I have some big news, but before I spill the beans let me give you some back story.
Bobby and I met in September 2009 through a mutual friend. He was interested in designing t-shirts and asked for my help since I was in the graphic design program.
One day he surprised me at my apartment when I got home from work at Starbucks. He was there with my roommates, cooking everyone dinner. He told me that night that he would win my heart over with his cooking. We never made any shirts, but his cooking definitely worked.
Later, on our first date, Bobby took me to a Korean Restaurant. I had never had Korean food so he wanted to be the first to introduce me to it. I had no idea what to order, so Bobby recommended I order bibimbop. It came out in a piping hot bowl and I mixed together all the ingredients. It was something I had never tasted before and I loved it. It was my first taste of Korean food. I guess it was sort of a foreshadow of our lives together that we ate Korean food on our first date and now we are living here together.
We decided to make our relationship official on our first trip together to Seattle in October 2009. He took me home to meet his Mom and Dad. I remember loving his parents instantly. His mom cooked us foods that I had never heard of or could even pronounce for that matter. It felt like I was at a 5 star restaurant but really I was just in "Linda Land".
Within the first ten minuets of meeting his dad, he took us out in his amphi-car around the lake near his house and we enjoyed some delicious homemade Japanese food that night. We were also able to go to a Seattle soccer game, all of which were firsts for me.
Here is a picture of us almost 5 years ago at the Seattle Sounders game.
Since then Bobby has never stopped teaching me new things, taking care of me, and cooking delicious foods.
We make each other better people. We both challenge each other to step out of our comfort zone. We set short and long term goals for ourselves and as a couple. We share passions together, including our passion to travel and see the world.
After three years together, Bobby and I got engaged on March 14th, 2012.
Shortly after getting engaged we up and moved to South Korea. Since then we have developed an even stronger relationship because we were forced to deal with everything together and count on each other at all times.
An incredible 5 years later, we are proud to announce our wedding will be August 23, 2014.
Man, does it feel good to have a date!
Ever since we chose the date, I have been doing lots of pinning onPinterest.
I just love Pinterest.
Check out my Pinterest hereto see more of my wedding ideas, home inspiration, travel inspiration, fashion, DIY and more ( I spend way too much time there!).
Here is a glimpse at what our wedding will look like.
We hope to do the WHOLE thing for $2,000 or LESS (wish us luck!)
We plan to make tons of stuff by hand to add personal touches and to keep the money in our pockets for future travels.
So on that note, be on the look out for some DIY posts!
Every morning when we wake up we go straight to the computer and turn on some music. When we get home, work out at the gym, or travel the country our music is always with us. Music energizes us and keep us in a good mood. I was thinking today about our "go to" music choices as of late and thought it might be a good idea to share them.
I've never called myself a music advocate. I have always liked most music that is played (minus heavy metal, that stuff just gives me a headache!). So it is hard to write a blog post about music I like. I am not sure how to describe different styles and specific artists in a way to make them appealing, but I do think, at the very least, that someday in the future I can look back at this post and listen to the music that I loved the summer when I was 24 and living in Korea.
Maybe one of you will like one of the artists we post about and maybe you will recommend something to us. We are always chomping at the bit for fresh music (new or old). Hopefully you get some satisfaction out of our music selection. Whether or not you do, feel free to share with us some whats currently in your ears. Think of this post as a sort of "PLAY IT FORWARD".
The first guy on my list is DJ100 PROOF. We have been listening to him since we first got together-- over four years ago. He is from Seattle, Washington. Every summer he releases a Backyard BBQ mix that is about an hour long. There are even a few that we plan at playing at our wedding. (Now you can see the kind of vibe we want at our wedding.)
Check out his newest Backyard BBQ Vol. 7 It is over a hour long, but just hit play and continue doing what you were doing.
