It’s pretty and all, but I hate walking around in snow.  Plus, the traffic home tonight will be terrible.

The guys went as Mexican firefighters – Jos-A (José), Jos-B, and Jos-C.

I went as a pirate.  Reardon and Barbara (pictured above) went as Hall and Oates.

Soju having wine.

To my right is Ji-won, and my left was Courtney (aka Janis Joplin).

Jim Carey and Sara Palin.

(too bad it was blurry.)

One thing that kept me from truly enjoying the movie was one of my seat partners, an acquaintance of mine.  She’s not a bad person, just a terrible person to sit next to in a movie theater.   She’s one of those people that talks during a movie, which isn’t that bad by itself.  In addition to this, she was talking to the screen, laughing extremely loud when no one else in the theater was, throwing her hands up and gesturing when something frustrating or exciting happened, and felt the need to inform me about what was happening in the movie.  [Stage whisper] “Oh my god, did you see that?  He took all the ballerinas on his boat!  Hahaha!  That’s too funny…”  Ummm, of course I saw it.  Are we not sitting next to each other, staring at the same 60 foot screen?

In other news, I’m going to take the plunge and invest in a new lens.  I’ve been putting it off, saying, “Later.”  Well, later is now.  A friend casually hinted at me photographing his wedding in September, which kind of put me in a bit of a panic.  I don’t even have the correct lenses for a wedding, on top of it being a little stressful!  Even if I don’t end up shooting this wedding it’s about time I go big, or go home.  So, Michael said he’d go with me for some lens shopping, so that makes me feel better.  The lens quality I want will be in the $1000~$1300 range.  That’s a bit more than the cost of my Canon 400D itself, but I don’t see this photography thing being one of my phases.

Speaking of cameras, I loaded film for the first time in… at least 5 years!  I want to experiment with film again and bought a Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim from eBay to play with.  It’s a toy camera, so I’m just trying to have fun with it.  Here are example of shots people have taken with this unassuming camera.  The ones that are really saturated are cross-processed.  That’s something I also want to try, but first, I want to see how this regular roll of film will turn out.  I’m hoping to get lots of lens flare!  I’ll have lots of opportunities to practice, since next week looks to be sunny, sunny, sunny!

They didn’t have my favorite brand, but there was CJ kimchi.  It’s a big brand, so I figured I’d try it.  You know what really convinced me to buy it?  Look at the bottom of the package.

“CJ Kimchi, Luxury In Your Mouth“  I’ve always wondered what oral luxury tastes like.  My prayers have been answered!

I also picked up these king oyster mushrooms, which are in season now and cheap.  Two bags for 1500 won (~$1.50 USD).  They’re great pan fried with butter.  I also spotted Haitai ginger ale!  The taste was ok, but for 900 won, I’d sooner buy the familiar Canada Dry ginger ale.

Last but not least, there’s a new flavor of Yoplait yogurt: cream cheese & pineapple cheese.  As weird and unpleasant as pineapple cheese sounds, I wouldn’t mind trying one… but not four for 2700 won.  Maybe they’ll have individual ones at Family Mart sometime in the future.  If so, I’ll have a taste test.

You can see these photos and more in their larger sizes at Flickr.

This is Hank.  Ben was watching him for a friend.  Hank’s a cute and docile dog that liked to watch Ras as he was cutting up the pot roast.

Ben lives on top of a hill, right next to where the Suwon cherry blossom festival was happening.  We didn’t check out the trees during the day, but went out at night instead.  It was sometime around 1:30 am, but there were quite a few people out strolling with us.

After the party, Ras and I spent the night at Jenay’s place in Suwon.  The next morning, she made us a breakfast of pancakes, bacon, fresh fruit, a fruit shake, and coffee.  We’ve decided to unexpectedly crash at Jenay’s more often.

You can see the rest of the photos here.

Of course, this wasn’t what my badge really said.  It had my name and university on it.  Upon entering the doors, you immediately saw booths for the big boys: Nikon and Canon.  Most of the big vendors gave out bags with their logos on them, stuffed with brochures and catalogs for their products.  Some of them also gave away those “things” that dangle off your cell phone – nothing to get truly excited about.  Still, people were lining up for these bags as if they had free filters, photographic paper, or at least something useful.  To me, it seemed like a game to see who could collect the most junk.

As an prosumer photographer, I found the event to be just “okay.”  Upon entering, you could see what a male dominated hobby this was.  Not only did these men have cameras, they had CAMERAS.  They were big, long, and I had to constantly dodge these lenses as they neared my head.  So, the men were taking pictures while ALL the models were females draping over one thing or another.  This is not the beginning of a feminist rant.  I just found it boring taking these model’s pictures.  They were paid to look pretty, stand relatively still, and look in everyone’s direction at some point.  It’s much more interesting to get a good picture of someone being natural, laughing, or doing something unexpected.  In the beginning, I found that I was pushing into these male crowds to take pictures of these models too.  After awhile, I realized I was only taking their picture because everyone else was clamoring to take their pictures.  This is how I felt after awhile: bored.

What I really wanted to do at the show was try out some lenses, because I’m hoping to make a purchase within the next month.  Of course I can go to Seoul and try out used lenses, but I was hoping to play around with some there.  Bart told me that unlike here, you can try out all kinds of new lenses in Japanese camera shops.

I didn’t take many pictures, but you can view the rest of these photos here.