Day & Night

I went to Brighton a lot this week... here is a recap!

When the sun is out...

From Monday through Wednesday, it was pouring almost nonstop. Nevertheless, Eseul and I decided to go to Brighton on Tuesday for lunch. We wanted to go to Thai Spice (the place we saw when we went to the pub crawl) but when we got there, we found out they're closed Mondays and Tuesdays for lunch. (The English have it good; they work short hours!)

So we ended up walking several blocks in the rain and wind and finally found this random restaurant...

It actually ended up being pretty good though. I ate the other half of this pizza for dinner.

The next day, we ventured out to the city again. Once again, it was pouring... and we ended up eating at Pret a Manger again (the same place we had at Bath).

So there are two shelves of sandwiches and you just pick whichever one you want. They have salads, sushi, wraps, and baked goods too.

Look at Eseul's cappuccino. They make a star shape at the top of it with the chocolate powder. Cute!!

This was my falafel melt. So interesting, huh?

Erly and I were twins that day. We both wore dark gray v-neck sweaters with black coats.

Today, I went again for lunch!!

This is Preston St., a strip with a bunch of hole-in-the-wall, independently-owned restaurants.

Natalia and Sarah.. they are gorgeous!

So happy to eat. =)

This was a Greek/Hungarian place... I still don't know what Hungarian food is because they serve hamburgers, pita sandwiches, and french fries here. Anyways, we got all this for 3.50 (lunch special). That's a good price because it's usually pretty expensive to eat out here.

Afterwards, we shopped around.

...And then at night...

On Tuesday, the school planned a karaoke night at a cute local pub called King & Queen.

You can't see it, but this one grandpa is singing... haha. He was good.

Afterwards, I went to a club called Tru with some girls. It was annoying though because they had this "foam party" at midnight where they just started spraying foam. I guess it was fun for everyone else except me... I hate getting wet when I'm wearing clothes and I didn't want to be freezing while waiting at the bus stop. Plus, at British clubs they always play trance/techno music. It's not as fun to dance to.

One of my friends, Darlene, was feeling sick though so I left early with her.

On Thursday, the school had an event where they took us to see the gay nightlife of Brighton. We went to a gay bar and club.

We all met up at school first and boarded the buses together.

Here is the bar and club, Charles Street.

We stayed at the bar for 2 hours because the club didn't open until 11PM. I was actually really bored during this time and really tempted to buy my first drink (they were super cheap here, around 1 pound). I looked around and saw everyone drinking.. the more they drank, the more fun they seemed to be having. Now I really understand why it's so hard to NOT drink when you put yourself in those types of drinking/partying environments.

Anyways, it was very tempting but in the end, I didn't buy a drink. This is why:
1. I thought of my small group next year. What if one of my girls started drinking... I would feel like a hypocrite if I tried to help her stop knowing that I have done it myself in the past.
2. I want my FRIENDS to buy me my first drink on my 21st birthday!

This is a hair straightener... if you pay 90 pence, you can use it for like 10 minutes or something, I forget. haha... they would have something like this at a gay club.

Here is the club!

One great thing about going to a gay club is that you don't have to worry as much about creepers and heebs.

Ladies, by "heebs" I mean those guys who watch you from afar and try to dance up on you at clubs, and make you want to be celibate for the rest of your life... hahaha.

Kidding... but really, if there's one thing I absolutely hate about clubs, it's the shady guys!!

Anyways, I left the club with my two friends after like 30 minutes... we got bored. But it was good to get back early. I got to Skype with Monica and Jamie!
I really miss these gong joos... I hope I get to spend my winter break in Korea with them. =)

I <3 the USA

This is how we do Fourth of July in England.

I was so hungry that I finished my burger before I was able to take a picture of it...
it was good though!

I want this to be my life's anthem

"Unveiling our beauty really just means unveiling our feminine hearts.

And unveiling beauty is our greatest expression of love, because it is what the world needs from us. When we choose not to hide, when we choose to offer our hearts, we are choosing to love. Jesus offers; he invites; he is present. That is how He loves. That is how we love--sincerely, as the Scripture says, 'from the heart' (1 Pet. 1:22). Our focus shifts from self-protection to the hearts of others. We offer Beauty so that their hearts might come alive, be healed, know God. That is love."

- Captivating, John & Stasi Eldredge

Finished this book last night.
Thank you JAMIE LEE!

Stonehenge & Bath

On Saturday, July 5, I went on a school day-trip to Stonehenge & Bath.

When I travel, I'm more interested in seeing how locals live--where they shop, what they eat, what they do for fun--rather than going to the tourist attractions. So I wasn't really expecting much from this trip because I knew it would be a sightseeing tour.

But everything we saw was beautiful and I actually enjoyed this day more than I expected.

We met at 7AM and boarded the coaches. Basically everyone knocked out for the two-hour ride except me...
After arriving at Stonehenge, we had an hour to walk around and take pictures.


