I haven't posted an entry here in awhile as I've been caught up creating content elsewhere (i.e mostly Youtube, and also my painting pad), but as a new year approaches, I wanted to take some time to reflect back on the year 2019. While many memorable events took place during the last 352 days, 2019 was a year of spiritual growth for me.
I recall ending 2018 on an amazing note. I'd booked my flight to Korea which is my favourite country, and I was most looking forward to our second time there as we were also planning to take our pre-wedding photos in Seoul. I've always been a 'if you fail to plan, you plan to fail' kinda girl, but as life always do, things did not go entirely as planned. Two months just before our trip, I got more and more desperate to end the 'struggle' with my skin which ended up in more breakouts, of course. Looking back now it is so clear to me that I was simply out of alignment with reality. My skin wasn't even bad but because I only focused on the breakouts, it made things look worse than they actually were. As the long-awaited trip drew nearer, I got more and more frustrated, angry, and upset with myself. In Korea, my sub-consciousness was constantly insecure, and physically, I was uncomfortable for most parts of my trip because of my sensitized and irritated skin. I was living an overly paranoid life and hated myself for months, until I started actively following Olena from
olenabeley.com.
Olena's Youtube video appeared in my Youtube feed back in February 2019. While I started following her solely for the sake of her skincare advises, I was soon more intrigued with her advise to self-love. At that point of time, I was exhausted from all the hate I have for myself, I was so exhausted from all the noise, fear, judgement, and insecurity. But I didn't know how to stop those feelings and thoughts. Heck, I didn't know I could. 'Love yourself' was such a blurry concept to me, but through Olena's
Instagram lives and DMs, and the
books she recommended, I started having a clearer understanding of self-love and spirituality. If you were to simply say the word 'spirituality' to me a year ago, I would think that it must have something to do with voodoo dolls and witchcraft, and if someone's suddenly 'becoming spiritual', they must have had some sort of enlightenment where a bright light has shone upon them and they either saw God, or some of his angels....... Therefore, I completely understand if some of you still thinks that way, even though it has nothing to do with that, and personally, it wasn't such a dramatic experience.
My journey to becoming more spiritual and at peace with myself is rather slow-paced. Basically, the more I read, the more I learn, and the better I get at my practices... And I read pretty slow. Nevertheless, I believe this pace is most suitable for me at this moment as forcing myself to pick up the books even when I don’t feel like it will only result in an unenjoyable experience. Instead of enjoying my time reading and fully absorbing all the information presented to me, it will only end up making me feel as though 'I must read in order to feel good about myself'. Through this journey, I have learnt many things that have greatly transformed my life in a positive way. It will be too much to list everything down, but I do want to highlight two of them here.
First, I've learnt how to love myself. I went from feeling 'less than others' because of my appearance, my capabilities, my talents, my career, desperate, trying to get out of my 'struggle with acne', scared that I will never have clear skin again or I'd be covered in acne scars, fear that everyone is always judging me based on my skin or is staring at my skin, identifying my skin with 'who I am', hating myself... To loving myself. Through loving myself, I've not only begun loving my skin, but I have also started making better skincare and lifestyle choices
out of love instead of fear. Such as avoiding harsh and toxic skincare ingredients, going to bed earlier, eat lesser junk, and spending more time with, and
for myself. I start to see that we're all meant to be different. There's room for everyone to be beautiful, to be successful, to have everything we want, and to shine in our own light. There's no need to ever compare, get jealous, or compete.
A tulip doesn’t strive to impress anyone. It doesn’t struggle to be different than a rose. It doesn’t have to. It is different. And there’s room in the garden for every flower. - Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love.
Power over others is weakness disguised as strength. - Eckhart Tolle, The Power Of Now.
I stopped putting myself down and being hard on myself which was something I did often but wasn't even aware of, and I am no longer ashamed by how my skin looks, as I've learnt the simple fact that
I'm not my skin. Nor am I anything in the outside world.
The most common ego identifications have to do with possessions, the work you do, social status and recognition, knowledge and education, physical appearance, special abilities, relationships, personal and family history, belief systems, and often also political, nationalistic, racial, religious, and other collective identifications. None of these is you. - Michael A Singer, The Untethered Soul.
Second, I've learnt how to let go. A year ago, if you ask me, I would rather die than admit that I was hurt from the
fallout with my friends back in 2017. Back when it just happened, I was advised to 'let it go' by not bringing it up again as doing so would mean that I am acknowledging that they are not worth my time, and this was supposedly a sign of being strong. I believed in that for a very long time until I learnt the true meaning of strength, and the true purpose of letting things go. "
Darkness cannot survive in the presence of light."
