September

Half way through October and I am only just getting around to writing about September. September was the month that my mum came to visit Korea for the second time and that I officially decided to leave Korea. There is only 44 days left until I'll be getting on a plane.

So this month I...


Shared how to make delicious Korean savoury pancakes. This is one thing I will really miss, I love ordering them in restaurants, they are so easy to share and tasty too.


Went diving with sharks, and visited the observatory all in the same weekend. I managed to return home with all of my limbs in tact!


Uncovered some of my favourite places to eat and visit when visiting Seoul.



Reviewed two Etude House products, Pore Ever Primer and Dear My Blooming Lips Lipstick.


I shared my love for the KTX, Korea's super fast and nifty train.


Trying to scrape every last moment of beach weather that I could, Nick and I did an easy hike from Jangsan to Songdo beach.


I spent Chuseok in Gyeongju with my lovely mum and her friend, Julie.


Looking for cold weather activities Nick and I tried out the board game bang in PNU and had an amazing time playing Simpson Cluedo.



This really does feel like such a long time ago, but Joe, Clare's boyfriend made a video of our time in Beijing, and some other holiday memories of when they were in Vietnam. Some of the quotes really make me laugh.

I hope October's being good to you! Not long until Halloween, what will you be dressing as?



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Our Weekend: What to do with a weekend in Seoul

It's nearly a fortnight since I was on my way to meet my mum and Julie in Seoul. I can't believe how fast time flies when you're busy, busy, busy. The weather was perfect for their trip and we managed to pack lots of things in. Here are some of the highlights from our weekend...




Stay: I was recommended Insadong by some of the ladies from the Seoul roller derby team and I am so happy that I listened to their advice. Although the hotel itself wasn't great, I really liked the area. It had the right amount of neon covered streets with blaring music to make it easy to find a BBQ or bar, blended with Anguk just five minutes walk away where there were lots of good touristy shops and street food stalls. It also only took about 10 minutes to get to Gyeongbokgung palace. While walking back to our hotel at night we would walk through the 'locals' area where we were admired by a drunk, middle aged Korean who declared his love with a green chilli hanging out of his mouth!







Treat: Saturday morning we got up and out and headed to Itaewon to visit the bakery, Passion 5. A couple of people had recommended it to me, and when I got there I could see why. It was a 5 storey building packed with all the cakey goodness you could ever imagine. There was so much to choose from that we decided to get lots of little bits and share them all. Once you've picked what you want, you can go up to the cafe on the second floor and order drinks, they put our choices on a plate and served it with cutlery. It was very polished and modern and bright in the bakery, I felt like I was in a posh restaurant rather than a bakery. There were lots of ladies having meetings and families eating brunch. We were there until early afternoon enjoying our treats and the drinks. My favourite had to be the olive bread we had, followed by the small nut tarts, amazing. I'm quite happy this isn't closer to me or else I may bankrupt myself there. It is definitely worth the visit.









Explore: We spent the afternoon in Anguk. I loved the higgledy piggledy lanes that had little boutiques, vintage shops, coffee shops and street entertainers. There is also the Bukchon hanok village which has hidden gems around every corner. There are mini museums set up inside the traditional houses so you can see what it's like inside and learn what would have gone on behind those shuttered windows and doors. We didn't do it, but I would love to try the soju tasting they run in one of the hanks. It's the perfect place to spend the evening on one of the rooftop cafes, looking out to the calm mountains that surround the area, with Seoul's craziness behind you.




Learn: On a sunny afternoon we went to the War Memorial of Korea and the Museum. It was really interesting to learn about the Korean war, I was really surprised to find out that the North Koreans managed to get all the way down to Busan before the South regained control. There is also an impressive array of battle ships, planes and weaponry outside of the museum that you can walk around and peer into.





See: Go to Seoul tower and look down on the massive city below. We did well to resist the Cold Stone Ice Cream shop at the top. The last time I went it was so hot up there that I couldn't eat the ice cream quick enough. I've never actually been to the top of the tower, only around the base, but the views are great from there.







