Chapter Suncheon: Suncheon bay national garden

So, this year, during Chuseok, couple of Bangladeshis including me and my husband, planned to visit Suncheon bay garden in Suncheon. If you are not familiar with Chuseok, which is totally okay, because it’s Korean government holiday for 3days and kinda similar to thanks giving. The area of the garden is 1.112 km² plus 28 km² of Suncheon Bay. There are about 860,000 trees and 650,000 autumn flowers such as roses, sunflowers, and cosmos flowers are planted in the garden.

Suncheon Bay Garden was designated as the No.1 National Garden in August and held a proclamation ceremony on September 5, 2015. According to the data collected from Suncheon on October 13, the total visitors of the garden is now at the 400 million mark. Which is quite true, because when we went there, I was kinda surprised to see the rush of people. Because, I heard in Chuseok, people spends time with their families in home, specially they visit their villages or home town.

Anyways, it’s a garden, so it is of course green everywhere. But you will be kinda surprised to see how many versatility a garden can hold! So many different species of plants, so many varieties (505 species of trees and 113 species of flowers) are gonna stunned anyone for sure.

The Suncheon Lake Garden designed by American landscape designer Charles Jencks is located at the center of Suncheon Bay Garden. Inspired by the unique topography of Suncheon, this artificial garden is a small representation of the city. The Suncheon Bay Garden was built to protect the ecosystem of the Suncheon Bay area.

The garden has 4 zones:

• Arboretum: Arboretum zone features various kinds of path including Autumn Tint path, Maple Tree path, and Meditation path. It also features Korean Traditional Garden where the Palace Garden, the Noblemen’s Garden, and the Garden of Hope can be found. The Royal Azalea Garden has locally grown royal azalea trees with over a hundred species of royal azaleas. Another feature of arboretum is the Tree Ground which has over 200 species of naturally grown trees such as southern magnolia, zelkova, and hackberry tree.

• Wetland Center: The Wetland Center Zone features the Dream Bridge designed by artist Kang Ik-Jung. The wall of the bridge is decorated with 145,000 drawings on old shipping container by children around the world.
• World Garden Zone: The World Garden Zone is a collaborative space created by designers and artists from Korea and all over the world. It consists of indoor, outdoor gardens, and gardens of 11 countries including German, Dutch, Japanese, and Spanish.
• Wetland Zone: The Wetland Zone is where visitors can experience natural environments. The Biotope Wetland was built to protect the Suncheon Bay wetland ecology. A walking trail work as a guide for visitors to explore ecology of inland wetland.

 And here’s some of the pictures we took there :

Butterfly couple

Water spray 🙂

Anther interesting thing about the garden is water spray. Tiny drops of water are sprayed in a way to give you a cold feeling.  When you feel all sweaty, just go near any of the water spray and trust me, you will feel better afterwards. ❤

Some of the places even contains history and old stories. One of the story was about this butterfly couple who couldn’t have a happy ending while as human being being and later became butterflies.

Overall, it’s a good place for a day out. This is quite a big area, so make sure to keep some times in your hands so you can take a good look.

Hope you enjoyed the post! Have a good day, bye! ^_^

***Information was collected from Wikipedia and Tourism Korea. 🙂

Lunch today: Fried rice, Saucy spicy chicken & Potato chop

The main food of Bangladesh is Rice. We usually take rice two times a day. At lunch and dinner. Rice is the main dish in the meal, but we have other side dishes too. At least two side dishes containing protein sources like fish or meat and one vegetable source. We eat a lot rice, which is not very healthy anyways, but we kinda like it, you know? 😉

So, today my husband wanted some rich food for lunch. It was 2 pm then, we were already late for lunch. So, I needed to do something quick. Like I said before, I’m always in kind of hurry when it comes to food. lol :p

Fried rice is not actually bengali dish though. But I made it in a bengali way. The ingredients you need are:

1. 1 and a 1/2 cup of cooked rice with salt
2. Mixed vegetables: 1/2 cup
3. Shrimp: 2 tbsp
4. Chicken breast: 1 tbsp
5. Olive oil 4 tbsp
6. Egg
7. Half cup onion cut in to pieces
8. 1 big green pepper
9. 2 tsp soy sauce
10. 1 tsp ginger & garlic paste
11. Salt as your taste

Heat the pan with oil and put everything without rice. Cook them well. And finally add rice and cook for 5-7 minutes and you are done.

