Inner Beauty

Korean woman: You never say anything nice about me.

Me: Really? I think you have great inner beauty.

Korean woman: What about my outer beauty?

Me: I appreciate you for your great inner beauty.

Korean woman: Oh my god! I can't believe you said that. My boyfriend would kill you if he heard this.

Me: He might attempt the same if he heard I greatly appreciated your outer beauty.

Honeyed Words

Chinese girl: When I ask some favor form you, I should say something good, especially handsome ~ cool guy ~~something like that haha

Me: That's right!

Prince Disease

Korean girl: You have prince disease.

Me: Prince disease?

Korean girl: You don't know prince disease?

Me: No... what is it?

Korean girl: Let me find English word.

<Consults Korean-English dictionary on smartphone for several minutes>

Korean girl: Ahh... it means 'you are snob'!

So Wrong, It's Right

Malaysian friend: What are you doing?

Me: I am looking amazing.

Malaysian friend: Dude, you are an IT technician with zero social skills who thinks he is the bomb. That's just not right.

Medusa and the Sunken Palace

A stone's throw away from the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is the entrance to the Basilica Cistern. The so-called Sunken Palace is an impressive underground complex that features a pair of Medusa heads. Medusa was the infamous Gorgon whose gaze was able to turn her victims into stone, similar to how a wayward glance from the surgically altered eyes of a K-girl has the ability to turn my knees into jelly.

First constructed 1500 years ago under the rule of the Roman emperor Constantine, the chamber remained in operation for a thousand years until the Ottoman era. The largest cistern in all Constantinople with a capacity to hold 80,000 cubic meters of water, the engineering marvel is a rather large facility and still in solid condition.

7000 slaves toiled away for several years to build the waterproof facility. The beads of sweat dropping from their forehead  were among the first liquid donations to the cistern, which was designed to hold rainwater for future use.

Many of the marble and granite columns that support the structure were reused from even more ancient ruins or were surplus from other construction projects, so they sport a variety of styles from Ionic to Doric. The two Medusa heads arrived from parts unknown, ending up upside down or sideways to fit into the general architecture without additional modification and also to avoid her direct gaze.