el desconocido

“North Korea is by far the most repressive and totalitarian country I’ve ever visited; it makes Syria or Burma seem like democracies. In North Korea, homes have a speaker on the wall to wake people up with propaganda in the morning and put them to sleep with it at night. The handicapped are sometimes moved out of the capital so they won’t give a bad impression to foreigners. And triplets, considered auspicious, are turned over to the state to raise. And now this nuclear armed country is being handed over to a new leader, presumably Kim Jong-un, still in his 20’s. The last transition was a dangerous time, as Kim Jong Il tried to prove his mettle by challenging the world, and this one mayl be as well. Look out.”

Prayers for peace on the Korean Peninsula.

Hope my trip back home in two days doesn’t get too rough.

kimjongillookingatthings:

looking at dmitry medvedev

(Source: linxspiration, via agnijagrigule)

07.16.2011 Mud Festival @ 대천해수욕장

It was an event that I really wished to happen, but something I also got tired of, because people relied on me to organize everything, and I suppose I got fed up with that after organizing Cbay, Ilsan, alot of Jeju stuff, etc. The beginning kinda sucked too, cause by the time we got to Gosokterminal, all the buses headed to deacheon were booked for the AM. But like it would for the rest of the day luck turned our frowns upside down - We hurried over to yongsan st, and were able to get standing seats for train (for 2hr 30..)all the way down south, and back. 

In the train that was filled with foreigners, we tried to find an empty seat.. and eventually, with a drunk american giving us his, 6 of us (yommi, adrienne, Christine, hemmie, Esther, and I) were able to squeeze in to 4 seats. Although it was little space, I think we had a fairly comfortable ride compared to the guy, who ended up not being able to find a seat for his own.. 

Once we actually got there, we were able to get a motel room, originally 150,000 for 60,000, where we could keep our belongings and shower in a sanitary&private fashion. And the weather was sunny and warm, in contrary to our expectations that we would be playing in the rain, and catch a cold by the end of the day! 

When we headed off to the festival, we realized the “mud” scene was not what we expected - it was not a 갯벌, but flat land with activities that involved buckets of mud. Even these activities, however, required that we stood in longgg lines. In the end, we only ended up going for a slippery-race thing, mud wrestling, jail where they sprayed mud at us (and i thought I was gna go blind with mud in my eyes), and the pool to wash off the mud. Most of our time was spent standing in lines, perhaps why we got tan. haha. Afterwards, we went down to the beachside, which seemed not too clean as it was filled with people either already drunk, holding a beer bottle, or both. Adri and I went into the water, and it felt so good, to be in ocean water for the first water this year! We did get a good share of drunk creeps hitting on us though… but that balanced out by laughing at horny desperate asians/caucasians trying to get with each other. 

We came back to the hotel, washed up nicely, and left out for dinner. right near by, thanks to my bargaining skills we wer able to have yummy samgyupsal, originally 10 (or possibly more to foreigners) for 7thou :) And then we went down to the beachside, not yet contaminated by the drunkards, and chilled there, and approached by the last bunch of creeps .. who I was friendly to, cause they were sober.. and nice :/ and everyone made fun of me. Towards the end: “do you have facebook? ” me:”no”.. “oh come on. do you have a boyfriend” me:”yeah…LOL” “oh I see what that all was about. okay were going to get going then” 

Afterwards, we went back to the station, got the train up to yongsan, in which we ktfo’d completely. I slept over at yommi’s and had some yummy late night yogurt &soondae :) and ktfo again~ 

In words, the trip really doesn’t sound like much. Nothing was over-the-top exciting, and it was only a day long. The reason it was so enjoyable for me though, was the festive atmosphere. Something indeed was wrong with the picture - this Korean small most of the people there were under the influence of alcohol, I enjoyed the weird feeling that I’m back in America, as well as the company of these people who were a bit too happy. I think another part of the pleasure was the fact that I was spending time with friends, going somewhere, and just making memories before we head off to college apart from each other. I suppose the turn-arounds of luck didn’t hurt either :) 

06.10.2011 Adieu, High School.

To be honest, it wasn’t that great of a graduation day. I was tired of everything - most likely because it was the time of the month. Not only was I not experiencing any emotional impact from the fact that it was all over, but I was also getting annoyed by the lack of pictures I was taking. (which is stupid, I know, but I was frustrated that I was taking pictures for everyone else, and wasn’t able to ask other people for pictures with me +someone else.. and that before and after grad, that my mom didn’t come out to take pictures of me when other mamas did.. like REALLY frustrated.) Although I was happy that my whole family came, but after the long ceremony, they just seemed eager to leave, and continued to pressed me to hurry up. I must admit though, receiving flowers from unexpected people was pretty amazing (willis, ruth, harrison -with a bouquet) 

Anywho, the ceremony itself was .. boring,