Travel

Top 10 Things I’ll Miss About Korea

Well, friends, we are down to just three days left in Korea. Three. Days. In honor of our time here I thought I’d make a Top 10 list of things I’ll miss about Korea. Of course, I’ll miss more than this – I’ll miss my cute students and random people telling me I’m beautiful all the time, and maybe even (occasionally) CoT, but this is my top 10 list of things I really enjoy about Korea.

Mountains everywhere you look. I grew up in Louisiana which is so flat that parts of it are actually below sea level. Then I spent 5 years in the Chicago area – also completely flat. When we moved to Raleigh in 2011 I was delighted by the slight roll the land, but it’s nothing compared with the legitimate mountains that surround Daegu completely and are present anywhere you go in Korea. They’re not Rocky Mountains or Himalayas, but they are still little bits of beauty poking over the city rooftops and I love them.
Excellent Public Transportation. While I sometimes miss the directness of hopping in my car and going exactly where I want to go, I have to admit that buses and subways in Korea are cheap, easy to use, and go anywhere you want if you can stick with it through the lurching, sometimes crowded bus rides. Taxis are also abundant and very cheap making life without a car completely doable. It takes longer to get where you’re going without a car, but I enjoy not having to deal with traffic or pay for car insurance and maintenance.
Photo Credit: http://thegrandnarrative.com
Skincare and Makeup. Korea is famous for their advanced skin care and makeup products. I’ve become something of a makeup junkie in the last year and have enjoyed trying out lots of Korean products which are generally very affordable. Additionally, my skin is probably the best it has been in my entire life over the past few months so I’m really trying to squeeze backups of my favorite skin care products into our suitcase to take back with me!
Cheap Healthcare. I’ve had mixed experiences with the quality of healthcare in Korea, mainly just the running of unnecessary tests and tendency to over-medicate, but I can’t complain about how incredibly cheap it is (Average doctor’s visit is $3 – $4. Average prescription $4 – $5). I went to the dentist for a cleaning – $14. I went back to have a small cavity filled and while the price for this was comparable to what it would be in the states, it was 15 minutes between the time I walked in and the time I left. Of course, Korea is quite bad about things like basic hygiene which is why I was forced to share an ear thermometer with all the teachers at my school during the MERS outbreak when we had to record our temperature every day. As I predicted to my CoTeacher, this resulted in me getting an ear infection. But, again, the good news is that even though I had to go to the dr every day for a week to have it cleaned out, it only cost me about $15 or $20 total.
Mandu, Bulgogi, Galbi, Tofu Jigae. These are some of my favorite Korean foods. While I don’t like all Korean foods, the ones I like, I REALLY like and I know I’ll miss them. It may take a while, but I will miss them eventually.

mandu

bulgogi

galbi with banchan

jigae
Norebang.The word “norebang” is Korean for “song room” and these are basically like private karaoke rooms. These are wildly popular as an activity to do with your friends or with your business colleagues after a night of hard drinking (also popular). I sing constantly, but I have no talent for it. Nevertheless, I love those dark rooms with the disco lights and that mike in my hands.
Couples Outfits. Sadly, I never got Jonathan to join in this popular trend of Korean couples dressing in matching clothing. I did manage to get us a set of couples underwear last Christmas and while I can’t get Jonathan to wear them, it makes me happy that we have them!
Photo credit: http://fashionmagazine.com
Feeling Safe Always. Korea is a very safe country with very low rates of violent crime. I have never once felt threatened to walk home late at night in our dimly lit streets or even to go running alone after dark. While I get a lot of attention here for my blond hair and blue eyes, and the staring can be annoying, I’ve never felt threatened by it in the way that I have often felt threatened by (particularly male) attention in America. I’ve never worried about locking anything here or leaving my laptop on the table in the coffee shop while I go pick up my order. During my years in Korea the safety in my own country has decreased dramatically and I am not looking forward to going back to that constant awareness of myself and who is around me and whether my car door is locked and whether that package looks suspicious.
Service! Service is basically when a store or restaurant gives you free things to thank you for coming. It’s the best and it’s very, very common. Free drinks or desserts at restaurants (or occasionally an appetizer), free samples at beauty stores (and not like one or two foil packets, like whole free bottles of things, sheet masks, makeup samples, etc), or even super random things like socks or instant coffee.
All the free stuff!
Friends, Korean and Foreign. We’ve made some good friends during our time here, both Koreans and other native teachers like us. It’s strange to leave somewhere and really not know for sure if or when you’ll see these people again. We are so thankful for the friendships we’ve made here and I really do hope to stay in touch with many of the friends we’ve made and to see some of them again someday, in America, in Korea, or somewhere else in the world.

