First Day, First Show.

Friday 23rd March, I am not talking about release of a movie but my First Day at Samsung Office, Gumi. Morning 9 am Kim Seo Nuk came to IGH to take us to office. Before leaving to office he gave some introduction on topics ranging from geographical location of Korea to people in Samsung with whom we will be working.



We entered the campus through ‘main gate’, but entry for visitors is not simple, there are a lot of procedures. First we had to fill visitor form in which majority of entry is in Korean, fortunately Seo was with us. Then one more rule, non Samsung phones are not allowed inside, therefore we had to deposit our moto phones at security. Further we should show our passport for security purpose. Then we have to make an entry about laptops serial number in a yellow form. Whooooosh … so many procedure … this place is like a fortress, so much security is not there even at airports.

Then we proceeded towards mobile communication division block. There we met Mr. Jung at 10.30 am as per schedule. He started with overview of the project and explained who will be doing what etc. After sometime at 11.40 am they left for lunch and surprisingly everyone in the block left at the same time. As we scratched our heads for the reason we later go to know that it was so because of the small cafeteria and the employees have lunch in a time sharing basis. Each block has a specific time slot for lunch.

Before entering cafeteria I was mentally prepared for distinct foul smell, about which I was warned enough by my colleagues who previously had been to Korea. It was not bad as described by my colleagues who previously had been to Korea. There we took coupons for lunch from the vending machine. The cost for one coupon is 3300 Won.
They had specially ordered vegetarian lunch made for us. It had fruits, Korean rice, milk, bread and butter.

After Lunch we roamed around Samsung campus with Mr.Jung and Mr.SeoNuK. They showed us the dormitory, soccer ground, and other recreational facilities. Then they took us to library cum pantry to have some coffee. There we tried to have a look at some books, but unfortunately for us there was only one English book - “Bill Clinton’s My Life”.

After coming back to workplace all types of questions related to work were shot on us. Why this … Why that .. why so ???. Also they told us that we are expected to work form 10 am to 10 pm. We replied by telling that we have our dinner at IGH, and hence we can’t stay for such a long time.

Finally at 7.30 pm we decided to leave for the day. We underwent the same security check, returned the visitor badge and collected our mobiles. It was end of our first day at Samsung office.

My first travel outside India

Though I had a valid Schengen visa for onsite support since December, some how my travel hadn’t materialized for many days. Last to last week when Ramesh asked me whether I am interested in Samsung project, I didn’t agreed immediately. After discussing with Chethan(who already is in Korea) over the weekend Chethan, I changed my mind. I enquired Ramesh further about the project. He told that the work will be at Gumi, 300km from Seoul and the stay will be at the Indian guest house (IGH).

Flashback Feb 22:
I was in a meeting room taking KT from Deepak. A call came from Srikanth that may have travel to Paris to for urgent customer issue. Discussion happened with many big people and was decided that I had to travel next day. All the formalities started from raising travel requests, getting approval etc. In the evening I went to Big Bazaar to buy a travel-bag, MTR Ready to Eat. Next day while going to office I got a call from Shreesh that the customer issue is resolved and there was no need to travel. All the overnight shopping went in vain.

Fast Forward March 22, 12.30 am:
I was on board Thai Air TG326 (Boeing 777-300) which was about to take off from Bangalore. I was excited as this was my first air travel and foreign travel. It all happened so fast that I didn’t have the time to inform my friends and relatives. At the last minute there were many panics I missed some important stuffs and adding to woes my luggage was overweight.

Subhajit and Hussu were there with me. If was alone, I would have gone mad. The flight landed in SuvarnaBhumi Airport, Bangkok 6.15 am local time. Our flight to Seoul was at 7.25 am. It was already late and there was big rush to collect transit boarding pass. Then they made a special counter for TG624 as we had to take boarding pass ASAP.

Enroute to seoul the flight landed in Taipei for 45 minutes halt. In the mean time we did window shopping at the duty free shops. At 12.55 pm local time the flight took off. On board I got Lemon Rice for Lunch. Lemon Rice ... 29000 feet above East China Sea !!! it was more than my expectations.

