Yesterday we took Abby to Legoland. Multiple friends told us that it's perfect for Abby at her age.

They lied. Or at least, they didn't mention that there are certain caveats. Here's one: if your kid is a wuss, be absolutely certain that she doesn't go on a ride that might be remotely scary. It has the potential to ruin the day.

We hyped Legoland up enough that Abby was pretty excited about going. When we got there, we rode a plane ride that she loved, and after she got off, she exclaimed, "I love Legoland!" We were pleased.

Then (at my suggestion) Jieun took her on another ride, The Lost Kingdom Adventure. Big mistake. Huge mistake. It was a dark, kind of loud ride that really frightened her. Abby's easily frightened. There are still certain Clifford The Big Red Dog episodes that scare her. This particular ride was too much for her and she came out shuddering and talking non-stop about how scary it was. We felt terrible and tried to remedy it by taking her on what we thought was a safe ride, exactly like one she had ridden at Lotte World. Didn't work - she was now primed to be scared, and on the same ride she loved in Korea, she now yelled in fear.

After she got off, she kept saying repeatedly, "I don't like Legoland. I want to go back to the hotel." Yikes. She also interspersed that by saying she didn't want to see any Legos - apparently there were some Lego statues on the ride that were scary. Every time she saw another Lego statue, she freaked out. Hmm. Avoiding Legos at Legoland was going to be... difficult. Mind you, this is at around 10:30 AM. I immediately thought about all the non-refundable money we had spent on stupid Legoland tickets that would be going to waste. But I wasn't going to force her to stay. There didn't seem much point in that.

But Jieun said we needed to stay positive, so despite her chanting every 30 seconds "I don't like Legoland. I want to go back to the hotel," we decided to try. We took a long, leisurely early lunch, trying to take her mind off the scary ride experience. We then spent a good amount of time playing at a Lego store, just to reinforce that all Legos aren't scary, just some. And that worked. She got over her fear of Legos and was willing, though not eager, to stay, although she kept reminding us that she didn't to ride any of the scary rides at Legoland, and she deemed nearly every ride scary.

It took the rest of the day to slowly warm her up to everything else. A really mild ride here and there. Meeting the random Princess Lily. Going to the non-scary playground. I'm not sure we ever got to the point where she was excited about Legoland, but she seemed to be having a reasonable time. Even on some rides. However, literally every 10 minutes she kept talking about how "Kingdom Lost Adventure" was so scary, and how "mommy ruined my day." (Every time, Jieun corrected her, reminding her that the ride was my idea, thus mommy *and* daddy ruined her day.) It was both sad and hilarious seeing how much that ride scarred her.

By the end of the day, we made enough progress that she was actually expressing desire to go on certain rides, so Jieun took her on the Fairy Tale Adventure. Whoooooops. I was watching the boats go by while holding Joshua, and when Abby came along, I saw her clutching Jieun for dear life. Apparently this was another scary ride. She came out and exclaimed, full of fear, "Mommy ruined my day again!" So yeah, the day did not end well. As we were going home, she talked about how she didn't like San Diego and she didn't like Legoland and please don't take her there ever again.

In fact, she kept talking about it the rest of the night, and even today. This morning, when we woke up, I tried to prime her to think happy thoughts by talking about how we were going to the beach today. She quickly changed the subject and wanted to talk about Kingdom Lost Adventure and how scary it was. Dang. So yeah, not a positive experience for her. When you see her, ask her about Legoland, and she'll launch into a long monologue about how scary it is and how much she doesn't like it. It’s sad.

I have no idea why we insist on taking Abby to these expensive places when the things that please her most are actually the cheapest. There's almost a perfect inverse relationship between how much things cost and how much Abby likes them. Like, while we were in San Diego, I'd say the rank of things she liked, from most to least, were: swimming pool, TV shows, beach, zoo, Legoland. Even at Legoland, she clearly liked the playground area best. Next vacation, I'm taking her swimming every day and filling up the rest of the time with TV. It will be her favorite vacation ever.

So someone I know (a woman) constantly talks up wives, says how great they are and how lucky the husbands are to have them. I don't disagree one iota. Our wives truly are great. We truly are lucky to have them. They should be talked up. I'm trying to do that more myself.

I do have a question though - why is it OK for wives to hype each other up but not husbands? I'm not saying it's right or wrong, I'm just wondering why it is. Like, if some guy went around saying how awesome husbands are and how lucky women are to have their husbands, that would be weird, right? Kind of piggish. But why exactly is it not acceptable?

