I'll be packing more heels this time around

The Korean Government: using their time and resources wisely. File this under WTF?!

The Comforts of Home?

So, a weird thing has happened since I returned home and I'm not quite sure where it came from or what to do about it.

I'm having a really hard time motivating myself to spend time with my family, and when I do see them I really can't leave fast enough.

For many people, I think this is called "normal." Not for me, though. I was really close to my family before I left and I'm having a hard time accepting my newfound apathy and annoyance toward them. And I think they've noticed, so that's awesome. Now I get to be the sister/daughter/aunt who came home from a year of traveling and is a total bitch/uppity snot to her family. Of course, this is all just from my point of view, I could be totally wrong. But I don't think so.

What the hell is wrong?

Wonder Girls do Engrish

I love the Wonder Girls. I am thankful to finally be able to understand what the hell they're saying. And I just can't bring myself to hate on this. I miss Korea. Enjoy.

Koreasoning at its finest

File this under "WTF?!" of the day.

Where the wild things are

I've been home for a hot second now, and already my list of "things I missed and thought I could never live without and am now devouring" and "shit that annoyed me about America before I left and now drives me batshit crazy" are about equal.  Who knew?

Anyway, I'd prolly bitch no matter where I was, so take my complaints with a grain of salt.  I'll stick to the positive for now.

I am glad to be home where there's decent beer(!), drivers understand the concepts of lanes and traffic laws, my vocabulary consists of more than 'hello', 'thank you', and 'can I have more beer', staring is considered rude, avocados cost 88 cents, walkers and cyclists aren't in a constant state of drunken swerving, I no longer need to talk and gesture wildly to get a sad representation of what I actually wanted, sandwiches, oh sweet sandwiches, diversity is the norm (even in Idaho!), the streets don't smell of hot shit and the water doesn't make my hair fall out, I can see the mountains everyday, good sex, and, most importantly, my friends and family, who are prolly already tired of listening to my stories, but who listen patiently nonetheless because I brought them gifts and they have to.

Surprisingly, there are more than a handful of things that I didn't even know I missed.  Like greasy teenage boys on skateboards and middle-aged men with big bellies wearing white socks and sandals and mom jeans and road rage.  I really missed the road rage.  Korean drivers are krazy and no one seems to notice.  On more than a handful of occasions I wanted to roll down my window and flip the bird to all the offending drivers, but alas, I was usually in a cab and it would prolly be considered poor form...

More later.  I gotta eat me some Mexican.

So long, farewell.

Goodbye kimchi and 'anyung haseo' and 'kamsahamnida'.  Goodbye Baekjae Samgyetang and Anyang Ilshim Gyohae and OK!  Goodbye kimchi bokumbop and chamchi and bibimbap and mekju, juseyo. Goodbye girls in shorts and tights and heels and man bags and Chucks and bowl cuts.  Goodbye hot Korean boys and giggly Korean girls. Goodbye efficient public transportation and crowded subways and social sleepers. Goodbye cheap cell phone service and public television watching (even in the movie theater bathrooms!) and street food and 700 won bus rides.  Goodbye kick ass Korean rest stops and express buses and weekend getaways and festivals and national monuments.  Goodbye 'Dokdo is a Korea land' and melamin and crazy cows.  Goodbye acid rain and tiny cardigans and fold-up bikes and Mona Risa.  Goodbye ajummas and ajoshis and visors and urban hikers and playing with yer feet at dinner.  Goodbye communal dining and banchan and "service-uh" and the Sound of Vitality. Goodbye street socks and subway shopping and free size and no last call and peanut butter squid.  Goodbye panda hats and skinny jeans and sexual ambiguity and androgyny.  Goodbye holding hands and public nudity and love motels. Goodbye precocious and inquisitive students, "Teacher but," chewies, and Best in Class.  Goodbye Yura and Dongwook. Goodbye Take It and Make it Rain and Matt's Abs and Good for Wellbeing and Nice-uh.  Goodbye public drunkenness, feral cats, bench "nappers", stripes, Paris Baguette and Tous Les Jours.  Goodbye GS and Family Mart and Buy the Way.  Goodbye dorm life and 300 square feet and walking to work.  Goodbye shameless vanity and Krazy Korean mothers and absent Korean fathers.  Goodbye Friday morning coffee run and Weekend at Sunny's. Goodbye floor heat, "shit, shower, shave AND cook", wet naps, and sun porches. Goodbye whitebeaters and encoves and spics and rotator cups. (Love you Ellen.)  Goodbye "Nice to meet you" and "Where are you prom?" Goodbye ramen and Binch and Choco Digest cookies.  Goodbye looking like a high class call girl on a Sunday afternoon. Goodbye shiny suits and "Koreanized" shoes and minifridges.  Goodbye Wonder Girls and Girl's Generation and Rain and JYP and K-Pop ripoffs. Goodbye Clubby Bar Slang and Black Music Bar and Psycho and Uncle Don's and Beer Valley and convenience store drinking. Goodbye Anyang and Hongdae and Insadong and Gangnam and Myeong Dong and the stop of no return: Namtaeryang.  Goodbye Itaewon and Hooker Hill and Gecko's and The Red Door. Goodbye amazing nugae bars and rice cooker cakes and egg bread and red pepper paste. Goodbye B-Boys and dance offs and emo glasses.  Goodbye Korean snacking. (That one really deserves its own post.)  Goodbye Norae bangs and PC bangs and hookah.  Goodbye tiny trashcans and squatters and "one shot" and rock, scissor, paper. Goodbye Kim and Park and Lee.  Goodbye napping bosses, impromptu public photo shoots and 5000 won avocados. Goodbye groupthink and homogeneity and Lee Myung Bak and nationalism.

Goodbye Koreasoning.

Hello Taco Bell and dryers. 

Planes, trains and longtail boats.

Traveling wears me out. I'm currently sitting at a computer in Ko Phi Phi waiting for the long adventure home to begin. I've got lotsa stories to tell, but the internets on this island heaven don't come cheap.

Smell ya later!