New Chapter

Moida Band - Chocolate Drive

2010-09-19T03:28:00.000-07:00

Pieces of You - Epik High

2010-05-05T21:27:00.000-07:00

mocedades - eres tu

2009-11-29T06:02:00.000-08:00

steve barakatt - the whistler's song

2009-11-29T05:24:00.000-08:00

after school - diva

2009-11-26T07:40:00.000-08:00

john mayer - waiting on the world to change

2009-11-25T16:52:00.000-08:00

michael buble - havent met you yet

2009-11-25T16:30:00.000-08:00

totally failed to upload this yesterday bc i really WAS running late. haha.

john mayer - who says

2009-11-23T19:13:00.000-08:00

i love showering...feel so refreshed...should do it more often

just because...

2009-11-22T20:11:00.000-08:00

this is fun~

2009-11-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

near the end, i accidentally pressed stop button. hahahahaha. i was just going to say, hope you had a good saturday!!!

too lazy to type

2009-11-20T19:59:00.000-08:00

a FULL day

2009-11-19T16:57:00.000-08:00

slept in a bit, which is always a good thing. these days, i wake up bc the room gets so cold. haha. love the feeling of being in your bed all warm while being able to feel the coldness. it's a cozy sensation.
i got up soon enough and got ready to go see 은혜, jihang's friend. i met her up at her school. we ate 부대찌개. it was really good. haha. i havent had it in awhile so i enjoyed it. the best part was that for 반찬, they gave us tater tots. hahaha. LOVED IT~ after lunch, we got coffee bc she wasnt feeling too well. she thought she was coming down with a cold. i definitely stayed away from her. haha. from starbucks, we went to go look for some information on my potential mba program.
by the way, i really hate how expensive coffee is. i mean, for two it's over 10 bucks. that's ridiculous!
after walking around here and there, getting lost once or twice, we finally found a place with all the brochures/pamphlets about the different mba programs the school offered. after looking through few of them, i think i found the one i really want to do. for those of you who have some time and are interested, take a look: http://www.s3-asiamba.com/main.do
so now i know what i have to do. get full time job experience and take the gmat. haha.
after that, i was going to go home and chill, but then i got a call from the korean church members about meeting up. i never met them since i never went to their young people service plus i dont even go to their church anymore. hahaha. well anyways, i met up with few of them. very nice girls. very easy to get along. no no. no potentials. but homegirls. it was just unfortunate that i met them so late since i'll be gone by next week. haha. well we all had some coffee and chatted until i had to leave for dinner.
i met up with 지훈, daniel's cousin. it was fun. we ate 닭갈비. it's so good. i just cant have enough of it. haha. we pretty much talked about army things the WHOLE time. hahaha. he was telling me about all his experience. after talking to him, i'm really looking forward to it now. it sounds fun! i mean i'm expecting some hardships but dude~ so many memories. so many stories. once in a lifetime experience. plus it seems like there will be a lot of free time for me to workout, study, and do whatevers. i thought it was funny that during training, they give you paper and expect you to write letters to people. haha. wednesday = soccer day. i mean there was so much he told me. but yea~
oh, i finally picked up my korean ssn id card. i'm officially a korean citizen. i actually have a valid identity somewhere. hahaha. i think i'm going to get new pair of cheap glasses for the army today. it was recommended that i do. alright everyone, have a great day. 8D

DUDE!

2009-11-18T16:21:00.000-08:00

alright, i just woke up and i HAD to post this. i had the weirdest dream EVER~~~
so, david robinson, the nba hall of famer, came to a church i was in and helped us with some sort of play production. it wasnt the church i was in right now nor uni. it was just some random church that i was in at the time. everything went smoothly. in the end, i was sort of praying for him yet in the midst of it, i ball tapped, who appeared to be, joe park in his younger days. he squealed like a pig. then as i was praying, he balled tap me. out of shocked, i squealed as well. few seconds later, mr. sim walks in and asks who was that. everyone points us out and tells us to do 80 push ups afterward. and.....that's when i woke up. i never got to finish my prayer for mr. robinson, so after i woke up from my dream, i actuall prayed for him.
HOW WEIRD WAS THAT DREAM?????

some people...

2009-11-17T03:03:00.000-08:00

so i had dinner with an old friend from back home. i've met him once already in korea. dont know if you guys remember that dinner. it's the one i went rambling about not being able to be friends with EVERYONE. some people are just really hard to get along. some people just arent your type of people. hahaha.

well anyways, i figured since i'm going soon and i could just ignore him, we had dinner again tonight. we just ate whatevers at a food court under some mall. top 5 sushi ever...on the worst sushi list. it was pretty bad. my 돈까스 was below-par. but yea, i was hungry so i ate it deliciously. of course~ the only way to eat food.

as i was having conversation about this and that, i realized, once again, i know why i wasnt THAT close to him back in the states. haha. it seems so bad but yea. he helped me remember that i cant be friends with EVERYONE. there will be people out there that i just cant get along or have a deep relationship with. haha.

one of the interesting thing i felt was that he was saying things about the army or my life to in a way to hurt me or to show that he's better than me. haha. i dont know. it was awkward. haha.
another thing, he even mentioned about how he hated how he felt like a minority back at home growing up. i was thinking in my head, "what the heck? i never felt that." he mentioned how he just felt like he was weird or maybe all the people he met are just douches. haha. i dont know dude. i grew up in the same neighborhood and i LOVED it. the diversity and whatnot. in conclusion, i just told him, "maybe it's just that you were raised up in the wrong part of the world. but hey! at least you are here now and you love it. i'm really glad that you're happy here."

but yea~~~ at times like these i realize how different people really are. how crazy God is, for He made every single one of us different and unique. i cant wait to see Him. He truly is amazing.

i have literally have less than 2 weeks left. right now, i'm half-half. haha. it's like the whole "going to korea" all over again. half excitement-half scared. excited about what i'll face there and scared of what i'll face there. haha. does that make sense? haha. well i really do miss everyone. i wish korea wasnt so far away. hahaha. so that we could just go over to each other's neighborhood and chill whenever we want.....

worth the wait

2009-11-16T07:25:00.000-08:00

finally after waiting for months, i finally got japanese ramen in korea. and dude! it was worth the wait. first of all, the place was hidden, which added to the coolness. there was even a line waiting to go in. even cooler~ then the food, GREAT~ it totally reminded me of the times we went on shinsengumi/ahjisen/foofootei runs. man~ good times. then afterward, ate ice cream fondue. it was pretty good. haha. baskin robins here are like a richy cafe, not just some hole-in-the-wall ice cream place.

Really?

2009-11-13T23:28:00.000-08:00

haha. life is great. i cant complain about my life being boring. haha. love it. it's just full of surprises.
first of all, i'll be entering the army on the 30th. yes, it's super soon. considering that i thought i was going to go sometime between feb and april. haha. i was actually ready to go then. i was preparing myself to enter the army as a translator, but i guess all of that wasn't part of His plan. haha. seriously, i think that's the story of my life. He never ceases to amaze and shock me. haha. love it!
i'm actually okay with it now, but it was pretty intense when i found out. haha. an emotional roller coaster. one minute, you are grateful that you finally found a church and feel happy that you started building a solid circle of friends who you can trust and share with. then the next minute, it all comes crumbling down. haha.
you would think i would be used to it by now - things not going as planned. haha. just my luck. well, i'm sure it's for the best. i have no doubt. i'd be lying though if i said i'm not a small bit worried. haha. i'm telling myself, rest other millions of korean men have done it, why can i? hahaha.
i have about 2 weeks left and honestly there really sint anything in particular that i want to do. haha. i just want to be lazy and eat whatever i want before i go. hahaha. plus the weather is so chilly that i feel too lazy to go out.
one disappointment is that i signed to audition for the praise team, but had to withdraw my name from that. i actually finished up the audition form including a testimony and all. i still sent it though. in it, i told them i'll be auditioning for it once i get out again, so just wait. hahhaa.
so yea~ i guess there really isnt much more to say than that for now. enjoy your weekend everyone.

Recap since last entry

2009-11-09T21:10:00.000-08:00

past week was more of a relaxing-stay-at-home-bc-it's-too-cold-outside-save-some-money-watch-some-tv kind of week. i actually enjoyed it though. haha.

saturday:
went to myungdong w/ wally. i was looking for some hoodies and what not. ended up not buying anything. wally actually ended up buying a pea coat. very nice. we walked into a richy lotte plaza. and i swear we should've been stopped. haha. i felt like we were SOO out of place. everything was marble and shiny and bright. then when we walked in to the lotte young plaza, we felt more at home. haha. from there we went to itaewon. we looked for some fitted hats. fake but you could not tell the difference if you saw them side by side. koreans are sooo good at imitations. haha. anyways, wally ended up buying a hat and a beanie; me a beanie as well. we kinda got owned for lunch at myungdong. we went into a 돈까쓰집 but we decided to be adventurous and ordered other items: hamburger steak and cheese cutlet. so i guess it wasnt too much of a stretch. but then, BAM! i got what it looked like 3 bite size 동그랑땡 and wally got what it looked 3 fat mozzarella sticks. so when we got to itaewon, we ate quiznos. haha. cant go wrong with good ol' american chain restaurant food. on the way home, i bought myself a new earphone bc one i was using broke on the way to myungdong earlier in the day. and that was saturday.

sunday:
once again, sunday is my favorite day of the week. i'm just so glad i found a church. it took me awhile but YAY~ anyways, early in the morning, wally sent me a text saying he was sick so he wasnt going to make it. so jess and i went alone for the first time. haha. we got there just in time for the sermon. it was last week's guest speaker's wife. she was pretty funny. i really like this church. it sort of refueled my heart to serve again - the heart that i felt like died down the past 2 months. anyways, afterward, we went to dos tacos. wow. that was some good mexican food. i'm not sure if my taste bud is forgetting how "real" mexican food tasted or the mexican food i'm getting these days are really good, but i'm beginning to enjoy the korean mexican food. hahaha. from there we headed over to coex, jess had to buy a bible, then a cafe bc i had to do some busy work. it was chill. oh in somewhere between the mexican food and cafe, i told jess pretty much most of my testimonies. she seemed to be challenged and encouraged by my stories. i was glad that it affected her in a positive way. we ate some 떡복기 and 순대 for dinner.

monday:
i was back to my normal stay-home-save-money mode. i recently started watching 우리결혼했어요. hahahahhaa. dude, marriage seems pretty fun...if you are married to the right person. hahahahhaa. i literally spent all day watching like 6 episodes. hahaha. not very productive. oh, at the time i didnt know but i received an ominous mail notice from 병무청, army place.

today:
so yea. i went to the post office to pick up the letter and BAM! am i good or am i good? my feelings yesterday was EXACT! i opened it up and they want me by the end of the month at this middle of nowhere place. luckily, yesterday, bc of the ominous notice, i got online and checked up on the updates of 아학병. there were some new news but for some reason my comp wouldnt show korean on THAT site and there were words that i didnt understand. so i'm going to meet w/ my gomo and try to call them and sign up for the 아학병 ASAP. hahahaha. urgh~ i just dont understand how everything in my life never goes as planned. hahahhaa. LOVE IT.

btw, i've taken so much time reorganizing my itunes and i came across blink's old albums and oh man~ they are fun!

korean tv

2009-11-05T02:00:00.001-08:00

today is the day that i discovered korean tv. WOW. there was so much to watch on tv. haha. i guess it's bc my emo has cable. regardless, it was nonstop show after another. i just pressed the category button and browsed around. haha. i saw like 5 different type of shows. i even saw lakers game live. hahahhaa. it was awesome. that's pretty much all i did today. hahaha.

Rest Day

2009-11-04T00:24:00.000-08:00

for the first time in awhile, i got to sleep in. it's just so cold. haha. stupid korea.
i decided that i wouldnt do anything today and that is exactly what i did. i watched some tv downstairs. ate bob for lunch with tuna and kim for side dishes. ate a raw ramen for snack. surfed the web a bit. watched some shows online. adjusted my rosters for fantasy bball. freakin jason is KILLING me so far this week. just wait though. he doesnt know what's coming at him. haha.
very uneventful day. haha. it's just so cold to go out though. haha. i hope to do more tomorrow. good day everyone. 8D

not yet winter?

2009-11-03T04:46:00.000-08:00

so i woke up bc it's SOOOOO cold. my emo told me, this isnt even winter weather. ha! i laughed at her comment.
i ate breakfast and met up with eric around lunch time. we were both determined to look at the palace. but seriously, story of my life. 경북궁 closes on tuesday. HAHAHAHA. wow~ since we failed, we went into the museum right next to it and looked around. so for those of you who are counting, i failed to look at the palace THREE DAYS IN A ROW. hahahhaa. i'm soooooo going to look at it soon or later.
since we failed, we tried to go find the seoul science museum, but......THAT FAILED. haha. we ended up just walking around some new town. hahaha.
then, we decided to go to some art museum, but....THAT FAILED. we just started walking and next thing you know, we ended up in seoul art center. haha. we checked out the design museum, which had one cool exhibit. another was too abstract for me. haha. went over to the art museum but we had to pay, so that was a no go.
from there we headed back up to express bus terminal to check out few stores. eric bought a belt. i wanted to shop a bit but we went straight to 낙성대 to eat one of the best 삼겹살 i've ever tasted. jess joined us after her work. it was sooooo goood~~~~~~
from there, we went out separate ways bc jess wasnt feeling too well. now here i am, the next morning, watching drama, looking for a job, and updating my blog. haha. today is going to be a relaxation day. it could not have come at a better time.

it's cold~~~~

2009-11-02T06:46:00.000-08:00

monday...

for me, i dont have to wake up early or anything because i dont have work. haha. anyways, i woke up later than usual at jess' place. i must have been TIRED~~~ last time i slept over, i went home when jess left for work. but today i didnt even hear her get up and leave. i KNOCKED out. haha. the apartment was so cozy and warm that eric and i didnt want to leave but we had to. we had a full day ahead of us.
first thing's first thing. we headed over to my place so that i can wash up and get some clean clothes. haha. it had been 4 days and 3 nights since i went home. hahahaha. it felt so foreign to me. haha. we took our sweet time and just chilled at my place for awhile. then ate lunch at a small restaurant on the way to the bus stop. we ate 잔치국수, 참치김밥, and once again 튀김 in 떡볶이 sauce. man~ i love that stuff. haha. i just love how they put 깻입 inside the 김밥. mmm~
we got on the bus, made few transfers on the subway, and finally arrived. haha. for me two days in a row i was here. we went straight for the palace. and for the second day in a row, REJECTED! i was in utter shock. WOW~ they close at 4pm during nov - feb. haha. right there and then i was like you know what? we are coming back tomorrow! i was determined to see the stupid palace. i will not fail three times. hahaha. from there, we sort of walked around the outer edges of the palace. hahahaha. then we went to seoul station. i thought it would've been cool to just see the structure.
oh by the way, it was freakin below freezing. i mean, WHAT THE HECK IS WRONG W/ KOREA. how do people live here?????? and some girls!!!!! they are CRAZY!!!! HOW CAN YOU BE WEARING SKIRTS???? DO YOU NOT SHAVE?????
it was sooooo cold that i was just irritated and frustrated. my body was tired from all the coldness. i mean, i havent experience this kind of cold since last time i went to lake tahoe. haha. my body is not equipped to survive such coldness.
from seoul station, we went to 용산. saw few things. browsed around the techno side of the mall. jess and i actually performed a piano duet. hahhaa. aw~~~ how i miss esther and cindy~ they would've enjoyed it. i also showed eric the red light district that was located right across the street. hahaha. funny thing is that i think jess enjoyed it more than him. haha. it was actually cool bc we saw a lady sitting at the window. HAHAHA.
from there, we went to cheonho to eat 닭갈비, my favorite~~~~ this time we added bunch of sides: 3 diff types of mushroom, 2 diff types of noodles, extra veggies....mmmm~~~~ i loved it. it seemed like eric enjoyed it too. jess said it was better this time than last time. haha. for me, it's good ALL THE TIME. hahaha. after dinner, we thought we were going to stop by e-mart and browse around but it was TOO COLD. so we all went home as quickly as possible. hahaha.
now, here i am, awake thanks to the coldness. geez, you can literally feel the chill in the air. i need to get ready now to go back to the palace. this time, i WILL suceed!!

Recap of Hallow's Weekend

2009-11-01T06:11:00.000-08:00

alright. this was a good weekend. i really enjoyed myself. a lot happened.
well you know what happened friday. once i got home, i updated my blog just like you guys saw. dont even know when i fell asleep. haha. so yea. i mentioned that james went to a "massage" place. in the morning, he freakin woke me up around 7am bc he's an old man and is an early riser. gosh~ since we were both up, we started watching tv. haha. i caught up on wsop main event. goooo phil ivey~~~ i really want him to win. haha. while watching, i asked james if he had a good time last night. he told me that they wouldnt let him in bc he was a foreigner. haha. i thought that was pretty funny. james later went out and brought back breakfast. walnut and tuna sandwich. sounds weird? it was delicious~~~~ it was so good. it had other ingredients, which i cant really remember now, but it was sooooo good. then later, when henri came home, he brought up mcdonalds. haha. so we ate that too. hahaha. so good when you put the hash brown inside the egg mcmuffin w/o eggs. that's how i like my mcdonalds breakfast. we all sat down and watched more tv. we watched some documentary about body builders by louis theroux (?). it was VERY interesting and entertaining. in it, it talked about how some people pay money to see two body builders to do things, pay a body builders to arm wrestle/touch them/watch them, or even pay money for their used underwear. he added that if the underwear had things in it, people paid more. SOOOOOOOO SICK AND TWISTED. henri, james, and i totally googled this and we saw that there were websites that sell used underwears. ew~~~~
it was nearing the time when the movers were suppose to come, so we all started to pack. not to any of our surprise, they were running late. once they finally came, they only took the fridge bc the bed had bodily fluid on them and they said they couldnt accept it. AHAHA. freakin james. so they came to take the fridge and the bed bc henri and james rented from them a year ago. we asked them if we can pay them extra money to load rest of the stuff in their truck, but they refused. there were few complications, which delayed us very much. there was about 2 hour window where mark and i were sitting in the basement with all the boxes and the sofa while 5 feet from us there was POURING RAIN. hahaha. it was the perfect weather for moving....
so funny story here. mark, one of their friends who i met for the first time that day, pulled one of the funniest prank yet in korea. haha. so here is what happened. i told mark about how james couldnt get into superman massage, that was the name, bc they said he was a foreigner. james standing nearby confirmed my story with a nod. then mark all of a sudden goes, "oh really? you know why right. it's because you are not a member." he said as he was pulling out his wallet from his back pocket. as james and i watched intently, we saw mark pull out a card with what else but a superman on it. HAHA. i was amazed, and so was james. his eyes simply lit up. haha. he started asking mark, "how did you get that? how can i get that? what? i cant belive it!" hahahahahaha. i was actually curious as well. i mean they told james that he couldnt get it. i was so confused. haha. but then mark stops us and tells us that the card was a lg card (a credit card). he told us, if you would've looked at it closer, it has my girlfriend's name on it. hahaha. WOW. he totally got us. right away, i was like, "DUDE! YOU SHOULD'VE KEPT IT GOING~ IT WOULD'VE BEEN HILARIOUS IF JAMES WOULD'VE GONE BACK AND KEPT ASKING TO BE A MEMBER." AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAH. sigh~ the little joys in life
anyways, we finally got things over to the new place. the new place was SICK!!!!! SOOO HUGE~ it came furnished with EVERYTHING including a JACUZZI. all i have to say is, it was SICK!!! totally a place i would not mind living with a family. it was that nice.
once we got everything done, we went to go eat dinner. afterward, we went to a bar next to their new place and just chilled for several hours. it was very chill. caleyn, mark, and james ended up going elsewhere afterward for extra halloween festivities. henri, michelle, and i went home to sleep. haha. all in all, i really enjoyed my first halloween in korea. we were just talking and joking it up the whole time, but yea~. btw, the dinner was fantastic~~~ 열탄불고기. MMMmMmMM~

sunday

i actually woke up around 4am bc james came home drunk and i guess he wanted to use the jacuzzi but him being drunk he turned on the tub then fell asleep in his room, leaving the bathtub overflowing with water. haha. so i had to wake up and turn it off. i eventually went back to sleep then woke up to a wonderful smelling breakfast food made by michelle. i was sooo impressed by her cooking skills. haha. the food was amazing. it was such a hearty breakfast. such a good way to start a day. few hours later, i got ready to go to church. there was a moment where i really didnt want to go bc i was tired but i'm glad i went. the sermon was SOOOO great today. took away many nuggets of truth. afterward, wally, kathy, and i went to 경북궁 to meet up with jess and eric. let's just say jess and eric never made it. haha. the three of us looked around the musuem and saw few cool things. the coolest thing being the mouse trap water clock. it was one of the coolest things i've ever seen. haha. we didnt get to go into the palace bc we were too late since we lost few hours waiting for jess and eric to get there. haha. we just ended up meeting up at insa-dong for dinner. we walked and browsed around. very neat stores. went into few areas that i didnt go into last time i was there. i liked it.
the night is REALLY REALLy cold now. i rEALLY REALLY didnt want to go home bc of it. so i'm crashing at jess' place again. before we went up, we got 교촌 chicken. hehe. now eric is cooking up some dumplings from scratch while jess is trying to sleep. haha.

