Hello! It’s been a while. I am officially back in the States! I was supposed to remain in South Korea until the beginning of June, but because of the outbreak of the Coronavirus, I arrived home on March 1st. It was recommended that I do a 2-week self quarantine at my home, and I’m going to take you through what that looks like.
(Just to be clear, I am completely healthy. We’re just doing the quarantine as a precaution. I don’t want to be the cause of anyone else getting sick).
I have been alone in my bedroom for around 8 days now. The bathroom and bedroom are sealed off with a plastic tarp (it kinda feels like E.T. 👽). I cannot have any human contact. My family is able to sit on the other side of the plastic and talk to me, as long as we remain a safe distance from each other. It’s not too awful, but it’s not the most fun either.
All of my meals are passed under the tarp. After I eat, I clorox any dishes and place them at the door to be taken. I throw away any trash in a garbage bag, and when the bag is full, I clorox spray the outside and set it at my door as well. I do the same with dirty laundry. If I want to pass anything outside the door, I must sanitize it first.
My family is the best, especially my mom. She gets me whatever I need and always makes sure that everything is going well. She brings me all my meals and my laundry. Thanks, Mom 🥰 love you!
I try to keep myself pretty busy in my room. I have all of my instruments which I play frequently 🎸. I write music and practice other songs. I have my computer 💻 and am able to watch TV and listen to music 🎧. I talk to my siblings, we play games that don’t require a board or cards, or we watch TV together. I draw, I dance, I write. I do what I can to keep myself busy.
This past week I got my CPR Certification and have been working on setting up college meetings. I’m still trying to be productive! I am currently working on filling out an employee packet and continuing to plan meetings and trips with some of the colleges I’ve applied to.
At this point, I’ve been in my room for over a week. It’s not too awful since I do have things to do, but I am getting a little stir-crazy. I can’t wait until I’m able to get out and hug and kiss my family, be outside, go places, etc. Just a little longer!
This was really short, but I just wanted to give you all an idea of what my quarantine is like. Thank you all for reading! I’ll see you soon 👋
Here is this post, as promised! I have written about some of the historic places I got to visit while in Macau. From old church ruins to turquoise Portuguese buildings, this post will cover everything historic that I got to see and take pictures of.
This building is the Church of Saint Dominic. It is in Senado Square where I stayed during my time in Macau. This church was built in 1587 by three Spanish Dominican Priests. The first Portuguese newspaper to be printed in China was printed here in 1822. Later in 1997, the church was renovated and a museum called The Treasure of Sacred Art was added.
This is a side shot (and sadly the only picture I got) of the Holy House of Mercy, also located in Senado Square. It was first built in 1569 and was originally used as a medical clinic. Later on, it became used for other social welfare services such as an orphanage, a home for widows whose husbands were sailors that had been lost at sea, a rehabilitation center for the blind, a home for the elderly, and pre-school that was taught in both Chinese and Portuguese. Alongside all of these services, the Holy House donates money to underprivileged families and individuals. It now also functions as a museum for Macau’s Catholic History.
These pictures are of the Ruins of Saint Paul’s; a 17th-century Catholic church and college. It is one of Macau’s best known landmarks and is one of the Seven Wonders of Portuguese Origin in the World. It was built by the Jesuits and was one of the largest Catholic churches in Asia at the time of it’s construction. It was destroyed by a fire during a typhoon in 1835.
(This picture is more red on my phone and even more red in real life. This website just like to lower the saturation of everything 😑)
These are pictures taken at the Mount Fortress, aka Fortaleza do Monte or Monte Forte, but officially known as Fortaleza de Nossa Senhora do Monte São Paulo (meaning Fortress of Our Lady of the Mount of Saint Paul). They choose really long names. This fortress stands right beside the Ruins of Saint Paul and was also built in the 17th century. It was originally built to protect Jesuit property, but was later taken over by the Portuguese to use for the defense of Macau. It has served as both a home for the first governors of Macau as well as a weather observatory. In 1965, the fortress was opened up to the public.
These are the beautifully stunning Taipa Houses. There are four that serve as museums for Macau’s history, and one where private events can be held. One is a home that you can go in, one is a gift shop, one holds paintings, and the other was not allowed to be entered while I was there. These houses were built in 1921 and were originally used to house senior civil servants. Later on in the 20th century, the government decided to restore the houses, and eventually opened them up to the public in 1999 as the Taipa Houses-Museum.
Both of these pictures were taken at the exact same time, so I don’t know why the lighting is weird… sorry.
This is a picture of the Our Lady of Carmel Church (or Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Carmo) and the cross that stands outside. It is a parish church that was built in 1885. It is a namesake of the much larger parish, Our Lady of Carmel Parish (or Nossa Senhora de Fátima), which is the biggest parish on the Macau Peninsula. I don’t know if there’s a specific story behind the cross, but I thought that it was really pretty.
