Seoul.

the depressing Gyeongbokgung Palace. 100% fake because the japanese pretty much burned it to ashes

i thought this was too funny

one of my favorite seoul moments, don't know why

chillin kids at the animation center. just pop in a vid and watch..

seoul tower

myeong dong-shopping epi center

floating man

love the bowls of grass

don't ask, don't tell

he has the same exact infinity scarf as i do!

i never mentioned how our trip went to seoul. it was a blast. my favorite parts were:

1a. the expensive but delicious galbi and bulgogi.
1b. unlimited, free kimchi
1c. koreans make damn good roasted and baked chicken. one word: hof!
1d. cheap 24 hour fast food places consisting of korean food. much better than McD.
2. my interview and potential job offer.
3. the helpful helpful people when we needed directions or help, esp. on a snowy day.
4. outback steakhouse. no prime rib but pretty decent steak. i think i was just happy to see some thing i haven't seen in almost a year!
5. general politeness and courtesy. coming from china, u really miss and notice this elsewhere.
6. great public transport. the metro was easy to navigate. in english. clean. people get in line and wait their turn. generally. they don't always stand to the right though.
7. people will speak english to you if u don't speak korean to them. signs were in english too. the whole "koreans don't speak english" was a busted myth!
8. ventilation. it was amazing how little we stank after coming out of a korean bbq restaurant with tons of smokers inside.
9. clean cabs, polite cabbies. not terribly expensive compared to U.S. prices at least.
10. samcheong-dong. reminded me of a small and quaint beach town, with tons of class and trend, sorta like sausalito. if i made seoul my home, samcheong would be it.
11. cheap museum admission and late hours. some closed at 7 or 9pm!
12. the seoul animation center, though not all that impressive, was still interesting enough for me.
13. hotel elle inn. i dug our hotel. although our room computer didn't always work, they gave good complimentary green tea/brown rice tea bags and housekeeping was quite efficient! the jacuzzi tub was sorta cool too. rates weren't bad. location was great!
14. Lotte mart. the closest thing to walmart there. they had tons of korean side dishes in vats and even raw galbi. i didn't check for my tampons of choice but if they had that, i would be set! they had great food samples too. yum!
15. the drunk people that come out at night. we saw a drunk guy in a business suit who hurt himself and was talking to himself on the street corner. we saw a drunk girl being manhandled by a dude. then the finale was a mentally ill man with his pants down at the metro station. this made me sad and i told the staff there to go check up on him. this is what prompted me to google psych jobs in seoul and resulted in the interview.
16. free, unlimited, cold and refreshing drinking water carafes at each table. again, coming from china this is a biggie.
17. public toilets. it's so nice not to even have the possibility of opening a stall door and finding a squattie.
18. cute, fashionably dressed children.
19. being mistakened for korean or japanese but never chinese. it was nice not being chinese for one week. :)
20. cute men and women bathroom icons.
21. it was fun to check out korean women's fashion sense. it was even nicer to see that there were heavy chicks in seoul, not all were anorexic ones that we typically see in the states.
22. korean isn't the hardest language in the world to learn. although i still only know a few words and like 2 phrases. dkf did a pretty good job using some common phrases.

what was less than impressive:
1. their imperial palaces. depressing, stark, plain and mostly renovated with little antiquity.
2. korean food overall. i think my biggest disappointment as i was truly a korean food fan. i honestly think the korean chow in the states is much better, and cheaper too!
3. overall sorta doom and gloom atmosphere of buildings and city. this may be a by product of it being winter time.
4. no or non functional escalators. we were convinced this was part of a national health plan. although some metros have escalators, they invariably never worked. most metros had only stairs and pretty damn steep too!
5. i could not find the korean barley tea i loved. i went to the famous tea area and all i found was overpriced non-korean tea. sad.
6. seoul tower. keep walking. not worth it. it was also the most expensive attraction. no outside deck to take non-glarey pictures of the city.
7. people liked to stare at my white bf, especially on the subway. especially older korean men who thought i was a korean dating outside of my race.
8. food generally quite expensive there.

so the verdict is, seoul was pretty spiffy. at first i thought i could live there, then i realized i just wanted to leave shanghai that bad. we probably won't end up moving there but it's always fun to dream..

i definitely left a part of my 'soul' in seoul..