halloween-eve

2009-10-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

alright. what happened today? it turned out to be a pretty eventful day. i watched some nba games for most of the morning. chatted and what not.
decided to meet up with eric so i can show him around children grand park (yes, the place i went yesterday). i asked him to come over to my neighborhood bc i had prior engagement i wished not to get out of. it was a good thing i didnt. everything worked out according to plan.
anyways, things ended a bit earlier than expected so i waited for eric at the bus stop. but for about 30 minutes, he would not come. so JUST as i was finishing up a text to jess, i got a phone call from a strange number. it was eric calling me from a payphone. haha. the funny thing was that he only put in about 100 won so our conversation was less than a minute. haha. for example,
"where are you?"
"i'm lost."
"haha. what do you see?"
"ok. i see..." beep beep beep
his time was up.
"hello?"
"yea. what happened?"
"i only put in a quarter. so yea. what i see is _____."
"did you pass...." beep beep beep
once again, no time left.
"hello?"
"yea. so what do you see?"
"ok, this is my last quarter."
"just get back on the bus and i'm waiting at the bus stop."
"o..." beep beep beep.
LOVE LIFE.
haha. anyways, he eventually made it. then we headed over to children grand park. i was actually pretty excited since i didnt get to see any of the animals yesterday. i LOVE animals. we walked around and saw the animals, but unfortunately we got there a bit later than expected since eric got lost, so a lot of the animals were gone. plus some of them just werent visible bc of the lack of sun light. we also got to see the fountain at its coolest. it was moving around with colors and all. it was very soothing. i really like water. 8D
from there, we went to coex, so i could show eric the fountain show on the street level. once again, something about flowing water that is soothing for me. i dont know. i could look at it all day and then sleep. haha.
from there, we headed over to gangnam to meet up w/ jess. i though it was just the 3 of us, but we were crashing someone's bday dinner, jin's. never met her. but yea~ dinner was chill. i got to catch up w/ matty, who i met that one night in hongdae. people ate and chatted away. once we got out, i got a corndog, which i was CRAVING since yesterday. it was a disappointment. we envisioned it being more delicious. haha. next time i guess.
after that, i met up michelle and her friends, good people. drank some beer and left home to james' place with him. now i'm here and james is somewhere else. wink wink.
it was a full day, which i didnt expect it to be. haha. well yea~ i love y'all and miss y'all. i hope everyone is ok. happy orange day!!!

loving fall

2009-10-29T07:59:00.000-07:00

i came home around lunch time from jess' place today. as soon as i came home, i watched some nba games. man~ i'm just so happy that nba season finally started. i ate lunch at home while watching some korean tv. after that, i headed over to really finalize the whole process of me getting my korean ssn. this whole situation has been just lingering over my head and it was getting ridiculous.
i gotten all the required stuff and finally the dude was trying to get the paperwork through, but because of the uniqueness of my situation, it did not make his job any easier. so after awhile, he just told me he'll take care of it and that he'll just call me if there's any problem. hahahaa. i hope he doesnt call me. eek~
so there was one thing that i noticed every time i went there. there was this one girl who seemed to be my age or younger who was kind of pretty. every time i went, she wore something different: one day, she was wearing formal wear; the other day, casual. i dont know what i am saying. all i know is that she got my attention. hahaha.
moving on...
after that i went to children's grand park to meet up w/ mipa. i was surprised that it was free. the park was HUGE. it had EVERYTHING: trails, grass, fields, sculptures, trees, fountains, zoo, aquarium, animal show, amusement park, theater hall, botanical garden, playground, etc. you get the picture right? CRAZY~ it really is a GRAND park.
we pretty much walked around most of the place except that we didnt end up looking at any of the animals bc mipa is a true vegan and she does not like animals in captivity. i think i'm going to go back sometime soon and look at all the animals, including the animal show. hahaha. so looking forward to it. i LOVE animals. anyways, took many pretty pictures. i really enjoy taking pictures. it's so pretty.
after that, we went to some cafe ner her house. she actually worked while i took a nap, studied for toeic a bit, read a book, and drew on a napkin. hahaha. when it comes down to it, i'm so good at entertaining myself. haha. i was very impressed at my own drawing on the napkin. haha. the pictures may not do a justice but i surely was impressed at my own skills. hahaha.
after few hours spent at the cafe, we headed over to gangnam to meet up with few of mipa's friends. while waiting, i took this blindfold taste test. haha. very cool. i never done something like that. but really, i just did it bc i was hungry and it was pretty much free beer. haha. i ended up getting 4 hand sanitizer and a key chain. woot woot~
we ate indian food. yea~ i had it last time and it was eh....okay. this time, about the same. at least last time, we did family style and got to eat variety of stuff but today we were pretty much stuck with what we ordered. long story short, no more indian food for me. hahaha.
it was a full day filled with this and that. OH, for those of you who are here bc of one of the picture, here's the story:

SO...on my way to the children grand park, i sat behind this man on a bus. the seats were fairly close together so i could clearly see his hands. anyways, all of a sudden, his cellphone rings. he raises it up a bit, giving me a clear view of the screen. it said 와이프. my initial thought, "awww how cute~" then i saw his thumb over the send button, but started hesitating. then BAM, he rejected the call. HAHAHAHA. i started LOL-ing in my head. he then sort of looked left and right then front and back as if he was making sure the coast was clear before he committed some crime. my eyes intently looking at his cellphone screen, he went into his call history page. there i saw the latest missed calls - 와이프 and 와이프. haha. so then i thought, "did they fight? aw, i hope that's not it." that's when he went far and beyond what he expected him to do. he erased the last two missed calls from his call history. i busted into laughter inside. i could not stop smiling. i had the biggest grin on my face, not able to keep my emotions in check. few minutes later, his phone rang again. i think it was a guy friend as he answered, "WHAT UP MAN!" 8D. he practically was yelling in excitement. EVERYONE's head just turned to him and wondering who caused such ruckus.
but dude, what i saw on that bus, it was HILARIOUS. i mean WOW MISTER. HAHAHAHAH. that totally made my day today. sigh~ the little things in life. LOVE IT~

best tour guide in town

2009-10-28T18:44:00.000-07:00

alright, i'm going to try this one more time. i'm so mad that my last entry was stupidly washed away. gosh~ that's what happens when you try to update your blog at 2am.
anyways, i'm not going to make it as detailed as i did the first time around, but i will try.
i woke up and went to get my korean ssn. this was the 5th time i went to get this done. i was determined to get it done today. everything was going pretty well minus the whole the dude had to call his superior and i had to end up paying a fine for leaving the country without notifying them. so besides that, it went very smoothly except for the fact that i did the whole finger print thingy and everything but i had the wrong id since the house was under emo's name but hyung's. haha. so not considering any of those things, everything went well. oh bc of the whole wrong id, i have to go back. haha.
once i came back home, i caught the lakers ring ceremony and part of the game. i kind of lost track of time and was running late. i was suppose to meet with eric at olympic park. i arrived about 20 mins later than i planned. eric was nowhere to be seen. i waited about an hour. i was freakin out thinking i lost him. haha. i even sent jess a text saying, "uh, jess. i think i lost your friend." haha. i was running around frantically hoping to find him. just when i gave up, i heard my name being yelled across the entrance. haha. eric told me he gotten lost and went around the long way. haha. well i was just relieved that i found him. i sent jess another text letting her know that i found him. haha.
so this where where the tour started: olympic park. it was very nice at this time of the year as you were able to see the leaves changing and the weather was a very nice walking weather, not too warm not too cold. the sculpture park inside had a special exhibit going on as well. all around, olympic park was just beautiful.
next destination: 동대문. as soon as we got out of the subway, BAM. it's just so cool how seoul kept something like that in the middle of its busy intersection.
next: 대학로. one of the cool district around seoul. showed him around the part where there were a lot of cool looking cafes and theaters. we actually saw some dude yelling on stage. i think it had to do with something political bc there were TONS of police and riot police on stand-by on the streets. it was pretty intense. we ate a really late lunch there. street food, of course. i thought it was only fitting that he tried it on a seoul tour. we ate 떡볶기, 김밥, and 튀김 dipped in 떡볶기 sauce. mmm~~MM~M~M~M~ i was soooo craving 튀김 dipped in 떡볶기 sauce. it totally hit the spot. 8D
next: 청계천. we hit that around the middle part. i wanted to us to just walk along it and chill. plus we had to work off what we just ate. haha. after walking on the stream level, i suggested we go up to the street level, where he got to see bunch of 시장s. it's really a unique sight. so many shops, so much going on.
next: 종로. so from 종로 3가, i led him to the main street and showed him the gate and big buildings. we kept walking until 종로1가 where there's 이순신장군 statue and what not. today there was a random exhibit from farmers association. there were some cool plant things: sheep made from beans, giraffe made from cactus, etc. also we saw the new 새종대왕 statue, which finished literally 2 weeks ago. it was HUGE. it was all gold color and shiny. we also saw the pretty flower garden. there was just so much things to see.
next: 명동/남산. we met up jess there, who was an hour late. grr~ haha. it gave eric and i some well needed rest. haha. once she came, we went straight to 남산 cable car. we went up, and they started taking bunch of pictures. haha. i was glad that they enjoyed themselves. from there we went back to 명동 so eric can see what the fuss is all about. it was cool that there was a live performance that night. there was this fat kid who was breakdancing. go big boy~ haha. he was actually pretty good. haha.
next: back to 청계천. what i noticed is that most parts of seoul has two sides: day and night. me knowing jess hasnt been to 청계천, i thought it was cool that both eric and jess gets to see it during nighttime with all its lights lit up. we pretty much walk there from 명동 so they can enjoy the night lights on the way there. plus i wanted to them to walk along side the stream a bit before i reveal the big finale to them, the cool waterfall. haha. yes, i really planned this well. 8D. before we got to the waterfall, there was a random photo gallery under one of the bridges. it turns out that jess LOVED it. apparently she's really into photography and she thought it was very cool that there was such a thing. i found out we lucked out bc that gallery started 2 days ago and will last only for 2 weeks. i was actually very impressed at how everything kind of turned out. haha. i even impressed myself. 8D. we kept on walking until the big finale was finally revealed. they were mesmerized. i know i was. they took bunch of pictures and what not. we walked up to the street level again and to my surprise, there was another random exhibit. it was some sort of share the love through shoes or something. haha. there were TON of shoes including a HUGE one. it was quite interesting.
from there, we walked back to the 종로1가 intersection since jess didnt get to see the huge 새종대왕 statue. bc of it getting late, we headed back to jess' place to eat. we ate 감자탕 with 당면사리. we ended it with 비빔공기. mmM~MM~m`m the soup was sooooo good. it totally hit the spot. since it was late and i was too lazy to go home, i just crashed at jess' place. haha. and here i am. REtyping my entry.
so yea~ i have pictures from the tour, so dont worry. it was fun. ultimately, i was just glad that jess and eric enjoyed themselves. it was very nice of eric to tell me that he really enjoyed my company and it was very nice of me to show him around. he even complimented me that i was very sociable. haha. nice~ well for any of you who are intersted in this particular tour or any other destinations, please let me know. all you have to do is provide food. 8D. the man's gotta eat right?

FAIL

2009-10-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

OMG. i had this LOOOOOOOONG entry typed up, but forgot that i was not connected to the internet and lost it all bc i pressed publish post. I HATE LIFE. it was SOOOOOOOO long and i'm sOOOOOOO ready to sleep. WOW.

alright i'm going to breeze through this. everything short and sweet.

woke up....you know what, i'm not even home. i'm sleeping at jess' place so you know what? when i get home tomorrow. i'll retype the stupid entry. i'm way too tired to type my whole day again. FML.

just another day in the life of inho

2009-10-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

man~ why is my life like this? hahhaha. too much excitement for one man to enjoy. let's start from the beginning.
i woke up pretty early to finally go get my korean ssn. i go in and by now the ladies that work there recognize who i am, and immediately tells me the person in charge of new accounts, per say, is out for the whole day. haha. so those of you who are keeping track, this is the 4th time i've gone and failed to actually get it done. haha. like any logical person, i simply asked her when i should come back tomorrow, and she said around 10am. with that, i walked back home. haha.
afterwards, i watched the monday night football for awhile. boring~ i dont like the eagles nor the deadskins. haha. chatted for awhile. realized few more things, which by the way, led to more realization later in the day.
for lunch, guess what?..................wait for it.......................wait..............................yes, i actually cooked. i was soooo hungry and didnt want to spend money, plus too lazy to go out, so i ended up cooking. haha. nothing too crazy. i made 계란말이 with dice green onions, prepared 김, and bob. 김 was the non-seasoned so i got some soy sauce and dipped my 김 with bob in it. i didnt burn the kitchen down. so i was happy. in addition, the food actually tasted good. haha. i was so proud of myself. arent YOU? haha.
then i went back to more chatting and studying. dude, iris and 미남이세요 (or something) are both good. haha. one is all serious and action, and the other comical. they both in their own uniqueness and goodness. hhaha. this reminds me of something that happened yesterday. so while i was talking to james and henry about my army situation, they thought it was good they do some on-the-spot practice. so james made me translate few phrases right there and then. michelle, then, confirmed my translation to james saying that was correct. haha. it was actually fun. haha. he made me translate some ridiculous saying like "i have my finger on the button and i am going to press it in 10 seconds." hahaha. i actually translated word for word very smoothly. but i did realize that i need to brush up on my korean vocabs.
back to today. when dinner time rolled around, i got ready and headed out toward 노원. i was to have dinner with jess, wally, and david, one of their SMOE friends. but it simply turned out to be jess, her friend from the states who's staying for 8 days, and me. wally had a last minute dinner with principal and david apparently went on a halloween shopping. haha. anyways, we were to go to a restaurant next to wally's house. the other week when jess and i stopped by his house, we saw this huge picture of this chicken, cheese, and potato dish and thought it looked bomb. so we decided to go there tonight. i wanted to check out save zone, a dept store next to jess' house. but as soon as we met, all of us were so hungry that we decided to go eat first. we started heading towards the restaurant but then we kept talking about food and all of a sudden, we started looking for mr. pizza. HAHAHAA. obviously, we kept looking until we couldnt find it. then jess asked someone and we found it. haha. we ordered the potato gold and salad bar. it was pretty good. but it was really expensive. HAHAHA. just my luck~ they packed up the left over for us and dude it was so cute. they brought it back to us in a small bag that looked like a birthday bag you get from a birthday party. haha. totally leave it koreans to make everything cutesy. 8D
after dinner, we went back to jess' neighborhood. we browsed around save zone and this one outlet store that she heard about. there wasnt must to look. it was simply to help us digest. haha. on our way to the outlet, we saw some cool stuff. we saw some army men in a public park. some were actually laying on the ground with a real gun as if he was in a war zone. haha. it was quite interesting. the park itself was a nice park. then we crossed over a cool rainbow bridge, which led us to another park. there we saw some skateboarders. haha. that was a first time. it was a very comforting sight. haha. i also saw one of the coolest looking bathroom ever. haha. there was also big blue fake bird on a big fake tree. i took pictures of all these, so dont worry. hehe.
we went our own ways, not before agreeing with jess' friend to meet up tomorrow, so i can show him around seoul. haha. i'm going to give him a tour, which i'm actually excited about. haha. we're going to put my knowledge of seoul to the test. 8D
so on my way home, i got out of the station and started walking towards the bus station. i saw my bus and made a run for it. haha. thanks for my blazing speed, i got on the bus, just in time. i reached down into my pants to check the time on my cellphone. that's when i realized, my cellphone was nowhere to be found. i checked my side pocket, back pocket, front pocket, and every other pocket i had. WOW. i quickly got off on the next stop and walked back to the previous station. my phone was NOWHERE to be found. i even asked the man who was working on the street. haha. he completely blew me off. in utter shock, i got on the next bus home. the whole ride home i was thinking, "dude, only in my life would something like this happen. my goodness. now i REALLY have experienced everything in korea." as soon as i got home, emo said, "did you lose your phone?" i was like how did you know. she said that my gomo called. hahaha. so i called gomo and told me some girl picked it up and took it with her. i hung up and called my own phone. some girl picked up and she told me she actually lives in the same town. she was, at the time, at some pcbang on the other end of where i actually was. good thing i sort of know my town. i told her i'll be right there. i quickly walk to where she was. once i met her, i offered to buy her a cup of coffee, but she refused. i was like alright and went back home. haha. sweet~ i was so concerned that i was going to need to buy a new phone, plus i didnt have any of the numbers in the phone written down. hahaa. but yea. i was so stoked to have gotten my phone back. haha.
while walking back home, i called gomo to let her know that i got the phone back. she told me to call my dad bc i guess she called my dad to ask for the emo's number. hahahaha. once i got home, i oovoo'd my dad and told him i got my phone back. the funny thing was that he was so curious of who it was that picked up my phone. haha. here is how the conversation went:
"was it a boy or a girl?"
"a girl."
"what kind of a girl?"
"i dont know. i think she was a student."
"high school? college?"
"i dont know!"
"how old was she? was she pretty?"
HAHAHAHAH. OMG! i was like, "i dont know. i'm tired. haha. i'll talk to you when i wake up"
so yea. i guess my dad was hoping i would meet a girl that way. HAHAHA. which really isnt a bad idea. but there's too much at risk. what if some guy picked it up and wanted a reward. hahaha.
anyways, for those of you who are curious, the girl was no bueno. but pretty voice. and obviously very nice. haha. well that's it. like the title says, "just another day in the life of inho."

newfound respect

2009-10-26T06:36:00.000-07:00

i had to wake up way ahead of schedule today bc out of the blue, my gomo calls around 7ish telling me that grandma has been calling her for the past two days complaining about pain in her teeth and asked me if i can quickly go to incheon to take her to the dentist. haha. right away, the urge to hang up and continue sleeping ran through my body, but i just couldnt do that. haha. so i woke up and got ready and headed to gangnam, where i had to take a bus to incheon. it took me about an hour to gangnam then another hour to incheon. by 11ish, i got to grandma. i put her in a wheelchair and took her to the dentist. we had to wait an hour before she got her treatment bc we didnt have an appointment. then i waited another hour during her treatment. man~ i was just so tired. then the dentist was telling me the reason why her teeth hurt is bc all of her teeth are rotted, and the only way to fix it is just cut them all off. then he added that once he does that, she's going to feel pain in other areas. he said it was going to be an ongoing cycle of pain. but i was alone and wasnt sure what to do. so i just asked him to take care of the pain. she is to go back on wednesday. after the dentist, i helped her go back to the hospital, then went to the pharmacy to get her medicine. then asked her if she wanted 죽. she said she wanted 녹두죽 since she couldnt eat regular food. so i ran and got that for her. watched her eat it and cleaned up afterward. in the midst of all this, another grandma pooped in her bed so the whole room, shared by about 6 grandmas, smelled really bad. after all this, i thought to myself, "dangggggg, the nurses who work here are crazy. sure they get paid, but without the right heart, this is not something anyone can do." i have newfound respect for nurses.
anyways, after all this, i went over to gomo's house. chilled there for a bit. actually ate peanut butter and jelly sandwich. it was so refreshing. haha. it totally reminded me of home. then i just chilled in 용우's room. it was quite enjoyable. gomo told me that grandma called as soon as i left and she sounded super happy that i actually stayed while she was eating. that actually made my day. i was just happy that grandma was happy.
for dinner, i met up with michelle, henry, and james for soft tofu. i ordered the cheese bacon soft tofu. IT WAS FREAKING GOOD. hahaha. i have never finished the entire soft tofu before but tonight i did. i'm still full as i am writing this. haha. tomorrow? i'm finally going to get my korean ssn card. besides that, i'm going to just chill.

happy sunday

2009-10-25T06:33:00.001-07:00

so after a wonderful saturday, i woke up today looking forward to attending an english service for the first time in my life. i'm not sure if it was the excitement or the anticipation, but i woke up pretty early around 8am, before my daily alarm. bc i woke up so early, i decided to use my time wisely and study. i turned on iris, thanks jihang, and went to work. it's really good. haha. 김태희 is pretty. hehe. anyways, i sort of lost track of time and got ready a bit later than i wanted. haha. regardless of my late start, i got the gangnam station exit 2 on time. how good am i? hahaha. wally and jess was actually running late so i sat down and read my current leisure book, the shack. i really like it so far. it's got me thinking about several things. thanks steph for getting me the book. soon enough, they arrived and we were off. we walked about a good 3 blocks and we got to jubilee church. i wasnt sure what to expect. i went in with an open mind though.
all in all, it was very nice. as soon as i started praising, my heart to praise came rushing back. i wanted to join their praise team. the whole time i was thinking how i could get involved. of course, i paid attention to the message. i even took notes. haha. i got into this habit of always having my notebook open and writing down prayer request and doing the sad/mad/glad/afraid chart each sunday during service. it's a nice way for me to keep myself updated on who to pray for and a good way for me to see how i am doing. on the same page, i also take notes of the message. i actually enjoy doing this.
anyways, once the announcements rolled around, they announced that they are actually going to be holding auditions for a winter drama and praise team. haha. i was like dang God, you crazy. He always provides a way, doesnt he? haha. i was actually contemplating whether i should also tryout for the drama. hahahaha. but i decided not to. hahaha. after the service, i went up to the praise leader and put my name down for the audition. there were 3 other bassists who wanted to try out. it kind of scared me but i was like you know what? i just want to praise, so i couldnt care less.
btw, the whole service was like 2 hours. haha. soooo long. i was not used to it. actually, my butt wasnt used to it. it was sooo sore after the service. i had to keep stretching it bc my butt felt so tight.
after church, jess, wally, and i went to go eat pho, a place michelle recommended. it happened to be right near church. kathy also joined us, who apparently went to jubilee as well. the 4 of us enjoyed a nice bowl of pho. it wasnt the same as pho house or pho time, but it was actually not too bad. i mean, it was the closest thing to a "real" pho in my opinion. haha. afterward, we sort of chilled around gangnam. i did some eye shopping while jess tried on a lot of stuff at every store we went to. wally actually ended up buying two pants. hahahaha. kathy met up with her friend, who we ended up meeting to. his name was richard and he worked at some optic company. his job description was very interesting. i guess his company works in the some kind of defense weaponry field. haha. all i know is that he works with guns and stuff. very cool. he was telling me about this new scope where they combined thermo and night vision. how cool is that???? that's his job. haha. research these things: missiles, snipers guns, etc.
anyways, we were going to go to this mexican restaurant called dos tacos, but richard said he knew a better place. so we walked about 20 mins and ended up in a place called toma-tillo. haha. it actually tasted mexican. i was very very surprised. i think i'm going to go back and eat their food often. hahaha. i LOVE mexican food. i mean it's not socal mexican food but it was pretty darn close. then i came back home.
there was several moments today that jess and i got SUPER excited talking about food back at home. hahaha. we talked about mexican food, japanese ramen, and whatever else we thought were good. oh man~ i miss american food. hahaha. i want to go back just to eat the food. it's so ironic that people want to come to korea to eat food yet all i want to do is go back home to eat some good ol' american food. 8D

