Photography – Page 4 – Life In Limbo

Free Wallpaper Download: Stephen Covey Quote

September 4, 2014

I’m about halfway through my time in Korea, which means that lately I’ve been starting to think more about the future – what I’ll do when I’m done here and beyond. When I arrived in Korea for my “year abroad”, I had a plan for afterwards that I was totally 100% sure of – or so I thought. Being here, I’ve met a lot of really great people who are inspiring me to think bigger and consider what it is I really want. What I know for sure is that I’ve been really enjoying the expat lifestyle, and the opportunities that I’ve been able to explore and pursue in my free time here.

It’s really exciting to think about all the possibilities for what I could do next. That idea used to really scare me, but these days it doesn’t scare me quite as much. I’ve gained a lot of confidence in myself by making the decision to come here and thrive. Over the past few days, I’ve been reading The Success Principles by Jack Canfield and he talks a lot about dreaming really big. In the spirit of that idea, this quote, which I also found recently, is an excellent reminder that my future can look however I want it to. It’s all up to me, an idea which is both overwhelming and empowering.

As I’m daydreaming about my next steps, I decided to make a wallpaper with this quote to inspire me daily. If you’d like a copy to dress up your own computer desktop this month, you can download it at the link below. Enjoy!

Download the wallpaper here

You can also find all my previous wallpaper downloads here.

Steph Loves Summer

August 11, 2014

Three months ago, I posted about my daily photography project, Steph Loves Today. When I wrote about it then, I was taking a photo of my daily life on my camera each day and posting it to Instagram each night. In the time since then, the project has shifted a lot: over to iPhone photos only for a spell, then back, and then there were some days when I didn’t manage to take a photo at all, on any device.

For the past little while, I’ve been trying not to worry about taking a photo every day, but I am still trying to post one to my Instagram each night (yes, this means a lot of latergrams!). Especially since opening my photography shop, I’ve started to use my Instagram page as a kind of portfolio of my photography. I’ve been posting only my favourite and best photos of the beautiful places I’ve been to in the world, as a kind of advertisement for my own work. Happily, I have definitely noticed more engagement with my photos since making that switch.

For the summertime, I switched my hashtag from #stephlovestoday to #stephlovessummer, so that I could have a visual representation of my life during the summer specifically. It’s so fun to be able to see all my summery photos in one place! I love that in these photos I can see landscapes and good food and beautiful buildings and friends – all my favourite things. This means that I’ve had a very, very good summer.

When I look at all the photos together, I’m reminded of how wonderful my life here really is. I get to see so many beautiful things and have so many great experiences. Yes, there are occasionally those normal frustrations that come with living in a foreign country, but it helps so much that this country is a beautiful one filled with lots of exciting adventures to be had. I’m really very lucky.

You can see the rest of my photos here or by following me on Instagram @lifeinlimboblog.

Free Wallpaper Download: Don’t Miss The Moment

August 7, 2014

This quote represents something I often wrestle with, and which I expect to for years to come, if not forever. It goes hand-in-hand with some of my favourite quotes, including “I want to feel my life while I’m in it,” and “the grass is greener where you water it”. It also reminds me of a saying that for me at once feels like both a threat and a comfort: “wherever you go, there you are”.

I apply this idea for little everyday moments, when I try to stay present and acknowledge my happiness as its happening. I also less successfully apply it in the big picture, when I sometimes struggle to be where I am and also be okay with where I am. Living in a foreign country makes it easy to wish you were home, or travelling, or somewhere other than where you are when things get hard or tedious. My closest friend here left yesterday and it’s hard not to have the knee-jerk reaction of wishing I was going home too.

But I’ve been realizing that being a good person and a whole, evolved one is all about having those knee-jerk reactions and then gently course-correcting. I can’t stop myself from having thoughts I wish I didn’t or feelings I wish I wouldn’t, and no amount of guilt or positive thinking or beating myself up is going to change that. The best I can do is see it, feel it, and then give myself gentle reminders to shift my thinking and my actions.

