First Descent ...

... happens to be a movie that documents the rise of snowboarding in general and the first descent of a peak (peak 7601 in remote Alaska) using snowboard by a group of 5 elite snowboarders. During the descent, the group encountered an avalanche and literally rode down the slope on the crest of the avalanche! This movie is my inspiration for snowboarding.
In terms of ability, I belong to the other end of the spectrum when compared to the 5 - what has been termed as level 0 in 'Kung-fu Panda' (interestingly that movie also had 5 Kung-fu masters!). The location was a very popular ski resort in South Korea (instead of the remote mountain in Alaska) and the slope had a gentle gradient (and not the 70 degree avalanche prone monster of the movie).
Now on the surface, the purpose of our visit to this place was for exchange of academic and research ideas. But there was just one presentation by a student as a rehearsal for a conference in April and my 'vacation' thus continued. So far, for me, all the workshops and seminars in Korea have been - driven around by someone else, sleeping through the presentations, cultural education in a traditional Korean restaurant ( and eat with unwavering attention) and posting the pictures on Orkut and Facebook. This one was no exception - the journey to the resort took about 3.5 hours. I was in the Professor's car and spent the time reading and sleeping. I slept through most of the presentation and when the workshop was over and we went to the restaurant, I happily stuffed myself.

First view of the ski-resort.
The resort is called High1 resort situated in Kangwan province on the east coast of the Korean peninsula. The ski slopes are part of the Kangwan Land park. The workshop was conducted in the conference center of the building on the right.

Yu's presentation - rehearsing for ICASSP 2009 in Taiwan.
This picture was taken right at the start of the presentation, so I was still awake. I fell asleep very soon after that. There were 2 more presentations (which were in Korean) which continued till 5:30pm. By the end of the talks, I was totally pissed - I hardly understood anything and on top of that, I was terribly hungry.
View of the hotel at night.
After dinner, we went to a rental shop to get ski, snowboards and other gear. Things were settled within an hour and we went to the Kangwanland Casino.
The casino charges an entry fee of 5000 won (about 3.5$) but I being the only foreigner around, got a free entry, thanks to the floor manager. Now most of the tables were dedicated to Blackjack and Roulette - neither of which I know. There were a large number of slot machines but they are not fun. So I searched for Hold'em Poker (the only game that I can play) but there were none. Meanhile, June Sig (one of my labmates) had won about 150$ in Roulette.
Next day, I woke up at 0800hrs and after a light breakfast dressed up in snowboarding gear. My first impression was - f#$@ ... I can't even move properly in this, how the hell am I gonna ride the board. But there was no time think. We left the hotel for the slopes and very soon, the moment of truth arrived. It was a bright and crisp day, under a cloudless blue sky and a temperature of -19 at 10 in the morning. But when you are running on adrenaline, who gives a damn about the cold.
We took the ski-lift to the top. As soon it left the station, we were greeted by gale force winds. It was fu$%#$ cold and I could barely speak. We tried taking shelter behind the boards but the wind almost ripped it away from our hands.
Finally, we reached the top and got down. Others helped me to get into position and my first lesson started.
Volume 1
Chapter 1 - How to stand with the board on.
After listing to a lecture on the contol of the CG (Center of Gravity) of the body for sometime and the structural mechanics of a snowboard, I was ready to convert the heavy-duty theoritical knowledge into practice. Keeping my weight on the heels and gradually raising my CG, I tried to stand. The board started to skid down gradually ... I readjusted my CG .... and blam!!!! Pain in the a$$ acquired a new meaning ... damn it! Never mind ... try it again ... and again ..... aaand again! But the result was the same ... the only difference was that PITA (Pain In The A$$) became more intense with each fall. I realised that it was time to change strategy.
Chapter 2 - Standing on your toes.
For snowboarding, there are 2 set of protectors - one for the hip and the other for the knee. I decided that it was time for the knee guards to do some work and tried to learn riding on toe side. And it worked. Very soon, I was able to stand up and balance myself. After sometime, I was able to slowly slide down and stop. But the steps were still very uncertain and my leg was getting tired. So as soon as I stopped, I fell down on my knees. The rock hard surface showed no mercy, inspite of the knee protectors.
Chapter 3 - Back to the heel side.
After a brief rest, I was back on my heels. Still no result. I continued the downward journey, sliding a few centimeters on the board followed by rolling on the snow for a few meters. The progress was painfully slow and the strength of the protectors were brutally tested at every step. It took me close to 2 hrs to cover the 1.8km and by the end of it, I was really depressed and very tired.
Time for lunch. While everybody laughed and joked, I had just looked down at my plate. I really felt like quitting and going back to the hotel. In comes Shin Jae. Shin Jae had helped me settle down in Korea in the initial days. From getting a phone connection, to the gym membership to every other detail, he had always helped me with a smile. Now he steps in to drag me out into the cold slopes. After a brief rest, we were off.
Volume 2
Chapter 1 - Perseverance pays.
Shin Jae painstakingly taught me how to balance myself on the board without sliding down. He didn't lecture me on structural mechanics of boards and the movement of CG. He held the board as I stood up and till I could balance myself properly. And bingo ... after a few attempts, I could do it on my own!
Chapter 2 - The falling leaf.
The next step was to ride the board on one edge and slide down the slope. Traversing from one side of the slope to the other like a falling leaf. He also taught me how to increase and decrease speed and how to stop without falling down. The efforts bore fruit and we covered the 1.8km in 1 hour.
I was tired and we took another break and sipped hot chocolate. My knee and wrist were paining very badly now but somehow, I dragged myself out into the cold.