amazing

2009-10-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

all i got to say is God is amazing. He knows exactly what we need when we need it. haha. it's been about a month and a half and i began to really question why i was here. what have i done in the past month and a half? NOTHING. nothing productive. as you have read my blog entries, i did nothing but party it up. haha. sure my excuse is i'm out to meet people, but seriously~
one main concern was making good friends. so far i really havent met too many people that i feel like i can grow deeper with. on top of that, the whole church situation bothered me a lot. i mean sundays were always my recharging day. after a full week of worldly worries and responsibilities, i look forward to sundays where i am spiritually, mentally, and physically recharged for another week out in the world. as soon as i got here, i lost that. whenever sunday rolled around i felt so burdened or burnt out to go to church. i mean, i have the heart to serve and all, but even before i got things situated, i felt very overwhelmed. the very first day there, they asked me to help out with their english service. i politely declined. the second week, i accidentally stumbled into the english service FOR KIDS. yea, that's right around my alley, which i would love to do, but i went in thinking it was an english service for people my age. haha. i had no intention of helping at the time. but as i walked in, my shoes already outside, had no choice but to sit and join the little kids. i let the head teacher about the situation of how i just came from america and i'm not sure if this will be my home church. long story short, i sent her an email letting her know about my decision to not attend their church bc i may have finally found a home church. when we talked, she understood that before i help i need to receive my word first. she was very understanding at the time, but the problem was the korean elders. they insisted on me coming so i can help. i'm not sure what it is but i dont like that.
anyways, yesterday, after visiting my grandmother, who seems to be getting better everyday ever since i first visited her, in incheon, i went to namdaemun bc jessica, james' friend, needed to buy 이불. wally, the dude from kansas, tagged along. the three of us just looked around and ate some food. it was very chill. wally metioned that he recently bought ps3 and how he's been playing it whenever he got home from work. haha. in a heartbeat, i asked if i can go over. he said sure. haha. for some reason, i never thought i would get to play ps3 in korea. haha. we all went back to his house and chilled for a bit. then jess left. it was time for the boys to play video games. we played nba 2k9. dude seriously, the graphics in these games are getting ridunculous~ it's becoming more and more life-like. he killed me by like 12 pts. haha. then we played 3pt shootout. it was as if a hollywood writer wrote the ending. we both had 3 players, total of 6 players. 2 rounds. after 1st round, there was a tie-breaker between 2 of his and 1 of my player. round 2 ended being one of my player versus one of his. it was perfect. ben gordon, wally's, versus rashard lewis, mine. he ended up making 19pts. very doable. first tworacks, i played made only 6. by the 4th rack, i could not miss anymore if i wanted a chance to win. i cleared the 4th rack perfectly. final rack. 1st ball, swish. 19-15. 2nd ball, swish. 19-16. 3rd ball, swish. 19-17. 4th ball, swish. 19-18. the money ball and for the win....clank. 19-18. i lost. it was EPIC. haha. it was so amazing how it literally came down to the last ball. haha. wally called it a night but i stayed up for the next few hours. alone at his house, i decided to watch tv and surf the net with his netbook. dude, those things are way too small for my hands. haha. i was chatting with rina, julie's friend who i still havent met, and suddenly the screen goes black and the computer crash. haha. so instinctively i reset the computer but then there was a password to start the window. gg. i look at the hint. it said braveheart. haha. so i try all these things that pop into my head regarding the movie braveheart. after the 10th try, i give up and went to sleep.
in the morning, i share about my failed attempt to hack into his computer to wally and he was like oh dude i should've just told you. it's ________. haha. so simple. i dont even know why i didnt think of that. oh gosh.
anyways, i was about to leave, but then he told me to stay bc he'll cook me an omelet. haha. sweet~ i love omelets! it was so simple but so good. eggs, cheese, green bell peppers, and spam. what else do you need right?
i dont know how we stumbled up on talking about stuff but while we were eating i ended up telling him the real reason why i'm in korea and some of my past "blessings." he then shared about some of his past "blessings." it was a very nice moment. i was actually very happy that for the first time, i felt like i found a brother, someone i could grow deeper with, in this country called korea.
all in all, today has turned out be a very very good day. i didnt really do anything in particular but thanks to multiple deep meaningful conversations throughout the day, i really felt God's love. thank you God. 8D
now i'm gonna go watch some korean drama. oh btw, did i share my great idea? since for the 아혁병 interview, which requires me to translate korean to english, vice versa, on the spot, i'm going to be watching korean drama and i'll be trying to translate the dialogue in real time and see if translation in my head matches the english subtitle mysoju.com provides. smart, right? haha. 8D

nice~

2009-10-22T03:27:00.000-07:00

woke up. went to the nearby watch store to put battery in one of my watch and to shorten the bands on both watches. haha. i think my wrist got skinnier. haha. of all things, stupid body. anyways, the funny thing was that the store appeared to be open but the door was locked. since there was no sign, i figured the 아저씨 went somewhere close. so i decided to wait. after about 20 mins wait, i asked a 아저씨 across the street about the 아저씨 that owns the watch shop. he started yelling out his name thinking he was at home, which was located right above his shop. in 5 mins, everyone started coming out of their shops and started looking for the watch 아저씨. hahaha. it was in the middle of a 시장 so it was small street and everyone seemed to know each other. haha. it was quite funny. the 아저씨 was eating at a restaurant. he told me he was eating 오뎅 국물 bc he drank too much last night. HAHAHAHAHA. i've been there, sir, i understand.
well anyways, right off the bat, he was concerned and wasnt sure if he can switch the battery on my watch. in confusion, i asked him, "why not?" he said, "this watch is from america and i'm not sure if i can do it." haha. i was assured him that i didnt really care and told him it's okay. so he attempted. he got the back open but he was never able to put the back in. HAHHAA. i was speechless. i was there for 30 mins. he just could not put it back in. hahaa. it just wouldnt click. after 30 mins of trying, he told me to go to another watch shop located on the other side of the city. HAHA. i told him thank you and left.
i had to hurry up and go home so i could get ready to go to lunch. but before lunch, my dad told me to make sure i revive my korean ssn. since it was so close by, i stopped by. omy~ there was a line. i waited about 20 mins and once it was my turn, he told me i had to bring my guardian. haha. so after 40 mins, i was finally off to lunch. i was to meet mipa, the girl from ghana, at 종합운동장, where the seoul design olympiad was held. i had no idea what it was and nor did she. i was sooo hoping it was free, but i highly doubted it. i mean, nothing in korea is free. hahaha. well anyways, as we approach the stadium there were bunch of cool stuff right outside the entrance. it was quite interesting. i took BUNCH of pics so please look at them on facebook.
we walked around the whole stadium while looking and talking. it was very pleasant. the funny thing was that as i was entering, they pulled me aside and asked me to go through the heat-sensor cameras again bc they thought i had the swine flu. hahah. they said my body was abnormally hot. UH, DUH~ IT'S BC I'M HOT~ hahahhahhahaha. hot stuff baby~ sorry. haha.
anyways, after the whole thing, we went to coex and ate lunch. i found out she was a true vegan. not a vegeterian, but a vegan. i was so baffled. i mean, to live a life and not be able to enjoy chicken, beef, pork, cheese, and any other animal product, i would die.
after lunch, she had to go back home and finish her work so we went our separate ways. on my way back, i fell asleep in the bus and missed my stop by one. but this was one big gap. haha. so i couldnt stop by a 빵집 like i planned but i did stop by the other watch place and got my watch fixed.
so then i came home and ate ramen for dinner for 5 straight days now. haha. i love ramen. emo keeps telling me i'm gonna catch malnutrition. haha. but i think i have enough in my reserve to eat ramen for awhile. haha. i just love it. the weather is so cold that i love eating ramen. 8D
well tmw, i have to do the whole korean ssn thing again and i think i'm gonna meet up with gomo and go see grandma, who i havent seen in like 2 weeks. well everyone. have a good nite.

more doors

2009-10-21T00:56:00.000-07:00

today was the day that i finally went to go get my army physical. just letting you know, i prayed so much for everything to go smoothly. haha. alright, here we go...
i woke up early and got ready to go. the 아저씨 came and we were off. as soon as we set off, we noticed the heavy traffic on the freeway. we tried to take a detour but even the local was packed. sigh. just my luck. haha. only thing that ease my nervousness is that the navi told us we would arrive around 11:40am when i'm suppose to be there by 12pm. in the end, i got there safely right when the navi predicted i would arrive. honestly, the navi system here seems so much more advanced than the ones back in the states. amazing~
once i got there, we went straight to the building where the physical would be held. as we walked up to the 2nd floor, the man told the 아저씨, "you should leave and have him go back home in a bus or something."
HAHA. i panicked for a second but tried very hard not to show it. haha. the 아저씨 asked, "why?" the man replied, "the whole thing takes like 3 to 4 hours." HAHA. now i laughed. i told the 아저씨 not to worry and that i'll call him when i'm done.
so i walked in hoping that i dont get screwed somehow. haha. as soon as i sat down we were to start answering 350+ questions. haha. it was either yes or no questions, but still. 350+. it was soooo long. some questions, i didnt even understand the question, so i just guessed. haha.
while i was focused on taking this survey/test, they started dividing us into groups and one group at a time, we performed different tasks/tests: blood, urine, body, x-ray, bank card, etc.
it was pretty cool how they issued us a bank card which they use it to transfer our information throughout the testing, which in total had 15 stations. from one station to the next, we would just scan the card and our info would pop up and they would add whatever info they got into the card. amazing~
some of the tests were a joke. about 8 of us would sit in front of one guy and he would ask, "does anyone have problems with their ____? raise your hand if you do." after he confirms that no hands were raised, he says, "alright, scan your card and go to the next station."
HAHAHAHA. this was done for about half of the stations. hahahahahhaa. ridiculous!
in one station, one guy raised his hand, but the doctor said something like, "oh this and that doesnt count." so the dude put his hand down. hahahaha.
one cool thing i found out was that i lost 10 pounds. hahahaha. nice~~~~ i guess i did lose weight a little. hahah. and i AM 5'10''. haha. it's been confirmed.
in the end, i was rewarded level 2, level 1 being the highest. i was kind of bothered. haha. i was really hoping to get level 1. i mean it really doesnt matter or affects my chance of anything, but just the fact that i was graded as level 2, i felt like i failed. haha. here are the reasons they told me: your eye sight is really bad.....also for your height, you weigh a bit too much. FAIL. just when i was happy that i lost some weight, BAM! hahahahhaa. story of my life. on the bright side i guess if i was 10 pounds heavier, i might have been level 3 and that would've been devastating to my self-esteem. hahaha.
oh~ one thing i didnt tell you guys, they made us change into different clothes for the whole testing. orange shirt and blue shorts. and let me tell you, the shirt was too small, i mean i guess i grabbed the wrong one, but in my defense, they were not divided into sizes, i just grabbed whatever was on top. haha. how small you ask? let's just say i had to pull up my boxer to not expose myself while my shorts were short enough that when i sat down, it only covered half of my thighs. HAHA. on top of all this, the shirt was v-neck.
well i was really hoping to take a picture of it for all y'all but i felt kind of weird trying to take a self-pic of myself while there were like 50 other guys dressing in the locker room. hahahhaa. yea~
anyways, the whole thing did take about 3 hours. as i was waiting for the 아저씨 to come back from where ever he was i sat down and thought about my options. they told me i have to wait until march or i could request to go by december. i kind of had my heart set on going on january, after christmas. but then i got to a conclusion, do i really need to spend christmas outside the army? i mean all my friends and family are in the states. so i decided, the faster i go in, the faster i can live my life. so once the 아저씨 came i told him, let's go request for an early entrance to the army.
we went in and asked for the quickest entrance, they said, "NOVEMBER 10." EEEEKKK~
that was literally 2 weeks from now. HAHAHAHAH. soooo my luck. i was actually thinking you know what, maybe it's for the better. that's when we asked about 카츄샤 and she says, "oh, the sign up for the ended on september." HAHA. and my life goes on~ but then the 아저씨 was like but he's from america and will he be used to his full potential. the worker lady was like oh in that case, him getting shipped on 11-10 will not be good for him bc those places are in the middle of nowhere and it will be really hard for him. why dont you go talk to that guy. so we went to another guy and he said i have two options: 카츄샤 or 어학병. uh...but 카츄샤 was out of the picture since i would have to wait until next september. hahaha. well the other option was actually pretty cool too. there's less of a competition to get in bc only few people sign up. BUT you need to score 900 on toeic where as 카츄샤 requires you to get only about 700. in addtion, 어학병 requires you to pass an interview. haha. this position requires you to translate english to korea and vice versa, verbally and in writing. as soon as i heard about this, i was like, 'i could do that....i think." the thing is that he wasnt sure if there will be interview being held on december or not. he said there was one last year but this year he's not sure. if not december, he said there will be one on jan or feb. then he added that once i pass, i will be shipped 2 months later. so it seems that if everything works out, i'll be shipped out feb earliest and april latest.
so here's the plan: for the next month, i'll be studying for my toeic test and will be sharpening up my korean vocab and military jargon in both korean and english. since even though i'll be going on feb at the earliest, now i REALLY need a job. hahaha. if it comes down to it, i'm just gonna be working at a 빵집 for all i care. haha. it's an income and it'll just give me something to do during the week. haha. well that's the update. hope you enjoyed it. i'm kind of looking forward to studying a bit again. haha. well i think i'll sleep now. i have a big day ahead of me. 8D
so the plan see

short and sweet

2009-10-19T18:10:00.000-07:00

alright, ppl been complaining that my entries are too long, so i'm going to make this one really short and sweet.
bc i thought i had 신체검사 today, yesterday i rested. haha. from the morning to around dinner time, i just stayed home and relaxed. and for dinner, i went out to have last dinner w/ daniel. we had dinner with several of his family member. jihun's gf also came out. the 삼겹살 we ate was FREAKIN good. i remember where it is, so next time i want 삼겹살, that's where i'm going. haha.
after dinner, daniel, jihun, his gf, and i went bowling. haha. i was sooo rusty. i really couldnt even remember the last time i actually bowled. first game, i dont even think i broke 80. haha. but y'all know the first game is always the practice game. now for the second game, we played for something. and of course, my team won - me and jihun vs daniel and jihun's gf. haha. it totally looked like we hustled them. haha. well i called it a night early since i thought i had the physical exam today but this morning the 아저씨 called me telling me if i could call 병무청 and move it to tmw. so now i have no plans today and i'm watching mnf and dodgers game. haha. good day so far. 8D

FAIL

2009-10-18T02:47:00.000-07:00

i ended up sleeping around 4 or 5am and woke up earlier than i wanted to around 8am bc james started turning on lights and started cussing. haha. so i woke up and asked what was up. he said he thinks he lost his wallet. omy~ he looked everywhere but it was nowhere to be found. he was ready to go to the convenient store nearby bc that's the last place he remembers using his wallet. since he doesnt speak any korean, i offered him my help. so me, half awake, walked in the cold morning of korea in search of james' wallet. we got there and i asked the worker if he's seen a wallet. the worker, i guess he's the one that worked last night, said he saw james walk out with his wallet. haha. so with that confirmation, we knew the wallet HAD to be somewhere in the house. we went back and searched all over the house again. then, i had a thought.
i suggested, "what if the girl you brought home took it?"
"no way," he said.
"i mean is there any other explanation? you had the wallet to and from the store and no one else was up at that time besides you, me and that girl," i said convincingly.
"dude, if that whore really took it..." he muttered.
"well, alright, let's go," said i as i was putting on my jacket again.
and that's when james yelled, "I FOUND IT! it was underneath my bed."
OMY~~~~
well here's the quick story about the girl. james brought someone home last night and i guess she wanted beer but they were out. the girl asked me to translate for her to james. so i told him, "hey james, she said she'll wait for you here so quickly go get beer." HAHA. now i'm a translator~
well anyways, while james was out, she sat next to me on the couch and started a conversation while i was just focused on updating my blog at the time. haha. well she kept apologizing.
"i'm sorry for coming here so late"
"no it's fine."
"no really. sorry. your friend said we were gonna go eat and here we are."
"seriously, it's ok. this isnt even my place. i'm just here to crash for the night as well. so dont worry."
"i usually dont do this. tonight was my first night at the cafe rain. do you know where it is? it's right next to this building. blah blah blah"
hahahahahaha. for one thing, she kept talking to me and i really didnt care. i mean she came home with james so she was his problem, not mine. haha. he finally came back and they went inside his room and yea....
back to the morning...
so by now, we were pretty loud so it totally woke up henri and michelle as well. now here we all were. around 9am and we were all wide awake. by 930ish, we were hungry so we ordered mcdonalds after we failed to order pizza since they dont open until 1130am. haha. while waiting for the food, what we talked about was what happened last night and in conclusion, i ended up babysitting the girl he brought, who ended up just sleeping on his bed. hahahaha.
anyways, all 4 of us were supposed to go to our gomo's house for lunch bc gomo said she wanted to feed michelle 미역국. but i got a call from 용우 after breakfast that gomo got sick yesterday and is in no condition to make lunch for us. but 용우 offered to drop off the 반찬 she prepared the day before for michelle. so about 30 mins later, 용우 dropped off the food. OH MAN~ she made a lot of food for her. there was everything. i mean she gave us like 8 different 반찬. we all sat around a very small table and ate it. it was nice.
after lunch, we watched last few episodes of this year's hell's kitchen. i knew dave was gonna win. then henri and michelle was off to get some sort of spa package at the hotel we were all going to go later that night for michelle's final birthday party. james and i watched this one movie called district 13, a french film. very very very cool movie. if you have time and nothing to do, i recommend it. total action film.
after the movie, i washed up and met up with daniel for his last night at korea with everyone he knows. well we met up a bit earlier and headed over to hongdae. annes and her friends were already there so we met up w/ them. we ate 곱창 for dinner. it was surprisingly good. we drank, in my opinion, too much. bad choice. haha. i urged daniel no 한병더 but the dude insisted in his drunk state so i complied. it was a bad choice. haha. even when annes and her friends left, daniel, yoojin, and i stayed back for extra bottles. haha. daniel was SOOO gone and i was doing just a little bit better than him but still bad. anyways, we finally finish and head out. i left daniel in the hands of yoojin to go to uncle charles' where annes and her friends were. from hongdae, i headed for gangnam for michelle's bday party. it was held at the ritz carlton. the plan was preparty in the hotel room then take the party to club eden, supposedly the hottest club in korea right now.
daniel and yoojin insisted i stay with them but i felt that as a good cousin, who i am, i should go see my cousin. but unfortunately, i never made it....
i got off on some station on the 9th line and let's just say, i didnt make it to the bathroom. i was suppose to meet 용우 at gangnam but i called him to come get me. FAIL. after about 30 mins of wait, he finally came and got me. we did not even make it to gangnam. we just went home from there and i knocked out.
oh, btw, i found this out on sunday but daniel did not do any better as he fell asleep on the bathroom floor at uncle charle's. the morale of the story: kids, dont drink.
SUNDAY...
i woke up fairly early and had to do damage control. my shoes and pants were dirtied from the vomit. FAIL. i washed them inside the bathroom while everyone was asleep. haha. once i came out, they all awoke and we had breakfast. we ate and watched tv altogether and around lunch time we headed out to go watch a basketball game. we first stopped by henri's place bc there's where all my stuff was. i took a quick shower and left. i was hoping to catch michelle and apologize for not making it to her party but only james was home. i guess i'll call her later.
it was the 4 of us - me, 용우, center, and guard. haha. i'm so terrible. i keep forgetting their names and refer to 용우's friends according to the positions they played the first time i met them. haha. FAIL. anyways, we got in for free bc gomo's friend from her gym knows somebody that works at the stadium. how cool is that. we got pretty good seats. i mean it could've been worse. haha. the game itself got off to a slow start but ended up being a good game since it was really close game. i've never been to a basketball in the states so i'm not sure they do such things but in korea, they did some wack stuff. so they did A LOT of giveaways and small events. for one, they gave away pizza. hahaha. i thought that was hilarious. other stuff, i could imagine them doing in the states as well: giving away basketballs, dance routines and small contests during the timeouts. all in all, it was fun.
we tried twice to buy food inside the stadium, pregame and halftime, but both times the line was sooooo long that we said, "forget it. we'll just wait." so ended up waiting until the game was over. 용우 and i were starving since we didnt even eat lunch. rather than going somewhere far, we ate at kfc that was located right under the baseball stadium next to the basketball stadium. haha. after dinner, they went their way and i home. it's nice to be in my room. hehe.
so in conclusion of this weekend, i totally feel like i have TRULY become korean and have experienced everything there is to experience as a korean male. haha. in addition, i really need to stop drinking. for my defense, i did not drink for like 2 weeks while i was on a lockdown. but seriously, i really need to watch myself. i cant afford to have anymore FAIL moments.

WOW...

