Life of Mari

The nursery!

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 19:59:48 +0200

Of course baby will sleep in the same room as B and I till she’s old enough to sleep by herself, but basically half of the room is for her haha. I don’t like buying very gender-specific things, firstly because what the ultrasound showed is never 100% trustable, and secondly because we can re-use everything for the next baby (when that time comes!). So Most of the things are quite neutral, and honestly I like it best that way anyways. I’m not a big fan of very girly baby pink colors, nor the typical baby blue.

This is the dresser we keep all her clothes in, and the height is just right for it to be used as a changing table! I really love this dresser as it is just big enough to fit both the changing mat thingy, plus a little basket on the side for all products and such.

Baby’s bed! She’ll be able to use this for a while - when she grows bigger we can move the bottom part with the mattress down and also remove the thing in front to make a nice bed for her till she outgrows it. The thing stashed on the side of the bed is the Skip*Hop activity gym! It is super cute, but I won’t be setting it up just yet. I will write about it once she gets to actually try it out.

Where she will sleep. Quite cozy, right? I bought a lambskin especially made for babies to sleep on (in Norway it’s quite nice to use even in the summer as it doesn’t really get that hot here) - and only norwegians will know this, but it’s from a store called Nøstebarn. I really love the quality of it, it’s super soft and I can imagine it will be so good to sleep on. I’m thinking of actually sleeping with it in my bed for a little while so that it will have my smell and everything - I read babies will be more comfortable and fall asleep easier then.

And lastly, a picture of my new maternity dress that I recently got in the mail! I ordered it online from Asos maybe 5 weeks ago, and it did arrive 2 weeks ago but we had them re-address it to a post office closer to where I live now. A few days ago I finally got to pick it up and it fitted perfectly! I really cant wait to use this in an upcoming “family gathering” (well not really, in Norwegian we call it “konfirmasjon”, but I have no idea how to explain this in english haha).

baby nursery and doctors appointment

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 09:36:00 +0200

Let me introduce…

My new kitchenAid machine~ I’m so glad I decided to buy it (despite it being quite expensive here in Norway..), cause it makes baking so much easier…! I tried making both foccaccia bread and wheat buns with it - and it really works like a charm haha. I love baking, especially things like bread and buns, but I haven’t gotten to do it very often as I really hate working the dough with my hands.. it’s so tiring, super messy, and the result never becomes as good as it could have been. I love just plugging my kitchenAid in and letting it do all the hard work for me :D

Anyways, this week I went to IKEA to look for some things for baby’s nursery. I bought a cute crib with a really nice (and quite expensive!) mattress for her, a changing table (which is actually a dresser with three drawers, about the same height as the regular changing tables that they have), and some other smaller things. I have to wait till the weekend to put everything together, as I’m in the apartment in the city during weekdays and I need to prepare the nursery in our house at the island, but I will post pictures of it when it’s closer to finished. I also shopped some cute things online that I’m waiting to get, like a skip*hop Dash Deluxe diaper bag and a skip*hop Treetop Friends Activity Gym. I’m so excited to get everything ready in good time, just in case baby decides to come a little early! Oh and, I also decided on which baby stroller to get, but I won’t buy it until a month or so from now.

I had another doctors appointment this Monday, and was shocked to see that I’ve gained closer to 10kg in total!! But I’m a little skeptical to the weight in the doctors office, as all other weights shows about 2kg less than that one.. From now on I will be going to a midwife for checkups instead, maybe the weight that they have there is more accurate? It should be fine though as long as I continue to go out for walks every day and maybe start doing prenatal yoga or something. I haven’t been overeating or even eating lots of unhealthy things so far - rather the opposite (at least till week 20 I felt nauseous just thinking about chips/candy/fast food etc), so hopefully it’ll be easy to get rid of my pregnancy weight after baby is born!

I also talked to the doctor about being so exhausted because of my work, and as a result I’m now on a “sick leave” from work. My work is way too busy and tiring for me to do anymore, and I’m so glad to not have to stress at work anymore or have horrible backaches from standing all day..! Recently we’ve had quite a bad weather here in Norway - even though we’re close to the middle of April already, we haven’t been seeing much of Spring yet. Last week it was snowing like crazy, but the past few days have actually been much better (with almost spring-like weather!). I just hope I’m not catching a cold again, cause I can feel my throat hurting a little..

these days

Wed, 03 Apr 2013 21:21:48 +0200

It’s been a little over two weeks since we got back from Korea, and I’m already looking forwards to going there again! I really regret not shopping more for baby while I was there (shopping for myself was difficult anyways, since I don’t fit into most normal clothes anymore). I just hope that next year when we go back to Korea again, I’ll be back in my original size so that I can get a lot of nice clothes for myself haha. As of now I’m soon 26 weeks along, and have gained a little more than 7kg in total. As far as I know, that’s not too much. I’ve almost only gained weight on my belly, so if you look at me straight from the front or back, you can’t actually tell that I’m pregnant hihi.

Anyways, I’m spending my days basically just working, and relaxing when I don’t have any work. Since I work at a carecenter for the elderly where I mostly have to prepare meals and organize activities for them, I’m usually either standing up or jogging around to help/assist the elderly all day - some days I only get to sit down for a short 20-30 mins lunch break. So basically working makes me really exhausted and especially makes my back hurt a lot. Also, my blood pressure is a little low, so I often feel faint and sometimes it even feels like I will pass out. I wonder how much longer I will be able to work..

