yes yes yes.

holy crap im drunk.  I love korea so much.  Its about 11:15 here. Today was a good day, my roommate came to the dorm while I was out drinking.  I can't remember his name, he's told me like 5 times but I still can't remember.  He is from Ulsan.  He does speak english but he is pretty shy.  He is really nice.  He's like 5-6 years older than me and he is studying biomechanical engineering.  I think.  I'm really pleased with him.  unfortunately my first impression upon him is when I'm drunk, but thats ok, he doesn't seem to mind. I'm going to busan/pusan whatever the romanization is, tommorow.  that should be fun.  I wish the stupid curfew wasn't at 11:00, otherwise I would still be out drinking. I love drinking.  Its going to be a good semester. 

successkid.jpg

Ignorance is bliss. Not.  So for the last two nights I have frozen my ass off.  For several reasons; my blanket is wafer thin, and the weather is very cold out.  Along with that, my heater was not spewing out much heat.  I just figured it was an energy efficient heater and that I had to keep the door closed in order to retain any heat.  That being said, it was cold.  However this morning, my U.S. buddy came into my room telling me he had figured it all out.  This was after our brilliant minds had worked together to figure out why the heater was so awful.  Sure enough though, he was right.  Insert power cord into outlet.  Today I was humbled.  Ignorance is not bliss, rather it is misery.

What.

Yesterday was pretty boring. For most of the day I got to stay around the house resting.  HeeJun came back from a couple day seminar.  Funny thing is is that the day he left I got sick, and the day he came back I felt good. I don't know.  We ate at some fancy sandwhich shop which I was fine with.  Some marinated beef sandwhich, and a taco chicken sandwhich.  Taco chicken was eh.  But it was a step up from rice soup.  HeeJun told me that you know your a foreigner when you can eat a sandwhich after you are sick. Korean's truly can't stand sandwhich's or hamburgers when they are sick, and that it is torture.  Instead they have a special food called Oxblood soup.  Yes, they prefer oxblood over a sandwhich when they are sick. What. After eating HeeJun showed a bunch of pictures that he had.  He had thousands that he had converted from regular photos to digital, and it had taken him 5 straight days of scanning.  They were pretty amazing.  The most impressive ones were of HeeYoungs Swiss hotel management school pictures.  I think Wa'fools should look into it.  The school was a former castle, that overlooks a valley surrounded by Swiss Alps.  Ski resort within walking distance. After pictures, I packed and was ready to go, then HeeJun asked me if I wanted to go out for a short snack.  Sure. 4 hours later, 3 of them driving around the city of Seoul we were back home.  I got to see an interesting street where they hand these really shallow rooms lit with pink lights and huge windows where scantily clad women were waving at the passing drivers. HeeJun said feminists have tried outlawing them. Tahaha.  Today, I took the KTX train down to Kimhae with HeeJun.  Boring ride, but both HeeJun and I were both surprised at how nice Kimhae is.  Its not Seoul, but its pretty impressive.  The dorms are empty right now except for another guy, so it's super creepy.  It's also surprising cold. Before HeeJun left we had a final meal.  Rice burgers.  The "bun" is made up of rice, and the meat is bulgogi.  Ill take a picture next time.  I have my own bathroom and shower, which is chill, but the door has no lock, and the shower is seethrough. Needless to say many people will either have the privelage of walking in on me while taking a dump or seeing my junk hanging.  
Me and my new friend (the other person who is in the dorm now) have a funny guide to take around the area a bit.  I didn't know his name because I didn't listen when he told me so I asked my friend, alas, he couldn't understand him. 
As if you could see me right now, but I'm listening to Korean music while I write. It's pretty rough.
My time in Seoul with HeeJun was good, as I learned many encouraging things.  First off, being fat, no excuse.  I love Korean philosophy.  Second, college in the U.S. is superior to Korean colleges.  First thing I'm buying when I get home is a Sierra college hoodie. Represent.  Lastly, I really love the fact that you cannot drink the tap water.  It seriously is a nice change of pace having to use a special filter that is located a floor below you to get drink of water.

Typical traffic.  Those two cars are supposed to be going straight

A typical back alley near Olympic Apts.

Enough for today, you don't deserve it.

A promising start.

