Monday 31 December 2012

Travel Tuesdays-Thailand

Happy New Year everyone! Hope you all had/have (it's already the New Year here) a great New Years Eve filled with lots of love and laughter.
Look out next week for posts about our year in review and some pictures from our little snow storm we had (it was the most snow this island has seen in 30 years!). But as for right now I'm going to enjoy this day off with hubs and curl up on the couch and watch old Bond movies.

Just a little something to cure your wanderlust for the week.
Tiger Temple-Chiang Mai

We are interdependent and dependent on one another. We have got to find a way to make this whole planet work. ~ Andrew Young

New Year's Blessings

As the clock slowly ticks towards midnight and I embark on the journey a new year brings, I look back with gratitude for all the magical moments of 2012.

Beautiful moments like boating around the Mediterranean, the romance of Positano, a wellness retreat on the island of Ischia, eating tapas in Barcelona, watching bullfighters in Seville, the breathtaking view of Cabo da Roca, walking the medina of Marrakech, strolling the ancient streets of Rome, but more than anything, the experience of meeting wonderful spirits along the way. People who have brought love and light into my life…

There are many things I wish to experience and accomplish in 2013 and as I envision what this new year will look like for me, one thing is for certain, it’s going to be an exciting, adventurous and joyful new chapter.

So I raise my glass to you and toast - “May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself.”

Cheers to 2013 and all the wonder that each new year brings!
Happy Travels,
Travelista73 XO

 

Sunday 30 December 2012

Santa for a Day-Sungjiwon Orphanage Party

Reading and translating the Christmas story



Our friend's baby got crowds of attention from both the girls and the boys
The younger age groups had a short dance performance for us

He was SO excited for Santa to come!

Every so often the foreign church that we attend goes and spends time at one of the local orphanages, Sungjiwon. I have always cherished the times that we are able to spend with these kids. Even though we don't speak the same language, there's always such an excitement that surrounds these visits and our last visit was certainly no exception. Every year the church throws a Christmas Party for the orphanage complete with Christmas carols, reading (and translating) the Christmas story, games, presents, and of course a little visit from Ol' Saint Nick (played this year by hubs).

It can be such a bittersweet experience going and seeing these kids that I have grown to become so attached to. I love how their faces light up as we come in, ready for endless rounds of duck duck goose and the ever so popular game of 'tie a balloon around your ankle and try to pop your friend's balloons'. We need another name for that one. But I can't even begin to describe how it breaks my heart to walk in and see new faces, new children without a family and home to go back to. A part of me is also disappointed to see the same children there time after time. As attached as I have become to some, I would want nothing more than to realize a child is missing because a loving family has welcomed them in. Don't get me wrong, from what we've seen, they're well taken care of. Fed, clothed and attend school and church each week. But nothing could be better than having a family to call your own.

Many times on this blog I am not very informative when it comes to certain aspects of the Korean culture. I think all expats can agree with me that there are some things about the different country that we live in's culture that we simply do not understand or fully agree with. Sometimes living in Korea, I feel that it's so westernized that it's not hard being away from home. Then there are others that I realize just how far I am from home and the culture that I am accustomed to.  I, for the most part, try to avoid talking in too much detail about some of the cultural differences because I would hate to come across hateful or judgmental when that is not my aim or my true feelings. One of these differences is the adoption process. I come from a country that inviting a child into your home that is not your own is both celebrated and praised. But the sad reality here is that many of these children will be in the orphanage until graduation day. I'm certainly no expert in this field and am simply going off of what we have been told by Korean friends and the owners of the orphanage. But from what we've been told, Korean culture does not think highly of adoption. Family blood lines are very important and they take great pride in being a pure Korean. For this reason, if adoption does come into the picture, families are more likely to adopt babies instead of older children because they can be more easily passed as their own children. These children in the pictures above have been given up for the standard reasons that we see in the states in addition to divorce and the child's disabilities. When I tried to describe to my co-workers how much I want to adopt in the future they were both confused and intrigued. I received questions as to why I would want to do that and if it was common in the states. My heart goes out to these children but I am thankful that there are great owners and caretakers at the orphanage who make sure they are well taken care of, and also for the camaraderie that's so apparent amongst the different age groups.

