Last Day
So the time has come, ladies and gentlemen, for me to go back to the ATL. You know, it's funny...I've been calling Korea the motherland, but today when I went into the store, the lady there said, "You're not from here, right?" So I asked her if she could tell, and she said, "Yes, plus you were in here the other day with a foreigner" (Matt). I told her where I live and all that, and she said, "Do you have problems speaking and reading Korean?" I told her a little bit, but not much, and then she kinda laughed and said, "It's like your a foreigner here, but you're a foreigner there too!" Okay, so it's not like I've never thought about that before. And being here really has made me realize that I definitely don't really belong here, but I don't completely belong over there either. WHO AM I, DAMNIT?! hehehe...
Anyways, I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon at 2pm, which means I'll get back to ATL around 6pm EST. How do I feel about going home, you ask? Well, I've only been looking at and talking to Asian people for the past 4 weeks (except for Matt...), so I think it'll be kinda weird seeing such a mix of people again. It'll also be weird not riding public transportation (but I think I might start doing it more often), and having the right of way as a pedestrian will be really weird too (I think I could've died at least 5 times while I've been out here). I feel like I've learned a lot about people out here - how they live, how they act, etc - and as much as I've bitched about being out here without a car, dryer, and being called fat all the time, I think I might just miss being out here enough to come back sometime...soon. I'll definitely miss eating street food and smelling waffles in the subway (yes, there are waffles in the subways). I'll miss clothes for $5 and shoes for $10. I'll miss having so many people around that care so much about us. I've pretty much invited every single family member to come visit us out in the ATL, so I really hope that some of them will seriously consider the offer and visit, especially the younger cousins (out of the entire Song side of the family (~100 total), only 4 are 25 and younger).
I guess the next time I write, it'll be at home (where ever that is, right?). I'll probably speak to most of you very soon. I bought presents! Well, kinda. I didn't get a chance to buy too much, and I don't know what all I've purchased, but we'll see. I can't wait to see Coco! Oh, and Andrew :)
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Family
Since we've been in Seoul, our cousin (my mother's brother's daughter), MinJong, has been taking us around the city, showing us some cool places to eat/shop/hang out. I seriously don't know what we would do without her. She's been amazing. Also, another cousin (my dad's sister's younger son) was home from the army a few days ago, and on his last full day of leave, he was kind enough to take Gloria and me around also. He took us to Shin Sah Dong, which was a really cool shopping district. It is near this little creek type thing that leads to a bigger creek under the sidewalks and there are also bridges that go over it. We took some pictures on the bridge and of the creek. We walked down to the water, and my cousin said that you can go into the water. Sooo....I took off my flip flops and boldly stepped into the water, where I promptly slipped and fell in. Damn the algae! Them bitches were slippery. Anyways, I was basically, from head to toe, soaked. See, the thing is, it really wouldn't've been that bad, except I totally drew attention to myself by laughing super loudly while I was flailing my limbs trying to get out of the water. All the old people who were sitting there were laughing at me. Honestly, I should've just started swimming around, pretending to take a bath or something. We were really far away from home, so I just had to walk around Seoul like that for the rest of the day. Gloria refused to stand next to me, and from time to time, she'd look over and say, "Unni...you're gonna stink from that fungus water" or "Ew! Don't touch me!" or "Unniiiii...buy some new clothes." Hehehe...it's definitely something to remember about that place.
Okay, so back to family. We've been all over the place, and we've stayed with family at every city. For the most part, they've been very hospitable. Okay, they've been more than hospitable. They've been really awesome. It's been a real pain in the ass following my parents around, going from place to place every night, having to haul luggage around everywhere we go, but meeting the family and all that has been worth it (for the most part). Everywhere we go, we do get the occasional, "Wow...look how...BIG you've gotten" or the "It's okay if you're fat, your face is still the same as the last time I saw you," but I guess I'm getting used to it (is that a good thing or a bad thing?). I'm able to get myself around the city (yes, without the parental unit and the cousins) because, SURPRISE! I'm Korean!
Sunday, June 10, 2007
:: Busan ::
Right now, I'm in Busan. It's about 5 hours from Seoul, on the southeastern part of the country. We're staying with my cousin and his family, and it's been pretty nice. I've been fairly impressed with the scenery, the technology and everything else around here. It's cleaner than Seoul, which is always a good thing. Yesterday we went out to see some historic stuff from the Shinli Dynesty. The coolest part of the whole trip was that my mom's cousin and his family came out, and his wife just so happens to be the person that translated the tour of the museum for President Bush while he was visiting Busan. So...we got a pretty detailed explanation of everything. One of the most interesting things that she pointed out was this thing...it was made of stone, and it was shaped like a...ya know...thingie. Anyways, she said that it represents fertility and all that, but some people think that it was for the queen because she got lonely from the king being away so much. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....sorry. So after she told us that, Gloria and I tried to play it off cool and said, "oh...okay." But after about 2 minutes, Gloria said very quietly, "I need to get a picture of that" and slowly slipped away from the group. Hehehehe...man, we're immature.
