Wow, it really has been a while, hasn't it?

I've basically been saying this every time I make a new journal entry, but this time it's true.

Anyway, a few big things have happened since my last post. First, I graduated Summa Cum Laude with dual degrees in History and Anthropology, which is cool I guess. Second, I moved. I'm back in Flagstaff where I went to high school, living alone in a granny flat above a house my parents are renting out. It's a little small, but enough for one person, and it is SIGNIFICANTLY bigger than my goshiwon in Korea, so I really can't complain. Third, I got my first real job. I don't really want to go into detail about it, but I'm working for the county. It took a bit of getting used to working full time and working my first office job, but it's been fine so far. I'm supposed to intern there through December, though I'm not sure what exactly I'll do after my time there ends.

I've been driving a lot more and despite how anti-car-centric-infrastructure I am, I have to admit that it does feel pretty liberating to be able to drive wherever and whenever I want. I even had to drive all the way down to Phoenix and back by myself for a job thing, which kind of proves how far I've come driving-wise.

I haven't seen my friends in Phoenix since I moved, but I've been hanging out with one of my friends from high school that I stayed in contact with now and then. Usually it's just seeing movies or spending time down town during Pokémon Go community days, but it's nice to have a friend around to hang out with.

In my free time, I've been continuing my pokemon spriting project that I think I mentioned in my last journal entry. I have 30 designs finished right now, another 30 planned, and I hope to hit at least 100 designs. I also spent some time trying to put together a national living pokedex. Essentially that means that I'm trying to collect one of every pokemon to keep in Pokémon Home. Unlike filling up a pokedex in a normal game, where if you catch, say a Pikachu and evolve it into Raichu, which fills both pages for Pikachu and Raichu in a pokedex, a living dex requires you to have every single separate pokemon individually, so you would need a Pikachu and Raichu separately in order to fill a living dex. In short, I'd need to catch all 1,025 pokemon. I made it to around 800, but I also haven't worked much on that project recently.

I've been reading Ann Leckie's Imperial Radch series which has been fun. I'm about halfway through Ancillary Sword, and it's been fun comparing notes with my friend who's read it. I've been listening to audiobooks at work, and so far I've listened to Michael Crichton's Lost World and Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series which have been fun. I particularly like Mistborn's magic system and the lore about Mistborn's world that you eventually learn by the end of the first trilogy. Currently I'm working my way through The Way of Kings, the first book in the Stormlight Archive series. I'm really liking Kaladin's perspective so far.

As of the day I'm writing this, this morning I woke up early and decided to drive over to Snowbowl, the town's ski park thing, and take the chairlift up to the top of the mountain. I did so a few years ago with my dad and my friend, and thought it would be fun to do today. Flagstaff lies at just under 7,000 feet, and the ski lift takes you to a place up at 11,500 feet. It's really surprising just how different the climate is all the way up there, it's essentially a tundra. There's some really interesting stuff up there, such as the plant species Packera franciscana, also known as the San Francisco groundsel. It's a species of plant that was likely widespread in the area during the last ice age, but now that the glaciers have receded, is exclusively endemic to the tundra life zones atop the San Francisco peaks.

I have a lot of thoughts about the ice age's effects on the modern world and its modern ecosystem. Maybe I'll write a blog post on some interesting stuff related to that once I get a blog post set up.

Anyway, that's it for now. This next week at work will be extremely busy, but I really hope I can get myself to work on this website more.

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For the past few months I've been living in Arizona with my parents as I finish up my senior year. Since they live so far from campus and I don't like driving, I usually take the shuttle from the closer campus to the main campus. It's a little inconvenient, but the shuttle ride gives me time to listen to music or do reading for my class.

I'm taking four credits this semester. My favorite class is a Medieval Literature class, and it's made me read a lot of Old English and other poems and stories that I've really liked. We started with Beowulf (which was a lot of fun to analyze as a group) and have since moved on toward Aurthruan Literature. I really liked the story of "Gawain and Lady Ragnell." We're currently reading "The Story of Silence," a modern novelization of the French poem "The Romance of Silence." It's about a woman who was raised as a boy and became a knight named Silence. I'm finding it really interesting, and Silence is cool.

Another class I'm taking is about Athenian art, literature, and history. I kind of wish I like it more than I do. The professor is good, but I've been having trouble engaging with the literature. Maybe because it's been battling with my Medieval Literature class for my time and attention and has been losing that battle. Maybe it's because I prefer Latin and Roman stuff.

The third class I'm taking is the last credit I need to graduate. It's a class for putting historical research and analysis skills into practive by rewriting the city's fairly bad history page on their website. It's been fairly hard, partially because of the professor and partially because of how open-ended the writing assignments have been.

My last class started recently for the second half of the semester. It's an online intro to creative writing class. It's been eating up my already scarce time the last few weeks, but It's helping me to think more about and improve my creative writing. Maybe I'll post some of my stuff here once I make some stuff I like enough.

On matters unrelated to school, I've been messing around with the first couple gens of Pokemon, and have found them to be really fun and interesting.

