*spring and flowers *

hello september, hello spring!

well the past few months certainly were eventful!

* a whole bunch of sydney friends came to perth with us to visit
* celebrated rach's birthday
* spent some times with my girls who i miss terribly
* took funny photos with family
* i quit one of my jobs
* celebrated my birthday and got surprised a bazillion times
* we took a drive down to wollongong and then got caught in the fog
* ended up receiving more bunches of flowers in 3 days than i have my entire life
* roadtripped and saw cows, waterfalls and caves (amazing!)
* then i got sick and finally took a couple of days off work



bundles of fun ay! :)

and then we say... bye september. oh. and october too.

* seoul officially ticked off the list! *

officially breaking the silence with updates of photos from my recent holiday to seoul, south korea!


myeongdong: also known as shopping central for all of the big brands.
deoksugung: the first palace we hit up. it's actually smack in the middle of seoul cbd. so amazing how the old and new are melded together.


mum and i: first meal in seoul!
dumplings: AU$3.50 for a basket of 8 dumplings! amazing.


all meals AU$5: everywhere we ate, even if we pigged out, the meal for 3 of us only cost $25 or less!
crazy vending machines:listerine anyone? or how bout a toothbrush and toothpaste?


national war museum: by far the most interesting museum i've been to in a while!
lotteria: korea's version of maccas


dongdaemun train station: as it turns out, homelessness is universal. :(
laderach: ask rach about people watching here. ;)


DMZ:we took a tour to see the dmz and the underground infiltration tunnels. the history to be told is mind blowing. also, now we can say that we were 150m away form the north korean border while being 400m underground!
photo after the trek back up from the tunnel (400m at a 45 degree incline): let's just say that i wanted to give up about 10% in. but then there were all these old people doing it. let's just say ewww. coz it was soooo hot and stuffy down there.


seoul city tour bus: they had these electronic guides on the back of each seat on the bus, giving commentary as we went past each stop. have i ever mentioned that i love hop-on-hop-off bus tours? :)
men in uniform: these guys were accompanying what looked like an important american dignitary. but then they were nice enough to pose for a photo. side note: the american army uniform is so much better than its australian counterpart.
no photo line: at the dora observatory. on a clear day, you can see across the north korean border.


rach and i: one of many photos of us from the trip. :)
map of the seoul city tour bus: we did so much that day, my feet were pretty much dead by the end of the day.
nanta: a really funny non-verbal cooking show performance.

all in all, it was 5 days of exploration, adventure and bonding.

the only thing which i didn't get to document with photographic evidence is the SHOPPING. oh my goodness the shopping. floors and floors and floors of nice and amazingly cheap clothes, accessories, bags, scarves, shoes... the list goes on.

=) would i go back again? yeah. totally!

* a new to do list :) *

come the end of semester means "helloooooooo" to list making season again! yay! :)

so here's the grand plan. funnily enough, i've only got 2 weeks left to get it all done!

* print more photos for my wall-collage thing
* sew some cushions (yay! fabric shopping!!)
* learn songs for andrew & gek's wedding
* buy a dress for said wedding
* go to taronga zoo (weather permitting)
* make bossam
* take a trip out of sydney somewhere
* play a bit of sc2
* bake something that doesn't come in a box
* finish watching blue bloods

and last but not least:
* spend time with special people who i really do need to spend time with. :)

there's also heaps of work-related stuff that will need to be done. there's so many changes at the ombo at the moment, heaps of people movement. and at the other office it's end of financial year, so howdy to all the stress that comes packaged with that. and then there's lawsoc, which i've totally been ignoring due to a total lack of time over the last few weeks! so i really do need to catch up!

my fingers are tightly crossed to getting all this done before i leave... in 15 days!

despite the work to do list... my sentiments are still along the lines of: yippeeeeeeee!! :)

* time for another a-z =) *

* admin law is made way more difficult than it needs to be
* buses hurt my ears when they drive past a street corner
* carrots stay good in the fridge for way too long
* driving is actually therapeutic
* exams used to be fun, what happened to that
* fridays are unfortunately ruined, forever
* golf balls hurt when you get hit by them
* hello kitty definitely should have stayed in the 90s
* icecream is better in winter
* junk should be ditched not hoarded
* kind people are hard to come by these days
* love goes both ways
* mirrors don't always tell the truth
* noise always travels further than you think
* octopus tastes good when cooked by korean people
* pride reminds me of a balloon
* quarreling gets loud when it comes from a house next door
* reaping benefits always requires patience
* strepsils got cheap and only have 16 in a box now
* trust is good
* uniformity hinders creativity
* vegemite is a godsend
* xeroxing should be an official noun
* zagat should totally come to australia

