Meissen in SOGO

If you have the chance to go to the SOGO of Zhongxiao Fuxing in Taipei, and if you like porcelain wares, please proceed to the 9th floor of the building. Had I not been in a country where they make me feel special for not being Asian, I might have felt out of place surrounded by those priceless porcelain items, but as it was, being foreign seemed to the the equivalent of "rich enough to buy our stuff", or at least "knowledgable enough to appreciate it".

So after my tea at the Wedgwood Tearoom, I walked around a huge isle of Meissen porcelain and glass wares. I did not know Meissen, to be honest, before going there. But as I was slowly looking at the wares in awe and silence, smiling - because porcelain makes me happy - a lady of the staff came to me and basically told me the whole story. She came to me as she was the only one in the staff that had some confidence in her English skills to dare use it. Said her coworkers thought I looked like a doll.

I was not really in a mood to speak to people much at the time, feeling depressed on a rainy day, one of those times where you feel so isolated, so I was kind of dreading having to talk back to her as she explained. She was, however, really interesting to listen to, and while she did tell me lots of stuff about Meissen in a super short amount of time, she did not really expect to have a deep discussion with me, so I relaxed. 

Meissen is the name of the first European porcelain maker. German porcelain. Probably coming from Asian techniques, as Asians had porcelain up much before western people did (btw. I am NOT writing a paper on this, so if you are more knowledgable about porcelain than me, please free to add up to it, or look up for information I might have gotten wrong, I do not pretend to know it all).

Their porcelain uses diamond powder to make their colors, by painting very very thin layers one by one, cooking it many times to accomplish both depth and color gradations. Have you noticed how there are so many porcelain wares that use dark colors such as Bleu Royal? Well with this type of paint, it is very difficult to make different shades. Only recent wares have more varied coloring and patterns using many colors at a time. In that store, they had 2 sets of the teacup and plate like you can see up there (picture from google) but in hot pink. That is their new color and that there were only two of those in Taiwan as of the moment.

Interesting fact, did you know that the Bleu Royal color on Meissen porcelain were used for the first time for Napoleon? That's why they called it so "royal" Napoleon. 

Wedgwood Tearoom

I went to Taiwan for New Year, with two friends I met in Korea, to meet a friend I hadn't seen in over 4 years. The trip went really fast and I found myself at the end of the journey very very quickly, without having had that much time to do much. 

I did, however, have a couple of nice times, and got to know new places.

Don't you love this shade of blue?

It's my favorite :3

I went to Zhongxiao fuxing's MRT station's SOGO to buy bras (ironically, Taiwan is the only place I can find decent sized bras that actually do the trick, who would believe it...). After buying what I needed, they told me to get to the 9th floor to get back the taxes so I went up. 

And that was such a good idea.

Even if I only got something like $3CAD back...

On that floor were spread out porcelain wares and luxurious home furnishing stores and that was pleasant for the eye. On top of it, there was also a Wedgwood Tea store, that served all the foods and drinks in Wedgwood porcelains. How could I not be in paradise? 

I took advantage of being the only foreigner around, and thus, a weird thing in the middle of the tearoom, to ask my neighbour to take pictures of their meals. Everything was so pretty!!!

I had an apple black tea, and got a full teapot and full refill for only $6.50. It's actually much cheaper than normal tea at any nice coffee shop in Korea, so that felt really nice. I did need to get to the bathroom a hundred times that day for drinking too much tea, but that's all good. 

20Ks! Thank you!

Thank you everyone <3

I don't know how much of you just got here by mistake or oh many of you are really following this blog, but I've passed the 20K visits a month ago. Now going up to 21K already before I even got to say thank you!!!! 

Here is the finished product I mentioned in my last blog entry: Anne of Green Gables. I don't want to send it to Canada even though it's a gift for my mommy tho.... because Post Canada is not really trustworthy. Especially lately, thanks to our crap of a country leaders... Can't wait for the next elections and I'll vote from here if I have. A.B.C. for the win?

But I don't want this blog to be political... so here we are... I'll go back to my own boring routine :)

New Year Resolutions

I do not recall ever taking New Year resolutions ever. 

I have always snickered at people who took health resolutions. Not because it's a stupid idea in itself. 

I'd say it's more because, if your only motivation for getting back in shape is the start of a brand New Year, it will probably not last a week. Ant that's a shame, because the idea of getting in shape, is a great idea in itself.

