In our search of “what to do in the Philippines”, Cebu and the surrounding area stood out for nice beaches, some interesting geographic sites, and the whale sharks. Originally we planned five days in the area, but this leg of the trip became compressed between the Elephant Reserve in Thailand and expanded travels through Korean…
El Nido, Philippines
We flew to El Nido directly from Tokyo. You can’t pick more complete opposites from a size, cleanliness and social norm perspective. Tokyo is one of the largest cities in the world while you can walk across the town of El Nido in 15 minutes. Japan was obsessive about germs, waste, and toilet hygiene and…
Thrilla in Manilla
Yes – this title is based on the Mohammed Ali fight slogan. We had different drama. Our next stop after Japan was the Philippines. This country was a late addition to the itinerary after we opted not to go to Australia. Having never been here, we chose our destinations and routes very diligently: we googled…
Japan
We have just wrapped up the second leg of our “Cold Weather” trip having spent the past week exploring Kyoto and Tokyo. Our arrival into Osaka from Busan and transport to Kyoto was pretty smooth and painless, with the only challenge being the final AirBnB check in under a driving rain. We stayed in…
Korean Food
We’ve wrapped up our Korea stay and have moved on to Japan. We’ve been steadily catching up on content and editing after technical / software challenges the first week. The food here in Japan is good, but everyone loved the food in Korea. As you can see from this video, we ate A LOT of…
Busan, Korea
We wrapped up our Korean journey by spending three days / four nights in Busan, South Korea’s second largest city. This city of 3 million people is wedged between the Sea of Japan and nearby mountains, so its very dense and vertical. We went there to visit Marian’s cousin and her daughter, as well as…
Gyeongju, Korea
After several rainy days in Busan we hired a van for a day-long excursion north to visit Gyeongju, home of the Silla Empire. In historic times Korea had three kingdoms: Gorguryeo, Baekje and Silla. Around 600 AD Silla united / conquered the other two to unite the country that is now Korea. They would go…
Korea DMZ
The Korea DMZ (demilitarized zone) splits the country in half and is located a few tens of kilometers north of Seoul. For my generation the Korean War is somewhat lost to history, obscured between World War II and more modern conflicts such as the Vietnam and Gulf Wars. Our only context is faint childhood memories…
Around Seoul
There’s so much to see on the streets of Seoul, but it’s also nice to see Seoul from different perspectives. Here’s three videos that do that. Gangnam AirBnB: We stayed in the modern Gangnam district, made famous by the K-Pop song Gangnam Style, which was a parody on the faux rich of the district. Our…
Seoul Day 1
Finally getting caught up on the video editing after a slow start due to software issues. We have set up a youtube channel which we will figure out how to link to at some point. Don’t worry though, all videos will be linked from this blog. Here’s a few covering our first full day in…