Volume 3
Chapter 1 - Solo.
I asked Shin Jae to go ahead and let me do a solo ride down. I was a lot more confident now. I practiced the falling leaf over short distances. I was beginning to enjoy it inspite of the pain. As I gained more balance, I decided to increase the speed of the descent.
Chapter 2 - Slow down dude!
Half a way down the slope, I was brimming with confidence and decided to go full throttle. I did a slow gradual falling leaf over the more gradual slope and as I appraoched the steeper section, fired on all cylinders (actually got the board parallel to the surface) and zoomed down .... bang! The shock wave ran up from my palm, through the wrist into my arms. Then it was my right shoulder and then the back. The problem with falling down when on full throttle is that its very difficult to stop without hurting yourself. I lay in the snow for sometime and resumed the falling leaf. This time it took me 40 minutes to cover the slope.
I decided to call it a day after that and resume the next day. We went back to the hotel and had a shower. Though it greatly refreshed me up, the pain was getting worse every moment - and it was not just the back or the knee. I found it really difficult to sit on a hard surface or on the floor (as it is the norm in most Korean rooms).

From L>R, Mrs Sung Seop Park (thanks for the wonderful dinner), Shin Jae and Sung Soo.

I woke up next morning with swolen knees and no sensation on my a$$. On top of it there was a snow storm outside. But my pride was at stake ... so inspite of being barely able to walk, I decided to go ahead. We reached the slopes at around 1030hrs. The conditons were very bad - the storm continued unabated. Visibility was poor and the slope was in a very bad condition.

Volume 4
Chapter 1 - Worst case scenario.
The surface was like soft sand and it was difficult to manuever the board on it. The poor visibilty was worsened by the vapor condensing on my goggles turing into ice. By this time, I was quite confident with the falling leaf and could control me speed. However, the soft surface made it far from a smooth ride.
Chapter 2 - Don't try to learn snowboarding from YouTube!
With the falling leaf conquered, I decided to take the next step. Changing the riding edge in the move. I learnt from YouTube that the key was to quickly shift the body weight from forward to backward and vice versa when changing the riding edge. I was thinking about momentum conservation and CG shift and calculating how quickly I should shift my weight! After coming up with a reasonable solution, I went ahead with the hypothesis testing part. I was riding on my heel when I encountered the first steep section. I eased the pressure on my heels, flattened the board and went 'supersonic' :)
Einstein said that time slows down the faster you go. The following events seemed to justify it. As the board became parallel to the ground, the friction reduced drastically and the speed increased. The soft surface was very irregular and I could feel it as I rode over it. It was somehow similar to an aeroplane on a runway. When the plane is about to take off, we can feel the vibration due the surface irregularities on the runway. As soon as the place leaves the ground, that vibration ceases instanteneously. As my board picked up speed, adrenaline took over and I shifted my weight from back to front. But suddenly the vibrations beneath my feet ceased. For a split second I was quite surprised. Am I riding on clean ice? And then reality returned ... upside down. I landed on my head - partly embedded in the soft snow and shortly afterwards, a sledgehammer blow on my back. For sometime, I lay on the slope trying to figure out what exactly happened.
A ski patrol asked me if I was OK. Yeah sure ... just trying to locate the sun through the clouds!
For rest of the distance, I didn't try anything new and returned to base with all my bones intact. Thankfully, no body was around with a camera during those embarrasing moments.
The First Descent was not as impressive as I had hoped it to be but it was only my first time. Hopefully I'll return next season to ride the whole circuit of almost 5km of continuous slope.

