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.

White Flag

dang, i've been lazy. drained of energy from...laying down. i can't even muscle a blog entry for you foos.

it took too much effort to flip from one side to the other while watching every minute of march madness games last weekend. nevertheless, 3 of my 4 final four picks are in (go ucla!) and for those of you who turn off the gtown game with 5 minutes to go, you suck!

anyhoo, what is it about getting super sick after you're done with something big? after i quit work, come back from a trip, or graduate, my body's white blood cells just decide to stop combatting those icky viral attackers? a-holes i say.

well, i promise to have more interesting things to say soon. maybe i just need a little booster tequila shot. 4,3,2,1, get yo' woman on the floor!

Madness in March

sorry for the MIAness once again. but i had good reason -- i was finishing up the quarter and...ta da, i'm done with classes for good! give me an m! m. give me a b! b. give me an a! a. what's the spell? a big fat dork! thank you thank you.

well, i shouldn't say i'm totally done. i still have to grade a stack of papers and then...it's all madness i tell ya. i have big plans to...find a job. :)

anyhoo, onto more fun topics. marchy march. who's your pick? i got UCLA going all the way in one pool. i had to, i'm a bruin now you know.

hmm, anything else interesting in my world? i saw razorlight in concert recently (thanks rizzy!), got a short haircut (thanks fobby hair stylest man!), and wrote some fun final papers (thanks profs!). oh, a recap of a recent convo:

"joann, some first year told me that i had a dry sense of humor."
"sauj, you so don't. you laugh at fart jokes. your sense of humor is like the lowest common denominator."

awww, thanks jojo.

Fatty and Phatty

on monday night, i had my last finance class with professor cockrum, a 70+ year old ex-investment banker, who is funny as heck in his sharp-yet-aloof grandfathery sort of way. anyhoo, in the middle of our three-hour class, we get a 10 minute break. at the end of the break, everyone was assembled back in the classroom, attentive and ready to go. then, you heard cockrum looking up at the backrow and saying, "WHERE'S FATTY? IS HE OUT FEEDING HIS FACE?!?!?!"

it was hilarious. the guy he was referring to is this part-time student named fadi (i think pronounced fah-di). it's been three days and annu and i still can't stop laughing about it. hmm, come to think of it, it's not even that funny. but still. FATTY!!!!

well, what was actually phat was christina aguilera's performace on tuesday night. she freakin' can sing! i know my musical taste is all over the place, but christina was most def hot and spicy. she sang all my favs: candy man, circus song, hurt...and busted out some "classics" like fighter, beautiful, and moulin rouge. oh, and she brought up a dude from the audience during the naughy boy song and i turned to jenn and tina and said, "dude! who is that guy? he's like a celeb!" then i realized i only know him through the celeb gossip blog i read -- he was perez from perezhilton.com. and he is def just f-a-t.

anyhoo, a little shoutout to the little sister: happy b, kid! your insurance rate drops today! and for those of you wondering, i just called her and she did recognize my voice. she's definitely a better person than i am.

Run Lola Run

today is LA marathon day. per usual, the route went through ktown, so i decided to walk my lazy butt a few blocks to see the runners. well, i actually had another inspiration this time -- laura and erin were running in the 'thon and i was hoping to catch them for a little cheering session.

while getting ready, my aunt decided she wanted to join me. we walked to the corner of 6th and oxford and waited for the numerous people passing us by. i told my aunt to be on the lookout for tallish chinese and white girls...big mistake. she would point out every asian / white girl combo in sight from then on. "there!" "no, auntie." "how about them!" "no no."

even with this duo-effort, somehow we missed them anyway.

BUT i did manage to take a picture of this totally oblivious korean lady crossing the street through the marathon. a picture doesn't do justice but she was really walking at a .0002 miles per hour speed direclty through the runners. go ktown!
















oh, on a side note, i had the best blueberry pancakes for brunch yesterday at a place called marston's in pasadena. as alice called them, "they're kinda crepe-y"...doesn't matter what they are, they are G-O-O-D!

Contribution Denied

i'm a law-abiding citizen of the united states. i try to vote when i can (yes, i can vote; i'm not an alien anymore...i've been a real citizen for over 5 years now!), i never park in handicap spots, and i pick up trash on the street if i see it. so, i couldn't let the street signage go misspelled for too long...i had to report it like a good samaritan that i pretend to be.

per laura's suggestion, i called the beverly hills mayor's office. a perky lady picked up the phone.

me: "i know this is totally random, but you have a misspelled sign in your city. can you let me know who i should report this to?"
the perky lady: "do you know what street it was?"
me: "yes, it's moreno street. the little sign at the corner of moreno and little santa monica is messed up."
TPL: "oh! someone else already reported it! don't worry i already told the public works and transportation office."
me (disappointed): "thanks."
TPL: "thanks for calling!"

sad. hmm, it wasn't one of you faithful blog readers who one-upped me, was it? :)

on a side note, i finished that china dolls book. very cute, very chick lit-cheesy, but if anyone wants a quick and relaxing read, let me know...

Dyslexia in 90210

yesterday morning, i'm back-street driving through beverly hills to get to century city for work and i get stuck at a light. i'm staring up at the traffic light and the street sign and i see this, which is perfectly normal.
















then, i start to look around and i see this:

is it weird that the government doesn't spell check? do i need to be a good citizen and report this? i don't want any other fobs to get confused.

and no, i'm not a danger to society by taking pictures on the road. don't you all chat on cellies, type on crackberries, drink coffee, eat bento boxes, and take pictures while driving as well? at least i don't do make-up and hair in the car! i mean, THAT would be dangerous.

