Korea 1 - Arrival

Made it to KAIST, Korea. After uneventful flights from Delhi through Hong Kong to Seoul, I was picked up by Otfried from the new airport. Stayed the night over in Seoul and then continued by fast train to Daejeon (150km in about 50 minutes). My apartment in the guest house is quite nice. Except for the Korean alphabet (which is BTW very interesting), the place feels like a western country.

URL: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/blog/?p=486

India 14 - Holi

>From the colors of war streaked on all faces around here, you would think that Indians took over the place - and you would be completely right.

[![Holi][1]][2]

The holiday has to do with the coming of the spring (and probably an opportunity to have some fun before the hot unbearable summer comes visiting). The official reasons for this holiday seems to be largely unimportant.

Since this holiday follows a Lunar calendar, similar to the Jewish calendar, it coincides with the Jewish holiday Purim. Purim is a holiday of remotely similar spirit, with the difference that the story itself is quite important. It is yet another quasi-existential story of the bad guys trying to kill the jews, and the jews escaping again from destruction. It is also the only holiday were you are suppose to get drunk, and unlike most other Jewish holidays it does not have a dark side to it. No need to repent, no celebration of a local success in a stupid rebellion that lead to total destruction. A simple holiday, almsot like Holi.

[1]: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/~sariel/pictures/x/travel/07/03/04/all/LMG_7763.JPG

[2]: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/~sariel/pictures/travel/07/03/04/all/

URL: http://valis.cs.uiuc.edu/blog/?p=476