Biznasty, H2OG and Smash paint Korea red-Part 3

So I'm a little slow...both in terms of blogging and mentalness (which isn't a word I'm sure of it) but here's part three of the best trip ever. Speaking of mentally slow though, I've been whining for the past 6 months about how I have such a long walk from the subway to my house but just figured out when my friends were here that I can transfer onto a bus right off the subway for free that gets me to my house in 30 seconds. I knew that you could transfer for free, and there are a bazillion buses that go down my busy street constantly, it just never clicked. So silly.

Day 8: AIR CONDITIONER GIRL. I almost killed her.
So, at our guesthouse we had our own room with two bunk beds so we had an extra bed for 4 nights. On our last night there were 2 Korean girls who I think just kind of showed up last minute so one of them slept in our room. There was no AC the previous 4 nights and it was roasting but they had it installed that day so we were stoked. We went to bed around our usual 8pm bedtime since we're a bunch of grandmas and around 10ish our new roommate came in and I heard her turn off the AC but I fell back asleep. About 30 minutes later though I woke up literally in a pool of sweat. Gross I know but it was horrible and I think Beth and Han didn't really wake up b/c they were on the bottom bunks and were a little cooler. So I got down, grabbed the remote and turned it back on. As I'm getting back into my bed, she gets down from hers, looks at me and turns it off. So I got back into bed and after about 30 minutes couldn't stand it anymore and got up to turn it back on. Got back in bed and about 5 minutes later she climbs down and turns it off. I sat up and said something like "You've got to be kidding, it's so hot in here. Turn it back on please" and I knew she understood me because I had heard her speaking English in the lobby earlier. So I got back down and turned it on. Then, about 20 minutes later she gets down and pushes a bunch of buttons so that it stayed on but barely any air was coming out. I knew that if I got back up I would probably have jammed the remote down her throat so I just sweat it out for the night. When we got up super early to catch our bus to the airport she was still sleeping and had the remote in her hand right next to her face in her bed. She's lucky she's alive.

We jumped on a bus, headed to the airport, and within a couple hours were back in Daejeon. The rest of the day was pretty chill which was great. We went and worked out outside in the 7,000 degree heat then went to dinner at my FAVORITE place in all of Korea called BonBon that has salads (can you believe it??) and all kinds of awesome stuff. In every downtown, there are always all kinds of posters and ads taped down to the streets so it's literally covered/littered with random stuff. Beth decided to take everything she could get her hands on so I'm sure her basement at home now is going to look like a true Korean street:)





Day 9: We got up and went into what we call the "old downtown" of Daejeon. It's basically a crazier version of where we had been the previous night. We met my friend Bethany who came down from Cheongju for the day and spent a couple hours in the underground shopping mall. After that we went back to BonBon. Yes! Bethany was the one who showed me BonBon and every time she comes to town we have to go. Then we went to Dr. Fishy which is a coffee shop in the other downtown where you sit around these pools and little tinsy fish come and eat the dead skin off your feet! I had done it once before but it still kind of freaks you out at first. So fun though. Then we headed to Holy Cross coffee shop which is this super great coffee shop in downtown. I would move in there if I could. After that we went and saw Step Up 3D (YES!) and went home to watch Jersey Shore before we went to bed. If anything makes for a good before bedtime show it's Jersey Shore. Knowing that even though sometimes you might be a little bit of a space cadet there are people that are 392,929,392X more dumb than you are makes for a very peaceful slumber.







Day 10: We were CHAMPS on this day. We got up at 6am so we could pack all of our stuff and get on a train so that we had an entire day in Seoul. We went back to Insadong and shopped our socks off. After that we went by Red Mango so Han could get a lifetime supply and then we went to COLDSTONE. Now, this could be a seperate blog in itself. Coldstone is one of my favorite things on earth. We're not just talking food...it is a huge priority in my life. I want it at my wedding. I want it at the birth of my first child. It's where you go when you want to celebrate, mourn, or just be a fat kid. And there are a couple of people in my life who have been my Coldstone buddies now for years. We've shared billions of calories (literally) worth of memories. Ok, too much? Well anyways, Beth is one of those people. She can eat an entire Coldstone before you can leave the parking lot. So since I've been here I just have had no desire to go because no one here shares in the same kind of joy that I do. So while Han ate her Red Mango (which is ALMOST as good...I'm not dissing on you Hanner) we had the best Coldstone that I have ever had. And the guy that served us looked like my friend Jonah. Maybe it was Jonah?



