My happy tourist face in Insadong, Seoul. One thing that gave us a laugh in Korea was the great variety of creative street stall snacks. One favourite over there is a tube like ice-cream. It’s some kind of waffle-y cone with soft serve inserted at both ends and besides the fact that it looks ridiculous, it is frickin’ practical! Doesn’t drip. Ever. Which makes me suspicious about the ingredients that go into the ‘cone’, but then you are overcome with the joy of having a funny shaped ice-cream that doesn’t drip and you forget all of your worries. DOESN’T DRIP. LOOKS FUNNY. Who cares if it might sit in my…
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Pororo Theme Park…and trying to find nappies.
A few days into our time in Seoul at the beginning of the holiday, we started to feel that the Little Mister needed to have some fun of his own. He hadn’t had much ability to run around and just be a toddler. He had sat in his stroller, been passed between adults and had indulged us in seeing a bunch of grown up stuff. We were feeling a little bit guilty and as we were just starting to get a feel for the trip, we weren’t perhaps feeling safe enough to give him too much physical freedom in certain places yet. Also, the weather had not been so kind…
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“Um…I speak English?”
I knew there was something I forgot to do! It’s weird when you look JUST LIKE a bunch of people, but you know very little about their culture and ZILCH about their language. Which was basically my (and my brother’s) experience in South Korea. People understandably spent all their time speaking to us in Korean, while we flailed our arms around with dazed looks on our faces. It just became a daily way of life. Go out, get talked to in Korean, awkwardly mime a bit and say, “English, sorry!” Repeat x 50 Get back to the hotel, go to bed. It wasn’t annoying and it wasn’t frustrating. It just happened…
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Travelling Korea with my celebrity child.
We couldn’t go anywhere without people chasing us down, trying to get a look at him. Cameras flashing, people gushing, gifts being bestowed at every turn. Cries of “OH SO CUTE!” in English everywhere we turned. School girls giggling and pointing. Look, I know the Little Mister has been the star of my blog, but no – he isn’t actually famous. Which is just how I like it. In Korea, it was the whole celebrity experience. I had heard rumblings before we went that the Koreans love children. I had also learnt that they also got extra special attention if they are Eurasian or Caucasian. So we had some kind…
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Kimchi and me.
image (not mine unfortunately) If you know anything about Korean cuisine, you will know that kimchi is a huuuuuuuge part of the eating experience. What is it? Essentially, it’s like a reeeeeally spicy chilli cabbage that is often fermented or pickled in some way. This is often a side dish (the Koreans are amazing for side dishes – you will never starve) that will turn up with just about every meal. I have spent most of my life avoiding it. While I’d dabbled in the enjoyment of various Korean foods (after one fateful day when my family with the help of Mr Unprepared literally shoved me so far into the…
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Asian faces and my girl crush.
image Less than a week before we depart for our once in a lifetime family holiday to Korea (where I was born and adopted from) and Japan for the first time, I have been soaking up just about anything Korea related – news, TV documentaries, anecdotes from friends etc. It’s like I’ve got some crazy radar for it all of a sudden. Of course, I was excited to find out that the show Sunday Night was going to feature Dami Im* (Australia’s 2013 Korean-Australian X Factor winner) revisiting her home country. It was so great to see footage of places I might see. The hustle and bustle of Seoul and Dami’s…
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It’s getting real.
image So it’s really happening. The flights were booked and paid for yesterday. This means that in roughly 3 months’ time, we are headed to both South Korea and Japan. With my parents, my brother and a two and a half year old. What could possibly go wrong? *hyperventilates* This is really exciting and it’s a trip we have talked about doing for years, but we never managed to get our timing right as a bigger family group. You see, my brother and I were adopted (separately – 3 years apart) as babies from Korea, and despite showing little to no interest in where we were born for most of…