Garlicky White Bean and Kale Fettuccini

What!? Megan, you’re supposed to be writing a travel blog. About Asia! What is this?

So I’ve decided to also write a food blog. Or to turn Seoulfully Megan into a “whatever I want” blog. I’m impulsive, so is my blog.

I love cooking. It is my favorite creative outlet. That said, my recipes are going to reflect my cooking style, which is very improvisational. If you need a recipe that looks like a math equation, look elsewhere.

So without further ado, my first blog-worthy recipe:

Garlicky White Bean and Kale Fettuccini

I made this for lunch today and I’m still dreaming about it. The inspiration came from the leftover fettuccini from last night’s dinner, plus some veggies that were sitting in my fridge about to go off.

Handmade Fettuccini. Irresistible.

There is a big nutritional punch in this meal, though that isn’t the reason I put it together. Kale, of course, is the super famous superfood of the moment. It’s got loads of Vitamins A, C, and K, plus iron, calcium, and about a million other nutrients. Because of this it has anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Don’t know what that means? It means you should probably eat more kale. Unless you don’t like it, then may I suggest spinach as a wonderful alternative?

To best get the benefit of the calcium in kale, it should be eaten with ample vitamin C, that’s where the lovely tomato comes in. Oh also, tomatoes and pasta go together.

Garlic. Aside from being absolutely incredible, is also incredibly good for you. For one, it has cardiovascular benefits. So if you have high blood pressure, or it runs in your family, start stuffing yourself with garlic. Also, it keeps away mosquitos and vampires. More garlic.

The protein in this meal comes from beans. Which are just delicious all the time.

I get all my nutrition info from www.whfoods.com

In all honesty, I hate the preliminary wordy bits of food blogs and always skip over them, so let’s get to the recipe, shall we?

Ingredients:

Fettuccini

1 Tomato

A few leaves of Kale

½ Onion

1-5 cloves Garlic

A few mushrooms

½ cup white beans (I used great northern because that is what was in the cabinet)

some fresh basil

a splash of olive oil (mine was basil infused and tastes AMAZING)

white wine vinegar

pinch of paprika

dash of sea salt

When beginning to cook I like to have EVERYTHING prepared before I ever turn on the stove. This way I never rush around getting stuff together and accidentally burn what is already in the pan.

First up, preparing the ingredients. If you’re using cloves of garlic, crush them or chop them up into little bits. Take the onion and chop it up into chunks, try to make them evenly sized.

What would this post be without this picture?

Next, I cut the tomato into 4 quarters. You could just throw entire tomatoes in the pan if it made you happy.

Slice up the mushrooms into thick slices, maybe ½ inch thick.

Fun fact: I sold cutco knives for about 1 month. Still use the knives.

Rip up the kale into large chunks. I like to remove the leaves from the stems because I think the stems can be a bit chewy, even after they are cooked.

If using canned beans, strain and rinse them. Portion out however many you want to eat, and put the rest in the fridge.

Rip up the basil leaves, or chop them, and leave a few for the garnish at the end if you’re into that kinda thing.

Alright all your ingredients are prepped and ready to go, now at this point please do yourself  a favor and make sure you have the olive oil, vinegar, salt, and paprika all sitting on the counter next to your stove. I know it may seem like overkill but it really makes life so much easier in the long run.

Now the really fun part! Cooking!

First, heat up a splash of oil on the stove. Once it moves around the pan easily like a thin, watery liquid, it means the pan is hot enough. Throw on the garlic, listen to it sizzle for a bit. Push it around so it doesn’t burn. Probably turn the heat down to medium at this point.

Add in the onions, toss them around a bit to coat them in garlicky oil. After a bit you should notice the onions starting to get soft, starting to maybe change color. Add the paprika. It doesn’t have so much spicy flavor, but it adds a tiny kick and more importantly, turns everything a really nice color.

