서울! korean food!

나는비비안. 지금나는인천공항에 있어요. 하글 type uh… I can. 모르게서. 시발, 나의 책을 잊었어요. (XINLEI, YOU HAVE MY KOREAN BOOK! You’ll have to give it back to me sometime T__T)

와, 이거 “pear drink” = 너무 단것 (???).

Since my Korean sucks and I can’t type anything, really, that makes sense, let’s list what foods I had this time!

SIDE DISHES

김치 (Of course…)

MAIN DISHES

국밥 (Delicious……………..!!!!!!!!! I want to eat it now!!!!!!!!!!)

떡볶이 (Same ol’, same ol’ — didn’t actually see 볶이 anywhere!)

오뗑 (Meh)

버페 (Vegetarian buffet @ New Start — clockwise from top: eggplant, candied yam, spring roll, tofu, soybeans, weird apple cinnamon mash thing, vegan quesadilla, and in the center, potatoes and vegetarian flour pancake thing.)

된장지개
해물파전
김치순두부지개
빵
김밥

DRINKS

바나나우유 (Well, I’ve made myself sick of it. Naturally.)

“링빵” (Well, not in cake form, but doughnut form. )

햇밤우유 (So good, kinda tasted like coffee milk…)

아침햇살 (Some kind of rice milk, I think. YUM!)

민트초코레트
커피
허니레몬
맥주

SWEETS

와플 (Waffle with tiramisu gelato!)

바나나초코레트

More later, MAYBE. Flght’s boarding to go to Narita.

Dude, in other news, I’m pissed! Twice now I’ve paid for internet at Narita and it’s just fucked up! This time I changed companies, thinking maybe it would be better, but at the moment, I think it’s worse! Fuck this shit! For motherfucking $6 a day I damn expect it to work and to work awesomely. I mean, the Taiwan airport has free internet. Damn you, Narita. Damn you to hell. So ghetto. Still not fixed. Godamn it Narita; time’s a tickin’ and money’s a drainin’. Not that I can even complain to someone, cause the last time I asked for any kind of help in Narita (losing my jacket and trying to claim it from the ridiculously lost and found and then being utterly unable to communicate what kind of jacket it was that I lost) soured me in asking Japanese people for help in any capacity than looking for directions or something! It’s just too hard to communicate.

In the meantime, I guess I’ll just keep adding shit to this and hope that the internet comes back in time for my flight for me to actually post it, cause if not, that’d be stupid, too.

General observations about Korea, which is no doubt the weirdest freaking Asian country I’ve been to:

THE PEOPLE ARE HIVE-MINDED AS FUCK.
Everyone is the godamn same! They all wear the same kinds of clothes (the fashion is boring as can be, which was a huge disappointment), drink the same drinks, eat the same things, listen to the same music… it’s sooooooo boring.

THE SUBWAY 90%+ OF THE TIME SMELLS LIKE OLD PEOPLE AND KIMCHI.
It’s truly horrible. That’s all there is to that. The only times it didn’t smell like that was like, at 11:00 in the morning when no one was really riding the subway. It’s truly, truly foul.

SEOUL IS LIKE A CONFUSED WESTERNIZED COUNTRY.
Everything in Seoul seems to have a huge Western feel, which makes it a really weird place and really different from other “first-world” Asian countries I’ve been to (and even different from developing Asian countries I’ve been to). Nearly everything has English signs and a shitload of their signs are in Konglish or English — generally making pretty decent sense, even.

SWEET SHIT REIGNS THE FOOD MARKET.
If you look at Korean imported drinks in America, the ingredients are surprisingly similar to those in American soft drinks. If you look at the same drinks imported from Taiwan or Japanese, they are generally pumped with sugar, yes, but at least it’s sugar. Korean drinks, on the other hand, taste fake, even when they taste good. They’re pretty much all high-fructose corn syrup, and some have phenylalanine. As a drink whore, I still drank a good array of shit in Seoul, but I showed

ATTENTION TO DETAIL IS KEY.
All new restaurants, all tour book guides, all the subway messages, hell, even the airport shuttle bus… it’s all done very, very well, generally with an adorable flair of kid-like proportions. Attention to detail seems pretty immense.

THINGS ARE APPARENTLY BETTER NEW.
From houses to eyelids, all things seem better if newly renovated in Korea… including older neighborhoods, which are being demolished by the dozen to make room for newer condos.