2009-10-16T09:57:00.000-07:00

alright, i said i probably couldnt update until sunday or so, but i had to update what happened today...or at least what JUST happened. FML
ok, in order for what just happened to make sense, i think i'll just start from the beginning. hahaha.
i woke up. watched the dodgers game. unfortunately i couldnt finish watching but i was disgusted up to what i saw. just when they come back, they give up 3 more runs making it almost unlikely for the dodgers to come back. (i JUST checked the box score) WOW. only if they didnt give up those 3 extra runs. it would've been epic comeback!!!!
anyways, here was the breakdown of today. lunch w/ msn and smn. dinner w/ daniel and his cousins. then drinks with michelle and her friends for evelyn's farewell party.
so after watching the dodgers give up those 3 runs, i leave for incheon int' airport. i was a bit behind on schedule, so i used my head and decided to go on the new express train on the line 9. muhahaha. that totally saved me 30 minutes. i love the new line 9. the whole express line is genius! once i get to gimpo, i got on the airport express line. haha. it was pretty empty so i sat all comfortable and enjoyed the view. once i arrived and used my tmoney, it came out to be 4100. HAHA. gg. but later i found out the airport limousines(buses) are more expensive, so i didnt feel too bad. haha.
once i got there, i met up w/ msn and smn and we ate lunch. we talked about this and that. it was really nice seeing very familiar faces. btw, i ate jja jang men. haha. yes. very korean. they gave me a letter kwon sa nim wrote me. i read it as i went back. it was a very nice letter. i put a nice smile on my face. 8]
after saying goodbyes to them, i headed towards daniel's emo's place. man~ i LOVE line 9 express subway! so i recently read daniel's facebook status and it said that his elevator broke so he had to go up stairs to his 23rd floor apt. hahahahhaa. i got there pretty early, so i figured i would wait in his room. so I go up 23 floors of stairs and on the TWENTY-THIRD floor, daniel calls me and tells me,
"dude, where are you? i'm not home yet."
"are you freakin' serious!??!?!?!" i said shockingly, "i went up 23 stories of stairs just now."
"hahaha. the elevator is fixed now," he said while laughing.
out of breath, i take the elevator back down and go meet him up at the haircut place he was at. i get there breathless and wait for him to get a haircut. after his haircut, we finally go back to his emo's place and i played with the dog while daniel got ready.
from there, we went to coex to meet up with his cousin who works at the hotel right next to it. jihun, the cousin he lives with, was suppose to join us but he had work the day after and he had to stay later to prepare things. so it was just me, daniel, and his girl cousin, who i never met. as soon as we stepped outside the apt, we found out it started raining. at this moment, it was just a small rainfall. nothing to worry about.
once we get to coex, it started raining down a bit harder but still not too bad. we finally meet up with her and she suggests mexican food. in a heartbeat, i approved. i was excited to eat mexican food as the girl cousin, jangmi nuna, said it was pretty good. but at the same time, i had my doubts. haha. once we got there, there was about a 25 minute wait. the place was packed! i figured that was a good sign. we chatted away while waiting. jangmi nuna turned out to be very cool. i found out she was like a event planner at the hotel. totally something i thought about doing. haha.
the food came out and i was somewhat impressed with the presentation. they looked like mexican food but something was missing. i couldnt really put my finger on something, but it just wasnt the same. was it not greasy enough? i'm not sure. haha. while ordering, the table next to us ordered something where one of the worker was making them guacamole on the spot. haha. i looked at the menu and they must've ordered the guacamole live. hahaha. very fitting name. 8D it looked really really good. but it was honestly too expensive. so we settled for the regular guacamole on the menu. as soon as it came out, i was sad. 8| i should've ordered the live one. hahaha. i just couldnt take my eyes off of the guacamole on the next table. hahaha. the funny thing was that it was these two girls and i overheard them speaking english. haha. so that's when i decided that i was going to go up to them and ask if i could take a picture of it. why? for you readers. my fans. i like to provide visuals to go along with my blog entries. see how thoughtful i am.
haha. back to the story, as we were leaving, i went up to them and said,
"excuse me ladies. i know this is weird and i dont usually do this, but...." i said smoothly.
"yes?" they answered with a puzzled look.
"....can i take a picture of your guacamole? it's for my blog," i said shamelessly.
"uh, sure. yea~" they answered.
"i ordered the regular guacamole and it was ridiculous," said playfully.
"yea. you should not order that. you should order this next time," they answered.
i took the picture and i thanked the ladies for their cooperation and left. as i left i could hear them say, "what the heck was that???"
HAHAHAHA.
yes. i know. i'm crazy. haha. but hey! anything for my people!! hope you enjoy the picture. 8D
jangmi nuna had to go back home and do some work so she was not up for drinking. so daniel and i quickly headed over to gangnam. luckily for us, coex was pretty close to gangnam.
on our way to gangnam, daniel and i had a very funny thought. what if tonight, those girls go home and update their facebook status with something along this line -
"today i was eating and a guy approached me. he had a phone in his hand, so i thought he was going to ask for my number, but he ended up asking if he could take a picture of our guacamole. FML."
HAHAHAHA. we thought it was hilarious. hhahaa. i went even as far as what if i put something like that on my status about how i approached random girls and asked them if i can take a picture of the guacamole they ordered, then someone would comment on my status saying, "hey, i think that was one of my friend. she has something like that on her status." HAHAHA. then i would befriend her on facebook and say, "hi. i'm the guacamole guy. do you wanna meet up?" HAHAHA. something like that~ you feel me? hahaha. yes. if it's meant to be, it's meant to be. *wink*
anyways....we get to gangnam and meet up with michelle and the rest. it was so loud there. i really like michelle's friends. they are all cool and nice people. i really didnt drink too much the whole night. i just wasnt feeling it. haha. besides the drinking, there were new people there that i've never met. it was nice meeting them. i really do love meeting people. one of the girl was korean but lived in ghana for like 10 years. how crazy is that?? and this other girl was 30 but looked like mid 20s. haha. one of you are thinking, "man, is inho only meeting girls???" HAHA. no i am not. if you must know, i met a guy who seemed very nice. but you see, i know that if i talk about boys i met, someone is gonna make fun of me saying, "inho likes boys!" 8|
ANYWAYS...one of the funny things that happened tonight was that this other new guy i met, matt, totally started hitting on mipa, the ghana girl. HAHAHAH. it was SOOOO OBVIOUS that it was actually funny. 8D
he started making his way closer and closer to her and finally sat next to her. haha. he was a bit touchy and it was very evident that mipa was not having any of it. haha. but she seemed too nice to totally push him away. haha. well anyways, in the end, mipa, the other girl (i feel so bad but i dont remember her name), and chris decided to go meet up one of their friends nearby. they asked me and daniel to tag along so we went. at the other bar called ziz. what a terrible name for a bar. man~ there should be someone that reviews names before they actually decide on it. GOSH~
anyways, by this time, IT WAS POURING!!! it was raining cats and dogs. i tried to share an umbrella but the girl started running bc her umbrella started giving out. haha. well we get to ziz, and i totally did not want to drink so i end up playing darts. I RAPED THEM!!! too good~~~~ one interesting thing about that bar was that they take spaghetti noodles and made it into some kind of curry snack. i'm not sure how it was made but it was pretty good. in the midst of hanging out w/ them, it completely hits me that i should go back to michelle bc i dont know how to get to henri's place by taxi. HAHA. so i quickly say bye to them and run back in the rain. but by then, everyone was up and ready to leave. UH OH. but i saw that evelyn was still there and i asked her, "when did michelle leave?"
"about tend minutes ago," she answered.
"CRAP!"
i desperately call them but she told me that she was already in a cab headed home. GG.
haha. so being lost and not knowing what to do, i just followed around evelyn for a bit. she bought me an umbrella. it's this cute blue umbrella. haha. it was the cheapest one. we tried to catch a cab but at that time and how far we had to go, no one would take us. so both of us decide to walk home. well evelyn to michelle's place and me to henri's place. luckily for me, i knew exactly how to walk to their house. hahahaha. so in the pouring rain, I WALKED HOME. GG. as i was walking, i had a thought, "damn~ i feel like i'm totally korean now. i have experienced everything i can as a korean: spending the night at hongdae and now walking home in the pouring rain with a cute blue umbrella."
now here i am all wet and smelly...
oh, btw, once the clock hit 12am, it was officially michelle's bday. henri totally surprised her with cake. WOW. it was a nice moment. the bar played congratulation song and all of us got up and started singing. HAHA. it was a cool moment. michelle looked SOOO happy and i was happy for her. we started dancing and high five-ing everyone. it was cool. it was one of those you had to be there moment.
it's freakin 422am and i'm fully awake thanks to the STUPID rain walk home. WOW....

REWIND~~~

2009-10-15T05:06:00.000-07:00

alright. it's been awhile since i updated my blog. haha. NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. that is why i didnt update it. haha.
for about half a week, i was sick, so i LITERALLY didnt do ANYTHING.
for about another week, i was on a LOCKDOWN. i kind of got in trouble for going out too much and not eating at home. hehe. 8D bc of this, i missed out on michelle's first bday party at some lake. boo~~~~ i also missed basketball the day before the party. lock down is a sucks. 8\

but hmm, let me back track to see if i did anything worth mentioning.
oh, for one thing, my stuff that i shipped from the states finally arrived. yay~ that was an adventure in itself. first i had to wake up early to go to incheon with a man i met the day before. *flashback* the day before i had lunch with emo's family. all her sons and wives and grandchildren and two people that i've never met. haha. and one of them decided that he would drive me to incheon so i could pick up my stuff. very nice man. *present time* so he came over with his truck and we left not knowing what was in store for us. (cue ominous music) the ride there i talked with him about this and that. the more i spend time here, i'm so grateful that i know korean to the extent that i do. haha. i think if i didnt, it would've made my life that much harder. haha. phew~ after a loooong drive (dude, my house to incheon is not close), we finally get to incheon harbor. i was pretty excited, not only for my stuff, but the fact that i was at a place i havent been to yet. in addition, i was just happy to get out of the house, let alone my room. once we got there, i talked to a man and he sent me to another man then he told me to call the 택배 company for some documents that i had no idea of. so i called the 택배 company but, just my luck, it was lunch time. hahaha. man~ story of my life. i felt really bad for the man who drove me bc he had to just wait w/ me. haha. we waited about a good 25 mins. haha. man~ stupid koreans and their lunch time. once the clock hit 1pm, i started calling them. they wouldnt pick up until 1:05pm. urgh~ she told me the documents were in the computer next to the small convenient store inside the building. so i try to log on to the computer but i'm thinking, "where the heck am i suppose to find it? if she sent it to my email, i cant print it since there's no printer. and even if there are some special program on the computer, i STILL cant print bc there's no printer." once i completed this thought process, i just decided to go back to the man and ask, "uh...she said it was in the computer, but i have no idea how to retrieve it."
he looked at my hopelessly and said, "uh, it's not in the computer. it's in the small filing cabinet next to the computer."
OMYYYYYYYYYYYYYY. i thought that little thing was trash. it was soooo dirty and beaten up. oh gosh. on top of all that, how the heck was i suppose to know. i mean damn if the man knew where to find it, why couldnt he have just gotten up and taken like 20 steps to show me. WOW. KOREANS MAN~ SO NIIICCCEE~
anyways, i show it to him and he told me to go back to the lobby and wait. more waiting. yay~ they call me back but this time a different window. after looking at it, he told me to go to the station 200. so i go there. guess what? i wait more. then the previous man calls me back and tells me there's something wrong w/ the documents. so he demanded that i call the 택배 company. so the lady sent the document through fax. finally he's like alright, it looks good. now go to station 300 and wait. 8| i was sick and tired of waiting at this point but what could i do. so i waited. finally the lady in station 300 finally said, "ok. everything's settled. now go to station 500 right around the corner, show this paperwork and you'll get your stuff."
HALLELUJAH~ man....the whole thing took, no joke, 3 hours. ajoeafjakl;sdjvaneopigj. exactly!
i finally got it and the nice man brought the truck around the building. while i was waiting, the sight of all the containers were nostalgic. it took me back to the days when i used to deliver kimchi fridge, treadmills, beds, etc and unloading those huge containers in few hours bc the drivers need to take the container back. haha. the good ol' days of home shopping korea. sure some people may think, "dude, you were so young and totally did full on labor work. that sucks." but to me, it was really fun. i got to drive the forklift. met some really great people. that's when i realized i wanted to finish my education. i mean, it was a nice experience. it was the first time i got to experience the real world. full time job. 8-5. the daily grind. making them bucks....ok, i'm out of cliches. 8D
anyways, we finally got my stuff and came back home and i wanted to unpack everything BUT i didnt know that that day was emo's dead husband's death anniversary. so she was super busy preparing food and all. the 2nd hyung's wife was helping her while i played with the kids. oh man. they are CRAZY. 3 and 4. WOW. so much energy. korean kids kind of scare me. i could handle american kids. but oh man~~~ these kids are scary.
for the next 5 hours or so, i entertained them and finally went the clock hit 10pm, a lot of emo's family members, some new some familiar, came to the house to have a 재사. the whole korean thing of setting up food and bowing to them and all that jazz. i watched and respected the whole event. it was interesting.
now that was one day. hmm, what else happened....
oh the day before incheon, i mentioned i went to lunch w/ several of emo's family members right. well after lunch, we stopped by emo's farm. it was small and cute. haha. not too big. i mean i dont think emo could handle it by herself if it was any bigger. that's besides the point, but watching everyone helping out, it totally reminded me of FARMVILLE. the facebook app. HAHAHA. dude, that game is very easy to play. i think that's one of the draws. after the whole farm thing, i went out to go meet w/ daniel for few hours. i went all the way to 명동. once i got there, it only took us like 30 mins to finish his errands. hahaha. that was what i was afraid of. it takes me like an hour to come out and we spend like 30 mins. then end up w/ nothing to do. haha. well cool thing was it was on this day that tim hyung called my cellphone. so i talked to him for like a good 30 mins or so in the middle of a clothing store. hahaha. i bumped into so many customers. sorry~ well we went to that particular store bc i knew a nuna who worked there. i met her through dennis hyung. y'all recall this? 지혜누나. the one that i said was pretty. well anyways, i said hello and she was like, "oh~~~ long time no see." then we exchange phone numbers so that we can eat again sometime later.
after that, we were left w/ NOTHING to do. so i was like, "do you wanna call it a night?"
"nah, i feel bad. you came out all this way. we'll do something. think," said daniel.
"dude, there's like nothing to do. yet to go home is such a waste," said i.
"hmm, how about seoul tower?" i added.
"alright, let's go," confirmed daniel.
so from there we went to seoul tower. this time, we rode the cable car. it was daniel's first time and my second time there. but the cable car, my first time. i think it's a cool way to go up with a lady friend. haha. nice view. once we got there, we took pictures of this and that. looked around a bit. but honestly, nothing crazy. one time is enough. haha. well now i've been there day and night. night is far better than day though. we were heading back down and all of sudden i was craving COLD beer and chicken. so i ask daniel, "do you wanna get cold beer and chicken?"
"dude, that sounds good," said daniel.
so i asked him to call his guy cousin, who he's staying with, to join us. so the 3 of us walk to a nearby chicken place and ate chicken while drinking beer. DUDE, LOVE CHICKEN!
yea...that was another day.
hmm, what else....
well just the other day, i met up w/ michelle and gomo thinking that we were gonna go to incheon to see grandma, but we kinda met up a bit too late so we decided to just chill. haha. we went to her house then ended up going to lotte mart(?) near gangnam. it's pretty much a huge mall/department store. gomo insisted that i will need winter clothes. haha. she was right. the funny thing was that michelle and gomo made me try on few things and critiqued how i looked. haha. i totally need girls when i shop. haha. i could never make decisions. plus it's them that has to look at me. hahaha. well anyways, there was this one jacket,
and gomo said, "try it on."
so i did.
then michelle said, "yea that looks good."
next out of nowhere, gomo says to the worker, "ok. ring it up please."
i was like WHAAAA? everything just happened to quickly. i felt bad but at the same time grateful. so i received happily.
after the whole shopping, the 3 of us headed back to gangnam to meet yongwoo. he was coming from school. we had about an hr to kill. so we hit up few stores again. but oh man, this one clothing store, they have separate sections for men and women, YET THE CLOTHES LOOK THE SAME!!!! i mean there was girls in the men's section trying to the clothes!!!! gosh, what's the world coming to??? girls are boys and boys are girls here. i'm so confused. seriously, i refused to become fob-itized. just watch! haha. i say this now, but the next time y'all see me, i might have long permed hair w/ skinny jeans and a purse. HAHAHAHA. CAN YOU IMAGINE THAT? i can. and it's UGLY. hahaha. 8D
once yongwoo came, we walked to near henry's house so we could eat 양꼬치. never had it but it was surprisingly good. it was so 쫄깃쫄깃. mmmm~ henry joined us soon enough. haha. i think gomo really enjoys the time she spends w/ us. i'm glad bc i enjoy spending time w/ her and yongwoo. but seriously, family is family. when it comes down to it, it's all about family and friends. they are all you got.
after dinner, gomo went home and the "kiddies" remained and drank cold beers OUTSIDE. it was pretty cold. haha. good thing i had my new jacket that i bought few hours ago. haha. well we "chillled" (hehe) there for about 2 hours. until yongwoo had to go meet up his friend. then all said our goodbyes. yongwoo and i walked together bc we were headed a simliar direction.
while walking i asked, "where are you going w/ your friend?"
"we're just gonna go to that one chicken place last time we ate, remember?" said yongwoo.
(thinking) OH! I REMEMBER! so i asked, "could i tag along?"
"dont you have to go to that army thing tomorrow morning?" he asked.
"yea. but it's fine. i could get up really early and go home. i just have to be there before 9am." i reassured him. HAHAHAHA. damn, chicken and beer man!!!!
"you should call my mom to give her a heads up," yongwoo told me.
so i quickly call gomo and emo and let them know of the situation. hahaha.
oh btw the this was last night. HAHAHA. today i finally went to take care of the army thing, which i will let you know soon. let me just finish this night.
so we met up his friend. it was the guard. haha. i totally dont know yongwoo's friends' name but i know there faces and their positions. hahahahaha. i should really learn their names. hahaha. terrible~~~~
anyways, we ate chicken and drank little bit. we were so concentrating on eating that we barely drank the pitch we ordered. it was such a waste but frankly, i drank too much beer for the night anyways so i didnt care. as soon as we got to gomo's house, i knocked out. then woke up at 3am!!!! i think i was just really concerend whether i would wake up in time. hahaha. so as i am writing this, i've only gotten 3 hours of sleep and today was an adventure as well.
finally, today...
i woke up at 3 am and just rolled around the bed until 6am. haha. i drank a cup of coffee and headed home. haha. it was PRETTY CHILLY OUTSIDE!!!! i kind of like how the weather is getting colder but i dont know if i could handle a full-on korean winter. we'll soon find out. anyways, i get home and kill about an hour and the uncle's friend calls and tells me to come out. haha. i didnt even get to shower bc i was too busy POOPING. dude, whenever i drink too much, the next day, i pay the price. my stomach just turns upside down inside out and i go major diarrhea. oh man. my butt was tired. haha. tmi, i know. i apologize.
moving on, i get in the car and we head out to 수원. i thought i was gonna go to seoul 병무청 but bc of my current address, we went to the one in 수원. it wasnt too far, but far enough. haha. i tried SOOOO HARD not to fall asleep in the car. hahahaha. we kept talking about this and that. we actually talked about some real issues in the world. it was interesting enough to keep me awake. haha. once we got there, the people there were SOOOOOOOOO NIIIIICCCCEEE~~~ it really surprised me. they were soo helpful and gentle. and guess what????? i didnt need all them school documents. hahahaha. just my luck! story of my life! they said if i would've came after december of this year, THEN i would've been in trouble. PERFECT TIMING. it's amazing how He takes care of those little things. i was praying for this whole thing to go smoothly so many times. i'm glad he answered my prayers. so now i'm going back next tuesday to get a physical and they'll definitely let me know the exact date i get shipped. on a side note, the lady even gave us a heads up and told us we can get a feel for when i'll be going. she told us to go to different room and just ask when a man born in 1985 would be shipped out once the physical is done. the lady said, 2 to 3 months. that's perfect! i mean, i really gave up on working before army. that'll just give me free time to enjoy the winter. haha. so if everything goes smoothly, i think i may go december or january. personally i would rather to january so i could spend one christmas with people here. yup~ but nothing's for sure since i havent received my physical. so i guess the process isnt complete yet but i was really glad how smoothly everything went today.
this entry is SUPER LOOONG. sorry to my regular readers for the lack of entries. haha. dude i should totally give my readers some sort of name. i mean in korea they have that. for each fan clubs, there's like special name that they give themselves. haha. how about inho's hoes. haha. i'm really tired right now.....hahaha. well i guess that it. oh, this weekend, I'M GONNA HAVE A BLAST. I KNOW IT. i got the WHOLE 3 DAYS PLANNED OUT. so there will be no update until sunday night or monday. enjoy your weekends and stay warm, i heard it's getting cold even in the states.

p.s. jason, gostop is a korean card game that is EXTREMELY addicting. you should wiki it and read up on the rules and gameplay, but the best way is to just play. haha.

Tiring Thursday

2009-10-08T18:51:00.000-07:00

i had a pretty cool day planned but just as my luck would have it, i ended up doing NOTHING. haha. story of my life. haha.
i was suppose to wake up and get ready to go meet up 은혜 at her school so i could research about the whole mba program. but i got a call from the delivery company saying my school doc package was going to arrive today and i needed to be home. HAHA. so i called 은혜 and canceled. urgh~ i was actually looking forward to going out and researching. sigh. anyways, i ended up telling her why i wanted to meet up with her and she told me,
"오빠, you should've told me earlier."
so i asked, "why?"
she replied, "there was this admission orientation yesterday."
in shock, i asked, "omy, when are they going to have it again?"
she quickly replied, "next year."
HAHAHAHAHA.
only in inho's life. hahhaa. well i guess i missed a good opportunity but i was thinking of going there after the army anyways. urgh~
well the package arrived around 12pm, which was when i was supposed to be outside, so i guess it was a good thing i canceled. sigh.
now, what to do?
i did NOTHING. i ended up just watching this and that. chatting with him and her. reading naruto manga (itachi and sasuke fight is CRAZY~ can't wait for the anime). oh another thing i did was play gostop with john. it was pretty interesting. haha. he's learning how to play so i was sort of guiding him through it while taking his money. haha. later on, we did the whole desktop sharing and he watched while i played gostop with jihang. HAHA. once again, she took ALL MY MONEY. THAT GIRL~ i just cant win against her. she brings me bad luck or something...or i'm her good luck charm when it comes to gostop. gosh~ stupid game.
anyways, i only ate lunch and i was getting hungry near dinner time, but no one was home and everything in the fridge was very korean. haha. i guess i just wasnt feeling korean food so i ate ace crackers and raw ramen. haha. i LOVE crunchy food. hahhaa. soon enough, fatigue set in and i ended up in my bed and fell asleep around 7? hahaha. i dont even remember. all i remember was that it was VERY early. hahaha.
now i'm up and ready to start my day. i just figured i should update y'all on yesterday.
so i guess i woke up too late to catch the GREAT dodgers game. i read about it and i could totally imagine the excitement. man~ 9th inning rally with 2 outs. THAT'S THE PLAYOFFS BABY! hahaha. well i got NOTHING planned again, but we'll see what happens. 8D

Wild Wednesday

2009-10-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

haha. there was nothing wild about it. i just wanted to come up with some clever title. haha.
hmm, what did i do?
i woke up really early bc i had an appointment at the us embassy. i had to go to a place i've never been. i find that to always excite me, and it did. here's the direction the dude gave me,
"get off of 삼각지역 off of the 6. Take the exit 11. keep walking until the red brick wall ends. then make a right turn. from there call me."
haha. regardless of his wack directions, i found it. as soon as i got there i started calling him, but nooooooooo~ he just wouldnt pick up his phone. after 40 minutes of waiting outside in the windy day, he calls. "can you wait a bit? i'm in a meeting."
wow~ if you had a meeting, why did you tell me to come between 10-11. omy. anyways, i listened to music and read my book to pass the time. when he finally did come, the whole process was pretty simple. he just wanted to make sure i really did come into the country. haha. there was this little mishap that irritated him and made me feel like he was a douche. he asked for my address and i gave it to him, but apparently it wasnt the FULL address. now, how the heck am i suppose to know what it is, when i've NEVER been asked this before. gosh~
once i was finished with that, i headed over to daniel's emo's house. he was still sleeping when i got there. so i told him to he could continue to sleep. so i killed about 2 hrs in his cousin's room chatting and stuff. guess what i was forced to do? start reading naruto manga! AAAAHHHH!!! the anime is actually pretty accurate. i was very impressed.
he finally woke up and we left to go buy me a watch. but we failed. haha. we ended up buying shoes instead. hahahhaa. we went back to his emo's place and ate dinner with his cousin. then i headed back home.
i left out a lot of small details bc my emo is yelling at me about not eating at home and is making me eat right now. hahahhaa.