Eat: My favourite food that I always try and squeeze in whenever I'm in Seoul is the Kumpir Potato shop in Hongdae. I know it's not traditionally Korean, but that's what I like to do when I'm in Seoul, to treat myself to good Western food! I love this place and have exactly the same filling every time, steak and gorgonzola cheese with olives, sweetcorn and jalapeños, it's delicious! I lie that it's quite small and really relaxed inside, and that part of the uniform for the staff is that they wear flat caps. My mum and Julie also loved it there, even though they'd hardly been away from home for just a few days.




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I'm Back!

I accidentally took a week long break from everything last week. Everything, that is, apart from trying to be an amazing tour guide for my mum and Julie.

They left last night to catch the train to Seoul where their flight left this morning. In the meantime I've been trying to scrape some order back together. It was back to school yesterday, I had about a billion pictures to sort through and upload, which I'm still in the process of doing, and still have an apartment that is desperate for a clean, despite my mum taking a whole suitcase of stuff. It's funny that even though I live in a tiny studio apartment, and I arrived with just one suitcase, I could probably fill 6 of them now. Where does it all come from?!

Later in the week I'll share what we got up to on our weekend in Seoul, and how we celebrated Chuseok, which is the Korean Thanksgiving holiday. I could get used to adopting all of these new holidays and additional time off!

I'm sad that my mum's gone, but excited that there is some change on the horizon!

I'll be back tomorrow with the next Trash, treat or stash!


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Our Weekend: Monster Cupcakes and Tim Burton

Train journeys are always fun when you have red wine and The Walking Dead to make it go faster. I'm a couple of episodes behind on the third season, and think that it's definitely the best season so far, what does everyone else think?

Saturday was really sunny and warm, so we strolled around Hongdae, got some lunch then headed to the Tim Burton exhibition and the Seoul Museum of Art. It was amazing. It shows pictures, videos and notes from when he was really young, up until his big blockbuster films. It was so interesting to see which ideas that he developed all those years that you can see influenced some of the characters in his movies that everybody loves now-a-days.

Feeling weary we headed to Edae to the Raintree Cafe that I had seen mentioned on Cute in Korea. We ordered some juice and a huge banana and walnut pancake that came with green tea ice cream, exactly what we needed to get our energy levels back up, just in time to meet our friends.

We went for dinner in Itaewon and went to a Speakeasy bar. Being a massive fan of Boardwalk Empire, I was really excited about this. There was a small eye slit cut into the door, and when the light's on, you're allowed to knock and see if they'll let you in. Luckily we got in. It was really dimly lit with candlelight, there was jazz music playing and hundreds and hundreds of bottles of whiskey lined the walls. Not being a big whiskey fan, I had an amaretto sour, then decided to be brave and try a whiskey sour. The bar guy, who told us his English name was Rocky insisted that adding an egg white to a sour drink made it better, and i have to say it was really tasty.

The next morning we met near Itaewon for brunch and I tried Eggs Benedict for the first time. It was so nice being able to get a really good Western breakfast eating out, something that is pretty rare in Busan. After this we went to the Monster Cupcake shop. I was completely spoilt for choice, all of the cupcakes were decorated amazingly, and the owner's cute little son was sat in the shop, munching on a severed finger, that was actually made out of biscuit. I went for the lemon cupcake decorated with an eyeball, and Nick took a coffee one with the chopped finger.

With just a few hours before our train, we decided to visit the Hanbok village. This is an area that has lots of well maintained traditional Korean housing. It was really nice to take a wander around, and the peaceful atmosphere really reminded me of Kyoto. After exploring the tiny winding streets, we came to the main road where there are lots of traditional tea houses, we sat outside in the sun and enjoyed our cupcakes and took a stroll through the park, back to the metro.

We ended our trip on a high note, after finding a shop that sold turd shaped cakes, which we couldn't resist! They tasted a lot better than they looked.

It was such a nice, relaxing weekend, and was great to discover a bit more of Seoul.