Getting caught up…..

Well there we go. Not a lot of blogs for 2013, but at least I threw a few in of some of the mini trips I did. It'll be a while before I move to another country, or take another 6 month trip gallivanting some continent. So until then, these mini breaks will have to do. Slowly, I will get back into the swing of writing blogs. Stay tuned for either a new blog site, or updates on this blog.

Maybe I will get sick of school and a mundane life searching for a career and pick up and move to Mongolia. If that's the case, this is where you'll hear about it.

Until then, HAPY NEW YEAR to all and I can't wait to see what 2014 has in store….

Winter Music Conference in Miami

This is Matt, he is mildly crazy.

Matt Williams is a guy I met in a hostel in Sydney in 1999 while on one of my first, and biggest backpacking adventures. Over the past 15 years we have met up in numerous countries, and shared many a packed dance floor together. We both love our music, and we party, and we dance. Oh, and we both have travelled the whole world wide. He planted the seed in my head that he was gathering a good crew to check out the Winter Music Conference in Miami for the second year in a row.

Meanwhile back in Canada, one of my best girlfriends stoked the fire. I had

n't been down to Florida in years and the idea of spending a short but packed week in South Beach was too much too refuse. We had brave goals of shopping and beach bumming and hotel jumping, while attending all the best music venues and parties the festival had to offer. We skipped shopping, made it to the beach for a short stint and basically spent the whole trip partying and dancing our toes off.

We rented a plush condo just off the strip as a home base and gallivanted the days away. Here are a few shots to highlight our days in South Beach.

Hahahahaha. We like to dance. 

Actually the pictures are on a separate blog because I am having technical difficulty and blogger is not cooperating with me. Check them out here:

http://chooseyouradventure25.blogspot.ca/2013/12/snapshots-of-south-beach.html

Snapshots of South Beach

Welcome to South Beach. Madness ensued. 

Easing ourselves into it, and catching up with all the Brits @Nikki Beach.

Nikki Beach

Kinda speaks for itself. 

We have NO FUN AT ALL when we hang out. 

Next party. Next day. Next venue. More tomfoolery. 

Not all of us, but part of the most fun crew ever. 

   

Mz.Kitty and I, gussied up for the only fancy meal we went out for
at Katsuya's in the SLS hotel, on the strip. 

More accessorizing.

New day, new party. Delano Hotel. 

The lovely ladies crew (plus Christian).

British Love.

And darkness falls. 

One of our dance floors was in a POOOOOOL!

See! Pool dance floors are the coolest thing ever. There should be more. 

This pic is fuzzy, but it pretty much
sums up my week with Kat ;-)

Kat strutting on the strip. 

Me + Brits = excessive fun. 

The Delano Hotel 

More of the Delano. Last day, last party. 

Mini-Break in Domican Republic

In March, after enduring my first Canadian in over 3 years, we booked a quick and cheap getaway down south. I hadn't been on a package vacation in ages and I was quickly reminded the reason for that. As lovely as it was to shed all the layers of clothing and bask in sunshine by the ocean, all inclusives are NOT my favourite way to travel. We basically sat in one spot for 7 days on the beach, interrupted only by eating, sleeping, and drinking. As temperatures are plummeting and winter is in full swing right now, that combination of activities is actually pretty tempting.

More to the point, if I had choice I would have gone to so many more interesting places in this world. But with only a week off work and a very limited budget, we made the most of it.

Here are a few snaps from our week of sand, sea and lots of sunshine.

I spy with my little eye…..

Palm trees & coconuts = happiness.

I like accessories. 

Pretty views everywhere I looked.

Our home base for 7 days of sunshine.

Feet up and relaxing. 

Beach bound.

This is happy Alex.

Best view in the house.

This little dude spent an afternoon under our umbrella. 

One of MANY foot shots. 

MEEEEEE!

Little crab, who was not too happy about my photo shoot. 

Us. 

2013 Comes To An End, and the blog is resurrected.

2013 is only days away from ending and I noticed it has been over a year since I entered a blog. Writing my blog was so habitual for so long, and now it has just dried up. Mostly because this blog has always been my travel blog and I have been pretty stationary in Toronto for the past year and half. After my return from Korea, I kept the blog going for a while trying to "find Korea in Toronto." I drifted. Ironically, I am now back at school for another writing focused post grad degree, and I am not blogging, shame on me. Hence the entry. My December resolution is to start writing a few articles here and there (especially on www.justcharlee.com), and to start blogging again.

