Provence, France

Day 1: Pont au Gard and Avginon

Pont au Gard

Palais de Pape

View from Avignon Bridge

So it's been a while. I know excuses are the worse, but these past few weeks have been busy full with school and study abroad in general. I've gone several weekend trips, with and without my program, which have all been growing experiences. One trip that I took in the beginning of October with my program was to Provence, a region near southern France (I know, this post is way overdue).

The first stop that we took on the first day was to the Pont au Gard, which was magnificent and beautiful against the setting of the countryside. After the Pont au Gard, we visited the Palais de Pope, which is a gothic building in Avignon and was once home to the pop during the medieval period. One of my favorite parts about Avignon was the Avignon bridge, had a beautiful view of the river, where you could get lost looking at the sun starts setting (or maybe that was just me).

Day 2: Arles and Château de Tarascon

Arles Amphitheatre

Arles Amphitheatre

Arles Amphitheatre

Top of Château de Tarascon

Top of Château de Tarascon

Caves in Beaux-de-Provence

The next day was a little less than pleasant. Provence is known for it's sunshine and beautiful weather, however, we happened to run into a full-day rain shower that occurs very few times during the season. Despite the rain, we visited Arles Amphitheatre, an old Roman amphitheatre. One of my favorite parts of the Arles amphitheatre was walking on top of the amphitheatre, whether or not it was allowed.

One of my favorite parts of the whole trip was the next stop, the medieval castle Château de Tarascon. My favorite part of the castle was the roof, where we had a view of the whole area and even a view of another castle in the distance. After the castle, we visited some man-made caves in Beaux-de-Provence, which displayed light shows and moving photography across all the walls. 

Day 3: Aix-en-Provence

Church in Aix-en-Provence

Streets of Aix-en-Provence

The last day in Provence was in Aix-en-Provence, which was a nice turn-around from the day before in terms of the weather. We got a tour of the city and had time to walk around the city on our own. The city had a different look than Grenoble that resembled southern France, which was interesting to explore. 

The whole trip was a bit of an experience, both in the rain and shine. As much as I like Grenoble, it was refreshing to see a different piece of France and French history. As cheesy as it may sound, I left thinking that Provence stole just a little bit of my heart that weekend.

Thank you for reading!

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Cuves de Sassenage | Semester in Grenoble

This post is a few weeks overdue, but earlier this month my study abroad program planned a hike to "Cuves de Sassenage," where we hiked up one of the surrounding mountains in Grenoble to visit the Sassenage caves. We took a tour through the caves, which were larger than I expected and interesting to walk through. From the caves, we further hiked up and down the mountain along steep paths until we reached a small river where some decided to swim. On the hike back to the bottom, there was a beautiful view of the city and surrounding mountains. Visting the caves was definitely the perfect day trip!

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So It's Been a Week...

It's been a week since I last posted, and let me tell you, it feels like FOREVER. This past week has been the longest, but most exciting week yet. Throughout most of the week, I either had no adapter for my laptop charger or no wifi, causing me to not be able to use the internet, which in turn I ended up liking a little. Let me break the week down for you:

Saturday

Took a four hour drive up to the Seattle airport for London, since my airport doesn't make a direct flight. Although my study abroad is taking place in Grenoble, France, my study abroad program organized a trip to London where we could meet other students.

Sunday

After 9 hours in the plane and time zone changes, I arrived at the London airport early in the morning where I met other students in my study abroad program whom I didn't know before the trip. After meeting other students, the long day was made up of meeting other and exploring the town. Suffice to say, it was a long and exciting day filled with lack of sleep (went 30+ hours without sleep since I couldn't sleep on the plane) and lots of adrenaline.

Monday

Monday morning, the study abroad program organized a tour around London. Although we lucked out with sunshine the day before, Monday was filled with off-and-on typical rainy weather. We visited Buckingham Palace, The London Eye, The London Bridge, and the Tower of London. The rest of the day was spent exploring the streets near the place where we were staying and further getting to know our fellow students.

Tuesday

Tuesday was another long day, since it started with us having to leave the hotel at 4 in the morning to catch a plane to Lyon. At Lyon, we got on a bus for a one hour ride to Grenoble. After arriving at our hotel in Grenoble, we met for an orientation meeting to fill out paperwork and learn a little about the culture. After, we had a dinner filled with pasta and a dessert filled with a variety of French pastries, from tirimisu to cannoli. C'est très délicieux!

