I'm so sad. Last day for Vianey and Pang씨.

Yesterday morning I was SUPPOSED to wake up late (due to my lack of sleep for the past week), but I ended up waking up at 9 because I knew I should get up to get my hair dyed (I know, a little vain). So, I did. grudgingly. Cost me 20,000 won ($20.00) which was fantastic, but I did have to wait about 15 minutes for my hair person to come. Seemed like she drank too much the night before.

After paying her, I realized I had only 15,000 won to last me the next two days. So I emptied out my account. Then I had 25,000 won to last me the next two days. I almost had a heart attack. I need to buy shoes. and hair boes. and magazines. and food. most importantly food.

at 12 I went with the girlies to Yonsan to get some cheap usb's. 18,000 won for a 4gb. I was soo jealous because theyre soooo cute while I have this huge stank ugly one from the states. Oh well, poor people shouldn't complain. For lunch I had a 1,000 won kimbap roll. It was delicious, but more delicious was the service (free) 반찬 (side dishes).

Next we went to Apkujeong (rich city) to get 5 dollar cheesecakes at Cafe La Lee... I was disapointed. Totally not worth a poor person's money.

We were done by 5:00 so me and Caroline tried to take the bus to Insadong to have a farewell dinner with our Korean class. The bus was too complicated so we just took the subway.

It was sooo much fun and the food was delish. Everyone came and we all talked in English--- great way to apply the Korean we used, right?--- and then talked about the other Korean classes and how ours was awesome.

fun.fun.fun.

Something new

man sleeping on the floor of the subway on the way home from the jjimjilbang (at 2:00 am)

It was fun. A little weird; we seen the KLI (Korean Language Institute) cafeteria lady who usually serves us. And a whole lot of nakedness.

I didn't want to go at first because I was exhausted from all the tests and last minute cramming, but it turned out to be one of the most relaxing things everrrr. I wish I couldve gone sooner. Maybe I'll make a last minute trip there before Sunday. Anyhoo, so for anyone who doesn't know already, the jjimjilbang is a public bath house/sauna. The one I went to had 3 floors. The basement for showering and the hot tubs (which had a green tea tub). The first floor was the actual sauna place where you could cook food, well actually bake (things like potatoes and ddok/rice cake). We stayed there most of the time. The second floor isn't really anything. Just where you put your shoes before coming inside.

I forgets to tells yousa. I went to see gramps and the uncle last week, which was pretty cool because one) I got to bow---two full bows and then one half bow, two)share my drink with grandpa and three) learn a few things about my grandpa.

a- His Catholic name was Peter

b- He was from Geong-ju (where I went to visit with my CIEE group. weird huh?)

c- He and my 할머니 had an arranged marriage.

I know, my mind almost exploded with all this new info. It was cool. The end

Seoul Outing

mi madre on the subway.

It's 11:00 p.m. on a thursday night. I'm tired and poop and want to go to bed. But I can't. Only two more days with the girlies and then POOF, they'll be gone for a very long time.

The reason for my tiredness? All the walking I did with my mom and aunt. Woke up this morning mad because I had to get up early (to help a friend get her hair cut). Then mom calls me and wants to hang out in Seoul and buy me food. YES!!

So I take them to Yonsei which was boring like .... sand, then we walk through idae to go to the subway and my mom and aunt act like kids in a candy store when they see all the stores. We all end up getting earrings.

We finally get to itaewon and eat lunch (which was okay) but I feel a little self conscious because my aunt still hasn't stopped talking about my gargantuan thighs and pot belly (all achieved through pounds of bread that I've consumed.) I've even named it: 찜닭--pronounced: jjim dak.
Still, I ate everything I could get my chopsticks on. yummms.

Next stop was dongdaemun where we walked to the stream (chongaechong) which was dirty and full of mosquitoes. yes!!! There was even this woman taking pictures of fake Coach and Fendi slip ons there. even better, right?

(omg, I'm watching xmen 3 and totally didn't realize that ellen paige AKA Juno is in it.... just a little FYI for the readers---HA, what readers?!??!)

We walk some more. My mom takes some more pictures. And my aunt plays in the water (on the clean side of the stream.) We eat 빈대떡 (sp?) which is a bean curd batter friend in a gallon of oil and looks like a thick pancake. Then we go home. yay!!!!

