tuesday, february 21st was the day before i was leaving for korea and it turned out to be an action-packed day. in the morning i dropped kathy off at work and borrowed her car. first i headed over to koreatown and picked up my passport with my visa that i needed to enter korea.

after that i went to the bank of america in koreatown to inquire about wiring money from my american account to my korean one. they gave me some valuable info, but i had to find out some info about my bank in korea, which was trickier than i thought it would be. i put that on hold and headed up to burbank for lunch with some of my animation friends who work around there.

from left, that's: dao, me, tim, roman, kelly, jorge, sandra, and anna. most of them are my former co-worker pals from disney before i left for korea, they're now working on a new series at nick. then dao and anna are my friends from way back into the last millenium, and they're working at nick and cartoon network, respectively and with all due respect. it was a nice lunch and i said my good-byes and i'll see you next year and all that. dao let me call the los angeles branch of my korean bank and i got the info i needed, so i headed back down to koreatown and the bank again. i got everything all set up and then swung back over to david's place.

a little later i went back to pick up kathy at work. she works for fox and thus gets to work in the nakatomi tower from die hard. since my dad and really our whole family are big fans of that cinematic achievement, i snagged a picture of it when the light was red.

well, i had a great visit in los angeles, and in america in general. the almost three months went by so fast. but they were spent with family and friends, and after a year of not seeing them all and the prospects of another year apart, it was great catching up. it was also a nice reminder of the wonderful people around me and how lucky i am that i've got them to come back to once my korean adventures come to an end.

in the next installment, i'll catch up on everything that's been going on here in korea since i arrived almost three weeks ago. but really quickly i will say that i'm all set up in my apartment and i've been teaching at my new school for around a week and a half and it's going really well. details and pictures coming sooner than later, i hope.