Happy 4th of July! a little belated

I have to say that this fourth of July was probably the most traditional one that we've had in a while. I'm just happy that we were able to finally see some fireworks, despite a streetlight being in the way.

My photos are kind of backwards, starting with the end of the night and going into the day.

The day started out with Rach, Jes, and Didier coming over for a BBQ. They brought the BBQ as well as some delicious dishes such as key lime pie, brownies, and potato salad. I am not much of a cook so I decided to buy the meat and make a quick salad and chop up a watermelon. All in all it was a pretty fine BBQ. The dogs were ecstatic to have guests in the house and were running around with giant grins on their faces. Gottie held his spot under the table to make sure we didn't drop anything.

We then took the fun to the park across the street and grabbed some frisbees. It was fun but it took us a while to get the hang of it. Eventually we got better and Chris even managed to snag some pretty wicked jump catches. ;) He definitely wins for the most creative catches..and maybe dramatic too.

We ventured over to the little exercise machines in the park. I tried them once before but not very much since Chris had the dogs with us. This was a good opportunity to try them again. It was ok...most of the machines had absolutely no resistance so it was really easy, but there were two that were a bit challenging. I also tried to play on the pull up bar like how we did when we were kids. It's definitely not as easy.

It was exhausting to say the least to be in the sun for so long, so once we got back we split up and chilled out before we saw the fireworks downtown. Chris and I walked there which wasn't bad, and it was our first walk downtown from our new place. We met back up with Jes, Rach, and Didier, and also Ari and Ron (Ron works with Chris). It was great~ We had set up all these chairs in what we thought would be the perfect spot, but it started to get a little questionable when no one else stuck around us. Once the fireworks went off we realized that they were behind this building so we walked around and ended up on the courthouse stairs looking over. I brought my camera becuase I thought it would be fun to try to get some photos. I set my camera on BULB mode which allows you to set your own shutter speed as long as you hold down the button. It was fun experimenting and playing around, and I think we got some decent shots despite the obnoxious street light being in the way.

Ron and Ari were kind enough to drive us home and check out the apt. They got the quick look around, and then we sat in the computer room for a while and noticed some cops across the street wandering around with flashlights. They saw us looking at them and told us to go to the front door. Apparently some guy was right across the road setting off illegal fireworks. The cops seemed to get really frustrated with us since we had no idea that there was a guy, much less what kind of car he drove and what he looked like.

Anyway, today is a relaxation day. :) Everything is set up in the apt so we don't really have much left to do here. Maybe I'll head to the thrift store for fun. That's all.

No Cilantro Please

I thought this was funny - I posted a little "status" note about how much I hate cilantro on Facebook. Then I got bombarded (I may be exaggerating) with comments about how people either love it or hate it. I personally just can't stand it...I can't stand even a tiny corner of a cilantro leaf in my food. I couldn't explain it better than it tastes like concentrated foot sweat. Feet sweat. Whatever.

It reminds me of the old days when my brother would go to his bi-weekly gymnastics lessons in Mt. Pleasant. I'd always go, and I have many fond memories - particularly of going to Arby's whenever we took him to his lessons. However every time we picked him up, inside the gym was an overwhelming smell of feet. The taste of cilantro reminds me of walking in there, but maybe with your mouth gaping open and sucking in the sweaty smell.

I've been looking it up, and apparently it is some enzyme that makes people taste cilantro differently. Some people taste soap, which is still unpleasant...but I'd rather have a mouthful of soap than feet sweat. Some people taste rotting flesh..I'm glad I'm not one of those. My friends have always kind of made fun of me because I will not finish a meal if it has cilantro, or I will always ask to make sure they don't put any in it. I'm always amazed when people can eat it by the mouthful. :S

Anyway, enough about that.

I've been quite busy lately - still. I spent all day yesterday slaving away. ;) I can't call it slaving away when I actually enjoy my job. I've been having a lot of fun with the work, which right now is all concepts and design.

My day yesterday was good. I woke up and went to bootcamp, where I pretty much destroyed all of my leg muscles. We did this run in which we go run single file for 1.7 miles, and the back person sprints to the front and it goes down the line. We started with I think 11 people, and at the end it was just 6 of us I think. It was so incredibly painful. We came back and then did more running followed by pushups, pull ups, and jumping jacks. THEN we had to pull each other across the gym floor back and forth three times (one person sits on a mat, while the other has a rope around them like a horse). I was dying.

I came home and worked, and then for lunch I went to see Chris at Dreamworks since they were having some kind of 4th of July party. It was cute...they had shaved ice, cotton candy, popcorn, and ice cream along with a full out BBQ. I had my third hotdog of the week. It was delicious.

We played some frisbee/soccer afterwards. Basically between 6 of us we had two frisbees and one soccer ball that were randomly tossed about. It was kind of chaotic and I'm impressed that no one was hurt. My legs barely were functioning.

