As you know Zak and I celebrated my birthday at Tokyo Disney but my awesome friends came over after we got home from Japan and we celebrated some more with cake and wine! One thing I love about living overseas is being able to meet and make friends with people from all over the world. Having friends to spend birthdays and holidays with is great.
My ice cream cake!
And soon after my birthday comes Christmas!! I hope everyone enjoyed their's, we sure did! We spent Christmas Eve drinking some delicious mulled wine and playing games at our friend's house. It snowed the day prior to Chritmas Eve (Christmas Eve..Eve?) so we had a beautiful white Christmas!
And the only picture I have of Zak and I.. lovely I know..
For my birthday Zak and I made a last minute decision to use our flyer miles and head to Tokyo for a a few days. He asked me what I really wanted to do for my birthday and I said "TOKYO DISNEY!!" I am a big theme park enthusiast and have a very nostalgic love for Disney, so it seemed like the logical choice. :) We booked our flights and hotel about a week prior to leaving and it made me realize that it would be impossible for me to book a vacation any sooner than that because a week felt like a month!
So in typical Zak and Nikki fashion we wait until last minute to pack and figure out what we are bringing with us. If you remember in a previous post we had lost our beloved hard core sony cybershot while our family was in town so we bought another updated one to replace it. Well, unfortunately we realized that we had no idea where that one was either. We searched every nook and cranny for hours it seemed with no luck.. I mean the camera is BRIGHT yellow.. how could we lose it?!? Alas, people are thankful for our purchases because now we have given the city of Pyeongtaek not one but two shiny cybershots...for free. :(
Sadly we had to depart without the camera and headed to Incheon Airport. We decided to drive this time since we were only staying for a few days and parking was only 8000won a day (about 7-8usd). Thank goodness my husband knows how to drive like a race car driver because we almost ran into an idiot who missed their turn on the freeway that decided to STOP their car and put it in REVERSE at the fork in the road. I can't make these things up, I promise.
Upon arriving at the airport we picked up our duty free items that we purchased earlier in the week at one of the huge duty free malls here in South Korea (perk!) and made a last minute decision to buy another cybershot...sigh... this time though we didn't get the rugged one in hopes that it will turn up in a seat cushion one day.
So here are some test photos from our new camera on the airplane!
The flight is very short from Seoul to Tokyo, about 2 1/2 hours. At the airport I found something unique.. a smoker's room, outside! Way to keep the air fresh!
From the airport we took a bus directly to our hotel (The Hilton Tokyo Bay) it was about a 75 minute ride and cost about $30 per person.
When we got to the hotel and checked into our room we realized we had a beautiful view of the Tokyo Bay! Here are a few photos we got:
And what better way to escape the outrageous hotel food and drink prices than this:
At Tokyo Disney there are actually two parks, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disney Sea. They were both amazing!! Here are some photos from Disney Land:
The weather was more favorable the day we went to Disneyland but that didn't keep us from having a good time the day we went to Disney Sea! It did actually start pouring rain the day we were at Disney Sea (my birthday) so unfortunately the only photo were these:
But we did however have TONS of fun there. It was a more thrilling park than Disney Land, as it included the Tower of Terror (my new favorite!) and other rides that are only in Japan.
And for your viewing pleasure:
Overall it was a great trip, I wouldn't change a thing about it. My birthday was a great success, and we are now looking forward to Christmas.
I am sorry for not blogging recently, I just got done with an 18 credit semester so that had me pretty busy. For now we are just enjoying the Christmas season and I am still waiting for it to start snowing regularly around here... call me crazy. :)
Hope you all are finding yourselves in good spirits, happy holidays!!
One of Zak and I's favorite amusement parks in Korea is "Everland". They have such an array of things to do from watching monkeys, seeing a liger, drinking German beer and riding their awesome wooden roller coaster! Every season they decorate the park and since September they have had Everland decorated in a Halloween theme. Here are some photos of us from when we went recently:
See the animal crossing above the people?? :)
I have no idea what these are, any ideas?
Or this for that matter but it is so darn cute!
Oh you know, Korean Tarzan and his sidekick.
Please envision as this picture was being taken Zak not only feeding the birds but accidentally dumping bird feed on a Korean Woman's head... thats what happens when you are two feet taller than everyone else around you! Ooops!
I didn't understand why this photo was winking at me as I was waiting to get on a ride.
Me after one of the Halloween shows in my new cool witches hat that comes with cat ears. ^-^
And once the sun sets all the goblins and ghouls come out to scare everyone
It was a lot of fun, if you are in the area you should definitely check it out and don't forget to print your foreigners discount from their English friendly website!
As I was perusing one of my Korean foodie blogs Seoul Eats I noticed a post about Oktoberfest in Seoul at the Grand Hilton and jumped on the opportunity to get tickets for this event. It was a surprise to Zak and I managed to actually keep it under wraps for the week prior to the event. I usually spill the beans within 24 hours of planning a surprise, so this was a big step for me! :-P So this event was a one time rate for unlimited German beer and cuisine, a live band from Germany, and a whole lot of fun! We definitely enjoyed ourselves and drank enough Paulaner beer for the year, I love Oktoberfest. It was nothing but a ballroom full of people who like to drink beer and eat pretzels, my kind of people!
Me in the hotel room before we went to Oktoberfest, trying to contain myself of spilling the beans! Oh and thanks for the free bottle of wine Seoul Grand Hilton, I had to drink it before Oktoberfest or else my husband would have been on to me that we are going to a drinking event if I didn't pop it open... ha ha
And now onto Oktoberfest, this right here made every penny worth it:
Tapping of the keg!
This Korean boy in his lederhosen was just too cute, even though he looked forced to wear this by his mother...
Zak about to arm wrestle..
We drink Paulaner beer! I wish you could here me singing this, because I have literally been singing it since Oktoberfest..
Drunk Nikki being silly..
And the people we shared our table with, they pretty much won all the competitions, the lady on the left it one hell of a beer chugger.. and the one on the right dominated in womens arm wrestling.
And a video I have put together from the event, beware there are embarrassing drunk moments that you will probably enjoy.. but hey it was Oktoberfest!
In all this was definitely an awesome time, we cannot wait to go again next year!!! I might just order some lederhosen ;)
Recently Zak and I went hiking in Cheonan, a city south of us, on the Taejosan Sanak Trail. There are many entrances as you can see by the map below, Zak and I had a goal to get to the large Buddha located in the middle of the map. Little did we know that we were starting on the wrong end and 2 hours later on a very steep hike we were only half way there and the sun was beginning to set. Even though we didn't make it to Buddha, we did have a great hike! (Next time Buddha, we will be rubbing your belly!)
Zak cheesin' at the entrance
This my readers, is the attire of a Korean hiker, you will undoubtedly feel under dressed whilst hiking among them.
Hmm what is this?
Oh I see, so you want me to walk barefoot across these rocks...
Beware, do not grab the ropes for help, I almost made this mistake. See below:
A viewpoint along our hike
Cheonan City
A very wobbly but pretty cool sky bridge
We were exhausted by the end of this hike, it was a constant incline and every time we said to ourselves "we must be at the highest peak now" we would hit another climb. Hoping to get better at hiking because its no joke in Korea!
Zak and I love to travel and be adventurous together! We are currently living in South Korea. Follow our blog to keep up with our many adventures and experiences from living overseas! xxx
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