Back to South Korea to visit the Horton/Kang family!

After spending two fun nights in Macau (the Las Vegas of Asia!) and taking a ferry over to explore Hong Kong for a few days - which you can read about in my two previous posts – we flew onto Seoul in South Korea.

This is our fifth visit to South Korea where our son, James, lives with our daughter in law, Sujeong, and our grandson, Aaron.

Our sweet grandson, Aaron Horton

Being based in Asia over the past couple of years (Malaysia and Thailand mostly) has been great for us as it has been strategically conducive to not missing out too much on our young grandson growing from a baby into a toddler.

During the past few trips, we have also managed not to get lost taking the high-speed KTX train from Seoul to Daegu. We have actually mastered the subway around the city - and we have even managed to do some unchaperoned shopping at the mall or the market too – utilising a few handy Korean phrases!

During this visit, we would get to meet the new addition to our family – Zoey the Beagle – who is an adorable puppy and new best friend for our grandson.

In early to mid-September, the weather is still warm (South Korea has very hot summers and incredibly cold winters) so we were able to take our grandson out to the play park and for lots of walks and even for a day out to Daegu Theme Park - which was great fun - so please excuse proud Jamma and Papa overload! (Aaron's names for us.)

Also, during this visit, we were able to discuss the BIG WEDDING PLANS for April 2018. Our son and his wife have been legally married for a few years but they have never actually had a traditional Korean wedding party for family and friends to attend. So, in April 2018, they will be getting married again with friends and family. The style of the wedding will be traditional, with Korean wedding clothes for the bridal party (white traditional gown and groom in a suit) and also a change into Korean traditional 'hanbok' for the reception and dinner.

It’s also a tradition in South Korea to have the formal wedding photos done in a photographic studio well ahead of the wedding date - and so these few I’m showing you have been recently taken – and don’t they look romantic!

While we were in Korea this time, I went with Sujeong and her mum and her sister to get measured for my traditional Korean ‘mother of the groom hanbok’ – handmade and in colours I have chosen for myself – complete with shoes and handbag to match. The photo on the bottom left shows the fabric I've chosen - and top right are my shoes! The middle photo shows Sujeong trying on a hanbok in the shop.

I’ll feel so privileged to be wearing this traditional outfit at our son’s wedding ceremony alongside Sujeong’s mother, who will be wearing her ‘mother of the bride hanbok’ for the ceremony when we next visit in April 2018.

My daughter-in-law's family - the Kang family - are so lovely and generous and hospitable and we enjoy going out for some meals together - Korean Barbeque food is amazing! On every visit, they have always managed to find somewhere interesting and cultural to take us. On this occasion, to appreciate the leaves starting to turn colour, we went on the Palgongsan Mountain Cable Car. The views over the forest were spectacular. There are two different cable car venues in Daegu – the other is the Aspen Cable Car – which we did on a previous visit and for the high panoramic views of Daegu it is an absolute must see.

We stopped off for lunch at a countryside restaurant. The Kang family had pre-booked this (we had no idea) and we had a private room for us all to enjoy a fabulous and huge traditional meal (with lots of kimchi of course!) with us all sitting on cushions at a low table.

Heading back into Daegu, on the outskirts of the city, we stopped off to walk through a beautiful flower field in the warm sunshine. It made for a fabulous and colourful photo opportunity!

We had a wonderful visit and we are now looking forward to April 2018!

Next on the blog – an unexpected twist to our travel adventures!

After applying online for a housesitting assignment for the winter months in South West France - from October 2017 to March 2018 - we got it! This meant flying from Seoul via Kuala Lumpur and via London to Bordeaux France to be the guardians of a 500-year-old French country chateau close to the city of Perigueux in exchange for looking after the house and the resident pussy-cat while the homeowners were back in the UK. 

What a fantastic opportunity and a wonderful place to live!

Our beautiful new home for the winter in SW France

The housesitting assignment is perfect in many ways because we really needed somewhere to settle down for a while as I had just signed a publishing contract with Harper Impulse – the romance imprint of Harper Collins publishers UK - for a book I had yet to write scheduled to be published Summer of 2018.

I needed to be somewhere to focus on my writing so that I could meet my tight end of January 2018 deadline. The new novel is to be called The Backpacking Housewife – a novel based on my own travel experiences.

You can read my author acquisition announcement on the Harper Impulse website HERE.

My husband, Trav, was also very happy about living in France for a while too because he knew he would be kept busy while I was writing. He would be responsible for maintaining the beautiful gardens and the swimming pool and any issues with the rented gites in the grounds of our château home over the wintertime.