I haven't decided whether or not to keep this blog going or to leave it as my travel blog and start a fresh new one for Alex In The City. Either way, I must get back into writing more. I think along with not travelling right now, is also the fact that in school I am writing all the time with assignments coming out of my yahoo. So it's hard to motivate myself to just write more. But I will do, and I really want to, especially now that I am on a bit of a break from school and the academic world.

So before 2013 comes to end, I thought I would back track a little and just throw some photos up from the little mini breaks I did have. I was beach bumming back in March for a week in the Caribbean and then shortly there after I had a crazy extended long weekend at a music festival in South Beach, Miami. The memories aren't exactly fresh but there are tons of pictures to post. So that will be a nice and easy transition to bring me back into the blogosphere.

Stay tuned.

Korea in Broadview Station

I was standing at Broadview Station on my way to work yesterday waiting for a train, just like I do every day. My eyes briefly scanned in front of me, and because I hadn't had my morning coffee yet I was double-y impressed I picked up on this. The ad in front of me was for Korea. It brought a huge smile to my face at a very early hour of the day.

You don't see many billboards promoting Korea, so this really caught my eye. It was a "Visit Korea" poster sponsored by Korean Air and LG. Smack dab in the centre was a figure doing traditional Korean dance, nongak (translates to farmers dance), or pungmul. On his head he was wearing sangmo,  a hat with a beautiful long ribbon attached to it that spins and flips when the person wearing it moves their head. I saw many different performances of this in Korea and it is a beautiful sight to see. The dancer was jumping above Gyeongbukgung, way off in the back ground. Gyeongbukgung is the massive, stunning, royal palace smack dap in the middle of central Seoul.

The poster also directs people to check out their facebook page to win a trip to Korea or an LG tv. Their facebook page can be found here:   www.facebook.com/visitkoreayear

 In a society where advertising is evident in every single thing we absorb, and everywhere we look, I found I really appreciated this one. Just another little piece of Korea I found right here in Toronto.



<< Check out a blog entry HERE for a fashion show I attended at Gyeongbukgung where the palace was all dolled up for Korean Heritage Day. >>

Raising The Flag

Timing is everything. Just as I had decided to reinvest my interest back in blogging about Korea I get a notice in the post from the Consulate. "On the occasion of the Anniversary of Korean National Foundation Day and Korean Heritage Day, the Consul General of the Republic of Korea in Toronto requests the pleasure of your company at a flag raising ceremony and a reception afterwards".

YES PLEASE! 

Location: the legislative Building at Queen's Park. Seriously. I don't know how I got on their VIP list, but I couldn't be more pleased. I am pretty sure I can squeeze an early/extended lunch on the day this goes down so I can be there. I don't really know what to expect other than a flag being raised and a good possibility because it happens over lunch time, some good Korean eats. I will pack my camera and be ready for whatever it is that comes my way. Kamsa Hamnida!

Oh, Korea! We meet again.

A few weeks ago, I came across a new opportunity to link me back to Korea. I have been sulking a little recently about blogging and my lack of writing over the past few months. I arrived home from Korea about 6 months ago, just as summer was starting to kick in. This past summer, after being away from Toronto for so long, was epic. I caught up with friends, spent lots of time with family and did lots of excursions to remind me why I love Canada so much and how happy I was to be home. As much as I love Toronto, it was great to go up to cottages and spend weekends up North, out of the city. It has been an amazing home coming.

Saying all that, looking at my blog archive window, I had one entry in June, one in July and none in August. Part of the reasoning behind that was because my summer was so jam packed and there was barely a minute to spare to focus on my writing. But part of it was also because for a long time, my blog was so deeply entwined with my life in Korea, that it lost a little bit being back home. How does one keep up a travel blog, when one is no longer really travelling? I struggled with this for a while. Do I change ALEX ON THE LOOSE, to ALEX IN THE CITY? Do I start up a whole new blog now that I am back in Toronto?

Technically, I am still writing for The Korea Blog, for my second year. I wasn't sure how to make that work once I left Seoul. My mission turned into "finding Korea in Toronto". Over the past 6 months I have really enjoyed learning about Korea within Toronto. But somehow, my blog wasn't thriving (translation- Alex was lazy). I made some great new friends at the Korean Consulate, I was invited to some great events they organized, I took part in the Korean Film Festival, I met another local blogger that is part of The Korea Blog (her name is Cindy and she has a great Korea-centric blog too, www.lifesanadventure2.com ). Also, I am always on the hunt for good Korean restaurants to check out.   I love Korean food and miss it so much. I've had a few opportunities to introduce some of my friends to Korean cuisine, who were just too intimidated to ever brave an authentic Korean restaurant.

