luna love

Photo 2016-04-24, 9 26 06 PM

Recent­ly remind­ed of my fond­ness of Luna, advis­er to the Sailor Moon and her friends. She has all her flaws, with her moments of pan­ic, embar­rass­ment, dis­ap­point­ment, fury, exhaus­tion, melt-down, uncer­tain­ty, even occa­sion­al mean­ness (in one episode she drew a pic­ture to make fun of Usa­gi for becom­ing “fat” :S), but she always holds on to her pur­pose, and deter­mi­na­tion to ful­fill her pur­pose. And she does­n’t take crap from people.

AND! She shows us that unpleas­ant moments can be quite com­i­cal! (in some ways)

Must have to do with our recent trip to Asia. We’ve in fact come across a lot of Sailor Moon mer­chan­dise while there. Won­der if Sailor Moon is pop­u­lar again, in a nos­tal­gic kind of way, or its pop­u­lar­i­ty has always been con­sis­tent in South Korea and Hong Kong?

Any­way, did­n’t buy any­thing Sailor Moon while on the trip, so I was search­ing on Etsy a cou­ple days ago, and came across this per­fect­ly Luna pin back but­ton in this shop, I just HAD to get it :D

I need a feline men­tor to demon­strate how to say no (there are more of these if you also feel like you need to say no more often). It’s mak­ing its way across the con­ti­nent as I type :D In the mean­while, I found a plas­tic Luna key ring some­where at home, so I sawed the plas­tic ring part off its top and glued a pin back on it. Ta-da! My very own portable feline mentor.

Photo 2016-04-30, 4 26 50 PM

Have a very good week­end, everyone!

 

 

 

HK love

This place will always be my home <3

But I haven’t been able to be there as much as I’d like in the past 20-some years. So, even though there’s so much to see and do and so much fun to be had, it always feels a bit emo­tion­al to vis­it. Child­hood mem­o­ries, and such.

We crossed the har­bour between Hong Kong Island and the Kowloon Penin­su­la almost dai­ly. Usu­al­ly we take the MTR (sub­way), but real­ized that we can also take the Star Fer­ry, so we tried that one day. The Star Fer­ry has been in oper­a­tion since 1888. It used to be much busier when the MTR was­n’t as exten­sive. I remem­ber tak­ing it every time we vis­it­ed my grand­par­ents, and it would make me sea sick (it still does :P). It’s an excel­lent way to take in the views of Vic­to­ria Harbour.

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Near the Star Fer­ry pier we could see the smi­ley Fer­ris wheel ^_^ We did­n’t go on it though. It was very rainy that day.

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Aberdeen is one of the neigh­bour­hoods where my fam­i­ly used to live. The Aberdeen har­bour is home to many boat hous­es, and the many peo­ple who live in them.

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Peo­ple could cross the har­bour with the com­muter boat, it costs $2.20 HKD (about $0.35 CAD) for the 3‑minute jour­ney. So of course we went for a ride :D It was also a nice way to look at the boat houses.

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The hotel we stayed at was very close to the North Point Pier. There were quite a few peo­ple fish­ing at the pier. This is one of my favourite pic­tures from the whole trip.

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Spring­time is very foggy.

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Mike recent­ly start­ed read­ing Moomin comics and was very excit­ed to find a Moomin Cafe :D We had lunch there one day. The serv­er would bring over giant Moomin (and friends) plush to sit at the table with people.

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And we found not one, but TWO Stu­dio Ghi­b­li stores! (Donguri Repub­lic at Har­bour City and Times Square)

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We also found the BEST cat cafe ever!

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There were cats every­where. Right beside me curled up in a chair, on top of the tables, inside the counter…

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Most are sleep­ing, but the ones wan­der­ing about were quite friend­ly :D

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And in the same neigh­bour­hood I found a yarn store! (the red framed win­dows with the sweaters) Cause­way Bay is the place to be! I bought some dis­count­ed acrylic but exer­cised quite a bit of self-con­trol — there’s only so much space in the lug­gage and there are so much fun snacks to bring back!!

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Switch­ing gears to see places out­side of the city, we joined a boat tour to vis­it the vol­canic rock region in the Hong Kong Geo­log­i­cal Park, which con­sists of sea arch­es, sea caves, and hexag­o­nal rock columns! The tour leaves from the Vol­cano Dis­cov­ery Cen­tre at Sai Kung Pier.

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Pic­tures don’t do these moun­tains jus­tice, they are absolute­ly mag­nif­i­cent. Here is a sea arch!

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And some sea caves, and waterfalls!

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As well as fish­ing villages…

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And ven­dors sell­ing seafood from their boats.

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Fog­gy days mean low clouds hang­ing in the mid­dle of the moun­tains and this heav­en­ly scene.