Or is it? Rob's been trying to do this thing where he hypes other husbands up in front of their wives. I can't remember his exact rationale. It's something absurd, and kind of along the lines of what I'm talking about. And I've tried to play along, but it comes off as insincere, mainly because it is. But maybe he's on to something. I don't think wives should hype each other up less. But maybe husbands should hype each other up more.

Incidentally, I take back that Rob is absurd. He's actually thoughtful, articulate, and caring. Sandra is a fortunate woman.

How much do you plan to protect your kids? So Abby prefers interacting with older kids. Thing is, oftentimes, said older kids are annoyed by her. At church recently, a couple of the older kids asked Abby to say something that she's been saying, and when she did, they laughed at her.

She was clueless about it all, just happy to be interacted with and not realizing they were making fun of her. I was pissed. But I didn't say anything. For one thing, nothing guarantees kids harboring more negative feelings towards another kid than having a parent intervene and tell them to be nice, unless it's their own kid, and even then it's touchy. I don't want to be That Parent for sure. The one who makes sure other kids treats their kid nicely. As kids, me and my friends always hated That Parent. I doubt children today are any different.

But more than that, I dunno. She has to learn at some point that it's a cruel world, filled with mean boys who want nothing more than to tear out her heart and stomp on it for no reason more than sport. Sooner she realizes it, the better.

I believe in different gender roles. Is that non-PC? I dunno, I just do. I don't know if it's possible to observe little kids and not come the conclusion that the different genders are just different, not just physically, but in other ways. You could argue that it's just cultural. But in a sense, that just kind of begs the question - why are there cultural gender roles? Where did they come from? It can't just be arbitrary.

That's not to say that I don't think women deserve more equal opportunities in roles they've traditionally been denied. And it's true that sometimes gender differences have been wrongly used to justify holding women back. That's bad, and needs addressing.

But even with those being the case, I'm not willing to go so far as to say that men and women are completely the same, as some commentators try to do. Anna Quindlen did this all the time in Newsweek. Any time anyone even suggested that men or women might be different in some area, she went off. And sometimes she was right. But she always assumed it rather than considering it. I don't think it's a universal assured assumption.

I mention this because I've been playing a lot of Bejeweled Blitz, and the list of scores higher than mine is dominated by women. I'll be honest: that bothers me. Aren't dorky video games supposed to be the domain of men? My friend has suggested that Bejeweled Blitz is all about pattern recognition, something women are better at. Maybe. But still. It's a dorky video game. Come on.

We men don't have much. The world already recognizes women as having better fashion sense and being superior dancers. We've granted that. You're really going to take domination of video games from us also? Really?

Anyway, I've tried a lot, and I just can't beat their scores. And a little part of me is dying.

I don't believe in Father's Day.

I do believe in Mother's Day. Just not Father's Day. And I've been saying this ever since I became a father. My reasoning is pretty simple: mother's do more. Because of that, it's not right that fathers get equal recognition/credit as mothers.

I remember telling this to someone years ago (before she had kids) and she was outraged, responding about how, in her view, fathers are extremely important, just as important as mothers, and so forth. I think she thought I was shirking my responsibility or something, saying that fathers don't do as much to let myself off the hook. That's the only way I can understand the outrage. In any case, that's not what I'm saying at all. Fathers are vitally important. They play a crucial, critical, irreplaceable role. Even still, I'm sorry, I don't know how else to say it, but mothers do more. I'm not even saying that they necessarily should do more. I'm just saying that they do. There are things that only mothers do.

If you want to distill it to the very basics, only mothers can bear children and breast feed. Even if the first part was all there was, mothers deserve special recognition. In fact, historically, Father's and Mother's Days never came together. Mother's Day has been celebrated for far longer, both informally and as a nationally recognized holiday. That's how it should be. They should never have added Father's Day at all.

So yeah, because of that, I'm against Father's Day. Just doesn't feel right to me that we both get equal days. Someone once asked if I'd be OK with having 2 Mother's Days and 1 Father's Day. I'd be down with that. Just not equality.

You know what I find absurd? In Korea, they combine Mother's and Father's into Parents' Day, which, predictably, I'm against. Even worse, they have Children's Day. Dude. As far as I'm concerned, *every* day is children's day. Especially here, where, for all intents and purposes, we idolize our children. They've already got it made. The last thing we need is another day for them. Seriously. We need a Biweekly Housecleaners Day before we need a Children's Day.

Anyway, Jieun has this interesting philosophy on celebrating Mother's Day. You know, it's common to give mothers a "break" on Mother's Day apart from the kids. She's against that. It's a day celebrating motherhood - she wants to be with the kids. She just doesn't want to have to watch them. So her request was lunch out with the family where she doesn't have to watch the kids at all. That means bringing friends with us to help with the kids. And that's what we did. We had a nice lunch with the whole family + friend helpers where she wasn't responsible for the kids at all.