Darkness is brought into light, and not the other way round. According to the Course, “No one can escape from illusions unless he looks at them, for not looking is the way they are protected.”
In order to truly let go of something, "
first, you must be aware that there is something within you that needs to be released"
. This is the point where the ego will tell you that admitting and acknowledging you're hurt is a sign of weakness, and how embarrassing would that be, caring for people who doesn't feel the same way about you. But in reality, how many of us are actually strong enough to put our prides down and admit that we are hurt, that we are vulnerable, that things do bother us deeply? I loved and cherished my friends, which was why I got hurt. I felt wronged because I didn't do anything. But now that I understand that we are responsible for everything we experience, I remain at peace knowing that I am not responsible for anyone's behavior or reaction, and they are not responsible for mine either. I felt betrayed because I didn't understand why most of them didn't speak up for me, but now I see that they were fearful and weak (and I'm not saying this in a condescending way, everyone have their fears and weaknesses, of course myself included as I was also too weak to admit I was emotionally affected). It's never easy to let go of a long-term relationship, even if it no longer serves you. But now that 2 years have passed, I can see clearly now that the relationship ended for the better. Through this friendship, I have gained more than I've lost. In fact, I've never lost anything.
Relationships are eternal. The 'separation' is another chapter in the relationship. Often, letting go of the old form of the relationship becomes a lesson in pure love much deeper than any would have learned had the couple stayed together. - Marrianne Williamson, A Return To Love.
For other highlights of 2019 worth mentioning, in 2019...
We experienced many 'first time's as a couple! Starting with our Korea trip, as I've briefly mentioned earlier on, we took our
pre-wedding photoshoot (
vlog 1 |
2 |
3) in Korea! What a dream to be able to take my pre-wedding photos in my favourite country. For an introvert, the thought of needing to pose in front of a group of strangers was quite nerve-wrecking. However, I'm really thankful for the team at Wonkyu Studio, and especially our translator Ruolin who took great care of us.
We went to
Busan for the first time and did many touristy stuff such as wandering around
Haeundae beach, and watching the light show at Gwangalli Bridge. Busan is definitely a city I would love to visit again as the shopping is almost as amazing as Seoul's (majority of my
fashion haul is from Busan, but Seoul has The Ordinary so that's that), but there are lesser crowds and tourists which makes the environment more slow-paced and laid back.
In Seoul, we went to
Lotte World, wore Korean school uniforms, saw North Korea from afar at the
DMZ, took a 2 hours bus ride to attend a concert together at Gwangju, which leads me to the next highlight of 2019 which is... I, or we, met BTS.
I became a fan in 2018 when Fake Love was released, and because they were already crazy popular and famous, I never thought that I would one day have the chance to meet them... But I did... Twice!! I've published my experiences on this blog, so if you need a recap, the first time is when they were here for the
Love Yourself tour (
vlog), and the second time is during the
SBS Super Concert 2019 (
vlog) in Gwangju. It still feels like a dream to be able to watch them perform especially during the concert in Korea. That was the first time the both of us attended a concert together and we also saw many other celebrities like TWICE (who is also one of my favourite girl groups), TXT, etc.
Despite this year's Korea trip being less enjoyable than the previous one back in 2017, the both of us are always happy to add another huge block of precious memory to our memory bank. During almost every trip we take together, there will definitely be times where we'll fight and argue, and also momentarily hate each other. But at the same time, every disagreement is an opportunity for us to not only understand the other party better, but ourselves as well. Through the imperfections in our relationship, we learn how to make it perfect.
For my solo highlights, in 2019...
I hiked up a mountain (it would be 'we', but that's not his first time...). During our Taipei trip, we went
hiking at Mt. Qixing. It was rainy, cloudy, windy, and honestly quite scary for a coward like myself. In spite of that, the mountain was actually a pretty easy hike. You might think it's easy for me to say it since I did it, but there were elementary kids hiking the mountain as an excursion so...
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The highlight of this hike wasn't reaching the peak actually since the view wasn't as breathtaking as I was expecting, instead it was my encounter with a wild snake near the peak. I sprinted all the way to the top after, haha!
