Arseniev Museum of Primosrskii Krai

Another place I had been really wanting to go to go is the regional museum, or rather Arseniev Museum of Primorskiy Region. It was founded in 1884 to study the region and holds a prominent  place in the city center in a gorgeous building. It traces the regions history from "ancient" history until the modern era. I wish we had some more time to explore, but we had a great guide take us through the place.


As some of you may know, my lung partially collapsed last year. It had been acting up the past couple of days and in consultation with my doctor we determined the cause to be....bitterly cold temperatures.


No seriously. The doctor said that they have heard of people who are recovering from the collapsed lung who have problems with the cold. It is just too cold to be comfortable. So with one of those hand warmers that you get for winter that self warms tucked next to my lung, I set off with the rest of the foreign students to go exploring!

The first part of the museum was olden times- complete with the Chinese (?) statues that had a hidden compartment complete with Museum Cat. This is apparently a thing in Russia. A lot of museums have cats, and I finally decided to ask "WHY?!?!!"

Well there is a superstition that it is lucky if you buy a new home/remodel that there should be a cat in their first. There were actual ads for Realtors that would "put a cat in there before you go in." And something I didn't quite understand about there being a cat in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg.

Of course I had to hold the cat!

Then we moved into the Olden Days portion- you can see the beautiful hand crafted detailed clothes and rugs that they used.

There were tons of cool things that had been utilized in the region for farming or travel. They even had some Soviet era things that were pretty cool. I kinda dug the clothing exhibit- showed lots of the different time periods of clothing.

They even had a "hot water bottle."

Afterwards, a few of the Russian girls that had come along and I went to the pinnacle of Russian cuisine- Cinnabon (yes that was sarcasm.) Which was the first time that I had actually been there. It was interesting and yummy.

Vegan in Dublin!

A quick warning about restaurants in Ireland.  They will try to charge you Dollars instead of Euros. Unless you have a ridiculously high transaction fee, do NOT do this.  They are price gouging you and making extra money.  They are supposed to ask you, but they often don't/.

The Bakehouse

I had breakfast here after the red eye from Newark.  It was good. I went all Basic and got the avocado toast. It is easy to get to downtown and within walking distance of most bus stops.  They had other breakfast options as well when we went there.

Apertivo
This was a walking down the street find. We were hungry after walking for so long after the tour.  I got a Vegan VLT and my friend got a vegan pizza.  We both thought they were delish! Mine was totally messy to eat, but so worth it. It was tasty and toasty and just what I expected.  It was a great snack/lunch item.  Not too much food, but good.

Noble House Chinese
This wasn't on the food tour, but it was next to my hotel in Dublin. I had the tofu and veggie sweet and sour here. There were WAY too many peppers and onions and not enough other mixed vegetables for my taste, but the sweet and sour sauce was right up my alley. My friend said they had the best pad thai he has ever had, it was so good, he went back three or four times to the same place while we were there.

The Rolling Doughnut
These were yummy, if you like doughnuts! They have vegan and non-vegan options.  I got the little three box that all the Irish liked to carry around. Two stuffed doughnuts (blueberry and raspberry) and vanilla glaze.

Food Tour
On one Saturday, I took a Vegan In Ireland Food Tour, and man did they show me to some great places! We visited 6 stops, but 2 were clothing related.

Cornicopia
We started here and had curry and goulash as a main bowl and potato salad and a cucumber/brocolini/pumpkin seed salad. I still dream about the potato salad.  I'm actually going to buy their cookbook Cornicopia at Home because their food was so good.  After the food tour, I went back twice more (insert blushing emoji here). That's how good it is, and also a take on how often they are open compared to others, especially on the weekends.

Blazing Salads
We stopped here for an egg roll and man I wish I had time to go back.  The food is not all vegan, but it is mostly vegetarian. A great place to grab a quick lunch or food to go.






Difontaine
This place had the best pizza I have ever had outside of the U.S. Seriously. It tasted just like a U.S. based pizza- fresh from NYC. It was super salty, but super tasty! I actually went back another time.


Thunder Road Cafe
According to their website, they actually have tons of vegan options here!  We went to try the English version of Beyond Burger. If you like Beyond, then you will like this.  These types of burgers will taste like meat if you are someone who doesn't like the taste of meat.