Another artist that we have been digging lately is Poolside. They are a couple of guys from
Los Angeles who we found on Soundcloud. They have some playlists that are 1-3 hours long that are PERFECT for cooking dinner or having people over for drinks! It is so hard to just choose one song to show you, but if you like this one please check out their other ones!
Last is my favorite solo artist Solzilla AKA Sol. Sol is a guy from Seattle who Bobby introduced me to once before a show. He is an up and coming rapper who is making Seattle proud. He's a very intelligent and honest musician with smooth lyricism and awesome local beats. Even if you don't enjoy rap, you should definitely check him out. He's something else. He just got back from a 6
month journey around South America where he wrote his new single Jump Inand in
a few weeks he will release his new album Eyes Open.
So, what do you think? Any there any songs you liked from these artist? And like always, I welcome new music suggestions. Cheers. Jestine
Today we ventured over to Gamcheon Culture Village: a quirky art-filled suburb in Busan that has emerged from the poverty of the war to become one of Busan's most unique areas.
Before we made our way to Gamcheon, I read a Busan Haps article where I learned that back in the 1940's only about 20 houses were on this hill side. But that number grew substantially at the beginning of the Korean War, in 1950.
According to the article, as war refugees fled their homes for a relatively safe place in Busan: the only area of the peninsula that remained free from fighting. Within the first year of war, Busan's population grew from 880,000 to 1.4 MILLION. Half a million people homeless, needing a place to live, and fast. Over 4,000 people moved from the crowded port of Jagalchi Fish Market to Gamcheon.
They makeshifted homes only using scrap iron, wood and rocks.
The Lego-like homes that we saw were all thanks to a man named Chol-je-Cho.
This guy founded a religion called Taegukdo. This religion believes that the Taeguk, or the yin yang on their flag, represents the meanings of life and the universe.
Also, the Korean Flag has a cool meaning.
Korean Flag also known as Taegeukgihas three parts.
The white background symbolizes "cleanliness of the people". The Taegeuk , the ying yang, represents the origin of all things in the universe, holding the two principles of yin and yang in perfect balance—the former being the negative aspect rendered in blue, and the latter as the positive aspect rendered in red. Together, they represent a continuous movement within infinity, the two merging as one.
Taegukdo was practiced after oppression and the overthrow from the Japanese occupation. Cho and his followers persuaded almost 90% of the refugees living in Gamcheon with nice gifts of rice and candy.
With Cho's help, the residents in Gamcheon used their earnings to rebuild their village. In 1955 the area became known as the Taeguk Village and Cho moved the religion's headquarters there. We actually saw a pretty large (relative to the small homes in the village) religious compound located in the middle of the village.
The best part of the village is wondering through these small paths. You never know where it will head or what you might see next.
We noticed every house had its own big blue water tank on their roof.
Now a days the current 10,000 residents are used to the heavy flow of tourist, photographers, and filmmakers. It was so enjoyable to adventure through these small brightly colored houses.
Well it's that time of year again. SUMMER VACATION! Last year for summer vacation we went to Jeju Island and had a fabulous time. This year we decided to make another trip to Seoul since we loved it so much the last time we were there. After I started planning our third trip up there, I quickly realized this will probably be our last time up there (for now) since we have no more vacations during our contract (besides our vacation to the Philippines next month). So here is the breakdown of our trip.
Saturday, July 27, 2013
After we finished working in the morning, we caught a bus to Seoul. The bus ride took about five hours (less than the travel time from Lewiston to Seattle) with a bathroom break after two hours.We arrived in Seoul around 6 and made our way through the crowded subways and underground shopping to our hostel. After we settled into our cozy, but cool room, and migrated the busy streets to find our way to a comedy show at a foreigner pub. A friend of ours, Wassim, is an up-and-coming standup comedian. This was the second time we saw him perform, and we were exploding with laughter!