Next we went to Hongdae and continued to shop our socks off, find weird things which is pretty normal for Korea, and went for some osom Korean BBQ. On our way back, some creeper guy kept trying to take pictures of us when we weren't looking and when I accidentally put us on the wrong subway, he even followed us on and off of it and continued to be a major creeper. Nothing else really happened so it's not a great story but he was definitely creepy. On the subway though, Beth had an excellent presentation of her alter ego also known as "Deb" which was hilarious. Beth and one of my favorite people on earth, Erin Bremond, have had this ongoing skit for the past couple of years now where they completely change their voices into this hilarious tone and pretty much do the most amazing improv you've ever heard. Erin's character is "Kath" and they are two older women, maybe in their seventies, who live together and have been best friends forever. But they have never had boyfriends, (although Deb has a son so I don't know how that happened,) and the only thing that really matters to them is their garden. Really, it's something you just have to hear. And if you don't think it's funny then I'm pretty sure you were born without a sense of humor. Last year they got in an argument as Deb and Kath when we went to the Mariners game and it was probably one of the top 3 funniest things I've ever seen. So anyways, we got a little video footage of Deb on the subway.

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

After Deb made her appearance we headed back to our amazing hotel, worked out and crashed.







Day 11: The minute I woke up I immediately felt kind of nauseous. Even though I had joked all week about how depressed I was going to be when they left I had really tried to avoid thinking about it up until that point. We got up, ate Krispy Creme, worked out (horrible combo I know) and then just lounged around. When we got onto the bus to go to the airport I cried the entire way but it was one of those cries where you try so hard not to cry that the tears just kind of sit there on your eyeballs and only fall down if you move really fast. Not gonna lie, this day just really sucked. So tough. I just didn't want to say goodbye to them, didn't want to be left here without them...just didn't want to be in Korea period. I cried the whole way home. Got home and cried. And it was a weird thing because yesterday I was talking to a friend here who's boyfriend just left and he had gotten here the same day Beth and Hannah had. I asked her how she was and she just said "I don't want to be here. Having him here makes me wonder what the heck I am doing here" and that is exactly how I felt. When we first left our homes it was different because we were excited and nervous which kind of cancelled out some of the sadness. This time it was just pure sad. And I did think "What in the world am I doing here? This is insane." because it's hard to be reminded of what you're missing at home and the people that you wish so badly you could be around all day. So to have that for two weeks straight, I almost forgot how different my life is here, and it has been really really hard to adjust back to that. I think even when my mom was here it was a little different because things were still a little new. But I guess that is the challenge of living on the other side of the world.

It was so amazing to have them here. I am so unbelievably blessed to have family AND friends that would come visit me in Korea. Seriously, I can't get over it, it's just that cool. Thanks so much Beth and Han for coming! I love you guys!

Hot off the press-PLU volleyball season is ON!

Welp, it's gonna be a week-ish before I get part three up from Beth and Hannah's visit, which might be a good thing since it will probably take some people that long to read because it's so dang long (aka Melissa DeWalt). I don't have pictures from our last couple days so in the meantime I figured I would throw a little blurb in there. As most of you probably know, I both played and coached volleyball at PLU so that has kind of been my life in the fall for the last 8 years. I miss it terribly. But I figure instead of writing an entire blog about how I wish I was there I thought I would just inform you that like previous years, the team this year is going to be BOMB.COM. If you are in the area I would encourage you to go to some of the games even if you don't have a connection to PLU or know anyone on the team. Guarantee they'll rock your socks off. And if they don't I'll give you your money back...even though it's free...but that's not an issue anyways because they will. As the head coach says, "It's the best bang for your buck" hahaha. A bunch of amazing girls playing some dang good volleyball for a super awesome program. Going into the preseason they're ranked 17th in the nation and picked to win the conference so if you want to know more or get the games schedule go to www.golutes.com. GO LUTES!

