ATM Favorite Thing: Try the World

After eyeing the subscription service Try the World for quite some time, I finally decided to take the plunge on a promotional deal for a free box with purchase.

So, I paid the monthly subscription fee of $39 and anxiously waited for the mail.

A little over a week after my purchase my two Try the World boxes arrived.

(These boxes are quite sturdy and could easily be re-purposed as gift boxes or to hold craft supplies)

After opening the boxes, I was so happy to have purchased a subscription.

I received eight items in each box. Here's what came in my Brazil box:

Churraso spice rub, Churrasco bbq sauce and  Jabuticaba jam

I tend to collect jams to use in fillings. I'm also excited about cooking some meat flavored with the Churrasco spices. 

Brazil nut cookies, Brazil nut spread and Pao de Quito mix

I can't wait to make the cheese bread for my husband's Brazilian coworker. 

Guava paste

Cupcake filling anyone?

Not pictured: A box of Brazilian coffee

All of the items were actually from Brazil, not Americanized versions. I looked up the price of the guava paste on Amazon. I couldn't find the the same brand but packages this size ranged from $8-$10. Overall, I think this subscription is a really good value and I am excited to see what I will receive next. If you'd like to try the world yourself, use THIS LINK and you'll get the same promotion I did-a free box!

Off We Go!

It's 7:33 p.m. and I'm sitting in my freshly cleaned apartment waiting for my freshly laundered clothes to line dry. They came out of the dryer at 6 p.m. and I immediately set the floor fan to blow on them. In about an hour or so my husband should come home from his final day at his job.

At 10 p.m. I am off to teach my final adult class. At 11:30 we will depart for the bus station where we will take the 2:30 am bus to Incheon.

Our 9 a.m flight will take us to China where we will wait for 6 hours.

After a 12 hour flight we will arrive in Chicago and a couple hours later take a short flight to Harrisburg.  If everything goes according to plan, we will arrive at 9 p.m and then be driven to my hubby's parents house.

We plan to spend the weekend camping with his family and our friends. I can't wait! I'm so excited to see everyone.

We appreciate your prayers for safe travels and a smooth transition. Next time I write, my feet will be on American soil. :)

Jeju: Its No Hawaii

But it is a good time.

Jeju Island is always referred to as "the Hawaii of Korea". If Hawaii is like Jeju, I will be sorely disappointed.

However, Jeju was a very nice place to visit, even if it was a bit tourist trap-y. (Much like Niagara Falls. After you've seen the Falls, everything else around is quite gimmicky).

My boss' family were lovely hosts.

We all took the ferry over together. The entire 4.5 hour ride over "a three hour tour" echoed in my head. But we made it safe and sound. I was especially proud of Mike for riding the ferry despite his fear of water.

We drove all over the island and saw the beach,  caves, waterfalls and climbed a small mountain. We visited the chocolate museum and the shooting range. We considered riding ATVS but it was awfully muddy as the snow was melting.

Chocolate Museum 

We visited a body museum at my boss' instance and it was a huge waste of money. Think several preserved body parts. The main attractions seemed to be preserved pubic hair and a fetus hall, which thankfully I was able to see the small sign before I entered. We passed on Hello Kitty Island, Teddy Bear Safari, Mini-world, Memory Theme Park and Greek Culture museum.

We also went into a really cool cave cafe.

Jeju island is famous for its citrus and wild boar meat. We went to a popular restaurant and tried the wild boar. It was delicious! 

Statues of this man are everywhere on the island!

Moving to Mokpo: Another Example of God's Grace

We recently relocated to Mokpo. It is a much smaller city than where we were before. There are a lot more parks and places to enjoy nature. There's a hill by our apartment with a nature trail as well as plenty of bike paths and places to explore. I really like it here.                           


Getting here was a bit of a different story. About a week in advance we bought bus tickets for a 3 hour bus ride.

When we brought our suitcases down from our third floor apartment, we realized that an apartment on the second floor was flooding with sewage. It was cascading down the stairs!

We had to physically carry the suitcases down the stairs and try to avoid the sewage waterfall.  Yuck!

We had a lot of suitcases and a small cooler with perishables so we had to take two taxis. My husband took 2 suitcases and I took the other 5. We showed our taxi driver the bus tickets, which say the name of the terminal at the top and repeated the phrase "We want to go to the bus terminal" that we studied. My taxi driver nodded, and repeated bus terminal-ok.

