Olympic Park is one of my favorite places in Seoul because it is so expansive and changes so gloriously each season. If you saw my post about the poppy fields in June, you are already familiar with this little corner of the park.
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Whenever there is a long weekend here in Korea, I try to explore a new city. On one three-day weekend in March, though, my boyfriend and I decided to spend time in a city I had already been to, albeit 5 years ago. Gyeongju was actually the first city I ever visited outside of Seoul back when I was studying abroad here. I was just following my friend's lead since they could speak Korean much better than I could, but this time I was excited to plan my own trip!
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I grew up next to the ocean and there are days when I still feel the need to be at the beach. Not that I ever go swimming in the water! I'm more of a admire-from-the-shore take-in-the-salty-air kind of beach-goer.
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You might have already figured this out by now, but I love getting out of Seoul for the weekend. This past Saturday I woke up around 7am to head to the north western corner of South Korea, to an island called Ganghwa. It took about 2 hours to get to the island and then another hour and a half to get to my first destination, but staring out the window looking out on the green farmland and blue hills in the distance made the time fly by.
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Having lived in Seoul for nearly 5 years now, I have spent a good deal of time admiring the Han River. From bus windows, bike paths, and even from a sailboat, the view of this huge river is always breathtaking. One thing I had never done, however, was to actually get in the water. Other than a quick sailboat ride about four years ago, I had never actually touched the Han.
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If you haven't caught on already, I have a thing for fields of flowers. Perhaps it's because I grew up next to the Carlsbad flower fields that bloom stripes of bright ranunculus each spring. Or maybe it's my mind trying to break up the concreteness of my city life, drawing me to spots that make me forget I'm in a metropolis of 10 million.
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Never has a city taken me more by suprise than Jeonju here in South Korea. All I knew about Jeonju before visiting was that there was a huge hanok (traditional Korean houses) village and that the entire region of Jeolla is famous for its food.
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Back in 2012 before I went to Korea for the first time for study abroad, my parents and I took a Euro Trip of a lifetime! We spent a few weeks in Austria, Hungary, Italy, and finally, Switzerland.
We had our home base in Zurich, but we spent one of my favorite days outside the city with a stunning view of the Alps.
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Last April, I had the pleasure of visiting Japan twice for two different weekends. Originally, I just planned to see Kyoto and Tokyo with my mom, but after getting some serious inspiration from Neko Box, I booked a cheap flight back to Tokyo in order to visit the sleepy lake town of Hakone.
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My dad is an eclipse chaser. Just 5 months before I was born, my parents were in Cabo San Lucas to see the total solar eclipse there the summer of 1991. I grew up with a massive poster of the event hanging on our staircase, passing it every trip up or down the stairs. So when a total solar eclipse was going to happen somewhere so easy to reach, and the path of totality coincided with the homes of relatives and best friends, how could expect him not to drop everything and go?
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My first trip to the east coast was when I was 4 months old. Since then, my mom and I would go back and forth from California to New Jersey as often as we could, usually twice a year if we could manage it.
I grew up feeling like I was meant to be in New York City. We would always make a point to take the train in for the day or spend the night in the city going to all the museums, restaurants, and parks we could reasonably fit into a short trip. I remember the first time I was allowed to go shopping in Soho by myself so vividly it's as if it was yesterday.
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Just in case my hair isn't a dead giveaway, you should know that I am very, very Irish. Some of my ancestors made the move to America early on, sometime in the 1700s, but my great grandpa held out until the 20th century, staying in his little farm by the sea through his youth until boarding the boat to Massachusetts.
My dad recently got his Irish citizenship (which I am very bitter about, but more on that later) so my family decided it was high time we finally visited the motherland, dear Ireland.
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Last August I felt my feet itching to explore somewhere outside of Seoul again. I had heard about an international fireworks festival on the east coast of Korea and decided that that is where I would head to next!
One cloudy Saturday morning, my boyfriend and I hopped on the KTX at Seoul Station and cut across the peninsula until we reached the sleepy beach city of Pohang.
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This past winter I received an email from a service called Usnaper, asking if I was interested in promoting their service. Usually I take some time to mull over the idea, but when I looked at Usnaper's site I knew this was a collaboration I needed to make happen!
Usnaper markets themselves as the AirBnb for photographers. You can browse their many artists (with skills in digital and film focused in portraiture, fantasy, weddings and more) and book them for a photoshoot while in Korea! They hope to be an international service soon.
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Just outside of COEX Mall in Seoul, lies an enormous temple called Bongeunsa. Technically, the temple used to be a brothel, but that's a story for another time...
I decided to check it out after work this week because after visiting it countless times during the day, I realized I never saw it at night. With Buddha's birthday celebration filling the temple with lanterns, what better time to visit?!
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Over lunar new year last year, I headed down south to the island of Geoje, said to be even more beautiful than Korea's famous Jeju Island. I only had one full day there so I made the most of it.
My AirBnb was in Geoje City, which looks just like Seoul with its Starbucks and fried chicken restaurants everywhere, but I had to venture to the opposite side of the island to see all the sites on my list.
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I travel on a tight budget wherever I go, and as my most recent trips have taken me to Japan, I know a few things about capsule hotels. My first and favorite capsule was in a small guesthouse at the top of a mountain in Koyasan and I was excited to see if Darakhyu, Korea's first capsule hotel, could top that experience.
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Golden Week, doesn't that just sound great?
The term is used in Japan for the long weekend that comes from a combination of a few public holidays, such as Children's Day. We have those days off in Korea too, so my boyfriend and I found the cheapest flight we could and headed to Osaka. It would be his first time and my seemingly hundredth time in Japan.
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Summer has finally arrived here in Korea and has greeted us with a week full of rain, thunder, and lightning. A few Saturdays ago I decided that since it would be raining all day, all over the peninsula, I might as well visit a new city!
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Down a small alley and through the abandoned corridor of an old market place somewhere in Seoul lies my absolute favorite cafe, orang orang.
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