Seoul

I have already declared my love for Seoul here, but after each visit my love seems to burn even brighter for this place.  News this time:  regular old cellphones seem to work and glutinous rice treats (n.b.:  these are gluten-free, despite sounding so gluten-y in name) abound!  I was like some weird dessert junkie, obsessed with where I was gonna score my next glutinous rice treat the whole time.  Nom nom nom.

Oh, and the Style Nanda flagship store in Hongdae is worth whatever your airline ticket costs to get there.  Holy moles, it was SO GOOD.

Just a random sock machine at the Doota store.

I don't know the name of this place, and even though I took a card, I am now not sure which card it is.  Here is what I know:  It is somewhere in Itaewon.  There was an owl in the logo. It seemed like more of a hipster drinking spot, but the food was fantastic.  The kind waiter googled photos of what the food would look like since he couldn't explain to us in English.  We had a seafood hotpot that was bigger than my head and filled with clams and mussels and the biggest squid that Mr. Kind Waiter scissored into pieces for us.  I absolutely recommend this place to anyone going to Seoul... if only I could figure out what it's called!  

Awww, baby made some gwaffiti...

Just about the cutest to-go coffee situation ever.  SO HOT!

And now for some of the glutinous rice treats!  This is a plastic rendition of a glutinous rice cake, which is (again) totally gluten-free and naturally sweetened.  I took one of the pumpkin variety.

And this is a glutinous rice cake flavored with mugwort, which is much better tasting than it sounds.

Above are some shots from our walk around Bukchon Hanok Village, which is not at all as touristy as something similar would be in the United States.  By the way, how pretty are those bricks behind the fish heads?  

And here's some more cutesy graffiti for you.  Oh, Seoul....

Random Eats

Stuff I ate/made at home in the past month...

Raw blueberry-banana pie.

Kale and sweet potato tacos with raw cacao mole.

Maple glazed baked bacon, hash, and an egg.

Addicted to the kräftröra from Melander's fisk.  It's basically a creamy crawfish salad, here "healthed up" a bit on cucumber. 

Rice and spinach fritters with a side of avocado and delicious hot sauce I brought back from Indonesia.

TIL YOU'RE BLEEDING

A musical interlude.

It was a karaoke night for the ages.

Back to Shanghai

Scenes from Shanghai in March.

Fur cap = so good.  Did not buy, though.

Kitty jacquard at Miu Miu!

After lunch at the fabric show.  Zzzzz....

The 5-year-old me would have FREAKED OUT at this stuffed animal store.  The 38-year-old me sorta did, too.

Airport signage.  I love the emotion this implies.  I'm not throwing away my liquids pre-security.  I'm abandoning them.  Wait, wait!  I'm sorry liquids, I didn't mean for it to end like this!  I'll always remember you!

Proof That Doha Duty Free Thinks It's Still The '70s

Spotted at the Duty Free in Qatar, en route to Shanghai:

Really?!?  Who still buys this stuff?

Amsterdam

We arrived in Stockholm from Paris at 11 pm on a Thursday, un- and re-packed and left straight from work the next day for Amsterdam.  Here we are, tired and on another plane.

We stayed at Hotel The Exchange in Amsterdam, and ended up with this all-white-everything room.  All knobs and panels and switches were covered with white boxes.  It was fantastic!  

We caught the William Klein at FOAM.

What a prolific artist!  I think I enjoyed his fashion photography best.

We got to catch up with some of our favorites!  Spent the day with Monica and the night with Celia, Frida and Jamie, Imogen, Amy, Leen, Richard and Kat, and on and on to celebrate Nick and Miz's getting hitched.  FANTASTIC-O!  We really do know the best people on the planet.

On The Train to Premiere Vision

Paris in February

We got in some serious quality time with these two.  The best!

Duck chez Magali.

Fancy lad.

I am not such a big David Lynch fan (OK, I don't like him), but we checked out his photo exhibit.  There were some nice ones and some real crap ones.  Afterwards we had a coffee and a chat about the photos because that's how we do.

How glutards each rilettes--on a piece of cheese!  (HEART ATTACK.)

The first person in the place.  19:30 will always be early for dinner in Paris.

Peep that bowl of mousse!  You betcha we got a scoop of that!

Scenes from a tiki bar.

Random In-Between Bits

Insists on lapping it while I'm on the computer.  (Happening right now, also.)

That day I had the giant bun.  There's no bun bagel or filler in there, people.  What a tease!

Most disgusting packaging ever.  

The Just-Got-Her-Nails-Did pose.

I started online Swedish classes.  I have to wear a headset, like a telemarketer.  It is frustrating enough to be terrible at Swedish in a one-on-one situation but to look this stupid while being so...

Life in Sweden means large-scale supermarket taxidermy.

Meanwhile, in Tokyo...

Look who was popping up on the Japanese Insta-feeds.

Shanghai January

Just a regular ol' jaunt to Shanghai to meet with suppliers and look at new fabrics, which happened to coincide with the Shanghai office's holiday party.  Oh my!  There were hats ('twas the theme), prizes, speeches, dancing, and a whole bottle of wine for each table of 12!

Here I am with my favorite dancing lady, Flora, and her team of other gussied up ladies.

After, I tagged along to Nana's birthday party, where the gift bags were full of chic "Chanel" face masks, golden bow ties, and assorted other Asian goodies.  

Chic AND germ-free!

Took FinnAir this time (oh, the loud drunks on the flight to Shanghai... the drunks on FinnAir are the worst in the world!), where I noticed you could watch many of the movies with Latin subtitles.  Oh, to be an overachiever!

The Catch-Up

I survived my crazy month of travels!  Well, it was basically a crazy 2+ months (shall we just call it a quarter-year?) of travels, as I found when going through my photos this morning.  I started off January in California, then back to Stockholm for about a day and then it was off to Shanghai.  Then in February there was Paris for PV and weekend funsies, then home to Stockholm for a night and back down to Amsterdam the very next day.  (That there's some poor planning on my part.  What can I say, I live for the thrills!)  Then--what was it?--a week or so home/in the office and then 2 weeks in Shanghai, Seoul, and Indonesia.  And now I'm home, and so happy to be here.  Thanks to the universe for throwing a missing plane when I'm in that part of the world and about to get on a flight myself.  (Ugh, that Malaysian plane business has got me all in a tizzy.)  But also, thanks to the universe for testing my limits in a shithole hotel room in the middle of Java island because it wasn't pretty but I TOTALLY SURVIVED.  I am going to enjoy every minute of being here in Stockholm (drinking water from the tap, not sweating the mosquitos, speaking English with abandon, snuggling with my kitty...) for the next month.  Because then it's off to Prague for Easter!

So here comes the catch-up...