photos

taking break from transcribing. (NEVER AGAIN. did i mention that?)

have been hankering to take photos lately. i miss it fiercely, as Fred, a past student, would say.

am using this photo from the fire festival on Jeju-do as my desktop background at work right now:

i really love that photo. it looks like one page of a story, frozen in time. what are they thinking? will they continue flying their kite? what are they looking at? what will they do?

photos tell such awesome stories. lovely. silly. horrifying. sad. every emotion, captured and stilled.

there's a terrifying one right now with an NYTimes story about anti-immigrant violence in South Africa. gods. it must be really difficult to be a photojournalist sometimes. how can you take photos and not help?

well. here are some of my favorites from from the last few years. just for kicks. i've got to get out with the camera soon and find some stories here in the cities.


Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia. July 2007. Gathering lilies in the moat.

Angkor Wat, Siem Reap, Cambodia. July 2007. Sunrise.

Jeju-do, South Korea. March 2007. Feeding the fire festival crowds.

Taman Negara, Malaysia. November 2007. Does it not look like this chicken is on a film set?

Vang Vieng, Laos. November 2007. Walking to the Sunset Bar.

Vang Vieng, Laos. November 2007. Collecting tourist tubes from the cave tour.

A Hmong village on a mountain-top near Luang Prabang, Laos. November 2007. Watching a game.

Halong Bay, Vietnam. November 2007. Beautiful day.

Chinatown, New York City. June 2007. Bubble blowing.

Lake of the Isles, Minneapolis, MN, USA. June 2007. Zen duck.

Lake Calhoun, Minneapolis, MN, USA. June 2007. HA!

Man Mo Temple, Hong Kong, China. October 2006. Incense.

Storefront, Macau, China. August 2007. The Best Store Name Ever.

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.