After the show, a few friends and Bobby and I made our way to a small store that sells a wide-array of imported craft beers. Bobby was in heaven and could have spent hundreds of dollars there (I did let him treat himself to a few select ones he hadn't tried yet). Bobby spotted an excellent cider that was on sale. So he grabbed some for us to try and OMG it was the best cider I've ever had. It is a dry cider, but it is creamy on the palate. It has a crisp and fresh aroma of apples with a uniquely refreshing tartness. It is almost like champagne, but better! Needless to say, we bought a few to bring home (Busan) with us! (I think we are starting to sound like alcoholics, I swear we don't normally drink everyday, only on special occasions, which are most of the times I write blog posts). ^_^
We ended our night atop our hostel with good friends and homebrew we brought from Busan. We chatted and laughed the night away until sunrise.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
We started our Sunday morning by treating ourselves to some beef at a local western grocery store/cafe. Beef is pretty expensive here, and being the penny crunching travelers we are, we tend to only buy chicken. But when you are on vacation, you're allowed to splurge a little. I got a roast beef sandwich on homemade bread and I also found a Fresh Ginger Ginger Aleby Bruce Cost - a super gingery, lightly sweet carbonated beverage that excites my taste buds.
After lunch, we made our way to Namsan Tower AKA Seoul Tower AKA N Seoul Tower to meet one of our Korean conversation partners from LCSC, Jayeon (Elieen), who lives in Seoul. Normally you can see beautiful 360 views of Seoul from this tower, but it was a foggy day, so we didn't venture up to the top. But the surrounding areas were covered with lush green trees, well kept green grass, beautiful stone paths and the loud sound of cicadas buzzing through the trees.
Apparently a lot of couples go to Namsan Tower (which is on Namsan Mountain, the highest point in Seoul). The gates around the tower are covered with pad locks with couples names and short love notes on them. The idea is for two 'lovebirds' to write on the padlock and then link them to the fence and throw out the keys to ensure their vows are not broken. We heard about this tradition for couples on Valentine's Day last year but at the Namsan Tower you can show your love for your significant other anytime of the year. I hope this next year during Valentine's Day Bobby and I can be apart of this tradition!
The pink lock below says, " Baby, I love you. Promise we are forever. I love you"
As part of the "love theme" they have angled benches that force couples to sit closer to each other.
Next, we needed a little boost of caffeine. We found this awesome coffee shop that roasts its own coffee.
The name of the shop translated into English is:
"A Sommelier's Coffee Shop".
After we were refreshed with caffeine, we headed to a famous makgeolli restaurant that we read about on CNN.com, called [ :h]. At this restaurant you can drink fresh makgeolli from every region in Korea.
To start things off, we got a makgeolli sampler of the top 5 makgeolli's in Korea.
Below you can see the descriptions of each one.
1: Lotus Root makgeolli from 충 청 도 (Chungcheong)
2: Buckwheat makgeolli from 강 원 도 (Gangwon)
3: 개 도 Island makgeolli from 개 도
4: Champagne Style makgeolli from 복 산 (Busan!)
5: Five Grain makgeolli from 충 청 도
Our favorite was #2. It was crisp and well balanced. We ordered a bottle!
Not only was the makgeolli amazing, but the food was the best Korean food we had ever had. We ordered traditional rainy day food: Kimchi Pajeon that had chunks of squid, green onion, kimchi. It was think and fluffy, but crunchy on the outside-just the way I like it. We also ordered a warm kimchi and tofu dish. The kimchi came in a mix with bolgugi (meat) and spices. It was sweet, spicy and salty. The perfect combo.
Monday, July 30, 2013
On Monday we make our way to the Korean Traditional Village. We were kind of confused by it, since it seemed like just a lot of modern clothing stores and shops. The highlight was this man. For 1,000 won (less than a dollar) he draws a portrait of you in less then a minute. We lucked out, because there were no lines on this day. I guess normally there are lines that go around the corner full of people eager to get their own pictures.
Here are the portraits:
He also owns a small coffee shop that roasts their own coffee with cute hand drawn characters on each coffee bag.
