Club Night

Friday night, I burned about $25.00. Doesn't sound like much, right?

WRONG.

That's alot considering in TX I've spent about $0.00 when going out clubbing.

Right before the club, we stopped by a bar to get a drink with a bunch of people I didn't know. Everyone was drinking $7.00 Heinekens while I drank a wine cooler (Beer, to me is yecht). Well the people I came with didn't realized how expensive imported beer is and didn't want to pay for it, so we snuck out of the bar and left the tab for that group of people already there. It's not how I usually get free drinks, but that'll do.

So the reason for me going out: Club Night. It happens on the last Friday of every month. Basically, you pay $15.00 to get one free drink and a wrist band that gets you into a bunch of clubs. On any other night you would have to pay $15-20 for each club you went into. We only stayed until around 2:30 am but it was FUN. The music was okay though, alot of old school rap and R&B.

Mission Ipod

Friday March 28, 2008
Mission: Must attain one Ipod Nano USB cord by night fall

After about a 30 minute ride on the subway, I've made it to my destination. Yongsan, or as the foreigners like to call it, Electronic city. All the computers, cameras, and mp3's are exceptionally shiny today, as if calling my name. No, I must not allow anything to divert me from my mission.

5 minutes of walking and I have given in. I stay i the video game section rocking out to Guitar Hero for 30 minutes. By then, the sellers realize I have no interest in buying their products. They take the remote controller away from me. I leave.

Again I continue my search for the missing Ipod cord. Ahh!! My eyes!! Oh, it's just those neon colored cameras all neatly stacked on the thousands of shelves surrounding me. I play with those for another ten minutes before the people's stares cause me to leave. My feet start to hurt after 3 hours of walking. I'm hungry. I start to head back but then I see it. The big white apple. Yes! I ask the man if he sells what I'm looking for. He pulls one down and tells me it costs $20.00. I give him the stink eye. He lowers the price to $15.00. Perfect. Mission completed.

R.I.P ~ My computer ~ 3/24/08

Yes, So I actually wrote this blog on paper (lame) and am currently ditching class to type it up for you guys (the class I left is super gay anyways).

Reason why: The power cord to my computer has died. It seems that tripping on the cord too many times can prevent it from connecting to my computer. whoopsy!!! The a/c adapter was just purchased today, which means it should take a week for it to get delivered in the states, and then another week for it to get to Korea, so until then I won't be blogging as much. Sucks for you guys, because now I wont' get to show all the pics I'm going to take while in Japan (Is anyone jealous yet??) muahahhahaha.

So the M.T. was pretty awesome. (It stands for membership training, although I was told that all it really is a reason for everyone to get together, drink and play games.) I only have two pics because I stole them from facebook, but I'll show you the ones I took when my computer is resurrected.

If youre going to comment on how red (or brown, however you wanna see it) I am, no need, I already know.

I met some really cool people there, I don't really remember who they are anymore, but none the less they were nice. The Korean girls in my group were especially nice, and surprisingly they were all freshman. Very mature for their ages, I would say. Which reminds of another "young" friend I have back in the states who's just turned 18. Happy Birthday!!!!!

After meeting each new person, I go the usual, "So, what are you?" I responded with the usual "Korean and black". In the states that would either be the end of it or they would go on to say that I don't look like either, but over here I got,

"Do you know who else is Korean and black?"

me: sighing in my head "No, who?"

The others: "Amerie and Hines Ward."

The other response I got was," Where is you're family from in Africa?" WTF?!?!?!?! I said, "America" then they said,"No, where in Africa?" So then I just said my fam was from Tanzania (only because my aunt and sister was named after it). How bizarre.

Hey Tanzy!!

TGIF!!!! It's Friday, 9:00 p.m., and I'm in my room blogging. Doesn't sound like the start of a good weekend to me. Everyone's still out doing their club things so maybe we'll go to the bar (gay bar, gay bar... look it up, it's an awesome song) later tonight.

On a normal weekend, I would most likely be with my family (I decided that unless I'm doing something with my school on weekends I'm dedicating my weekends to spending time with them seeing how I'm not gonna see my friends here again once we all leave), but tomorrow I'm going to a dance clinic, to where, hopefully I'll be able to audition and *cross my fingers* make the team. It's not a great team or anything, but the guys are pretty awesome dancers. After that I'm going to Gapyeon (someplace on the outskirts of Seoul) for an overnight hangout thing for the international students.

I'm actually really excited to go. I almost never see the I-house people anymore (International House, where all the other exchange students live). CasaVille is a great place to live, living condition wise, but it's just the CIEE people and a few other program people. Being 20 minutes away from school makes it really hard to see the people there, but whatever, atleast I live better than them and don't have to wake up to construction. :)



So, about a week ago I found out there are other girls from different programs here. Last weekend I tagged along with them and went to a bar. What bar, you say? The Ho Bar. It was okay. We just had a drink before we all went to Lotteria to quench our munchies. I had a cosmopolitan. It was ehhhhhh... okay. Pretty though.










