Dad, Jesi, and me!

Dad's plane was delayed in China so he didn't get to my apartment until really late. Jesi quit and went to sleep before he got here. She was a real whiner, too, while Dad and I were downstairs talking. What? It's not my fault the entire apartment is smaller than Mom and Dad's room back home...

The next day we headed out to do some final touring before they left the next day. Lucky for us, it was hot, humid, and POURING the entire day. Good thing the weather decided to be so nice for us.

We first went to see the statue of King Sejong. He is one of the most famous kings of Korea (apparently) and is most well known for Hangul or the Korean alphabet. Until 1446, Koreans used Hanja (Chinese characters). It took years of study to master the complex Hanja, time the average citizen did not have. So Sejong created the less complex 28 letter alphabet of Hangul which people can learn with a few hours of study.

And I totally mean that. It does not take all that long to learn how to read Korean. Now, understanding what you read is a completely different matter.

Anyways. Here's King Sejong in all his awesomeness.



After marveling at the terrific King Sejong, we walked to Gyeongbokgung Palace which we could see from the statue.



Look at that fantastic weather. If it looked like this in Oregon, it would be freezing. Lucky for us it was hot and humid. Yay! *sarcasm*



We braided Jesi's hair the night before to make it all wavy and pretty. It did look pretty awesome when we took it out. However, the humidity made it get really fluffy and by the time we got to the palace, she had contained it in a ponytail.



The palace is really pretty. I love the colors they use on the beams.



Same building, farther away.



Jesi found a friend at the palace! He would look great out in the backyard, eh, Mom? It's a really good thing I'm 5,000 miles away right now. :)



After walking around the palace and the adjacent museum for a while longer, we went to Insadong for lunch. I almost got us lost, but HA! My keen sense of direction *cough cough* kicked in and I was able to get us there with no exciting detours.

I was not feeling good (again... but for different reasons) and all the pharmacies I found were closed so I couldn't use my "eeboopuhlohpehn joosehyo" (I'd like ibuprofen) line that I've learned. I was trying not to be grumpy because, well, when it feels like your body is eating you from the inside out, you tend to get snippy.

After looking through the pictures, I have since thrown away the poor camisole that is failing to give me a decent neckline right here. Also, I think I wore this dress nearly every day in Vietnam. It was totally worth the 12,000 won I spent on it (about $12). I might need to burn it when I get home, though.



We had delicious beef bulgogi. It's pretty much the same thing as the chicken I ate with Jesi except there is more broth in this one. It was delicious. I will miss this...



I WON'T miss kimchi. I wish I liked it... but I don't. I do like the colors of kimchi, though. I'm currently debating whether or not to go take a kimchi cooking class next week as one final adventure before I go home... we'll see.



In Insadong, we watched people make the dragon beard candy. I LOVE this stuff! Jesi bought some to try.



She tried to be all dainty while she ate it. How cute. It makes a mess, but it is really good.



Speaking of sweet treats...

After looking around Insadong for a little while, we got back on the subway (AGAIN) and went to Gangnam for Dr. Fish! Jesi and I were supposed to go there on Wednesday but we had decided against it because of the flooding. It was her last day there and we had to make sure she got a fish foot bath.

They make you buy something to eat as well if you want the Dr. Fish treatment so we got a shaved ice bowl. It has strawberries, bananas, kiwis, pineapple, fruit cocktail, a scoop of sorbet, and little squishy marshmallow things that are actually made of rice. Oh, and a GIANT scoop of shaved ice with sweetened condensed milk on it. DELICIOUS.



It was super yummy. Here is Dad enjoying his shaved ice thing. :)



Once we had finished eating our tasty treat, we went to the Dr. fish zone for a fishy foot bath!



This is where you sit, put your feet in the tank, and let the fish EAT YOUR FEET.



Jesi and I opted for the tiny fish. It tickles SOOO much!



If it weren't for taking Jesi here, I never would have gone back to this place. It tickles too much!! Ack!



I took a video of us getting our foot baths.



While the fish were nibbling on our feet, we could look out over the streets of Gangnam. It was absolutely POURING! Just buckets and buckets of water coming down like a broken rain machine on a movie. Cars were sending up sheets of water as they drove.



You can't really tell in this picture, but the first half of the sidewalk was about a foot deep in water. There was no going around it. If you wanted to cross the street, you had to wade calf deep in water. Ick! By the time we got outside, they had cleared the drains so the water wasn't so deep anymore. Also, we took a taxi. Yay!



The rest of the night included packing, dinner at the mall, and a second viewing of the new Harry Potter movie. So good. The next day, my chicky and daddy left for home. I miss them, and I'm counting down the days until I get to see them. It's less than two weeks now and I'm getting really excited (and a little sad) to head home.

