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victorie552onepiecespeedrun · 4 years

Text

Reading One Piece pt 189: *Blasts Benny Hill Theme At Full Volume*

Chapter 436

Thoughts:

- Fpos/cs: “Junior Lieutenant Spacey regrets running away from the enemy” aww, this is horrible! They have war on the moon! (I look at that tiny guy and feel what I believe Chopper was designated to cause in readers)

- “Guys, you’re all prepared to deal with that matter about Usopp, right!?” is that Zoro asking? Probably. And I’m not sure they’re prepared. But they should at least know how they feel I guess?

- Lol at Sanji, he still can’t deal with his bounty poster :D

- askhgjsfdkhsjk his face

- lol

- ah, they explained Nami’s poster. She thought she was posing for the town’s magazine but she got tricked

- yeah, Chopper got the worst deal out of it for sure. Being named a pet AND being worth 50 Beri!? Is that even a dollar

- (give me a second)

- (Guys. Google tells me 50 yen(JPY) is worth 0,48 dollar(USD). It’s not even HALF A DOLLAR, I’M SO SORRY CHOPPER)

- Ok, Straw Hats are leaving their house for good. Let’s see their new ship

- Oh look, marine headquarters. WHICH marine headquarters, I kind of would like to know. Where are they? At what island? What if someone would want to draw a map or make a fanfic about marines life (ok, I’m just causing problems on purpose, nevermind)

- LOL, they don’t have Sanji’s photo cause they forgot to take off the lens cap :D

- With Galley-ga guys! SHOW US THE SHIP!

- Luffy: GIVE US THE SHIP!

(aww, it’s exactly how he made Kaya give them Merry! That’s so sweet and hilarious)

- SHOW US SHOW US SHOW US

- YOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- IT’S SO BIG!

- “twice as big as Merry”!!!

- “Show me the kitchen! Kitchen!” I think Sanji loves the new ship the most at the moment :D Show the man his kitchen, team

- The head is a lion!

- Lawned deck! Do you understand? THEY HAVE GRASS ON THEIR SHIP

- They also have trees. Maybe even not Nami’s orange trees :D

- Nami is happy about sails :)

- Chopper found a slider. That ship has everything

- “A fridge with a lock!!!! Thank you Franky!!!” Sanji’s dreams just came true. This is great

- Oh look, Franky isn’t here

- Franky wants to sail with them but… doesn’t want to sail with them?

- Nevermind it’s all nonsense anyway. Stop saying stupid things and get on the ship Franky. When you’ll show up, that is

- “Just take him by force” “By force!? Can we really!?” Luffy sounds pretty excited about that if you ask me

- On Franky’s House, Frankies, to Franky: Bro, the f*ck you doing here

Franky: Chilling

- They will throw him out of his own house, lol

- Frankies: GET THE HECK OUT OF HERE

Frankies: WE GOT YOUR PANTS

(…what)

- What

- What is happening

- …ok then

- Franky’s yelling about their ship cool features while running naked through the city. Ok

- That’s not what I pictured but it was folly of me to expect normal recruitment and departure from a Straw Hat. Silly me :D

- IS CANNON??? REALLY NECESSARY???

- *wheezes* WHAT IS HAPPENING

- “This is a great ship” “it sure is”

- “BE OUR NAKAMA!”

Come on, Franky! Don’t be a tsundere and say yes!!!

rOP 188 rOP 190

#one piece speed read #NEW SHIP #NEW NAKAMA #GO STRAW HATS #I still can't figure index stuff so I'm updating tags #I WILL figure it out #when I'm finished that blog should have THREE means of finding posts #It's just I'm not great at computers in general #AND I have to fistfight my brain to get literary anything done #3 of recaps just refuse to show up when I look for them #even thought their tags are fine #what's up with that #spoiler #spoilers #have a nice day #rOP 189

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ais-n · 4 years

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1 | more like apologise for how harmful it was? how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh. and i say this as someone who has read the books twice. first time i didn't see what i saw the second time. i think you genuinely wanted to have people of colour representation but it's very racist to me how hsin and emilio were done. constantly called "exotic" which is a thing americans like to use so much when it's not their ethnicity.

Hi! Thanks for the detailed explanation, I appreciate it! At first I had such HIGH HOPES I could reply to all three of your asks in one place but it turns out I talked too much (go figure lol) So I’m going to do then one at a time. I did want to start out replying to one offhand comment in the 3rd ask and then I’ll get into the rest. Below is what I had written before I realized I need to split it into three and then edited out saying I’m answering all at once. For anyone who hasn’t seen all three asks yet, that’s why part of what I’m talking about isn’t represented above - anon, hopefully it makes more sense to you since you know the future right now from what you had written in the past. ....wow, I made that confusing.

++++++

Thank you for the explanation! I appreciate you too! Also you made me laugh out loud at the gay comment, so thank you for that XD You are not making me feel worse; I appreciate the courage you no doubt had to pull together to post this :) I could be wrong but if I imagine myself in your place, I imagine feeling a little scared or intimidated to post and yet feeling it is necessary. I think it’s really cool you were able to post this in such a thoughtful explanation. Thank you!

In order to not overwhelm anyone’s inbox - and to make it easier for you - I put these all together in one ask. [[[EDIT: JUST KIDDING I talk too much - this is answering stuff from each ask at a time, sorry. I put it behind a cut to make it less long on people’s dashboards.]]]

Still, I imagine with so much I want to talk about at once, I will probably miss things so let me know if I miss something you really wanted to talk about or you wanted follow up on something in particular.

Anyway READ MORE BELOW for a probably stupidly long reply lol Just, knowing me at least….

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Hi welcome to the below deck party! I don’t know why I said it that way. That was creepy sorry lol Anyway I’m breaking this up a little bit but the more I think about it the more I think this probably really can’t address everything properly in one place. So, again, seriously just let me know if you want follow up on anything - or if anyone does, for that matter. I’m not doing this quite in order though.

RACE:

Yeah actually, I agree that “exotic” is pretty ??? terminology to be using tbh. I don’t imagine I would use that wording if I were writing something today and if we were to edit the series now, I’d remove it. I don’t remember the context, to be honest; whether it was only used in narration or if it was used in dialogue too. Dialogue might stay, if it’s to show a person speaks a certain way and has certain views on life, but I’d personally probably change that in narration unless it had a specific reason for being there. Which my very vague memories combined with your comment make me think probably not?

In regards to Hsin/Emilio plus even terminology like ‘exotic’ or whatever being used - so, upfront, I need you to know this whole post is not an excuse or etc. It’s just an explanation.

I didn’t write Hsin or Emilio, so I honestly can’t speak for or about them. I would like to be able to give you some insight into “Sonny’s” background and his friends and family he said he was inspired by in writing them, or give you insight into Alicia’s background (as she is a person of color, at least I was always told she is), but I truly don’t even know what was a lie and what was truth anymore. He always told me his characters like Hsin and Emilio were based pretty directly on people he knew - well, Emilio in particular was hugely based on a cousin of his. But that cousin didn’t exist, it turns out, or at least not in the way I knew. We wrote our own characters and were in charge of their own stories, although we also co-wrote the series as a whole and had input on the plot and etc. But I never really dealt directly with Emilio or Hsin in the writing of them other than how my characters interacted with “his” characters.

