Rashmi, Sriram, and Satish... Thanks for absolutely everything...

Rashmi, Saunvit, Prateek, Sriram... Thanks for the awe-kasam Smoky Trip :)

Rashmi, Ramya... Thanks for all the meals we had together... :)

Jae, Heera... Thanks for the most amazing Bibimbap and your warmth... :)

Chicago... Thank You...

New York... Thank You :)

Fall... Thanks for the most beautiful moments that you gave me and my camera :)

Snow... Thanks for the mind-blowing cold and an amazing experience...

And Guru (for the amazing talks of everything starting from China to Peru, vada-pav to chai-at-a-tapri, NCC to ‘bakch**di’…), Anna, Chris (on the Metra), Jing, Sally, Liliana (whom I may never meet again), Kunal, Riya and everybody else…
I know there are many more…

Thanks,
Goodbye…

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It all begins when the sun starts setting early in the evenings, and the nights get longer than days. A week of mild cold and a week of extreme, makes you wonder what would come the morning after Sunday.

Then the clouds build a fog and the sun hides its face… down comes a flake and so with a grace…

Voila… it’s snow!

I heard the Eskimo has a hundred words for snow…

‘qanuk’ for the flakes and ‘kaneq’ for the frost… and ‘kannevluk’ for the fine snow, and ‘natquik’ for the drifting… and ‘muruanek’ for the soft deep one, and ‘nutaryuk’ for the fresh… and ‘igloo’ for the home…

I wonder if snow would mean more to anyone else…

I feel the snow is warm. It has a warmth in it that winter lacks…The sight of snow makes me happy, keeps me warm… refreshes my memory of places so high… sends me back to being a child… until my fingers hurt…

Like a little pretty girl, in her white merry frock, dancing all alone, the flake slowly comes, goes a bit to my left and a bit to my right, and then lands on the ground as a bird’s touch n fly… and some more come along and they stick each on top… and this goes on till my heart fills with joy…

It is so pretty that I do not feel like taking pictures… let it be untouched… let it be pure… let it be the way it is… perfect…

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RFB: So where are you from, originally?
Ji: I was born in a city in mid-west China, called Xian.
RFB: Oh! I have just started reading a book ‘Shadow of the Silk Road’. It starts in Xian. China is amazing.

Some time before that…

Matt: So why aren’t you eating eel?
Saunvit: I am particular about certain fishes. I don’t eat mammals.
RFB: Eel is amazing.
Matt: But eel isn’t a mammal.
Saunvit: I am very particular about which fish to eat and which not to eat.
Matt: What has it got to do with being a mammal? But I would find it gross.
Saunvit: In Korea they offered me pork.
RFB: Pork is amazing.
Matt: I don’t even consider chicken as meat, its vegetables. In Kansas we eat steak.
Saunvit: I miss soju.
RFB: Soju is amazing.
Ji: Hey, everything is amazing for you!

Some time before that…

William: Tickets please.
RFB: I ran out of my 10-ride ticket.
William: So tomorrow morning you buy it. In the evening I will punch two holes in your card. Don’t buy a ticket today.
RFB: That’s amazing.

Some time before that…

SXR: Are you gonna travel by train?
RFB: Yeh.
SXR: It’s cold.
RFB: The cold is amazing.

Some time before that…

Guru: I am not gonna forgive you for bringing me to this cafeteria.
RFB: I am sorry, but is that all you’re gonna eat?
Joe: This fish is good.
RFB: Is it amazing?
Guru: It has lead and mercury.
RFB: Mercury? Amazing.
Joe: There is no mercury. This fish is good for heart and cholesterol.
Guru: It wont matter what you eat. One day a truck will just run over you.

Some time before that…

Lady: Can you toss the omelette like her?
RFB: Ofcourse. I do it all the time.
Lady: I can never do it. She is amazing.

The lady at the hot bar in the cafeteria was crestfallen when RFB said that he could toss the omelette as well as her. She did not thank him. If he could not appreciate it, I wish RFB had not said that.
I wish I wasn’t RFB.