Cook the onions for another minute, maybe two, until they really start to shrink up. You want to keep moving them around the pan constantly though so that they don’t burn. Throw in some basil, but not all of it.

Then add the tomato and kale. It should look like you added way too much kale. Don’t worry. It’ll shrink down. Also, you can save the tomato until later if you don’t want to completely cook away the tomato.

Once the kale has started to cook down a bit, add some vinegar, and maybe some more basil. I like to throw on basil and vinegar intermittently and according to my own personal taste preferences from this point on.

Throw on the mushrooms. They are going to release a bit of liquid as they cook down. Thats okay. Once they’ve gotten a bit smaller and nice and brown and yummy smelling you can add the salt and the beans.

The beans just need to heat up and then you are good to go! Dump all this yumminess on top of your fettuccini and add another splash of olive oil just for good measure. Garnish with fresh basil leaves and maybe some shredded cheese. May I suggest parmesan? Asiago? Pecorino Romano? All three?

The actual portion that I ate was way bigger than this, but dainty was more photogenic.

On your mark, get set, devour.

Have any suggestions for me? Did you try this recipe and love it? Hate it? Change it? Please let me know! I’m always learning new ways and trying new ideas in the kitchen!

First Night of the Trip

The story of my first night in Kota Kinabalu (and the first night of my trip!) is one of my favorites. If you believe in omens, this was a good omen to end all good omens.

I had woken up very early to catch my flight from Seoul to Kuala Lumpur (KL). Once I got to KL I had to then get through immigration and customs and transfer to the domestic terminal. This was to be my first taste of Southeast Asia culture shock, fairly mild in the wider scheme of things, but on that day it was enough to thrill and intimidate me. Ok what am I talking about?

KL’s international airport is one of the nicest airports I have ever seen. It is like a giant luxury duty free shopping mall that also happens to have airplanes. In contrast, the domestic terminal is an unorganized cattle call where all the farmers left and now the cattle (passengers) are all milling about trying to get on planes that probably aren’t there at all.

Yeah I’m exaggerating but on that first day that was how it felt. I had a boarding pass for the domestic flight from KL to Kota Kinabalu (KK) that I had received in Seoul when I checked in, so I confidently walked up to domestic security and tried to walk through. No ma’am, you need to check in again. Okay, so I head to the unmarked check in desks. Where do I check in? I ask… oh you go to those automatic kiosks over there. Great. Oh wait, they don’t work. I can’t use them. Back to the unmarked desks… “Where are you going?” Kota Kinabalu. “Ah, um… let me ask someone… desks 40-55” 40-55 were ALL of the desks that were open. Everyone going to different places. Long story short I did eventually check in and got to wait in the terminal for my flight. The ticket said boarding at 6:55, take off at 7:25. Boarding happened at 7:20, still took off at 7:25. (I made up these times, I don’t remember what time the flight actually happened. Not important.) I will give Malaysia this: they are bomb at getting people onto planes quickly. Just don’t expect to follow the stated timetable. Ever. It is what I have come to affectionately call “southeast asia time”. The bus WILL come, and we WILL get to our destination, but what’s the hurry? If it is one or two hours late, it’s no worries.

So anyway, short flight and I arrive late at night at KK. Fun fact, you actually go through a second immigration when you enter the Malaysian state of Sabah on Borneo and get a second stamp on your passport. So in one day I got 3 stamps!

Go out to the taxi area thinking “here goes nothing.” I’ve got no idea how I will get into the city, where I will go once I get there, or what to expect when I leave this airport. Immediately a man asks me if I need a taxi. At the time this felt lucky, I have since learned that this is just normal. In fact, if you exit an airport in Southern Asia without someone trying to drive you wherever you want, something is very, very wrong.

