Before going to a different country or a new place, it is important that you perform some research first. The following are some of the things that you as a traveler need to bear in mind before making up your mind to travel to Korea.

To start with, obtaining flight tickets to Seoul does not wholly guarantee you entrance. Nationals form various countries are supposed to obtain visas from the Korean embassies back in their home nations to enter legally. Depending on the purpose of entry, an appropriate visa is going to be issued. Legal procedures should be followed after the submission of the outlined requirements.

Travelers also need to bear in mind that it is not all the Koreans can converse fluently in English. In some of the cases it has been realized that some of them usually get terrified being addressed in that foreign language. But signs have translations and taxis have free interpreters. Thus, travelers need to take time and study even the basic phrases. It would be enough to use simple greetings such as “kamsahamnida” meaning thank you.

As a tourist, you need to stay informed of the Korean weather conditions before you decide to travel. Spring comes between March/April to May/June. Summer falls between June/July to August. Autumn falls between August/September to November/December. Winters comes in between November or December to February or March.

The benefit of knowing the seasons is because it will help in selecting the type of clothing you should bring about. For those who live in subtropical and tropical nations, the cold seasons can be literally very cold for them. It is advisable to bring scarves, earmuffs, jackets and coats when visiting in such a season. Staying comfortable during the nights is assured of as most of hotels in this country have heaters installed in the rooms.

The above sums up some of the things a tourist should know before heading to Korea. A travel adventure is truly worth the experience in case you are prepared to travel to this wonderful nation.

There was no work today, because of the super typhoon and knowing I will not wake up early, I have decided to sleep late in the evening last night, to tweak and changed my blog’s theme and as you can see, my blog is wearing a new theme.

I have posted it in my social account and my fellow bloggers, reminiscence their blogs and blogging life back then, as  they already stopped blogging and let their domain names expired. It was the same for me, I let some of my precious domain name goes, because I can’t maintained them anymore. It was heartening to let them go, but it was for the better, I let my two travel blogs, photography, pet and food blogs expired. I choose to maintain three blogs, and I almost lost them a few months ago, but with the help of my facemask business at work, I am able to pay and renew my domain and pay my hosting monthly, as to this day.

The Blogger Theme

Anyway, my new theme was the theme I won from a blogging/writing contest back then, it was designed for blogger platform, but I tweaked it into a wordpress theme. What do you think?

We have been traveling in Eastern Europe for almost three weeks already,  we went from Hungary to Slovakia and now we are in Torun, Poland.  We stayed five days in Krakow and took an 8 hour bus ride to Torun, there’s nothing much to see in Torun aside from the old town, churches and museums.  So after visiting two museums today and walking again in the old town (as we already wandered yesterday) we called it a day and headed back to our hotel to rest, we are heading to Gdanks tomorrow.

[Krakow, Poland]

I should be blogging in my main travel blog but it was stuck in Jeju, Korea blame it to procrastinated me. (Ha-ha), anyway while looking around my facebook page I have stumbled to a link shared by a friend about a blog of  two travel buddies who are disappointed/sick with Filipino food – I Would Rather Go Hungry Than Eat Filipino Street Food Again! Not new to me, my husband is not please with Filipino food either,  I will wait until he try an authentic Filipino restaurant. Lol!

Well, I admire their courage to eat street food because I would not eat street food unless I knew the vendor or person cooking it is better to be safe than sorry. It is like you travel to India and commit stomach suicide (errr Delhi belly)  by eating street food,  I am not sure if they do proper research before heading to Philippines or even try to use a lonely planet guide on their trip, because it is quite unbelievable that they are not able to try longganisa if they went to Ilocos (as I have read in few comments) you can get these famous longganisa in the street of Vigan and they even have their famous empanada with longganisa. Even if they didn’t go to Vigan they can find longganisa in every wet market of the Philippines, they are all hanging like a wall decor in every meat stalls. So quite interesting they are not able to get one unless they really went to convenient store to look for longganisa, you know it is like buying  a loaf a bread in a pharmacy and buying  a medicine in a bakery.

Well if they stay in a hotel/hostel they should ask the information desk where to get traditional food if their travel guide (book) doesn’t say so or a simple question to Mr. Google is already a big help.  Asking people in the street is like asking for direction, some people knew and some people don’t.  If they want to Filipino street food like balut they can get them in the local market, just look for egg stalls and ask for balut but of course they have to boil them themselves unless they found a street vendor walking in the street shouting “balut! balut!” you can find balut vendor from 5pm till midnight.