I really love how uniquely broken Gen 1 pokemon is. Some of it is fairly famous such as the move Focus Energy, intended to raise your pokemon's critical hit rate, actually reduces it to zero. Missingno, a pokemon born entirely of garbage data gathered from the player's name and scrapped pokemon in the code, capable of duplication your items, is as cool as it's every been. I also like some of the game's weird intentional choices, too. A pokemon's speed directly influencing their critical hit rate is so much fun. With that, some pokemon (such as Meowth's evolution, Persian) can end up critting a significant ammount of the time. I also like how binding moves such as Wrap, Constrict, or Clamp stop your pokemon from being able to attack. It's so funny and actually makes them kind of worth using. I've messed around with Gen 1 OU on Pokemon Showdown a bit too, and it's really interesting how teams are set up and battles go in that format.

Gen 2 appeals to me most in its aesthetic more than anything else I think. I love its simple two color (plus black and white) battle sprites, and its simple four color overworld titles. It's so charming. Part of this is kind of nostaliga? I never played Fen 2 until a few years ago, but Soul Silver, one of the gen 4 remakes, was my first pokemon game. I quite like gen 2's pokedex. Though many of it's pokemon are rather weak, most of them have very cute or charming designs. I'm quite partial to many of the pokemon that are little more than an orb with a smiley face, such as Corsola, Hoppip, and Chinchou. I also feel like using "bad" pokemon and making them "good" is a big part of Johto's region design. There's a reason why Karen's line "Strong Pokemon. Weak Pokemon. That is only the selfish perception of people. Truly skilled trainers should try to win with the Pokemon they love best" is one of the games (and the franchise's) most memorable quotes.

Generally, I've been playing video games far less than I once did, focusing more on art and the massive ammount of reading that my courseload demmands this semester. I played a bit of Vintage Story early this semester with a few of my friends, but that petered out after a few weeks. I did boot up the most recent pokemon game, Pokemon Violet, to play through the DLC and do some shiny hunting, though. I managed to get a pair of shiny Charcadet which I evolved into Armarouge and Ceruledge, as well as three shiny Applin, one of which I gave to a friend and the other I evolved into a Hydrapple. I think Hydrapple and Ceruledge are my favorite pokemon from Gen 9, though I do like Farigiraf, Ogerpon, and Miraidon quite a bit. I'm usually not that big a fan of legendary pokemon, but I guess my tastes have changed.

I've also worked a bit on creating some Gen 2-style palette limited sprites of my own. Maybe I'll post them here sometime.

I'm reworking my website to be something that I think I'll be able to update a bit more often, but that means shifting away from writing about video games, which is something I still want to do. Maybe I'll make another site focused moreso on game stuff? Not sure.

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My last week in Seoul was rather cold and dreary. I finished up my classes, took my finals, shipped a box of clothes home, and had to abandon my large suitcase on the sidewalk. I hope it found a good home. Shipping a package from the post office was a little strange due to the language barrier, but the employee who helped me was very patient.

I left Seoul on December 21st. My time in Korea was a very interesting experience, and I learned a lot (both about myself and the world), but it got kind of lonely and cold and sand towards the end as the temperature dropped, the days got really short, and it started to snow.

I flew to Japan and landed in Tokyo. Seeing Mario welcome me to Japan made me unreasonably happy. At the Airport train station, I bought a Passmo card, which I could use like my Korean T-Money card to use the busses and subways. The staff at the airport and train station were incredibly kind and helpful.

My day of travel to Japan kind of sucked. I barely got any sleep that night (some in the taxi to the airport, some on the plane, and some on the train to Kyoto) but that was it, and I had a pretty bad headache for the most of the day.

I didn't arrive in Kyoto until after it was dark, and although I was slightly worried that my Passmo card wouldn't work in Kyoto, I was glad to learn that it did. I had curry rice at a place near my hotel and went to bed early.

While in Japan, I very quickly realized that they use money differently than they did in Korea. In Japan, they tended to have little trays at counters to place money in, and some places like convenience stores had machines that you'd put your money in that would automatically count it and dispense change. In Korea, the action of handing someone money in both hands seemed to be important.

The morning of the 22nd, I had breakfast at the hotel - pickles, roast chicken, and miso soup. I had my morning coffee at a small nearby coffe shop run by an old lady. The coffee shop had the same smell as my grandparents' house.

The first thing I visited was Nijo-jo Castle, which was about a 15 minute walk from the hotel. I thought it was interesting and that they had done a much better job of tourist-ifying it than Korea had done with its castles. Nijo-jo had a whole path you could walk through the castle (after removing your shoes, of course), with in-depth explanations of how each room was used as well as analysis of the murals on each wall. I thought it was really interesting that the wooden halway floors were called "nightengale floors" as they made squeaky sounds, an inadvertent result of the nails squeaking against their slots as you step on them. It was also interesting to imagine living in that castle considering how cold it was in the winter. I recall reading about how women in particulare had to wear layers upon layers upon layers under their kimono, so I wondered what kind of outfits people wore to stay warm during such cold days. Surely the palace was also heated by fires, somehow.

I had a snack and some matcha (Kyoto's specialty) at a small teahouse in one of the castle's gardens. That morning, I also leatned to apprecaite the vending machines that dispensed warm drinks, and used them to keep myself and my hands warm.