I can’t speak on behalf of anyone so I honestly can’t say if Emilio and/or Hsin are concerning or not concerning portraitures of any demographic. I really feel that such a determination has to be up to each reader. I say that in part because I’ve heard over the years that people actually appreciated the way they were written, for various reasons, and some of the people saying that were from demographics that the characters represented. But that also doesn’t mean it has to be something across the board; that because one person feels a certain way, everyone else whether in or out of that demographic has to agree. Quite the opposite, really.

I wish I could even say something like “I know Sonny did a lot of research on xyz specific topic because we talked about abc in regards to it” but I can’t. I know we had those conversations but I don’t know if anything I was told is true. What I can say is the series was written basically 15 years ago. Or rather, started around 15 years ago, then written on/off over multiple years. And we started it essentially in the same vein as BL fanfic, just sort of as a fun thing to do on our off time without any initial plan to ever publicly share it. The good thing about humans and culture is we change as we grow, and there are many things we can continue to gain understanding of as we go.

One of the really good things about the last 15 years is it’s become more and more accessible to learn about the world and its people. When we started ICoS, for example, Google streetview wasn’t a thing. In order to try to be accurate about something like the streets of a particular city, we either had to totally make shit up and say the war changed everything in that town or I had to try to track down a paper map of it and hope nothing had changed significantly since then.

Slowly over the years, the globalization of information expanded. Over time, all the little details I didn’t know to even question became things I could find easily. Like, do they say W Something St or Something St W? Is it Avenue Blah or Blah Avenue? Do they even use terminology like avenue or streets? Do they commonly have alleyways everywhere or anywhere and if so how big are they? What are the roads made of? What is the lighting like? Are there basements?

I grew up in Midwest USA on the tail end of tornado alley where a basement is an absolute must. Imagine my absolute confusion when I learned there are houses out there where they DON’T go underground. Like, at all. wtf??? From my, at that time obviously limited, experience, the only people I personally knew who didn’t have some sort of underground space were apartment dwellers or my friend who lived in the mobile home park. It was such a staple understanding in my life to assume everyone had a basement in their home that I had no idea to even question the existence of such a thing when trying to write another location within the US, let alone anywhere else in the world. And at a certain point when we were writing it, I didn’t even know to ask certain questions, or if I did I didn’t have an easy way of finding it.

If you were to read the very, very original version of Evenfall and compare it to what’s most recently released, for example, there are many differences. One example of something you might notice is the streets are totally different in Monterrey. That’s because we had to make up streets the first time around because I could not find any maps for the city. I tried but they just weren’t accessible for whatever reason; not in the detail I needed and where I could find them, or probably afford. We had to just be like “Welp, guess the war changed it all, sry!” to explain the random names and structure. But as the years passed, information spread to a minute level across the world slowly but surely. First, Google eventually had the layout of the city streets, then it had satellite imagery, then it had Google streetview, then it had people randomly uploading photos to locations, and so on. Eventually, there was enough information from big to small to feel relatively sure we could at least somewhat accurately represent the geography - not perfectly, absolutely not because we’d never been there - but an approximation that hopefully wouldn’t be too jarring for someone actually able to visit, themselves.

You may wonder why the hell I’m talking about streets in Mexico when your comment was on Hsin’s and Emilio’s characterizations, but I mention it because I look at a lot of things in writing with that same level of paranoia of wanting all the details possible to write it to try to be as accurate to at least someone’s reality as possible. That’s one reason why I haven’t written Domino, for example, which focuses on Vivienne’s life; it probably seems like it should be easy to do, and in ways it is. But I don’t feel nearly educated enough on how it would be to grow up in France in a rural then urban area with the sort of pressures she had as a young woman and with her different levels of wealth and the way she looked and etc etc to be fair to anyone who may find representation within that and to not accidentally jar them totally out of the experience by the equivalent of randomly throwing a basement in the middle of Texas because who the fuck knew Texans don’t automatically have basements in all their homes??

Really, with anything, there is always room for improvement - especially with anything as complex as any aspect of any demographic which inherently then serves as some form of representation for a huge variety of human beings. Humans, being complex beings themselves, will thus have an even larger variety in the way any topic can be seen. What is severely off-putting to one person might be acceptable to another. Sometimes society steps in and is like nah bro, idgaf if you’re cool with that, I’m not. And sometimes it remains so complex that it’s hard to give one exact answer.

What we tried to do was listen to feedback as we wrote and take it into account in the writing of the series itself. Also, especially later in the series, whenever possible we tried to do research as much as possible on whatever detail or topic we had going on to try to be as accurate as possible.

I’m truly not trying to skirt any sort of issue, I just don’t think I can properly say a singular reply to your concern without being unfair to different voices I’ve heard on this topic over the years. If I had never heard directly or indirectly from people that they specifically appreciate the representation of the characters, if in fact I had only ever heard concerns about them, it would be easier to say we were wrong. But I’m not part of any of the demographics so I can’t speak on behalf of any of them. Thus, I can only listen to what different people tell me, and know that regardless of what I’m told, for them that is truth and thus I respect it.

What I will say is it certainly was not the intention to upset, insult, alienate, or otherwise cause concern for anyone reading the series for anything other than the actual things intended to be fucked up like the things the characters went through and so on. I’m very sorry that the characterization is so upsetting and concerning for you. That really sucks; it takes away from the point of the story and puts you in a place that is deeply uncomfortable. I’m very sorry we put you in that position.

RELATIONSHIPS

Actually, I’d love to hear more what you mean by your comment. I have certain inferences I make based on what I think you mean but I don’t want to misinterpret and misrepresent your concerns.

The way I interpret “how the mlm relationships were so clearly hetero? the sex scenes were so straight to me tbh.” is maybe related to the idea of dominance vs submission? Like making an equivalence of that to masculine = dominant = power/strength = top = Hsin, and feminine = submissive = weakness = bottom = Boyd? Is that what you’re suggesting or did you mean something else? I have a lot of thoughts on this subject but, again, I don’t want to ramble on a tangent if I am totally misunderstanding what you meant. Especially since I rambled so much above.

So if you’d like to explore the topic more and would like thoughts/answers/etc just let me know in another anon ask more specifically what you mean, if you can. Thank you :)

I’ll go onto ask 2 for now - I forgot exactly what came up in that ask vs the 3rd ask so I’m not sure how long it will take me to type up a reply. Just in case I don’t finish it today, I wanted to sign this off in the meantime with I hope you’re staying healthy and safe!

