When I was 22

I wrote this 5 years ago on my secret Tumblr with my friend Joel that was designed to nourish and express ourinfinite love for summer's in Korea:

"Some Big Ideas

1.  Rain.
     A.  Pictures of washing hair in the rain (소나기).  So much rain that sometimes I wonder if it’s possible to wash hair in the rain haha.  Really…let’s try it.
     B.  This is also related to 소나기 , but I want to see how fast a paper cup fills up in one 소나기 session.  That means we have to be careful of the weather

2.  Birthday.     It will be my 23rd birthday on July 7, 2011 and I always wanted to try a picture of me in a birthday hat holding a plain floating balloon in the mist of people busily walking.  Then the next photo will be me and a friend who also has a birthday hat and a plain floating balloon (probs diff color).  Keep adding one or two more until there are 23 ppl total. Then the last picture I want a cake smashed onto my face. It’ll be the best birthday ever.  Around 16 pictures total~

3. People eating 아이스케이크
      Korea has so many different types of popcicles: different colors, shapes, wrappers.  I want to have lots of people eating different popcicles.  We need to bring our friends and family :)

4. Same pose, different places.
     We can do several of these.  I think it’ll be funny and cute.

5. Monday Missions. 
     We are given a theme mission very monday ie. hug 10 random people and take picture each, dance with 10 different people…etc.

Some Small Ideas

There are 104 days in a summer.  But so much to do!

1.  People and their dogs.  For some reason, the dogs end up looking like their owners. Hehe

2.  불꽃노리

3.  The public transportation.  I like people watching.

4.  Recording of 매미…

5.  Pictures of children catching bugs, playing in water..i just love kids, so pure!"

I miss Korea

That place inspires me so much...I cannot wait to go back.

Walking home

Earbuds snug
Black winter tights
My favorite and first coat
5 dollar mittens
Little pastry purchases from the department store
Breathing behind the tall scarf
makes my nose and mouth all wet...

Do you know what I'm talking about?

That smell of refrigerated, hard stick of butter cut with a spoon...

That smell of the AC from the car...sharp, cool, and strangely wet.
Or an electric fan. Soft mixture of metal, plastic, and a meal from the night before, arriving in succinct waves.

Sound of cicadas.  Have you ever held one in between your fingers?  They are fat and ugly.
Have you heard how loud a cicada is when one lands on your window screen? You can literally smell their mating calls...so full and reverberating.  It will travel up your nose and vibrate your little hairs.

The abrupt downpour on asphalt on the hottest day.  Take in deep breaths.
The dusty and cheap gunpowder combustion from sparklers, mini fireworks, and shooters.
The moist soil on the regular morning walks at the park next door.

Pass through the thick humid air and you will know who was there a good ten minutes before
Close eyes and use nose.
Cigarettes, beers, perfumes, shampoo, nervous sweat of a first date.

분당

Eat a fruity popsicle

Kiss immediately.

High School

(2007)

as always, bent in cafes and drinking coffee.  i think i drew hundreds of these forms.  i'm not sure why, but this is how i felt.

"젊음은 젊은이에게 주기에는 너무 아깝다."
"Youth is wasted on the young."

E-mail my dad sent me this morning

We have a little pond at our house now.

With my objection, Margaret 이모 forced Mom to buy one since she had one at her home.

See what happened -- I ended up taking care of this little pond every day.

We put five Guppies into the pond without any heating.

One of guppies died but 3 female and one male guppies survived and propered.

One day, I found out there are 25 baby guppies in the pond!

==> Check the photos that I attached.

After three weeks, none of baby guppies died.

Hence there are tons of guppies swimming inside the little pond!

I have to feed them every morning and evening.

I hope none of them dies before you come home.

(By the way, we visited Margaret 이모 house in Daejon and found out all of her fishes died in the pond because her house is too cold!)

See you soon!

