Day: November 8, 2012

Upcoming Asia Trip

Henry and I have done our fair share of traveling this year.  Besides the standard weekend getaways to SF and Vegas, we also went to Toronto, New Orleans and Seattle.  America is a fantastic country and I enjoy domestic travel but international trips always get me excited.  I’ve been planning this upcoming adventure for months and I can’t believe it’s right around the corner.

Here’s our itinerary:

Shanghai -> Hong Kong -> Shenzhen -> Hanoi -> Sapa -> Hue -> Hoi An -> Saigon -> Can Tho -> Narita -> Los Angeles

Phew..that’s a long list of places and we’re going to attempt to do that in just 17 days.

It’ll be Henry’s first time really experiencing China; he has been on a tour there before but you know how awful those tours can be with the ridiculous number of shopping stops and terrible restaurants that offer kickbacks.  I’ve made it very clear that I don’t do tours and it’s mainly because I am too much of a control freak to let someone else tell me where to go and what to do.

I have never been to Vietnam before and the thought of delicious street food and cheap shopping makes me very happy. We originally planned fewer stops in Vietnam but Henry’s family enthusiastically shared their travel suggestions to us so we’re trying to incorporate as much as possible.

FoundLA – Free Neighborhood Tours

I’m quite the modern explorer, if I may say so myself. I love discovering new neighborhoods and cultural experiences so when I read about FoundLA, I was completely sold. The idea is that local experts and community leaders put on free walking tours of various neighborhoods in LA. Since I live in the centrally-located Koreatown area, I had more tours to choose from than I had time to attend. In the end, we narrowed it down to 2.

I’ve seen a building called the “Buddhist Cultural Center” many times before but I never knew what it was. Well, it turns out to be the Kwanumsa Buddhist Temple/community center and one of the tours was right there! Upon entering, we were all asked to take off our shoes. First, we learned to bow and pray in the main temple area. I expected Henry to know how to do that already since his family is Buddhist but his excuse was that “Korean Buddhists do it differently than the Chinese.” Sure. Next, we were led into a large community room that could hold 100 people and were treated to a Korean puppet show. The actors made sure to speak English so that we could follow along with the story. The style of puppetry is not necessarily my cup of tea but I had a fun time nonetheless. The final part of this was a “vegetarian lunch” which basically consisted of banchan. I love japchae so the meal was perfect for me, not to mention completely free. I did find some octopus in the pancake though so I guess it wasn’t purely vegetarian.

After a quick nap at home, we headed out for the Little Ethiopia Tour and the turnout for this was much better. This food tour confirmed what I already knew: Ethiopian food is not my thing. But it was really wonderful to see how tight knit the community is. Oh, and we were given a free mini cupcake from Hansen’s Bakery, who did Khloe and Kim Kardashian’s wedding cakes.

Found LA
(one day per year in October)
Free tours including Koreatown, Silverlake, Little Tokyo, Little Ethiopia, Byzantine-Latimo Quarter, Historic Filipinotown, South LA, Central LA, Highland Park, North Hollywood, etc.
http://www.lacommons.org/programs/found-la/