I have to say, I was highly influenced by that and feel the same way. It makes sense to me. How does celebrating Father's Day by doing your own thing make any sense? It seems antithetical to the point of the day. "You're a great father - now go ditch your kids for real fun." If I believed in Father's Day, I would insist that any activity be something with the kids. But I don't believe in it, so.

Curmudgeon out.

I've been deathly sick the last few days. Wednesday and Thursday, I barely got out of bed. Insane headache, sore muscles, extreme fatigue, bitter taste in my mouth, cough, sore throat, snot, the works. I have no clue if this is swine flu but if it is, I don't recommend getting it. I still have all the symptoms, just milder, and man, it sucks.

The June 8 issue of Newsweek has a full-page ad that reads:

"What if church wasn't just a place to go on Sunday, but helped you have a place to go on Monday?

Rethink church at 10thousanddoors.org.

Thousands of Job Training Programs

Open hearts. Open minds. Open doors. The people of The United Methodist Church"

I was blown away. Who would have ever thought that the Methodist church would ever come up with something innovative or interesting? Just kidding. Kind of.

Random stats from Christianity Today:

Number of the 11 American Idol finalists who regularly perform at places of worship: 6

Number who have worked as worship leaders at a church: 3

So we finally have a little more free time. I don't know what it is. A lot has to do with Joshua sleeping the night, something we couldn't have happen until after Korea. The fact that he can somewhat play by himself has helped a lot also. Plus the Korea experience seems to have trained Abby to entertain herself. So more free time.

Parenthood is interesting. For me at least, it feels I reach a point where I can't take it anymore and right then, it gets better. And I don't even have a right to complain, as Jieun does the lion's share of everything. I'm actually kind of complaining on her behalf. But like, after some point you can't take having to carry the baby all the time - then he learns to sit up / crawl by himself. You get so sleep-deprived you think you're going to die - then the baby finally sleeps the night. It's as if child-development is timed so that each critical stage happens right at the emotional breaking point.

I dunno, either I'm doing it wrong or I'm not a natural parent. I think it's the latter. Because as rewarding as it is (and it truly is), it never ceases to feel like hard work. And it's exhausting. I literally don't know how parents of multiple children have any free time at all. For a long while, I didn't. My daily schedule was: wake up at 7 (or whenever Abby got up), get her ready for the day, feed her breakfast, on certain days take her to preschool. Then go straight to work. Come home around 7, finish dinner with the kids, have nighttime duty with Abby. We typically ate dinner after the kids went down, at like 9. Then we'd watch one TV show, do chores, then go to sleep. Every single day. Literally no free time at all.

Another reason I think I'm not a natural parent is because everything else in my life has suffered for it - I'm less effective at work (largely because I'm tired), my relationships have suffered, my spiritual life has suffered (a ton). That can't be how parenthood is supposed to be.

But yeah, like my sickness, it's slowly getting better.

Wow, kind of a downer.

I'm writing this solely because SKang talked about how quiet Laker haters are being. It won't make me many friends, and likely many enemies, but whatever.

I'm a hater. I hate Kobe Bryant. I hate Derek Fisher. And I hate certain Laker fans.

Complaining about Laker fans is much like complaining about L.A. - tired and cliched. It's always the same thing ("L.A. has smog and bad traffic? Oh really?") so it's boring and tedious. Naturally, I complain about both frequently. Because, like I said, I'm a hater.

First off, let me say this isn't about you, hardcore, true-blue Laker fan. Whenever I make valid observations about a segment (I emphasize - a segment) of Laker fans that annoy me, true-blue fans get all up in arms and assert how hardcore they are. "I camp out 2 days in advance of every game I go to. My left butt cheek has a tattoo of Nick the Quick and my right one of Elden Campbell. I never cheer for free tacos; when we get it I sell my coupon and use the proceeds to buy organic food to feed orphaned baby ducks."

I respect you, all right? But what you're saying is irrelevant. That you personally are hardcore doesn't change that there are other annoying fans out there. Chill out, I'm not talking about you.