Next, I visited Nishiki market, which seemed to be a main shopping area. I arrived there by walking down a long street food street which had a lot of interesting foods. I sat down and had a shashimi rice bowl with salmon, fish roe, ground tuna belly, and uni over seaweed and rice. This was a good chance to try uni by itself (without other flavors as when I had it in Korea), and I was kind of underwhelmed. By itself, it had a kind of slight musky or pungent taste, which wasn't great on its own, though I was glad to be able to try it again.

I walked around Nishiki market a bit and looked at a couple of anime figure stores, rolled a couple of gachapons, and found an arcade. I got a chance to try Fate/Grand Order Arcade which was cool, and the servant and craft essence cards it printed are a great souvineer. I walked a bit more and grabbed a crepe and a candied apple. I also visited a manga/comic store and looked at manga and doujinshi (fan comics) for a bit. I didn't realize that doijinshi were printed the size of magazines rather than smaller manga books, but I guess it makes sense for the shorter page length.

That evening, I walked east a bit to a bar-y area and visited Fishbowl Bar which Google said was good for foreigners. It was a small place, and only had at most 6 customers (counting me) for the couple hours I was there. The bartender, Jesse from Guam, was very friendly, talkative, and etertaining. It was fun listening to his banter with an Australian couple. I also met and talked to a couple of Japanese salary men there for a bit. One was very well-traveled and had been around the world, including to the US a couple of times. The other was a novelist, and he showed me the draft of a children's book he was publishing which was adorable. After three cocktails over the span of 2 or 3 hours, I walked back to the hotel. I'm still not really comfortable in bars, even one as small and chill as that one, and I felt a little awkward being there.

On December 23rd, I woke up and got my complimentary hotel breakfast again. It was similar to the previous day, but the protein was some sort of meatball with scallions or green onions. I got my coffee that day from a vending machine.

I took the bus northwest to Kinkaku-Ji temple, which was interesting and very scenic, but also very crowded. From there, I took a train across the city to the east side to visit the Arashiyama Bamboo Forest. It was similarly very crowded (I guess that's what happens when it's the weekend before a holiday) but very pretty. From there, I took a train all the way over to the east side of town, saw the Yasaka shrine as the sun set, and set out towards Heian shrine for a lightshow thing that the bartender had recommended the previous night. Google navigated me through a small back road that followed a very pretty stream which was off the tourist track. I passed a hidden sushi place that I came back for later.

The line for the lightshow meant waiting in the cold, and my legs had gotten tired from all of the walking that day (17,000 steps total), but it was worth seeing. The event was an audo-video presentation, where they had set colorful lights up to project against the walls and buildings of the temple, accompanied by traditionally inspired music. It also had some sort of gimmick where if you paid extra, you got a special lantern thing which you could place on certain spots to influence the lightshow. Pretty cool tech. The later portion of the event was along a still pond, where they were a lantern-lined bridge and a projector show that was perfectly reflected by the still surface of the water.

Afterwards, I returend to the sushi place I saw earlier. It was small, only seating seven, and run by an old couple. I'd like to think it was fairly authentic, though the husband asked me if I wanted wasabi or not, and there were some sushi rolls on the menu. There were several locals there, so that probably means something. The sushi was fantastic - perhaps the best sushi with the freshest tasting fish I'd ever had (though perhaps that was my hunger talking, since I hadn't had anything substantial to eat since breakfast).

On Christmas Eve, I woke up early (like 6:30) and visited Fushimi Inari-taisha Sembon Torii - a shrine famous for its many many gates. If I understand correctly, it has multiple goddesses enshrined on the site. I didn't have time to do the entire mountain trail, so I was only able to visit the main shrine area for one of the dieties. I really liked all of the fox statues with granary keys and rice stems in their mouths. Here's some info from a sticker I picked up:

"Kumataka-sha (Kodamagiake Pond)

It is said that after praying at Kumataka-no-Okami Shrine, that if you clap your hands together twice at the side of the pond next to Nangiri Fudoson, you will hear an echo from the direction that will bring you good luck.

According to tradition, if you hear an echo closer to you, your prayer will be answered soon, and if you hear the eco farther from you, it will take time for your wish to come true.

There are many locations on Mt. Inari enshrining Tamahime-Okami, who is known as the goddess of good matches. Not only young women, but also many investors and securities company employees visit here to pray for having good relationship in business."

I didn't try the clapping ritual, since there seemed to be people praying there, and I wasn't sure how to do it right and I didn't want to disturb anyone. I did do some praying/reflection(?) however, so maybe I have Tamahime-Okami's aid.

Next up, I visited the Kyoto Pokemon center. It was cute that the store had large statues of the legendary pokemon Ho-oh and Lugia, as well as staues of the Johto starters Cyndaquill, Chikorita, and Totodile, since the Johto region is based on the Kansai region of Japan, with the in-game Goldenrod City being based on Kyoto. Afterwards, I went back to the hotel and collected my bags, and went to the train station to take the train to Tokyo.