L>R June Sig, Me and Yu Liu .... Yu makes no attempt to hide the effect of the wind.
L>R Yu Gwang, Chol Mae, Chang Woo, June Sig, KiHo, Me and Yu Liu.

>> End of Season 1.0 <<

The Mass Exodus

Seoul is a city of 11 million people. Its particularly apparent during the office hours and the weekends. Thanks to a highly developed public transportation system and an almost uncountable number of restaurant and bars, the crowd is never a serious problem when you are commuting or eating out. But empty places can be a very rare experience in this fascinating city. I've been living in Seoul for close to 5 months now (actually exactly 5 months ... I arrived here on the 25th of August) and I've almost never seen an empty restaurant or bar in the heart of the city. However on the eve of the Lunar New Year, the virtually empty roads and the lifeless pubs left me surprised. There is a pub close to the place where I live, called 'All that Beer' - it serves a variety of beer from different parts of the world and has an interesting menu of anju (side dishes served with a drink). When I went there today, I was almost shocked to find out that we were the only customers (though a few other people came in when we were about to leave after an hour).
The Lunar New Year (along with Thanksgiving) happens to be the time when Koreans get away from the city to visit their families and relatives in the country. I managed to catch a glimpse of this mass exodus yesterday when we were returning from the ski resort. The Korea Times carried a report which said that some 20 million people were on the move throughout the country braving the inclement weather and the heavy snowfall. We were coming in from the east and even my Korean friends have never seen such a spectacle! On the road out of Seoul, for many miles there was a bottleneck. I was surprised to see the sheer number of buses. The first lane of the highway is reserved for heavier vehicles and for close to 6 or 7 km, there was an almost continuous chain of buses packed to capacity taking people out of the city. If each bus occupies a length of 15 to 20m, it means that stretch had close to 400 buses carrying something around 16,000 people. The other 3 lanes of the outgoing road were also packed with smaller vehicles. And this was just one of the several roads going out Seoul. My friends who used the highway early that morning said that the scene was almost the same right from the crack of dawn. I was really interesting to see such a large number of people moving out. I've only seen such a spectacle in movies (Gotham in the Dark Knight or in the War of the World) but coming face to face with it was rather surprising.

Floating in between dream and reality

The window didn’t shut properly and through the small gap, the cold crept in. I tried my best to improvise but it was useless. At last I gave up trying to sleep and decided to stay awake and think about the things to come. I looked out at the passing stations – deserted for most parts except for a few scattered fires around which the people huddled to escape from the cruel grip of the cold. I wrapped the blanket around me and leaned against the window. My breath condensed against the glass and periodically the outside world faded out for sometime. Most of the time it was too dark to see anything outside. I could make out the vague outlines of the trees against the sky and the flicker of light in a distant house. Sometimes the highway ran next to the train line and a bus or a truck or a car accompanied the train for some time, moving away as the track moved away from the road. When the train stopped at some major station, people boarded the train and moved along the aisle searching for their place. The haunting monotony of the sound of the running train would be broken by human voices – concerned voices, irritated voices, happy voices, sad voices. Mothers calling out to their children, husbands talking to their wives, children talking to their parents as they embark on a new vacation. I sat motionless, leaning against the cold window, wrapped in a blanket and saw how the inside of the train come alive. Within a few minutes the sounds subsided, the lights faded away – again the sound of the train running on the tracks, the darkness outside and inside, and my breath condensing on the glass of the window. When the next station arrived, the cycle was repeated again.

It was close to midnight when the train approached Farakka – where the Ganges divides into two. The main stream flows towards Bangladesh as the Padma and the side stream flows south towards the Bay of Bengal as the Hooghly. The lights could be seen from miles away – first appearing as fireflies, then turning into a collection of Christmas trees and finally transforming into the town that feeds two states with electricity. I frequently glanced at my watch, waiting for the morning to arrive but it moved awfully slowly. I tried to sleep once again but gave up after about half an hour. I looked around the compartment in search of tea or coffee but it seemed that I was the only person in the train who was awake. I returned to my seat, cold and slightly dejected. I had nothing to do but just look out into the darkness. Dawn was still about 4 hours away and I was getting impatient. Nevertheless, I decided to return to my seat. Once again I wrapped the blanket around me and leaned against the window. This position was more comfortable than lying down, as less surface area of my body was exposed to the cold. The gentle sideways motion of the moving train, the sound of the train, the star studded sky and the darkness continued. My hands and feet were considerably warm now and gradually I sank into a strange state – neither asleep nor awake. The train and all the people disappeared, so did the sound. My mind raced through the darkness under a starry night. I lost track of time and space.

