Pretty Things (pretty random things)

As promised, here are some shots from the clothes I bought 2 weekends ago in Seoul. (or was it three now? I guess it's 3. Time flies.)

The pink shirt has white polka dots, and the sleeves are really ruffly. I'm not huge on ruffles, but Korea seems to be. The bottoms are somewhere between a skirt and shorts. They're dressy and considered very pretty by Korean standards. It's like "please wear shorts to school". I will take it. Best $45 I've ever spent. The shirt was something like $35. I know... expensive. Normally I wouldn't spend half that much on myself, but I try to look really good for school. They seem to like to show me off -- so I need to look good when they do this. Give them something to show around. Hahaha.

The dress is a simple A line that has a sparkly clasp in the sash. It fits me really nicely. Stripes are extremely popular here. I haven't worn the dress to work yet. I am waiting for a day when I know there will be people. Why wear it on a normal day and risk it getting dirty? (its being white - it screams "spill kimchi on me!")

I saw these on my way out of a Lotte Mart, and had to have them. They were on sale, 30% off, but ha, they were still expensive.

The inside says "A well-bred woman is / worth. the fairest / crown that's made of purest gold." [  / indicates a line break]

About a week ago I found these yellow socks while shopping in Daiso and had to buy them.

They make my day. Nothing funnier than mustache socks. I can't frown and look at them at the same time.

Now for some Engrish.

From an umbrella store. While the large print pink text is perfectly good English, the newsprint type black is a hilarious mix of things.
"While the best major leagye te / head for the playoffs, the Mets / ready for the blame game."
Skipping down some to the next full-ish paragraph. "as wella a series of books and articles by / and abou justices, has placed the court in an unusually bright / spotlight as the new term opens."
It's non sequitur clippings all jumbled together. :D

From a photo frame.
"Magic Circus / the children was diverted by the circus / We took the children to the circus."

And now for something completely different.

Welcome to JP - where practically everyone is growing vegetables. The corn here was taller than me by the 4th of July.

Ever wonder what happens to lemon slices outside? Me either.
I have taken to throwing all my compostable trash out the window across the way to the field. (it's an empty lot with nothing but weeds growing, and a collection of trash inside (umbrella, styrofoam etc). I don't litter. I simply help enrich the ground. You never know, someone might turn it into a garden someday - and my compost might just help them out. But I digress.. I was throwing the lemon from my lemonade out, but it didn't quite make it. It sat there, below, in the parking lot for over a month. It became a blackened ring. But it's since been washed away in the monsoon rains.

This cat has been hanging out on the wall that separates the parking lot from the field (into which my compost goes). I don't think it is stray because of how clean and well fed it looks. I guess it lives nearby.

Funny story.
So the day I took the picture of that cat, I actually went outside to throw out some trash and get a closer look at the lemon ring on the pavement. Right? So I crossed the street and this black car lurched around the corner. I made sure to be out of the way, and was standing in my building's parking, edging toward the lemon. That's when I notice the cat. And I also notice the black car pulled over to park in the street right across from my building. The driver got out and he started smoking a cigarette. He was kind of watching me a bit. I didn't want him watching me poke a crusty lemon, so I started talking to the cat. I was grateful the cat was there. I didn't stay there very long. I went inside and back up to my room, and actually decided to look out the window right away to see if the man was still there. He wasn't, him and his car were gone.
That sure was a quick cig. I think he pulled over to watch me, honestly.

This pretty kitty was taking a nap right on the sidewalk. In the evening sunlight, I didn't see it until it lifted its head up to look at me. Its stripes definitely were camouflage. Cats kind of do their own thing here, and ignore people, or avoid them altogether. There are a ton of stray cats here too. It's kind of sad.

A lot of days here, you can stare directly at the sun like this! The haze was so thick it was like its own cloud, minus all the cloudy lines.

A lit up church sign. There are crosses all over the place. But I still don't know about church-going here, since these are all Korean speaking churches. The churches with English services are all in the bigger cities.

As I was making dinner tonight, I realized that it was pouring buckets outside and the sun was shining. So I stopped to look for the rainbow and was greatly rewarded.

Today was a Monday. And a very humid one - so bad they actually had the air con on in the teacher's office. I came home with a headache. So when I bought some groceries, I also bought these:

Angel In Us coffee and a KicKer bar.
Angel in us is a chain coffee store - a bit like Starbucks. The bottle has "the world best coffee" written on it, so you know it is tasty. It's actually the first bottled coffee brand I ever bought in Korea. It's pretty good.
I bought the KicKer bar because it looked so much like KitKat I had to see for myself.
I was not disappointed.
It is one bar, approximately 5 inches long, almost an inch wide and just shy of 3/4in tall, and it's a darker chocolate than a kitkat. It's like a bigger and darker kitkat. Oh my! I'm definitely sold.