Come stalk us! Social media update time!

Our Spot device

We have come to realize that the easiest way to update our feeds is actually through Twitter. We have tried to avoid it like the plague, but since it ties in all our social medias together, we might as well use it. And we'll use the crap out of it!

So to announce our Twitter feed, we have also created a new page for you guys! Check out our new page on our blog "Stalk us!"; but please don't be creepy about it - haha.

If your'e ever missing us and wondering how we're doing and where we are, check this page.

Stalk us page!

We included a "how to" section to put your own Twitter feeds and Spot updates into your own blog. (We're so cool!)

Also, ontop of the Stalk Us page, we've put in a map that tracks our location using Spot. A GPS device that allows you to follow where we are in the world. However, if you see a "No message to display" message, it means we haven't updated it in more than 7 days - which at the time of writing we haven't updated.

We're doing this because everytime we come home people always ask "How was your trip? What did you do?!" Not that we hate to tell you, but we just experiece so much it's difficult to share everything in one sitting. This way you have a general idea of what we did and you can interrogate us about that! =)

And P.S - this video is hilarious.



HOW TO PUT TWITTER FEED IN YOUR BLOG
This next part is for those who also want to know how to put Twitter in your blogs. Putting the feed needs a widget.

Seasons Greetings!

Now that we survived the end of the world in our own little ways, it's time to for us to wish you all a very merry happy holiday! Wheeee!! Snowball fights in Canada and braais in South Africa, enjoy the snow and enjoy the sun wherever you are in the world!

Much love from Christa and Ian

A week in North Korea in 9 minutes

In front of Kim Il Sung's statue

As it were, fittingly enough, I post this on South Korea's presidential election day; to announce a new video. Explorations sneak peak into one of the world's most secretive countries, North Korea. Aka, D.P.R.K. (Democratic People's Republic of Korea)

Yes, you are allowed to go in. Yes, you are told where to take pictures. Yes, they confiscate your camera in certain places. Yes, you can laugh and jeer at the tourists on the South Korean border at the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone).

Click this link if you just want to see the video and  Picture gallery. Otherwise you can see it at the bottom of the blog.

This is Ian's North Korea story... condensed and highlighted:

The summer in 2010 was retardedly hot in Seoul. Or so I thought, 2012 beat the crap out of 2010. I decided to hit up somewhere northern and cooler. The original plan was to head to Mongolia, but given a week, there were too many things to do. Last minute switch of airplane tickets from Ulaanbutar to Beijing. My second visit to Beijing that year. And this time, I didn't miss the flight.

To get to North Korea, I had to fly into Beijing, then take an 18 hour train ride (which I didn't know at the time). We arrived at the North Korean border at Dan Dong (no joke) and had to take a train across the river and into North Korea. This bridge is the opening shot in Explorations original introduction video. Once across the border, armed guards boarded the train. The Chinese tour group went ahead leaving the white people and the token Asian guy behind on the train.

Rock climbing in Korea: Where we climb

Climbing in Insubong

Climbing in Korea has become such an extensive part of our lives here in Seoul. If you followed us, you know we continuously post these pictures up with us on this mountain. We have a few rambling videos on climbing on "Insubong"; here and here. We have several albums of pictures dedicated to climbing in Korea on our Facebook pages. We even have an album of climbing pictures here. We think it's about time for us to release some more information of what we're doing here, climbing-wise.

The information isn't by any means secret. But if you're wondering what we're climbing or if you're reading this blog sniffing out climbing routes in Korea, keep reading! This could be a great round the world idea for you to start your outdoor travel adventures!

WHAT IS THERE TO CLIMB?

