The end of training

The autumn breeze is coming up now as our time in Korea is about to come to an end. The last remaining few days we had several times of our favorites spaghetti in a shopping complex near the Ori Station. We head to Homeever which is also our favorite shopping mall as it is the nearest complex available at the place we stayed. Seafood spaghetti is a must for us to have every Wednesday every week. Personally I really love the pumpkin flavored source. The only thing which we could have within several kilometers that we know of.
Besides the spaghetti, we went to several places in Seoul to grab some souvenirs for our friends and relatives back in Malaysia. Insadong and Itaewon are two of the best places which we favor over any other places. They are packed with foreigners and tourists looking for special stuff for their special ones. Catch a train / subway on orange line (line 3) and get off at the angguk station to go to Insadong. On the other hand, catch the brown line (line 6) and get off at the Itaewon station. Both places offer quite a lot of souvenirs for you to choose from.
I don't want to buy too much as the weigh of the allowable luggage is only 20kg maximum. I am not willing to pay for it even though I could afford it. Therefore I only purchase the small and lightest souvenirs. Sorry guys for not able to fulfill your expectations if you have any.

Korea outstanding internet speed

Again, I'm showing you how amazing is the internet speed in Korea. Here is an example of the video captured download speed. The file is an Adobe InDesign downloaded from Adobe website. The file size is about 450Mb! Checkout the through put download speed!!!

Coex Shopping Centre - Seoul

The COEX shopping centre is located near the Han River just about 10 minutes from Seoul city centre (I'm refering to Itaewon) by subway. If you were to go there, just take a subway line number 2 which circulate the city centre, get off at the Samseong station. Once you get off, you will easily notice the signboard to COEX and follow all the way there. It's very famous for its underground level shopping center. It's very humongous that you'll be really exhausted if you were to walk all around the shopping complex. It's got the Aquarium as one of the major attraction as well as other standard facilities and amusement centres. It's a great place to spend time with family and friends to enjoy the weekends.

They love reading

These Koreans really love reading. These photos are taken at a bookstore in Coex Shopping Centre in Seoul. Notice that how many people enjoy reading at this bookstore's seating area. It's part of their natural habits - reading - no matter where or when.
This is one more reason why the Koreans are doing very well in their technologies and economics as compared to several other nations which gained independence at about the same era. The more knowledgeable the citizens, the better country they will become. So start reading, always hunger for knowledge and make it part of your culture.


Look at those people. They don't even notice when I take their photos.






Look how crowded and busy a bookstore is!!!







This is another scene of a crowded the bookstore is.

The Last Lecture

This article is dedicated to lecturers and cancer patients. I knew that this article is a bit out of topic from this blog but I'd like to have it posted anyway because I am also a lecturer. This article is very interesting to me. It helps to make me think of what we are, where do we stand and how are we doing in our life.

It's a story about a professor of Carnegie Mellon University who had been diagnosed with cancer in his pancreas. He fought the disease in a very different ways and he wasn't look depress at all in his appearance. Having advised that he had several months to live, he was invited to give a lecture about life title "The Last Lecture" at Carnegie Mellon. Overwhelming response made the full the lecture hall seems like having celebrities appearance. It was a great lecture that people did standing ovation after the end of the lecture. It is a very touching moments for him, his wife, family and the people in the lecture hall.

Professor Randy Pausch was invited and interviewed by the medias and "The Last Lecture" gets wide coverage in the internet. It become so popular that many people felt touched after watching his lecture. The professor died last week which is about 10 months after his "last lecture".

Checkout the following:

http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/LastLecture/

http://www.thelastlecture.com/

Nami Island Visit

One nice weekend in Korea, Mr Park spent his whole day to take us to Nami Island, a place where the shooting of Winter Sonata took place. This has been more than a month ago but only now i thought that I should put this up on my blog since that there's nothing is up actively lately. So here they are:


This is a bungee jump tower which is situated just at the boat jetty to Nami Island.






Owhh somebody has just fell... didn't made it to capture the moment.







At one of the Park within Nami Island. Mr Park and us had this nice photo shoot.







Quad cycle. if you've seen the amazing race asia season 1, then you might have seen such vehicle.





Taking a break. we had something to eat after a little while. We had pancakes (korean styles - the octopus pancake). Earrrghhh... sounds wierd food yeah?