Oh and yesterday I got a tax settlement notice (it shows whether you paid too much or too little tax the previous year, and if you paid too much then you will get that money back.. but if you paid too little then you will have to pay that amount of money). Of course I belong in the latter category, and was not aware of this at all.. and I will have to pay almost 6000NOK in extra taxes this month..! Actually, it’s not a big deal as the money was originally not supposed to be mine, and it just means that I paid less taxes than I was supposed to last year.. but it’s not fun when it comes as a surprise since I didn’t know I had paid too little lol. So yeah, I was in a really bad mood last night after finding out, and decided to do some comfort-shopping for a Kitchen Aid machine on the internet, that I’ve been wanting for a long time! As soon as I get it, I will be practicing to become a good housewife haha. I have promised B to make him lots of nice cakes, buns, bread etc. It’s a good thing that I have some time to practice before having to show off my baking skills to him :D

Oh I really miss him too much.. Now we are waiting to find out where he will be studying - till then we can’t really plan anything. We might end up having to live here in my hometown, or in another town a few hours away. Only about a month till we find out and he can start applying for a student visa!

My short korea trip~

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 00:13:02 +0100

So I just got back to Norway yesterday, after a really nice week in Seoul with my family! We got off on quite a bad start as our flight from Norway was canceled due to really bad weather in Germany (the whole airport had to close..!). After a few hours of waiting, we got booked on a different route to Korea; through Denmark and then Beijing - meaning we’d have to transfer twice. I was ok with this though, as I just wanted to get to Korea as soon as possible, and didn’t want to wait till the next day. The flights went quite well, except for a two-hour delay for our flight from Beijing.. We were quite tired when we finally arrived at Incheon airport! B was there to meet us, along with his parents and another relative that were going to drive us to our hotel. My parents were very happy to finally meet B’s parents, and they got along very well from the start despite some communication problems. Basically B and I had to translate everything they wanted to say to each other, as his parents only speak chinese and korean, and my parents obviously don’t haha.

We checked in at a hotel in Gangnam, and had a nice big hotel room for the first few days at the hotel where my family stayed. But because of all the trouble with our flights, we arrived at our hotel around 10pm, and basically lost one whole day of our vacation. I was a little stressed about this, as my original plan was to find a wedding dress the day we arrived.. I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to find a nice one in time!! Originally, I was supposed to wear one of the many dresses they had in the wedding hall, but all of them were very sparkly, glittery “princess” style with a tight waist and a big skirt - I wouldn’t fit into any of them being 23 weeks pregnant.. Also, I didn’t actually like the dresses that they had, none of them were quite my style. I like more simple dresses, and I’d rather have an empire waist wedding dress.

The next day I did end up finding a beautiful empire waist dress, and I was so glad I didn’t have to stress about it anymore.After that we went to a hairsalon down the street for B and my brother to get their hair cut. I was very surprised to see several people smoking inside the salon, and I had trouble breathing in there (I hate the smell, plus I’m really not supposed to be breathing it in since I’m pregnant), so we got out of there and went somewhere else. The rest of that day was spent in Myeongdong where I also met Yijing again! We all got to do some shopping, and we had a nice dinner together at a japanese restaurant.

That night I spent at the place Yijing was staying at, it was so nice to spend some time with her again! We went to bed early as we were both very tired (I had only slept about 4 hours or so the night before). However, at 5am I was woken up by a phone call from a norwegian telemarketer or something, I was so annoyed and just told him I’m not interested before hanging up. Of course after that I had no chance of falling asleep again, so I was dead tired when we went outside 9am in the morning. We ate breakfast at a nearby coffeeshop, and then spent an hour and a half in a big department store before going to meet my family in Sinchon. We all ate a nice lunch, and then went shopping mostly in the big Uplex shopping mall. We ended the day in Insadong, where they could buy some nice korean souvenirs and such, and then had a really good dinner at an italian restaurant there. B and I went to bed a little early, and I finally had a good night’s sleep!

The day before our wedding, we started with going to Gyeongbokgung Palace, and had a long walk there while taking pictures and such. Then we went straight to meet B’s parents for lunch at a korean barbeque place, as they really wanted to treat all of us for some delicious korean food! We all had a great time together and the food was so delicious, however B and I were super busy translating for everyone haha. I’m so glad our parents got along so well, despite cultural differences and difficulties communicating. After his parents had left, we went shopping in many small stores from Sinchon to Edae, while looking around a little in the area at the same time. Then we went to a department store to look for a nice dress for me to use when having a family dinner the next day, but there were no dresses in empire waist style.. So we went there for nothing and we were all so tired haha. We bought some ice cream and then took the subway back to our hotel.

I went to fix my nails at a nail shop down the street, cause I wanted my nails to look nice for my wedding day! B came with me, he was seemingly quite bored but just wanted to spend time with me. He’s the best, really. We had a quick dinner and were supposed to go stay at B’s parents’ apartment for the night, but I got worried about my family having to get to the wedding hall alone the next day as it’s at least a one-hour drive and they don’t know any korean.. Plus there are quite a few strange korean taxi drivers who will scam foreigners! So we ended up staying another night at the hotel - B stayed in my brother’s room and I was with my parents. I got up really early in the morning (I think it was around 5am?) and got ready as me, B and my mom were gonna leave at 6am to see his parents first and then go to the wedding hall to get our hair and makeup done. I was super stressed that morning with getting ready in time and having to pack everything, plus I was really sleep deprived and tired, and full of hormones.. so when B came to our room to help me with the luggage, I just started crying and couldn’t stop..! I think I was sobbing half of the taxi ride as well before I managed to calm down haha.

We went to see B’s parents first, and I got to see both my wedding ring and my hanbok for the first time! Both were perfect, just as I had imagined. I love my ring, and my hanbok is really beautiful! When we went to order the hanbok in january, B’s mother told me I had such a strange taste and that I should pick the traditional colors for my hanbok instead (which are typically green and pink or yellow and pink etc). But what’s fun about having the same hanbok as everyone else?? I wanted a special hanbok in colors that I love, and I really think I made a great choice. His parents drove us to the wedding hall, and from 8am we started getting our hair and makeup done. It took about two hours in all, and after putting my wedding dress on, I went into the so-called “bride waiting room” where everyone could take pictures with me. I remember sitting there with people taking pictures with me and all I could think about was where B was, and how thirsty I was haha.

