winter is upon us...

winter came too fast this year...i barely had anytime to enjoy the cool autumn air before the snow storms started blowing. it's below freezing here already...i hope that we at least have a white christmas.

MOCHI

what a cutie!!

Mochi update

today she unrolled more willingly and we played for an hour. she's still a bit jumpy at any movements around her. she laid in my hand for awhile but i woke her up and she walked around on me and then got on the floor and started exploring but i didn't want her to eat any spiders so i tried to clean up but it scared her and she balled up and didn't wanna unroll anymore. i put her back in her house and am going to bed now. i have some more pictures of her unrolled crawling on my hand. those pictures to be posted later...

Mochi

I got a pet...it's a little hedgehog. haha...it's really cute but awfully painful to handle. Oh mochi...she's so cute. She looks a lot like a mochi when she's all curled up in a ball. pictures later...now she's basically a ball most of the time.

update:

today i gave mochi her first bath, she was enjoying it for awhile and then suddenly she just scurried into my hand out of the water. i guess she was done. haha...hedgehogs are interesting pets. they require a lot of trust building. it's not like dogs where they almost immediately bond to you with little work required. hedgehogs on the other hand, are nocturnal so they are grumpy as hell in the morning and are painful to touch if they don't trust you. today my mochi and I had our first bonding moment. she unballed for the first time in my hand and i placed her in my lap. she remained there unballed until i picked her up again. she balled up but immediately unballed once she was fully supported in my hands. wanted to let her run around on the floor but when i put her down, she didn't move. she's a lot of fun. more updates later.

autumn leaves

my favorite time of year has arrived, the green leaves are changing into beautiful reds and yellows. it feels like i'm walking through a painting. however, the leaves that cover the ground, no matter how beautiful, are still really annoying when they stick to your shoes. >.<

i want to go hiking on chiak mountain soon. the green leaves will have all turned red and yellow. it will be amazing. i'll make sure to take lots of pictures. maybe i'll go when my parents come. bum will be meeting them for the first time. wish him luck...haha

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs

when i was a kid this was my absolute favorite book. i always thought it was so cool, and i was really excited that they had made it into a movie, but...i'm so bummed it's not opening in korea. did anybody else like this book as a kid? or was i the only weirdo...

Swine Flu

Damn it...i caught a cold so i ended up not going to Jeju. I was scared they were gonna stop me at the airport because they thought i had the swine flu or something. it's just a big deal in korea that i wouldn't put it past them to stop me and not let me through. then i'd have gone to the airport for nothing. >.< so i bailed and slept all day instead. then at night i went to play starcraft. that was fun, i seriously need to learn to build faster. the koreans are too fast for me!! i used to think pH and ari were crazy for playing all night, now i know why. *sigh* computer games are gonna be the end of me.

on a side note...i realized that you can try four years to bury your memories but in a day you can end up digging them all back up. humans are defective. haha

Darwin awards?

haha...idiot

Jeju-do

So I finally scheduled and booked a trip to Jeju Island. After 2 years of saying i'm going to go i'm going to go, but i never went. Bum's such a brat he's got concerts all the weekends and so he's never around. I'm tired of just sitting around doing nothing so i'm going traveling. The itinerary sounds cool including horse back riding, hiking, and just general touristy things that people do in Jeju. I'm excited!! it's next weekend. then my parents are coming...ick...and hooray. i get some things from the states, some homemade food, and some company. ick...bum is gonna meet them and then i have to hear bitching from them. blarghhh.......OOHAH! JEJU!

tim roth, starcraft and blogs

starcraft

TJ Thyne

Tim Roth!!

so i find it much more interesting to read other people's blogs and read about other people's lives rather than blogging about my own. it's not really that interesting. i started taking music theory lessons at my music school. my teacher's pretty cool, he's a bass player that wants to go to holland to study jazz. apparently there's a good school out there.

i just started playing starcraft though. it is so complicated and annoying at times but oh so addicting. i had told myself i wouldn't start it but a couple of my friends (non-koreans) wanted to play since we were all beginners and living in a country where starcraft is on 2 tv channels we decided we were going to play. i tried protoss and zerg. i haven't tried terran yet but i heard from a korean it was pretty hard. any thoughts? ideas? tips? strategies? i would like to be relatively decent so i can at least carry my own in a game with koreans, but i am way out of their league. *cries*

tim roth rocks...he just does. i don't know why. lie to me is great. the show gets mixed reviews but i love it. tim roth is amazing and i know it's another crime show but it's got more twist. i like bones too, but booth and bones both look so old now. Hodgens is great though...i really like him. TJ Thyne. his eyes are intense and he's got cute curly hair. he is a bit short though, however he's just eye candy ^^ all this starcraft and music theory is overwhemling. i feel like my brain might pop.

an oldie but goodie

Happy Chuseok!