Jesi in Korea!

Jesi and I left Ho Chi Minh City on Monday July 25 to head to Korea. I was so sick. I felt just gross. Damn hamburger! Dad had been kind enough to run around Ho Chi Minh before we went to the airport to get me some pink stuff. What a nice daddy. :)

Dad couldn't check into his flight until after ours had left so we said goodbye and headed into the airport proper to wait for our flight.



The flight back to Seoul was great because we had our own TV's with free on demand movies.

We got back late that night so we did some quick grocery shopping, watched some Doctor Who, and crashed for the night.

The next day we woke up and went to go see my friend Tara who was leaving for home that afternoon. She gave me a few things (leftover food, towel, blanket) and we hugged goodbye. We plan on meeting up at Disneyland this October so it's only goodbye for a little while. :)

After saying goodbye to Tara, Jesi and I hopped on the subway for Namdaemun and Myung Dong. I'm afraid Jesi has been spoiled by this trip and Namdaemun didn't phase her at all. She just patiently plodded along the paths in the market while I tried to point out some of the cool things. She said everything looked the same. She took no pictures there.

She said she had fun, but it was kind of a bust.

Then we were getting hungry to so went over to Myung Dong to find Holika Holika (makeup!) and then chicken lunch.

Before we found that, we saw the Baviphat store. What caught our eye was their lovely spokesman: Lee Hongki!! He is my favorite K-pop idol (and the only one Jesi knows) so we hopped in.



We also came across a Holika Holika store. This is one of my favorites because the stuff is cheap, good quality, and every time I've gone, the sales people ATTACK you with service! I had one lady literally putting makeup on me without even asking. Just, "This color make you beautiful!" and reaching out to brush it on my face. OKAY. So I was excited to take Jesi.

Unfortunately, we came at a busy time, so the salespeople were swamped with teenage girls and we got kind of lost. I did end up getting Jesi's birthday present there: makeup, of course. :)

Then we got lost. Okay, I got lost. WHAT THE HECK!! I don't even know what happened. It looked like the right way at the beginning, but I must have missed a turn or something. I don't even know. In the end, we found a chicken place and ate delicious chicken bulgogi. I was still feeling kind of sick so I didn't eat much. And Jesi eats like... an animal that doesn't eat much so we had lots of leftovers.

She did like it, though, and asked if we could make it at home. Psh. EASY. It's stir fry with marinaded chicken. I'll just need to refine my bulgogi marinade.



After that, we saw that it was raining. We, of course, had forgotten our umbrellas, so we were keeping to the awnings of the stores. About a block from the subway entrance, it started pouring and were slipping and sliding in our flip flops across the sidewalks trying to get to the subway entrance. Suddenly, these two ladies were running next to us, sharing their umbrellas. How nice! They didn't speak English, but we managed to thank them with profuse "Kamsahamnida"'s as we made our way into the subway.

We were only in the rain for, like, three minutes, and were were utterly SOAKED. My paper bag had even ripped. Luckily, we lost none of Jesi's or my makeups. Whew!

It was only about 5:30 when we got home, so we decided to head out again to see the last Harry Potter movie. We had a bunch of time to wait for the movie, so we hung out in the bookstore for a while. Jesi, having taken zip pictures on our adventures that day made up for it my taking random shots of us looking at books.

It was cute at first.



Then it started getting annoying.



Movie was awesome. Probably the best bit of acting I saw was when Bellatrix Lestrange (Helena Bonham Carter... always amazing) was acting as Hermione acting as Bellatrix. Just, wow. She pulled it off amazingly. But that has nothing to do with Jesi's visit so I'll leave it at that.

That night, we discovered Jesi's back was starting to peel. She had gotten burned on her dive and then burned again on our Sunday adventure. She was sad because she had wanted to try on clothes in Myung Dong but 1) her back huuuurrrrttt and 2) it started pouring on our poor selves. Look at her poor red back!



Wednesday came and I finally had to return to work (sigh). Sad day. Jesi stayed home while I was at work. We had plans to go to Gangnam for fishy pedicures, but, alas, it was not to be. While I was at work, I mentioned our plans and someone said that it might not work. Apparently the monsoon (typhoon? I don't know) had hit other parts of Seoul pretty bad and Gangnam was a little floody at the moment. It was still raining at that point and there was a chance that the subway might close down. Joys.

So, instead, we decided to go to a DVD bang. We bought pizza and wrapped it up to take in our purses.

