Monthly Photo Recap: April 2014

I know I seem to say this every month, but how is April already over?! The past few weeks have just flown by, which may partially be due to my excitement over my sister's visit. (She's here now!)

I've finally got an evening of downtime tonight since it's rainy outside, but we're going to watch a movie and bake banana bread tonight to gear up for the next two days of being busy. (Back-to-back holidays over here in Korea = four day weekend!) Here we go:

This cat is just so photogenic.

My selfie game is strong. (Mostly because I just centered this shot really well.) I'm pretty proud of this one -- all the lines and layers of reflections are just cool. 

I took an outrageous amount of photos of cherry blossoms this year. I might throw them all into a photo blog entry because why not.

Finally got to explore the Dongdaemun Design Plaza, which is pretty cool both from the outside and on the inside. I definitely see myself going back and probably spending a lot of money on all the cool things in the shops. Blog entry all about it is scheduled for this week. :)

The Dongdaemun Design Plaza is also full of great photo spots, such as these cubby holes that were definitely full of children. We did not even hesitate to climb in ourselves, obviously.

Hit up Gwangjang Market for dinner after the day in Dongdaemun, and I finally tried to "drug gimbap" -- blog entry coming later this week! 

More cherry blossoms. Can't stop, won't stop.

So we have a seriously legit Mexican restaurant in Songdo and it's already become a staple of my diet/life/existence. Living without Mexican food has been hard, y'all. 

Lanterns for Buddha's Birthday at Jogyesa! Waaaay more photos will be uploaded later this week once I sort through and edit them. It's my absolute favorite festival and I went nuts with taking pictures this year. 

More lanterns, being gorgeous.

Pre-lantern parade, which will also be covered in the future blog entry.

And last but not least, my Chungdahm branch is finally making the switch to the new "smart" curriculum. Should be interesting -- it's all tablets and smart TVs and stuff, which I think will actually be pretty cool. (Provided we don't have crazy technical issues, of course. Knock on wood...) Definitely curious to see how this'll go over with the kids as well as how I actually feel about it once we implement it in the classroom. 

NETFLIX & HULU IN KOREA.

I know, I know -- this is not one of the blog posts I've promised to publish. My apologies. The end of term has been busy, as usual, this time more so because two dear friends just left to make their way back home, meaning a lot of evenings were spent hanging out.

However, I just feel like this is important. Maybe it's old news, but I was just informed of this and I just need to tell everyone.

I have gotten Netflix and Hulu to work in Korea. 

I've tried various other ways to block my IP address, but none of the free services worked as well as I wanted. I got annoyed with the buffering and poor quality, and I really didn't want to pay for a better VPN service. Since the free ones sucked, I just gave up. Until earlier this week!

The tip came from one of Corey's former coworkers, and it's super, super simple.

1. Download Google Chrome.
2. Download/install the Chrome extension called "Media Hint."
3. Never leave your apartment again because you're watching ALL the movies and TV shows on Netflix and Hulu.

Mega easy. Really, this will work for anyone outside of Netflix-designated countries. You're welcome.

And with that, I'm going to go back to marathoning "Supernatural," so, byeeeeeeeeeee.

ps. Netflix and "Supernatural" may or may not be a contributing reason to my lack of posting lately. I'm kind of sorry... ish.

Monthly Photo Recap: September 2013

I'm not really sure where the month of September went... In fact, I'm completely bewildered by the fact that we're already a week into October? September was full of the beginnings of fall, a Chuseok vacation to the beautiful island of Ulleungdo, and the start of my mom's visit to Korea! I was kept pretty busy, as can be seen by all the blog entries and emails that are piling up...

Surprisingly, I didn't take many pictures last month. Well, on Ulleungdo I took a cool 200, but I don't want to post too many of those here... they deserve their own blog! So, this month's photo recap will be a little shorter than the past two. October's, however, is already off to a bangin' start.

Enjoy!

So, I went to a K-pop concert... It was interesting. I came out of it caring no more or no less about K-pop than I did going in, which is fine. It just isn't my "thing," but I still had a really good time. Blog entries about the whole experience are going up soon -- we got in for free for participating in a K-pop flash mob! Pretty cool. Stay tuned for the full story. 

