Month: July 2005

  • Again, on the topic of dreams: I absolutely ADORED my college pastor and his wife (John and Monica Hwang – GO KBC!!) and was thinking about them the other day.  I google’d him, found him, and emailed him. 


    Then he emailed back: “… just last night I had a dream of meeting you in some remote part of the town. We accidentally bumped into each other. You were riding a motorcycle! Anyway, we spent whole day talking and eating. The dream was so real (I don’t usually dream!) that when I woke up, I told Monica that I should get in touch with “Ahrim.” And I received your e-mail.”


    WEIRD!!!!!  Here they are. They’re so cute!



    Many of us who attended Korean Bible Church of Ann Arbor until 1997 saw all three of their boys as BABIES, and now they’re all grown up!




    When you live abroad and you love food as much as I do,  you either: a. appreciate  certain foods more than you did before (vicariously, since these are foods I can’t get here); or b. enjoy things you never or rarely ate in your home country but can eat in your host country.


    Here are the foods that fall into category a:



    MMMMMMMM….



    Not the coffee, necessarily, but the ability to sit in a Starbucks and meet with friends, read, veg…


     


    Goi Banh Cuon: Steamed thin and tender rice crepe with ground baby shimp and scallion, served with cucumber, lettuce, bean sprouts, crushed peanut and fresh basil in nuoc cham sauce. DELISH.



    Freshly squeezed orange juice at brunch with friends. Sigh.



    Sharp cheddar cheese


    Here are the foods that fall into category b:



    Club Sandwich  – I don’t even remember the last time I ate this in America. Of course, we don’t have avocado in ours. 



    BLT – I think I last ate one … when I was like 10 years old.  The bacon sold here comes from Hungary.  One weekend, I ate three or four of them.  I’m surprised I haven’t died of a heart attack yet.



    NEVER ate these in America but they are SOOO yummy.  And addictive. 



    Instant ja-jang myun or ramen noodles for lunch.  Not very yummy, but acceptable for a quick lunch here.  The best kind comes from Russia and is called “rollton”.



    Instant coffee.  Not so bad when you put tons of sugar and milk in it. But not so good, either.

  • A 4 part Xanga, as I am just *bursting* with information:






    Part 1: I changed poopy diapers.


    HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY BELATED 24th BIRTHDAY to my baby sister, Nam Nam!!!  Don’t forget that I changed your POOPY diapers when you were just a wee little baby…   Now you’s all growed up.    





    Part 2: Member Care


    To celebrate my sister’s 24th birthday, a bunch of us went to Charvok, a nice manmade reservoir about a 2 hour drive from Tashkent. 



    Actually, we went to celebrate the births of two other hotties, Helena and Roar!   Here they are, each sporting a pair of genuinely fake Chanel sunglasses I bought for Helena at the bazaar:



    Helena is a fun, funny girl who grew up an hour outside of NYC and therefore has most, if not all, of the NYC ‘tude.


    Roar is a VERY serious Norwegian who lived in Japan in his younger years. 


    The other honorable guests included:


    Angie, the hippie, from N. Carolina….



    Mary Lou – “I dream of getting my sunglasses and purse back” – from New Jersey. She lost both of them during this trip. 



    Cute, super fit Lisa from Cali…



    Jinko, the relaxed matriarch of our group…



    Roar, as usual, was “enjoying nature… all by himself…”



    He did have one friend, though…..



    After Charvok, we headed back to Tashkent for some DELICIOUS KOREAN FOOD and cake! 



    Things got a bit wild as Helena and Roar decided to get married…



    HAPPY 18th  BIRTHDAY HELENA & ROAR!





    Part 3: The Long Awaited… Uzbek Melon Parade!  Uzbekistan is famous for its melons.  And it is a well deserved accolade. 


    Here is a nice round-ish melon with a little knob at the top.



    Here’s the inside.  This melon is oh-so-juicy and Suh-WEET!  (like a honeydew)



    Here is melon #2.  It is oblong shaped and less yellowish.. more.. bone colored.



    This melon is also… uhm… oh-so-juicy and Suh-WEET!  (like a honeydew)



    Last, but not least… Melon #3:



    VERY juicy and usually Suh-WEET! (like a honey-don’t)



    Part 4: Jermaine Dupree



    Continuing on my weird dreams of late, I had a dream that I came into my house in Houston, knowing that my dad wasn’t home, but noticing some strange cars in the driveway.  Thinking that someone has probably broken into the house, I go in anyway (as the protagonist in all horror movies does.. “don’t open that door!!!”), and then run up the stairs to find a man with a gun. I run downstairs into the basement and hide behind some clothes in a closet.  After a few minutes, I come back out to see my friend Greg F.  He says “that boy wants to FIGHT“.  Knowing that Greg F. is a master wrestler and street fighter, I am relieved.  Cut to me being outside. I see a young black boy on a bike, jumping through a car window to get to me.  He falls off the bike, and then I push him down with one foot on his shoulder and my hand on his other one. I grab the gun he has in his holster and shoot it into the grass to get rid of the bullets.  I notice that on his T-shirt, he’s wearing a name tag of some sort that reads “Jermaine Dupree”.  I say to him “Listen.. what’s your name?” “Jermaine Dupree“  “What’s YOUR name”, he asks. “Lana. So do you think this is a good way to live?  Do you?” He hesitates. “No… “  I say to him “I want you to get your life together, okay?”  He starts looking sorrowful… and then the dream ends.  Only when I look up “Jermaine Dupree“ on google do I see that Jermaine was Janet Jackson’s boyfriend at some point. 

