Day 2 + 3

My life hasn't been fancy since day 1.

I got to meet my dad's co-worker who is same age as me and went to market at 1am on day 2, and I went to McDonald's and postal office today. I didn't do much because I didn't know where to go and I didn't have any cash on me until today (thanks dad :D ) I stayed at home most of time, helping my dad with some logo design.

(lunch for myself, I think side dishes were made by my youngest aunt / 작은이모)

On day 2, I didn't know what to eat or where to go to eat, so I just took out food from fridge and ate myself. After working for a bit, I started to fall asleep around 6pm then woke up around 10pm or so. I'm not sure what time I woke up because my mom woke me up. As we were watching TV, mom fell asleep for a bit. We weren't able to sleep early, so we decided to go to Kim's Club, a market that's open 24 hours.

(on the way to Kim's Club)


(watching TV on the way)

Interesting part about Korean cars is you can watch TV on screen that's pre-installed. I guess American cars have it too..? but I haven't seen it yet. We got some shampoo, yogurt, facial mask, nose mask, etc. We came home around 2am and went to sleep soon after.

On day 3 (today,) my dad and I went to McDonald's for lunch and I went to postal office to send some stuff that my friend asked me to send for her.

(on the way back to home)

It took me awhile to find the postal office because it was inside of a building. People from postal office was really nice. They helped me with wrapping things in a box and guided me what I need to do next.
After I finished my business, I walked to the road where I used to walk around.

(panorama view of buildings near my elementary school)

I walked towards the elementary school where I used to go for my 5th and 6th grade. I was surprised how much it changed since last time i passed by here. Buildings looked cleaner and more organized.

(BCD Tofu House)

I walked towards the left building on panorama picture and found BCD Tofu House! I'm actually not sure if it's same BCD as LA one, but I'm assuming they are same since it says LA? I guess I would have to go to check it out.

(Ban Won Elementary School)

I passed the building and walked towards the elementary school. There weren't any students (except few who were playing soccer) because they are on winter break until March I think. I forget how long the break is.

(Pigeons)

OMG, pigeons in Korea are FATTER than ones in US. No wonder people call them 닭둘기 (chicken + pigeon)
Anyways, this was my life for past 2 days. I'm going out tomorrow so I should have more fun day.

Okay, I should head out to sleep soon. Good night!

HELLO FAMILY!

(on the way to Korea)

Hello friends and family :D

So the airplane I got in was A380, not A830 (sorry JP) As soon as seat belt sign turned off, I plugged my laptop charger under my seat (I found an outlet YAY) and turned on my laptop.
This airplane I was in was HUGE. I heard this one takes up to 550 people! I knew I was going to be in big airplane, but not THIS big. I wish I had a chance to go to business class :/ I sat on economy seat, near the right wing area. I was a bit worried about seating area, but this new airplane was built with wider seat, which was really nice. Each seat came with individual touch screen monitor that's wider than my hand, and a power outlet. There was a remote to use for controlling channels and playing games. There was USB outlet next to a monitor to charge your iPhone, MP3 player, etc. Table was a folding table.

(media system)

Their media system was pretty good too. They had quite a good selection of movies like Crazy Stupid Love, Cars 2, Harry Potter 7 part 2, etc. Music was okay, but I was surprised to see some of Korean indie artists like Lucid Fall's (oh my there were more but I can't think of names right now) album was included.

(from left: front view, bottom view, tail view)

It had cool thing about their flight information! You can see outside of airplane VIA CAMERA! It installed 3 cameras (front, bottom, tail) and let you see how outside looked like.
I was pretty happy with an experience I had in A380. I wonder if I can take that plane again when I go back :P

(people who sat next to me)

Okay, I will stop talking about this airplane. I will talk about passengers who sat next to me. I got window seat and there are 2 passengers sitting next to me. One on aisle seat slept most of time since we sat down and one who sat in the middle read newspaper and watched documentary most of time. They seemed pretty chill. Only problem was that the guy who sat on aisle was big. Guy in the middle and I kept waiting for that guy to stand up and head out to somewhere so we can get out and go to restroom too. I was able to go to restroom just once....

(left: California / right: about half way to Korea)

(souvenir: indoor sleepers, toothpaste, and toothbrush)

(left: lunch - bibimbap / right: dinner - fish with potatoes)

(snack: bread with beef and Market-O brownie)

Food was good too. Portion was perfect for me, or maybe I felt that way because I wasn't digesting as fast. I really liked Market-O brownie. It was sweet for sure, but I really liked the texture of it. I wonder if I can get them at Kim's Club.

I arrived around 5:30pm, passed by the customs, picked up my gigantic baggage, and met my parents outside of the gate. My parents started to complain about how I gained weight more and how my hair looks messy as soon as we reunited.

We went to eat dinner near the airport. It was all you can eat 쌈밥 (vegetables that you can eat as a wrap) restaurant. My dad ordered fermented skate fish to have me try it because he thought I would like it since he likes it (we usually have same taste) One we had wasn't too fermented but it still had that weird stinky taste that I never tried. My mom hates skate fish so she didn't even touch it. I ended up eating small piece of mackerel, cooked with spicy sauce (고등어조림) all by myself (mackerel is my favorite fish) and some of spicy pork.

(she's 14 years old.)

After we filled our tummy, we came home and my baby, Murphy, came out to say hello. She didn't recognize me at first and almost bite me (bad girl!) but she slowly came to me though. I got surprised how she got so old and lost lot of hair around her nose and feet. She even lost so much weight too. Mom said she actually gained weight; she was barely 4 lbs about a month ago, but now she's about 5lbs, still skinny :(.

So this was pretty much my first day in Korea. Hope everyone is well. Gotta resume on my work! Bye!

Gathering memories

So I am finally leaving to Korea in 6 hours.

6 - 8 months isn't that long period of time, but it's definitely long enough to stay there for me. I'm going to miss all of my friends who are truly my blessings. I had dates with my friends everyday after work. I had last CG at Pastor JP's house on Monday, had dinner with Pastor JP's family, Jo, and Paul on Tuesday, met my girls and had dinner on Wednesday, hung out with my friend Jieun who visited me from St. Louis on Thursday, dinner with Yani and Sally on Friday, and potluck dinner with my bro, Jieun, her brother, his girlfriend, DB, and Jungeun. And yesterday was my last service at NUMA until I come back.

Yesterday was just beyond awesome. My friend stopped by my church and gave me a picture book with the girls. They were pictures of us since we met in high school. I received so much love from them as you can see on picture above. My 'families' in NUMA wrote encouragement in post-it and gave them to me and prayed for me.

(picture by David Hwang)

With all my friends and family behind, I am packed to leave my house in an hour. I think I packed everything. I still can't believe I'm leaving. I still don't feel like I will be outside of my home for over 6 months. I'll be posting my life in Korea in this blog so you guys will know how my life is in Korea and what I will be going through.

I will miss you everyone. I will see you when I arrive.