yong jun's birthday

this past weekend, for yong jun's 24th birthday we took him to an
african (really it was mostly, if not all, nigerian food) restaurant
in itaewon. a couple weekends ago, john and i were going through
this waegukin (foreigner) city to find an ethnic place to eat,
maybe arabic, thai, or indian, we had thought,
until john saw a huge sign for an african restaurant.
and sure enough the menu included pounded
yam, egusi, okro, jollof rice and beans,
fried plantains, maltinas, fried chicken, all the best of nigeria. i
was ecstatic, we walked up to the second floor and it
felt like i had just stepped into nigeria, the entire floor was filled with
africans (i swear most of them were nigerian), and small stores that
sold vaseline, chin-chin, and baby powder, crackers, all goods
from the motherland. everything felt like home,
except, as yong jun pointed out later on, it was cold and everyone
was wearing winters coats and hats. you never see that where we
grew up. it felt so familiar and nostalgic, but the weird,
yet probably not so surprising thing
was that in some ways i felt quite awkward and out of place
there, with my caucasian husband, and my yellow chinese skin,
i guess it was like i had always felt in nigeria anyway.
anyway, we thought yj would like a piece of nostalgia for his birthday so we
came again, to find that the waiter was from jos, the city where we went to
boarding school,
and we enjoyed a yummy meal, though the egusi
didn't taste as delicious as i remembered, the jollof rice and
beans were salivatingly tasty. rick smith and his wife came, and steve
hammack, all friends of yj from kent academy.
we were hoping to catch a few minutes of a nigerian soap opera, but
distastefully, we were stuck watching an interview of joel olsteen,
i told my story about how my college roommates and i had literally
ripped every single page of his book and thrown it across our living
room, this was back when we had no room for phony 'christians'. oh he
still makes me rave though. but that's beside the point here.
i miss nigeria. john and i are planning and saving for a winter 09 trip to
my home. that would mean a lot to me for him to see my
origins. well, that was a bit of a tangent of a blog. all that to say,
we celebrated my brother's birthday. i'd say yj is one of best men i know.
it's so great to have him nearby.