Out of sheer exhaustion I decided not to look for other options and I hopped into the car with the first taxi guy. Turned out to be a good move because when I gave him the name of the one hostel I had heard of, he not only knew where it was, but knew the owners name and seemed to be on good terms with her. Quick drive and we pull into Australia Place, the street in Kota Kinabalu that houses all travelers. It is lined with hostels with names like “Borneo Backpackers” all basically priced the same and a very welcome sight to someone who has been on a plane all day. Even if Travelers Light didn’t have a bed, ONE of these places had to.

Walk up to the door and immediately 4 screaming kids come stampeding down the stairs and break like a wave around my feet. Following them is a young woman who stops yelling after the kids mid-sentence when she sees me standing there looking bewildered. After a brief conversation with the cab driver that I don’t understand, she invites me inside and asks if I need a room. I say yes, please, a dorm, and she says “ok come upstairs, I’ll show you, you pay me later.”

Again, another first impression that would later become normal but in that moment I was so SHOCKED by how informal the interaction was. I was used to the firm structure of a typical western hotel. Give your name and information, get a key and assigned room. None of that here, I was shown to a room and allowed to throw my bag down on any open bed without giving any info. Then Joy says to me, “come out back, we’re having a birthday party.”

So I follow her to a deck out behind the hostel. This is one of my favorite parts of this hostel in fact, it has a deck that looks onto a wall of jungle. Pretty cool.

So this birthday party was all locals. The table was covered in Malay and Phillipino dishes, a pot of rice, and I think 5 different cakes, all to celebrate the birthday of an older gentleman who lived nearby. The women, Joy included, were all speaking Phillipino, but I was invited to eat as much as I wanted. And in fact even after I was full the women kept trying to get me to eat more food, more rice.

The birthday boy was very talkative, and very interested in who I was. Joy started out offering me beers, but we quickly progressed to taking shots of pineapple vodka together. Soon some other locals showed up for the party, including a guy about my age named Muhammed. He would later become a good friend in town, but on this first night he seemed shy. Still, between birthday guy and myself, we got him to come out of his shell a bit. Soon I was being invited to go out for karaoke with them both. The idea was tempting and in retrospect I wish I had said yes, but it was late and I had been awake at 4:30 that morning to catch a flight, so they headed out to the karaoke bar without me.

Just as I was about to head to bed a guy from Croatia turned up and I ended up talking to him for over an hour. It was the last night of his six month trip, and I was meeting him on the first night of mine. Quite a strange overlap and I was so interested to hear all about his experiences.

I remember feeling overwhelmed and so full of awe. What was ahead of me? Six months of nights like this? Six months of facing the unexpected and feeling so happy? So relaxed? So comfortable in the unfamiliar? I was filled with optimism and even in my exhausted state could not WAIT to wake up the next morning and explore.

Okay, so there is the story of my first night on Borneo, first night as a traveler. Still uncomfortable in my traveler identity but so ready to begin to figure out how I fit into this traveler world.

I don’t PLAN to write a single blog post for every day of my trip. I calculated it and that would require 130 more posts. Not happening. So next time hopefully I will cover the story of my first few days on Borneo, including exploring KK and the surrounding tropical islands. Spoiler Alert: first time in a jungle. First time ever snorkeling.

Recommendations:

www.airasia.com Budget airline that serves pretty much all of Asia. Based out of Malaysia so most flights get routed through KL.

http://www.travellerslight.com/ Rooms are clean, dorms aren’t overwhelmingly large, and Joy, the woman who runs the place, is super friendly. But if she is full, you’ll be on Australia Place so you can easily find another place to stay. I think there are like 10 hostels on that street.

The Epic Trip Begins

Begin at the Beginning

I want to tell the story of my travels. It was my first time traveling alone after all, and it had a profound effect on who I am and how I see the world. Will I be able to convey that through a blog? Who knows. The message may get lost in the details. We will see. I hope you’ll be patient with me as I figure out how to tell the most incredible story I have ever experienced.

Warning: Every country I went to and every thing I did was the “BEST EVER”. I will say that, or something similar, over and over again. Paradoxically, it is true. Everything single thing was the best single thing ever, in that moment.

