Sunday, May 10, 2009
Saturday, May 9, 2009
gentle hour
I definitely need to update this thing more.
Before I forget:
I have a week's worth of homework to catch up on tonight. The Seoul DJ Festival is going on tonight and I have no interest in going, even though I have a free ticket. I just want to stay in and listen to Yo La Tengo and work on my midterms! I'm a good student.
My Chinese roommate Chenyang (he goes by Aaron) loves my small collection of footwear. He especially likes my Rockports. That is the only brand of shoes I have loyalty to. They are comfortable, stylish, and priced reasonably! After two months of yearning for them, he finally broke down and bought a pair. Good choice, mate!
Before I forget:
- Taiwan
- 외국인 Idol
- Birthday
- Plans for the next 3 months
- Plans for the next 3 years
I have a week's worth of homework to catch up on tonight. The Seoul DJ Festival is going on tonight and I have no interest in going, even though I have a free ticket. I just want to stay in and listen to Yo La Tengo and work on my midterms! I'm a good student.
My Chinese roommate Chenyang (he goes by Aaron) loves my small collection of footwear. He especially likes my Rockports. That is the only brand of shoes I have loyalty to. They are comfortable, stylish, and priced reasonably! After two months of yearning for them, he finally broke down and bought a pair. Good choice, mate!
Thursday, May 7, 2009
insomnia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfskIJ5-qOw
If that doesn't get your juices flowing, nothing will...
John and I passed the auditions. May 22nd is the show!
If that doesn't get your juices flowing, nothing will...
John and I passed the auditions. May 22nd is the show!
Friday, April 10, 2009
foods and stuffs picture update!
a blog update is never complete without an ancient palace picture.
korean guy didn't focus my lens correctly. kevin from la, felix from germany, and myself in front of the campus center at my school.
my friend stefan from germany and i at one of my favorite bars called tae. it means 'womb' in korean. they play good music! (they played lcd sounsystem and black kids for me)
went to the north korea vs south korea qualifier! south korea won, duh, but check out the size of that flag!
at insadong, trendy/artsy district of seoul, and look what i found!
in insadong enjoying some traditional 5-flavor tea.
ramen with cheese is a standard lunch of mine. i will never have ramen without a slice of cheese on it. it adds a fourth dimension to ramen!!
that light is a tap light that my roommate hits almost every night in his sleep. so i'll be woken up a few times everynight because the room is completely bright. one night his computer was emitting a cool glow and it made an amazing contrast with that cursed tap light.
i cooked this little squid guy at all you can eat korean bbq (only $5!). he was delicious.
another very popular dish in korea is 돈까스, dyun gase, which is just a pork cutlet. but this one is special! because it is filled with cheeeeeese!
one of the many beautiful cherry blossoms trees that are blooming all over my school and seoul.
delicious and refreshing salmon with rice.
chinese 羊肉串, pronounced yang rou chuan, which is lamb on a stick. found it in korea! i used to eat this stuff religiously every night in shanghai. obviously not nearly as good.
crazy spicy salmon sushi in 명동, myung dong, the central shopping district of seoul
hot dog coated with french fries. unfortunately i have not had one yet, i was super full when i took this picture.
Friday, April 3, 2009
hyundai means modern times
I feared I would neglect the blog in time. But I'm not going to let that happen!
I may only have a few days to live, so I'll have to make the best of it. I'm going to start with a long overdue blog post about Shanghai.
A few weeks ago I met my brother Lap and his girlfriend Andrea in Shanghai. They were coming up from Hong Kong and stopping in Shanghai on their way to their final destination of Beijing. I showed them all of spots: tianzifang, people's square, street food, nanxiang shanghai dumplings, yolata, lilian's danta....The scary thing about Shanghai is that it really is constantly changing. For example, the entire Bund was under 24 hours of construction in preparation for the 2010 World Expo. I guess that's a bad example because it doesn't nearly encompass how much actual construction was going on.
OK, I remember Ross telling me, "You know how they say New York City is the city that never sleeps? Well if that's true, then Shanghai is the city that never even sits." I totally understand what it means now -- it's not that a reference to the nightlife in the city, but rather the rate at which Shanghai is growing. Just on Dingxi Lu, I counted multiple buildings that weren't there before. Businesses come and go faster than the time it would take to get a building permit in the States.
All in all it was a great experience. I got to go back to my favorite bar - De La Coast - which is always the greatest experience in Shanghai. On my last day in Shanghai, I checked out of my hotel and went to Nanjing Dong Lu to do some last minute shopping. I rushed back to my hotel, picked up my stuff, took a taxi to the subway station, and then got on the MagLev to the airport. I managed to do all this in under 45 minutes (I'm summarizing a lot, but it is impressive). I made it to the airport at 2:25, flight being at 3:00, and to my astonishment, the airline attendants told me that they had "closed the gates." It was absolutely horrible to argue with the managers for hours after that. Had I have come 10 minutes earlier, they would have been able to allow me to board the plane. The remaining half an hour before the flight was the most frustrating experience I have ever had. Simply knowing that the plane was still there.
Here comes the interesting part. I lingered around the airport, short of cash, for a few hours. I called a travel company in Beijing, I sent messages to travel agencies in Seoul, basically doing all I could to try to get a ticket for that same night. Prices were fluxuating by the minute, and I nearly broke down in at the Business center in the airport for charging me a ridiculous rate to use their phone and computer. They wouldn't even hold my luggage in the corner, which caused me to have my first expeirence of cussing at someone in English in China. These two women were remorseless. Finally, after speaking with the head manager of the airline, they agreed to set me on the next flight to Seoul. Which happened to be in the morning of the following day.
