 2011 and it is now January 2013. Guess...it's officially a year or more....

"Happy New Year 2013"

* Happy Anniversary...should I say this too? for having been here for more than a year?^^

Guess...Ok, why not lah...:)

Bismillahirohmanirohim.....I hope that all's going to be just fine this year. Amen.

We live here!!!

Right at the back of our campus, there are numerous housing for rent. Be it villa, mansion, one room, two room, apartment, boarding house, hasuk, gositel, and many other types of real estate. No wonder that it is such a crowded view like this. I took a chance to take a picture from the 10fl. of HUFS Main Building. Well, I live somewhere in one of those housings. 

In short, between HUFS and Kyunghee University are there numerous housing complexes.

A crowded place as it may seem, it is livable. 

Imundong, Seoul.

A Dinner with Ilya's Parents

I've been wanting to post this entry for quite some time since I did enjoy the time when the parents of my  pal right here in Korea invited me to have dinner with them. So, it was Ilya's parents' special visit to Korea that made it even more meaningful. Ilya--my friend and kind-of-my-younger-brother from Kazakhstan  --had been so busy the week his parents visited him in Korea last December (2011).

 We had this special dinner at a Chinese restaurant just around the block near our campus.
I remembered vividly that it was a chilly and windy night of December. But, the warmth of the dinner and especially Ilya's parents and auntie made it worthwhile for me to remember the occasion.
One thing I treasured: they even ordered just a special food for me since they'd known (thanks to Ilya) that I happened to be a vegetarian.
.....
Some of our friends were also invited in the dinner: Aigerim, Yelena, Aizhan (three of them from Kazakhstan), and Taekcho (from China).
The best part: it was such a wonderful occasion since it was (surprise...surprise) a customary (is it?) in Kazakhstan to bring along some present to their guests. Wow what a treat.









I mean...I got this whole bunch of candies and fruits from Kazakhstan...that I would not have tasted, had I not known these friends of mine. Amazing, right?
(more pictures and stories of these colorful candies later on^^ my other entry).

Another thing that I want to keep in mind was the fact that both of Ilya's parents did invite us to their homeland should we have a chance of going there. Why not. It would be such a great trip should I be able to realize this dream of going to Ilya's country--someday. Fingers crossed? ^^. Some say dreams do come true, right?

Taking the family out in Winter

Actually, I should have put this entry earlier but since I did not write anything about it yet,  I might as well put it now. So, the pictures tell about the time when were taking a stroll along the university in one Winter morning.

 

I guess it was Saturday.  All of us were dressed up or wrapped up(?) in Winter clothes that we could think of so as we did not feel the shivering cold weather.  Luckily, it was  a bright sunny Saturday morning.

To capture the moment before going straight into the subway, we were passing by the main building of our campus. Oh....we live in a house right behind the campus so every time we go out somewhere, we have no other choices but to pass the whole campus right into its entrance before heading towards the Metro station. 

My kids become so accustomed to playing and passing by the campus yard be it in a broad daylight or night.

House warming or jibteri

It is a Korean culture to invite friends and relatives to one’s newly built or rented house or homeJ So, we did, too.

We invited some friends to come over and have the food that we prepared and see where we live. Most of them were my friends from other countries who happened to be studying in Korea.  As the pictures show, our friends Laos (Changmi), Ghana (Felix), Uzbekistan (Jobirson), Japan (Chika & Akane), Kazakhtan (Ilya), Cambodia (Borey), China ( Arin & Iwol), Algeria (Maya), Indonesia (Wawan), and our family. Others were also coming afterwards to have dinner with us. 

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The house did become warm since lots of us came and sat together in one place. I thought that the house was big enough to hold all of our friends...but....then....it felt like so small...but that was the whole point. Being one in a two-room house would make the house warm.

In front of the house

On our way out from the frontyard of our home sweet home in Imundong, Korea. The 30-minute preparation every time we go out is hinted on the thick jackets with its pheriperal outfits that go along with them. It is Winter: the simplest reason as to why we dress up like this.

The house visage does indicate one of the major characteristics of Korean houses; especially the one for rents. The red bricks dotted the houses’ visage.  We love the house since it has a relatively wide open frontyard where our daughters can play or ride on their bikes in Summer ( a long time to wait, eh).