#Anonymous #ask ais #icos #in the company of shadows

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thedappleddragon · 3 years

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ugh im big stupid and haven't been posting my shit here for a while. I've still been typing it out in my notes, I just havent transferred them onto here lol. im putting it all under the cut, don't worry

Today was pretty dang nice! I spent a little time outside because it was nice and warm out, I drew a little in my sketchbook and digitally rendered a picture of Anna’s new princess outfit, ran an errand with my mom to pick up a graphing calculator and a pack of soda, ate some Wendy’s, and did a lot of sewing for my dress! I joined the bodice lining and exterior, and did a little over half of the sewing for the skirt. I’m doing French seams so there’s no raw edges on the inside, so I still have to iron it and go over the second round of stitches. My machine malfunctioned for a moment with the thread tangling up in the lower bobbin thingy, so I left it alone for like an hour and it fixed itself lol. I’m very happy with how the bodice came out after clipping all the extra fabric in the corners and test fitting it. I think it’ll be great when it’s done!! Although I may or may not need to seam rip a little bit of the skirt to extend the zipper down so I can get it over my fuckin DUMPTRUCK when putting it on. Right now there’s enough stretch to put it on, but Idk how well that’ll stay after attaching the 2 pieces. Also it might end up making me look fat/preggo in the end with how the skirt lays lmao. I also did a really quick test fit with the sleeves, and I might actually like it better sleeveless? I’ll put one on anyway and go from there to see which I like better. HOORAY this dress has pockets!! But I may have put them a little low lol. I wanted to do a big dress debut at prom, but turns out graduates aren’t allowed due to covid restrictions :( so that really sucks. But we’re still gonna hang out a little bit beforehand, and I can still do a debut. I made a little bow out of some scrap dress fabric, which I want to put in my hair for pre-prom. I think I’ll braid my hair, maybe get some fake flowers from dollar tree and ribbon to add somehow, and put the ribbon either at the bottom or the top, wherever the hair tie eventually goes. I’m so exited to work on it more. I’m kinda running out of white thread tho so I’ll have to get more. Later in the evening i got hungry and made ramen while my dad and I watched a documentary on some of the horrible shit that went on all around the world during 2020, some of which I had forgotten about, some that was really surreal and out of a dystopian movie, and some stuff that was just upsetting to watch. It was still pretty good tho. I got work tomorrow and I’m really sleepy even tho it’s only 12:30 so I think I’m gonna grab a snack and go to sleep soon. Gnight mwah

Yesterday I worked and sewed until I ran out of thread and drew a little bit. Spent most of my shift watering flowers, then I went home and ate for a moment, then watered more and picked dead flowers and talked about avatar and other animated shows with the highschool girl I work with. Came home and hung out for a while, that evening made some good pasta.

Today I justly hung out, then went with mom to pick up a bookshelf and went through strawtown which I thought was a very funny name for a town. There was a cute antique shop in there tho. On the way back we stopped in a sewing shop called Always in stitches. I expected it to be a very small shop, but it was SO much bigger than I thought it would be. They had tons of fabric and quilting supplies, and lots of old ladies working and talking. I picked up a cone of white thread and a fabric sample pack. Then I sewed my dress a little bit. I still have lots to do, and only like 2.5 days to do it. I’ll get there tho. All I have to do is add the skirt hem, add the pockets back in (I took them out so I could see them in normally), add sleeves and hem them, and add the zipper. And attach the skirt to the bodice. I think I’ll be able to do it. I had yogurt for the first time in forever today. Tbh I used just enough to hold together the strawberry and granola bits kgelgskgs. It was pretty good tho. I drew ELEVEN pages in my sketchbook, about 8 of them being a comic about the pony au of our royalty au. I could have done the comic with human characters but ponies are so much easier to draw aggsssdh. I spent 40 minutes typing out the dialogue and editing it on top of the rest of the comic so my friend could read it, but she still hasn’t read my text :( oh well that’s fine lol. The original plot was supposed to be Sam talking to an accidental illusion of me being mean about her blight, but then I accidentally made it something different. I might just draw the alternate ending instead. Update I just did

Yesterday I sewed and went to Menards to buy tile for moms bathroom.

Today was VERY productive, I feel like. I woke up and immediately took a shower and did laundry. I spent some one just sitting on my bed scrolling and researching while listening to medieval remixes of songs lol. At some point I went out to buy subway for everyone and stopped at dollar tree for nail polish and satin ribbon. I made the ribbon into a little choker and wanted to use it for the hem of the skirt, but I was too short. In total I spent HOURS hemming and pinning and seam ripping and ironing and sewing today, but it’s still not done. I gotta kick my ass into high gear if it’s gone be done by Sunday afternoon. I started sewing the bottom hem, but my machine has been doing this weird thing where the fabric scrunches up right past the sewing foot and leaves wrinkles and gathers so loose I can move it around with my hands easily. I think it’s just my tension being too tight or something, I adjusted it a bit and I’ll test it in the morning. I’m too tired and it’s too late at night to be doing that much sewing. I seam ripped the entire back skirt seam so I could extend the zipper a little further down, and I’ll sew it back up once the hem is done. After that all I need to donis connect the skirt to the bocice, fix the zipper, and hem the arm holes. I don’t want to use the sleeves I made because the edges don’t line up at all and I don’t think I would be able to lift my arms, the way it’s built. The nail polish I picked up works way better than I thought it would, leaving a pretty good metallic sheen after just one coat. Way better than I thought for a dollar. I helped mom lay down tile a little bit, ripping up one old tile and helping a bit at a time throughout the day. I kept asking if she wanted help with the actual tiling part but she said no. We also couldn’t get the fuckin box cutter I bought to work. It’s supposed to be easy to replace the blade, but we couldn’t figure it out lol. I’m falling asleep fun. Washed my face twice, trying to take good care of myself before prom so I look good in photos. Gotta wash hair tomorrow. Made hamburger meat

Spent all day sewing and listening to bardcore remixes. Dress is as done as I bother to make it rn

Tbh I was hoping for a little more for today. I’ve spent the last like week or longer working towards this, and going especially in depth the past 3 days. I got all silky smooth, worked for hours on my dress, thought about pretty much nothing except prom day. I was late because my dad had my neighbor come over to take pictures of me in my dress. I thought it was just going to be her holding my dad’s phone to get a picture of us together, but she brought her whole ass professional camera and spent several minutes taking pictures. Then I took the weirdest way possible to get to my friend’s house on accident because google maps said it was the fastest way to get there. But HEY when I did get there I enjoyed hanging out with my friends. We ate some dinner AND??? Sammie I’m sorry if you’re reading this but THE MASHED POTATOES?? WERE S O BLAND????? AFAJSTSTHJST ily but girl. Just a little salt could have gone a long way <3 the steak and especially the green bean casserole were good tho :) dinner was good with the sparkling juice and little desert. Overall everything was just very loud, but that’s to be expected when this is everyone’s first time seeing each other in a goddamn while: actually I think they’ve all seen each other at school without me but hey whatever. I think I fucked up my phone screen on accident by sitting on it while it was in my pocket with my keys, leaving a spiderweb crack in it. I checked and yeah it’s not just the screen protector :( eh I don’t care that much, It didn’t fuck up the lcd screen or anything. We went up to Sam’s room and hung out and talked while she did Liz’s makeup and took pictures, and I borrowed a little of her concealer before photos. There was a little photo shoot in their front yard, and looking at the photos I look a little fat in them but I LOVE all the photos taken in Sam’s room where we were all just hanging out. Idk why but whenever you have to do photos and they say to do a silly one, it never turns out good, but the fun ones you casually take always turn out way better. They’re more genuine :) but then it was time for everyone to go to prom and for me to go home 😔 we only hung out for like an hour and a half. I didn’t want to take off my dress, seeing as I put in so much effort to sew the whole dress and shave and look pretty, so I wore it around the house for a bit until I got tired and went to lay in bed. I watched the mitchels vs the machines, which is a fuckin DELIGHTFUL movie!! Everybody go watch it it’s so cute <3 I also played some Pokémon and watched a little YouTube in bed, but feeling unfulfilled and wanting to do something different, I just didn’t know what. So instead I started typing this up as my sister brought me a cupcake from prom :) I had a bite and put the rest in the fridge, since it was so big and in a plastic container. I texted a friend over Snapchat asking if they had fun at prom, and they said it was kinda ass. I tried relating and saying yeah all school dances are a little ass, and my friend group once had anti prom and played dnd instead, but they just said ‘that’s nice’ back and idk if that means they’re annoyed at me or they’re just tired and didn’t wanna text or what but :( idk. Either way it’s fine, right now all I care about is going to bed. Gnight I guess. Also I keep thinking about that textpost that’s like “diary of icarly” and she talks in these simple-ass sentences and now I feel self conscious about how I write these snafnfs. I already know I write like a child in these, but that’s just because I don’t wanna go through the effort of making this sound nice and professional every day lmao. So child writing it is. Also painted my nails really horribly and it took forever to clean up which made me late

