Los Angeles

On the way back home I planned for a five day layover in Los Angeles. I’ve been a few times, but never stayed long enough to get to know the place.

My cousins showed me around, driving down Hollywood Blvd and Santa Monica, pointing out celebrity hangouts and famous restaurants all the while. We had some great brunch and then spent the afternoon at the Getty museum, a free art museum overlooking LA.

Welcome to LA!

Jasmin & Hiromi prepare to snap some elegant shots of yours truly.

Dennis & I destroyed that brunch.

Yeah I'm still a tourist even in America.

The train ride to the Getty.

Overlooking the city.

Cousin Jasmin and I enjoying some horchata and tacos.

We went for drinks in Korea Town, and I was surprised at how familiar it all seemed. I can see how people get by in LA not learning English.

Some serious bingsu.

I helped Lindsay move into her new apartment and then we checked out Leo Carillo beach for the tide pools. I got a taste of the Pacific Coast Highway, a potentially awesome place to bring a motorcycle.

There are some windsurfers in the background.

I found a starfish!

True to the LA scene I had a celebrity sighting. Jay Leno was doing interviews on Melrose St. while the cousins and I were shopping. He looked busy so I didn’t bother him for a picture, but I feel like I got a well-rounded sampling of the city.

Now that I’m back in the real world I’ll have to focus on things beside what new foods to experience next. Since returning I’ve found that my tastes have changed. I prefer eating smaller amounts more frequently, and I don’t really crave meat anymore. Having been removed from the States for so long I definitely notice new things about home, culture and behavior related mostly. It’s been an awesome summer, and I think it’s something that has shaped me into a more mature and observant person. I can’t wait to go eat some more tacos.

Bangkok Tour Begins

Our first tourist destination was the floating market, a series of canals outside of Bangkok where food and souvenirs were sold. I tried coconut milk straight out of the shell and haggled for a few items.

Checking out the floating market by boat.

Junk for sale!

Coconut milk! Tastes like flavored water.

Once we were back at the hotel I had enough time for a late lunch and Thai massage, which only cost about $5 or $6 for 30 minutes. It was nice, but at the end I was being twisted into all sorts of positions I wasn’t expecting. Good thing I’m limber or else that would have really hurt.

We went to the train station for dinner before our overnight trip. At 6 pm they played the national anthem on the loudspeakers and everyone stood up to face the picture of the King & Queen of Thailand. Our guide Tommy told us that all public buildings do this twice a day. I picked up some iced coffee and an unknown flavor of chips for the ride.

Standing for the national anthem, facing the King.

Snacks for the train ride.

Xi'an and the Terra Cotta Warriors

We arrived early in the morning before our hotel rooms were ready, so we went out for breakfast and coffee. My steamed dumplings were delicious and about twenty cents each, while my Starbucks was almost six dollars. The disparity is crazy.

My cheap, delicious dumplings.

The terra cotta warrior exhibit was our whole reason for visiting the city, so we took a bus over to the ancient burial site of one Emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China. Literally thousands of these guys were buried underground, meant to protect the dead emperor. Farmers stumbled across the national treasure while digging for a well, and since then have been very well off. We had lunch with a family that benefitted from the discovery of the terra cotta warriors. The government had moved them off the site and built them a large new home. They couldn’t farm anymore, so they cooked traditional meals and talked with tourists as a means of income.

Our tour group after lunch with the locals.

The first exhibit hall of three. They were still actively excavating this site.

All of their heads were different.

Me, being there.

They buried a real armory for the Emperor, too.

Some particularly elaborate chariots also unearthed there.

That evening we explored the city a little, checking out the bell and drum towers used to rouse the citizens and tell time back in the day. We walked through a night market and passed by a Muslim temple where lots of halal cooking was going on. Certainly was unexpected to see Chinese Muslims, but there they were.

A drum or bell tower, can't remember anymore.

Beijing, Ancient (and current) Capital of China

I arrived in China early in the morning and, after a confusing exchange with our taxi driver, managed to get to the correct hotel. I can understand why English speakers are perceived as rude, because I did no research about the Chinese languages before arriving, resorting to pointing and uselessly repeating myself in English.

The guided tour I signed up for didn’t start until Saturday so I just did some shopping in the area and arbitrarily chose a restaurant for dinner that turned out to be delicious and inexpensive.

First Chinese meal. Very good, and very cheap!

We met our tour guide and group the next evening. Our guide, Howard, was a Chinese local in his 30’s (I think). He told us the plan for the next week then we all had dinner together.

Our hotel for the tour. It was a convenient location at least.

The giant bike/moped lane. Not that people really followed traffic rules.

Wandering around at night, we found a crazy food market. Which sells seahorse on a stick.

All kinds of meats, some of which I was way too grossed out to try (sheep testicles, anyone?).

We were told each city we would be visiting in China would have a different feel. So far, Beijing feels the most American because of the wide streets and the use of cars as a primary method of transportation. The unusual parts are the insane number of bicycles and mopeds in the designated lanes on the outside of the roads. All the mopeds are electric and completely silent, so a lot of honking happens. Coming from Japan the streets seem filthy, and the people are much more diverse in stature and dress than Japan or Korea. Prices are even cheaper than I imagined though, with food costing anywhere between $0.16 and $3.00 for fair sized portions. I like to eat a lot, so already this bodes well.

Hiromi, aka Laura

I met with my cousin Hiromi today. She and a friend are in Korea for a couple of weeks, then they're visiting Tokyo to see her grandpa. We'll actually be in Japan at the same time, but I won't be in Tokyo until she's already back Stateside.