I arrived in Shibuya in the evening. It was very different from Kyoto, much larger and far denser. I saw the famous Shibuya scramble crossing, which was surrounded by massive screens, somewhat like Times Square. I checked into my hotel and left my bags, and then went to visit the Shibuya Pokemon Center. The store's main attraction was a large holographic Mewtwo floating in a tank, which fit with Tokyo's location in the Kanto region. I also visited the Don Quijote mega store in Shibuya to pick up some snacks and a duffelbag to bring extra stuff home. The store was packed, presumably because it was Christmas Eve, and the way it was laid out and decorated with bright yellow advertisments everywhere was overwhelming.

The next day I took a train to the other side of the city to visit Akihabara, a neighborhood of the city that serves as the center of anime and manga culture. I started by visiting the Don Quijote there on the advice of an online friend who said it had a different inventory than the one in Shibuya. He was right - it had plenty of anime and manga merchandise, befitting of its location of Akihabara. I picked up some FGO keychains and such for myself and my friends. Walking around Akihabara, it was fun to see anime characters I recognized on signs and such all over the area. I also visited some other anime merchandise and figure stores and picked up a couple of things for myself. I looked around an old tech store and strongly thought about getting myself an old Gameboy Color with a copy of Pokemon Crystal, but ultimately decided against it, though it would have been a cool keepsake.

I returned to Shibuya in the early evening, and decided to visit Shinjuku, which was a large shopping distrcit/neighborhood. It looked a lot like Bladerunner with all of its neon signs in the night. I visited a sort of touristy intentionally cyberpunk-y alleyway for dinner, and had dinner there.

On the 25th, Christmas Day, I decided to visit Tsukiji Outer Market early in the day, hoping to beat the crowds to a large seafood market. I was a little disappointed to find that rather than an actual fishmarket, it was instead a very touristy couple of blocks with a lot of seafood. I had some pretty good sushi for lunch. Around this time, I was starting to feel sick (I think the sinus thing I had in Korea came back), but I visited Senso-ji Temple, which was fairly close to the market. It was fairly crowded, but also a rather interesting and ornate building. I also visited the Tokyo Skytree, which provided some excellent views of how far Tokyo truly extended. On the 26th, I wasn't feeling too well. That night, I visited the Pokemon Center again and picked up a few things I had deliberated whether or not to get (and picked up some stickers and things for my friends back home), walked around Shibuya a bit, and had Ramen at a place where a machine made it.

On my last day in Japan, I asked the receptionist for sugguestions for a nearby clinic that spoke english, and she recomended one nearby. I spent a good chunk of the day in a coffee shop waiting for it to reopen, and then some time waiting for the visit. The doctor didn't speak much english in the end, but I was able to communicate that I suspected it was a sinus thing, and he prescribed me some antibiotics and anti-inflamatories, which I picked up at a nearby pharmacy. I had curry and rice for dinner, and went to bed early.

Since then, my final semester at ASU began. With my Anthropology credits completed and only one credit needed for my History degree, I was able to create a pretty interesting course schedule for myself. I'm taking Medieval Literature in Translation, The Rise and Fall of Ancient Athens, History in the Wild, and Intro to Creative writing. Most of the classes have been pretty good and rather interesting so far. I enjoyed reading and analyzing Beowulf for Medieval Literature and have found the class really interesting so far.

I've also done some art since I got home, and have been focused on designing pokemon-like monsters and practicing my spriting skills for the past week or so. Maybe I'll post some of those on the site here, though I'll have to set up an art page or something for that first. I'm also a bit conflicted as to what username to post stuff under. I kind of want to separate cooler-professional-er artsy stuff like this website and art from the username I use to chat on Discord and repost memes or whatever on Twitter with. I'll have to give it some thought.

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This past week, my cousin visited me in Seoul, so he and I took the opportunity to visit a couple of tourist sites, including visiting a couple of places that I had yet to visit on my own.

He arrived on November 12th, too late in the day to do very much, but we found a place near his hotel to get some Korean barbecue, which was pretty good. Personally though, K-BBQ isn’t particularly my favorite. I’m not really sure why, maybe it’s just too much of one thing, that being meat, while I’d prefer more of a variety of food. I’m not sure.

On the 13th, we visited and had a guided tour of Jongmyo shrine. I found it interesting to learn that in Joseon-era Korea, bodies and souls were entombed separately. Rulers had tombs outside of the city, but their spirits reside in shrines like Jongmyo. The shrine’s paths had raised walkways, which were made for the spirits to walk on. The centermost was only for the spirits of kings, while the other two were dedicated to living crown princes and other politically important people.

That night, we had omakase sushi, which is something I hadn’t had before. The food was great, and it was my first time trying real wasabi (as opposed to the green paste it manifests as in the United States). It was also my first time trying uni.

On the 14th, my cousin visited Anam, and I showed him around Korea University campus. I also showed him my Goshiwon, and showed him around Gyeongdong Market.

We met again later that night, made the trip to Namsan mountain, and visited Namsan tower. We visited after dark, and since Namsan Tower is located centrally in the city, it seemed like the lights went on forever.

On the 15th, we visited Bukchon Hanok village, which is kind of a touristy area where all of the buildings have been built to resemble traditional Joseon-era houses. There wasn’t really that much to see there, but there was a great view of Namsan tower. We also went to Changgyonggung palace, which I didn’t find as impressive as Gyeongbokgung.