So, we take off. And my taxi takes me to the train station and keeps repeating bus terminal and insisting we are there.  Fortunately, I know that we are only about 10 blocks from the bus terminal so I give him the last of my cash. Unfortunately, I have 5 huge suitcases to take with me.

I started praying. I knew we had an hour before our bus left. Surely, I could make it in an hour. So, I started walking.  And kept praying. I walked with 2 suitcases until I could just barely see the others, went back for them and kept repeating the process.

2 construction workers stopped and asked me in perfect English if they could help me. They carried my suitcases about 3-4 blocks, to a major intersection.

I started wheeling two bags across the intersection when a random German man and his Korean girlfriend appeared. They each wheeled a suitcase across with me. That left one suitcase on the other side of the street. As I stood watching it a small group of school children appeared.

"Is this yours?" They yelled across the lanes of traffic. I shouted back that it was and they formed a little ring around my suitcase. When they light changed they took off running and met me in the middle of the large intersection.

I crossed another small street. I could see the bus terminal and I could see my husband frantically pacing around. I knew he was worried. We don't have cell phones here so he couldn't call to check on me.

I screamed and hollered his name. I jumped up and down. I waved my arms.

Nothing.

So, I started walking, still about 4 blocks away. After 1 trip with the suitcases I shouted his name again. Nothing. And then the idea came to me.

And so I shouted my name.

Instantly he turned and saw me at the top of the hill. He came and we carried the suitcases down together. We still had 25-30 minutes before our bus left.

Halleluiah!

So, long story short, we are here and happy to be here.

Here are some pictures of our new place:

our apartment...we've since upgraded to a full size fridge and a trundle bed

 the park a few blocks away

the view from the top of the hill

 

hiking a small mountain

out and about

Things I Want to Bake Before Moving to South Korea

As I am a list maker by nature, I have been thinking of things I would like to bake before we head over that great big ocean.

My list includes:

• Avocado Truffles....the second part of my challenge on Hot Glue Baking
• Macarons  ....are these as hard as they look?
• Boston Cream Doughnuts...my husband asked challenged me to make these for him)
• Fried Cupcakes...these have been on to my "to do" list for sometime now- they even made it on my 101/1001 list.
• Mini Chocolate Soufflés
• Coconut Macaroon Cupcakes....after seeing this mouthwatering picture on pinterest how do you NOT want to?

 

Pic from http://www.gigiscupcakesusa.com/coconutmacaroon

• A Cupcake Project Recipe...any suggestions? I'm leaning towards either the Ultimate Chocolate or Wine and Cheese........perhaps I can use the ultimate chocolate recipe as the base for my coconut macaroon cupcakes instead of the devils food it calls for. I'm liking this idea...
• A Brown Eyed Baker recipe....I'm thinking Cinnamon Raisin Walnut Bread
• And last but not least, Francine Bryson's Chocolate PB Bacon Pie

What's on your baking "to-do" list? Do you have any good recipe suggestions for any of the things I'm looking to make?

PS: I'm on the lookout for a good fruit pie recipe

Korea Calling!

In case you haven't heard...the hubby and I are trying to move back to South Korea where we will both be teaching English.

Mike taught there while we were engaged and I was fortunate enough to visit. We have most of our paperwork lined up and have applied for many jobs.

Now we're just waiting got the right job, in the right city.

We will most likely be taking a couples position at the same school. The school will provide our housing as part of our contract.

We'd appreciate your prayers as we start down this journey.

Getting Excited....

In 5 days I'll be heading south, to the sweet Carolinas. My niece will be traveling with me and our first stop will be in Winston Salem to visit my grandparents and the onward to my home sweet college town for my college graduation.
I'm so excited about seeing a lot of my friends and family. It will be the first time I've gotten to spend time with any of them since the wedding.
We should arrive in my collegetown Thursday morning. I want to spend my Williams Sonoma giftcard that I won through With This Ring and then spend some time with my former roomies, followed by graduation rehearsal and dinner...followed by...
BAKING WITH HOTLGUE! LIVE AND IN PERSON! Hopefully, we'll be making Baklava, giving each other our new challenges and maybe maybe doing a vlog!
The rest of the weekend is filled with my niece and I getting in our favorite southern bites (waffle house for her, brusters and cookout for me), hanging out with my long missed buddies and of course, graduation festivites.
I'm secretly hopeing my niece will fall in love with Converse like I did and will make plans to go to college their.
In preparation I stocked up on chips (4.99 after coupons, orginally 8.99), hershey's bliss (2.75 instead of 5.29 after coupons), free crunch bars and 20 cups of yogurt for $9. Now all I have to do is grab a few bottled waters for fifty cents apiece and we'll be good to hit the road!
I can't wait for warmer weather and good friends.