  • Slight diversion until the Uzbek Melon Parade…


    Last night, I had some coworkers over for this movie. It was in English, so I wonder if they were able to fully understand everything…



    Step aside Brad Pitt, Tom Cruise, Jude Law, Matthew M, other so-called “hotties”…. Paul Newman is DA MAN. I also admire him for all the humanitarian work he does, and I also LOVE his food products… especially his balsamic vinagrette dressing!   And the fact that he gives ALL profits towards charitable causes…. Finally, I also LOVE the fact that he has been married to Joanne Woodward  – fellow actress – since 1958 – that’s 47 years! 



    And Elizabeth Taylor.. I loved her in Little Women, too… she’s so good at playing “hittri” (Russian for “sneaky”) characters… and she’s just so beautiful. 


    People had not really heard of either of them here. SAD!  I’m determined to introduce people here to our classic American movies and movie stars.  I’d rather be known as the country which birthed and raised  Mr. Newman and Ms.Taylor and not Kevin Federline and Britney Spears (though I used to like Britney).

  • COMING SOON… the famous.. Uzbek Melon Parade….

  • Speaking of strange dreams, here’s one a friend of mine had recently.  ????  


     


    “random: i had a dream last night that i moved to uzbekistan.


     


    i dont remember a whole lot, just that i felt really clueless.  you were in it of course.  there were 2 other new girls there, and one of them found a job at a bank (like a teller, except she had a very fancy computer in the middle of the bank where she worked).  for some reason, this bank branch was very modern and electronic.  we went to visit her office / the bank branch since it was the weekend and her first day was on monday.  dont remember where the other girl found a job.


     


    you worked at this really run down community center, with some asian-mixed kids, and i went to hang out there.  i think our “bedrooms” were in the back – very gray, concrete.  i saw a large yellow spider in the main rec room.  i think we also traveled on mopeds.”

  • I am listening to lots of music right now because the work I’m doing is very tedious and I need motivational music to keep me going.  The song above is slow and beautiful. I found it looking at Nicole Kidman’s ITunes mix.  Random!


    ——————————————————


    Weird dreams are made of these.  My dreams of late:


    1. I am watching an orchestra concert. Suddenly, the conductor and the first chair violist start to fight.  It turns into a big orchestra brawl.  We, the audience, get up calmly and leave as if this happens all the time.


    2. I am trying to take pictures of some beautiful building in a foreign country. One of my college friends keeps poking me in the back, saying “don’t take pictures of that”.


    3. Two of my friends (foreigners living in Uzbekistan) and I are sitting around.  One of them says to the other “hey, looks like you have a lot of pimples now”.  I say to the friend “that’s so rude”.


    I find them especially weird because they’re *kind of * normal situations with random people in them. 


    Any interpretations?

  • From my sister – God Bless her! 

     

    “hi lana. i keep trying to call you at work. the secretary picks up the phone, i think she transfers me to your phone and then i hear this series of weird beeps. ARGH! i don’t understand. i calledyou yesterday and i think you picked up but then the beeps happened again! what the….???

     

    so then i tried to call the international operator, which didn’t help, and then i tried to call rcn because i thought it might be a problem with the phone line here… and i ended up fighting with the lady because she thought i was saying pakistan and i kept telling her that  i wasn’t trying to call PAKISTAN, i was trying to call UZBEKISTAN! she kept saying, “ma’am.. i’m not showing any other code for pakistan.” “but, i’m not trying to call to pakistan.” “ma’am, i’m sorry i’m not showing any other codes of pakistan!” “NO! UZBEKISTAN! u-z-b-e-k-i-s-t-a-n.”

     

    i’m just going to get a calling card.”

     

    I think this is why American foreign policy sucks, because every day people don’t know or care about 90% of the countries we’re involved in. 

    Okay, so maybe the operator wasn’t American, but still….

  • What a ROCKIN’ song.  I can’t believe I never heard this song before. It’s so… groovy! 
    “Outstanding!  Girl you knock me out!  Exciting!  Makes me wanna shout!”  Props to JOLE for introducing me to this song.


    —————————————————————————————


    Random thoughts:


    1. I HATE MOSQUITOS!  I try not to scratch when they bite me (because if you don’t, they go away), but I can’t help it.


    2. IT’s a (too) SMALL WORLD!  Met a group of Hong Kong Koreans last night who were here doing a short-term trip.  One girl was half-Japanese, half-Korean.  She and another girl went to the same school as Wallace K, a friend of mine from NYC.  His wife went to college with this girl, too!  There was also a Korean guy who grew up in Germany who knows my friend Greg F. from New York who now lives in Switzerland with his wife.


    3. I love watermelon. 


    4. I wish I had a better memory. Huh?  What did I just say?


    5. Why is it that in any country, including Uzland, this formula is always true:


    Shashlik (barbecue) + cold beer + good friends + being outside = heaven on earth!