May

Su Yeon

Josh, Laura, and Genevieve

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #31: Daegu Tower and the Korean Countryside

This past week has been jam-packed with activities. Not only have we been busy packing, selling furniture, running summer camps, and making arrangements for our move, we’ve also been doing our best to have lots of Korean adventures. Our friends Josh and Laura have a friend of theirs visiting from the US which has given us extra opportunities to do more touristy things, like finally going to the top of the Daegu Tower.

Most of the bigger cities in Korea have a tower with an observatory at the top for seeing the city. Seoul has Namsan Tower and Busan has Busan Tower, etc.. Daegu Tower (technically I think it’s name is the Woobang Tower or 83 Tower) is supposedly the tallest one in Korea structure-wise, but since the one in Seoul is on top of a mountain, it’s much higher elevation-wise. Daegu Tower is located in/behind an amusement park called Eworld. It’s one of the places we’ve always said we should go sometimes and have just never gotten around to, so we were excited to check it off our list.

Picture comparing the size of different towers. I don’t think these are to scale…

It looks so different from above!

One of our Korean friends who we used to see regularly at our house church recently moved out of Daegu and into a smaller rural town. She invited us to visit her there and we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to see her one last time and also to enjoy the Korean countryside which is quite beautiful. The drive 1 1/2 hour drive to her town was so beautiful and peaceful – a completely different side of Korea from the one we experience in every day life.

As part of our visit, she took us to a national park in which is home to a famous temple. While it’s been unmercifully hot and humid here, we did most of our walking around in the late afternoon and early evening which made the heat a little more bearable and made for some spectacular lighting.

This particular temple (Haeinsa Temple) is important because it houses many of the original Korean printing blocks that were made over a thousand years ago. Korea was the first country to use printing presses, hundreds of years before Gutenberg came along. The printing blocks are stored in buildings that use ancient technologies for keeping them dry and protecting from heat and cold.

Although the traffic jam on the way home made our return bus ride a lot longer than our trip there, it was completely worth it to get to spend some time in the country, to see one last temple, and to say goodbye to our friend.

We are 10 days from our return to America and I don’t think my heart could be any more full of longing – longing for home and at the same time longing for all of this to never end.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about checking out the Daegu Chicken and Beer Festival you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 29: Saying Goodbye to Seoul

On Saturday we took the train to Seoul for a short final visit before we leave Korea, possibly forever. I love big cities in the summer. Maybe it’s because we’ve just happened to visit a lot of big cities in the summer time, but there’s I’ve always enjoyed the energy of city life in the summer when it seems like there are festivals and concerts and people in the parks everywhere you go. Jonathan and I both feel like we’ll miss life in a city when we get back to America. While our city (Daegu) is small compared to Seoul, it would be considered a large city in the US with a population of 2.5 million. We are excited for the open spaces of America, but at the same time, we realize how much we’ve come to enjoy life in our city.

Our time in Seoul was short, but we had a few priorities – visit the stream that runs through the center of the city, eat yummy foods, shop for Korean souvenirs to bring home with us (we never bought these while we were living here, but now that we’re leaving we want some things to put in our home to remember it by), and check out one of the parks by the river which is one of the things we’ve always meant to do in Seoul and never gotten around to. Check, check, check and check.

The great admiral Yi Sun Shin. I think this statue is pretty awesome. Every time I see it I think, “Let’s get down to business…to defeat…the Huns!” I know, I know. Totally wrong country, But still.

Fun fact – Koreans like to take tents with them when they go out for the day. It’s not unusual to find a big open area strewn with tents from people who are just there to hang out for the afternoon.

And with that we said good-bye to Seoul, possibly for the very last time. Though I suppose that no one knows really knows the future. Just a few years ago I never would have predicted I’d live in Korea. So perhaps we’ll meet again someday.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our hike at Palgongsan you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #28: Hiking Palgongsan, Featuring Lawrence the Slug

One thing we love about Korea is the mountains. I grew up in Louisiana which is so flat, part of it is actually below sea level, and hubby grew up in Indiana, which is possible even flatter. When we lived in North Carolina we loved that the land had a roll to it with lots of small hills and there were real mountains within an hour’s drive or so. Here in Daegu, we live in a geographic bowl surrounded on all sides by mountains. You can see them any direction you look and you can hike most of them. When we move back to the US we’ll be in South Carolina which might have a few hills, but doesn’t have mountains, and I know we will really miss seeing them every day.

On Saturday we went hiking at Palgongsan which is the tallest mountain in the Daegu area. We’ve only hiked to the summit once since it takes a solid 4 hours to do, but thankfully there are lots of smaller ridges and peaks you can hike to more easily and still get a nice view.

The view from the highest place we climbed to.

We decided to go on Saturday because it had rained during the week and was supposed to rain again on Sunday so we wanted to take advantage of our window of opportunity. What we didn’t realize was that all of that rain made it unbearably humid and sweat was dripping from our fingers and elbows and noses within minutes.