After a little while B came in, and they prepared us to enter the ceremony hall. We entered to a big applause, and I don’t really remember much from the ceremony other than feeling very faint when standing in the front.. I was so tired, thirsty, and just wanted to sit down. Luckily it all went well and I didn’t faint or anything, actually I was quite worried about that beforehand as I knew we would be standing for a long time! I think my blood pressure has gotten much lower now that I’m pregnant so that may be the reason why I keep feeling faint. After taking lots of pictures in the front with both of our families plus our friends, the guests went downstairs to the buffet to eat while we went to change into our hanboks. Then we went down to where the other guests were, to cut the wedding cake and have a “love shot” haha. I was so sure they had given me wine so I was really worried, but it turned out to be some kind of sparkling soda/grape juice.

After that we went back up to a room where we had to wear some other traditional korean clothes as well as heavy headpieces, and did a lot of korean marriage rituals. For example, we had to sit on the floor holding a small white cloth between us, and then the groom’s parents throw some kind of nuts from the other side of the table and towards us. The amount of nuts that land on the white cloth represent the number of kids we’ll have. Another one is that the groom’s parents give us a red envelope with “vacation money”, and then the two of us have to hold hands and walk two rounds around the table while waving the envelope around haha. That’s basically all of the whole ceremony, so after that we just joined the guests downstairs to thank them for coming, take some pictures with them etc. All in all, I was happy that everything went as planned that day! I only have a few pictures from that day though, as I’m waiting to get all the professional pictures the photographer took that day. I will post some of them on my blog later!

Around 3pm we went to take a taxi back to Seoul, and husband and I (hihi) checked into a really fancy and super nice hotel, just the two of us. The hotel is called Sheraton Hotel and is located on top of a big shopping mall/theatre - I think it was from 27th to 41st floor or so. Our room was on the 35th floor and we had the most amazing view. It was a big room with a big tv and a nice bathtub, and the bed was so comfortable - we both had such a deep sleep both nights.

The night view of Seoul from our room.

Both mornings we went to eat breakfast in the breakfast buffet on the 41st floor, it was quite expensive but definitely worth it! I probably ate for three haha.

The beginning of my breakfast the second morning~ I ate a lot more than this..!

Also, I ordered room service for the first time in my life, and had this amazing beef pastrami salad! I actually had this upon arriving in our hotel the first day since I was really hungry after barely having eaten anything before or after the wedding ceremony.

we had a great time there, and I’m so glad I decided to book a room at that hotel for our wedding night plus my last night in korea, so that we could have a nice kind of “vacation” by ourselves before having to part again. Our last day together was spent by ourselves walking around in the shopping mall doing some shopping, eating a delicious shabu-shabu lunch, and just enjoying each others company.

The nice shabu-shabu restaurant we went to.

That night I packed everything so that I wouldn’t have to stress about that on the morning of departure. B came with me to the airport and had some lunch with my family before we all said goodbye. I was really sad to leave him as I know I wont be seeing him until at least 4 months from now, so I really hope the time will fly by quickly!!

Going back~

Fri, 08 Mar 2013 00:24:00 +0100

Next week I will be going back to Korea already! This time I will only stay for a week, and it will be quite a busy time for me as we have to prepare everything for the wedding ceremony and all - I don’t even have a wedding dress yet..!! Actually I’m really really nervous and worried about not being able to find a wedding dress in time.. I have to find one that has an empire waist so that I’ll be able to fit my belly in there haha. I’m really looking forwards to the trip though, as it’s been over two months since I last saw B. I bet he’ll be surprised seeing me now, my belly has grown so much! When I left korea, I was around 13 weeks pregnant, and when I see him again I’ll almost be 23 weeks haha. I’m so excited for him to feel baby’s kicks and everything though. Recently baby has been kicking quite a lot, especially when I try to sleep at night.. She sure knows how to keep her mommy up till late at night~!

Picture taken at a little over 21 weeks ^^

It’s quite sad that the one week I will be spending in Korea is the only time I’ll have together with B before baby is born.. And then next time we see each other, he’ll be meeting his daughter for the first time as well. I would of course have loved to have him here the whole time until the birth, but he wants to work and earn some money in Korea till this summer (before coming here to study in the beginning of August or so), and that’s fully understandable. He wants to provide for his little family~ I miss him a lot, and I’ll probably miss him even more when my belly is much bigger and everything becomes difficult.. He’s always so sweet to me, helping with everything and making sure I’m not tired etc, so it would really have been great to have him here. Oh well, hopefully we’ll have a lovely week together in Korea, and I’m sure time will pass by quickly till this summer.

By the way, this is the first time I’m not traveling alone to Korea. Cause this time my family is coming with me! I would have wanted to have a little more time to show them around in Seoul, but since I’ll be quite busy preparing for the wedding ceremony, I’m not sure how much time I’ll actually have for that.. And on top of it all, I’ll be seeing Yijing for the first time in a year, so I will be spending some time with her as well. She’s coming back to Korea to attend my wedding and I can’t wait to see her! She is pretty much the closest friend I had during the time I spent in Korea, we have so many good memories together and she was always there for me. I almost feel like she’s my “long lost sister” haha. It’s too bad we have to live so far away from each other now!

An old picture I took of Yijing when we were at a cat café maybe a year and a half ago. Cats somehow always remind me of her!

It’s late and I have to get up early in the morning to go to work. Of course baby is having a dance party in my belly right now, so I’m not sure if I’ll be able to sleep at all.. Anyways, I’ll keep everyone updated on my return to Seoul!!

Our wedding photoshoot

Sat, 02 Mar 2013 22:10:20 +0100

I do realize that I’ve been horribly bad at updating my blog lately, and I will promise to do something about that! I actually started writing this post about 2-3 weeks ago but never finished it. So now I will~!

