Our trip to Bali!

For our anniversary in March, Zak and I decided to book a trip to Bali for an extended weekend to celebrate our four years of marriage. It was a 7 hour flight, we booked a direct flight to save on time since we were only spending a few days in Bali. We arrived really late at night and scheduled a car from the hotel to meet us at the airport which was great because there were about 1,000 taxi drivers hawking for a fare. Another tip, be sure to make a b-line straight to your luggage as soon as you see it or else a helping hand will grab it all for you and force you to tip them for their 'help'. You will also need to apply for a visa at immigration so have some cash on hand to pay.

We had a few weekend night certificates from Hilton to use up so we chose to stay at the Conrad Bali because of its amazing reviews. We booked a lagoon room which I would highly recommend! The Conrad was even nice enough to send us a bottle of champagne to celebrate our anniversary. I don't have anything negative to say about our stay there. I will let the pictures do the talking!









Bali is incredible. I am still in awe six months later about the beauty of this island, it even smelled beautiful! On our first day we explored the area around our hotel and walked the streets with mopeds zipping by. Riding a moped is an art form in Bali, I saw one with a family of five on it and others stacked so high that you couldn't see around them. Just down from our hotel was a great little restaurant on the beach called Kendi Kuning. It had really great reviews so we had our dinner there and we were not disappointed, their prawns were HUGE!!





The next morning we took a taxi to the other side of the island to spend the day at a private beach at the Nammos Beach Club, which is part of the Karma Kandara Resort. The trip to the beach took our breath away! The resort itself is situated on top of a cliff which overlooks the Indian Ocean. To get to the beach we had to take an elevator down the side of the cliff to the beach club, the view from that short ride could not be beat! It is still my computer backdrop :P

Here are some photos of our time at the Nammos Beach Club:











For our last day we hired a driver to take us around the island. My good friend Lisa recommended that I try out the local hot spot for babi guling at Ibu Oka, so this was our first stop! Here is the special that I had:



And you can't go to Bali without a stop in the Monkey Forest! The particular one that we went to was the one in Ubud. The monkeys at this forest were actually really chill and nice to be around. I have heard horror stories about the monkeys in Bali so this was a great surprise. Our driver was known pretty well by the monkeys so we had groups of them following us and climbing us up and down!











Next we visited the rice terraces, now I see a lot of rice living in Korea but these terraces were beautiful! It was so interesting to see that rice is harvested all year long since the temperature remains the same. The terraces were all at different levels of growth and more green than I have ever seen!





Our driver also stopped by a temple for us on the way back, it was pretty neat to hear about all of the history and learn about the sacrifices and ceremonies that still take place.







If you are staying in the Nusa Dua area of Bali and need a driver I highly highly recommend Agus! Here is his website: http://www.agusbali.com/


After our tour we hung out in the departure lounge at the Conrad, washed up and caught a red eye back to Korea. Although our stay in Bali was short, I will always remember this trip for its beauty and would love to return one day. If you live in Asia like we do, do yourself a favor and book a trip to Bali. You will no doubt create memories that will last a lifetime.

Thanks for reading xxx

Wolchulsan Sky Bridge

Back before I went into hibernation for the winter, Zak and I went to find the suspended sky bridge in the Wolchulsan mountains in the South Jeolla province. He described this hike to me as being "pretty easy" but it was more of a moderate hike in my opinion. It was at a pretty steep incline the whole way but also has been traveled a lot so there were hand rails and ropes at the more difficult sections. If I remember correctly the hike took us a little over an hour to get to the sky bridge and would have been another hour to the summit. We were unable to summit because the sun was beginning to set and we still had quite a bit of a drive home.









The sky bridge itself was definitely worth the hike up. It is incredible to see in person! Although it is quite unnerving to be standing on the suspended bridge with so many people. Here are our photos, but I would definitely recommend to see it in person:







It was such a beautiful fall day and as always I recommend visiting here on a weekday, we decided to go on a Sunday because the weather forecast looked better but we ended up hiking like ants in an ant farm. See below:



If you are in Korea and would like to visit the Wolchulsan National Park for a hike to see the sky bridge, here are the details: Wolchulsan National Park

Our Adventure in Making Kimchi!

