Cameron Diaz tomato diet

Cameron Diaz do diet with tomato. She solutions her breakfast and snacks with tomato. The tomato solutions her belly’s fatness and she continues eat until she is full. The tomato solution she says is great. The tomato has very less calories than we can eat! So Cameron Diaz can do healthy diet with tomato. So can we. We can make our body like Cameron Diaz! // 6th-year student

Tomato solutions and water solutions. If you are hesitant to take a wee, a pee, or a sprinkle-tinkle, you can just press the handy Water Sound button in your toilet stall. Whoosh, whoosh, drain // Whoosh, whoosh, drain on the mini-speakers. Discreet relief. Proceed to the sink, lather and rinse with beanu-on-a-rope. Place your hands inside the jet-engine airdryers. Watch the skin ripple over your knuckles and your bird-bone metacarpals, under mean red neon. You are now refreshed, sanitized, and dried.

More water sounds. Jimjilban, the Korean bath house. First impressions are vague after a night in Itaewon, drops streaming down the sweat-lodge window panes, I’m sitting on a tree stump in a stone cavern. There are three of us, unsure of protocol. Arms are crossed, sure, fine. And sweat starts to roll slowly down my back. I can feel the rivulets. NO DRUNKEN. The scene blurs as the timer, set on just 5-6 minutes, runs out. Time for the cold pools, alternating with the hot pools. Back to the showers once more, before returning to the locker room where dramas play out overhead. Everything is illuminated (under bright fluorescent lights).

The second trip to jimjilban involves a Korean-style scrub, and a lioness ajumma with scouring-mitts for giant, unwieldy paws. Scrubbed, mauled, here and there. Most everywhere. In a violent, circular motion. Scrub, suds, scrub again. It’s not comfortable, but it’s supposed to be a healthy practice. Elbow-blows between the shoulders and down the spine, crick, crick. A steaming rag is laid over your eyes, barley oil rubbed and slapped onto your cheeks, and to finish a bucket of hot water is thrown over you to wash away the grey curls of slough. And you’re new again.

Everything is illuminated (with handheld screens and mobile sets). On the metro to work, a soap to my left on a thumbnail portal and audio winding up to the ear. Small children flipping open cells, Umma? Maximize the box, throw it over your head to the skyline of Gangnam, and orchestrate Samsung and Maxwell House advertisements. The new Hyundai vehicle, panned from all angles. A glut of visual stimuli to overcome the rest of your senses, short-fusing your memory of the last hour, the last afternoon, the last day.

Guro Digital Tan-jee. Lady Hof, ajumma / ajoshi hofs distinct with their Day-Glo plastic tulip gardens and gaudy lattice. Stationed at the window with a beer and anjou, puffed crisps of barley, or maybe corn. The proprietor’s daughter at the register, bored, refills moulle. The lights fade-out from blue to nauseous lavender, and back again. Students and businessmen walk by, slowly, with heads down. There are ladies smoking cigarettes in this place – not a usual sight in public. Peppery fried chicken, the typical beer snack here, goes to the next table. The scene looks like this every night of the week.

Say hi to the ancient ruins of Greece

and stop by our home furnishings expo.

Soosoobaby, soon soon
Soosoobaby, soon soon
I will march myself back home,
I’ll be better off alone,
Sixteen days are not enough,
Kids in caps, coyotes are

God and chickens

Dec. 12, 2009
Haemaru-gil, Bldg. 24

Momentary engagement with home. This American Life, Nov. 23, 2009, Episode #369. The bird takes off and flies up the stairs, perches on the window in the widow’s office. She speaks to the bird and says, Come to me. Her sons are on the other side to the door. The bird flies away. Mysterious sights, an Irish tradition, this week’s stories on poultry and magic. I’m listening in from Haemaru-gil now.

Whenever Paul thinks of rain, swallows fall in a wave, and tap on his window with their beaks. Whenever Paul thinks of snow, soft winds blow round his head, and his phone rings just once late at night-like a bird calling out, Wake up, Paul. Don't be scared. Don't believe you're all alone. // Rennie Sparks // Handsome Family

Last year, the scene was coffee, toast, and radio every Sunday morning. The address is one forboding shadowy manor on Franklin Street, a grand place last century, but now inhabited by spiders, singing quail, and students. Deb is my listening companion. Wake up to Ira, feed Almondine, Pilaf, and Tettrazini, and look for their brown, spotted eggs. Read the paper. Stretch. Yawn. Wipe the cast-iron, no soap. What are you doing this afternoon? Anything you like.