Obviously, we haven’t had our wedding yet (not until later this month!), but we had our so-called wedding photos taken about two month ago. Pretty much every korean couple getting married, usually get this done in good time before the actual wedding, since the photos are supposed to be shown to the guests at the actual wedding ceremony. It’s becoming more and more popular in other asian countries as well, and I heard from our photographer that especially a lot of chinese couples travel to korea for the purpose of getting their wedding photos taken in a nice studio like this one. There are many many different studios in Seoul where you can get this done, and you can either contact them yourself, or get some discount by contacting them through the wedding hall where you’ll be getting married. Most wedding halls cooperate with at least 4-5 different studios that you can choose from based on some sample albums.

Anyways, the day we went to take our wedding photos was apparently the coldest day in about 30 years or so. We were litterally shaking when walking to find the studio, and it didn’t help that the directions we were given were really bad so we had to spend a lot of time just wandering around in the cold.. In the end we had to call the makeup-lady (who was waiting for us at the studio) to have her explain again how to get there, but she had some kind of accent making it difficult for me to understand her. She was also speaking really really fast, I’m not sure she was aware that I’m a foreigner haha. So it ended with us giving the phone a random girl passing by us, who spoke to the makeup-lady and then explained to us where we had to go. When we finally got there, it was a bit after 8am.

The actual photoshoot was not until 10am, we were gonna get our hair and makeup done and get dressed before that. It was really cold inside the studio as well, so I remember thinking I didn’t want to change into a dress haha. At 10am we got to meet the photographer, he was so nice to us and kept making jokes to get us in a good mood. He obviously knew what he was doing, cause every pose that we did (down to the position of my little finger) was directed by him. It was my first time doing this kind of thing, so I had no idea what to do - but it was actually super easy because he always told me what angle to turn my head, how to put my legs, how I should place my fingers etc. Literally anyone can take great pictures if they have a photographer like the one we had~! In between the shoots we had some small breaks, and used them to heat up a little by drinking hot tea and coffee.

Then when we were almost done, came a big surprise.. The photographer told us we were gonna take the last couple of photos OUTSIDE in -20 degrees celsius…! I had pretty much just gotten over a cold and didn’t feel like freezing in just a dress outside, but since I’d only get this chance once I thought I’d regret it if I didn’t do it.. So all of us went out, the whole crew wearing thick winter jackets, B wearing his suit of course, and me wearing my uggs-like boots under the wedding dress (haha) and a thick blanket around me that I briefly gave to the helper-ahjumma every time we were gonna take pictures. I was so relieved when we got back inside!!

The helper-ahjumma (elderly lady) was there from beginning to end, almost never leaving our side, giving us hot drinks, running everywhere to get things for us, fixing my hair once in a while and helping me change every time I had to etc. I changed dresses about 5 times I think, plus changing into a hanbok at the end. Anyways, she was so kind and nice to us, and both her and the photographer really made the whole experience great. We were at the studio from 8am to around 3pm, so it was quite tiring. I think in all he took around 500 pictures of us. When we were finished we chose a date to come back and choose the 100 best pictures, and amongst those we had to choose another 25 to be inside our wedding album. We got a CD to take home with all 500 of the pictures on, but the album won’t be ready until after our wedding I think. I had been looking forwards to doing this for a long time, and it was indeed a really interesting experience!

an update.

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 21:34:13 +0100

It’s been a long time since I wrote anything here on my blog, and a lot has happened since then!! B and I were actually busy planning our wedding, which will take place in Korea in March. We also used a lot of time getting the paperwork (for getting married) done, since we want to get it done in good time before the wedding. We went to get our “wedding photos” taken in a professional studio - these pictures will be made into an album for us and will also be shown at our wedding etc. The photoshoot was really fun, and I will write more about this as well as the process of getting married in Korea later! Also we will be having a baby this summer, and we’re so excited about it! For this reason, I’m now back in Norway (and have been for about a week). Because if you are pregnant in Norway and work for 6 months before the birth of the baby, you’ll be able to keep getting your working salary for about 11 months while staying at home with the baby. I think it would have been stupid of me to not take advantage of this haha. So right now I’m back in the apartment living by myself (not for long though, since my parents are on a vacation but will be living together with me once they get back). B is still in Korea, studying and preparing to apply for some schools in Norway. Hopefully he’ll be able to come here to study in August. I’m crossing my fingers!!

Even though I’ll be in Norway for a while, I will keep blogging. However from now on, my blog will mostly be about this new chapter in my life - being a wife, having a baby, and after a while becoming a student again. I will be back in Korea in march, and many many times after that since B’s family lives there, and during those times of course I will blog about Korea. Anyways, I hope everyone will continue to read my blog and follow my journey in this new chapter of my life!

Japan

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 07:28:49 +0100

Here’s a picture post from my short Japan-trip! I stayed for 4 days, and came back to Korea just in time for my chinese classes to start. My cousin, her husband and their three kids are staying in Japan till the middle of December, so I went to visit them and had a really nice time there! I kind of regret not staying a few days longer so that I could see more of Tokyo, but I must admit that it was so great to get back to Korea again where everything is familiar and I can communicate with everyone without any problems!

A flower shop down the street.

Upon arriving in Japan, I felt the exact same way as the first time I came to Korea without knowing any korean.. So lost and so foreign! I pretty much only know “thank you” in japanese, and that doesn’t get me very far. I was gonna take the subway from the airport and to the place where my cousin lives, which seemed easy enough, but was very very complicated. I didn’t have any japanese cash on me to even buy a regular subway ticket after getting off the airport line (I paid with my visa card for the first ticket), and the ticket machines did not accept my visa card, and neither did the only ATM nearby.. At that moment I was very lost and frustrated, and every japanese person I asked for help either knew no english or just one or two words. Finally a japanese girl approached me to help; at first she offered to pay the ticket for me (but I declined, cause I’d feel bad), then she helped me find an ATM that accepted my visa card, and then helped me buy the ticket for the right place. I had probably been wandering around there for 40 minutes or so by then, and was very relieved to finally have a subway ticket! I got off at the right stop and my cousin met me there.