Hiromi picks out some heels while I try and decide what to get Annabelle.

Before I met her, I was thinking about the last time we saw each other, and I think it was about 22 years ago when we both came to Korea as babies. I remember seeing pictures of us playing together on Grandpa's farm in Arkansas, but I haven't been to California much to see that side of the family since then. I was in LA for Dennis' wedding, but that's when I met her sister for the first time.

Long time no see, cuz!

We did some shopping in front of Ewha Women's University, which is packed with clothes almost exclusively for the ladies. Tons of stores devoted solely to shoes or accessories, and lots of cheap stuff (and some outlandishly expensive stuff). She helped me pick out a new pair of glasses, and it'll be ready tomorrow. Her friend Janice has much better eyesight than me, and her prescription was ready in half an hour! I wish I could've gotten a new pair for just 40,000 won or $33.80, but again my astigmatism almost requires the more expensive lens so it was 71,000 won or $60 for my set (though the frames were just 20,000 won [$16.90]!).

Hiromi (Laura to her friends) and Janice after a quick dinner.

Hiromi offered to host me in LA, so I may take her up on that after this trip. I can catch up with my other cousins and see more of my birthstate while I have the time. Good to have family around the world, as a general rule.

Proofreading

The head professor of the Biomaterials and Bioengineering department invited me to lunch next Monday. Of course I accepted, then he told me the food would be a very spicy traditional Korean food, "very delicious." Even better.

Today he talked to me for a bit, then asked me about the pronunciation of a name he had chosen for his granddaughter, Yeh-jin. He wanted to make sure it was easy to pronounce for Americans. His son studied in America but his Korean name was difficult for English speakers to pronounce. So the two of them want to give the girl a name that is easy for us folks. I remember Joong-hyun telling me that the father's father traditionally names children before they are born. More modern families just choose names they like for their children.

Still, it's not uncommon to see all siblings named with the same beginning syllable. My mother and all her siblings have the Kwang- prefix beginning their name, which means "bright." As another example, my friend Joong-hyun's brother is named Joong-min.

Anyways, Minho and Sungmin took me to a famous Chinese restaurant in Sinchon called Bok Sung Gak. It was quite tasty and cheap, designed just for the college kids; they were playing American pop music the whole time. I haven't heard American radio for awhile, so I assume it was modern. Shrugs.

My camera lens was still wet from the Cheonggyechung evening.

It wasn't really this foggy in there, but the chicken was quite spicy.

We visited the pork sausage soup (soondeh gook) restaurant that I visited during my first or second week again, but I had forgotten to take pictures the first time because it was so delicious. So, here are some ideas of how it looks. This particular restaurant is also in the Sinchon area, but we had to drive there (somewhere east of the Yonsei campus).

Side dishes, of course. Notice my camera is better! Had to let it dry with the lens open.

The soup! It looks gross, but man does it taste good.

A piece of sausage. Again, not visually appealing, but you'll like it if you like meat of any kind.

Some other random day, Seung-kyun was talking about other "healthy" foods. He had some red ginseng drink that was good for, you guessed it, men's health. So I tasted a bit, and it was probably the worst tasting liquid I've experienced in a while. But the packet wasn't such that I could save it, so like a good Korean I finished it in 'oneshot.' I don't know that I'm any healthier for it, but I hear it's quite expensive so maybe I should thank Mr. Moon for the privilege.

Please, avoid this. Even if it is for health.

Reaction shot. Yeah it was bitter.

Monday night shenanigans

Koreans are crazy.

We left lab fairly early (17:30) to get some dinner. They boys took me to a traditional Korean market, Kwan Jang. They explained that it was like the original supermarket, an open market of everything before places like E-Mart and HomePlus became prominent in Korea.

The old marketplace, full of small specialized shops.

I had raw beef, and then raw liver and some other animal part they couldn't identify. They finally asked the waitress before we left and the translation I got was "cow's asshole." Fantastic. I think that just means tripe, but whatever. I actually thought the raw beef was good, but neither the liver nor gray dust-cloth looking meat were good. The sesame oil dipping sauce, however, was good enough to make eating those two things bearable.

Raw meat on a bed of Asian pears. If that's not enough raw for you, it comes with an uncooked egg.

Sungmin and Doohoon enjoyed explaining Korean male culture to me.

Suhyuk and Minho also told about what it is to be a real man in Korea...

And that is to eat food for [sexual] stamina.

In case you are feeling adventurous, this is where we ate. I didn't get sick!

We left and went to another place in the market for Korean mung bean pancakes, called bindae ddeok (similar to pajeon). They were a really satisfying snack, especially coupled with makoli, an unfiltered rice wine.

Towards the middle of Kwang Jang Market.

Friends, food, & makoli. How else would you spend your Monday?

From there we walked to a Manchester United pub near the Cheonggyecheon and had some tandoori chicken and beer. The night wasn't finished there, though.

Park Ji-sung likes tandoori chicken, too.

We ended the night alongside the Cheongygecheon stream, a city project to reinvigorate the downtown area with a nice walking area and clear water. The walking trail was very beautiful and clean, with lots of families and couples walking about. The only problem was the occasional group of loud drunk guys playing in the water...

How we do in the Cheonggyecheon.

These two lost the rock, paper, scissors match and had to get in first.

Eventually they all jumped in.

My camera got wet, as visible by the hazy glow around the evening's later pictures.

At about 24:30 we finally mobilized to leave, having begun the night about 6 hours before then. I slept until 13:00 on Tuesday, but still got lots done at work that day. A glorious way to start the week.