Overseas now, Soosoobaby, annyeoung-haseyo. Different scenery, continuation of the same dream. Jack-hammers and construction next door. Same onion truck. Last month, an 8-story building came down on my block. I came home from school one day, and it was just gone, the space clean and gutted down to the basement. Orange ribbons and flimsy posts are all that stand to keep passersby from walking into the perfectly-geometric, 15-foot hole in the ground. And each day after, concrete pours a new floor, building up again almost as quickly as it came down.

And each week, glass walls and doors erecting in the Seoul Metro. Why do you have these, I ask my friend, J. They are to prevent suicides, simple as that. We have more now, due to the recession. Escalators that change direction, for example, the set at Seoul National University stop. Duct-tape arrows all over the station to re-direct commuters. But they go largely unnoticed, and logjams and crowded, pushing turn-arounds result in the chutes for weeks. Public service announcements encourage citizens to walk on the right, pass on the left. This is how other parts of the world do it. But this is against what the older generation is taught, which is to keep left in walking, so chaos all around.

A five-year-old boy, with a teddy-bear pack. Brown curls and plaid. He is led by the hand by an elegant haraeboeji, with the slightest halt-gait. We are at Younan-budu, the port outside Incheon, ready to depart for the West Sea. A rollicking group of young Americans to my right. Loud voices. The magnificent entrance to Chinatown across the street, a 10-foot thorny green sculpted into an Oriental dragon. Waiting in the shade for friends to arrive, last days of summer.

Ajumma on the subway, her tote bag reads “Love me // Love me // Love me”. English phrases on t-shirts, bags, and children’s pencil cases. Maxico (sic: Mexico?) and Atlanta Braves caps. Atlanta! I say, but no one has related to me yet, it is just a cap. Mottoes of Korea-Sparkling, ever-optimistic, heart-wrenching prose that speaks to love, ice cream, and everything shining.

Pretty 2 color. Choose the way of happiness leading you to sweet time. // iBono

Vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce is my favorite. Is there any more of that chocolate ice cream left?

Love everyone around you. Love is the ultimate humanist ideal. Believe in the best! // Omnibus // Made in Korea

Don't you remember? In the past we used to talk for so many hours about things that only we could understand. The special moments we have had. Walking always hand in hand through the good times and the bad times. Outside the sky is light with stars. There's a hollow roaring from the sea. The wind is shaking the almond tree. Everything reminds me of you. I miss you, my dear friend.

I think a friendship that will never end. When you are weak, I will be strong. Helping you to carry on. Call on me, I will be there. Don't be afraid. You are the best friend in my life.

Morning Glory. // Hugs. // You are the best friend in my life. // 12-year-old’s pencil case

Say kimchee,

and I'll see you soon.

Swish and spit

Dec. 9, 2009
Daerim-dong

Images of Seoul, before everything gets away from me:

A shoebox studio, new sheets, and letters in my suitcase. First night, mopeds speeding past my window, ajummas shouting at their children. The familiar sounds of chopping, dicing, and scraping, and the smell of simmering jiggae from the restaurant below. The doorman across the street sings a Korean folk song. The vegetable truck ambles and shudders past, tape playing over the loudspeaker, come buy onions. The refrigerator starts and stops, and doors open and shut quietly down the hall, intermittently through the evening. Unwrap bars of soap, fold socks, investigate the cupboards.

Ferry from Younan-budu to Deokjeokdo

Deokjeokdo Island, Alfred the dog, fires, soju, and a free-floating raft. Mosquito-tent, star-gazer canopy. Diving, an evening thunderstorm, and a lost camera. A hike to the peak, and a Fighting! company meeting of Samsung executives. I am on top of a peak, with clouds rolling alongside. A grey haraeboeji takes to me, strokes my arm with a long reed of grass, and sits there smiling, so strange and funny. How to react but to just smile?

Raft at Seopori Beach

Beach Love Motel, sandy-grit peanut butter sandwiches, and fireworks. Late-night soju shots with the ever-present proprietor. Seopori Beach and a Chuseok weekend, tent city. Hite, a sunset, and a lifeguard tower. A dog-fight between Alfred, the pug-nosed Cavalier mutt, and a ragged beagle, who whines and then disappears. Mr. Kim’s brother, wife, and son Tae-Hoon arrive in time for midnight fireworks, and funny Tae-Hoon scurries up and down the beach, clutching Alfred and dragging him around the sand. Tae-Hoon teaches him how to dance, and to give a high-five. The dog is very patient. Later on in the night, Alfred crawls into my lap for a sleep.

