Seoul, NYC, and Back to Real Life!

After taking an overnight flight from Jakarta (Indonesia) to Seoul (South Korea) I had a 12 hour layover to explore as much of the city as possible! It was a packed day, where I got to see the Gyeongbokgung Palace, Yonggungsa Temple, The Korean War Memorial, the popular Gagnam District, and try authentic Korean food at a local restaurant, all within a day! It was by far one of the most eventful layovers I have experienced, and I would definitely recommend others to choose Seoul as a transit destination if they are ever travelling through Asia!

An interesting fact…the Incheon International Airport is ranked as the second best airport in the entire world (after the Singapore airport, which I’ve also been to several times.) This airport offers many complimentary amenities to travellers such as free wifi, rest areas, shower facilities, a cultural museum, two movie theatres, and also a free city bus tour- all of which I gladly took advantage of! 🙂

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After my brief stay in Korea, I returned to Vancouver where I spent a few days with family and friends, where I also got to do some hiking in the mountains which was really great. The following week, my Mom and I then went on a 5 day trip to New York City for her birthday!

While there we were able to check all of the following off our NYC wishlist !! 😀

• Watch a theatre show on Broadway (we were in the 4th row of Phantom of the Opera)
• Explore Times Square (our hotel was one block away)
• Go to the top of the Empire State Building and Rockefeller Center
• Go on a river cruise and see the Statue of Liberty
• Visit the 9/11 Memorial
• Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge
• Ride the subway
• See a “celebrity” (We randomly saw the members of Fifth Harmony arriving at an event, along with tons of paparazzi!!)
• Have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe
• Go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History
• Walk through Central Park
• Attend a live TV show taping. (We won tickets to be in the studio audience of America’s Got Talent, where we were in the same room as Heidi Klum, Howard Stern, Nick Cannon, Howie Mandel, and Mel-B!) 😛

…Overall, the past two years have been quite a whirlwind for me… I feel extremely lucky to have been able to live the “travel life” for so long, but as of right now I’m happy to be back in University, where I am studying International Business. Life has been very hectic over the past few weeks with exams, volunteering, my boyfriend and I moving to our downtown condo, etc.. so I’m really glad everything has started to settle down (for now at least!). As for my upcoming travel plans, in the winter I am hoping to go on a few ski trips to the mountains, go back to visit Vancouver over the Christmas break, and in the summer I’m looking forward to visiting my host family & many of my friends in Europe again. After that I will have one year left of school before going on my overseas practicum in Asia, where I will be spending 2 months working for a company in Shanghai, China! As for my Mandarin language progress.. it is going very well so far! (Surprisingly, it is actually my top class this semester) 🙂

Thanks for reading,

-Jackie 🙂 ❤

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