Before we left Itaewon for the day, we did a quick price comparison on masks there and masks at the Traditional Village. Turns out, Itaewon was a lot cheaper and since there was no one else in the store we were able to haggle the price down. So, check out our new masks!
Meanings of the masks:
(We can't find the meaning of the two masks on top. They are from a different village than the two on the bottom. When I do find their stories, I will update this post. But for now, here are the stories of the bottom masks.)
3: In the twelfth century, the gods ordered craftsman Heo to create twelve masks, and he was to avoid contact with others until he was finished. Just as he was finishing the final mask, a girl peeked into his workshop, and he fell down dead. His final mask–Imae–was left incomplete, missing a lower jaw.
4: Bune, sometimes spelled "Punae," is a flirty young woman. With her tiny, fixed mouth, smiling eyes, and apple-cheeks, Bune represents beauty and good humor. Her character is a bit shady and unrefined, however. At times, she tempts the monks and other men into sin. /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
Next stop: Dinner! Tyler and Natalie recommended going to a Traditional Korean Temple Restaurant called Sanchon. We weren't sure how to get there, and our Korean isn't very good, so we called the restaurant and gave the phone to our cab driver. After winding through small crowded streets, the cab drive stopped and said "yogi" (here). We looked at each other confused. As we got out of the taxi this man was standing there waiting for us and showed us to Sanchon. How nice. huh?!
As soon as we got there, they gave us slippers and put our shoes into a locker. A monk escorted us to a small sink, pointed and said "washe". We washed our hands and went to our table located right next to a dance floor. During our meal, we enjoyed three courses of vegetables that are only found in mountains here in Korea. Some were new foods we had never tried. Some were foods we are familiar with, but with a vegetarian kick. For example, they served three kinds of fritters of fried seasonal vegetable. We were curious eaters. Trying small bites from each bowl and letting it disperse in our mouths before we decided if we liked it or not. We found somethings to be very flavorful and full of spices, but there were other things that had bitter, dirty notes. Each course brought a new kind of nectarous teas. After doing a little more research on these tasty drinks I found a great link about traditional Korean teas. The teas we had were: The first being a plum tea that our server told us was a fermented mixture of plums and pine needless-aged for many years. Plum tea helps prevent food poisoning and used to help upset stomachs.
The second was a cold pine tea for good health. Finally, the tea served with our desert, Omijacha, or five-taste tea. This tea has five tastes:sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and hot. It's great at relieving thirst and fatigue. Korean's believe "it is an essential dietary supplement during the summer."
While enjoying our main course we got to watch a few traditional Korean dances. Unfortunately, my camera died while I was taking pictures of the food so I couldn't record the dancing. If you have never seen a traditional Korean dance then I recommend you watch this video. It is from the same restaurant (Sanchon), although they are performing different dances than the ones we saw. To see one of the five dances we saw, look on my Facebook page here and you will see a short video I was able to capture on my phone.
Tuesday, July 31, 2013
Tuesday we slept in, enjoyed the cool AC in our room, ate some Vietnamese food, packed our bags and headed for the bus.
As we traveled back home through the beautiful green country side of Korea, I tried to soak it all in, remembering this might be the last trip across Korea, for now. I hope we can come back in a few years to explore the beautiful country side yet again!
On our last day of summer vacation we got together with Tyler to try to make our own makgeolli. Tyler had watched some of his co-workers make it once, but Bobby and I had never tried to make it. We did a little research that morning, but we weren't exactly sure how to make makegeolli. We decided to just jump right in and try. Here is how we did it:
4:00 pm: Started cooking 10 kgs. of white sticky rice in our two small rice cookers. We read online that you are suppose to only cook the rice 80% of the way. But we failed and cooked it all the way.. and added way too much water. The rice turned out to be one sticky mess.
5:00 pm: Once all the rice was ready we put it into every small container I could find in our apartment in an effort to cool it.