As dawn approached it got more and more cold, and the fog came down to the ground level. The tracks were elevated from the surrounding areas, so the fog actually made it appear that the train was a ship sailing through a misty sea. By this time my eyes were adjusted to the dark and I could make out the shape of the individual trees in that misty ocean. They stood out like fingers of some mythical animal residing the mysterious waters. So far the color all around was black but as dawn approached it started turning mauve. I could almost see the transition occur before my eyes, though it occurred very slowly. The details began to emerge and so did a faint hint of light.

The smell of coffee brought back the running train and the people still sleeping in it.

to be continued ...

Redemption at Guinsa: Journey to a Lost World

There are times when I almost believe that there are forces at work that are beyond human comprehension. Some people call it God's will - I don't know what to call it. Lets call them lucky accidents - Serendipity, not in relation to the film by that name but by the dictionary meaning of the word.
On a chilly Saturday morning, long before the sun had come up, Ivan and I set out for a little known Buddhist monastery in the remote mountains in central Korea. We didn't know what to expect but were just happy to go away from the crowd and the noise of Seoul for the weekend. This was my first foray out of Seoul on my own and I was excited. We reached Guinsa - the base of the mountain where the monastery was located, at around 10am. It was quite cold as the sun had still not touched the valley floor and we had to negotiate a steep uphill walk to reach the gates of the monastery. We were far from Seoul, in a remote mountain monastery and almost no one around us spoke English. Entrance to the monastery complex. The approach was rather steep and it was very very cold.
Inscriptions from an age that was long gone. The modern Korean language as we know it today, had its beginning in the 15th century. Before it, everything was written in Chinese.Gates to a Lost world. A place where very few outsiders have ever been before. It might sound like an exaggeration but we only know how true it is. Even now, people there would greet a foreigner with great surprise.

We were on our own to find our way and a place to stay for the night. In comes a man - a Korean man who resides in Canada and can speak English fairly well. He helped us find a place for the night and volunteered to show us around. He had retired from his job and had come back to Korea after 32 years. He had lost his wife in a car accident and had been staying in the monastery for about a month. He took us to the top if the hill and on the way, we learned about how the monastery worked.Ivan and Adjushi (a Korean word that means uncle ... we don't remember his name but he was like a savior in a place where English is non-existent and our knowledge of Korean is not very encouraging as well!)Steps that lead to the tomb uphill and the summit. They are well maintained. Adjushi told us that the volunteers in the temple kept the slopes free from snow.View from the summit. After a really long time, I could see the open countryside and I stared at it with great wonder and amazement. The bright blue sky enhanced he feeling.
We then walked downhill, encountering a number of pilgrims who were struggling their way uphill to the tomb. After about half an hour, we were at the main temple courtyard.The main monastery building. I really missed a wide angle lens here. The place was still in the shadows and it was very cold but it didn't stop me from taking off my gloves and clicking a few pics. We stayed there for sometime before descending to the lower levels of the temple. Adjushi took us to the kitchen of the temple which fed thousands of people everyday. There the monks and nuns greeted us and Adjushi translated it for us. Some of them had been to India on pilgrimages and asked me about Sakyamuni (Buddha's human form). I told them that I was Hindu but preferred not to adhere to some particular religion. I told them that I was determined to be open to all ideas but never to be a believer of a particular one. We spent the rest of the day exploring the monastery complex and taking pictures. Some of them are shown below:

