New York: Day 12, 14, 15

Day 12: Interview at Philadelphia

We went to interview Professor Franklin Allen of the University of Pennsylvania Wharton School. In order to interview him, we went to Philadelphia via a rented car. Apparently renting a car (which can hold 2 or more people) costs less than two train tickets to Philly. I learned something new.

The car trip was less awkward than I anticipated. We mostly talked about the questions we were going to ask the professor, and I helped with Mr. Yoo cancel his tickets to San Francisco, since he can’t drive and have his phone at his ear at the same time.

Photo taken in the car.

 

Being in traffic jams + miscalculating the time it takes to Philly equaled being half an hour late for the interview. Which worked out in the end, because cancelling those plane tickets literally took an hour. There was a point where I actually dozed off a bit waiting for a correspondent to answer.

“If this happened in Korea, they would have been so dead,” he fumed, mumbling swear words in English to express his frustration but not wanting to sound undignified next to a younger person.

We met Professor Franklin Allen after much trouble locating his office. When I had looked him up on the Internet for research, he sounded, as Robert put it, “very fey, like a great economic fairy”. He did sound that airy and fey in real life, too.

Photo used in the actual article.

The interview went smoothly, and I even got to ask a few questions that I was to prepare. I didn’t know enough economic background to assess his opinions on the recent Greek/European/American economic problems, but I couldn’t help but question his overly optimistic economic prediction of South Korea. He seemed especially impressed by Samsung’s achievements and how that had contributed to the economic growth, but where does that wealth go? It doesn’t flow equally among the regular folk.

I’m not saying everything should be shared like communism, but I am saying that the wealth only bolsters the Samsung family and its affiliates, while the regular South Korean citizen has been having trouble affording college tuition and decent wages for jobs. It almost seemed like a game of raising stats in a Sims game at some points, where the stats were what mattered the most.

WHELP WHAT DO I KNOW I’M JUST AN INTERN LOL

Here's a pic of the inside of Wharton School. Yes, that is Mr. Yoo at the left.

After the interview, we exchanged small talk before parting.

“Could you convince her to not pursue journalism?” Mr. Yoo says jokingly.

So, whenever Mr. Yoo had to introduce me to someone else, he keeps joking about how he is trying to convince me not to be a journalist. I get that it’s a joke, but it’s a rather sad way to joke about something. My god, does he hate his job that much?

But all in all, the interview process was pretty fun. UPenn campus was pretty nice to look at, too.

Entrance of Wharton School!

Nice blocks.

Returning to NYC.

Manhattan buildings all laid out in a row. Pretty.

Day 14: Central Park!

It’s Saturday.

Since New York is limitless in things to do, and since I have not been to Central Park yet, I decided to do so.

Because the Park would take forever to walk, I took the subway, which took seven stops from 8^th Street-NYU.

Horse carriages at the entrance of the park!

Area where kids can play.

City and Park.

Sheep Field at Central Park. It's glorious!

Seriously, look at it, just a vast field and open sky. SQUEEE!

Fountain and lake.

Closeup of fountain.

There were people rowing boats in the lake.

Geese!

Attempt to take a scenic pic.

Oh hai Shakespeare.

Statue of a sled dog.

Conservatory Lake.

Central Park is HUGE. There was no way that I could explore all the parts. So I decided to stop at the Alice statue as a checkpoint and head for home, as the sky was growing dark.

The famous Alice statue!

Super close-up of squirrel eating stuff.

 I'm not sure what got into me, but I decided to walk all the way back home. Yes, from 76th street to 10th. WALK ALL THE BLOCKS!

Statue a bit outside the park.

Oh hai Rockefeller Center!

Sunset in NYC. Pretty!

The sun is blinding.

New York Public Library.

I decided to have dinner at a Koreatown restaurant, as it has been a while since I had actual Korean food (that is not spicy fried chicken). I stopped at Kunjip and ordered Kongguksu, a summer dish of soy broth noodles. The noodles tasted OK, but service was rather poor - when a customer next to me asked for salt, the wait staff just took my salt (specific for my noodle dish) and gave it to them! Top service right there.