[The characters and dialogues in this blog have not been altered to make it better to read. Though, permission has not been taken to publish any of these conversations. I hope they don't mind. Everyone I met today was amazing :)]

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Click to read more and see the pics…

Adam and Eve…

A pub?

Marvelous sunset by a lake… Do not try to look for the sun :)
It is on the other side…

Women…

Common people…

And Christ formed the subject of a really large number of paintings…

The contrast of darkness and light used in this painting, was more remarkable than it appears in the photograph…

Something sad is depicted here, but look at the details…

Out of the many photographs, this photograph from a market in Mumbai caught my eye…

—
And now…
Perhaps the best or one of the best parts of the Institute…
These are houses… the most beautiful living places I have ever seen in my life… but…

But…

OMG lovely carpet… :) but…

Yes, all of this is amazing and excellent… but…

This is perfect, isn’t it? It sure is, but…

Ok, enough of “buts”, now look closely at the picture below to get an estimate of the size of these things :)

I hope you saw me, wondering about something, looking through the…

Glass windows…
—
Okay… now, its time for perhaps the most popular piece of art kept at this place in the world…
Here is something about it… Can you guess what it is? Have you seen it before?

This is about one of those few paintings that were in school textbooks while I was in school…

Isn’t this brilliant??

Have you seen this somewhere before?

Sure you have :)
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte – Georges Seurat

Well, that is all I could capture… after that I did not feel like clicking pics anymore… It was too beautiful to capture in the camera… It sure was captured somewhere else…

“Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.”
- Albert Einstein

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The beginning of November, marks the beginning of colder days, subzero temperatures and snow flurries…

It was the first time I saw such a beautiful fall, or it was the first time I saw fall AT ALL.

Here are some of the pics I took in Evanston, my way to wish it goodbye.

Click to see the pics…

But I missed walking on crispy dried fallen leaves with Roshnai…

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This is the route I take from home to work and back :)

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From bustling cities to affluent locations, it has everything to offer…

Like, what I found in NY is this…

Madison Square Garden: World’s largest arena. Watched Wintuk (Cirque du Soleil) here.

Do you know this place?

Click below to see more pics…

…..

This is it!

Times Square

Arbit building! Really Arbit!

This post office takes up one whole city block!

The Empire State Building

Broadway…

At Madame Tussuad’s…

Pennsylvania Station, NY

The really dirty NY subway, but do you see the Korean lady?

CP, NY

All of Fall in Central Park, NY

World Trade Center, Ground Zero

The Manhattan skyline looks a bit empty without the WTC

On the top: Empire State Building

All this was good… really! Good! but the thing that captured my eyes, my sorrow and definitely my camera’s lens was this…

This might be a good sight, till you click the link below and read the following shocking truth about the pic above…
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Living in a place, ‘thousands’ of kilometers away from home, decades of degree Fahrenheit apart and half a day on the other side of the world, it is a feeling that does not go down so well, or may be it does but I cannot realise it. Things are different, very different from the way I see them in homeland or closer to homeland.

I always had this notion in my head, “I do not want to go to US” and I would tell it loud and clear to people. And they would ask me “why?”… I would go on and give them all reasons, whether they made sense or not, I went on… I have been fascinated by some places that are almost never on a person’s wishlist to travel. Places like Russia, China, Mongolia, Turkey, Georgia, Israel seemed more “calling” to me than the West.

Fortunate I was to travel to the magnificent and uber-cute land of Daehan Minguk, South Korea. I was there for a little under three months, and I traveled almost the whole of that little country, tasted almost all of its deliciously healthy cuisine, understood and appreciated the technology decades ahead of Indo, learnt and almost perfected the script, and totally enjoyed my first stay abroad. I maintained a good blog and filled it with a lot of photos of almost everything I saw, everyone I met and everywhere I went. People who saw it, loved it, and wondered how they never knew Korea was so wonderful!