And that does it for all of the beautiful, historical places that I got to visit while in Macau! The Taipa Houses and Ruins of Saint Paul are definitely my favorites. I love the bright turquoise colors of the houses, and the ruins look gorgeous to me. There is way more historical stuff to see in Macau than just what I saw. I really enjoyed seeing everything and learning more about it’s history, and maybe one day I’ll get to go back and see even more!
Happy New Year everyone! It’s officially 2020 and the start of a new decade. My aunt and I spent a few days in Macau during the New Year. I’ll be separating this blog by Malls/Casinos, Food, and the Panda Pavilion. You can scroll to whichever part you want to hear about most!
Shopping and Casinos
For those that don’t know, Macau is full of casinos. They’re literally everywhere you go. My aunt and I don’t gamble, but attached to the casinos were malls and hotels, so we did explore those. Each casino had a grand lobby, and a few of them had some incredible lobby shows! I can’t post videos on here, but my aunt and I did post some on Instagram. Here are some pictures of them though:
Very awkward picture of me waiting for the lobby show to start while wearing my backpack on my front to prevent anything getting stolen 😅
One of the two lobby shows at the Wynn is this golden tree coming up out of the floor, twirling and changing color.
All of the malls/casinos had a lot of cool displays in them. Here are pictures:
This giant lion sits just outside of the MGM hotel/casino.
This piece of art is by Salvador Dalà and is called the Dalinian Dancer. It is in the front lobby of the MGM hotel.
This giant fish tank and octopus are INSIDE the MGM hotel/mall/casino. This area was huge and I couldn’t believe that it was indoors!
This is behind the giant fish tank inside the MGM. Gorgeous, isn’t it?
Me on one of the staircases. It really is huge!
This ADORABLE diner is just inside the Study City mall/casino.
This is the Parisian hotel, with a replica (although probably not exact) of the Eiffel Tower.
At night, it’s gorgeous! One night, as my aunt and I walked past, it was playing “Be Our Guest” from Beauty and The Beast. The Eiffel Tower lit up different colors and patterns along with beats of the song. It was really cool!
This is inside the Parisian at the front desk. Very, very fancy.
This is inside the main lobby of the Parisian. It’s a giant fountain with a Christmas tree on the ceiling!
This is a sculpture inside of the Grand Lisboa hotel. It’s so intricate, and made entirely out of Mammoth tusk!This is some sort of cool, gold, dragon boat thing. It was also inside the Lisboa.This is a diorama of a giant palace the the Lisboa is building in Macau. It was set to be completed in 2019, but I’m not sure whether it actually was.
These are all pictures of the inside of a mall called the Venetian. It was huge and went on forever! There were Gondola rides down the river and the Gondoliers would sing and play guitar as you floated downstream. It was incredible.
This is a giant slide from the second floor to the first floor of Studio City. Only approved guests are allowed to use it (sadly, I was not one of those guests).
Also inside Studio City is this giant merry-go-round made for sitting down to eat while going for a spin.
This is a large dragon fountain in Studio City. The pearl and light change color.
The biggest casino/mall/hotel in Macau (I believe) is called The Galaxy. Inside they had a movie theater where my aunt and I were able to see Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. They also had multiple statues set up that I took pictures with:
This is by far the coolest theater I have ever been in
Food
While in Macau, we enjoyed a lot of different food. I had real egg tarts for the first time, and they were delicious!
I had this french toast, which basically just tasted like fried beignet dough:
My aunt and I also had a lovely Godiva Tea Time:
Everything was delicious, sweet, and very filling.
We also had pizza hut one night. I’m pretty sure we ate other food, but I am failing to remember right now. I know, however, that we didn’t eat a lot because we weren’t super hungry. We thought that was funny, considering how we were non-stop walking everywhere.
The night that we left Macau, we had our final meal at the Cheescake Factory. I ordered some sort of Pizza Spaghetti, which was basically flattened chicken covered in loads of marinara sauce and cheese with noodles on top.
The Panda Pavilion
My aunt I traveled the lower half of Macau to visit the Panda Pavilion, which also houses monkeys, birds, flamingos, and ostriches. All of the animals were fun to see and interact with (as much as we were able to).
This is right through the entrance of the pavilion. It is celebrating Macau’s 20th anniversary.
Here is one of the Pandas! I think his name was Kang Kang.
The red pandas were very shy, but they are one of my favorites, so I tried to get a decent picture.
These are the parrot mixes.
There is one super pink flamingo on the left. My aunt and I believe he is stealing all the shrimp from the other flamingos. There is also a black swan here, near the rocks in the middle. He’s kind of hard to see in the photo, but was very pretty.
And now this blog post is way too long, so I’m going to stop here. If you want to see some older, more historical parts of Macau like Church and Fortress ruins, follow/subscribe to the blog and I will try to get a post on that out before the end of January. Don’t worry, it will be much shorter than this one 😅 Thanks for reading!