This saucy spicy chicken is the easiest recipe you will ever have and hell yeah it’s tasty too! So, here’s what you need:

1. 5-6 pieces of chicken
2. 1 green pepper
3. Half cup onion cut chopped in pieces
4. 1 tbsp ginger & garlic paste
5. 1 tsp chili powder
6. 1/2 tsp cumin powder
7. Quarter tsp coriander
8.  Salt
9. Half cup tomato sauce
10. 2 tbsp chili sauce
11. 4 tbsp barbecue sauce
12. 2 tbsp soy sauce
13. 1/2 tsp vinegar
14. 1 tsp lemon juice

First put oil in your pan and heat it well. Then put the chicken pieces and fry them well on both sides. Then take the chickens out of the pan, and put everything else except vinegar and lemon juice. Cook them all for like 5 minutes. Now, put the chickens. Few minutes later, add lemon juice and vinegar. Cook it in a medium heat.

I’m not sure if you guys ever heard of “Chop”, which is nothing but a kebab. A really famous one in Bangladesh. To make a chop, you need some smashed potatoes, add some onions, peppers, spices and salt of course. Make small balls out of them and dip it in beaten eggs first and roll in the bread crumbs and deep fry it in oil. Making chop is really easy one. You can always add others vegetables, fish or meat in a chop. And trust me, the taste is something you will never forget! ^_^

It’s not like we bengali people always eat this kind of unhealthy food. But, it is kinda tradition of making some good food during a holiday or weekend, when every member of the family stays home. 🙂

So, that’s all for today! Bye!! ❤ ❤

Bengali mom facts :D

Bengali mom’s are super adorable, there’s no doubt about it. But when you are a bengali girl, there’s always some things which you can relate to your mom.

• First of all,  our mom thinks, we are nothing but a kid, who has no idea what’s going on out there in the real world so she has this big responsibility of always carrying you on her shoulder.

• So, bengali mom hates to admit that you are growing up! ❤ You could be 22+ and some times even be a graduate, but every time when you are going alone for some shopping or to a friend’s house, she will be like “You sure, you will be fine?”

C’mon mom! We can manage without you for an hours or two!

• And, every time you go alone somewhere, she will ask you to call her, after reaching your destination. In my case, I always had to give her a missed call, so that she could be sure that I reached safely wherever I was going, that no one kidnapped her daughter on the way lol :p.  Trust me mommy, no one wants to take your girl except you!

• You are her little girl and she likes to see you young. And she will refrain you from wearing any thing that may make you look older. lol! 😀

I remember when I was in 4th grade all my friends started wearing SALWAR-KAMIZ. Though now-a-days bengali girls wear salwar-kamiz from an early age but back then it was kinda rare. Actually that was the time when the trend of little girls wearing slawar-kamiz started. Anyways, I asked for one too, to my mom, and she didn’t let me wear one, until I was in 7th grade! Reason? It will make me look like grown-ups! -_-

Same thing happened when I wanted to wear SHAREE or MAKEUP! She’s always like, no      these are the things only grown-ups do!

• Bengali moms always complain there’s no one to help her with the household chores. But when you offer to help, she will reply, “Go, finish your lessons!” -_-

• When you get a F in an exam, she will threat you saying you are not getting dinner today, as a punishment. But truth is at the end of the day there is a bigger punishment is waiting for you if you ever try to skip a meal! lol 😀

• When you buy something, no matter what it is, she will always tell you that, you shouldn’t have paid that much for this trash, and that she wonders if you would never learn how to bargain.

• During an argument, you are not suppose to win over her. Whatever she says, you should just listen.

• But at the end of the day, when the world is against you, when nothing is going right for you, you know there is still a parson in the world, who will  hold you tight no matter what, and who will fight back for you! Yeah, they are that much adorable! And after getting back home, you know you have to share everything with her that happened at work/school today, because she’s your best friend and you can’t live without telling her, tiny details of your life.

And in this selfish world, we, bengali girls are nothing without our “AMMU” (bengali word for mom). Love you AMMU! ❤ ❤ ❤

Things Bengali salesman says to lady customers

If you ask a lady, what cheers you the most? I can guaranty you, the answer will be SHOPPING! lol 😛 Most of us ladies spend 90% of our money buying cosmetics, dresses, shoes, bags. 😉 Not only that, we also love spending most of our free times roaming around places where things are at a cheap rate, or where there’s a a sale going on. We have our own research thesis about which place is better for what (i mean from above mentioned things 😉 ), in terms of money or quality. Ha ha 😀 And in Bangladesh, when you go for shopping, you’ll hear some specific things from the seller. They are super cute, and they say way cuter things to convince you. -_- If your mom goes with you, then there’s nothing to worry about, because they can bargain from 0 and will make the seller sell at the cheapest rate! lol :p Well, mom’s are supermom ❤ But if you have your sister, cousin or friend with you, specially the kind ones, then you are screwed baby! 😉

