I met up with Tina, a high school classmate and friend, fellow substitute teacher in the past, and one of my “neighbours” who lives a few buildings over. I suggested that we head over to Daehakro (대학로) pronounced Dae-hak-NO. The name literally means “College Street”. I hung out in that area several times when I was in high school, and I’ve been here a couple of times within the last few months . . . all because of this gigantic Gandalf statue smack in the middle of that place.

*ahem* Now that I have access to a digital camera, let’s have pictures do the explaining — along with my commentary. Click on the thumbnails to view the larger images.

Palm Trees Galore

This can be seen when you come out of exit 4 at Hyehwa station. Sort of. You have to go off to the right and then you can see it. It was just . . . very random. X_X;; Sort of like a WTF thing. Artificial palm trees on the roof of the building. Yay for quirkiness!

Gandalf Statue

This is the “infamous” Gandalf Statue in the middle of Daehakro. As soon as you come out of exit 4, go down the street to your left. It’s next to a cinema halfway down the block, so I guess it makes sense to put it there, but Gandalf? Not that he’s uncool or anything, but still . . . I discovered it back in February with Mi Son, so let’s just say when we first saw it, it was a big WTF moment. I would love to have this as my lawn ornament. That’d be awesome.

Major Issue
Past the Gandalf statue is a store, called Issue, I remember going to in my teenage years. Actually. That store is the reason why my friends and I’d come to this area to begin with. Anyway, it’s one of those stores that sells random stuff from candies to candle to clocks to stationeries, and random stuff galore. In the store I ended up seeing a picture-worthy item, and I ended buying a couple things there.

The clipboard was very pretty. I have no clue what I’ll do with it, but I’ll make it useful. The “Eat Shit” thing is like some bandaid box. I just thought the whole thing was hilarious. I just had to get it. The “Sweet Stalker” thing is some kind of a weird notebook. I didn’t buy it, but it was just soooo picture worthy.

On a side note, this store has the cheapest plastic bag ever. Tina and I both were carrying our stuff in the bag, and we discovered the yellow ink seeping onto our fingers and hands. Like, whoah! So cheap. I guess it’s a good thing they didn’t charge us for the bags. Otherwise, I think I’d be a bit peeved at that.

Omuto Tomato — Omelet Rice Paradise
For dinner, Tina and I decided to both try some place now. We chose to eat at Omuto Tomato. They had all sorts of omelet there. Tina and I both decided to try two different dishes.

Tina ended up getting the Assorted Mushroom Omelet Rice. I chose to get the Fried Shrimp Chili Omelet Rice. I also got an orange-aid. The food turned out to be surprisingly filling and delicious. For the three items we ordered, it cost us 23,700 won, about $24 for the two of us. Would I ever go back there? I definitely will go back.

Leftovers: Random Pictures
I finally decided to put up pictures of my computer area. You can see the images and its descriptions here.

In my neighbourhood, there’s a supermarket that has the funniest typoed name in the world. Here’s a picture of it. I’ve been wanting to post it for a long time . . . here it is!

Isn’t that awesome? The thing is, most people probably think that the store owners did that carrot on purpose, but that’s not the case at all. In fact, I saw the store when it first opened. The carroted E did not exist. It wasn’t until about a week after they opened did the E appeared. I think somebody finally told the store owners that they made a mistake, so they added the E. This is such a typical Korean typo! But then again, I personally think they have a big problem spelling “well-being”. In fact, I’ve seen restaurants and other places spell it “well-ving,” “well-veing,” and etcetera. X___x;; It’s really funny whenever I see it. It’s just simply priceless.

Last but not least, here is the most recent photo of me. One in colour, and one in black and white. I’ve touched it up in PSP — to cover up my shininess. I hate my shiny face!

I hope my picture do not break your monitor. XD XD XD Anyway that’s enough pictures for now. I should really format my Tokyo pictures. *sighs* Just one more thing on my to-do list.

I hereby proclaim the following:

June needs a freaking three-day weekend. In fact all of the months, all twelve of them, should have at least one three-day weekend. March, April, June, and August — all of them must have a holiday in there! That is why I love September to February, where every month has at least one holiday or one three-day weekend or more! That’s one more reason to love autumn and winter.