I think Busan's really the first place that I've really thought, "Hey...it's nice here, I'd like to stay for longer." According to my counsin, Japan is only 2.5 hours away by boat. !!! I'm definitely planning on coming back, and next time, I'm NOT coming with my parents. I'll bring Andrew...and Coco.
Right now, I'm in Busan. It's about 5 hours from Seoul, on the southeastern part of the country. We're staying with my cousin and his family, and it's been pretty nice. I've been fairly impressed with the scenery, the technology and everything else around here. It's cleaner than Seoul, which is always a good thing. Yesterday we went out to see some historic stuff from the Shinli Dynesty. The coolest part of the whole trip was that my mom's cousin and his family came out, and his wife just so happens to be the person that translated the tour of the museum for President Bush while he was visiting Busan. So...we got a pretty detailed explanation of everything. One of the most interesting things that she pointed out was this thing...it was made of stone, and it was shaped like a...ya know...thingie. Anyways, she said that it represents fertility and all that, but some people think that it was for the queen because she got lonely from the king being away so much. AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA....sorry. So after she told us that, Gloria and I tried to play it off cool and said, "oh...okay." But after about 2 minutes, Gloria said very quietly, "I need to get a picture of that" and slowly slipped away from the group. Hehehehe...man, we're immature.
I think Busan's really the first place that I've really thought, "Hey...it's nice here, I'd like to stay for longer." According to my counsin, Japan is only 2.5 hours away by boat. !!! I'm definitely planning on coming back, and next time, I'm NOT coming with my parents. I'll bring Andrew...and Coco.
Monday, June 04, 2007
Taiwan Part II
After dinner that night, we went to this lounge/bar somewhere in Taipei. It was really, really nice - very swank, very chic - and I was completely underdressed for it. Matt said it doesn't matter, he goes underdressed all the time, but I told him that it's because he's a boy and very foreign looking, but I'm a girl, and I don't look all that foreign looking. Speaking of which, it was really funny when we went around, because people will look at me and speak Chinese all the time. I'd just kinda look at them...and then look at Matt, and he'd start speaking Chinese to them. Hehehe...it was funny. Matt said he liked that because it was unpredictable.
The second day in Taipei, we went to a whole bunch of places, like 101 (the tallest building in Taipei (I think...)), where we went up to look at the view of the city, we went by the square where the symphony plays and the theater is and the Shilin night market. The most interesting, I think was the night market. There were a whole bunch of people there...like, it was ridiculously crowded, and I was really afraid that I was going to lose Matt, but I didn't. There were lots of food vendors with things on sticks, abnormal animal body parts (such as animal feet, heart, blood sausage) AND THEN....there was something called stinky tofu. And it's exactly what it sounds like - it smells like middle school boys' socks after a week of wearing them during gym. I happened to avoid eating the stuff, despite Matt's persistent efforts to get me to try it.
The last day, Sunday, we didn't go to church (if I go to hell, it's Matt's fault), but we did go to the Keelung to have a seafood feast with some of Matt's co-workers. They were super nice and had very strange names like Seventeen and Sirius. I guess it didn't really surprise me when Matt told me that people choose their English names later in life, because that's basically what happens with people in Korea, but Seventeen? Either way, they were cool people, and Seventeen happens to be the owner of a particularly cute baby. He was soooo cute. I wanted to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and hold him and love him and take him home with me forever and ever. At one point, he was just sitting there on his dad's lap, and he yawned the cutest yawn ever, and then just fell asleep. It was SO CUTE.
Okay....moving on (I just had to slap myself a couple times there).
Unfortunately, it rained all freakin' day. We were gonna go to this mountain thingie where you can pick calla lilies and eat food (something like that...I love calla lilies), but it was raining so we didn't go. But we did go to the National Palace Museum, which was really cool. On the way there, we met some Korean girls who are students in Taipei. They got super excited that I was Korean, and they wanted us to take a picture with them (that was kinda weird), and one of the girls even wanted to get my email address and stuff (I hope she doesn't pimp me out or something).
