I’m going home on August 8th. Home is on the horizon.

And yet, I know that once I’m gone, I’ll be missing this crazy place. 3-for-chun won ($0.80) boong-uh ppang (fish-shaped pastries filled with red bean filling… yum). $3 soon tofu. $1 kimbap. $2-3 earrings that look damned good, $4 graphic tees. Cheap everything, really, except for fruit (paid about $9 for 2 pounds of grapes, eesh).

Maybe this should’ve been a food blog. Oh well, too late now. I am seriously craving some New York style pizza… thin crust with piping hot cheese and sauce… mmm. And  a few other home comforts like my canine companion and pals.

To make the most out of my stay here, I’ll be trying to do the following in the few days I have left:

• Visit some family on my mom’s side and see my adorable 2 girl cousins… haven’t seen them since they were 4 and 6
• Get new luggage and gifts for friends
• Go to Hongdae and check out their nightlife and dance clubs
• Wrap up all leftover work at the office including translations and convention details

I think that’s doable.

My time here has been insightful, filled with a lot of fun but also loneliness,  constructive, and rewarding. I haven’t achieved nearly all the things I’ve wanted to (becoming fluent in Korean and figuring out what I want to do with my life) but it has lead me on a direction towards that.

Random fact about Korean people: They think it’s weird to sit side-by-side when at a table/seating area. And my 13-year old male cousin is afraid of cats.

I have no more. Will update with my Hongdae experience in a few days :)

I just gave myself a tour of my uncle’s factory and wow. I am impressed. When I first found out what he did for a living, I imagined a very boring, monotonous existence… much like the episode of the Simpsons when Bart’s class goes on a field trip to a box factory. It is anything but.

I saw large stacks of cardboard paper transformed into pretty, complete boxes. But each step requires different machinery. Big, hulking machines speedily print, score, cut, or fold. It’s so cool to watch something go in and watch it come out completely different.

Then there are jobs that require human touch to be finished. One such job had women from other Asian countries (Thais, Viets, Malaysians, Chinese) scoring and assembling boxes by hand. I guess they’re cheaper labor. Large stacks of finished boxes took up most of one side of the wall; there must’ve been over a thousand. This particular one was for a Ginseng health set and had a gold finish; I bet those boxes are expensive.

Eventually he wants me to go to trade shows in Las Vegas (yay!) and Chicago. After looking into it, I am pretty excited. Being able to travel for free and hobnob with large-scale businesses… Perhaps going into unrelated trade shows to hand out business cards and get some more clients for my unc… At a commission, of course :) It’d be pretty awesome if that was my job.

Of course, I still have a lot to learn about this business. I don’t know the specifications or logistics of anything yet. But I took a few related classes in college due to my advertising design degree. One class was all about printing, colors, offset machines, yadda yadda… The professor was talking about e-ink (as in what the Kindle uses) before the Kindle was even introduced. Saying how it’d change the world and we could eventually figure out how to put it on t-shirts so that we can change the message/designs on them at will. Awesome stuff.

I’m more excited about the possibilities of getting to travel for free to amazing places. There’s trade shows all over the world… If I’m lucky enough, maybe Japan, Thailand, and Amsterdam will be on my list eventually. Where are your top must-see travel destinations?

I’ve been here a couple of weeks now and have started to settle into a comfortable rhythm.

I wake up around 8am. This sounds early and normally it is for me, though living with a family whose kids get up at 7:30 and usually go to bed before midnight gets you in the habit of doing the same. So far this hasn’t been too bad at all.

I wash up and have breakfast. No toast, cereal, or oatmeal to be found here… Usually the first meal of the day consists of rice, sometimes soup with fish/tofu/beansprouts, and a bunch of side dishes including kimchi. Yes, their breakfasts are very similar to their lunches and dinners. At times there’s good protein like bulgogi (seasoned stir-fry beef), eggs, or fried fish. I’ve been eating more fish since I got here; I like that. It’s good for you!

After that I get dressed and head out to the office with my uncle. During rush hour the drive takes an hour to an hour and a half, ugh. He’s the one with the impressive packaging factory. I had no idea how big his company was (not in physical size but the amount of business that they do) until I got here. He makes boxes for Wal-mart, Samsung, Hyundai, cigarette companies, and countless food and beauty products across Korea. Although with this current economy, even he’s struggling to stay afloat. It seems very few are immune.

For the first couple of days at work I thought I’d die of boredom. I basically surfed the web for 6-8 hours a day. But now I’m working on getting their catalog online; been working on it since yesterday. I won’t bore you with the minutiae of this task; suffice it to say there’s a whole lot to be done for something that sounds so simple. I’ll probably finish it by today though. (I need to take breaks though; hence this blog post!)

Office workers in Korea generally get lunches (and I’m told breakfasts and dinners if they work those hours) for free. Pretty sweet. My other uncle runs the cafeteria here and his wife is a factory worker. Employing family members since 199x…

I finish up around 5-6pm and head home, but don’t get home till around 7pm. Then it’s leisure time. One thing I must say is that though deli’s here are plentiful (mistakenly called “supers” as in “supermarkets” by the locals) actual supermarkets are not so common, at least in my area. I found myself wanting to buy fresh fruit and healthier stuff other than chips and ice cream at the “super”. Also why tf is a watermelon $18, ughhh. I need to find out where to buy inexpensive produce. I haven’t been eating too well because of it :\

My next adventure will be trying to buy a prepaid cell phone… I totally wanna go to DongDaeMoon this weekend and go shopping. Yay for getting spending money. Eventually I wanna make my way to Lotte World and get on a couple of roller coasters but all my cousins like wussy rides. Mope.

Jenno out.

P.S. — Apologies for the lack of pictures. I took a ton and need to upload them; the next post will be a picture extravaganza!