Brother Hubbard
All the Irish people loved this stop. But I just wouldn't go back. They were a weird fusion place. When I want falafels, I want them to taste like falafels, and these didn't. They had a smoky eggplant that tasted like pure smoke.

Vegan In Ireland

In August 2019, I got the chance to go to Ireland.  And surprisingly, it is extremely easy to be vegan in Ireland. Except for breakfast. All allergens (at least the 14 most common) have to be legally available in a list, if not on the menu exactly. So that means that eggs and milk have to be listed as an ingredient.  

Breakfast is difficult- the full Irish breakfast is meat meat more meat and eggs.  They will also have mushrooms and tomatoes.  Hotels will probably have oatmeal (there was a really yummy golden syrup oatmeal at my hotel).  Below is an overview of the delicious vegan meals I had outside of Dublin. Dublin meals in a different post.  

I do not subscribe to the vegan alcohol aspect, so I do not know if all of the delicious cider I drank was vegan or not, but it was so fresh and tasty. 

Howth

We went to the Abby Tavern. It has a good mixture of vegan, vegetarian, meat eater, and all sorts of allergy menus. I had the Stovetop Flatbread (Cherry Tomato Passata, Roast Cauliflower, Chickpea Croutons, and Sweet Potato Fries).  And the best part is that it was edible. I personally didn't like it, but it just wasn't to my taste. The chickpea croutons were just dried chickpeas. I also had the  Frozen Berries (Warm Vegan White Chocolate Sauce, Raspberry Sorbet, Pecan Vegan Praline).  Now the sorbet was delicious! The frozen berries were just that- frozen berries. Odd, but still good. I still recommend this as an option because a place with decent menu options for all is hard to come by. 

Malahide

Now this restaurant, was so tasty.  It was also 30 euros for my meal. We ate at Siam Thai restaurant.  I had the Yellow Curry (without the fish sauce): A mild and creamy yellow curry with coconut milk, onion, potatoes, pineapple and topped with fried onion, it’s very easy to eat, and is the mildest of the curries.  I have never had tomatoes and pineapple in my yellow curry. But dang...it was so yummy! Afterwards, we walked to The Fish Shack and got ice cream and sorbet.  So yummy!  If you like Thai food or sorbet, these are a great place to go!

Athalone

We stopped at the Michelin recommended restaurant called Thyme.  They don't upload their most recent menus, but the website and reviews said that they had a vegan option.  So when we got there and they handed me the menu. I asked for their vegan options/allergen menu.  The server looked at me that I was CRAZY. She said they don't have a vegan menu, but they might be able to make something for me, so she would as the chef. The chef said they could, so I had whatever he wanted to serve! I also finally took pictures of the food. 

The three course menu was as follows:

Appetizer: salad with house pickled vegetables. Actually pretty yummy, even though I:m not a big pickle fan. 

Main: Some sort of gnocchi and vegetable dish.  The surprise- it was cold! The little beet red things around the side were so tasty!

Dessert: 3 types of sorbet- peach, rhubarb, and raspberry?

Shannon Airport

Two words for you here: good luck!  You need to investigate the food closely. There was a pasta salad that had ham hidden in it. There was a spicy salad option. 

Dublin Airport

Go to Marquette in Terminal 1.  They have a hot vegan main option every day and numerous salads that are vegan as well.  In Terminal 2, there is a breakfast option that has avocado toast (that you can get without the egg). 

Dublin Hilton Airport Hotel

This is where I stayed (they were great while I was there, but they never sent me a receipt).  Their breakfast did have the Full Irish Breakfast.  They did have oatmeal as an option.  They had a dinner with a superfood salad that was so utterly bland that I can't recommend you getting it unless you just need food that is somewhat healthy and don't care about taste. 

December in Vladivostok

Well, I will start this out with the observation that the entire month of December (Dec 1-21) was spent below zero C AKA below freezing.

That is a bus window that is totally frozen over with ice...

In other words, FREEZING COLD!

This is a underground walkway with snow piled in it.

I got to learn new words such as "метель" or blizzard. I also got to experience cancelled classes in Russia. I would recommend that they invest in the text notification system that U.S. universities have, because otherwise, there is not a lot of ways of notifying people- students and professors just have to check the school's website.Which is interesting and informative- if you know to check.