I came home and worked some more. I continued working until about 9:30pm, but I got a lot done. It's great working with this company because they are very open to my opinions, and feedback. Also the work I'm doing is really enjoyable and up my alley.

I skipped out on dinner with Chris and his friends because I was really tired, and I had to wake up early to meet up with a client/friend of mine that lives in San Carlos. I did three portraits of his dogs a while back, they were some of my personal favorites. He had just gotten a new dog, so I wanted to meet up to take some good photos of her. They were a pleasure to meet, I brought Jack but he was acting very grumpy and scared for some reason so he spent most of the time sleeping in the car.

I am still so tired. Chris has the day off today, but I plan on getting more work done. I am getting a pedicure with some of my friends today which should be fun. It's my friend's birthday weekend, so it's kind of a birthday pampering. I might try to sneak in a nap though. We'll see.

I'll post more later. I think tomorrow we're going to check out the redwood city fireworks. :)

Happy dogs

Ah I love my dogs. :) It makes me happy to see them so happy here at the duplex. I mean, every day their eyes are just lit up like it's Christmas morning. I swear Gottie acts 3 years younger. I'm debating on taking them on another walk because my friend came at around 4 and we walked around the entire park again (I walk them in the morning). I know that they want to, but they'll probably be a pain since the park gets really crowded about now.

Nothing interesting to post today, I just needed a little break away from working. My work is going kind of slow today but I'm almost done...the end is in sight! Well at least until they make any revisions. I'm making some characters right now, but trying to keep them in the same style as their other ones so it's a bit different for me. I'm used to big shiny cutesy eyes, and these eyes are basically just black dots. I'll post them once they are live and that I get permission.

This morning I went to bootcamp. My instructor told us to take the short warm up run, which almost always means that we will be doing a longer run that day. Sure enough as soon as we come back he tells us that we're going to go for either a 2 mile run, a 1.5 or a 1.7. You wouldn't think that there is much of a difference between the 1.7 and 2 but oh, there is. The 2 mile run is actually the 1 mile loop...twice, so it's a bit demoralizing when you reach the end of the first loop and then have to do it all over again. It was definitely...different. I wasn't sure what to pace myself at, but I was aiming to get it done in 15 minutes. It was pushing it, but I managed to run it in 15:25 which is still ok in my book. It felt so much longer than the 1.7 run.

We then went rock climbing and had this little competition going on between three teams. It was fun, but I sadly didn't make it up any wall. We first attempted the more difficult one (it was more points) and by the time I got to the easier one my arms were tired and my hands were sweaty so it was impossible to grip. :( I guess it only means that I will have to practice! :D I really enjoy the rock climbing either way. The bootcamp group is all so very supportive and encouraging, so it makes it really fun no matter what.

For lunch my friend/old co-worker came to visit and catch up. We went to lunch at a deli that I had been eying. Chris and I tried going there last night but it was closed so we ended up getting Little Caesars despite my major stomach pains from eating more Ikea hotdogs. Yeah, that was a bad idea, and I should have learned from the first one (but they taste sooo good!). I ended up curled on the futon for a little while trying to regain my composure to work haha. The deli food was alright though, nothing spectacular.

The lunch was fun, it was great seeing my friend again. It's always good to get out for a bit and socialize...haha, seeing that I am self employed it can get a bit lonely when it's just me and the dogs every day.

Anyway, that's all. I suppose I should get these last two characters finished up so I can chill with the pups.

Laundry machines, car washes, apartment cleaning

This has been quite the productive weekend. I'm pretty surprised considering that Saturday I slept away most of the day. I have been suffering from jetlag all week, and I blame it on me not being able to get a minute of sleep on the airplane here. My appetite has been very weak and in result I was exhausted and burnt out.

So Chris' prescription to me was to sleep as much as possible and then stuff my face with food. I fell asleep at 11 the night before and woke up at almost 11:30 on Saturday. Then I took a two hour nap after eating some delicious Hawaiian food down the street. Once naptime was over, it was time to get some serious work done so we went to the old apartment and cleaned like mad.

This morning I woke up at 7:00 feeling quite refreshed and back on track. 7 sounds early but I usually wake up at 5:45 during the weekdays so it's really sleeping in for me. I managed to bathe the dogs before we headed to San Jose to check out some laundry machines. Jack gets a weekly bath, and in result Gottie usually gets one every other week. I think he likes it honestly...but this bathtub was new to him so he was a little nervous. As you can tell. It was cute though.

The laundry machines we got are alright. They are no beauty queens, but they are nice in my book. We got them both for $280 (add another $40 for delivery and installation) which is a pretty good deal I think. I'm honestly just happy to have our own machines...no more quarters, no more waiting for people to finish their laundry, no more cleaning people's lint out of the dryer. An emphasis on no more quarters.