Whose girl is that? Amat's or Dolah's? No body admits that the first place. but after leaving Nami Island, the bachelors sighing and regretting for not taking a good advantage of such moments.

What's going on in the office / Lab?

This is what we do........... fabrication, fabrication, fabrication






PCB Fabrication







Robot Fabrication









Dipping Machine







Training
Dolah is already gone back home by now. His photos is the only thing left.







Amat is setting up the PLC wiring.

The Season

Korea is in the Summer season at this moment. It's not as hot as in Malaysia but the people couldn't stand it much. I can't stand to be in a hot temperature either, so i guess that I am not much different than the Korean in that sense. I could be sweating like hell even by just standing in a warm atmosphere without much wind. People would find it weird especially Malaysian seeing me sweating like coming out of the shower whereas other people don't even have vapor sized water particle on their face.
Both Mr Park has been in Malaysia and they experienced how hot the weather was. Mr Park is the one who made the benchmark and from my observation, I think that it's true. The Korean could stand a 20 degrees celsius without feeling cold at all but can't stand a 32 degrees temperature.
So Malaysians, if you were to come & visit Korea (no visas required) come in Winter season so that you could go visit Nami Island, a Winter Sonata drama location and ice skating on a frozen river. Don't worry, the frozen river is very safe because the ice thickness is about 2-3 feet where you could drill a hole and go fishing. Isn't it great?

Free newspaper concept

How often do you receive free copy of newspaper? In a developed countries like Korea, there are several brands of free newspapers distributed at any train stations, bus stop & public places. The news companies survive by the advertisement slot sold to corporations. They must have earned so much to the point that they can give it for free. Maybe these news company are being sponsored by government or they may be owned by government as a major shareholder.

These freely distributed newspapers may have several positive & negative side. The positive side would be the emergence of knowledgeable people. Reading news provide the person's alertness & awareness of the current issues that is going on.

On the other hand, sometimes a few bunch of newspaper wasn't made its way to the readers. The recycled item seekers might have taken them & sell to the recycle item vendor.
People do not appreciate it's value & leave it anywhere they like & messing up the place after finish reading.Looking up to these case it would be useful if the newspaper sold at a nominal value.

Automotive Industry in Korea

Korea has quite a number of vehicle manufacturers including Hyundai, Kia, Samsung, Daewoo & others to name a few. The automotive industry in Korea is becoming a highly profitable business and becoming as one of the country’s major export. The promotion for Hyundai Sonata in United States in a few years back was very intense and very promising. It’s the advertisements and promotions that boost up the sales because they manage to come out with a very good package for the after sales service. Hyundai provided free service for 2 years which wiped out the closest competitor. This was the major factor which boosts up the sales and brought the brand as one of the top car manufacturer in the world.

The other player in Korea includes the Kia which is also becoming one of the top sales in Korea and several other countries. Kia came up second place after Hyundai as the top brand of automobile. Now Hyundai and Kia has teamed up and merged to become one big company and dominates Korean market. This strategy has been a greatest decision made by the stakeholders as it creates a very huge company with huge capital income.

The other player is Samsung which is a very well known brand in the electronic industries. This is an interesting and surprising fact as other countries might have not heard about it before. The trend these days in Korea is that once a manufacturer is making a good progress and becoming a well known company, they tend to venture into other areas which they believe is highly profitable.

Beautiful culture

It's being practiced all over the Asians whether in Melbourne, Kuala Lumpur, Seoul etc. I'm not too sure if this culture exists in western countries. I'm saying this because i've been in those places. Therefore this is about my own opinion & experiences. This could be different with some other people.

Whenever you are on a public transport, the seats are limited and should be reserved for certain people that "u know who". In Japan & Korea, this has become a compulsory and should be practiced by everybody.

It's a little ashame having an old folks standing right in front of you while u were sitting & u don't feel like letting it go. Others would think that u are so mean & not being nice. The Aussies are quite about the same because they have beautiful mind, honest & cleanheart.

Speaking about honesty, should we think of what others think about us or should we think about the weak old man? This has become the topic which is being thought for certain people who are not sure of what action should they take.

How this sincere culture can be inculcated to young generations mind? If there is a method that can cultivate that, the world will become better place.

It's not easy to measure the average sincerity of a group of correspondence during a survey. It's just that people would respond differently if they were being questioned compared to the actual situation.