In fact, the outragists kind of validate my point - the things that annoy me annoy you too, so much so that you go out of your way to say you're not like that. Like bandwagon fans. All true sports fans hate that. Adrian wrote about how, for athletes, adversity builds character. The same applies for sports fans. There's no honor in joining in the glory if you haven't participated in the agony. It's fun, but there's no character there. That's why I hate it. And the Lakers seem to pick up a lot of bandwagon fans (possibly the same "fans" who jumped on the Angels' bandwagon in 2002). Nothing personal, Lakers, but that annoys me. It's not your fault that that happens, but it does. For the record, the Warriors bandwagon fans in 2007 annoyed me as well. The Warriors have among the most hardcore fans in the NBA (they always have amazing attendance figures, despite always sucking. This season, they were 9th in leaguee attendance, just barely below the Lakers). After beating Dallas, all these rich bandwagoners who didn't know how to cheer started going to the games. Annoying.

The fact that so many attendees of Laker games at Staples arrive late and/or leave early more than at other venues (an observed fact) also annoys me. You can apologize for them all you want. I just find it annoying.

That Laker fans occasionally riot after championships is also pretty bush and indefensible.

There's one other thing about a minority of Laker fans that annoys me. I couldn't quite put a finger on what it was until recently. And that is, they're both arrogant and sensitive. Just being one or the other would be one thing. Being both is annoying. They trash talk, and that's all good. It's part of the fun of sports. But if someone expresses hate, they get all sensitive about it, going Harrison Ford in in Clear And Present Danger: "How dare you, sir!"

I don't get the combo. Most fans of consistently good teams are just arrogant. Like Yankees fans (and increasingly, Red Sox fans). Incredibly arrogant. But they're not sensitive. If anything, they welcome the hate. That's how arrogant they are. I remember talking to Dong some years ago after the Yankees lost a playoff series and asking if he was crushed, and he responded that he didn't quite feel it; even after the last out, he still thought they could pull it out. He was arrogant about their chances *after* they'd already lost! That's pure arrogance. I loved it.

On the flip side, in my experience, Rockets fans are super sensitive. The continually play the most tired card in sports of not getting enough respect. Even the most enduring team theme - Clutch City - was a response to a paper headline that called Houston "Choke City." Super sensitive. But there's no arrogance there. I think it's just insecurity. They're always afraid their team is going to let them down again. Even with the championships, there's this nagging thought that they only won them because Jordan was gone for a couple years. It's insecurity, not arrogance.

So yeah, why certain Laker fans are both arrogant and sensitive about their team is just bizarre to me. Chill out a little. Act like you've been there. Don't be surprised by hate. All successful teams bring out haters (like me) who, in the end, are simply jealous. No need to get all incensed about it. Learn a lesson from Jindo dogs.

I respect the vast majority of my Laker fan friends. Most have been following them for a while, and are just passionate about their team. I really admired how Dae Woo regularly got up at 4 AM in Korea to catch Laker games. That's pure. But yeah, it's not your fault, but your team picks up a fair share of annoying fans. They annoy me.

I think I tend to emphasize the bad more than the good when I blog, like with issues regarding the kids. Some of my family really worried when I wrote about Abby's tantrum phase. In reality, it was just a brief thing, probably related to sickness and tiredness as much as anything, and things got better soon. I should probably write about the good stuff more. But that's not my nature.

In any case, she still does throw (much milder) tantrums and goes through stages of general disobedience and crying. In the past couple months, though, she's started to do something new: in the midst of her crying, when I ask her if she's going to listen or continue to disobey / throw a tantrum / whatever it is she's doing, she says "I don't wanna cry. I don't wanna throw a tantrum." She basically asks us to help her stop crying.

I find that completely fascinating. She's expressing desire and emotion on two separate, conflicting levels. On a higher level, she doesn't want to cry, she doesn't want to throw a tantrum, understanding the consequences that come with it. But on a lower, more purely emotional level, she can't help feel but what she feels, and she can't stop crying.

To me, that brings up an interesting question about how much we can control our own emotions. Can we at all? I say yes. Mainly because I feel like I've done it myself. Like, I've written about this before, but I used to have road rage. Someone would do something to me and I'd be a total jerk on the road - tailgating, following people for long distances, other jerksauce stuff. It was especially bad (and in retrospect, highly dangerous) on the long, boring drives to and from SoCal. At some point, I decided this is bad behavior, and I remedied it by imagining that every other driver could be someone from church. And it worked. Haven't had real road rage since. So I know from experience that it's possible to control your emotional response.

The question is, how reasonable is it to expect that of others? That's one common theme of conflict in our marriage; we get upset at how the other responds emotionally. But how much can you change that? When you feel frustrated, you feel frustrated. When you feel angry, you feel angry. It's a visceral, almost reflexive response. It might be possible to change it. But it is a reasonable expectation?

I think where I stand now is, we can't necessarily control our emotions, but we can control our behavior in light of our emotions. Even if we feel angry, we don't have to yell or swear. We can control how we act, even if we can't control how we feel.

