Nikon D7000 with Nikkor 105mm f/2.5.
I have a lot of photos from my short trip with Youn-hee that I have yet to go through and post, so bear with me while I catch up.
The good news is she’s pretty darn healthy, short of her having parasites from drinking dirty water, likely. This, apparently, is not that bad, and after about two weeks worth of medicine and a few extra just-to-make-sure visits every three days or so, she should be all good and ready to grow into the food-devouring monster she’ll be. I didn’t really want to get a third cat, but sometimes you just got to go with the flow I guess. Can’t leave her out in the cold, now can I..
(Sorry about the mess, I was in the middle of moving things around and not doing my dishes. Ahem.)
For the past two nights (that I remember), I’ve been hearing this little kitten screaming sound. I first thought it was one of my neighbors who went out and got a kitten. When I went to bed last night around 10, however, I started wondering, because the sound was much louder than it would be if the kitten was somewhere inside. This could mean that perhaps they kept the cat(s) outside on a balcony or so, but you never know. So I decided to step out and look for the sound. To scratch my itch, if you will.
It took a little bit, but I ended up in a small alley behind the building next to me, and there I found her, hiding between two gas tanks. I don’t know if her owners had tossed her out or if she’s a street cat and lost her mom, but either way, there she was. It’s getting cold, so I couldn’t just leave her there.
Since I have two cats of my own already, I can’t really just bring a street cat in the house. Deceases aside, my cats won’t just accept a little bugger like this barging in and taking over their territory. Since the vet was closed (Sunday evening, 10pm), I wasn’t sure what to do, but ended up figuring my bathroom would be better than a back alley, so I took her with me.
After a somewhat noisy night, I had to take a shower this morning, so I closed the shopping bag I had set up with Spongebob pillow as a make-belief cat bed and put it on the floor in my kitchen, kitten inside.
My cats both refused to get out of the bedroom.
After taking a shower, I decided to hold the little one in my hand a bit. Using a glove to grab her (she had already enjoyed a nice chew on my finger the night before — I learn. Occasionally.) and petted her for a while, letting Forest and Gu-da get a smell too — from a distance, that is. Both ended up hissing at the little one. Figures.
After work I’ll immediately take her to the vet and get her checked out. I’m not sure yet what to do with her, I don’t know how well she’ll be able to get used to humans and my cats, or visa versa. Even more-so, I’m really not sure how I would potty-train a kitten as a single (cat-)parent with a full-time job..
Queue mission impossible tune?
I’m an uncle, again! 50 centimeters, 3.4kg. Born exactly 2pm today (Thursday). Beautiful :-)
Yesterday I finally went out and bought a few new lamps for in my home. My bedroom and kitchen lights broke ages ago and I sort of made due in the kitchen with indirect light from other parts of my home. I never really cared much for my bedroom since I don’t need light to sleep anyway, but now that I have light again, it sure is nice. I can finally see where I’m walking when I come home, woo!
I’ll make some photos of my cozied-up living room soon, too.
Last weekend I went to Jeju island, and also took the boat to Udo, a small island 10 minutes off the shore of Jeju. I’ll post many more photos of my trip later, but I wanted to post this one up-front.
A tiny coffeeshop in the middle of nowhere (though, technically, everything there is in the middle of nowhere) opened a month ago. A young couple moved here not two months ago to start their coffee shop, to live out their dream. I felt slightly jealous for them having the courage to make such a big change in their lives to make their dreams come true.
Although, to be fair, I moved half-way across the globe to find that what my heart said I could find here. My win is a work-in-progress, though.
;-)
Decisions are not always easy. Some of them are incredibly hard, even. With the past being fact, present being fleeting, the future is the scariest of them all. Not knowing what comes next, or how the decision you make now will be good or bad, you’ll not know. At least until future came and went.
The decision I made today is heart-breaking, but a necessity. For too long I’ve not made a choice, which is far worse than any decision I could make. It’s time for me to stop hiding behind I don’t knows and well let’s sees.
I’m so sorry I hurt you once again, but I truly believe this is the best decision in the long run.
It’s been a while since I met Nana. Our busy schedules kept us from hanging out more often. Fortunately we were able to meet and catch up again this weekend, where, together with Youn-hee, did some light accessory shopping, followed by me going nuts in the record store.
This store had a corner where you could write a note and stick it on the wall (or wherever you wanted), so the first thing Nana did when she saw this was sit down and write a note.. in Arabic. Of course.
While I go ahead and repeatedly kick the old guy sitting next to me.
Ah, children.
One of the food related things I miss most from Holland is, oddly enough, my mom and big sister’s Lasagna. Both make devilishly delicious lasagna, and enough of it to get through for an entire winter.
Here in Korea, throw a stone and you’ll hit three italian restaurants. The weird thing is, though, most every restaurant has spagetti, pizza and risotto, but no lasagna. The one thing I like most, not present.
There is one place, fortunately close to my home, that does sell lasagna. It’s a relatively small portion, but tastes good enough. It’s not as good as my mom and big sister’s, but it’s good.
Eating there alone is slightly awkward, though, when you’re surrounded by cute pink cushions sitting on a bench –not a chair, no, a bench– with the entire place taken up by couples having dinner.
Ahem.
In Hongdae, last night. Pretty intense.
Fine.
Writing a text, making a photo. Same look, different action. Fun.
I don’t usually take photos in the subway, mainly because I don’t like 50 people staring at me at once. Subways are filled with people waiting to get where they have to go, so that usually means they have little or nothing to do in the mean time. Movements, sounds, and being-a-foreigner are often reason enough for a bunch of them to wake up from their near-zombie state and “see what’s going on”.
Yesterday, though, I dusted off my 18-55mm kit lens, as I wanted to make some sorta-wide-angle shots like the one above. I don’t usually use this lens because I think the mood it creates in photos is far from inspiring. I guess I just can’t stop loving my 50mm.
The Thai food place here in Suyu that Youn-hee and I frequent just updated their menu. In the 3+ years we’ve been coming here, I think this is the first time they did that. They added about 6 new dishes, if memory serves, and yesterday we tried out two new ones. My memory sucks when it comes to names, and I neglected to write them down, but the dish seen above is chicken with loads of paprika, union and some nuts and is quite tasty. No noodles or anything, so in a way it feels more like a dish you’d eat together with something else.
The other dish we got was roasted duck meat, with some sort of sauce on it. The sauce was a little bit sweet, but not too much, and they gave a few slices of lemon on the side that you sprinkle over the dish, giving the dish a nice balance of sweet and sour. Definitely recommended.
Both dishes are very nice, but the duck meat takes the number one position for me. Very good.
Finally got myself a record player! It’s a tiny one, but it’s a great start. There’s just something about the sound of LPs..
I’ve finally gone out and bought new glasses. I’ve had my old ones for close to 5 years now I guess, and while they were fine (survived all the brutality I’ve thrown at them), I needed stronger glasses. So after my first pay check I dropped by a local store and ended up walking out with probably the most expensive frame they had available. This is the last time I’m bringing Youn-hee with me on errands like these.. -_-
Fortunately, with these glasses I’m sure I’ll get a few bonus points with my little sister; they’re made by Calvin Klein.
I now have glasses over twice as strong as my previous ones, and can finally see stuff again. That feeling is beyond fantastic, really. It got really bad when I couldn’t even use manual focus with my camera anymore.
Thanks to Youn-hee for modeling for this shot.