I went for new fitness classes! As you may know, I've gotten myself a gym membership in 2018 and since then, fitness has become a huge part of my life. While I still enjoy going to my usual gym classes and completing my usual gym routine, it's always good to push yourself to try new workout routines. Towards the end of the year, I joined the
ClassPass trial with my friend Joy, and through that we got to try Barry's Bootcamp, spin classes at Ground Zero and Absolute You, rebounding classes and interval classes at one of my favourite studios, BeatX Studio! I had so much fun during all the classes and I'm so happy to be able to do them all whilst spending time with Joy!
I completely changed my views and opinions on skincare. As someone who used to have normal, oily skin, I did not need to pay special attention to my skincare products or routine. Back then, every single product that were sent to me 'worked', which was also defined as, 'as long as it didn't break me out after 2 weeks'. But after experiencing that entire episode with my skin, I decide to not only start taking real care of my skin, but also take more responsibility for the things I say in my
reviews by reading up on skincare, being well-prepared before I film, and also reminding myself that my videos are made to help others either to avoid my situation or to help them solve their skin troubles. This change in how I proceed with my reviews have definitely changed my channel's growth and audience, and I am forever thankful for those who trust me, support me, and leave me positive and sweet comments.
What we bless in others, we draw to us.
Finally, I started drawing and
painting as a mean to start doing what I love again. It has always been clear to me (and I suppose to everyone else as well), that my right brain is much more dominant, and so it doesn't matter what the end results look like because,
the highest prize we can receive for creative work is the joy of being creative. It hasn't been long since I've started but it is definitely one of the best decisions I've made for myself. Painting feels very much like meditating to me. It puts me in the present moment, and it quiets my mind, except, it satisfies the needs of my right brain at the same time.
Even though my mental health wasn't the best during the first half of 2019, I am grateful for everything that has happened. Through the downs I've faced, I have learnt to see the bigger picture. Everything that causes a disturbance in me is an opportunity for spiritual growth, and with every downs I get through, I become more at peace. Therefore in 2020, I strive to focus more deeply on myself and to continue growing spiritually. As I continue surrendering my life to God's plan, I believe everything will fall in place... And hopefully I will get to see BTS again.
You realize and accept that life is not under your control. Life is continuously changing, and if you’re trying to control it, you’ll never be able to fully live it. Instead of living life, you’ll be afraid of life. - Michael A Singer, The Untethered Soul.
Labels: lifestyle
BT21 merchandises can be found at all Line Friends store, which is pretty much everywhere around Seoul. The first Line Friends store I visited during my most recent Korea trip was the one at Ewha University and it was magical. Even though BT21 isn't the main characters of Line Friends, they take up at least 70% of the store. From plushies to displays, to stationery, to electronic, to accessories, to clothes... It's like entering a BT21 heaven.
I probably visited every single Line Friends store whenever I come across one. I was actually looking for a TATA pop socket which was unfortunately out of stock in every single outlet I went. Above are photos taken from the Ewha University outlet located in the El Cube Lotte building, and the few photos below were taken at the Garosugil outlet which is actually a flagship store with one level dedicated entirely to BT21's merchandise.
But as you can tell from the title of this post, today, I wanna talk about the biggest Line Friends store in Seoul... The Line Friends Itaewon Flagship store. If you're too busy to go into every Line Friends store, just make time for the one at Itaewon because it's a must go if you're a BTS ARMY! Out of all the Line Friends store in Seoul, only at the outlets in Hongdae and Itaewon will you be able to find the BT21 cafe which serves BT21 themed food and drinks. The second floor of the Itaewon outlet is dedicated entirely to BT21 and the top floor is the BT21 cafe.
As you can see from the photos, the Itaewon outlet is massive, and surprisingly empty even though we visited at around 6PM. I found many new merchandises that weren't available in the smaller outlets, especially the clothing items.
Around the store, you'll be able to find cute displays such the ones below, it's almost like a BT21 museum!
Heading up to the BT21 cafe, I didn't get anything from the cafe since we were heading somewhere else for dinner, but if you're curious to know, the cafe was pretty much empty too and the prices were pretty average too.
The cafe is where the BTS members gathered to create the BT21 characters for the first time and there's also this huge Van display that is signed by all the members! There are also displays of the original sketches done by the members at the third floor which was so cool to see!
Even though I was exhausted and ultimately did not purchase anything, I had a blast at the flagship store! It honestly felt like a museum and so I highly recommend every BTS ARMY to pay this place a visit even if you're not planning on spending money there!
Labels: BTS, korea, lifestyle, travel
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