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This was awesome!!!! For you Korean food noobs, all this is is fried rice cakes with some kind of chili-ketchup sauce on it. Absolute delish. And it was only 50 cents.
I'm a total magazine whore in "America" (Koreans don't understand when I say "The States"), so I had to buy a fash mag here. It cost $4.50 and came with a free make-up book. The magazine was awesome. It's basically an American magazine translated into Korean. The majority of stories are about Americans.
I was starving after my swim class but didn't want to eat too much so I could eat dinner, so I got this waffle. Inside it (it's folded in half), this woman swiped some syrup and then put some whipped cream stuff on it. It was good, but afterward, I started to get a stomach ache. I got a little scared that I might have gotten food poison (I bought it in the same cafeteria my friends got sick from) but then some people told me that it was because I ate bread on an empty stomach. Supposedly that's not good for you. Who would've thunk?
If you like grape fruit then this drink is for you. I didn't like it because I hate grape fruit. Yecht.
So I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that bows are in season. I was wondering why there were bow everything in all the shopping ares I've been in. I didn't go into the store. I was afraid the people would see that I couldn't afford anything.
Meet one of many 'crippled' men who push this little music box that plays horrid korean music. I still haven't put any money in the box just because you can't be too sure if they're tricking you. He's been here everyday since I've been here. Just today, I seen him trying to eat his hotdog.
WTF?!?!?!??!!?!?

Jump: Comic Martial Arts Performance

Just about the most awesomest thing i've seen since I've been here. It was super funny and there was a hott guy (although the actors do change with each performance). Take a looksy.

(p.s. I didn't actually record it. I stole it from Youtube.--I realized that i'd rather enjoy the show than waste time taking illegal pictures and videos)

This is the hott namja. I think he's old though.

...

It's been 3 weeks already. It's been both going too fast and yet not fast enough for me ( I have a concert waiting for me back home :) ) I'm really worried that I'm not going to get out of Korea what I came here for, which is to be able to speak Korean; well, atleast well enough to communicate well with my family. But things don't seem to be going my way. I thought that in coming here I would be forced to speak Korean everyday, but the only thing I seem to say constantly is either "How much is this?" and "Where is this place?". Other than that, I'm always spoken to in English.

On top of that, aside from maybe 3 people, everyone has either no knowledge of Korean or barely any. But my roomie and I have been trying to speak to each other in Korean whenever we can, but I try to say some pretty simple stuff to my other friends like "Where do you wanna go?" I have to translate it back into English because they have no idea what I'm saying. It's not there fault because I know they're trying to learn, especially my friend Vianey.

She came here with NO knowledge whatsoever of Korea but is learning alot. Just the other day out of the blue she said "배고파. 밥 사조" (I'm hungry. Buy me food.) ~~~spelling might be a tad off~~~ It was pretty funny since I wasn't expecting it, but her pronunciation is pretty spot on. Anyways... So I signed up for this program that matches you up with a Korean buddy to help you speak Korean. Mine seemed fine until I asked him why he signed up for this. His answer? He wanted to improve his English. Kill me now. Now it's going to be more like me tutoring someone for free. great.

Oh, and my family doesn't make it any easier for me. When I was talking to one of my older cousins, she asked me how many people are in my program and instead of saying 15 people, I said 15 things. (15개 15명) Well my little cousins thought it was funny and started laughing at me. It's a little depressing to think that I have a high chance of leaving Korea with the same speaking ability. Who knows, maybe it'll change.

Naked People and the Almost Club Night

So Thursday was my first actual swim class day. Earlier that day I was debating whether or not I should wear my swimsuit there to save on time but then I thought, "nahhhhh, I'll just change in the changing stalls." Well stupid me. I should've known that the 'changing stall' would actually turn out to be a big open room. As soon as I get in there I'm looking around and seeing everyone nonchalantly taking off their bras and panties to get into their swimsuits.

"What the hell am I going to do?" I say.
"Just change in here, I did" says my chingoo (friend).
"Heck no! Do you know who I am? I'm Lonny."
"What does that mean?"
"Well noob, it means I defy all rules."

So I go change into the ONLY tiny bathroom stall. So fastforward and I'm talking to my friend before class starts. I'm telling her how my pits are a little stubby (TMI???) but then I look over her shoulder and see this Chinese girls pits. I could've braided her hair (if I was that disgusting). ughhhhhhhh!!!!!! This is one Western culture thing I think ALL of Asia and Europe should copy.
Anywayssss.... so the class was really fun. Our teacher wanted to test our swimming ability by having us freestyle 2 laps down the pool. I was just about to piss my pants I was soo nervous. I had not swam in like 8 years and she was asking me to go down the pool the long way. Well I did it, and it wasn't too bad. The teacher said I was a pretty good swimmer, but ehhhh. After that we practiced kicking with those floaty board things. forgot their name.

The nerve wrecking part didn't happen until about 10 minutes after class when everyone was taking their shower. So I decide there's no way anyone's gonna get me to take off my suit in front of 13 other girls so I go straight to the changing room. Every where I looked, there was the female anatomy. Very uncomfortable for anyone who's not used to seeing this on a daily basis.

What happens when you wear heels all day everyday like the girls here in Korea.