I don’t remember what this place was called (was it Shinjuku maybe??), but there was this huge building with several floors selling everything related to sewing and knitting - so we spent a few hours looking around in there!

Tokyo by night.

We went to Harajuku one day!

A busy street in Harajuku. I was hoping to see lots of crazily dressed people (like you’d typically see in pictures from Japan - people dressed weirdly in all kinds of strong colors who are either super scary looking or overly cute with twenty-five different pastel-colored hairpins only in their bangs), but I think we only saw two or three of them during my whole stay there.

We saw a few of these kind of waffle stores before we decided to try one (this was at a point where at least I was super hungry, and would eat just about anything). I ordered the pancake with cream, banana and chocolate sauce - and even just by looking at the picture I could tell this would be way too sweet for me.. So if I could speak japanese, I’d tell the guy to go easy on the cream haha.

What I ordered. Basically a thin pancake (which tasted nice), with A LOT of cream and three slices of banana. The cream made me feel quite nauseous actually, it was just too much!

The weather was a lot milder than in Korea!! Recently Korea has been around -7 or so.

The entrance of some kind of subway stop.

Picture taken from the subway train.

Saw these two little girls in their school (kindergarten?) uniform probably on their way home, thought they were quite cute!

A donut shop close to my cousin’s place. We tried to go there one time and arrived one minute after closing time (8pm..!) so they wouldn’t let us come in. The night before I went home we went there again, but we came a little late, so they didn’t have much to choose from. The donuts were delicious though!

Almost winter

Sat, 17 Nov 2012 13:46:00 +0100

It has gotten so cold outside lately. Autumn can’t have lasted more than a few weeks at the most, which is a little sad as I love Autumn.. Some trees still have a few leaves hanging on, but most of them have fallen to the ground. They’re beautiful and colorful on the ground as well, but I’d really wish they’d stay on the trees a little while longer!

Nowadays whenever I go outside, I’m freezing cold even though I’m wearing my thick winter coat from last year. I was planning on going shopping to find a new one, but I just didn’t bother yet. I think my first priority should be to buy a pair of warm boots for the winter - cause I can’t feel my toes after just five minutes outside when I’m wearing my TOMS shoes (as seen in the first picture).

One thing I really hate about the winter in Korea, is that basically any building you enter is a sauna. The bank is the worst, in my opinion. It’s ridiculously hot, as in 30+ degrees of “dry” heat that makes your eyes dry, your head ache and makes you really really tired. I just don’t understand how koreans are comfortable with it..! And I’m not entirely sure that they’re aware about the fact that it’s not good for ones health when the difference of the inside and outside temperature is too big - supposedly you’ll catch a cold much easier.

On another note; I’m leaving for Japan at the end of this month. I’m gonna visit my cousin and her family who are going back to Norway in the middle of December. I’m really excited to go to Japan since I’ve never been there before, and this was just the perfect opportunity to go. And most likely, I’ll be going to China again in a few months to see Yijing - I’m really really looking forwards to it! By then it’ll be almost a year since we met the last time. I’ve been practicing some basic chinese with B, and I’ll be attending chinese class starting from the beginning of December. Since chinese basically is B’s whole family’s mother tongue (even though they are korean by blood), it’s quite important for me to learn it. Most of them do speak korean very well, so it’s not about me needing it for communicating with them or anything, it’s just expected of me to learn it. And that’s more than fine with me, as I’ve been wanting to learn chinese for a few years already!

knitting in Korea

Sun, 11 Nov 2012 07:51:26 +0100

Knitting is not really a “common” hobby in Korea (neither is sewing, but that’s another story), but it’s increasingly becoming more and more popular. Especially a lot of korean girls learn to knit for the purpose of making a scarf/sweater for their boyfriend etc. There are some places where you can buy yarn in Korea, and the shop/café I’m gonna write about here is probably the best place to go for that. It’s called needle story (바늘 이야기), and is located in Edae. I think there are several needle story stores around Seoul, but as far as I’ve heard, this is the biggest one. Recently, a lot of small knitting cafés (a small room with some tables/chairs for when they have knitting classes, and a wall or two with yarns) have popped up everywhere, so if you don’t live in Seoul it’d be a good idea to try to find one in your area! Also, there are some yarn markets - I’ve only heard about the one in Dongdaemun, but I’m not gonna write about that in this post.

What the knitting shop/café looks like from the outside! from Edae subway station exit 6, you just continue down the street until you see it on the left.

The front part of the place is a two-floor coffeeshop where people can sit and knit/crochet on their projects (either alone or together with their friends). I’ve heard rumors that there sometimes are gatherings for foreign knitters/korean knitters etc in the coffeeshop, but I’m not entirely sure about this.

They have lots of colors to choose from, though they don’t have much of a variety when it comes to the type.. Most of the yarns are in merino, mohair and cotton blends etc, but they hardly have any alpacca..! I love using alpacca for my knit projects, so that was a little disappointing to me. So these days I’ve been using a mix of mohair and merino wool - it comes out quite nice if you mix them (in very similar colors of course) - makes a soft and warm fabric~

This section has all the tools you’ll need for both knitting and crocheting. You can find everything from very cheap korean made knitting supplies, to japanese imported things, to the KnitPro brand. Right by this area is a hallway with some rooms for knitting/crocheting classes that you can sign up for! It’s not super expensive and they welcome anyone from beginner level to advanced.

And they have so many pattern books!! most of them are in japanese, but they also have many in korean, some in english and some in french. I usually find my patterns online, but I really want to buy some pattern books from here!

I tried ordering from their online site as well - it’s really easy and the delivery is quite fast. The site is called banul.co.kr. I liked doing it this way because it seemed like there were more yarns to choose from (and I found some alpacca ones as well). The colors might look a little different in real life than what it looks like on their website though; for example some of the colors I ordered were a lot darker than what they seemed like on the website picture.