I ended up being busy with classes for the next couple of days, but on the 18th, we went on a day trip to the Demilitarized Zone on South Korea’s northern border. It was a particularly chilly day, and by now most of the trees are bare, so the whole place had a really bleak, desolate vibe.

I found it to be really kind of weird how they had tourist-ified the location. Shouldn’t the DMZ be a solemn reminder of the Korean war, separation, and the tragedy that comes along with it? It personally made me a little uneasy how South Korea had set up an “observation deck” with binoculars where you could look at a city across the border. Setting it up so tourists could gawk at a less fortunate country like that felt kind of wrong.

They had even commodified a tunnel that North Korea had dug to potentially use as an invasion point, and allowed tourists down into it. It was kind of just a wet, low-ceilinged cave, where moss grew opposite of the lights that illuminate the space. At the end was a series of three walls that had been constructed, with a window looking into an empty room, where ferns grew out of the wet floor, illuminated by floodlights. Despite my misgivings, it was an interesting if uncanny experience, and I’m glad I went.

That was my cousin’s last day in the country, so for dinner we found a really good buffet hotpot place, which was really good, before we said goodbye.

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For the past month or so, I've been fairly busy, and I ended up getting sick.

I haven't done too much aside from go to classes, but I did manage to make it back to Hongdae once. Here's some pictures from the past month.

Classes have been fine so far, though they've been a little strange, since most of them don't have regular assignments. For the most part, they're graded on a midterm, a final exam, and a group project. My favorite of the four so far has been 19th Century British Poetry since it has kind of forced me to read interesting poems that I wouldn't have otherwise. I thought that the poem Written at the Close of Spring by Charlotte Smith was cool. I also really enjoyed The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

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This past week I have been figuring out living in South Korea. Admittedly, I haven't done much, though I will write about what I did do.

On the 27th, we had cheering orientation. During its games against its rival, Yongsei, Korea University has a number of song/chant type things. They're led by a team of people whose job resemble cheerleaders, though the role seems more gender neutral, and they have dances that they do to the cheers. At cheering orientation, we were led through something like 26 different cheers. The process was a bit more physical than I expected, both in terms of exertion, as well as in terms of coming into contact with other people. There was a lot of putting your arms around the people next to you to link up. It was a bit of a strange experience, though it was interesting and I'm glad I attended.

On the 28th, I didn't do much other than visit Gwangjang Market, a market more focused on tourism and street food rather than the medicinal and produce market near my Goshiwon. I also tried to visit Jongmyo Shrine, though it only had guided tours during weekdays. That evening, I visited the Dongdaemun area, though it was closing up and there wasn't much to see, other than the large and interestingly shaped Design Plaza Museum. At night, they have a large projector set up alongside speakers to project a rather surreal audio-visual piece onto the side of the building.

As for the 29th, I didn't do much other than assemble some paperwork for my Foreigner Registration card. I did find a place near KU that serves actually healthy food, however. It's a place that sells something thats kind of like Gimbap or Poke, but there was an option to have it served on salad rather than rice. I found it a nice place to get healthier food.

On the 30th, in the morning I visited Dongdaemun market, which is just down the Cheonggyecheon River from Gwangjang. I found it to be far less interesting, and there they mostly sold materials such as fabric, as well as specific goods such as hats and shoes. Visiting it did give me the opportunity to walk along the Cheonggyechon River, which is quite a pleasant space to have in the middle of a city. It is set below street level and lined with trees and greenery. That evening, one of my fellow exchange students, Kars, asked if I wanted to visit a market with him. Kars is this tall blond young man from the Netherlands. He's nice, though I haven't gotten to know him particularly well. I sugguested Gwangjang, and we met up at the subway station. I had another sort of gimbap-y meal, while he had a noodle soup with dumplings. Afterwards, we visited Dongdaemun Design Plaza since it was nearby and he had yet to see it.

On September 1st, I didn't do much other than walk around Anam and Gyongdong a bit. I didn't do much that was interesting, though while walking through Gyeongdong Market, I noticed something strange for sale in a couple places. There were a couple of stalls that sold what looked like wasp nests encased in mesh or net. There were large, live wasps inside of the nests and nets. I haven't done any research on it, but I assume they must have been selling the larvae as a delicacy or something.

Today I walked around Anam for a bit as well. I visited a Burger King, curious to see if they had anything interesting on their menu. Apparently, Burger Kings in South Korea sell shrimp burgers. I tried to get one, but the machines you order with didn't like my card, which was the first time that had happened here. Instead, I got another one of the aforementioned healty gimbap-salad type things. In the evening, I decided to visit Itaewon since I had yet to go there. Honestly, I wasn't particularly impressed. It just seemed to be a less interesting version of Hongdae. It seemed to be catering more towards foreignersw and tourists, and had many more bars and clubs than Hongdae, at least judging by the areas of Hongdae and Itaewon I visited. The area seemed to be dirtier than much of what I have seen of the city, and pretty much the entire area smelled like cigarette smoke. I think I'll stick to visiting Hongdae instead.