Another good day in the book

2009-10-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

i made sure i woke up a bit early today so that i could catch the most inticipated game of the nfl season so far - vikings vs packers. it had all the makings of being a great game: monday night game, adrian peterson, favre first game against packers (the revenge game), rodgers facing his old teacher, and more. i could name more but i wont. hahaha.
the game actually matched the hype. it was a really good game to watch. haha. a lot of times the games do not live up to the hype and us the fans get super disappointed.
after the game, i ate lunch. emo was totally on my case about not eating at home. but to my defense, i never ate bob back at home in the states either. plus staying home doing nothing, your appetite does go away. haha.
after the lunch, i worked out again. ah ha! i told you. 2nd day in a row. i feel somewhat accomplished and proud. haha.
so i had a really nice moment today.
i was sitting in my chair listening to instrumental music, and all of a sudden something caught my eyes right outside my window. so i took a second from chatting away and admired at the beauty which was laid right in front of my eyes. the sky was perfectly blue. i could see the tall apartment buildings in the distance reaching high into the clear sky. also in my view was these plants right outside my window, which gave it some old korean flavor in the whole moment.
it was a lovely moment. i was intoxicated by it. haha. i really was. ask esther and jihang. i acted a bit strange for several minutes. 8D
coming back to reality, i played gostop the other night and earned about $3000, which is a lot. i lost about 1500 in 2 hrs today and lost the rest to jihang in about 10 minutes. it was RIDUNCULOUS. i mean how is that possible? she always takes my gostop money. GOSH~ the funny thing this time was that we oovooed while playing gostop. haha. it was as if she was right in front of me. it was fun. haha.
still in shock, i left for my dinner. i was suppose to meet up a buddy of mine from back in the states. i havent seen hin since high school. haha. we were never THAT close but we knew each other for awhile. grew up in the nearby neighborhood and moved up in the same school system. so anyways, he has been here for about 2 years. we talked about this and that. it was pleasant dinner.
it was interesting to here that in his brief time here, he has decided that he wants to live here forever. well, i completely disagreed with him. haha. it was quite interesting how we were just sharing our views on korea and america, and it was clear that i was biased in my ways and him too. obviously i favored the states and him korea.
haha. honestly felt like there was part of the dinner when i felt like i was defending my views on things. haha. like a debate or what not. haha.
after dinner, we walked around 천호 a bit then he suddnely remembered that he had to pick up something from his granny's place. so we went our own ways. on my way back, there is this small convenient store i always stop by now and buy my night snack. haha. today i even bought myself a pizza 빵 at tous le joure (?). haha. i dont know where koreans get these names. hahaha.
here i am now after watching this and that (heroes and the new family guy) i am updating my blog so i can get ready to go to sleep. i plan to sleep a bit early bc i have to wake up early and head over to the us embassy - they want to check if i'm really here in the country. hahaha. verify my departure from usa. hahaha.
so here are few thoughts, i realized i cant get close to everyone. i mean i dont want to. haha. there are some people in this world that i just dont click with, but i realized i'm a smart enough to ignore those urges when i'm with them. haha. i love people. i love meeting new people. i miss my friends back at home. haha.
another thought, i want to go snowboarding SOOOOOOOOO bad. ever since i had that LOOONG talk about our previous snowboarding trips with dennis hyung, it's been lingering in my head. oh how i miss thee. when it comes down to it, it not even about snowboarding itself. snowboarding in the winter has always been like my reward for the year. i usually, well for the past 6 years, go to school and work all year long and when winter rolls around, i go snowboarding to get away from it all. also always the first run of the season, i just sit up in the top of the slope and admire the beauty that's in front of me. i just try to soak it all in. the magical white winter wonderland, which california has to offer. the ride itself i just love crusing down carving my way down the slope. it's so uplifting and sets me free. on top of all this delightfulness, i'm always there with my boys. what else do you need in this world????
the moment is here....what some of you had to wait a day for. hahaha.
as most of you know, i have to serve in the army for 2 years and i have about 8 years left (if nothing develops in my favor). so to make the best of those times, i decided to...before i tell you, i realized something in my short time here. i cant imagine living here for the rest of my life. i AM GOING BACK. i HAVE TO. the lifestyle here just isnt for me. i mean while i'm here, i'll enjoy myself to the fullest bc that's what i do. i try to enjoy life. haha. but not forever. i mean my family and friends are back in the states and they mean the world to me. so doing a 9 to 5 job for years and years, i'm going to kill myself. haha. so i want to do something productive with my time here. so i decided to look into grad school. might as well right? i'm going to try to get my mba here. i'm going to look into which school here will offer an accredited mba program that will be recognized back in the states bc if they dont recognize it, then THAT'd be a waste of time. so i hope i can find one. to start off, i'm gonna go to 고려대 (korea university?) since 은혜 goes there, she can help me. so i'm gonna meet her on thurs, have lunch, and ask her to take me around so i can gather information. i'm actually pretty excited about the whole decision. we'll see where it leads and if it falls through.
another developmet, my diploma finally arrived at my home back in the states (ok, i think from now on, i'm going to refer to my home back in the states as home1, so that i dont have to type that long phrase everytime). and my dad told me he shipped it monday. he said it'll arrived here by thursday. yay~ it's official. i graduated!!! haha. plus once all the school paperwork comes, i can finally go take care of the whole army thing. up until now, everything was up in the air - when am i going? how long do i have? where am i going to serve? blah blah blah. once i take care of the preliminary stuff, i can finally be issued my korean ssn. gosh. without that i cant do ANYTHING. once i get that, i could get a part time job at ANYWHERE. if i do end up going to the army in few months, i dont even mind working at some small store to pass the time. might as well right? gosh~ honestly, playing is hard too. haha. playing is more fun when it becomes a reward for working hard. haha. it becomes that much sweeter. anyways, once i get my number, i can open up a bank account and not have to hide all my money all over my room. hahaha.
wow, i kind of babbled on this entry. sorry. i apologize for the unnecessarily long entry. have a great day. 8D
oh! i almost forgot, y'all should try to catch the one game playoff game today: twins vs tigers. something like this is pretty rare yet it has happened a lot in the past 5 years or so. haha.

Just another Monday....

2009-10-05T21:18:00.000-07:00

so this is the day that i decided i was going to start my workout routine. haha. just watch. give me few months and i'll be in top shape......haha. we'll see where it goes. haha.
on to my day, i worked out. oh man~ i thought i was in shape but oh man~ hahaha. it felt good though. after my workout, i literally sat on the floor for a good 30 minutes. haha. just terrible. haha.
afterward, i got in contact with daniel and we finally decided to meet up and watch that one movie we said we should watch it 3 weeks ago. 국가대표. let me just tell you FREAKING GOOD MOVIE. i almost cried like 5 times. i tried SOOOO hard to not cry. it was kind of funny how near the end the whole theater started tearing up and i could hear them sniffling. hahahaha. boys and girls, both. hahaha.
let's back track a little. i got on this one train line which i've never gotten on before. so that was pretty cool. i was going to meet daniel at 용산. this was the place where they sell a lot of electronics. i thought it was cool for us to meet there, plus he's been to that very theater before. haha.
as soon as we met up, we bought our tickets first. it was kind of strange how the seats were prearranged. the tickets you buy had a specific number on them. haha. even standing in line to buy the ticket was weird. you first get a number like dmv THEN they call u. haha. very high tech, yet i felt like it was unnecessary. haha. anyways, after buying the tickets, we walked around the mall a bit. we decided to eat before the movie, because at this time, i havent eaten all day and i heard the movie was really long. haha. we ended up eating at this 오므라이스 place. mmM~ i ordered the cheese chicken cutlet 오므라이스. it was darn good~ haha. i was very satisfied with my choice. to burn off the calories, we browsed around more. we hit up the electronics section. i was fairly impressed. each floor had it's own unique theme: computers, music, cameras, games, etc.
it was time so we walked back and saw the movie. we decided to buy popcorn and a drink bc it was CHEAP. it was only 7000 won for a large popcorn and 2 medium drinks. that's ridiculous!!!!! hahaha. and for 8500 won we could've gotten a bigger drink and a nacho!!! but we just ate so we didnt get that. haha. oh did i mention, you can either get you regular popcorn or kettle corn. THAT'S AMAZING. we, of course, got the kettle corn. so good. so sweet. i just couldnt eat too many. haha.
that short exchange really shocked me. back in the states, the only choice you have is, "buttter or no butter? if butter, how much? little, regular, or a lot?"
hahaha. but this exchange went, "고소한 거 or 단거?" i was like WAAAHHAHAHAH~~!~!!~
anyways, back to the movie, SUPER RECOMMEND IT TO ALL. i'm not sure when it comes out in the states, but really good movie.
once the movie was over, we both got tired so we decided to just go home. hahaha. i think we're getting old. haha. a side note, it was weird seeing how a lot of the stores were closed and it was barely 830pm. i guess things close a lot earlier in korea. hahha. very strange~
i came home and pretty much knocked out. haha.

so...there has been a new development in my life here in korea. i'm going to leave it at that and let you guys know about it on the next entry. hahaha. you see what i'm doing here, i'm even proving some cliff hangers here. can you feel the suspense and the drama i'm trying to build. haha.

hmm, i hope i didnt hype it up too much bc it might not be THAT big of a new for y'all. hahhaa.

choo-not-so-suck

2009-10-04T07:53:00.000-07:00

i woke up feeling as if i had a cold. uh oh. that is not a good thing. haha. i think it's bc i left the window open and the fan on. hahaha. last night, there was a random rainstorm accompanied by thunders. haha.
anyways, i didnt even get to go to church today. i was in bed dying. haha. i havent felt that bad in a while. urgh~
so after taking a nap after taking medicine, i woke up feeling terrific. i was actually was awaken by my dad's friend's call. it was 창수아저씨. he was supposedly the one of my dad's friends that i remember the most. i remember a lot of times when our family and his family played. we used to go EVERYWHERE together.
anyways, i went over for dinner and oh boy~ i did not expect to have the night that i had. haha. it was honestly one of the best nights yet in korea.
the whole night was very fun. i practically hung out with my parent's old friends. haha. they told me old stories and we went down the memory lane of how much we all played together when i was little. a lot of it, you just had to be there. but i'm telling you now, i wish my parents were there. i think they would've had a ball!
bottom line, i love family. i really believe that friends make better family than real family. i truly saw how happy they were to just see me in their eyes and how they missed my parents.
oh, how i look forward to meeting all my friends again and just reminiscing about the good ol' days.

chooSUCK

2009-10-03T02:25:00.001-07:00

choosuk sucks. haha. i woke up. joined a random public fantasy league and had a draft. watched some tv. took a nap. video chatted with parents. played gostop with jihang. lost EVERYTHING like 4 times. total of over $1000. watched more tv. ate lunch somewhere in the midst of all the fun....
now, i'm writing my entry really early. boo. holidays suck no matter where you are. stupid choosuk. next time choosuk rolls around, i'm gonna go on a trip. just watch!

Ball, Chicken, and Beer

2009-10-01T09:43:00.000-07:00

i think yesterday was choosuk eve or is today? haha. it's interesting how ever since i came here, i lost completely sense of date and days. haha. i go through the day not knowing either one. haha.
as more days pass by i realize little things that help me reflect on my life. for one, this is the first time in about 6 years that i dont have school or work. haha. my life has been this ongoing cycle of work-school-work-school-church-church. haha. but as soon as i got here, no school and no work. i think i'm still trying to cope with not having much to do except for just chill and relax, which is why i think i'm trying to hard to land a part time job before army. haha. i dont know~
anyways, what did i do today? well i woke up at henry's place and met up with 용우 so i could get my haircut. before that, he and i met up with gomo and her aerobics friends for lunch. mind you that i've only been up for a good 30 minutes. so i had no appetite but i ate regardless. afterward, we all went to the haircut place. she asked, "how would you like your haircut?"
my usual answer, "whatever you think'll suit me."
she replied, "really?"
i said, "yea. that's how i've been doing it."
then out of nowhere, she said, "are you from america?"
hahahaha. i laughed out loud inside. was it my accent? haha. what was it that tipped her off? anyways, she was like ok and started cutting my hair.
i took this time to pray for people, which is honestly something i've been neglecting to do. it was very nice. i started remembering different people that i wanted to pray for and some who's asked me to pray for them.
at the end of the haircut, she asks, "do you like it?"
i said, "it really doesnt matter since i cant see without my glasses."
haha. yea~ haircuts have never been too big of a deal for me. i mean, it's just hair.
oh by the way, i have to mention that when she was washing my hair, she gave me this massage like thing. haha. it was pretty amazing. hahaha.
the haircut was interesting. haha. i'm actually not sure if i like it or dont like it. haha. never really had a haircut like this. maybe i'll post some pictures later. haha.
we were asking each other what we should do. in the end, we decided to just go back home. i took a LOOONG nap, so i wasnt sure what 용우 and gomo did. haha. he woke me up when it was time for bball. hahaha. i slept for like 4 hours. that was an overkill. too long of a nap. i think it had a negative effect. we walked to burger king and ate dinner. it was my first time at a fast food place in korea. the menu looked similar enough minus the 불고기 selection. haha. no i didnt pick that. i got this garlic steakhouse burger. eh~ it was ok. not great. haha. i think i'll stick to korean food next time. haha.
after an unsatisfactory dinner, we walked to the courts. by now, daniel joined us, so we had our 5. as we approached the court, WOW. there were SOOO many people. it was central status. haha. so imagine there's only one full court and there was like 5 teams. haha. well i guess it's cpc status as well. haha. right off the bat, we got to run. long story short, i ran 5 or 6 games, lost ALL OF THEM. gosh! believe me, it wasnt all my fault. i made mine. hahaha. but it was just one of those nights. haha.
in the middle of the night, it was cool how these guys i just met the other week came out to ball. i really believe playing sports is the best way for any guys to just build bond. yea~ sports~
when we finally had enough, 용우, his friends, and i started walking back home. for whatever reason, they wanted to get a beer. so first we walked to 7-11 (yes, they have that here) and got few drinks. dont worry. i didnt get any. i was craving ice cream so i got this double cone ice cream thing. looked so good. i had so much trouble eating this thing. when i got to the bottom of it, i was trying to squeeze the cone and sticking my tongue down this thing to get the ice cream out. that's when one of the guys said, "there's a spoon on the bottom."
PUHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. total inho moment. hahhaa. everyone laughed including me. hahhaa. i just couldnt help that it was sooo something i would do. well the ice cream was freakin good.
as everyone was finishing up their can of beer, one person goes, "i want chicken." another added, "yea. chicken." i jumped in and said, "yea. chicken and beer." which was quickly followed by a "YEA~ CHICKEN AND BEER."
so we got up and headed to a chicken place they knew. hahahahaha. I LOVE MOMENTS LIKE THESE. so we walked another 10 minutes to eat the best 양념 and garlic chicken yet. the french fries were also the BOMB. we ended up ordering extra serving near the end. hahahaa.
on our way back home, we were all talking about how this is the life. BALL, CHICKEN, AND BEER. this is paradise. haha. we dont need anything else in life. girls? who needs them when we have BALL, CHICKEN, AND BEER. hahahaha. it was a very cool night. it was the first time i felt like this is something that i would so do w/ the boys back at home. it was nice. 8D

A typical day???

2009-09-30T13:49:00.001-07:00

i feel like today was a type of day that i would consider a typical day in korea.
i woke up. thought i was going to get a haircut, but ended up getting free lunch from one of my uncle's friend. so i pushed haircut to tomorrow. i was suppose to meet up with daniel after haircut and watch a movie, but since i didnt get a haircut i felt too lazy to go out. haha.
i did not waste my day doing nothing though. i actually called few places about job listings. no luck. haha. gosh~ i'm still a bit disappointed about what few people said about me looking too korean to be hired. haha. that's so ridiculous. i guess speaking english just isnt enough nowadays. haha.
anyways, i even got in an argument with my dad today, which did not make me feel any better about everything. it was so stupid. gosh~ it made me not want to video chat with him again. i mean it was a simple miscommunication problem, but noooooo~
sigh.
anyways, dinner time rolled around so i went out. i was suppose to have dinner with the cousins. haha. it's so weird saying that. we all met up at gangnam. few of michelle's friends came out. we ate sam-gyup-sal. omy. the best one yet!!!! wow. it was really good. hahaha. one of the heated topic was this housing issue with the teachers. me being a 3rd party, i had no idea what was going on, but they seemed so passionate about it, so i listened intently. after listening to the whole conversation, i understood the issue. this also seemed like a miscommunication problem. gosh~
afterward, we went to woodstock. this was kevin's first time there. haha. the whole night was kevin's first night out with english speaking people. he actually did pretty well. michelle took good care of him. long story short, he had a great time and he was very impressed by the sam buca shot. haha. the one with a fire in the mouth. yes. that one.
one cool thing that happened, which totally made my night was, that a girl straight up looked at me and told me that i was very good looking. 8D
that's right folks. you heard right. haha. i'm so easy. hahahha.
now here i am at henry and james' place. i cant sleep bc i took like a 3 hr nap right before dinner. PLUS i have SOOOOOOO MANY bug bites that i'm itching and cant seem to sleep. ON TOP OF ALL THIS, there's like mosquitoes flying around that is buzzing by my ears and PISSING ME OFF. STUPID MOSQUITOES!!!!!!! AAAAAHHHHHH~

Day after a rest day

2009-09-29T05:52:00.001-07:00

today i woke up a bit earlier than i wanted to bc i had to go see my uncle's friend about a potential job offer. i got ready and headed towards jamsil. it really amazes me how quickly i got used to traveling around. haha. also i have a better idea of where everything is.
i got there right before 12pm, to be exact 11:50pm. so me being there exactly when i would say, i called him and he said, "wait, you're here? i thought you weren't coming. so i just went ahead and made lunch plan."
"i'm sorry? i said i was going to be here around 12pm," said nicely as possible.
"you said before 12pm," he replied.
"uh...ok. well i guess there was a miscommunication," i replied back.
"well can you wait around and come back around 1:30ish?" he asked.
::thinking:: what the heck else can i do??? "yes, of course. i'll just eat lunch or something. see you then," he said reluctantly.
so here is what happen...korean version, he thought i said 12 전, when i said 12 쯤. urgh~~~~ i guess it's an honest mistake. gosh~~~~~~~~
well anyways, bc of this, i looked for a place to eat, but could not find any. so i went to pb and ate this pizza빵, which was surprisingly good. then i bought myself a coke nex (equivalent of diet coke?) haha. then went to pc 방. hahahaha. i really think that's the best way to kill time here in korea. for an hour, it's about 1200-1500 won. haha. that's freaking cheap. haha.
today i got to chat with few people since it was about early night time back in the states. it was fun. it really help me pass the time.
finally 120 rolls around so i head over to my uncle's friend's work. we meet and just like i expected, he couldnt really do much. my circumstances are just too difficult. going to army soon, not an american citizen, blah blah blah.
one thing i got from something he was sort of trying to tell me was that it's going to be hard for me to find private tutoring bc korean ppl want FOREIGNERS. hahaha. i guess the fact that i look korean, doesnt help me. hahaha. also the fact that i'm good at korean make me seem like i dont know english. WOW, right? gosh. sooooo stupid. i hate koreans and their stupid ways. (as i'm writing this, i'm really contemplating whether i should post this. why? what if i become a celebrity and my fans google me and find out that i put on my blog "i hate koreans" and i got 악플. hahahhaahhaa. do i not have to worry about that??? hahaha). whatevers. my fans should understand the context of my frustrations. hahaha.
anyways, after a disappointing meeting, i met up with gomo so we can go see grandma again. we waited for 용우 and michelle. as soon as they came, we left. grandma really seems to doing well. it's amazing. it was also pretty cool how all of her grandchildren who's in korea were there. haha.
later, michelle and i finally got to see our oldest gomo, my dad's older sister. we both completely did not remember her at all. haha. it was nice. we finally got to see her and her us.
before we headed back, we ate at pizza hut. korean pizza sucks. i miss american pizza. something about korean pizza just lacks being a pizza. haha. it might be the lack of grease. i dont know what it is. haha. i miss american pizza. haha.
we got to gangnam and we went our own ways. i didnt want to call it a night but what can you do when you dont have a car and everyone is too tired to play. gosh~ i miss my friends. hahaha. to be able to just call people and do NOTHING together. i miss doing nothing. hahhaa. well anyways, on the ride back, i found out i have games in my cellphone. i played sodoku ALL THE WAY home. hahaha. it was actually fun. hahhaa. i love brain games. maybe that's why i'm so good at using my brain in the most useless ways. hahahaha. i seriously think my brain is not normal. that was pretty much my day.
now that i'm caught up on how i met your mother and finished slamdunk, i dont know what to watch anymore. haha. any suggestions?