The positive and negative side - Drivers

Korea follows the USA style in their transportation system. They drive on their right hand side and therefore their driver's side is on the left. It would be a little weird for those who are used to drive on the left hand side because they are required to change everything in the opposite ways.
Koreans are polite and kind. They respect the elderly very much up to the point that if an old man scold them by the road side, they will stop, listen, apologize and bow to the old guy.

Despite their politeness and kindness, they are very rough while driving. It seems that they are not really care if they smash into another person's car or kiss other car's butt. Near misses is usually what could be seen on the road in Korea. However, when that happens, they don't even regret it and goes on driving recklessly. It seems normal and everybody does that. If you are on the bus, make sure you hang on tightly to the chair or the hanging bar so that you won't fall. The bus driver run over the red light should they think it's safe. If an incoming car sees green light from a distance, they might ram it to maximum to go pass the light and at the same time there might be a driver at the junction think about going ahead though the light is red. Collision could occur at any time.

The reason why this "on the road culture" is happening could caused by the leniency in their law enforcement. The speeding ticket is very very cheap that people wouldn't care paying for it. Mr Park told me that the average ticket for a speed trap could be around USD100 which is very small amount as compared to the average Korean income of USD4000 to USD6000 a month. That is just 0.25 percent of their monthly income! Back in Malaysia, a speeding ticket is around RM200 of RM2500 of average income in Malaysia (I think) which constitute to about 8 to 10 percent of their monthly income! That's why the Korean didn't bother breaking the law on the road.

Healthy lifestyle

The Korean living in a very healthy lifestyle as compared to other countries. They do not really eat fried foods. If they are going to have one, it's not too oily. Their main meal always prepared with several types of vegetables besides meat. They usually have several types of raw fish for dinner together with some sushis and several types of vegetables (up to 7 types of veges).

You know it's hard to find an obese Korean. They are mostly thin people. Their buses seats are very small & narrow which is not a "big guy" friendly. They take quite about the same portion as other asians except that they don't take too much oil but having so much veges instead.

At the office, the koreans always brush their teeth including after having lunch. When I go to the toilet to take ablution for praying, I always bumped with Koreans brushing their teeth. What a healthy lifestyle they are having.

What do you do while....

What Koreans do most while traveling on public transport? The following are the list according to priority.

1. Read newspaper - lots of free nwsppr distributed at train sttn.
2. Read sth else
3. Write sth.
4. Listen to music /mp4
5. Short nap
6. Watch people around
7. Talking.

Well, what do other people from other countries do?

Transportation

The public transportation system in Seoul is quite efficient. The main transport which I would prefer is the subway train. Seoul has quite an extensive underground railway network which covers the Seoul huge city and its satellite cities around. The train frequency is very high especially in the morning and in the evening. I would say the train will come around every 10 minutes. The underground network consists of 8 different routes in and out of Seoul. Each route (line) has its own color code. Just plan your way to the next destination using the subway map network. We might have to transfer from one line to another to go to another areas or city. Eventhough the frequency of the train service is high, still it is crowded in the morning because people would rather catch a train than driving into a congested seoul & its satellite city.
On our way to the office we take a train to Moran station (about 15 minutes) and then we take the bus no 55 to the office at Bokgipeguan for another 15 minutes. Quite tiring because we have to climb steep staircase down and up the subway. Trust me, you won't be able to catch up your breath after came up the stairs.

Korea is known for its KTX bullet train just like Japan. I'm not so sure why it is so famous to the point that the story came out in Discovery channel on "Man Made Marvels". I did watch some part of the storyline but not the whole thing. It is said that the normal speed of the KTX goes up to 300 km/hr.

The Brands

A decade ago, Samsung was like Haier these days. The brand wasn't really appealing to anybody and considered a very cheap and low class products. After a while it became very hot due to cheap price but with good quality and durable. The same goes with LG which is now getting very popular in Consumer Electronics Industries. These are the two Korean Brands which contributes the most in Korean economy.



Korean exports their technologies be it a consumer electronics or automotive industries. The Koreans are very loyal to their own brands. Just like Malaysian and the Proton car. I have never seen any Nokia brand sold in any mobile phone shop in Seoul area. The most popular are Samsung and LG phones. They even have a special adapter for the phone charger. They don't pack the charger together with the mobile phone because they have the same charger for any model from those two brands. At home, people can have different phone model but using the same charger. It is very convenient for consumers. In Malaysia, a Nokia brand itself will have more than one type of charger plug and a sony ericsson phone will have to use their own charger. That is not convenient.