Knitting lots of pretty things with these nice colors (and more). I love knitting nice mug-warmers, beret hats etc. My next projects will be mittens for me and my first attempt at socks (for B)!

Korean coffeeshops♡

Sun, 28 Oct 2012 14:02:55 +0100

Coffeeshops are everywhere in Korea (unlike in Norway were you only once in a while can manage to come across one), and they’re wonderful places for friends to sit down and talk together, for two people to have a romantic date, for coworkers/classmates to discuss projects/work/class over a cup of coffee, and last but not least for people to sit and study by themselves. It’s very common for coffeeshops in the areas around universities to be packed with students the week they all have their midterms or finals. Basically, korea loves coffeeshops. There are many of the bigger chains like Holly’s coffee, Starbucks, Tom’n Toms, and caffé bene, but if you’re looking for a better coffeeshop experience - try to find some of the little korean coffeeshops with the cute interior and lovely atmosphere. I have to say I think the drinks taste a lot better in those kind of coffeeshops, and in addition they usually have a far more interesting menu than the big chains.

A place I came across about a week ago; the inside was really nice too. See what I mean?It just has a whole different feel to it than let’s say Holly’s or Starbucks.

Another coffeeshop I walked past last week - quite cute, isn’t it? I really like the little drawings on the windows of the glass door, and the text on the actual window that says “I feel like a coffee.” haha

A nice place close to where we live. We came here a few times, and sat down right there by the windows so that we could do some people-watching when being bored of studying/knitting. people-watching is quite interesting; I love looking out the window and just observe everything that’s going on outside~

The inside of the place. It’s small though, and somehow every time we’ve been there, there haven’t been many others there (actually, it’s usually empty).

I caught myself looking at this little coffeeshop (the green door) every time we’d pass it (since we go that way when going to the subway etc). So one day we went there to study, and it’s as nice on the inside as it is on the outside. It’s super small (about 10 seats or so), but I like how they took advantage of the space and made a small level above as well (you can see it in the picture - an additional 4 seats I think? they’re floor seats so you have to take off your shoes before going up).

So cute. It was a bit too expensive though, and we were the only ones there except the owner and her boyfriend, so I kind of almost felt like we were invading their space, silly as that sounds haha. I mean, the place is so small that whatever you say can be heard by everyone in there.

Pretty, hot chocolate. It did taste really good.

Another coffeeshop that I’ve written about before; Paul Pauls.

The interior is really simple, and it’s wide and open, but still I came to like this place a lot. I wonder if it hasn’t been that long since they opened? it seems so. Anyways, the people working there are so nice, and they make really good drinks! I especially love their milk tea.

Vanilla latte and milk tea, a typical order for B and I. As mentioned before, I’m trying to stay away from caffeine these days, so I’m trying out some other nice options on the menus whenever we go to a coffeeshop. my favorites would have to be milk tea and hot chocolate. Other nice caffeine-free options are green tea latte, sweet potato latte, various types of ordinary tea, lots of smoothies, juice, and so on. Some coffeeshops even have the option of adding “bubbles” (tapioca pearls - it’s what they put in the bubble tea) in your drink. Other than that, most coffeeshops also usually have a wide selection of other things to order, like brownies, cookies, cakes, bagels, sandwiches, salads, honeybread (the big chunk of sweet bread with lots of syrup/cream/fruits etc etc) and so on. Not every coffeeshop has all of these options though, and they’re almost always a little over priced if you’d ask me.

B and I ordered this berry yoghurt a few days ago - I think it cost about 4,500won and the amount was maybe the same as the yoghurts you can buy for 700won in the grocery store. expensive, but delicious.

I’m also gonna add two pictures from the last time I was in korea; the first one is a hot chocolate and a delicious chocolate chip muffin from a random place I went to. The second one is from a coffeeshop I used to go to a lot, where they do some really nice coffee art! Doesn’t it look nice?

Most coffeeshops have an “unwritten rule”; it’s expected that everyone order one drink each (although ordering a piece of cake or something is ok too) - this especially goes for the smaller coffeeshops with limited seating. I don’t think this rule goes for adults who bring children though. In the bigger chains it would probably be ok to order one thing and share it with a friend who didn’t order anything. Oh, on an important note; if you order take-out, you usually get a discount. Many of the small coffeeshops have 1000won discount when ordering take-out. And another thing; always remember to ask for a stamp card if you see yourself coming back many times!! they’ll give you a stamp for each drink you order, and once you reach 8 (or 9 or 10, depending on what coffeeshop it is), they’ll give you a free drink of choice! pretty great if you ask me :)

lately

Wed, 24 Oct 2012 13:08:28 +0200

Studying at Paul Paul coffeeshop. I love going to coffeeshops with him - it’s a nice shift of environment (even though I don’t mind staying at home for a whole day, I’d go crazy if I didn’t step foot outside for several days in a row). We just sit mainly in silence (unless he’s asking me for help about his english assignments), while he’s concentrating on his studies and I either do some knitting, or read a book. And then we take small breaks once in a while to play games on our phones haha.

B got a vanilla latte, I got a milk tea - which by the way is the best milk tea I’ve ever had.. I’m trying out a lot of caffeine free options these days whenever we go to a coffeeshop, since I think I’m a little weak for caffeine.. Luckily korean coffeeshops have lots of other options in addition to coffee! I’ll write an individual post on korean coffeeshops soon btw.

A few days ago while B was studying, I was writing a letter to Yijing - my close friend who isn’t in Korea anymore. I’ve been preparing a little box to send to her, including a hand knitted beret hat, a coffee sleeve (warmer for the takeout coffee cups), two kinds of her favorite hand cream, and some small cute korean things. since her birthday is coming up in a few weeks, I need to send it soon!