REST DAY

2009-09-28T18:14:00.000-07:00

sunday night, i finally had dinner with all of emo's sons. haha. we ate gogi and saw the wives of 2nd and 3rd hyung. the kids of 2nd hyung were sooooo cute. haha. at first, they wouldnt even come near me, but by the end, they were asking me to spin them and bounce them and everything.

monday was EXACTLY what i needed.
all i did today was stay home and read comic books, slamdunk. i LOVED slamdunk!!!! i just couldnt put it down. haha. it totally makes me want to ball. hahha.
besides reading comic books, i totally caught up on the latest episodes of how i met your mother. plus i also got to catch a glimpse of the sunday night football. cards just got PLAYED!! peyton is too good man. the best quarterback in the league. seriously, cards need to use fitzgerald more.
anyways, i even took a nap today. haha. i guess after about 10 days straight of going out, your body screams for extra rest.

oh dude, office makes me sooo bad sometimes. some of the things that michael does makes me wanna punch him in the face!!!!!!!! aaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!! hahahaha. so funny though. love it! i also caught up on the new fringe episodes and house. OH WOW. house was freaking good!!!!! i'm glad all these american shows are playing again. i still havent sat down and watched korean tv show. something about it just doesnt interest me as much. haha.

well i'm watching monday night football. so far so eh~~ no scores. delhomme just drew another int. i actually have to go meet another one of my uncle's friends about private tutoring job. wish me luck!!! then i'm gonna go see my grandma again with michelle. have a great day everyone!!!

saturday and sunday

2009-09-26T23:46:00.000-07:00

this saturday was pretty chill. i may have been bc i woke up around 1pm. haha.
as mentioned earlier, i caught the first subway ride from hongdae. got off at 강동 and rode a bus. unfortunately for me, i fell asleep on the bus and the bus driver had to wake me up. hahahaha. yes. that really happens. he asked me where i should've gotten off. i told him and he was like are you serious? haha. he dropped me off at the next bus stop and told me to get on the same one but going the other way. hahhaa. very nice man. so i waited for the bus and rode it and went home. i got in around 7am. haha. i slept until 1pm-ish.
later, i went over to gomo's house so i could play ball with 용우. before ball, i joined the family for dinner. we had dinner with this other family and oh man~ the little girl was soooooooo cute~ she had the cutest face and hair. haha. but oh man~ she could eat!!!!
after dinner, i finally got to play 5 on 5 bball. it was pretty fun. there was this one korean guy. he seemed pretty old but OH MAN~ this guy was literally gliding through the air. wow. long story short, good games. won both. slept at gomo's house and got home this morning.
got ready and went to church. heard something very inspirational and went to church on a good note. got there and realize i REALLY need to find a church that's right for me. so i think next week i might actually ride the bus into seoul.

p.s. i'm HOOKED on slamdunk. that's all i've been doing for the past 24 hours.

to andrew: pics can be seen on facebook.

Good...then FAIL

2009-09-25T13:05:00.001-07:00

woke up from a nice rest on my own bed. haha. woke up early to get ready to meet 은혜, jihang's friend, for lunch. i was up and oovooing with joe chon and the hangs while reading slam dunk. in the midst of so much fun, i totally lost track of time and was a bit late for lunch. hehe.
i met her at 고려대. supposedly it's one of the top 3 schools. i complimented her by saying, "wow, i didnt know you were that smart."
haha. anyways, while we were walking to this shabu shabu 칼국수 place jihang called. so 은혜 was talking to her and ahang. they kept making fun of me and saying i was bothering their conversation. they are sooo nice. one of the funny thing was that 은혜 was carrying this bag and so naturally she was like "it's heavy" and handed it to me as she was talking on the phone. haha. she is sooo jihang's friend. everything about her reminded me of jihang. 누가 친구아니랠까바.
anyways, lunch was FABULOUS. from the start to the end. just WOW. i completely forgot to take pictures bc i was too busy eating. hahaha.
after lunch, we met up with her parents. haha. random but nice surprise. they were very nice. i enjoyed the short time we met up. afterward, they went their way and i met up with daniel before i had to attend the bboy dance concert.
daniel and i decided to go bike riding. it was very very fun. the view was nice. the weather was nice. the ride was nice. it was just nice. we rode to a park and played hoops. a game of 21. we played with tip-ins. haha. it was going forevers. but it finally ended bc we had to leave.
after a quick shower at his aunt's place, i headed over to incheon to meet jessica and her friends. WOW. it took nearly 2 hrs. so by the time i got there, the event was OVER. FAIL. FAIL. FAIL. hahahahaha. just my luck. only thing that made the train ride bearable was that i had few slam dunk comic books in my bag. but once i finished reading them, FML. haha.
since i got there, i went up and saw a cool looking bridge and that was it. from there we went to hongdae to eat dinner and without us knowing, we missed our buses. so long story short, here i am at 516am, waiting for the subway to open again so i can go home and sleep on my bed...8

7 days in a row.

2009-09-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

so after chilling at henri and james' pad for awhile, i finally came home with daniel. haha. we decided to go to the movies, but at the last minute, i checked my email and found out that jessica, james le's friend, invited me to an event. so i checked it out and it was tonight. so daniel and i pushed aside the whole movie idea and decided to go to their event.
it was just a dinner gathering with her fellow teachers in the program. jessica and we met up a bit early since i've NEVER met her before. haha. all we knew about each other that we both knew james, mark, and some of james' uci friends. haha. anyways, right off the bat, she seemed like a cool girl. we walked around. got a lost a bit. then finally found the place.
it was supposed to be an italian buffet but there was NOTHING italian about them. HAHA. honestly one of the worst food experience yet. haha. well now we know right? haha. always positive thinking.
the food may have been bad, but the company was really good. i really really do love meeting people. haha. such a people person i think. i just love it. haha. well there were some interesting people. few of them were from the states, one of them rancho cucamonga (?). no idea how to spell it. we all talked about some of the foods we already miss. to list some: chipotle, innout, del taco...i guess it's pretty much REAL burgers and mexican food. HAHHA.
after dinner, we all went to a nearby cafe. we played few drinking games. of course, i lost. haha. no surprise there. jess and i freakin talked about snowboarding for good 30 mins. she claims that she can beat me. so i'm really curious to see if that's true since she talked like a true boarder. we'll see soon enough.
well it was just an overall nice night. mediocre food + good company = nice night. 8D
oh, thanks to julie, i got in contact with one of her friends in korea. so i guess as the days go by, i'm learning there's quite a few people i can meet up. 8D
that's great news. haha. well i'm gonna watch heroes and go to sleep a bit early. actually it's not even that early it's 120am. haha.
well i need to go out for lunch and dinner again so yea. good night y'all.

Family reunion

2009-09-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

i woke up pretty early thinking i was going to go meet my uncle's friend. but i was doing this and that and knowing i have to meet michelle and gomo i didnt leave too early. plus i remember him telling me just come some time in the morning. well anyways, i got ready and headed over there. totally a new area i've never set foot in. haha. it was interesting. he gave me directions and i followed it to the t. i love how koreans use meters and i have NO IDEA how far anything is. haha. i got off the subway and walked a good 20 minutes. stupid meters. i should took the bus. anyways, i met him and talked for a bit. it was what i expected. i knew the hakwons nowadays are having trouble and he wasnt about to hire someone for part-time. i mean c'mon i only have few months. plus it was SOOO far. i mean everyday commuting 1 hour, so 2 hours a day lost in traveling for a job. yea~ but it was nice to talk to someone older about the whole job situation. he said he'll let me know if anything near my house shows up. nice man. anyways, i really didnt think he could use me anyways, it was a MATH hakwon. i HATE math. hahaha.
as soon as i left, it was pretty close to gangnam so i met up with michlle a bit earlier than planned since she got off work really early. we met up and ate by the side of the street. ttukbokgi and mandoo dipped in ttukbokgi sauce. WOW. to die for~ then we got a drink and waited for gomo. michelle was honestly nervous about meeting her. there was this whole thing about how she's been here little over a year yet she didnt contact any of the family member. blah blah blah. haha. yea. family stuff. but as soon as we met up, gomo was cool about it. i mean she's a KO. she cant help but to be cool. haha. so the running joke, i guess, is how KO's love to drink, eat snacks, and know how to play. also how we are really people person but all struggle to make money. haha. funny funnY~ i guess you had to be there or be a KO. haha.
anyways, we go to incheon to see our grandmother. she was in the best condition that i've seen her YET. i mean she recognized michelle right off the bat and even remembered when michelle and i left the mother land. WOW. what a memory.
on our way back, all of us knocked out. woke up and drank some coffee and dunkin donuts. we waited for yongwoo. he was excited to have a nuna. haha. it was funny how gomo mentioned that about a week ago he didnt really see ANY of his cousins and BAM! in a span of a week or two, he's got a hyung and a nuna. haha. good times~
gomo was telling michelle and i to speak english so that yongwoo's english skills will improve. haha. as michelle and i kept trying to speak to him, we realized he understood a lot of it. it's just that he refused to speak it back to us. haha. i had a BLAST laughing and trying to get english out of him. haha.
for dinner, we met up with gomoboo and henri for a big family dinner. hahaha. it was very very fun. we ate gogi. dinner was very enjoyable. afterward, we walked to gomo's house for ee-cha. haha. we sat down in the living room, talking and drinking, simply getting to know each other better. michelle and i hoped to see our big gomo, who we've NEVER met. she's lived in japan all her life but has been in korea for the past yr or so. so yea. haha. she was still at work and could not make it. it was unfortunate.
but seriously, i think our gomo was the happiest as her "side" grew. haha. she was always telling me how her brother and sister, her being the youngest, all left her. haha. but now, one by one, we are all coming back. good times~
we left before it got too late, i really didnt want to go home so i crashed at henri's place. haha. james was home so we played poker. haha. james won both times. that dude is one lucky bastard. haha. well anyways, we all went to sleep bc they had work and i was just tired. everyone woke up pretty early and i too bc i am just so responsible like that. haha. 8D
i was suppose to go home and shower and get ready to meet up daniel but i'm just chillin at henri and james's place, with their blesing, just killing time until daniel and i meet up. haha.
but SERIOUSLY, i want...more i NEED a job so i can play more. haha.
i got the whole weekend planned out and i might actually be tapped out by the end of it.
8|

Exhausting in everyway

2009-09-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

i just could not sleep last night. i was just rolling around the bed. finally when i did fall asleep, i ended up waking up like 4 hours later. NOT GOOD.
anyways, i was just staying in bed being a bum since i couldnt fall back asleep. as soon as i woke up, it was time for monday night football! so i streamed it live. it was a VERY entertaining game. i almost thought that the dolphins would pull it off. but peyton is just TOO GOOD. haha. later, i video chatted with joon, moe, max, and sophia nuna. they were getting ready to go to banana bay. aw~ how i miss thai food. haha.
once the clock struck 12ish, i left home to meet up with dennis hyung. it was supposedly the last time i was going to hang out with him before he left. we met at 이태원. i got there first so i was 사람구경해잉. once he came, we first ate bc both of us were STARVING. we ate quiznos. haha. it was the closest thing. then we were off. we walked for about 20 minutes then headed over to 서울 tower. we smartly took the bus almost the 2/3 way then walked the last 1/3. as soon as we reach the top, we saw these old korean martial arts by the old korean army men. it was very cool. apparently, they dont do it everyday. so i felt very lucky to have seen it. they must have heard that dennis hyung and i were going to stop by. HAHAHAA.
anyways, i saw some cool stuff. first of all, i saw ALL these locks on the railing. it was pretty cool. i was shocked at what i was seeing. there were also these couple bench. you'll know what i mean when you see the pictures. we didnt really go up the tower since that costs extra money. haha. we also saw some cute teddy bears. that was pretty much it. nothing too crazy. dennis hyung did tell me that i should come back at night once. he said it's a lot prettier. i think i'll do that next time i get the chance. wink wink.
moving on, we got back down and headed over to 대학로. it was an area where there were bunch of cafe and theaters. he said the shows are ok and i should watch one later on. we just took a tour of the whole place then spent a lot of time in this one store where they had all these cool crazy things. haha. i took some pictures even though there were signs that forbid such actions. haha.
we were very tired by now, so we went into a 빵집 and ate some 빵. then got these iced green mint mocha. it was fabulous! haha. i usually dont like sweet stuff but this drink was very good. as we were eating and drinking, we just chatted and chilled. he also recommended few restaurants in the area.
now that our energy was rejuvenated, we got up and headed over to 동대문. i told him i wanted to buy a hoodie. i realized i dont really own a thin hoodie that i can just wear over anything. once we got there, we browsed around and saw this one ride. IT WAS CRAZY!! haha. the people were getting tossed in the air. it was hilarious. also the mc was very funny, which made the whole viewing experience that much better. we finally went into one of the 3 building in hopes to find me a hoodie.
WOW. anyone with a weak heart should not shop here. haha. the people were SOOOO good at making you feel bad and getting your attention. hahaha. good thing dennis hyung coached me to put on a poker face and act like i'm a local. HAHA. as soon as we got to the men's floor, i saw the very hoodie that i wanted. but we went around the whole floor searching for the same or similar one so we can price check. haha. as we were going around, what i said in the beginning of this paragraph happened. haha. WOW. they are GOOD~~~ after going around the floor once, we came back to the one store that had what i wanted.
we asked, "how much?"
he said, "30,000 won."
we said, "WHOA~ TOO EXPENSIVE."
he said, "if you have cash, 27,000 won."
we said, "WHOA~ STILL too expensive."
he said, "fine fine. 24,000 won."
i looked at dennis hyung. i just felt like it was still too expensive. but i opened my wallet and tried to bargain one more time. "i only have 2 1,000 won. how about 22,000 won?"
he said, "whoa~....ok."
and that right there was my first time bargaining at korea. haha. i really wanted to even go down all the way to 20,000 won but yea~ i felt like right under 20 bucks for the hoodie was very good deal. i have pictures. so yea. i really like it. HAHA. the moment i laid my eyes on it, i knew that was the one i wanted. haha.
afterwards, we went to 명동 to meet up one of dennis hyung's friends. it was 지혜 nuna. i dont know if i mention her before but she's pretty and cool. i really like her personality and her look. hahaha. anyways, we met up and went back to near 동대문 and went to this indian restaurant. i've NEVER tasted indian food and i thought i never would.
i was pleasantly surprised at how good the food was. my favorite was this appetizer thingy we got as service and the chicken. HAHA. the bread was good and the other two dishes were ok. i wasnt too crazy about them. either way, i ate until i could eat no more.
for dessert, we went back to 대학로 and ate shaved ice. this shaved ice was like the original kind. literally it had ice and 팥 and milk. HAHA. it was ok. i'm not too crazy about 팥 to begin with. after chilling there for a bit, we all went our own ways. in the train, i said my good bye to dennis hyung who i probably wont see for the next few years as he told me he doesnt plan on coming back into korea for awhile. it was very awkward and sad moment for me. i mean when i left america, i said all my goodbyes to the people i love and didnt think that i would do the same thing here. haha. but seriously, i told dennis hyung this too, but i am sooo grateful that he was here during my 1st week. he showed me pretty EVERYTHING there is to do in seoul. bc he kept calling me out, i'm now able to travel like i'm a local. no fear baby~ plus he bought food EVERYTIME we met up. what a guy~ anyways, i'm gonna miss you here hyung. i guess i'll see you in few years when we go to canada for a snowboarding trip. WOO HOO~~~

p.s. i've gone out the last 5 days in a row and my legs are DEAD. i need rest. today, we walked SOOO much. i'm tired. the sucky thing is that i have a FULL day tmw as well. urgh~

Rainy Day

2009-09-21T07:26:00.000-07:00

so it was the first day since i got here that it rained ALL day long. it was a pretty refreshing yet annoying. haha.
it made me feel so lazy. i stayed in bed and watched "how i met your mother" for an hr or two. i woke up from the heavy sound of the rain fall. it was SOOO loud. haha. i know it was loud bc later dennis hyung told me HE woke up bc of the very same sound this morning. haha.
anyways, today i was suppose to go see grandma with gomo but i also had an interview lined up. and i was pretty sure that i couldnt do both bc of the time it takes to go back and forth everywhere. so i texted gomo and asked if it was a smart idea. she confirmed that it would be too tight. so i stayed home and waited until i had to see the 원장님.
but then about 3 hours prior to, dennis hyung calls and tells me if i'm doing anything. haha. i told him, "no, not at the moment, but i got an interview at 5."
he asked, "can you move it?"
i said, "i dont know. i havent really talked to my friend. he was suppose to confirm it."
"call and ask," he said.
so i did. i called arnold and asked, "hey, am i still meeting the 원장님?"
"oh yea. about that. i talked to her this morning and she was hoping to hire someone full time. i guess they are screening people right now and if everyone else fails, she'll hire you. but she still wants to meet you."
HAHA. this is why you wait until something actually happens before you get all flustered and get excited about the "maybe" things of the world. haha.
me not really being surprised, i ask him to move it to tomorrow and he said that'll might be better.
so with that settled, i quickly got ready and met dennis hyung at 여의도. i tried out this new route where i take this totally new but and get off on a totally new station and ride the subway from there. haha. i'm crazy now. haha.
well anyways, i finally arrive and meet up with him and his friend. we head over to 63 building. i was honestly disappointed. haha. there was NOTHING there. EVERYTHING, you had to pay for. to go up, you had to pay 12 bucks. none of us not really wanting to see the view from the top very much, we left and got lunch. dennis hyung and i were DYING of hunger. his friend supposedly grew up in 여의도 yet he knew nothing around here. haha. he took us to some 국수 place but it was not worth of me taking a photo. haha. enough said, right?
well anyways, we got coffee afterward and just chilled. the friend had dinner plans, so he left. so dennis hyung and i went to 강남 and ate dinner and chilled.
now, those of you who are reading and went to snowboarding trip with us, do any of you remember the 2nd trip????
dennis hyung and i were just reminiscing about all the fun we had on the 4 trips.

1st one: starcraft tournament, sarah nuna's surprise, tae hyung spinning out when we went to go get the cake, playing games with HUGE group of people, tae hyung getting punished by dunking his head in the snow, dennis hyung's car being snowed in COMPLETELY, snowball fight outside, us making our own jump in the middle of the parking lot, ujin's leg getting pwned, tae hyung and david's head butt incident....

3rd one: one of the best one i think...just the guys, sarah nuna looking sad as she saw us off, dennis hyung's elevator farting incident (CLASSIC!), dennis hyung winning money and buying us dinner and how we all ordered like 2 dishes bc it was dirt cheap, guys playing keno even though they were not 21, first time in tahoe and the snow was BEAUTIFUL, i got pwned and was dying and was literally trying to melt away the snow in front of the fireplace, the kid in the tour bus (yes, my best friend) how he wanted to play ds and that one moment where a dog licked john and we all laughed then we stopped and the kid came and laughed out loud by himself and he went away and us laughing out loud thinking WTH, our hotel rooms just being connected and doing stupid things...

4th one: selling one of our tickets to make profit, playing blackjack (yes, the best dealer in the world, thank u), ds party, mafia in the living room, playing outside the cabin...

so many good memories, yet BOTH OF US could not think of the 2nd one. VERY STRANGE. i mean we remember ALL the details about the cabin as well on the 1st one. the inside and outside of it. haha. so ridiculous. so if you are reading this and know what was memorable from the 2nd one, please comment. haha. i am dying to know.

oh yea. this is the only thing we could remember from the 2nd one
2nd one: 012 hyung took his audi, it was the 1st time i took my wrx, leslie nuna went and we were messing with tae hyung about that, tim hyung went, there was this town center thingy we visited

so as you can see, nothing super memorable like the other trips. SOOOOO weird.

back to today, so after chilling with dennis hyung, we just called it a night early since we were going to meet again tomorrow around lunch time. so yea. good night.

2nd Sunday

2009-09-20T07:02:00.000-07:00

what a good day it was.
woke up bc the neighbor 장로님 came by for the 2nd service. i yelled from upstairs, "i'll go to the 3rd service!" he answered, "Ok! I'll be back for you then!"
wow. he really wants me to go to their church. lucky for him, i've already decided that i'll stick with them. other churches are just too far and i usually go out on the weekends and dont really feel like going out again on sunday for church. well anyways, since i was up, i went online. guess what i did?
yes, oovoo. the church people were at all the won's getting ready to go to john/jihang's bday dinner. aww~ i miss those. all you can eat meat. gosh~ you gotta love america.
in the midst of oovooing w/ them, my dad joined in. haha. it was pretty cool.
shortly, i had to get ready for church. just as i was done and ready to get out, the 장로님 came and yelled, "Let's go."
i answered, "i'm in the bathroom. i'll be out."
he replied, "ok, i'll be waiting outside the house."
so i quickly dress up and go down, but to my surprise, he was not there. strange~ i thought. thinking that he just went ahead, i started walking to church. it is a good 5-10 min walk. not bad at all, considering i walked about 3 hrs yesterday. haha. now everything seems shorter. 8D
just as i arrived at church, i get a call from the 장로님 asking me where i am. i told him church. then he said that he was waiting for me in front of HIS house. OMY~ why would he do that? he said that he was going to drive me to church, when last week, we walked. haha. puzzled at his decision yet i just apologized for walking by myself. he told me to not go in yet. so i waited.
once he arrived, we walked inside the church and i registered to the church. now, at this moment, i did not know what was to come.
the sermon was good. i really hoped for english sermon but eh~ what are you gonna do. i was just thinking i'll probably go to an english service once i move out closer to the city. anyways, near the end, he announces new members and he mentions how i came from america and asks few questions in front of the whole congregation (about 300 people). now keep that number in mind and this is what happened next, he asks me to stand up and they sing "당신은 사랑밨기위해 태어난 사람." OMY~ i didnt know what to do. i wanted to laugh out loud, but knew that wasnt right. i just looked down and endured it. oh wow. such a weird moment. a moment which i totally could've lived without.
continuing on with their tradition of "welcoming newcomers," they told me i HAD to stay for lunch and eat with the pastor. HAHA. wow. super awkward. but i survived lunch. BUT it wasnt over. they told me there was some sort of newcomer bible study. HAHHAHAHAHA. WOW. leave me alone!!!! RIGHT? haha. but i didnt show any of these emotions. i gladly followed them into a room and waited for a different pastor. he came in. we watched a short film. he gave a brief word. then i was done. phew~
everything ended around the time that the english service started. i thought, "Perfect!" so i found the place and walked in. NOW, do you think i saw bunch of foreigners? NO. of course not. this is MY life. nothing EVER goes as planned. as i walked in, i saw bunch of KIDS. the english service was for kids. HAHAHA. it was a way for the church to teach the kids english. HAHHHA. i laughed in my head at the irony of the whole situation. as i walked in, a pastor approached me and said, "i've heard about you. are you here to help us teach the kids english?"
i laughed EVER LOUDER. HAHAHHAA. wow. but you know what, part of me was like, "hey, what the heck else are you going to do?"
so i told them, "sure, whatever you need me to do, i'll do." so starting next week, i'll be helping around for couple of hours and they give a word and have activities. 8|
haha. it's a good thing right? hahaha. i just think it's ironic that the way of life that i wanted to sort of get away from followed me all the way here. HAHAHA. 8D
i just laugh and smile at the situation. i dont know what else i can do....i could've said no, but yea~ too nice. that's my problem. HAHAHAA.
after church, i got in contact w/ michelle and she said she was at the race track. HAHA. i didnt know korea had such a thing. so me getting on this new bus and getting off at completely new station, i got myself all the way to the race track. haha. it took nearly an hour bc i was literally switching train after train. haha. it was quite exciting. the fact that i was moving about like i knew where i was going and what i was doing. haha. but i didnt. 8D
i even got on the subway that was outside. HAHA. very cool. i got pictures.
so after several exchanges, i made it. the whole place was actually pretty cool looking. i got pictures. once i got there, i went to the "foreigners lounge." haha. i know. i'm not really a foreigner but michelle just told me to speak english and act like you dont know korean and they're not check for id. haha. IT WORKED. haha. once i got there i met up henri again and was told james was here to somewhere with his lady friend.
i've bet on sports before but never on horses. i was not about to learn....but i did. HAHA. it was pretty simple. hahaha. but dont worry, i didnt bet. i just took bunch of pictures. haha. i felt so white or rich people in the hamptons or something. being up there on the 4th floor inside box seats. haha.
after while, we left and went back to henri's place, where james said he'll cook us dinner. yay~
later i found out his lady friend was a chef and was going to miami next month to work there. so i asked, "why can't she cook?" hahaha. james did well though. the food was excellent. i would've gotten seconds if i wasnt so content with the portions. oh and the garlic bread by henri was good too. just good food all around. well i also asked his lady friend to cook me dinner once before she leaves. i've never had personal cooking from a real chef. i mean she got a job at a hotel in miami. she MUST be good, right? haha. she was pretty too, which is always a bonus. haha.
anyways, we watched ufc 103 while eating. haha. not a big fan but it was quite entertaining. near the end of the night, i got a call from arnold, an old hs friend. it was the first time since i arrived in korea. we got to talking and found out he works in the city hall of the city i live in. hahaha. what are the odds. and he even offered me a job opportunity at his old hakwon in MY city. haha. but i quickly let him know of my "status"...or lack of...and i guess despite of that the 원장님 wants to meet. so a good sign? we'll see. if it doesnt work out, i'm just gonna use the site henri and james told me about for part time jobs around seoul. haha. either way, i decided to work before army. haha. i want to play and without money i cant play so that's why i decided to work. haha. well all in all, it was a fun filled day with a lots of upside. 8D
now i have to quickly batch up a resume, just in case i get hired. HAHA.