Now this brings me back to my introductory sentence. A new opportunity, Korea related. 2013 is the fifty year anniversary between Korean Canadian relations. It is a big year and the Korean Consulate has many different events planned to celebrate and educate and promote Korea in general. A few weeks back I read about a contest they were holding in order to select 50 bloggers to be part of everything going on in 2013 and tell the world about it. The writer inside me got very excited. Yet another wonderful opportunity to connect me with Korea. Living in Toronto, I already have the advantage of proximity to such a huge part of the Korean population, so basically culture, food, music.... it's all at my doorstep.

So autumn has arrived, and with it I have infused myself with fresh incentive to get back into the swing of writing and blogging and do what I love to do (notice all the new September posts in my blog archive). I can't wait to get my posts rolling again and really hope I make the cut to blog for Korea in Canada! HAPPY READING!!

A Night At The Castle

*** PLEASE NOTE: this is an event that happened back in JULY but for technical reasons was never published on my blog. I know it's somewhat untimely, but it was such a beautiful evening I felt it necessary to put up. 

Last Friday, was the highly anticipated event "Rendezvous Korean Cuisine 2012", hosted by the Korean Consulate in Toronto. The venue was one of the best the city has to offer in my opinion, Casa Loma. I grew up just a few blocks away from the Castle, so it definitely holds a special place for me. It is a grande, majestic and lavish location to throw a party.

Welcome to Casa Loma

My boyfriend and I arrived fashionably late and things were well under way (no one and nothing was ever on time in Korea, I guess that trait didn't make it all the way to Canada). The main entranceway upon entering the castle was set up with different stalls sampling some of Korea's favourite bits and bites. The room was packed with people and within the first few minutes you could tell there was a great turn out and the night was destined for success.

Line ups to sample of the eats.

Korean food, on show. 

Peperro, amongst other goodies.

Chocopies, a Korean fave!

Posing with some ginseng.

We said our hello's to the Consul general and his wife, a few other friends from the  consulate, Cindy, another Korea blogger, and a small selection of familiar faces. Garry and I popped out onto the balcony just to appreciate the castle in its splendour. The grounds and gardens and fountains are so beautiful all around the property it was almost a shame not to be outside soaking it all in on such a gorgeous evening. But duty called.

Quite quickly following the small reception in the main hall the doors to the dining area were opened and peopled were called in to find their seats. We were assigned tables upon arrival and we were at lucky number 17. At our table were 2 people from the Japanese consulate. Cindy and her guest, a producer from Arirang Korea TV and his camera guy. We were an eclectic little bunch and it made the evening even more enjoyable.

As per the title of the event (Rendezvous Korean Cuisine 2012), the night was all about food, one of my favourite things about Korea. The dinner set up was gorgeous. There was one main dining room with a podium for the hosts and a small stage set up. There was also the conservatory where we sat, filled with more tables and TV screens set up to see the action from the main room. One of the best parts of attending these events is that I have my big camera with me at all times and I am free to roam (within reason) where I please. As a blogger, that's what I'm there to do. So even though technically I was seated in the conservatory. I was out and about shooting pics anywhere I saw fit. Especially during the special performances. Okay, one thing at a time, back to the food.

The menus we were provided with before the food started coming out was so beautifully detailed in Korean and English. I had a huge difficulty knowing the names of all the dishes I ate in Korea and being able to pronounce them properly. So it was a real treat to read what the Korean name of the dish was and the ingredients in English. Never was there a decent Korean meal served without the accompaniment of a slew of bottles of soju. I was curious to see if Korea's national alcohol would make it on the table at this fancy affair. Instead of soju, we were served bekseju, the best possible alternative. Soju and bekseju are similar drinks (in my humble opinion), but the latter has just a nicer, more pleasant, fragrant taste.

I had major camera envy for Mingu's equipment.

The first course to come out was pumpkin soup. After the soup came a plate of japchae (noodles with veggies) and a skewer of boneless beef rib, with crab meat, pepper, egg and mushroom.

The main course was braised beef ribs and steamed king prawn. These were accompanied by a mixture of vegetables. Korean meals are always served with plenty of banchan, side dishes. The banchan served was cabbage kimchi, braised lotus root, and a stuffed cucumber kimchi. No meal in ever complete without rice, or a rice dish, so the last course was bibimbap, a Korean classic. This is a combination of julienned vegetables (usually carrot, mushroom, sprouts, zucchini), combined with gojuchang  (red pepper paste), a few other flavours and egg. It's served separate and then combined together at the table. Fantastic! 

Banchan

The main course. 

A favorite, bibimbap.

And last on the menu was dessert. There was a beautiful fruit salad/punch served with sweet rice balls.

Kom Bai!
(cheers in Korean)