Apart from the heat and humidity, the hike we did wasn’t too strenuous and there were some temples and shrines along the way that we could stop at.

We took my parents to this temple when they visited last year and at the time it was decorated with lanterns for Buddha’s birthday.

The ubiquitous rock pile.

A jillion tiny Buddhas! Dreams do come true!

We originally intended to continue on across a ridge to get to another peak, but as we headed that direction it started to thunder. Thunderstorms are extremely unusual here (at least down in the city) so we figured we should probably get off the mountain before it hit.

We did get to see this amazing slug that was half the size of my hand. I shall call him Lawrence.

Since we only have four weekends left in Korea, this was probably our last time hiking at Palgongsan. Like everything these days, this was bittersweet. While I’ve moved many times in the past few years, this is the first time I’ll be moving away truly not knowing if I will ever come back to these places again. So while part of me is counting down the days, another part of me doesn’t quite know how to say goodbye. I am so thankful for the adventures we’ve had here, even as I look forward to the adventures to come.

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure about our visit to the cat cafe, you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 22 : Tokyo Streets and Eats

Our second day in Tokyo was packed with great activities. After our morning coffee boost we headed to the observatory of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building. This is a free observatory, which is really cool. It’s only 45 floors up, but still high enough to get a pretty good view. It was a little too hazy to see Mt. Fuji in the distance, but we were assured that it was there.

From the observatory we went to Yoyogi Park. We could see the park from the observatory and it looked like a big wooded area, but it was hard to tell what it would be like on the ground. When we got there we found a wide dirt road between giant stands of trees. It was very peaceful and quiet even though there were lots of people there.

Inside of the park is the Meiji Shrine which supposedly houses the souls of Emperor Meiji and his consort Empress Shoken.

We weren’t really supposed to take pictures of the shrine since it is sacred, but this is sort of the side of the shrine. Plus, hubster became obsessed with this tree which he felt was the “most symmetrical tree in the world.”

On our way out of the park we found these displays with barrels of wine and casks of sake. Apparently these are donated every year from the wine and sake brewers to thank the emperor and empress for blessing their production.

Barrels of sake donated to the shrine.

When we left the park we found ourselves in the Harajuku district, an area know as a popular youth hangout. This is an especially good area to see the young people who like to wear anime-esque costumes and there are many shops that sells those kinds of clothes. I don’t know a lot about this particular subculture, but in Japan it is fairly common to see people (especially girls) dressed in these costume-like clothes trying to emulate favorite characters. We saw some girls in pretty amazing outfits, but weren’t really comfortable chasing them down with a camera since they are just regular people going about their regular lives.

I made a pretty important purchase in Harajuku. Hubster did not understand why I had to have this shirt and was reluctant to let my buy it, but I finally convinced him that I needed it in my life and promised to wear it every day. In fact, I put it on immediately.

Belle has a sleeve of tattoos and glasses and is wearing a Bazinga shirt. What’s not to like?

In this area there were tons of crepe and soft-serve ice cream shops, but we were intrigued by a store that sold homemade chips and soft-serve. Like together. You could get them with chocolate drizzled on top or you could get the chips in a variety of flavors. I went with regular potato chips and plain vanilla soft-serve. Since I’m a huge fan of salty sweet combinations (I would sell my firstborn for anything salted caramel), I really liked this. Kind of like dipping your french fry in your frosty.

After shopping and snacks we decided to visit the Shinjuku Gyeon National Garden. By this point in the day we had already done a ton of walking. We walked around the garden for a while and then found a bench to sit on and do a bit of reading. I liked that these gardens were so beautiful and well-maintained, but they were intended for people to really use, so there were people with blankets all over the place relaxing and enjoying the day.

After relaxing for a while we decided to head back to the area around our hostel and look for dinner. I really wanted some sushi (because, Tokyo, duh) but we needed to find an ATM first. For some reason, we had the hardest time finding an ATM in Tokyo that would take my card. I’ve never had this problem before, but we tried 7 or 8 ATMs and none of them would work with either my Korean or American cards. I have no idea why, but the only ATM we could get to work was CitiBank. Just an FYI for anyone traveling there.

We went to a tiny conveyor-belt sushi restaurant where you paid per plate (plates were different prices depending on what fish they used). I love sushi so eating it in Japan was high on my list, but I have to admit that I still enjoy the westernized versions with all the fancy ingredients a little more than the real thing, which is usually just a piece of fish lying on top of a little rice mount, possibly with some wasabi. 😉 Jonathan is not a big fish eater, so he mostly watched and afterwards we went to a kebab place where he got a kebab. (Side note: there are Turkish people running kebab stores absolutely everywhere in the world. Random, but I’m not complaining as I love that stuff).

We took a few pictures in the area around our hostel while we were trying to find a bank/go to dinner.