Happy Late Thanksgiving! This past weekend, I got to visit the amazing city of Songo. Songdo is a new smart city in Seoul, and that is where my aunt and I went for our Thanksgiving vacation.
My aunt and I arrived in Songdo sometime between twelve and one. The first thing we did was find a place to eat, since neither of us had eaten that day. We went to a taco place and got a Quesadilla and a Burrito. Outside and around the corner was this really pretty tree that I took a picture of:
I think it’s a Japanese Maple. The leaves were a lot more vibrant than that in person. They were bright, bright red! It was so cool. I really love Japanese Maples. I have one in my backyard at home, and it’s my favorite tree. Although, ours never turns as bright red as this one!
After lunch, we headed over to central park and walked around there. Here are some pictures that we took there:
This is a small library in the park
This is a river that runs through the park. It was crystal clear!
This is a wall that’s just over the bridge. It’s full of tiles that look like they were painted by children.
Across the river there were a ton of cool metal instruments! It was another part of the park, I believe. Anyways, here are pictures:
This is the bridge to cross the river with a cool triangular-cut building in the background.
A giant horn…? There was some legend that people would whisper their prayers and wishes into it, I think.
This piano had a name that I can’t remember, although it started with an E. It was a magical piano that would play by itself until someone sat down on its bench, at which point it would yield itself to the person.
This inscription was on the piano bench, and I thought it was funny 🙂
These are windchimes, which taught my aunt and I that windchimes cannot be made out of just any metal, because these sounded awful.
These were some fun benches sitting under a pergola-type roof. They had inscriptions written in different languages. The inscriptions had various meanings, from “seize the day” to “a good man humbles himself below others”.
After central park, we started making our way back to our hotel. On the way, there was a cute little village-type mall that we walked through.
This is a giant cello that lights up at night. It was made by a student, and represented the fact that, no matter our race, gender, ethnicity, age, etc., we all go through the same things in life and we are connected by those feelings and experiences.
These were some cute trees in a square in the middle of the village-mall. I don’t think they had any real significance, but they were really cute.
After exploring central park and killing some time, we checked into our hotel at around 3:00pm. The reception desk was on the 19th floor – it was weird, but cool. Our hotel room was really nice (sorry, didn’t take any pictures). I love hotels. They’re just really cozy and cool and remind me of traveling.
After checking in and putting our stuff in the hotel room, we headed over to a large mall. It was gorgeous and really nicely decorated. Here are some pictures:
This is a walkway of trees on the bottom level of the mall. They change color with the seasons, so when I took this picture, they were white for winter. They had lights strung between them with polaroid pictures and flags hanging from the strands.
I wanted to clothes shopping, but all the clothing stores were either athletic apparel or winter coats. There were probably ten stores just selling winter coats! It was ridiculous. But, there were a lot of cute furniture and interior design stores that my aunt and I had fun looking around in.
After exploring, we met up with some of my aunts friends and ate dinner together. I didn’t take pictures of the food, but I just got a burger so it wasn’t really anything special 😅
Once we were done visiting with my aunt’s friends, we headed back to our hotel room to watch some TV and get some rest before heading back home.
And that concludes my Songdo blog! It was really fun and I had a really good time. It was definitely different from any city I’ve ever seen. All the buildings were different and very cool. I’d definitely recommend paying it a visit if you’re ever in Korea 😉
Welcome back! If you read my previous post (A weekend in Yokohama: Day Three), you will already know that after returning from Japan, my aunt and I spent a day in Seoul, South Korea! We went to several really fun and interesting places, so continue reading to hear about them!
The first thing that we did in the morning was walk back to the airport to see if we could exchange my Japanese coins for won. Unfortunately, they do not do coin exchanges, so I am stuck with $40 worth of Japanese coins 😅 I am most likely heading back to Japan in the spring, though, so hopefully I can use all of them then.
After attempting to exchange coins, we headed to the International House of Pancakes for breakfast. I got giant pigs in a blanket, which was sausage wrapped in pancakes, that I then covered in syrup. My aunt got a normal breakfast plate (eggs, sausage, etc). I forgot to take pictures though… sorry 😅
After breakfast, we headed up the street to a four-story Line store! For those of you that don’t know what Line is, it is a texting app, much like Kakaotalk or WhatsApp. Line has an adorable set of cartoon characters to represent their app, and that is what was inside this store. They also sold a large amount of BT21 Merch, which is BTS cartoon characters. This store was adorable from top to bottom!
This bear sits in the entrance of the store
I wish I could take this dinosaur bear home
From Left to Right: Cooky (Jungkook), Chimmy (Jimin), Shooky (Suga), Tata (V), RJ (Jin), and Mang (J-Hope).
This is Koya, RM’s BT21 Character. Apparently he felt to cool to sit with all the other characters 😂
This was part of a really cute pink house you can walk in. This is the kitchen, and the next room is the living room (I didn’t get pictures, but it’s on my Insta Story!)
This is the view from the 3rd Floor.