Friday 28 December 2012

A Merry Little Christmas

I apologize for the slight silence around here this week. A massive but happily welcomed food coma ensued for the better half of three days (no complaints here) and I simply got lazy. And instead of doing anything productive, I spent massive amounts of time cuddling up with hubs watching movies and enjoying the fruits of my baking labor (again, no complaints here).
To say we had a good Christmas would be a great understatement. We were able to spend the better part of the holiday with friends and of course massive amounts of delicious food. We have found such an amazing community here and it has made all the difference in the world when it comes to celebrating holidays overseas and away from family. It all started Christmas Eve when a huge box from The Land of the Goods (aka my mom's house) arrived with 43 pounds of everything that expats dream about. Our little apartment is now fully stocked with all the ingredients needed for s'mores, fudge, and a giant cookie cake. Bring on the winter 'warmth' pounds. Sadly, I have no photos of this box of love because as soon as it entered our cozy apartment, it was ripped apart.
That night we headed to church for a cozy little candlelight service. Being away from the states, and therefore distanced from all the fuss of this season has given us space to really reflect during this holiday and truly celebrate it's purpose. I'm not saying that we wouldn't do the same if we still lived back home but I think that with more distractions comes less focus for reflection. Being overseas during the holidays can be extremely bittersweet for us expats. On one hand I miss the lights, the Christmas music being played in every store, the family time filled with good food, games and an abundance of laughter. But being away from it all has given hubs and I a chance to really bond together during these times and enjoy the simplified version of this holiday.

What was your favorite part of the holiday?

Thursday 27 December 2012

Letters/36


Dear tastebuds, I think I finally found the perfect cookie. I've already made two batches and as long as there's marshmallows in that bag, I'll be making more this weekend. Dear Life, the time has come when we're receiving baby announcements instead of wedding announcements. This both excites us (that it's not us) and terrifies us (that it could be us). Hubs and I laid in bed, staring at the ceiling, too scared to even touch each other. Because we all know holding hands in bed is what really makes babies. Dear Boss, I came into work and you asked me if I had a party to go to because I had 'a lot' of makeup on. I guess lipstick is just too much in Korea. 

Dear shock value, I guess I shouldn't be surprised that in our writing book their example of a how-to essay is about ramen noodles. Only in Asia. Dear Dad, even though you weren't here to carry on the tradition of cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, I tried my best and they turned out pretty darn good if I do say so myself! Maybe in a few years we can do them together. Dear Hubs, we have made an undiscussed agreement in the past two years of marriage that we wouldn't get each other Christmas presents. But when I came out to that gloriously bare Christmas tree of ours, I found a little package from you. I love you and your little surprises that keep me on my toes. Oh and sorry there was nothing in return...Oops.
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Monday 24 December 2012

Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas from Korea! We wish you and yours a very special holiday season with no shortage of love, laughter and joy.
We'll be spending the day enjoying the company of friends and trying to recreate some family traditions from back home. One of my favorite traditions is waking up to my dad's homemade cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. Emphasis on dad's cinnamon rolls. I think I would enjoy them so much more if I could just roll out of bed, have the coffee already made and sit down to eat right away like I do when I'm home. The things we take for granted. But alas, I'll be in my kitchen (which is the size of my parent's kitchen pantry) slaving away and making everything from scratch. But if I can get them to taste even similar to the one's my dad makes, I'll be one happy girl.



Here's a little flashback to hub's adorable kindi kids from last year.



What's your favorite holiday tradition?

Thursday 20 December 2012

Letters/35

Happy Friday everyone! Hope you're all enjoying the holiday season with your friends and family! Even though we still have to work most of next week (feel sorry for us yet? Thankfully we do get Christmas Day off) we're already looking forward to some holiday parties and celebrations with some great friends here in Korea. Merry Christmas!