So please join me here on the blog next time – when I’ll be in France!

Love, Janice

Horton-Kang family time in South Korea!

We are back in South Korea and it’s been a little over a year since we were last here visiting our son James, our daughter-in-law Sujeong, our grandson Aaron who is now two years old, and the rest of our Korean family.

Sitting in the springtime sunshine with Aaron outside Daegu library in South Korea

We originally booked this much anticipated trip as a visa run from Thailand - taking advantage of an Air Asia sale earlier in the year - but since then we’d had a big change of plan and now, after our week in South Korea, we were heading back to Europe instead of Thailand.

(You can read about this big change of plan by clicking HERE).

Our son James teaches English in South Korea and he and his family live in a big city called Daegu. Since our last visit they have moved into a new and bigger apartment, so instead of us having to stay in a hotel, this time we could stay in their home. It was wonderful to be able to help with Aaron, who is now two years old, especially at bath time before bed and in the mornings when he was full of energy and wanted to play. His favourite toys are his musical instruments and his play kitchen. He also has a great fondness for his small toy buses in the same way that James used to love his Thomas the Tank Engine toys many years ago.

Our grandson Aaron is now two years old

The weather was mostly dry and sunny for our visit and we had lots of opportunities to take walks out and about in the city and in the park – especially lovely at this time of year when it is cherry blossom season.

We also took several trips to Daegu traditional market – one of my favourite things to do - as the market is very close to the apartment and it is so interesting and colourful and has so many types of fruit and vegetables, fish and meat and yummy spicy kimchi and my very favourite dumplings.

Another highlight of the week was spending time with and having meals out to celebrate being with our Korean family again. Sujeong’s parents and her brother and sister - the Kang family - are so lovely and welcoming and hospitable and it was so great to see them all again.

The week went by so quickly and soon it was time for Trav and I to say an emotional farewell and take the KTX fast train back to the airport. The distance between Daegu and Seoul is about the same distance between Manchester and London in the UK and the train journey takes around two and a half hours.

Our flight back to Malaysia on the 5th April (our son Iain's birthday - who we were thinking of all day too) would take seven-hours. Arriving late in Kuala Lumpur, we would stay overnight in KL before taking a direct fourteen-hour flight to London early the next morning. Then after a night at London Heathrow, we had a three-hour flight to our destination of Bucharest Romania.

A total in the air/flying time of twenty-four hours with two quick stops!

Next time I’ll be chatting about our fabulous time in Bucharest Romania!

Until next time, please do consider signing up for my book news updates. I only ever send out a newsletter when I have writerly news to share, a new book coming out, or special offers and competitions with themed prizes to tell you about. Every new subscriber receives a free copy of my bestselling ebook 'How To Party Online' just for signing up using the form at the top right hand side of this page.

Love, Janice xx

A big change of plan….

Right now, I’m in Bucharest, Romania - yet in my last travel related post here on the blog we were back in Thailand - and I’d indicated that we planned to stay in Thailand for the foreseeable future. Well, it seems that I spoke too soon!

We returned to Koh Tao Thailand in the early part of February 2017 after dashing back to the UK on hearing that Trav’s mum was gravely ill (you can read about our bittersweet month back in the UK by clicking HERE) but then soon accepted an invitation to help a friend in the initial setup of a new diving venture in Eastern Europe during the spring and summer of 2017. It seemed like a great opportunity and an exciting venture.

But before we could leave for Bucharest, we still had some time to settle down and to relax and to honour the diving commitments we still had on Koh Tao.

Plus, we were looking forward to our lovely friends Jenn and Gregg coming over from the UK for a two-week diving holiday mid-March. Also, at the end of March - which would have been our visa-run had we stayed in Thailand - we also had a trip to South Korea planned to visit our son James, his wife Sujeong, our two year old grandson Aaron and our Korean side of the family.

So, during the first week of February, exhausted from the highs and lows of the past month back in the UK and from all the travelling, we were more than happy to arrive back to Koh Tao and get back into a routine. We’d kept our rented villa on Ban's Diving resort on Koh Tao while we were away, and we soon settled back into the easy vibe of island life, enjoying the heat and the sunshine.

Settling back into the easy vibe of island life on Koh Tao

Our home on Ban's Diving Resort Koh Tao

Ban’s Dive Resort on Koh Tao is a large sprawling beachfront island resort. It is an oasis of swaying palm trees with beautiful gardens and many types of accommodations for all budgets – dorms, rooms, villas and suites – and  it primarily and very successfully caters for scuba divers. I loved living on the resort and our villa was only a few minutes’ walk from one of their four swimming pools that I used every day to swim and then to sunbathe. I enjoyed the restaurants and the beach bar too – to meet with Trav and friends for lunch and later for sun-downer cocktails at the Darawan restaurant in the hills or for fun and food and live music at Fishbowl Beach Bar.