This is Van. He’s an (alien?) that brought all the BT21 characters to earth. This Van statue was signed by all of the BTS members.
This is a picture of my aunt with some of the line characters. This was taken at the 4th floor cafe.
Overall, the store was adorable! The merchandise itself was pretty pricey, but even if you don’t buy anything, I really recommend visiting! There’s so much more to see than what I posted here!
After the line store, we head over to the Starfield Coex Mall, which is a HUGE underground mall. They have so many stores, from furniture to clothing to books, tons of restaurants and cafes, an aquarium, a movie theater, and even an airport check in! The even had this huge library:
I didn’t get any more pictures than that, but if you want to do shopping in Seoul, I think that this mall would be a great place to go. It’s a little confusing to find, since you have to walk into a building and then take escalators underground and you’re not sure where you’re going, but it is really cool.
After walking across the entire mall, we came up on the other side, right in behind the SMTOWN Coexatrium. For those that don’t know what SM Entertainment is, it is the biggest Entertainment company in South Korea. I love their music artists, such as NCT, EXO, f(x), Super Junior, and more! Visiting this Store had always been on my bucket list for when I traveled to South Korea, and I’m so glad I got to go!
This is me by the back of the building. Super bling-y, right?
They had picture galleries on every floor, and this EXO picture was hanging in one of them. This was taken during the Love Me Right era.
This is a picture of NCT Dream! They are the youngest members of NCT. This picture was taken 3 years ago during their Chewing Gum era, when the youngest member was only 14! Imagine becoming a musical artist at that age!
These are pictures from NCT 127’s Superhuman era. They were hanging in the snack shop/cafe area in the Coexatrium.
This is a cardboard cutout of ma boi, Mark Lee. He’s my favorite artist EVER. So I had to take a picture with this cutout 😂
Outside of the Coexatrium, they have a wall full of their artists handprints. I compared my hand size to Mark’s (of course), and we basically have the same size hand.
This is me standing in front of the SMTOWN Coexatrium. It looks huge!
I absolutely LOVED visiting this place. I didn’t get a chance to do everything, since there are certain parts of the building that you have to pay to see, but, I did buy a decent amount of things, including a souvenir for my sister and for my mom (don’t worry mom, it’s not K-pop, it was from the snack section). I also bought my first ever K-Pop Album! It was “We Are Superhuman” by NCT 127. I was looking for the “We Boom” Album by NCT Dream, but they were all sold out. All that being said, I would love to go again!
After the Coexatrium, we headed over to Dongdaemun plaza for some shopping and sightseeing before we had to head back to Daejeon. We went in a KakaoTalk store, which was much like the Line store, but with the Kakao Characters instead.
This is me with Ryan the Bear. He’s my favorite Kakao Character!
These are the character Apeach and Tube. How cute are they?
We also went through a huge shopping mall (where everything was expensive, so we window-shopped), a street full of vendors selling clothes, and a little indoor shopping center, which had a K-Pop store where I bought my second K-Pop album of the day: “We Boom” by NCT Dream! They had it in stock at this store and I was so happy 😂
After all the fun exploring and shopping in Dongdaemun, it was time to head back home to Daejeon. I had an incredible time in Seoul, and cannot wait for the next chance to go! It is such an incredible place, and very different from Techno Valley, Daejeon, where I live. I highly recommend visiting Seoul, and just South Korea in general.
That wraps up my Seoul post! I will hopefully have more content coming up soon, so stay tuned for my next post!
Welcome to the last post in my “A Weekend In Yokohama” series!
I think I woke up around 9am, with my aunt still there. She was going to stay with me the last day in Yokohama so that we could explore together. We both got ready for our day, packed our bags, and headed down to the hotel lobby to check out. The staff, again, were super nice, and said that they could hold our bags for us while we explored Yokohama. And with that, we set out.
For Breakfast, we returned to Eggs ‘N Things. It was so good the first time that we had to go again! This time, I got loaded french toast, which had an egg, ham, syrup, cheese, and obviously french toast. It was so good! My aunt had something I forgot the name of, which was spam, eggs, and potatoes. It was really good too!
After breakfast, we headed back to the Mega Mall to look for medical supplies for my aunts foot (we think she broke it the day before we flew to Japan). While we were there, I bought some souvenirs for my family back home, and took a picture with this C-3PO!
After finishing up at Mega Mall, we headed to the riverwalk in order to make our way into the city area. It was just as nice again today, and it smelled super salty, like seafood. We also heard someone playing the drums, but no matter how far we walked, the noise didn’t seem to get any closer or any further away. It was really weird.
Once in the city, we went into this large shopping mall called World Porters, and spent a good amount of time in there. We had a lot of time to kill, since our flight to Seoul didn’t leave until 8pm. We mostly window shopped. I think I bought a penguin coin purse, and we stopped at a cafe, and my aunt bought a dress, but I can’t remember buying much else. It was a very cool mall though!
I was forced to pose with this creepy Santa.