MOST PEOPLE SPEAK AT LEAST A *LITTLE* ENGLISH.
As opposed to Japan where people will barely ever talk to you in English even if they know some, in Seoul, it seems like everyone speaks a little English, including old ahjusshis and ahjummas. And I find that even if they don’t really know English in Seoul, they will at least try and talk to you. Which is appreciable.

recap central: hong kong, china (actually, kowloon).

these entries are going to be short cause i didn’t exactly have the *best* time in hong kong or in taiwan. it was okay.

went to hong kong for a singular day because my dad had some business shit to take care of. got there and went to go eat straightaway at some dim sum place. that was pretty exciting, i guess, though it resulted in me eating some meat which i wasn’t wanting to do, really…

black sesame jelly roll thing. was interesting. black sesame flavor wasn’t like, super strong, and the texture was kinda strange.

turnip cake with a crunchy shell, mmm!

an egg roll wrapped in a rice sheet…

some kind of veggie dumpling. or maybe it had shrimp. don’t remember.

fish tank at the restaurant.

black sesame mochi, before.

black sesame mochi, after.

mom with black sesame mochi teeth.

me with black sesame mochi teeth.

just one type of crab i’ve never seen before…

after lunch, we went to my dad’s office. his co-worker lady gave us shitloads of food and gifts, which is nice, but she’s totally the type that won’t let you say no. even if you don’t want something, she’ll MAKE you take it. which is good and bad, but it would be nice to have some free will…

derelict hong kong — a view from a super nice brand new building next door.

<img src="http://lh4.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/SwzCvmiZnwI/AAAAAAAAV-Q/I9BuOksXo_I/s640/IMG_2840.jpg"
lady set us up an open-rooftop bus tour around kowloon. it was raining at first, but it stopped once we got on. still got to wear these nifty (?) jackets, though.

oh yes.

best steakhouse name ever.

miscellaneous photos from the open rooftop tour, starting now!

dad’s co-worker lady met up with us at where the bus dropped us off, and we all went to dinner together.

we went to this famous fish market place…

(i love this!)

anyway, the place really depressed me cause all these animals were bound and unhappy or just facing the inevitable fate of being eaten :/

dunno wtf this is but i sure as hell wouldn’t eat it.

<img src="http://lh6.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/SwzBw1-GoEI/AAAAAAAAV7g/nA3b6B92Cvo/s720/DSC_0279.JPG"
fat lobster, i'm in love.

cuttlefish, i’m in love.

HERE TO READ ABOUT MY HORROR IN DEALING WITH ALL OF THIS BLAHHHHHH

anyway, once you’ve read about all the horror i faced, now see the food.

i’m not going to lie; they were stir-fried with peppers, salt, and garlic. how could i not like it? but i was in love with these poor little mantis shrimp, and couldn’t really stomach eating them. so i didn’t really. just a little tiny piece.

scallops with scallions.

blahhhhh so that’s all for dinner pictures, there was some fried rice i ate the shit out of and some gailan because it was vegetables. wooo.

papaya for dessert. sooo good. i’ve never liked papaya… til this evening.

that night, i had fun with long exposures in the hotel hallway. cause i’m lame.

view from our hotel room. yeah, fancy.

same view in the daytime.

the next day, we left hong kong / kowloon, but of course, we got some presents…

egg tarts with only egg whites.

stopped by chungking mansions, where the indian food is supposed to be AMAZING! unfortunately, i wasn’t hungry at that point in time. maybe next time. it was like, all indian people in there. it’s also funny because my dad exchanged money on the street right outside, and then he saw there were exchange booths in chungking mansions, and the difference between the two was HUGE. i can’t remember exact numbers now, but seriously, laughably huge difference considering the two places were across the street from each other.

went to lunch at some shopping center. there was this gorgeous display of meat…

i had corn and onion and mushroom jook (shi fan, rice porridge), though.

my dad’s zha jiangmian, i thiiink. or maybe it’s something else. i dunno. this place specialized in meat products, pretty much.

also went shopping, and i got these two pairs of really awesome boot-shoes for $10 a pair. SO AWESOME.

went to walk around on the hall of fame or whatever the hell. bruce lee. lee xiaolong.

jackie chan.

hilarious old asian lady hats galore.

then back to taiwan.

recap central: toronto, ontario.

