Well, I’m back from Apex Mountain and we all had a great time there snowboarding for New Years!

I can’t believe it is 2009 already. 2008 was a year full of ups and downs, surprises, excitement, and many happy moments.

In 2008 I…

… rang in the New Year’s at Disneyland, finishing up an amazing one-month-long surfing, snowboarding, and scuba diving road trip throughout the States to Portland, San Francisco, Tahoe, Death Valley, Mammoth Mountain, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Catalina Island, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, Salt Lake City, Snowbird Mountain, Idaho, Mission Ridge Mountain, and Washington…

… went snowboarding at Big White, Whistler, Cypress, Mt. Washington and Apex…

… parted ways with the first video game company I worked for… and moved to a new, dynamic video game company…

… took a three week trip to Costa Rica for some warm water surfing and travelling…

… went camping, partying, and surfing in Tofino dozens of times…

… caught some seriously large Halibut going deep ocean fishing…

… enjoyed grocery shopping at Granville Island every week…

… traveled to Korea for business…

… and Japan…

… started to learn to skate and play hockey…

… sold my Nikon D80 and got my grubby little hands on a new camera set up with the Nikon D90…

… started working on an HD snowboarding movie project…

… went to Trevor Linden’s retirement night…

… completed my AST-1 Avalanche Training course…

… went to Apex to finish 2008 and welcome 2009!

I couldn’t be happier with how this past year has gone. I feel like I’ve learned a lot, tried new activities, grown as a person, realized how wonderful my friends are, made some new friends, and saw lots of new places.

Plans for 2009:

• Take more photographs of people, improving my fashion and portrait photography
• Grab better, more steady footage for HD snowboarding movie project
• Travel somewhere warm
• Travel somewhere cold
• Keep apartment clean and tidy
• Cook even more
• Do something active at least once a day
• Not worry about what anyone thinks of me!
• Finally finish Gears of War 2 because I’ve been a complete slacker

Thank you to my friends, family, loved ones, and coworkers who have filled the past year with so many laughs, hugs, discussions, activities, and happy moments! I hope you all have an amazing 2009.

This will be the last of my posts on Korea, since I’m now in Tokyo

Okay, so it’s not really like the food market at Granville Island in Vancouver, but there are definitely similarities. The outdoor markets in Korea are really stunning. They’re full of life, the smell of delicious food, and all sorts of different snacks and wares.

People shout at you in Korean trying to get you to visit their stall. Everywhere you look there is colour and motion, and it was probably one of my most memorable experiences in Seoul so far.

A plant sitting on a table of the patio of a restaurant.

Asian pears! Delicious. The outdoor fruit stalls were really something else.

Anybody need any shoes? That’s a huge stack of shoes right there.

Persimmons were often sold still growing on the branch.

Mmmm… termites? I wouldn’t eat this myself, but that little fruit fly was sure interested.

Rice by the cup or bag was very popular.

Fruit trays were everywhere, and people were sampling and picking through them passionately. People are very intense about getting the best fruit possible to the point of destroying all the other fruit by digging through.

Make your own Kimono! Well, in Korea they call it “Han Bok”. Beautiful traditional dresses that are in a baby doll shape. Colour is very important in Korean culture, and everything from the temples to the traditional garb is very colourful. Han Bok dresses are often worn by the bride for Korean weddings or ceremonies/parties. These shops are everywhere, and they’ll make a girl a made to order Han Bok of any thread, fabric, and ribbon of your choosing.

These stalls are very common and popular, with batter poured into some oil. They smell and taste like donuts, and are really delicious. Sometimes they are sweet, and sometimes they more lunch snacks, with onions and meat inside.

In Korea, barber shop poles are the sign for a brothel, so you definitely don’t want to be tricked and think you’re going to get a hair cut. They are everywhere, which is actually really scary. People seem used to them, though.

Garbage is left on the street everywhere, so the city has a bit of a funny smell when it is hot outside. There are no huge garbage containers like in Vancouver or North America. It’s normal here though, and people don’t seem to mind.

This store is not a fan store. It just happens to have a lot of fans. LOL!