After waking up refreshed and ready for the day we headed out early to the Tsukiji fish market. I don’t think I had many expectations of what this fish market would be like and as it turned out, I was pleasantly surprised.
After an initial scare the market might be closed on a Sunday morning we decided to embrace the empty side streets and venture into the market anyhow. We walked by the few stands that were open before landing in a shop that I couldn’t have imagined existed even in my dreams. As we rounded a corner we saw a few stacks of beautiful dishes that caught our eye. Anything you could think of from serving dishes, to individual plates and bowls, along with mugs, tea pots, and flower vases. The items displayed on the street caught our eye, but the small shop had even more to offer than I had expected. Stacks upon stacks of traditional, ornately painted blue and white plates and bowls. Earth toned, modern shaped serving dishes. Japanese style tea sets complete with handle-less tea cups, and tea pots hanging by their wooden handles. It was somewhat akin to shopping the home goods section of Anthropologie, except this was the real deal for a fraction of the price.
Having picked out far too many pieces I was happy to have plenty of room in my suitcase for the extra finds. The local couple who owned the shop was incredibly kind; realizing we would be traveling, they packed our pieces with extreme care, ensuring everything would make it back safely.
Leaving the sweet little dish shop nearly an hour later we expected to be walking back into the same quiet streets of the market. Wrong we were. In that hour all of the store fronts had opened, locals swarmed the back streets of the market, and merchants were selling everything one could imagine coming from the sea. We spent the next few hours popping in and out of shops, sampling tea, and indulging in seafood stopping just once to sit down for an early sushi lunch.
Once we were confident we had walked down each street twice we were ready to move onto the next item on our list, Harajuku.
As a young girl being raised in the suburbs of Chicago there are a lot of teams you cheer for throughout your life. In my family baseball was our sport and the Cubs were our team. I grew up going to baseball games be it my brother’s games, minor league games, or Cubs games. Baseball was a comfort sport. I knew the rules, I knew what team I cheered for, and I knew to order a Chicago dog and beer at Wrigley field.
One of my favorite aspects of living in Korea is the access I now have to other parts of Asia. While I have to say that Japan was never on my bucket list of places to venture off to it turned out to be one of the most fun traveling experiences I’ve had abroad thus far.
Fall in Korea is beyond gorgeous. Even being from a place with a nice fall season, I was mesmerized by the colors on the trees in this country. Everything becomes painted with shades of orange, red, and yellow and seems to stay that way for months. Set against the backdrop of mountains and blue skies it makes for a dreamy walk to work each day. That said, with all of its beauty Korea unfortunately lacks in the customary autumn festivities. There isn’t any apple picking or hot apple cider. Starbucks doesn’t serve pumpkin spice lattes. Halloween is not celebrated. There is no pumpkin carving or scary movie marathons on TV. While the weather is beautiful the traditional feeling of fall can be hard to come by.
We made it to the festival expecting to see stands selling apple cinnamon baked goods, apple cider, apple wine, and of course miles of red spotted orchards to go apple picking. What we discovered is that even in its best efforts, Korea’s idea of an apple festival is unfortunately quite lacking in the standard festivities we are used to from the United States. Ironically, the festival was less about apple themed festivities and more about apples themselves. SO MANY APPLES.
various types of tea, and even a little apple juice. It turned out there weren’t any apple orchards for picking bundles of apples, or at least not that we could find, but at that point we were happy just to be taking home our apple pies.
On our last day in Thailand we wanted to check out a market. After doing some research we found one that was supposed to be relatively obscure so we could get more of an authentic feel for the city. We packed our day bags and made our way to the bus depot to try to catch a shuttle to the Amphawa floating market.
I have to say my favorite part of the day was this cruise. Not because of the sunset or the fireflies, but because the boat took us down a part of the water that backed up to people’s homes. It was beyond fascinating to see what local people were doing in this tiny little Thai town on a Saturday night. We saw families having dinner outside, a man working on his river boat, people watching tv, women cleaning, men sitting on their docks with a beer. It was so interesting, and I’ll admit a bit creepy, to have a glimpse in on what these people who live here were doing, and to see the similarities and also stark differences to life in the U.S.
We ended our night with one last run to the “food aisle” of the market to grab some snacks for the hotel and then made our way to catch the last bus and head back Bangkok. I love a market, and with our flight leaving early the next morning, and I couldn’t have asked for a better experience to close out our incredible trip.
We closed out the evening with one last cocktail on a beachside bar, a crape from a charming little street lady, and a scooter taxi back to the hotel.
A string of national holidays in October leads to a number of long weekends in the beginning of fall and a lot of opportunities to explore the country. One of these holidays is National Foundation Day which is a celebration of the founding of Korean as a nation. While this year I’ll be doing some adventuring outside of the country, last year I used the the extra day off work to explore Nami Island {one of over 30 islands in Korea} with a friend.
Towards the end of the day we went off the beaten path a bit and discovered a quiet area on the edge of the island by some water to watch the sunset. As we started making our way back to catch the ferry home we realized that those “balloons” from the tree lined path were in fact little white lanterns that magically lit up the trail as we waited in line for the ferry. A perfectly charming ending to a long and exciting day.
Day four in Thailand was mostly a travel day with the morning spent in Ao Nang and a long ferry ride over to Ko Phi Phi. We made it to the island for sunset, a bit of beach time, a late dinner and some island exploring. Getting off of the ferry, Ko Phi Phi was already very different than the main land of Krabi had been. It felt more touristy, yet still like we were in a different world. There are no cars on the island, and it’s made up of twisty and turny brick roads filled with people, shops, and carts. It took nearly our entire stay there just to feel like we knew our way around. While it didn’t feel quite as authentic as our stay in Ao Nang had, it was a cute island none the less and certainly had its own highlights. Small yellow flag garlands welcomed us above all of the main streets, the beaches were out of this world, and the tree house bars were really exciting.
bbm travels 