Kate’s sister, Molly, came to visit us in Korea in late December.  She stayed for about 10 days and we had a great time with her.  It was wonderful to actually get to share this place with someone from home.  The last 4 days that she was here we were off work and we all went to Seoul.  The trip was mainly a whirlwind tour of the city’s hot spots.  Here are some pictures from Seoul.   There are more in the gallery to the left.  As always – click for a larger image.

We stopped at a KimBap Restaurant (Korean Fast Food) for a cheap snack before heading off for the afternoon.  This is Ram-bokki a combination of Ramen Noodles and Dakbokki – spicy sauce and rice cake.  In the background you can see Kim Bap (Korean sushi rolls without the sushi) and Mandu (Korean Dumplings).  Molly had a pretty good amount of Korean food while she was here… its definitely an experience.  Kate and I love this stuff now

There was an Andy Warhol Portraits exhibit at the Seoul Museum of Art, so naturally we checked it out.  It was a coooold night but we ventured out.  The exhibit was fantastic!  A really wide range of his work and a lot of historical information and artifacts about his life.  The English translations of the commentary were also really entertaining.

We got a little lost walking back to the subway which wasn’t good because it was about 1 degree outside…but we made it!

The next day we went to Bongeun-sa Temple near the Coex Mall.  Every Thursday they have a “Temple Life” program where foreigners can get a tour of the temple, learn some basic meditation practices, participate in the Tea Ceremony and make lotus flowers.  It was about 2 hours and a really great way to experience Korean Buddhism up close.  We had hoped to do an overnight Temple Stay the weekend before, but Kate was sick and it didn’t seem like a good idea.  This was a nice way to still get at least some of the experience.

Lanterns are hung at the temples for a period of time before and after the four major Buddhist holidays.  I think these were up for the New Year.

This is one of the tallest Buddha Statues in Korea.  The picture doesn’t really do it justice but it was huge!

Tea ceremony!

Kate and Molly making Lotus Flowers

The Temple is right in the middle of the city – providing an interesting contrast between the skyscrapers and apartment buildings all around it.

Kate and Molly on the Subway.  Seoul has one of the best subways I’ve ever been on.  It’s quiet, clean, and fast… amazing!

The last day we took a bus tour around the city.  This was the easiest and cheapest way to see all the highlights of the city.  It was a fun way to spend the day.

I think this is Namdaemoon, or Dongdaemoon …  From the bus.

We also went to see Avatar in 3D one afternoon, and ate some Mexican food in Itaewon.  On Saturday we took Molly to the airport for her early morning flight, then we waited there for our 9:30pm flight.  Stuck in the airport for 13 hours… not too fun.  Incheon is kind of the most amazing airport in the world though, so it was not a problem… more on that in the next post… Manila!

]]> http://www.spicyfishy.com/winter-vacation-part-1-seoul/feed/ 1 http://www.spicyfishy.com/cameron_to_kl/ http://www.spicyfishy.com/cameron_to_kl/#comments Fri, 27 Mar 2009 05:49:45 +0000 http://www.spicyfishy.com/?p=634 It’s been almost 3 months since our Winter trip began and we still haven’t posted everything about it.  If you’ve poked around the site you’ve probably already seen these photos but hopefully this will give them a little more context.  Our posts have been a bit out of order from our trip – starting near the end (Penang) back to the beginning (Bangkok) then the middle (Koh Tao).  In that tradition I present to you the last leg of our Journey.  The only place left is Langkawi (somewhere in the middle ).   So here we go… The Cameron Highlands to Kuala Lumpur.

While on Penang we rented a car (from Hertz) and drove our way through the heart of Malaysia.  It added a lot to our travel costs but it made for an exciting few days of travel.

A map of mainland Malaysia.

Penang and Langkawi are on the north west side and Kuala Lumpur is on the west side about half way down.  Between the two you can see Ipoh and the Cameron Highlands.  (the route of our journey).

We left Penang on a ferry and quickly got turned around and stuck going to the wrong direction.  Thanks to some quick navigating of the spotty map we had and some blasting of bad travel music we found our way out of Butterworth and on to the highway.   Our first stop was a Tree Top forest walk.  More on that in another post… We got lost on the way to it and on the way from it but finally made it to Ipoh in a terrible rain storm and found our hotel for the evening.

The Sunset before the storms…

The menu at a restaurant in the middle of Malaysia… No one there spoke english so all we had to go on were these pictures. 

Didn’t really work out that well… (we went to the 7/11 down the road afterward and got some other snacks.)  (That curry had lots of slimy 8 legged friends in it.. I’ll spare you the pictures.)