Chuseok is Korean thanksgiving. I'm supposed to go to bum's house today to meet and eat with his mother. -.- it's quite scary and i don't know what to wear. so instead of doing anything productive to get ready, i've been reading random blogs from other foreigners in korea. i found quite a few interesting ones. i feel like i don't blog enough but maybe i just don't feel like i have enough to say. i think i do pretty interesting things in my free time but i think i only come here to rant seeing as the only people who read this are lu and ms. W. maybe if i blogged more...i'd get more readers?

here are some pictures from our band competition last month:

day 1, 32 bands, half go to the 2nd day. we pick numbers from a hat to see the band order...lucky us...we're the opening band -.-

stage was small the first day...

i was thinking, the man there should shut up so we can play and i can run away.

the stage is ridiculously huge!!

they made us clap. you should really watch the video...you'll know why i'm laughing

the band wanted to wear black and red. Black shirts on the outside, red on the inside...i wore a red shirt on the outside and black on the inside...hoorah for not conforming.

another month

smells like fall is in the air, the wind has cooled down and the hot summer days are slowly going away. it's strange when you can actually feel the seasons changing. the sky looks different and as fall is rolling in I find myself a little sad. I guess the cold weather does that to me, I miss the warm sun that hugs me in California. 4 more months before this contract is up, another time to think about what future lies ahead for me. time is flying by, another day, another week, another month...and suddenly another year has gone by. almost 2 years now here in this foreign land...I wonder where the next step will lead...

Bob

Let me tell you about Bob, but before I can I must tell you how Bob and I met in the first place.

So I went fishing for the first time yesterday in a small pond, in a small city just outside of my small city. That's where I met Bob. I sat there with my fishing pole waiting patiently for something to tug at it. For a long time there was nothing but the sound of the bugs buzzing and chirping around me. Finally, when I was looking away out of the corner of my eye I saw it move. So I quickly snatched the pole from it's stand and pulled in my catch. There was Bob, flying towards me because I can't control my pole for the life of me. It was not a pleasant meeting. My friend had to go move his car so it was only me and Bob. He was flopping around on the ground gasping for air while I panicked not knowing what to do with him so I took the plastic bag on the floor and very carefully picked him up and put him in the fish net bag. My first catch, I was very excited and as the day progressed I tried to find more friends for him but all I caught was this tiny little fish. (also came flying at me cause I apparently suck at this.) I put him into the fish net bag as well. I got bored of being taunted by the fish so I let my friend do the rest of the work. By the end of the day we'd caught about 10 friends for Bob. Oh and we also caught his father...this big fish about the length of my forearm. Bob and his father swam around in the fish net baggy while we tried to reunite his family. Bob's mom got away. Lucky mom...my friend was nice enough to release Bob and his friends back into the lake before we went home. Bob's father wasn't so lucky. The Koreans made a spicy hot bath for him and had him for supper.

Poor Bob...now he has no father, but I guess it's better this way because from what I hear...he was a wife beater. Next time I go back to this pond I'll make sure to say hi to him again. Bob...my very first fish. Fishing was more amusing this way. I don't know why people find it relaxing. It actually stresses me out. haha...

LA BABY~!

I'm in LA. eating great food, meeting my friends, and fighting jet lag. trying to make the best of my week. hooray for LA!

music...

today i sat there watching him...watching everything flow naturally like the way a river would flow into the ocean. each beat just magically flowing out into this feeling i can't even begin to describe. i envied him...having found and pursued something that he was good at instead of wandering through life not really knowing what he wanted. i mean it's one thing to have interests, but it's another to actually be good at what you do. and i'm not boasting about him, i'm just rambling about what i felt today. *sigh*

abso-fucking-lutely...

there are so many goddamn gorgeous women in the city...but after awhile, you just wanna be with the one who makes you laugh.

