Hello Inside Out!

I am a certified magazine junkie.  Love them, collect them, tear pages out them, get inspired by them.

I've mentioned before that good cheese is rather pricey in Korea - well, compared to English language magazines, cheese is a bargain!  You can pay over AUD$20 for a stock standard fashion mag from the US here - yikes!  The good thing is that this has prompted me to get organised and set up subscriptions to some of my favourite Australian magazines - AGT, Frankie and Inside Out.

And it was a rather lovely treat to get the September/October issue of Inside Out in my mailbox and see my ridiculously talented sister featured!  Being on the other side of the world I can feel a bit isolated from my friends and family back in Oz, so something like this - complete with beautiful photos - is a nice little connector for me, and strangely reassuring.

I am the younger sister, and like all younger siblings I'm sure I was a total pain at times growing up.  I went through jealous phases and uncertain phases and my gosh - sometimes the fights we had were just so brutal...

But, despite all that, I think we have always been close.  And although having families of our own and living on opposite sides of the world makes it hard to always find that common ground, that link, I think we still do try to find it.  And that is so very important.

I was always in awe of my sister's creativity and talent growing up, and I still am.  Especially now she does it all with two children and a million distractions (including emails from me asking for blog banners and the like!).  Always inspiring.  In fact, seeing the photos of her house has inspired me to play around with some of my collections and displays - to play with size and scale a little more.  I might even do a post on it!  x

  

[you can see more from the article on Beci Orpin here, and also on her blog here]

Connected again!

[amazing foxy photo by Rob Lee]

It's been three long days without the internet but finally, after phoning a friend who then did battle with the Korean internet company, I am once again connected to the world!  Hurrah!  I missed you all so much!

I seriously have about 25 posts lined up in my head - I just need to find the time to write them all (when I started this blog I promised the husband I would not blog when I was meant to be doing something else more useful and productive.  Ummmm, not so much.)

In the meantime - at our favourite Korean BBQ restaurant last night I had a beer shandy and I loved it! Lemonade + beer.  It was sweet and bitter and delicious and refreshing!  The perfect drink for the oh so hot Seoul summer.  Also, I think this means I am now officially a middle aged Australian woman...Hurrah?

Back in the Habit

You may have noticed from the blog linky image thing on the side bar that I signed up for Back in the Habit over at the Potty Mouth Mama blog.  The basic idea is that we are all meant to pick something we want to be better at, do it everyday for the next 21 days and wallah!  We have a habit.

I mainly just signed up 'cos I really liked the image of the lovely Lexi as a nun.

Anyhoo, my things to do better are: commenting on two blogs and doing yoga daily. Today is day 3.   My progress?  Well, how many ways can I say total, complete and utter abject fail?

I'm feeling confident about the rest of the week though...

ps. even though it's day 3, I'm sure you can still join in the fun!

My cheese has a security tag on it...

...because that's how expensive good cheese is in Korea.

Korean food is delicious - Korean BBQ (we'd eat it every single night if my husband had his way), bibimbap (kind of Korea's answer to fried rice, but much fresher and tastier), the most flavoursome soup stocks I have ever had the privilege to eat.  But sometimes I get a bit over the pickled cabbage and the spicy tofu and I want to eat some good old comfort food - which for me absolutely must involve cheese.

In our last home - Hong Kong - we had access to city'super: a breathtakingly expensive supermarket that sold the best cheeses, cured meats and spices from all over the world.  In short, a foodies heaven.

In Korea...well...not so much (on the upside, the supermarkets here do have 30 kinds of red pepper paste...).  The shelves are stacked with processed cheddar slices and the always mystifying 'cheese sticks'.  And only if you're willing to take out a large loan and/or hand over your first born can you occasionally get your hands on some good mozzarella, or perhaps even a zesty reggiano.  So the other day I was overcome with joy to stumble upon a small pack of proper English 'extra mature' cheddar in my local supermarket!  Crumbly, tangy, tasty cheese! (And yes, it did have a security tag on it.)

Anyway, it made me think about the other foods I miss, the ones that are hard to come by in Korea.  Here's what came to mind:
- chickpeas (seriously!)
- tahini (I'm craving some steamed broccoli with rice and tahini at the moment...)
- Sirena tuna (yes there is plenty of tuna here, but nothing that even comes close to Sirena)
- a whole heap of fresh herbs: sage, thyme, flat-leaf parsley
- a whole heap of vegies: broccolini, lebanese cucumbers, witlof

Oh, and Twisties and Caramello Koalas would have been on the list too but the lovely Pepe - jewelry maker and mother of the step-sons - keeps our cupboards well stocked with those two necessities!

[image at the top by jtuason]

Yo-yo crazy!

With the husband working so hard at the moment (boo!) I have had quite a few nights sitting on the couch crafting (hip hip hooray!) which has finally given me a chance to try out my yo-yo maker.  It's quite fun, making yo-yos, I think!

I'll be listing these brooches (and more) in the slightly neglected shop over the next few days.

Hope you like x