Notes From The Dark Side

        Be religious or think rationally? This has been something that has been seriously bugging our country and the entire world, and there is a huge difference between the two big words begin with R.

         Religion is something I would say as a link of our soul to God, it provides guidance, keeping us with faith and steer us pass tough times, no one knew how our God looks like, and I am in no position to argue that, but for sure every existing religion is meant for something good for mankind. But there is something I have to say, religion does not equal to rules, definitely not as dead as what the Holy Books had written, and definitely not equals to human’s interpretation of God’s intention, it is something alive and breathing in every single part of our life.

          So does that mean we have to follow everything our religion saying, follow blindly without thinking? Without using the most precious gift from God, our brain? The blind following and misinterpretation has cost us dearly, not just us, but million of lives in this world. Every country has their own interpretation of Islam for example, which one is true then? Is it the Turks , Iranian, Palestinian, Afghans, Malaysian ourselves, or even the Al-Qaeda group? Who is in the position to say which is right and which is wrong then?

          "Terrorist" are named so not because they kill people, not because they destroy buildings, but because their aim is to cause terror. The worst thing of all, they used God as their name, they do it for God, and is adamant that they are sacrificing for God in holy intentions. Rationality lacks at this point, they follow blindly on what they believe to be true, its like they do not have their mind with themselves anymore, and eventually became the slave of the so-called "True Religious Believe". Suicide bombing had became the best way of declaring their loyalty towards God, but I believe that this is the moment that God is weeping, whoever He is.

           I believe God promote peace and not killings, promote honesty and not selfishness, promote growth and not destruction, most importantly God promotes freedom of thinking as long as it is in a positive way and the courage to make changes. Many things has been done on the name of God besides war, just look at our country, the dress code, the conservativeness, segregation of sexes in concert, and in Indonesia, where churches threaten to be blown off every Christmas, is it something that God really wanted us to do? Or is it just something in the so called "law of God" and misinterpretation of people who is stubborn and selfish?

          Another evidence is the Islamic sex laws in Middle East, which is extremely sexism and against woman rights. Woman are treated like slave, objects of desire and has no right to speak up or whatsoever, even though they had been terribly abused and their husbands committing adultary freely outside, as these are considered the right of men and they will not be severely punished. Again, the reason they gave is "religion said so".

           We nowadays are modernized people, capable of coming out with new ideas, capable of deciding the right and wrong, and if we continue to be blinded by restriction is religions, we will never progress and come out of the shell. I believe we can have faith in God, and at the same time be flexible, doing what we think is morally correct, that is when God is smiling on us, and not fearing to disobey religious rules which we think is unnecessary with fear of causing us to go to hell.

Rationality always prevail!!

(It might sound offensive to some but I am just speaking up, no offense)

If you are a plant lover, going to Korea is like going to heaven, as colorful sakura leaves, maple leaves tree can be seen anywhere there, and of course Korea is also well known for its purple crystal, which I have visited the factory, amazingly well processed, shiny, and elegant on any woman.

This is Everland, the seventh largest theme park in the world, owned by the boss of Samsung company. As you can see, the park is already filled with Christmas decorations everywhere, as Christmas is coming soon. Some great rides in the theme park include Safari ride, the border-less cable car, ghost shooting mansion(which you can obtain your score at the end of the ride), totally wet Amazon boat ride and some of the greatest roller coasters in the world.

In the Safari ride, the greatest attraction is these two animals, called "Liger", only available in Korea. As tigers and lions tend to stay together in the safari, they produce off springs which have the characteristics of both species. Unfortunately their DNA cause them to be infertile, therefore limit their numbers.

Another attraction is the huge but cute Korean bears, which are trained to perform various stunts, like fetching food to eat, dance, and imitate the pose of the Buddha, as shown in the photo beside.

This is the border-less cable car i mentioned earlier, riders are only protected by a removable thin safety pole on our waist for safety, which turns a normal cable car ride to a thrilling ride. However, there are protective nets beneath the cable cars to prevent accidents.

This photo beside might be familiar to those who watched to Korean drama "qing ding da fan dian", which is shot in this Walker Hill Hotel, which also have a big casino. This is shot outside the casino, which only allows entrance to foreigners, not locals, and even at the age of 20, I am granted entrance and permitted to gamble.

Remember the Korean box office movie Taegukgi released 2 years ago? Its a real story about siblings lost in a war, one representing North Korea army and one is the commander of South Korean army,fighting against each other.This statue is specially made for the story, located in the Seoul War Museum, which also paraded jets, tanks, submarines and weapons used in wars between North and South Korea.

This is Cheong Gye stream, which geographically divides Seoul, now a famous spot for evening walk in the big city, which long ago the stream water is used by Koreans for drinking, bathing, and clothes washing purpose.

If the United States of America had a white house, South Korea had a "green house" itself, named because of its green roof. It is the place where Korean president stays, the place where major international conference take place, and the place most strictly guarded by military in Korea.

This rock is formed naturally from a volcano eruption. Due to its look resembling male penis, it is believed that if you touch its nose you will get a baby boy, if you want a baby girl, touch the chin. For those who do not want any kids, touch the hands and it will bring wealth, hmm… guess which part I have touched?

This photo is taken inside Korean National Museum. Its a scene where Korean kids celebrate their one year old birthday. The museum itself have ancient paintings, sculptures and lots of articles on the history of Korea.

This building can be seen in every Korean dollar notes, as it is the building representing the national pride of Korea. Beneath the pile of trees beside the building is the "Veins of Dragon" of Korea, as a metal dragon is buried underneath it. The previous president took the dragon out and shift it to the museum, which cause earthquakes, crash of buildings, economic downturn and lots more disasters in Korea, prompting the next president to rebury back the dragon, as this is the place with best Feng Shui in the country.