Dear Christmas, you and your packages pretty much rock, especially when they're filled with things like pure maple syrup and baked goods. (oh and that small bottle on the right has already been consumed in the past two days). Dear Korea, a day off in the middle of the week because it's Election Day? Don't mind if I do. 
Mistletoe scented candles in hub's homemade candle holder made out of an old bottle.
Dear Zeke, I thought I would be safe lighting candles with tall holders around it (because no cat would get close enough to get burned right?) but you proved me wrong when you singed your whiskers (a month later, they're still curly on the end). Can we please not have a repeat because I just got new Christmas scented candles in the mail (it smells like heaven people!) and I want to burn them all.day.long. Dear Humanity, I'm not even going to try to understand you because I know it's just not possible. What I do know is that good, and more importantly, God will prevail and that's what we need to focus on. So hug your loved ones a little tighter tonight because this little thing we call life is more delicate than we will ever realize. Dear Boss, hope you're ok with coloring and movie clips because that's about as far as my teaching skills will go this Christmas Eve. Dear Blog Friends, I was cracking up at your comments to this post. So glad to know just how open I can be with semi-strangers! On another note, I have loved getting to know all of the new faces around here! Welcome and so glad that you decided to follow along with us!
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Wednesday 19 December 2012

For When You Can't Be There

My favorite was the Curious George book about adventure, being yourself and never giving up
Being overseas makes getting gifts back home for Christmas a little more difficult. I'm not so much concerned with the older family members (sorry guys) but I do care about getting my niece something nice. Even though she's only a few months old I want to make sure that I remain close to her as she grows up, even with the distance between us. For all I know my niece thinks we live in a third world country or an exotic island destination. Or it could be terrible. She could know the truth that we actually lead pretty normal lives and spend the majority of our days trying to get kids to repeat things like 'How are you?' and 'I have four people in my family.' Then we spend the remainder of class drawing family pictures and voila...lesson plan. But I digress.
This is why I'm so glad that my mom (genius that she is) sent me one of Hallmark's recordable books. It's the perfect gift that my niece can listen to over and over again and hear our voices reading her the story. Then hopefully by the time we get back she'll at least recognize us by our voices.
Sidenote:I went to go mail this and while I was at the post office I decided to write a little note on the first page. And of course, forgetting that it's a recorded book, I opened it right up. And of course, us saying 'Merry Christmas Teagan!' was blasted throughout the post office (warning: this book recording device is loud...Or maybe it's just us). Thankfully, I  managed to cover the speaker before there were too many stares. Although I did manage to catch a glimpse of the clerk laughing and shaking his head at me.

What do you get people that you won't see this Christmas season?

Tuesday 18 December 2012

Perspective Series-Taiwanese Travel

This week I'm so excited to introduce Lauren from Miller Memoires for the next installment of the Perspective Series. This is a series about expats sharing their experience of living abroad and how it inevitably changed their perspectives on life. Lauren is such a sweetheart and shares amazing travel posts along with the entertaining day to day stories that come from living and teaching in a country where they are still trying to learn the language (props to them for even trying to learn Mandarin!) 

I guess I'll start with a brief history of why I'm even in Taiwan in the first place.  It all started back in 2006 before I'd even met my husband or heard of Taiwan.  My husband was called to serve a mission for our church on the small island of Taiwan and learn mandarin Chinese.  So he did.  He served full-time for two years and then came back a changed man, and in love with the Taiwan culture.  Fast forward to January 2010 when I met Cameron.  We hit it off immediately and were quickly inseparable.  He, of course, always talked of this crazy place called Taiwan, and as all story-tellers do, made it sound overly exotic and interesting, and a little like a third world country.  (we biked through rice fields all day, and had to hand wash our clothes, and there's no deodorant, and no one speaks English etc etc.)  So after maybe 5 months of dating, we're sitting in the car chatting about Taiwan again and how an acquaintance of his had mentioned that he should study in Taiwan.  So I just said, why don't we move there! You go to school and I'll.... teach English??  Sort of serious, sort of joking.  Well, it caught us both off guard, and as we thought about this plan it sounded better and better, until Cam said, well we should probably get married first. (romantic right? haha!)  So we did.  5 months after that we were married and 3 months after that we were in Taiwan.  

