Stray Thoughts

I guess a group of a 6-foot Korean joined by 4 other almost-or-over-6-foot Americans attracts a lot of attention.

On Christmas day, it was another round of force-feeding. We went to a Japanese restaurant with my slightly extended family, where we were fed rounds and rounds of sashimi and sushi, as well as other goodies. On the last round, Mark actually declared surrender and could not eat more food. I, on the other hand, had experience stuffing myself on these occasions, and had no problem pushing it hard through the end.

After that though, I had no idea what special things we were going to do for Christmas. Then, I got a call from my Korean elementary school friends, and they were willing to meet these American friends of mine. When we finally met, awkwardness ensued. Then, Jason’s silliness, Mark’s massiveness, and Reed’s randomness broke the ice for the most part, and we went to various fun-zones such as singing rooms (similar to karaokes), board game cafes, and billiard places. By the time we were done, it was 1 a.m. and it was declared that that was the most eventful Christmas ever. Yay.

Sadly, both Mark and I fell under the weather a little bit and we had to take our intensities down a little bit. The next couple days were spent in mediocrity, watching an IMAX, Mark buying cheap Korean electronics, hanging out in Sinchon, eating real frozen yogurts at a place called Iceberry. William arrived one day, and we proceeded to force feed him immediately as well.

The next day, I finally lifted the veil on Seoul’s tourist attractions, since William was now here. Our first stop was the Gyeongbokgung Palace, where we saw the olds of Seoul. There, we caught the attention of photographers, who wanted to take our pictures (for free) and email them to us. (I think they were practicing tourist photography). Then, we wore costumes, available for free, and Mark and Jason continued on to be spontaneous. Some pretty funny pictures came out… they should be in Mark’s email by now.

Another funny moment was in Insadong, when Mark, Jason, and a Korean couple got trapped in a circle of Korean traditional dancers/musicians. In their street performance, they were circling around, and, of course, Mark and Jason, who were too busy taking pictures, were caught off guard and it was too late when they realize they were in the middle of the revolving circle of Korean musicians. More funny photo ops ensued.

Speaking of photos, I’ll try to get them ASAP, but the problem is that we would need to do that at night, and everyone is staying somewhere NOT at my house…. when they do though, pictures after pictures will come up.

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I guess the fact that I haven’t found the time to write for so long is a testimony to how much fun we’ve been having.

On the second morning, we decided to challenge the culinary capacity of the boys slightly by taking them to a Samgyetang place (Chicken-Ginseng-Soup). Of course, I shouldn’t even have doubted Mark’s capacity, as he finished more quickly and more completely than me or my brother. Reed and Jason weren’t far behind, either. Afterwards, we drove in front of the Blue House (the Korean version of White House) en route to Yongsan electronics complex, where my parents had to buy a new TV for our new house. While they haggled away, I proved a point to the guys that this complex just did not end if you tried to walk from one end to another. At the Yongsan I-Park Mall, Reed received a pair of cleats that weren’t torn in 4 different places, and Jason received a digital camera that could fit in something smaller than a backpack. At Itaewon, the busy district in front of the former Yongsan American military base, Mark received a Chelsea jumper. Later that night, we met Ha Lim and Jennifer for dinner and fun at Myongdong, where we witnessed one of many anti-government protests. (The current president is not well-liked at all, with an approval rating of less than 7%)

The next 3 days were spent at Vivaldi Park, an hour and a half east of Seoul. It’s a ski/water park resort, and we skiied intensely and attempted to teach Reed how to ski, with limited success. Jason won the prize for being the most overconfident skier, while Mark won the prize for being an Energizer bunny. At nights, we showed them a true Korean teenagers’ night life by going to a Korean PC-Bang (PC Gaming Rooms).

To be continued…

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It looked like a solid trip to begin with.

The plane ride was, as expected, long and tedious, with Reed taking the title for being able to sleep the most (10 hours out of 13) while Jason suffered the rest of the day for not sleeping much at all (1?). Luck seemed to be on our side when we got a promotion when renting a cell phone, and they waived the 3000 won/day rental fee for the entire trip. That’s almost 60 dollars…. I was happy.

ICN is outside of seoul, so we took a van-cab into Seoul (my parents could’ve come and met us, but too many people and too many luggages), met my parents, and I abandoned the guys at the hotel to rest while I went and showered, changed, and all that good stuff. According to the guys, that was the only boring part of the day.

And so it began. A couple of hours later, with Mark pleading to me over the rented phone that they were getting bored out of their minds, I strolled back over to their hotel and we took a short walk to one of the busiest parts of Seoul. We went into the big bookstore/other-things-store (Kyobo, 교보문고) and Jason bought himself a headset to use when talking to his folks back in Austin. Then we strolled along Chunggyecheon (청계천) to get to a Line 2 subway station and just to take in the daytime scenery (which is rather boring).

In order to take the subway, everyone (except me of course, b/c I already have one) had to get T-money, which is the all-purpose transportation pay card. Reed seemed to have troubles at first, but we all got to Sinchon (신촌) safely.

Sinchon is a busy/fun district in Seoul, usually full w/ young ‘uns like us. We had lots of fun there, including going to the arcade, a board game cafe, and Mark buying a Chelsea (yuck) beanie at the Adidas store. We spent a good majority of the afternoon there, then we decided to move on to the plaza in front of the city hall, where there were a lot of decorations and Mark took photos after photos. We then walked down to where we had started the day, to the entrance of Kyobo and Chunggyecheon, saw the pretty lights (now that it wasn’t daytime, it was a LOT more exciting), then walked back to the hotel b/c Reed had stained his pants w/ lunch earlier that day.

