This is finally it, the moment my husband, Sean, and I finally got brave, left
the security of guided tours and the familiarity of our cruise ship, and set
out to explore the city of Busan on our own! All credit due to Sean--I was so
worried about going around in any country without knowing the local language.
If I had been traveling alone, I don't know if I would ever have been able to
work up the courage. But he convinced me, and I am so grateful because this
foray helped us gain the confidence to explore every other port city after
this! Our adventure grew twice as epic thanks to Busan!
Click here
to read the previous entry featuring our daytime experiences in Busan.
Sunday 19 March 2023 - Nighttime in Busan
First step: take the shuttle from the port to Busan Station!
Although I had technically seen the character before, this was when I
started to fall in love with Boogi 😍
We didn't figure out why it's called this, but since I was born in
Texas, I loved seeing Texas Street in Busan!
The Rotary symbol, plus the kanji that I can read (most is written in
Hangul) suggest this massive monument is celebrating a Rotary Club 100
year anniversary 🎊
Got a can of Korean Gatorade from a vending machine 😄 I love
trying foreign versions of familiar drinks~
Busan Station had this cool screen setup (among other interesting
monuments and interactive installations) that played a variety of videos
tailored to this unique physical format.
We did a lot of exploring inside Busan Station, which is just as much
shopping mall as transportation hub. I was on the hunt for this adorable
Boogi plushie, which I had seen someone else leaving the station with
earlier. My Boogi now lives here in my studio, helping me stay positive
and motivated every day 🥰
One of the best interactions I had in Busan was when this shop employee
stopped me to make sure I had the QR code necessary to get the English
instructions for the card game I bought there 🥰 She totally didn't have
to go out of her way to do that for me, so I really appreciated her
consideration!
On the shuttle back to the port, ready to call it a night. I loved how colorful and vibrant this
bus was 🌈
Waiting for us in our cabin when we got back: immigration papers! We had
to follow procedures to enter Korea and then to return to Japan. It
makes sense logically, but it still felt weird since we were riding the
same cruise ship the whole time 😆
Dreamy big city nighttime vibes 🌆 Goodnight, Busan~
And there you have it, our first true adventure of this trip! While there were
some downsides to exploring a massive city in a different country on one's own
(the worst experiences were the same ones that have made any trip to Portland,
Seattle, or New York City unpleasant, so it must just be a big city thing 😅),
we had a great experience overall and it gave us complete confidence to do it
again at every port after this. Ironic that the port where we were most out of
place and at risk of running into trouble (due to our lack of Korean language
skills) was the place that gave us the courage to explore and make the most of
our journey!
Thank you for reading the ninth entry in my Japan (and Korea) Adventure
series! I'll be back soon with post #10, featuring our second full day at sea as we traveled to Kanazawa. Until then, please stay happy, healthy, and safe!
lol, I meant to get these posts done faster and instead it's been over a month
since
my last one! I guess I just have to accept that they'll get done as they get done 😅 So,
last time, we departed from Nagasaki and headed across the Korea Strait to
Busan. This was both my and my husband Sean's first time visiting Korea. I only thought of it at the last minute, but I
taught myself to say hello in Korean that morning 😊 안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo)! Just
using one word of the local language made people totally light up in pleasant
surprise ❤️ I'm so glad I tried it!
Sunday 19 March 2023 - Daytime in Busan
Coming into port, there was so much cool architecture. Look at that
lighthouse!
A couple cool bridges and the first of many skyscrapers (I believe these
two are mainly apartments). The tents at the bottom of the photo
are filling a paved, seaside campsite!
I didn't realize it at the time, but this welcome mosaic was my first
encounter with Boogi ❤️
While there was no big welcome party, unlike most of the ports in
Japan, we did still enjoy getting our photos taken with these
adorable mascots 🥰
Setting out on our Korean shore excursion!
Our first stop was
Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, which is like a Buddhist Disneyland, full of attractions and tourists (including ourselves!) 😅
These golden pigs are supposed to bring you luck with money if you put
your hand in their mouths. I wonder what our touching their tails
will bring? 😆
I feel like male Buddhas are talked about way more than female ones.
That's why I was excited to learn about Haesu Gwaneum Daebul and take my
picture with her statue 🤩
There is a row of statues depicting all twelve Asian zodiac animals. This
is me with my year of the tiger!