Adjushi took us to a temple where a ceremony was going on. It was a unique experience to witness a Buddhist ceremony in full swing. Initially I was tired of seating with folded legs but soon I experienced something totally different. It was the voice of a monk. It was almost hypnotic ... a baritone that kept me fixed at the place where I was sitting. I didn't understand what he was saying but whatever it was, it was brilliant. I lost track of time and space, drifting into a nothingness and for a moment I ceased to remember who I was. I was completely absorbed in this archaic ceremony and the wonderful colors all around me. It was as if being in a dream, so near yet so far, so clear yet so mysterious. When the ceremony ended, I realised that I had been sitting still for nearly 2 hours and yet somehow didn't realise that such a long time had passed by. A few pictures from the ceremony and inside of the temple:
Once out of the temple, the world changed quickly. I was feeling sleepy and yearned to sleep for a few hours, before the nocturnal praying session. But something else was in store for us.
We met a some children on our way. It was probably the first time that they were seeing foreigners (waeguk saram in Korean) in close quarters. Initially, they were pretty shy and reluctant to approach us but soon things began to change. The first wave of 'attacks' were focused on Ivan but soon the wave was directed towards me. I was too busy with the camera to realise that the attention had shifted to me but by the time I had realised it, it was too late. I was surrounded from all sides and there was no escape.
The kids swarmed us. I sent Ivan to seek for Adjushi and stayed back to face the flak. It was a unique experience. It was a group of very inquisitive kids and they riddled me with questions ... I understood a few of them but unfortunately lacked the skills to answer them. And man ... they were naughty. Within moments they were all over me ... like ants attacking a grasshopper. I succumbed to their charm and energy and traded my specs for my freedom! But it was fun ... something I had never experienced before.
Later that evening, after supper, Ivan and I volunteered to help the kitchen. We were assigned to clean the dishes. And it was hell of an experience. First of all, it was an incident finding a pair of boots and apron suitable for my size. People flocked around me to see the foreigners at work. It took a lot of time and confusion to get me a pair of shoes and apron of my size. And as I proceeded to 'work' I was helped by a group of overenthusiastic Adjumanis (aunt) as to how to properly clean the plates. I must say that I'm a fast learner and I soon found myself all over the kitchen, helping them clean the plates, wash them up and arranging them for being transported back to the dining room. Ivan was fixed at cleaning the plates but I shifted from one job to another and it was fun! And it was a humbling experience. Working amongst people you don't know make you loose your identity and become a part of the common people who keeps the world (and the kitchen) running everyday. After the cleaning session was over, we were welcomed into the kitchen. People offered us fruits, snacks and tea (which is a mark of respect). We were overwhelmed at the response and attitude of the people.
Ivan and I set out on a cold Saturday morning with modest ambitions and no expectations and no hope. What we experienced was beyond our wildest imagination. We visited a place where a few foreigners have every been before and the hospitality of the people transformed us. It was one of the most wonderful and humbling experiences of my life.
Later that night, we were welcomed into the inner sanctum of the head priest - and honor that few mortals have ever experienced before. It was a fabulous room with silk thangkas and Chinese inscriptions. The priest told us that he hailed from Pusan and had not seen civilization for 30 years. He'd been a student activist in his days but hadn't been out of Guinsa for more than 30 years. When we volunteered to show him Seoul, he politely refused, saying that he had forsaken that 'life' years before he'd taken up the job! For the rest of the night we heard about Buddhism as we slowly drifted into sleep into a warm floor. As I closed my eyes, I could hear the baritone of the priest and the deep hypnotic chant ... and I slowly fell into a deep and peaceful sleep. I woke in the wee hours of the morning as Ivan called me. I decided to skip the sunrise and sleep for a few more hours. Later, that day we visited a spectacular limestone cave and returned to Seoul tired after a weekend worth of 'sight-seeing'. That evening I visited a restaurant serving Indian food and I really enjoyed myself gorging on the Indian food.
A scene from the kitchen after the cleaning up session. The Korean man is in charge of running the show.
Sight of the prayer hall at night.

Ivan and I set out with modest ambitions. The way things turned out to be, was beyond our expectations. It was far more interesting than a conventional organised temple stay. Finding out the place on your own, meeting new people along the way made it a very interesting experience indeed.

Face Recognition

Last night, I checked out the efficiency of Picasa's facial recognition for automatic tagging. Its performance was rather impressive. This particular technology was added sometime in September 2008. Currently I have about 32 albums in Picasa and the system automatically identified 853 faces in it. It must be mentioned that not all the faces were distinct but in all I think its a decent job. Judging by performance in the engineering sense, it may not be very impressive but in terms of convenience and regular use, it is quite helpful. I tagged about 200 faces in less than 5 minutes and this covered several thousand photographs in all my albums.
What was really impressive was that it never misclassified any of the faces. The faces of the same person was always grouped together. However, not all the faces were put in the same group even though they may have been in the same orientation or lighting condition. Thus, I feel that the algorithm working behind this technology is more geared towards avoiding false alarms. I wonder what kind of algorithm might be used here. I tried to search for the algorithm but so far haven't found anything that reveal the actual working of this tool.
Though I haven't worked with facial recognition, I have had enough experience in speaker recognition to appreciate the difficulty of such a task. With millions of picture present in Picasa albums, its really a great way to check the statistical performance of the facial recognition method.