Woke up, went to work, spent a little time stocking, watered indoor plants, then attempting to work the register, and organized plants the rest of the time. I stood behind one of my coworkers as she checked people out, kind of understanding what she was doing but not that much, and read the manual in down periods. She had me check out a couple people, and it was NERVE WRACKING AS HELL. Thankfully everyone was very nice, and my coworker stood by and helped, and right as I was getting my foothold, my boss called for me to work outside and bring in the new shipment of plants. BUT YOU KNOW WHAT WAS REALLY NICE?? I was actually able to help some people today!! :D I’m slowly getting better at my job which is nice :) originally I was only gonna work 4 hours, but there were more plants to get and I felt like I could keep going, so I ended up working 6 instead. Every time I come home from the end of my shift I feel bad for not working more and like I should have stayed longer. Tbh I think I could do it if I had a proper break! I’ve been doing 4 hour shifts with maybe a water break in the middle because i don’t know how to ask to go on break ;-; Ike my secondary boss in the garden center is super nice and approachable and friendly but the main boss is like. Terrifying. I never know when he’s joking or being serious and I don’t understand him and assffsfamms it SUCKS. But whatever, I went home and ate some Mac n cheese and laid in bed because my back hurt and played on my ds for the rest of the night. I tried a couple new games, none of which I spent very long on. I tried okami den where you’re the wolf puppy child of the precious games protagonist I think, and idk maybe I’ll give it a better try in the future, but I wasn’t feelin it. I spent like 30 minutes on a pro bass fishing simulator and couldn’t clear the first level because the fish wouldn’t get close enough to my boat lmao. Sonic and Mario at the Olympic Games was fun until I lost at table tennis to Mario. I’d play it again. But I have work again tomorrow so I gotta go to bed good night. Having to blast my fan and play drawfee on my phone to drown out moms tv again >:(

Ate a pbj for breakfast? Went to work, moved plants around, took my lunch break, went to subway with an expired coupon, ate at home and times it perfectly so I could watch one section of the new drawfee episode, went back to work, made myself sad thinking about the god girl homunculus from fullmetal alchemist, picked dead flowers off the petunias, left a little early, hung out at home, left to go get mom’s medicine, found my dad at the store, followed him around and shopped for a bit, can home to unload everything, talked with him about buying one of the cars from him so it would be under mom’s insurance after the divorce, talked about being able to hang out at dads apparent after we help him move, ate some of the stuff we bought, and now I’m hanging out in bed again. I picked up my Pokémon black save and played a while today which was nice. I think I’m gonna work more in the next few days, be really busy with shit for like a week, and finally have a breather after the 15th. I really need to switch brain gears back into college stuff soon so I can sign up for orientation and figure out finances and shit, but for now it’s midnight and I don’t have to think about it lol

Today was pretty good, but also pretty boring. I played Pokémon all day since I didn’t have work, cooked some hamburger meat, and went on an errand for mom but got the wrong thing so I went out later to buy the right thing. I got spicy chicharrones instead of regular ones oops. On my drive back from getting the right thing, I rolled all my windows down and loved the feeling of driving around right after sunset when the weather was nice but cool, especially after standing in mom’s loud-ass room trying to ask about her bank card. I thought about going back out to aimlessly drive around the park and back, but instead hung out in my kitchen as my cat fell asleep on my lap. I think I’m gonna get paid tomorrow, so that’s exciting :D I probably made a solid couple hundred dollars if I had to guess. Idk what I’m getting paid per hour, but it’s probably ~$10 and I COULD go through my texts again to see how much I’ve worked, but I don’t really wanna lmao. I should just start putting that in my notes app instead...

Just had probably the most involved, longest dream ever?? It was a mix of infinity train and dangenrompa, we were mostly stuck inside my house, one boy left for years to search for supplies, I tried biking along a tail that disappeared into tree roots and a ditch with grass, cried because we had been in the same car for so long I was afraid they were gonna make us kill someone to get past, and at the end we escaped or something and had to fuck up security cameras and get past loopholes and lots of cereal boxes were involved? Idk there’s just so much I don’t remember. I wasn't sure if I had to go to work today, so I sent my boss a text and just kinda hung out. was making hamburger meat for my mom when my boss called asking me to come in, so I took a shower and worked from 1-5. spent some time at the register, and got way better at checking stuff out :) I learned a couple things, and there was one old lady in particular who was very patient and nice to me while my coworker went to go find a smaller bag of birdseed. when it stopped being busy inside, I went ut to the garden center to help price plants and spent the rest of my shift out there. I got paid too! $9 an hour, 22 hours, $200 in total. hell yeah. not bad, although I literally have no frame of reference on if this Is good or not. after work I went home for a second, then got Hardee’s (or carls jr in the western states). I used a coupon for chicken tenders for me and my sister :) and while I was driving around today, I found myself wishing that everything in life could be as smooth and easy as driving my car through my neighborhood. and then I kinda laughed thinking about how I cried my first time driving on a major road asdjfasjdhf. but seriously I love driving my dad’s silver Volvo!! its so comfy with 4 wheel drive and good petal control, its like always driving on freshly paved roads <3 unfortunately that's the car my dad is taking when he moves into his apartment to use as his full time car instead of his shit-ass blue Volvo, and we’re gonna be stuck with the red Volvo with a really touchy gas pedal and slow break pedal. (idk if you've noticed but we really love old Volvos in this family. they’re all old and boxy as hell and I love em <3 ) then I played Pokemon black and beat the elite 4 and champion in one try with a lot of revives lmao. I was kinda underleveled, right at 48-50 range, same as them. I was angry about stuff and in pain earlier in the shower as I washed my hair, but I dont remember exactly what it was. now I have my soft Spotify playlist going so I can maybe go to sleep soon. oh wait I remember being angry that all I could thin about all day was work, even tho it only takes up a few hours of my day, and then I do nothing all day afterwards. idk it’s just weird.

