New Moon Tickets already selling! New Moon trailers are out! New Moon this! New Moon that!

So I've been pretty indifferent to this whole "hate 'em with a passion or love them like a fan girl" thing going on with the Twilight series. I haven't read the books and I almost slept through the first movie. However, there are those who are even MORE clueless about Twilight than I am but even those people could tell you they've noticed the hype. Those from my area can tell you well about the trampling of the people at the mall when Kristen Stewart (Bella) had a signing at Hot Topic. There weren't just fan girls but fan parents and fan boys. A lot lost their sense of dignity as they lost themselves in the deafening high pitched screaming as Ms Stewart showed her face.
So what I was getting at is that I don't HAVE to be well versed in Twilight to know that there's an incredible hype. However, I'm indifferent. I don't like the series but I don't hate it. I'm not one of the passionate haters or the "I'LL DIE FOR YOU EDWARD, TAKE MY BLOOD!" fan. You see, I don't believe in glittering vampires or werewolves falling in love with a human who has blood claim (those who know Atwater-Rhodes' books should know what blood claim is). I also don't believe in Native American werewolves. I believe the European werewolves. Though there were things much like werewolves in some Native American cultures, these animal-men were usually not just wolf in form. Some were wolves, some were eagles, some were horses, etc etc. But now I sidetrack...
Now, all I'm really trying to get at with this blog is that though I'm aware of the hype and tried to be indifferent, it's getting annoying trying to get the latest media news only to be bombarded with this Twilight: New Moon hype.  Even blogs are being over run with "I love Edward" blogs and "Twilight is gay" blogs. With this being said, let's not even start with youtube.
What I don't understand is how this all became such a big hype. Other than the vampires 'sucking blood' to survive, these vampires from the Twilight series don't follow much of the conventional traditions of vampires. I've known authors to create their own vampires before but I feel that Twilight vampires are really out there. I'm a personal fan of Amelia Atwater-Rhodes. I have books from "In the Forests of the Night" to "Snakecharm". They were good books and were pretty short. I love epically long books, don't get me wrong (I just finished reading Mists of Avalon), but sometimes short and to the point is really nice once in a while.
Even with Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, her vampires were traditional with some creativity of vampirism. There were no glittering, good vampries. These books had a lot of charm and provided good entertainment. I don't understand how these books didn't become such a hype. It has a good following and I feel that Twilight is only worthy of a good following. The hype feel undeserved.
I think that when something turns into a frenzied franchise like Twilight, it's just like a whirlpool. One gets sucked in and then another and another. Soon enough, you have a ton of people who are absorbed in the hype. What for, who knows?
So I have said my two cents worth. Hate? No, I don't think so. But I most certainly don't have the passion of love for the books and movies as much as a lot of others do. However, I feel that those who read this should give the books by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes a try. Specifically, go after "In the Forests of the Night". It's a good start to her books.

Post Korean Dinner Trip

I really didn't have much need to be so nervous about that trip with my boyfriend to get Korean food. We had a blast though my wallet took a good beating. It figures that I'd be so worked up over nothing so exciting.

Going to the Korean Restaurant was an experience all on its own. We left church and got on the bus immediately and transferred to the local Korean Town. The trip there was a good five dollars on its own. After the bus rides, we had to decide on where we would eat. I wanted Jjajangmyun but I couldn't find any stores that sold that. So we ended up going where google had led me to when I was looking up places online the night before.


So Kong Dong is a Korean Tofu restaurant chain. Tofu, however, is a bad idea because my boyfriend hates anything bean related... and worse yet, he won't touch food if there's no meat. But we went there anyway and we were seated.

My fear of people talking to me in Korean was wrongly preemptive. Our waitress sat us down and spoke to us in English. We ordered food in English and we were soon served our meals.

My boyfriend chose to have the ever famous galbi. I ordered beef tofu soup and asked for it to be extremely spicy. We waited in anticipation and luckily we didn't have to wait long at all.

It was fun introducing my boyfriend to new foods and I was delighted when he told me he liked what he was eating. In fact, he LOVED the galbi. I suppose I have to make some for him when I can now.

He, as expected, did NOT enjoy the tofu soup. He refused to even try the tofu, avoiding the floating object trying to reach for the beef. He and I can also add that the 'very spicy' tofu soup wasn't very spicy at all. He found it slightly spicy and I found it not spicy. When they served it to us, it was so red that I was almost afraid to try it. It looked quite intimidating, what with its red color and it being served still boiling.

We were also served a nice pot of rice. After they served the rice into our personal bowls, they filled the pot with tea so we could enjoy some sticky cooked rice in tea after the meal. I liked it, my boyfriend didn't. My boyfriend is quite the picky eater.

The aftermath of the dinner left us quite in shock. I was surprised to have eaten how much I did and my boyfriend also finished every bit of meat on his galbi. We were given a ton of food and we left the place extremely full. However, it's American tradition to want dessert... and I just can't abandon that tradition. I was raised on it!

We searched for a dessert shop and found a cute little ice cream store. They sold cakes, ice cream, ramune, bread, and chips. It was much like the average Korean snack shop but so unlike the American dessert shop. However, we stayed there. I ordered patbingsu and my boyfriend ordered something I had never heard of before: Ferrero Rocher ice cream. All it was, really, was hazelnut ice cream with a bit of crushed almonds and a bit of chocolate flavoring. However, it was amazing. I'd definitely like to go back there just for that ice cream.

I was slightly disappoitned when I ordered my patbingsu, however. The girl who worked there seemed to not really know what she was making. She put crushed ice, mocchi balls, sweet bean topping, all sorts of random fruit (I had asked her not to add fruit in) and a really odd powder that I'm SURE I've tasted before. I think it's the rice powder they use on this one type of Korean mocchi. However, it tasted horrible on the patbingsu. I had almost choked on it, actually. I ended up throwing half of it out and proceeded to drink the ramune we had also bought.

My boyfriend and I were quite satisfied and headed back home. All in all, it was a great day. I plan to take him to taste jjajangmyun next. I know exactly where to go as well. Another exciting day awaits us, I'm sure of it.