In fact, doing that is one thing that separates us from animals. Animals act completely according to instinct and emotion. Humans don't have to do that. And we shouldn't. That's why (to rehash an old topic) I hate the phrase "keeping it real". Someone saying it typically means they're going to act according to how they feel and not hold back. And if you think about it, that's saying they're going to be no better than an animal. WTG.

Abby doesn't want to keep it real. She doesn't wanna cry. And for this - as strange as it might seem to say about a 3-year-old - I respect her.

Her disobedience is still pretty annoying, though. Especially the kicking.

Facebook notes, since people aren't always aware of what's going on with the site.

First a heads-up - Facebook is going to be giving people usernames that you can use to refer to your profile. For example, http://www.facebook.com/dchai. It's going to be handled on a first-come, first-serve starting 12:01 EDT this Saturday (June 13). Just FYI, so you have the opportunity to the get the username you want. henryhsu may be taken on Twitter, but you'll get a fair shot on Facebook. And someone will be able to snag gracekim, if they're fast enough.

I've realized that a lot of people don't get the new newsfeed, so some basic info about it - it shows everything all your friends/Pages are doing. If you 'x' out a story from your friend, you won't see anything from them ever again. You can unhide them by going to the bottom of the feed and clicking on "Show Hidden Posts".

Personally, I find seeing everything overwhelming so I tend to use the filters on the left to just view photo updates or notes updates, etc.

The Highlights in the right column is kind of what Newsfeed was like before - not everything that's happening, but the best-of, stuff you're more likely to be interested in.

Photo album sizes were increased from a maximum of 60 photos to 200 recently.

Also added the ability to specify family relationships, not just significant others, in your profile. Haven't seen many people use it.

Questions? Comments? Concerns? Ask away. Just click on a couple (relevant only) ads before you do.

So while I was in Korea, I was on the lookout for the hip new trend in Korean food. You know, these random Korean food trends that seem to go in waves here in the U.S. About 15 years ago there was the soon tofu thing. A while back the whole dduk bo sam thing went through L.A. There's the tart yogurt craze now.

I couldn't discern any trends at all while I was there. Maybe wine. They suddenly got super into wine in the past 5 years. Wine bars and ads for wine are all over the place, especially the hipper areas. Or it might be dessert waffles - waffles with like ice cream and other assorted sweetness on it. They were serving that at many places as well (including Red Mango). But yeah, not totally sure what's currently hip.

Foods I liked in Korea: (SN. We discovered almost all of these thanks to Ann. She was great.)

Fried chicken. OK, maybe this is the hip new trend. I remember going to fried chicken places in '95, but it's seemingly exploded in the past few years; there are many fried chicken chains that seem to have a franchise every few blocks. Nathan mentioned how he loved Kyo Chon when he went, and we got that multiple times. Delicious. We also loved B.B.Q. Chicken. Different styles - the first is a little plainer with a subtle taste in the skin, the latter is more sauce based. Both delicious. And the radish they serve with it is also uniquely tasty.

This trend's already hit the U.S. Esquire recently did a survey of the best wings in America and the winner was this Korean place in Manhattan (Bon Chon). Based on the picture, that seems Kyo Chon style. And I love 99 Chicken in Santa Clara. Love. That's kind of more B.B.Q. Chicken style. No one cares.

Hanwoo beef. As you may or may not know, Koreans are extremely prejudiced against American beef. Part of it is related to some ridiculous political things that happened some time back. In general, there's a widespread belief that the beef America exports to Korea sucks, quality wise. Our expat American friends know it's ridiculous... but they avoid American beef anyway. Australian beef is apparently a popular alternative.

The most highly regarded beef is Hanwoo beef. I've been told that "Hanwoo" just means domestic. In any case, Koreans treat it kind of like the Korean version of Kobe beef. We went to a resort for a few days and area was known for its Hanwoo cattle, so we splurged on a meal of it. I've never had true Kobe beef, so no clue whether it compares, but it was pretty freaking good. Marbled, tender, and flavorful. They had a number of raw beef items on the menu to allow you to taste it in purity. We ordered the beef sushi. Bad idea. Pieces of meat that big are just impossible to chew through, no matter how good it is. (Now that I think about it, I think I got something similar in Vancouver on Road Trip II and had the same problem. I guess I never learn.) We ended up putting them on the grill, to the chagrin of our waitress. But yeah, pretty delicious meat.

