Trip to Dague

 We went to Daegu, another large city in Korea for an impulsive, unplanned getaway for a weekend.  It was a fun trip, but ended up costing us way more than we expected to originally pay.  Ce la vie.

First, we, the ladies, sat in a cafe, while the boys went to find us a roach motel.  And a roach motel they did find. The pictures of this LOVELY suite can be found in our youtube video about "love motels."  Its the peptobismal pink one with the plastic flooring coming off.   While they searched long and hard, we took silly photos...







We then found a cultural event which was happening near the medicine market. daegu is known for its natural medicine remedies, but also its plastic surgery.

• We played dress up
• dipped our feet in the medicine fountain
• crushed some type of medicine
• played some traditional games
• gawked at old men playing some board games
• watched some random parade drive by
• watched a drum and sword performance. 

It was quite a cultural day for us.

The second day we went ice skating before heading home.  We realized once on the ice however, that ice skating is quite dangerous without proper protection, such as pants... Because it was early September, it was still quite warm, therefore leaving us vulnerable to the sharp, gritting teeth of the ice below. Luckily non of us fell, although Sam tried when he decided to do some type of fancy jump on the ice.

random guy out at midnight with his dog wearing sunglasses.

Two barber poles signifies not just a barber shop, but a special place with "special" services. Don't know what THREE poles mean...

sam jumping, and miraculously not killing himself.

We're back

We had a fabulous vacation on Jeju island, a small volcanic island south of Korea.  It's considered the jewel of Korea, and the Hawaii of Asia.  And we were both pleasantly surprised.  Maybe this is the jaded Vanessa speaking, but I'm used to disappointment at finding that Korea has once again extravagantly exaggerated the beauty or magnificence of her national treasures. Like many countries, Korea is a proud nation, and there is a lot to be proud of, but sometimes, and this is probably true of many places, exaggeration, and puffed up pride, plays a larger role than the thing being touted deserves credit for.  And maybe its because I had low expectations going in, I wasn't expecting the Philippines, or the Mediterranean, but Jeju held its own. It truly was a lovely island, and had much more natural beauty than I'd expected which is often what I find lacking here in Korea. 

We're spending today relaxing, and resting up from our vacation.  Why is it that we always need a vacation from our vacations?

So this post is not going to be a long post.  Just a short note to explain that we are indeed alive, sun tanned, and resting our sore hiking worn legs this weekend. I do plan on posting real posts soon.  There is oh so much to post, I feel a little overwhelmed, or more like A LOT overwhelmed, and I will try my best to catch up.

Philippine videos AGAIN

When I posted these videos the first time four months after the vacation to the Philippines, they weren't successfully posted.  Honestly its been so long since I tried posting them, that I've even forgotten why they were rejected by Youtube in the first place.  But I haven't worked on our footage in such a while, that its taken me nearly half a year to get them back up.  In reality, I asked Kyle to do it, but well, men will be men I guess, and I'm now doing it six months after the fact.

We took our vacation to the Phillippines last September and it was FANTASTIC. We've made two videos:
Boracay in a Flash: for people with little time on their hands and don't really want to watch the long version


Trip to the Philippines the extended version part 1 and part 2 : for people, such as our parents, grandparents and others who have a vested interest in watching details of our lives that other people don't have the time, patience or energy for.
 

Hawaii

This is part one in a series of Hawaii posts which will probably be spread out.

So, we took a vacation the week before Christmas to Hawaii, Maui, to be exact, and I am finally getting around to posting pictures about it.  We flew into Maui on a relatively short, seven hour flight, from Korea.  It was the first time we'd been back in the USA in a year. Kyle's mom, and my mom's favorite traveling friend, met us at the airport with leis. Kyle's parents had gone to the grocery store and stocked us on food for the entire week.  Mark, Kyle's dad was the chef, and he and Kyle slaved away in the kitchen concocting amazing meals.  Hawaii is incredibly expensive spot in which to vacation, so we chose to economize by saving on food costs by cooking at home for the majority of our meals.  Considering the quality of food that came out of our kitchen, I'd venture to say that we made the right choice.  The restaurants in Maui are not only overpriced but also not very exciting or good.

The first day, we decided to take an easy day, relaxing on a near by beach.  It was gorgeous weather, considering we were in our bathing suits in December.  The mountain in the background was lovely.

My mom, who has an alergy to the sun, enjoyed the scene tucked away in the bushes.