Of course, we needed to finish trying out the local snack varieties, so we picked up a few of those from the 7-11 and continued our assessment.

In case you are wondering, these are little chocolates filled with a vanilla flavored nougat and also pop rocks. Yes, pop rocks. As in they fizz and crackle in your mouth. It was quite the surprise.

These were intense. A little too intense for me. But if you really, really love wasabi they’d be great.

Our hostel had the smallest room I’ve ever seen – we could hardly both stand in it at the same time – but of course, that didn’t matter much since we spent most of our time out and about. But one good thing about our little room is that there was a huge window that looked out right on the river so we could see sights like this at night.

I have no idea what that weird scultpture thing is...we called it the rutabaga the whole time we were there.

I have no idea what that weird sculpture thing is…we called it the rutabaga the whole time we were there.

All in all it was a fantastic adventure and we’re so glad we took the opportunity to take in Tokyo before leaving Asia. Who knows, maybe we will end up back here someday!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure (also about Tokyo) you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

What I’m Into: May 2015 Edition

Have you ever noticed that the moments you are most enjoying your life are always the ones that seem to got the fastest? Since the weather warmed up and the world turned green and we had some long weekends to travel life has been pretty enjoyable this month and it’s also flown by. We are about 2 1/2 months from leaving Korea and as excited as I am to go home, I sort of wish I could make time stand still. Life here is comfortable and there is so much unknown ahead.

I am linking up with the lovely Leigh Kramer for this little reflection on what I’ve been into in May.

What I’m Reading:

Since I took two trips this month I had lots of plane/train/waiting room time for reading. I read 8 books so I won’t go into too much detail on each one.

The Grisha Trilogy by Leigh Bardugo. This is a YA fantasy trilogy that I devoured. I thought it was great. Highly recommend for those who enjoy slightly lighter fantasies.

Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin. I’ve never read Rubin’s first book on happiness (The Happiness Project) so I can’t compare it, but this book was only all right for me. It was mostly her making a lot of resolutions which mostly made me feel tired and stressed rather than empowered. Maybe that’s just me.

Searching for Sunday by Rachel Held Evans. I wrote a full review on this here, but the short version is that I loved it and it’s had a huge impact on me as I look towards moving back to America and thinking about church.

Story Story: How I Found Ways to Make a Difference and Do Work I Love by Kola Olaosebikan. Kola recounts her winding path through the corporate world and then out of it as she searches for meaningful work. I could certainly relate to her winding path and appreciated how she addressed the practical issue of finances, something a lot of “I quit my job!” people never explain. I wish she’d explained more at the end about what she’s doing now, but this was a very quick read that reminded me I’m not alone in what feels like floundering about trying to find meaningful work. (As full disclosure, I was sent this book for free from the author).

Learning to Walk in the Dark by Barbara Brown Taylor. To be honest, this one wasn’t my favorite. It just felt a little more rambling than her other books, less focused and less insightful. I did appreciate the idea that darkness isn’t always sinister and that we shouldn’t expend so much energy trying to avoid hard emotions and instead let ourselves feel them.

The Middle Place by Kelly Corrigan. (Crossed this one off my “sitting on my kindle” list!) I really liked this memoir which is about being in the middle place between being a child and being a parent. Corrigan, a mother of 2, is diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 36. As she goes through treatment, she relies heavily on her father who has always made her feel like the most important person in the world. When her father is diagnosed with cancer himself a few months after she is, Corrigan must deal with what it means to move from being the cared-for child to being the caretaker, for her children, for herself, and for her father. It’s a very moving book.

What I’m Watching:

Television we keep up with: Brooklyn Nine-Nine, new season of Community, and New Girl. Still watching The Good Wife, the occasional Friends or Bob’s Burgers and Graceland which just became available on Netflix. We finished Fresh Off the Boat, a big hit for us.

Last night I saw Pitch Perfect 2. The story was pretty generic and I didn’t find it nearly as funny as the first one, but the music was great! I watched two movies on airplanes, Still Alice (really good, but so sad) and Song One (also kind of sad). It was good, but nothing spectacular.

What I’m Eating:

Finally kicked it into gear and have been eating really well (aside from my travels). I started eating these banana pancakes most mornings that are literally just two eggs and a mashed banana. They are surprisingly delightful – they taste like banana french toast with just a slightly chewier texture.

I also tried a lot of Taiwanese and Japanese snack varietals while traveling, mostly with great success.

Follow me on Pinterest for more of what I’m cooking.

On the Internets:

Loved this Open Letter to the Church from Non-Mothers that came out around Mother’s Day.

And this from Sarah Bessey, “Why Not Let a Woman Preach.”

This list of 13 Things to Remember if You Love a Person with Anxiety because it is SPOT ON.

