Dented

I feel like this is one of those point drawings we did in
art class in elementary school. Subways are scary.

After spending roughly 40 days in the wilderness of the concrete jungle called Seoul, I was rather relieved to finally board the Korean Airlines and come home. I was so happy to finally step out of that cramped airplane with vomit-worthy food and see cars parked with more than inch between them. Apparently I'm a little more claustrophobic than I had initially guessed.

I was just very happy with life in general.

Sadly, life didn't reciprocate my love and like two seconds after I stepped into my Scion to drive to Taco Bell (seriously only two minutes away! I should've walked...), I backed into the family BMW. I scratched both fucking cars. Gah.. Why oh why did I crave fake Mexican food so much?!

Oh well. I'm still pretty happy. I don't know why though. Home is good. Haven't really done anything besides go Facebook crazy yet. I'm sho tired... If I was in Korea right now, I would be sleeping. 4 AM-ish over there. Hrm... Should I post more about Korea? YES.

Things You Should Bring to Korea if You Ever Decide to Go (GO!)

1. Toilet Paper: My biggest mistake. Korea's still in the process of westernizing their restrooms, which means you'll probably get to use a squat toilet if you go outside of Seoul. The thing is, they don't usually have toilet paper available in the stalls. After my first accident (let's say it was a good thing my mom was there!) I always had to check around the surrounding restroom if there was a roll hanging around somewhere.

2. Large Towels: I don't know if this applies to other people, since I stayed only with relatives. Anyhow, people in Korea use a towel that has a size equivalent to an American face towel. A handkerchief? IDK. Maybe I was spoiled with American luxuries, but I thought a towel you can wrap around yourself was pretty fundamental. You can miss these kinda things.

3. A laptop/cellphone: I am so thankful to whatever higher being it is that gave me the offhand notion to bring my TabletPC to Korea. You NEED either one to survive in Korea. Both offer communication which is so necessary in such a confusing area... and yeah, what do you do when you get bored? Facebook! Blog! So much more convenient than lugging around books. Oh and you should rent a cell at the airport, that's the only place I've actually seen rent-a-phone's offered. Haha, also Korean phones come with subway maps and korean-english translators, which I found out to my delight.

4. A Camera: I think I took 1000 pictures this trip? And that's not that much, considering my laziness and the fact that I didn't have a working camera for half the time (thank you rich aunt + uncle!). There's so much to do and see in Korea that just doesn't exist in America and you almost feel obligated to capture every moment. Or at least I did. hehe.

5: A Volt Adaptor: Since the last two were technological things, than YES #5 is an absolute must. Korea operates mostly on a different sort of outlet, and I just forgot the name of it. It's circular, not square, like America. So most appliances don't fit in them, which is why a converter/adaptor is necessary. Inquire the place you're staying at if they offer the American outlet or a converter. Es muy importante que haz esto. <-- my spanish is so gone :[

6. LOTSA Dinero: If you don't plan ahead well and just go to Korea spontaneously, the most likely thing you're going to do is shop. Shop til you drop. Which in itself is not a bad thing, because Korean items are quite good quality and cheap - if you know where to buy them AND you know how to haggle. I'm just going to add here that you should also bring a thick heart... because if you're, ahem, American-sized, it's gonna be fairly difficult to find well-fitting clothes here (plus sometimes the employees can be bitches). And sometimes you feel that the whispering girls around you are talking about you. Why do they do that so much? Que molesta.

7. An English-speaking Buddy: And finally, the most important. I honestly feel that if I had not miraculously found friends who spoke English, I would have gone crazy. I mean, what's the point of experiencing your first encounter of a squat toilet with no toilet paper if you have no one you can fluently tell it to? *This really happened, but not to me. :D

Oh my gads that was long.

My first trip to Korea in eight years was vair nice. I hope to go again soon. But not too soon. Korea's really different from Cerritos... ^^

Blink 182

Me and my cousins at Lotte World...
lol people don't smile here, only the Disney ripoffs do.

i gotta say... i LOOOVE korea

but i miss everyone in the States so much.

hmm... is it just me, or is like pretty much every korean i know in America actually in korea right now? i swear, i've bumped into so many rands peopoz. borah, dianna, sarah... maybe it's a chick thing. :D

anyhow, i guess i'll be seeing allayall in a few days! <33

...and college is coming so soon! o_O

Ol' Eem Peaks

Yes! Finally, taekwondo is taking place in beijing. and pingpong's gonna give out the medals soon. mebbe korea can pull off the upset on china again? that'd be awesome.

