soulmate...........

when you start forcing yourself to bed in order to wake up the next day early enough prior to whatever it is you need to do just to hit the gym...there really is no excuse for complaining about being tired....or those damned bags under your eyes in the passport photos you just took.....and i thought that facial and massage would relieve the tension....oh well..at least i got a haircut....gotta look good before i see my wizzler right?

---

compliments of the khym....

China's Youth Look to Seoul for Inspiration

From clothes to hairstyle, music to television dramas, South Korea has been defining the tastes of many Chinese and other Asians for the past half decade. As part of what the Chinese call the Korean Wave of pop culture, a television drama about a royal cook, "The Jewel in the Palace," is garnering record ratings throughout Asia, and Rain, a 23-year-old singer from Seoul, drew more than 40,000 fans to a sold-out concert at a sports stadium here in October.

But South Korea's "soft power" also extends to the material and spiritual spheres. Samsung's cellphones and televisions are symbols of a coveted consumerism for many Chinese. Christianity, in the evangelical form championed by Korean missionaries deployed throughout China, is finding Chinese converts despite Beijing's efforts to rein in the spread of the religion. South Korea acts as a filter for Western values, experts say, making them more palatable to Chinese and other Asians.

For a country that has been influenced by other cultures, especially China but also Japan and America, South Korea finds itself at a turning point in its new role as exporter.

***

"Three Guys and Three Girls" and "Three Friends" are South Korea's homegrown version of the American TV show "Friends." As for "Sex and the City," its South Korean twin, "The Marrying Type," a sitcom about three single professional women in their 30's looking for love in Seoul, was so popular in China that episodes were illegally downloaded or sold on pirated DVD's.

"We feel that we can see a modern lifestyle in those shows," said Qu Yuan, 23, a student at Tsinghua University here. "American dramas also show the same kind of lifestyle. We know that South Korea and America have similar political systems and economies. But it's easier to accept that lifestyle from South Koreans because they are culturally closer to us. We feel we can live like them in a few years."

http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=2881

---

do you guys have an airplane uniform? some form of attire that you always seem to put together when u're about to hop on the plane?

---

i just sent out my 2nd round of postcards....did you guys NOT GET THE FIRST ROUND from singapore???