@ Incheon Intl Airport

Finally plane landed at Incheon International Airport at 4.15 pm local time. It was end of eventful journey with 3 take-offs and 3 landings within 24 hrs. We collected our baggage, completed immigration formalities and exchanged Dollars to Won (1$ = 900+ won). Hussu parted away and took taxi to Seoul, the taxi driver was a very nice person. He helped us to call IGH,Gumi and instructed us to use gate 8 to catch bus to Gumi. As soon as we came out of Gate 8 we got feeling of Korean weather. It was damn cold and fortunately we were wearing good Jackets.

Daewoo Limoseine Bus

Subhajit bought tickets to Gumi at counter, the price was 26000 Won per heard. The platform for Limosene bus to Gumi is 10C. The bus came at 5.35pm and departed at sharp 5.40 pm. It was a Daewoo bus, superior to Volvo. The seats were more comfortable than that of an Aircraft. The journey was bit long but wasn’t taxing though as the expressways are too good. Even if there is congestion, people follow the lane. The bus halted at some place for 15 mins, in the mean time we had photography session. Finally at 9.30pm we reached Gumi.

Here bus halted for 15 mins

We had to take a Taxi from bus stand to IGH. As we had card with address in Korean we didn’t face any issues. The taxi ride was memorable the driver didn’t know even a bit of English. On the way I witnessed that Gumi is a bigger city than I expected. There are flashy buildings, shopping marts etc. We saw a Samsung motor showroom. Samsung there in automobile sector as well ?? Then driver explained in Korean with hand actions that Samsung motors is a collaboration between Samsung and Nissan Motors. He tried to explain other stuffs. We also tried ask some questions but were unsuccessful in communicating.

As soon as we reached IGH, we got a call from our Korean sales office in charge that he will be coming next day at 9am to take us to Samsung office. After refreshing ourselves we had dinner prepared by Mr. Keshab (cook at IGH) and slept as we had to get up early on the next day.

2 upsets on a same day !!!

In my last post, I was of the opinion that league phase of the world cup 2007 will be straight-forward, boring and the contest will be exciting Super 8 onwards. It seems some players taken my words seriously :).

On March 17th we had two upsets. Bangladesh defeated India by 5 wickets and Ireland defeated Pakistan by 3 wickets and knocked them out of the tournament.

India’s super 8 berth seems to be unlikely. In order to qualify they have to play exceptional cricket against Sri Lanka and beat them convincingly. Why India came into this situation?? It happened all because of fear of failure and they weren’t playing their natural game. Throughout the match they were excepting Bangladesh to choke and make mistakes, which didn’t happen. To take some positives from this, a hiccup in initial stage brings the best performance in later stages. I still believe Indian team has ability to deliver.

Now, Ireland have already qualified for super 8 stage and they will be playing 6 matches in super 8 !!!. So we have to be ready for 6 boring games more. Keep in mind that upsets can’t happen everyday.

It’s the same 5 oz ball bowled from 22 yards.

Cricket world cup 2007. All were waiting for it for so many days. Countdown had started 30 days back. It was there all over in newspapers, TV ads and even advertising hoardings. I am having a look at world cup quiz in Times of India from last 3 weeks. I discuss about the same with my colleague Naveen during lunch time. Some trivias are too good and make us to recall exciting moments of previous world cups.

But when I sat yesterday for watching first match between West Indies and Pakistan, I felt too bored. It’s the same competition between bat and ball on a 22 yards strip. All the excitement generated over last 2 weeks went off in a jiffy. This will be there for next few weeks. I feel except for one or two matches majority of first round matches will be one sided. Lets hope that the contest will be thrilling, from 'super 8' onwards.

One major problem with this world cup is that in India we can see only 50 overs without sacrificing our sleep, because of almost 12 hrs time-zone difference. My friend in Manish, who is doing MS in United States, is having a nice time. He can see all the matches without skipping his sleep, which he usually does for matches played in India.