Alfred

Haemaru-gil’s office-tel, and a landlord enforcing principles of Feng Shui. The musician doorman loves opera and Johnny Cash. The gift of a drawing and oranges is reciprocated with Hershey’s Kisses and an impromptu guitar lesson. I am in love with an ajoshi. I speak no Korean, and he speaks no English, but despite this we have managed to make friends.

Subway, escalator, bus, rush. Catch your heel. Seoul-dae Ip-Gu. Daerim-dong. Funeral home and a hospital on the next block from school. Jendo guard dogs, fierce at first, and a few months later a litter of puppies appear, plump and clumsy in thick, shaggy coats. Haraeboeji smoking cigarettes, watching soccer practice. Thin men and women, dragging IV-carts, into the schoolyard. Stylish young mothers in rabbit-furs, on their hand-phones, and ajumma power-walking around the track. Hello, Alex-seh! Teacher Alex-seh! Howar-yoo? Gooday!

On the 2-line, Seoul

New friends in Haebongchon, a housewarming, and a splendid rooftop welcome to the city. Traipse through Sadang, Samgakji, and Noksapyeong, past the kimchee pots. Look for the dog café and the Family Mart. Turn left, and up, up the hill. Blue glass building, Spacious Two. More blue, blue fluorescent club neon. There is always a friend to be found here.

HBC Bar’s advertised “Breakfast/Dinner/Booze” and lonely boys smoking at the Café Alexandria, across the street. Anxiety. Loud Western music in a narrow, smoky bar. Pull chairs outside that first night with new friends Christine and Renee, taxis to Itaewon’s Homo Hill, and tranny-burlesque. A six-foot-four, Kimono-clad beauty queen appears and startles. Woulda-you lika dreenk? But it’s too loud, so Six-Four bends down, too close, Dreenk? Dreenk? I still don’t understand between the insistent strobe and music, too-loud. About to faint. A menu opens, and a life-giving cup soon appears. Later, beautiful trannies will sing, dance, and shamelessly steal drinks. They are quite stunning. Everything is beautiful and blinking.

Pusan on the slow Mugunghwa train, cans of cheap Cass passing between Joy and I. Talking the evening away. Girls across the aisle have a camera that shoots, clicks, prints. They take our picture and kindly offer the tiny Polaroids. They are going to the film festival, too. All signs point auspicious, with sweet neighbors and a hushed, drunken roll towards the coast. Visits to the snack car, marvel at the train’s karaoke room (naeori-ban) and massage parlor. The rest of the ride spent lounging on the plush, carpeted floor of the snack car with new American friends. Discussions of couch-surfing, Catholic backgrounds, and the Korean penchant for opportunistic napping. I like these people. And at some point, I must lay down across the bar-stools for a nap myself, because that’s where I wake up, some hours later.

A night at the Western Bar in Pusan, no name recalled. A bottle of cheap champagne shared at the bar. The self-professed ‘curly-haired freak’ from Gwangju accompanies me through good tunes and bad, and I have a chance to try out the K-Pop moves I’ve picked up. Dance night can never go wrong with a game partner! The next day brings explorations of Pusan’s Hyundae and Gwanghamun Beaches. A tour of the Jagalchi Fish Market, and service flounder, fried fresh and crispy with a bit of salt. Delicious. Pristine sky-scrapers push up to the edge of the sand, looming and shining in the sun. It’s October and I didn’t bring my suit, but we strip down anyway, to our tights and tee-shirts, and wade and thrash into the freezing, clean, and deep waters. Jet-skis zoom too close, I dive to the bottom, gaping fresh breaths at the surface, and then slowly float back to shore on the waves.

Fast-forward through the foreigner’s district, Itaewon. Highs, lows. Early nights discover the glorious gay bars, billiards bar, and Roofer’s for spoken word, plays, and music. Errant scenes I’d wished I’d overlooked are leopard-prints and heels posed in doorways, waiting for the next visitor. A blond soldier hops over the fence and rushes in. Another night soon after, also involving the military, brings a frightening and sudden incident at my beloved egg-burger cart, leaving me shaken. Neon swirls into curbs into traffic lights, and after the calls to 119, there is little more that I can do. The walk back to Spacious Two is very quiet.