So Long Korea, for Now

One final Korea post summing up weeks of random stuff. One of Yoon's mom's fantabulous meals. Hae In and JP from that were from my japanese language school in tokyo. club Harlem in hongdae. we're getting old. everyone in there was like 18-20 yrs old. they all knew the dances to all the new hip hop songs. what is going on here? Pheasants abound on the army base. looks awesome right? a huge pile of fried chicken on top of a generous bed of homemade potato chips. well it gave me decently bad food poisoning that took me out of commission for the rest of the night and the next day. Misa came to visit from tokyo this park in hongdae where there are always college bands playing at night. just to the right was a hip hop freestylin' circle while an all girl rock group similar in sound to the white stripes was mashing away in the center of this circle of people. how fun would it be to go to hongik university? Across the street from Yeouido park is, something, another park flanked by the han river. this fountain/funland for kids would be awesome to play in. Yeouido park is a famous place to see cherry blossoms. I tried to organize a picnic ala Japanese hanami style but lots of people copped out, it got windy and we were just picnicking on dead grass while the trees were far away and unpicknicable under Jungeun from 10 years ago at Yonsei from the snowboard club came. Shes gonna come to barcelona in june. My plan was also to have everyone wear pink but only will did it, i even forgot. thanks anyway. at Gimpo airport subway station. the magic of thinking big. i'm guessing this is a bestseller translated into Korean. its interesting because there are a lot of things to be said about Koreans breaking out of their confucian bonds and "Thinking Big". If you want to talk about thinking big, what do you think that weird eyed woman with the blue glasses is thinking? Is she thinking big? I never noticed before that there was a picture of the guy driving the bus on the back of his seat. It says he is "nice and safe". I had a bad cough for 7 days yet wasn't sick so i finally went to the Yonsei Severence hospital, the international branch to see what was up. this is the same place i went back in 2001 when i had a severe cough for a month. this time i got antibiotics just like 10 years ago. i still have the cough. the doctor said it "sounds like it could be an infection". For some reason they had this cool display of classic cameras. after the hospital i had to go get the prescript outside of the hospital they said. there are pharmacies everywhere in korea. in shinchon there are like 3 per block. this pharmacy and many others give you a free little yoghurt drink while you wait for your prescription to be immediately filled. shinchon was the old stomping ground. i took a stroll around. most things have changed. only the big things like the hyundai department store and mcdonalds are still there. that buy the way convienence store used to be 7-11 and we used to drink beer outside it at that table on the side walk. that 아침나무 place on the right is still there after all these years so i ate there. Seoul tower on the right, to the left are the houses going up the hill making it look like favelas in brazil. oh look a giant smiley face, ms. sunshine. So Hyun works at the embassy and is always smiling and literally is the sunshine of Seoul. they should bring her around cancer wards to cure patients or something. Korea is the most wired nation in the world. Look at the level they are on! this is an upperscale restaurant even and they have boxes up there that blow the US out of the water. Bossam is slow cooked pork shoulder, sweet kimchi, some sauce, and then you wrap it in something, in this case, some kind of special soft and supple cabbage. it is the BOMB! went a'screen golfin' with JP I have been friends with Yoon for 10 years now. we have played ping pong in many countries. It's become a habit. when he went to europe he found this little ping pong trophy at a second hand store and had the idea that we would play for it everytime we met, in whatever country it was. We are an equal match and usually trade wins back and forth. top right: measuring table to wall distances. bottom right: ......he won. it was a close tournament, 4 games to 5. I had to let him win though so he didn't go into a state of depression here he is calling his mom to tell her the news but she never answered. you know why Yoon? because she knows you're a sad little baby and no one cares and everyone knows that that statue will just be mine next time. Here he is ladies and gents, your Seoul 2011 TEMPORARY world champion, Yoon Sang Nam. So far the record is Seoul '01 - ? New York '07 - ? Tianjin '08 - Yoon Incheon '09 - ? Tokyo '10 - ? Seoul '11 - Yoon ? means we can't remember who won. looks like you gotta come to Europe to hand over the trophy next yoon. i got carry out later. look what you get for $4.50. omurice (fried rice wrapped in an egg omelet), various side dishes, miso soup. the banana milk was bought seperately. this is awesome and would lead to me never cooking if i lived in Korea again (just like when i did live there). Final night out before flying to barcelona. here is the split second before "somaek" is made (shot of soju + maek ju (beer) = somaek). the shot glasses and their contents are about to fall into the beers via chain reaction. thanks to everyone having work the next day and having to control themselves this is the first time i've moved to another country without being still drunk/hungover. yay. Kohei from tokyo but now living in London visited. see you in London Kohei one last pojangmacha drink with JP in kangnam before calling it a night. i don't like JP now that he cut off his permed and dyed waving Korean hair. now he looks like gary bussey or something. talk to me when you get your hair back JP. something so simple as bean sprout broth works with drinking soju there are no direct flights to Barcelona from Seoul so i had a 14 hour layover in Moscow, Russia. The first leg of the flight ended up being Korean Air, which i was super pleasantly surpised to learn because Korean Air is the best. Sure it may seem superficial but 8+ hrs is a long time to have to look at someone, so when those someones are the industries most attractive stewardesses then its really creates a winning combo, even females have to agree. What, do you want to look at delta's 55yr old sassy aunts for the whole flight? (scientifically everyone including babies like looking at pretty women more). I have flown on Air China, China Air, Dragon Air, China Easter, China Southern, American Airlines, Asiana, Delta, Jet Blue, Aeroflot and Korean Air and Korean Air has the hottest/most beautiful stewardesses who are the friendliest/kindest and most professional with uniforms that be fittin' right, especially the skirts damn! the service is awesome. the planes are new. each seat has a plethora of entertainment options from is individual unit. Korean Air is the airline to beat. Second best is, i don't know Asiana or Jet Blue. see below for the worst. Moscow airport. would you trust a machine that had absolutely no english on it anywhere? super expensive a super dry half of a chicken sandwhich packed in one of those triangle plastic things from a refrigerator shelf and a small small almost sample sized bag of chips ended up being 280 rubbles. i had no idea what this meant and found out later that it meant about $10. I thought russia was supposed to be poor. on the internets the Sheremetyevo airport in moscow is rated the 3rd worst airport in the world. i will definitely think thrice before ever trying to sleep over night in an airport. my standards were the lowest possible after researching so it wasn't absolutely horrible but pretty bad. i actually got maybe 4 hrs of sleep though. check out my security system bags looped through my leg and tied to the suitcase handle. there was nothing to steal in the totebag. a pretty awesomely uncomfortable way to sleep. So all in all russia seems like it would be a sh!tty place to live and visit although i can't make that call because i have only been in their airport for 14 hrs and not in the real russia. but the internets had it pretty spot on, most people were unhelpful bordering on rude. the stewardesses on Aeroflot airlines to barcelona were not smokin' hot russian models. what the hell? they had a couple smokin' hot russian models working the security scanners at immigration and there were a bunch in the airport, why can't they get any for the planes? Aeroflot ties with Delta for being the worst because of their weak stewardesses, super super old planes with duct tape covering the ashtrays on the plane seats and the not so friendly service. Delta is the worst because their stewardesses are like your 55 yr old fat sassy/nasty racist aunt who give you service that is not so professional and old planes. So since I'll be in europe from here on out i won't be back in Asia for a while, so, So long Korea, for now. Hey readers! see you in barcelona!