My desire for this blog is that it not only tell my story, but also act as a resource for anyone who is planning or even daydreaming of setting off to travel the world alone. Be that for 1 week, 1 month or 1 year. With that in mind, I will try to finish each post with a list of resources and/or recommendations.

But a journey has to begin somewhere, and this one began in Korea.

Leaving Korea was surreal. Life abroad as an expat has one constant: people leave. You make friends, they leave, new friends arrive. But it is never your turn to leave, until one day… it is. You close your apartment door, turn in the key, and take the bus to your friends apartment for the last time. As I rode away from Bangbae on bus 406 I actually thought to myself, I may never ride on this bus again.

Considering I rode that bus everyday, that was kind of a big deal.

One of my last meals, a traditional Korean spread.

I was excited of course. I was flying to BORNEO tomorrow. BORNEO! Where the hell is that? Is it even a country? (No, it is not, it is an island split between 3 countries)

Was I sad…? not really. Or if sadness was there, I wouldn’t feel it for a few weeks. There was too much ahead. I was nervous, and somewhat anxious. I had never traveled alone! I had spent the last 2 months attempting to “plan” my trip to Borneo, but every time I sat down to plan I got overwhelmed by the magnitude of the task and simply read other people’s accounts of Borneo on trip advisor, or the pages in my Lonely Planet.

In fact the morning that I left for my trip I had absolutely nothing booked, and only the name of a hostel in Kota Kinabalu, my first destination, where I hoped to spend a night. I would later learn that when traveling “on a shoestring” this is the preferable way to do things, because you can often get the best deals if you just show up, but leaving from Korea heading into a black abyss of uncertainty, I was plagued by insecurity.

But mostly, I was excited. Got some beers with friends and coworkers. Went to sleep on my last night in Korea at my friend Gregor’s apartment, and woke up at 4am to catch my 6am flight to Kuala Lumpur. Even the name sounded exotic. Getting on that plane was so overwhelmingly thrilling I got chills. I had a heightened awareness of the fact that I was heading into something I had no expectations of, no understanding of, and no preparation for. I was terrified and it was exhilarating.

You don’t leave for your first trip as an experienced traveler. You leave confused and nervous and green, and that is exactly how it should be.

Somewhere over China, en route to Kuala Lumpur

One more topic I want to cover… packing.

Packing up your whole life into one backpack is a daunting task. The good news is, you don’t need to get it exactly right, you just need to get it MOSTLY right (pro-tip: socks and underwear are a must, but not tooo many pairs) and then you can fill in the gaps on the road. In fact, filling in the gaps can be its own adventure as you try to find out where on earth do they even SELL toothpaste in this country!?

So I wanted to tell you guys what I had packed on the day I left from Korea but I gotta admit I can’t remember. One thing I do remember, I only had one pair of shoes and no flip flops. In S.E. Asia, this is a big mistake. Also I brought waaaaay too many pairs of underwear and socks. (Pro-tip: wash these in the sinks or showers of hostels, it saves money and time on washing if the rest of your clothes aren’t that dirty)

Bag when I arrived home at the end of 6 months (keeping in mind the fact that I bought some...ok many... things along the way):

-still waaaay too many pairs of socks and underwear

-dry fit shirt

-underarmour shirt

-trekking pants

-2 cotton t-shirts (one was used exclusively for sleeping)

-3 tank tops (unnecessary, should probably only have had 1, but they were 30 cents each in Thailand)

-2 pairs of flowy funky pants (picked up in Thailand)

-1 pair of yoga leggings

-1 pair of shorts

-2 scarves picked up in Laos

-1 sarong from Cambodia (used as a towel)

-1 dress (picked up in Thailand)

-1 bikini (and actually, I lost this in Indonesia so it wasn’t technically in my bag when I got home)

-hiking shoes

-flip flops

-toiletries bag (toothbrush/paste/floss/shampoo[which I also used as bodywash]/coconut oil/nail clippers/razor)

