We have been traveling in Eastern Europe for almost three weeks already,  we went from Hungary to Slovakia and now we are in Torun, Poland.  We stayed five days in Krakow and took an 8 hour bus ride to Torun, there’s nothing much to see in Torun aside from the old town, churches and museums.  So after visiting two museums today and walking again in the old town (as we already wandered yesterday) we called it a day and headed back to our hotel to rest, we are heading to Gdanks tomorrow.

[Krakow, Poland]

I should be blogging in my main travel blog but it was stuck in Jeju, Korea blame it to procrastinated me. (Ha-ha), anyway while looking around my facebook page I have stumbled to a link shared by a friend about a blog of  two travel buddies who are disappointed/sick with Filipino food – I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Street Food Again! Not new to me, my husband is not please with Filipino food either,  I will wait until he try an authentic Filipino restaurant. Lol!

Well, I admire their courage to eat street food because I would not eat street food unless I knew the vendor or person cooking it is better to be safe than sorry. It is like you travel to India and commit stomach suicide (errr Delhi belly)  by eating street food,  I am not sure if they do proper research before heading to Philippines or even try to use a lonely planet guide on their trip, because it is quite unbelievable that they are not able to try longganisa if they went to Ilocos (as I have read in few comments) you can get these famous longganisa in the street of Vigan and they even have their famous empanada with longganisa. Even if they didn’t go to Vigan they can find longganisa in every wet market of the Philippines, they are all hanging like a wall decor in every meat stalls. So quite interesting they are not able to get one unless they really went to convenient store to look for longganisa, you know it is like buying  a loaf a bread in a pharmacy and buying  a medicine in a bakery.

Well if they stay in a hotel/hostel they should ask the information desk where to get traditional food if their travel guide (book) doesn’t say so or a simple question to Mr. Google is already a big help.  Asking people in the street is like asking for direction, some people knew and some people don’t.  If they want to Filipino street food like balut they can get them in the local market, just look for egg stalls and ask for balut but of course they have to boil them themselves unless they found a street vendor walking in the street shouting “balut! balut!” you can find balut vendor from 5pm till midnight.

Most Filipino eat heavy breakfast, consist of fried rice, fried eggs, longganisa and tuyo (fried dried fish) or tapa. If they want to eat Filipino breakfast they should went to tapsilugan or Chowking, Greenwich and McDonalds to order tapsilog, longgilog and more (see more varieties here).

Furthermore, I have read they want to eat like locals, but sad to say they failed. Filipino foods like adobo, sinigang, kare-kare, nilaga, bulalo, sisig are mostly cooked at home and can be found in a medium scale restaurants or large restaurants. Mostly Filipinos will not eat food they can easily cooked at home, so if you went to turo-turo (point-point restaurant), you will mostly see menudo, dinuguan, afritada, bopis and taghilaw or those food that you can only eat during birthdays, wedding and feast season. If you really want to eat well prepared food be ready to spend some shackles, further more if they are really in their tight budget or trying to spend $25 a day, malls in the Philippines has food courts where they can try different foods local and not.  Eat wisely,  eating in the street of South East Asia is not like eating in the street of Europe! Saving money while traveling doesn’t mean eating bluntly and sacrificing your health.

Originally posted on March 21, 2014 @herztravel

We left Korea on March 2nd, like expected we have to surrender our Alien Registration Card if we have no plans of coming back.  I felt sad thinking it is going to be my last time to come in and out of the airport, and seeing Korea.  With my almost 5 years of living in Korea I didn’t gained a lot of friends, if Cathlaine didn’t email me or show an interest to meet me after my blog help her on the visa requirements I probably didn’t have a friend at all in Korea,  she left ahead of me to US after her spousal visa was granted so I am left alone by myself although nothing has changed because we seldom met, we probably met 4 times in four years. Lol

Anyway, our flight to Moscow leaves at 12 something in the afternoon, we arrived at the airport around 10:45 in the morning but still we didn’t have a chance to roam around because there’s a long line in the check-in counter which took most of our time, so after we check-in we went directly went to the immigration, took the train to our gate and in few minutes boarding time.

From Moscow, we have connecting flight to Budapest, Hungary as expected we have to sit in the airport to wait for boarding time.  It was a tiring day, 2 long flights in one day!

We arrived in the evening in Budapest, we just slept for few hours and we started our first day of sight seeing early in the morning.

We arrived from our vacation in India yesterday it should be on Sunday but our flight from India to Beijing is delayed for 15 hours, Air China brought us with other passengers in a 5-star hotel fifteen minutes to the airport. Maybe because it is New Year and to avoid most of the passengers to air this frustration and hatred to the airline company especially most of the passengers has a connecting flight to other countries which is affected by the delayed.