At the bustling marketplace outside the temple, I bought myself this
lucky tiger bracelet. You can often see me wearing it during my
livestreams on Twitch!
Our next stop was this luxury seaside resort, Ananti Cove. We did a
little shopping for snacks and souvenirs, but nothing more worth sharing
as photos 😅
Our final stop was Ahopsan Forest, which I was specifically looking
forward to!
One reason I was looking forward to it is that I had never been in a
proper bamboo forest before!
The other reason is that this was a filming location for Kundo: Age of the Rampant! Sean and I specifically watched the movie right before
the trip to be ready!
When we watched it, and still as of this writing, the movie is free to view
via YouTube Movies 🙌 It was like a Korean spaghetti western, a bit violent
but really thoughtful and full of adventure, good and evil, and exploring how
murky the difference between the two can be. I recommend it!
After hiking through the forest, we hopped back onto the tour bus and returned with our group to
the port. Next time, I'll share our adventure in Busan that night, bravely
exploring the city on foot, without guide or group 😮 Until then, please
stay happy, healthy, and safe~!
It's so wild to think another month has passed already! We are well into
summer here in Boise. We're even getting tiny hints of the dreamy autumn
weather that's soon to come. This has been the weirdest summer weather in my
memory; everything is happening a month early. Intense heat in July and now
cool, cloudy mornings and even rainy days in August. It's been cool enough
that I've been wearing a hoodie inside the house this week!
July was a busy month for me (well, every month is busy, really 😅) and I'm
excited to share it with you!
Patreon Rewards
July's Patreon rewards featured a digitally colored version of one of my
Inktober52 drawings from this year. KABOOM💥 I used both Clip Studio Paint and
Adobe Photoshop to color it.
Click here
to sign up and get rewards like this in your mailbox. It's so much better than
junk mail and bills 😁 And you'll be helping me create more art!
I finally had someone redeem the chibi gift certificates I've been sending out
as birthday presents 🥰 My friend Marty asked me to chibify his lovely cat,
Lulu. Marty's mom liked the caricature so much she got it printed on a pillow
so she could be with Lulu even when she's not visiting Marty 💕 Creating
something that brings so much joy to others is such an honor!
Livestreaming
Livestreaming on Twitch continues to go well! I stream art every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday. The final stream of July was an Inktober52 session
featuring the tricky prompt of "teeth" which I think I managed fairly well 😆
Click here
to check out my channel, see my schedule in your timezone, and follow me to
get updates whenever I go live!
Charity Fundraising
As a way to give myself more purpose when I stream, and to give my viewers a
super easy way to turn their viewing into positive change for the world, I
take my unique viewers count every month and make a donation based on that
number.
We had 21 unique viewers in July (a record for this year, and very close to
the record of 26 set in June 2022!) and according to my formula of $0.10 USD
per viewer, minimum $10 and maximum $100, that equals a $10 donation to our
charity of the month,
Food For Life Global!
As usual when this is an option, I checked the box to cover the processing
fees so that all of the $10 would go to helping provide people around the
world with healthy, freshly cooked vegan meals 🍛💕 According to their
donation page, $50 will feed 100 children, which means our $10 will help 20
children!
August's charity is
Vegan Outreach,
a nonprofit that helps veg-curious folks learn more about veganism and make a
smooth and easy transition to a more compassionate (and frankly more
delicious!) lifestyle. I hope you'll join me on
Twitch this
month and bring your friends! Let's make the world a better place together ❤️
Mika's Monthly...
In this section, I would like to share and recommend some things that made my
July awesome! I don't receive any compensation for promoting any of these;
they simply helped me get through the month happy and healthy 😄 I hope they
can do the same for you!
...Workout 💦 I've switched up my workout routine since the last time I
featured
Ring Fit Adventure
in a roundup post but it remains a staple! Right now I'm doing a Ring Fit
workout once a week as a supplement to my running. It's my main full-body
strength workout and even though I've been playing for years, since you can
turn up the difficulty as you get stronger, it continues to help me work up a
sweat!
...Vegan Victuals 🍫 I was so stoked when I found a
vegan recipe for my
FAVORITE dessert from school lunch! So stoked that I made it the very next
day! (As an aside, even though it's popular to rag on school lunch, for me, no
matter whether it was in California, Arizona, or Idaho, I always loved it!)