Wednesday, October 15th
Woke up the next morning essentially to John screaming, “ROYGBIV, WHY WOULDN’T YOU LET ME SLEEP???” Haha. Probably one of my favorite lines someone has said to me! So funny. Personally I slept soooo well, like a baby! But I guess no dice for James and John. We eat pastries and mofe at a nearby place, and I have no money really, so I’m going to eat the leftovers from IHOP the previous day, which had been in the pretty cold car, but the Nurses guys literally will not let me! I mean, it really did LOOK scary, but I’m quite certain it wouldn’t have made me sick! Because I’m Chinese! C’mon now! John insisted on giving me a half a bagel instead, though. Whatever. Busters.

John trying to sleep in the car after not sleeping the previous day…

We stop by a truck stop and try to get poutine, butttt…………………….. we’re deciding between spaghetti sauce poutine and another kind, because we figure gravy poutine isn’t vegetarian. Turns out spaghetti sauce poutine wasn’t vegetarian here, either. Shoulda known, considering it was a truck stop. Ah, well, Aaron and I eat it anyway. Also eat some ketchup potato chips since it was the guys’ first time eating them, and 3 out of 3 Nurses agree that ketchup potato chips are fucking awesome!

We get to Toronto and I don’t really remember the rest of the trip there because I didn’t write down notes like I did for the other days. Oops. The Drake Hotel is a nice ass venue, like the fucking Doug Fir, kinda. I get a payout this evening, woo!! Eat fries and gravy for dinner next door at some place.

Their friends from Toronto — bunches of them — and some guys from fucking this one band I forget at the moment — oh yeah, Born Ruffians — are there. I run the merch table a bit. Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

We eat poutine afterwards, and it’s derish. But my diet that entire day consisted of, potatoes, potatoes, and more potatoes!! So horrible!!!

—

Thursday, October 16th

Aaron and I stay with Luke of Born Ruffians that evening and James and John stay with another friend. We have to meet the guys at the van at 8:00am. SOOO EARLLLLY.

Aaron’s cold morning blanket pose.

They have to load their gear and all this junk this morning… James is still rendered sickly dead in the car all the while. Haha.

So, I have the day in Toronto, and they head off to Chicago after we get some coffee. Le Loup guys happen to show up at the same coffee place!

I head over to some coffee shop and do some work and hang out for the morning. Then I start walking around. I plan my day around — having to go to the Greyhound to drop off my backpack, then going to Medieval Times in Toronto! Hail yes! Throw in some mentally destablizing events, and it was a bit of a blur of a day.

The walk to Greyhound and back is mostly unexciting, but on the way to Medieval Times was pretty decent…

This park was amazing. The lawn was like barely ever walked on, I guess, so everything was covered with teeny tiny spider webs which were gleaming in the sunlight since the sun was going down. AMAZING! Seriously, one of the cooles things I’ve seen ever, although I couldn’t document it well with photos.

This is some weird club.

Medieval Times, outside!

Medieval Times hand dryer?!

Medieval Times, inside! It was a bit weird being in Medieval Times all by myself since everyone was with groups of people, but um, whatever.

<img src="http://lh3.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/Stt3Z9rw0wI/AAAAAAAAVss/Cf-84LodrK8/s512/DSC_0360.JPG"
The yellow knight was the knight on my side of the room, and he was hilarious. His crowd was easily the loudest, but best of all, he had this dopey Keanu Reeves smile going on. LOVE IT!

KING!

Some epic shit, no?

The veggie plate I got for dinner was way better than what the meat eaters got. It had hummus and pita, a corn kabob I think, some potatoes, etc. etc. There were some girls next to me who got it but didn’t know what hummus was! WTF! MMM, craving hummus… the meat eaters got like. Ribs. And chicken wings. Like… zero veggies. It’s kinda ridiculous…

I had to leave the show early, and headed to the Greyhound to catch my late night bus to Montreal!

OTHER TORONTO POST (WRITTEN WHEN IN TORONTO) HERE!

recap central: montreal, quebec.

Tuesday, October 14th
The next morning, James‘ phone had the weirdest ring tone and it was like church bells chiming, and I’m like, “Where the hell is there a church in the middle of nowhere?!”

We go to IHOP and get greeted by menus with belly button ham!

