13 posts tagged “travel”
I forgot that I already uploaded my photos from our trip to Berlin this summer - a few of them. Above, Leon and I are standing at the footprint of the former Wall. There are more in my flickr set here.
We went for a long weekend - we took the train and stopped in Dresden along the way. I liked Berlin a lot. It was hip and vibrant and stimulating, and yet so moving for all its history. At the Reichstag, we saw the memorial to the 96 parliament members of the opposition parties killed by the Nazis in 1933. All over the city I saw places where inspired Korean tourists had written "Korea reunification" (in Korean). Leon really liked the Silent Room inside the Brandenburg Gate - he says he wants one built into our future house! We went to a great wine bar, where you paid 1 euro to "rent" a glass, drank what you wanted, then paid what you thought was fair on the way out. And we ate a lot of kebabs, because they are so cheap and good in Berlin.
This was our second time in Bratislava (Slovakia) and our second time staying with our friends Jano and Janka. They are great, and our weekends with them are always filled with wine, music, and bacon - lots and lots of bacon, sometimes homemade. (You love them already, don't you?) Since we had done quite a bit of sightseeing the first time we were in Bratislava (back in April), this past weekend we just relaxed and hung out. Our only excursion was to the castle Červený Kameň ("Red Stone"), where there happened to be a quirky little medieval festival taking place.
Isn't this an adorable picture? I laughed out loud - that hot dog is about as big as the boy's head!
Lately I have been fantasizing quite a lot about going to Korea, and this slideshow and article in the New York Times only worsened my pangs.
Since getting married, Leon and I have been talking about taking a trip to Seoul to visit my relatives, but our plans have been stalled by a myriad of factors including money and the difficulty of coordinating the trip with my immediate family. As we've been hypothetically planning our trip, I've found myself waxing nostalgic to Leon about my Seoul experiences - the few I've had as an adult - about the exhilarating pace, the nightlife, the beautiful countryside outside the city, possible road trips, and... the FOOD.
Since moving to Prague, I have been seriously jonesing for Korean food. It's true I cook Korean all the time at home, but there are limits to my repertoire as well as to my kitchen equipment. And plus, what I miss is not really the flavors of Korean food, which I can easily recreate at home, but the going out to an unusual Korean restaurant and making a night of it, something we did easily back in LA. A couple of weeks ago, I gave into my craving and Leon and I went out for Korean food at one of the few Korean restaurants in Prague. At the restaurant, we balked at the prices on the menu. We've gone out for Korean food only a few times, and each time we do, we have the same reaction: HOW many crowns? For THAT? You've GOT to be kidding me. And we have to pay for the KIMCHI?! What kind of place IS this? So, we won't be going out for Korean food again for a while. And it looks like it will be an even longer while until our trip to Seoul.
For now, at least, I have my 14 kilos of gochujang. (Which, incidentally, the NYT story above describes as "a red-pepper paste that is to Korean cuisine what butter is to French." Apt!)
"Eat, drink, and be merry" - that pretty much sums up the theme of our weekend. Some highlights:
- Being fed 3 different kinds of bacon over the course of our weekend in Bratislava by our friends and gracious hosts, Jano and Jana (yes, those are their real names, and they are as cute as their names suggest).
- This realization that, the more I travel to other places, the more I love Prague. (Perhaps I'm partial, and/or perhaps it's a sign that I've come to regard Prague as home - I don't know, nor do I mind.)
- Train travel. It rocks.
- Clinking glasses late into the night with friends, talking about music, food, and history.
- In Vienna, ditching the sights and café-hopping instead, with the wind and rain as excuse.
- Listening to our friends talk about what it was like to grow up under a communist regime, what their lives were like then and how they are now.
- My first bite of a pistachio macaron from a bakery in Vienna. Heavenly.
Over the weekend, Leon and I went to see Korn in concert! Yes, Korn - the band known for such romantic hits as "Faget" and "Freak on a Leash." 'Cuz we're both huge die-hard heavy metal fans, didn't you know? Oh, yeah, totally. I love to fall asleep listening to the Korn song "Kill You." (Leon likes to wake up to "Dead Bodies Everywhere.") So when we heard that they'd be coming to Europe on their "Bitch We Got A Problem" tour (charming), we knew we had to be there. 'Cuz we're hard core, man. Don't we look it?
What, you don't believe me? Okay, how about now:
(I'm still working on my heavy metal face.)
Oh, all right, we're not really headbangers - you sure called us out on that one. I actually listened to a Korn song for the first time last week. But we really did go to their show... in Leipzig, where we met up with our friends Jen and Ray- the new drummer of Korn!
All joking aside, it actually turned out to be one of the best live shows I've ever seen, seriously. The music was good and surprisingly enjoyable even to my Pollyanna tastes, and the show was amazing:
Yay for Ray! He's an amazing drummer:
The energy was awesome. Korn has the most fervent and impassioned fans I think I've ever seen at any concert:
The dorks, aka new Korn fans - YEAH! KORNNNN!!!
Me and Jen... When she visited me in December, neither of us realized that we'd be seeing each other again so soon!
Ray giving away drum sticks after the show - what a nice rock star!
Jen and Ray on the tour bus, aka Ray's home for the next several weeks:
All of us on the tour bus. Leon and me = Korn groupies!
The End.
Today, I had my first class at the university. It's wonderful to be back in school, and I think my classes are going to be great. I'm a little nervous about doing well, though. Wish me luck for the coming weeks!
Also, Leon and I went on a last-minute trip to Leipzig, Germany, over the weekend. We took the train, and it was incredibly easy and pleasant. Coming from the massive USA, I still marvel at how close we live to so many other countries here in Europe. To put it in perspective for you, the distance between Prague and Leipzig is less than HALF the distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles!
Unfortunately, I didn't get to make anything over the weekend, so I'm just going to count my pictures from the trip as my Thing-a-days for Saturday and Sunday (photos are allowed!). Here are a few of my favorites from the weekend. I'll tell the accompanying story later in the week.
Leon and I have been here since yesterday and are having a great time. We're taking in all the wonderful Scandinavian design all around us. Tomorrow we are heading to Sweden, where we'll be spending a few days with our friends Matt and Lisa. We'll be back in Prague on Tuesday. More soon!
We're back from our weekend in the Netherlands. More soon!
Already missing the gelato... and Robin, of course!
This weekend, I'm off to Florence - by myself, eek! I'll be visiting my friend Robin, who is living there. Robin and I used to teach together back in Los Angeles. She decided to take a leave of absence from LAUSD this year to follow her dream of studying art in Italy. Pretty f*ing cool, right? I'm so excited to be seeing someone I know from home.
