Called Korea Home

From: Sunday, 28 December 2008
To: Thursday, 10 October 2013
For 1748 days
Or 4 years, 9 months, 13 days
Or 249 weeks and 5 days

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

I can have whatever I like ;)

It takes a different kind of person to decide to just up and leave everything they've known to relocate to a new country. Sometime I get homesick. But my kind of homesick is not craving for home, but rather wishing that things I miss could come here. I don't want to leave here. I love it. I've started scaring/preparing my mom for the fact that I may not return again.i am probably going to stay 2 years. the first year is just for adapting and the second is to do all the things i want to do. then maybe I'll move to another country. Already my aussie buddy has me toying with the idea of a phd in Australia. wouldn't that be amazing????

i've been having so much fun. i love asia because of the picture menus. we go into places and point and pictures and get food. i love how the koreans are so considerate. every time i order something spicy off the menu, they come back and gesture to me to make sure I know it's spicy. Isn't that sweet, they are worried about the poor foreigner who might keel over and die because our week palates... they dont know who they messin' with. i ordered the spiciest thing on the menu and watched them watch me to make sure I survived. Korean hot is an interesting hot because because its a sweetish, spicy. they don't get that i've had my tongue scalded and survived. i hate bland food... Then I washed it all down with some green tea haagen-dazs on a waffle cone. You know its sad when greentea icecream in korea is more potent that any greentea I’ve ever had in the states. It was cute because she said thank you as I said kamsahnida, and we both giggled at trying to accommodate each other’s culture. I love that we are all connected as humans…

My buddy and I are the kind of people who cannot stay in when something is going on, and there is always something going on. We also cannot so no to the offer of a drink, which apparently makes us perfect koreans. Yo, skinny petite korean women can drink some guys I know under the table. It's insane.... Anyways we just wonder around, pop into different restaurants, and then order up some pitchers. I'm never home before 3/4. good thing i don't have to work until 4pm in the afternoon. that'd be brutal. The other night we decided we were going to have some street food for dinner. While I haven't quite worked up the courage to much on some yummy squid with tentacles hanging fresh off the street, I did enjoy this yummy rice cake spicy stew that the lady served up for us. Again she warned my korean-american friend to let me know it was spicy, to which I gave a big smile and a huge thumbs up. She then proceeded to tell me I was gorgeous, which was really sweet of her. I was honored. I liked her, the boys also made me try some bllod sausage thing (yes real blood) and i took the dare but that was all I could stand. for sweetness we got this yummy treat that looks like a pancake with sugar inside the hollow. yummy.

Then I spotted it. A norebang. It's basically a kareoke bar, but remember karaoke is a japanese word and while we've incorparated it as standard english, well the koreans and japanese are still working out their issues, so norebang it is. Guy in the norebang also decided that I was gorgeous, and when I told him my birthday was the next day he said we could stay extra. So with a couple of hites in hands we exercised our horrible vocal cords and thankfully, Korean norebangs, like most asian karaoke places, are private rooms where you go sing,...

So we belted out all the Mariah carey, journey and bon jovi we could for one hour, then headed back to the hotel.
Of course my buddy and I decided that 1 am was too early to go to bed, and it was now officially my birthday in korea, so we headed back out for more… 3 liters of beer and a plate full of chicken later, we were kicked out at 2 am. Sunday is the only night I have ever seen Gangnam even remotely slow down…. And speaking of slow down, I might need to. But it’s birthday so hey… D and I are being good koreans and pouring each others beers

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