Biznasty, H2OG and Smash paint Korea red-Part Dos

Alrighty...so carrying on

Day 4: JEJU! So there's this island off the southern coast of Korea called Jeju-do and it's considered the "Hawaii of Korea" since the climate is more tropical and there are palm trees, lava tubes, bomb beaches and pretty much everything that is wonderful. Even dinosaurs. Yep, there's a dinosaur theme park there. So we got to the the bus station around 3:30pm to catch our bus to the Cheongju airport which is only about 40 minutes outside of Daejeon. We got there though and after being told to get on and off the wrong bus twice, they tell us to get on another bus on a totally different platform...that has 15 more people on it already than there are seats for. It wouldn't be a big deal if it was a city bus but there was zero room and I came semi-close to wanting to punch the bus driver. Yes, I know this is one of those situations where it would be good to practice some patience but this is a prime example of how after a while the frustration of living in a place where common sense doesn't exist a lot of the time eventually builds up until you wanna blow a fuse. Luckily Beth and Hannah kept their cool and were positive as always:) Whew, thank goodness for that!

I had been told when I booked our reservations that we "must be there three hours early" but we got there about two hours before our flight and when we checked in the woman at the counter goes "Wow, you are here so early!". So far, this was one of those days where I would have loved to hold a press conference for anyone in Korea who would listen on easy ways to make life more efficient. And not to rag on Korea because I love it most of the time and goodness gracious does America have it's flaws, but this is one of the reasons why it was so great to be able to have friends here because now when I have those days where I want to pull each of my arm hairs out one by one there is someone on the other side that understands. Not gonna lie, there were times that I worried that they thought I had turned into a heartless turkey because of the frustration that creeps up in those moments where the language barrier is impossible to break or when pushing your way past an old woman is necessary if you don't want to get trampled on the way to the subway. Beth got smacked by an old man with a cane though on the way to the subway one day so I think they understand:) Anyways, while we waited we ate at a traditional Korean restaurant where we ordered bulgogi and got the normal side dishes, one which is always these little fishies (can't remember the name...you'd think I would know this stuff by now) that have eyeballs and everything. So Hannah tried one and was a champ...

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

We got into Jeju and had been told beforehand that our guesthouse was hard to find so the owner had emailed me a map and told me to print it out for the taxi driver. About 10 minutes before we had left though I realized I forgot to do it at school and had to draw it out by hand! I'm sure it was equivalent to a 3 year old writing in Korean for the first time but I was hoping it would get us there...but it didn't, haha. The driver took one look at it and started laughing. Luckily I had the phone number and when he called the owner all I understood him say was "I have 3 American girls in my car" and probably something along the lines of they have no clue what they're doing! We got there just fine though and our guesthouse was pretty stinkin sweet! Not to be advertising on my blog or anything, but if you're gonna go to Jeju stay at the Island Guesthouse. It's TIGHT and the owner is amazing plus she has fresh baked bread for everyone every morning. And it's a ten minute walk to the beach. Perf.

Day 5: We got up and got directions to the beach via bus. It was soooooo stinkin hot so by the time we got to the bus stop we were already dripping. Sidenote: If you hear people say that it's so hot in Korea, believe it. Its so crazy hot and humid in the summer. Anywho, we got on the bus and of course missed the stop because I lack any skill that has to do with navigation on buses. We heard one stop that said "tourist" something or other though so we jumped off at that stop which turned out to be the perfect location. We were right smack between the Cheonjeyeon waterfall, the Seonimgyo bridge and a super-resorty area with a sweet beach. So we walked down to the beach which was quite the trek but it was super gorgeous.