Have you had your walk today?

2009-09-19T06:55:00.000-07:00

continuing on from where i left off from previous entry, i oovooed a bit more. chatted with the hangs about what i can do in korea today.
after a short exchange of where to go or what to do, daniel and i decided to go to coex today. haha. i've never been there and supposedly it was one of the better malls. so i got on the bus (now, it's like nothing), and looked for daniel. haha. once again, we did one of these:
"hey, i'm here. where are you?"
"i'm here. where are YOU?"
"i'm in front of the hotel. where are you?"
"i see the hotel too. are you near the train exit?"
"i was there, but now i'm walking towards hyundai building."
"well walk back towards the hotel."
"i'm pretty much standing right in front of the hotel."
"what are you wearing?"
"i'm wearing white with green short. what are YOU wearing?"
"green shirt. are you walking?"
"no, i'm just staying in one spot. wait, i think i see you."
"you do. i dont"
"no, i do. i'm waving my arms. look to your 11 o'clock. look straight."
"oh, i see you. ok. bye"
"alright, bye."
hahahahahahha. EVERYTIME. this is how we find each other. haha. once we found each other, we walked in and oh my~ it was crazy nice. it kind of had a very vegas feel to it. so many shops. so many different types of shops. so many restaurants as well.
we walked around and around hitting up all the cool looking stores. the book store named badi n louis (?) was HUGE. it was like 8 stores put together into 1. haha. i forget the name but it was HUGE! it even had an "excitement zone." HAHA. i was just so excited to be standing in the zone promised to be filled with excitement. 8D
we killed about a good hour and then we got hungry. we wanted to eat todai but it was ridiculously expensive and we were both on a budget. so we went to 놀부부대찌개. thank u but no thank you jihang. haha. i should've asked what we should order so we totally just picked one that sounded good. we were eating something different from what the people right next to us were eating but ours turned out to be VERY GOOD. good call~ thank u.
it had 국물, which i love. i love soup. 2인분 was a lot. between daniel and i, we didnt finish. haha. next time i go, i want to try the other thing that the other people were eating. haha.
well anyways, afterwards we walked around a bit to digest. haha.
outside of the mall, there was some sort of special event going on. they were showcasing the new sonata models. HAHAHA. i laughed. the cars were accompanied by live orchestra. hahaha. gosh~ koreans and their hyundai. 8D
we went back up to the ground level and realized it was too early to call it a night. yet we had NO IDEA what we should do. haha.
he suggested 남산 tower but we had NO IDEA how to get there. haha. so i suggest this olympic park that i always pass by when i get on the bus. he was like alright. lead the way. so i remember that it wasnt too far from coex so we get on the subway and get off on the next exit. haha. WRONG. we go up and see the stadium but that was not what i was looking for. so we walk a bit and i recognized where we were so i said,
"hey it's that-a-way. let's just walk."
daniel, not realizing what's in store for him, said, "alright, let's go."
so for the next HOUR, we walked. HAHAHAHA.
i'm not sure if you guys are familiar with the distance and what's where, but here is what we did.
we walked from the stadium --> bunch of apts --> a bright neighborhood --> lotteworld --> more apts --> then finally after an hour of walking, olympic park. hahaha.
i felt soooo bad. hahaha. i remembered it being so much closer but i was mistaken. oops~ 8D
anyways, it was SOOOO worth it. the park is CRAZY NICE. haha. we saw bunch of people just riding their bikes and rollerblading. it was a nice scene. we stop by a small store to get refreshments, and guess what i got. HEY MAX, I DONT KNOW IF YOU READ THIS BUT I ATE SCREWBAR! HAHAHA. SOOOO GOOOD. hahaha. i got pictures to prove it. hahaha.
well we decided to check out the park (at this moment, we did not realize how BIG the park was). we first walk towards an art museum. unfortunately it was closed. we decided to come visit again some other time. we kept walking and we stumbled upon a sculpture park. it was a very nice spot for family and couples. very nice~
we kept on walking and soon enough we saw where they held olympic events - track and field, swimming, etc. it all looked cool.
we kept on walking guessing that it'll probably get us back to the entrance. what we didnt know was how LONG the trail was. OHMY. we walked SOOOOO much tonight. hahaha. it was a very nice park though. a lot of people exercising. 8D
my feet are dying but i feel good about it. i think later on when i have NOTHING to do, i might just get on the bus and head over to the park and jog around the park.
so in the end, i swear we walked like 5 miles. hahaha. i felt so bad bc daniel was just dying. haha. i mean i had training since i hiked half-dome not so long ago. haha. but daniel hasnt walked that much in ages. haha. sorry dude.
well anyways, it was a cool night where daniel and i just got to tour korea on foot and i have to admit that it was a bit exciting that we didnt know exactly where we were going but we just kept on going. VERY COOL.
well that's about it. nothing to crazy. found a nice spot to take people when they visit. have a good night. gotta sleep for church tomorrow. 8D

Family

2009-09-18T21:22:00.000-07:00

what a day!
it was filled with so much.
woke up early bc my dad called in the morning telling me why i'm not online and how i dont oovoo call him first. haha. it was an awkward but nice moment. some might say cute.
since i was up and couldnt go back to sleep, i continued satisfy my latest addiction - "how i met you mother"
i really like it. HAHA. i'm almost done w/ season 2. haha. if you have time and got nothing else to do, i totally recommend it.
after a few (about 10 or 20 episodes) episodes, a lot of people started coming online. so guess what we did? yes. oovoo. HAHA. but this time, it was pretty crazy! we did it up to 6 people. for all of those who participated, thank you. it was all very nice to see your wonderful faces. and for those who do not have a webcam, hurry up. 8D
it was very entertaining at one point when sophia nuna tried to figure out how to work her webcam but just could not. so rest of us were stuck looking at a particularly 느끼한 picture of joe. haha. no offense joe. nothing but love.
then finally when joe came home, he got it to work. haha. oh nuna~ only you. haha. so funny.
few hours later, it got really late back in the states, so people went to sleep. so i went back to watching "how i met your mother." i'm serious. good show. 8D
then it came time for my dinner w/ my cousin. havent seen michelle in awhile. since she went to korea, we stopped having family gatherings with the burbank family. haha. i guess she was the catalyst. haha.
met up with her at 8. i was stuck in traffic inside of a bus, so i got off and just took the subway all the way there. yes. you read correct. i'm crazy enough already to just switch off from a bus to subway just like that. haha.
i met her and her friends in front of this 닭갈비 place. WOW. never even knew such thing existed. haha. SOOOOOO GOOD. took pictures so enjoy. after finishing the chicken, they come with bob and cheese and they 볶아 it. OH MAN~ to die for~~~~ i would eating that over and over again.
after dinner, we met up more of her friends at woodstock. yes, a bar. haha. all her friends were pretty cool. i hit it off with all of them right away. so many of them were canadians, which i was very surprised at. i mean i have never seen so many canadians before. haha. one of them were austrialian. haha. very diverse group. i liked it.
took this one shot. it was pretty cool. i drink it but dont swallow it. so with the drink inside my mouth, they light it on fire. there's pictures. so please look. it was hands down the coolest shot i've ever taken. haha.
what about the bus u ask. yes. i missed the bus. but it was planned. michelle told me to just sleep over at her bf's house. supposedly it was only few bus stops away from where we were. PERFECT~ and yes, i called my emo to let her know that i'll be sleeping over and not to worry. yes, i am responsible. 8D
they both had their own place and they told me if i ever need a place to crash, call them anytime. haha. ::thumbs up::
anyways, i dont remember when we left but on our way to their place, michelle and i ate 오뎅. hehe. later, we also stopped by a convenient store and bought 라면 and pizza. hahhaha.
dude, the 라면 was this healthy kind and it was pretty good. haha. well i slept on the couch, which was actually very comfortable. haha.
it was just nice hanging out with michelle again and meeting new people. the night was filled with michelle and i catching up and talking about family stuff. haha. it was good times. i also met some cool people, which is always a bonus.

after a night of good sleep, we got up and watched man vs food. HAHA. love that show. good show but it got michelle really hungry so we ordered food. i think it's so cool how they deliver food to your house. haha. well after breakfast, michelle left and i got to chill with the guys a bit longer. we played nintendo64 rom. haha. yay to mario kart!!! i still got it. hahaha. anyways, i got to ride on a bike for the first time. it was pretty cool. now i'm home and oovooing with the girl bible study group. haha. they are so funny. 8D
well gotta get ready for tonight. more stories and pictures to come. 8D

Finally....

2009-09-17T17:50:00.000-07:00

after a week, i finally got to ball! YAY~!!!~!~!~!
BUT before that, i'll tell you about my day. i woke up thinking i was gonna do NOTHING. 용우 calls and asks if i wanted to ball, so without a hesitation, i said, "YES."
Then i asked, "what's gomo doing?"
he replied, "i think she's going to go visit grandma."
i said, "i want to go. i have nothing to do."
he answered, "oh, let me call her and tell her."
so i waited for my gomo's call. "you want to go? haha. ok. meet me at the station around 12:30pm."
with excitement of knowing i have something to do, i got ready and set off. i tried a different bus stop today and BAM! i was right. this bus took me straight into 강남. MUHAHHAHA. i'm good~
anyways, went to go visit my grandma again. she seemed to be doing much better today. yet i did take her to the dentist in a wheelchair. that was interesting.
at the dentist, fell asleep on the couch. HAHA. so tired.
afterwards, gomo and i ate and 김밥천국. haha. you can never go wrong with 김밥 and 떡복기. we went back to her place and waited to 용우 so we can go ball. yay~
he came. for dinner, we ate 김밥, 떡복기, and 순대. haha. never get sick of those things. haha.
as soon as we ate, we headed out. i was pretty excited. we got on a bus since it was several stops away, but ended up getting off prematurely bc it was PACKED!!!! i was literally standing on the steps. terrible~!~!~!
we first went to his old jr. high school. it was totally like the ones you see in dramas. haha. there were some girls playing volleyball and took up a lot of the bball court. gosh~
so here's one thing i felt really bad about. the ball rolled towards us, i picked it up and said "여기요," and lightly toss it so she can catch it. but apparently she didnt expect that and it hit her right on the face. HAHAHAHAHHAHAHA. i felt sooooo bad. but funny. but bad. hahhaa.
there were no lights there so we went to another court. it was right in front of the city hall of that city. HAAH. i thought it was funny. haha. we met up w/ 용우's friend's 선배s. and guess what? we ended up playing 4 on 4. sadness. haha some of them were pretty good. i was surprised at how well 용우 and his friends played. the 선배s did not. haha. well anyways, it wasnt bad. i sweated a lot. haha. i was glad to play. plus 용우 promised me that they usually dont play here and where they do, it's always 5 on 5. YAY~ joy~
so after hrs of sweating, we went back home. i got some slamdunk comic books from him so i can read it today at home. haha. that was my day yesterday.
today, i'm gonna finally see my cousin, who i havent seen in years. haha. i hope everyone is doing well.

Rest day.

2009-09-16T03:53:00.000-07:00

today was exactly what the title says, A REST DAY.
the last two days i came home in the last bus to my town, which means i got home really really late. HAHA. so i figured i should stay home and rest. give my legs a rest. haha.
i got to video chat with several people today, so that was cool. i saw the hang sisters, joon, whang, and john. it was really nice seeing familiar face. thanks guys.
well i chatted with lots of people. i love the internet. the funniest thing was that a really old friend of mine IMed me for the first time in at least 7 years. haha. that took me by surprise. well anyways, i watched A LOT of "how i met your mother" and bleach. haha. today was literally a do-nothing-and-rest day. haha.
i think i needed a day like today. haha. well that's about it. no pictures or stories. well i hope everyone has a good day.

p.s. if you wanna see me, get on oovoo. find me through my email: inhoko@gmail.com

Back to back...

2009-09-15T09:05:00.000-07:00

so i had another fun day. i think i might be spoiling myself. haha. back to back nights filled with fun.
woke a bit later than usual. i actually woke up when i should. around 9am. not right before the sun rises like i've been doing so far.
alright, woke up and was just chilling while watching monday night football thanks to the power of the internet.
i cant believe how lucky patriots are. 2 td in like 2 mins. or the other theory is that bills are just SUPER unlucky. haha.
raiders looked really good. i was in shock. (when i left the house, they were still playing and later when i came home, i saw that chargers came back and won. wow raiders, good job)
so in the middle of the game, i left to go meet up with dennis hyung. we met at 서울역. it was the beginning of a good day. we first started off to 명동. surprised one of his friend. she was kind of pretty. wasnt really feeling her vibe but cool nonetheless. after we surprised her, dennis hyung and i went to roti bakery. coffee and the MOST WONDERFUL 빵 in the world. it was sooooo soft and fluffy. near the end, there was this buttery part. OMY!!! my new favorite 빵!!!!!!
afterwards, we headed over to 인사동. walked around. took bunch of pictures. good times. it was so chill. we didnt really do much, but i really enjoyed it. (i'm so easy to please). 8D
later, we met his gf there and ate 찜닭. it was pretty darn good~~~
to work off the calories we in took, we went to 청계천. it was very pretty and cool. dennis hyung told me that the stream was man-made and the purpose is to bring down the air temperature. so it's like a natural air conditioner. the place had cool waterfalls, rock steps and bridges. i took bunch of pictures so enjoy. one thing i saw more than the cool things were COUPLES.
DUDE, there's couples EVERYWHERE in korea. especially this place. oh man~ haha.
but seriously, this place was like the chillest place to bring a date. as you walk along side of the stream, there's pretty lights and at the end, there's this cool fountain. haha. just picture perfect.
after chilling at 청계천 for awhile, dennis hyung and i went to 명동. lots of clubs and drinking place. haha. it kinda felt like vegas as there were people trying to get us to go to their place. haha. but in this case, it wasnt strip club, but a night club or drinking place.
by now, we both were tired as we walked SOOOO much. so we went to a pc 방 and figured out how i can go home from there.
now, for the the first time, i wasnt taking 9301 home. haha. that was ONE bus that i KNOW can take me home. haha. this time, i took a different bus and hoped for the best. haha. i think i'm getting braver. haha. 8D
well anyways, i fell asleep and stupidly dropped my phone. haha. so i had to bother the people behind me to pick it up for me. haha. anyways, i was suppose to get off somewhere and get on another bus, but as i was looking at where the bus was going, i recognized where i was. so i got off well before the decided stop. haha. and BRAVELY i walked home. haha. i felt SOOOO proud of myself bc i saved money by not getting another bus and for finding my own way home that was not looked up on the internet. 8D YEA~~~
well it's freakin 3am and i'm tired...stupid "how i met your mother"...i'm soooo hoooked.

p.s. there was this 아저씨 who sat next to me in the subway who FARTED then got off the next station. WHAT THE HECK, right?

I'm a big kid now...

2009-09-14T10:12:00.000-07:00

alright. the day didnt start off as i planned and nor did it end the way i planned.
the day ended FAR better than i expected. haha. 8D
well after the whole army fiasco, i was bummed but luckily i had great people around me in the world of internet telling me, "it'll be fine. it's ok. just go out and have fun." (thank u to those words, u know who you are - hopefully).
anyways, i was suppose to meet daniel for the first time, but the big issue was how and where am i going to meet him. hahaha.
so i told him i know exactly how to get to 종로. so we decided to meet at 종로3가 @ 3pm. simple enough. i bravely left the house and went to the bus stop. on my way there, i even stopped by some store to recharge my tmoney card. (good job inho, way to just go and do it!).
once i got on the bus, i made it safely to 종로3가. did you have any doubt?
soon, daniel called me and told me he was going to be running late. so i stood there looking at people. haha. it was quite interesting. there are some weird people in korea. haha. some guys are very peculiar as well. i said that as in a lot of guys seem gay but i dont think they are. haha. as i was waiting, i took some pictures and even went into a McDonald's and ate an ice cream cone. haha.
daniel arrived at 종로3가 but he and i could not find each other. so after 10 mins of "do you see this? do you see that? i'm directly across this. no, not that. i'm between this store and that store." we decided to just meet in front of 서울극장. haha. that was one thing we both agreed that we could see. i walked through the busy street of 종로 in hopes to find daniel.
soon as i got close to it, i saw him. i was just so happy. haha. he wanted to go to 이태원 to look for some clothes. i gladly tagged along. we talked about this and that. we rode the bus and he wasnt really sure where we were going, but i didnt care bc WE were lost together. haha. what a comforting feeling it was.
after few calls to his cousins, we found our way to 이태원. this is when i got to ride the subway for the first time. YAY~ dude, subway is quicker and cheaper. what i need to do now is figure out what bus to take from my house to get to the nearest subway entrance. figuring out the subway wasnt too difficult. just look at the map, see where you are, see where you wanna go, see where to get off, repeat whatever steps needed. 8D
so after few switches, we arrived. it was kind of strange seeing many foreigners. haha. we walked into few stores as he was looking for a hoodie. after the 4th store, i think, he found this nice one. so he bought it. haha. i really liked the design too. if i needed and had the money, i think i would've bought it if he didnt. haha.
by now, i was STARVING. i didnt even eat lunch bc of what happened earlier in the day. i was just stressing. haha. we walked around 이태원 to see where we could eat but nothing really interested us. we had about an hr before daniel and i had to meet his friends at 홍대입구.
so we decided to just go to 홍대 and find something to eat there. i remember 지행 telling me that in front of any school there's always cheap and good food. so we start looking for a bus stop or the subway, but it was nowhere to be found. HAHA. we must have walked a GOOD 20 mins. haha. then bam! we found it. so we go all the way to 홍대 from where ever we ended up. haha.
once we got off the subway and onto the street, the school must have been out. the streets were FILLED with people. we were so hungry that we stopped by the first place we see. 홍추불닭. i had expected more. i was a bit disappointed. i really wanted bob to go with it but didnt want to pay the extra. HAHA. anyways, it wasnt the smartest choice since it was the first thing i put in after breakfast which about 10 hrs before.
we had to time to kill before we met up w/ his friends, so we decided to bounce and walk around 홍대. there were A LOT of shops and restaurants. we regretted eating at 홍추. haha. we walked all the way around the huge block and came back. we even went into few stores. guess which ones?
APPLE STORE for one. i couldnt believe it. haha. i was so happy just to see apple stuff. things were a bit overpriced though. haha. regardless of that, it was nice seeing mac stuff. later we went into the converse store bc i wanted chucks. but it was about the same price as in the states. boo.
we got tired of walking so we just went to the meeting place a bit earlier than planned. it was a bit awkward at first bc there werent that many customers. daniel seemed to know the bartender as he's been there before. haha. small talk followed by small talk with the bartender then his friends came. one of them were his family friend who he hasnt seen in 13 years prior to few weeks ago. the other one, even he hasnt met. haha. well she was also from virginia just like his friend. they seemed nice. the alcohol wasnt too cheap since it was cocktails. haha. after a drink, another friend came. she was apparently a student at 홍대. so she stopped by after ditching her class. haha. lovely~ i guess ditching class in college is a global thing. i LOVE ditching. so bad~
anyways, we played darts - i know, who plays darts, but it was actually pretty fun - and the losing team had to buy dinner. of course~ my team won. yay inho's team. haha. so daniel now owes me and 유진 dinner. love free food!
darts was a really good icebreaker. it sort of let me be more me from there on. both of bartender were really chill and later awhile, we decided to leave and go to norebang. HAHA. so korean. love it~
the norebang was ridiculous! five stories man! HUGE! it was nice. haha. i liked how they made us take off our shoes and wear their slippers. haha. i see no point in that but the slippers were very comfortable. haha. of course, i tried to sing fast and fun songs. haha. but dude, this other girl just took EVERYONE'S breath away. julie, the other girl from virginia, could sure sing. OH MAN~ she has to be TOP 5 all time that i've heard sing in person. SO GOOD~ apparently she's in 성가대 at church. haha. no surprise there. she was THAT good.
if you are wondering, YES, i did sing 남행열차...and YES, with 율동...
the mood was kind of down, so i had to bring it back up...gosh~
after norebang, we went out ways...daniel and i went back to the subway to i could get home before the buses and the subways stop. haha. it was pretty exciting. not really knowing exactly what to take but in a hurry. very drama like. haha.
we got to 서울역 safely and when we got there we saw this one 아줌마 straight up YELLING at this old guy and in another level, we see this other 아줌마 sitting on the ground CRYING, straight up BALLING. yea~ crazy koreans man.
anyways, as we are walking to the bus stop, i see my bus leave. haha. so we think, that CANT be the last one. haha. but for a good 20 mins, another wouldnt come. plus it wouldnt show up on the announcements. haha. so daniel and i were getting a bit worried. i didnt want to sleep at daniel's emo's house. and i couldnt 외박 on my "first" night out alone. haha. that's just bad. haha. after a long wait, it ACTUALLY arrived. my heart skipped a beat and i ran to it. said bye to daniel and KNOCKED out in the bus.
luckily for me, daniel happened to call RIGHT before my exit. hahaha. so i got off and tried to figure out where the bus dropped me off and walked home. and here i am. at 3am. writing this entry for all y'all to enjoy.

p.s. pics are uploaded at flickr so just click on the slideshow, which will lead u to it. i don tknow how to make the pics show up here or make the slideshow be updated. i'm so bad at this. anyways, enjoy the pic. i tried to take as much pics as possible.