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Then we went to the oppo­site side of Hong Kong and vis­it­ed Tai O, which is a fish­ing vil­lage on Lan­tau Island, with many stilt hous­es built on water.

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The small streets and hous­es are very dif­fer­ent from that of the city.

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Res­i­dents mak­ing salt fish, shrimp paste and dried seafood.

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We took a boat tour to watch for the famed pink dol­phins, but did­n’t see any :( maybe next time.

Going back in time, we vis­it­ed a muse­um of a 200 year-old restored Hak­ka walled vil­lage, called Sam Tung Uk.

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We vis­it­ed part­ly because my sis­ter and I have Hak­ka ances­try. Some of the things in the muse­um indeed remind me of what my grand­par­ents used to have in their home, and still in the vil­lage where they live now, like the ances­tral hall.

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Back in the city, we vis­it­ed the his­tor­i­cal Stone Slabs Street (aka Pot­tinger Street) in Cen­tral dis­trict. Some of the stone slabs are restored, and some are orig­i­nal I think. Ven­dors keep stalls on both sides of the street. I remem­ber being there once when I was young, and it being a lot busier back then, but this is excit­ing nonethe­less :D

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And guess what I found on these fab­u­lous stone steps? A yarn­bombed railing!

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Near­by there is a Star­bucks dressed like an old times Hong Kong cof­fee house :D

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My sis­ter took us to the Chi­nese Uni­ver­si­ty of Hong Kong, where she went to grad­u­ate school sev­er­al years ago :D It might not be a place that most tourists would vis­it, but since it’s built on a moun­tain it’s actu­al­ly a good hike, with lots of beau­ti­ful scenery, like this foun­tain near the top of the moun­tain, which seems to be built to blend with and inter­act with its sur­round­ing views.

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The tiles make up the words, “spread wings and fly” :)

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And so we did, at the end of our trip, flew back to our oth­er home in Toron­to. But sure­ly we will be back :)

I hope you enjoyed the pho­tos! :D Because I have more! :D Most­ly street pho­tog­ra­phy using the Diana Mini. I’m still wait­ing to fin­ish my last roll and for the rest to devel­op, but will pick some good ones to show you.

Have a good week­end, everyone!

 

 

 

hello from Seoul! :D

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Long time no see every­body!! :D

Mike, my sis­ter and I went on a trip to Seoul and Hong Kong ear­li­er in the month :D We’re now home and feel­ing dizzy with jet lag, but we had such a good time! Thought I’d share some pic­tures of places we’ve been and loved, in case you’re think­ing about vis­it­ing these cities as well and look­ing for ideas!

We caught the cher­ry blos­soms while in Seoul, the pic­ture above was tak­en at Gyeong­bok­gung Palace, largest of the five palaces in Seoul. The archi­tec­ture at the palace is absolute­ly spec­tac­u­lar. It feels as though every tile, every beam, every brick is thought­ful­ly and mean­ing­ful­ly made and placed.

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The palace grounds also has some love­ly ponds. We did­n’t have time to vis­it all 5 palaces, and the ponds were the rea­son why I chose to go to this palace. It’s dif­fi­cult to not get beau­ti­ful pho­tos here.

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There were many peo­ple wear­ing han­bok (tra­di­tion­al Kore­an cloth­ing) strolling about :)

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We also vis­it­ed the Nam­san­gol Hanok Vil­lage, Hanok mean­ing tra­di­tion­al Kore­an hous­es. The archi­tec­ture of civil­ian hous­es is no less stun­ning than that of the palace. I love the neat, clean, sim­ple aesthetic.

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At the Hanok Vil­lage we par­tic­i­pat­ed in a tea cer­e­mo­ny activ­i­ty. We were served tra­di­tion­al Kore­an sweets as well :D They’re made of crispy rice. In the pic­ture the muse­um docent is pour­ing the tea from the teapot to a tea bowl for the tea to cool down a bit, before pour­ing it into the teacups.

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We thought we did­n’t have time to vis­it oth­er palaces, because we were only there for 4 days, and palaces are huge! But found out that there is a rel­a­tive­ly small palace in the cen­tre of the city, which we would pass by any­way on our way to oth­er attrac­tions, so we went in. This is the Deok­su­g­ung Palace. It has new­er addi­tions with west­ern influ­ences, like the light fix­ture and wall dec­o­ra­tions in the picture.

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It also has a cou­ple of west­ern style build­ings, which I cer­tain­ly did not expect to see in a Kore­an palace.

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Speak­ing of archi­tec­ture, we vis­it­ed the Dong­dae­mun Design Plaza, which hous­es some shops and exhi­bi­tions, as well as a muse­um of an exca­va­tion site of a num­ber of dwellings that were built in the 1300s. This space­ship-like build­ing is just incred­i­ble to look at, and to walk around and underneath.

