Wow. Korea was awesome. I did things there that I would most likely never be able to do at home.
I also got to meet family members that I’ve last seen 3 years ago. (and it’s official, I’m the shortest one in the family.
-sigh-) I also ate a lot of korean food, walked around the cities for hours, and basically had a really fan-freakin’-tastic time.
Here are some of the things that I got to do (for the first time) in Korea:
- go to this restaraunt where the first floor is a live fish market and the second story is where you get to eat the fresh sashimi.
- see little crabs get boiled in hot water (I was thinking all philosphically about the futility life all the while)
- go to an outdoors fish market that stretches about a mile long where people are selling alive fish (they kill it when you buy it, of courses)
- set and feed a fire (yes, an actual fire) over a primitive stove so we could boil a duck (not an alive one, thank God)…I had a little Fia moment when I was feeding the fire with flammable objects like newspapers and scrap paper…newspaper is excellent, by the way. LOL)
- eat a hamburger where the bun is actually made of rice. (pretty good, except, too much mayonnaise…and I had to pick out the pickles, first, as always)
- get stuck in traffic for like 10 or so hours
- sleep, exercise, and basically live in a supermarket (my grandparents own one, and they had a cycling machine in the store. LOL. I was like a cycling guard dog, making sure no one steals anything while also burning a lot of calories. Now THAT’s being productive)
- Watch the korean dramas I like so much on live TV. (I miss that now…there is, like, nothing to watch on American TV. It’s all either hospital dramas, FBI-like scenarios, soap operas that are so inappropriate my parents don’t let me watch them),the weather, and sports)
- See people I actually know (not personally, of course, but that’d be cool) on advertisements and posters (sorry, I don’t memorize the Victoria Secret/Abercrombie models)
- ride the bus in the aisle with lawn chairs b/c the bus was full
- watch my grandpa hunt for little freshwater crabs with chicken scraps
- eat under a bridge (it was so hot that we were just like, “let’s set up the picnic blanket under that bridge.”)…this happened like 3+ times
- sleep in a one-room, studio apartment (in Seoul)…I want one of my own one day
- eat original Turkish kebobs (done by actual Turkish people living in Seoul)
- get carsick on two consecutive bus rides x.x
- go to this beauty school where people learn how to do nails, style hair, make fashionable clothes, apply makeup (not ordinary makeup, but like, makeup for actors and other celebrities), and design weird costumes…all in one place (my mom’s friend is,like, the headmistress there.)
- go to the back-alleys of Seoul and do some browsing for illegal, fake purses from Hong Kong that look like the real thing but cost way cheaper (my mom wanted a prada purse, not me). I thought I was going to die back there b/c it was the sort of place where a random thug could walk up to you and shoot you or something.
- eat barbecue duck at 11 o’clock at night (not my idea, but my uncle’s. had indigestion the next morning and had to go to the gym and work out for like 2 hours to get my insides back to normal)
- work out for at least two hours in a gym with a great view of the city and watch some old Jackie Chan movie while on the treadmill.
- steal apples from an orchard that was right next to my aunt’s house in the country. (we only took like, 2, so don’t fret…plus it wasn’t my idea.)
- realize that I have way more family members than I thought…so many great uncles (at least 5?!) and great aunts (3?)…not to mention they’re children…and their grandchildren.
- get more than $300 in less than a month from the above great-uncles, great-aunts, grandparents, uncles/aunts, random cousins once removed (which I now know means ‘the cousin of your parent’), my mom’s friends, etc.
- drink green tea on the summit of a mountain. (we used a cable car, of course…but there was still like a 200 m climb up and down)
- go to a sauna after visiting the said mountain.
- go to a bathroom stall out in the country where there was nothing but a big hole. D:
There are many other things that I did in Korea, but I can’t think of any more right now. I’ll add more later if I think of any.