Now I'm in my room post-packing (yay! I'm done, and it only took two days) contemplating on whether or not I should get some sleep or suck it up and go drinking. hmmmmm

Reverse Culture Shock

1. The Five things that I worry about most when thinking about going home are:

1. Forgetting the Korean I learned here.
2. Keeping the study habits I have applied here (= not studying).
3. Losing stateside friends because I've "changed" too much
4. Reverse Culture Shock
5.

2. The five things I missed most about home since I have been abroad:

1. Chau (my pet)
2. Gap
3. My room
4.
5.

3. Once I return home from overseas the five things I believe I will miss the least about living abroad:

1. stairs
2. Being called a foreigner
3. That's
4. it.
5.

The five things I believe I will miss the most from abroad once I have returned home are:

1. Late night spur of the moment shopping/Karoke
2. City life
3. CIEE
4. Japan
5. All you can eat meat buffet

Farewell Dinner

Last night didn't go as planned. Even so, it was a delicious and fun night. I ended up skipping my Language class because I was too lazy to leave the room (even though I left the room earlier that day to get a Bacon Tomato Deluxe at McDonalds).

6:30 pm rolls around and we realize that we need to be in Insadong pronto. We didn't want to wait any longer for the second group to finish buying their subway tickets, so the first group went ahead and got on the subway. So we finally get off the subway and lo' and behold ahead of us is the second group we "thought" we had left behind. WTF?!!?!? Voodoo magic. Anyhoo, it didn't really help much considering we were still late.

The restuarant we went to is owned by an ex-buddhist monk who only made vegetarian meals. At first, I was like...... but it was DELICIOUS!!!! Aside from the fact that there was a bunch of spinach side dishes, there was a bunch of new things (i'll spare you the details since 1- no one really reads this and 2-I don't really know the names). Afterwards there was a performance of traditional music in the center of the place. That was alright, a little long for my taste.

Afterwards the usual girls and Suzanne (our CIEE director) went out for a 637g (or five scoops of) ice cream. delish. more so because Suzanne shelled out 13,200 won to buy it for us.

fastforward... blah blah blah.... we passed by a sticker picture place and Suzanne says that she has NEVER done it before. Blasphemy. So we go in to do one, and these pics turned out to be my absolute faves while in Korea/Japan. yay!!!! perfect end to the day!

gomaps sister

Taking a break right now from studying (It's korean which should be no surprise). Chowing on this awesome candy my sis gave me from the states. yummmmmm.

After studying non-stop for the past two weeks, I have to say that this is the MOST studying I have done since coming to Korea; And I'm sick of it. SICK OF IT!!!!! Fortunately for me, the fruits of my labor paid off when my moms called. My Korean, I think, was pretty damn awesome, if I do say so myself.

Anyways, so last night, right after my first dinner, I went over to my uncles house to see my mom. And she was looking pretty spiffy (by that, I mean hott, as in MILF hott) ---sorry, no pics, forgot my camera--- then I had my second dinner which was great!!! I love going home because rest assured, I'm always going to be fed good food (the banchan, more so) at no cost to me, yay! After that, surprise, surprise, my dad called (thoughts** hmmmm, I wonder why he's calling me after NOT calling me in like over a month?**) of course to speak to my mom. blah blah blah, fast forward to the two most memorable moments of the night.

1) my younger uncle kept on farting (which is no surprise) but then he let out this huge one that vibrated through the floor.... I felt a little disgusted because I felt it.

2) my older uncle's awesome outfit: lilac and red-violet striped shirt, white pants with a lilac flower print, and to top it off, grey toesie socks. It was a delight to see.

Can't wait for tomorrow. CIEE is having our farewell dinner at some performance place. I hope it's expensive. Then afterwards me and the chicas are going to the stream to play go-stop and drink. be jealous.

P.S. the videos have been loaded. YOU MUST WATCH THE FIRST CLIP. YOU MUST!!!!

All nighter

The night before was the first day I had ever pulled an all nighter for no specific reason. What was I doing? studying, watching dramas, and reading blogs. I know, very productive. The next turned out pretty well for me considering I was running on now sleep. I went to all my classes and didn't fall out. yeah!!!

Even better. My mom will be here in 7 hours!!! But I won't see her until after I get back from the candle light memorial for the people hurt in the protest.

sushi and the sexy movie

This past weekend I was in Anyang with my peeps, aka my fam. At first I was kind of dreading it, just because I'm getting tired of taking the subway.---I've developed a deep hatred of the stairs; 2-3 flights going in and out plus 2 more sets when transfering = thunder thighs and Lonny out of breath.