This post on God’s intense love for the Cosmos is beautiful.

Really really loved this post from one of my faves (Jamie, the very worst missionary) about prayer and remembering its purpose.

And this clip of Amy Schumer on Ellen which made me laugh so hard even on the 3rd viewing.

On the Blog:

This month I got to write two guest posts for friend. This one on Sacred Spaces and this one on Rituals. I also got to host a bunch of guest posts in my Thankful Thursday series from writers Rox, Jackie, Karissa, and Melchee

I continued my 52 Weeks of Adventure with our trip to Taiwan (parts 1 and 2), seeing an original musical, and going to Tokyo’s famous Robot Restaurant.

I wrote about what’s on my kindle, reviewed Searching for Sunday, and made a list of summer reading suggestions.

My most-viewed post this month was Karissa’s “I’m Thankful for my Body” guest post, followed by my post about living life in the in-between.

If you just can’t get enough of me, you can like my Facebook page, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram for more things I’m into.

Beauty Bits:

After much contemplation I sprang for the Urban Decay Naked eye shadow palette (the original one). This is my first high(er) end eye shadow palette and let me just tell you, it really is that much better than anything I’ve ever tried. I didn’t know eye shadow could be so creamy. It’s like my eyelids are covered with baby unicorn magic dust. For realz.

What I’ve Been Up To:

Ugh. Trying to find a job. Job searching is the worst, but it’s especially unpleasant when you’re doing it from another country. Other than that, we’ve been trying to enjoy our favorite things about Korea as much as possible – going to favorite restaurants, taking walks, runs, and hikes, and hanging out with our friends.

As I mentioned before, we traveled to Taiwan and Tokyo this month which was bittersweet since those were our last trips before returning home. We’ve come to love traveling so much that it’s hard to think about going back to a life where international travel isn’t easy.

I’ve been on the ball about taking care of various tasks we need to do while still in Korea. For example, we went to the dentist last week even though that is my least favorite thing in the whole world. I think that is what you call “responsible,” thank you very much.

Also, I got this shirt in Tokyo (much to hubster’s chagrin) and I am very, very into it. For obvious reasons.

So, that’s me. What have you been up to?

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 21: Temples and Robots in Tokyo

Usually, Korean holidays don’t coincide with American ones, but this past weekend (Memorial Day in the US) happened to be the holiday celebrating Buddha’s Birthday in Asia. Buddha’s birthday is celebrated according to the Lunar Calendar which means it’s on a different day each year, so it really was a happy coincidence that it fell on a Monday, creating a long weekend for us government employees.

This is our final holiday/day off before the end of our contract in August and was therefore our last opportunity to travel, so even though it was only a few days, we headed to Tokyo to take advantage of them. We’ve been to Osaka and Kyoto in the past, but we’d never been further than the airport in Tokyo. It seemed a shame to live so nearby (less than a 2-hr flight) for two years and never make it to the biggest city in the world.

We arrived in the city around noon on Saturday and immediately set out to see the Sensoji Temple which was within walking distance of our hostel.

The temple area was packed with people, many lighting incense sticks or tossing coins into a big trough in front of the Buddha statue. Outside of the temple there were long streets of stalls selling all kinds of souvenirs. We wandered around for a while an eventually stopped at a little ramen shop for lunch.

The ramen shop was a super narrow hole-in-the-wall with just one long counter where you sit and eat what these guys cook up for you.

So much deliciousness.

After lunch we had to go back to our hostel to check into our room and put our bags away. From there we took a long subway ride to the Shinjuku district looking for the famed Robot Restaurant. We’d heard about this place from friends who went in the past and we were intrigued. Restaurant is a bit of a misnomer since food isn’t central to the experience. In fact, we didn’t eat anything while we were there. It’s more of a show at which you can have food and drinks if you want. We weren’t exactly sure where it was, so we wandered around for a while before we found it, but the area was interesting so we didn’t mind the stroll. We were intending to buy tickets and come back later that evening for the show, but when we arrived around 3:45 the evening shows were sold out, but there was a show starting in 15 minutes, so we just went for it.

Area near the Robot Restaurant complete with Godzilla head attached to one of the buildings.

The tickets were pricey, but this was one of the weirdest and most unique experiences of my life. It was everything you imagine when you hear stories about how strange Japanese culture is. There were robots and dancing girls in weird and revealing costumes and huge radio-controlled animals and lots of drums. It was like a super geeky 13-year-old boy had been given unlimited resources to create the world of his dreams.

The show itself was incredibly corny. The best (and by best I mean most ridiculous) part was a story where there was a peaceful planet that gets invaded by robots and the forest and sea creatures must band together to fight the robots. The robots literally came out and said things like, “This planet is so peaceful. Let’s trash it!”

The part where Kung Fu Panda came out on a cow to save the forest from the robots.

