The South Korean leg of my ‘grand tour’ has come to an end. I’m currently sitting in the Korean Airlines lounge in Seoul’s Incheon airport, a little exhausted, yet so grateful & happy that I’ve been able to spend the past 6 weeks in California, Australia, & South Korea.

This morning, I was in Jeju, and, in a couple of hours, I will board a flight to Atlanta, where I’ll get to spend the next 10 days or so celebrating Thanksgiving and spending time with my family.

Jeju Air: new standard (ahem)

Incheon airport

It’s been an incredible trip, but I’m excited to relax in a more familiar territory & hang out with the family!

I put together this 1 Second Everyday video mashup that takes photos & 1 second video clips from the past couple of months and mashes them together in a single video. Check it out!

1 second everyday mashup video

Thanks for joining me through my posts on this blog! I will probably post a bit less regularly moving forward.

Here are a few posts from the past few days in Jeju I’ve just gotten around to posting:

• Flying from Seoul to Jeju: Island livin
• Jeju is dope: Oranges, beaches, great food
• Jeju II: More food!

It was a rainy day, so we went and picked up some pizzas and chicken for lunch from Magpie, then we went out for a drive.

We had a delicious dinner in the city of chicken & mushroom dumplings, chicken meatballs, pork charsiu, and noodle soup with fish cake.

Oranges!

Me & Ellie

Magpie posters

Dinner

We started the day in Jeju picking some oranges from their back yard. We went out for an amazing lunch, then stopped by the beach for a bit, followed by a visit to Tiffany & Erik’s brewery: Magpie. Tiffany & I ducked out for a bbq dinner.

Orange picking

Traditional Korean lunch: beef, fish, pancakes, soup, spicy salad with homemade tofu, plenty of yummy sides.

Beach

Beach selfie

Magpie brewery: Brewed on Jeju, Born in Seoul

Magpie brewery

Tiffany

BBQ dinner

I met up with Tiffany’s family and flew from Seoul’s Gimpo airport down to Jeju, an island off the southern coast of South Korea.

Before doing that, I walked a bit around Namsan park near my hotel.

Views of Seoul from Namsan park

Cab to Gimpo airport

Asiana flight from Seoul Gimpo to Jeju

I returned to Bimbam Cafe this morning, but this time got the quiche lorraine, which was even better than yesterday’s breakfast. I met up with Tiffany & fam to go down to the park near the Han river.

This afternoon, I took the bus up to the Jongmyo shrine, which I learned I could not enter without a tour. Unfortunately, the next one was 1½ hours away. So I walked up to the Bukchon Hanok village: a neighborhood of old style residential homes that are still in use. One interesting tidbit is that young adults will rent period-piece costumes and walk around to places like palaces or old villages to take photos of themselves. It’s only a few bucks to rent one of these costumes for a few hours, and they seem to love it.

I returned to the Jongmyo shrine for the 4pm tour. The shrine is the spirit home for the kings of the Joseon dynasty, which ruled for 500 years up til the end of the 19th century.

For dinner, I got to go to Tiffany & Eric’s brewery bar: Magpie, where we had delicious beers & pizzas!

Sunrise, viewed from my hotel room. Not bad, eh?

Quiche lorraine & broiled grapefruit, from Bimbam Cafe

Han river park

M taking a picture of me

Bukchon Hanok Village

Bukchon Hanok Village: costumes!

Jongmyo shrine: a dope tree

Jongmyo shrine: where the kings’ spirits “live on”

Magpie pizzas: hawaiian & lamb

Londoner beer from Magpie + Charles H: the beer version of a Pimm’s cup!

View from my hotel at night

My first full day in Seoul! I had a good breakfast at Bimbam Cafe near the hotel, then walked down to the War Memorial of Korea, which encompassed lots of history of Korea, with an emphasis on the Korean War.

I had a yummy sandwich at Casablanca in Itaewon, then met up with Tiffany & fam to see the Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Arario museum.

We had a dope Korean dinner of seafood & veggie pancake, a spicy salad with chestnut jelly, and a creamy noodle soup, along with makgeolli, a Korean rice wine that was yum.