Storm subsiding?

2009-09-13T19:26:00.000-07:00

haha. sorry to be super dramatic like 20 mins ago...
i apologize for those who read that before this. HAHAHAA.
i talked to my dad who spoke to atl uncle who spoke his friend. and apparently in the korean system i show up as "did not report when called."
but i guess the thing i did in garden grove about army thingy was exactly that. an extension. haha.
so i hear that the whole system is messed up and even though i requested and were granted an extension in the korean system, it doesnt show that. haha.
my dad told me not to worry. but the thing is now i have to go to the army within 2 or 3 months. haha. but the whole scary overtone is gone and my plans have just gotten pushed up. haha. well it's all good. he said there are a lot of guys like me who is in similar situation. my dad said t
hmm, now what to do for the next few months? work? play?

wow. i just love my life. while writing this entry, my dad calls again and tells me he's found the extension paper but it expired last year. HAHA. so i am still in that bad situation. haha. GREAT~
I LOVE LIFE...now we'll just have to see what happens...WOW. nothing EVER goes smoothly~

A storm is brewing...

2009-09-13T18:49:00.001-07:00

uh...not off to a such a good day...
it's completely opposite of what i expected today to pan out...
so i was suppose to go to some place and get my korean id. as soon as we went in, they were expecting us. (thank u atl uncle). but then, that was the end of smooth sailing...
i guess the manager of the branch heard what's going on and comes over. we talk for awhile and go out.
............... (whole lot of this was going through my head)
they were talking about why i came and i totally shouldnt have come. HAHA. duh~
honestly, i did not understand EVERYTHING, but i got the gist of it.
it sounded like bc of the way i left korea - not telling the gov't - it is making it very hard for me to make an id right now. and if i try to make it, my name will go into the system and will be shipped to the army. no guarantee of going to that one us base, which i hear now is almost 50/50. people get in through lottery (having money will increase that odd). haha. no surprise there.
the 아저씨들 warned me that korean army may have gotten easier but it's no place to be for anyone. one of them i didnt know but he was very sympathetic about my situation, which i was VERY grateful for. he said, "you're gonna go in for 2 years and ROT." other added, "2 years is pretty short, but in there, it's eternity."
with those words of warning, he said, "go back. go back now. this is no place for me."
HAHA. uh...duh~ i knew that. hahahaha. but oh man, in moments like these i wonder why i am here. 8\
but you know what, i know there's a reason, but it's kind of hard to see that right now...
i'm honestly scared that things will get worse from here...haha.
i was actually looking forward to today too. so ironic.
i'm not exactly sure what's going to happen now...
my dad said he'll talk to atl uncle who'll talk to his friend who was present to hear everything the nice man said.
uh...does anyone wanna get married and help me go back to usa? HAHAHA.

First Sunday

2009-09-13T02:55:00.000-07:00

so yea. after i woke up from that monstrous nap. i did nothing...
moving on to my first sunday...
woke up at 5am. what is the matter w/ me? haha.
emo told me a neighboring 아저씨 would come by and take me to church. so i got ready. i got REALLY ready. my dad told me to dress up in a suit for church. he said that's how they do it in korea. so i did. (i was gonna put up pics but i failed. so i'm gonna tell you what i wore - white w/ pink tie. it was very nice, if i might add). haha.
well anyways, we walked through the nearing neighborhoods. it was nice to see. it kinda showed me where things were. we made small talk - where are you from, what did you do, why you here, who's this and that....u know, small talk.
the whole time i told him i was from orange county but for the love of god he could not remember. so later on, i just wrote it down for him. haha. koreans and their engrish. love it.
anyways, after a 10 min walk, we arrived. the church was pretty big. he said they were the biggest church in this city. "ok," i thought to myself.
just as my luck would hvae it, it was an adults service. no kids to be seen. i was really hoping to see some girls, but no luck. the sermon was ok. i understood most of it.
i was really hoping for an enligsh sermon but i guess this will do for my first sunday.
after the service, the 아저씨, who i later found out was one of the 장로님, introduced me to 2부msn (they had 4부 and each 부 had its own pastor - that's crazy!). he also introduced me to these 2 jdsn, who worked w/ youth and young adults. they were all happy to meet me. the conversation led to their church having an english service yet the pastor who runs it isnt very good at english, so they were suggesting it would be very nice if i can help around. haha.
wow, first day and i'm asked to help. i was actually kind overwhelmed. haha. i was really hoping to attend a church where i can for once listen to a real english sermon preached by a pastor on sundays, not on retreat. haha.
so i could straight up say no, so with my limited korea skills i let them know that sounds nice but i'm not really familiar with a lot here in korea and today was just a test-run to see if things will work out. haha.
one of the jdsn got my number and told me they meet up and do sports. so i wasnt too worried about that. i HOPE they call. haha. i miss playing sports. man~
anyways, i walked back with the 장로님 shadowing me. haha. he told me he was worried that i might not get back safely. very nice man. i actually would not mind going to the church if i cant find an english speaking church nearby.
once i got home, emo and i walked for like 10 mins to get to a photo studio to take my korean id picture. i was gonna put this up too. FAILED. let me just tell you, i look no bueno. HAHA. i'll try to put it up once i figure out how to. man i so feel like those guys in zoolander who couldnt get into the computer. HAHAHAHA. remember that? haha. zoolander was way ahead of its time. hahahaha. so funny.
back to my day, after we took it, they said we could pick it up later around 3. haha. emo and i walked back and she left to work on the farm a bit. i was home alone. but EVERYONE was online so i chatted with bunch of them. VERY NICE~~~
it was like the good ol' days when i was home and they were home , chatting away. haha. i love technology. it is totally the bridge that connect us.
after chatting for awhile, the time had come. time for me to go pick up the photos. emo was busy so i had to walk ALL~~ the way to the studio and pick it up. i bravely put on my hat and walked. i walked confidently. so people wont mug me. hahahaha. i got there fine. then i made another pit stop at the cellphone store to ask about using my cellphone was t-money (way you pay for buses and subways). the lady told me my phone model was not capable of that function. what a bummer~ it looked so cool when other did it. i guess i'm gonna have to use the cards moe and joon gave me. thanks boys~ haha. (that sounded really gay)
anyways, i made it back home safely ALL BY MYSELF. yay~
i was very proud of myself. *taps own shoulder*
once i got home, i continued to chat with people. it was a ver pleasant moment. made me feel not so lonely. haha. and soon enough, it got dark outside and i became sleepy. as i am writing this entry, i am fighting the body's urge to sleep. haha. this is for y'all. enjoy. 8D
tomorrow, i'm gonna go get my korean id and TRY to meet up w/ daniel. let's hope that i can get on the bus ALONE and make it back home. HAHA. wish me luck guys~

Not so eventful...

2009-09-12T03:27:00.001-07:00

so i woke up really early today (as mentioned in the "early thoughts" entry). went to the delivery center to mail my voluntary departure verification papers. didnt know where i lived so got my gomoboo lost. HAHA. but then, my crazy intuitions kicked in and found it. 8D
once i got home, i tried to upload the entry for yesterday but internet was down. made me supersad. so i started watching oldboy (thank ujin). fell asleep in the middle of it. emo came home and told me to sleep on the bed. so i did for SIX HOURS.
that was one tiring nap. i woke up bc she was yelling to eat dinner. didnt feel like it bc i slept for SIX HOURS in the middle of the day. i think it was the lack of sleep the last two nights (i mean i woke up at 630 then 5). haha.
now the internet works so i upload yesterday's entry and now i'm putting up today's.
i finally got to talk to daniel. haha. 7 missed calls. my bad dude. i was knocked out COLD!
such a whatever day...haha. but i guess the rest was something i really needed.
well tomorrow is another day and it's only 7;34pm. so let's see what happens!

1st full day in korea

2009-09-12T02:55:00.000-07:00

woke up super early. chatted with some people. it felt as if i never left the us. haha. when it came time, emo helped me get on a bus and i was off. alone. not knowing where i was or going. i asked the bus driver for some help but he was not very nice. haha. he got mad at me as if i was not suppose to talk to the drivers.
gosh~ korean people man~
anyways, i was suppose to be meet my gomo at the us embassy, but emo told me i probably have to walk from this one stop. so when i asked the bus driver, he told me to walk from 종로2가 to that one stop before the embassy. man~ as soon as i got off the bus, i called gomo and she told me she was already at the embassy. so i asked, “can you meet me somewhere closer?”
she said, “sure, come until you see a statue.”
i replied, “what statute?”
“click,” the dial tone...
as brave as i was, i started just walking. hoping to see a statute. and i did. i saw a horse and a man with a fountain.
so i called gomo again, “i think i’m at the statute. where are you?”
gomo replied, “i’m standing next to it, but i dont see you. what statute do you see?”
“a horse and a man with a fountain,” i said proudly.
“uh...what? come until you see 이순신 장군 statute.”
with a sigh of relief, knowing who he was and how he looks, i said, “ooooh~ ok. i’ll keep walking.”
now with a definite idea of what to look for i walked confidently. after another block, there i saw my gomo. i was happy and relieved. haha. you know the feeling.
well from there we walked to the embassy. the “nice, helpful” man guided us to go to the side.
i gotta admit that korean people are not very nice. haha.
anyways, at the side, only i could go in. so gomo decided to wait outside. as i went in, my bag and i had to go through a x-ray machine.
“what’s in here?” a lady asked.
“a laptop,” i replied.
“what else?” she asked.
“corns,” i said embarrassingly.
“haha. i meant electronics,” she clarified.
“oh~~~ no. just my notebook and corns,” then i added, “do you want them?”
“hey, dont take that from him. he’s gonna get in trouble by his mom,” another lady yelled.
“no no. go ahead and take it if you want them. i wasnt going to eat them anyways,” i assured them.
“well in that case, thank you very much. can we have all three of them?” she asked.
“of course. please enjoy them!” i said smiling.
hahahaha. it was a first real “inho” moment in korea. isnt this something that would only happen to me? hahaha. well anyways, i went on and after 20 mins, i found out i didnt have to come all the way to the embassy. i just had to call this one number, which later told me to just go online and follow its directions. hahahahaha. nice! just my luck.
well bc of this, i got to see and ride the bus. it was nice. dude seriously, there’s so many things to look at. i mean just the buildings themselves are interesting. at the same time, i think i only feel this way bc it’s my first time seeing these buildings. haha. i bet in a month, i’ll be so whatevers about them. haha.
continuing on with my day, from there gomo and i decided to go see my grandma in inchon. DANG~ sitting in a bus is tiring!!!!
traveling for hrs back and forth between places gave gomo and i some time to talk and get to know each other better. the conversation was pretty entertaining. haha.
we talked about 고씨’s tendency and traits. hahaha. very amusing. haha. it was as if i knew her for years, yet i only knew her for 2 days. haha. good times~
once we got to grandma’s hospital, we were so tired. haha. seeing grandma made me kinda sad. she was so old and didnt look very healthy. i took some pictures and captured some videos to show my dad.
afterwards, we met up w/ gomo’s son, 용우, at some station. then we got me a new cell phone. yay~
the number is 010-7146-7437.
i’m still trying to get used to the whole 4 digits before the 4 digits. very strange~
anyways, it’s very ironic that the first 3 digits of my first 4 digit is 714. representing oc~ whoop whoop~
i find it very interesting that it does not cost any money to receive calls, local or in’t, but it only costs money to call. haha. so all you “eagles” do not expect me to call u EVER. haha. not that i’m a cheap-ass, but my gomo is paying for my phone. hahaha. i wouldnt want her to pay extra. hahaha. 나도 양심이 있지~ *wink*
anyways, after i got my phone, we ate at this 돈까스 place. i got the 고구마 돈까스. gomo got the 감자 돈까스. 용우 got the double cheese 돈까스. of course, my choice was the best. i have a knack for choosing superb dishes. haha. jk. it was this month’s special so i picked it. hehe. 8D
after dinner, 용우 met up w/ his friends while i went to gomo’s house to sleep. i called emo that i’ll be sleeping at gomo’s house it was too far and it was getting really dark. emo was just happy that i called. haha.
once i got to gomo’s place, i played w/ my phone for hours. very interesting. i dont own a camera and i’m not the type that would carry around a camera even if i buy one. so thanks to a brilliant advice from sophia nuna, i’m gonna be taking pics w/ my free phone w/ 2.0 megapixel and i’ll be posting them up. but due to the inconvenient placement of the micro sd card. i’ll probably be posting up pictures once every month or so. yea~ sorry. i’m just too lazy. haha. i tried to do it through bluetooth, but that failed.
later on, gomoboo came and i drank some beers with him while watching tv. he’s a very cool guy. totally dont remember his face. hahaha. we talked too. honestly, we were just killing time until 12am, which makes it 8am back in the states. it’s bc i had to call my deportation officer about something.
once i logged on to the site that the number i called which i got from the embassy told me to, it said i need g-146 form but what i had was i-210. haha. just my luck. so i had to wait and double check before i send the documents to the ICE (immigration and customs enforcement). very cool acronym if u ask me.
so here i am, fully awake, now that i have some alcohol streaming through my veins. it gives me some time to update all y’all on my day. i think it’s been a very good 1st full day, dont u think?

Early thoughts

2009-09-11T13:59:00.000-07:00

so yea. i wrote up this looooong entry on my laptop, but couldnt log on to the wifi at my gomo's house so i'm using 용우's comp. and i woke up so early and was bored so i'm gonna write up a short entry before i get home.
first of all, i slept very well at my gomo's house. slept passed 1am or so yet i woke up around 5ish. haha. not sure if it's jetlag since i feel very rejuvenated.
here's few thoughts that are going through my head in my 2 days of being back in the mother land:

korean drivers are CRAZY...enough said.
there are SO MANY koreans. my brain is having trouble comprehending what it sees. whenever i see a foreigner, i get all excited. haha. 8D
also, i havent spoken english in like 2 days and i think my english skills is slowly deteriorating...not good.
when i see one next time, i might just go up to them and strike up a random convo. haha. you know i would. 8D
phones here are crazy! it's just a free phone yet it far exceeds my free phone back in the states. haha. it has 2.0 megapixel. that's crazy! that was free! haha. inside it, there's a dictionary, subway map, etc...i'm gonna memorize that subway map, just watch. also for the first 2months, i get to have internet. wow, it's very nice to have internet on your phone. i know how you feeel now you iphone-rs. haha. i even downloaded a ringtone and a colorring (apparently everyone here is suppose to have one). haha. can you guess what song it is?
no. it's not some k-pop song. haha. i would though. haha.
it's this jazzy piano song. haha. i wonder if i can find some jazz bar here and pick up chick there. *wink*
i just received my first real phone call like 10 mins ago. thanks joon. it's nice hearing familiar voices. it calms the nerves. man~ i wanna ball or hang out.
luckily i found out 용우 LOVES bball and he plays every weekend. so i might just take the bus all the way to his place to play with him. but it worries me that i have to ride the bus for like an hour. is it worth it? 8

people have been telling me that korea is FULL of HOT girls. where they yet? haha. last night i was in 강남(?), supposedly the hot spot at night(?), but i did not really see many. maybe it's bc i'm not purposely looking. haha.
truthfully, i did see few okay girls on the bus but everyone seems so impersonal. not liking that vibe.

i asked the bus driver for directions and he was mean. the man in front of the embassy was mean. on top of all this, everyone seems to be in such a hurry. i mean, "DAMN, REAX PEOPLE~"
i guess that's one thing i miss about the oc already, just the whole vibe - chill, relaxed, laid back...u know?

well i dont have much planned today since all the gov't buildings are closed on the weekend. i might actually call up somebody today to pick me up or come find me. hahaha.

well just wait until i go home, i got a good entry for y'all. until then, laters.

PLANE RIDE

2009-09-10T17:35:00.000-07:00

i just remembered. i did not talk about my plane ride. haha.
well i got on. it's amazing what type of people you meet. i was just hoping that i was not sitting next to some really old grandma. what i got was an old amerian couple from oklahoma. 8D
well i got seated and started talking. love talking to strangers~
so anyways, as i was telling them about my stories,
they asked, "what's your faith?"
i said, "i'm a christian."
and they said, "oh, us too."
they were missionaries on their way to mongolia. haha. how about that!
we talked about God for awhile. this and that. they were soooo nice. haha.
so yea. i got the 비빔밥. joon told me it was good. yes. it was good. and yes, the 고추장 was in a crazy glue packet. haha.
for my other meal, i got chicken and rice. totally shouldve gone w/ the shrimp pasta. what was i thinking.
as the plane was started to move, a weird sensation ran through my body. i'm not sure if it was sadness or excitement. but nonetheless, it was weird.
as the plane finally ascended and rising through the air, i could see the air resistance on the wings. it was pretty cool. it was just like those car commercials where it shows the movement of the air - stressing the aerodynamics of the car.
i started reading a newsweek provided by the the plane. but then i was like who am i kidding and decided to watch a movie.
i saw 5 movies. hahaha. ridiculous!
terminator salvation, adventureland, i love you man, angels & demons, my girlfriend is a secret agent (korean).
haha. they were all ok. it was the 2nd time i saw i love you man and it was still funny. haha.
on the fifth one, i fell asleep and i woke up as soon as the plane landed. haha.
it was an interesting ride. and i think God put those nice couple next to me to calm my nerves down. before i left the plane, i thanked them and wished them a good luck.
it was a very pleasant plane ride. one that i will never forget.

even as i am sitting here in my new room typing away. it hasnt really hit me that i'm really really in korea. HAHA.
i'm sure it'll hit me soon enough....

i was going to end this entry at this but SOMEONE kept asking questions on facebook, so i figure others want to know as well.
i slept very well. woke up at 630am. i feel ok right now. yes, korea has changed A LOT (but c'mon, it's been 15 years. it better have changed). when i had to pull the third thingy from the laptop, i was FREAKIN SCARED. glad internet works. i still havent finished the dvd.

What a start!

2009-09-10T15:26:00.000-07:00

so first thing is first.
i arrived safely!!!
8D
inchon in't airport is very very nice. i was impressed.
went through several stations and finally got my luggage after 20 mins of wait.
then BAM!
here we go, KOREA!
i totally didnt recognize anyone. haha. but luckily my gomo recognized me, who i did not recognize. there she was with her son, 21 years old. i didnt even get his name. haha. terrible.
anyways, we all searched for the emo i was going to live with. the lady in the info desk told her the wrong exit. so bad. i came out of E, but the lady told my emo B. honest mistake?
anyways, i was greeted by the emo and her 2nd son. he is very nice. he brought his car and we headed for HOME!!!
he missed an exit so we kind of had to go through the heart of soul. BAD IDEA. i thought 5 freeway was bad. man~ this was just as bad, if not, worse. i hate traffic...
luckily, it gave me a chance to look at seoul at nighttime with all its pretty lights. i was mesmerized by the brightly lit bridges. very pretty.
we stopped by a chinese food place. haha. ironic. ate 짜장면. haha. the noodles were so much 쫄깃x2. i liked it. the 땅수육 was pretty much the same minus all the fruits this one had - bananas. mmm~
then we finally arrived. i actually remembered parts of my grandma's old place, which is where i last stayed 15 years ago. now it's a big apt. shame~ i used to love and be scared by the place. anyways, we arrive and i have the 옥탑방. haha. not exactly like the drama but i have the highest room in the building. haha.
on my first trip up the stairs, BAM, i didnt see the ceiling and bumped my head. gosh~ did you expect anything less? haha. i open the door and there it was. my room for the next several years. i liked it. very cozy. almost the same size as my US room.
first thing i do, try to set up my computer, but uh oh......
the power adapter did not fit. i had this thing where it has 3 stick-it-in-the-hole thing where as the adapter they told me they had at their house only had 2.
......i didnt not panic....
the oldest 형 came home (btw, the emo has 3 sons) and went out in search for the 3 stick-it-in-the-hole thing adapter. he came back with a bad news. right away, i felt my world crumbling down and falling into an endless pit of loneliness and despair. so i told them i'm tired and tried to sleep.
i turned off the light and with an hr and 15 mins remaining in my laptop with no way to charge back my computer, i watched the dvd my friends made me.
wow, it was such a sad moment: door closed, lights turned off, earphones plugged in, tears falling...
i actually fell asleep while watching. 8\
i woke up to see that i had 19 mins left of battery life. i quickly turned off the comp and laid in my bed.
right before the break of dawn, i woke up. did my first qt ever in korea. went down and peed. then emo told me to call home and msn. so i did.
i told my dad about the sad news and he was like, "dude, just get a wrench and yank that third thing out. it's useless there. it'll still work."
then i remembered the 2nd 형 suggesting, i think we could just take that third thing out and it'll work.
............................ (max, i need your anime sound effects here - head down, squiggly lines before me with a drop of tear to show demoralization)
as soon i hang up the phone, i ask for a wrench and yank that sucker out.
so here i am, able to charge up my comp and with a new energized fervor i decided to start a blog - New Chapter (http://inko-rea.blogspot.com/) clever url, no? haha. i try.

i really think the 1st month is going to be the toughest. trying to adjust to everything. today i have to meet my gomo at the us embassy by myself. hahaha. my emo is going to start me off by putting me in the right bus. then i have to get off on the right stop. then i have to ask around for directions to the us embassy. this is going to be an adventure.
if all goes well, gomo told me i'll be getting my cellphone and go see my grandma.

p.s. i guess whenever i get a chance, i'm going to be recapping my last few months in us. something for the people to read. 8D