After the show we decided to look for Yoyogi Park which has a shrine in it. Unfortunately, we had some trouble finding the entrance, and as we wandered around looking for a way in, I started to get very tired and very hungry and very cranky. Eventually we abandoned our plan and resolved to come back the next day. Instead we found a tasty dinner of donkatsu and Japanese curry.

Fortified with dinner we went down to Shibuya Station, famous for being the busiest intersection in the world. We walked back and forth across the intersection a few times taking pictures of the crowds and then went up to the second floor of the department store to look out the windows. This was a great place for people-watching.

By the time we’d finished with all of that it was after 10 pm and we’d been going non-stop since 5:30 that morning. We headed back to our hostel to shower and sleep, but not before picking up a few local snacks to try. One of our favorite things when traveling is to try out all the special varietals of regular snack foods. Japan is especially famous for their green tea (matcha) flavored treats. I happen to like green tea, so I enjoyed a lot of these.

Green tea mini oreo. Loved these.

Raspberry Kit Kats. These have such a strong fake raspberry flavor and it is so artificial tasting that we weren’t big fans.

Green Tea Kit Kat bites stuffed with red bean paste. I really like the regular green tea Kit Kats, but I’m not that into the red bean paste.

Check back next week for more Tokyo adventures! If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 19: Hot Springs and Chicken Feet

Although our Taiwan trip was short, it did technically span two different weeks which let me split it up between two weeks of adventure posts.

Our second day in Taiwan we looked at the forecast and were told there was 100% chance of rain with some severe thunderstorms. We spent a long time debating what we should do. Eventually we decided to head out to see some hot springs that were located near the end of a subway line. We didn’t want to go anywhere too far out in case of storms and we didn’t want to do something like the zoo or the mountain gondalas which would be ruined by a thunderstorm.

As it turned out, the forecast was completely wrong. It sprinkled once or twice, but there was certainly no heavy rain or severe thunderstorms. Thankfully, we enjoyed our trip to the hot springs anyway.

After checking out the hot springs we stopped for lunch at a small shop in the area where we had Taiwan’s most famous dish, beef noodle soup. It was delicious.

After our scrumptious lunch we headed on to another temple. This one is particularly well-known for being the place to go if you need matchmaking services. When we arrived there were lines of people waiting for their turn to receive some sort of blessing from what appeared to be some sort of lay people who were equipped to do blessings using incense.

After checking out this temple (but trying not to interrupt the locals who were there) we decided to head to Taipei 101, the tallest building in Taipei and the tallest building in the world until the Burj Khalifa was finished in 2010. It started to rain right as we arrived at the base of the building, but luckily the first few floors are a fancy shopping mall, so we popped inside and took a short break at the food court.

A lot of other people seemed to have the same idea because the food court was very crowded. We eventually found a table, but soon after we sat down an elderly Chinese couple came up and asked if we could share the table with them. (At least, I assume that’s what they asked. I only speak two words of Mandarin). Of course we said yes and then proceeded to have the most awkward snack of all time when the elderly couple pulled out a giant bag of chicken feet and started digging in. I hardcore stared at my seaweed chips to avoid looking.

Went back to our hostel a bit later to regroup before heading out to another, different night market. This night market had a really cool temple at the front of it that was all lit up for the evening and lots of fascinating foods inside of it.

Hey, more chicken feet! Just raw this time!

We also inadvertently stumbled upon something called the Rainbow Bridge which was kind of nice in the dark, though it’s possible that the water is all brown and murky in daylight.

Day Two in Taiwan concluded with another food success, the discovery of these Coconut Oreos at the local 7/11. If you like coconut, these are simply phenomenal. I can’t believe we don’t have these in America. Oh the things you learn by traveling!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure # 18: Taipei in a Day

Friday, May 1st was International Labor Day, a government holiday in many countries including Korea. In the US the holiday calendar has sort of been manipulated so that many holidays (Labor Day, Memorial Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, etc.) are always celebrated on Mondays. This allows people several long weekends each year to take short trips. Of course, there are exceptions for holidays whose significance is associated with a particular date, like the Fourth of July, but in general the US government holidays are designed for people to easily enjoy them.

In Korea, holidays are celebrated on specific dates regardless of when they fall. If, for example. the government holiday falls on the weekend, then it falls on the weekend and you don’t get any days off of work, even though you would have if they happened to fall M-F. This spring/summer the calendar was not treating us kindly. Three public holidays (March 1st, June 6th, and August 15th) all fall on weekends in 2015 and several others fell on random Tuesdays or Thursdays which were nice breaks, but it wasn’t possible to travel or do anything especially exciting on those days because we had to work the day before and after.

