India-KXIP fan Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 usually they work 16 to 18 hrs a day and they everyone around them is working hard they end up working more just to keep up with others.. and working more != working smart .. also even in a midtier city like suwon , if they want to buy an apartment they need to shell out their 10 to 15 years package they were caught in the rat race .. :giggle: Holy chit balance not even once! :omg: wtf! 16-18 r u serious, and then 1 hour commute, 7 hour sleep :ohmy: There is no way even 50% of that is productive :cantstop: How many days a week do they work? Don't tell me it's more than Mon-Fri :nervous: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mariyam Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 TFS Sree... Post some stuff about your interaction with the Koreans. I mean what kind of topics do the conversations generally veer towards. With people of Malay/Indonesian or Middle Eastern backgrounds Bollywood is an ice breaker. What does an Indian discuss with a Korean he/she random comes across in a coffee shop? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
India-KXIP fan Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 TFS Sree... Post some stuff about your interaction with the Koreans. I mean what kind of topics do the conversations generally veer towards. With people of Malay/Indonesian or Middle Eastern backgrounds Bollywood is an ice breaker. What does an Indian discuss with a Korean he/she random comes across in a coffee shop? Koreans are at work 18 hours! How can he talk to one casually Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kalia_Test Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 Just switched on TV and saw opening sequence of Die another day - set in North Korea DMZ ...must say the setting is pretty close to the pics posted here Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 Will answer the questions in due time, a bit busy now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 Before getting permission to go to the border, I had to agree to the following: Long story shot, it says that if I get shot or killed, it is my own fault and they will accept no liability of any sort. Scary but this is the only situation under which they took me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fineleg Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 velu is alive and has been found in NK? :D Hi Velu, how is maama doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
velu Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 velu is alive and has been found in NK? :D Hi Velu, how is maama doing? i m in namma namma bangalore :dance: mama is doing his usual stuff .. taking care of cement business and cricket :bandit: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 Interesting place to visit! Yeah. I like exploring the unexplored. nice.. where do you work? In front of my computer. Is korea a cold place? It gets very cold in winter. Today is going to be -10. That's insane stuff TFS Thanks. what do they do if you point at the guards serious question. Do they throw in one of thoose slave camps ? I heard north korea has lot of them and living conditions are very poor. I shared a story here on that a while ago about a person who escaped from those camps. Don't know, never asked. Just did what they asked me. how the heck did umanage that? OPs playing games Through magic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 OP has big connections :bigboss: He went to Antarctica as well. Someone related might in the diplomatic position. The Antarctica trip and the North Korea trip are not related in any way. They are completely separate. OP is a rich guy. Some kind of researcher IIRC Both assumptions are incorrect. I am not rich and I am not a researcher. No. He is in to software. But might have rich lands. Assumption is .5 correct. I work in a very specialised area of software. I always wish to go to north korea for a day or two and see how secluded it is. along with Eritrea prolbably the most closed country in the world. Probably should if you get the chance. Intriguing. Intriguing it is. are these live updates lol? Im surprised they have wifi and 3g/4g then No, they were not live updates. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 Sree be careful...don't be too adventerous when in N.K :nervous: Thanks for your concern. The pictures give me the chill....not because of the snow... The snow gave me the chills. Majority of what I saw, I was not able to photograph. Dont they eat anything that moves or not. Probably. Can't say for sure. ETV: isn't this the 2nd time you are doing this? i.e Going to the North South Korea border. Yep, second time. Incredible pictures' date=' thanks for sharing them with us.[/quote'] You are welcome. DMZ tours vary in their quality. Even if you book a tour, they make you jump through a lot of hoops. Its not as straightforward as just booking your seat and showing up on the day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 He's the Most Interesting Indian :hatsoff: Thanks Tex. Glad you enjoyed the travelogues. ETV gets to travel a lot :woot: Maybe. Would like to travel more. All I remember of Seoul, while transiting last month I went to a coffee shop at Seoul Airport to order a Cappuccino. And I paid $5.00 USD Equivalent. I was like W.T.F, I don't pay $5.00 even at JFK or SFO, but in fxxking Seoul of all the places? Give the coffee a miss, its pretty average. Awesome stuff. Keep these threads coming :two_thumbs_up: Will do. More travelogues to come. South Koreans are not happy with who themselves are. It might not be related to higher suicide rates but South Koreans also have the highest rate of cosmetic surgeries of any country in the world. I forgot the numbers but it's something like one out of every 5 young people have undergone cosmetic surgeries in SK. That's crazy. Sounds about right. i am lucky to come back alive Yeah. I am not too keen on working in South Korea either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 suicide thing is real and the amount of pressure Koreans undergo is unimaginable.. once some VP of samsung committed suicide ( responsible for 5000++ people ) by jumping from one of the buildings.. now they cant goto terrace and nets