Driving through Connecticut and Vermont (?) to Montreal = most beautiful stuff!! Aaron drives while John ends up using my computer, so I sit up front with Aaron and he grills me and asks me a million ridiculous questions about things people do in China and about what celebrities I would choose to be with if I had to choose. Silly questions that I don’t really remember, but it was stuff, like, “Do people in China brush their teeth?” would be not a question that’s out of the question… I say my celebrity of choice would be Brandon Boyd, and he says that maybe in old school era Brandon Boyd woulda been cool, and that’s what I meant, really, but I guess Aaron has a friend now who knows that Brandon Boyd is dating this super young model girl? No idea. He DOES suck nowadays, though.

Anyway, we honk at the Le Loup guys while we’re driving to Canadia cause we pass them, and they don’t seem to notice, which is hilarious because well, there’s not that many freaking tour vans driving from Connecticut to Montreal! We see them at the border, and I’m smuggled across, weeeee!

We arrive to the Montreal venue, Il Motore, late because Google Maps is wrong (which is hilarious, because Xinlei tells me the next day that I should beware of Google Maps in Canada because it’s inaccurate). It’s also hilarious because the Le Loup guys also used Google Maps and did the exact same getting lost moves as we did, EXACTLY!

When we first get to Montreal, we see this speed bump sign, and below it three old people are walking real slowly, so Aaron says that each bump represents an old person. Really funny. (Not that funny in written retrospect.)

As we’re unloading the van in Montreal, I’m helping them hold open doors, and John and Aaron are constantly screaming, “ROYGBIV, HOW DID YOU GET ON TOUR WITH US!” ROYGBIV turned into my new nickname, along with Bel Viv, which I’d hear before, but ROYGBIV was best. Although it turned into ROY at some points, and ROY is a wee bit less exciting, haha.

They got apparently a real yummy veggie meat sandwich but not I, boohoo, because I didn’t get a payout from that venue. Cheapskates!

Everyone sat down during the show, which was a little weird. I got a bit drunk cause more free drink tickets since James was like, dead.

Played the drawing game with Aaron and really embarrassed him cause I guess I was a bit loud during Le Loup’s quieter parts, oops, whatever. There was massive talk of getting poutine afterwards since, well, Montreal = POUTINE! But no dive because everyone’s way tired afterwards. Bummer! We get a super expensive hotel on the way to Toronto, and they wouldn’t let us say we only had two people because there was no back entrance; there was only one entrance that went up through the front desk, and I guess the front desk lady was mean-ish.

It was a tonna money, so I tried to give John $40, but he wouldn’t take it even though he should’ve. So I ended up giving him $30.

Everyone’s happy as crap in this picture, because someone set along this funny rap remix of Nurses’ “Caterpillar Playground” and it was really funny, goofy, and I dunno if I’d call it good, but whatever.

OTHER TORONTO POST (WRITTEN WHEN IN TORONTO) HERE!

recap central: cambridge, connecticut.

Monday, October 13th
Work in the morning at the coffee shop next door to the New York Loft Hostel, which I rather like. It was funny, though, as the coffee shop was playing really mellow ambient music and then all of a sudden started playing this super loud crazy orchestral music, and everyone in the coffee shop was looking around and staring at each other and laughing. It was a cute moment of collective confusion. That’s a good band name! Cute Moments Of Collective Confusion!! Might even be able to do without the Cute… depending on what kind of band you are. ANYHOOT.

That day, I walk a mile to the apartment where the Nurses guys stayed the previous night, and it’s time to go to Cambridge, Connecticut.

The drive is GORGEOUS!

Yay, rainbow! I think John drove.

Aaron attempting to watch “Breaking Bad” on my laptop…… it took forever to buffer, though. FOREVER! They had started watching the previous day, I guess, but they had started right where I’d ended, so I couldn’t watch. I’m dying to finish that show! Ugh!

James was totally sick and dying of consumption! (I don’t even really know what consumption is.)

I think this was at a rest stop or something. Condoms and chewing gum and… diotame bismuth???

Show that evening at T.T. The Bear’s was real awesome. A couple of their old friends showed up, and I guess it was a major surprise!

James had a funny fever dream as we were arriving to the venue, where he was sleeping but knew that we had arrived at the venue, and some guy was grabbing him by the neck and growling, “1979!”… so, I decided to ask the bartender about the year, to see if there was any significance to it, but no dice. I think she mighta thought I was crazy! I got free drink tickets, too, as well as free food, hail yeah! I was actually making money being on tour with those clowns!

Cool show and good vibes… they did a couple of interviews, and I guess one was awesome and one was majorly goofs. We went next door to another venue after they performed, and I had this yummy tofu sandwich from really nice Persian people! Drove to the hotel afterward and it was fucking freezing, so we were running to the hotel room! Fucking cold!