#thanks for coming to my ted talk #April 2021 daily #may 2021 daily #2021 daily

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thehikingnerd · 4 years

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Day 129. (9/23)

We woke up and broke down and figured we would go back to town and get breakfast and coffee. The first place we stopped in was a really weirdly decorated place with an interesting old lady waiting the tables. We saw the menu and thought it was a touch over priced and decided to just get coffees for a bit and then head to cheap fast food for breakfast and then went to a Jack in the Box. They had outlets there so I charged my batteries while we ate and took our time. I didn't realize how challenging it was to keep batteries full if you didn't rent a room regularly and let it all charge overnight. It was getting frustrating just trying to plug in a few minutes here and there wherever we found an outlet. Eventually, we headed out and started down the right road but we both mapped it out on google maps and saw a much shorter route that would save us like 15 miles at least and we decided that maybe it was good we messed up last night as we would have just gone north on 169. So we took off toward a more direct route that would take us through Cedar Falls. We talked briefly with a guy who suggested we take the railroad tracks to Snoqualmie Pass and that it would save us a lot of time and distance but that we had about a 25% chance of getting caught and in trouble for trespassing. We humored him but didn't take the suggestion seriously. We walked and walked and eventually I found another apple tree and stopped into a grocery and the lady working was from Busan, South Korea and we chatted for a bit. We kept going and finally saw a strange guy walking back and forth on the side of the hwy up ahead. As we got closer we said hi and he asked if we were hiking the trail and we said yes. He was holding a bag and gave it to us and it was full of small grapes that he had grown I believe. He took our picture and asked to make a short video that he wanted to send in to the local news. We said OK but cars kept going by and I'm sure the video was unusable for anything. So he was walking with us back toward his property and the guy was a little weird and he started taking about the Green River Killer (since we were crossing the Green River), and it really kind of creeped us out for this strange man to offer us grapes take our pics and video and then start randomly talking about a local serial killer. He turned left shortly after the river and we kept waking straight. He was nice and the grapes were good and it was a nice thing to do... but a little creeped out we kept joking that he was the real killer and the grapes were poison or that he rubbed them on his balls before giving them to us and he at home now jerking off to our video and thinking of us eating his ball grapes. Your imagination can run with such things out on the trail, lol. It was funny and silly, but probably a little mean since it was probably just a nice gesture and instance of trail magic and nothing more. Anyway... we kept walking until we saw a sign that immediately made us concerned as it said the road ends in 2 miles. But google for sure had us going through this way, so maybe there is a way through. I know google has sent people down roads that no longer exist before, but since we were this close we figured we should go on and see. About a half a mile in we see two guys doing yard work and we ask if there is a way though this direction and he said no. Our hearts sank. In talking to him we found out that the road did in fact go through, but for the last 10 years or so the whole area has been blocked off to protect a water shed for Seattle's drinking water... and that it was a big deal and they had cameras and authorities would be notified if we hopped the gate and ran past the no trespassing signs. He added that it was only like six miles through to the other side and that if we hustled we might make it before they could respond since he said calling the police would take an hour for them to respond for an emergency. So we thought we would check it out and maybe just try and find a way to avoid the camera and sensor and still go though since the walk around would be like another 20 miles or so from where we stood to the other side. We finally got to the gate and it looked legit with real cameras and huge signs and we thought, well damn, we are screwed. Either risk fines and getting arrested or walk a whole extra day to get around the protected watershed area! Can't we just hike the trail? Why does it always have to be so difficult lately? Fuuuuck! So just as we are about to give up and accept that we have to walk around, a wildlife officer pulls out of the gate and I flag him down to try and talk to him. He was first saying they are doing some kind of a charity elk hunt inside that we really don't want to go in with gunfire all over the place. We explain that we are continuous footpath PCT hikers walking around a fire closure and that google maps had screwed us on routing us through here and had no idea this was closed off. Eventually, he slowly changed his tune and saw how we were so frustrated and then finally he busted out a map and started railing on all the ultra liberals in there, he said he doesn't normally rail on liberals, but that "these people would flip out if you piss on a leaf in there." Then he was showed us on his map and basically mapped out a route for us that wouldn't get us caught if we wanted to try and get through. Just as we were talking an SUV pulled up behind him and a younger man with a beard stepped out looking a little arrogant and he walked up and said that if we were PCT hikers we would have to go around and that he would give us a ride if to somewhere if we wanted. The officer chimed in and told him we were continuous footpath people and we wouldn't take an offer for a ride and that we were all discussing the legal walk around. As soon as he left, the wildlife officer was like, "yeah, he is one of those ultra liberals I mentioned." Anyway, we kept asking questions and I took photos of his map so we would have something to go by if we wanted to give this a shot. I mean we had to at least consider it as the officer basically gave us the green light and said that as long as we followed the power lines straight north until we got to a certain road and worked our way east into a pink area on the map around rattlesnake mountain that we would then be in the clear and shouldn't get caught on this route. We said thanks and he took off. We left down the road out of range of the camera and sat down to think out our two options; neither of which sounded good. Finally, we said fuck it and waited till the coast was clear and then hurried up and hopped the barb wire fence. We were ACTUALLY doing this. The paranoia started right away as the fence line backed up to private property and a truck had just pulled in so we waited just a few minute for the people to stop chatting in the driveway and leave again before quickly moving past and into the woods and deeper cover. We walked through some paths that were small and over grown but seemed to be going the direction we needed. At some point, we came to a gravel road that turned and took us straight to the power lines. There was a curvy gravel road that seemed to follow all the way under the power lines which was nice since; I was expecting tall grass and brush the whole way. We took the winding gravel road for a little while until we got to the river that we knew we would have to cross somehow. At first I wanted to just wade through, but seeing a steep hill leading down to the river (which I couldn't even see the water at that point) that looked like blackberry bushes the whole way... made us reconsider this plan. We looked around for other ways down but this stuff was thick and nothing looked like an appealing route, and we didn't even know how big this river was... so we finally decided to walk the road back to a different gravel road and take our chances by crossing the bridge we saw on the map. It was adding at least a mile maybe two by our estimates, but still seemed like the better option. We just knew we needed to be alert and ready to hide if any vehicle were to come down the roads we were walking. All of a sudden we heard something that sounded like it might be a car and it had come up quickly so we ran and jumped off the road into the bushes and waited in silence and on high alert. It only took a second for us to realize that it was a lower flying small plane. We got out and realized we had LTE which we figured would be pretty helpful in terms of GPS since we were just using photos of a map and wasn't sure if we would be able to tell where we actually were. We walked and finally found the bridge, noticing some fresh tire tracks we cautiously and quickly crossed the small road bridge and started back up around the other side toward the power lines again. On the way we startled two large elk and without actually seeing them you could hear the huge animals running off through the woods. We made it back and proceeded to follow the roads that wove in and out but basically followed the power lines north. At one point we came up over a hill under the lines and I jumped back down out of sight because I saw all of these large animals and my first thought was horses and people on horseback. At a second look I could see that they were actually elk, a big group of probably 30 massive elk. We heard one bugle as we made our way around and they watched us as we went. It was starting to get dark and we stopped for a quick snack at an intersection where there was cover near by but a small cleared off area. Taking off now and walking uphill we began to sweat as it was getting dark and colder. We still didn't want to use our head lamps and figured following roads at night shouldn't be too hard and it would give us more time to react if we could see headlights in the distance. We finally made it to a road that the guys said would be paved but it was t paved but was much nicer than the rest so we figured we were on the right road. We would take this to the gate and then follow the fence line north and east until we made our way into the pink section on the map which was open to the public. So we started walking northeast on this road . For quite a while everything seemed chill and quiet and like this would all be easier than we thought... then I heard a sound and I said hold on... we stopped and just caught the slightest sound before light burst from around the corner and we both without thinking or hesitation instinctively just ran and dove into the bushes. We did this impressively quickly and froze. A big ups looking utility kind of truck drove past but didn't stop. After it had gone on for a bit I sat up and looked for Butt'rs who had went Left when I had gone right. I saw him and I looked and him half grinning with excitement and half terrified and said "holy f*ck" we got out and were 10 times more paranoid as on alert as we continued down the street. We were going short distances and stopping to listen for a while before proceeding. This method did seem to work as we heard more vehicles coming shortly thereafter... so we had a bit more time and ran to hide again. This time it looked like a car followed by the saw truck. Were they looking for us, had the truck seen us that first time? We guessed not and just decided to get off of this road as quickly as possible as this seemed to be what would get us caught. We hurried along until we saw some lights, but these were stationary. We thought we must be getting close to the gates and saw a closed off road. It said no trespassing on the front and was probably the road we needed that was right at the gate but t wasn't labeled that we could tell and we still hadn't seen a gate. We assumed it would be something like what we had seen at the other gate with cameras and such, so we wanted to at least find the gate as a point of reference but also it had been such a nerve racking experience over the last few hours that we kind of just wanted the relief of k owing we were on the other side and in the clear. So we kept going but never saw a gate, finally we saw a house... and all of a sudden another vehicle was coming up from behind... we ran again and hid in the edge of the woods, it was a pickup that had gone by and as it went by I saw the headlights hit a sign that said for sale, we obviously had passed out of the closed area and were somewhere on the other side. Google maps helped us to figured out through lots of effort where exactly we were. The problem was that everywhere we tried to go as a no trespassing sign and all the roads were private property and dead ends. We were in a spot that was legal for us to be there but had no legal way to have gotten there, we were kind of trapped in and trespassed on some other roads trying to find a way out. We had a photo of a potentially outdated map, my version of google maps, and Butt'rs version of google maps and none of them matched up. We ended up trying a few routes because two of the three maps had shown one way that should get us out. Turns out they were both either inaccurate or would have us walking straight through someone's driveway hoping it would go all the way through to another road. It was frustrating having wrecked nerves it getting late and nothing working out and all of these attempts were adding miles and we were getting tired. We had at least decided we were legal enough to not have to jump into bushes anymore if a car went by, which one did and nothing happened. It was weird how all the houses here seemed to be for sale. Butt'rs realized that he lost his knife one of the times we jumped in the bushes. Google maps gave us one last route out and it matched the photo of the map on my phone. So this was our last shot and we would try it in the morning, but for now we went around the gate closing that road and went around the corner so no one could see if they drove by and camped in a small flat patch of wet grass. It was 11 something and with only a snack I passed out. It was a cold wet night and we still weren't out of troubles reach just yet.

