That Anniversary thing!

Anniversaries-they happen every year, you know? A little while ago, that whole wedding anniversary happened and we went out to celebrate. Now, our anniversary falls between semesters. For those who don't rely on student loans for, like, everything, let me explain the importance of this.

Student loans come the beginning of each semester, and the end of semester and period between semesters is the Dark Place of no money, little food, and being a homebody. Now, we planned for this, a little. We put aside a bit of extra money, and made sure to have enough to go out for the wedding anniversary.
We decided to go to the Van Dusen Gardens, here in Vancouver.

Van Dusen is a HUGE garden in the middle of the city which has a cute little cafe/restaurant, a special area for weddings and events, and an insanely huge collection of rare plants from all over the world. They have separated each area into specific geographic regions, each of which tend to bloom at different times of the year, which is how the gardens are able to stay open year round. We came during the early spring period, but just after the cherry blossom festival.

The gardens feature several festivals year round, which highlight the plants that are in bloom. They also have a FANTASTIC festival of lights during the christmas season to celebrate that whole thing. It is just a huge affair, with winter favourites-including hot chocolate, story readings, Santa and, of course, millions of Christmas lights. I haven't gone yet, but I have heard nothing be fantastic things about this festival.

What I love about the gardens are the little places to get lost, and just get caught up in the beauty of nature, and just BE. The gardens take about 1.5 hours to go through in their entirety, but I suggest taking closer to 2 or 3 hours there. The little cafe/restaurant has afternoon tea available, as well as snacks, drinks and full meals at fairy decent prices. I had an Earl Grey macaron, and it was just sinful.

I have loads more pictures, but I'll put them in another post, which will be the photo-only continuation of this post in a day or so!
Until then!
xo

May Nail Swatches!

I've been a little remiss in posting, my apologies. Intensive classes are intensive. But, I hope to remedy this by doing this post now! I will hopefully also be writing a few more before my upcoming exams, and throw them in the queue.

But, for now, nails!
Official Disclaimer! I have been working a lot lately, so my nails have not been taken care of as well as I usually do. I also haven't been painting them that often, what with the whole kitchen work thing and all. This means that there may not be a nails post next month. You've been forewarned!

First up, a Korean brand of nail polish! I ordered this from KoreaDepart (the online store I bought all that Korean makeup from a few posts back) a long time ago. I actually specifically bought this colour to be my Avatar Aang/Airbender art colour. I never used it for that though. It is, however, a delightful spring colour. I used white cherry blossom decals that I got in Korea as well. Cute, right?
The polish is by Etude House and has a name, but I can't translate it. It also seems to be discontinued from the KoreaDepart site, but may be available from other sites that sell Korean cosmetics. If you look for it, and find it, please let me know!

 I got this one by NYC because it matched my new dress perfectly. I wanted to look coordinated for my wedding anniversary date (pics soon!) and thought the nails would be a great addition. Now, like I said, the brand is NYC, so its pretty cheap (about $1.00CDN) and that shows in the quality of the product. I had it on less than 6 hours before it chipped BIG across several nails. I was not impressed. I have several bottles of this brand, and its great for one night bouts, but not for long term wear. This colour is called Sidewalkers.

Only 2 polishes for my lovelies this time. I had 2 other colour changes this month, but both looked like crap. Maybe I'll re-do them with some nail art, and see if they look better.
Until next time!
xox

Beach time baby

This is more of a pile of pictures, mostly of the nature variety. I take a lot of photos sometimes, and I want to share them with people, even if only a few people.
Art is like that, I guess.

Not that I'm an artist. I prefer to think of myself as someone who admires beauty in all its guises.

Which makes me sound incredibly pretentious. I will be the first to admit that I'm arrogant, but pretentious? Not so much.

Anyways, this is all in Vancouver, near Stanley Park. Birds, birds and beach, and me.

 Trumpeter Swan, turtles and the common mallard. Lost Lagoon. 2013.

