According to the Chosun the majority of Korean women, to be more precise, eight out of ten would like to have cosmetic surgery. Out of those women 61.5 percent have undergone at least once surgery. No wonder, cosmetic surgery has just recently become tax deductible in Korea. What the…??

9:15 am
Ring ~ ring ~ ring

Lan-Anh: Hi Mom, sweetie. How are you?
Mom: Hello my beloved daughter. I’m fine. Are you still sleeping?
Lan-Anh: Oh no. I just got up. (I got out of bed - but did not tell her that I actually did not sleep at all due to the jet-lag). I’m still jet-lagged.
Mom: What’s that ‘jet-lagged?’ I don’t know that word.
Lan-Anh: Well, if you still have troubles adapting to your time zone after travelling abroad.
Mom: I see…I started my english class two weeks ago. We have a male teacher. His name is ‘C-o-l-i-n T-a-y-l-o-r’. (she pronounces his name with a heavy french accent).
Lan-Anh: Mom, it’s not ‘C-o-l-i-n T-a-y-l-o-r’. It’s ‘Collin Taylor’.
Mom slightly irritated repeats his name: Collin Taylor.
Lan-Anh: There we go.
Mom: We are learning new idioms such as ‘cheeky’ for ‘children’.
Lan-Anh: ‘cheeky?’
Mom: Yes. This has nothing to do with ‘cheeks’ she explains. Mr. Taylor taught us that that sometimes children are called that way because they are rude to the elderly.
Lan-Anh: I see

I am thinking to myself: what a sweet and lovely mom do I have. She is getting close to 70 years but yet she is still taking English and French classes. What a wonder woman!

I have slowly started to update my photography section
with some pictures taken during my trip. For more, click here

~ Irina ~

Irina, a friend whom I haven’t met since about 2 years is coming by tomorrow. She is a pharmacist and is currently aiming at getting a Ph.D. We just talked on the phone and I could not believe it. Though she lives a couple of hundreds miles away she has a boyfriend who lives just around the corner from where I live. I couldn’t believe that through all this time we have not even bumped into one another…

Just spoke to a friend of mine who told me something weird. He said that though he is christian he beliefs in afterlife. He said that the moment he met me he had some sort of dejavue as if he knew me from a previous life. I consider myself christian though I don’t go to church on a regular basis. I only go when I feel like going. It’s strange but if that would be true, what coincidence would that be to meet again in another life?

I feel so blessed meeting so many special people and having such a wonderful family and boyfriend to share my life with.

I’m still strugglling with my jet-lag. Couldn’t sleep until 4.30 am and woke up at 3 pm! My weekend is almost over. Damn it!

When I visited the US this time we stopped by at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, a museum that holds quite a collection of former president Reagan’s belongings. It even exhibits an older model of the Airforce one plane.

These are the items I picked up from my visit and that I consider as a must have for a future US president:

- Love Jelly Beans! Oh yes, those Jelly Beans can be decisive of really important matters such as life and death. So make sure you have Jelly Beans stored in any room that you potentially have access to.

- Call a big 24 inch VETO stamp your own.
Reagan received a VETO stamp in February 1987 as a gift from the White house Scheduling office

- Write love letters to your wife/husband
I did not know that Reagan was that romantic. Whenever he travelled he would write a few lines to his better half. How sweet is that for such a busy guy that he was!?

- Make sure to have a good portrait of you painted for the presidential gallery.

Now let’s look at some of the 2008 US presidential candidates…

Democrats:
Barack Obama
Hillary Clinton
…

Republicans:
Rudy Giuliani
…

Well there are even aspirations to change the law so that even Arnie could run for presidency. But that’s less likely to happen anyway coz 1) he does not need a VETO stamp nor 2) does he need to eat Jelly Beans…lol

I just got back from LA yesterday. We had pretty bad turbulences during the flight and heavy fog upon arrival (sight was less than 500m). My adrenaline went up and I just thanked God that I did spend abit more on the ticket to fly with a safe airline. My heart was still trembling and my knees felt like pudding when we arrived but I was safe and still alive after all!

I hate flying during the month of February. I had a similar bad experience several years ago taking a long distance flight from Chicago back to Germany. It was similar though not as bad as this time.

I recently talked to a Korean friend of mine who explained to me that there are actually two Valentine’s days in Korea. Febr. 14th, is the day where girls give their boyfriends chocolate. However, guys have a different date. On March 14th, it’s the guys turn to give his girlfriend candies. This day is called ‘White day’.

If you look at it closer the Korean culture has a whole lot of siginificant couple dates throughout the year that all relate to the 14th of the month such as March 14th, the ‘rose day’ where couples give each other roses or July 14th the ’silver ring day’ where they give each other silver promise rings.

~ Dinner with Steve at the Sea Grill in NY ~

New York: my first stop in the US where I had dinner right at Rockefeller Plaza at the Sea Grill which was located right next to the so famous ice skating rink. It was delicious and a very beautiful setting. I felt like being there during christmas time since there were still lights up on the trees. I had a great time and enjoyed meeting my former boss Steve again. He picked a great location and he even convinced me to try oysters for the first time in my life. I was pleasantly surprised. They were really yummy!