끝없은 이야기

Moving up the rocky path of Mt. Bukhan. The road ahead is a challenge.

Just as I thought I ran out of story and picture, here are more stories and pictures. This is a series of what I call the "mood" pictures because the mood of the picture captures more of my feeling than its content. My friend was asking me, "Are you sure the picture will look nice by holding your camera so close to the ground?" I am not too sure if the picture will turn out nice but I like taking close up. I like to amplify details that I tend to overlook. I like to see this world from a different perspective. By the way, I did not prone on the ground to take the above picture. I just put my idiot-proof camera upright on the ground and clicked away. The above picture gives me the feeling that life is a challenge but it is surmountable. All I need to do is to take one step at a time. Slowly but surely, I will eventually reach its peak.

A bowl of steaming-hot Kalguksu with a lot of molluscs.

The beach at "geojampo" (거잠포-巨簪浦) is lined up with seafood restaurants. The customers of these restaurants are mostly visitors of Muuido. After completing our day at Muuido we went into one of these restaurants to have our late lunch. I ordered a bowl of Kalguksu (cut noodle in soup) for 5,0000won. It came as a very big bowl of noodle that could probably serve two to three persons. Besides the noodle, which came in white, green and red colour, there are a lot of molluscs. I ate only the noodle and left my friend to polish out the molluscs. She said, with a sense of satisfaction, that the molluscs were very tasty. Only then I knew why the soup was so tasteless. It was a very cold and windy afternoon. When the noodle was served, steam was hovering above the noodle. I like the feeling of warmth in the above picture. As I like to say, there is no better way of experiencing warmth than to be in a place that is freezing cold.

Evening rays casting soft shadows at the Korean Folk Village.

I need the sense of calmness exuded by the above picture these days. It calms my nerve and brings balance back to my life. The shadow cast made by the evening sun is especially relaxing. I like to be reminded that life can be as relaxing as I want to. Despite not blogging for the past few weeks I still cannot find much time to study for my TOPIK and KLPT. Life in Singapore is rather stressful. Our leaders tell our people to work hard to stay ahead of the global competition. Losing the competitive edge will mean losing our survivability. In a small country that has no natural resources, every human resource needs to be optimised to maintain a vibrant economy - the key to our nation's survival. While our government will like our people to think that our immediate future is as rosy as it can be, the fact is that Singapore is as vulnerable as ever. As my country celebrated its 42nd Birthday yesterday, I am proud of its achievement but I know deep within that 42 years ago, this country was born with the destiny to fight forever for its survival. I guess my country's destiny is my destiny. I can't expect life to get any easier, can I? However, one thing that I do appreciate about our country is its systematic planting of trees throughout the island. With the trees around, this place is at least more inhabitable.