Later on, we went shopping in an artisans market.  One of the most exciting of these stores was the hot sauce and other food goodies store.  We spent a long time sampling.

We then went to a BBQ restaurant which was surprising wonderful considering our distance from Texas.

The second day we traveled the Road to Hana.  Because we rented cars, we were able to make this trip with a self guided tour on our own.  The CD buying experience was a trip in itself, as it took us nearly an hour to find a decent CD, but once we did, we were on the road. Mark was the driver, God bless him.  The road was a treacherously windy road.  It is actually only 68 miles long, and I don't think we even drove half of it before turning around to avoid nightfall, but we were on the road for 12 hours.  The real reason it took so long however was because we made stops every few miles along the way.  The road to Hana, isn't really about getting to Hana, but about the stops along the way.  Its a beautifully scenic, unblemished paradise littered with waterfalls, volcanic cliff sides, and teeming rain forests.  It's what one thinks of when they think of Hawaii, flourishing green wildlife.

Our first stop.  Dad n son.

My mom and Mayin, her traveling buddy

We were quite lucky that it didn't rain a ton on us, however because it hadn't rained in days, the waterfalls were a little less powerful.

We made a stop at a botanical garden.  I loved feeding the duck and chasing the peacock for a picture.

frightening spider

rainbow eucalyptus tree

Pottery Festival from JULY 2010

I found this video I made months ago. Yes, months ago, like as in July of last year.  And I forgot to show it to you.  I certainly don't spend hours of my time filming and editing these videos just for my entertainment.  Our county for some reason paid for us to go on this incredibly unorganized, but rather fun trip to a pottery festival.  Had I paid for it, I might have been a little put off by the lack of organization, but as it was free, I was able to go with the flow. I plan to show you pictures that never made it to the blog either soon with more explanation for what you will see in the video.  Click here to see the video in Youtube.

Boracay (the end)

A day of avid snorkeling without proper amounts of sunscreen resulted in excruciating pain.  We canceled our tour out on the sea the next day to allow Kyle some "get out of the sun" time.  After three days on the main beach we moved to another hotel on the other side of the island, the quieter side.  Basically, I had a hard time figuring out which hotel to stay at so in the end, mostly out of indecision, we choose two. The second was called Ligganay which means "bell" in Philippino. So named this for the shape of the rock near the beach where the hotel rests.  This hotel, was also run by an ex-pat, a German this time rather than an American.  Overall the grounds and general look of this hotel was more stunning, but our room was not memorable, and badly needed a woman's designer touch.  Looking at the white walls, the peculiar paintings, the shell chandelier, the mis-matching sheets, I could just imagine the whiskey drinking, infrequent shirt addorning, smelly German man, our gracious and very kind host, frustratingly and absent-mindedly choosing each decoration. The sheets, which are visible in the photo below, looked like they came straight through a time machine from the 80s, but to top it off, they didn't even match. It was a sad sight, but we didn't spend a whole lot of time in our room.  The pool, on the otherhand was an amazing infinity pool looking out onto the ocean seemingly almost as if they were connected . And we were surrounded by jungle, with a tiny private beach which was lovely and bordered by rocks and caves.

People often ask how I like the Philippines, to which I respond emphatically, "I LOVED it," but in all fairness it wasn't really the Philippines.  Boracay, the only island/city we stepped foot on except for Manila, is not really the Philippines. I mean, technically it is in the Philippines, but its run by ex-pats.  Its a cultural experience for the natives more so than for foreigners.  We plan to go back to see more of the "real" Philippines when we travel.

Because we canceled our tour, we spent the day relaxing, taking pictures, walking along the beach and enjoying each others company.  We walked down to Friday's Rock, a famous landmark on the island, bought margaritas before noon, had to show them how to make a proper margarita because it seemed that no one on the island knew how to make any sort of cocktail of any sort decently, and we even ate at a semi-decent Mexican restaurant.  

For the evening, I dressed in my newly purchased dress, and took more pictures of the stunning sunset.  Sunsets, no matter how many times you see them, never get old.  I could watch the sunset, watercoloring the horizon with God's special paint pallet every night of my life, and never find it dull.  But the sunsets on Boracay were nothing short of miraculous.

For our last dinner we went for an all rib night which was good, but not fantastic.  We met some other random ex-pats.    We were sad to leave, but we will be back.  It was a lovely vacation, and a fantastic way to celebrate our anniversary.