Here I am today, on the other side of the globe… Trying to maintain a blog, busy work schedule means I cannot do this more often, trying to enjoy the cuisine, but… “________” and trying to be happy…

This is a great country. I must say so and I appreciate it when I say so. The roads are perfect, the buildings are exuberant and the cities are brilliant. Things are pretty good here, in the shops and showrooms, clothes, accessories, electronics, chocolates, drinks are cheap here and superior in quality. Water supply is almost unlimited and comes in two temperatures. Perfect. Period. Food is great! Yes, food is great. I keep going back to the tiny Korean restaurant JK Cafe on Clark in Evanston to have that great delicacy called ‘Bibimbap’ – do you remember? I keep going back to the Korean restaurant to have sushi rolls, to have kimchi, to have odeng, to have ramyeon! I keep going back for more reasons than the food. I go there to socialise. I am happy to meet and interact with the cute Korean couple that runs the restaurant. I asked them their names, ‘Handsome man’ and ‘Pretty Ooman’ (in the typical Korean accent came the reply). I was glad, and gladly wrote down my name Aditya in Korean script on my business card and handed it to them. They are more than happy to see me there almost everyday. This is not a story about the Great America, it is a story about a small Korean restaurant that I have come across right in front of my office.

I go there almost every other day and the things I love the most at their restaurant are not Bibimbap, rolls or coffee milkshake… but the love and the warmth they show and serve me with. They feel as if I am one of them. I started eating rolls out there with a certain customization. When I first went there, I told them I want california rolls, but no fish and only vegetarian ingredients. They kept asking me if “fish is ok”, “tofu is ok?”, “radish is ok” and I kept answering “yes” or “no” and at the end of it, I had a fully customised roll all for me… Since then, whenever I have been there, all I tell Hara (the Korean lady) is “Can I have a roll please” and she shouts back inside here kitchen “Adi-tta roll juseyeo” (Get him ‘Aditya Rolls’). With so much and more warmth, as I go and take my seat, her husband brings up a number of banchans (side dishes) like kimchi, yellow radish and soy sauce for me to enjoy… and makes sure that he himself comes and serves me my fully customised ‘Aditta Rolls’.

I am touched.

Last friday, I wasn’t very hungry and decided to go to JK Cafe and eat a california roll. These rolls are very delicious, very healthy, have almost zero fat and are not filling at all. So I thought, I would have them and I would be done. Given their generosity, warmth and liking for me, they would not let me eat just the rolls and within minutes of my taking a seat, my table was filled with more than the regular set of banchans.. and a sweet potato dish made in the shape of a fish… It was yummy, but by the end of my meal, I was full, more than full.

I was filled. I was filled with emotions, I was overwhelmed by their selfless attitude and care for my taste buds. Last afternoon I even got them a couple of Samosas from the local Indian restaurant in Evanston. It happened that the lady dint get any of it to taste as Mr Handsome Man loved and finished them himself. In the evening when I went there again, he told me “I loved your samosas… I have enjoyed it earlier in Indonesia with beer. Fantastic”. The smile on their faces and the smile on my face never seems to fade away. They work hard. It is perhaps the only restaurant in the Northwestern Univ area that stays open late till about 2 or 3 am every night. But the warmth with which the bells rings when I open the door and enter JK and the warmth with which Hara wishes me “Annyeong Haseyeo” and the warmth with which Handsome Man waves at me from inside the kitchen, touches me. Touches me more than anything else.

Things like these keep me going on. And on. Yes, I miss Korea to date. I miss my Korean friends, Yunseong, Daeseong, Jaejin and everyone else I met in Korea. I miss those cute girls moving around in the trains, on the streets and everywhere else. I miss those jingles the vendors used to shout at their street side bbq shops. I miss that smell of kimchi. I miss that language… I miss Korea.

But here I am in a totally different country. It is not much different from what I have seen it as in the movies, and the television. Perhaps it is much different and definitely better once you are here. Life is convenient. It is safe. It is the greatest country of the world. When I go back to India, I will tell people that my notion about this country was not completely correct. Now I am convinced about it. It was incomplete.

Everything is perfect, but the warmth was left behind in Asia…

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