It's a small world after all...

Yesterday was a big big big achievement for me~~~I went on a subway like all the locals ~~~~all~~~~ by~~~~ myself~~~~혼자~~~and met up with my friend at the bookstore next the the Shin-chon (신천) station...haha...
it's definitively a different feeling when your going somewhere on your own. I have to say that it took me about 3 or 4 tries before I could find the way out of the apartment complex to the street that has the subway station. Eventually I found it by following this lady that seemed (or in my mind) looked like she was going to go to the station....and she was...so it was all good ^_^::

i found my way~~~

then i met up my friend at a bookstore and when he came we went to school together. i needed to open a bank account. to make the long story short i met up with my friend from high school that i haven't seen since~~~

the weirdest thing is...i was walking at a crosswalk in Shinchon three weeks later at night and we crossed paths again and bumped into each other! o.O:: talk about drama-like incidents...it was unbelievable that two people could accidentally bump into each other two times in a country that both are foreigners and we never bump paths in the states::also do you know how busy and crowded Seoul is?!!

...it's a small small world~~~(_ _)"

Shinpu Dumpling Restarunt

Today after many nauseating hours in the Yonsei study hall (breathing in all the second hand smoke being sucked into the room from entrance ways of the building...all the doors are wide open to have ventilation but the study room has A/C so all the windows are shut tight trapping all the smoky air from the outside into the room)

So we set off to a place called Insa-dong (인사동) it's a street where they sell a lot of traditional trinkets and gift-like items. We walked and walked and still i wasn't hungry but eventually i was thirsty enough to stop and eat. So we ate at a Dumpling restaurant (만두)
Fried pork dumplings~~~
Steamed dumplings~~~
Dumpling soup~~~look at how big each dumpling was!!!

The dumplings were very delicious but i couldn't finish it due to my jet lag and loss of appetite from before. =_=::

I still can't believe my eyes...I'm in Korea.

Greetings from Korea!

I just arrived to Korea last night it was a long and exhausting flight...the second flight made me so sick I had to break the "no-seat-belt" law and rush to the restroom to puke which got me a scolding from the flight attendant...but it didn't matter I don't think that all the things that came out of my mouth could of fit in that tiny bag they have on the back of the seat >.<


All in all, I think it was the worse flight experience of my life but I kinda knew it was gonna end up like this because I didn't have my dosage of Dromomeine >.< I felt sick even after I got to my friend's house...wait I kinda felt nauseous right now....(maybe it's psychological) I just didn't wanna feel tired when I got to Korea~~~ I wanted to enjoy my "first" impression of Korea....un-drugged and awake...little did I know I would end up enjoying Korea nauseous, hungry, and with a mad desire to go pee~

So what was my impression?

So much of it is exactly like Taiwan but so very unfamiliar as well. The same Vegas lights beaming at you on the streets, people walking, buses and taxis zooming by....but barely any motor bikes...the difference lies in the river that runs through Korea...so there are a lot of bridges.



A lot of Korea is mountains and trees like Taiwan but they build a lot on them so lots of stairs...so everyday I get around Korea is a day I'm glad that the Lord has given me functional legs that can carry me around in this country. Here in Korea there are things of the past right in the middle of things of the future...it's very common...



I still can't believe that i'm here after at least two years of planning....it had always seemed so far off in my future~~now I'm sitting at Yonsei's study hall drafting out this blog post waiting on my Korean friend to finish studying for his study group coming up in a few hours....he has decided to take a short nap from his studying ^_^::

AHH after coming here i have realized how much i still have to learn i really feel that this year will pass by too quickly and before i know it i'll be back home in California...
maybe after a few months this "Disney-like" feeling will have left me and I'll start to see the dull side of Korea....but for now I just wanna soak up as much of it as possible and still it overwhelms me.

Pho Super Bowl

I guess this is my last meal...I have officially retired from working at a wonderful company (full of nice people and friendly atmosphere) kinda sucks that I only found this job my last year of college.

If I would have found this going into college I wouldn't have known the hardships of "Slave-ons," now turned into CVS...and the dreadful things (bickering and complaining) that comes with a Medicare card or whatever it is that the governments give to old people who haven't saved enough money to pay for their medications >.< (enough said: cuz I'll probably end up being one of them) Well now I must prepare for my journey abroad~~~wow in less than a month, I'll be on foreign soil (Seoul, Korea) My co-workers and my manager treated my brother and me out for some Pho (Vietnamese Food) Me: because it was my last day of work and my brother: as an introduction to his first job experience via his awesome and considerate older sister (me) ^^:: (now he will not have to suffer from all the terrible jobs that come with "no experience" like I once did)

Phở, written as pho and pronounced "fuh" /fə/ or /fʌ/ by English speakers, is a traditional Vietnamese noodle soup dish.

Phở is served as a bowl of white rice noodles in clear beef broth, with thin cuts of beef (steak, fatty flank, lean flank, brisket). Variations featuring tendon, tripe, meatballs, chicken leg, chicken breast, or other chicken organs (heart, liver, etc.) are also available.

So when we got there around 12:15ish the place was jam packed...parking is kind of hard to get around this restaurant as the picture shows....more and more cars were coming in it was making a traffic jam all the way out to Pioneer and South!