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There is this beau­ti­ful stream that runs through the city called the Cheong­gyecheon. It was a creek that got cov­ered by trans­porta­tion infra­struc­ture in the 1950s, and then was uncov­ered and restored as a city green space in the 2000s.

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It was love­ly to take a stroll along the stream. A bit of a rest­ing spot from the busy streets on either side above. A lot of local res­i­dents sat on the rocks and ate lunch, hung out.

One of the staff at the hos­tel we stayed at rec­om­mend­ed going to a mar­ket for tra­di­tion­al Kore­an snacks. So we went, but I can’t remem­ber what the mar­ket is called >_<… it looks like it could have been the Gwang­jang Mar­ket. Once stepped into the mar­ket I was at once amazed and over­whelmed, because it reminds me of Spir­it­ed Away with the peo­ple sit­ting at stalls and the light bulbs above head, and because I’m not so great with crowds.

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The staff rec­om­mend­ed Kore­an fried pan­cakes, which we got, it was indeed deli­cious :D

And then through rec­om­men­da­tions from a friend we went to the Insadong neigh­bour­hood, where one could find arts and crafts of all kinds, and a kim­chi muse­um! :D There are videos about how dif­fer­ent kinds of kim­chi are made, inter­ac­tive dis­plays where one could expe­ri­ence mak­ing kim­chi Cook­ing Mama style, and very infor­ma­tive dis­plays about the ben­e­fits of kimchi.

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In and around Insadong there are also a num­ber of tra­di­tion­al Kore­an tea hous­es. We vis­it­ed one with a beau­ti­ful courtyard.

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And got our­selves some green plum tea and shaved ice, with dried per­sim­mons, dried red dates and red beans. We drink the tea with a spoon.

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We stayed at a love­ly hos­tel called the Twin Rab­bit. The staff are very friend­ly and help­ful, the room is very clean, the rate is quite rea­son­able, and the break­fast area has a giant arti­fi­cial tree which is super cute. It’s locat­ed in a uni­ver­si­ty neigh­bour­hood with lots of afford­able eater­ies and hip shops and cafes, and some street arts and music too. High­ly rec­om­mend it!

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Here I was try­ing to work on the cro­chet project I brought with me under the tree. I’m a bit sad to say that my project is not com­plete by the end of our trip, and I may have to take apart what I’ve done so far because the yarn isn’t work­ing out the way I want… but that’s a dif­fer­ent sto­ry for anoth­er time. Next stop, Hong Kong! Stay tuned for more pho­tos! :D

 

across the seas

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Hel­lo from Seoul! :D

We are here for a few days to do some sight­see­ing before head­ing to Hong Kong. And in the week before I left I scram­bled to fin­ish 3 shawls and a hat for my grand­par­ents and aunts. Did­n’t have time to take a pic­ture of them before I left, so here I am doing a make-shift pho­to shoot of the shawls and writ­ing this at the guest­house where we’re stay­ing :D

The shawl in the pic­ture above is made fol­low­ing the Lion Brand Yarn South Bay shawlette pat­tern, using Red Heart Unfor­get­tabe yarn.

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This one is made using the Lion Brand Dorathea Wraplet pat­tern, with quite a few extra rows, using Caron Sim­ply Soft. Kind of looks like wings :)

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And this was from the Tang­i­er Wild­flow­ers Shawl on Rav­el­ry, also using Red Heart Unforgettable.

I think I will save the blog­ging till I get home, or keep it very brief, because World­press is very wonky on my phone. This is why I can’t even link to the pat­tern pages, and the pic­tures are tiny :S But the pat­terns should be pret­ty easy to find if you do a search on google or Rav­el­ry, if you’re inter­est­ed in check­ing them out :)

Hope every­one is hav­ing a good weekend!

 

 

this week’s awesome finds

Spring is in the air! :D

These cook­ies are too beau­ti­ful to eat! From Flut­ter Mag­a­zine.

 

I must have post­ed these bun­ny nuggets before, but can’t help but have to post them again, they’re SO CUTE!! Look at their fluffy tails! By Rebec­ca Dan­ger on Rav­el­ry.

 

Love the tex­ture of this stitch sam­pler neck warmer, and it’s knit­ted flat! :D By Fiona Kel­ly on Rav­el­ry.

 

Want to hug these giant origa­mi rab­bits. From Oh Hap­py Day.

 

Per­fect for tran­si­tion­al weath­er. By Nic­ki Hirsch. Scroll down for Eng­lish cro­chet pattern.

 

These sweet flow­ers are made of nail pol­ish! Great idea for a craft par­ty don’t you think? :D From Won­der­ful DIY.

 

Spring chick­ens! :D From Pot­peb­bles.

 

A glit­ter tum­bler to bright­en up your day :D From Stu­dio DIY.

 

Hap­py spring! :D