question

do you think i would look younger with stick straight hair or with my current sort-of curly mop? i ask 'cuz in the show i have coming up in june, i'm supposed to be very, very young. any tricks to help me look teenagerish would be helpful. ^o^


random stuff. made a guinness beef & potato stew this morning. one of my co-workers is irish. he brought this super lunch to work one day. it smelled mouth-drooling good. want to cook more often with guinness now. dude. it's yummy.

also, more info on the jeju-do fire festival here and here.

jeju-do fire festival

finally. photos from the jeju-do trip. complete album here at phanfare. (er, if anyone wants to sign up for phanfare, let me know. they let members offer discounts.) please ignore the dates on the phanfare album. we went march 3-march 5. my memory card hasn't been remembering the date lately. gak.

a few photos.

leaving on jeju air.

beautiful, gorgeous spring day on jungmun beach.
panoramic mountain. the whole mountain was lit on fire that night. it was.... wow.... beyond wow. yeeps.

on the fire festival grounds..... hungry.

flying kites.
more kites.


busy restaurant.


sunset waiting.

evening fireworks, pre-mountain burning.
more fireworks.



the beginning (kind of).


fireworks and flame.

flaming words.

great ball of fire. (groan. sorry. couldn't resist.)

many flames.

hot.
we were actually this far away, but could still feel the heat of the fire. see all the people right down near the mountain? can you imagine how hot that must have been? holy cow.

near the end of the burning, people showed up where we were sitting with cans on chains. the cans were filled with charcoal, i think. they lit the cans and started swinging them in circles.


end of the night. the last fireworks.


sunday was pouring rain, so we went to an acrobat show, did a driving tour of jeju, stopped at a museum, went to the botanical gardens, and ended the day at a coffee shop with cinnabons. ~lol~ those photos are up on the phanfare website.

next weekend, rod and i are going on the USO tour of the DMZ. should be interesting. was there almost 15 years ago. more info on the zone here and here.

before i leave, i'd also like to do a temple stay at a monastery one of my co-workers just returned from this weekend. they teach a form of martial arts there. i also want to go hiking in north korea, visit busan, and go back to jeju-do. got to get moving. ^o^

Emart has Froot Ring (aka fruit loops) + photo op part II

more photos. many, many photos. they're not that great. am learning how to use my camera, bought the canon powershot A540 over christmas. i loved my other powershot, but this one, mehhhh. i might sell it and buy the canon S2 IS instead. we'll see.

random tangent.... i never realized before how good fruit loops smell. they taste okay, but the smell... they smell like childhood mornings, sitting in the kitchen, eating cereal and reading a book.

Emart has fruit loops now. rod bought the last box in the store today. he was really excited. :)

anyhoo. i apologize for crappy photo quality.

more folk village photos.

this photo was pasted in an old horse stall. ~lol~

many, many pots of gochujang, doenjang, and i'm not sure what other kinds of spicy pastes.

another walking bridge.

making a stamped ink picture.

cuteness.

magpie.

acupuncture/herbal remedy room.

there's now an amusement park-like area attached to the folk village. i don't remember it being there 15 years ago, but maybe it was. this cracked me up. of all the strange rides...

there was also a sculpture garden park. this sculpture bugged me for some reason, but i couldn't figure out why. i'm not a huge fan of abstract sculpture, i just don't get it. i didn't get this either...

...but figured out it was the turkey/chicken thing atop the stone that bothered me so. it looks like the penguin-pretending-to-be-a-chicken in Wallace and Gromit: The Wrong Trousers. doesn't it? is there some sort of universal cartoonish turkey/chicken/penguin prototype?

sculpture:

penguin:

'k, the eyes and nose are different. just the head shape is similar. hrm...



valentine's day. bought rod some chocolates. this one had my favorite packaging. back:

front:
so romantic. ~snort~


had kun hee, her boyfriend, and her older sister over for dinner a few weekends ago. l to r, older sister, kun hee, hyun-sung

they tried to teach me how to play "go, stop". it's a korean version of poker. once upon a time i had directions written out in english, but i lost them. my card set was a gift from one the the parents on my first trip to korea 15 years ago. (eeeeeeeeee. 15 years ago. eeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.)

two weekends ago rod and i went hiking. we were just going to walk to see the largest man-made waterfall in asia, but ended up climbing a mountain. we think we climbed youngmasan, but we're not sure. got kind of lost. ^o^

city view.

small part of a whopping big park near the waterfall.

waterfall in the background. er. yeah. waterless waterfall. i guess they don't turn the water on until summer. whoops.

view from above.

farming on the mountain.

on the trail.

less than halfway up.
gym at the halfway point. i guess this is common on korean hiking trails. you'll come to a rest stop, only to find jump ropes, weight machines, stretching machines, etc. they're serious about fitness.

with dog. i was shocked to see so many people hiking with their dogs. not big dogs, either. little lap dogs, legs shaking with effort, walking and panting in every direction.


closer to the top.

around the top.

top. there was a sort of human-sized compass at the very top. many people jumped up to have photos taken, or to just enjoy the view.
the view.

the path down. steep.


up next, photos from my trip to jeju-do for the jeongwol daeboreum fire festival. got to see a whole mountain lit on fire. super cool.