Woke up about a zillion times throughout the night, and Aaron totally took the longest pee of the century. In the morning, he was like, “I dunno if I dreamed this, but, I think I took the longest pee ever last night!” and I’m like, “No… it definitely happened!” because it woke me up!

recap central: new york, new york (part one).

Dude, all my adventures in New York are kind of a messed up blur of events, so unfortunately, this won’t be all that neat. But deal!

—

Friday, October 9th
Arrive there, I think, and HsuHan has told me that HsuKen is in town with lady friend, so I meet up with them in the yuppie shopping area, and they go shopping and we go shopping and I buy a couple things. Not too much to speak of. My hostel is fine, but I think I get a lotta weird bug bites from being there… hrm. My roommate Stewart is this British guy, and he seems pretty cool, but I can only stay in that hostel for that evening because the rest of the weekend is all booked up, so I have to change hostels. We loosely chat about going to church on Sunday because there’s this awesome gospel church near where the hostel is in Upper West side of Manhattan. That night we go eat pizza, based on Judy’s recommendation, and it’s delicious! That’s about it, though.

—

Saturday, October 10th
Walk around Central Park with Stewart in the morning and then we split paths. He’s supposed to call me the next day regarding going to church, but he never does! Ass! He went to a miscellaneous white party that evening with random people from the internet so maybe he ded.

Go eat lunch with Jesse [Jensen] and his girlfriend, Fara! It’s been like, five years since I’ve seen him, so it was nice. Him and his girlfriend are really funny and cute together, but are kinda unshy about PDA… ;x Apparently a lot of their friends hate hanging out with them because of that. Jesse goes off on how he hates Brooklyn and when he was there the other night screamed about how people in Brooklyn are ugly and poor or something. LOL! Guess it’s the newfound lawyer in him?

After that, I walk around Central Park a bit. Find some markets. This guy makes this cool paper holder stuff out of polymer clay… there’s the clothespins behind them that when you press them, make the mouths open. SO NEAT! Such a cool material…

BAD ASS.

I very much enjoy this picture since it’s fairly plain in itself.

They’re hardcore about haunted houses in New York. Wish I coulda gone to one…

That night, I stayed with Don [Vu] and Van [Vu] and Phil, Tammy’s boyfriend, in Williamsburg in Brooklyn. Their place had mice! I slept on the couch! I actually SAW the mice, too, which was a little weird, but whatever.

We went to eat at some Japanese restaurant, and it was quite delicious. It felt like being in Japan again, which was cool, and the menu was hilarious. Wasn’t cheap, though.

I just ate some takoyaki (was saving money and trying to not be a huge fatass).

Afterwards, they gave us a cup for using with the cotton candy machine. Score!

—

Sunday, October 11th
The following night, I was staying with Judy and Doug! For the day, we walk around and explore Brooklyn. They live in a nice, homey part of town.

Get some mothafuckin veggie pizza which is real nommy! New York pizza rules!

They’re going to go to the show with me at nighttime but we find out that it’s freaking sold out. Aaron tries to see if he can get them on the list but there’s no space… I get on the list, though. But before that, Aaron texts me and lies to me saying that there’s no way they can get me on the guest list because Muse’s bassist is in town and took all their guest list spots. Which I was like, “What? That’s weird,” about but it didn’t occur to me that it could possibly be a blatant lie. Turns out it was in fact a blatant fabrication. A pretty good one, at that. -__- To kill time with Judy and Doug, we get some yummy cupcakes that I’m going to bring to them because Aaron’s birthday was the previous day and he’d never eaten gourmet cupcakes before and that’s a crime (although these cupcakes were, in my opinion, not so good as freaking Cupcake Royale, which I still maintain has the best cupcakes, although people beg to differ).

Anyway, that cupcake shop also has these cakes in a cup… just basically really creamy cake they mash up into a cup. It looks really godamn good! The place is closing by the time we get there, though, so we just munch down and finish up. Then we go putz around this bar and stuff. Just chat. Play some Connect 4. Hollar! Then we go visit their friend’s house — some old musicians — and they pick up some stuff. And since they can’t make it into the show, they go home after that (bummer! But it was a late show anyway and they are early risers for work, so they probably wouldn’t even have seen Le Loup’s set anyway. Ah, well).

I get to the Mercury Lounge to meet up with Aaron and John and James.