-rain coat

-fleece

-hoodie (picked up in Indonesia)

-gloves, knitted socks, mumu thingy (picked up for trek in Nepal)

-first aid kit

-headlamp

-converters

-phone/charger + camera/charger

-journal and pens

-tennis balls (picked up in Indonesia for self-massage)

-yoga mat

-jump rope

-hiking poles

-sleeping bag

-pain killers + sleeping pills

-passport/wallet/photocopies of passport/extra passport photos

-way too many knick-knacks and things picked up as gifts along the way

-another, smaller, backpack that functioned as my “daypack” (but I ended up also buying a purse in thailand because I was tired of only having a backpack…)

I think that is it. My bag was very heavy by the end, but that was necessitated by the wide variety of things I wanted to do and places I wanted to go during my trip. I had to have clothes and equipment for a yoga teacher training in Thailand, swimming/snorkeling in Indonesia/Malaysia, and trekking in… well in every country that I visited, but most importantly trekking in the cold high elevations in Nepal. If you really wanted to pack light, of course it is possible. Could I have eliminated some stuff? Yes. Just figure out what you think you want to DO during your trip and pack for that. If you only want to party and sit on the beach (which would be an awesome trip, I’m sure) you really don’t need to bring much at all.

The night I left Korea I remember packing so particularly. Everything had its place. By the end of my trip I had established a perfect system for packing my bag, developed over 6 months of constantly unpack and packing. I knew which clothes I wore most often, and they were nearest the top, with everything else shoved underneathe at different levels depending on its level of importance to me/my journey. This is something you develop overtime. The first time you pack your bag may very well be the worst time you pack your bag.

I will say this: you do not need to have a sleeping bag. Seriously. Unless you want to be the kind of person who goes camping, but do your research, there are not that many opportunities for independent camping in S.E. Asia. Be adventurous but also realistic… do you really need all that crap? Probably not. And you’ll be happy down the road if you pack light.

Okay, I think that is all for now. Next time I’ll tell the story of the very first night of my trip. And maybe I’ll get to the first few days, we shall see.

Adios amigas!

Recommendations:

For Finding Flights: www.skyscanner.com

For Basic Research:

-Lonely Planet www.lonelyplanet.com I used other brands, but Lonely is the most widely used and useful. Just remember it is a jumping off point/crutch, once I get somewhere I almost never used it).

-www.tripadvisor.com some of the people who write on here are not to be trusted, but you can get some really good ideas, referrals, testimony of other people’s experiences.

-www.hostelworld.com duh.

-www.workaway.info I’ll bring this up again in a later post, but if you are at all interested in volunteering during your trip, this is a great place to start.

Skiing in Korea

How to even begin my first post in 3 months?

There are lots of reasons I haven’t posted. I’m lazy, I’ve been spending all my free time practicing yoga, I’ve got a routine now and a life and it doesn’t include writing (unfortunately…) but primarily the reason I stopped posting was that life here became, for lack of a better word, normal. Things, while still exciting and challenging, are less overwhelming, and less new.

That being said, it is winter now. My first winter in 5 years. The initial adjustment was difficult, dare I say bordering on traumatizing. But thankfully my 18 years in New England came through for me and I adjusted and am fine now. Buying some thermal leggings and knock-off ugg boots helped as well. But god damn it was awful at first. Los Angeles, I hope you realized how very blessed you are.

Aside from trauma and freezing cold feet, winter does have its benefits. Primarily: SKI SEASON!!

Yes there is tons of skiing in Korea. Like, tons and tons of it. This whole peninsula is covered in mountains so it makes sense that they’d cut some trails into a few of them. I’ve been skiing 2 times so far, in fact the last 2 weekends!

The first weekend I went to a smaller resort in western Korea. For those who do not know, let me take this time to illuminate for you the geography of Korea.