Breakfast at Bimbam Cafe

Korean War monument

Statue of Brothers

War Memorial of Korea

United Nations Memorial Cemetery: pretty interesting ‘infinity’ cemetery in a small room with mirrors on both sides

My holiday party outfit

Flowers at the War Memorial

Chicken sandwich at Casablanca Sandwicherie

Gwanghwamun Square

Gyeongbokgung Palace

Deer at Arario museum: these are taxidermied deer covered in crystals.

Street

Dinner: spicy salad with chestnut jelly, seafood & veggie pancake, creamy noodle soup.

Tiffany’s daughter!

After a long flight from Melbourne with a middle-of-the-night layover in Singapore, I made it to Seoul! I took the KAL (Korean Airlines) Limousine Bus from Seoul’s Incheon airport to the Grand Hyatt hotel. The bus was pretty nice, as it does a loop from the airport to major hotels in Seoul, so it’s a easy, inexpensive way to efficiently get to the destination.

I was pretty wiped out when I checked in, but I managed to walk down to Full Moon where I had a beef bulgogi meal, complete with various Korean style sides.

Later, I met up with Tiffany & her family to explore Seoul a bit before having dinner at Myeongdong Kyoja, where we had amazing chicken & dumpling noodle soup along with chicken dumplings.

At first, I had the limo bus to myself, but a few others joined me at the other terminal.

Three dudes marching outside in fun clothes

Views from my hotel room

Full Moon: Beef bulgogi & sides

Me and Tiffany

These Pringles actually tasted like bolognese.

For the past four weeks, I’ve been in Australia, mostly staying in Melbourne, but also Torquay and Hobart (Tasmania). It’s been amazing! I’ve been blown away by how nice of a city is, let alone the fantastic food, coffee, & drinks available nearly everywhere.

Here are a few terms I’ve learned along the way…

Australian English	US English
Footy	Australia-rules football
Toasties	toasted sandwich
Jaffle	also a toasted sandwich
Take away	take out
Booking	reservation
Return	round trip
Brekkie	breakfast
burger	literally anything in a bun (e.g., a “chicken burger” is just a chicken sandwich in a bun)
Stubbie holder	koozie

And a few places I loved that have stayed on my mind…

Cafes: Proud Mary, Aunty Peg’s, Grace Cafe, Industry Beans, Rustica, Seven Seeds. (All those are great for coffee, breakfast, and lunch, with the exception of Aunty Peg’s, which just has great coffee).

Bars: Above Board, Bar Americano, Black Pearl, Byrdi.

Restaurants: Supernormal, Tonka, Chin Chin, Charcoal Lane.

Sight-seeing: St Kilda penguins at sunset (get there a half hour early to get a good spot, and walk to the end of the pier), National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), ‘Hands-On’ Street Art Experience (Airbnb – Lukas), Ian Potter museum, Royal Botanic Gardens, the Keith Haring mural in Collingswood.

Shopping: Original & Authentic Aboriginal Art, Wonderkammer.

Outside Melbourne: Anglesea Golf Club – Kangaroo tour, Great Ocean Road, Koala Cafe (100% because of the koalas nearby), the beach.

Hobart, Tasmania: Museum of New and Old Art (MONA, incredible), Pennicott Seafood Seduction boat tour (omfg), Macq01 Hotel, Sullivan’s Cove whisky.

Next stop: Seoul!

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Just a few blocks from where I’m staying, I happened upon a multi-block street festival that had two stages of various music & dancing, and in between a menagerie of food options. I ended up getting some chicken ‘wanton’ tacos, which were pretty tasty.

Today, Taylor & I went to Mate Fest, an international beer fest hosted by Moon Dog Brewery in Melbourne. Our friend Erik from Magpie in Seoul gave a masterclass, which was pretty fun!

Breakfast at Grace Cafe: Chilli Scrambled Eggs, with Lao gan ma chilli, pickled shiitake, enoki and szechuan crunch on toast

Taylor & me

Magpie’s Erik giving a masterclass

Moon dog had a dope analog style version of Pong

Moon dog’s crazy keg setup