The entrance to Ban's Diving Resort

The bridge from reception into the resort garden and accommodation

The spirit house outside our accommodation

Asparagus and cheese salad lunch at Fishbowl Beach Restaurant

Ban's meet and greet transport to bring you to the resort from the pier

The pool I like to use each morning for my swim and sunbathe

One of the other pools at Ban's - used for dive training

Trav and I enjoying sun-downers at the Darawan Restaurant

Trav enjoying a beer at Fishbowl Beach Bar at Ban's Resort

Swaying palm trees and a blue blue sky...

In early march, we were notified by PADI that Trav had earned PADI Elite Status for his work in 2016. As an instructor, in 2016, he had trained and certified over 100 new divers. I am so very proud of him and all he has achieved with his diving.

Also in early March, we were invited out with friends to celebrate their birthdays. During this time it was also my birthday. Trav took me out for a delicious meal at a gorgeous restaurant up in the hills. We arrived at sunset to amazing views. The sunsets on Koh Tao are always breathtakingly beautiful. Afterwards, we were able to wine and dine under the moon and the stars. It was a wonderful birthday.

A delicious birthday dinner in a restaurant up in the hills with an amazing view

Mid March we helped with the resort's official annual beach games. That was a lot of fun. Life was good. The monsoon season was over. High season was just around the corner. The weather was hot and sunny and I appreciated it even more for having been away in the cold wintery UK.

Then our friends Jenn and Gregg arrived and we were so excited to see them again. We’d managed to meet up with them in Liverpool back in January but we’d first met three years ago in the Bahamas. They were staying at the wonderful Sandals Resort Nassau and we were staying at an AirBnB accommodation near Cable Beach. (You can read about our fabulous month spent in the Bahamas by clicking HERE).

On Koh Tao, Jenn and Gregg were looking forward to doing their PADI Open Water dive training at Ban’s Resort and being taught by PADI Staff and Elite Instructor Trav. They both worked very hard during the classroom and pool training and then we all went out on the Ban’s dive boat, where at some fabulous dive sites, Jenn and Gregg completed their course and became qualified open water scuba divers!

During their ten days on the island we had a lot of fun. We ate amazing Thai food from both street vendors and fabulous restaurants. We lazed around the pool and had plenty of time to take trips to explore and enjoy the island.

To finish off their holiday in style and for us to further enjoy our lovely friend’s company, we all took an early boat off the island and a flight over to Malaysia to spend a couple of nights in the city of Kuala Lumpur, from where Jenn and Gregg would fly back to London and we would fly over to Seoul, South Korea.

We had a fun and fabulous time in KL. We all stayed at the Intercontinental but also explored other hotels in the city – like the Mandarin Oriental and Trader’s -  for the best views of the city and for the (expensive!) cocktails.

Trav and I now think of KL as our home from home, as we have stayed there so many times over the past couple of years. We use it as our hub to South East Asia in the same way we used Houston Texas as our gateway to the US and to Central America and the Caribbean. But Jenn and Gregg hadn’t ever explored this fabulous city before, so they did more than us this time around, by visiting the Petronas Towers and walking along the famous Skybridge and enjoying all the other attractions.

We said our fond farewells to our lovely friends in KL, knowing they had enjoyed their well-earned holiday and that they had achieved so much by qualifying as open water divers. We are sure that we will share many more fun times with Jenn and Gregg in the future – no doubt somewhere in the world at a dive resort!

A fun selfie from beneath the Petronas Towers KL

The view of the city from the cocktail bar at the Mandarin Oriental KL

Another fun lift selfie at the Mandarin Oriental KL

My next blog post will be all about our fabulous week in South Korea, where we stayed with our son James and our daughter-in-law Sujeong. We enjoyed lots of quality time with them and our grandson Aaron, and also with the rest of our lovely Korean family, whom we hadn’t seen for just over a year – and I took lots of photos!

Our grandson Aaron is now two years old. 

Until next time, please do consider signing up for my book news updates. I only ever send out a newsletter when I have writerly news to share, a new book coming out, or special offers and competitions and offers to tell you about. Every new subscriber receives a free copy of my bestselling ebook 'How To Party Online' just for signing up using the form at the top right hand side of this page.

Love, Janice xx