The lady who told me the gates were closed was avoiding me the entire time I was in the airport. I ran into her again, and after a bit of talking, I made her take me to dinner for bringing me such grave news. She helped me get settled into a hotel near the airport, which in turn was definitely in the countryside of Shanghai. Check it out!
my delicious street food fried rice and bubble tea - a little bit more than a dollar
see the sandy yellow powder in the red bowl? that's msg
funny dvd store
my gross hotel
I may only have a few days to live, so I'll have to make the best of it. I'm going to start with a long overdue blog post about Shanghai.
A few weeks ago I met my brother Lap and his girlfriend Andrea in Shanghai. They were coming up from Hong Kong and stopping in Shanghai on their way to their final destination of Beijing. I showed them all of spots: tianzifang, people's square, street food, nanxiang shanghai dumplings, yolata, lilian's danta....The scary thing about Shanghai is that it really is constantly changing. For example, the entire Bund was under 24 hours of construction in preparation for the 2010 World Expo. I guess that's a bad example because it doesn't nearly encompass how much actual construction was going on.
OK, I remember Ross telling me, "You know how they say New York City is the city that never sleeps? Well if that's true, then Shanghai is the city that never even sits." I totally understand what it means now -- it's not that a reference to the nightlife in the city, but rather the rate at which Shanghai is growing. Just on Dingxi Lu, I counted multiple buildings that weren't there before. Businesses come and go faster than the time it would take to get a building permit in the States.
All in all it was a great experience. I got to go back to my favorite bar - De La Coast - which is always the greatest experience in Shanghai. On my last day in Shanghai, I checked out of my hotel and went to Nanjing Dong Lu to do some last minute shopping. I rushed back to my hotel, picked up my stuff, took a taxi to the subway station, and then got on the MagLev to the airport. I managed to do all this in under 45 minutes (I'm summarizing a lot, but it is impressive). I made it to the airport at 2:25, flight being at 3:00, and to my astonishment, the airline attendants told me that they had "closed the gates." It was absolutely horrible to argue with the managers for hours after that. Had I have come 10 minutes earlier, they would have been able to allow me to board the plane. The remaining half an hour before the flight was the most frustrating experience I have ever had. Simply knowing that the plane was still there.
Here comes the interesting part. I lingered around the airport, short of cash, for a few hours. I called a travel company in Beijing, I sent messages to travel agencies in Seoul, basically doing all I could to try to get a ticket for that same night. Prices were fluxuating by the minute, and I nearly broke down in at the Business center in the airport for charging me a ridiculous rate to use their phone and computer. They wouldn't even hold my luggage in the corner, which caused me to have my first expeirence of cussing at someone in English in China. These two women were remorseless. Finally, after speaking with the head manager of the airline, they agreed to set me on the next flight to Seoul. Which happened to be in the morning of the following day.
The lady who told me the gates were closed was avoiding me the entire time I was in the airport. I ran into her again, and after a bit of talking, I made her take me to dinner for bringing me such grave news. She helped me get settled into a hotel near the airport, which in turn was definitely in the countryside of Shanghai. Check it out!
my delicious street food fried rice and bubble tea - a little bit more than a dollar
see the sandy yellow powder in the red bowl? that's msg
funny dvd store
my gross hotel
the view from my window! the hallway!
we also encountered a street market that sold various ware.
ajisen ramen! at 5 am!!!
Basically to sum it all up, I missed my flight, made a lady take me out to dinner and help me get settled in a shoddy hotel in the middle of the country, then bought two pairs of brass knuckles for less than a dollar each.
ajisen ramen! at 5 am!!!Basically to sum it all up, I missed my flight, made a lady take me out to dinner and help me get settled in a shoddy hotel in the middle of the country, then bought two pairs of brass knuckles for less than a dollar each.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
the weirdest thing in korea
I've been here for almost 3 weeks now, and it certainly does feel like I've been here longer. There have been many strange things in Korea I've encountered so far, for example, tanks of live squid and octopus (adjacent to those creatures were some, no, the most putrid sea creatures I've ever seen - phallic WORMS with no faces and fetus colored semi translucent bodies. I'll post a picture soon), an estranged Brokeback/intoxicated Korean business-man couple on the subway, the StarCraft channel, Korean girls in general, and the infinite number of 노래방s (Karaoke Rooms) and overpriced cafes...
None are even comparable to this one...
Remember the crane games that you used to play as a kid? The ones with all the plush dolls of Donald Duck that you didn't really want but couldn't bear to see behind a glass case? Yeah, the game in the back of Pizza Hut, you know what I'm talking about. In Korea they have those crane games scattered all over the streets of Seoul for the drunks to win a variety of prizes - power drills, packages of gum, Zippo knockoffs, and a few plush toys here and there.
That is a lobster. Inside a glass case. Inside a CRANE GAME!!!!!
None are even comparable to this one...
Remember the crane games that you used to play as a kid? The ones with all the plush dolls of Donald Duck that you didn't really want but couldn't bear to see behind a glass case? Yeah, the game in the back of Pizza Hut, you know what I'm talking about. In Korea they have those crane games scattered all over the streets of Seoul for the drunks to win a variety of prizes - power drills, packages of gum, Zippo knockoffs, and a few plush toys here and there.
Oh, and this.
That is a lobster. Inside a glass case. Inside a CRANE GAME!!!!!
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