Climbing Insu-bong in winter via Go Deok Gil

There are a lot of climbing gyms in Korea, but most of them are bouldering gyms. We're not really gym rats... Korea is a very mountainous country. Dont' know where to go in Seoul? "Bukhansan", on the northern edge of the city, a city which few would think of as an "adventure getaway". Rock climbing in Seoul is actually very accesible. The city literally wraps around this mountain which is in a national park called "Bukhansan National Park". This is a very popular park for Seoulites. The peak in the mountain we climb is called "Insubong" which is across from the main peak called "Baegundae". From the summit of Insu, when you look across, it looks like an ant hill. Easy access (but complicated to get there) and a plethora of different routes attracts a lot of climbers to Insubong.

Everest trek with peak climb

A view of Lobuche peak

As time is drawing faster to an end to our chapter in South Korea, our plans are starting to come to a more solid fruition. Explorations leaves South Korea in February 2013 and as some of you know, our first stop is India. We'll spend 2 months stomping around India. Starting from Chennai we head down and around the cape. Then we head up into the desert, through central India and east toward Nepal where we'll possibly walk across into Nepal. At which point, it'll be some epic outdoor travelling adventure!

This Nepal trip is decked out to the max. We'll be doing a himalayan tour with a trek up to EBC (Everest Base Camp) and then a push to an altitude of 6,100 meters. To give you an idea, EBC is approximately 5,700 meters and planes fly at approximately 9,100 meters. The peak we're climbing is clocked at 6,100 meters. We'll be heading up to the Eastern Summit, via the Southern Ridge.

It's snowing! Videos!

Ian shredding some dirty pow in Niseko, Japan

It took a long time, but finally the back breaking work is done! Well more of finger breaking, eye straining, computer crashing and a lot of frustration later we have our newest travel video out! As Christmas is just around the corner and we've been gone for so long, some of you might forget who we are! This is just in time for the holiday spirit! Reminding you we're still around.

We have a few updates which are all video related! Keep reading!

We started a library of our vidoes of great places to travel! Mainly because we went there and thought it was pretty damn cool. You might find some interesting tourist destinations around the world that you might not have considered checking out, or see some interesting mash of cultures you wouldn't expect!

This library of video can be found in two places. First our YouTube site (dur) and second our video page on our blog! Our video page is now updated! Go check it out! The only difference on YouTube; you get to see a thumbnail of the video you're going to watch.

Mak's noodle

Noodle house!

Another food place worthy of commenting! We'd have to say, there really isn't a whole lot of authentic Chinese cuisines when it comes to being in Korea. This is really surprising, considering how close we are to China. Infact, North Korea is connected to China! The peninsula is only seperated by the Yellow Sea.

Regardless, we finally found a Chinese restaurant, kind of, worthy to say "GO AND EAT SOOOOME!"

This Chinese restaurant isn't your typical Chinese restaraunt, and it isn't serving Korean-ized Chinese food either! If you lived in Hong Kong or Guangzhou (Canton), you would have this stuff for breakfast/lunch/snack. It's fast, easy and incredibly delicious! This is something Ian ate almost everyday for breakfast when him and his brother went to China. And because it`s kind of a "fast food", it's not your typical restaurant.

What this is called, wonton soup. It's a soup served with egg noodles and these dumplings called wonton, a Cantonese word. But that`s not all they have. They have a few more selections of different dumplings, and braised beef in wonton soup. This is, afterall, a "wonton dim" (roughly translated would be: "wonton house"). You can order large or small portions, 8,500 and 5,500 Korean won, respectively for your straight up wonton noodle soup. That's about 8 or 5 USD. If you order the large portion, it could be a meal. The smaller portions are tie-overs to your next meal.

Little India Seoul

Shalla and his restaurant

You like Indian food? You'll love this place! Any party goers to Hongdae on a Friday and Saturday night will definetely recognize the first and lovable kebab stand guy. His name? Shalla. The friendliest lovable guy who works long hours and never seems to be angry (must be the kebabs - which are made with love!)

A little less known fact about him, he owns an Indian restaurant just off Itaewon Street near the Seoul Masjid (directions below). If  Halal Muslim Indian food is your thing, look no further! Not only are his kebabs astounding when you stumble out of the club at 5am, but his restaurant is even better.