First Trip to the Steel City

Mike and I decided to go to Pittsburgh yesterday. We got stuck in an awful traffic jam on the way into the city, but that was the worst part of the trip, so after we got into the city things went smoothly.
We stopped off first thing for lunch. We had pizza at a place where you can watch them toss the dough. My half was bacon and pineapple, and his half was bacon and spicy peppers. My half was the perfect combination of salty and sweetm and it was fun to watch the pizzas being tossed. Next time though, I 'd like to stop at food stands for tacos, gyros or kebabs.
After lunch we stopped and I bought a piece of the most perfect chocolate baklava in the world, which I munched on throughout the day.

After stopping for the baklava we checked into a few oriental grocery stores so Mike could look for his Korean favorites. We eventually found a specifically Korean store, and overheard the cashier speaking Korean. Mike tried to speak a little Korean to her, but she just blew him off. When he asked her about a few specefic items, she looked at him like he was crazy and said "I don't even know what that is.", and went back to what she was doing. Regardless, we still ended up buying kimchi, mando, and some kind of wasabi peas that Mike likes to snack on.

We then went to the place I'd been excited to go to Mon Aimee Chocolate. It was wonderful to look at all of the different types of chocolates and chocolate products. Everything was quite expensive, as to be expected I suppouse at a speciality store in a city. But, I did walk out with a small bacon chocolate bar, which is on my list of 101 things to do. I'll let you know how it is.

Afterwards we walked around the city a bit.

And then we went to a Pirates baseball game! I'd been to the Greenville Drive games twice but this was my first *real* game, and I had a ball. (Pun intended)

Feels Good to be Home

Hi Ya'll!

I feel like its been forever since I've blogged.

My flight home went well and on my longest flight (Tokyo to the USA) I got a free upgrade to busines class. It was so nice- steak dinner and ice creamm sundae and a "bed".

The downside?

My luggage didn't arrive until last night, which is why you haven't heard from me. And on top of that my suitcase was busted in several places. Thankfully, nothing was missing. I've got Delta's Damaged Luggage claim form ready to go!

So, since I haven't had a computer to help my procrastinate what have I been up to?

Wii Yoga! I love doing yoga on the Wii. As balanced challenged as I am, having the balance circles on the wii really helps me out.

Wedding planning! I made the rehearsal dinner reservations at a local, Italian/American restaurant. I've met with the caterer-who is also our baker. We opted for a smaller wedding cake, since we are having a dessert reception.

To fit the travel theme, we are having desserts from a variety of places- think Baklava, NY Cheesecake and Cannolis and Mexican Hot Chocolate! We're also having a fruit and cheese table with tons of cheeses. I think that will be Mr. Groom's favorite part because he once told me he wanted to marry cheese.

This afternoon my grandparents from NC are taking me to lunch, I'm meeting with the florist and making Banana Chocolate Chip Cookies for my little sister! I'm hoping to send off my engagement notice to the newpaper as well, but we'll see how motivated I feel this afternoon.

Have a Happy Friday- I'll pick up with the featured followers next Friday!

Guest Post: Keeping Travel Memories

Well, its Tuesday. That means I left our apartment in the wee hours of the morning,  took an hour car ride to the airport and then boarded my flight at 11:10 am South Korean Time. (If everything went smoothly, unlike my flight here when I had to stay overnight in Detroit) If  things continue down this smooth path, I should arrive in South Carolina at 1030pm EST. In the mean time, I've got a guest post (and pictures) from Sabrina at coffeerocketfairytale. Enjoy!

Hello everbody!


I am Sabrina from coffeerocketfairytale and I am writing on this lovely little blog today, because the amazing Rachel was looking for a guest writer and I happened to be the first one to put my hand up. So here I am, totally excited about meeting you all!

Rachel suggested to write something on travel, because she is travelling at the moment. Now travel is a wide topic and I could go on and on and on about

my favourite travel spots
the best airline
the coolest bags for overseas travel
the coolest accessories for a long-distance plane ride
my favourite vacation, places I want to see or want to see again... and so on.

