4th installment: Who's pregnant? What's on fire?

I talked to Dad last night. I always seem to miss him. Talking to him made me miss all of you more. Sure I have lots of fun here, but when I buy something or see certain things, it reminds me of home. Bo go ship po T___T, but I will see you all soon. Thanks to those who read through these long things. Maybe I can publish this as a travel journal something...I probably have to fix the English though right?

Very late last night I overheard some girls talking about how they were from Singapore, so I started talking to them. One of them is from a forum I'm on, so I think we will try to hang out a bit! Also, we made friends with Ben and Ai from Thailand and we made plans to meet up and go shopping.

This morning we changed rooms, b/c we had originally reserved a twin bed room, but they only had a double available for our first two days. Des and I usually wake up b/w 10am and 12pm, so this morning I woke up early b/c I was meeting Ben and Ai for 9:30am. I checked downstairs and they needed us to clear the room before 12pm, so I woke Des up. I give her props...b/c she wasn't even gonna come out with us, but we packed crazy fast and moved into the new room. Des took a shower and changed superfast so she could come with us. We rode the subway and made two transfers. We've noticed ppl stare at us more when we are on the escalators...

WHO'S PREGNANT?
When the subway came, Des and I noticed some empty seats so we sat down. Ben gave me a funny look so I looked at the window behind me. The sign read "SEATS RESERVED FOR THE ELDERLY, DISABLED OR PREGNANT WOMEN." I was so embarassed...I quickly pointed it out to Des and we started laughing. She rubbed her leg..(it was really hurting) and I pretended to injure her. haha...in the end we both left that area and a man made room for us on one of the long seats. He started talking to us and he was very nice.

APGUJEONG & SM ENTERTAINMENT
Today we went to Apgujeong to see the shopping and look for SM Entertainment building. We finally got there and it was nothing I expected! It was a yellow building covered in grafitti! Yikes @_@ We took pictures anyway and there was a lady outside with a stack of BoA cds and I was going to ask her if we could have a tour around or just take a picture in the lobby, but that place is high security! There were cameras everywhere and the lady had to punch in some numbers and get her fingerprint read. I was so tempted to just run in, but I don't think getting arrested would be a good thing. Forgot to mention that Des' heel got stuck in the sidewalk and her bare foot actually hit the pavement..hahahaa...it actually happened more than once.

MCDEATH OR ADVENTURE?
Des and Ben wanted McDeath..(McDonald's) but Ai and I said no way..so we went to a small restaurant that had no pictures of the food and no romanized english letters..ahahha...I got to use a lot of korean there..especially trying to tell them that Ai doesn't eat meat. hahaha...I think I looked up "meat" and then said "no"...ahahah. She ended up with gimbap (like sushi). Des and I were flipping through those phrase books real fast!! We ended up ordering gimbap, bi bim bap, bulgogi and chicken soup. At the end of the meal I got the waiter's attention using what Justin and Jimmy taught us and also asked for the bill. YAY! Ben paid for all the food.

SAM'S MONEY ALLERGY & KYOBO BOOKSTORE
We found another cd store with more good prices...ppl...I swear that extra luggage is strictly cds/dvds and mellers' stuff. I bought a lot of stuff from there and the lady gave me 5 shinhwa posters, a BoA poster and also a DBSK one. How nice! I have also discovered that I've bought a whole new wardrobe...what the heck?!?!? Josie I think I can give you a run for your money in shopping now! Everything I bought actually fit me cuz I tried them on today. AND I'M STILL ON BUDGET! Shweeeet! Anyway back to the story...we looked around and then went back to the subway to hit the big bookstore. I think it's name is Kyobo. I found that Super Junior magazine and some other mags...and some of them came with posters. =D This guy kept openly staring at Des and me. He stood there until we acknowledged him and then he smile and left...weird... By now poor Des was ready to limp with her pretty heeled sandals.

BEING ACCOSTED
On our way back, some older man just came up and started talking to us. He was asking us where we were from and he kept on looking at me with this big smile. Then he kept on squeezing the back of my arm and saying how beautiful I was in Korean. He said my face looked Chinese and so pretty... Jebus...I moved away from him fast and smiled politely but he just kept coming closer. So I tried not to be rude and kept asking the others which station we had to get to. I kind of bowed my head and we walked off. YIPES T____T Des has mentioned that I have a pan-asian look...must be true...b/c ppl talk to me in Korean thinking I'm Korean, some of the Japanese guests here talked to me in Japanese and Ben thought I was Japanese too. In Singapore, ppl thought I was a local too. Has my face changed?!?!?!? =P

FREE ORANGES
Ai wanted to get some strawberries. She wants to take them back to Thailand, but I don't think they'll let her. While she was buying the owner gave each of us a free orange and encouraged us to eat them. OMG...they are so good and sweet!! We told them they were so good and he gave us each another one. Well that man has good customer service, so I bought a whole bag from him for 3,000 won.

AI UNNIE
We climbed back up that darn hill to home and Ai and I went on a quick shopping trip for her stuff. She is so nice and she and Ben offered to take us around in Thailand if we visit. I had bought both of them a magazine at the bookstore, so when we got back to Namsan, she pulled out all these accessories from Thailand. She said she wanted to give me presents so she gave me a bracelet and necklace and her two rings. She said she was happy to be my unnie. <-(older sister). She really didn't want to leave, but she had to. I hope to stay in touch with her. ^^

WHAT'S ON FIRE?
So after Des took a nap and I worked on this long email, we went for food. We decided to go to one of the vendor/restaurant places near where we're staying. We had rice cake, chicken skewers, fried dumpling, other rice cake thingies and soup. FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THAT IS SACRED!!! We thought the chicken had a sweet glaze on it...no it was this brown glaze with chilli peppers underneath it. Both of us were "Mool ju se yo-ing" (water please). Our eyes were watering and our lips were burning. I had some at each end of my mouth I thought I had burned dimples into the side of my mouth. We asked them for radish. BLESS THE PERSON WHO MADE PICKLED RADISH! Des, who was cold earlier, by then, was ready to strip. IT'S GETTING HOT IN HERE, SO TAKE OFF ALL YOUR CLOTHES...literally. It was such good food, but my tongue was going to fall off~

We are now doing laundry, so I have time to finish this email. The guy at the GS25 (convenience store) knows us by face now. We got more drinks. I swear I better have really nice, sexy legs after all the uphills we've been doing and all the subway steps...plus the sweating we did in Singapore.

Miss you muchly,

-Sam
p.s. I forgot to mention the pic I took of those guys yesterday is not that clear..sorry! I also took a pic of these baseball players who were training by running down the stairs of the mountain

originally written: Apr 11, 2006