And for those who watched "Jewel in the Palace" or " Da Chang Jin", you will know that this is the kind of house that ancient Korean people stays in. Windows are particularly low in these houses as most Koreans sleep on the floor.

So thats the end of the tour, I do get to watch a live concert featuring many famous Korean singers while shopping around the are of XinChun. Hope I will get a chance to visit more exciting places in the future.

This country is maybe one of the coldest country I have ever been in my life. With day time temperature at 5 to 6 degrees Celsius and might go down to maximum -1 Celsius at night, thick winter clothes and gloves are a must.

Those who watched the famous Korean drama winter sonata might recognize the scene in the photo. Besides my parents there, a famous couple of Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo had a romantic scene here. This is taken from a secluded island in Korea called Nam-I Island, who is virtually unknown before the drama, which has slowly involved into a hot tourist spot. 5 minutes of ship ride is needed to reach the destination, now a favorite place for couples to take their wedding photo, and of course, ideal spot for dating.

This is not hollywood, which has lots of hand prints of stars on the floor. This is the Myundong in Incheon, and the hand prints belong to the lead actor and actress of Winter Sonata. Its the place where they date, the lead actor had accident, and also a famous shopping street in Korea.

This is peak of Mount Sorak, what the Korean call "devil’s peak", for its steep route upwards, amazing scene when its completely covered by snow during winter, visitors who tried to hike up during winter will take a stumble every one or two steps because of the slippery floor made of rock due to heavy snowing. Yet its a place where Koreans like to hike up to have family picnic, and a favorite spot for older woman to sing and dance.

To get up to Mount Sorak’s hiking trail, we need to ride a 15 minutes cable car, which provides breathtaking view like in the photo beside, it is a dangerous place for kids to visit though, as the cliff of the mountain are all unfenced, one slip by anyone and you might just end up losing your precious life.

This is the tallest Buddha in Korea, located just outside Shin Heong temple, to get to the temple, you need to get pass a bridge called "bridge to heaven" and return with a different bridge, and every visitors are required to take a sip at the water taken from the stream beside, known as "holy water", which is naturally sweet in taste…The whole Buddha is made out of valuable green bronze, and inside its body is a storeroom filled with holy books.

As you can see from the photo, there are snows in the hills behind, this is Vivaldi Park, one of the biggest skiing park in Asia. Starting from December, the park will be completely covered by snow, a mixture of artificial and natural snow, and tourists will storm in for skiing and snowboarding. Just too bad I miss the skiing season for half a month, sob…

I will be back with part 3 for more interesting places in Korea, stay tune!! And have a nice day everyone

So I am back, from the country that brought us so many amazing dramas, thats right, its Korea, and I am ready to share my experiences from the vacation. So fasten your seat belt, sit tight, and follow me on the journey to this land of mystery.

I will make it a 3 part blog, in this first part I will talk about food, culture, lifestyle and fashion of Korea. Then in the next 2 parts I will introduce the tourist attractions there.

Something I find special about the lifestyle there is that Koreans sleep on the floor more than on the bed, even in four or five star hotels, some do not provide beds, just mattress to spread on the floor, a pillow filled with rice shells, and a blanket. During winter, the floor will be connected to heating system to bring warmth.

When people ask me about what is the greatest ever thing Koreans ever come out with, I will answer without doubt, plastic surgery. Nowadays not only movie stars, huge number of girls in Korean spend their first few months of salary going for artificial beauty, regardless of the pain suffered, and through my observation, almost all young lasses walking on the streets are perfect looking… Apart from that, I would say that Seoul is an emerging fashion city, everyone walking on the streets are dressed in latest fashion designs, even winter clothes, all of them are very uniquely designed, simply amazing!!

If you look at the photo beside very closely, you will find that all the cutlery are made out of metal, especially the chopstick, which makes it very slippery and difficult to be used. This noodle above is called "wu long mee", resemble the Japanese ramen, and its served together with the yellow radish and "kimchi", red in colour, sour tasting, containing 20 nutrients, and is a must have in every Korean meal.

This thing beside is called "tie ban shao", means burning food on a metal cooker. Ingredients include special sauce,sweet potato, cabbage, Korean "nian gao", meat and also rice, which is mixed later to stir together. The cooked meat can also be wrapped by raw vege to eat together with chili sauce. Notice the empty plastic cups on the table, Koreans usually serve plain water on meals, no soft drinks, coffee or tea, to lower the consumption of sugar.

Next up, this is called vegetarian steamboat. Korea is a very health conscious country, especially on their food, they eat vege more than meats, which free them from deadly diseases such as SARS and bird flu, the best thing is they do not use pesticide on their vege. The bowl of rice beside it is the famous "stone rice", called that because of its bowl is make of stone, red hot all the time and the rice need to be stirred continuously to prevent it from being overcooked.

This is called barbecue meat, in a unique Korean way. A big piece of meat is placed on the heating tray, turning it over all the time, cutting to smaller pieces in the process, an ideal meal for winter.Its served with white rice, which is completely round in shape, different from the shape of Malaysian white rice.

This is my little brother, beside him is one of the famous food of Korea, ginseng chicken soup, served with mee sua. The chicken is stuffed with sticky rice balls and ginseng, and its added with a small cup of ginseng wine, tasty and healthy as well. Korean is very famous for its ginseng, can be considered best in the world, as it is the warm type compared to the hot type from China and cold type from America.

I did visit the biggest fish market in Korea, besides fish, they have giant crabs sold here, and even the squids are gigantic, which they dried the squids, ferment it and its a very popular food among locals and foreigners, can be barbecued or added into soup.

OK thats all for today, will write more soon, before I go, big congratulations to Nicol Ann David, the recent double world champion, we penangites are really proud of you, keep it up!!