This year, May 1st was a holiday, but Tuesday, May 5th is also Children’s Day in Korea.We had a similar situation last year where May 1st was on a Thursday so we had Thursday off as well as the following Monday, but last year we had to go to work on the Friday in between so we were surprised and delighted when our schools decided to declare Monday, May 4th a “temporary holiday” so that everyone could have a 5-day spring break.

We decided to use part of our break for a quick trip to Taiwan.

Why Taiwan? you might ask. It meets a few major criteria. First, we haven’t been there before. Second, you can take a direct flight from Korea and arrive in 2 hours. Third, it is really affordable in terms of the cost of food, lodging, etc. Fourth, we’ve had friends visit and they’ve all been positive about it.

And so, with almost no knowledge of where we were going or what we were going to do once we got there, we set off to Taipei.

We had a fantastic time.

Since our stay was only three days (including a travel day) we tried to cram as much as possible into the short time that we had. We stayed at a fantastic hostel located down this only slightly sketchy looking alley near Taipei Main Station. The owner of the hostel was a guy named Chunky (who, for the record, was actually quite slim). Chunky spoke impeccable English and was very helpful. After we’d arrived and he’d showed us around the hostel, he pulled out a map and showed us exactly where to go and what to do. The Taipei subway system is excellent, very cheap, and very easy to use, so getting around was a breeze.

First we headed to the Longshan Temple. Longshan Temple was built in 1738 and is one of the oldest temples in Taiwan. I really enjoy the architecture of Chinese temples with all the ornate dragons and the eaves that turn up at the corners of the buildings. I find Korean temples very squat and plain in comparison.

From there we visited the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial. Part of the memorial was being renovated and was covered with scaffolding, but we were able to enter this part which reminded me of a cross between the Lincoln Memorial and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Washington D.C. We were also able to witness the changing of the guard at the memorial, an elaborate ceremony that occurs once every hour. All I can say is, if anyone actually wanted to attack the Chiang Kai Shek Memorial, the changing of the guard would be the perfect time to do it since it took about 15 minutes for the guards to actually change places.

From the memorial we stopped for lunch at the famous Din Tai Fung restaurant where we had their world famous dumplings. These dumplings have a very thin skin and are filled with broth, meat and veggies. You have to use your spoon when eating them to catch all the yummy juices dripping out. They were amaze-balls. And even though this is a Michelin starred restaurant, our whole meal cost about $18 USD.

I didn’t know we were ready to take the picture…

Taiwan is famous for their food, so I tried to get as much of it in as possible in our few days there. I drank approximately 52 bubble teas and they were the best. (OK, I think I had 3 actually). Again, so cheap. Each one cost about $1.25 USD. You can find bubble tea in Korea, but you pay around $6 USD a pop for them.

After eating we headed out to hike the Elephant Trail, which gave us a terrific view of the city. Unfortunately, it was raining off and on through our whole hike, so our view wasn’t as clear as it could have been, but we still enjoyed getting a little past the city and being able to look down on it.

That evening we went to the Shilin Night Market. There are many Night Markets in Taipei, but unlike in other countries we’ve visited, these markets are not really aimed at tourists. Instead, they are a place for locals to shop, hang out, and eat lots and lots of street food. The Shilin market is known for having lots of cheap shoe stores. I obviously had to buy a pair. These cuties were only about $11 and there were plenty of shoes for even cheaper than that.

After all of that excitement we were exhausted and headed back to our hostel for the night. Even after such a short time we were impressed with how polite the people were, waiting in organized lines for the subway, giving up their seats for the elderly or people with children, and generally being very considerate of others around them. This was such a novelty to us as it is standard in Korea for everyone to push their way onto the subway before the people exiting can even get off and saying “excuse me” or “I’m sorry” for bumping someone is unheard of. I also appreciated being somewhere new and interesting, but without having people stare at me all the time. Even though there weren’t tons of foreigners in Taipei, it seems to be enough of an international city that the two of us weren’t worth making a fuss over.

I have more Taipei adventures to share next week, so stay tuned to read about the rest of our trip!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure #8: Lunar New Year and Treat Yo Self 2015

Last Thursday was the Lunar New Year in Asia (also called the Chinese New Year). Well, technically, it was the Lunar New Year everywhere, but it’s mostly celebrated in Asia. We had three days off from work, which only happens twice a year – in the fall for Chuseok (which is like Korean Thanksgiving) and in the winter for Seollal (the Korean name for the Lunar New Year). We wanted to take advantage of the days off and take a short trip, but even several months ago plane tickets to anywhere during the holiday were prohibitively expensive. We settled for spending a few days in Seoul just to get away from home and relax a bit.

You’d think the Lunar New Year would mean lots of special cultural events in Seoul, but in fact, Korean holidays are kind of lame (in my humble opinion). Everyone travels to their family homes where they make and eat an elaborate traditional meal with special foods like ddeokguk, a soup with disk-shaped rice dumplings in it.They also perform bunch of ceremonies to honor their ancestors and many people will dress in hanbok, traditional Korean clothing. When I asked my Korean coworkers about the holiday they always just complain that it’s so much work.