In my opinion, this place has better Pho than I've tasted elsewhere. I always get the same thing when I come and that is the #6 Super Combination Pho (it has all the different type of meats that goes in the Pho in one dish) I always get the Super Bowl because I think the regular size is too small for me (I'll get hungry pretty fast without my extra noodles) ^^ It's only $0.50 more anyways (haha~~there's the Asian factor kicking in again)

This is what goes in the Phở




The food comes really fast!! So eat up!
Spring rolls with Oyster Sauce and some chopped peanuts



Egg Rolls that you wrap up in lettuce and dip in the vinegar fishy sauce thing...not too sure~~~cuz I ate the other one...


This place is affordable! I bet all the people that jam pack this place come here on a daily basis. The service is fast and makes up for the number of customers that come through (not a lot of wait time) but be careful they tend to rush you when it gets extremely busy. We kinda got in a little after the peak hours so we missed the mad rush.


Rating: 6

Phở Super Bowl
19117 Pioneer Blvd
Artesia, CA 90701

(562) 924-1838

Summer School of Truth/Trip to Santa Barbara

My schedule's been jam packed these past few weeks because I have been tending to a lot of church activities. This last few weeks after I came back from my College Training the Summer School of Truth (SST) started.

The SST is mainly a week and a half long of bible school for the children. So far most of the church's activities have been focused on the adults, so now we turn our attention to the little ones. ^^

I was one of the teacher/helpers for the 6th grade group and we covered the book: "God's Full Salvation"

But when we're not in the class rooms we are busy thinking of fun stuff to exhaust the massive energy of these little folks~~

Golf n' Stuff



Our t-shirts turned out wonderful ^_^:: (that's because I'm from Texas) tee-hee-hee


The verse on the back is from Galatians 2:20

Santa Barbara trip~~unfortunately not all of the kids signed up for this event because of the price and whatnot~~~so it was actually a nice way for all the teachers that taught classes during the SST to relax a bit and reward themselves ^^



We went to Lake Cachuma and had a BBQ~~~had a little accident with the fire but everyone was fine hopefully their eyebrow will grow back...Let's BBQ!



These guys were skipping rocks across Lake Cachuma~~~



Somebody skipped a rock across this guy's head~~~OUCH >.<



Just the other week I was going to drive to Irvine and go swimming at my friends new apartment complex...due to some circumstances, I was reluctantly unable to go =_=::


But now that I think about it...it seems kinda strange that I went to Santa Barbara and the only thing significantly fun that I did was to swim in the swimming pool ^^::

(Santa Barbara is much farther than Irvine...so I guess that whole fret about "my gas $$$ being wasted to go to Irvine to swim when we have a pool in our backyard" was kinda pointless compared to this situation)




I give perfect 10!!! Beautiful!



Just a little friend that came to our picnic and started to poo-poo on our heads >.<

How I ended up at Jang Su Jang...

Today I hurried out of work, forced my mom to come home early and rushed over to the nearest place for one of my summer time cravings~~~Korean Cold Noodle called "mool naeng myun" at Korean Noodle~~~(a great hole-in-the-wall kinda restaurants)

Korean Noodle
13347 South St
Cerritos, CA 90703

(562) 865-4771

To my shock and dismay, when I got there...the restaurant was boarded up and CLOSED!!

I found out that it had caught on fire mid-last week~~~right when my craving for this delicious treat started! >.<


New Peking Restaurant
19131 Bloomfield Ave
Cerritos, CA 90703

(562)865-8139

Desperate to find a restaurant and not willing to go to church on an empty stomach...we went to another Korean Restaurant in the same plaza (Cerritos is never short of Korean eateries)




I have eaten at Jang Su Jang a couple of times before and the one thing that I really like from this place was their Short Rib Soup (but it was way too hot for this and I just wanted something quick and simple) I've tried their cold noodle before and didn't like it very much...


Some Small dishes~~~



So I ordered Bi Bim Pap...=_=::



Jang Su Jang
19107 Bloomfield Avenue
Cerritos, CA 90703

(562) 924-5367


Overall experience: -10
Rating: 4 (mainly cuz it didn't satisfy my "noodle" craving)

Shabu-shabu!

My mom's colleague and family was so sweet to invite my mom and me to their house at Lake Forest for dinner last Wednesday night.
To my surprise, we had "shabu-shabu"~~~it's usually a winter food.

Shabu-shabu (Japanese: しゃぶしゃぶ), also spelled syabu-syabu, is a Japanese variant of hot pot. The dish is related to sukiyaki in style, where both use thinly sliced meat and vegetables, and usually served with dipping sauces. However, it is starkly different in taste; shabu-shabu is more savory and less sweet than sukiyaki. It is considered a winter dish but is eaten year-round.

It was the first time the family tried to make it, it was kind of different from the way that my family does it but all in all it tasted great! ^_^::
The sauce that was used was a mixture of a sesame oil, a nutty paste, and the green one was probably cilantro paste....not too sure. Really flavorful!


They had a lot of lamb meat (actually plate after plate after plate of it)~~~loved it!


But the best part of the meal was when they put in the hand made noodles...

stretching...


more stretching...


then all together...in the pot it goes ^^


Even though I was so full and heading towards major food coma, I had to have a bowl of the noodles (cuz I helped too~~~only the last step of stretching it out and putting it into the pot ^_^)~~~By this time the soup/broth was flavored with all the ingredients (nappa, mushrooms, spinach, lamb, etc.) it was very flavorful!