Russians also had something I hadn't seen people do before (given I hadn't lived where there was snow before)- they used dump trucks to scoop up the snow and take it somewhere else. {I looked into this and they totally do this in places like Boston where they get tons of snow. And it causes a lot of environmental problems because the salt and stuff gets melted into the rivers and poisons things.}



Also, after one of the blizzards- I decided to go exploring and take some beautiful pictures in the snow. But I underestimated to cold and the lack of waterproofing on my shoes. But- I got wonderful pictures. The snow was piled up into the the underground walkways, along all the building and there was almost no one out there. Except a few hardy souls who were trying to hook their Siberian Husky dogs up to mush them. The dogs were the only happy things I saw out at all. No one else was happy, but these dogs were literally jumping in circles and happy barking. it made me smile.

Also in December- I went to a local art gallery. It was off the beaten path, but I had passed it when I was going to tutor the little girls. All the art was done by local artists- they even had an exhibit of student art.

the balloons had Russian poems on them,.

One day before I left, I went out to eat at the restaurant that the family I was tutoring owned. It was Korean food (well a mixture of Korean and Russian), but the older girl recommended some things to me and it was yummy!

I also went and explored the frozen salt water. Yup, it gets so cold that the salt water freezes over. Very cool and very cold looking. There were young Russians out playing in the snow and a guy out ice fishing.

Proof! Also, note how high the snow is on my jeans- I had to step through all that!

One other interesting thing-the sanctions were causing some problems while inciting nationalism in the people. It is an interesting time to be in Russia. All the people were nice and friendly. Most were amazed to meet an American. The few times I was able to discuss politics and they didn't necessarily like the government but they were super interested to meet an American. One of my regrets was that I didn't carry my camera around to start a photo-essay of "The American Flag in Russia." Everywhere I turned there were younger Russians wearing the American flag on a swim suit, t-shirt, jacket, vest, shoes, bags, etc. I would have loved to capture these with an explanation of why it was so prominent.  On the other hand there was this:

Basically translated as "Our prices remain the same."IT is in reference to the fact that as the Rouble was falling, everything was getting more expensive because it cost more to import, but at these stores- they didn't let the silly dollar matter! And it was posted all along stores in the central mall.


Christmas Time
Although Christmas isn't really celebrated in Russia- News Years is-Elena hosted a Christmas dinner for Adela & me. We had this delicious spread:

And the cool "firecrakers" that pop out streamers.

I really enjoy my time with these two ladies and will miss them when I leave. 

Military Museums

I'm a big museum person.

Like I need to go to museums when I travel.

I think this is because of my history minor/fascination.

But, I wasn't getting my museum fix here in Vlad, so I decided to rectify that.

November 8, 2014
First up, I went to the Battlements Fortress Museum on the seashore.

I had my handy dandy Lonely Planet guide with directions to help me get there.

It was as good as ever. In other words, don't ever listen to them ever. They stink. They have no idea how to give directions or make a map. They are never right.

I spent a good 30-40 minutes wandering around trying to figure out how to get in. I eventually asked a Russian who was working at a sports complex how to get in. (She also gave me bad directions, but I can see that there used to be an entrance there, so I can't REALLY fault her).

Then I decided to just try to get there the way I would have if I didn't look at Lonely Planet....guess what? It worked. Kind of annoying.

It was 200 RUB to get in for adults, but children under 5 are free (like most places here).

IT WAS TOTALLY INTERESTING...if you like history. And don't mind freezing cold wind.

There is a small museum under the fortress, which was cool to see, and in English for my non-Russian speaking readers.

I mean I guess you COULD have more knives. 

This is a must go if you like military history or have children.

November 17, 2014

Then it was the mystery war museum that no one knew what I was talking about when I asked them about it.

Turned out to be an FSB/border guard museum. You can't take any pictures, so you just get to see the door.

But it was FREE!

And it had a kitten wandering around. Which like most kittens didn't really want to get held, but rather play with dangling strings. But, like most kittens, is just too little to stop the Big Bad Cassidy from scooping it and cuddling as she explored.

It takes about 30 min to walk though, and displays are in English (some what).

Must go if you like military history.

See you around the globe!

"Close of Biker Season 2014"

SO there is this thing here called "Close of Biker Season Day."

1) There is a biker season? (Y'all I grew up in FL, if you want to ride your bike in January, you ride your bike in January

2) The commemorate the close of a "season"?

3) bikers in Russia?

4) why not?

Ok, let's go!


I met up with Elena again and we went to "Close of Biker Season 2014" which she had never been to.