For those who would like to come to Korea and hoping for International Roaming service, make sure that your mobile phone are 3G phones. You need to select the CDMA mode while you are in Korea. If you don't, then you won't get any service. If you are interested to buy phones in Korea, make sure that the phone has both CDMA and GSM mode. Else your phone won't work at home.

Outstanding Internet Speed

Korea is leading country in the world in terms of internet speed. Check out the image on the left. The average speed for Korea is 26 Mbps. I did several test and found out that the maximum speed is 44 Mbps and the minimum is 29 Mbps. The test is done in the morning on Korean National Day (public holiday). This is expected because not many people uses the internet in the morning especially on public holiday.





This is very superb performance as compared to Malaysia which is not in the list. A 2 Mbps speed (on best effort) is for business and cost too much in Malaysia. while here in Korea, a speed of 26Mbps on average actual throughput cost just about USD20. My friend did the same test in Melbourne and the maximum speed is 8Mbps. This is way much slower than in Korea. What a suprise.

Want to test your internet speed? click here.

Hospitality

Mr Park, the Managing Director of HI System is a very kind and humble person. It's not easy to find such kind of people in the world. If we were in Malaysia, rarely people treat foreigner or stranger in such ways.

The first 3 days we had free meal (lunch & dinner). We wanted to pay but he insisted. He picked us up at our minitel to the office himself eventhough he could have asked his staff to do it at anytime. The journey from his house to our minitel will take about 1 and a half hours instead of only 1 hour journey straight to his office. He paid the bill at the department store for our consumables and household items. He drove us to Itaewon which takes about an hour to buy halal meats as well as having some halal dinner meal there. He teach us how to use the subway himself which he hardly use since 10 years ago. He prepared a room for us in his office. He prepared the training schedule, equipment and etc for our training needs like he really love to see us there. He treated us like we are his new boss in his office. He prepared all the needs in the office including coffee mug and 3 in 1 coffee sachet. He made our stay here a very pleasant experience to live in Korea.

At the office

The first day we we introduced to the facilities which HI system have, the administration office and their Lab. All the components on the shelf and on the component drawers are accessible and free for us to pick at anytime. It feels like you were in the department store and you are allowed to take anything there for free at anytime. It felt so good. We will be trained to build robots starting from designing the circuit board and finally to the programming & testing stage. To me, the most interesting part is that we are going to build the circuit using surface mount device (SMD) with manual soldering. Can't wait to do it!!



The Mail box
Take a good look at the mails!! People do not worry about loosing their letters & mailings here. Why? because honesty resides in every Korean. Malaysian? not really.... coz we might find that our letter have been opened when receiving it (if you are lucky to receive it).

This is the area where we had our lunch. again, we had sushi... woahh... so tired of having the same meal again.

The Minitel

Mr park took us to see our accommodation. Checked in and the rental is about USD500 per month per person. Quite a small room but the facilities are quite good. Our rooms are equipped with refrigerator, air-cond, bathroom, cupboard, cabinets, TV and also the internet (the most important ones). We had to share the kitchen, washing machines, etc. Other than that are not provided. There are cheaper rooms with shared bathroom (communal bathroom) but we don't think that would be a good idea. They called it Minitel. The Minitel are very closed to the subway railway station.



Korea is one of the highly ranked as the expensive country to live. To rent a house, you need to rent it for 2 years minimum with USD200,000 deposit to be paid. This deposit will be used by the landlord for investment. This is typical for a 2 bedrooms apartment.After the 2 years tenant period, the deposit can be claimed back minus some other expenses & damages. The electricity, water and other bills are expected to cost around USD500.00 per month. Another option for the same house is that we pay the deposit of only USD 100,000, plus with USD1000 monthly rental. So the cost of accommodation + bills per month would be USD1500.00 per month. So all in all, if a family to come over here to pursue their studies would require at least USD 3000 per month of expenses (not including the rental deposit). Can you imagine that?

First day

hamsa hamida - Terima kasih
chumma deyyo - sama2.

Itulah 2 patah perkataan yang kami pelajari dari Mr Lee (HI sys consultant).

