Nic Trips

We arrived in Hong Kong after a short flight from Beijing at about 11 pm. By the time we made it to our hostel at around 1 am, we were exhausted and passed out immediately to regain our energy for the long day ahead of us. To start our day we met up with my mom's boss' niece, who is currently living and teaching English in Hong Kong. She took us to "Tim Ho Wan" a famous Chinese dim sum chain restuarant that originated in Hong Kong. The food was amazing, but also ridiculously cheap! We were stuffed by the time we left and only spent about $18 (for  three  people!). The restaurant has been dubbed "the world's cheapest Michelin-stared restaurant." Our hostel was in an area called Mong Kok, which is filled with famous markets and great shopping. Including: the ladies market, the flower market, the bird market, and the goldfish market. There's also the Temple Street night market a couple subway stops south. The streets are filled with vendors and a...

Korean food has become my favorite food in the world since my first month of living here! Many of the tastes that were very different and new to me I was unsure about at first, but have since grown on me to the point of craving them! Even the cold, spiciness of kimchi (김치), a taste that I thought I would never grow accustomed to, has become sometime I reach for willingly for every meal. I find myself wanting the taste in between bites of other foods just as the native Koreans do. I have know for sure for a long time now that the things I will miss about Korea the most when I leave is the food. The typical Korean meal always consists of a main dish of some type of meat (most commonly pork or beef, but also fish or chicken), soup, rice, and a plethora of side dishes called banchan (반찬) that will always include kimchi. Let me point out the parts of the meal pictured of above... First, you can see the soup in the large, hot stone pot at the center. Inside is a type of stew ...

About 2 months into the summer semester, the rest of the majority of the staff at Sincheon Elementary and I took an overnight trip to Namhae. Namhae is an island in the center of the southern coast of Korea, and it took about 4 hours to drive there from Ulsan. It's a beautiful island very famous for it's beautiful beaches, scenic roads, incredible views and....fish. Being and island, it's main industry is fishing, a particularly large quantity of which is anchovies. As we got closer to the island, we stopped the bus on a small pull off on the tiny, country road to walk out on the dock and view (take millions of pictures of) the island and it's large, famous bridge in the distance.   The weather was gorgeous: a perfect cool temperature, clear blue skies, and calm water, uninterrupted by any harsh winds. On the docks, we took several group photos, and then my principal proceeded to pull out some expensive rice and berry made liquor that tasted e...

Our 2nd day in El Nido and our last full day in the Philippines, we went on an island hopping tour. They offer four different tours of the area, each going to 5 destinations and including snorkels and a lunch. We did tour A, which was the highest recommended from everyone we talked to. Our tour group was one of the largest, with 22 people. Most groups are on small boats with only 6-10. I was skeptical at first, but I ended up liking having a big group, because it meant we got an extra big boat with lots of space to move around and sit in the sun. One of the islands advertised in a different tour was Helicopter Island, named because it looks like one. We spotted it out on our way to our first destination. Our first stop was Seven Commandos Beach. It was on the same, main island of Palawan, but is unreachable except by boat. Here we had our first taste of snorkeling in the crystal clear water. Then we also had our first taste of jellyfish stings. The ...