Arrived in Korea about a week ago.  I had roughly a 1 O'clock flight out of SFO, and things were going good.  My departure terminal was moved around several times due to some confusion. Other than that my time in the airport was quite boring.  Even more boring was the flight itself.  Thirteen hours of nothing.  I only got up once during the entire flight because I had a window seat and I didn't want to wake up the grumpy old man that I would have had to climb over.  I actually was hoping for a rough flight because it would have made things more interesting.  But I didn't even notice when we took off and when we landed.  The airline movies are much better than before and I had a huge selection.  That being said, The Social Network seriously sucks. Oscar worthy my ass.
    I was greeted by HeeJun only at the airport, due to his mother being ill and Heeyoung having a broken foot.  But they were at the house when I arrived.  The next three days were long and tiring.  HeeJun showed me all around Seoul.  It was good the first day because of the excitement but I soon realized that not sleeping on the plane, not sleeping the entire day before I left, and not sleeping when I got to Korea because of jet lag actually takes a toll.  But its all good.  I got to ride one of the easiest, cleanest, and most comprehensive subways in the world. 
   We got to visit COEX mall, which is one of, if the not the largest underground malls in the world.  They have an aquarium inside the mall.... They have an entire floor that is a food court that is larger than a Walmart.  They are open stalls so there are all kinds of fresh and gross food to look at.  Shopping is pretty big here, especially for the women, as shown where they dedicated four floors to women's clothing, another for women's cosmetics, and another for whatever crap women use.  They had one for all of the men's needs. 
   We then went to Myeongdong, which is a huge shopping district.  It looks like one of the places you see in pictures of Japanese streets with tons of people and tall buildings with neon signs hanging off.  Except bigger.
That night we went to HeeJun's family's summer home, which was nice.  It was fun catching up with their family and getting to know HeeYoungs wife, who can understand what I say, but is a too shy to speak English to me. After dinner there, we went to another enormous shopping district, this time was a place that has malls that stay open 24 hours.  Yeah, I said malls.  10 malls that are all over 12 stories high are all placed right next to each other.  Competition is stiff.  Along with that the entire street has smaller malls and stores loaded with clothes and fashion stuff.  Wa'fool's would like it here.  Unfortunately by this time I had started to become tired, as it was my first day and I hadn't slept much yet.  But I did happen to take notice of the area where HeeYoung lives. Roughly a quarter mile long strip lined with high end brands.  Armani, Gucci, ect. are the low end brands of the area, while Rolls Royce are on the upper end. 

Thank god the next day was more mellow.  I got to visit drive by the Samsung company headquarters, which occupies a whole block and has its street named after itself. I saw HeeJun's work building. Also watched some funny guy's make candy who sang what they were doing, and when they found out I was from the U.S. they asked me where I was from and I said California they in unison said ' Oh! Kelriponia!' and began singing in poor english. so funny. We also went to a building that is a subway station, yet it has been converted into an above ground mall.  With a food court, the equivalent of a Wal mart, and an IMAX theatre. HeeJun wanted to watch a movie so we watched Tangled in 3D.  HeeJun liked it.  We ate at both a famous Japanese restaurant and a  famous Chinese restaurant, both were Korean style.  And a really nice Italian restaurant. The Japanese food was some sweet rice stuff, with pork cutlet and a fried egg.  The Chinese restaurant was a spicey mussel soup that is so famous that celebrities come to the restaurant frequently.  American style asian food is awful compared to Korean styled asian food.

Unfortunately, after three days of commotion and enjoying the food, which for the most part is soo good, I found myself quite ill.  I will never eat cold noodle soup again for as long as I live.  It was from a restaurant that is also famous and had visitors such as the William's sisters.  Two trips to the hospital, four days in bed, and eating plain rice soup later, things are looking up.

Actually its going good enough that I ate a Choco Pie, which was once one of my favorites when I first visited Korea.  Also we visited the Lee's new apartment.  They have three, and a large summer house.  The new apartment is in the center of the city and is extremely nice.  It was built by Kumho, while HeeJun's father was president of the company.  Im not really allowed to go outside to much right now because of the fear I might regress another time.  But I actually like the hospital, its peaceful.  Actually I got my first ever shot in my ass, and my first ever IV. The US should copy the health system because its so good and cheap.  Some 15 dollars for the visit, shot/IV, and a bunch of medicine.

Current Apartment

Kimchi fridge

Hotdog sandwhich.  so funny

olympic apts.

new apt

new apt.

Mmmk, tommorow I go on the KTX high speed train down to Kimhae.  It'll be a change from the high pace of life here in Seoul. Although I've come to like it, aside from the driving.  Seriously, I can't tell you how bad it is.  They even have a nightly segment on the main news channel where they show 5-10 minutes of the day's bad driving and accidents.  A lady put her car in reverse and closed the door and it crashed into a bus... So much for stereotypes just being stereotypes....

*Note for my mom, they have an underground bookstore that is so large you have to squint to see the other side of the building. Seriously.