Well this year, my friend from Taiwan challenged me to train together (well together as in as together as training can sum up to when you're 2 hours plane ride apart), with the premise that we can both laugh at each other when we fail to do reasonable efforts everyday.

I: Exercise with me.
Me: Exercise? What exercise?
I: Just exercise.
   Like we go work out and see who loses more weight.
   And write down what you did and ate.
   And I can laugh at you when your exercise is just walking 20 minutes.

And that's how it started. Now I also have the bad side-effect of my trip to Taiwan: no money to spend on food, or anything else actually. That clashes with me need to actually fill my fridge for once, in order to stop eating Oreo boxes every night, and random sweets that I stack up in my apartment when I get a craving for anything worth chewing.

Why not?

I honestly don't know how long I'll keep doing it, however, because my will for anything annoying and tiring usually does not last long. As soon as I stop or slack off a LITTLE, I just stop. Completely. And then it's hard to actually get back to doing anything.

So let's snicker at myself and see how long it'll last.

MoMo - Sewing School

Dongtan is a city with tons of surprises. Small stores. Small coffee places. Interesting restaurants. Happy-looking families. Happy couples. 

And there is a place called 모모의 다락방 (momo eui darag bang).

That place is a 10x10 foot big room. 

It has a great display window that replaces one of the 4 walls in it entirety. 

The three other walls are white.

But we don't really notice any of that.

Because Momo is a little paradise filled with little girls dreams. 

With expectations.

With imagination.

With hard work.

With simplicity.

It is filled with dolls.

It is, however, not really a place to buy dolls per say.

It is a place where they teach you how to MAKE them. The system is quite simple. You pay the equivalent of $50CAD/month or $100/3 months. The store is open from Monday to Friday 10-7h30 and the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month from 10 to 3. And you just go anytime you want. Now the more you go the more you get your money's worth. After the monthly fee, you just choose what you want to do. Anything you want to do. They don't look for qualification. If it's a hard doll you choose they let you do it, you do it at your own pace. The doll prices range from $10 to $100, depending on the fabric used. 

My favourite dolls there are what they call the SimDolls. They look like porcelain dolls, but are all made of cotton for the most part.

I knew about that store since last spring. I went in and asked for information and let it sink in. I wanted to make a doll. But I needed to find a reason. It's always like that. While I am a pretty impulsive person, when I put money and time into something. Or start a big project like this one, I feel like I need a push, a legitimate reason, separate from my own greed. That was the case for stuff like buying myself a super expensive wallet: I had to first buy an expensive wallet for someone else than me before, and make them happy. 

Then I also need to feel like investing time into something this big. That happens every fall season. 

They say it's because of the daylight lessening in the fall.

That we feel useless and a bit depressed. 

Maybe that's right. 

In any case, it's like that for me. Every time fall gets here, I feel a need to accomplish something, where the result will pile up. Be tangible. Real. Unlike all that goes through my head. On my first university year, I made curtains for my apartment (I got the inspiration from a nice apron I saw in Taiwan in my first trip, with pretty patchwork). My mother helped me all the while and they turned out really pretty!

The following year, I learned to knit. I made mittens, hats and key holders for my friends. 

Two years ago I learned how to make socks.

Last year, I was into bead crafts, and I also took the remnants of the mittens I'd knit for my ex boyfriend (they were at my place when he dumped me, so I shredded them. They couldn't fit anyone else cuz he has weird hands and they'd been made just for him. He has super long and thin fingers but his thumbs were super short) to make strawberry flowers on a knitted blanket.

P.S. I had to go through my old blog to find the links and pictures.... and god. It's almost hard to look at. It's filled with my exes. Oh well. I don't agree with most of people throwing away all the remnant of relationships when they have been long ones. Why would you need to erase your life? The best way to move on is to remember...

This year, I became a godmother for the second time. My brother will have another baby. When my sis told me that, I knew that the new baby would have my first doll. A guardian angel to protect and love the new baby. 

It was my first doll. But it still is my favourite. Probably because I poured a lot of love into it. It took me over 2 weeks to make it. I love making dolls. It's soothing all the pain. Giving me peace of mind. And they are really lovely.

