Single digits

Now we're in the single digits. Even the hours are flying by.

It's a very gray day here in Seoul. I actually didn't even realize it was Christmas Eve until sometime this afternoon. That's the way it is here, though. Not a lot of hype. But my good friend, Y, came over to visit, and then A dropped by with a gift for the baby. It's nice that friends have been coming around to see me. Yesterday, R and I spent the afternoon together shopping at Homeplus. I bought snacks for my hospital bag. Tomorrow, J and S are coming over. I sure have a lot of good friends around.

I finished the mittens I've been working on, but have been too tired to post pictures. Now I'm trying to think of what to make with the remainder of my Noro Silk Garden yarn.

Well, I'm going to watch Rudolf or something because I keep forgetting it's even Christmas!

Yarn therapy

Yarn shopping is one of my favourite things to do. It's so much fun to look at all the colours and textures and imagine what you could make out of them if you only had the time. It's especially fun when you haven't been in a while. I think the last time I bought yarn was in the spring when the vendors got the cotton out. That's a pretty good stretch of time without buying yarn, so I indulged a little today.

So Karen and I headed to Dongdaemun Shopping Town around 10 this morning when it was nice and quiet. We were both looking for baby yarn and we both managed to find some. Unfortunately we both don't know the sex of our babies yet, so I ended up buying yellow, and she bought green. I also bought some which may or may not go to making baby stuff.

Here's the yellow stuff. Just standard baby yarn.

This says baby alpaca, and I'm thinking it'll make a nice scarf and hat set for me, plus a baby cardigan or something.

Finally, just when we were going to leave the building, I spied this Noro Silk Garden yarn, which I had to get. Noro has to be one of the most popular yarns out there and I've heard so much about it, but I've never tried it. I didn't know it was available in Dongdaemun, and I assumed that if it was, it would be too expensive. To my surprise, the man only charged me $65 for the bag of 10 balls, which I think is a pretty good deal. Kind of hurts to shell out that kind of cash all at once, but when you break it down to the per ball cost, it's really not bad at all. I tried knitting up a swatch with it and I can see why people like it. Because of the silk content, it slips very nice over the bamboo needles and the colourway is so gradual and vivid. So it was a great trip. Karen and I then had lunch at one of my favourite restaurants, Himalaya, near Dongmyo Station. It was delicious and we had a nice talk about babies and childcare. Got some good book and product recommendations.

All in all, it was a good Korea day. Living here is full of ups and downs sometimes. Today all the vendors were very friendly -- I got a few discounts which rarely happens in Shopping Town, some free needles, and a free pattern magazine. Then on the subway home an old man offered his seat to me, which was really weird because often the young people don't even do that. Plus, the weather was fantastic (for me, anyway). It was very cool and overcast. I even got some work done tonight.