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Today I did a lot. I started it with a triangle kimbap and a pre-packaged coffee I bought at the 7/11 downstairs from my Goshiwon the night before. While eating, I did some research. I looked through a list of a ton of tourist destinations, popular and niche, as well as a list of the three most tourist friendly temples in the city. While doing research, I learned about a convention center. I tried to find out if there would be a comicon or anime convention, only to learn that Seoul Popcon was on for this weekend. With that in mind, I set out on a 45 minute busride and ended up south of the Han river.

I found the convention center and made it in easily enough. It was full of cosplayers, places to take pictures, and places to buy merchandise and figures. As for cosplay, Genshin Impact and Honkai: Star Rail seemed to be the most common. I guess the Hoyoverse games have really taken off in South Korea. That said, there were also quite a few people cosplaying characters from Blue Archive, V-Tubers such as Gawra Gura, and many Links and Zeldas. I was personally quite happy to see a number of Fate/Grand Order costumes.

While exploring, I found an official ufotable booth. While it mostly stocked Demon Slayer goods, it did have some Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel items. I bought two mystery charms and saved them to open later. The convention was pretty fun, and it as really fun to see people cosplaying some of my favorite characters. I personally wished it had a larger selection of independent artists selling their own work and self-made charms, however.

After leaving the convention, I decided to visit one of the temples on my list since it was only about 10 minutes away by foot. While exiting the hall, however, I saw something rather amusing. I noticed the large golden statue of crossed golden hands on my way in, but I didn't pay it much mind. When passing it again, I realized that it had "GANGNAM STYLE" written on it, and next to it was a screen and speakers which showed the Gangnam Style music video and played the song. Tourists came up and did the funny Gangam Style dance in front of it too. Apparently I had made my way to the Gangnam neighborhood without realizing it.

After reeling from the shock of seeing a real life meme, I made my way to Bongeunsa Temple. I quite enjoyed the large statues of the four heavenly kings in the temple's entrance. The main walkway up to the temple was lined with paper lanterns and plants growing in pools of water. In a pond along the way, I noticed a Buddha statue with a small bowl in front of it. The statue and bowl were dotted with coins, so I decided to throw one of my own in. On my first toss, I landed it on a pedestal on the Buddha's feet, my coin knocking another into his bowl. I don't know if that was good luck or if I ruined (or improved) someone else's good luck, but oh well. The main body of the temple seemed to be busy with an event or silent prayer, and not wanting to disturb anything, I took my leave.

By then, it was lunchtime, so I decided to head to another nearby area on my list, a shopping center built out of repurposed shipping containers called Common Ground. I'm not a big shopper so I didn't buy anything, but on the top floor I found a wall of gachapon machines and spun a couple. I managed to pull a figure of a sleeping Plusle and a Magikarp charm that I decided to put on my phone. It seems a little unwieldy, so I may end up putting it on my backpack instead. I ended up eating at a restaurant in Common Ground called Analogue Kitchen, where I ate some sort of bacon cream pasta and opened my Fate/Stay Night mystery charms from the convention. I ended up getting one of Illya and one of Irisveil. Not my favorite characters, but I'll take them. While going through my bag, I noticed a small card that I must have also gotten at the ufotable booth, and it had the address of a ufotable cafe. Plugging it into Naver Maps, it was over in Hongdae, the neighborhood I was in last night. Since I was planning on going there tonight again, I decided to give it a visit. After a quick walk through Seoul Forest (I will have to visit it again to explore it more and visit the insectarium) and 45 minute subway ride, I found myself in Hongdae once again. This time, I happened to be on the subway during rush hour, so it was quite crowded, though not as bad as I had expected. Maybe because it was a weekend.

In Hongdae, I managed to find the ufotable Cafe, though with some difficulty. From the card I was given, it seemed as though there were a number of locations in Japan, but only one in South Korea. At the cafe, they served character drinks, but they seemed to only be for Demon Slayer characters. Clearly this is an indication that ufotable should reanimate the Fate/Stay Night route in order to further popluarize Fate, but I digress. I didn't get a drink, but I noticed that they sold more mystery charms. Not wanting to leave empty-handed, I got another one, which turned out to be a duplicate of the Illya one I got at the convention. Perhaps whatever happened with the Buddha statue ended up being bad luck. I may have to go back to the cafe to try a Demon Slayer character drink, and try again to get a charm of a character I like more such as Medusa, Shriou, or Rin.

Next up, I decided to give another shot at visiting clubAOR, but I found it to be rather full, so I ended up heading to Live Club BBang again. Tonight, they had four different bands playing, those being Greenvilla, Paper River, igloo, and Band Giraffe. Of the four, igloo ended up being my favorite, though the other three were pretty good. I managed to (with some difficutly) find them all on Spotify, and I've put together a playlist of some of their music. Spotify link. By the time the music ended, it was 9:30, so I grabbed some street Takoyaki, walked around Hongdae a bit more, before heading home.

Gallery: (Hover over the images for a description, and click the images to open them full size in a new tab.)

For the last few days, I ended up being rather busy with orientation for Korea University. On the 23rd, I didn't end up doing very much, though I was able to do some exploring of the area around my Goshiwon.