Blocks from Toys R Us

One of the presents that our daughters had in Korea. The Blocks. 

The party for the girls was not over yet. They were so excited of having been able to play the stacks and builds.

Look at their faces when they opened up the boxes of treasures.

It was actually almost midnight, but the excitement that they had really overpowered their tiredness(?).  All of kinds of imaginable shapes and things they could build were already in their minds.

At times they seem to have no feeling of being tired or bored of trying to build up new things. Good exercise, I guess.

Two Families on the Go

We were taking the Metro from Namdaemun on our way back home to Imundong when we bumped into a family of six from Malaysia who turned out to be having their Winter vacation in Korea. Wow what a coincidence. We felt like brothers already since we came from Southeast Asia. What struck me most when we met them was the fact that the family of six came to Korea for their Winter vacation to see the snow...but unfortunately..they did not see any, yet.

We chatted along the way on the Seoul Metro and got a chance to exchange address and promised to keep in touch.

I was touched by the fact that they did enjoy having their one-week trip in Korea.

and...what's more interesting than that....was the fact that they brought up 70%  of the family members. (I mean: two stayed home due to their jobs back home). But.....the idea of having a trip for the whole family to Korea was more than intriguing for me.

Before saying goodbye..we managed to take a picture as a token of memory at the Dongdaemun Station.

Jobir's Birthday

I was walking down the backyard of the main building at HUFS when I spotted a familiar figure hurrying up towards the building. It was Jobir--my friend. He was unusually cloaked in a suit like he was going to have some job interview.

(note: the picture does not correspond to the story cos it was taken right after the birthday bash, actually)

Indeed, he DID have an interview for the final exam. But, it turned out that that was not the reason as to why he was wearing a formal attire. It was his birthday. :)










Wow..that was nicely cool.
So, I got his invitation to come over for his birthday bash.
---












The class (I mean...the exam's over)...and I got back to my room only to find another message reminding me of Jobir's birthday. We were going to Mr. Pizza.

--Jobir, Maya, Felix, Wawan, Polina, and some
other friends were ready to have the party. Since it was colder than the day before, we dressed up in winter jacket....only to find that the birthday boy stood up distinctively wearing his suit.












 I think that was a good decision of him to wear one since he looks cool in it. It compliments him.












So, we're having this good pizza.: a large cheese pizza and a potato sweet pizza.
In short, after a quick break .....










and off...we started the party by digging into the delicious pizza.

So, Jobir...Happy Birtday.
May All of the wishes come true.
Amiiin.


 

A home sweet home to be

To Be?
well, yes...because I will or precisely my family is going to live there starting from December, next month.
Finally, I booked a house in Seoul. Gosh...it IS so DARN expensive to rent a house in Seoul. The system itself is a bit complicated for any foreigners who might get their first exposure to its renting system--so to speak. Let's see: the so-called jeonse, wolse, etc etc....not to mention the gwallibi and etc etc. oh oh oh. what in the name of ......are those.:)
Anyway...I finally decided my mind to take this two-room house, not that big ...but spacious enough for me to live with my wife and two daughters....
It is just a 3-minute walk to campus!
It is relatively accessible with good neighborhood--I presume...and I hope I am right.
It is equipped with kitchen set (it got to be), the bathroom (it must have one), two rooms (for sure), a refrigerator--an additional advantage:), a washing machine (this one, too), one wardrobe (ok), and heating system (it MUST have one..or else:), and ...one thing for sure...it is like love at first sight.

I've been like going around the neighborhood searching for the right place to stay for like almost a month or so.
Then....it was the last house that I looked into..and it was like zapped me into it. I kinda like it.
A bit expensive....:( But...seeing the fact that it IS so close to campus and it is relatively clean.....made me decide what I should take this one.
So, today...I made a 2-year contract to live there.

Thanks to Ms. Choi from One-Stop Global Service...I got a chance to choose from a list of houses that matches my taste.
Bismillahirrohmanirrohim...I hope that this will be a good start of having a good life in here with my family. I just want to study and learn and to live and to have fun with my family.