Monday, April 30, 2012

Our Weekend

We had my favorite kind of weekend.  
Gorgeous weather, delicious food and the company of each other and our friends.
Here's a preview.


{A delicious Friday dinner made for me by Ryan}

{Ryan's dinner-made by a bar}

{Side sauces for the burger served in a Rogue six pack carrier.} 

{Homemade Weekend Breakfasts}


{Fishing Festival at the beach on Saturday}


{Laying on the beach-finally!}

{Ryan doing his frisbee thing}

{Ryan feeding his fish}
{Explanation to come later this week}

Hope your weekend was lovely as well. ♥

Friday, April 27, 2012

There's no place like home ♥

I love this video about my hometown. 
 We miss our city and the people we love that live there everyday.

Thursday, April 26, 2012

Have Fun


It's easy to get caught up in the demands, frustrations, and seriousness of everyday life.   
 Deadlines must be met, the house needs to be cleaned (by house I mean the tiny one bedroom studio), the fridge needs to be stocked and laundry is piling up.  
And we don't even have kids yet.

What I've learned lately is that sometimes it's okay to let the little things wait (oh the joys of not owning a dishwasher) until later, or at the very least celebrate when you've accomplished the big things by doing something fun.  

I love the above quote as a reminder that not only is it okay to have fun despite the busyness and serious demands of life, it's important to have fun.  

It's been coming up more and more in conversations lately with friends and family:
Life is short.
 Make it count, each and every day, and have fun while you do it.

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Seokbulksa: a hidden temple

Our weather the weekend before last was gorgeous.  Cherry blossoms still clung to the trees, the sun was shining, and it was warm enough to forgo jackets, finally.

A friend of ours had finished her teaching contract and was heading back to the states, so we took the hike to Seokbulksa Temple we'd been talking about doing together for months.

The cable car brought us halfway up Geumjeong Mountain (I like hiking but not that much) which we've done once before
 Going up in the cable car

 Soon we found a small village area dotted with traditional restaurants and foot volleyball courts.  Men in business suits (Saturday is often a work day here) kicked up dust as they passed the ball over tennis nets.

We wandered past them and through the flowery hillside to a stream where we stopped to enjoy the view.
Ryan sipped on rice wine, a traditional Korean hiking drink, and snacked on onigiri, a ball of rice, chicken and seaweed.

We found the cherry blossoms were at their peak.


Once we got moving again we were met with a rocky downhill trail that wound around for (MUCH) longer than we would have liked, but it proved to be worth it when we reached the temple.

The atmosphere and views at Seokbulksa were unlike other temples we've seen in Asia.  Its massive stone walls and the peaceful grounds made it difficult to remember we were in the midst of a booming city of four million people.  Because of its slight difficulty, far fewer people were around (aside from a family whose dad was ironically sporting a Jesus shirt) than at other temples.

The uphill walk on the stone path was no picnic as we headed down the mountain, but the weather was on our side so it was hard to complain. 

For dinner we treated ourselves to a savory kimchi pancake, pork stir fry, tuna stew and steamed tofu with kimchi and seaweed at a funky restaurant.
Delicious strawberry makgeolli (rice wine) complemented the meal well.  

More makgelloi please!  
Maybe this time without the hike?

Sunday, April 22, 2012

A Rainy Tourney

 Two weeks ago we were in the nearby city of Gyeongju.

Ryan's ultimate firsbee team had games all weekend.

Yesterday his team played in the league's spring play-offs.  
You may remember them winning it all in the fall.

In spite of Saturday's rainy weather, we took the one hour bus trip to Gyeongju with his teammates, only to find it was even colder and more rainy at our destination.  Players from all over Korea huddled under the one spot of shelter we could find--a bridge separating the two frisbee fields.  In a word, it was miserable.
We were all missing the weather from the last time we were there.

Here's the view from my seat under the bridge.  The pictures don't begin to show how wet and windy it was.
Here comes Ryan, climbing up to my spot under the bridge!
 Warming up
Game #1

I stuck it out for his first game, then headed back to Busan to dry out at home with many episodes of Grey's Anatomy. 

Unfortunately his team lost their next game and were out of the tournament, but Ryan received an award for most improved player in the league.  It was well deserved.

Congrats to you, honey!