June 30, 2008 at 6:30 pm (Italy)
by Tom
Buongiorno everyone! We have been without internet in Venice. But nevertheless, we’ve been religiously updating the blog on Microsoft Word. I’m early to rise today at 6am to bring you the latest on our travels.
Upon our arrival in Venice, we noticed the significant Chinese population here. Whether it be at the gelato stand or at the pizza parlor, there always seemed to be an Asian person lurking nearby. It’s kind of odd to walk into an Italian bar and all of a sudden Signore Roberto Chang pops out. Anyhow, we stayed in the mainland of Venice called Venice-Mestre. It’s a pretty nice town that comes alive at night with locals. A good offbeat place that’s not that touristy. Our first day, we strolled central Mestre square and had our first taste of pizza sold by weight (per 100 grams). The verdict: C-, eat only to fill up. The gelato thereafter was a disappointment as well. The consistency was runny, and the large portions they gave out made us wonder if we were really eating gelatos. We ended up picking up a bottle of good Chianti wine and some genuine Italian ‘salumi’, which was just okay but definitely better than Spanish jamon, and headed back to the hotel.
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June 27, 2008 at 1:12 pm (Italy)
by a mixta of Jason, Tom, and Min
Milan is hot and humid. My boogers are a tasty green-black mix. Like I snorted balsamic vinegarette. There are mosquitoes everywhere, and they hunger for our exotic Asian blood. However, being in an actual city, that has the big New York city vibe, makes it worth it. Milan has so many designer stores that are ridiculously expensive. Therefore, shopping was unsuccessful. It’s hard to tell in Milan what’s expensive or what’s worth the price. Our last night with the Seungj involved eating at this Trattoria Milanese, a family-run restaurant where we were obviously underdressed in our tshirts and shorts. However, the 60 or so year old waiter was extremely welcoming and even opened the door to usher us in with a smile when we were busy hemming and hawwing outside over the menu prices. The food was expensive, a splurge, but mostly worth it. We had excellent risotto with veal, spaghetti, and a few other Milanese specialties. Seungj, with his big smile and even bigger heart, offered and paid for our meal as his last farewall. Arrivederci, our fond backpacking brother!
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June 23, 2008 at 11:23 pm (France)
by Seungjae
Sorry for the sseullung blog title =)
So we got on the train to Nice from Montpellier early in the morning. On the train,
Min, Jason and I (SJ) decided to play Texas Holdem and decided to bet for the number of hits.
I looked down upon Jason’s reckless bluffing style and Min’s uninvolved attitude and this ended up costing me 1220 hits to be hit by Jason and Min.. (Hopefully, they will forget about this number)
So we got to Nice, France, and checked-in at the self-claimed “world famous” Saint-Exupery Hostel.
One side comment on French streets: Watch out for dog poop!
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June 22, 2008 at 7:03 pm (France)
by Tom
I’m glad we are in a hotel rather than a hostel since we get the room to ourselves and some privacy, but we’re ten minutes from the heart of Montpellier. And our hotel is in the boonies, seems like a rest stop. We got to see plenty of horses and farm land (mainly wine vineyards) on the way to our hotel. We were like, “What the?!? Where the hell are we?” We bought some wine and cheese from the marche’ and French wine did not disappoint. (AOC certified means good apparently.) However, bleu fromage was 
. It really tastes like fungus.
The next day we went to a nice creperie and it was damn satisfying. I had a cheese, egg, ham, and cream crepe for my 1st and a praline cream crepe for my 2nd. We all came out 
French food is good so far. Wonder what will come up. After our meal, we found out everything is closed Dimanche. Montpellier was extremely boring as a result. I’m back at the hotel after a pleasing swim in l’hotel piscine. The Spain-Italy game is starting, and tomorrow: off to the sandy beaches of Nice in Cote’ de Azur.
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June 20, 2008 at 9:51 am (Spain)
by Min
I joined the sexy namja trio two days ago and was very pleased to find the hostel to be beyond my expectations. I had thought that showers would be difficult to take in the places we were staying, but their being available has really made life easier. Except for SJ, who I learned recently does not use deodorant. He is like a ripe summer fruit – a banana that is turning a wonderfully pungent shade of mansweat.