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lostgypsygurl-blog · 8 years

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KPop-ing In Seoul

Hello everyone! If you are reading this right now it only means that you have read the Part 1 of my blog all about my trip to Seoul last year. I originally planned for it to have two parts which is the pre-planning and another one for the trip itself. But alas! Sloth that I am, I keep pushing back the days for writing the part 2 and so here we are, 4 months after the trip and I haven’t finished writing the rest of part 2. Although, I did start on writing about the Day 1 of that trip which is mainly about visiting Kpop entertainment company buildings and just Kpop-ing all day. So instead of writing all of my 9-day trip (which can be suuuuppper long) in one entry, I’ll upload them one at a time. I originally planned for this to be super detailed however aside from I think you guys wouldn’t want to read all of my blabber it’ll also take me longer to finish a detailed one. So, I decided to just talk about all the places we went to with a bit of instructions on how to get there, where to find places and tips and maybe trivia as well about these places. I will also be adding links of the blogs and sites that we used as guide especially for directions in going to places. Our itinerary was planned “thematically” which means that in each day we went to places which seemed similar or close to each other. I’m not saying you follow the same thing. You can plan your trip however you want. I will be including links of other blogs that we referred to for this trip so go and check them out and I hope you find it as helpful as much as I did.

Kpop Entertainment Companies Day

The day after we arrived in Korea, visiting entertainment companies was the first thing we did. We decided to do this first because we the week that we went to Korea was the Chuseok season. Chuseok is usually celebrated for 3 days; pre-chuseok, chuseok day, post chuseok. During these days most establishments will be closed and for those that are open regular working hours does not apply. And we thought that maybe idols and artist would go to their hometowns with these 3 days and we might not catch a glimpse of them if we go on those days. We went to 6 company buildings that day; JYP, Cube (old building), FNC, SM, J.Tune Camp (old building) and Jellyfish Entertainment. All of these places are in Gangnam area so you can just walk around or take the bus to find them. Links of addresses and directions are below:

JYP, Cube (old building), FNC, SM Training center https://kpoptourguide.wordpress.com/k-pop-entertainment-company-headquarters/

Jellyfish Entertainment http://managerhyung.blogspot.com/2014/02/how-to-get-to-jellyfish entertainment.html

SM Town at COEX Artium https://koreancodex.wordpress.com/2015/01/06/how-to-get-to-sm-town-artiumwhere-is-the-sm-town-artium

Experience:

JYP & Encounter with Day6

This is the first place we went to. We got a bit lost along the way cause we got confused of the landmarks but with the help of a few locals we we’re able to get there before lunch time. The building was smaller than I thought it would be although it’s very easy to spot because of the huge ass JYP sign and all the faces of JYP artists on it. There was a construction going on in front of the building, apparently it was the popular Dunkin Donuts store that Cube and JYP artists like to go to. After taking pictures in front of the building my friend and I decided to stay there for about 15 minutes just to see if we’ll spot any idol. We sat outside this clothing store right in front of the building and not more than about 5 minutes I noticed this guy wearing a black cap and black mask. He looked suspicious because duh, why would you wear a cap and a mask unless you are someone who wants to conceal your identity right? The guy turned his head in our direction right before entering the building and then it hit me, it was Day6’s drummer Dowoon. I totally freaked out as I am a fan of Day6. Since we didn’t actually see Dowoon’s face I asked my friend to stay a little longer on where we we’re because I wanted to make sure that it was Dowoon and maybe we’d have a chance to see the rest of Day6. After about 10 minutes the guy who I thought was Dowoon came back out carrying a pair of drumsticks but still wearing the same mask and cap. It confirmed my suspicion that it was him because as far as I know JYP only has 2 bands right now, Wonder Girls and Day6, unless that guy was a trainee. We followed where he went to and tried to low-key spazz and we saw him enter this basement room on the same building. There was a glass door and it has words JYP Entertainment written on it so it’s probably a practice room for their artists. My friend and I didn’t get to take photos of Dowoon cause everything happened too fast. After that my friend and I got hungry so we ate lunch at this salad bar just right in front of JYP building. Their salads are good! We recommend it. While we we’re eating we spotted another member of Day6! It was my bias, YoungK. He had red hair that time and he went to the same basement room Dowoon went too. After we finished eating we spotted a van stop in front of the basement room and viola came out 3/5 Day6 members and got into the car. We saw Dowoon, YoungK and Jae. Before getting on the van, YoungK suddenly came half-running into our direction and for a second there I seriously thought he was heading to the same salad bar and I was just sitting there looking at him panicked, not knowing what to do LOL. Apparently he was heading to the convenience store right beside the salad bar. We waited for him to come out and had our camera phones ready when he came out I called his name and he turned to me, smiled and bowed a bit. We also made a friend while hanging around JYP. She’s Chinese and she doesn’t know how or where to go to find other Kpop company buildings so she tagged along with us.

CUBE Entertainment

Unfortunately, it seems like CUBE moved to a different building which we didn’t know the address off. The old building they used to occupy is just really close to JYP’s they are practically neighbors. Since my friend and I don’t really stan anyone from CUBE we didn’t bother to look up their new address.

FNC Entertainment

FNC’s building is just a matter of a walking distance from where JYP and CUBE is. They have two buildings in between a tiny road. It’s easy to spot but we didn’t hang around too long because like what I said the road’s pretty tiny so it can feel make you feel a little claustrophobic to be there. Although there’s a convenience store in front of their main building and if you wanna hang around to spot an artist from FNC you can stay there.

SM Training Center– SM’s building is very close to where FNC is. Unfortunately, that day the building was closed. That’s what it said when we looked up their address on Google maps that day. I guess it meant that there will be no office for staffs and management? I’m not really sure. We just got our pictures taken outside the building and decided to leave cause it didn’t seem like anyone was inside the building. However if you do decide to hang around the area to wait for your fave SM artist there’s a park right in front of the building. You can find a good spot there and wait.

Actually, SM has two buildings. This is the old one (I guess) and there’s another one which bigger and has a coffee shop at the ground floor. We we’re quite confused about this one and wondered if this is the building that their artists regularly visit. Although, when I watched that episode of My SM TV with NCT Dream as guests and this building as shown for a bit. For this building it is difficult to spot the artists though because they have an underground parking area and I think they have an entrance/exit there too so I bet that’s how the artists enter the building.

SM Town at COEX Artium

The SM Town is part of the COEX Mall located at Gangnam-gu area. It’s easy to find because it’s a huge establishment. We took a cab going there cause our Chinese friend got tired of walking and she offered to pay for the cab fee which was just 3,000 Won. You can use your T-Card to pay for it. If you are an SM stan then this is THE place to be aside from the SME company buildings. The atrium has 6 floors. Check out the photo below for what each floor has to offer.

Let me just warn you ahead of time that this place will have you throwing your money all over the place cause it practically has all the merch of your fave SM artist, from albums, clothes, posters and even cosmetics. They also got a coffee shop that offers treats and drinks so you can lounge there and rest a bit. By the way, their baristas and staff have on point visuals so yeah, you might want to feast over that too. LOL. I got a crush on one of their staff who wasn’t just good-looking but super sweet too. He helped us by giving us directions for our next destination. That was a K-Drama moment for me right there. Hahaha.

JTune Camp

My friend is a huge MBLAQ fan so she wanted to visit Jtune camp. At this point there’s just the two of us cause our Chinese friend decided to go back to her hotel. When you look up Jtune’s office online the result would be the address Seoul Metropolis Gangnam-gu Samseong-dong Office 44-10 Soam Building #501. This building was very difficult to find and we spent a long time trying to figure out where it is. When we got to Samseong-dong we had to depend on Google Maps to get us to this building but we didn’t find any building with a Jtune Camp sign on it. We ended up asking the locals around and the building ended up to be this ordinary looking building. My friend and I we’re really doubtful it if was the right building at first but we decided to enter the building and find out for ourselves. The main door was closed cause it was already around 7 pm when we got there. We saw that there was a back door which was open and we decided to enter through that and got on the elevator. I WOULDN’T SUGGEST YOU DO THE SAME IF YOU’RE GOING TO LOOK FOR YOUR FAVE IDOLS CAUSE THIS CAN BE QUITE DANGEROUS. Remember that you’re in a foreign land so always think of your safety and I have to admit our action can come off a bit of sasaeng-ish. However, my friend was desperate cause we spent so much time looking for it. So we went to the 5th floor of the building cause online that’s what says where Jtune is but there was no one there and it looked creepy af. We decided to just give up and went back down. When we left the building there was this ahjussi that greeted us, it seemed like he worked at the building and he then asked us “MBLAQ?” he figured we we’re there for them. He didn’t speak English so I had to use up all of the Korean I know to talk to him LOL. Anyway, according to him, Jtune isn’t in that building anymore for a long time. It seems like there are still fans that go there though so he wasn’t surprised about us being there. The problem is that he also doesn’t know where their new building is and we told him that the only address found online for Jtune is that building’s address. So if you are a fan of MBLAQ and Madtown, you have to look up their new address.

Jellyfish Entertainment & Encounter with VIXX’s Ravi – Our last stop was Jellyfish Entertainment. From Samseong-dong we followed the address and directions from the blog I found online. Since it was already late in the evening and Jellyfish’s building is a bit difficult to find. When we got there the area was really quite. The building’s main door was made of glass so we can see from outside that the light was one but it didn’t seem like anyone was inside. We just took photos and sat in front of the building to catch our breath before leaving. Our bodies we’re tired from all the walking that day and we haven’t eaten anything since lunch so we sat there talking about where to eat dinner. Every now and then and employee would enter or exit the building. Suddenly I noticed that there was a tall guy inside the building heading for the door. I can’t see his face cause the glass door was a bit tinted so I can only make out his silhouette. I can make out that he’s tall and he’s wearing baggy clothes. My fangirl instincts kicked in and as he got closer to the door I saw that it was VIXX’s Ravi. I shook my friend’s arm and told her that it’s Ravi. When the door finally opened it was indeed Ravi. Once again I was too stunned to do anything so I just sat there calling his name while my friend grabbed her phone and tried to take a photo of him. Ravi was about to go to the parking area when he spotted my friend taking a photo he immediately turned around and went back inside the building. I think we caught him off guard or something and he was probably as surprised as we we’re thus his reaction. A few minutes after that a staff came out of the building and got into this jeep type car. He parked the car right in front of the building and went back inside the building without turning the car off. My friend and I figured out that Ravi doesn’t want to be bothered so we decided so walk away from the building so that he won’t feel uncomfortable. We then saw Ravi come out of the building together with the same staff and got on the car.