It was interesting to say the least. A BUNCH of bikes all lined up, and people just walking around

TOUCHING THE BIKES. Touching OTHER bikers bikes. Sitting their children on the bikes.

If you know anything about American biker culture, you will understand how utterly confused I was about this. Elena stated that at a show like this, why wouldn't you be able to touch the bikes? (To avoid getting your hand broken?) Apparently that isn't a thing in Russia. So now you know!

We also saw a biker wedding. I wondered (1) how she wasn't cold and (2) how did she ride the bike in that dress?

Afterward we went to Cinnamon Cafe where I had pizza. Now this was close to regular pizza, but still wasn't "pizza."

See you around the globe!

Day in Vlad!

Today I wondered around Vlad after a yummy stop in a cafe with a new Russian friend- Elena!

We went to Chololadnita Cafe...guess what they excell at? Chocolate drinks! They had them in Moscow and Petersburg, but those didn't have a sit down menu, at least not that I ever saw!

I had an Ice Oreo drink, which, while not made with real Oreos, was still delish!

Then we wandered around the sea front of Vlad and, of course, took pictures. A day out with Russians, always involves pictures.

Har Krishna is a big thing here. They like to go around singing just "har krishna"

 After than fun, I went to a free Korean Cultural Concert.

OH MAN WAS IT AWESOME!

 The singers/performers were amazing! My favorite part was the traditional v. K-pop dance that they did! (which of course didn't turn out in a single picture!

See you around the globe!

The Rest of South Korea

The second weekend I was there, we went to visit Hyun’s grandmothers, on both sides. His dad’s side grandma, fixed us lunch (yum!) and we got to see where he was born. He had memories of growing up there and it was fun to see him remember it all. He hadn’t been to see the village for 16 years. His grandma told me at one point that I was “pretty because I ate,” and I don’t think I’ve ever received a more grandma compliment.

The Next Day, we went to Deagu where his other grandma lives. We went out to eat with her and his Uncle/Aunt/Nephew. However, Hyun and the Aunt ate a chicken soup grandma made first because she called him to tell him she killed a chicken for him. It was a traditional Korean BBQ place. Which means that you cook your own meat at the table, and eat it with sides in a piece of lettuce. I had a veggie bimbop thiny again, but it was with different vegetables. The waitress did NOT want to give it to us without the meat, we had to convince her that it really Really was fine. You weren’t allowed to wear shoes inside the restaurant, but they gave you slippers for the bathroom. (Most of the time when we had to do shared slippers, I tried really hard not to think about the other people feet touching it stuff…)

We spent the night in Deagu where we met up with a boyfriend of a friend’s sister (It was a mutual friend between Hyun/Kristine/I that we met in Skopje! The boyfriend is doing the English Program in Korea (EPIK) teaching English in Deagu for a year. It was a very fun evening, with soju and magkoli of course!

The next day we drove back to Seoul, but stopped at a Korea Folk Village. Apparently, Monday is NOT the day to visit. Usually they have people doing the traditional crafts, but no one was working on them today (except for one man making shoes). They had village life, a cafeteria, a temple, a horse show, and a mask making experience (of course we had to do this!). However, it was really hot that day as well. We ate at a yummy Italian place for dinner that was almost right outside the gates.

See you around the globe!

All Around Seoul

Most of Kristine’s and my days were spent relaxing at home and just chatting with each other. I saw a lot of things, but I think you could spend 2-3 months in Seoul going to a museum a day and not run out of things to do. I highly recommend going, but you might want to go with a guide, as it was extremely difficult to figure my way around (mostly when I wanted to eat) without someone who spoke/understood Korean. As my first time in Asia, (check that off bucket list!) it was a good introduction. I, of course, still want to explore more!

a view from the top of a hill.

IPark Mall

Ginormous mall, complete with cinema. We spent our first day out here exploring and going to a movie. And trying not to drown in the down pour. We ate at California Pizza kitchen and starbucks (they are as prevalent here are they are in America). It was fun to wander around and try to figure out how to get to places, the movie theater opens before the rest of the mall, but here not every shop has their own door, so we kept wandering in different stores to be kicked out trying to find the movie theater. We watched Magic in the Moonlight, it was cute and fun.

National War Museum (Aug 24^th)

This place was amazing. It is three floors of exhibits and free to go to. There are also outside planes and tanks and things to go in/climb on.

