Being Adventurers

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Normalcy Again

This morning I gave my granny a lift into town where she carries out her usual Friday ritual. Argory, strolling and strolling some more until her lift appears. Met up with my oldest and dearest friend after being away over 17months. 2 of the 4 pups left today for their new homes. Cute little things. You get attached. An additional thought for today, it's 'National Tequila Day' which obviously called for some of the great stuff as a night cap. Dad, Mum or Megan are not the biggest fans. It's been great being home. Jo xo

[ryeouk]

So I’ve been wanting to do one of these for a while now. I’ve been teaching myself Korean for three years, and I know how hard it can be when you don’t have classes available to you and you’re struggling to find the right resources. Therefore, I thought it’d be a good idea to throw together a little reference post for all the Korean language learners here on tumblr. I hope it’s helpful!

Korean learning websites: Talk To Me In Korean HowToStudyKorean Seemile LearnKoreanlp KoreaTimes

Translator: WordReference (probably the most reliable translator I’ve come across. It has options for a bunch of different languages, including Korean. Unfortunately, this only gives the option of translating from English to Korean and not Korean to English)

Apps: Korean Dictionary Korean Flashcards Korean Children’s Game Learning Korean Korean Phrasebook Korean words and phrases

YouTube: SweetandTasty (she also has a whole bunch of videos on Korean culture) GoBillyKorean

For buying Korean workbooks: MyKoreanStore

Bonus Korean culture ref~ Seoulistic EatYourKimchi

special thanks to bess for helping with this~~ 여러분 화이팅!

[a-year-in-korea]

I really need to get cracking again with my study before I forget everything but jesus where is the TIME!!

[brittnotinbusan]

10 Trips You NEED To Take In Your 20s.

[onceuponatimeinkorea-blog]

6/10…not too bad. 

The road trip across your country is a definite must for myself when I get to Canada though. Whenever I say I am Canadian, Koreans go insane for Vancouver, and I have to admit to never really leaving Ontario, except for Montreal and Quebec. I never made the effort to see my own country before jetting off and leaving it behind for years.  Doubt I will be making it to Burning Man, the Himalayas or a non-romantic, romantic trip to Paris with a “friend” any time soon though.  …guess you never know, seeing if you asked me if I’ve done any of this 5-7 years ago, I would have laughed in your face. 5 more years left of my 20s. WAIT. WHERE. WHAT. HOW?!

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Kitten playing foosball in the hostel. I don't know if it cute, entertaining or hilarious!

[aspiring-globetrotter]

New addiction! One of my little tots brought me some of these in one day and I've been keeping an eye out for them ever since. 2months later and I found them, yay! Need to work this off in the gym later :/ but it was so worth it!

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Chinese children really are the cutest :')

[aspiring-globetrotter]

To Me, From Me

Bought an iPad mini today to cheer myself up. 'To me. From me' sometimes they're the best presents

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Hutong Kitchen Cuisine. Tried our hands at learning how to cook Chinese style. After all, when in Rome....

We made 5 dishes and I will be making them again as they are all so easy to make and taste delicious, with the exception of the dessert, but that's just my personal taste.

- Gongbao chicken  - Steam fish with ginger and spring onion - beer duck  - Panfried green pepper with garlic, spring onion and soy sauce  - Steam milk egg with ginger juice dessert

For anyone who wants more info see http://hutongcuisine.com/

[aspiring-globetrotter]

1920's themed birthday party. A crowd of 'Sheiks and Shebas' got 'spifficated' and headed into Modernista in Guloun to dance along to the 1920s swing band that didn't show, but that didn't dampen our spirits and in true Beijing fashion, the bar stayed open until we were ready to leave! I love Beijing. It was another bright one before we managed to make it home. 

On a side note, I love 1920's fashion. Must read The Great Gatsby.

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Struggling With Being Productive

http://www.wikihow.com/Make-Your-Leisure-Time-Productive

[lovelylovablelovinglady]

When the climate suddenly went from dry and static to humid and moist suddenly my hair is like…

[blendermayo]

“Pure distilled evil in liquid form. Chinese firewater that could be used to put a man on a moon of a planet in a far of galaxy. It tastes like a combination of the fires of hell, rotten Indian food and the after effect of China Syndrome. Can be drunk or snorted through the nose, even though...

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Day out at the Summer Palace, Beijing. It turned out to be a gorgeous day and we walked the feet off ourselves. Always a plus "Why not" (the new motto) :)

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Don't Know How We Managed It

The visa came!! Yaay. With 3 days to spare. Currency is ordered, flights and visas in hand. Just to sort travel insurance and we are on that plane on Tuesday! Now after all that panicking... It is finally sinking in. Ohhhh gawd! We're moving to China.

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Visa Woes

Everyone knows the saying, start as they mean to go on. If our upcomming year in China was to follow on from the week we’ve just had, we would most definitely stop now!! Back on 23rd of Feb we booked our flights. Flights needed to be booked first unfortunately so the school could send us the ‘invitation letter’ we need to successfully apply for the visa. Flight departure date 12th March! This gave us 11 business days to work with to obtain the visa, or so.we’ve been told. It takes China 4 days to send us the letter (via email!) We receive the letter on the 27th at about 3am. The time difference has taken some adjusting to (putting it mildly!) Our next step was applying online for the visa. Straight forward enough, fill in the application early in the morning, hard to do when we were up to 3am the previous night and then send off the required documents/pages/attachments. It just so happened on that great day we could not find one proper functioning printer. Standard. My printer, the local library printers, my old office/work printer and a friends printer all failed us. Standard. So we (gladly) paid for the visa documents to be printed at the nearest printing shop. Off to the post office to get them sent. Special/recorded next day delivery. (We have veryyyy little ‘business days’ to play with). Get home and realise we forgot to attach a form. UK/NI/Ireland partition makes things more complicated than they should be. Panic bells!! We get that sorted, email the form etc. Visa people inform us China put wrong DOB info on the letter. Holds us up another 2days as we try to contact China (damn time difference again) and get them to send us an updated letter. Success. Now it’s a waiting game. It’s the 1st March. Our ‘applications are now prepared for submission’ on Monday 4th. Passports and visas should hopefully be with us on Friday 8th. We fly on the 12th. Nervous wait!!! To top it all off, I write this as I sit in my local A&E dept.

[runouttheguns]

I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.

Henry Rollins (via rebeccasusanne)

[aspiring-globetrotter]

Starting The Visa Process

With everyone having returned to work after the Spring festival we finally heard back from our school and are starting the Visa process. It will supposedly take 5-7 weeks which is a bit disappointing as Emmet and I want to go NOW..!! haha however, good things come to those who wait, so we're overdue something great - hopefully this is it! :D

I am letting myself get a little excited at this stage.

Yes.

Roll on Beijing

:D