Little boy in hanbok. Flickr creative commons image by petergarnhum

The New Year is associated with getting older. Koreans count their age differently than the rest of the world does. Everyone born in the same year is the same age and rather than getting older on your birthday, everyone gets older together on New Year’s Day. For some reason the ddeokguk is associated with getting older and traditionally, you have aged a year after you eat the ddeokguk on New Year’s Day.

[Koreans also count the time a child is in the womb as the first year of life, so when a baby is born it is already 1 year old. So, although I am 27 years old, when I give my age to a Korean I say I am 29 – one extra year for the year I was in utero and one extra year because I was born in 1987 and everyone born in 1987 just turned 29 regardless of when in the year their birthday falls. Since I was born in December this means that if I had lived in Korea when I was born, I would have turned 2 years old when I was only 1 month old by the rest of the world’s standards.]

Because more than half of Seoul’s population is not from Seoul, the city empties out for the holiday, so it was much quieter than usual there. We looked to see if there were any special events we could attend, but many cultural attractions are actually closed for the holiday and the ones that were open (the palaces and folk village) were places we’ve already been. We’ve learned that the biggest Korean holidays are family affairs that are celebrated privately, so unless you have an invitation to join a family for their celebration, there isn’t that much to participate in.

The air pollution in Seoul during our trip was off-the-charts high (300 + is considered “hazardous” and it was in the 900s) so being out and about wasn’t particularly pleasant since it was too hazy to see anything or to take any decent pictures, but we were happy to have a low-key time just enjoying being away from home and not having to cook or clean or do other normal life activities for a few days.

We dubbed our trip to Seoul “Treat Yo Self 2015” which is a reference to Parks and Recreation, one of our favorite shows. (If you don’t watch Parks and Rec, stop reading this now and go catch up). In the show two of the characters are really into fancy, luxury items and experiences and once a year they do a “Treat Yo Self” day where they indulge all their extravagant wishes. We decided to do the same. I live tweeted/Instagrammed the experience for those who follow me there.

We didn’t have any truly extravagant wishes, but we did have a few treats in mind:

1. Stay at a hotel with a bathtub (we normally go the hostel route to save money and even if you get a private room those generally have shared showers). Take all the bubble baths.

2. Go to Taco Bell. I know you’re judging me right now, but I also know you are secretly jealous. It’s amazing the things that seem like a treat when you’ve gone without them for 19 months.

3. Get pies from Tartine. This is a little pie/tart shop in Itaewon, sort of the expat center of Seoul. It is the only place in Korea I have found pie that is proper pie. And they have a ton of flavors. Mmmmmm.

We had butterscotch and lemon meringue.

4. Visit the English bookstore. Since both of us are huge readers, visiting an all-English bookstore is heavenly. What the Book (also in Itaewon) has a big selection of both used and new books. It’s a little pricey since everything has to be imported, but they do offer free shipping within Korea if you order online.

Jonathan got Margaret Atwood’s book Oryx and Crake. I’m on a no-buy because I have 17 unread books on my kindle right now. (Oops).

5. Butterbeer and Chili fries. We found a delightful English pub with the most enchanting menu of all-time. Harry Potter inspired Butter beer (similar to what you can get at HP world except this one was alcoholic), a range of different hot dogs, and fries covered in chili and beef and bacon and cheese and mayo and grilled kimchi on the side (because this is still Korea). Yes, that was heart attack waiting to happen, but you know what…Treat yo self.

6. Shopping. I went into this trip prepared to do some shopping, but it ended up being one of those weird times when I was planning to buy all the things, but couldn’t find anything I wanted. I felt a little cheated – after all, I held up my end of the bargain, going to stores with money – and the stores let me down. (I know, I know, first world problems).

The Myeongdong central shopping area in Seoul. So many stores and I couldn’t find a thing to buy.

In spite of our lack of unique cultural experiences, we are calling “Treat Yo Self 2015” a success and I hope it’s a tradition we keep up every now and again.

All joking aside, self care is really important and while that doesn’t have to mean doing anything expensive or extravagant, it’s important to tend to our souls by building in time to rest, relax, and do the things that rejuvenate us, whether it’s bubble baths or window shopping or going to a baseball game. You can’t pour out to others if you are completely empty yourself.

I had one more really big adventure in Seoul, but you’ll have to check back next week to hear about it!

If you have an adventure to share, add your link to the link-up by clicking the button below. You can participate in all of the adventures or you can just do a few – no pressure. If you missed last week’s adventure you can find it here. And if you are new to my Fifty-Two Weeks of Adventure project you can find out more about it here.

Lily Ellyn

Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

Travel

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