Most Filipino eat heavy breakfast, consist of fried rice, fried eggs, longganisa and tuyo (fried dried fish) or tapa. If they want to eat Filipino breakfast they should went to tapsilugan or Chowking, Greenwich and McDonalds to order tapsilog, longgilog and more (see more varieties here).

Furthermore, I have read they want to eat like locals, but sad to say they failed. Filipino foods like adobo, sinigang, kare-kare, nilaga, bulalo, sisig are mostly cooked at home and can be found in a medium scale restaurants or large restaurants. Mostly Filipinos will not eat food they can easily cooked at home, so if you went to turo-turo (point-point restaurant), you will mostly see menudo, dinuguan, afritada, bopis and taghilaw or those food that you can only eat during birthdays, wedding and feast season. If you really want to eat well prepared food be ready to spend some shackles, further more if they are really in their tight budget or trying to spend $25 a day, malls in the Philippines has food courts where they can try different foods local and not.  Eat wisely,  eating in the street of South East Asia is not like eating in the street of Europe! Saving money while traveling doesn’t mean eating bluntly and sacrificing your health.

Originally posted on March 21, 2014 @herztravel

Growing your own food isn’t a rocket science, it is very simple when you have the desire and will to do it. As a kid, I grew up with my family doing backyard gardening, to sustain our daily needs at home.  We planted string beans, egg plants and ladies fingers, which became very helpful to us, because having a harvest means free meal or viand.

Today, my father still do backyard gardening and it was very beneficial to us in health and somehow in our food expenses, as it saves us from buying fruits and vegetables which are present in my father’s garden.  Growing vegetables at home does cost a bit on seeds and supplies, as we don’t have a large backyard, most often my parent’s plant vegetables on empty cans and bags.

The other day, my father came home  with ripe papayas after tending his garden, as we still have the pineapple he harvested the previous day, and the bananas he harvested a week ago, which was keep in our old fridge to ripe, we took photo of it, amaze what a simple gardening can do.

Since we can’t eat them all, my father brought some of the fruits to his employer’s house to share, which he always did.  They were very kind and helpful to us, and even treat my family just like no other. When my grandmother died, they’re the one who lend us a large sum of money without batting an eyelashes, so we could all go home for my grandmother’s funeral, they also give work to my father, even it wasn’t needed, so it is just right to share our blessings to good people, right?

It was been raining hard these past two days and last night was no different. In the middle of my sleep I was visited of the same dream again, the same, because the dream was familiar and I knew that it wasn’t the first time I have dreamed of it.

The dream was about me and my friends who are my coworker in this life, we sailed through a wooden boat and it was capsized and me doesn’t know how to swim drowned, but I was very peaceful when I drowned, I didn’t struggle to live nor to breath, I just accepted it was already my end.

[Photo courtesy of Engin Akyurt/pexels.com]

To dream of dying wasn’t new to me, I dreamed of it once and I thought I have wrote that dream, but perhaps I didn’t because I can’t find it.

On that dream, I am a man lying in the hospital bed surrounded by my wife and two children, I was dying and gasping for air, but everything was very peaceful, that dream was very realistic because I can feel it until I woke up from the dream.

The realization hits me that my dreams about me dying were my past life, I have been trying to do past life regressions these past few months, but I keep jumping back to the present, but there are two new things I saw when I did the regression.

First, it was very dark and all of a sudden a bomb exploded and the only thing I saw was a baby wrap in a pink blanket thrown into the air cause by the explosion, second was seeing a fire camp, it was dark ages, I am black knight I guess, now I understand why I am so interested with the dark ages when I am in secondary grade, I was too excited learning about that age or era.

Traveling is not all about fun and enjoyment because it can be tiring sometimes and can make you worn out. Dressing comfortably while traveling is a thing most traveler should do, the lighter clothes you wear the comfortable you are.

One of the common accessories you will see among travelers is a pair of sunglasses. Sunglasses will not just help your to look trendy and  fabulous but it can also help to hide your tired eyes either when you are lack of sleep or having jet lag problems, sunglasses can also help you to protect your eyes from scorching heat of the sun.