This saying is one of those reminders to me. Yes, part of me – the small part – might occasionally wish I was going home. The bigger part knows how much this experience does already and will one day mean to me. The bigger part knows that this is what I want and it’s what is best for me, and it knows what an incredible shame it would be to wish this time away so I could just get to the end. It knows that most of the time, I really love my life here. The bigger part of me also knows that if I don’t find ways to handle this feeling of always wanting to be somewhere else, somewhere “better”, then it won’t magically go away when I finally “arrive” at the place I think I should be. I never want to live in the someday or the one day. I want to live right where I am.

I’ve made this quote into a wallpaper for my computer for the month as one of those gentle reminders to stay with it. If this idea resonates with you too, you can download your own copy of the wallpaper at the link below.

Download the wallpaper here

You can also find all my previous wallpaper downloads here.

Kyoto, Japan

August 5, 2014

If you follow me on Instagram, you probably know by now that I absolutely adored my time in Kyoto last weekend. In the week before I left I was feeling really overwhelmed with everything going on – I felt like I didn’t have enough time to keep up with anything, let alone plan a vacation, and I wasn’t sure how my trip was going to turn out. Of course, I needn’t have worried. Japan is a wonderful place, and my time in Kyoto was magic in all kinds of little ways. The city itself was so welcoming. It’s small enough not to be overwhelming but big enough to offer hundreds of beautiful temples, shrines and other attractions. The people are so friendly and helpful. It’s easy to navigate and the whole city is pretty walkable.

I was really only in Japan for four nights, but it really stretched out and felt like so much longer. I had some amazing sushi, and even befriended one of the sushi chefs – before I left, he hand-carved an intricate design into a bamboo leaf using an enormous knife the size of a small sword and gave it to me as a gift. I went on one of the most gorgeous hikes of my life, on one of the hottest days I can remember, through an old, old forest that made me feel tiny and grateful in the best possible way. One day, I spotted a wild monkey eating only ten feet from where I was standing, and the next day I held hands with a monkey (for approximately 1 second while feeding it a banana) at a monkey park. In both cases, the monkeys lived wild in the forests, but at the monkey park there is a bit more supervision, and a cage for humans only (!!) that you can enter to feed the monkeys who otherwise run totally wild. I was lucky enough to see some truly stunning temples and shrines and actually have some pretty spiritual experiences there. I made new friends from all over the world (but funnily enough, mostly from Canada!) and also enjoyed myself so much just wandering around on my own.

It was absolutely the perfect trip, exactly when I needed it. I came home feeling re-energized and excited about living abroad. It was a great reminder of exactly why I chose to come live in Korea in the first place – precisely so that I could do things like go to Japan for a long weekend and a less than 200 dollar flight. It reminded me that I love to travel alone and that I am totally capable of anything I set my mind to. It made me feel inspired and alive, as all good trips should. Most of all, it made me feel calm, which means it was the perfect vacation. There was no pressure and no stress, just lovely sights, a gorgeous river, a cozy downtown, breezy rooftops, friendly people, delicious food, huge old trees, lots of bright orange, and lots of smiles. I hope to go back to Japan and the beautiful Kyoto some time very soon.

Favourites:

Ganko Sushi: where I befriended the amazing chefs, right near Sanjo bridge
Sitting by the Sanjo bridge on the river bank: lots of locals and ex-pats gather down here by this bridge! I had drinks (bought at the convenience store right around the corner) down here and appreciated the water every night I was in Kyoto.
Fushimi-Inari Shrine: probably my favourite part of my trip to Kyoto. I hiked all the way to the top even though I was exhausted and sweating more than I have in recent memory, it was totally worth it just for the hike back down. On my way down the late-afternoon light was filtering perfectly through the trees and I saw barely another living person most of the way. And then I saw a monkey. It was magic.
Gion: I stayed at a hostel in this area (called A-Yado Hostel) and I absolutely loved the whole neighbourhood. It’s so quiet and feels so old and mysterious, with lots of tiny little alleys and a river running through it.
Arashiyama, for the monkey park and the bamboo grove. I really liked the nearby Tenryu-ji Temple also, but I preferred touring the gardens to the actual temple itself.
Tokasaikan: I didn’t actually eat at this Chinese restaurant, but went to it because it’s right on the river and looked like it had a gorgeous rooftop patio. I went for drinks up there twice and fell in love with the atmosphere and the view, as well as the ride up on the oldest elevator in Japan!