Jellando and Yeso Trip of not so man cherry blossoms :(

This post is going to be very photo heavy since there are so many pictures to show you! In March, I went on my first weekend trip with the group Seoul Hiking Group, which is run by an amazing man Warren. Undeniably, one of the cheapest ways to travel around Korea with out the hassle of planning it yourself as a foreigner and a great way to make new friends!

The first trip was a trip to Jellando, which is located on the east side of Korea along the southern tale.  We also went to Yeso where the World Expo is currently taking place and I hope to go back before the expo is over in August. The weather had unfortunately taken a turn to be cold during the week prior to our trip so the cherry blossoms were not in bloom :( . I was very dishearten by it but the weather was gorgeous besides that. I was ALSO getting to play with my wonderful, absolutely, fantastic new camera, a Nikon D3000 which I bought off a wonderful fellow expat, Sergii. I had met another wonderful expat, John, who had a beautiful Nikon himself and I asked him to help me find a nice DSLR and he saw Sergii's post on craigslist and sent  it to me. I really am so very thankful because I am learning tons about taking photos and just really enjoy playing with it. 

This trip was a lot of fun because I got to spend it with a lot of my friends and we saw a lot. I will get into more detail between the photos.

Jellando, The mountains in the background had snow on top!

Back : Bryan, Front l to r, Milly, McKenna, Brittany, and Meg

The yellow blossoms were just beginning to bud.

You could soak your feet in some nice hot water that helped relax you and warm you up from the wind!

PINWHEELS!

Some really cute stray dogs

I had to add this one because of my wonderful friend and coworker Mckenna jumped in front of my camera right when I took the shot. I was pretty peeved when she did it, but now I find it to be hilarious!

The mountains :)

These photos are all in Yeso, where the world expo is being held. We did a small climb up to get a nice view of the whole island and then took a speed boat ride around the smaller island in the background. It was a gorgeous day and just beautiful to be outside and seeing other parts of Korea.

L to R : Mckenna, Brittany, Collin, Me

Collin and Milly

The Whole group : L to R: Brittany, Bryan, McKenna, Me, Collin, Milly

Singapore!

I am finally going to get this post up! I had some difficulty with uploading photos onto blogger, so I may be switching to my wordpress blog sometime since it's a much faster uploader.

BUT WITH OUT FURTHER ADO!

My Singapore trip

These were taking while I waited fo rm plane on January 24th. My trip was only 5 days, with two of them just consisting of flying to and from Singapore. I will say that Incheon International Airport is very lovely and I enjoyed exploring the museum they had in the International terminal.

I arrivws in Singapore around 10 pm that night after dealing with a 7 hour layover in Guanzhou, China. I dislike that airport for it being colder inside than outside and that I spent 17 dollars on a cold sandwich and soda. Oh well, next time I will bring some currency with me so I don't starve.

My first day consisted with walking around the downtown area with Beulah, my godmother's brother's wife. I stayed with Robert and Beulah through out my stay and it was a great experience. Their aparrtment was so comfortable and it was nice to see family after not being around any one for Christmas besides my fellow expats.

These are pictures from my exploration of Chinatown and little India. These first two are from Little India and the temple I went into while I walked around there. I spent a good amount of money buying souveniors in Little India an trying to hunt down a nice batik to bring back. By the time I found a little vendor with Batiks, I had already spent my alloted amount on sari wraps cloth for friends.

These are from Chinatown and the Buddhist temple of Buddha's Tooth Relic. It is one of the oldest temples in Singapore and it is still in irs original location of Chinatown. On top of this five story temple was an orchid garden so I spent a good amount of time up there taking photos.

On my second day, I went to Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari...and I was dumb enough to leave my camera charger at home. I had already take over 400 photos the previous day that aftertwo hours at the zoo, my camera died. SO there are very little of the 10 hours I spent walking around the zoo. Here is one of me on the bus to the zoo and I am very excited!

I did take a souvenior photo of myself from teh night safari so I could remember going on it.  I was impressed, as far as zoos go, about the parks some of the animals had. The kanagaroos and others had free range parks where they could leave their enclosures. Other animals, like the cheetas and other big cats did not have that ability and it was also hard to see some of them too.

  

And Now, my masterpice...the Botanical Garden with the orchid garden inside.

I was INCREDIBLY EXCITED to be going there and it was my last day in Singapore. Beulah and I went at around 8:30 in the morning to the garden and walked around for nearly 3 hours. Here are some of my favorite pictures of the walk. Beulah was kind enough to let me borrow her smaller point and shoot for the day since my camera had died the day before. I know now to make sure that I bring with me my camera chargers.

After a great morning, I went back to downtown Singapore to experience the Singapore FLyer, something similar to the London eye, a giant ferris wheel. I was essentially in the air for 30 minutes and just snapping away. I was the only English speaking foreign with a bunch of Chinese tourists. They took a couple of photos with me since they thought it was funny I was there by myself.



Waiting in line to get on the flyer.



I was really lucky about my timing. I wanted to get there at sunset so I could take photos of the bay and the city all let up with colors but with an afternoon thunderstorm, I didn't get as much of a backsplash as I was hoping.These two shots turned out really well.

 

 

After riding the eye and night has fallen.

Inside what I believe is a mall. There was a casino where I spent about 10 dollars on slot machines.

Art Museum

I managed to catch the last night of Lunar New Year celebrations which was spectacular.

I had a fabulous trip! I hope to go back to Singapore and spend more than four days there!