That’s why I am too thankful when I received free sunglasses from Firmoo by winning through giveaway,  I am able to enjoy our vacation in Armenia and Georgia despite of the hot weather in these places.

[#OTO2505]

Firmoo.com is a popular online eyeglasses store for prescription and non-prescription glasses. They have wide range of eyeglasses according to your needs it is either for reading,  fashion or everyday use which is both available for men and women.  If you are in need of sunglasses with  bifocal or progressive lenses you can find them in Firmoo which is in different style and color.

Recently I was contacted by Firmoo to receive free sunglasses I am too happy upon reading the invitation because most of my blogger friends has been contacted already or they contacted Firmoo for this freebie and now they are already enjoying wearing the sunglasses from Firmoo on different occasions.

The sunglasses arrived today together with the case, cloth, bag and screw. Yes it is a complete package, the sunglasses was perfectly packed and sealed in the case with foam and bubble plastic. Firmoo really made sure that customers will received the sunglasses in perfect condition and best look.

Anyway I chooses RX sunglasses the Women’s full frame wrap around plastic sunglasses  #OTO2505 in black color, even though my sister wants a different sunglasses.  I am attracted to its fashionable and sexy design despite the fact that wearing big eyeglasses doesn’t fit the shape of my face.

Firmoo’s sunglasses are comfortable to wear they are lightweight and in high quality so no matter how you wear them they were not easily to be distorted or out of shape unlike those other sunglasses that can be easily distorted once you put them on your head.

[#OTO2505]

The sunglasses above is beautifully crafted  with white butterfly knot on each side which made it charming  and very  feminine to wear, there are three colors for this design black, purple and green (tortoise). I choose the black one because it will fabulously fit any color of clothes I am going to wear when we travel. These sunglasses too is definitely  perfect and on time  for our vacation next month in the Philippines I will surely wear this while touring around.

Firmoo’s sunglasses are affordable but in high quality so they are perfect to send as gifts to your family, friends and relatives.  They have virtual try-on system to help you find what is the perfect eyeglasses that will look good and will fit on the shape of your face or to someone you want to sent a pair of eyeglasses by uploading your own or their photo on Firmoo.

[Me wearing #OTO2505]

Firmoo provides various designs and styles of sunglasses to suits any person’s preferences of style so I am sure that you will find what you wanted. One of the best deals Firmoo has to offer is free eyeglasses for first time customers so don’t let this opportunity be wasted,  hop in now and experience the magic of Firmoo!

Remember too that they also offer discount codes and coupons to keep updated with them follow Firmoo on Facebook and  Twitter.

Thank you Firmoo!

2012/08/27 at 3:04 pm

Every night I always had a dream but most of the time I forgot what is it after going to the bathroom to pee.  I have been blogging my dreams but due to intermittent connection I didn’t bother documenting it again.

Anyway, since I was young I knew I was an old soul.  I knew I was born before but I just don’t know when and how I live my life and how many times I was born. When I met an accident when I was young, I was hit and run-over by motorcycle I have recollection on how I live my life as a kid, it was like they were flashback right on my eyes and then all I remember I was going down in a spiral and I woke up asking for a water.  I have never told anyone about it because I have thought it was normal.

Moreover, I always have recurring dream of being in a familiar place when in reality I have never been there and I can’t remember the place in my dream. I have dreamed often too being a child living in a different planet,  I see fires, burning city, flying metal objects just like how the city in Jean Claude Van Damme’s movie Universal Soldier I didn’t think about it that much maybe because it was just created by my brain when I was asleep.

Growing up, I enjoyed reading mystery, horror and metaphysical stories. I am fascinated with the theory of reincarnation, I can spend my whole day reading stories about it, lately I have been reading new stories again. It was been my long wish to do past life regression but I just don’t know how to find people that could help me with it.  I search about how to do it alone and last night before going to sleep when everything is silent I tried to do it, it was hard for me to concentrate because it is either my hand felt itchy or my foot does,  after trying so hard I saw a vision, I have seen a yellow flower in a vase in a door to the balcony (maybe that’s why I prefer yellow flower than the red ones), dark dirty water seeing it from below, a hospital bed then I felt anxious so I went out the imaginary door and rest  to an imaginary chair.  When I went in the door again,  I saw a train coming, I have heard its sound, I am in a station, it wasn’t the present era, it was in sepia, the train looks like running through a steam engine there was a lot of people rushing I was feeling frantic because I couldn’t see myself, I want to see myself on this period and then I saw a beautiful sophisticated woman wearing sophisticated black dress with a black hat just like how Audrey Hepburn was, she has pearl earrings and she was very beautiful white female like a celebrity, then my vision hop seeing an Asian small old man sitting at the corner of his hospital bed, he is wearing a hospital pajama and as if he is waiting for someone, a visit from family maybe but there was a thought that he is all alone then I came back feeling tired and empty, I fell asleep instantly.