Shabu shabu. We went to this random shabu shabu place near Jieun's mom's 수서 apartment and it was awesome. The shabu shabu was great. What's better is what comes after - when the main stuff is mostly gone, they add more spices and (hand-pulled) noodles to the concentrated broth to make a delicious noodle soup. After serving that, they add rice, egg, sesame leaves and other ingredients to the dregs and make a rice porridge. It's like a 3-course meal. Brilliant. Jieun and I loved it and ended up going a couple times.

Chicken Kalbi. Ann mentioned this to us. It's not like in the States, where it's kind of like chicken teriyaki. Each table has a big hot plate, and you choose stuff to mix in with the chicken, which is in a spicy marinade, and they cook it at your table. The mixins are things like different veggies, noodles, and rice cakes. We ordered it with mozzarella-filled 떡 (which I liked, others not so much). It was interesting. I liked it. Didn't love it, not craving it. But I'd have it again for sure.

Milk Kiss. They sell this in the Korean markets here also, but I hadn't really had it until the trip. I remember the first time I had Pinkberry, I thought, this tastes like the Korean yogurt drinks. Well imagine that same common yogurt taste in a carbonated soda. That's Milk Kiss. Delicious. We drank this constantly during the trip.

Really, everything else. It's just nice having multiple options for everything. Here, you're stuck with whatever you can get. But there are tons of good naengmyun, jjajjangmyun, jook, and other places there. It's awesome. I even loved the COEX mall food. The Japanese was fine. And I love the unique things. Like I got this omorice combo that included I think a breaded chicken cutlet stuffed with cheese, ham, and chestnut. Delicious.

Foods I Did Not Like in Korea:

The bulgogi burger at McDonald's is not recommended. I'm not entirely certain the patties are meat. Decidedly different than the other burgers, and not the color of anything I associate with meat. Pretty gross all around.

Steff Hot Dog. It's this random hotdog chain that's inexplicably popular in Korea. I say inexplicably because it's vile. You can see the menu at www.steffhotdog.com/. The "Chili" dog has ketchup, relish, onions, and corn. The Steff hotdog includes this random topping that I've yet to figure out even after eating it (sadly) twice. Corn flakes? KFC style batter flakes? Bacon? Unclear. But I think it made me sick.

B.B.Q. Chicken House Beer. So the whole fried chicken craze is all about chicken and beer. I had the chicken multiple times, but with beer just once. Big mistake. It came in a big, unlabeled, possibly used bottle. That should have set off a warning bell, but I ignored it. It tasted fine while drinking it, but that night I had the worst diarrhea I've had in years. Not good times. Bad times.

The most stressful moments of the trip were, predictably, language issues. Surprisingly, driving really wasn't that bad. As I said, everyone's more mindful of traffic laws / signs / lanes now, and the GPS devices are amazing. The only real difference with the U.S. is that aggressive driving is safer there, because that's what everyone expects. Pedestrians are surprised when you wait for them to cross. And you're liable to get hit by the car behind you, because they don't expect it either. Just drive aggressively, and everything's cool.

But yeah, language issues. Especially when I had to get food or shop for other things for the family on my own. I couldn't understand the clerks and they couldn't understand me. Stress. Especially when I didn't understand the customs either. Like, I once went out to get jjajjangmyun takeout. I had to wait for our order, but the guy wouldn't let me sit down at a table. So I had no clue what to do. I kind of stood around, wandering among the tables, pretending to read a poster for 15 minutes. Awkward.

I only really got grief once, from the sooyi ahjushee at the apartment we were staying at. He asked why my Korean is so bad, and I explained that I was born in America. He countered by saying that he was born in Japan, and he still speaks Korean. I lied to him that and said that I had no Korean friends in America, so no one to speak with. He then went on an extended diatribe about how he spoke Japanese but spoke Korean when he got together with other Koreans, and how Koreans in the U.S, Japan, England, Brazil, etc. need to speak Korean.

I've explained why I don't speak Korean before, and Dave seems to get annoyed by it whenever I say, but whatever, I'll say it again. It's not like his blog is full of original thoughts.

My dad always told us that speaking English to us was an intentional choice. He believed that if he spoke Korean to us, we'd grow up speaking Korean, but we wouldn't be able to talk deeply and freely with him or my mom. So he decided to sacrifice our Korean speaking ability in favor of a better relationship with them.

A lot of people I know question his premise, that speaking Korean necessarily means a less open relationship. It's not necessarily true, but I do think it's generally true. It's rare the family where kids speak to their parents in Korean and they are able to have deep talks. Not unheard of, but rare. Regardless, it kind of worked for our family. My friends are frequently surprised at how we talk, for example, how we discuss issues at the dinner table. They find that odd.