<<   아 빠  >>

<3

Potentiality

the never hungry tin mailboxes
fried chicken business cards and flyers always poke out of them

early morning walk....i love these complexes.
such small spaces and plenty of breathers,
something exciting is bound to happen, no?

D-12.

My other half

via ELAINE CHOI :)

Winters in Korea

I was never fond of cold weathers (with the exception of wearing coats)

Despite the weather, we'd always have to run errands by walking--through rain, the frigid cold, unbearable humidity, season of Mongolian yellow dust.

It was always a mini adventure :)

sarah, me and the four-booted one

"Danchoo" means "Button" in Korean

My little cousin is learning new words each day~  This was an incident my sister told me:

sister: "what's this seunghanie~?"
seunghan: "...danchoo"

"now what about this one?"
"danchoo..."

"and this?"
"danchoo."

then he gets excited and starts pointing out buttons himself
"danchoo!"

"danchoo!"

"danchoo!"

...no seunghanie

hahaha poor grandma

My dad and his three brothers

a summer in korea

Happy Mah-duhssss Day

...like a Korean would say =)

at AK plaza...saw these two women walking side by side with slightly different hair cuts.
 one had a gucci bag and the other had a louis vuitton.
they must have been sisters..reminded me of my mom and her sisters :)
had to draw it in the bus before the image left my head (!) so smudged a bit...

I submitted an entry describing my mom in six words for the New York Times.  Of course she is the epitome of "most understanding, unconditional love, best friend, wise, beautiful...etc.etc." But most people wrote that kind of stuff, so I entered, "Same hairdo since I was born."  I hope she doesn't get offended hehehe

아비유~<3

Thursday, April 5, 2011

happy children's day :)

Always wanted to make a music video about me, my sister, my little cousin and our dog Sonic about our adventures during the summer to this song:

In AK Plaza

little boy and the glass pond

he was oblivious to the leaf stuck on his butt 

splish splash

satisfied.
i guess he really wanted to do that

Summers in Korea

I like watching out the stairwell window between the 8th and 9th floor (my floor) while snacking on a cool grapefruit half...

By 5 PM, the sun and sky turn into the color of my ruby red

how fitting :)

Summers in Korea

 My sister and I are quite the bug fanatics.  We've raised silk worms, rhino beetles, farming ants and caught many many insects including wasps (but those were done on accident).  Every summer, which is dragonfly and cicada season, we would go out with our three dollar bug net (an upgrade from ziplock bags we used to catch with) and bug cage to pluck some critters.

...why isnt he moving?

I had a tendency of swiping the net too quickly (a badminton habit) and the dragonflies I caught (to our horror) would  have their heads cut off
........................ooops...........My sister hated me for that.

the dragonfly whisperer

Anyway, my sister is seriously a dragonfly gaia: they all just willingly rest on her head and fingers.  Whereas I, after a series of beheadings (all done unintentionally!!!), am cursed and no dragonflies dare to come near me.

FAMILY BUG FACTS:

DAD: "I used to catch bees and pull out their stingers with tweezers."  How inhumane!  But I'm disturbingly intrigued....

MOM: "I used to tie a thread on the dragonflies tails and fly them around like kites."  Hehe :)

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

en route via subway

Like most kids in Korea, my sister and I spent our youthful summers riding jam packed subway trains for an hour and a half to learn from the finest SAT prep schools in the city.  When we were lucky to have a spot to sit down, I'd immediately fall asleep and my sister would quietly listen to my mp3.

While walking home from the subway station and eating snacks, she would tell me how my mouth was wide open the whole time and how people were staring:  "It was so embarrassing!" 

Sorry, Sarah :) :) hehehehehheehhehe

Summers in Korea

i love love LOVE saunas

Summers in Korea

added some "people" with the help of picasa

sort of cheated today...sorry

I love how the night stays warm.
I like walking my dog around the neighboring central park, buying a 40 cent drink from the vending machine, and sitting on a bench to people-watch and get high on the sanguine atmosphere.
The nights never get too dark and always feel young and certain...