Trip to Seoul Korea – Apartment Tour

I took a trip to Korea last year and it was awesome. I enjoyed my trip so much – the food and shopping was great and affordable! I long to be back on the streets of Seoul sometime soon! I haven’t been able to share my trip so I will try to post everything that happened! Today, I am showing you the apartment we stayed in. We decided to take a big leap and sublet an apartment through Airbnb – it was a great decision. The apartment was about the same price for a single hotel room. This apartment came with three rooms, one bath, full kitchen, living room and washer and dryer – tell me that isn’t a better deal! We stayed in Yeiouido which is a city located away from the hustle and bustle of the tourist areas, it’s also home to all the major television networks and the Han River. I loved taking the subway back home after a long day and unwinding in a nice and quiet neighborhood. This apartment was also right next to an Emart which made for super easy omiyage shopping..hehe. Okay time to share some pics!

140421-01TV and Toaster…:) This apartment also had free wifi – we watched a bunch of shows we couldn’t understand. Loved the shopping networks.

140421-02Isn’t this living room so cute? I loved it. This apartment had a real cute and homey style that I loved.

140421-04Cute dining nook and bookcase full of books we couldn’t read.

140421-03Full kitchen with washer and dryer! The washer doubled as both the washer and dryer. Why don’t we have that here?? Or do we? Anyhow, the hosts were so gracious. They even had some food in the kitchen for us to eat, that was very nice. They greeted us when we got in and came to say goodbye to us as we left. A great experience renting this apartment.

Rules of Tsukiji – Tsukiji, Japan

As I was leaving Tsukiji, I spotted these hilarious signs! I’m sure you have to take it seriously but how can you not laugh?? I’ll share them all here, no captions needed.

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Tonkatsu Yachiyo – Tsukiji, Japan

So we visited Tsukiji and guess what we had for lunch?! You guessed it!  ….char siu and tonkatsu! Forreals. So if you want to try the place I tried, look for the sushi shop with the super long line and go into the doors to the left of it. LOL! I seriously actually did do some research before heading to Japan and had a brilliant resource. If you haven’t been, go to Tokyo Cuisine Guide! This blog is in English and he put in so much great details for each restaurant! Having his blog is much more useful than any published guide book. Unfortunately life has gotten quite busy for him as of late so he hasn’t updated recently but I still feel like all the stuff on his blog is still very useful!

You know how I found this blog? So I’m totally obsessed with the show Soko Ga Shiritai even though it’s over 20 years old…and I just LOVE it when they do their food specials. Well on one of their 1000 yen shows, they showcased Kitchen Carrot. This cute restaurant run by a cute little couple had these bambucha sizzling steak plates and I always drooled when I saw the clips. So I did a google search on Kitchen Carrot and got onto this blog and what a find! For the Kitchen Carrot post, go here. Great to see that they still exist and that the food they serve is still the same! Anyway, sorry for the babbling. Here’s the restaurant we went to! They didn’t know a single word of English. It was an interesting meal…lol.

140126-01Tsukiji!

140126-02Trying to navigate our way through the shops! (Hi Linda!)

140126-03My char siu meal. Awesomely cooked eggs and char siu…I do not regret going here!

140126-04Mandatory gratuitous egg shot!

140126-05Look at the giant ebi fry. This was Linda’s and she loved it! Was ono.

140126-06This is the picture we pointed at to order because we are not fluent in Japanese…lol

Original Tonkatsu Yachiyo post from Tokyo Cuisine Guide: 

http://tokyofood.blog128.fc2.com/blog-entry-46.html

Typical Breakfast – Shinjuku, Japan

I had two issues in Japan. One, I woke up every morning feeling super dizzy. It lasted all day and I don’t know what it was. I carried my dramamine with me to try to control it but it didn’t work too well. Second, there wasn’t enough time or room in my stomach to eat everything in Japan. The second one is what made me most sad, lol. For breakfast, we weren’t always in the mood for breakfast but ate some anyway! Precious eating time! What we ended up doing was going to small little shops that had computer vending machines taking your orders. Those are the best places. Put your order in, seat yourself, food is delivered, devour and then leave. We need that here.

140125-01My breakfast! A curry and udon set.

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Linda had the wakame udon. She wanted to clean her system out from all the eating!

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140125-06Best eggs are in Japan. Please tell me I’m wrong and if you do, you must tell me where the best eggs are.