But this would be faaaar too much to put into one post (I mean, I could put it into one post, for sure, but I think it might result in the entire internet crashing, because this post would be ENDLESS). So to get some inspiration, I just had a look at the old photos of my previous travels and remembered my first big Overseas Experience, or OE:

A mix of rain and snow was falling, the streets were more wet then white and the world outside looked more ugly then beautiful. I was sitting in a physics laboratory, listening to the most boring account of the most boring discovery a human being ever made (THAT boring that I can't even remember any of it!) - and the next minute I found myself on a sandy beach in an exotic foreign land, walking along the shore, cool waves lapping around my toes.

That was my first big OE.

Of course it wasn't real.

It was a little (imagined) escape from physics class at secondary school, an experience my best friend Jo and I shared ever so often. We had discovered "visualising" as a type of meditation a little earlier and soon found out that Physic lessons provided the best space and time to practise. The monotone voice of our teacher made it easy for us to drift away and dreaming of places of hot climate was the best way to handle the icy cold in the classroom during winter.

Today, six years later, I can happily say that in the meantime I have visited some of these places that I had dreamed of back then myself.

I have experienced the hot and humid climate in Singapore and Malaysia, felt the buzz of Sydney, Australia, and lived in Wellington, New Zealand, for almost two years.

I saw some of the prettiest (and most crowded by tourists) sights in Germany, skied down Austrian mountains in winter and spend a week on a Dutch sailing boat.

Every now and then, I grab one of my photo albums, look at the pretty pictures and remember the good times I had and the great people I met.

Making memories and keeping them are two of the most important things for me when I travel. In 60 years from now, I want to sit in my rocking chair, surrounded by my grandchildren (or - if I shall never be blessed with children or grandchildren - a bunch of children that visit me once a week so that I can read fairytales to them and tell them about the life back in the day when people had old-fashioned stuff like weblogs), and tell them about my travels.

I want to keep them on a journey through my memory with them, show them pictures and old movie tickets and dried flowers and stuff...

✈ write notes into the travel guide book of the place you visit

✈ draw your route on a map of the country/region of your stay

✈ keep a travel diary

✈ write a travel or holiday blog

✈ collect articles from the local newspapers or magazines (e. g. those about events that took place during your stay)

✈ take lots of photographs

✈ turn photos into slideshow

✈ use them for a photobook

✈ print them/get them developed and stick them into an album

✈ make a photo calendar

✈ make a collage out of your photos

✈ keep a sketch journal (draw the things & people you see on your trip)

✈ write poems or short stories about your trip

✈ collect little things: postcards, match boxes, business cards, coffee cups,

✈ buy an unconventional souvenir: instead of typical souvenirs like towels, keyrings, etc., buy a souvenir that will always remind you of the trip (a nice pair of shoes from Milano, a Eiffel-tower charm for your bracelet...)

✈ carry a video camera and make a movie about your trip

✈ if there is one particular song, band or record you mainly listen to during your holiday, buy it and take it home (melodies sometimes have the power to bring back memories)

✈ at the beach: collect sand and mussels, draw something with watercolours and later put liquid glue on top, then pour the sand over it and turn it into a beautiful beach-picture (during autumn you can do a similar thing with leaves)

How do you keep your travel memories alive?

Saying Goodbye

Well, in two days I'm going to be leaving Korea and heading back home to the smiling faces and beautiful faces of good old South Carolina.

I'm excited to be heading home. The week I get back will be filled with wedding planning appointments, packing and hopefully some reading, crafting and of course BAKING! I've missed having an oven so much.

I am a little sad to be leaving. I'll miss the friends I've made here and the Rotti Buns! Hopefully, Aeri will be coming to visit us, so I won't have to miss her for too long. We've spent the weekend going out to dinner and lunch with various groups of friends. And I've got some major cleaning  to do tomorrow.

So until Wednesday I am leaving you in  two very capable sets of hands. On Monday, as I'm preparing for my flight, we'll have a guest post from Mandy at Mandy's Life After 30. Mandy is a Cajun girl, wife, mother and list maker extraordinaire!

And on Tuesday, as I'm actually in an airplane and physically unable to blog, there will be a guest post from Sabrina at coffeerocket fairytale, who has done a fair share of traveling and is currently planning on moving to a new country.

See ya on the flipside!

C is for Changwon, South Korea

 Thats where I am right now. I've been here since my Sunday night- USA Sunday morning. There is a 13 hour time difference between here and South Carolina.

For letter C, I'm going to blog about a few things I've noticed so far.

