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.