The Great Escape

from Seoul... for.. the.. weekend...yes... !

Joseph graciously invited Pat, Peter, and I to come down to his hometown(Ulsan) for the weekend. It was Buddha's birthday on Monday so we had a 3 day weekend.. so it was perfect timing. Anyway, when we attempted to get bus tickets on Friday night, all of the tickets had been sold out so we opted to take the train last minute(not KTX though). Unfortunately, we were only able to get 3 sitting seats and 1 STANDING ticket. Mind you, this is a 6 hour ride... we actually ended up rotating turns of who had to stand. Since my shift was last, and everyone had fallen asleep.. I kept hopping from empty seat to empty seat until we arrived. I guess since this train has a gajillion stops, the train ride took about 6 hours as opposed to the 4 hour bus ride. Weird. We ended up arriving at 430 in the moooorning.. w00t! Hello Ulsan.

It was hilarious because as we were attempting to hail down a cab, Pat spotted one and made a mad dash for it.. little did he know that he would engage in a foot race against this crazy ahjuhshee. There wasn't really a clear winner as far as speed went, but we allowed the ahjuhshee to take the cab.. This time ahjuhshee... this time... *narrows eyes as a shadow slowly envelops my face....*

The next day, waking up around noon or so... Joseph drove us around Ulsan. This was the first time I had ridden in a friend's car in Korea, period. It was a really fun experience.. joyyyy ridddiiiiiing ! Joseph's parents were going down to Busan to visit his grandmother and eat at her restaurant so we tagged along as well. We visited Haeyundae Beach(revisited) but to our dismay, the weather was kind of shitty that day so it was pretty freaking cold. It ended up being the best day of Pat's life though.. as there was some random guy promoting SEGWAYS and was allowing free rides to all who were up to the challenge. Anyone that watches Arrested Development knows that that's Gob's sweet ass ride.



Oh yes, it was absolutely delightful. I snapped about six shots of Pat on his camera.. hopefully the pictures turn out well so that he can show you himself in all his segway riding glory. Afterwards, we headed over to Joseph's grandmother's seafood restaurant where there was a huge spread of food waiting for us when we got there. Oh man, we got fed soooo well. The food was awesome.. they kept giving us more and more.. yums. Plus, Joseph's family is totally adorable(as expected). When Joseph saw his grandma, he gave her a giant bear hug. It was too cute for words.. it's funny because Joseph brings all of this hilarious hyperactive energy to his family.. he's such a good filial son haha. I asked him, "Do you talk to your mom everyday?" and he said, "Yeh.. why?" So sweet. PS, Joseph also knows how to play guitar and has a really nice singing voice... geez, who knew??

After dinner, we walked around the city and then stopped for some soju, of course. It's cool because they serve it differently than in Seoul. They put green tea bags into the bottle.. so cool. When we went home, Pat, Peter, and I flipped on the television and of course Pat directly changes the channel to the Starcraft channel.. we actually watched some really intense games... including a crazy battle between Protoss and Terran.. where Protoss pretty much DESTROYED Terran. It was hard to know who to root for since I didn't want either player to be sad.... aw. This is why I can't watch competitive games.... except when the Giants play the Dodgers.. then I can say "Fuck you dodgers!! DIEEEEE BITCHES!" Oh boy. But yeh, shit. I can't believe I watched starcraft on television and was totally into it. And now I'm admitting it on my blog... shit.

So, yeh. It was a really great weekend and Joseph was an awesome host as I made sure to tell him you know.... 50 or 60 trillion times. My camera's busted so... hopefully Pat and Peeps were able to capture some nice shots.

Also, art class is going pretty well... I've gotten better acquainted with the kids there so it's a lot more fun now. Most of the kids had been gone for a while since they were busy with tests, but today they were all back and rowdy as usual... I missed that rowdiness. Peter and I enjoyed having them back, for sure. One of the boys was briefly telling us about his "first love".. it was so fucking sweet and adorable. I told him that he was a good guy, and he was like "Nooo.. I'm a bad boy" in "yo" form(the polite Korean way of speaking to older people haha) Oh man, I can't get over how much I'm in love with Korean people.

BTW, I just finished my drawing of an onion and paintbrush lying on top of a brick. Yes, it really is as interesting as it sounds........ Oh, but how I'm going to miss that yangpa(onion in Korean).. I loved to sigh and then mumble "Ah... yangpa" then have a fit of giggles all to myself... while I secretly loved that yangpa since it wasn't as hard to draw as I thought it would be. I think I am going to give this drawing to Anna. So, I get to draw cooler shit now.. my teacher thought it might be cool for me to do a portrait of some sort so I perused the internet for some time to try to find a cool portrait to do.. and this is what I decided on.

