Rough Week.

I'm not going to go into too much detail, but there was a death in my (extended) family early last week. It's been very hard on everyone, and we (my husband and I) spent most of our time in Seoul to attend the funeral proceedings. My mom also flew in from the States on Tuesday afternoon.

My brother arrives tonight, so we'll all be in Korea for the holidays. Minus my dad, unfortunately, who's been ditched in Charlotte for the next few days!

Husband and I spent our weekend exploring different parts of Seoul and freezing our asses off at an outdoor amusement park. Yep. And me ripping an even bigger hole in the crotch area of my J Brand jeans. So. It's a good thing that my husband brought the three pairs of Levi's skinny jeans I ordered.

I think this'll be it till the New Year! Have a great end-of-2009, everyone!

Yoohoo.

My husband's officially in town! :) Yippee!

And my little brudda will be here soon, too! He arrives in Korea next Monday. And one of my college friends will be here at the beginning of January!

Aaaaanyway, with my guests and school and winter English camp and yoga classes and concerts and musicals and tutoring and attempting to set up my little Etsy thingummy before 2010 and all sorts of other things going on, I'll be pretty occupied until the middle of January. Whew.

I'm sure I'll post before then, but just in case...

MERRY CHRISTMAS / HAPPY HANUKKAH

and a

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Thanks for reading!

Love,

Esther (Oh Lady E)

Degrees of Makeup.

No makeup.


"Half" makeup.


Full makeup.

Makeup is a huge HUUUUGE deal in Korea. It's actually a rather serious social faux pas for a 20-something woman to go around without a face full of makeup. Seeing as I'm in that 0.000000001% minority who DOESN'T wear makeup, I constantly get comments from my family, the teachers at school, and even my students (13 to 16-year old boys, mind you) about how I would be SO much prettier with some makeup... among other things. While I generally just laugh and shrug it off... it's been building up slowly over the last few months, and I feel the need to get this off my chest.

Folks, I like my face the way it is. I'm not saying that it's perfect, just that I'm perfectly okay with my face the way it is. And isn't it my choice whether or not I want to use makeup? When I look at those three pictures of me above, I like my face without any makeup the best. It might be because that's the face I'm used to seeing in the mirror, but I also feel like it's the most personable. My wedding photos freak me out a little because I look SO different (and a little unnatural) in them.

Don't get me wrong! I like to put on some serious eyeliner and mascara for "special events", like a girls' night out or a dinner date with the hubby. That's about it for me. Anything more and I feel uncomfortable in my own skin.

So, Korean people, I appreciate your help, but I'm pretty satisfied with the way I look. And if it's alright with you, I'll just do my own thing. No expensive cosmetics or plastic surgery for this one. Thanks.

Restless.

Do you ever have one of those nights when you crawl into bed, have an absurd dream about a dead English king after watching an episode of the Tudors... and then (what feels like) a few moments later, you wake up to your alarm clock blaring out K-pop?

Yeah.

I woke up to the sweet sweet sounds of one of my favorite Korean pop groups, thinking that my alarm clock was malfunctioning and there was no fucking way it was already 7am... only to discover that it was ACTUALLY 7:30 and that I had roughly five minutes to splash water on my face, get dressed and haul my ass out the door. I left my apartment still pulling on my tights and coat. And I ended up putting my shoes on in the elevator. It was that bad. So no outfit photos today.

Now, I will be taking a hot shower and going to bed before 9PM. That's all. ;)

007.

Today I decided I was going to be Bond... James Bond. An all-black outfit with sunglasses and my bangs in my face and a healthy dose of silver jewelry lets me pretend I'm the female (and Korean) version of everyone's favorite secret agent. Heh. I am 24, and I still play dress-up and make-believe. Heh heh.

Now if someone would give me an Aston Martin, I'd be all set. I really like silver, by the by.

Black tee, AA. Jacket, Uniqlo. Pants, Ann Taylor. Sunglasses, Ralph Lauren. Shoes, Nine West.

EDITED TO ADD: I'm too lazy to do a separate post for this, but here's a shot of what I wore on Monday. I'm eating melon ice cream in the photo.

I'm a little bit irritated by the fact that my beloved J Brand jeans have developed a hole near my... um... chocha. I don't know why. I suppose that's what I get for wearing them four times a week.

Shirt, Uniqlo. Jeans, J Brand.

Palest Pink.

I couldn't resist this pale pink sweater vest while out exploring Myeongdong with Jennine. Pastel colors tend to wash me out, and so I usually avoid buying anything in that color genre. However, I imagined all sorts of cute, preppy little outfits featuring stripes and tutus built around this vest. I had to have it. I can't wait to experiment with it some more.