I am a Chittagongian and I’m living in this city for 25years of my life. Well, was. -_- Most of the times I visited the Marts alone. That doesn’t mean I’m very good at shopping or I don’t need anyone to come with me or etc. It’s just that everyone’s busy these days and when I feel like shopping, I can’t just deprive myself from doing so just for being alone lol 😀 Sometimes I shopped with my sisters or few of the friends who could manage time for coming with me to the marts. 😉  Well, we don’t call them MART.  We call them MARKET. And we rather use the word MARKETING then SHOPPING! lol 😀 And I have some cute experience about  what our cute  salesman says when you go for marketing.   -_- So, here it goes:

1. Suppose you are at a cloth shop. After choosing what you want, you will ask the price first, right? Like  how much per yard or গজ in bengali. And suppose they answer you- “গজ ৫০০ টাকা, আপু!” ( 500 Tk per yard, sister!) Now here’s the fact, if they tell you it’s 500, it’s actually way below it -_- So next you will ask for a lower price, or the cheapest price they can offer. There’s come’s the fun part. The answer will be something like, “আপু, এগুলা তো দরের কিছু নাই। তাও আপনি প্রথম আসছেন এইজন্য যান আপনার জন্য ১০ টাকা কমে দেব!” (There’s nothing to bargain here, sister. But as you came to our shop for the first time, I will give you at 490 Tk!) Like that 10 Tk less is making the price any smaller -_-

 

2. Okay, so your next step will be, offer your own price. So, as always our mom taught us, you would start with half the price the seller offered you. In that case  which is 250 Tk. Offer that, and see the magic. -_- They will give you “How on the earth is this even possible” look

And they will start telling you, how amazing piece of thing this is, like- “আপা, পিওর পাকিস্তানী/ ইন্ডিয়ান কাপড়। একদম নতুন আসছে মার্কেটে। আপনি পুরা মার্কেট ঘুরে দেখেন, যদি কেউ ১টাকা কম দেয়, আমি আপনাকে ফ্রি দিবো, কসম!!!!!!” (Sister this is pure pakistani/indian product. Search the whole market, and if anybody sells you at any lesser price, i swear, i will give you one for free!) And please don’t be convinced when they say that. Now try bargaining with a little more than what you said earlier. And hopefully you will get it at 300-350Tk at the end, for sure. 😀

3. Well, in some cases they are pretty stubborn to negotiate. -_- So, what you gonna do is, you will get out of their shop. Now here’s another funny annoying thing they do. They will call you from behind to come back again saying- “আপু, একটা কথা শুনেন।” (Sister, listen what i have to say) So you will go again with a hope that, may be they are finally willing to give you that. But BOO!!!!!! That’s not it LOL 😀  Again they will try to make you understand how awesome the product is and you never should miss the chance of buying this cloth at this “awesome” rate. LOL :p You go all the way back there, just to listen this! I mean what they already told you before -_- Yup, they do that.

 

4. Now, think you are going to buy a hand bag or shoes. So, first thing you will hear is, “আপু, এটা কিন্তু পিওর লেদার। মানে, আপনি একটু ধরে দেখলে বুঝবেন। এই যে এখানে হাত দিয়ে দেখেন। থাইল্যান্ডি প্রোডাক্ট। অনেকদিন ইউজ করতে পারবেন। দামও বেশী না। আপনার জন্য একদাম বলে দিচ্ছি ৩০০০ টাকা :O। (Sister, this is pure leather. You will feel that when you touch it. Keep, your hand here, see? This is from Thailand. You can use it for a long time. Price is also reasonable. For you, I will be giving this at 3000 Tk.) -_- Like if it’s not for you then they will be selling this for 5000 Tk.

5. When you are at a boutique shop, no matter which one you pick, they will be saying, “হ্যাঁ আপু, এটা আপনার জন্য একদম ঠিক আছে। কালার টা যেই রকম, কাজটাও সেই রকম। খুবই গর্জিয়াস, আপনাকেও মানাবেও সেই।” (Well sister, this is totally perfect for you! Beautiful color and likewise handiwork. So gorgeous, and made just for you) 😉 Don’t be overwhelmed with all this talking, if you would’ve picked the exact opposite designed dress, they will say the same to you.

6. When you are in a cosmetics shop, looking for make up or any other beauty products, it’s hard to bargain there sometimes. Because they will tell you that this the company rate, and they only have 10 to 20 Tk benefits from their buying price. Normally, the maximum discount they give from their mentioned price is 50 Tk in this case. But, if it’s a jewelry shop, you can bargain a lot more. Anyways, in any case, your big move is, name your price and if they are not willing to give at that rate, then walk out from there. If you are lucky enough, they will call you from behind and try to negotiate with you or give you at your price.

Sometimes it feels like shopping is more like betting. Everyone’s trying to win the bargaining war lol 😛 That’s why some ladies i know, prefer shopping in fixed price rated shops these days. But to me the betting thing is what makes the shopping more interesting, more adventurous ❤ That’s the fun of shopping, you know? You got a war to win there 😛 😛