We also took some long nice walks in random areas we both haven’t been to yet. I like the idea of getting on a random bus, getting off whenever you feel like it, and then exploring that area. It’s kind of a little adventure, almost.

This little cutie was sitting in the window of a pet-shop we passed by the other day. Koreans are very fond of coloring the hair of their pets (and so are people in Japan, I’ve heard), and what’s being done the most is probably coloring the “cheeks” of the cats. It is quite cute, but I’m not sure I’d do that to my pet..

And I’ve discovered the joy of internet shopping!! It’s always so exciting to open a package with some things I’ve ordered~ My favorite site for shopping korean clothes is Cherrykoko - I’ve bought a lot of my clothes from there. It’s really simple to order, you basically just need to have an address in Korea and a bank account of course. They do shipping to other asian countries as well.

Recently the weather has became a lot colder - it’s definitely autumn here now! Another week or two and the trees will have strong beautiful colors. I soon need to look for a thicker jacket and some warmer shoes, and I’m planning a knitting project for a pair of mittens that I hopefully can get done before winter is here!

Now B and I are gonna go have some pizza for dinner at the little pizza place down the street, they make delicious pizzas!!

Our new place!

Wed, 17 Oct 2012 05:48:10 +0200

The entrance, and the bathroom. We bought some genius hooks that we can just hang on the door (instead of making a hole in the wall, cause I don’t think we’re allowed to do that). So now we have plenty of options for hanging our jackets and such~

We bought this for hanging all our clothes since the little closet is way too little for all of our clothes.. and the bottom half of the closet is for shoes, so there’s not that much space in there anyways.

Our little table and the floor pillows that we sit on. Our place is pretty much korean style, since we sit on the floor and sleep on the floor. I actually have come to prefer sleeping on the floor - I think it’s really comfortable and very convenient (I don’t have to make room for a huge bed, we just lay out the folded mattress at night before we sleep). Sleeping on the floor is also supposed to be good for your back.

Our little kitchen!! I love it~ lots of storing place and just enough space for cooking. In the corner you can see our new wonderful pink rice cooker!

Our washing machine in a little corner next to the fridge. The window over it is huge, so it’s good for drying the clothes after hanging them.

It’s not a big apartment, but I like it! I think we made it so cozy. And not to mention I really love the area we live in ^^

randoms

Sun, 14 Oct 2012 15:31:00 +0200

I usually hate taking the subway because most of the time it\s underground and the lightning inside is super strong (meaning I’ll easily get a headache and get tired), but it’s really fascinating looking out when it goes on ground level!

A bubble tea store they have pretty much everywhere now, we’ve gone there quite a lot and they have a lot of interesting tastes. Especially the ones with honeydew or coffee flavor are really nice, I think.

This, however, is by far my favorite bubble tea!! I want to go there every day!

B’s father had been on a short business trip with his boss and some other people from work, and came back with a big gift-box full of delicious ddeok (떡) treats. These are quite expensive, and look really cute~!

I like taking random pictures - this one because I thought the little boy in grey’s pants were super cute! not everyone has this on their butt..

What we see when we look out our kitchen window. A big tree with lots of orange fruits that I’m not sure what are.. persimmons, maybe? either way it’s a nice view.

I thought the little shop with the squid was kind of interesting. I’m not a big fan of squid though, so I’m not intending on going there any time soon haha.

I love these kinds of stores! This one is called 10x10.

I’ll post some pictures of our new place tomorrow!! We’ve moved in properly and I think it looks quite nice now. It’s not very big at all, but it’s more than enough for the two of us - and most importantly it’s clean and convenient.

Oh and, for those who want to follow me on Instagram, my username is: marimari512. I post pictures there daily!! :)

our neighborhood

Fri, 12 Oct 2012 06:44:27 +0200

Here are some pictures from around the place we moved to a few days ago! I’ll post pictures of the new place as soon as we’ve moved in properly~

A tiny milk shop. This morning the little milk truck was parked right outside, but the driver parked it so close to the shop that he had to struggle a lot to actually get back into the truck again haha.

A little coffeeshop a few minutes walk from where we live. Yijing used to live in this area before, so we went to this coffeeshop a lot to study together when we were in the KLI.

A korean supermarket down the street.

Another little coffeeshop that looks really nice! I haven’t actually been there but I’ve walked past it many times thinking “next time I wanna go here”

That’s it for now, now I’m gonna make myself a cup of hot chocolate and watch a korean drama! B is out for a few hours, but when he comes back we’re gonna go to the supermarket to buy everything we need for cooking etc. We need rice for our new pink rice-cooker, and ingredients for the korean soup I’m making for dinner!

Preview of tomorrow’s blog post when I finally can use...

Thu, 11 Oct 2012 16:05:49 +0200

Preview of tomorrow’s blog post when I finally can use internet on my computer. Apparently I can only post one picture when using my phone.. anyways, we found a cozy little place and have been busy moving and such. This picture was taken right down the street from our new place~

sick.. ㅠㅠ

Sat, 06 Oct 2012 17:02:21 +0200

I’m in Korea! my flight went well, and the plane food was really nice this time, but as before I didn’t sleep at all. I had a window seat with two buff russian men (I think?) on my left side - needless to say I was a little skeptical at first, but they were so nice helping me lift up my heavy bag to the overhead cabinet thing, and they were both out of their seats at least half of the time so I was really quite comfortable. I spent most of the time watching a few movies and series, listening to music etc. It was so nice meeting B again! He came to meet me at the gate, all handsomely dressed up.. My heart was beating so fast upon seeing him again, I was so excited!! That day when we got home, I slept for 3 hours or so, and then we went to buy some things that I needed (like shampoo and conditioner, hairbrush etc, things I didn’t bring from Norway).