The museum itself was pretty neat. Old stuff is always neat to me, but then again, I'm a big fat nerd. I always wonder how people got around to creating some of the stuff that they did. There was this one thing that looked like a large ornament, and the ball in the middle was made of one piece of ivory, and it has at least seventeen layers of carved ivory inside. It was pretty crazy. I wish I could've taken pictures, but I think I might've been tackled by a big scary Taiwanese dude if I had. The last thing that we saw was this bok choi cabbage that was made of jade. We thought it was pretty cool, but when we went down to the gift shop, it was all over the place. Lucky we got to see it. We had limited time, and we didn't get to see everything.
That night we found the jade market, bought jade for my mom, then went to dinner at another night market with Matilda. AND THEN....I learned how to do a Rubics Cube! We had to leave the next morning at 6, and Matt hadn't packed yet, so he stayed up and packed, and I stayed up and did the Rubics Cube. Matt's a pretty good teacher - much more patient that I am - and he used the self guiding method whenever I had a question or wanted to pull my hair out from frustration. Anyways, around 2am, I finished it! YAY~! I should've taken a picture, but I don't think people would've believed it anyway.
So now I'm in Gwangju at my oldest uncle's house. I basically arrived at the airport and was put on a bus for four hours to come here. My ass was not happy at the end of the night. Thank god Matt forced the little pineapple pastries on me, because that's bascially all I had to eat from 1pm to 10pm. I probably would've died if it hadn't been for those delightful little things (don't worry, I didn't eat all 8 of them or whatever, I only had 2). Anyways, I had a good time in Taiwan. I wish I could've seen more outside of Taipei, but time was limited. Maybe...next time?
After dinner that night, we went to this lounge/bar somewhere in Taipei. It was really, really nice - very swank, very chic - and I was completely underdressed for it. Matt said it doesn't matter, he goes underdressed all the time, but I told him that it's because he's a boy and very foreign looking, but I'm a girl, and I don't look all that foreign looking. Speaking of which, it was really funny when we went around, because people will look at me and speak Chinese all the time. I'd just kinda look at them...and then look at Matt, and he'd start speaking Chinese to them. Hehehe...it was funny. Matt said he liked that because it was unpredictable.
The second day in Taipei, we went to a whole bunch of places, like 101 (the tallest building in Taipei (I think...)), where we went up to look at the view of the city, we went by the square where the symphony plays and the theater is and the Shilin night market. The most interesting, I think was the night market. There were a whole bunch of people there...like, it was ridiculously crowded, and I was really afraid that I was going to lose Matt, but I didn't. There were lots of food vendors with things on sticks, abnormal animal body parts (such as animal feet, heart, blood sausage) AND THEN....there was something called stinky tofu. And it's exactly what it sounds like - it smells like middle school boys' socks after a week of wearing them during gym. I happened to avoid eating the stuff, despite Matt's persistent efforts to get me to try it.
The last day, Sunday, we didn't go to church (if I go to hell, it's Matt's fault), but we did go to the Keelung to have a seafood feast with some of Matt's co-workers. They were super nice and had very strange names like Seventeen and Sirius. I guess it didn't really surprise me when Matt told me that people choose their English names later in life, because that's basically what happens with people in Korea, but Seventeen? Either way, they were cool people, and Seventeen happens to be the owner of a particularly cute baby. He was soooo cute. I wanted to hug him and squeeze him and kiss him and hold him and love him and take him home with me forever and ever. At one point, he was just sitting there on his dad's lap, and he yawned the cutest yawn ever, and then just fell asleep. It was SO CUTE.
Okay....moving on (I just had to slap myself a couple times there).
Unfortunately, it rained all freakin' day. We were gonna go to this mountain thingie where you can pick calla lilies and eat food (something like that...I love calla lilies), but it was raining so we didn't go. But we did go to the National Palace Museum, which was really cool. On the way there, we met some Korean girls who are students in Taipei. They got super excited that I was Korean, and they wanted us to take a picture with them (that was kinda weird), and one of the girls even wanted to get my email address and stuff (I hope she doesn't pimp me out or something).
The museum itself was pretty neat. Old stuff is always neat to me, but then again, I'm a big fat nerd. I always wonder how people got around to creating some of the stuff that they did. There was this one thing that looked like a large ornament, and the ball in the middle was made of one piece of ivory, and it has at least seventeen layers of carved ivory inside. It was pretty crazy. I wish I could've taken pictures, but I think I might've been tackled by a big scary Taiwanese dude if I had. The last thing that we saw was this bok choi cabbage that was made of jade. We thought it was pretty cool, but when we went down to the gift shop, it was all over the place. Lucky we got to see it. We had limited time, and we didn't get to see everything.