Anyway, that's the story my dad always told. Thing is, I'm not totally sure it's true. The flip side is, I only spoke Korean until I was maybe 3 or 4 (hard to believe, but true). My parents enrolled me in preschool, and I couldn't communicate with any of the other kids, so I would sit off by myself the entire time. Apparently the teachers told my mom that they needed to start speaking English to me. And that's when they started.

Which is the real reason? Maybe a bit of both. Regardless, I suck at Korean and although a part of me wants to learn it, I don't want to enough to actually do it. Weighing the cost/benefit, there are other things I'd rather do with my time. Oh well.

That said, my Korean did improve from nearly non-existent to merely extremely poor. Especially reading. Abby got a couple Korean children's books from the library last week and I've been able to read them at night, at which she expresses (in surprise) "You can read Korean! How did you learn to read Korean?"

I suppose I should write more about Korea. I do have a lot of thoughts about it, but they're kind of captured by the pics I'll post eventually.

I've loved Korea every time I've gone. I wish the most recent trip were under happier circumstances, but regardless, I love Korea. Which is odd; most people who love Korea either speak Korean or are inspired to speak Korean after visiting. I'm awful and, to be honest, have no real inspiration to get any better. Given the people I normally interact with, the work/benefit ratio of learning Korea compared is too low in my mind compared to other things I want/need to do. But I still love it every time I go.

Since I go so infrequently, each time I do I'm struck by the changes in the country. I first came for a summer in 1995 (and had a blast, but sadly learned very little Korean. Instead of sending me to the standard Korean language program at Yonsei, my mom sent me to this new program at KAIST. Because it was so new, the monkeys ended up running the zoo, and everyone in my class ended up staying up all night at the arcade or video bang and ignoring our classwork. Great time. One random note about that summer - another guy in my program was the same age as me, had the exact same Korean name as me, and the same English first name. The only differences was that he went by Choi and I went by Chai, and he was from Canada. Daniel Sunil Choi and Daniel Sunil Chai. Caused more than a little confusion. What are the chances of that?), and in a class for my program, the (sociologist) professor characterized South Korea as a third world country. I remember being shocked by that. I'm not sure what my definition of a third world country was, but Korea seemed too advanced to be that. But according to the strict definition, Korea apparently did fall in that category.

This is probably obvious, but there's no way it's a third world country anymore. They're so obsessed with new things there, I think it's safe to say that the average apartment in Korea is way more technologically advanced than the average home in the U.S.

I noticed other things also. Some minor. Like in '95, the streets of Korea smelled of raw sewage. When I got back home and occasionally caught a whiff near a dumpster, I'd be reminded of Korea. I didn't caught any of that smell this time around.

The bigger changes are in things like language and foreign influence. In '95, every single taxi driver gave me grief (some wouldn't even drive me) because of my poor Korean. When I went in 2004, I was shocked to find that the taxis in Seoul now had phones where you could call a central office for translations if you didn't speak Korean. In light of how Korean language-centric the cab-drivers were 9 years prior, I was stunned.

There's way more foreign influence and culture now also. In '95, there was only Korean food and some bastardized American fast food (also random chains like TGI Fridays and Coco's that were considered relatively upscale). By the end of the summer, I had intense cravings for Mexican food, and there was none to be found in the country. In '04, there was some more variety. Many more American chains also. Also saw some non-East Asian tourists (Indians) in Korea for the first time. This time around, it's crazy. Tons of Italian places. French bakeries. I saw some Indian restaurants. Even Nepalese food. Lotte World had a Mexican place. Sure, they served curry rice, but still. Korea's changing.

I think I mentioned how cars stay in their lanes more and consistently stop at red lights now. Stop signs, not so much, but still progress.

In general, you get the sense that it's an affluent society now. It's not just things like technology. It's also with things like healthy food ("well-being" is a phrase that's used everywhere. Frequently in combination with natural, organic ingredients) and environmentalism - the green movement is huge in Korea, maybe even more pervasive than here. I didn't get the sense of the environmentally skeptical conservative influence there. Maybe that's just a uniquely American thing. In any case, yeah, the green thing is huge there, and it's a luxury of an affluent society.

I don't know, it blows my mind. In my parents' lifetime, Korea went from extreme poverty to being one of the most wealthy countries in the world. The change in the quality of life in such a short time is stunning.

Some random observations about Korea. None original or profound, and possibly inaccurate since I only get a superficial impression of things when I'm here, but whatevs.

There are parking issues, as you might expect in such a densely occupied country. They have an interesting system when cars double park in front of apartment complexes: they either leave their cell number on the windshield so they can be contacted when people with cars that are blocked in need to leave, or they keep the car in neutral so that other people can roll their cars out of the way.

