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Gangneung’s Sungeut Beach in Gangneung is Quiet and Ideal
The beaches on the northeastern shores of Korea always stun me. The white sands and the emerald blue clear waters that lap against the shore are so dreamy. It’s a wonder that anyone lives in a city NOT on a coast in Korea when the kind of beauty that exists in Gangneung is out there. We took three days and went out to Sungeut Beach (순긋해변). It’s a bit smaller than the other popular beaches in the vicinity and doesn’t offer the numerous cafes and restaurants of the areas surrounding, but that meant it was perfect for our first trip to the coast of the season. Gangneung is a popular…
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Valentine’s Day, White Day & The 13 Other Romantic Holidays In Korea
Did you know there are fifteen couples holidays in Korea? If you’re dating in Korea or get into a relationship with a Korean, you might just want to know when to get all romantic. Valentine’s Day is the day that people around the world know about, but there are plenty of other days on the calendars of Korean couples where they can profess their love, smooch it up, or just do something together. From the official celebrations to the unofficial Korean holidays, here’s when they are and what you should do if you want to celebrate in Korea… or just Korean style. Here are the unofficial (and some official) holidays…
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The Ugly Truth About Being Married To A Korean Musician
From basically having a soundtrack playing to my life every day to fan girls not understanding boundaries, here are the good, the bad and the ugly points about being married to a Korean indie musician.
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My Top Ten Adventures of 2014!
This year was full of new adventures for me and for my husband and not all of them included travel. I used to think traveling someplace new was all an adventure could be but, this year I learned that adventures can come in all shapes and sizes and experiences. 1. New Orleans, Louisiana: For our trip home this year we didn’t exactly go home. Instead of heading to my home state of Ohio, we headed to the Big Easy with my family to celebrate some big birthdays. We enjoyed the beautiful historic buildings and homes that lined the streets of the French Quarter and filled our bellies with the very filling…
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A Look Back: Our Korean Wedding Ceremony
Three years ago at the end of October, my family from the States arrived to Seoul and we made our way down to Busan to prepare for my first wedding ceremony to my husband. Though it’s not our “official” anniversary because we chose our subsequent American wedding ceremony date in January, that doesn’t stop us from receiving a card yearly from my grandmother wishing us a “Happy Anniversary” in October. Every year about this time, the leaves begin to change colors and I am taken back to images of the colorful Hanbok that I wore for our ceremony surrounded by family and friends outside on a gorgeous day with blue…
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Rocking Out with a New Member: Baby Announcement
The feelings of lethargy overtook me when I would usually be bounding out the door to somewhere or another. Luckily, there wasn’t morning sickness to speak of just some nausea at the smell of… well I’m still not sure what was causing it. My husband was on top of things with iron heavy seaweed soup to help me cope and boost my energy and our cats couldn’t keep away from me. I think they’ve been enjoying the abnormal amount of heat radiating from my body. We are happy to say that we will be rocking out with a new member in the family come November. (This post contains affiliate links, which means…
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It’s Our Cotton Anniversary & Finding A Home In Korea
Today is our second wedding anniversary! Time really flies when you’re having fun. I hadn’t even realized the cotton anniversary was upon us until it was here. Has it really been two years? Yes, it has and this year we’re thankful for not only each other but also moving into a new place where we can cozy up on our couch in our pajamas together to call our home for the foreseeable future. (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you purchase after clicking. These funds go to maintain the site. Thank you for your support.) Waking up in a place…
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My Top Ten Adventures of 2013!
2013 was a great year for traveling. Not only did I get to see some fantastic places in Korea, but I also enjoyed quite a few trips abroad. Here are the top 10 places, here and abroad, that I saw in 2013. What a year! 1. Fukuoka, Japan: We started off the year with a trip to Fukuoka, Japan in February. It seems as the end of winter nears we always start to get a little cabin fever, not that we live in a cabin, or that we completely hibernate all winter, but we just need to get away. I had been to Fukuoka before, as had my husband, but this…
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On The Phone With My Korean Mother-in-Law
After the apple incident, in which my mother-in-law called one day and asked if I liked apples years ago and I answered yes only to have her hang up to then purchase and send me a box of some 50 big delicious apples which was much to much for us to handle before they were to go rotten, I’ve tried to figure out what she means when she asks me these innocent questions. Do you have a Korean mother-in-law? There are a sure a lot of stories about how bad they can be, but I’ve got some reasons Korean mother-in-laws can be pretty good. And these phone calls and the…
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Memories of Our Wedding
I can’t believe one year has already gone by. It feels like this happened just yesterday. Oh the memories of that beautiful day with wonderful people, delicious food, joyous music and such happiness surrounding us all. A poem by Khalil Gibran, read at our ceremony and introduced to me by my grandmother when I was in high school. ~On Marriage~ You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore. You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days. Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God. But let there be spaces in your togetherness, And let the winds of the heavens dance…
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A Korean in an American Wedding Ceremony
Back in October of 2011, when Jae-oo and I were first married, we were in Busan, South Korea, and had opted for a very traditional Korean wedding, with hanboks, ceremonial bowing, and all. Recently, though, we celebrated our one-year anniversary and talked about that American wedding ceremony instead, since that was the date we chose to celebrate each year. At the time, many things about the American wedding felt so normal to me, what a wedding should be, but they were quite unfamiliar to him. Those memories came flooding back as we reminisced. (This post contains affiliate links, which means I receive a certain percentage of a sale if you…
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A Korean Deals with Sarcasm
The second time he came home with me, it was summer and everyone was more comfortable. Jae-oo knew where things were in the house and could get them on his own, though he still wanted me to help him find things in the kitchen, and my family was now comfortable enough to wear pajamas in front of him in the morning. With guards let down, it was inevitable that this would be the first time to really see if there was any discomfort between people without the fake ‘nice to meet you’ smiles on. The novelty of dating a foreigner had somewhat rubbed off and people were starting to act…
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An American Family and a Korean Husband
The first trip home with Jae-oo was a lot of introductions. Not only was he meeting friends he’d heard stories of but just as, or maybe more, importantly he was meeting my family. He’d met my mother on her visit to Korea but was now meeting my sisters and then aunts and uncles and grandparents. That may sound like the whole family, but that is just the beginning. My family is large and large in the sense that my mother’s generation has remained very close to their cousins which made the “aunts” and the “uncles” of my generation nearly triple and which meant we grew up with just as many…
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Halloween with a Korean
This week, I got back to Korea from a month long trip home that I manage to get away for once a year. This year, we were home for Thanksgiving and it dawned on me that for the past four years I have taken Jae-oo home to celebrate a different American holiday each time. And each time I realize it is his first time celebrating such and such a holiday American style. I now have this urge to make a baby’s “Jae-oo’s First” album of the events that transpire. Seeing these holidays through his eyes and answering questions that seem so obvious to me as I grew up celebrating a…
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My First Hanbok & Getting Married To A Korean Man
My how the time has gone. I didn’t realize it’d been three weeks since I last posted on here until today when I logged on. When planning a wedding, or in my case two, but mostly half of only one, things just pile up. This past weekend I got married to Jae-oo in our first wedding ceremony. As we’ve decided to become a multi-cultural duo we’ve opted for a very traditional Korean ceremony in his home town and then in a couple months a traditional American ceremony in my home town. That’s getting a little ahead of my topic for this blog though as I’ve decided to go back a…