Sold out show which must be a good feeling. It was a really good show, perhaps the best I’ve seen them ever, although I guess Aaron felt really weird about it. Went for an aimless walk after their set cuz that’s what Aaron and I do a lot of the time we hang out, and he was talking about his girl problems a lot. Good fun times.

Later on, I’m hungry, so I wanna eat some falafel… so we go next door to this yummy falafel place which makes them SPICY — a thing I’ve never had. Aaron teases me nonstop about how I eat and it’s embarrassing and really messy and self-conscious-making. Post making fun of me, he goes off on some hilarious really long monologue tirade about how he needs to do interviews for me (like for Micachu) and pretends to be a businessman trying to help me succeed and yadda yadda and he says that he understands that I like who I am and don’t want money to change who I am, etc. etc. but that if I just let him do interviews then I’ll have more success than I know what do with, basically. It was a totally really ridiculously long joke where he played some character, and he definitely really got into it. Ha.

—

Monday, October 12th
Wake up and head to Coney Island! It’s in southern Brooklyn and is just a skip and a hop away from Judy’s place, so I head there by myself. After that, I meet up with Judy to give her back her key and then head over to the Bushwick neighborhood where my new hostel is. Bushwick is this really cool (and really small) neighborhood where there’s a whole lot of fun artsy stuff going on, and the New York Loft Hostel is located there. Really awesome hostel, which I highly recommend. It’s not for people who don’t like being in a central location, though, but it is definitely for people who like going to New York just to hang in Brooklyn. Far as I’m concerned, Manhattan kinda sucks. Brooklyn’s where it’s at, dawg. (Although just by sheer quantity of things to do there are at least a few good things to do in Manhattan.)

Didn’t get to eat the highly regarded Nathan’s cheese fries at Coney Island because I was stuffed already. I bought some hummus from the supermarket and ate the shit out of it — while walking, while hanging out on the Coney Island Boardwalk with the seagulls… yum! I love hummussssssssss! Coney Island was more thriving than I’d anticipated; I thought it would be closed for the season but there were definitely people walking around. Not that many people, mind you, but that’s fine, really. It’s kinda small and sad, and I don’t think the average person would find it all that entertaining, but I did, for sure.

Aaron and I were supposed to hang out that day, but he was impossible to get a hold of! Turns out he was chillin real hard at a friend’s place literally like… within a mile from my hostel. Which is kinda funny.

Anyway, I checked into my hostel in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn, which I really like cause it’s really small and artsy.

Anyway, I think I walked around and explored Manhattan for a while since I hadn’t really explored it proper, and it was alright.

The giant Toys R’ Us was funny…

Jeanette used to do PR for this company, and it’s ridiculous they have toy phones as well as real phones. WTF!

Indoor ferris wheel at the Toys R’ Us.

Their bathroom ruled. Ha!

Hilarity on the subway. Britney SPARES!

Tried to find a nommy dinner by way of aimless wandering but everything everywhere I went looked really good but was super pricey, and I eventually settled on this Indian food hole-in-the-wall that was pretty delicious but kinda ghetto… like, they had all the plates already sitting there, probably for hours, and when you ordered, they’d heat it up. It was fucking good, though. I’m a bit obsessed with Indian food lately. Not sure what the deal is. I used to just think it was okay, but since I started loving paneer, I started really, really loving the SHIT out of Indian food. MMMMMM.

—

(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM WHEN I FIRST ARRIVED IN NEW YORK)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM JFK AIRPORT, ALSO)
(OTHER NEW YORK POST FROM BROOKLYN)

recap central: san francisco, california.

friday, october 2nd
stopover in new york and it happens to be the day they’re having a party for jetblue all-you-can-jet passengers! woohoo! lots of free food. good thing an all-you-can-jetter who was sitting next to me tipped me off on it. fucking score. free alcohol too, and people kept tossing their extra drink tickets to my table for some reason. i didn’t drink, though.

unfortunately, the guy who tipped me off to the event had stinky breath… i could smell his breath through his exhale of his nose. blah!!! talked with jason? mike? someone else? while at the free food thing. jason is a dude from portland who works for idealist, another guy is this kinda older, cocky rich guy who does real estate in florida… ex-navy, talks about being rich and how once you make a certain amount of money you can never go back to getting mediocre money (he said something like $100,000 was not enough a year because of what he was used to). he WAS a consultant, after all.

anyway, off to san francisco after that. parents pick me up and then get into some ridiculous argument action about a detour and driving. stupid. go to bed asap.