 Great Blue Heron, in a tree, which is pretty uncommon. Lost Lagoon, 2013

 Reflections, near Coal Harbor. 2013

 A Spotted Towhee, Lost Lagoon. 2013.

Me! Right near Sunset Beach. 2013

 First beach, 2013.

Yaletown Sakura trees. 2013.

Sakura

It's Spring here in Vancouver. There has been some glorious weather the past few days, and it has been just lovely to take walks around in the sun.

Now, for those that don't know, because you don't know about Canada, or whatever, but Vancouver is on the coast. Here, we get the same weather as Seattle, which is about 3 hours away. And has the reputation as the Rain City. This is a well deserved reputation.

It's always raining here.

Which is why having nearly 2 weeks without rain, in the spring no less, is something of a rarity. To have such nice temperatures too (16C, 60F), well, just wow.

Because there has been such great weather, the sakura are up in (almost) full bloom! I LOVE cherry blossoms. I swear, they are my spirit flower, if that's a thing. Which is should be. Vancouver is super lucky to be able to have so many sakura trees, which were a gift from Japan (specifically Kobe and Yohohama) sometime after WW1 to celebrate the Japanese Canadian soldiers who fought in the war. Since then, the trees have grown and spread all over Vancouver, enough so that there is now an annual Cherry Blossom festival.

But, even before the festival, the trees are out in their pale pink glory, obscuring the sky with pink petaled clouds.

If you ever plan on visiting Vancouver, the early Spring is the time to do it. Nice weather, beautiful sakura, and lots of super happy people shedding the cold, rainy winter and embracing the warmth and beauty surrounding us.

xox

Bring on The Spring!

I don't know if I ever posted pictures of Soonchunhyang University campus. If I have not, then this is the opportunity to see some. Why? Spring has finally come!
Actually, it came a few weeks ago, I have just been pretty lax about my blogging.

So, random news-Apparently, SCH is a big hot spot for cherry blossom viewing. There are SO many cherry blossom trees, its insane. And beautiful.

I got a lot of pictures of the cherry blossoms, and of the mini festival that sprung up around the campus. There were lots of food vendors, stalls of small trinkets, and booze. It was kind of really awesome.It is also the hip happening place to be for the families that live in the area, and for little day trips for the elementary schools. The children wore matching outfits, being lead around by a teacher, all holding hands. It was adorable!

It only lasedt about a week, before the petals came down in a snowfall of pale pink, but it was so beautiful. I love that we have cherry blossoms in Vancouver-otherwise they might be what I miss the most about Korea.

Cherry Blossom Festival, Concerts and Towers, Oh my!

This past weekend was one of those amazing weekends that I wish could happen all the time. It also reminded my of why I am here in Korea, and why I love this country, which I haven't been lately. I have had a hate-hate relationship with Korea, and all that, but I won't get into it. It's going well now, and whats past is past, right?

So, back to this weekend!

Originally, a group of us had planned on going to a Strawberry festival in a town about an hour south. Unfortunately, we were unable to get bus/train tickets to get there, so we decided to go to the Yeouido Cherry Blossom Festival in Seoul. Which was a fantastic idea. Spring (봄) is a little late this year, so there wasn't TOO many cherry blossoms in full bloom, but we DID manage to catch a free K-pop concert with some BIG names!
Like, Sistar

And SHINee

And Shinhwa

It was pretty awesome. I am not a huge fan of K-pop, but I will admit that some of these guys have some major talent. And those songs are catchy as hell. I listen to them a lot when I am at the gym, as they play K-pop ALL the time.

After that, we made the treck up to Namsan Mountain-AKA Seoul Tower! It was my first time up the tower and, let me assure you, the view was totally worth it! It was fantastic! Sometimes I forget that I am in the third biggest city in the world.
And now that I have seen the night view, I want to go back to see the day view!

The next day was devoted to the shopping and the Hello Kitty cafe. We actually wanted to go to a dog cafe, but we had the hardest time finding one, that we decided to wait until next trip to Seoul.
It was a great weekend, with great food, great events, great conversation and amazing friends. I hope to have a few more of these memories before I leave here.

xox