Why I Went to Korea, Part 1 up

I've been thinking about it for a while. I love to Korea to death. I especially miss the friends I left behind there and the many memories that happened there. Every day, I wonder what they are up to and how they are doing. Every day, I wonder why fate made it that I would be so far away from them and why I still think of them.

I'll be honest. I went to Korea for the first tme for all the wrong resasons. These reasons were extremely selfish and back when I was very immature. Back in 2013, someone asked for me to come to Korea. "Well, I'll think about it..." I thought. During that time, I just started becoming a substitute teacher so I can get hands-on experience working in classrooms and working with children, and scheduling was pretty flexible as long as I told my agency I wasn't available to work certain days. I eventually realized that I had the opportunity to tak advantage of it. So I wondered...."Now that I went to Evo, went to all these tournaments, what's next for me?"

When I was young, I always wanted to visit the Philippines, the birth country of my parents and the home of my relatives my grandmother keeps in touch with still. However, I also wanted to visit Japan, France, and a bunch of other countries. But honestly, besides Canada and Mexico, I never really left the country. As thankful as I was to go to other states, I never really got out of the North American continent. But anyway....

Let's fast forward to say, maybe a couple weeks or a month after Evo. Grandma says "Jasmine, we're going to the Philippines next year." I blurt out "Grandma, can we visit another country too?" Grandma offers China as a side trip, but then I think about when I was offered to visit Korea.

"Grandma, I want to go to Korea."

 My grandma immediately disapproves. On top of that, a few weeks later after telling some of my friends that I'll be going to the Philippines next summer, my grandma suddenly decided to postpone the trip.

Why? I asked my grandmother. Then I knew what was coming...

"It's too hot, it's too rainy, not safe, etc."

What the fuck? I'm 20-something years old, and I'm thinking this is the same shit all over again that you constanly said the past years I asked as a preteen and a teenager. At this point, I'm done with this bullshit.

Then I realized, wait, I'm 20-something years old. I can book my own flight. I can book my own room. I have a job with flexible scheduling. Fuck it, let's find some flights to Korea.

Bam. $700-something USD flight roundtrip from SFO to ICN.
Bam. Cheap guesthouses to stay at.
Bam. This girl is going to Korea for Summer 2014.

But what this girl didn't realize was that things weren't going to be truly a dream trip.
This girl didn't realize after three days, she was going to be ill and bedridden at one point of the trip.
This girl didn't realize her phone was going to get wiped out.
This girl didn't realize she was almost screwed over.

Yet, somehow this girl ended up picking herself up and enjoyed herself. This same girl decided to not let her dreams be shattered and took action to make new friends and go beyond her comfort zone. As difficult as it was at first, this girl ended up coming back to Korea, not twice, but a total of five times.

How did she do it?
Why did she do it?

To be continued...

I played a notoriously bad game...

And actually had a fun time!

Now you're probably wondering "How can I have such a blast playing a failure game?" and "How bad of a video game are we talking?"

Well, lo and behold...

One of the teams I had. I always use Juri when I have to resort to using a pad-style controller!

Yes...that is indeed the infamous Street Fighter x Tekken. But you know what, despite the fact that this game was a lost hope for the competitive fighting game scene, when playing it in a casual setting witha an absolutely shitty game streaming service (NVIDIA please fix that shit), it was one of the most memorable experiences I had during San Francisco Foundry's Game Night.

This game's controls is definitely a lot more like Street Fighter, but there is a tag option that is similar to Tekken Tag. As for character choices...well it's not as "populated" like Ultra Street Fighter IV or Tekken Tag Tournament 2, but hey, Capcom had to pick and choose! However, on a serious note,  I can definitely see how this game was rushed and overhyped. While I feel like Bandai Namco takes their sweet old time *cough #whenstekkenxstreetfighter and #tekken7forconsole cough*, Capcom likes to go full speed despite the fact this results in things not working in their favor.

Do I think that Street Fighter x Tekken would've been a lot better if it wasn't rushed? Definitely! Is it a terribly made game? Kinda, but hey, it's not as crappy like the disaster of The King of Fighters 12. Overall, I'd probably play Street Fighter x Tekken to fulfill my preteen fanfiction fantasies of the Street Fighter world and Tekken world merging. And you know...for fun! When your friends are quarreling to play some Street Fighter or Tekken, make them play this. Maybe they'll reconcile, sit down and play. Get some laughs in and have a blast, or even make a drinking game out of it. Or you know, maybe they'll think it's so bad they question why they were fighting about video games and they can do other things, like go outside and enjoy the California drought weather.

Real talk though, shoutouts to Street Fighter x Tekken for making me actually update this damn blog. When Twitter can't express all my thoughts, I need to remember this exists.

Whoopie! I have a new banner!

I just LOVE this new banner that my friend, NY's Finest, made me!

It's now my banner for my Facebook fanpage, Twitter, and well...this blog!

Come check out his stuff here!