Wednesday

After a night of little to no sleep, Wednesday felt fairly long. Although much of the day was filled with orientations and information, the rest of the day was left to explore the city!

Thursday

Thursday was definitely the most stressful day of the week. Most of the morning and afternoon was comprised of taking a placement test for the French classes at the university. After a stress filled day of testing, in the evening we all met our host families whom we would be staying with for the rest of the semester.

Friday

Most of Friday was once again spent at the University. We took tours of the gorgeous campus and found out the results of our placement tests. The rest of the day was spent to further explore the city and have fun around town.

Saturday

Saturday was a "free" day with no activities planned by the program. In the morning, my host mother kindly showed me around the city. The rest of the day was further filled with exploring the city and of course lots of eating and shopping!


So there's a very brief and vague breakdown of the week and why I haven't had time to post. I am planning on doing a weekly post at the end of the week to hopefully update on some of the shenanigans throughout the week. More fashion/beauty posts will be posted soon!

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Travels in South Korea: Part 2

If you didn't check out my previous post (here), it mentioned that I had visited South Korea with my mom for a little over a week. During the later part of our trip, we visited Busan to visit some family members. Busan is a city on the coast in the south part of Korea. The buildings that you see in the photos above are not business buildings, but actually really tall apartments, more than 70 floors high (who would ever want to live on the 70th floor?). We also visited the bridge in Busan at night, which not only lights up, but uses lights to create images on the bridge. It was pretty elaborate and awesome!

We also stayed a house in the countryside for a weekend with our whole family. It was in the valley and surrounded by these beautiful large hills and mountains. The only downside was that I was stung by these massive mosquitoes multiple times. While in the countryside, we also visited a Buddhist temple which featured a huge Buddha statue and many beautifully painted buildings.

At the end of our trip, we went back to Ansan and Seoul. During our last night in Korea, some of our family members took us out for Galbi, which is essentially delicious Korean short ribs. It was a great way to end our trip to Korea!

I hope you enjoyed this post!

Thank you for reading!

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Travels in South Korea: Part I

As you can probably tell from the title, this post is not a beauty and fashion related post. I have been kind of absent for the past few weeks and this is because during the last few weeks, I had the amazing chance to visit Korea with my mom for about 10 days. Half of my family lives in Korea, considering that my mom is Korean (South Korea of course, I surprisingly still get questioned which one my mom is from). The main reason why we decided to go to Korea was because one of my relatives was getting married, so going to a wedding was a great excuse to travel there for over a week. (For reference, the photos above were taken at Namdaemun Market in Seoul.)

To answer another common question I am asked when I tell someone I'm Korean is that I don't speak Korean. Why? Because I was a stubborn kid who found it hard learning a language that I would never speak at home since my mom had learned English. I only speak very very basic Korean and completely regret not learning it at a young age, since now I don't have much time to learn the language. This made communicating in Korea somewhat difficult, however, a couple of my relatives, including a cousin who is about the same age as me was learning English. Although there was somewhat of a language barrier there, it was still fun talking to her. The large language between me and my other relatives made communicating difficult. (The three photos above were taken at an area in the countryside.)

I had visited Korea a few times before that were more tourist-y, and unlike past trips, this trip was more family-oriented and less tourist-y, which I enjoyed. The four photos above were taken in Ansan, a city outside of Seoul. The nightlife was so much fun and overwhelming! The delicious looking dessert is Korean shaved ice with bean powder, which was pretty much heaven in a bowl the size of my head.

I also visited Gangman, which I honestly had no idea existed before the popular song. At Gangnam, we ate pasta salad (literally pasta and salad) and an amazing bacon and garlic pizza that you actually pull apart and eat with a spoon or fork. Later, we ate this amazing brownie shaved ice that chocolate infused shaved ice with vanilla ice cream, brownie bits, oreo pieces, and whipped cream.

As you could probably tell, I was pretty much on a Michael Phelps diet.

I hope you enjoyed this post!
Look out for Part 2! It will be posted in just a few days!

Thank you for stopping by and reading!

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