well. i wrote that first sentence a couple days ago, and since then, korea got 2/2 GOLD medals yay! yeah, im glad the lopezes got some too, but still. KOREA! i stayed up all night to watch the matches yesterday (or this morning heh). dang im glad nobody from korea's going against steve lopez. only some korean chick tonight. whoo! and for some MORE korean pride, the reason why nations can only send 4 athletes into TKD is because the administration didn't want korea to just have numerous golds from just one event. whoa!

and surprisingly, korea's going to medal in baseball! dang, so much for the last year baseball's gonna be played, and all that about america's independence. dont get me wrong, i'm sho glad that USA's pulling away from china in medals (sorry!), but my hearts with korea. (remember i only got 1.5 hours of sleep last night -_-) lucky idiots, they don't have to do the mandatory military service anymore!

wow i'm watching mens beach vball right now and even though because of this stupid west coast delay, i know that USA won already, but they're sucking as of now. oh wait, now they're getting it back. LMAO why they call fabio "jaws" hehe.

mah! im not liking this summer writing workshop. ucla and usc are "dream" schools for me according to ms. logan. :[ i don't WANT to go to UCI or UCD! geez. oh well, at least im getting my essays done.

kay, until korea wins again... hwaiting! <3

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my surprise about korean baseball!

i'm so glad my hair's finally growing out. :]

lala OLYMPICSSS

ahhh finally my family goes without me somewhere... (to costco). so that allows me to freely post stuff! heh. geez i sound so bad, but they havent been able to go anywhere remotely FUn this summer because of my stupid leg. dizzang and my stupider falls. but whatever, i'm praying that i don't need another surgery.

i was gonna post about the olympics, but the whole leg thing made me remember: i took pictures of my leg that were gross. so i can gross anybody looking at this out. hurhur.

i was in the cast/splint thing for like a whole MONTH, so basically all my muscles in my leg atrophied and became nonexistant. and to top it off, i found out that because i had an allergic reaction to the cleaning fluid (pretty rare), normal people take it off in two weeks and retain some of their definition, but my unluckiness just killed me. so here, the disgustingness.

macro of the scab:

a diluted version of the allergies:

now, a pic of my right leg:

now the left:

oh the consequences of surgery. i don't know HOW long it'll take me to recover that glorious muscle back. i hope that it gets better before the new (and my last) track season. :[ my mom has a different opinion, that the thin leg is how it SHOULD look. the korean thinness obsession is gross in my eyes. but yeah, if you were like i was and think that your legs are just naturally large and will not budge, don't wish for it (my most incoherent sentence ever). i can't frekin WALK right, and it's shooo annoying. *sigh. physical therapy here i come.

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soo now that's over with, i can talk about the olympics! haha, what a place beijing is. all those chinese people! i bet it was a shocker for whites. at least im always surrounded by my taiwanese buddies.

okay, so as of RIGHT NOW, s. korea is in third place in the medal rankings! isn't that insane?! we're like one of the smallest countries in the world and we're third, behind the giants china and america. well, i'm rooting for the USA too, but... Korea first! 8D (i love being american, so much freedom, right? lol) yeah, i guess it'll even out when phelps wins those swim medals and china gets those pingpong medals haha. but right now, it's awesome.

salute to all those who got medals! i don't know your names, but i know it was in judo, archery, shooting, weightlifting... and swimming! wtf! korea never gets swimming medals!! haha, until now! presenting... korea's marine boy (his official nickname from his mother country -_-)!!

lol, so he's KINDA cute. (marry me? he's only 18 ^^)

park tae hwan! whoo! gives a whole new respect for swimmers! *snickers. now its time for gold medal runners and throwers! yaeh! go korea! hwaiting!

mang, i hope korea does well in soccer... it's not looking too bright though. lets go korea! on wednesday at 2 am pacific time! beat those hondurans by at least 2 goals! yeah!

lol my mania. i bet everybody in korea has it 10x worse than me.

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-____- the internet broke on me before i could post this 6 hours ago.

koreans still third, but the others countries are coming up and pulling away... uh oh.

OMfG did you just see that last 4X100 american relay?!?!

AMAZING!!! if only ALL our races ended up like that! a dream...

lol his face makes me crack up.

hmm.. it's been a WHILE since i actually got excited.