EXO, at the concert, Incheon Korean Music Wave 2013. 

We had -incredible- seats, by the way. :)

Scorsese is such a weirdo. Cats are aliens.

But why?

I got to check out a HUGE exhibit of original Studio Ghibli sketches -- it was pretty amazing. 

And across from the Ghibli exhibit was a wonderful Mucha show -- seriously awe-inspiring. As a massive Mucha fan, it was nearly a religious experience for me. 

Starting off my Chuseok vacation the right way: watching the sunrise on a beach on Korea's east coast.

Ulleungdo! Billions of photo-heavy blog entries coming soon about this magical place. 

I would happily trek along Ulleungdo's coast every. single. day. 

Me and my mom! In Korea! 

Mom brought Reese's to help build our depleted stockpile back up. Sorry, not sharing. 

It isn't quite cold enough for "real" sweaters yet, but they're already on the racks in the subway shopping centers! And for W10,000 each?! (That's less than $10 USD, y'all.) Can't wait to wear these this winter. I think I have a sweater buying problem. (Also, I need to clean my mirror... -_- )

I envy all the napping he gets to do.

Ended the month with the last day of the Gauguin exhibit in Seoul, which was really great. Way too crowded, but that's what we get for going on the last day... Still worth it. 

Monthly Photo Recap: July 2013.

As I've become an avid blog reader, especially of expat/travel/South Korea blogs, I've really enjoyed when a blogger does an end of the month recap. I'm looking to keep this blog updated more frequently -- I'm still falling into the swing of getting an entry written weekly for the Aclipse blog, and with that, I've felt like steppin' up my game a little and keeping this blog even more active.

To kick off this grand plan of mine, I've decided to start a new series: Monthly Photo Recap. At the end of each month, I'm going to scroll through the photos I've taken (and probably Instagrammed), choose a handful that represent my month well, and post them. Often, I like letting a picture speak for what I'm doing -- one of the many reasons why I prefer Instagram to the likes of Twitter.

I take photos on my phone constantly. A lot do end up on Instagram, but even then, the caption they get doesn't always fully explain what's happening. And when I do get around to uploading pictures to Facebook, it's mostly just a massive photo dump, without much (or any) explanation. Posting photos at the end of each month will give me a chance to reflect on what I did and provide more information about the photo. Let's be real, I end up doing this verbally on Skype or through texting on KakaoTalk with most of my family and friends as it is, so here's all the info, for everyone, all at the same time. :)

So, without any further ado, here's the month of July, in photos.

As though it was timed with the start of the month, monsoon season officially kicked off. 

Fat cat! Scorsese and I are bonding, slowly but surely. I think it's because I've been feeding him every now and then when Corey isn't here for his eating time...

The 4th was too rainy for fireworks, so we ate Indian food and then got ice cream. 'Merica!

Birthday banner! Corey was busy making this for me while I was at work on my birthday and he hung it up across our living room window.

My Paris Baguette birthday cake -- six different flavors, which was actually a lot of fun because we were all able to try at least two kinds of cake. And it was delicious! Well, except for the sweet potato one. (Top of the photo, with the potato/fry sticks in it...) I'll pass on that one from now on. 

The Mustoy doll cafe! One of the cooler cafes I've found in Korea, second only to the dog cafe, obviously. It was a great way to spend a rainy/muggy afternoon. 

R16 Bboy Competition! My cousin's crew flew out from Las Vegas to represent North America in this international competition and we had a lot of fun watching the teams battle. As a dancer, I've always been fascinated slash completely confused by this style of dancing -- my ballerina brain just can't even comprehend some of it. Which makes for a very entertaining show. Korea walked away with the championship, which was well-deserved. The Korean team Morning of Owl was absolutely incredible. 

Rainy day in Insadong for Amy's birthday. We found a spot on top of the Ssamzigil building where people have left hundreds (maybe thousands?) of these tags hanging, all with messages. 