That night we found the jade market, bought jade for my mom, then went to dinner at another night market with Matilda. AND THEN....I learned how to do a Rubics Cube! We had to leave the next morning at 6, and Matt hadn't packed yet, so he stayed up and packed, and I stayed up and did the Rubics Cube. Matt's a pretty good teacher - much more patient that I am - and he used the self guiding method whenever I had a question or wanted to pull my hair out from frustration. Anyways, around 2am, I finished it! YAY~! I should've taken a picture, but I don't think people would've believed it anyway.
So now I'm in Gwangju at my oldest uncle's house. I basically arrived at the airport and was put on a bus for four hours to come here. My ass was not happy at the end of the night. Thank god Matt forced the little pineapple pastries on me, because that's bascially all I had to eat from 1pm to 10pm. I probably would've died if it hadn't been for those delightful little things (don't worry, I didn't eat all 8 of them or whatever, I only had 2). Anyways, I had a good time in Taiwan. I wish I could've seen more outside of Taipei, but time was limited. Maybe...next time?
Sunday, June 03, 2007
A trip to Taiwan
I arrived in Taipei at 1:45pm on Friday afternoon. I was supposed to arrive at 2:05, but our plane was early....but they made up for it by having all the planes come in at one time, and having only 5 lines open at customs for non-citizens. It was pretty crazy - every time they opened a new line, people would RUN to the new line, pushing and shoving each other. Yep...that's my peoples...
Anyways, I met up with Matt, although I didn't see him waiting for me. I guess I didn't really look for him...I just kinda started walking over to the right side, and eventually, he came and got me, thank god. Three very significant things about Taipei: #1 - it's hot #2 - it's humid #3 - it's really, REALLY hot. In fact, the captain came on right before we landed and told us about what time it is in Taipei and the weather, and when he said, "It's currently 91 degrees F," I cussed. And then when we got off the plane onto the connecting thingie, the humidity and heat slapped me in the face and said, "Take that, beeotch!" I cussed again. And THEN...we went outside to the parking lot, and I cussed again. Can you tell I LOVE the weather here?
We went to IKEA from the airport because Matt only has one towel in his apartment, and I also needed to get bigger, NORMAL sized towels for my relatives in Seoul to rid the small towel disease. Anyways, IKEA in Taipei was pretty much like the IKEA in ATL...except smaller...and hotter...and everything and everyone's in Chinese. I think we spent about an hour at IKEA, picking out towels.
We finally arrived at his apartment and had some down time while waiting for Matilda, Matt's girlfriend. She took us out for Hong Kong style food somewhere in the city. It was good...but it's not anything I haven't tasted before, I guess. I dunno...maybe I'm just really used to the Asian thing? I haven't really felt any culture shock. Well, except the toilet thing. The food's been good, but not great. Actually, the food that I was really impressed with is the pork/vegetable buns that they sell in the little store downstairs. We had that yesterday morning for breakfast. But, more about that later...to be continued, probably when I get back to Seoul.
I arrived in Taipei at 1:45pm on Friday afternoon. I was supposed to arrive at 2:05, but our plane was early....but they made up for it by having all the planes come in at one time, and having only 5 lines open at customs for non-citizens. It was pretty crazy - every time they opened a new line, people would RUN to the new line, pushing and shoving each other. Yep...that's my peoples...
Anyways, I met up with Matt, although I didn't see him waiting for me. I guess I didn't really look for him...I just kinda started walking over to the right side, and eventually, he came and got me, thank god. Three very significant things about Taipei: #1 - it's hot #2 - it's humid #3 - it's really, REALLY hot. In fact, the captain came on right before we landed and told us about what time it is in Taipei and the weather, and when he said, "It's currently 91 degrees F," I cussed. And then when we got off the plane onto the connecting thingie, the humidity and heat slapped me in the face and said, "Take that, beeotch!" I cussed again. And THEN...we went outside to the parking lot, and I cussed again. Can you tell I LOVE the weather here?
We went to IKEA from the airport because Matt only has one towel in his apartment, and I also needed to get bigger, NORMAL sized towels for my relatives in Seoul to rid the small towel disease. Anyways, IKEA in Taipei was pretty much like the IKEA in ATL...except smaller...and hotter...and everything and everyone's in Chinese. I think we spent about an hour at IKEA, picking out towels.
We finally arrived at his apartment and had some down time while waiting for Matilda, Matt's girlfriend. She took us out for Hong Kong style food somewhere in the city. It was good...but it's not anything I haven't tasted before, I guess. I dunno...maybe I'm just really used to the Asian thing? I haven't really felt any culture shock. Well, except the toilet thing. The food's been good, but not great. Actually, the food that I was really impressed with is the pork/vegetable buns that they sell in the little store downstairs. We had that yesterday morning for breakfast. But, more about that later...to be continued, probably when I get back to Seoul.