Foley+Corinna Giveaway! ( Guess who's the winner?:] )

I got a pleasant surprise this morning!
I recently entered a Foley+Corinna giveaway via Late Afternoon, one of my favorite fashion bloggers. I thought it wouldn't hurt to enter so I entered just for fun, not even expecting to win. But I received an email from Foley+Corinna a few days after I entered, informing I won and asking me to pick a color! I was super super ecstatic and couldn't believe my luck!! I got a Mid City handbag in Emerald, thinking it would be perfect during the Spring & Summer!

Morning calm Arboretum

Neither of my parents worked on Saturday so we went on a little family outing to Morning calm Arboretum, a Korean garden retaining about 5000 different kinds of plants. I loved how they fused different types of traditional Korean architecture with trees, plants, flowers, ponds, waterfalls, you name it! I wished I had about 20 more pairs of eyes to see everything at once. I don't even know if I saw everything, it was a pretty big garden!
Morning calm Arboretum is beautiful at any day of the year- they even have illuminations on during the Winter- so you can actually see Morning calm Arboretum's 4 different faces in one year! I personally really want to go back during the Autumn season and see the beautiful multi colored leaves.
I wore my Nasty Gal Nordic knit cardi to brighten up my whole outfit but mostly because it was pretty chilly that day and I needed my warm& comfy cardigan to keep me from catching a cold!

The smallest church in Korea

Happy nostalgia

It happened to be that the small things Ji hyun and I did on this particular day actually touched us with so many nostalgic memories. Instead of going out to eat or shop like we usually do, I went over to her house. We went up to her attic which was filled with old toys and school books, and wistfully thought how nice it would be if we were kids again to pretend the attic was a hide out and go crazy with our imaginations. We went to the playground and enjoyed the slides and the swings until sunset. We looked through her old yearbooks and had a good laugh, pointing out the funny pictures and talking about the school trips we went on. We ordered Chinese food and talked about our childhoods- her happy times in Singapore and my happy times in San Diego. 

I sometimes catch myself wistfully thinking back to my childhood. 

I was an outdoor kid who never once owned a Game Boy- I was that super tanned tomboy who was the first to be on the tetherball court or the one that encouraged other friends to play dodgeball with me. I loved getting on the highest diving board at the swimming pool and cartwheeling on any patch of grass I could find. 

Just thinking back to all these wonderful memories and looking through old photo albums and yearbooks, I wallow in happy nostalgia, and often yearn to go back to that happy, carefree, fantasy filled time of my life. 

I think childhood is a magical thing- the fact that the memories of our childhood remain quite vague in our heads make it all the more precious, and the shortest flashbacks can warm up your heart and makes you wish you could live that moment just one more time.  

When you're feeling pretty melancholy, it really helps sometimes to get on a swing and soar through the air... it helps sometimes to become a kid again and just enjoy yourself. 

Don't look so hard-

Find joy in the little things, like a cute single tulip, the sunshine or soft sakura petals. It's enough to warm up your heart for the rest of the day :)

Hope you all have a fantastic day! 

Love from Korea

For Annie

This post is for Annie, my older sister.
My sister is the person I look up to the most in my life. She shaped me into the best person I can be, and I thank her so much for that.
She's studying in LA right now, so I unfortunately couldn't take any pictures with her on this beautiful day, but a lot of the pictures I'm posting up reminds me of her.

Annie really appreciates nature, and finds peace in the greenery, flowers and trees.
And although I always knew what she was talking about, I finally really felt the peace she was talking about. I couldn't have been any happier, calmer or relaxed than while I was walking around Central Park today. I was just completely breath taken by the beauty of nature, and felt ashamed while looking at the ethereal cherry blossoms that I hadn't lived a more pristine and elegant life.
Annie also has this amazing ability to help people look at things under a different light and stay optimistic. She's like this bridge, in the picture below. Without the bridge, it would have been another one of those common pictures. It also happened to be a bit past noon, when the sun was exactly over our heads, so it was difficult to take play around with light & shade and take really nice photos. The bridge was perfect, giving a new perspective and making the other side appear so much more beautiful than it already is.

Agh, it's so hard talking about someone that matters a lot to you because you're afraid your words won't do him/her justice.