As it is with Korean tradition, my parents then tortured the guys with food. Mark, being the beast he is, was not in any pain whatsoever, but Reed and Jason, who were crashing through the floor anyways (we had been up for almost two days on minimal sleep on the plane), were overwhelmed by the food. Respite came soon, however, and my dad and I drove back to the hotel w/ the guys, and they are (as I write) getting a good night’s sleep.

I’ll post photos when I get them from Mark.. I’m kind of the lazy kind and don’t like taking photos while traveling myself.

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I’ll write some when I have time…..

-AP

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I actually am ashamed to say I did not know that Amazon MP3 Downloads sold, legally, DRM-Free MP3’s. After losing my entire music library to the evil DRM monster, I lost faith in purchasing music legally and used less legitimate methods to recover my music library.

Not anymore, however. Amazon MP3 downloads have a great collection (they have 90% of the music I listen to, anyways) and the price is really, REALLY, reasonable. Most tracks for 89 cents to 99 cents, and the album discounts are amazing as well.

I will start using the service immediately. I believe my first purchase will be the “The Best Of” Album by Radiohead. Not only do I get great music, but it’s also a load off my conscience.

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This was my first year at ACL (Austin City Limits Music Festival). I absolutely loved it.. it was absolutely worth every cent of the 170 dollars for a 3-day pass. Some of the more ignorant were fussing about how (unlike last year, when they had Muse, Bob Dylan, and co. over) there weren’t enough big-name bands and how the Foo Fighters weren’t closer material. I had my doubts too, and when the heat started getting me and I got a little bit annoyed, i thought so too. As the festival went on, however, I found myself wanting more but unable to b/c I was so tired.

On the first day (Friday Night), I couldn’t attend the entire thing because (obviously) of school being over at 3:35. I was still able to catch Slightly Stoopid, N.E.R.D., and last but not least, Mars Volta.

Slightly Stoopid were ok, but I didn’t REALLY like them. They had the funk, but not the musicality or the pure, raw performance of other bands. N.E.R.D., on the other hand, had the music and the performance. I just don’t like the genre.

Mars Volta can be simply described easily as absolutely ridiculous. My friends and I had looked forward to Mars Volta all day, so we stepped over some people sitting down to get pretty close to the front. Their sound completely blew everyone away (although some may have been due to the amount of pot they were smoking). They somehow managed to play like four songs in the course of 75 minutes, but I think I may have gone into a trance about a halfway through.

The vocalist, the guitarist, the drummer, and the wind guy all had great performance in them. It was as much of an eye candy as it was an ear candy. It hurt my ears a little bit though.

-Continued tomorrow with Day 2 (Beck)

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This year, a new student suggested that the student body do a vow of silence for 3 hours or longer to commemorate the 9/11 tragedy. I participated. It was quite the most frustrating 3 hours I’ve had since maybe the January SAT. It was a cool experience, though. It reminded me of a quote from Star Wars: A New Hope and kind of connected it to the tragedy:

“I felt a great disturbance in the Force…as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.”-Obi-wan Kenobi

This is probably pretty much what happened when the towers collapsed…

Sends chills down my spines.

For the world’s sake, please. I hope Obama will be elected to take the world towrads the general direction of PEACE.

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It’s finally my turn to go completely insane over this unnecessarily stressful process of getting into colleges. I have my eyes set on acceptance into Stanford, but since no matter how qualified you are, it’s pretty hard to get into one of these “highly-selective” colleges, I will have to do my darnedest to get a fighting chance.

Of course, it is often said that the application essay is quite possibly the most stressful thing to right about, since nobody knows how to quite write it. My college counselor tells me that it defies every single rule that the school has taught me up to now about formal writing, so it was especially hard to see my first draft turned to scrap because it didn’t defy every single rule of formal writing. Second draft on, I settled on a topic about BSoD’s, because I thought it was unique and had a little “human feeling,” not one of those mechanical essays.

I just can’t wait to be done with this process. After Thanksgiving, most of the pressure will be off, and “Sernioritis” (definition: a psychological disease that often ails seniors because they are done with all schoolwork that will affect their college admittance) will hit. Of course, I don’t think I’ll let myself fail classes, but it will be a good mental break.

Image Credit: http://kevinsung.wordpress.com/

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All right, I haven’t written on my own blog in so long I don’t know how this is going to work out.

This post is meant to give tips on using SIM-unlocked phones in the states. I got AT&T Prepaid, and it seemed painless enough, and I seemed to get great coverage… until I got to school.

NO SERVICE! What the hell, I asked myself. Apparently, the majority of AT&T’s GSM coverage is on the 850Mhz bandwith, so I got GREAT coverage in some places, and HORRIBLE coverage in others. In this case, unfortunately, my school where I live in is the “HORRIBLE coverage” place.

I asked about T-Mobile… great news! The majority of their GSM coverage is on the 1900 Mhz bandwidth, so I will be switching ASAP.

What I want to emphasize is, CHECK YOUR PHONE’S CAPABILITIES BEFORE SIGNING UP FOR SERVICE. If you have 850Mhz capability, AT&T may be a great choice for you. If not, you may want to consider T-Mobile.

FYI: My phone is a SCH-M620 from Korea with an i600 ROM inside. What that means is that it acts like an i600 although it’s technically not.

Good luck with your phones!

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Sorry I haven’t been keeping the posts flowing. I just got back to America from Korea and I’ve been very very busy. I promise when things settle down I’ll post some useless but nonetheless interesting stuff about Korea and technology. I actually have a post halfway written but haven’t found the time to finish it.

-AP

Tags: personal, apologies, busy

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