Motherland Update :)

I officially have 6 more classes left and will be home in exactly two weeks :) Yaaaaaaaaay! I'm so excited. Korea's fun for the weekend but I miss home, and my parents and TACOOOOOOOOOOOOO <3

What's been up as of late:

I haven't been able to sleep too well. It's hot here :( and there's no AC. and my crazy cousin likes to put her alarm on for 4 am... but she doesn't actually get up til 6... so I think it's one of those pre-pre alarms.. but the thing is her and her sister are so used to it that they don't wake up.. so I wake up, grumpy.

Inception was really good :) I think it lived up to the hype. I think I sometimes don't like movies after they get too hyped up because I get so excited for it but this time I enjoyed it :).
Usually I don't like watching movies in the theatre because the tickets are expensive and most of the time I can't understand what they're saying because it sounds like they're mumbling.. I think I just have poor hearing.. but yeah.. same case for Inception.. I also kept looking at the Korean subtitles which didn't help at all.. I think I probably missed a bunch of stuff in the movie. I'm looking forward to seeing it again, with English subtitles :)

HAHA something I thought was really funny that my modern Korean history teacher said today in class:
We learned about the USS Maddox and it's part leading to the Vietnam war and my teacher goes.. "I don't understand why Angelina Jolie adopted a kid from Southeast Asia and named him Maddox, that's like adopting a kid from Hawaii and naming him Pearl Harbor."
hAHAHA I thought it was funny :)


full moon the other night :)


playing with my other cousins dog. i miss my dogsss

mom's marketplace :)

One of the good things about Korea is it's such a small country. There's a good opportunity for me to run into historical sites or where my mom and my dad grew up. I went to a street marketplace a couple of days ago that's literally right next to where my mom grew up. Which means she went by here all the time when she was younger which I thought was cool :)
It was definitely no e-mart but had it's own benefits. You could see a lot of the people making the food or preparing something. You got to taste test if you wanted. Most of the meats/fish/seafood were really disturbing. I will spare you of the pig and pigs feet pictures.. On a good note: I went on a semi-rainy day so it wasn't too packed :)

2 more weeks left in Korea :)

Movies Movies Movies!

I've been watching a loooot of movies lately.
Realization: movies always end up being so much better when you go into the movie knowing almost nothing about it with not much expectation.
I sadly can't go to the theaters and watch all the summer movies right now that people are hailing about: Inception, Toy Story 3, Despicable Me, etc.
I have downloaded and watched a bunch in the past couple weeks though that I would like to share:

One of my new favorite movies:
Shakespeare in Love
so good good good, I recommend it for anyone :)


Good movies but on a more serious note:
The Devil's Advocate
Boys Don't Cry (based on a true story)
Million Dollar Baby

whewwww, tears tears tears everywhere.

sidenote: these two movies AND karate kid? hilary swank has definitely moved up on my actresses I like list :)

I finally watched Jerry Maguire after years of only seeing two or three scenes as I flipped through the channels. This is when Tom Cruise was actually really cute and had a good career going for him..... the kid in the movie is adorableeee.

I still have a bunch of already downloaded movies that I have to get to but I am open to suggestions because once school starts I won't be able to watch movies this frequently :)

Toodles & have a good week (:

Rainy Saturday

It's Saturday morning.. & it's pouring outside. It's dark and kind of gloomy.

My plans for the day: study for the two midterms I have for my summer classes on Monday and Tuesday. (Maybe I'll sneak a movie into there)

Feeling like I'm going to be a lot closer with Korean history after today, in the best way possible. Hoping that this rain does not bring my mood down! Maybe the studying will.... this is a good combo.


a picture from a few days ago when it was raining. Rainy season is hereeee!

Biking + Sleepovers :)

I went biking for the first time in a realllllly long time. I can't even remember the last time I rode a bicycle. I forgot how fun it was :) It was very relaxing and liberating :)




Also, since I've been living at my uncle's, me & the two cousins have all been sleeping in the main room every night, sleepover style. We just spread out a bunch of blankets and usually watch a movie on a laptop or just delay each other from going to sleep. Makes me feel like a little kid again :)




pretending like we actually sleep like this....... HAHA

some other pictures of homebody life:

my love for nOOdles has like quadrupled since I've come to Korea :)




hahaha they're cute & i love it :)

I love tall, but......

I have always been a fan of tall :)

tall boys, tall girls, I wish I was taller, giraffes<3 are tall, everything just seems better, cuter, sexier, cooler when it's taller .. whew, the word tall is starting to look funny cause I keep typing it out.. haha. Anyway, you get the point.. but, as I walk down the streets of Ilsan I spy these bad boys......



That... is a sad sad affair & seems rather pathetic......
Boys wearing tight skinny jeans, boys wearing murses (man purses), boys wearing these inside their shoes to seem taller. BLEEEEEEEEEECH. I hate it!
I think when I start writing about this stuff, I always get a little paranoid though that I may come off as ignorant. I think this has been due to a few people in my life who have made me question all things (appreciated). I know I'm probably completely bias because I'm from America and the way Korean boys act and dress here are completely foreign to me.. but, yuckkk. & maybe there's a reason I like taller people because of where I was born and grew up.. I'm not sure, but all I know is when I saw these on the street, I was disturbed. I think the more I hear about Korean fashiong, lifestyle, dating, etc. I get worried and then kind of relieved that I didn't grow up around this. I mean, not that American lifestyle and dating don't have problems of their own.....

I shall leave you with another picture of a male that I saw when I went to go watch the Korea/Uruguay match:

oh my gah... blech!
I hope this random Korean person doesn't somehow randomly stumble upon my blog...

Giraffe, you are officially my favorite :)

For some reason, I really like giraffes. They seem so peaceful and lovable and talllllll. They are my favorite animals :) (Also high on that list: camel (i really enjoy the fact that they have a hump), sea otters (so cute cute cute cute)). Everything about them is awesome :), except Melman in Madagascar.. he was just an odd drug-addicted giraffe. Anywho, I went to the Seoul zoo last weekend & I finally got to meet a giraffe :) among other cool animals, including a sea otter and a camel :)



deer poop :)


i spy a bear in the background!




hello beautiful :) i fed him a piece of bread and then tried to pet his nose but he ran away and i got in trouble by the feed-a-giraffe-time person HAHA



taking advantage of me knocking out on the ride back


grams w/ the three granddaughters born within a year of each other :)

Birthday and Tourist Festivities :)

Hello friends, avid readers, world! So, the night before my birthday me & the family (uncle, aunt, 2 daughters) went out to go eat kalbi :) which actually tastes a lot better in Korea. I didn't really like it that much in America. Afterwards, we played til it turned 12:00! I love how silly my family here is. It's very entertaining! My older cousin made me a cake which came out really nicely. When I actually woke up on my birthday.. I was feeling quite sick so my aunt went and go me some medicine (I <3 modern medicine). It was also pouringgggg outside :( I had dinner with Eddie oppa, Linda, and Eddie oppa's friend Sergei and got some dessert afterwards :) It was still nice (: WAHOO TO BEING 19!!!!!!!!! AND 20 IN KOREA!!!!!! Now I can go drink and go crazy... just kidding :)



it's cool cause I just learned about this place in one of my classes :) Yay for Korean history :)



the beeeeeeeeeeautiful cake my cousin made me. those are real flowers :)

goofing off before 12 :)

ugly duckling family portrait.

the wall of the place we ate dinner. find my name!

toodles (:

To my Last Year :)

I am officially 19 years old (in America).
To the last chapter of my teenage years :)


(from last year's birthday)