This weekend actually became one of the funnest ones. why? because I got to chill with the young folks. In Korea, I have only one cousin (that's right, UNO cousin) that is around my age. Everyone else is 30 and above so to them, fun is either taking care of their kids or trying to get me to go to a jjimjjilbang (public bathhouse) ---still haven't gone yet, but that WILL be checked off my list of things to do by this weekend.

So on Sunday it was me, ji-eun unni, and her friend (<-- she was hilarious. She kept of trying to speak in English, but the funny part was that instead of speaking in a normal voice, she would whisper it to me as if she was telling me a secret.) Anyways, I've diverted. We ended up eating 초밥 and 동까스/fried pork cutlet (forgot how to spell it) after spending about 10 minutes discussing what we were going to eat. ahh, forgot to say, 초밥 is sushi. It was delish which is great, because I just found out about this Japanese restaurant that's like 5 minutes from where I live.

After that we went to go see Sex in the City, which to me wasn't as great as people made it out to be. I thought it was okay, but my cousin and her friend said it was a little too sexy. I agreed.

After that we all went home. washed up. Watched a re-run of "We got married" (alex and shin-ae are going to meet again. AHHHHHH!!!! I'm so excited I could piss my pants!) and passed out.

World Cup

The World Cup qualifiers. My first official game ever. Against Korea (south, of course) and Jordan. Best game ever. The crowd did the wave, booed Jordan and cheered Korea (Dae Han Min Gook! Clap-clap clap clap clap). I had the best seats ever!! Clear view of EVERYTHING. Right side of the goal. And for how much? 20 freakin dollars!!! Or won, take your pick. I even got a video of Korea getting their second goal, which was just about the best thing that happened during the game. Seriously. The crowd went wild, but you can see for yourself.

My day actually started really early. Like 8:00 am early… on a Saturday. I know, how I even got up is a mystery to me, but it was all worth it. The girls and I went to see two of our CIEE group peeps play traditional instruments that they had been learning since the start of the semester. It was fantastico. Mainly because it was short and sounded pretty.

Afterwards we went to Itaewon to get some Korean Football Jerseys (Soccer for the Americans). Cost us 15 dollars each. Yes. While we were waiting to pick up our jerseys, I went looking around. Ended up buying some shot glasses and a bi (rain) calendar. The coolest part of it all was that I paid for them with American dollars. After that we hit up McDonalds. I felt like I was back in the states when walking in there. The only Koreans in there were the people working there and they were all speaking English. Made me feel a little uneasy and a little sad (because I have to go back soon). After that we headed back to Sinchon to meet up with Kelly, a girl from my CIEE group and her blood bro ---- little background on her. She’s an adopted Korean girl who came to Korea (this is her first trip) to find her mom. Lucky for her, her agency did just that. I didn’t actually go to the first meeting, but I heard it was everything that an adopted son/daughter could hope for in the first meeting.---- So we ended up eating at a Chinese restaurant. I really wanted to eat Jja ja myong (black noodles) but I apparently was still full from the gargantuan burger I had at Micky D’s.

By the time we finished stuffing our faces, we realized we were really pushing it for the game. So we ran like ______ (insert animal name) to get to the game on time--- which really means, that we power walked to the subway station. Least to say, we made it to the game.

I'm backkkkkkkkkk

Yeah! I’m back. I just needed to take a break from the whole blogging thing. I didn’t realize how much time a blog can really take out of my schedule, especially when my time in Korea is coming to an end. I have just about two more weeks here and as each day goes by I get a little sadder. I have to say that up until the first month here, I wanted to go back home. I guess I hadn’t fully adjusted to the Korea life (even though I’ve been here a few times in the past), but now, it’s really all I know. If I need to go somewhere I’ll either (in order of most used) walk, take the subway, bike, or take the bus (I don’t care what anyone says, it’s scary and too difficult taking the bus, especially if you don’t know the streets). If I wanna go out with the girls, we go to the bars or karaoke. The great thing about that is that we’re not limited to what we can do. We can go to the stream, go biking (they rent tons of stuff to use) by the river, and hey, if we wanted to go protest i.e. Mad cow disease in city hall, it’s only 15 minutes away (more on that laters). There’s still so much stuff I want to do here (and stuff I want/need to buy) that it’s making me go a little crazy.. AHHHH (ß see? Crazy) Anways, before I go into a mini depression, let’s do a flashback on everything I’ve been cramming into my last few weeks in Sinchon.