Barcelona is awesome wrapped in more awesomeness and surrounded by… hmm… awesomeness. It’s like every street I walked down had wonderfully quaint looking buildings and the sidewalks are dotted with beautiful trees. The fact that the weather has been a bit hot but nonetheless flawless has been helpful. We went to the Sagrada Familia yesterday and paid two extra euros to take a lift to the top of one of the towers. HOLY MOLY – it was so amazing up there. The view was perfect but more importantly, I was frickin scared. I couldn’t really describe it so I invoke the ruminations of Tchae:
“When you’re in really really high places there is usually a bit of security because you’re surrounded by windows or rails or something. But the Sagrada Familia just has open windows and completely stone buildings with tight stairways (with windows on both sides), strong winds, and very thin/low rails. Not recommended for the light-hearted”
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June 17, 2008 at 10:00 am (Spain)
Alright its SJ again on the blog..
FYI, San Sebastian is supposedly the most beatuiful beach in Europe, and also is the most expensive city in Spain during summer =(
The second day here, I followed Jason´s proposal to surf and Tom was being a lazy ass again saying he will cheer for us from the beach. Surprisingly, in our surfing class we met another Korean! – a Korean who also had the name Jaesung! But we were even more shocked to find one more! – a white guy speaking Korean!!!
He was a white Canadian, his name was Corey or ´Cho Min-Su´ and said he used to be an English teacher in Korean elementary school. He kept on saying ´himdeul-uh´ while surfing – impressive Korean skills!
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June 12, 2008 at 9:42 pm (Spain)
By Jach
So we took an overnight train from Granada.. big mistake. The train seats were uncomfortable, harshly lighted, someone in the back threw up, there was a mechanical error and then a delay. We did play Hold Em for chocolate (mad cheap here) until Tom kept hogging them and it became pointless. We slept muy uncomfortably and got to our hostal too early to check in and thus slept on the couches in front for about 5 hours.
However, the hostel here is super nice, and the weather is usually beautiful. Soccer is fun to watch here at the bars (The people here surprisingly don´t seem that into watching the Euro 2008, besides the Spanish games). We finally did our laundry and today we rented bikes and went to the beach. It was nice, and the highlight was playing beach soccer with three locals, Simone, Jorge, Alex, 3 on 3. We unfortunately lost 6-4, but the ball was super small and they were pretty good. I pulled a Hong Myong Bo and lost the ball right in front of our goal and the opponent scored. They were pretty cool and we might hang out with them later tommorow.
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June 11, 2008 at 8:26 am (Spain)
Tags: Granada
by Tom
The first thing I noticed is the unpleasant sewage and gasoline smell here in Granada. The outskirts of the city are very rural and there are quite a few dogs just hanging out. I´m kind of scared I might get rabies if one bites me. I try to avoid them as best as possible. Our hostel is in an alley but because it´s higher up, the air is a bit fresher. The hostel seemed okay, but this was the first time we all decided to use the liners we had brought instead of the provided sheets. Anyways, it´s hard to use the internet in the hostel because of demand. One girl was very inconsiderate and was on for at least three hour. We code named her Gattuso because she seemed very stubborn about staying on the computer.
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June 9, 2008 at 10:00 pm (Spain)
Tags: Granada, Moorish
Jach here, to update you on our current state of affairs.
So the last night in Seville was rather lackluster, other than the decent game between Germany and Poland, 2-0 Germany. It was domingo, so the night life was rather dead; we should have gone out the night before. We walked around the river for a bit, and I took some pictures in crazy places, did a handstand in front of the Bank of España and ran up the metal foundations under a bridge.
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June 9, 2008 at 6:20 am (Spain)
Tags: Sevilla
Its up for you guys to imagine what Tom did with his 27 Euros he talked about in the previous blog.
Hi! My name is Seungjae. I am very excited to write about my journey in Seville. I don´t have very good vocabulary like words like excruciating are tough to me. But I´ll try my best with my ´bal-gah-lahk´.
Alright, that was all Tom….
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