Our first adventure was San Fransisco. We arrived there after a 5 hour plane ride, which started at 7:00am...but it was only 9am when we got there. The cool thing about that was that all the food places were serving breakfast and lunch. My parents and Gloria had lunch, and I had myself a second breakfast.
After the three hour layover, we finally got on the plane for the 12 hour flight to ICN. It was loooooong. I honestly couldn't believe how long it was. It was like time was moving at the speed of a snail, just to mess with my head. I would go to sleep, then wake up, thinking that 4 hours have passed, and it would only be half an hour after I fell asleep! I really thought I was going to die on that plane. It just dragged on forever and ever and ever. Just thinking about it makes me wanna vomit...arrgh....anyways, one cool thing about the flight was that we met this kid from Oklahoma (uhh...don't know about the spelling). He was really cool, and his Korean name happens to be Jooyoung, which is also Gloria's Korean name. He was supposed to sit right between my parents and us on the flight, but I told him that he can have the aisle seat, which sat him right next to Gloria. He was on his way to Mongolia for a mission trip, but his group was going to stay in Seoul for a couple days before. His dad is also a pastor. Anyways, talking to him made the flight a little more interesting.
So after like, 50000 hours on the plane, we FINALLY made it to ICN. We got there, picked up our 8 ginormous bags and went out to meet our relatives. My dad's little sister and her husband was there, and also my oldest uncle's oldest son (which would make him my uncle, except he's super old and has a bald spot). The first thing my aunt says is, "Oooh, haven't seen you guys in so long....look at you! You're the pig family!"***please refer to the footnote at the bottom of entry*** Yeah...that started things off TERRIFIC.
After the initial, "Hi, how are you, you're fat" stuff, we were hauled off into a "taxi" van, where I thought we were going to die because the driver was crazy and probably drunk. The driving in Korea is INSANE. I think our driver broke at least 10 traffic laws within the first 15 minutes of our drive to my grandparents'. It was really, really scary. We kept going over these bumps on bridges, and my head would literally hit the top of the car. And to make things worse, there was a HUGE traffice jam, AND the guy didn't have any idea where we were going. I think we spent a good hour in that car. It was awful, but we made it (how? I don't know). We were greeted by my grandparents (they've gotten so old...), my two cousins, my aunt and uncle. They all live in this very small three bedroom, one bathroom apartment. My grandmother had an awesome dinner waiting for us. See, this is what I've been looking forward to. My grandmother makes the best Korea food in the world! I really hope that when I have grandkids, they can say that about my cooking.
The next days, I opened my eyes, and the sun was up, so I got up. My mom and grandmother were also up, so I thought it was around 7:30 or 8. Noooo...the sun apparently rises freakishly early in Korea. It was 5:30AM. Yeah....I was pissed. Everyone else didn't get up until 8. So when everyone finally got up, my aunt and uncle went to work, my little cousin (well...she's 17) went to school, and my grandmother, sister, mother, big cousin (she's 20) and I went to the market to pick up some things to make for breakfast. My mom wanted me to make something for them. The market had pretty much everything we needed...except the only kind of cheese that they have around here is the processed yellow thing that comes in packs of 5. After breakfast, my mother wanted to go get her hair did, so we dropped her off at a nearby salon and wandered into the streets. The streets had lots of shops with clothes and shoes and vendors with food. I wanted to get sunglasses, so we stopped at this fancy looking shop that had glasses and sunglasses. I tried on this one pair that looked pretty good, checked out the price, and it said 90000 won. "Hey, that's about $9...that's super cheap," I thought. Then the sales lady showed me a pair of Chanels. They were HOT. I looked at the price: 320000 won. "$32??? Whoa...are these fake?" I thought. With the persuasion of my sister, I decided to buy them. I took out my wallet and went over to my counsin. "So I need three of these?" pointing at the 10000. "No, you need 32 of them," she said. "WHAT??" Yeah...I totally left out a zero. The freakin' sunglasses were $320. What the hell was I thinking. After feeling like a total idiot and apologizing over and over again to the sales lady, I left the shop...absolutely humiliated. Unforunately, I decided to go back for the $9 pair, which actually ended being $90, so I didn't buy those either. But my sister did get a pair of colored contacts, which made me feel a little better about the whole thing, but not really.
After that fiasco, we went back to the apartment, had lunch, then left for my aunt's shop. Her shop happens to be right next to my second oldest uncle's shop, which happens to be right next to his apartment, so we went there for dinner, which I didn't eat much of because I was still full from eating lunch. They kept telling us to eat, right after saying, "I'll get the fan out. The kids are so big, they're probably burning up right now." Did I want to jab someone in the eye? If you answered, "Yes, and you probably wanted to kick someone in the balls too," you are correct. After dinner, we came to my aunt's apartment in Gimpo. Before we got here, my sister kept asking my dad if her apartment was better than my grandparents. He kept saying yes, but you know my dad...he'll lie to you for fun, just to take pleasure in your misery later. But this time, he wasn't lying! Her apartment is AWESOME. There are four bedrooms, two bathrooms, a really big kitchen and livingroom, and every room in the house has its own deck. The backside faces the mountains, and the front faces the freeway and a farm. I seriously want to live here...and I'm really glad that I feel that way because I was starting to dislike Korea. The people are rude and my dad's starting to join them in the Koreanness, everything's dirty and loud, and everyone here thinks that I look like Jabba the Hutt. We'll see how today goes...I think it'll get better.
***So in Korea, there are lots of skinny ass bitches who are extremely shallow and very critical of others. My relatives are no different. There hasn't been a single time yet where we've met up with one of them, where they haven't commented on the fact that we're "bigger" than them. I mean, honestly. It's not like I haven't thought about it, ya know? I've always considered myself to be on the chubby side, but not obese. They're all talking like I'm going to die if I don't lose a few pounds. I've really been trying to hold my tongue. You know how hard that can be for me sometimes. I like my thoughts to be shared from time to time, and right now, they really don't know my thoughts. If they did, I think they'd kick me out of their house. I've expressed myself to my parents, but that's about it. Anyways, if you are not a skinny bitch, you should NOT come to Korea. They will make you want to kill yourself.