This recipe was extremely simple and I was able to sub corn puffs for most of
the corn flakes (because the corn puffs box was already open) and 1 tbsp cocoa
powder + 1 tbsp coconut oil for the dark chocolate (because we had the former
two and not the latter one). These treats, which in school were called peanut
butter candy, are dangerously easy to make and dangerously delicious 🤤 I
could eat a whole pan by myself!
JUST LOOK AT IT 🤤🤤🤤
...Book 📕 I finished another life-changing book in July,
The Courage to be Disliked, by Fumitake Koga and Ichiro Kishimi. It's
another one that requires an open mind and willingness to act, but I cannot
overstate how much and how positively it has affected me 🥰 Here's my review
from The StoryGraph:
First off, I can't help but be amused at the way so many other reviews
condemn this book for denying the existence of trauma (specifically, it
states that trauma doesn't exist in the same way the past doesn't exist)
because they're basically proving the book's point. Trauma is a delicious
buzzword these days and no one wants to be told that they can (have to) let
it go in order to move forward! I suffered severe abuse as a child and I
always thought of it as trauma, as an invisible scar that I can never be rid
of. After reading this book, I realize my memories of that abuse are not
scars, but baggage I've been lugging around all my life, making everything
else I want to do way more difficult than it needs to be. No more. I don't
have trauma. I have memories of abuse, the same as I have memories of
birthday parties and family road trips. Some memories are pleasant, some are
unpleasant, but none will ever again convince me to behave in a way contrary
to who I want to be NOW. I dropped the baggage, thanks to this book. If your
mind is open, it could help you do the same ❤️
Now, onto my main
review! I loved this book! I will recommend it to anyone who seems like it
would help. It was super easy to read and understand. The philosophy-style
dialogue made it easy to follow the ideas; whenever I started to feel lost
(or contrary) it was nice to have the Youth there to raise my objections for
me, which the Philosopher always quickly and gently laid to rest. The book
introduces new psychology concepts and terms, but also explains them simply,
so that I never had to jump onto Wikipedia or Google for help. The only
weakness is the awkwardness of the English translation. It's grammatically
correct without any typos, etc. but, as an intermediate student of Japanese,
I have a strong feeling it was translated too literally from the original.
But even with that shortcoming, the book stands strong and I'll be turning
back to it (and the multitudes of notes I took from it) whenever I need
reminders to strengthen me. I picked it up in the first place because its
title resonated fiercely with me. I'm pleased to report that I not only
learned how to find the courage to be disliked, but how to find the courage
to be happy and to be normal, to be deeply satisfied with the present
moment, because that's all we ever really have.
Here are a few of my favorite quotes:
It's as if you see the world through dark glasses, so naturally everything
seems dark. But if that is the case, instead of lamenting about the world's
darkness, you could just remove the glasses.
Adlerian psychology is a psychology of courage. Your unhappiness cannot be
blamed on your past or your environment. And it isn't that you lack
competence. You just lack courage.
If your life, or mine, for that matter, were to come to an end here and now,
it would not do to refer to either of them as unhappy. The life that ends at
the age of twenty and the life that ends at ninety are both complete lives,
and lives of happiness.
No matter what moments you are living, or if there are people who dislike
you, as long as you do not lose sight of the guiding star of "I contribute
to others," you will not lose your way, and you can do whatever you like.
Whether you're disliked or not, you pay it no mind and live free.
...Show 📺 Although I watched plenty of good shows in July, there's
only one I liked so much that I held a family party the next week so that I
could share it with my siblings:
The Super Mario Bros. Movie! It blew me away! I laughed out loud, I shrieked with joy, I was totally
captivated. Video game movie adaptations have no excuses anymore; this film
absolutely proves that it can be done right. The extras at the end suggested
the team was totally up for making a second one. I hope they do!
...Game 📱
Pokémon Sleep
came out in July and it was the keystone in the sleep hygiene bridge I've been
building for YEARS. As of this writing, I am now on day 28 of going to bed and
waking up on time. I have been trying to get to this point for SO. LONG. Never
in my adult life, and perhaps even my entire life, has my sleep been so
consistent and restorative. Thank you, Pokémon Sleep, for coming out the same
year that I set "go to bed on time" as my New Year's Goal 😭💕 If you're
interested in improving your sleep hygiene, or at least making sleep a more
fun activity, as long as you have a smartphone, you can play this game 😄 I
highly recommend it!