installed Yeah. Heard some real horror stories from my contacts here. Nice :nice: This is your 2nd visit North Korea? http://www.indiancricketfans.com/showthread.php?t=297007 - From 2003 :hmmm: Yep, second visit. I came here in 2013. Liked Korea so much that I decided to come back. Why do Koreans have so much pressure? Pressure from other people or some other pressure? :hmmm: Korean society is ultra competitive. Failure is equated to shame. Pics are dead in that thread Those pic were more scary :nervous: Agree. Liked those pictures more than the ones I took this year. What's the suicide rate in S Korea? What sports do they play in S Korea? What's the population density in S Korea? Are there much rural areas in S Korea? :hmmm: Japan and South Korea are usually the top 2 in terms of the highest suicide rates in the world. usually they work 16 to 18 hrs a day and they everyone around them is working hard they end up working more just to keep up with others.. and working more != working smart .. also even in a midtier city like suwon , if they want to buy an apartment they need to shell out their 10 to 15 years package they were caught in the rat race .. :giggle: Sounds about right. Right race with no end in sight. Holy chit balance not even once! :omg: wtf! 16-18 r u serious, and then 1 hour commute, 7 hour sleep :ohmy: There is no way even 50% of that is productive :cantstop: How many days a week do they work? Don't tell me it's more than Mon-Fri :nervous: They work Saturday as well. Sometimes, they get called in on a Sunday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 TFS Sree... Post some stuff about your interaction with the Koreans. I mean what kind of topics do the conversations generally veer towards. With people of Malay/Indonesian or Middle Eastern backgrounds Bollywood is an ice breaker. What does an Indian discuss with a Korean he/she random comes across in a coffee shop? Talk about anything and everything. For reasons that Velu mentioned, most of them are doing whatever they can to get out of Korea. They are surprised to hear that I fly 16 hours time and again to keep coming back. Koreans are at work 18 hours! How can he talk to one casually There are not enough hours in one day :( Just switched on TV and saw opening sequence of Die another day - set in North Korea DMZ ...must say the setting is pretty close to the pics posted here Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 25, 2014 Author Share Posted December 25, 2014 Modern day Seoul: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
randomGuy Posted December 25, 2014 Share Posted December 25, 2014 Remember reading that at their current fertility rate, south Korea population will reduce from 50 million to 10million in 120 years and by year 2700 , the population will become zero! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 26, 2014 Author Share Posted December 26, 2014 Remember reading that at their current fertility rate' date=' south Korea population will reduce from 50 million to 10million in 120 years and by year 2700 , the population will become zero![/quote'] Like Japan, they just aren't producing any babies. They have one of the highest negative growth rates in the world. Japan and South Korea are very similar. Having been to both countries multiple countries, I say this from personal experience. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 26, 2014 Author Share Posted December 26, 2014 While North Korea is one big concentration camp, the exact is opposite for South Korea. To think, they were the same country 50 years ago. Christmas in Seoul, just as I had imagined it. Clear sunny day with not a cloud in sight, sub zero temperatures, children singing Christmas carols. Time to skate. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
~ Miss Warner ~ Posted December 26, 2014 Share Posted December 26, 2014 Would love to visit south korea but stuffed if id ever go to north korea even if I was able to. I heard a story once which mentioned that whenever south korean soldiers had to exchange documents with north korean soldiers they would meet in a building that was 50% on each side of the border and had a doorway & window in the middle of the room and the south korean soldier would hold the hand of another south korean soldier and lean through the door to exchange documents and the other soldier wouldnt let go incase there was a kidnapping attempt. Looking at these pics I probably believe that story now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnterTheVoid Posted December 26, 2014 Author Share Posted December 26, 2014 Would love to visit south korea but stuffed if id ever go to north korea even if I was able to. I heard a story once which mentioned that whenever south korean soldiers had to exchange documents with north korean soldiers they would meet in a building that was 50% on each side of the border and had a doorway & window in the middle of the room and the south korean soldier would hold the hand of another south korean soldier and lean through the door to exchange documents and the other soldier wouldnt let go incase there was a kidnapping attempt. Looking at these pics I probably believe that story now. These are the blue buildings that you are talking about. I can also confirm the story as being correct. Half of the building is in South Korea, the other half is in North Korea. When exchanging documents, the South Korean soldiers hold onto each other in case the North Koreans forcibly try to come in and drag the South Korean solider into their side of the building. They can say this was an invasion attempt and launch more hostilities. The grey building facing us is in North Korea. The blue buildings are where the negotiations between North and South Korea take place. They are designed such that half of the building is in North Korea, the other half is in South. After a briefing on what to do, what not to do, we go into the building and into communist territory. Escorted under full military protection by the ROK (Republic Of Korea) soldiers: The wooden plank is THE border. Its the line that cuts the Korean peninsula into North and South Korea. Guess the window was a little dirty: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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