Random K Thoughts

me @ home. yay.

after a whirlwind travel through korea, i'm home in one piece. i started from the south in jeju (korea's hawaii) and traveled up the east coast and then ended in seoul for a few days. i never really traveled through korea before and for how small the peninsula is (maybe the size of socal), there's so much character to each little region. the food, the accents, etc...it's like if people in westwood spoke with a totally different accent than those in pasadena.

fortunately, on the organized portion of the tour, i was able to meet some new friends -- other korean americans visiting from the states. we kept laughing at stupid things that would only be funny to us, such as:

- the name of the main volcanic mountain in jeju island is called halla mountain. halla!
- the fish cake skewer soup is called oh-dang. ooooh dang.

crap like this...on and on.

this is us busting up a soju tent near sorak mountain (don't mind the random old guy on the left...we made friends in the tent).
















as you can see from the pix, there was a white guy in the group. he was the husband of one of the korean american girls. to the jr. high girls in korea, the blond hair-blue eyes made him look like some celebrity. this is them screaming and running up to him for an autograph at some park.
















hmm, what else. at some point, i ate live squid. seriously, these suckers were like gliding off the plate!
















oh, and did you know that you can go shopping at like midnight in seoul? we were bargaining for pants at 1:30 am. i walked out of the shopping mall and saw that you can even get classes made 24 hours a day. you know, just in case you broke your glasses in your sleep.

anyhoo, i'm too pooped to make this blog entry make sense. but oh dang, i'm glad to be home. halla.

Soooo Full

i'm alive in motherland. i woke up early to go on a little hike, but it just started raining, so i'm spending my free time emailing before i have to catch the bus.

korea is great. it's very scenic and the spring time here is gorgeous...with the blossoming flowers, etc.

i always thought i look pretty standard korean but it's been really interesting to see how many koreans address me in english even before i say a word. maybe i just look lost.

the best thing about this country is the food. i feel like i'm in grub heaven...i keep eating big meals and then snacking on the street stands and then buying little packages of junk food at the convenience stores for the downtimes in between. i don't say this often, but i think i'm actually full.

People

so for days i was looking at the word "tibetans"(people of tibet) and thinking...how the heck do you pronounce that? is it like the word "haitians" (people of haiti)? and at yesterday night's dinner, i learned that "tibetans" does not have an "i". so tricky.

anyhoo, nothing much to report here except that i'm off to korea for a little vacay starting tomorrow. i'm going to see the koreans (people of korea). i plan to wave around my american passport as bait to see if a man will bite. just kidding. geez, how desperate do you think i am!

well, i will try to blog while there, but if not, don't miss me too much!

Make Me Alien Again

jury duty sucks. i haven't even gone in yet and it's totally ruining my game. i really mean game!

a new sf friend (from my trip in feb) called me this morning: "i got opening day tickets in the box at candlestick tomorrow. wanna fly up? only thing is you have to decide right now..." and i, on total break from real life right now, was like, "sure!" and then it hit me.

"oh crap. i have to call later today to see if i have to go into jury duty. i'm on call this week."

"so does that mean you can't?"
(pout, pout) "yeah. ugh. well, it's okay. i hate the giants anyway." (pout, pout)

and yeah, you guessed it, i don't have to go in tomorrow. i miss my resident alien status.