fukuoka

i went to fukuoka, japan! a lot of my pictures are up on facebook and can be found at

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2036525&id=54300088&l=9f70297aa6

then again, most of you have facebook. this link is solely for the idiot who won't activate his FB account, my love, david park.

my 3 day trip to fukuoka was amazing. it's not necessarily much different from your other large japanese cities .... however, my friend and i were very lucky in meeting our new friend, tooru. we met him randomly on our first night in fukuoka while eating ramen and having some drinks at a random food stand on the street. we (by we, i mean my friend shinkyung) ended up talking to him (in japanese) for a few hours, had some more drinks, and ate some more. he ended up leaving before us and paid for everything. he also treated us to a very nice sushi restaurant on sunday! and get this, when we were done eating our hearts' desire he made sure to have the sushi chef pack us a little lunchbox with rolls in it in case we got hungry on the plane ride home! how thoughtful is that?

i know what you're thinking ...

seriously, we were thinking the same thing. what does he want? what's the catch? NOTHING! we ended up sitting around for a couple hours afterwards, drinking coffee, shooting the shit, he drove us back to our hotel, and we said our goodbyes! we exchanged e-mail addresses and that was that. end of story.

i will leave you with this ...

karen & shinkyung - fukuoka, japan 2010!

an update to appease the masses

happy 3 month anniversary to me!!

it's been 3 months, to the day, since my first day at work!

may: complete and utter boredom paired with a serious language barrier.

june: became (and still am) the official department translator. so far i've had to contact people in italy, germany, hong kong, france, england, and america. i'm international, bitch!

july: finally able to open up autocad and sketchup!!! granted, it's to work on the front gate to a university campus. the gate that is the bane of my existence (said whilst shaking fist in air)!

slowly, but surely, i'm moving on up! we'll see what august brings.

actually, knowing both english and korean has some benefits. i was able to go along on a photoshoot with roland halbe a few weeks ago as his translator. we went to photograph the korean anime museum by NBBJ and Gansam architects. for those of you who are unfamiliar with his work, he is an architectural photographer. he shot the MTCC on the IIT campus and he's the one who shot this photograph.

werner sobek's home r-128, stuttgart, germany

he's actually a very interesting person. adventures were had. climbing on apartment building roofs, knocking on random people's doors to shoot the building from inside their homes, and i'm in a few of the photographs! we'll see if they show up somewhere ... c3 or space maybe? he also told me about the time werner sobek got locked in his home on his way to the airport and couldn't get out. fun stuff.

3 months in ...

after months of procrastination and hesitation ...

here it is!

i finally decided to start a blog.

i've left the comforts of home and have ventured out on my own, into the real world, to grow up and becoming a functioning adult member of society. i've relocated to depths of hell, a.k.a. seoul (the motherland). hopefully i won't be away for more than 2 years (730 days). only 3 months in ...

let the adventure begin!