[Photo courtesy of Hoang Le/pexels.com]

There are times there are familiar people in my dreams but in reality they are not existing in my present world and there are times there are people I know in my present life but they have different face in my dream.

Fear of Snake

I am very afraid of snake just imagining it getting near me I cringe. Not so long ago I dreamed of being a beautiful woman with a long black hair with an olive skin living in a tribe wearing a traditional tribal clothing adorned with stones or bones in my forehead, neck and clothing. It feels like I am about to marry a chieftain or son of a chieftain but I don’t know what happened, the woman in my tribe standing next to me is jealous of me, in present life she is an older cousin. On that dream I saw myself and her lying in a bed made of hay and a black snake was crawling underneath and black out, I woke up with a fear like there was a snake in my bed. It was like we are executed by a snake bite or we are chosen through a snake… ah dunno what is it!

Fascinated with the Sea

Since I was a child I am fascinated seeing the sea, I always wish that the jeep I rode every afternoon to home will traverse the road near the sea, I felt ecstatic and happy seeing the sea but the truth was I don’t know how to swim and I never learned how to do it no matter how I tried. I am also afraid going to the deep part of the sea I guess it has connection of me seeing a dark dirty water last night, maybe on my previous life I drowned at the sea or in a pond. What is interesting when I was sixteen years of age I almost drowned with my classmate in a river.

I have read from other story tellers that there are times things happened like they happened in the past, so I guess I died from drowning when I was sixteen years old on my past life. What do you think?

Familiarity with the Jantar Mantar

When J and I went to India, specifically  in Jaipur (Jantar Mantar) I frantically told him “I have been here, I saw this already!” when it was the first of me seeing it. I cannot recall seeing it in movies nor in photo, I have remember myself walking around the Sundials climbing with one of them to see the stars. When we are in India, I am always mistaken a local of the country.

Out of Tuned Music

Many people who knew me knows that I don’t know how to sing, I am out of tuned but there is part of me who believes that on my past life I was a good singer but I cursed it, I wonder if it has relation to the beautiful woman in the train station.

Hospital and Balcony

Growing up I am scared of going to a hospital, furthermore meeting a doctor alone.  I was also scared of heights and looking over a balcony, when I was in grade school I remember how I felt sick looking down from the third floor and I also remember how I felt cold feet every time I look down below the balcony of J’s apartment in Korea, I was scared of falling and I always felt like throwing up whenever I looked down I guess it has to do with the balcony and the old man I saw in his hospital pajama, did I committed suicide at a balcony on that life?

I have a lot of questions and I wonder how many lives did I live, which of my dreams are true and are all of my visions are real?  It was said your birthmarks was the cause of your death on your past life, I have one in my forehead and there is something at the back of my head and I have a birthmark in the right side of my body too… I sometimes wonder if these are bullet or arrows point of entry.

A few months ago, I decided to quit my job, because I have enough. I felt unappreciated and it is already toxic at work, I am not feeling happy with what I am doing already. Those who know me, know what I mean.

Anyway, quitting made me my niece’s caregiver which isn’t a problem at all, but when I quit working, my father lost his carpentry job, and his employer went to Manila for personal matters. With this, my younger sister worked alone to support the family of five, it was not too burdensome at first, but as the day went by, our finances were going down the drain, and whatever small savings we had were slowly deteriorating. My mother started to show signs of stress, was short of patience, and was always nagging and angry at everything, maybe because of the problem of budgeting.

One of my immediate supervisors at work, encouraged me to return to the office by applying through the boss, with the problem arising at home, I did and to cut the story short I can work in the office with different responsibilities and a bit different environment.

Working was great, there were few overtimes, but it was good. Fast forward, the election came and a lot of changes happened, the office had a budget shortage for wages of job orders, don’t ask me the reason and how the budgeting is done because I don’t know either.