Now we've been living here for just shy of two years and it has been a crazy ride.  We've been through all the stages of love and hate and why the heck are we here and will I ever learn this ridiculous language?! Overall though, I can't say I'd change a thing, except maybe that I would have done a little bit more planning before I just showed up here.  One thing I guess you'd need to know about me is that I'm pretty much the "anti-planner."  I have a bad (or good?) habit of just letting the chips fall where they may, leaving caution to the wind, and seeing where things go. Honestly, I've always been pretty lucky with the way things have turned out, but there have also been times when I wish I would have looked before I lept.  Showing up in Taiwan with a few suitcases and smile would have been one of those times.  I think what neither of us really realized is that missionary life is completely different from regular life in another country, so though Cam had lived here for two years, we were quite unprepared.  We'd found a school to teach at through a friend and showed up assuming things would be just how we'd anticipated.  We were totally wrong and ended up getting gypped out of a lot of money from this so-called job and our so-called friends, and were on our very last dollar with the decision to fly home or suck it up and figure out another plan.  So suck it up we did, and learned by a lot of trial and error the best ways to survive in Taiwan, and grew stronger together as we did.  I'm still glad that we managed to stay, because it's just such an amazing place.

OK, as for perspective, we're still here, but we did get the chance to finally spend a couple of weeks at home (1 in California and the other in Canada) over the summer.  I knew it was going to be great, but I just kind of forgot what it was like to live in an English speaking country!  First of all, I got off the plane and thought 'look at all these white people!'  It took me a few days before I wasn't caught off guard to hear English spoken in the streets, and another few days to remember that people can understand me when I'm having personal conversations in public places and that I can't just say whatever comes in to my head! I also had a tough time believing the prices!  No wonder we moved! There's no way we could have afforded to stay when going to Chipotle for a burrito actually costs 20$ for two people!!  I'd been paying 2-3 dollars for every meal and forgot how expensive eating out in North America is.  

Can't lie though, there were definitely some things that I missed.  For one, Target!  I freaking love that store, and to just go into a store and to be able to read every sign, and know what brand to buy is pretty nice.  Or going into a clothing store and having everything fit, and in a style that I like, and not have Hello Kitty on it, was also nice.  Not being stared at or followed, or asked to have my picture taken was a relief.  Just being left alone and not feeling like I stick out like a sore thumb all time, was pretty relaxing.  

So there are ups and downs to being here or being there, but I have learned so much about myself and the world from being here.  I've learned that I'm tougher than I ever thought I was.  I can handle riding a scooter through a city full of 4 million people, I can deal with eating foods I can't pronounce made of the weird parts of animals, I can step out of my comfort zone when I'm in a place where no one speaks English and I actually have to use the the Chinese I've spent so much time learning.  I've learned that Taiwanese people, or people in general, are kind and helpful and don't mind if you don't know how to say some words or you call them strange instead of cute by mistake.  I've learned to really appreciate my friends and family that take time to skype with me and write emails and letters.  I've learned so much more than I ever would have stuck in my comfortable little bubble at home. I learned that I can do hard things!

So, we're still here and still loving it.  We're here for another few years and then who knows, we haven't gotten that far.  

I could go on all day about the cultural differences, or the crazy things that have happened over the last two years, or the awkward situations I've ended up in, but at the end of the day, I probably feel more at home here than anywhere else at the moment. Cultures and countries are different, but underneath it all, people really aren't so different from each other after all.


Thanks so much for writing Lauren! Be sure to stop by her blog and say hi!

If you have lived abroad and would like to be featured, shoot me an email at lostintravelsblog{at}gmail{dot}com. I would love to hear from you!