-Mr. Big

my giant teddy bear!

grasshoppers, king crab, and teddy bears

most amazing king crab i've ever had...

really...i mean it. AMAZING!

now this on the other hand...it's pretty disgusting. fried grasshoppers. BLEH!

raw beef and grasshoppers, oh btw...this is a wedding banquet.

bum's gonna buy me a big teddy bear. this one is really cute but smaller than the white one. i don't know whether i should have him buy this one, or the GIANT white one. the GIANT white one is bigger than me if i'm curled up. i'll take a picture of that one next time. oh and bum bought my mom a shirt. we went shopping today, i was gonna buy it for her but he said, no no i want to buy it. heh...he picked it out too. hopefully she likes it.

growth

compromise, understanding, and trust. i must learn these things.

Happy White Day!

i need to change my attitude...at first i kept thinking what other people wanted me to do. and what's ok and not ok to do. i didn't think about what i really wanted. hearing that i might lose one of the most important things in my life was shocking and made me open my eyes. knowing that you've changed and hearing it from someone else is completely different. i am not the same person i was last year, and i hate that. i want to be strong, i want to be happy, and i know it'll be hard sometimes but knowing that i have help counts for a lot. i've spent too many nights "social" drinking. i'm tired of being sad or angry over little things. so i've decided to be positive...and make some changes.

please tell me that if the glass is half full, someone won't come and suddenly knock it over.

(side note: white day is 3/14. it's when the boys give girls candy. valentine's day is when the girls give boys chocolate. celebrated in both japan and korea. poor girls have to wait a month to see if the guys return their feelings.)

i want my friends...

i used to be such a happy person...(most of the time) haha...now i guess i'm a different kind of happy?

just for david

because i hate playing guitar hero alone...

the human clock

i thought this was pretty cool, http://www.humanclock.com the picture changes every minute and it has pictures from around the world that people submitted. ok so i admit it. i'm bored. i want to go to seoul today and i might tonight because i really want mexican food.

in the mean time, i'm avoiding washing my dishes, doing my laundry, and of course vacuuming my apartment. i honestly HATE cleaning. it's like the last thing i ever want to do, however i think i need to do my laundry soon. it's all bunched up in my closet. blah...i wanna do something fun, but there isn't anything to do in Wonju.

i will throw some clothes into the washing machine and then start reading a book. then i will make lunch and wash the dishes. yes...that is my plan for the day. i wonder if i'll actually do it. at night i will go to seoul and play until tomorrow. and of course i will EAT MEXICAN FOOD!!!

uncertain futures

i cannot say what is going to happen in this year except to say that i hope it will be happy. whether in work or in life...i hope that it will go much smoother than last year. i think i found something good, and i hope that it will remain this way. nobody knows the outcome...but we can all only hope for the best.

slowly i am learning what being in love is. it's not just the good days, but it's working through the bad days too. it's putting up with being a little tired, and learning to understand each other better. it's moving past that heart racing, school girl crush and developing into something that makes me smile. i feel like i'm jinxing it. but when i look at him, there's this feeling inside of me. this comfortable safe feeling. being accepted, and loved for who i am. yeah...i am in love. my heart can only see him and i hope that in his heart i hold a big space.

happy birthday!

one of my birthday gifts. cute no? :)

Pictures from Taiwan

me on the train to iran city in taiwan...
my crazy parents
me and my father
crazy lady (mother), grandmother and me
the gate like they have in korea too in the middle of the city.
mmm...more stinky tofu stands...
dragonfruit...they look cool.
my favorite fruit...LOVE IT!!
a jam packed market...
making the food...
sweet ginger riceball soup
meatball noodle soup...
oyster pancake with sauce and an egg.
delicious booth food...oh and i saw a cockroach on the wall as i was eating....mmmm yum :P
some sort of meat filled rice ball.
tempura?
stinky tofu!
night market food...
night market shopping.
chian kai chek memorial place
taiwan flag...
chian kai chek memorial place
taipei 101
taipei 101...world's fastest elevator? 80+ floors in 35 sec.
shopping for clothes at the market
stinky tofu stand...mmmm yummy!!
a toy store...
street markets..
taipei subway system
family and crazy lady...oh yah that's my mother...the crazy lady...
grandmother, me and crazy lady...
my grandmother and i, my first day in taiwan.
"i'm tired...i want to sleep"
"take a picture of me"
"stop taking pictures of me"
my friend being crazy...
this is actually a decent picture of me...
hanging out...
after the concert
the concert finished...
my friend peter's saxophone solo...
saxophones are awesome
play it baby...play it! haha...
iran high school
...
my man looks cool no? :)