I'm pretty sure this day was the hottest day so far this entire summer because even going in the water didn't help much. We all got fried, which is normal for me, but even Han got burned after caking on the screen and so did Beth who I'm pretty sure is 99% Hawaiian and doesn't know it. So kind of a big deal. We saw a skinny white guy puke his guts out on the beach too which at first we figured was probably from a few too many beverages if you know what I mean, but after observations and some pretty good detective work Beth concluded it was probably blue Powerade...mostly because we saw him barf and it was bright blue. That was kind of our cue to leave since we had been there all day and didn't want to puke so we decided that since we were in the middle of a resort area, we would just sneak into a hotel and sit by the pool. So we trekked back up and eventually made it to the Hyatt where we walked in like we owned the place, only to find there was only an indoor pool. Blast. So we decided we would go into Seogwipo which is the other bigger city on the island aside from Jeju city so we jumped on a bus like we were hotel guests. When we got off we expected to see the usual things you see in a city...you know, shops, restaurants, whatever but there was pretty much just beach and a traditional Korean restaurant like every half mile. They took this opportunity to tell me that they really didn't like Korean food all that much...actually not at all...which I was so relieved to hear because I didn't want them to feel like they had to eat it! I've grown used to it but I can honestly say that when I go back to the states I doubt I'll have a craving for Korean food. Bring on the fatty stuff and give me a freaking salad! Anyways, we ended up going to E-mart which is the equivalent of a Walmart/Target. I don't want to say it's like Walmart because it's much less trashy but nothing compares to Target. So ya, we ate at E-mart for dinner but we were totally cool with that. We jumped on a bus to go back to our guesthouse but remembered that we had no idea what our bus stop was so right as we recognized where we were supposed to get off the bus goes flying right by it. The next stop was at least a mile from ours so we got off and figured we would be able to get a taxi no big deal. Wrongo. We were basically out in the boonies and a car passed by about every 2 or 3 minutes. Finally a taxi drove by, we waved him down, and he flew right by us. Then it happened twice more. So we saw this taxi coming towards us a couple minutes later and I ran out in the middle of the street waving my arms like a crazy drunk bum just to make sure he stopped. He flies by us, screeches to a stop, and sticks his head out the window and says "May I help you?!" Hahaha, I don't know if it's because we were standing in the middle of nowhere or what but for some reason he was super confused that we were waving him down. We finally got back to the guesthouse after a super good day but unfortunately something really sad happened next. The night before I had caught a little ladybug and named him Kanye and he had been just flying around the room while we were away for the day. For some reason though Beth decided to try and kill him making it so that he was practically paralyzed because his poor little wings wouldn't work. I had to set him free hoping that his ladybug family could help fix him up but here's some video footage of the last precious minutes I had with dear Kanye. I'd like to think Hannah wasn't in the room because she felt so bad for my bug that she couldn't watch. And as you can see he is really struggling while Beth has zero remorse for her actions. Zero.

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

Day 6: This day was OSOM. I mean every day was awesome but this day was way awesome. We decided the night before that we were going to research the resorty hotels and find out which ones had outdoor pools so that we could dominate one of them for the day. In the process we found out that the Hyatt did in fact have an outdoor pool we just didn't look hard enough. So we had a whole lineup just in case we happened to get kicked out of one...

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

Haha. Before we began our total domination of the Jungmun resort area we went to check out the Cheonjeyeon waterfall and Seonimgyo bridge which was pretty stinkin sweet and we definitely felt like we were on the set of LOST...which may or may not be our dream come true. Well, not Hannah's because everytime we referenced it during the trip she would remind us that it's "just a tv show"...which I'm sorry to say Han but that's totally false. Jack Shephard is real:)





Then we moved on to the Lotte Hotel which was the classiest of the hotels on our list so I think we were kind of expecting to get booted. We found the pool which was saweet and stuck in through a side gate, found chairs and some used towels and chilled out all day!

We ended up eating at a place called Herb Berger near the hotel which served burgers that could be shared by three people...they were insanely huge. Then we jumped on a bus and went into Jeju city and found some tight stores and an underground shopping mall. We decided to find the bus that took us back since we were told by the guesthouse owner that the last bus leaves at 9:30 so we popped into two stores to ask which bus we should take and since they both told us the same thing we assumed it was the right one. We got on the bus and about 30 minutes into our ride we realized we still hadn't left the city which wasn't normal so since we were the last ones on it by then I went up to the front while the driver was still driving and showed him our address. I could tell by his response that we were on the way wrong bus but all of a sudden he pulls the bus over, puts his hazards on, jumps out of the bus and runs out in the street to wave down a cab. He told the cab driver where to take us and we got back to the guesthouse after a 30 dollar cab ride. There are things that drive me bonkers about Korea like anywhere else but one of the most amazing things about this country is how generous the people are. Seriously, where else in the world can you get on the wrong bus and have something like this happen? So cool and definitely something that's been so awesome to witness during the time that I've been here.
When we got back to the guesthouse we walked in the door and saw the most huge spider we've ever seen. Aside from the tarantulas that I've seen back home (my little 11 year old sister's pet tarantula that she caught herself being one of them) this was hands down the biggest stinkin thing ever. So we caught it and threw it outside but about an hour later when everyone in the guesthouse was sitting in the living area the mother appeared and she was absolutely enormous. HUGE. One of the owners who was this hilarious French guy was on the phone with a person trying to make a reservation when everyone started freaking out and he put them on hold saying there was a "Giant spider emergency". We all basically had nightmares every night after.

