Vietnam

Hello again!

I think most of you heard the story of my stolen bag in Ho Chi Minh City, to the ones who haven't here a short describtion: 

I was on my way to the airport to fly to Singapore, my second attempt to do so, because the previous day they didn't let me fly because I didn't have a ticket out of Singapore again. So I wanted to try another time, but as i was crossing the street to get a taxi to the airport a guy on a motorbike drove by and snatched my bag. In the bag was everything, my passport, my phone, my wallet, my camera, my E-reader, my notebook. So I had to fly to Hanoi to the embassy for the new passport, blah blah took me a couple of weeks. 

Eventually I'm in Singapore now, so everything's fine :) But that's why there wasn't any posts here until now.

I still have some pictures left which I already saved or uploaded, so here you go.

I made a 2 days tour around Sapa, famous for huge rice terrace fields and villages with ethnic minorities.

 Delicious food again with lovely tourmates from the Netherlands

 Those heart-warming ladies accompanied us during our trek, helping us out where they could in slippery spots.

 It was amazing to see how those cute children get amazed when they're given simple things like a balloon!

We also did a homestay in Sapa with a nice family, cooking together, surrounded by pure nature. We visited lots of small villages and experienced to be welcomed and treated very generously.

 I also visited very famous halong bay, and even though very touristy I got to see stunning sceneries and nature.

 One of my favorite spots was the Phong na ke bang national park, deep in the jungle with rivers, huge caves and fascinating landscapes.

The next stop was Hoi An, a lovely very colourful place with lots of shops, markets and a historic old town. Famous for its lanterns and tailor-made clothes.

On christmas eve i stayed at a family-like homestay (sac lo homestay I recommend!), we went out for dinner altogether, it was a wonderful, very different christmas experience. 

Mouthwatering springrolls and even red wine! What a feast!

 With Danielle from the Netherlands, celebrating the european way ;)

Enjoying the rest of the evening at a bar with live-music

In Ho Chi Minh City or also called Saigon I met those amazing guys from Hong Kong, Rex and Tom, I had great fun and I enjoyed New Year a lot, despite the loss of my things, thanks to many helpful, kind and entertaining friends!

Cheers, I'll let you know more about Singapore soon, and if not, I'm back home pretty soon anyway! ;D

Seoul

Beautiful Seoul!

After my tranquil templestay I headed right to the busiest, most vivid place of korea, the huge capital city Seoul. This was my last destination in Korea, so I'll make another crazy "only in Korea" list :D

First stop: Namdaemun market, a market with endless shops selling delicious food, clothes, korean handicraft and lots of other curious things.

Beondegi, a silkworm pupae, is sold as a snack on the streets, looks a little bizarre, and just to weird to taste good ;D

One of the things I loved about Seoul is the beautiful things you could see somewhere in the streets, there where lots of them!

I visited the MMCA, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, here some artworks.

One topic was mathematics and art, one artwork above.

Female artist Lee Bul

A comment on the weather in Seoul, it was freaking freezing. It also snowed, but just to show how cold it is, not to make the city look beautiful. :( ;D Temperatures around minus 3 degrees celcius.

Kim from Canada and I shared our passion for food and we ẹnjoyed numereous delicious meals, yes, we were pretty much constantly eating. But hey, korean food is just exquisite, I love it.

Above you see koran-style pizza, which is smaller but thicker and really tasty.

A chicken-ginseng soup with almost a whole chicken in it.

Super popular in Korea is to eat fried chicken and drink beer or "Chimek" combination of the word chicken and the korean word for beer "Mekchu". It is actually amazing, a lot better than european fried chicken, too!

Typical korean dinner with lots of different dishes and bowls.

I LOVE KOREAN BARBEQUE.

You grill and cut it yourself, and it it with kimchi, spices and sauces wrapped up in a leaf.

Spicy ricecake or Tteokbokki, made fom soft rice cake, fish cake. and sweet red chilli sauce. mjami!

Delicious lunch with Master Han, duckmeat, beef, kimchi, veggies, sides and sauces.

We visited one of the Palaces and also joined a tour, which was surprisingly really interesting. 

The painting behind the throne represented the king, it always had to be by his side, wherever he went and it's also on the 10000 Won bill.

What do 90% of worlds population know about Southkorea? Eighter nothing or Gangnam style. So we had to have a look at the Gangnam area which can be described with: big buildings, busy streets, business, shops ad high society clubs.

Again some beautiful street objects in Gangnam.

"Busy streets"

Not sure if this video is working, but we were dancing gangnamstyle in Gangnam, at a mediapole, where you could take pictures and videos :D

On my last day I went christmaspresent-shopping in Dongdaemun, the biggest market I've ever seen, where you find everything you could imagine.

Of course also kilometres of foodstalls.

Insadong area

I got the chance to train with Master Han and his students, I spent a wonderful time, everyone was being so kind and helpful and I could learn a lot, in great trainings.