Oh yeah, and I washed my car for the first time in way over a year (I usually just try to park it outside whenever it rains). I am pretty excited about that. It's the simple luxuries that I love...like having a hose. Some people may take that luxury for granted.

After all that we went back to town to Ikea and Home Depot to grab some things that we have been needing...you know, like four hotdogs and two frozen yogurts.

Once we came home we finished cleaning the old apartment and now here I am at almost 9:30. It feels good to get so much done.

This week I plan to get a lot of work done. I have a lot of work to do. I need to work on some stuff for the mobile game company, I need to work on the children's book, and another side commission that I was doing, as well as some digital paintings. Hopefully it won't be as blistering hot as it has been this weekend. I swear today must have been near 100 degrees. The apartment is just now starting to cool off even though we have all the windows wide open and two fans blasting.

Anyway I need to grab something to eat before I melt into the bed. :)

We've moved!

Posting has been a little difficult because I've either been too tired, too busy, or without internet. I still don't have internet actually but I'm sitting in our public library.

So we finally moved everything into the duplex!!! This was our second night there. The first night was a little rough because we weren't used to the dogs nails tapping on the floor early in the morning, and there was this crazy loud and annoying bird outside our window at 5am. However, after installing some super thick eclipse window curtains it blocks out all the sunlight and it even reduces sound.

I couldn't be happier with the place. The dogs absolutely love it there. It's so nice to be able to open the back doors and just let them run out whenever they want. Gottie also adores laying in the sun, as you can tell from the picture above. He used to lay out on our balcony in Glendale and his skin would get all purple. I'm sure it will happen again. He comes in panting and just has this giant goofy smile on his face.

The pictures of the duplex are ok...but there is a ton of clutter that won't be there hopefully. We had moved the desk into the living room at the moment.

Things have been good. I'm just beginning to not be jetlagged, but I definitely still have it. It has been rough this time around. I've been waking up at 3 am after going to bed at 11, and then being a zombie during the day after noon.

I'll probably start cracking down into work mode once I get the internet hooked up. It's difficult to correspond with the clients when I have to go to a public place just to get e-mail. I've also been spending time buying things for the duplex. I went to Home Depot today and got a roll of screen, some magnets, and some velcro. I'm hoping that I can make a walk through screen door so that I can leave the doors wide open and have the dogs still be able to walk in and out without the bugs coming in.

I had an interview on Tuesday. It went alright but I think that the commute would be a bit much (it was in the Financial District in San Francisco). Luckily I still have my other contract position that is going well, and hopefully will be getting more and more work as time goes on.

Hmm I think that's about it. It's been tough getting back into gym mode but not as bad as I had feared. Monday's kickboxing was brutal, but I think the teacher was being tough in general. Bootcamp has been fun, a lot of people have joined. We ran the 1.7 mile loop today. I had set a goal of 13:30 sinced my last time was 14:05. I managed to do it in 13:20. What a difference it makes having a stopwatch on.

Tomorrow I have to wait around for Comcast. They set a reasonable time window from 10:00am-2:00pm. It's still probably four hours of sitting and waiting for them, but I think normally it's like 10-5 or something. Hopefully they come earlier than later. I'm thinking that Chris and I will spent the majority of this weekend cleaning the old apartment, and fixing up things for the new apartment. I'm anxious to start my garden, but the priorities go into unpacking and organizing everything. I'll definitely be taking more pictures later.

I'm back!

First of all - Happy Father's Day! Dad, I hope you have a good one! I'll call soon.

Oi...it has been a long day. I wanted to post these pics up before I forgot though. It's of our last day with Heath before Mom and I took the bus up to Incheon.

I can't remember the name of the island that we went to (update! It was Goe-Je Island), but it was about an hour away from Jinju (that's counting Dong-su's slightly manic driving). We were afraid that it would be rainy, but it cleared up in perfect time.

We first stopped at pebble beach. This is the 2nd beach that I have been to in Korea that was called pebble beach. They aren't pebbles, but more like large stones that are difficult to walk across on. It was kind of neat to feel the heat coming up from them though.

We then stopped at the Windy Hill...I think that's what it was called. It was very pretty and peaceful. I wore sandals which made it a little difficult to scale the rocks but it was still fun.

We spent most of the time driving around. The car that Heath and Dong-Su had rented was running on fumes and we were desperately searching for a gas station that had LPG gas. It was really very close. When he was asked to move the car to the other side of the tank it took a few tries to get the car started.

Our next destination was a "sandy beach" so we could mingle and search for more sea glass. It's really insane how much sea glass we found in only about 20 minutes. The beach was a bit gross though, and full of trash.

By the time we were done it was already time to head back so that we could eat and then go to the bus station. Dong-Su had promised to take us to get sam-gye-tang which is my favorite chicken soup. He took us to this place nearby Jinju. It was a really cute place that specialized in the soup. It was deeelicious. Mm I could go for more right now.