The next day we traveled on from Ipoh to the Cameron Highlands.  Originally our plan was to stay in the Cameron Highlands the night before and do some hiking in the area, but we found out a bit too late that EVERYONE in Malaysia goes to the Cameron Highlands during the Chinese New Year – (which started that day ).  So we stayed in Ipoh and made a quick trip to the Highlands the next day.  Turned out to be a lot quicker than we thought.  We arrived to rain and fog (pretty in the rolling hills but not to practical for hiking or touring around the strawberry farms and tea plantations – it’s a very colonial region).   We also arrived to bumper to bumper traffic.  So we stopped a tea plantation had a scone and some tea, drove through the rest of the Highlands and decided to head on South for the evening.

Tribes of the Orang Asli still live around this area and remnants of their nomadic lifestyle were everywhere along side the road.  Or this is just a place where people sell vegetables… who knows

Dave taking a picture of the view.

After a few hours of driving we arrived in Kuala Lumpur!!    Excited to get there and not sure exactly where we were going, we got lost a lot and ended up downtown in the heart of the city. We found a hotel for the night (the condo we had rented wasn’t available until the next night) and headed out for a nice relaxing dinner.  Kuala Lumpur was a pretty cool city – surrounded by mountains and jungle it had an interesting feel.  It was the Chinese New Year so everything was closed and most of the people had gone to visit family elsewhere – so it felt like we had the city to ourselves… like a ghost town almost.   But it made driving a lot less scary in the rental car and taxi’s really easy to catch. :)  We used the time in Kuala Lumpur to decompress from the traveling – relaxing in the pool at the condo, eating lots of western food, watching a movie, looking out the view from our 30th floor, and visiting the major tourist spots.

Here is a view of the Petronas Twin Towers (formerly the worlds tallest buildings) from the KL Tower.  The KL Tower is a space needle type structure that is a lot easier to go up in than the petronas towers (and they have a revolving restaurant!).  We went up for Eve’s Birthday!

Views from the revolving restaurant

This kid was climbing up on the windows… !  So Scary!

What a lovely lady

That’s our trip to Kuala Lumpur in a nutshell.  We also visited Chinatown (a busy streetmarket with cheap fake stuff) and the Hard Rock Cafe.  Somehow we only ended up with a handful of photos from this leg of the trip, but hopefully I’ll get some more from Dave and Eve soon and post them.  For now check out this gallery for more pictures and enjoy!

-Chad

Enjoy…

This little guy above was the very first thing we heard when we arrived to the ferry port (after an over night bus from Bangkok) around 5 am. We were pooped and this rooster sent us into a very surreal state. The cherry on top of a looong journey.

Chicken for breakfast or . . . . . Oragne Cake?!

This cake was the most descent thing we could find to eat at a rest-stop on our bus ride. And yes, it is spelled o-r-a-g-n-e.

Here is the little harbor from where we departed. At first we thought the crazy (10 ft.?) waves were fun. That delirium lasted about 10 minutes when we started hearing people everywhere getting sick. Things got a little bit nutty. One of our party fell quite ill and Chad managed to crash into a picture frame (among people who were not doing well holding on to their digested breakfast). Glass flew everywhere (it was incredibly comical and as a person not getting sick I was trying to hold in my giggles. . . I am a bad sailor’s daughter). Later on Eve, who was sitting upstairs, saw one of the crewman throw a huge pile of glass overboard. Ooops. We made a point to avoid that area for diving.

Oh, so happy on the boat!

Coming in on our lovely island home (for a week).

A view of Dave and Chad basking in the sun in a little cove near our dive resort.

All geared up. I may look comfortable but OH MAN, I wasn’t!

Feet hanging over on our early morning dives (last 2). 18 meters! We had to leave at 7:30 AM.

Getting our gear prepped!

Here is all of our gear! Let’s see if I can remember the buddy check. Bruce Willis Ruins All Films. Okay, Chad just had to help me but that’s okay because he was my buddy! Poor guy had to hold my hand the entire time we were underwater.

I’m almost done!

Dave.

Our certification group! Team Australia (red hair guy and hoody guy), Team America (us, yeah, you know the next part), Team Dave (our Dave (far left) and other Dave (second to the right) we had two Daves), Heathe Ledger (red coat) and Tim (older & waving).

Dive Site!

Relaxing with a book before our final meeting.

Pretty view at some restaurant we scooted to.

My Chad with a smoothie. You have NO idea how many fresh smoothies we had while on Koh Tao! SOOoo many!

That’s us.

My favorite travellers!

Chad kissed my shoulder after putting sunscreen on. . . .

More to come!

Here is Chad approaching our next amazing encounter. i just thought the little peep holes were cool.
Another Chinese temple! We were really tied at this pint and were kind of ready to get back to the hotel to freshen up. Despite our effort to get home we were distracted by this temple and the little man inside.

A little old man met us outside and insisted to us (without English) that we take his tour. We couldn’t really say no.

This was my favorite part of the tour. He offered to take a picture of us together THEN he proceeded to get a picture with each of us. It was pretty amazing.