Seriously. The last two weeks have dragged on like I was drowning in a boatload of maple syrup. I’m exhausted. The long days at work exhaust me. The children exhaust me. I get home, and I’m exhausted to do anything. I’m exhausted to the point that I can’t even think of any synonyms for the damn word “exhaust”; hence the damn repetition!

TGIF TOMORROW. Then I can relax a bit. Well, perhaps not since I have to work on my workplace’s monthly newsletter and work on Capriccio’s monthly update. Then next weekend, the glorious three-day weekend for Fourth of July, will be celebrated by sleeping, reading mangas, playing games, meeting friends, and recovering from my daily ordeal of working at the Centre for Disease Control AKA Day Care Centre. WHOO HOO!

On a totally random note: I joined NokoNoko a Nintendo gaming blog. Fear me! I shall dominate the world now. Mwahahaha. X____X;; Right. I seriously need sleep.

I finally decided to try out The World Ends With You.

Wow. I can handle the gameplay. Amazing. Of course most of it is, er, stylus mashing, but dude, I can play it. Along with Kingdom Hearts, Tales of Symphonia, and Tales of Phantasia, this is the first action-RPG game I’ve been able to play in a long time.

/BEGIN stream of consciousness style review . . .

The character’s designs are awesome. I like the premise of the plot. The characters seems so one-dimensional. What the hell is up with Neku, the main character — a gigantic emo mofo, being a new Squall from Final Fantasy VIII?! The battle system was confusing at first, but with practice, it gets better. The music isn’t all that captivating, yet. I wished the stylus was a little bit more responsive, especially towards that evil icicle pin move. I like the pin that lets you throw cars, motorcycles, and other stuff in the battle zone at the enemies. XD I absolutely, positively love how there are no random encounters. It’s like Chrono Trigger. I like how the food raises the stats. That’s just really odd, but it makes sense! AND HOMG. Playing this game reminds me of my visit to Tokyo. I want to go back there on a day that’s not rainy, where it was a pain walking around with thousands of people with umbrellas.

/END the nonsensical review . . .

In the meantime, my throat and or tonsils are acting up again. ARGH! Time to hit the sack. Hopefully NyQuil will help some.

I haven’t been this vain in ages.

I broke my glasses covering yesterday, after only having them for a few hours (don’t ask), so I had to go back and get it fixed today. While I waited for them to fight with those to get the new coverings on them, I decided to go trim my fringes since they were getting in the way.

After work, I headed to the PX on base to get a couple stuff. I stopped by the shoes section to see if they had anything new. I decided to get a pair of these. In black, mind you. Ever since I bought some black Crocs, I tried to find more “holey” shoes. I agree that Crocs are ugly. However, I can get away with wearing Crocs at work. Open-toed shoes are a big no-no, due to safety precautions, and these are the closet I can get to wearing slip-ons I love to wear.

So those were my vanities for the day. Unfortunately being vain has one gigantic disadvantage: IT COST MONEY.

Adnama had posted about headphones problems. I think it’s contagious. Seriously, what are the likelihood of having two headphones crapping out on you? Headphone A has no sound coming from the right; Headphone B has no sound from the left. Both of these are used for Ubi, my DS-Lite. With both of them not working right, I panicked at the idea of Ubi crapping out on me. X_X;; Then I tried Hass’, the MP3 player, headphones, and the sound came out all right.

I am fortunate that it was headphones issues, but seriously, to have both of them dying on me: UNCOOL. Ah well.

Speaking of DS-Lite, the PX on base is finally carrying the cobalt and black DSes. I WANT. LIKE HOMG. The crimson and black one one did nothing for me, but the cobalt and black one? I WANT. I’d so get one for posterity. And I’d name it Cobi. Ubi and Cobi. I like the sound of it. Yes, I’m being purposely geeky.

Finally, to enhance TC’s geekiness, I’ve been replaying Apollo Justice. I’ve spent the last few weeks replaying Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney, Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations, and now this one. Oi. I’m so addicted to this series. It’s not effing funny. It’s official: it’s an addiction.