Day 7: We met this guy at our guesthouse who was from Spain but living and working in China and had come to Korea to travel around so we had decided earlier in the week that we were going to go on a hike. There's two craters in Jeju, one is smaller and called San Gomdori while the other one, no clue what the name is, is much bigger. We decided to do San Gomdori though because it was closer and our Spanish tour guide had figured out all of the details of how to get there. That morning though, another guy from the guesthouse who was Korean decided to join us and told our Spanish friend that basically how he had figured out how to get there was entirely wrong. Of course, being that he was Korean we all trusted him. Well, we found out after we had gotten on the wrong bus to start that he hadn't been to Jeju in 15 years and had never actually been to San Gomdori. After 4 buses and almost 5 hours, we got to San Gomdori (the Korean guy had decided after bus #3 that he was tired and wanted to go back to the guesthouse but had told us that San Gomdori was a "short but very difficult hike") and were so stoked and ready to hike. We paid the 3,000 won entrance fee (since when are people charged to go hiking????) and started walking up a path and about 3 minutes in there was this crater on our left. We figured that must have been a mini crater before we got to the real deal so we kept walking for about 5 more minutes and all of a sudden realized we were back where we started! That was it! It's like a 10 minute walk around the stone path which was obviously so disappointing because we were ready for a hike. It was pretty humorous though so we took some pics and took off for a 30 minute walk to get the bus. Yep, our bus was a farther hike than the actual hike, haha. Im mean, it was cool but I was expecting first, a hike obviously, and second, a giant crater with like lava and dinosaur fossils. Moral of the story: If you ever go to Jeju don't go to San Gomdori. It was a beautiful day though!





We split off from our Spanish friend and went back to our hood a.k.a the Jungmun resort area so we could go chill at the Hyatt's pool. We finally found it and it was a super gorgeous evening. The funny thing about the day was that we had stuffed an entire days worth of stuff into my big hiking backpack so we had everything in case we got lost in the jungle when we ended up needing none of it so we had this huge pack that we had to alternate carrying. Anyways, we headed down to the beach and hung out while we took some sweet pics:)




This is mine and Beth's attempt at recreating a scene from LOST. She's playing Kate because Kate is a wuss and I'm Jack because I'm much braver as you can see based on the fact that my right arm is missing because of the black smoke monster.

We hauled our huge pack back up the hill and for the first time got on the right bus and off at the right stop. Woo!

Biznasty, H2OG and Smash paint Korea red-Part 1

Welp, since I've kind of pulled myself out a depressive/grumpy/sad state thanks to volleyball tryouts (praise the Lord for the sport), the Real Housewives of New Jersey and Hot Tamales, I think now is a good time to write about 11 of the best days of my life! This is going to be a sort of trilogy type dealy because there's so much that happened during the last two weeks that I have to split it up otherwise A. I'm going to forget some things or B. I'm going to ramble because there's so much that I want to write about and I know that you people probably have other things to do:) But Biznasty (aka Beth, is an aspiring rapper, surfer, snowboarder, and professional youtube video maker so prefers to go by this name occasionally. I came up with the name although I'm sure she'll deny it and say that she did) and H2OG (short for Hannah Harrison Original Gangster simply because she is the original gangster) came all the way to Korea! So amazing. It was so so cool to have them here on so many levels....first, because I flat out missed them. But also because it was so neat to be able to experience a lot of the things that I do on a daily basis with two friends from back home especially since sometimes I just think it's all a bit insane (at least by Western standards) and is so hard to explain to other people. And last, it was just so rad to be able to be with two friends for 11 days straight and have absolutely zero obligations. I had heard from people who had taught abroad or people who knew people that had (weird sentence?) that it can get kind of lonely, and luckily, I haven't really felt all that "lonely" since I've been here because I have made some super great friends. But there's nothing like having friends here that really know you and being able to spend pretty much every minute with them. So anyways, I'm gonna give you kind of a short day by day recap so here goes!