Check out the other girls from the series:

Jay from From There to Here

PS. I'm guest posting over on Eat, Drink, Be a Tourist today about my favorite things to do where we live in Korea. Go check it out!

Monday 17 December 2012

Travel Tuesdays-Thailand

Just a little something to cure your wanderlust for the week.
Patara Elephant Farm, Chiang Mai

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. ~ Marcel Proust

Sunday 16 December 2012

A Little Birthday Celebration Mixed with a Little Food Poisoning

Last weekend was a good friend of ours birthday so we decided to celebrate with a Mexican Fiesta with a Christmas photo booth. What more could you ask for, right?
We did a backdrop with several paper snowflakes and a string of lights. The snowflakes weren't showing up too great in photos so some friends outlined them to make them stand out a little more. 
Another friend had made these awesome photo props for her kindi class (kindi teachers are the best) so she brought them along.
The party was a blast and I love how great the photo booth pictures turned out!
Ok, time to get personal here. That night I woke up early and didn't quite feel right. I've never had food poisoning before, nor did I ever care to. But I guess someone had it in their mind to invite me and two other friends to this not so coveted club. Thankfully hubs was there to take care of me (and congratulate me every time I threw up..he's very supportive) and of course Zeke didn't leave my side even as I napped near the toilet. 
Another thing I'm thankful for is how open hubs is about bodily functions (with that and the fact that my family is very open about sex, we're bound to have the most openly awkward kids in history) because let's face it, it wasn't pretty in our household that week and I had no strength left to try and hide it from anyone. I also received several messages from friends sharing some of their best food poisoning stories. It was a great comic relief and comfort and I feel like I now know those around me on a much deeper level...whether I wanted to or not.
Also, something else huge happened while I was sick. I took my very first sick day in Korea. This is big news guys. For the past two years I have worked through endless migraines, upset stomaches (that Korea food can be rough) and colds. There are so many times that had we been back home, I would have called in sick. But Korean work ethic is so completely different. You are still expected to show up to work when you are sick but this was one time that I simply couldn't. Besides, I'm not sure how effective my teaching would have been with me running out of the room every 10 minutes. I'm so thankful for a boss that was ok with this (even if she didn't know what a sick day was) and I was able to stay home and rest. 

So tell me, can you be open about these things with your significant other? Do they get grossed out? I'll be honest, I did when we first got married but it's gotten better with time. Hopefully I'll have a steel stomach by the time we have kids and I have to clean them up when they're sick. 

Thursday 13 December 2012

Letters/34

k-i-s-s-i-n-g

Dear hubs, the other night when I thought you were asleep next to me, you randomly asked me something about the blog. I love that you sometimes think about it while you fall asleep. Is this real love? I think so. Dear Store Owners, do you ever listen to the songs before you blast them in your store? The other day I was shopping and a rap song started blaring the likes of 'what up my b****' and 'where my n****** at?' I was shocked and looked around only to find out that no one else even took notice. Thank you for the reminder that I live in a non-English speaking country. Dear Sanity, I almost lost you this week when I text my boss about taking a sick day and she answered back with, 'What's a sick day?' Dear hubs, you were a rockstar nurse this week with taking care of me, getting me endless amounts of Gatorade, and holding my hair back while I had food poisoning. Hopefully I can earn back some of those sexiness points I inevitably lost this week.

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Tuesday 11 December 2012

Haute Hair Tip for Winter: Hydrate

I love my haute natural hair! My winter hair care tip... hydrate! Keep your hair looking beautiful by keeping its moisture content high using steam therapy. It will grow fuller and longer with lots of shine.



My hair therapy session and styling is compliments of Robin D. Groover in Atlanta and New York City.


What do you think about haute natural hair with brilliant color and shine?

Monday 10 December 2012

Travel Tuesdays-Thailand

Just a little something to cure your wanderlust for the week.




I've learned that the secret of growing old gracefully is never to lose your enthusiasm for meeting new people & seeing new places - Unknown