We made it in good time to the bus station after packing four giant bags into the car. It was sad leaving Heath, but it was really great to be able to spend so much time with him. It has really been several several years since we have all spent that much time together. I have to thank his boss for giving him so many days off to spend with us. And I have to thank Dong-Su for going out of his way to help us so much. Such nice people!

The bus ride back was long...four hours or so. The taxi ride to the hotel felt even longer. It was kind of hectic to get into the cab with so many bags. The taxi driver was spaced out and we had to knock on the glass to get his attention (he was too busy watching tv). That should have given us a red flag, but the taxis were lined up and there were people behind us waiting to get in the other cabs. We got in, and showed the driver the hotel address and phone number that Dong-Su had written for us. He looked confused, but just started driving. Later on I notice he's fiddling with his GPS trying to find the hotel since he had no idea where it was. Eventually I give the paper to him again telling him there's an address and phone number.

He typed it in and then we headed on this super long drive. He took his time driving slowly and not following the GPS directions. I kept watching the meter and it came out to less than 30,000 won (which is around 30 dollars). We did go over a bridge that cost another 3,500 won. A total of 33,500. We got out, but noticed he quickly erased the meter, and then told us we owe him 50,000. Since he didn't speak English he had the hotel guy tell us. We argued that it definitely wasn't even near 50,000 but we couldn't win the fight. It made us so mad we kind of stormed into the hotel and vented until we fell asleep. I hate when people take advantage of other people.

We woke up at 7 and left the hotel at 8 to get to the airport. The timing was great again and we were on our way to Norita before we knew it. We spent a few hours there looking around at the airport. I got Gottie a necklace that has some liquid titanium or something crazy in it. I know it's probably a waste of money but I like to have wishful thinking. Either way, he loves new necklaces so he's pretty happy.

The flight to San Francisco was a pain. The first 2 hours (at least) were very turbulant, and I was already nervous. I don't know why I get so nervous flying, I think it's because there is always a big plane crash right before whenever we fly. It was very bumpy and it lasted so long that I couldn't even eat when the meal came around. I was a nervous wreck but I just did several sudoku puzzles to keep my mind off the craziness. Also there was a korean woman sitting next to us with her daughter. They were coughing the whole time. To top it all off, we were in the very back row and I could not see a single television from my seat. Nine hours is a long time to not have any source of entertainment except for a sudoku book. I couldn't sleep because the turbulance kept reoccuring.

So now I'm home. It is really nice to see Christopher and the dogs again. I think we are just going to relax today...I'm going to try to stay awake at least until 6 tonight. Then I'll probably just pass out for a good 12 hours.

Korea Day 7

Not so many pictures today.

The first portion of our day was taking the bus back to Jinju from Busan. The timing was impeccable. I have a hard time staying awake on buses because they're pretty boring. I think I may have dozed off for a short moment, but the majority of my time was spent doing Sudoku puzzles, which I used to be really good at but since it's been a while I have gotten a bit rusty.

We checked into our hotel and then went to Heath's and relaxed for a bit.

He had to work today, so we went downtown to pick up any odds and ends that we wanted before we leave Korea. Unfortunately Mom and I didn't really know the area well and we ended up wandering for hours trying to find any shops that interested us. We didn't find any really except for this pottery place that we went to before. I did manage to find my brother this cactus that I saw him eyeing the other day. The lady was really nice. At first I just got the plant because I wanted to look around for other pots, and then when I came back to her (she had a pot that I liked the best) she happily potted the plant with all this decorative gravel. It was kind of sad because the plant was something I bought when we first got there, so I lugged this 10-15 lb plant for hours.

Mom and I came back to the hotel so exhausted that we just laid on the beds and didn't move for about an hour. I decided then that it was a good time to take a walk by the river since things have cooled down (it was another scorcher today). The walk was nice. The sidewalk is a soft rubber so I might go running tomorrow morning. I wanted to work out at the gym here before we headed out but once again, the gym was only for men. It's really annoying! Oh well. I didn't come here to work out, but I did want to stay in decent shape before I headed back to bootcamp. :)

At 8:30 Heath came by since he was finished with work. Dong-su picked us up and took us to get kalbi. He is such a nice guy! He drove us to the place and sat there while we ate. The food was good, but the meat here is way too fatty for my taste. Chewy meat makes me gag a little. I enjoy the whole experience though, and the environment. Tomorrow I think we're getting sam gae tang, so I'm looking forward to that.

And now we are at the hotel about to go to bed early so we can be ready for the day tomorrow. I forget which island we're going to but it's about an hour drive away. We may be taking a ferry to the island if time allows. It will be a short trip because we have to be back by 6:30 to take the bus to Incheon, and then leave the following morning bright and early to the airport. I can't believe the trip is almost over.