Dojang-style dinner, how cool is that?! :D

Learning korean style sword fighting.

Jjimdak, a chicken, vegetable pot, mouthwatering farewell dinner! :)

Cheese!! :D

At the airport on the way to Ha Noi I found this ice-skate/ actually rollerblade-field in a Christmas theme, I found it pretty hilarious, haha! That's so typical Asia!! :D

That was the moment when I had to say goodbye to beloved korea, which didn't make me happy at all, it was another gloomy sunday.

The "only in Korea" list

Heaps of exceptionally delicious food.

Kimchi everywhere.

They're crazy about Chimek (see above), and drinking.

Soju is a beverage with 18% alcohol and you can buy half a liter for about 1 Chf. Great right?;P

They have Jjimjilbangs, huge bath houses where you can also stay overnight.

Men are extraordinarily well dressed.

Plastic surgery is completely normal, like an investment in you career.

Korean entertainment, music and fashion has a trend setting function in whole Asia.

You can major in Taekwondo.

Korean language has 7 speech levels, 4 are common. Means they speak differently in 4 ways depending on who they speak with.

In Korea they count age differently, so your automatically one year older, going there.

You can't really be friends with someone who's not exactly your age.

Obviously being divided in two halfs and one side going completely crazy under a dictator while the other is highly developed, is pretty unique as well.

Apparently the word "Oppaya", the busan dialect version of "Oppa", which means like big brother, said nicely by girls, makes a korean man do everything for you.

You get pushed around in the subway, and people get in while people go out.

What I think about Korea

I just really really love Korea. I can't even tell exactly why, but I just completely fell in love with this country. You could assume that I think that about every country, but Korea ranks over Japan and Vietnam where I currently am, and every other country. I think since I'm really interested in culture,  martial arts, entertainment and fashion, and korea has all this things, that's the reason why I like it that much. Also people are very friendly and polite, maybe not always like in Japan, but when they are, it comes from their heart and makes you feel welcomed right away. There are also things which irritate me like the speaking differently to each other, I feel like it makes a distance. But I don't speak the language (yet;)) so I can't judge it. However, positive things outdo negatives by far. Luckily I'll go back next year for the taekwondo camp, maybe I'll even go there for my studies? :D

Thank you for reading,

Love to you and all my nice korean friends I met!

Valerie

Templestay

My Templestay experience

I chose to stay at Gulgulsa Temple, a temple near Gyeongju which is kind of near Busan. The temple is also the headquarter of Sunmudo, a traditional korean martial art, that was one of the reasons why I chose this temple. First my plan was to stay only for two nights, but I really loved it and I wanted to come back, so I decided to come back after going to Jeju island, because that was already booked.

Arriving at the temple you are welcomed by statues of the grandmaster practising sunmudo.

The first building you saw is where we had tea ceremony every morning.

The entrance gate

When I was there the first time I was lucky to catch the nature in autumn colours, the secong time the leaves were already gone.

The bell which woke you up at 4am in the morning :)

The templestay office and where I had my room

The dining hall

The sunmudo school, whee we trained twice everyday

A 15 minutes walk up the hill you reached the temple where the morning chanting took place

A buddha statue was carved in that stone thousands of years ago and it has a magnificent view!

I took a little stroll up the forest and went through beautiful surroundings and nature

Morning chanting at 4.30am

We made a small exursion to the sea nearby with the monk we had tea ceremony with, it was really peaceful and relaxed, with a beautiful scenery.

Us with "flying horse"

When I returned from Jeju island to go to the temple again I stayed one night in Gyeongju to see the city. I visited the Anapji pond, really stunning, especially at night.

Here you can see again koreans faible for beautiful, shiny and romantic things, they put a light which changes colours under a waterfall and like you saw before, in the water, quite funny I think, but "scho easy kitschig" :D

Back in the temple I continued practising and enjoying my time including meditation, archery, community work, soccer and lots more :)

Oh it's quite possible that I'm doing the movements wrong in this picture, I'm a complete beginner in this martial art!

I met amazing people there and it was always great fun!

Another part which was really fascinating me were the demonstrations you could see everyday, where the masters where showing the spirit of Sunmudo.

There was also a performance of traditional korean dancers on weekends.

It was difficult to take nice pictures, firstly because they were sometimes moving really quickly and also because I was to busy looking at the demostration to take good pictures ;)

On my last day, a sunday we had the chance to make a excursion to another temple near ours called Girimsa, the weather wasn't perfect but, it created a magical athmosphere.

We also visited a kings tomb in the sea, where he was supposed to turn into a dragon an continue protecting his couontry from the evil, what a beautiful vision!

Thank you for reading and I can only recommend you doing a templestay, for me it was an amazing and really impressive experience and I want to go back as soon as possible!

Lots of love, palms together!

Valerie