Teeny World

so i think today is officially day 8 of my bday hanukkah. last night the world spewed out few of my old buddies from csfb days into the city of LA - catania from canada, fobby from hk, and pazzy from sf. it was fun reminiscing about the crappy analysts days...no wonder more of us ended up in the peace corps than lasted in banking.

anyhoo, this morning while i'm at my parents' house picking up my mail, i decide to call my sister to catch up:

yuj - "hey"
me - "yo. calling you from home cause my cell is out of minutes."
...then i tell her about my reunion last night with "rob the hk guy," "jee the one who married the korean korean girl," "paz the bolivian," "catania the canadian"...then she cuts me off:
yuj - "unni, your descriptions suck. do you really expect me to know these people?"
me - "hmm. i guess not." (are you wondering how i describe you now?)
...we continute with more convo about random bs.
me - "anyhoo, i better run, but let's talk again soon. call me when you get bored. but not before wed cause i'm out of minutes until then."
yuj - "um...don't you have free night and weekends?"
me - "oh man. you're right! crap, i lost my excuse not to call people back. dang it."

oh, look at sis's snow artistry; she's very talented: http://rhymeswithhuge.blogspot.com/

what else. oh, on friday, i went to this book promotion event at school to get some free grub and found out one of the authors is a ny lawyer girl i worked with when i was at my last job. i never met her but spent a ridiculous number of hours on the phone with her discussing a bankruptcy case. since we both had unique names, we "recognized" each other. first time that's come in handy.

anyhoo, she and her cousin co-wrote a chick lit novel called china dolls and they are on a book tour. the book is a story about three ny asian-american girls...a "cross between joy luck club and sex and the city." i'm about half way through right now and it's quite cute. go support the asian peeps and read it...

but talk about small world! i'm telling you, don't piss off anyone, you never know where they will show up in your life next. wise words from the old lady. no, not my mom, me!

Wild Child

so everyone's been asking - so what did you do for your big day?!?!!

um. yeah. i'm lame. i ate bfast (yes, seaweed soup) with parental units. i went to work. i went to class. i said what's up to big g. then i went home and slept. wooooo hooooooo!!!!

BUT, get this. the night before? for the big celebration with my anderson friends?!?!
i went bowling.

yup. to quote yuj:
"you're wild.
WILD."

i know. giving up booze has def made me lame. but as katie says, we can always go out for some "mocktails" this weekend. anyone in? sat night at the W. canada, fobby, et al will be in town.

this will be me: "bartender! i would like a cranberry vodka please." "oh, hold the vodka."

I Heart My Friends...

thanks for all the love today - emails, e-cards, texts, IMs, friendster / myspace messages, phone calls - i love you all!

some of the classics from the day:

nora / jenn - "stupid, happy birthday"

sandy - "ms. yi, it has been brought to my attention that you are old today..."

riz - "i just wanted to say, happy ash wednesday. also, happy new yorker magazine day! (first issue published today in 1925). also, happy comminist manifesto day! (1848). and happy romanov dynasty (1613) and washington monument (1885) days!"
"...and... um... well i guess that's everything. i don't recall any other important items happening on this day."
"oh, wait! i totally forgot! happy international mother language day!"

yuj - (in an unrecognizable very very squeaky voice and from a non-caller IDed number) "happy biirrrrrrrrrthday!"
my response: "who is this?"
yuj: "you don't recognize your only sister's voice?!?!?!?"
me: "i was just kidding."

um. i wasn't kidding. sorry yuj. love ya.

Neutral Face

i've had this conversation with many people before, but something just happened that triggered the thought for me again. there's a dude presenting in front of class, and it's a q&a format. when he's listening to a question from the prof, he seriously looks like he's going to cry. the poor guy has a sad / whiny / crybaby neutral face!

have you thought about your neutral face? sv is convinced she has a biatch neutral face though i think it's more of a contemplative one. how about you? what's yours?

mine is definitely sophisticated, uber chic, intelligent, come-get-this-mama face.

Mr. Brightside

i can't believe how awesome it is out today...even for LA. it's over 80 degrees and sunny...and hot-diggity-dog, it's also a long weekend in my favorite month! so all this added together, you would think i would be oh-so-happy. but for a bit there today, i wasn't.

my computer pooped out on me last weekend and after a little tease of life through the week, it officially went kaput yesterday. it sucked. i just didn't realize how dependent i was on my laptop. and though i got a loaner (i love you price center girls) to get me through the weekend, i was determined to find a laptop surgeon to revive my baby.

so with instructions from ibm / lenovo, i went to a few stores today but totally got the run-around. after i was fed up, sitting in my truck and sweaty from the 80 degree weather, i called them back and started complaining, "dude, wtf." just like that.

the guy on the other end gave me a new set of instructions about mailing it in, etc. and then i said, "why didn't your associates tell me this sooner? i just went all over the city!"
and he said, "look on the brightside, you got a nice scenic tour of the city you haven't seen in a while, right?"

i laughed. barely.

anyhoo, my laptop will be going into operation in hot-lanta on tuesday via post office. please wish it luck. i hope it survives, but hey, if it totally dies even after surgery then at least it can see denny and that really cute paramedic guy from grey's anatomy.

btw, totally unrelated, did you know it is "lo and behold," not "low and behold"? i just looked it up.