around the world in katie days

      

                    

      

When I first moved to South Korea, I had no idea what to eat. Food being something I’m intensely passionate about, it was a horrifying discovery. I would wander the streets, peering into restaurant windows, trying to figure out what on earth I could eat without giving away the fact that I knew nothing at all about Korean food. Many restaurants didn’t offer English translations on their menus (understandably so), and although I tried finding restaurants that had pictures, the food remained aloof and mysterious.

After a couple hungry days where I was eating nothing but dumplings (mandu) from a street vendor, I eventually went into a restaurant, pleaded ignorance as best I could (using hand gestures, mostly, as my Korean was nonexistent at this point), and a kindly old woman took pity on me and served me a delicious soup called yookgaejang (you-kay-jong). A friend of mine described it as tasting similar to Campbell’s vegetable beef, which is true, but yookgaejang is spicier and much more delicious (I’m sorry, Campbell’s, your vegetable with alphabet letters is still my favorite). Yookgaejang is usually served in a stone bowl, which keeps the soup boiling ferociously up to 10 minutes into your meal. The soup also comes with a bowl of plain white rice on the side, to cut the spiciness a bit. Some Korean people dump the whole bowl of rice into their soup, turning it into a sort of stew.

Described by Korean people as extremely healthy (and good for dieting), yookgaejang is fairly easy to prepare, keeps well, and it’s just mouth-wateringly delicious. It’s spicy, though! The first time I ate it, I broke into a full face sweat. Who knew soup could make you sweat from your eyeballs? Keep a tissue handy.

Yookgaejang

1 ½ lb flank steak
½ lb bean sprouts
8 cups beef broth
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons minced garlic
1 ½ teaspoons red pepper flakes
2 teaspoons salt
2 scallions, chopped into 1 inch pieces

1. Cook the steak in the beef broth for 2 hours on low heat. Skim the fat out as you go. The broth should simmer until it’s been reduced to half. Remove the beef from the broth and wait for it to cool down, and then shred. Save the broth.
2. In a small pan, combine garlic, sesame oil, and red pepper flakes. Cook for 2-3 minutes over low heat.
3. Soak the beef in the sauce for 5 minutes.
4. Mix the leftover beef broth with the beef, sprouts, salt, and scallions, and bring to a boil. Serve hot.

Optional: most Korean restaurants serve yookgaejang with eggs. If you like, add two eggs in step 4, when the soup is boiling.

                    

      

Oh, the joys of flying. Small chairs, cramped legs, tiny bags of peanuts (if you’re lucky, these days) and awkward conversation with the person trapped next to you. Then there’s being stuck in the middle or window seat, where you must tap the person next to you on the shoulder then squeeze past them, jamming your buns in their face every time you need to use the bathroom. And I don’t know about anyone else, but I personally love sitting next to that one person who ate too many beans before the flight.

These things, coupled with an acute fear of flying, make me a nervous wreck anytime I board an airplane. Luckily, there are several things I do to reduce stress and calm my nerves, so I don’t go shrieking down the cabin aisle in panic and end up back in my seat in chair restraints.*

1. Drink water instead of coffee, soda or alcohol. Alcohol will dehydrate you and make you feel worse (although there’s something to be said for drinking enough to knock you out so you’ll wake up just as your plane is taxiing the runway). Caffeine will usually make you jittery and more apt to lose your gourd if the plane hits turbulence.
2. Bring something to keep your mind off flying. A good book, an electronic video game, an mp3 player. Try to avoid listening to songs about death and mayhem, if at all possible. If you choose to read, stick to something light, like a book you’d take to the beach, and not Chesley Sullenberger’s upcoming life story.
3. Take a stroll. If your body cramps up after awhile, you’ll be even more miserable. Even if you don’t have to go, walk to the bathroom just to stretch your legs and do some people-watching.
4. Wear comfortable clothes. If your waistband isn’t digging into your skin, you’ll feel a whole lot better. If you must emerge from the gate looking fresh and gorgeous, tuck a spare change of clothes into your carry-on and change in the bathroom before the plane’s final descent. Though be careful – one time my plane hit a spot of turbulence while I was changing my clothing in the bathroom, and I ended up looking like I’d peed my pants.
5. Choose your seat wisely. Seats in the middle of the airplane are affected by turbulence the least. Statistically, seats at the rear of the plane are safest in the event of a crash, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board. Exit aisle seats are also roomier, as long as you’re prepared to help out in an emergency.

Nerves or not, flying is arguably the best way to get around if you’re traveling long distances. Either make peace with it, and try to learn to sit back and enjoy, or be a miserable wreck on every flight. So far, I’m stuck with the latter, but trying hard to change. Instead of being nervous, try to instead focus on how incredible human flight is, like Comedian Louis CK, best summed up by his dumbstruck exclamation on the Conan O’Brien show: “You’re sitting in a chair … in the SKY!”

*As far as I am aware, air flight attendants do not physically restrain passengers just for being scared of flying. I took a bit of poetic license.

                    

      

                    

      

I was staying with my friend Donna at the Popular Guesthouse in Siem Reap, Cambodia, for $5 per night (for more information, contact the guesthouse at chom@camnet.com.kh or see the link below). The room was spacious, with enough room for me to empty the contents of my entire backpack on the floor and shovel through them at will. We’d arrived just that morning, and due to exhaustion from an extremely long night (we’d spent the previous night in the tiny library of a hostel in Vientiane, Laos, so we could catch our 4:30am flight), the two of us promptly collapsed in bed and ‘napped’ for a good seven hours. In the interest of saving money, we’d been getting rooms with just one bed and sharing it. Fortunately, neither of us snored and even I, a restless bed hog, was able to share nicely.