In November Zak and I took a trip with our neighbors to make Kimchi in Seoul. The winter months are typically when kimchi is prepared and ready to be fermented. We took this trip with a group called WINK, it is a tour group based primarily out of Seoul that has trips available with English translators. This was the second trip I had done with them and I am overall satisfied with this organization aside from being a bit expensive for the quality of the tours. 

It was a cold and rainy day and we ended up waiting about an hour for our bus out of Seoul to where we were making the kimchi but the rain eventually subsided and makgeolli appeared just in time for us to enjoy the experience! It is hard for some people to get past the fermented aspect of kimchi but if you give it a chance you just might fall in love with this sour spicy cabbage like I have. 

The act of making kimchi is easier than I had previously thought. All you need is a salted cabbage and ingredients such as, salt, ginger, garlic, powdered red pepper, sugar and radish. Just rub your mixture of choice onto each cabbage leaf section, let it sit at room temperature for at least 48hrs and there you have it... home made kimchi! (Caveat: Kimchi must be prepared while under the influence of Korean rice wine)

(this is me keeping a look-out for the old Korean woman who pops up just to remind you that you are doing it allllll wrong)

If you want some live action checkout our youtube video:

We were lucky to have a great photographer with our group who has kindly allowed us to share his photos, if you are interested in visiting his blog it can be found here: Kimchibytes

Thanks for reading xxx

Green Month Wrap Up & Tour De Cure Seoul

Zak successfully finished green month!! I am so proud that he stuck it out even though I gave up on the third week. Here are his totals from the month:

421 Miles
20513 Calories
43h:18m:47s on the bike
$91.30 saved

In addition to finishing a month of bike riding Zak and two of his friends completed a "Tour De Cure" from Seoul to Pyeongtaek for the American Diabetes Association. They were able to raise $800 for the cause and completed the 60.55 mile ride in 5 hours and 20 minutes.

Thank you to all that donated:
 Brian Simms
Erich Oelschlegel
Elizabeth & Chantz Shealy
Kimberly Shealy
Martha Jane Allder
Danielle McSwain
Zachary & Nikki Moreland
Stanley Stinehour
Kevin Crocker
George Daniel Gunter
Anthony J Stinehour

And a huge congratulations to Zak, Chantz, and Anthony for completing the ride for such a great cause!

Green Month Update: Weeks 2 and 3!

Wow it is already the 4th week of Green Month! Here is an update on our riding:

Week 2 seemed to fly by and the weather was perfect! Conveniently that bee farm I discussed in the last posting disappeared so we no longer had to worry about being stung or swallowing a bee (hey I have done it before and it is not fun!) Neither of us seemed too exhausted from traveling around by bike. More and more people were wondering why Zak and I were riding our bikes everywhere and I had a few people say they saw me biking around, most people's jaws drop when we tell them that we commute to and from our house on our bikes but in all honesty it isn't much of a bike ride at all and is faster than taking the bus and about 10 minutes longer than taking the car. 

For the past year or so of riding my bike I have had to carry it up and over the train tracks on the other side of our apartment complex. It is about 4 sets of fairly vertical stairs but I always looked at it as a good upper body work out! Although I have found myself saying "I wish they would have a bike assist on these stairs" and bam what do you know:

Yay!!! 

Now on to week 3: This week has good news and bad news. Good news is that Zak is still riding bad news is that I had to give up riding due to a stomach bug that I had picked up somewhere during the week. I normally would have just stayed home and avoided driving while recovering but unfortunately I had to attend a mandatory "mock evacuation" on the base. I am still currently battling whatever this foreign microbe is that I picked up and it sucks to have had to quit. I am still rooting for Zak and proud that he has made it into the final week, looks like good weather for the rest of the week as well. 

Here is his week three wrap up:

No gasoline/ Bike Month

Still riding... 
349 Miles
17536 calories 
36h:23m:6s of travel

Zak is also planning his third bike trip from Seoul to Pyeongtaek which is approximately 60 miles. He has a few friends joining him this time and they are riding for the American Diabetes Association! Here is their page: 60 Miles For The Cure. 

I will check back in next week to wrap up Green Month!! Thanks for reading xx

Birthdays and Holidays!

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..

As you can tell, we had more than enough fun!! 

And here is Pip in the snow!!!

Thanks for reading xxx

Everland Halloween Style!

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! 

Everland Resort

Thanks for reading and Happy Halloween!!!! xxx