It turns out that my Goshiwon is located in the middle of a self-described "oriental medicine"/alternative healing market area. All around it are pharmacies selling alternative medicine. Large plastic bags of mushrooms, tree bark and foot long roots soaking in large glass jars of yellow fluid. The very air in the area smells like licorice.

Additionally, my accomodations are located just across the street from the massive Gyeongdong Market. A large market, covered some with a roof and some by tarps and tents, filled to the brim with market stalls, selling cuts of meat, fish, fresh fruits and vegetables, street food, piles of spices and grains, massive bags of dried chili peppers, as well as live eels, turtles, and crabs.

One thing I noticed about this area is that there are not very many young people. Hakki, my mother's former student who helped my move into my Goshiwon, said that it was because the type of shopping in a market such as Gyeongdong, instead preferring more convenient options and shopping at department stores.

Korea University campus is about 20 minutes away by foot and 10 by bus. I've been trying to walk when I have time to do so in order to learn the area better. The Korea university seems very strange to me. It is composed mostly of large, castle-like stone brick buildings, a far cry from the modern concrete, glass, and steel buildings of Arizona State. The area is also very green, with well-manicured gardens and lawns. One major difference I noticed is that at KU, the lawns are roped off and very much appear to be geared towards decoration, rather than the ASU lawns which students walk and sit on all the time.

Orientation (which was on August 4th) was a little boring, composed of a lot of waiting around and being presented with information I didn't find very useful. That said, I did meet a number of other exchange students, who are interesting. These include Lisa from Italy, Jessie from Maryland, Kars from the Netherlands, Cord, Tim, and David from Germany, Phil from France, and Tahlia from Germany.

Orientation's afterparty, however, was a lot of fun. We began the night at a fried chicken place (which appear to be common) near Anam junction. We were presented with large plates of fried chicken (garlic, spicy, and plain) and french fries, alongside mugs of beer and small cups of soju. Afterwards, we went to another location, where we had some sort of soupy thing, as well as more soju. There I got to know some of my fellow exchange students fairly well.

One thing I learned during orientation, though perhaps it should have been expected, is that K-Pop is rather popular within the exchange student body. As such, I have made it a goal to discover a K-Pop group I truly enjoy during my stay here, which shouldn't be too hard. Edrick also asked me to "share the good ear cleaning music you are exposed to me specifically" so I have been putting together a playlist of K-Pop music that I have discovered and shazamed. Spotify link.

Today, the 25th, ended up being a rather busy day. It started somewhat early with a City Tour. As with the orientation, we ended up doing a lot of standing around and waiting, but eventually busses showed up, and took us to the Insa-dong neighborhood. There, we saw a live performance of 'NANTA' which is a little difficult to explain. It was a semi-musical performance that reminded me somewhat of the Blue Man Group, though less horrifying. It was about several chefs doing musical performances in the kitchen whilst cooking.

Afterwards, we walked through Insa-dong for a little while, before eating lunch at Pyeongyang Grilled Meat Restaurant which was delicious. A table of four of us (Tim and Thore from Germany and Kars from the Netherlands) were given a boiling bowl of broth in which we placed mushrooms, bean sprouts, and very thinly cut strips of pork, and later on, a plate of raw noodles. By the end, the broth was rich and tasted extremely good. We messed up a little bit though, as we passed around a bowl of rice and ate from it, as well as cracked our egg into our broth. We were supposed to save those for the end once there was only broth left and use the rice and egg to make a kind of porridge from it, but oh well. It was great anyway.

Having finished lunch, we walked to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Despite our group probably numbering over 100, I ended up walking around the place mostly on my own. It was a large imperial palace dating back to the Joseon era of Korean history, featuring large, intracately painted wooden gates and structures with tiled roofs. I especially enjoyed the pavilions that had been built over water features. Generally the city tour was good, but it would have been better with more organized, smaller groups, and if we hadn't had to just wait around for so long.

By the time we made it back to KU, it was already like 5:30. Some other students and I went to a SIM card shop, since they provide discounts if you come in groups, for some reason. With that, I finally got a sim card ironed out for the rest of my stay. Afterwards, I took the bus back to my Goshiwon. Some other students were talking about a large party, but I decided to skip that and do some research.

For some reason, on the bus ride back, I found myself very much wanting to find a small venue where live music was being played as part of an underground indie scene. Through my research, I managed to find several venues in the city, though many appear to be located in Hongdae a neighborhood encompassing Hongik University arts school. Having prepared myself, I set out on finding clubAOR (AOR standing for "All of Rock"), which is about 45 minutes away from my Goshiwon and KU by subway. After a short period of befuddlement, I figured out the subway, and made it to Hongdae. I picked up a small package of Gimbap at the subway station and ate it as I walked.

I did manage to find clubAOR, but by the time I made it there, it seemed to just be people standing outside of it, packing up equipment such as electronic keyboards. Being too nervous to try to ask if it was still open, I decided to make my way to Hongdae Street at the center of the neighborhood. On my way, however, I discovered Club BBang, one that I had read about during my research, but was unable to find on Naver Maps. Hearing live rock music from below a real estate agency, I descended the staircase and found myself in the Club. I made my way to the bar and tried to pay the entrance fee, but one of the club's employees told me that the performance is almost over, so that I should just buy a drink and we'd call it even. I bought a beer and sat down, and listened to the music. I had no idea who was playing or what they were singing about, but it was really my first time going to such a concert, and though it didn't last very long, I thought it was fun.

