Life In Limbo

Inspiration | August 8

August 8, 2014

A very healthy reminder: What I Instagrammed Vs. What Was Actually Happening.

I love that Elise is making her Make 29 projects available in a slightly different way at a different price point. So smart. I picked up one of her print packs this week.

I discovered Memrise this week and have been using it to learn Hangul (Korean letters) and Spanish again. I tend to go through phases with apps and language-learning, but this one is keeping my attention for now.

Speaking of learning languages, this article from Tim Ferris’ website was so interesting and helpful, especially the image search tip.

This food blogging income report was seriously refreshing and inspiring.

I don’t know or care much about the whole (silly) copyright angle of this story but MY GOODNESS that monkey selfie is one of the coolest things I’ve seen in a while.

I liked these tips from Artifact Uprising about mastering mobile photography.

I still find Ariana Grande a bit annoying, but I won’t even try to deny that I have been obsessed with this song this week.

I liked this article about making your photos more Pinterest-friendly, especially since Pinterest is becoming such a great traffic-driver.

***

Apparently the rainy season in Busan means fine weather all workweek, and pouring rain as soon as 6PM rolls around on Friday night, or at least it has for the past month or so. Despite the weather forecast, I’m hoping to have a great weekend full of food and friends and exploring. I hope you do too!

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.

24 Before 24: Have a Picnic Somewhere Stunning

August 6, 2014

I’m doing 24 fun or new things before I turn 24. You can see the rest of my list here.

For the month of August, I have a different work schedule – I’m working 9-6 instead of 1-9. I’m not much of a morning person, so last week I was really tired as I tried to adjust to the change. Even still, I have to admit that having my evenings free was totally wonderful. Finally I’m on a similar schedule to my friends, leaving us open to exploring the beautiful city we are lucky enough to live in. That means that in the evenings last week alone, we had a gorgeous dinner sitting on a patio, explored some awesome English bookstores in the university area, and of course, had this picnic at one of the most scenic spots in Busan.

Igidae Park offers one of my favourite views that I’ve seen in Korea. The park itself is made up of fingers of land that jut out at various intervals, parallel to the far shore, which means that no matter how far you walk along the coast, you get stunning views of the city – the Diamond bridge on the left with Gwangalli beach behind, Marine City in the middle, Haeundae beach and Dongbaek Island further right, and of course Dalmaji Hill. None of those names will mean anything to you if you’ve never been to Busan, but the pictures speak for themselves. It’s beautiful.

After work last Thursday, we took the metro 11 stops, then hopped in a 5-minute cab ride and ended up in Igidae. We were met with gorgeous views, beautiful clouds, and the prettiest blues and pinks of the sunset. I’d been once before, in the Spring, but I absolutely loved it at dusk.

Our picnic fare was random (as the best picnic food is!) but perfect. We had kimbap (kind of like Korean sushi), chips, pastries, crackers, wine and cookies.

We sat on the rocks overlooking the water as the sun went down, and for as long as we could after it was dark, until the ceaseless mosquito bites made us flee the scene. We talked about how lucky we felt to be able to experience such a beautiful place on a weeknight, after work, a short half hour trip from where we lived. It felt like freedom, and summer, and I was so grateful to be living so close to the water, to have made such great friends here, and to be eating Ritter Sport chocolate. It made me feel excited and inspired to make the most of the rest of my summer evenings as much as I possibly can. Life is grand.

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!