After spending a good amount of time at World Porters and seeing all that there was to see, we headed towards an amusement park that we had heard about called Cosmic World. It’s where that giant Ferris wheel is. We found it quickly, and it actually wasn’t too crowded. There were eight different rides, and it was pay per ride. We paid for three, but only got the chance to ride two. We rode that giant Ferris Wheel, and a ricochet, spinning roller coaster. I hate roller coasters, but this was the best ride ever! I think it reminded me of those spinning cup rides, where the floor spins and then the cups spin and so on – I love those! I would totally go to this park again, if given the chance.
The yellow coaster is the one we went on.
After getting off of the roller coaster, we realized that it was getting late and we needed to get back to our hotel to pick our stuff up. After picking up our bags, the staff called a taxi to take us to the Airport. It was a long drive, maybe 45m.
When we first got into the airport, we sat down and went through our bags to make sure that we didn’t have any liquids or food with us. I had sandwiches and drinks, so I ate the sandwiches and chugged the drinks, because they were delicious and I was not going to waste them. A woman came and sat down by us and asked us if we would mind taking a survey, which we agreed to. I think it was a transportation survey? It sounded like they were getting the public’s feedback on public transportation and the prices.
We ended up getting the airport too early to check in, so we looked around for where we’d like to eat dinner and we went in some shops. I bought more souvenirs for my family there. After looking through several stores and restaurants, we settled on a restaurant to eat at. I think it was Chinese restaurant, but I’m not positive. I had seafood udon and my aunt had something else with shrimp. They were both soups with noodles.
After dinner, we went through security and looked for our gate. There were even more stores on this side of the airport! We found our gate, but still had time to kill, so we window shopped again. I found this Samurai Storm Trooper:
For those that want to know, that’s around $81. I’m not exactly sure what it is…
I got a nosebleed right before our flight, so that was fun. It ended pretty quickly though, which I was happy about. Our flight got delayed for about 30m, but after that, things went really smoothly. I watched a movie called Swing Kids, which is like Korean/American, I think? There’s an older one, but I watched a newer one with Do Kyungsoo (an actor and singer I like). It was a really good movie, but it ended sadly.
After landing in Seoul, we exchanged our Yen for Won and then headed to our hotel. Since we were landing in Seoul so late, we were spending the night in Seoul and would spend the next day there as well. I was so excited! I had wanted to go to Seoul for so long, and I finally got to.
That’s it for my Yokohama trip! My next post will be about my day in Seoul and all of the incredible things that I got to see. Thanks for reading!
I woke up at 12:00 pm and was alone in my room since my aunt had gone to training (I sleep horribly, if you were wondering why I slept so late). I only had to wait about 4 hours for my aunt to return, so I decided not to go out and do anything. It was originally assumed that I would have to spend my third day out and about by myself, from 8:00 am to 4:00 pm, so I wanted to save as many activities as possible so that I wouldn’t get bored my last day there.
I ate most of the food that we had bought at the convenience store the day previous. I had mochi for breakfast, chips for a snack, ramen for lunch, and a snickers bar before dinner (I eat very healthily).
I also had this amazing bubble tea candy that we found at a candy store! It’s a hard candy that smells and tastes like milk tea or even coffee, and inside it is a tapioca bubble. It’s really, really good!
To entertain myself during the day, I watched the Korean TV Station (KBS) and honestly just watched whatever was on. There were a bunch of infomercials (which I usually enjoy, but these were ridiculously long), live music performances, and some Korean-style soap operas (which I made up dialogue for). They were really dramatic. My aunt made up some really good dialogue the night previously. It was great 😂 I also danced a bit to get some energy out, and listened to music.
Once my aunt got back, we headed out to China Town to find some good food to eat. We ended up eating at a Chinese Buffet, where it was “all you can eat”, but you can only get up to six dishes, and you must finish all of your food…
We ordered eggs and shrimp, mandu, some vegetable thing, chicken with orange sauce (that was probably my favorite, it was so good), stir fried rice, and rolls. It was all really good and we were pretty full afterwards. We forgot to take pictures (actually, my aunt took one of me eating chicken but I look atrocious, so that will remain unposted). Sorry, we were hungry 😅
After dinner, we walked by the river towards the more city-like area. You can see the city in the picture above. It’s somewhat underwhelming in the picture, but in real life, everything is so much bigger and so much brighter. The giant green wheel is a Ferris Wheel that lights up in different ways at night. I actually got to ride this the next day, so say tuned for my last post on Japan to hear about it!
We walked past a wine and food festival, people giving night boat tours, restaurants and museums, and large recreational spaces. It was so nice how open everything was, even in the city. There were also still plenty of trees and bushes once inside the city, and that was great.
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped at a restaurant called Jonathan’s Diner and got some dessert. We both got chocolate trifles and different versions of milk tea. I got Matcha (or Green Tea) and aunt Hannah got normal milk tea (like coffee flavored, I guess?). The trifle was good, and I ate all of it, but the milk tea was pretty watery and didn’t have a great flavor. Nonetheless, I think our dessert cravings were satisfied.
