I'M BACK.

 Think that's an understated and boring title to kick off a whole new blog year? THINK AGAIN.

More after the jump (I get extra points for fancy blog lingo).


I'm at a Paris Baguette eating the afore/long ago mentioned this and I'm in one piece from the 26 hour trip since I left San Diego for LAX. This place has no charger for my computer so hopefully my %14 will hold up while I do some quick bullet points.

I arrived a day early to see two old friends (who were dating, and are now engaged) and spend the night hanging out with them before my 9 day orientation.

The flight was great! I am not proud of how hurt I was, am, and will be by the fact that LAX has no wifi but once I boarded the plane I got the best news possible -- not only did I have a window seat but for the second consecutive time Asiana Airlines put me in a seat with no middle passenger. Pure glory. 

Once the flight started I watched my favorite movie:

* After Slim Pickens dropped the bomb on the 'Rooskies' I finished a respectable meal:

* And slept-ish as well as I could, aided by the lack of another human next to me, until I woke up and we were pretty close:

 
-- update, my computer did die, now it's 3 hours later and I'm in another coffee shop with time to kill, let's blog this out --

Once I got to the airport I got through customs, currency exchange, subway all perfect until I had a slight Failure To Communicate with my buddy Zach on where to meet up. I won't get into the details but I'm looking forward to a drawn out it-was-clearly-your-fault debate with him tonight.

I tried to count the stories on this building in Songdo, it's in the 60s and there's three of them! The picture above isn't where Zach lives but these buildings in his complex and I just thought it was huge so I took a picture like a good tourist.

I had this for lunch -- yes, everyone, get our scoffs out, I went across the world to Korea and had a delicious American style burger my first day. It's called gradual integration, deal with it.

Zach and I caught up for a while and since I've been running errands blah blah -- more importantly I have (the time now, and I want) to get this part of my day out of my head first: I think I've mentioned before how cheap/awesome haircuts are here in Korea. I wanted one today because I knew I would have time so I went to a place called Lon Lon Hair across the street from Zach's apartment. The women were nice and beautiful as always and the woman helping me said "Today haircuts are only $10, but with a scalp scrapping it's $15." How awful does that sound!? Scalp scrapping. The 'Don't Ever Google Image Search That Phrase' alarm in my brain sounded when I heard that. SO I agreed to get it because why not.

After a normal shampoo and haircut it came time for the scrapping! She took me back over to the shampoo station so I thought, OOOHH it's probably just a miss-translation of massage so no worries. She shampooed again but no massage and we went back to the hair cuttin' chair. She brought out a normal looking hairspray product cylindrical can, but this one came with with three or four three-inch long and sort of thick plastic prongs protruding straight out out from the top. She showed it to me like a waiter does with a bottle of wine and I nodded, which after traveling so far and long all that nod meant was I acknowledged its existence.

She then swiftly placed the canister prongs-down on top of my head, grabbed it with both hands and pressed (slammed!) it down on the top of my head!! I heard a loud PPPPPSSSSSSSSSpp like a combination of air-compression, mist expulsion, and my face getting instantly pale because someone was doing that TO MY HEAD. I laugh-gasped when she did that and I gave her the ol' "well, I clearly didn't see or expect that sh*t coming" look and she did it two more times and I continued my giggles. I guess there was some sort of miniscule amount of liquid that came out each time she did that and she then sorta rubbed that stuff in on my head for a minute or less.

Then that was it. $5 well spent-ish.

Uh, so there you go. Didn't enjoy that extend tale? Here's a picture of my cute nephew to bring you back on board:

Welcome back.

Second time around there hasn't been much or any culture shock yet, more like culture reminders, but that stands out from the first few hours. Going to BBQ tonight! Couldn't be more excited. On my third cup of coffee, pfs what jet lag?? Off to orientation tomorrow for like 132 (9, actually) days.

Talk to everyone soon!