I look happy here but in reality I'm freezing my butt off.
...just kidding, I was happy!

After that, we boarded the coaches again and made our way to Bath.





Bath is this really cute, lively city with small shops, cafes, and restaurants. There are also some street vendors and performers in the shopping plazas.
Everything just looked really nice and pretty. I'm pretty sure people who live here are rich.

When we got there, we had two hours to ourselves to walk around and grab lunch.
We ate at a sandwich chain called Pret a Manger.
They sell packaged, freshly-made sandwiches. All the sandwiches are on a shelf right when you walk in so you pick whatever you want and pay for your items at the cashier.

I got this mango chicken sandwich with almonds and arugula. It was good.

We sat near the Roman baths to eat our lunches. They were having this showcase of different dance teams from local schools. It was really cute.

This was too adorable.

These kids performed Dancing in the Rain... SO cute! The little boys looked so bored but the girls were really into it.

Afterwards, they had junior high and high school dance teams come up to perform. So let me just say that white people REALLY can't dance (unless you are Justin Timberlake). They were pretty bad. The last act was this girl who looked like she was 12. She wore this metallic leotard and did a solo piece to a Spice Girls song... I wonder what her parents thought of that. It wasn't inappropriate or anything, just really bad and embarrassing.

Then we walked around!

Here is the Jane Austen Centre. For those of you who didn't know, Jane Austen wrote a book about me. Haven't you ever read Emma?

I wish... I do like her writings though.


At 2PM, everyone met in front of the Roman Baths.

Here is the ceiling of the building leading into the baths.

We walked through the entire thing and saw a bunch of monuments that just looked like differently-shaped rocks to me. Nonetheless I took pictures of it.






The water was green... questionable...

We left Bath at around 4:30PM... it was a three hour ride back home! Luckily, I fell asleep for two hours of it.

It was a good day. The end!

No clue what I'm doing in week two

Week two can be summed up in one word: rest.

The first half was mostly spent recovering from the craziness of week one and London, resting, returning e-mails, skyping with people back home, working on this blog, reading, sleeping. This trip is really making me see how introverted I am. I love being around people, but at the end of the day I still need my alone time.

After that brief hiatus, I wanted to go out and explore again. So Fang and I went to Brighton on Thursday.

Saw some cute shops.


This is cool, huh? It was some random wall in an alleyway.


Here is where we ate our dinner...
This is kind of a bad picture, but it's that tiny green restaurant in the middle.

My dinner!
We ate at this Indian vegetarian buffet called Bombay Aloo. Fang did not like it, but I enjoyed it a lot. I think I am blessed with the gift to love almost everything I eat. haha..

Afterwards, we got on the bus to go to the Brighton Marina, which is a rich area of Brighton near the beach. Everything was closed but we weren't there to look around. Here was our destination:

ASDA!
This place is super cheap. It's owned by Wal-Mart.

We spent two hours buying groceries here... I know, don't ask.

I really like these escalator things... haha.

For some reason, when everyone is abroad, they are so determined to save every penny. But think about how much you can save up if you live this same way everyday at home (but also how stressed out you'd be all the time...)


P.S. This made my day.

Fang and I were walking around Churchill Square and we saw a vendor selling these wooden roses, 10 for 1 pound. We both thought they were really pretty and Fang asked the seller how much for one... but he told us to just take one each for free. We tried to pay him for it, but he refused. Aww.. so nice.

What does it all mean?

Though I still feel the excitement of being in England, I am beginning to wonder about my purpose here. I think what I am really beginning to see is how different I am from many of the students on this program. Sometimes I almost feel alone. I think that I have been so involved in the Edge all throughout college that I have lost sight of how vast and different the real world is outside of my ministry. In doing so, I have also neglected what it means to be a Christian; that is, reaching out to the "lost" (for some reason, I don't like calling non-Christians that... it sounds demeaning).

This past year, I was blessed with strong, close friendships and older sisters to mentor and guide me (something I've never had before). Because of that, I grew a lot; however, I also became so comfortable in my close circle of girl friends that I almost lost motivation to meet new people. This summer, I'm really beginning to see that Christianity isn't about comfort; it's really about opening yourself up and loving those who are outside of your comfort zone. I think during these past couple weeks, God has given me a heart for some of the girls I've met and stretched me to try and reach out to people despite their differences.

I hope during my time here, I would have the grace to extend the love I have been given unto others. I want to be challenged, stretched, and.. uncomfortable.

Because it costs 2.20 to use the washing machine...

This is how I do my laundry here.

1. Wash in sink with hot water and detergent

2. Hang dry!

When I told people about this, they thought it was sad but actually I have this really weird attachment to all my clothes... so I don't mind hand washing them. Anyways, I guess it's something no one but me understands...

Something ridiculous: I had to google "how to hand wash clothes" just to double check that I wasn't doing anything wrong.