Afterwards, I continued towards Hongdae street. It was incredibly different from the oriental medicine and Gyeongdong Market area of my Goshiwon. Rather than a traditional market selling raw foods and traditional medicine, it was much more geared towards the youth. Chain coffee shops and convenience stores, street food, shops selling phone cases, keychains, and vapes. I tried my luck at a claw machine at an arcade, trying for a small plush of the Pokemon Eevee, but to no avail, and bought myself a chocloate shake. By that time, it was about 11, so I decided to venture home before the subway closed for the night.

I very much enjoyed my outing to Hongdae and I would very much like to go again, and show up earlier so I can listen to more live music. It made me think a lot about public transit and how that effects the culture of cities. Would Tempe, Arizona have a place similar to Hongdae, if not for its crippling car dependency? It also made me feel like I need to get cooler. On the subway to Hongdae, I saw a young woman in a bright white and blue kimono dotted with light blue skulls and crossbones. Her hair and eyeliner matched the blue and pink color scheme, and she wore neon green fuzzy slippers. She left the train arm in arm with a goth guy, clad in multiple dark shades of demin, who had a safety pin as a piercing in his lip. Along my Hongdae street walk, I saw another girl with piercings on her upper lip that made it look like she had metal vampire fangs. It made me feel like I need to develop a better fashion sense and present myself in a more interesting way, though I'm not sure how or where to start.

Here's a first for the journal page, a gallery! Hover over the images for a description, and click the images to open them full size in a new tab.

Quite a few things have happened since my last journal update. A couple weeks ago my father and I visited my grandmother in Nevada for the weekend. It is always nice to see her. We also met my cousin's wife and their six or so week old baby. Babies are weird, it's kind of messed up how those are people.

After we got back, I got a booster vaccine for Covid and a flu shot. I personally fon't react well to Covid boosters, and spent a couple of days sick in bed. Better than a week (or longer) of the actual thing, I suppose.

Yesterday, on the 20th/21st, I flew out from home. I'm beginning a semester abroad in South Korea, which will mean I will be away from home for four months. I'm admittedly a little nervous about being away from home for so long, in a country I know little about with a language that I do not speak. I'd be more nervous if not for my program in Dublin and trip to Italy earlier this summer.

Last night, I landed in Seoul, made my way through customs (which I thought would be harder a process than it actually was) and was driven to a hotel. I dropped off my bags and walked around the general area for a little bit. I'm located near Seoul's big train station, and can see Seoullo 707 from my window. It seems to be an old freeway overpass that's been turned into a pedestrian walkway, crossing over Seoul's huge train station. I somehow managed to find a good looking, not too fill restauraunt, and ordered food. I had a plate of dumplings in some sort of glass noodle wrapping. They were really good and along with the small plates of kimchi and noodles that came with my order, were enough for dinner. The cutlery was a little strange. In addition to using chopsticks, they also use a long spoon. I watched someone else use the chopsticks in one hand and the spoon in the other to cut up a long piece of kimchi, so I did the same. Overall, my meal was only 8,000 Korean Won, which is like 6 USD.

Afterwards, I went back to my hotel room and got some sleep. Today I will meet one of my mother's former students who lives in South Korea. He is going to help me find accomodations not too far from the university. He's been a great help for this trip already, and I've only been here a night. Shoutouts to Hakki!

I'm not entirely sure how busy I'll end up being this semester. If I end up swamped with homework and things to do, it might be hard to keep this blog updated. I suppose we'll just have to see how things go.

Currently, I'm on break for the summer. I did a program abroad in Dublin, Ireland earlier this summer through my university, and afterwards I spent a couple of weeks traveling Italy with my cousin.

I haven't done too much the past few weeks since I've been back. I messed around with Blender a bit and learned the basics of 3D modeling. Maybe I'll post some of the models I made on this blog at some point. Other than that, I've done a bit of drawing and learned the basics of HTML to make this website.

I'm signed up to spend the next semester abroad in South Korea, though I'm waiting on the embassy in Los Angeles (which has jurisdiction over my state) to get back to me with a visa. If I don't get that in time, I may not be able to go, which would suck.

Today, aside from spending time on my site here, I visited the bank with my mother to get some financial details worked out. I also spent most of the day cooking, since I had a friend from high school over for dinner.

I, with the help of my mother, made a Paul Hollywood recipe. It was trencher bread (a kind of hard, flatbread that would kind of serve as a plate in medieval times) topped with an arugula, green onion, and raddish salad, strips of grilled lamb, and a sauce made of creme fraiche, lemon juice, and mustard. As a side, I made ratatouille. The recipe had me start by warming up onions and garlic in a pot, before adding eggplant and cooking it uncovered in the oven. Once it was done, it had me mush that up, mix in zuchinni and bell peppers, and cook it for a bit longer.

Overall, the dinner was pretty good. The trencher bread turned out a little hard though, so it was kind of like a big cracker, and the ratatouille was a little watery. For desert, we had grilled pineapple and peaches topped with vanilla ice cream.