I am going to tell more stories on my travel blog but one thing is sure India make us sick, most of the cities we visited are loud and dirty,  right now I am feeling sicker., climate change probably. Cold and cough just wake up light headed.

It snowed today just to glad that it didn’t when I went to pay our electric and internet bills because for sure I am not going to stand the cold outside. I also went out to claim my first earning from Google Adsense, it was send before Christmas but I am not here to claim it in Western Union, I have think of claiming it in India but it is too risky to do so.

Didn’t buy a lot of stuff from our vacation, I never got a doll I wanted. Within the cities we visited there are only few honest Indians who sold basic needs like bottled water in local price, most of them sold their goods in tourist price which double or thrice the local price, haist business minded people.

Hopefully I could update my blogs frequently, I have no post since we left for vacation.  I still have a list of designs to work with,  didn’t finish them last year because of almost losing my computer from virus problem, absent minded as in I can’t make my mind to work and having busy schedule both offline and online work, discouragement and etc., Sorry to those who keep waiting., I’ll try to start designing once I am feeling okay, right now all I need is a good rest and more time, I have two or three more loads of laundry can’t wash them all because we only have small balcony and cannot hang all of them together so I have to wait until the first batch of clothes dry, dunno when especially it is freaking cold outside.

Happy New Year to everyone and more blessings to share this year for us.

I feel like a crippled right now, I was not able to blog yesterday as I am dead tired. We finally did the hiking tour yesterday, we wake up at five o`clock in the morning, eat breakfast and headed to the bus station, we reached Seoul at around 7:00 AM and took another bus to Sokcho. Then took another bus (7-1) to Seoraksan National Park. We purchased ticket entrance and we started our hiking journey, along the way up to Biseondae there’s a lot of students in group keep saying hi and hello to Pookie Bear, he is so kind not to response to few he said if he did everybody will do the same, imagine how tiring is it. Haha!

When we reached Biseondae and started walking in the trail we’ve seen only few people mostly are old couple which is a great relief to be away from the group of students. I have experience to climb on rocks, which is sometimes very tiring as it feels like I am going to crawl already. My legs are sore and so thirsty too, we just bought one small bottle water each as we thought we can buy more water at the end of our trail.

After three hours we reached Yangpok Shelter, we just stayed for five minutes while the other hikers are preparing their lunch, then we move out to return to Seorak-dong (Park entrance)  where we begin our hike.  We hike around 13 kilometers in almost six hours which is already good for first timer hiker like us according to me. Hehe, we didn’t continue to the peak anymore as we need to go home, we need to catch a bus much better if not the last trip.

Well I thought I can’t see the park entrance anymore as my feet, legs and shoulder are already sore, I walked like crippled already, it is really painful to walk. I keep asking rest time but Pookie bear says we need to hurry so we can get a bus and take a rest, when we reached the third shelter from the entrance we bought water and I one waffle for me as I am already hungry I never eaten anything aside from my breakfast and one piece of cookie.  We had a rest for few minutes while watching the mountain climbers, then when we reached the second shelter I bought a milk shake ice cream, Pookie bear asked me if how many times I am going to eat.  Well I am really hungry plus I believed eating something while walking will help my feet to walk, so my attention is not on my aching legs but into my food, isn’t it?

After one kilometer and so, we finally reached the park entrance but we need to walk more to go to the bus stop. We took the bus for 40 minutes and took another bus to Seoul for around 2 hours and another bus going here in our place for 1 hour. Actually Pookie bear is kinda angry with me because when we are in Seoul, the lady in the ticket office gave us a 9:30 PM (last trip) bus so he asked me to ask her if there is an early bus but I am too hard headed to follow as I can’t speak Korean so he did it, the lady in the window I purchased can’t really speak English so the lady in the next window was the one who answered. I didn’t hear what she says all I know we still got the same bus ticket, when we reached the platform we found out there’s a bus that will left right this time, 7:30 PM. So I told Pookie bear maybe he could ask the driver if we can get inside as it looks like it is not full, that’s the way I see in another bus station where the driver allowed other passenger with another schedule, he asked me again if I can do it but again I said I don’t know what to say, in short I did not follow him so he did it again and voila we are allowed to take the bus as it is already leaving and there’s a vacant seat at the back.

When we reached home I just take a bath and eat my dinner while my foot is soaked in hot water with little salt then sleep with a wet hair. I am really sleepy and dead tired as we just sleep three(3) hours before our hiking tour. Pookie bear wake me up though he asked if I cooked rice for his breakfast as I didn’t I have to wake up and cook with a sleepy head.

So right now my lower body is sore,  oh yeah if I forgot to say I had a fever last night, I walked like a zombie (lol) and  Pookie bear is angry with me, I had a cold treatment from him, as what he said last night, much better if he left me in the bus station (lol) he will took the bus and I will wait for the bus scheduled in our ticket.