The
Plus+, which I love, makes Pokémon Sleep even better but it's not
required.
...Music 🎧 I finally received my physical copy of Metallica's new
album,
72 Seasons, in July! I think it took so long because I ordered the Japanese version.
(It was so unusual; the Japanese version was listed on Amazon US, sold by
Amazon.com, and somehow it was cheaper than the US version!) I listened to it
quite a bit throughout the month, both the files I ripped from my CD and via
Spotify. If you love Metallica (they're my favorite band) this album makes for
perfect energizing background music while you're working 🤘😆 My favorite song
is Lux Æterna!
New Section ‼️ Vegan Artist Tips: Brushes
I've been thinking about how else I could help more animals through my work.
As a vegan artist, I have learned a lot about the tools I use and how to
select items that didn't cause any animal suffering. I also have a lot of
answers to philosophical questions that I'd like to share, not to tell people
what to do, but to provide a reasonable option when the "right" answer is
murky. So, every month, I'll share some vegan artist tips 🥰🎨🖌️ I
hope this section is helpful and informative. If nothing else, may it show
everyone that we can make compassionate choices in our artmaking, too!
My theme this month is brushes. It came to mind because I still have a lot of
brushes that were made using animal hair and animal glue. While some folks
might have given or thrown away their animal brushes when they became vegan, I
think that's a waste. Giving away animal brushes that are still in good
condition and buying vegan brushes to replace them is contributing to carbon
emissions, energy use, etc. And of course, throwing away perfectly good animal
brushes is an insult to the memory of the animals who suffered in their
making. So I have kept all my animal brushes and I still use them. I take very
good care of them so they'll last as long as possible. When they are finally
worn out, that's when I'll replace them with vegan brushes 😊
How to Care for Brushes to Ensure Longevity
Wash your brushes as soon as you are done with them. I use a brush cleaner
mitt and vegan solid brush cleaner (pro tip: it doesn't matter if you use
art or makeup brush cleaner). Just wet the brush, swirl it around on the
solid cleaner, and then gently swipe it back and forth on the mitt. Rinse
and repeat until the water runs clear.
Reshape the bristles while the brush is still wet. Let them dry in the shape
you want and they'll be like new for next time!
Hang brushes to dry with the bristle-end down. Gravity will pull the
moisture down and out of the ferrule. This helps keep any glue used in
constructing the brush safe from water damage. If you can't hang your
brushes, lay them to dry horizontally.
Use scissors to trim any stray bristles. Sometimes the act of painting can
bend a bristle beyond repair. Instead of pulling it out (which might pull
more out, loosen the entire bundle, and make it likely that bristles will
start to fall out on their own) cut it off as close to the ferrule as
possible.
What Makes a Vegan Brush or Vegan Brush Cleaner?
The most obvious place animals show up in our brushes is the bristles, which
can be made from animals' hair. A less-known place animals are used is in the
glue that is used to bind the bristles together or to attach the ferrule to
the handle. Brush cleaners often don't openly list their ingredients so it's
really hard to tell what animal products might be in them, if they don't
explicitly say the product is vegan. Another troublesome question is whether
the cleaner or its ingredients were tested on animals. The good news is, all
you have to do is search online for "vegan paintbrush" or "vegan brush
cleaner" and you will be presented with lots of animal-friendly options! 😄✨
Other News: USWNT Send-off Match
In the first half of July, my husband and I traveled to San Jose, California
to enjoy the USWNT send-off match against Wales 🤩⚽ Our hope was to get to
see my two favorite players, Jess Fishlock and Megan Rapinoe, face off against
one another. That didn't happen (Fishlock didn't even play 😭) but we had a
great time anyway!
Can't be sure but I think I got Jess Fishlock in this photo!!
Team USA won this match!
USA was knocked out of the World Cup surprisingly early this time (well,
surprising based on past results, not based on our performance during this
tournament 😅) so that's kinda sad, but my memories of this match and the
little vacation we had (including eating at a bunch of delicious vegan
restaurants and shopping at otaku stores!) remain happy 💖
That's all for July's roundup, I hope you enjoyed it. Thank you for reading
all the way to the end! Until next time, may you stay happy, healthy, and
safe~!!