—

saturday, october 3rd
eat breakfast at denny’s with the godparents and then nap. putz around. i have a note here that says “moon day” but i’m not sure what that means. watch “zombieland” with my brother and roxanne, and then eat japanese food for dinner at sakura with the rentals.

a church family owns the restaurant so we got massif free foodages.

continue to putz around, and then bart to sherry’s. relax.

—

sunday, october 4th
go to church with sherry and tin-win. it’s whatevers, the pastor is pretty funny and amusing, and he certainly has charm, but as always, i don’t agree with the bs he spews. go to korean lunch (soondooboo! they actually have veggie soondooboo!) with one of their friends, and then i go muni to the castro st. fair.

view from sherry and tin-win’s fancy apartment.

hilarious back massager ;x is that REALLY what it is? can’t tell.

i was expecting more, unfortunately, but it was really quite tame.

this guy was dancing up a storm, though.

really awful mash-up band.

look at that stomach.

so awesome!

met up with jesse and his sister shortly thereafter and went to this really super cute tea house called salmovar that had a $65 pot of tea!!!!

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this is a tray of cookies we got. karla met up with us but it took her a while to get there. right when jesse was taking off, actually. too bad!

ate pizza buffet with sherry and tin-win for dinner, and then putzed around! it was good, but there weren’t much veggie selections, so when the workers found out i was vegetarian they kept bringing me everything ad nauseum. really nice of them!

—

monday, october 5th
explored san francisco by myself, particularly the mission district.

… is it just me or does that not look like michael??

lotsa murals in the mission district.

<img src="http://lh5.ggpht.com/_RqrWKVC07xM/SttvGlLPz-I/AAAAAAAAVno/lnFJ0waqk8Q/s720/DSC_0068.JPG"

this one particular alley had shitloads of murals!

my favorite.

found a neat market and bought this amazing! beets drink! so delicious!

went to the ferry building shortly thereafter to meet up with jesse.

found this amazing soap. i want i i want it i want it i want it. unfortunately, i broke the bottle of beets juice before i got to finish it all :/ i want more, though. someone get me some.

as i was standing in the ferry building, waiting for jesse, i caught a glimpse of the back of some girl wearing green, and she walked like jean-claire so i thought it was maybe jean-claire, so i texted jean-claire, and it WAS her, which is really weird, because if i hadn’t been looking in her direction or had looked in her direction literally five seconds later, i wouldn’t have seen her. not to mention… i met her in peru, and she’d lived in portland up until that point. so what the fuck. it was weird and random.

jesse and i went to eat mexican food and then he went back to work.

after this, i didn’t take notes, so it’s all a blur. teehee!

just some quote offa reddit.

Mihae shared it with me. It’s quite profound.

“Some seem to live only to imitate others. Having no desirable characteristics of their own, they notice others’ and duplicate them. This is becoming more and more prevalent. And the rest of us just have to accept that these people are actually allowed to live, because upon closer inspection we find that we’re not much different. We come into the world learning by imitation. Those of us who aren’t rip-offs are just better at abstracting, and keep our sources hidden. And it really does make you wonder if these people are purposefully duplicating others or simply oblivious.Most people would be happy if they could spend the rest of their lives circlejerking. A monogamous relationship ain’t nothing but a two-way circlejerk. Everything in the universe must self-perpetuate, and we’re at our happiest when people want us, so this is unavoidable.Basically, the greatest tragedy is that the more things you wrap your head around, the more people you see sucking ass. We come into the world full of hopes and dreams of the greatness of humanity, only to find that most people are incompetent pussies interested only in hearing how great they are.But it’s not all bad. There are cute girls, and there are decent people, you just have to look for someone not so hopelessly dependent on the system.”

gotta… write…

no time, ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. so much to write and crap, but so busy!! aaaah!

uhhhhh. going to die.

uhhh.

in taipei. going to korea tomorrow. it’s uh. -1′c there. uh. going to die. -3′c tomorrow night. which is like 26′f. and i’m getting off the plane at 7pm. uh. going to die.

and dude. i’m at the fattest point of my life ever. WHAT THE FUCK. like. crazy shit. fattest ever. by like 5 pounds. what the nut and a fucking million and a half. supposedly according to the scale inside…… 121 pounds! HOLY FUCK!! that can’t be real!

UGHHHHH.

fuck taiwan. it makes me so fat EVERY. TIME.