Tuesday, July 16, 2013

You Asked, I Answered Part I

People sent in questions from all around the world asking about our lives here in South Korea. So...you asked, I answered! Since I had so many awesome questions, and I would really like to answer them all, I have decided to split this up into a three part series. Let's get started!
photo courtesy of dots.i.am photography
Debbie from Bohemian Dreams asked: 
I'm really curious as of how you got to the idea of start travelling together and how you finance that. I'd love to take my man with me but it's impossible money wise with his own company. 
It all started with a text message. We were long distance for the majority of our dating days and when the wedding date was approaching I randomly text him saying that I wanted to travel as much as possible before settling down. He text me back saying he already had a job possibility in mind. My husband's old college roommate actually found us our first job in Korea and we've been here ever since! Someday we'll return to the states and settle down but for now, we wanted to travel as much as possible and experience as much of the world as we can.

As far as financing goes, I covered a lot of it in this post. But the gist of it is that we're really blessed with great jobs that pay well and we live in an area that centrally located and is affordable to travel to nearby countries. Other than that though, we budget for everything. Without a fairly strict budget and priorities on what we want, we wouldn't be able to travel nearly as much as we do now. Sure it'd be great to have the latest phones and go out to eat every night, but we prioritize what's most important to us and budget accordingly.

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Kayli from Kayli Wanders asked:
What's the best blogging tool you've found thus far?! I know connecting with other people in blogland is super important, but you seem to have it down to a tee- totally adoring your site...and your adventures! 
You're too sweet! I'm glad it looks like I have it all figured out but I'm still learning new things on a day-to-day basis! In my opinion, the most important things in blogging are connection, content and presentation. 
Once I started getting connected in the blogging community (participating in link parties, commenting on other blogs and advertising or swapping with others) I noticed a huge difference. Not only did I enjoy it more with my new friendships, but my readership also grew. 
But no matter how much you connect, if your content isn't up to par, it won't matter. Figure out what you want to write about and stick to that. There are blogs that write about anything and that works great for them, but as for me, I have a list of things that I will blog about and if it doesn't fit into any of my categories, I won't post it. I want my readers to know exactly what they can find when they come to my page. 
And the last is presentation, make it look good! Spend time creating a great and functional layout, design and high quality photos to keep people coming back!

In your travels, what areas do you and your husband splurge on and which areas do you tend to keep lowkey?

My husband and I are self declared 'budget travelers'. We figure that if we budget everything out, we can do more, see more, and go more often! With that being said, we often times don't spend that much on hotels or food. We figure that we're not going to be in our hotel room much anyway so we'd rather spend our money elsewhere. Our typical budget for a hotel (breakfast included) is 50 dollars USD or less. Traveling around South East Asia, we could definitely spend less (but we could also spend way more) but we've found that around this price we can still find great quality, locally owned, boutique hotels. Also, with food, we typically stick to local spots, street food or other cheaper places suggested by the place where we're staying. We've found that the cheaper, more local spots have the best food anyway! 

What we do splurge on is points of interest. We want to make the most out of our vacation and experience as much as we can. So, elephant parks? Yes. Deep water solo rock climbing? Why not? Swimming with whale sharks? Do you even have to ask?


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Crystal from The Happy Type asked:
What's your comfort food in Korea? And I don't mean a western spin, what Korean dish makes everything ALL better?
Oh goodness, when we first came to Korea, I couldn't stand the food! Everything had spice and everything had a dang half-cooked egg on top (which has now become my favorite part of the dish). But that quickly changed when I had two dishes: 1. 참치 김밥 (tuna gimbap) and 2. 김치 볶음밥 ((kimchi bokkeumbap) or kimchi fried rice. If you can, order these at your local Korean restaurant!


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Caroline from Perpetually Caroline asked:
What are 3 places that you haven't been to, and would like to visit? Do they match up with your husband's to visit list, also? 
Thankfully my husband and I's wish list is fairly similar. As of right now our top three are South Africa (we're hoping to go this winter!), Nepal and Norway. We're hoping to see all these places before we return to the States!


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Setarra from Quaintrelle asked:
How do you watch American movies in the theaters abroad? In a different language with subtitles or voiceovers? I've always been curious about that experience haha! 
That's a great question! We're really lucky because quite a few American movies come to theaters in Korea, even though they're mostly action/adventure. For adult movies, they are all in English with Korean subtitles. But any kids movie or animation is dubbed over in Korean since most of the movie goers wouldn't be able to read the subtitles.

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Helene from Helene in Between asked:
What's your favorite movie?!  
This is an easy one! Definitely Easy A. It was one of the first movies I had watched with Emma Stone and I fell in love with her characters dry sense of humor. 

Thanks so much for sending in all of your questions! I really truly enjoyed answering them all! I have more coming up next Wednesday!

Linking up with Rolled Up Pretty and Shanna