CHANGING IT UP

I just moved into a new apartment almost two weeks ago. It has made all the difference in the world. The last apartment I used to live in was small, had a loft which I hated to climb up to, there was no room to cook and the walls were paper thin. Before I came to Korea I lived on my own for 4 years. There was nothing worse than coming home to my small apartment and feeling like I had roommates all over again. I did have a great friend across the hall though which was nice. I now live minutes from my job which will make life that much better during the winter. The apartment is significantly larger with a cute kitchen and actual closet space. I didn't realize how cooped up I felt in the other place till I got here. I've been designing, practicing on my ukulele and writing more here in the past two weeks than I did at the other place in 4 months. I'm sure it's not just this apartment that has gotten my creative juices flowing again. Whatever it was, I am excited to be back into the groove of the things I love to do. Every day I have more and more interest in just coming home and working on my computer or taking out my sketchbook for a couple of hours as opposed to going out for the night. I feel like I'm back in my Downtown LA Loft staying up till 2 or 3am, music blasting, my wrist cramping up and nothing on my mind except what's in front of me. From here on out things are gonna be different and I can't wait to see the outcome.

BREAKFAST AT STEPHANIE'S - Life after buying cheese

After our trip to Costco, (see previous post) I can't help but to find every excuse to eat cheese. Everything is just so much better with cheese. The grass is greener, the sky is bluer... OK I've now dedicated two posts to cheese. This is gonna be bad. I did however have a delicious breakfast courtesy of my new toaster oven that I bought online the other day for $13 with free shipping. It made an excellent piece of toast. Don't forget the sharp cheddar!

COSTCO

This weekend us girls made almost a 2 hour trek to Costco on the subway. We've been meaning to go to stock up on cheese since anything other than Kraft singles is basically obsolete in Korea except for Costco. We walked in and it hit me hard; I miss home. It's kind of silly to think a store, Costco of all places, would trigger such an emotion but it did. I love it here (Korea, not Costco... although Costco is pretty great) I really do and it's nothing more than the people that I miss. I just really miss them-- family and friends. I can handle the lack of food options, the awkward stares I get being a foreigner and the inability to communicate, but nothing compares to the people halfway across the world. But I've digressed... It looked identical to the ones back home except this one was two stories and had probably 5 times the amount of people in it. The layout was the same, the smell, the colors, the feel. It's the one thing Korea hadn't put it's cutesie flare on, which normally I don't mind all that much but don't fuck with Costco. We were so hungry from all the traveling that we went straight to the food court. It was the moment of truth. Was this really Costco? or just another SK knock off? Sure enough, the same items were on the menu with a couple of Korean twists of course. The menu included, pizza, hot dog & soda combo, smoothies, churro, iced lattes, ice cream, chicken bake, bulgogi bake and clam chowder?? I was so pumped that I couldn't make up my mind. I got a hot dog, slice of pizza and churro. I couldn't finish it all but it was so good. It tasted the same if not slightly better but maybe that's just because I'd gotten used to mediocre American-style food. After we ate we made the rounds aisle by aisle. Nothing really took my breath away until we hit the wall of cheese. Amongst the 5 of us, I'm pretty sure we purchased around 15 blocks of cheese. It took us so damn long to get there that we needed to make the trip worth it. We knew we weren't gonna want to come back anytime soon, if not ever. Of course there were samples. I was so full from the food court that I didn't really try anything except for the funny straws. Now that I think about it, I wish I had bought some. They were these plastic straws with chocolate bits in them. You use them when drinking milk and voila you have chocolate milk. I was really surprised that they had deli meat which is impossible to find here as well unless all you want is ham. My other purchases included prosciutto, salame, capicola, mortadella, turkey and feta cheese. For the first time in 4 months I had a non-sweet, Italian sub. It was incredible. As we rounded up our shopping I spotted these bad boys in the frozen foods section. It's always nice to see the familiar, even if it's a Dodger Dog. It was a good day.

Hi, my name is South Korea

Let me tell you a little bit about myself...

I really only know how to cook Korean food but I sometimes try to serve up other kinds of food too. Unfortunately, I'm not that good at it. I pride myself on my hot and humid summers and ice cold winters. A typical Friday night for me usually consists of going out to dinner, drinking soju and going to a norebang after... actually that's any night. I get kind of freaked out when I see foreigners and tend to stare. I always recycle and I keep my city streets clean. I eat rice and kimchi with every meal. It's delicious. I don't eat cheese unless it's Kraft singles which I wouldn't even consider cheese. I serve nachos with hot tortilla chips and cold cheese.

THE END

THAILAND - IT ALL STARTED WITH A GIN AND TONIC

July 24th, 2010 9:30a.m. on Thai airways from Incheon Int'l to Bangkok.