We took the river walk back home and walked through the city a bit. Everything was so, so nice, and the weather was perfect! Even when it was dark, everything felt so safe. There were so many people out everywhere, including young children by themselves. Tons of people were out jogging all the time too, which is probably why Japanese people are so healthy.
We got back to our hotel and watched some TV before going to sleep. Tomorrow would be our last day in Yokohama. Look forward to my next post about it!
I have just returned home from Yokohama, Japan! It was really nice and I enjoyed the time that I spent there. I will be splitting this post into two or three sections, so follow my blog to be alerted when I post the next one!
My aunt and I had to take a taxi, a train, and a subway in order to get to Gimpo International Airport. It took us around three hours, and once we were there, my aunt realized that she had forgotten her passport. So, she put me on a flight to Japan by myself. I had never flown alone before, so I was a little nervous, but everything was very clearly marked and the staff were really kind and explained things to me.
Now, the flight from Seoul, South Korea to Tokyo, Japan is about a two hour flight. My plane didn’t take off until around four, so I didn’t land until six. My aunt had told me, “As soon as you get to the airport, text me, so that I’ll know you arrived.” Well. I arrived at the airport, connected to their wifi, but the internet was unavailable. I couldn’t use my service because it wasn’t Japanese and I was not going to pay whatever ridiculous price it costs to send a text overseas. So, I waited.
I sat in the airport for around three and a half hours, people watching and playing games on my phone, until I heard my name over the loud speaker. I thought it was weird, and I was a little nervous that I had done something wrong. I went up to the information counter where a woman asked me my name and it’s spelling, and then she called someone on the phone. She was on the phone for around five minutes before she came back over to me. She told me that my father had called and had asked me to call or text my family to let them know that I was okay. I informed her that I could not and explained why, and she nodded and I returned to the arrivals waiting area. I expected them to call my family back and let them know why I wasn’t contacting them, but they didn’t do that.
Another hour of waiting and boredom goes by, and finally my aunt arrives. She snaps a picture of me to send to my mom and calls her for me. I talked to my mom for awhile and told her that I was okay and told her how the flight went. After we hung up, my aunt and I were picked up by some friends to head to our hotel.
We were spoiled with the amazing hotel that we got to stay at (thanks to the school that my aunt works for)! It was called “Hotel New Grand”, and had two buildings. One was originally built in the 1920s, but we stayed in the newer one built in the 1990s (I think), but it was still styled like the 1920s. Famous people such as Charlie Chaplain and Babe Ruth stayed there! It was so nice and fancy, and the staff were incredibly sweet and helpful. I don’t think they stopped smiling the entire time we talked to them.
That is one difference between Korean and Japanese people. Koreans can sometimes come off as cold or indifferent, and if you can’t speak Korean, they won’t try to speak English for you (this is at least the case around where I live in Daejeon). But in Japan, people everywhere, no matter who it is, will smile at you the entire time, are ridiculously polite, and will try their best to use English to help you understand when you are confused. I love Korean people and their culture, but I think that the Japanese are ranked above them in politeness towards everyone.
My aunt and I didn’t arrive at the hotel until close to midnight, so we went to bed immediately.
The next morning, I woke up and my aunt was gone, and I had to go out to get food for myself. I texted my mom to let her know so that she wouldn’t be worried if I didn’t respond to texts. I grabbed my backpack and headed out of the hotel and down the street. I had been shown earlier by my aunts friends where a mall-type store was that would have snacks and food. It was a MAZE inside. Shelves went up to the ceiling and they were stacked full. They were turned at random angles and the store was huge. Signs that led you around were hard to see and read, so I just wandered around, hoping that I was headed in the right direction. After walking around for a good amount of time and finding nothing but candy, I left to try and find a convenience store.
Above is a river I passed to get to and from the hotel. On the way back, I bumped into my aunt, who had just come back from the hospital. She asked me if I had had breakfast yet, which I hadn’t, and so we went to a Hawaiian restaurant called Eggs ‘n Things. It was delicious! We ate there twice during our stay. The first morning, I got chocolate chip pancakes with powdered sugar and a tower of whip cream, and my aunt got eggs benedict. Doesn’t it look deliciously amazing?
After breakfast, we headed across the street to a park and river walk. The park was beautiful! There was a large garden with all types of flowers and statues. It looked like a wedding could have been held there.
There were also a couple large ships docked and a souvenir store. I got a cute penguin keychain and my aunt got a Godzilla magnet. We also saw a school on a field trip, with ONE teacher, and probably somewhere between FIFTY to ONE HUNDRED students. The kids were so incredibly well behaved, which is why they only needed one teacher. We learned that, in their first three years of Elementary school, Japanese children aren’t given any tests. Instead, they focus on learning respect, discipline, and social skills, and that is why they are so well behaved.