After we had the photo shoot he took us downstairs to see a picture of him and Tony Blair. He then handed us a handmade business card with his address and asked that we send him copies of the pictures. we need to get on that.

Kids playing on the street.

Among the ruins. Okay, yes I like taking pictures of dilapidated buildings but I do think this take it a bit too far.

Watermelon juice in a bag! Pink liquid in a bag?! Does life get better?

I had hard time handling it. I ended up just carting it around like a wet bag of sugar.
Incense constantly lit for Chinese New Year.

Another eating break! Okay, in all fairness, it has been more than an hour. We went back to the hotel and toured the Indian section of Penang. Hence the samosa.

I just like this, we didn’t go in.

Ah, but after more India Town touring we found a bakery/cafe owned by a man from Penang who had lived in NYC. While there he owned a similar cafe. He was great to talk to. We went back the next day for lunch and brought Dave and Eve. Eve and I had a veggie burgers!!

Do you see my orange mid-air? Chad wanted to take a picture of a temple at night. Quite beautiful, I think. This temple we cam across on our way to get foot massages. At the foot massage we got to be in the same room and the gave us fresh fruit and fresh juice. It was lovely.

Okay, after all of our nibbles we went for a real dinner at the Hawker’s Market. Basically there were a bunch of vendors every where and you just order and give them your table number. We took some risks and ordered random things with which we were unfamiliar. It wasn’t bad but not thrilling, neither of us ate much. Maybe we were just full. .

Lots of different ladies sang to us while we ate. Lots of Celine Dion like music. Woot.

It Asia it is traditional to give gifts in the form of oranges. By the end of the day I had quite a collection in my bag.

Shaved ice covered in ice cream and sauce! Yummy.

Newly engaged bliss.

Okay, so far no one has participated in my challenge so no high-fives from Korea. Last chance, don’t scroll down. What is in these little packages?

1. . .

2. . . .

3. . . .

Spicy coconut rice topped with a boiled egg wrapped in banana leaf!

And now, the Kate tradition continues. When else am I going to have a hot dog in Penang?

Whoa Nellie, this one was intense! More goup than dog.

I couldn’t do it.

Chad enjoyed his midnight snack. :)In with naan, out with naan.

So, that is Penang in a nutshell or two.

On another note, I hope you are all doing very well. We miss you all terribly. Please send us a note to let us know how we are doing. Thanks for keeping up with us, it means a lot to have the support!

Take Care!

Love,

kate & Chad

Koh Tao- our bay … pretty great!

Prepping for a dive…

taking a swim in our bay on koh tao…

Sunrise on the boat to koh Tao…!! Then the seasickness hit.. ick.

The Grand Palace (or a small part of it) in Bangkok. 

A tomb outside the Reclining Buddha – Bangkok 

Dave taking pictures of the little statues… he loved them. We loved that he loved them

A scuba Group diving at Twin Dive spot. We dove in a few minutes later… 

That’s all for now… we’ll post more when we can.
-Chad & Kate

More soon, and I’ll try again to upload some photos maybe tomorrow of the next day. The card readers built into these computers won’t read my camera card so I need to remember to grab my camera cable when I come next time.

Hope all is well on the other side of the world… we’re living it up over here and are doing really well.

—-Chad & Kate

We arrived without any hassles really at 2:30AM on the 8th. Got through customs in a breeze and soon were off to our hostel in a cab.. about a 45 minute trip but we arrive and were settled in to our beds by about 4AM. Got up the next day and walked around Koh Saan a bit… this area is known as the backpacking/travel HUB of Thailand. LOTS of foreigners lots of character, crazy atmosphere.. it’s fun but a bit overwhelming. It’s close to all the major touristy stuff so we walked over to the Grand Palace and spent a few hours taking in the amazing sights. Some fantastic architecture and history here – lots of fun and very humbling.

After some food Kate and I left to go visit her friend Marlie who lives just outside of Bangkok (an hour away :). Got there and had dinner with her went to a crazy Thai bar and then stayed the night in her place and came back with her in the morning after she taught her one class. Spent the day traveling around – visit the reclining Buddha, traveling on the canal water taxis and taking in the sights and sounds of Bangkok.

Today we’ve spent mainly shopping around Koh Saan road.. there are street venders and small shops everywhere so we stocked up on bags/sunglasses/clothes/etc.. all very cheap and very interesting.

Soon we’ll leave for Koh Tao – start our diving on Monday and spend a week there. More on that as it happens!

Off I go to get a quick thai shoulder massage and then we’ll head down the street to get on the Bus!

More soon!
Love you all – and can’t wait to tell you more about the our travels… It’s truly going amazingly well and we’re loving every minute!

-Chad (and Kate … but she’s in the midst of a facial massage on the side of the street soo.. more just Chad She says hi though….)

PS.. sorry the photos never finished uploading and I have to leave.. I’ll post more later… Sorry!!