* a little patch of not much *

two posts ago it was one month til the end of semester 1. now, it's four days. i've just come off from 6 hours of intense study, so admittedly, my thoughts are a little bit jumbled in all things not administrative law.

five minutes ago, i felt an overwhelming need to ramble/vent. so with a lack of people to ramble to at 1:22AM on a wednesday/thursday night/morning, here we are. =)

i went to uni today for a revision class and ended up bumping into heaps of JDers that i started out with last year. the consensus of reactions were along the lines of "phwoah! where've YOU been?" as it seems, i have disappeared.

it certainly does feel like that happens to me a lot. i'm so accustomed to this kind of reaction from people that i think i have a habit of 'disappearing' from all kinds of things. right now, i'm thinking this could possibly be a shadow or consequence (either works) of my inability to commit to pretty much anything in general.

at different points in times, i've looked back and realized that i remember being a part of something, but now, as it stands, i'm somehow not anymore. or at least, even if i am still physically present in said thing/group/activity, i still feel like i'm not. i guess this on the whole could be construed as completely normal, but the point that i distinguish in my mind is the fact that i can never remember the exact point in time that i stopped feeling like i was a part of it.

most of the time, like all my other phases, it's entirely self-inflicted. i'm pretty sure i'm the one who backs off or has a change of mind or just gets busy with other things. but this as a constant can't be a good thing... can it?

it's something that i've been thinking a lot about lately, but just haven't been sure of where to place it. i always wonder how it affects the people around me.

colour me confused. just a little anyway.

i think i'll conclude by saying that i think i may need another aquarium day. =D

* ouch *

two weeks ago, i was at maroubra beach, having an awesome time playing gridiron catch. now i think about it, it seems that i've spent a lot of time this year this way. and you know what? it's always good: peaceful, challenging at times, and usually accompanied by great company and conversation. what's not to like, right? but then, on this day, i reached out to catch a pass, made contact with the ball, but missed.

so this leads me to reveal... did you know: i didn't know that a 'fracture' meant a bone was broken until like, 2 years ago?

but now, in addition to knowing what it means, i now officially have the pleasure of know what it feels like.

check out my awesome bruises:


i suppose the funniest part to the story is that i didn't realize that my finger was broken after it happened. so as we had friends over for dinner and a guitar hero session, we spent the next 2-3 hours jamming. the next morning though... my finger wasn't looking so pretty.

but i must say, i wore those bruises proudly. ;)

* my one month catch up! *

the last month has been an absolute blurrrrr! so much has happened since my last post. things are in a great place right now. one month left til the end of semester 1 and only six weeks away from another asia holiday!

but in the crazy events of the past month, the only way i could think to describe it all was by posting these photos:

the royal easter show 2011: half a day at work, awesome weather, heaps of rides and great company.


SMAC CAMP: five days of learning, bonding, and making new friends. =) point walstoncroft was amazingly beautiful.


sunny weekend day trips to brooklyn and wollongong.



almost forgetting mother's day


celebrating shell's bday: sugary goodness from adriano zumbos, over-ordering at korean, plus 2 full hours of k.


=)

things are good.

* my down day *

last week, i woke up one morning and decided that i was going to have a down day.

this down day turned out to be an incredibly awesome idea. productively, it ended up including a trip to sydney aquarium - a place i've been wanting to go since i moved here last year!

best part? four letters: L-E-G-O. i'm such a kid. haha.

check it out:



did you know mr. shark weighs 680kgs? that's AMAZING! there's also a 7m model of jaws which is apparently the largest shark display in the world. also, AMAZING.

i decided afterwards that i really should have bought an annual pass. there's two reasons
(1) you get issued a plastic card called a 'merlin adventure pass'. and it looks AWESOME! :)
(2) this second reason is probably a tad bit more valid. it's because of the bench which is positioned right in front of this:



at that point, i felt almost pensive. :)

all in all - it was a really great down day.