The food is great. These restaurants are probably thought of as low quality fast food which to me was like high quality for Hawaii! It was so good. We were one of the few diners this particular morning. We were joined by a drunk girl in the corner, passed out in her bowl of noodles. Yes. In. Her. Bowl. The workers don’t do much of anything – I assume they see a lot of people who come in to pass out after drinking…haha!

Kani Doraku – Shinjuku, Japan

If you’ve been to Japan, you have probably seen the sign for this restaurant. They are located all over Japan and we definitely had to give this place a try while we were there! Kani Doraku is definitely not a cheap restaurant but I believe it’s worth every cent. And worth every cent from Linda. We came here for her birthday and she treated! Thank you so much, it was such a memorable and delicious meal.

140124-01You can’t miss this business sign!

140124-02Check out their chopstick holder, it’s the details that count!

140124-03Their own chopsticks? It’s on now. And it includes a tool to help take the crab meat out! Genius.

140124-04Gotta try some hot sake…I’m not an alcohol girl. Hahaha. There are so many great pictures coming, so get ready (over 20)!  Continue reading

Coming Home

I’ve done my fair share of traveling but when I fly home, I usually land at night.  While the night view out of the airplane is beautiful with all the city lights – my camera isn’t exactly equipped to take those photos.  I was looking through some old pictures and found some landing pictures from a neighbor island trip.  I never sit by the window because I usually need to use the restroom a lot but a short neighbor island flight is no problem.

Don’t you feel so happy to see the islands when you fly home?  Especially since almost every flight home takes at least 5 hours or so.  I still think our airport has a lot to improve on but nothing beats Hawaii.

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Cloud Gate – Chicago, IL

Just wanted to share some pictures of the Bean from Chicago aka Cloud Gate.  Can you guess why it’s called Cloud Gate?  It was a really hot day so I didn’t stick around to take too many pictures.  I’m also including a picture of the Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower), we were going to go up but were told it was a 2 hour wait to get up there!  I’ve been up once before so I am good…lol.

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Chinatown – Chicago, IL

Anytime I’m traveling, I like to check out the Chinatown if possible.  San Francisco has a huge Chinatown but I must have fluked out because the dim sum I tried was nothing special.  In fact, the dim sum I tried at SF and New York were nothing to write home about – they just made me miss the dim sum at home!  The dim sum I have tried in Chicago has been the best I’ve had in the mainland.  I actually dined at this same restaurant (Ming Hin) during my last trip and wanted to try a new restaurant so we headed to Chinese restaurant that specialized in main dishes/noodles.  Well we got seated right away but was ignored after that.  We watched as they seated more and more people and no one even came to see us with a menu.  I looked around and caught the eye of the girl behind the counter.  She caught my glance and proceeded to do nothing.  So…we left and went to Ming Hin.  Ming Hin is a huge Chinese restaurant and they’ve got everything down to a science!  The wait staff know Mandarin/Cantonese/English and their ordering system is so easy!  The menu is all pictures and you just put the number of orders you want with each picture.  We need this in Hawaii!  Also…the wait staff is incredibly friendly, something Hawaii is also lacking…hehe.

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This is kind of like deja vu.  I had a pork hash post not too long ago…it’s my favorite dim sum dish.  This version was pretty good.

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Slurping Turtle – Chicago, IL

Being the Asian that I am, I made it a point to scope out as many Asian restaurants as I could.  As if I don’t get enough Asian food in Hawaii right?  The Slurping Turtle was located very close to our hotel so we decided to give them a try one night for dinner.  The restaurant was very busy but we were able to score a seat almost immediately!  As we were greeted by the waitress, we were informed that a future Top Chef contestant was the chef of this restaurant!  How exciting!  He even had a special tasting menu but since I was dining with others, I decided to order just noodles.  I guess this gives me an excuse to go back to the restaurant next time I return!  Let’s take a look at the food shall we?

130908-01Cute ah?  Sorry for the shiny spot on the menu…

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Shaw’s Crab House – Chicago, IL

After my cousin’s white coat ceremony at her school, we decided to celebrate at a nice restaurant.  After searching through the many restaurants to choose from, we made a reservation at Shaw’s Crab House.  Busy busy place so I assume it’s great.  I think the food was good but the service was lacking.  The waiter seemed disinterested right after we declined drinks.  Sorry guys, we don’t all enjoy alcohol.  He all but disappeared for the rest of the meal which by the way lasted like half an hour (seriously!).  I can say that the food was delivered quickly and it wasn’t too bad to eat.  I do think you’re paying for the atmosphere, it’s really too bad the service was poor.  We did enjoy the food otherwise.

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King crab legs!! 

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