Everything was sewed by hand. The doll. The clothes. The hair. The hair is raw wool that was dyed.

the second doll I made was Alice in Wonderland. She was supposed to have blond hair. But I changed it for green. She's in wonderland after all. Like me.

My teacher's doll

Everything is sewn onto the doll directly. They are not dresses that can be taken off. For practical reasons, it would be very hard to remove tight sleeves, for example, as the body is stuffed til it gets really hard.

The shoes are not shoes. They are just painted on the doll. Then we add accessories to make them look like shoes.

So is the face. 

Drawn and painted.

The third doll I made is called "Happy Lulu". The name my teacher gave to the doll in any case.

Unlike the first doll I made, that I mostly made at the store, with her help, I made the body and most of the dress at home. I only made the shoes, head and hair at Momo's.

I finished my fourth one just in time for Xmas. I made this one to give my mother. If you can recognize her, it's Anne of Green Gables. A Canadian feel in all this Asianness.

I practically made all the doll at home. I used the pictures I took. I made the painting of the shoes at Momo's and the hat and face. There are a couple of things that are different form the original for that reason, both because I was lazy and worked mainly by memory, not looking at the pictures. I am really proud of this one. It's full of the love for my mommy. 

 Now I realize I haven't taken a picture of the finish product, with the hat and all. My bad... I'll upload it later...

Now I am working on a school girl. :)

My Parents in Mokdong

Long time no see.

One of the things I've been looking forward to was to have my parents come to a baseball game. At that period of time, Nexen was mainly playing away games, so we only had one opportunity to watch one, but we got lucky: it was at home, in Mokdong.

I had been worried my parents would end up coming to Korea when the weather was anything but warm and welcoming, but we had extremely hot and sunny weather, what best, when seeking an alternative to the cool autumn they were walking through back in Canada. 

Sunday, September 22nd, 2013, the sun was hitting hard as we took off for Mokdong. I had my uniform. And we won. I don't want to sound too presumptuous, but EVERY SINGLE time I have worn my Nexen Uniform (yes, I need to Capitalize it), we have won. And yes, I am like a cheesy husband saying "WE will give birth in 2 months time". Nexen is a "we" for me. 

The game was crazy stressful.

It was the first of a sad set of games where we were let down by our best closer Son Seunglak. I know next to nothing about baseball, but my reading of the whole thing is that, Seunglak is so used to close quickly that when he loses it (as he did so many times at the end of the season and the after season) and lets a few player hit runs, he has lots of trouble dealing with the players on bases. 

Anyways. 

We HAD it, then he let the other team take it from us on the 9th inning or smtg, and we fought for it a few innings til we finally stole the game back.

I really wanted us to show my parents a winning game. And we got it so I was quite happy. If I think about it now, it was a cool game for a first. I remember my first game last spring we totally raped (sorry for the use of such a word) the other team and the game was almost sad (for the other team) and a bit boring (would've been if Nexen fans we not so amazing to hang out with).

I really like Korean cheerleaders. There is something cute and innocent about them, while still being kinda hot. I mean, put a Korean cheerleader besides the half naked American ones, and Korean cheerleaders look like innocent schoolgirls. Or American ones looks like whores. Your pick. 

I like that their skirts are so high we don't even see their belly buttons. I did see a belly button once, as they were dancing and remember thinking oh man she's slutty (oh Korea, what are you doing to my standards of sluttiness).

Anyways. 

My dad had a nice camera, so I wanted him to take at least a couple of pictures of the cheerleaders, because I can never get nice pictures, since I only use my phone when I go around. Cameras are so heavy....

So after the game started, I tell my dad

- Dad, aren't our cheerleaders super cute? :)
- Yes, you are right.
- Don't forget to take a couple of pictures of them okay?
- On no worries, I have taken a couple.

He took around 160 pictures.

68 of them were cheerleaders.

I mean, I can't blame him, watching a game of baseball live is amazing in Korea, what's with the cheering teams, songs and dances. But on pictures, there is not much to capture. There's the field. With different light as the day turns into night, I suppose, there are the people with whom you go watch. 

And there is the cheering team.

 I only took a few I liked that turned out nice. And here is the ONLY picture in which the cheer master shows up.

I didn't have to worry about him taking pictures of the girls. Now I know I should've told him I found the cheer master cute, and that he should take some pictures of him too... Man always forgetting the important details....