Flight Attendant - Care for anything to drink?

Me - ginger ale please

Fast forward 5 seconds...

Becca - I think she just poured gin in your cup

Me - really? ::sip:: oh shit she just gave me a gin and tonic... umm alright

Vanessa & Becca - we'll have the same

...and that's how it all started. I don't even know where to begin to talk about Thailand. Everything about the trip was incredible. The people, the food, the sites, the perspective I've gained on traveling and my surroundings have all been overwhelming.

Day 1 - We arrived in Bangkok around 2pm to Khaosan Road aka backpacker's central. We stayed at the Rikka Inn. It was such a cute boutique style hotel for about $12 a person. After we dropped off our bags we went straight for a drink and ordered the most delicious coconut smoothie ever. Later that day we hopped on our first tuk tuk and went for a spin around the city. We ended up seeing a handful of local temples. The night ended with buckets of alcohol being introduced to us as a drink option and a thai massage for $5.

Day 2 - Met up with Charis & Caroline and off we went for a Bangkok adventure. We took a motor boat through the canals of Bangkok, saw Wat Pho also known as the Reclining Buddha and ate more coconuts. Then we hired a mini van driver to take us to Ayuthaya, a neighboring city about an hour and a half away. Ayuthaya used to be one of the richest cities in Asia until it destroyed by the Burmese army in the 1760's. The ruins in Ayuthaya were beautiful. We got there rather late but the sunset backdrop illuminated the city and was absolutely breath taking.

Day 3 - We got picked up by another mini van from our hotel and made our way up to Kanchanaburi, a city about 3 hours North West of Bangkok. We ended up staying on a floating house on a river. It was great. They provided lunch & dinner both days and we were able to swim in the river.We visited the bridge along a railroad that connects Thailand to Burma.

Day 4 - Woke up early and off we went to go bathing with the elephants. It was so surreal. The truck pulled up to the river and there they were, 5 elephants hangin out in the water. The elephant keeper (I guess that's what he's called??) kept making our elephant go under water and throwing us off. After swimming with the elephants we got back to the river house, ate dinner and went on a relaxing bamboo raft down the river. After that we showered up and went on an hour trek with the elephants again through the jungle. After lunch we took a mini van back to Bangkok, arrived in Bangkok at 7pm and caught a 8pm bus down south to Surat Thani.

Day 5 - 10 hours later on a "VIP charter bus" we arrive in Surat Thani and take an hour ferry across to Ko Samui and make our way to the Silver Beach Resort. It was heaven. We had our own small private beach with no more than 30 people on the beach at a time. The water was clear and warm and rather shallow. We could literally go out for 1/5 mile and still be able to touch the bottom. Before we got to Thailand we were marinating on the possibility of going to the Full Moon party in Ko Phangnan, a neighboring island but didn't decide until the day of. 9pm rolled around and we all went for it. We got picked up by another mini van and shuttled to a near by pick up stop. Foreigners were lined up by the dozens waiting to board a random speed boat that would take us across to the other island. It was raining like crazy that night. We hopped on the speed boat, thunder & lightning storm and all and 25mins later we zoomed across, more like flew across, the ocean and made it to the Full Moon party. The concept of shipping foreigners across to another island to basically get fucked up and wasted was crazy. They were serving drinks by the bucket... literally. Your only option for a drink was a perfectly measured combination of liquor, red bull and some other mixer served in a small plastic bucket with a handle and a handful of straws. It sounds fun and all but when you're done, you some how have to find your way back home on the speed boat, on a mini van to your hotel and into your room. By the next day we decided it was no longer called the Full Moon party and officially THE SHIT SHOW. Going to that party was the best and worst decision we all made.

Day 6 - We took it easy the next day since TSS didn't settle so well. We sipped on coconuts, attempted to eat pad thai and got a $7 coconut oil massage on the beach.

Day 7 - This was definitely my favorite day on the island. We got picked up by yet another mini van and took a speed boat to Anthong National Marine Park. On the way there we took a small detour and were dumped off by a small island to snorkel which was quite possibly one of the funniest experiences on the trip. Becca kept yelling "ouch! ouch!" every other minute and I thought she was just being dramatic. By the time we got back on the boat her feet had been cut up by the rocks below us. After snorkeling we finally made it to the national park and kayaked around the cluster of islands that surrounded us.

Day 8 - Check out time was supposed to be at 11:30am but one of the cleaning ladies walked up to our room around 10am yelling "Get out! Get out now! Time to leave!" It was the best wake up call ever. We hopped on another mini van, took a ferry back to Surat Thani and took an overnight bus to Bangkok.

Day 9 - 5am we arrive at Bangkok and head straight to the airport for another 10 hours of traveling to Hong Kong then to S. Korea.