Bogey<3

But right now, it's kind of looking like this...


Ah well. I'm having a ton of fun drawing it so hopefully it will turn out pretty well. I tried to explain Mr. Potato head to my teacher and even said "kamja muhree"(a quite literal translation).. perhaps I should have said "kamja muhree ahjuhshee" for those of you who speak Korean.. but he had no idea what I was talking about, which usually happens when I try to speak Korean to people... haha. Anyway, gotta head off now and get to bed. Talk to you all soon.

late night samgyupsal

So upon returning from our short trip to Ulsan/Busan for the weekend(which I will write about soon), Peter and I decided on eating what else but... LATE NIGHT SAMGYUPSAL! W00t. I mean, it seems as if our eating choices are somewhat limited now due to the frenzy behind the possible outbreaks of bird flu and mad cow disease in Korea.. Oh jebus.

<3

We ended up stuffing ourselves beyond capacity... Anyway, on the way to the restaurant, we saw many a drunkard as usual.. Oh Sinchon, how you gross me out yet I still love thee so dearly. We saw this girl being propped up by two friends on either side while she puked her brains out all over her shoes.. and her friends were sweet enough to wipe off the barf. So Peter and I got to talking about Korean comraderie in general, and how it is so awesome.. through the good and the bad. The sober moments and the wasted beyond belief moments... oh, love. We actually encountered a girl who was sitting on the sidewalk by herself, also puking her brains out.. and Peter and I were immediately saddened by the thought of her having no friends to take care of her.. but then saw this girl scurrying over clutching a giant wad of toilet paper in one hand.. I don't know. Sounds silly but it was kind of really endearing.

Later on throughout the dinner, we saw two Korean guys walking quickly alongside each other(although one seemed to just be trying to catch up with the other one) while seeming to quarrel a bit... For convenience's sake, I will assign them random names. John(Guy #1) had a cell phone pressed against his hear and was trying to push away George(Guy #2) while he was swiping at John's arm, trying to grab the phone away from him. John was yelling into the phone and looked pretty agitated.. he pushes George away pretty hard and then practically ran away from him. George looked at him and then started walking behind him slowly.. until John got really angry again so George just stayed back with his arms folded and just watched from a distance.... John ended up being on the phone a while, and the entire time George stayed back.. patiently watching and genuinely seemed really concerned for his friend. Meanwhile, Peter and I were following their every move.. completely sucked into their lives that we ended up just fabricating on the spot. The back story that we came up with is that John just had his heart completely shattered and trampled on by a girl, who perhaps even cheated on him. George would yell, "Fuck that bitch, bro! She's not worth it!" while John, rather defensively would retort "You don't know her like I do, man. You don't understand." John would keep calling her over and over, anything to try to win her back... but the girl wouldn't have it. She would coldly tell him that she just doesn't care for him anymore.. that it's over and there's nothing he can do to fix it...maybe even a "It's not you. It's me." You know, the same shit as always.

Finally, George turned his back and walked away... and I mumbled to myself, "Oh.. I guess he could only take so much shit..." but still disappointed that he would leave his friend alone in his moment of emotional anguish and despair. Even though John was throwing bitch fits, hell, just being a little bitch in general.. he still needed a friend... I mean, now more than ever. But about a few minutes later, George returned with reinforcement.. a little guy who seemed to mean business(said Peter after he had caught a glimpse of his face) They slowly approached John and tried to put their arms around him.. to comfort him.. but John wasn't having any of it and shoved the little guy away. They started to walk down the hill.. while John was still swatting their arms away... taking out all of his anger and aggression on his friends.. all of a sudden John erupts into tears.. Instantly, George takes John into his arms and pats him on the back, wordlessly telling him that everything was going to be alright. I silently cheered for George, who was displaying fucking true blue sincerity.

I wanted to walk up to John, give him a hug and tell him to stay strong. "Fighting!" in Korean.. 화이팅! Then, I wanted to extend my hand to George.. which on second thought, I would put away and bear hug him.. and commend him on a job well done. That he was a good guy.. and then wait.. snap back to reality.. they would look at me completely bewildered, probably thinking I was just another crazy drunken girl looking for some free hugs... but I mean, was the reality of the situation even better? Peter and I were pretty much stalking them.. watching from a distance.. complete voyeurs for sure. But we felt connected...and so invested in it all. oh dear, I suppose we have reduced this all to a matter of movie cliches.. but I kind of wanted it to be.. weirdly enough. I don't know.. even through the absurdity of it all, it was still incredibly heartwarming.. I mean, our constructed view of the story was still ours, right?... and now I just want to know how it ends.. but I suppose I can make up that part too. Ha.. ha... sigh.