Everywhere delivers here. This includes places you would expect, like grocery stores and restaurants (although what's cool about the Chinese restaurants is that they deliver the food in bowls, then come a couple hours later to pick the empty bowls up). But even McDonald's delivers. Nice. I had BBQ Chicken (Motto: "Olive Luxury Chicken". Also: "Best Of The Best Quality") and beer delivery this evening. Good times.

Koreans use doilies as dishwasher sponges. I find it really odd.

I'm positive I've written about this before, but in Korea, there's no real separation between the showers and the rest of the bathroom. Usually literally - there's no wall or curtain (or rod to put a curtain) separating the shower, so when you shower, the water just goes everywhere and goes a drain in the the middle of the bathroom. I've thought about this a lot, and I think I like this system better. It's kind of nice to be able to hose down the entire bathroom. The only downside is that you have to get used to the whole bathroom (and everything in it) being wet.

There are fewer diaper sizes here. The Korean brands only come in 3 sizes, basically small, medium, and large. Even the U.S. brands (e.g. Huggies) come in only 4 sizes, where in the U.S. they may have 6 or more. They seem to fit kind of differently also.

In the U.S., Dora speaks English with some Spanish. Here, she speaks Korean with some English. Which makes sense, but it's still interesting to see.

Caillou is named Hoya in Korean.

There are two separate rent systems here. Say you're renting an apartment that sells for ~$800,000 USD. Under one system, you pay $250,000 USD up front and that's it. The landlord basically makes money off the interest from that payment until you move out and get your deposit back. Under the other system, the deposit is much smaller (say $100,000 USD), but you pay rent, maybe $1000 USD a month. I haven't worked out the math of everything but I thought it was an interesting system.

For various reasons, I've had to drive here (illegally - I never got an International Driver Permit. In the course of trying to procure one, I discovered that my CA License is currently expired. Whoops). It's less crazy than I remember, but still chaotic. Like in the intersections, the lanes the cars end up in have only a loose relationship with the lanes they started in. It's kind of a free-for-all and you have to stay on your toes. They also have this terrible system where every light shows the status of the left-turn lane arrow, and the left-turn green is always followed by the normal green. So the normal green is always preceded by the yellow light for the left-turn green. So as soon as it turns yellow, every car starts creeping up and jockeying for position. Just kind of adds to the chaos. But in general, like I said, it seems a lot better than last time. Like, people mostly stay in their lanes and stop at red lights.

Koreans (at least some of them) are maniacal about giving babies barley tea. They basically start them on it from birth. It's seen as being better hydration than water, and better for things like reducing fever. Just kind of a random thing. In the U.S., babies don't even get water for months. Here, big emphasis on barley tea. From birth.

My Korean is as bad as ever, but I've gotten by OK. Ironically, I do worst with phonetic approximations of English, and it's everywhere. Like, today at various vendors, I had to order Korean approximations of "Chicken Burger" and "Sausage Set" ("set" is like a fast food "meal" - with a drink and fries). Do I just say "sausage" the way I normally would? Would they understand? Or do I try and say it the Korean way? The problem with that is, it's really hard to say English wrong (cf. Daniel Dae Kim on Lost), which is basically what these Korean terms are. I've been going with the second method and I invariably get quizzical looks.

I just watched a performance by Tinted Windows, a supergroup consisting of members from Smashing Pumpkins, Fountains of Wayne, Cheap Trick and... Hanson???

I liked it.

Interesting Q&A about the importance of play.

You know one thing I miss about Catholic school - they had really developed theology on many subjects and taught what they were. Like, in a Social Justice class, I learned about a theology of food, and it was fascinating. Evangelicals probably have theologies on subjects like these, but it's not popularly communicated, for whatever reason.

Anyway, the subject of the Sabbath (and rest in general) is another one of those subjects I find fascinating that (at least in my experience) isn't really taught about too much. But it's treated as hugely important in Scripture. Sabbath rest is there from the creation of the world to the end of time (Hebrews describes salvation as entering into rest). But how often do we really think about rest? Or think of it as being holy? Or think about what it could possibly mean that rest is holy?

That the Q&A guy concludes that play is vital doesn't surprise me. It's consistent with what Christians believe - we were designed for rest.

It also confirms to me that Sunday Halo - even Easter Sunday Halo - is altogether appropriate.

Me (on the phone): Abby, I miss you very much.

Abby: OK. Bye. (Leaves).

--

Me: Sam is my discipler.

Kevbo: Scary.