9:00 pm: We cut up four apples and 5 or 6 knobs of ginger and added it to our fermenter. Then, we added the rice gunk and water into the apple/ginger mix and pitched our yeast.
We waited three days, mixing it everyday with our hands.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Finally, it was time to bottle! Bobby and I stood together in our small shower stall while he picked up the jug and I held some mesh bags. We filled the bags with the rice, apple, and ginger mixture. When the bags got full we squeezed as much liquid as we could from it, threw the bags in the sink and then started over again. By the time we dumped all the liquid out, our hands were sticky and we had rice in between our toes from some spills we had-it was fun!
We used 10 lbs of rice, but after the makgeolli was finished fermenting we were left with only one large ziplock of rice.
Here's the final product.
Monday, August 5th , 2013
Today we brought some of our Ginger Apple Makgeolli to work for the Korean's to try. They were shocked that we could make makgeolli at home and were very impressed by the taste. They kept yelling "masheesayo!"-delicious!
We are extremely proud of this first batch of makgeolli. Yes we made a few mistakes, but it seemed to work out well for us in the end.
We are currently brewing beer, hard cider, and kombucha, all of which are very good. However, I think this makgeolli might be better than everything else!
It's always fun to try out new recipes, especially when they turn out so well!
So how about you try something new in the near future, who knows, it might be the best thing you have ever had!
A year before we even got the ESL job in Korea, we knew we were going to go teach here. We would have done anything to get a job in Korea and actually landed a job before we even graduated college. Our friends, Tyler (whom Bobby has known since they were kids), and his beautiful wife, Natalie, knew they were coming here that far in advance as well. We were lucky enough to get placed in the same city and only a 10 minute cab ride away from each other. We really enjoyed sharing this experience with them. They were a piece of home for us here in Korea. We loved getting together with them to try new foods, meet new people or go and see the city togeher.
Unfortunately, their time here is coming to an end. We are sad to see them go, but they are off to bigger, better and colder things in ALASKA! They are moving to a tiny village that only has a total of 200 families. There, they plan to teach, fish and hunt. I think it will be more of a culture shock than this huge city of 3.6 million. Neither of them have ever lived in a small town, so I think this will be a great experience for them. Please jump over to Natalie's Blog Here and read more about their adventure and the town they are moving to.
On one of their last weekends here, we decided to meet at Gwangli Beach for one last beach session together before they moved. We enjoyed some of Bobby's home brewed Kombucha and beer. As we sat and sipped our refreshing drinks, we remised about this past year. All of the new people we have met, the places we have gone, and how we have all grown individually and together as couples. All of us have found things that we are passionate about and we are all seeking to become better in these trades. Natalie wants to be become a writer, but more specifically, a professional blogger. She enjoys being creative and writing about her experiences from around the world. Tyler has found a passion for filming and writing short movies. He plans to create a few short films while in Alaska and then continue his passion in California. Bobby, as we know, has become very passionate about fermenting beverages and has plans on trying to ferment different foods. And as for me, I am passionate about my life. I have always wanted to fall in love with an adventures, caring man and travel the world. I am passionate about learning and planning our adventures.
Once home from the beach, we all went for a walk to Seomyeon and ended up at the Makogli restaurant Ty and Natalie showed us a few weeks ago. Isn't this a great photo of them?
Wait.. what is that in-between them? Oh that is just a penis. Don't worry, you find wood statues of them at many Korean restaurants. Why? I have no idea. ^ ^
Since Tyler and Natalie frequent this place so much some of the workers were sad to hear they were leaving in a few short weeks and decided to pose for a photo with them.
And we posed for one too!
Natalie packed up and left ROK on July 31st and Tyler will be following on August 12th.
We are extremely sad to see them go, but so excited for them.
This will be such an amazing and eye opening experience.
So, until next time Nat-ler. We love you both. See you in the beautiful PNW next summer!