Map of Korea with Taebaek Mountains in Red (wikipedia)

In its western half  Korea is more “flat” which by Korean standards means peppered with small mountains. Then as you drive east the mountains get bigger and bigger and you enter the Taebaek Mountain Range. In there the towns are smaller, you finally lose sight of the army of huge apartment buildings that cover this country, and the landscape becomes breathtakingly beautiful.

So the first weekend I went skiing in the west. The resort was tiny, 6 trails and about as many lifts. Only one real expert slope, and to be honest it was an east coast (of the US) blue square. Still, I had a BLAST and in 3 hours of skiing I got in so many runs and was exhausted the next day.

View from the Top of the smaller Resort (Western Korea)

By the way, skiing in Korea is ridiculously easy. Many resorts have free shuttles to and from Seoul, you can rent all your kit for less than $30, and you can rent pants, a jacket, and goggles if you need. It’s really absurdly easy. And Korea is so crowded and overpopulated that they are GREAT at dealing with crowds. Even at a small resort there are almost more lifts than trails, so you never really have to wait in a long lift line. And you can buy lift tickets for just 3 hours, instead of purchasing a whole day and wasting half of it in the lodge!

So then this past weekend, I made a longer trip out to a resort in the Taebaek Mountains in the East called High1 Resort. I stayed in a hotel nearby that was really nice. Check out the view from my 11^th floor window!

I was lucky enough to have a friend at work take my only Monday class, so I stole a 3-day weekend for myself. I traveled on Sunday, and skied in Monday, so there was almost no one at the resort!

Me rocking rented jacket and goggles

The lodge of the resort was located in between 2 mountains, and there were lifts going up both and trails coming down on either side of this valley. On the one side were some advanced and intermediate trails, and that lift was slightly crowded. But on the opposite side there was a lift that only accessed 3 expert trails. They weren’t very long but they were super steep, wicked fun, and there was nobody on the lift! I almost had the trails to myself!

View of the other mountain, from the top of the expert zone

I spent the entire day on those 3 trails, only going on the other side once, decided it was boring, and went back to my private expert only zone. It was amazing!

Like a Boss. Have I bragged enough?

I’m looking forward to getting as much skiing in as possible during the rest of this winter. There are organized trips every weekend and they are relatively cheap. I really want to be sure to check out the resort that will be hosting the 2018 Winter Olympics.

Alright so there is a recap of my skiing experiences. I have one more story to relate. High 1 Resort is also the location of Kangwon Land: the one and only Casino in Korea that lets in Korean Nationals.

That’s right.

There are casinos all over Korea, but they only allow in foreigners like me.

Except at Kangwonland. So of course I had to check it out.

First shocking fact: no alcohol. So in Korea, you can drink to excess, and you can gamble, but you cannot drink to excess and gamble at the same time. I even had to blow into a breathalizer before they let me in!

Once inside, no pictures allowed. So unfortunately I have no pictures for this part of the post.

The atmosphere inside was kind of dark and tense. Picture hundreds of Koreans all packed around tables looking really intense and losing all their money. If you know Koreans at all, you know that they are really tight with their money. It makes sense when you think about it; the nation only became wealthy recently. This is a people who are used to poverty and hard times. So they all seemed angry or at least upset, but at the same time… they weren’t cashing out.

Then on top of that, I was the only foreigner in the place. I was traveling with a Korean. My daily life includes people staring at me everywhere I go. It has become normal now and I don’t really notice it anymore. But being in this Casino was like my first week in Korea all over again. Every time I turned my head I made eye contact with a curious and possibly hostile Korean.

But the upside of this strange experience was that I gambled for the first time in my life. I played a slot machine and won the equivalent of $5. So ha ha, Korea, I win.

A picture of me in an indoor garden. Because why not?

I hope this satisfied a small portion of your curiosity about my life. I miss all my friends in America, but life here is great. I’m happy, adjusted, and rapidly approaching the 6-month mark of my time here.

Till next time (which hopefully will be in less than 3 months)

Megan xx