Hello! It’s been a little while since I last wrote a proper blogpost. I wanted to wait and take some time to write my Southeast Asia travel in July 2023 but unfortunately that will have to take a back seat to this new adventure of being a tattoo apprentice. :) I want to share a little bit about how I come about this opportunity and what led me here.

Part II | Cont. Day 8: GyeongBokGung + Ikseondong Hanok Village We needed some hearty breakfast to start the day. So, we settled on Eggdrop 에그드랍 which happens to be around where we stayed. It is a very instagrammable aesthetic breakfast. It was good but I actually prefer Isaac Toast! They are both really good options for quick, easy and affordable breakfast sets.

South Korea has been on my mind since late 2020. I’ve been wanting to go back to experience the country as an adult and this time around I will get to experience it with Juanpa. It is always the most fun to experience a new country with him. I am generally pretty good at planning things out while he brings out a lot more spontaneity. I am always focused on getting to our destination and he is good at noticing things we pass by while going to our destination. It makes it a really fun trip and this one is just that.

Ok, 가자!

New York City Tattoo and Girlie Trip 2022!

I’ve had the biggest pleasure of forging a friendship with Margaret from late 2021. I knew of Margaret from Juan as she is a mega-talented (and the sweetest) sound designer he met working at Microsoft. I think we started “talking” on twitter for a little while before we met up in real life and hit it off immediately. Our love for food, art and new experiences brought us together and we got to know each other deeper over this year. She has been such a wonderful, supportive and kind friend I made this year and I feel so grateful we got to share this trip! We had sooooo much fun eating and exploring the city and here are some of the highlight of our 5 day trip to New York.

Before I start this particular blog post after a year+ hiatus, it would be dishonest of me to skip through my emotional landscape during late 2021 and the first half of 2022 up to this point. So let me be as honest as I can be, it has been tough. When I say tough, I am not meaning a few bad days. I meant months of tears, I meant waking up in agony and going to sleep filled with devastation. I meant sitting inside the wide range of my emotions -promising myself that I am making the right decision(s) based on thoughtful considerations and not mere reactions. I have relentlessly asked myself over and over on the values I want to hold onto and ultimately-irrevocably-the kind of person I want to be.

Hello.

If you had read my previous journal post in June (wow, time flies!) I was excited about an upcoming professional video shoot with the majorly talented Alayna Erhart.

A little recap: Alayna and I met for the first time in January 2020 and we immediately hit it off. We were going to do brand and studio related video before the pandemic hits. Of course, things shifts over the year 2020, I guess a worldwide pandemic does that. My mentality and attitude around what is meaningful to me has also radically changed.

Hello. This post is slightly different than my usual but I am also excited to give this a go.

The past few weeks I’ve been struggling with a personal creative block. To be fair, it has been coming for a little while now. In a month or so - August 2021 - I will be marking 2 whole years of officially freelancing slash running my own studio. Looking back on 2020, considering that I had a full working year through a major pandemic, I’m really grateful that I’m here, still doing my own thing.

Y’all, can you believe it is middle of the year 2021? It is a bit crazy to think that we are halfway through the year! I am personally glad we made it through the gloomiest longest winter days of Pacific Northwest and entering sunshine-y days. As I wrote this, time is feeling a bit warpy, did we endure two pandemic winters or only one? Personally I am still feeling wary of the society. I don’t see myself and Juan forgoing masks, especially indoors public places. The bright side is, I am hearing in the past week and today that Washington State (Seattle) is at 49.6% fully vaccinated rate.

Hello y’all! It has been a little bit since my last post here. Life has been quietly hectic. As the country is (slowly or way-too-rapidly depending on your stance - mine is the latter) opening up again I’ve been feeling rather unsettled about going back to general society. Sure, We have done small road-trips during the pandemic - mostly hiking trips - but we haven’t done anything as extended as this particular one which is 4 Days in a Lodge!

Summer of Quarantine 2020

Summer went by in a blip. There were lots of cooking, zoom calls, social distance outdoors with a few close friends, reading and long walks in the sun absorbing as much sun as we possibly can before PNW fall and winter locked us inside again. Around this time, I had an idea of making and printing postcards to send to my loved ones all around the country. We knew it’s going to be at least another year or so of quarantine from this point on and I wanted a way to connect other than video calls. I’ve always been so fond of snail-mails for the tactile feel and excitement I get from getting cards or notes when I opened my mailbox - it makes perfect sense.

This March 2021 marked a whole year in quarantine. Time moves differently in quarantine. Slow and fast in ways that are wholly inconsistent and unpredictable. In the beginning of quarantine, I felt agitated, angry, sad, frustrated, trapped and sometimes all of those feelings at once. Looking back, my agitations came from knowing - deep in my gut - living in the individualistic society like the United States means it will take so much longer to escape self-imposed quarantine we have to do. But that in itself is an oversimplification of what I’ve been feeling brewing underneath my skin for a while now.

Forever to go. ♾️

Okay y’all, every year on our wedding anniversary I usually write little snippets of my gratitudes for each year’s anniversary of our wedding on IG. This year, I’m implementing a new tradition. A Journal Post. Don’t worry, it will only be a little sappy, okay, fine, I shouldn’t be making promises. Eitherway, I wanted to write a bit about this year’s anniversary. It will be a bit different as we can’t travel or go to a fancy restaurant. But this year, I am extra extra extra extra grateful for this marriage.

We spent some time walking around Ubud Market where we spotted quite a few amazing and intricate building entrances. We also found amazing art being sold in shops around the area. Juan got to spend some time in this basement shop playing with souvenir items and seeing if they make cool sounds. We actually found a thing that would make sound not so different from the sound of thunder. Juan got so excited it was hard for me to get the lady to lower the price. Oh well, anything for my sound crazed husband. haha.

My father’s favorite spot in Bali would be Kintamani. I can see why, the air is cooler there’s Danau (Lake) Batur* and Mountains surrounding the lake. The place is absolutely stunning.

I’m definitely on my travel journal kick right now. As well all know and experienced, 2020 put a halt on most people’s travel plans. Juan and I have been talking about the time where we get to travel and experience other countries again. But it still feel so far away from now.

We were trying to decide what we are going to do for our 2 Year Anniversary Celebration. We thought about dressing up really fancy and going to Canlis for dinner, but then Juan found an amazing flight deal to Tokyo for March 2019! Right before the sakura bloom season. We thought about it for a minute - literally a minute - because the next minute we purchased flight tickets! It was so exciting I started planning the same night. Planners gonna plan, y’all. 😂

It is time to share our Christmas/Holiday Celebration of 2018! We decided, pretty last minute that we would actually head to Colombia for the holidays in 2018. His parents were thrilled that we were coming because Juan has not been home to celebrate Christmas for about 12 years. Juan’s mom decorated the house thoroughly every Christmas so we were very excited to be able to spend our time in their beautiful apartment.

This post will conclude our 2 week(+) long honeymoon in Japan. It was magical from the beginning to end. We learned a lot about each other along the way and also getting to experience Japanese culture, food. Not to mention, great memories to share with each other and our loved ones.

We started the new year taking a surprisingly short trip from Kyoto to Osaka. We were extremely surprised that it only took about an hour on Shinkansen. We literally had to shovel the content of our bentos into our mouth just so we can get ready to deboard the train. It was still delicious regardless. 🍱

I wanted to share some photos and travel journal I did for our honeymoon for a little while now. Since we both decided to give up most social media - facebook a few years ago and I personally have also given up IG recently- I am running out of ways to share pictures, stories and thoughts with my friends and family. I’ve always wanted to write more and in a blog format where I can go back and reminisce.