I've talked about DVD bangs on here before. The word "bang" (pronounced "bahng") means "room." So, jimjilBANG is a spa room, noraeBANG is a singing room, PC BANG is a computer room, etc. It's about as expensive as a regular movie, but you get to choose from all of their DVD's and you get your own little theater. It's awesome. I love it so much. We saw "My Life in Ruins." Adorable chick flick. :)

These are what the seats look like.



Jesi enjoying her Korean style pizza. Delicious.



Thursday was a day off for me and we had had plans to go to Suwon and the traditional Korean village. Unfortunately, the rain was still coming strong in many parts of Seoul, though where we were at it was beautiful. Joy. Mom called concerned about the flooding (it as a lot worse south of Seoul and it had even made it to the news in the U.S.) and we promised to stay in the local area and keep away from the river. *sigh* No fair.

This left us with little options. We ended up deciding to go to see Captain America (or First Avenger as it is called here). We had a healthful lunch of frozen yogurt (I had frozen yogurt and ice with fruit... yum!) before seeing a FREAKING AWESOME MOVIE!!!!



Then we went back to my apartment (can I really call it an apartment? It's more of a room with a closet that pretends to be a bathroom) and sat around watching movies online. Jesi complained that I had the air conditioning up too high and it was TOO COLD. I think it's because she had just eaten half a gallon of frozen strawberries. Just saying.



For dinner, Jesi had kimbop. It's more of a snack or lunch item (if eaten in great quantity) than a dinner and I had asked if she wanted anything else but she said, no, she was fine.

She inhaled it in about two minutes. One minute munching the next I look over and it's gone. That's when she attacked the poor defenseless frozen strawberries in my freezer.



Friday was kind of a bummer because I had a meeting at 2:30pm and work at 7pm so we couldn't go do anything far away. Instead, we had a late lunch/early dinner at the dumpling place in the mall, checked out Emart, and then she walked back to my apartment.

The dumpling restaurant is yummy. We had soup and buns.



On Saturday I didn't have work until 5:30 that night so we headed out for a second visit to Myung Dong. Jesi's sunburn was feeling better so we had tons of fun shopping in the giant Forever 21 and H&M. We also saw these awesome ad guys in front of one of the skin care places. Don't be fooled by their cutesy looks! I've seen these guys literally grab people's arms and drag them into the store! It's hilarious. They usually don't do that to the foreigners. Jesi did get caught by one lady for a minute there, though. It was funny.



Among other things, Jesi bought this adorable little nerdy owl. How cute is that?



You might remember the toast pillow from one of my previous posts. I had given up on ever finding a toast pillow when, SUDDENLY!! In Artbox in Myung Dong I found one! I debated whether or not I should buy it (since I HAD gotten a pink pig-rabbit when we were in Vietnam) but then Jesi said she would get it for me as a present! Awww... so we got a chicky blanket, a chicky pillow (lots of chicky things for my Chicky), and a toast pillow for Jen!!



That night while I was at work, Jesi attacked my apartment with Snoopy and Woodstock cutouts. Awww... how sweet!



Dad rolled in around midnight that night and we got ready for their last day of touring in Korea.

Vietnam Part 5

After our stay in Ho Chi Minh, we set off for Nha Trang. We left super early in the morning. Soooo early! Like, we left the hotel at 4am. Ick.

Once we got to Nha Trang, we had to hightail it out of there so Jesi and dad would make it to their dive group in time. We got to the dive shop five minutes after the group had left (oh noes!) but, luckily, the owner was able to drive them down before the boat left.

While they went diving, I took all our bags to the hotel. I was super tired at this point and all I wanted to do was crash in an air conditioned room because although it was only 8am, it was already in the mid-80's. Much to my chagrin, the woman at the counter said that I couldn't check in until 3pm.

I'm afraid I wasn't very nice at this point.

It was about 8am, I was tired, hot, sweaty, and I was being told that I would have to wait for seven hours until I could get into the room. I gave her a good old American "WHAT THE HELL??!" look and repeated, "3pm?"

She apologised and asked what I wanted to do (what kind of question is that?) so I was honest. "I want to take a shower and go to sleep!" She kindly suggested that I could rest by the pool or in the cafe (which wasn't opened) but I said no, I'll just wait here in the lobby where there is air conditioning. She said she would keep tabs on the room to see when the current occupants checked out and get it cleaned right away. I could check with her at 11:30 to see if it was ready yet.

On top of being tired, I felt really stupid about how irritated I had been with the nice lady and I seriously felt like I was going to cry which was, again, aggravated by the feelings of stupidity. So I decided to walk around the area for a while to cool down (my brain, obviously, since it was FREAKING HOT!!). I picked a direction and walked, hoping to maybe find a little super market or convenience store for when we decided we wanted snacks.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

So I went down another street.