Wandering through the Bukchon Hanok Village. Blog entry coming soon about this area -- there's so much I want to check out, including craft museums and stuff with hands-on activities. (But it's going to take another weekend trip so I can gather the adequate amount of information.)

Le Cle, a really great little jazz bar in Samcheongdong. Nice was to enjoy our evening out, just sitting back and listening to jazz music. It made me realize how much I really, really miss live music in bars. 

Corey's birthday! (So many birthdays in July!) I got him a Pororo cake since he has a strange obsession with this particular kids show. He was excited, especially because Pororo was edible. (Read: made of solid sugar. Gross.) 

Cousins! It's been cool having a guest, especially someone that's family. I've enjoyed showing off Korea and my life here quite a lot, and I can't wait for my upcoming guests in the next couple of months! 

For Corey's birthday, we checked out a bar in our neighborhood that he's been wondering about -- Old Clock. Due to its semi-sketchy second floor exterior and the quiet neighborhood, we were fully prepared for it to be a hooker bar or something totally creepy. Turns out, it's possibly the most amazing neighborhood find ever. The woman in the photo owns all the records behind her. When we walked in, she brought us pieces of paper so we could write down requests. Upon telling her what we wanted to hear, she immediately found the record needed and put it on the turntable. Her collection is very impressive, and is her encyclopedic knowledge of her collection's discography. The whole time we were there, we only saw a few other people, who were all Korean. It was quiet, relaxed, and definitely our new favorite spot to go grab a beer. 

The sun came out! For, like, a couple hours. :( Can monsoon season end already? I know the next stage in the Korean summer is stifling humidity and heat, but right now, that sounds preferable to being rained on while walking to and from work. I'm from the South. I'm fine with being sweaty. Bring it on, Korea. 

Bowling with Corey's coworkers in honor of his birthday. 

Been feelin' the need to draw lately, and I finally finished my ongoing file folder piece, which I would work on every now and then during class when my students would be working on a test. Took me a couple weeks of working on it for maybe ten to fifteen minutes at a time, but I got it done! 

I'm teaching a summer intensive for the next couple weeks, and since it's a 10am-1pm class, this is what immediately happens when the bell rings for break time. Power naps for everyone! I wish I could put my head down too, but I'm too busy spending my five minutes of freedom guzzling coffee so I can keep the energy up for the rest of the class. The nocturnal schedule of an academy teacher definitely makes early morning teaching difficult. 

Level-up Week: Day One.
I love when the level-up exam week rolls around each term: it means hours of proctoring exams, during which I passively keep an eye on students while they take tests for hours and hours. It's gotten to where I anticipate this week of downtime, trying to plan out what I want to draw while my classes work. This time around, I've been having fun with typography. I love putting tiny, intricate details into what I draw, as well as perfectly drawing typeface, so this is an excellent theme for the week to keep myself occupied while I'm proctoring. 

Level-Up Week: Day Two.
This one was drawn for my friend Eleanor, who gave me the quote and told me to go to town. After a fair amount of going back and forth to her with different font ideas and such, this is what I came up with. I successfully finished it with an hour to spare today, which was great. I think one of the reasons I don't draw as much anymore is because I'm not in a classroom setting, imposing deadlines and exercises on me. When I'm given parameters and a timeframe and nothing else to be doing (read: proctoring), I find it much easier to knuckle down and get something finished. So I'm going to take full advantage of this week of testing. Three more days left!

And to round out this post with a photo from July 31st as well as a nice even number of pictures, here's a selfie (or selca, if you're Korean) that I took at work today, because I was a) bored and b) bummed that I was stuck inside on a day when the damn sun was actually out. 

Alright, thoughts? Feedback? I've been trying to think of other weekly things I can post about... Maybe some kind of weekly Engrish finds? Because I sure do find a lot of that stuff and it always amuses me.

Also coming soon: a damn apartment tour/post. Corey and I wanted to give ourselves time to settle in and make it look like home before showing it off, and I think we're about at that point now. We recently purchased a convection oven AND a crockpot, so we're basically living the dream over here, haha. Post coming soon! I promise!

ps. Is anyone else in denial that it's already August? Where have the past few months gone?!