When we woke up, we changed into our evening wear, which I’m sorry to say wouldn’t allow us entrance in anything swankier than a dive, and headed out to forage for food. It was pouring rain, so we decided to venture no further than our own hotel. One of the reasons the Popular Guesthouse is so, well, popular, is their rooftop restaurant. The food is tasty and cheap, there are usually other backpackers lounging about so it’s easy to make friends, and the waiters there are fast and friendly. Donna fell in love with the pumpkin soup, which smelled amazing. I had the feeling it was the start of a long and delicious relationship. After dinner, we intrepid adventurers set out to explore.

It was a beautiful night, and we waved and exchanged a few pleasantries with several local people as we made the short trek into town. It was bustling, especially the main streets. People were out and about, anxious to get some fresh (albeit thick and muggy) air. After prowling the streets under the guise of people watching, Donna and I stopped at Temple Bar, one of the bars along ‘Bar Street’. Temple Bar has a club downstairs and a large balcony area upstairs with a great view of the rest of Bar Street. Their menu features Khmer, Western and Thai food, and they offer cocktails and cheap beer. Informed that it was happy hour with buy two, get one free specials (apparently happy hour turns into hours at this fun place, and is from 4-9pm), we decided on a bucket of mojitos, which might be one of the most delicious drinks ever invented. Several hours later, after a lazy night of drinks and chitchat, we retired to our guesthouse to prepare for the next day.

                   Labels:                        Cambodia backpack traveling,                        camboia katie bradford Siem Reap                                

      

Hello, Cambodia! As the fourth stop on our several month backpacking excursion, my best friend Donna and I were stoked to finally be in Cambodia, home to Angkor Wat and Angelina Jolie’s adopted son, Maddox. We’d flown in from Vientiane, Laos, and arrived at about 8:45am. The Siem reap airport is simply gorgeous; it’s very small, just a simple, open building with lush, fragrant gardens surrounding it and a teeny courtyard filled with flowers in the center. Having already obtained our visas while in Bangkok, we bypassed the arrivals line and went straight to passport control. We scooped our bags from the single revolving baggage carousel (surprisingly, no luggage had yet been lost) and went to negotiate transportation into town.

We snagged a taxi for $5, sharing the fee with two girls from an indeterminate European country we’d met in line at the taxi stand. Our little foursome was friendly at first, but once inside the taxi, the girls lapsed into their native language and Donna and I were forced to converse with each other in plain old English. The first hostel our driver took us too was a tad expensive (a notion very subjective at this time), so we decided to push on to the next. Armed with our trusty Lonely Planet (Southeast Asia on a shoestring), we arrived at the Popular Guesthouse, near Pokambor Avenue.

Using my superior bargaining skills, I haggled the hotel 'maître'd’ down from $6 a night to $5, meaning Donna and I each paid $2.50 per night. What bargaining prowess! The room was actually quite luxurious, much more so than Donnie and I were expecting. We could have snagged a dorm room for $2, but we figured a private room was well worth the extra 50 cents. And when I say luxurious, keep in mind we'd been staying in places that didn't have flush toilets, so the sight of indoor plumbing was enough to make us flush with success and high five each other in delight. We’d made it!

                    

      

I was standing on a cliff side, overlooking a valley whose unfathomable depths were broken only by a single bridge suspended across it. That bridge is the Bloukrans Bridge, located along the Garden Route in Storm’s River, South Africa, and home to the world’s highest single span arch bridge and highest bungee jump – a 216m free fall drop.

In addition to the bungee jump, Face Adrenalin (the company in charge of the whole shebang) also offers a “Flying Fox”, a 200m cable slide that propels you through the air like a trapeze artist to the underside of the bridge, where you can then, if you choose, hurl yourself off the bridge for an additional thrill (bungee, not death). They also offer a Bridge walk as an alternative to actually jumping; while remaining safely on solid ground, you can enjoy a ‘live bungee’ show. An informative guide will give you incredible facts about the bridge itself, as well as directing your view towards a spectacular view of the mountains and ocean.

So, there I was. Instead of paying money for what I believed would be a spectacular demise (death by bungee), I’d have much rather been nice and cozy on the Bridge walk. Well, that’s a complete lie; I’d rather have been safe in the car. Unfortunately, my friend Donna is a crazed fiend (I believe the politically correct term is adrenaline junkie) and she’d already convinced the third member of our little group, a brave Canadian named Andrea, that should we not jump, we would return to our home countries in a state of disgrace, our shame written all over our faces. Despite the horror of being labeled a complete wuss, I was not convinced. I am horribly afraid of heights, and the thought of setting one toe on the bridge was more than I could bear.

Yet, somehow, I was shamed into flinging myself off the side attached only to a long rubber band, plunging towards a certain death, for the bargain deal of R620 (about $74US). Even whilst signing a release form, paying for and receiving a receipt for my jump, I’d been loudly protesting. Unfortunately, I was already strapped into a yellow full-body harness, and couldn’t quite remember how it had happened.

We were herded onto the specially designed catwalk which hung below the bridge, leading to a concrete platform where loud dance music pulsed and would-be jumpers huddled in small bunches. To properly document the event, staff members were hopping around taking photos which could be purchased after jumping, if your bungee didn’t snap and send you hurtling to the river below.

Deadly pale and quivering, I was led to the edge of the bridge and secured to the bright yellow bungee cord. Two men, one on either side, hopped me to the edge. My breakfast was doing the conga in my stomach. Firmly placing their hands on my back, so I would know they were there to push me off if I hesitated, the two staff members led me in the chant that would be the last thing I ever heard … 1 … 2….3… BUNGEE!

                   Labels:                        Bungee Jumping south africa bloukrans Bridge katie bradford Garden Route in Storm’s River highest bungee jump