Whew! That’s 5 pages of Microsoft word right there. Hahaha. Anyway, there you go. That’s Day 1 of our 9-day trip. I guess this one will be the most helpful (?) too and what most KPop fans will be needing when Kpop-ing in Seoul. I hope I can write about the rest of our trip soon. Once they’re done I’ll just update them and hope it helps you on your own trip! Thanks for reading.

#kpop #Korea #south korea #korean #koreanpop #jyp #jyp entertainment #day6 #youngk #day6 young k #sm entertainment #jellyfish entertainment #vixx #ravi #vixx ravi #seoul #wheninseoul

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madisonmaintospain · 8 years

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¡Carnaval, La Sonido de la Musica, y mas! (Carnival, Sound of Music, and more!)

Well, it’s officially been two months that I’ve been living here in Spain. It feels like one week, but also feels like 6 months at the same time. I’ve been pretty busy, traveling, studying, napping, lol. I’m a little behind on this blog and photos but I’m trying to catch up.

Quick update about my personal life: I’m obsessed with the show Brooklyn 99. Anyone watch it? It’s super funny, like the office. I highly recommend it. In fact I’m getting distracted by it whilst writing this.

Also, a Spanish friend of ours, who works publicity for the University, was tasked with updating the school’s brochures. The following photo will be the new cover of the Spanish Programs Brochure through the University!

Mom! I’m famous!

So two weekends ago, was an event called Carnaval. It’s a big festival in Spain and bordering countries where there are plenty of parades, concerts, and parties. Me and two of my friends, Cece and Anna, headed down to the Spanish Islands of the Canaries. We stayed in Gran Canaria, in the town of Las Palmas, which is huge for the Carnaval festivities.

We explored the city, trying new foods, (not really, we ate pizza and pasta most of the time), new drinks, and meeting new people. Our hostel was called Pura Vida Hostel which means “pure life” or “good life” in Spanish, and it is the tattoo I have as well. It’s a very popular phrase in Costa Rica. They say it all the time there. Anyway, we didn’t know when we booked it, but the hostel was a surf hostel. All of the guests were hardcore surfers. Lol oops. It wasn’t a problem, we still bonded with the volunteers and other guests, and they showed us around Carnaval a bit. It was very nice.

Everyone wears costumes to all the Carnaval Festivities - it’s like a mix of Mardi Gras, Halloween, and St. Patrick’s Day. The ‘theme’ of this year’s Carnaval was like peace and love and tye-dye, so I thought the hippie theme was appropriate. There were sooo many people dressed as hippies so I was for sure not the only one.

The weather wasn’t the best, it was partly cloudy a couple of the days, but it was still beautiful. The most perfect weather day was when we took a day trip down to the southern part of Gran Canaria to a town called Maspalomas. There, WE RODE CAMELS. Yeah, you read that right. We got to ride camels in the Maspalomas Sand Dunes. It wasn’t Africa, but it might as well have been. (Look on a map, it’s very close) The weather was perfect, we were right by the ocean, it was amazing.

Then after the camel ride, we got to spend the rest of the day at the beach, soaking up the sun and enjoying our last full day in the Canaries. It was a nice way to end our little beach vacay!

I want to go back! Now!!

After the magical weekend on the Island, it was back to reality on Wednesday, but only for a couple days, because my next trip began Friday morning at 2:00 a.m.

I flew out to meet my BFF Devon, who is currently studying abroad in Scotland, in Munich, Germany!! We only stayed in Munich for a night, because the next day we took a bus to Salzburg, Austria! Which was the main highlight of the weekend, and actually my entire study abroad experience so far..

Our first day in Munich was a bit, let’s say, slow. First of all, my flight got in at around 9:30a.m. or so, and I had to wait at the airport for Devon’s flight which came in at around 3:00 p.m. I tried to find somewhere to sleep for a bit. I did, then I got kicked out because “Ma’am, you can’t sleep in the restaurant.” Whatever lady.

Anyway, once Devon arrived, our next step was to get to our hotel. Long story short, it took us 3 hours to navigate our way from the Airport to our hotel, when it only should’ve taken like 20-30 minutes.. German is hard. But we did have the BEST pretzel ever. It was a soft pretzel with butter and chives - OMG. So good. We finally arrived at our hotel after some speed bumps, literally. Have I mentioned that the drivers in Europe are terrible?? Ugh talk about motion sickness. Dramamine anyone??

After we got settled, we found a nice little place by our hostel where we had pizza for dinner. Surprise, right? We had some german beer, salami pizza, and then got a good night's sleep in preparation for the following day’s activities!

Then Saturday came! Travelling day! We let ourselves sleep in a bit, but also gave ourselves plenty of time to get to the bus station because of the events the previous day. We got to the station, did a little snack shopping, and boarded our bus to Salzburg! When we arrived in Salzburg, we had a little time before we could check into our hostel, so I looked up “Things to do in Salzburg,” and these gardens called Mirabell Palace and Gardens, and so I was like “Oh Devon, this looks cute, let’s go!” Not paying much attention to the photos shown on google, I didn’t realize it was actually the gardens where the filmed “Do-Re-Me!” Of course I freaked out and was like, how did I not know this? So we stayed there for a while, acted out the scenes, and loved life.

I was extremely happy, in my element, and couldn’t stop smiling! It was so funny that I found it by accident. After exploring, and taking mounds of photos, we started to make the trek to our hostel. We noticed that right by the gardens, was a theatre, and believe it or not, they were playing Sound of Music. Devon and I obviously wanted to go, so we thought we would come back about an hour or so before the show and see if there were any tickets left. Fast forward to about 6, we show up to the box office, and get the LAST TWO TICKETS. They were box seats right by the stage, but with a cut off view, but we could see about half the stage so it was fine. But here’s the kicker: the show was in German! Even the songs! It was so strange! I mean I knew what was going on because I know the movie, but still, it was so weird. It was so cool though, really a once in a lifetime opportunity. Also did I mention it was closing night?? How lucky are we?? Extremely. And after the show, the cast bowed a lot, because it was closing night, but also had a sing-a-long - in English, thank god. And the woman who played the Baroness, waved at me! It was a magical night!

Thinking this trip couldn’t get any better, it did. Sunday was our pre-booked, Sound of Music bus tour! It was a four hour long tour that included multiple stops where the movie was filmed, a bus sing-a-long, behind the scenes fun facts, and the best crisp apple strudel & vanilla ice cream of my life. We saw so many cool things from the movie. It was the best day ever! There were some things I wish we could’ve spent more time at/gone up to see them, but then there were some things that were very cool that I wasn’t expecting! It all balanced out!

Amazing crisp apple strudel, just like the song!

The famous Gazebo! Wish I could’ve done the dance.. I was practicing!

All in all, it was an amazing weekend, filled with music, theatre, friends, food, love, and laughter. It was so great to see Devon, and I miss him so much already. We got a taste of what living together was like, and we can’t wait until next year! More adventures to come, I’m sure!

I had the best time in Germany/Austria, and I wish we had more time there! But isn’t it like that with every trip - there’s always something you wish you could’ve done but didn’t get to?

So, until next time.. (I hope I didn’t forget anything)

Hasta luego! Besos xx

#madisonmaintospain

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