Anyway, TANGENT... listen to this album if you haven't already. Beach House with another fucking SOLID album.

Kids on Holiday

There's a boy who's a Krishna,
and he thinks you look pretty.

Yeh, that has nothing to do with this post. But right now, I don't actually really know what's going to or not going to do with this post... soooo.. whatever. O.k., yeh. So this weekend, I finally just got some time to myself to mellow the fuck out and do absolutely nothing. There's nothing quite as refreshing as some lazy-as-fuck-but-whateva-i-do-what-i-want time. Yeh. We had the day off today as it was Children's Day(I know, what the hell?) Children's Day here, Cinco De Mayo elsewhere.

So, April 29th marked the date of Jake's departure.
He's left us for a better place, a little somewhere he calls St. Paul. Well, fuck you St. Paul! I want my friend back! Blah, we're already so few in number and now we've been knocked down again. But I truly hope that somewhere in between those heavenly bites of blue cheese bacon cheeseburgers, he'll think of his small, but "devastatingly endearing" chingoos here in Korea. Blargh, miss you Jake. Zack Morris Phone is on repeat, fo sho. (a catchy ass song from his band, Look Down)

I guess with Jake leaving, it really signifies the beginning of the end. And I have major separation anxiety. Seriously, I don't know what I'm going to do. It's really troubling for me to come to grips with the fact that three months from now, I'll have to leave this beautiful place behind to return to my "real" life, whatever the hell that means. And. I. Don't. Know. If. I. Want. To. . and I feel like I won't even have much waiting back for me at home. 2 of my maybe... 4 or 5 friends back at home are going to be moving out of the city(Yeh seriously guys, what the fuck??) I don't know.. I know I was already a misanthropic, antisocial loser back at home, but I guess that now that I'm finally getting used to constantly being around people that I really like... ugh, I don't want to slip back.. and I know it'd be sooo easy to do just that. I'm just sick of having to constantly start over. I don't know.. I've also come to realize that I may not be happy with continuing with one of my majors back at home.. and have come to feel a bit disillusioned, to be completely dramatic. So I'm trying to re-map some parts of my school agenda, that may further prolong my path to reaching that elusive graduation date... I guess there's no need to get into the sticky icky details. I guess it'll be weird when I go back to San Francisco only to have awkward run-ins with former high school classmates who already have "real" jobs and what not. Ugghhh, fuck the small talk. You know I'll be sneaking through backdoors and climbing through windows to avoid these...

I slept over at Anna's house the other day and realized that my love can only grow more and more for this girl every time I see her(which sadly isn't often). Her parents are soooo sweet and give hospitality a new meaning.. now I see where someone like Anna could have came from. Anyways, on the way over, we were berated by a drunken ahjuhshee(old Korean guy) for speaking English.. or for whatever reason. It was actually a little frightening and really uncomfortable.. we didn't really know what to do except stare back at him in awe/horror that anybody could have that much hatred for strangers.. even in a drunken stage. I just wasn't sure what to do in case he decided he wanted to physically assault us or something.. hopefully the other people on the subway would jump to our defense.. yes.. we could only hope. Ooookay but anyways, we watched Say Anything which was awesome! Finally got to watch that iconic scene with John Cusack holding the boombox above his head and ugggh, heart melts. Anyone who hasn't seen this movie, I loved it and would recommend it. It's cheesy fantastic and witty at the same time. Way better than the other trashy 80s movies... which I know can be great but sometimes can leave you feeling kind of ".....really?"




I also watched Kim Ki-Duk's, Hwal

This movie was great in parts, okay in others. The ending was a real disappointment and just kind of... disgusting. I think the director was aiming towards something symbolic but in the end, it was entirely too literal. I don't want to give away any details.. what inspired me to watch this movie in the first place was that it features Korea's most prominent haegum(a traditional Korean instrument; the two stringed fiddle) player, Kang Eun-Il. She composed the soundtrack and it was one of the better parts of the film. I've been taking haegum lessons recently which has been really challenging but really fun. Right now it sounds like shit(somewhat akin to a velosorapter giving birth) but hopefully in time, it will be pretty okay.

Kang Eun-Il's HaegumPlus

Anyway, wow this was a long post.
But I guess in some ways, it was necessary. Either for me, or for you, or for me to get to you... eRr, yeh. Anyway, it'd do me well for yous guys to keep in touch. So do it. Miss you and love you all. Ain't nothin new.