Explorations went ahead and visited him at his restaurant, and then several more times later! We pretty much order the same dish, mainly because it's A LOT of food for a modest price. The one set we usually order comes with 2 different curries, loaded with naan bread, rice, samosa and tandoori chicken.

Western China dim sum

Dim Sum!

Considering Korea is so close to China, you'd expect it to have some amazing Chinese food. This is entirely not the case.

Since Ian arrived, he's been scouring the corners of Seoul to find a decent Chinese restaurant that serves dim sum. The most recent expedition brought Explorations to a place called Western China restaurant. It prided itself with dim sum and that's what sold us to try it out, finally.

We ordered a chicken dish that seemed Asiatic in flavour, a noodle dish, and four dim sum dishes.We should also note, this was dim sum a-la-carte; and we don't mean the usual push around carts that defined Ian's childhood of dim sum meal times.You had to order it from the menu.

We'll skip the other dishes as dim sum was the heart of the course for tonight. The dim sum dishes we had were Har Gaow, Siu Mao, Siu Long Bao, and Law Mai Fahn. Hovering at around 5,000 Korean won a piece or approximately 4.50(USD). Your usual dishes came with 3 pieces. Usually it's 4 pieces an order elsewhere.

Explorations is blogging?!

Moustache party!

We have a Facebook page but why the blog?

Well, first off Facebook is primarily our friends and family who, well, can use Facebook, in the sense that they have an account and look at it actively. But some of our older generation companions aren't exactly the most adept in social media. We would like to share our experiences through a more familiar medium, just plain ol' good ol' straight forward reading off a website and seeing a few pictures.

Of course we won't neglect the Facebook page, we'll be combining the powers of the internet to, hopefully, share to everyone.

Secondly, we don't really write on our Facebook page, mainly because it's not the best medium. So we figure it would be easier on this blog!

Third, we're no longer restricted by the confines of the social media that has now consumed our daily lives. It was pretty restrictive, lots of things had to be done through an actual computer before we can post things up. We're test running different ways to publish our adventures through soley our smartphones, for when we start moving around for real in India, Nepal and Africa, we might not have the luxury of a full on computer most times to update you guys.

When North and South meets in the East - Finally the plan revealed!

Here we go folks! To our friends and family, here is a brief summary of who we are (for those in South Africa and Canada who don't know us yet!). And finally, what we're doing! This is incredibly exciting for us to tell you!

Who we are

When Christa, the South African, from Kwazulu-Natal stepped off the plane into Korea for her second round in Korea and when Ian, the Canadian, from Ontario signed for his 2nd year teaching in Korea, they didn't know what the future had planned for them.

Deep intertwined with an almagamation of South African and Canadian Chinese culture, the two are pounding out and exploring each other's cultures in a completely different country; Korea. Adventure travellers at heart, they start with their host country, climbing some epic peaks!

Collectively, they have visited some of the most off-beaten track places shared experiences across numerous countries. The list includes downhill biking descents in Switzerland, biking 2,000 kilometers in Canada, sailing down the Atlantic coast of America, visiting North Korea, ascending peaks in South Korea, trekking up volcanic mountains in Indonesia, climbing in Vietnam, scuba diving in Indonesia, snorkelling with whale sharks in Phillipines, and skiing in the most Northern Japanese island... just to name a few adventures!

The plan!!

With their smiliar mindset and personality, the dynamic duo plans a 6 month long journey deep into India and Nepal and more! A rough itenerary includes:

• Exploring and volunteering in India
• Trekking and climbing the Himalayas
• Mountaineering expedition, a peak marked at 6,110 meters, higher than that of Everest Base Camp
• Ian exploring Christa's home in South Africa
• Safari expeditions
• Finally landing in the Middle East to continue the world's exploration

With this set out, they will document their trials and tribulations, review places and equipment, and of all - share their life changing experiences so we can all see more of our playground that is the world. Stay tuned!

Love you all!

Christa and Ian