Day 1: I went to Seoul in the morning and checked into our saweet hotel! A wonderful family friend who is pretty big time in the hotel biz got us a room right in Times Square so I was pretty stoked to get to stay somewhere other than my house that sometimes makes me feel like I might actually suffocate. And the hotel was inside of Shinsegae department store which is one of the largest and nicest in all of Korea. Needless to say, I was already worried for Beth's bank account... I mean I wasn't worried at all:)

Anways, I then jumped on a bus and got to the airport only two and a half hours before their plane even landed. Haha! I think I was just a leetle excited. You seriously never know in Korea though. Being that it's the most unpredictable place on planet Earth, it could have been "National Buses-Don't-Run-Past-3pm Day" and my friends would have been wandering aimlessly through an asian airport looking for afro girl. I definitely did not want that. I waited and waited and when I finally saw them I nearly tackled them and Beth even got it on camera:)

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

It was seriously the coolest thing ever to see their faces! I almost wanted to just poke at them every five minutes to make sure they were real. We took the bus back to the hotel and conked out. Best day ever:)

Day 2: We got up and Beth began her part-time job of sitting in front of my computer while taking pictures of herself in photobooth while I tried to ruin them/annoy her which is not all that hard:) Pretty sure Hannah was still semi-comatose.




We went to the gym then headed into Insadong in Seoul! Before that though I got us lost on the subway and they made this nice little video while I was trying to figure out what the heck was going on.

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

We shopped around in what felt like 200 degrees with 1,300,302% humidity. I also found my Korean husband. I love this guy! So "cutee" as my girls would say.

Untitled from ashleigh houlton on Vimeo.

We then went into Myeondong where we sat at Starsucks for an hour trying to regain the strength to walk and then went to Red Mango woop! After the Mango we shopped our tails off in Myeondong and Beth met her soulmate on the way back to the hotel. Good thing Han captured this beautiful moment!



Day 3: We went to the hotel gym and headed to the train station so we could go to Daejeon. Definitely saw a guy pull down his pants while we were sitting outside of Smoothie King. Not to rehash the whole thing because I'm sure we're all traumatized but it was funny because this is how the conversation went:
Hannah: Hey. That guy has his pants down.
Beth and Ash: Oh my gosh.
Hannah: Ya.
Haha, it was something similar to that especially since that's not what we were expecting to see. Get your act together Korea and start arresting people already.
Anyways, we jumped on a train and headed to my house which I know they were surprised at how small it really is. I can't even explain how small it is to people which is why I'm sure anyone would be shocked. When we were all in there together with our bags and everything else we quickly realized we were in for an interesting night....luckily we only had to stay there one night! That night we went out for Korean bbq with my good friend Joe and they loved it...minus the kimchi and other weird sidedishes...and we spent the evening ripping on Joe because he doesn't think Costco is cool. I mean seriously, who doesn't think Costco is the most radical place on earth!? We then went to go see Inception which was the third time for both Beth and I ...and Hannah had a nice two hour nap, hahaha. Then we headed back for the worst night's sleep any of us have probably ever had. I'm surprised we didn't all die because of a lack of oxygen in the room.



Whew! Long blog! This is exactly why I had to break this sucker up.

Peace.

a big bummer but a total blessing

Welp, I've been on a blogging hiatus because as many of you know, two of my friends came to visit me. In Korea. That is just amazing to me and probably one of the coolest things ever. It was so cool to experience different parts of Korea with Beth and Hannah and I have soooo many things that I want to write about. That will have to wait a couple days though because I am experiencing a major funk right now and need to be in the right mood to write about our crazy adventures. Actually, I wouldn't call it a funk but rather a case of extreme sadness. I had to wear my sunglasses out of the airport and throughout this entire 3 hour bus ride home so not to draw attention to my swollen face. I may have been mistaken momentarily as someone from the Jersey Shore but I had no other option. Anyways, they came at the perfect time because although I would love to say that the stages of culture shock are a bunch of bunk, I am still experiencing them to a T, which puts me right at the 6th month marker where I'm always slightly annoyed with this new culture and would love to return to my own...even for a day. So the timing is perfect...except this leaving business stinks tough. Knowing that starting in one week I'll be missing the entire PLU volleyball season definitely doesn't help the anxiety and I could definitely use a prayer for peace with that one. So part of me hopes right now that when I get off this bus tonight, the first thing I'll see is the Seattle skyline. The good news though is that as I sit here and just want to eat my body weight in chocolate and watch Real Housewives for the rest of the week, I know that I'm not alone and never will be even though I'm so stinkin far away from everything that I love. It's so amazing to think of so many blessings, especially ones like two friends that will come visit you in Asia even if it means getting pushed around by ajummas for 11 days. How awesome is it that in the midst of the crummiest times we can be confident that there's a bigger picture and a better plan? Pretty dang awesome.

Oh, and my wonderful friend Heather had her baby on July 30th! Welcome to the world Corban James!