After walking along the river for awhile, we turned around and headed to a convenience store to buy some food for me. After that, we put the stuff away at the hotel room and headed out again for some more exploring before dinner. We went in a “mall”, looked at restaurants, looked at cute animals in pet sores, stopped by a fish tank, got coffee, and probably more that I don’t remember 😅
We ate at a place called American Diner. We ordered virgin cocktails (or mocktails) for our drinks. For food, we had fried zucchini as an appetizer, and pasta and a patty melt for our meals.
After dinner, we found a huge shopping street in Motomachi, Yokohama. It was so big and so cool. There were so many different types of stores and restaurants. We browsed around several shops and looked at the different meals restaurants offered. After we came out on the other side, there was some random guy driving forwards and backwards in a race car… not really sure what was happening, but it was cool.
We then browsed around China Town, which was super nice, and looked into restaurants that we may want to eat at later (which we did). We also went in some cute souvenir shops which were interesting.
After that, we headed back to our hotel to get some sleep before our next day there. I’ll try and write my next post by Saturday, so stay tuned!
Here we are with part 3 of my Busan trip! This will post will contain all of the other things that we did while in Busan (restaurants, a spa day, street food, and more)!
Our Hotel Room
This is a picture of one of the beds in our Air BnB (with Buddy napping in the corner). It wasn’t big, it was pretty small. I meant to get pictures of the entire room, but wasn’t able to. There was a small bathroom where sometimes the light worked and sometimes it didn’t (we think it was on a weird timer). Our room had two queen sized beds and a small (but full) kitchen. The beds were really hard (Korean style, apparently) and left marks and bruises in my aunt and I. The room had free wifi, and a TV that I couldn’t get to work 😅
Restaurants
The first restaurant that we ate at was an Indian Restaurant that I cannot remember the exact name of and cannot find it on Google, but I think it had the word Bombay in it. If you know me well, you know that I cannot tolerate any sort of spiciness whatsoever. I have stayed away from Indian food for this exact reason. However, I was “being adventurous” that night and my aunt refused to tell me what was spicy and what was not, so I was forced to try it anyway. A lot of the food was too hot for me, and the only thing I could tolerate was the chicken and the naan. We had those along with butter chicken, jasmine rice, something that looked like potatoes and chicken, and some sort of deep fried dough thing. My Aunt and Ms. Rebecca liked it a lot, and we all ate a ton.
While we were at Haeundae beach and before we went to the aquarium, we had lunch at a Lobster restaurant that I again cannot remember the name of and cannot find on Google (pretty sure it had Lobster in the name though). We sat next to a Lobster tank so that we could watch them while we ate (seems kind of cruel…). We ordered Lobster Macaroni and Cheese and two servings of Jumbo Garlic Shrimp. I LOVE shrimp. It’s one of my favorite foods of all time. But this shrimp… this shrimp tasted different. It was ridiculously seafood-y, and I’m not sure the garlic glaze/sauce helped. However, the lobster macaroni and cheese was delicious.
Our last night there, we ate a Chinese restaurant (I don’t read Chinese, so again, I don’t know the name 😅). We had dumplings, some sort of sweet and sour pork, steamed buns (which is one of the few words that I actually can say in Mandarin), rice, and some sort of vegetable mix. It was all very good, and we all left very stuffed.
Ms. Rebecca has a friend who has a friend who owns a small cafe in Busan called “Wakey Wakey”, so we decided to visit there as well. It was a really cute little cafe! I got a caramel frappucino that had the creamiest foam on top:
Right outside of this shop is also where I took a picture with this statue of a man playing the accordion:
There were quite a few statues near by, and after a little bit of research, what comes up is that: during the Korean War, people were able to come take refuge in this street and were given food, drink, and accommodations. There was this statue, a man firing a canon near two young boys, and a woman carrying her two young children.
The other restaurants we went to were McDonald’s and Starbucks, and I don’t think those really need any explanation 😂
We also went out for street food one night, but sadly, didn’t find much. We had Mandu and Hotteok, though. This was my first time trying Hotteok. It’s basically a small pancake filled with some sort of honey-syrup, and in Busan, they put nuts inside. It was good, but I think I’d prefer it without the nuts. They serve it right off the grill, so it’s perfect on a cold night.
Spa Land
In Korea, there are these places called “Jjimjilbangs”, which are basically like public bath houses. I have never really had the desire to go to one because I am extremely modest and private and get really uncomfortable about certain things. However, we wanted to relax and I was told that we wouldn’t have to hang around any naked people.
When we first got there, we signed in and paid at the reception desk before taking an escalator to the second floor. There, we took off our shoes and were given our spa clothes (a loose fitting t-shirt and shorts) as well as two small towels. As soon as we entered the women’s locker room, I was in a sort of shock. Nobody had any clothes on and was just walking around like that was normal! I did my best to stare at the floor, wall, or ceiling the entire time we were in there. My aunt got dressed in the main room, whereas I sought out the privacy of a bathroom. After my aunt, Ms. Rebecca, and I were all changed into our spa clothes, we (thankfully) left the locker room.