Tempat yang kami pergi pada hari pertama di Korea ialah di sebuah syarikat (kami namakan syarikat B) lawan kepada Hi System (syarikat A) . Syarikat B ini adalah lebih besar dan telah lama bertapak di Korea. Founder syarikat A pun sebenarnya berasal dari sykt B tapi telah berpecah dan buka sykt sendiri iaitu sykt A dimana tempat kami training sekarang nie.

Sykt B adalah salah satu daripada player utama dalam pasaran peralatan training untuk pendidikan. Sykt B ni adalah no 1 di Korea dan yg Ke 2 terbesar di dunia dalam arena mereka. Sykt B ini dimiliki sebhgnnya oleh kerajaan Korea dan mereka adalah sangat stabil dari segi ekonomi.

Selepas melawat Sykt B, manager sykt tersebut bawak kami pergi lunch kat restoran jepun. Kami makan sushi dan beberapa masakan terkenal di Korea. Antara yang popular ialah sup yg nampak mcm asam pedas melaka tapi rasa dia memang berlainan la. Walaupun kekadang ragu dengan kebersihan dan kehalalan peralatan memasak serta sudu/garfu/chopstik, kami takde pilihan selain memakan apa yg ada asalkan takde daging.

Kitorang pun tak bagi tau yg kami melawat sykt B memandangkan mereka adalah seteru. jadi kami simpan perkara nie sebagai rahsia besar.

Selepas balik semula ke hotel, Mr Park sampai & dia bawa kami ke tempat penginapan menggunakan van syarikat.

Arrival at Incheon Airport, Seoul, Korea.

There will be 3 of us who are going to have the training at HI System. Myself, Amat and Safzuan Abdullah (son of Mejar Suhaimi). Going along with us are Mejar Suhaimi & Wife, Mr Rahim (siranco Malaysia) and wife. So altogether there are 7 people in our group.

Flight to Korea will take about 10 hours altogether including 1 hour transit at Kota Kinabalu. At KK, I walk around the hallway looking for a cup of coffee but frustratingly all the shops were closed. So I went back to the waiting room to get back into the aircraft.

Arriving at the Incheon airport, we had troubles with our luggage. 3 luggage were lost due to mishandling to a different flight (the bag took direct flight from KLIA to Incheon later time). Meanwhile I had problem myself because the bag's wheel is broken. So I file a complaint & they said that they will repay the damage for USD 60. The airport personnel promised us that the luggage will be delivered to our hotel & they actually did.

I was told that Korean people are very honest. They have a very low crime rate as compared to Malaysia. There's no need to worry about leaving your laptop inside your car eventhough it is visible through the window. They are very civilized. Throwing a cigarette's but everywhere is not their culture.

Industrial Attachment - the beginning

Hi there,
This blog is intended to be used as my "logbook" to ease the final report submission for the industrial attachment at HI-System in Sungnam City, Korea. I thought that when the time comes, then I just have to copy from this blog & paste it on my report.

A day before going to Korea, I went back to my parents house in Rawang. On saturday morning, i went to the town to change my ringgit into KRW. So all in all I purchased 1.5 million Korean Won which cost me around RM5070. Then I went around the town area looking for some cloths and consumables to bring to Korea. Suddenly I saw another money changer which offered a lot cheaper rate, and to my frustration, I lost about RM 270 because of the price difference. So I went back to the previous changer and managed to change back my 1/3 of the overall value. That means i lost RM 180 instead of RM 270. What a waste.

The flight from Kuala Lumpur is scheduled at 9.15 pm. We (me, my wife and my parents) arrived 3 hours earlier to check in. We thought that we could have a bit of spicy & tasty rice for the last time before leaving but unluckily we don't have that opportunity. My Passport & Visa is with another friend who's going along with us(Amat & myself). Abdullah's dad collected the passport for us at the Korean Embassy. Thanks for that coz we don't have to go all the way to KL from Melaka just for that.

The sacrifice to make is to leave my 5 months pregnant wife alone in Malaysia. Nevertheless her sister will come to stay with her at home in Melaka. Hope that she will be doing fine.

A special thank you to those who had contributed in the process of making this a reality. Thanks to PM Rani, Dato' Prof. Dr Mohd Nor (our dean), our NC & TNC of UTeM, Pn Azizah Saban (pendaftar) & her team, Haidhir RS Multinetwork, Mejar Sahimi and the last but the most is HI-System Korea for their willingness to accept us and their hospitality.