Being good at your job doesn’t matter, all job orders were lay-off and only a few or a handful were asked to return first, those who hold a special place at work. Right now, we are still waiting if we will be called/hired again and in the meantime I am jobless, I found a time to write again.

Most people in rural areas run to quack doctor when something irritable grows in their skin like allergies, bumps cause by air and insects. When an itchy bump grow in my face I treat it with ointment for skin irritation rather than going to quack doctor like what my family has told me but the itchiness didn’t subsides so I have asked my mother to verify if the bump is a pimple since I can’t fully see it, she said it was indeed a pimple.

A few days passed nothing has changed the bump is still quite itchy so I scratched it without hesitation until it grows bigger, so I immediately search online for alternative medicine aside from using coconut oil and creams. Through searching online I have found out the benefits of oil and turmeric. Coconut oil is anti-fungal and anti-bacterial, and nourishes skin cells to inspire softness while turmeric kills bacteria on and beneath the skin’s surface without damaging healthy cells or drying the skin out. According too, to Taiwanese study, coconut oil was found to be the most effective carrier for the curcumin (turmeric) to enter the skin cells. Since I have only small amount of coconut oil I have asked my mother and sister when they went to town to buy me old coconut as well as turmeric in the market.

A coconut oil is made from cooking the coconut milk, I crushed and cut fresh turmeric and mixed it with the coconut oil and treat the itchy bump in my face but since I scratched it a lot, the bump isn’t a simple bump anymore, when I checked it in the mirror it looks like a fungal infection already. I treat with the mixture I have made and the itchiness subsides a bit and it is drying overtime but there is new tiny pimple blisters growing again and the affected area is becoming even larger once the bad skin is treated. Annoyed with the outcome and how my face looks like that I can’t even go to church without putting band aid in it.

One day, when it itches again I rub salicylic acid without hesitation. The burning feeling made me crazy that I didn’t stop until it hurts a lot without thinking I am treating my face, part of my skin that everyone can see. After treating it with salicylic acid I treat it with pure coconut oil after few days the skin dried out like how it looks like in a wound but a new itchy pimple grew beside it so I treat the new bump with salicylic acid again and it is gone but a new itchy bump grew at the other side and what I did this time is different method I treat it with a crushed garlic for a few hours.

Treating fungal infection is very irritating, sometimes I have wondered where did I got it from, I bath every day and clean our house regularly that my family is even annoyed with me for being clean and germs freak. So I guess I got this from interacting with our cats especially it is my nature to pick and bring home abandon kittens from the street, or buying used clothes from thrift shop because according to some health articles that I read online if your immune system is weak you can easily get it from animals or individuals who has it including their personal things.

Well, I have found out too that the coconut oil with turmeric is a good treatment for ant and insect bites after using it to treat my ant and mosquito bites.  Coconut oil and fresh turmeric when mixed together had a foul smell overtime so I wonder if dried turmeric is better than fresh ones.

Originally posted at my health blog on January 29, 2016

The pandemic made the world stops, it cleans busy roads and made people to stay home.  Anyway, after three years of not celebrating town fiesta, finally Odiongan was able to held one, simpler than the previous celebrations. Simpler in the sense, that there is no street dancing today and there is no Kanidugan Festival dance competition.

The highlights of today town fiesta is a float parade participated by clusters of barangays and some government agencies.  The town parade almost didn’t take place because it rained that day, and it is still drizzling when it happened.

Well, I really have no plans of going to town and watch the float parade, but thinking it was a first for my niece, we did go to town for her to see the floats and people. We went there, when it was already starting and we decided to find a good spot and location where we can see the whole parade without skipping anything.

[ Some floats have dancers to make the parade merrier and festive.]

There are only few floats, there are more people and groups who joined the town parade, especially fraternities and organizations, there was a short program in the town plaza after, but we didn’t see it anymore, we went home right after we saw the tail of the parade.

As you can see, the rain didn’t stop the people from going out, because the parade was already a big event after three years of community quarantines, as you know Philippines is still not mask free, and maybe there are still unreported cases until today. Well, who  will have the guts to report you are sick, by the way? Even me, maybe I will not tell anyone I have symptoms when I know that you and your family will be isolated without food to eat. LOL