I like it, but they always give you too much of it. If they only came in small portions.

So it was a fun day.

Day 15: Festivals Ahoy

I am sunburned.

At least, I think I am; my skin isn’t red or stinging, but my entire body is burning hot. And I ran out of aloe.

I still decide to go out and look around, because it’s still better than staying in the room doing nothing.

Isabel had mentioned that there was a festival called “Egg rolls and Egg cream” in Chinatown, where they provide food and tea ceremony and the like. That sounds exciting! So I also decide to head to Chinatown.

 

The trip started out badly, as the location was much further away than I had anticipated. Also, it was crazy hot outside and I was already feeling dehydrated.

After walking for half an hour straight, I arrive at the festival place, and…

 …it was really underwhelming. There was no tea ceremony when I arrived. They had two booths where children could make paper fans or have their faces painted, some food booths and a performance stage. It was smaller than the annual Japan Culture Festival that UM has in East Hall. Sigh.

The titular egg roles and egg cream (made of choc syrup, milk, and seltzer). It tasted meh.

Okay, the performances were impressive.

Sweating, sunburned, and very disappointed, I staggered back to the subway station not knowing what to do next. But then I remembered seeing a program for a Big Apple BBQ Block Party at Madison Square Garden. Surely things would be much better there.

So I headed to the BBQ festival. And they didn’t disappoint.

Barbecue!!!

Angry Orchard Hard Cider. It was delicious.

Merchandise booth.

Long line for BBQ is long.

Salt and pepper beef ribs ohhhh glorious.

Pork ribs with baked beans.

I am happy to announce that the BBQ was delicious. So the day ended well.

And now,

I would like to mention that HELP I AM SURROUNDED BY GIRLY ROOMMATES.

The one chill, casual roommate, Maya, left the dorm to a nearer location to her workplace, as the transit was making it difficult for her to come home and take an online class in time. So it’s just me, Elsa, Clair and Isabel. And these three girls have a lot of common with each other, while not having much in common with me.

They are what I would like to call “honor sorority girls”, whether or not they had actually been in a sorority. I am referring to the girls who have standards, who are pursuing their education and/or employment seriously rather than being MrS’es. However, they still possess the stereotypical traits of a perky sorority girl, sprinkling their vocabulary with “Oh. My. God.” or “Gurl, shut UP! You didn’t!”, swooning over romance, boys, celebrities, fashion, and clubbing.

I am starting to feel this odd sense of alienation and loneliness amidst a crowd. We had to fill in a roommate/lifestyle preference survey before coming in the dorm. How is it that there is no one else who prefers staying in, enjoying cooking, anime, video games and the like? Why am I an odd one out?

So I decided to record some interactions I have with my roommates in a segment called… “The Roommates”. Yeah, I suck at naming things.

So in the first episode of “The Roommates”:

1.

Elsa’s Russian boyfriend who lives in Germany sent her flowers to the dorm. Now that is a sweet, romantic gesture. I mean, who doesn’t like receiving flowers?

What I can’t relate to is Clair and her friends (from her workplace) declaring that flowers are better than chocolate.

“Oh my god, I loooove receiving flowers,” Clair declares. “They’re like so much better than getting silly stuff like chocolates or stuffed animals.” Her friends echo her sentiments.

But, but, chocolate is delicious…

2.

Clair had brought friends over while they were getting ready to go out for the night. One of the friends, upon finding out I am Korean, says, “Oh, my stepmom is Korean!”

“Oh, really?” I ask.

“Yeah. I can barely understand what she says, though.”

I can already think of three different scenarios as to why that would be the case, and none of them reflect well on you or your dad. Thanks for telling me that piece of information.

3.

According to my roommates’ conversation, New York guys are aggressive when flirting with you. Italian men are all over you and won’t leave you alone, but will back away when saying no. Mexican men are also very forward and will call you pet names like “Mi Amor”. But Middle Eastern men are apparently creepy. I couldn’t contribute to the convo because men of various nationalities don’t flirt with me when I walk in the streets.