For now, though, I just threw it on with a bunch of pieces in my 'safe' color. The jacket was also a bit of an impulse buy. I've been looking for a (faux) leather bomber jacket, and this one is pretty perfect (IT HAS A FUZZY-LINED HOOD!) for 50 dollars.

Enough impulse shopping for this one! I'm saving up my money for some very special items!

Tee, American Apparel. Sweater vest, Muji. Jacket, Uniqlo. Skirt (not pictured), Ann Taylor.

The Coveted & Lady E.

Jennine of The Coveted is in Korea (read about it here), and I was thrilled to meet her on Friday afternoon (thanks to an email introduction through WendyB). I went to the Myeongdong area in Seoul* to meet her... I've only been to this district once since coming to Korea. The sheer number of people there is overwhelming, to say the least. We chatted over coffee (and cheesecake for me...) about various things before heading out to do some shopping of our own!

I forgot to take pictures, but managed to snap the back of Jennine's head (...) while taking a random shot of some of the Christmas decorations in Myeongdong. I'm really really REALLY bad at documenting these occasions - if I remember correctly, I have yet to take a picture with WendyB, and I've had dinner/drinks with her at least three times. Whooooooops.

Anyway... Jennine, I hope you enjoy the rest of your time in Korea! I'm sorry I was such a terrible tour guide... but I hope you got to see some more of Seoul! :)

*The city of Seoul is divided up into many smaller "districts" and "neighborhoods", like most metropolitan cities!

Christmas Trimmings.

It's December (oooh, I haven't updated this in a month...), meaning all of the shops in Seoul have put up Christmas decorations! I put up my own modest Christmas trimmings in my apartment, as well. I love holiday decorations, and I'm a little upset that I'm going to miss out on visiting the Rockefeller Center tree this year. But I bought my own super-mini (fake) tree to make up for it!

Yes, I put Christmas bows on my stuffed animals. Gotta problem with that? ;) I had extra ribbon, and I was in the festive mood, which means a lot of unfortunate victims fell prey to my holiday-decorating binge!

The husband will be here in a little over a week! I am so excited that he will be here to spend Christmas with me. My younger brother is also coming in on the 2oth (or the 21st?). I'll have my own little satellite family with me here - very thrilled!!!

the birthday week!

The little pink cake my co-teacher got me on Wednesday!

(Before being devoured, obviously...)

And some pics from Friday's festivities... woot!
(a.k.a. the effects of a gigantic margarita)

I don't usually turn my birthday into a week-long series of events, but seeing as my birthday fell on a Tuesday... yep. And I've been craving Mexican food and good company, so I put together my own little belated birthday party and invited a few friends to come and indulge in quesadillas and margaritas at On the Border! The fact that there are so many American chain restaurants in Korea is mind-baffling at times, but truly a life-saver when it comes to those extreme "I need to eat Western food RIGHT NOW" cravings.

That other awesome thing I mentioned before happened today, too. I know I'm being all weird and cryptic, but I promise to post about it separately! :)

Blouse, Francis. Rings, WendyB/unknown.

falalalalaaaaa!

Say 'ello to my little tree! :)

Don't know about you, but I thought my Francis dress tied in well with my tree, so I stuck it up there. My clothing multi-tasks, y'know. I've got some other Christmas-related knick-knacks sitting around the mini-tree - including a little Christmas bear and Advents calendar from Germany. I'm also going to put up some lights later on! Woot woot. I love the holidays... as evidenced by the fact that I've been singing "All I Want for Christmas" since... uh... August.

My REAL Christmas present is coming in the form of my husband on the 13th! So excited!

the birthday dress.

It's a little bit uncharacteristic of me to buy a birthday dress, but I thought it would be fun to do something special this year. This dress from Modcloth (my latest online obsession, as you can probably tell) particularly caught my eye. The Asian-inspired florals and shape were too sweet to pass up, and the colors are perfect against my skin tone! It makes me feel very pretty and floaty and I may have turned some impromptu pirouettes in the middle of class (as demonstrated in the second picture). In front of all my students. Haha.

Thank you all SO MUCH for the birthday wishes via the blog, Facebook and emails! It really meant a lot to me - probably more than you know! The teachers at school bought me a wonderful little pink cake (strawberry), and it was delicious! A much better birthday than I had last year, let me tell ya. Must be the dress and its magical powers.

Some exciting stuff coming up this weekend, including a belated birthday dinner with some of the friends I've made here! The other shindig is not really top-secret, but I'm going to keep it to myself until it's actually happened! :)