The first place we went to was the hot springs, which was an outdoor area with several shallow pools to sit and put your feet in. We sat at a small, hot one first, before walking through a cooler “acupuncture” one, and ending up at a semi-warm “private” room one. It was really nice!
Behold, a picture of my terrified face.
After that, we went inside and upstairs to get some drinks and snacks, and to try out massage chairs. I had earl grey tea (my favorite). While drinking my tea, my aunt told me of the horrors of these massage chairs. I didn’t really understand how bad it was until I sat down in one. Their are slots for your arms and legs, and I don’t know if I’m just really fragile, but it felt like it was going to literally break my bones. Just when I thought it was tight enough, it would squeeze my feet even tighter to where I couldn’t move them. That is when I decided, “Nope, I’m out.” I then pulled my legs and arms out of their slots and held them up or off to the side. Then, the back massage started. It was awful. It was like someone was purposefully punching me in the spine or hips to be mean. So, I leaned forwards the rest of the time 😅
Then we went downstairs to do all of the different rooms. All of the rooms were different temperatures: some were super hot and some were super cold. We went into a few hot ones, including one very hot one that was shaped like a pyramid. There were several people on their phones inside, and upon exiting the room, we saw a sign that said, “Please, no phones inside. Could cause explosion.” So glad to know that people were being safe. We also went into the coldest room that they had. However, it wasn’t very cold. I get cold really easily, and it was actually really comfortable in this room.
Train Rides
I had never been on a train before Busan. We took a KTX there, and an SRT back. The KTX got us to Busan in one hour, and it went around 300 kmh (186 mph)! It was super fast and super cool. The SRT went slower (I’m not exactly sure how fast it went), and got us back to Daejeon in 3 hours. On the KTX, I sat across the aisle from my aunt and next to an elderly man, who, thankfully, did not need to get up the entire time. On the SRT, I sat by the window and directly next to my aunt. You get to see a lot more of the Korean countryside on the trains!
And that finishes up my Busan trip! This weekend (Thursday-Sunday), I will be in Japan (Tokyo and Yokohama, I believe)! I will try my best to take plenty of pictures to share with you guys! See you then!
Welcome to part 2 of my amazing Busan trip! This post is all about the amazing aquarium that we were able to visit at Haeundae Beach in Busan!
I can’t remember the last time that I went to an aquarium, so this was really enjoyable for me, but also a bit scary. I’ve seen so many horror movies that deal with the ocean, and it has instilled a fear of the ocean in me 😅 Standing on top of glass (or maybe thick plastic) with a pool of sharks below you is scary! Walking through a tunnel in the middle of a pool of sharks is also scary! The sharks here looked creepy too, although my aunt said that they’re not that mean.
All of the creatures were very beautiful though, and even though the sharks were creepy, they were cool. We saw so many different fish, and we even saw penguins! Penguins are my favorite animal, and I was very excited when I found out that this aquarium had them. They also had a very cool virtual reality “game” located outside the penguin tank. If you stand on a certain spot on the ground, a penguin will appear on a projected screen in front of you. Then, whatever you do, the penguin does! My aunt and Ms. Rebecca were dancing with the penguins 😂
They had these really beautiful sting rays everywhere; several tanks were dedicated to them. There were very small black ones with white spots that were my favorite. The other sting rays were larger and a tan color with faint spots. They also had very large manta rays in a tank with the sharks.
At first we didn’t notice, but there were turtles in the shark tank as well! They were huge!!! They were really lazy too 😅 They just laid on top of the tunnel.
Now on to the creepy sharks! My aunt said that they are Sand Tiger Sharks. They have really pointy faces with very jagged, protruding teeth (which is why they look so scary). We attended a shark feeding, but it wasn’t as “frenzy-like” as I had hoped. 3 divers entered the tank and one by one handed each shark a fish. Yep. That was the feeding. Very uneventful. However, before the show started, the announcer zoomed around the room with a camera, embarrassing children and couples. They asked the children to dance and the couples to kiss, and they were met with many no’s 😂
There was also a really pretty shark in a tank of it’s own with other fish. It was small and had a flowy tail. It was really cool!
There was a large portion of a hallway dedicated to jellyfish, and it was gorgeous. Each tank had color-changing lights inside it, and so the jellyfish appeared to be glowing different colors. It was so beautiful! I think that jellyfish are really cool, despite being so dangerous.
After we had finished touring the aquarium, we left, but not before I bought an adorable whale stuffed animal. I love stuffed animals and he was so precious. I had to. You can see me holding him in the Haeundae Beach picture that I posted at the beginning. He has since been named Buddy.
And that’s it for the aquarium! I’ll be back later this week with the details on the rest of my Busan trip!
Kimberly's Adventures Abroad 