Again, nothing.

By this time I was getting all sweaty and really thirsty so I decided to go on the opposite side of the hotel. A few blocks later I found a mall! With a food court, cinema, and four levels of blessed air conditioning.

It didn't open until 11am and it was only 9:30. Poop. So I went back to the hotel to sit and read in the lobby. I took off my flip flops and curled up on a couch to read. Made myself really comfy.

At 11:30 on the dot I went and checked with the lady and the room was ready! Thank you!! I was very happy. I took a shower and got in bed with all intentions of watching Torchwood on the BBC channel only to wake up when the front desk called to tell me Dad and Jesi were here and I needed to come down to bring them up (this was about 2:30pm).

Comfy Jen is comfy. Dad likes the air conditioning in the room to be really cold so Jesi and I usually wrapped up in the fluffy down comforters they had.



The view from the room was really nice. We had to balconies. You could see mountains...



And the beautiful beach. Sooo pretty.



While Jesi took a shower, Dad showed me all the cool pictures from their dive. Lotsa fishies.



Jesi, too.



After they were all clean (and Jesi realized she had burned pretty good... ouchies), we went to a market a bit like the Ben Tanh market in Ho Chi Minh. We pretty much just wandered. In our wanderings, we went through an entire section that sold only DRIED FISH. It smelled a bit funky.

This lady was selling baskets of dried fishies. Mmmm... tasty.



There were even dried sea horses! Apparently they are used for medicinal purposes. Interesting.



Once in the market we saw most of the usual things as well a few interesting ones. This guy had a turtle on his wall. Cool. Also, I'm not sure which way is up in this picture... I think I might have it upside down.



That night we went to dinner at a place that Dad had been to before. He was really excited to get his cheap lobster dinner. However, it was not to be. They brought out Jesi's dinner. Then, when she was almost finished, they brought out my dinner. Then, five minutes after I had finished, they brought out Dad's salad, quickly followed by his lobster.

Dad doesn't get mad often so when he does it's kind of intense. He refused the food and asked for the check. The ladies were really confused and kind of just stood there holding the food looking like deer caught in the headlights of a car. We sat for a while waiting for them to bring the check. Dad finally got fed up with waiting, grabbed the menu, added up what we had eaten, threw the money on the table and we left.

Gelato and oreos for dinner calmed made him happy again.

We had more fun the next day. We went to a pagoda on a hill! At the bottom of the hill was a Buddhist temple that we got to go in and see.



Inside was a shrine. On either side were these giant candles. They were going to light the candles the next day in honor of a man who had self burned in protest of the U.S. presence in Vietnam during the war. The candles would burn for 15 days in his honor. Wow.



Then we hiked some stairs. Lots and lots of stairs.



Part way up the hill was a reclining Buddha. We stood and marveled at the statue a while before heading up (you guessed it!) MORE STAIRS! YES!!



We finally made it to the top. It was hot. HOT HOT HOT. We were all sweaty and gross by this point. Woof! But what a view!



Here's a view of the steps we climbed up. You can't see all of them because of the trees. I swear there were a lot of stairs.



This is what we climbed to see. It looked really cool up close. Very pretty.



Also, we saw a chicken. Day. Made.



After the pagoda, we decided to walk around town a bit. Dad had the taxi drop us off in front of the Novatel so we could walk the streets back to our own hotel. It was hot (have I mentioned it was hot? Cuz it really was) so we stopped in for some gelato. Mmmm... tasty.

And Jesi looks cute.



On our walk, we saw a monkey. That's right, folks. A monkey. Jesi had been talking all week about how cool it would be to see a monkey and here it was, leashed to a motorcycle and eating a lychee or something. Isn't it cute?



We also saw another chicken. Mom, this will never get old.



It finally came time to leave Nha Trang and head back to Ho Chi Minh so that we could eventually had back to Korea. The airlines bumped us up to business class. AWESOME! We got to sit in the little lounge with free snacks and stuff before the flight. This was one of the drinks offered in the business class lounge. Interesting.



The seats were awesome. Lots of leg and butt room. Really made me wish I was willing to lay down the extra $1,000 for business class on my way back to the States. That would be really cool... *sigh* I'm too cheap.

Here's Jesi and me enjoying our awesome seats.



At my request, we had Hard Rock Cafe for dinner once we were back in Ho Chi Minh. I wanted a REAL burger and fries. It was delicious. Though, perhaps not worth the stomachache (among other things) I had for the next day and a half. That'll teach me to eat a giant spicy hamburger after several months of little to no beef. Ugh.

Still, it was REALLY tasty.



Next up: "Jesi in Korea!" or "Why monsoon season is not the best time to visit your sister in Korea."