1. Chopsticks. (Another C! go me!!) How did I forget that I would have to use chopsticks? I totally should of practiced. Remember A is for Accident Prone? It could just have easily been filed under Coordination (Lack of). I am not adept at using chopsticks. No where close. First, I'm left handed so having our friend A show me how to hold them took a bit. And then I had to learn how to actually use them. I think she told me they use their back 3 fingers to move them, but Mr. Groom holds them more like pencils. Silly me, the first thing I tried to practice on was sushi. Note to self: sushi is very soft and will break when squeezed.

2. I had a bit of trouble yesterday getting around because I'm used to using signs and words as my markers. But, while there are some English signs they are few and far between. And I am not familar with Korean characters so I don't recognize them when I'm walking. So I've learned some basic landmarks: Bank, tennis court looking field, wind tunnel parking lot, cross the double street, restaurant with piles of wood outside, pharmacy.

3. Speaking of pharmicies, hospital patients here don't have to stay in the hospital. They are free to go about their daily lives, pushing their IVs around with them

4. Sunglasses. A says the older generation hates them and tends to think people are sleeping when they wear them. So instead they carry umbrellas or wear HUGE visors. I think I might want to buy a korean umbrella- they are very pretty- but I can't tell if the ones the ladies carry in the sun are not water proof parasols or double duty umbrellas.

5. Lets talk food. Yesterday, my first Korean meal was a fried porkchop paired with a bunch of other things. There was a rice porridge type thing (very oatmealy- not my cup of tea), several types of sushi which I tried for the first time. It had an okay taste, because it was mostly rice, but everytime I thought "raw fish" I'd start to get queasy.  So I had to force my self not to think about it. There was also kimichi (sp?), or spicy cabbage, which wasn't too bad.  Next to the sushi, were some vegetable looking things. I tried one- pickeled radish. And Mr. Groom pointed out that the other things were garlic, so I didn't try it. The fried porkchop was the best though. And it was easy to eat with the chopsticks. Today I walked with Mr. Groom to work and he ordered us both Lunch Club sandwiches. I had  slightly spicy Sun chips and lemonade. Best damn lemonade ever.  Go figure. The Lunch Club had bacon, lettuce, cheese and egg, and maybe turkey. And two different sauces that of course dripped all love me. I'm going to feast on vegetables when I come home Oh- and today I learned that there is a western grocery store. I got very excited when Mr. Groom told me about it. I was dissapointed to learn that is very expensive- $7 for peanut butter. I think if I was here alone I'd deal with those prices for a block of cheese and some peanut butter. We're suppoused to go grocery shopping tomorrow, so I'll have things for dinner-because he eats dinner at work.

6. I have a feeling I might lose most of my vocabulary while I'm here. For example, Mr. Groom ordered our lunch this way "Lunch Club. Two (holds up two fingers). Cola. Lemonade. Here (points to the ground). I'm just thankful that as many people speak English as they do- it reminds me a bit of my visit to France, where a lot of the restuarant people spoke enough English to get your order. I always say thank you, even if I'm pretty positive I'm not understood. I should learn how to say thank you in Korean.

7. I don't know why. I really have no clue. But I am awfully tempted to speak Spanish. It would probably do me less good than English, but everytime I don't understand (like in the airport) something, I am tempted to give it a go in Spanish. Korean and Spanish don't even share a similar alphabet. What is wrong with my brain?

Making Progress

I'm still working on finding a sizable reception venue. But I do have : A WEDDING DRESS. I paid off my dress today- and tried it on and its so wonderfully beautiful!

I also have a bunch of stamps. Well not technically, but I bid on them on Ebay, so I will have them soon. Why stamps? Well, they're stamps from all over the world that I want to use as seals on my wedding invites or on my RSVP "tickets". What the heck?

I want to have a travel themed wedding. I want to decorate with globes (anybody have one I can borrow?)  and old suitcases and old maps. And place disposable cameras on tables for guests to take pictures during the wedding. For a guest book I want to have a large collection of postcards for people to write messages on and then slide into a postcard album (which means I'm going to be soliciting my friends for unmarked postcards from their towns/states/provinces/countries. I want to dance to the song "You belong to me". I want to make passport inspired invitations and "ticket" style RSVP cards.

If you have any travel theme suggestions please let me know. (Or if you want to send me some postcards!) Here is my inspiration:

http://prosttothehost.com/2010/04/05/mood-board-jet-set/
http://www.stylemepretty.com/2009/05/29/travel-themed-weddings/