We had so many plans for the next day, but that morning I woke up with what seemed like a mix of a cold and a flu - I really wasn’t feeling well. So we ended up staying inside the whole day, me just laying down most of the time, half sleeping, and eating medicine for both my cold and flu. I hardly ate anything that whole day, but last night I woke up in the middle of the night and realized my appetite was back.. so B, being the wonderful boyfriend that he is, went to the market at 4am in the morning to buy yoghurt and some bananas for his super-hungry girlfriend to eat! I was quite touched~ I’m still not feeling that great today, so I’m not gonna go anywhere until tomorrow.. so basically I’ve been bored staying inside for two days straight while really really wanting to go out and have fun and explore a little now that I’m finally back. Today I comforted myself with some internet shopping though hehe. Hopefully I’ll be feeling well enough to go outside tomorrow!

last day!

Tue, 02 Oct 2012 22:39:28 +0200

I’m leaving for Korea tomorrow!! I’m super excited to finally go back to the country I’ve so much fallen in love with, and I promise to blog quite often from now on! Actually I’m looking forwards to the flight a little - because even though it’s a really long and tiring flight, I’ll be sitting there with butterflies in my stomach (just like the two other times I went there), counting down the hours to arrival, and imagining how amazing it will be this time around. It’s quite interesting how I’m just as much (if not more) excited to go to Korea this time, as I was the first time I was gonna go there at 18 years old with barely any experience traveling outside of Scandinavia. I guess it has something to do with the fact that now I really know what Korea has to offer, how much I enjoy living there, how much I like the friendly and helpful people, and how much I’ve grown to like korean food (including some very spicy dishes!). In other words, I know exactly what to expect, which somehow gives me a kind of comfort. I guess the first time (even though I was really really excited to go) there were a lot of insecurities - I didn’t know whether I’d like the food or not, whether I’d make any good friends or not while I was there, whether I’d really feel like I “fit in” as a blonde blue-eyed foreigner in Korea or not. After a few months I realized there was nothing to worry about; I just liked it all.

My next post will be from Korea! stay tuned~

One month left until Korea~!

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 00:12:46 +0200

Just one month left before I go back to Korea!! I really wish I could just go on that plane right now..! To be honest - I miss korean food more than anything. I never realized until now how boring norwegian food actually is (I mean, we pretty much only eat sandwiches all day), and what I wanna eat the most right now is one of the spiciest things I’ve eaten in Korea, it’s called dalkkalbi (닭갈비). My mouth waters just thinking about it! so yeah, I only have to wait another month until I can continue my life in Korea - this time with a little more freedom, more money, and a wonderful boyfriend!

(Last picture taken at work, in my lunchbreak - hence the very comfortable shoes)

Speaking of B, he’s leaving for Korea already on Sunday (what?? 3 months have passed already??) so we’re trying to make the most out of the time we have left before he leaves. We’ll only be apart for around 3 and a half weeks, so it’s not for as long as last time - but still, we’ve grown extremely attached to each other, to the point where I miss him like crazy after just a long day at work.. And also, lately I’ve been a little scared to live by myself, which is quite strange as I moved out before turning 17.. and I really thought I had gotten used to sleeping alone for all those years but it seems I was wrong. So I’ve asked my mom to come stay with me at least a few days a week after B has left. I’m actually quite excited about her coming to live with me, since we have a lot of fun together.

Recently, other than working and having lots of fun with B, I’ve been knitting and crocheting a lot. I just bought everything I needed (and some really nice yarns) in the city two weeks ago, went home and taught myself how to knit through the internet. I already knew how to crochet since I taught myself how to last year (in order to make Yijing’s birthday present - the ballerina bear pictured on my blog a while ago), but I learned how to do some other nice crocheting stitches as well~ My next project is to make a warm beanie for B, as I promised him I would. Since I was little, I’ve always loved sewing and using my mom’s sewing machine, but it’s way too big and heavy to take with me to Korea, and way too expensive to just buy one to have there (although I probably will buy one when I finally settle down there in a few years). So I thought, why not take up knitting and crocheting as a hobby? I can still make lots of nice things, and it’s easy to bring with me! that’s how it started, and now I just really like it. I love making unique things, things that not every other person has!

My current project; I’m making some sort of soft blanket :D

slow blogger

Sat, 11 Aug 2012 23:42:04 +0200

Let’s face it, I’m not a good blogger when I’m in Norway. That has a good reason though - my life isn’t much interesting when I mainly just work, so i don’t really have a lot to blog about! In another month from now boyfriend is going back to Korea, and I can’t believe how quickly two months went by already!! I’m going back to Korea in the beginning of October (already have my plane ticket), and I’m looking forwards to it so much. I’ll be arriving in Korea in my favorite season (autumn), when the hottest weather has passed by already (all of September is usually really hot, but October is so nice).

I’m super excited about a lot of things, really. First of all, boyfriend and I are gonna rent an apartment together, and we have decided to adopt a kitten. B is gonna take english classes to study for his TOEFL/IELTS exam, and I’m planning on taking some chinese classes (as well as spending time sowing, hopefully baking a little, attending yoga-classes, reading books and of course blogging). Basically this time my stay in Korea will be leaning more towards a long vacation, which is what I really need! By the time I leave Norway in October, I will have worked for 5 months straight to make the money I need for my Korea trip. I’m super excited to go!

Pictures above taken when out on a date with B the other day, celebrating our 6 months together. He’s carrying my backpack for me(one of the many advantages of having a boyfriend hihi).

Some recent Instagram pictures.

For now I’m spending most of my free time with B going on random dates, playing games together, watching Friends-episodes (we’re on season 4 now), going for walks, cooking, reading etc. Sometimes we go to my parents’ house in the countryside where we don’t really use internet at all, and basically just relax the whole time. When we went there last weekend, we had a good time visiting my grandparents and eating delicious homemade pizza at my cousin’s house. On monday we’re going to my parents’ house again, since it’s my father’s birthday. I promise to blog more once I’m back in Korea, after all that’s what this blog is about; my life in Korea!