Snow Day #4

Hello everyone!

By now you probably have guessed (since I am back on the blog) that we are having another massive snow storm here in Boston.  BU has cancelled classes for the 4th time in 3 weeks!  I have lived in many different parts of the world, including northern part of Michigan, and I have NEVER seen so much snow in such a short period of time.  I mean, it's like every week we get a 'historic' blizzard/winter storm like clockwork.  Incredible.

I tried to get a shot of the winter wonderland outside of my window for you guys, but this was all I could see!

The other side of our apartment doesn't have the best view, but I think it shows the effect of the snow a bit better than my frozen-over window, so...

and the swirling snow!

We have gotten enough snow quickly enough that within an hour, the foot tracks that Shawn left on the way to the gym had disappeared by the time she came back!

Before we got buried in snow, we tried to dig ourselves out from the previous 2 storms, and lead normal lives!  one of the highlights from last week was this concert I played with my teacher here at BU, Bayla Keyes, and 3 other BU faculty members, Robbie, Rhonda, and Michelle!  We played the Martin piano quintet, and I loved it!  He's not a very well-known composer, but he has very unique and interesting harmonic language, and some really beautiful melodies  =)

The few days before the storm was made even better because!!!   Abers (April) was in Boston!!!!  My soul sister, my sister from another mother!  we were attached at the hip throughout our undergrad years, and it was so good to be attached once more  =)

We had an incredible night during her visit when a whole bunch of our friends came over and we played board games. I did take some photos, but... I didn't have the SD card in the camera... epic fail.  le sigh...  ah well, it will just have to happen again some day!

We did, however, take a walk in our beautiful neighborhood in search of some lunch one of the days that she was here. I know, not as exciting as the board game night, but isn't our neighborhood so beautiful?  I love it here  =)

The walk was very cold and snowy, but the lunch we had at Buk Kyung was tottaallly worth it!

mmmmm  there's nothing more satisfying than a table full of awesome Korean food!

obviously, we were thrilled!

ahhh.  I 'm drooling just looking at the pictures and thinking about that meal right now...

April's flight was cancelled, and we were afraid that she would not be able to get out of Boston before this massive storm hit, but thankfully, she did get to fly out of the Beantown just in time!!

It was such a fun weekend, and I'm so glad she got to visit  =)  It was a nice warm fuzzy spot in this frigid snowpocalypsemarathon we've been having.

I hope you are all having a wonderful beginning of the week, and stay warm if you are around the New England area!

--Janny

Capo Chamber Music Festival

Hello everyone!

As I've mentioned in the last post, the reason I had no time to open up my laptop or to blog last week was because of Capo Chamber Music Festival, and boy,, what a week that was!

It was really an incredible week where our trio got to meet and perform with the best musicians, and teach the best group of next generation's musicians.  We had so much fun getting to know everyone, and we hope to be able to return next year!  =)  now for some photos..

love these ladies  =)  during our midnight dinner after one of the concerts!  Yay Korean food!

Coaching the youngsters on their chamber music, and Timmay trying to play the half size cello standing up.  and of course, all of us dying  haha

photos with these wonderful peeps during our final concert

blue was apparently the color of the night  ;)

these two are seriously the best mentors I could have asked for  =)

trying to get Abers to 'pose'

While we were at Capo, we stayed with Gene, the director, and his whole family, including this lil cutie (his son) was so amazing to have all of us over for the week!

The three of us, the larks, and Eric (violinist of the Telegraph Quartet) had a really great time hanging out together, and generally turning Gene's house into a college dorm room  ;)  

dorm room with the cutest little puppy who loved to snuggle!

It was a really great week of amazing music making, great company, incredible food...  like this bacon maple cronut...

and some exercise.. for some peeps,, not me  haha

and, of course, some mad bromance.  Afterall, a music festival would never be complete without Timmay's blazing bromance  ;)

What an incredible week, and thanks Gene for putting this wonderful festival together!!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful weekend!

--Janny

Busan Travels

Hello everyone!

I have a lot of family in Busan as well as in Seoul, so we took the KTX (bullet train) down south to visit Busan for a couple of days.  The train is pretty comfortable, it only takes about 3 hours, and the scenery is beeaauutiiful, so it was a really pleasant trip.  =)

We spent the first day eating (like,, soo much eating) and walking around multiple markets in Busan with my cousins.
ma boys!!

The first market we visited was huge! it seemed like it went on for miles!  Each block or section was designated for a certain kind of merchandise, so we had fun going around exploring each section.

here's a stall in the Kimchi section (Korea has more than 60 different kinds of Kimchi!)

some more food stalls

cross section of clothes and kitchen oriented sections

At desserts section, we decided to try out the honeycomb ice cream!  

Apparently this is really popular in Korea right now, and isn't it so interesting?  I was super excited to try it, but I think the idea of it was better than the execution, per say, because for me, the whole dessert was way too sweet..  It looked awesome though. 

After we walked around for a bit longer in the blazing heat, we went to go try Seul-Bing.  It's a remake of the traditional Korean shaved ice, and is also very popular in Korea right now.

The shaved ice comes with this toast sandwich thing that has Korean traditional sweet rice cake-esq thing in the middle, and it was really good!  I guess fusion cuisine is really popular right now, and it was very interesting to try  =)

While the Seul-Bing was a nice break from the heat, we felt the need to burn off some of the calories, so back we went, out into the heat.

This time, it was to the fish market, and boy oh boy, was it a whole new world..!

I love going to the Pike's Place Market in Seattle which has a lot of seafood, so I thought nothing would be new to me, but I was most definitely mistaken.

First of all, the pure size of the market seemed to dwarf Pike Place..

But it could have also seemed like that not necessarily because of the size of the market, but because of the sheer amount of fish that was being sold

or maybe the variety..

It was really fascinating walking around the market and marveling at all of the different kinds of fish (and other edibles that none of us knew existed) from the sea.

some of us also got pretty brave and shook hands with an octopus as well  ;)

Having had our fill of the oceanic creatures, we headed back home through the market where we met this cute little fellow faithfully guarding his owner's shop  ;)

At this point, we weren't particularly hungry (actually, more like not hungry at. all.), but we ran into this food truck, and apparently it's another food item that is uber popular in Korea, so the cousins insisted that we try.  Seed Hodduck!

Apparently, there's usually a line that wraps around the market, but since it was a week day, we didn't have to wait very long  =)

The verdict?  ok, yeah, it's pretty good, even when we were all full from all of the other sweets  =p

My cousin should be the poster child for the Seed Hodduck, don't you think?  ;)  haha

It was such a wonderful day catching up with my cousins, walking around different markets, trying all sorts of popular foods in Busan, and never, ever being hungry all day.  Actually, I can't remember a time when we weren't full from all of the street food we kept trying  haha.  

They say that when you're in Busan, you have to eat, and I definitely suggest that you do just that when you're there!  you can always lose weight when your vacation is over, right?  please tell me that's the case..  my pants don't fit me anymore!  haha  ;)

Thanks for stopping by!

--Janny