During International Festival.

It's a day late, but Happy Canada Day!!

School's been out for a couple weeks now and I'm back at my grama's house.  Vacation's been off to a sluggish start, which is inevitable when staying with my grama :P

I find that my xanga posts are much like my study habits.  I start off good, updating every couple days/every week, and then I start slacking off until it all piles up, and then I do one massive update to make up for the whole term.  Nehoo~ here are some things that I've been up to for the last few months.

Thailand
So on the whole, Thailand was alright~ Except for the humid weather and horrible pollution, Bangkok was pretty awesome.  The best part of the trip was seeing Diana and Hanna, who were exchange students at KU last semester and came all the way from Florida.  And the food :)  Which was was yummy and superduper cheap :D We went to Kanchanaburi on a "tour guide" to ride some elephants and experience the safari and Hua Hin for the white hot beaches and crystal blue water. 

So this is in Bangkok, where we visited all the famous temples and palaces.  Kelly and I at the feet of the reclining buddha

At some wat in Bangkok...

Here's all of us at the same unknown wat... Thomas and Lim [who were in Cambodia and joined us for a day in Bangkok], Becky, Kelly, and I, and Hanna and Diana at the very back. 

JUMP! The tower in the picture is the tallest building in Thailand, home of the BIGGEST buffet I've ever had :) 

Which is also where I had my birthday :D

On our way to Kanchanaburi!  This is our 'tour-bus' and the other unfortunate souls who paid for the tour.  The whole thing was pretty shady/illegal.  At one point, our tour guide changed (which was fine by us) and a different man drove us to a train station, which was slightly worrying, as there was no train ride mentioned in the tour.. nehoo there were ants that kept on crawling out of the roof of the truck, so Diana and Hanna were spraying them with the Thailand version of 'Off'.  The ants would disappear into the depths of the truck, when we were moving - which was a plus... but then the 'Off' that we'd sprayed would come flying back at us and hit us in the face, which was kinda gross.  We had to hold onto the 2 people sitting at the end of the truck for dear life, because the back door of the truck kept falling down.  That, and the fact that our weed-smoking tour guide and his girlfriend were speeding at speeds of over 140 km/hour.  Although I can't give an exact number as the speedometer was broken. 

So this is why we went to Kanchanaburi!! The elephants!!

Train ride.  Destination: unknown.

So Hua Hin was a major letdown.  The weather sucked and the beaches were not hot/white and the water was a murky brownish blue colour.  So we took jumping pictures instead, which is always a hoot.  Diana, me and Kelly.. lol We love you Diana

Celebrating my birthday AGAIN [anything for more cake!! muahahahaha], at a live Jazz bar in Seoul that had some pretty sweet music

Terra's 8th semi-annual concert! Me, Hyun-ah, MJ, Hyunjung, and Dongil (who rapped for us) performing Ex-factor by Lauryn Hill!! 1 year in the making and we FINALLY got it done. 

Female members of Terra <3

 
Kelly had to buy presents for her family, so we went to Namdaemun market to pick up some souvenirs.  Notice the lady behind Kelly.  She looks harmless, cute even.  She is what is known as "ahjumma" in Korean.  Ahjumma are Korea women over 45, although some fall victim at an earlier age.  She has all the symptoms: tight, multicolour, floral, spandex top, darth vader visor, and short, curly, black hair.  She also has her head down which means that after we took this picture, she probably elbowed her way past us with the surprising strength that is characteristic of ahjumma. 

KUBA [Korea University Buddy Assistance] farewell party.  group photo.

Incheon International Airport with Kelly from Minnesota and Lim from South Dakota... only a 23 hour drive away :(

For the match against France me and my cousin went to Jamsil Olympic stadium.  The game started at 4 am, but we got there at 11 to get good seats.  It was freeeeeeezing.

The last dinner.  All the cousins on my mom's side minus JJ.  My cousin went into the military service last Monday, so this was like a sendoff.  He got picked from a lottery to serve with the US Army, so he won't have it too bad.  Plus the kid could afford to gain some weight -_-..

crazy couple of days

So it's that time of the year again.  The term's ended and everyone's leaving/getting ready to leave.  Today was the end-of-term party for exchange students.  They hold 2 of these each term.  One at the beginning for everyone to get to know each other, and one at the end of the term so that everyone can say goodbye.  Today everyone was frantically exchanging addresses and e-mail addresses, taking pictures~  It's surreal saying goodbye to people that you've gotten close to.  Like, "Goodbye, I'm leaving for the airport in 4 hours because my flight to the Netherlands leaves at 10am."  And it just sucks even more because there's not a guarantee that you're going to ever see these people again.  It's like highschool grad all over again, but instead of people going off to SFU, Capp, Douglas, people are flying off to Minnesota, Taiwan, Japan, China, South Dakota, Florida, Mexico... it's not like you can have a Timmies night and catch up with each others' lives on a monthly basis.  Saying goodbye suckkkkssssss.

Korea 2 - Togo 1 !!!! :D 
Yesterday, me and Kelly went to City Hall to watch the game against Togo and it was crazzyyyy.  It started at 10:00, but we got there around 10:15, and it was PACKED.  Over 500,000 people were there, watching the game.  There are a whole bunch of TV screens at City Hall (kinda sorta like a very mini Times Square) and they put up some new ones just for the game.  We had to stand the whole time and on the way back home on the subway, but it was well worth it :) After the game all the good Korean citizens were helping clean up all the litter lol well trained they are~

The Koreans have finally put FIRST names on the backs of their uniform!!  Is this a new thing? Cuz I noticed some of the Swiss players had their full name across the back of their shirts... nehoo,

what their uniforms would say with just their last names..
1 LEE
12 LEE
13 LEE
14 LEE
17 LEE
2 KIM
3 KIM
5 KIM
6 KIM
8 KIM
18 KIM
20 KIM
21 KIM
17 PARK
10 PARK
4 CHOI
19 CHO
23 CHO
9 AHN
11 SEOL
15 BAEK
16 CHUNG
22 SONG

And did anyone else notice the stylin Togolese coach, Otto Pfister?? Gold chain, unbuttoned dress shirt, jeans... hot~

as per request (albeit late) this is just in front of City Hall

There were people sitting all down that street where the cars are driving

oh finals, how i loathe thee.

[edit] It's the first day of finals week, so it's already not such a happy time.  But this morning someone on my floor took my utensils that I'd washed and left to dry on the drying rack yesterday!!! So I didn't have a spoon to eat my cereal with!!  I had to use one of those dinky plastic things that come with yogurt and it's only about the size of your thumb.  It's impossible to get enough cereal flakes or milk with 1 spoonful!!  This isn't the first time someone's taken my stuff off the drying rack so in the heat of the moment I wrote an angry letter and posted it above the sink.   But being the coward that I am I took down the letter and just made myself some toast w/peanut butter... if I ever find out who's taking my stuff... -_-....