Inside it had royal history/time of fighting between the different dynasties, the Korean War, UN peacekeeping missions, and futuristic war.

My Pap-Paw fought in the Korean War, so it was special to see the way they represented the war. What came across the most was how thankful they were for the UN’s support against the North/Communists. I didn’t know a lot about the war, but it was tastefully done. However, someone was happy to play with the special effects and they had a lot of different video/animated things to watch. They had a whole room dedicated to uniforms and information about the UN countries that helped.

The Drop- dogtags of everyone who died in the war.

However, they did like to proselytize/propagandize the history and make the North out to be devils that had no consciousness. An example: the north tried to unscrupulously gain a better position for negotiations, while the UN troops honorably held unto their positions.” We were supposed to be able to go to two museums this day, but I was so entranced that kept us to just visiting this one!

In case you wanted to know what would happen if a nuke was dropped on Seoul (as big as the one that hit Hiroshima. Hint: it's not pretty. 

Gyeongbokgung (August 26^th)

 This was the 1^st palace to be built in the Joseon Period (one of the ruling families). It is almost entirely rebuilt since the Japanese and the North Koreans destroyed it during their occupations, but it has been beautifully rebuilt as a tourist destination. To call it a palace requires a re-thinking of our western ideas. It is one one building, but rather a series of smaller building spread throughout. They also had the Korean Folk Museum here (I think you can get to it without going through the palace, but I’m not sure). It was interesting to see the stuff they had, and free to get into. According to Lonely Planet “It has three main exhibition halls covering the history of the Korean people, the agricultural way of life and the life of yangban (upper class) during the Joseon era.”

 They had a “pantry” of sauces that was outside, and back in the day, they had special servants whose sole job was to make sauce. That was it. We also got to see the changing of the guards, which was interesting. I feel sorry for them though, they wear period dress, and it was HOT!

National Museum of Korea (August 27^th)

Shows of Korea’s national treasures from ancient prehistory to ceramics to donated goods. It took me almost 2 hours to walk it all, including a snack break at one of the not overpriced cafes! It was interesting, and some of the things were beautiful, but not knowing the history of Korea, it was a little difficult to follow. About ½ way through I figured out you could get an audio guide…

Itaewon (almost every day we went out)

Shopping and food district. They had lots of American food places as well as other ethnic food. We just wandered around here a few times/on our way home.

Namsang Tower (August 28^th)

This is a great place to get panoramas of Seoul, if you can see past the smog from China. (thanks environmental externatilities!) There is a Coldstone and a few not over priced restaurants. If you spend $20 to go up to the observatory deck, it rotates as do three overpriced restaurants.

We saw a “flash mob” proposal to that “I’m bored so lets get married” song. It was cute, the girl was crying when she figured it out. He gave her a bunch of shoes, which none of us understood. But if you find a random Korean youtube video (cuz they were taping it) where the girl is in a blue dress with a white top, I’ll be in the background!

Shopping Street (unknown name)

Kristine and I went to a shopping street once to just go shopping and ended up finding a Cat Café. Where there are about 20 cats just wandering around the place and you drink coffee. It was interesting and I got my cat fill (hopefully enough to last until I get my kitty in December). All of us also went here on 8/20 for dinner (street food) and wandering.

Eating and Drinking

After the war museum Kristine and I met up with Hyun and a few of his friends from work to drink magkoli, or Korean Rice Wine. It was yummy! We only had the flavored ones there, I had a wine flavored one! It was in a gigantic goblet, totally full.

A few times we went to Mister Pizza, a pizza chain, that has REAL pizza!

Once we went to a Korean drinking place, where you mostly drink and eat anju or side dishes for drinking. I’m not sure what exactly they ate, because Korean food is not conducive to being a vegetarian. But I had a yummy salad and soju cocktail. I know this might be sacrilegious, but soju tasted like quality vodka to me. Loved the cocktail though- it was kiwi flavored.  

Another time, we ate street food and I had bimbop (sp?) which was fried veggies and egg and rice. It was yummy! I’m not exactly sure what I was eating, but the waitress assured Hyun it was vegetarian so I ate it. Trust I say. Trust. (Aug 20^th)

I even got to go to the 4^th best restaurant in Seoul- Gusto’s Tacos (but I went to the one on base). They had tofu tacos and are run by a couple from NY. They are a bit spicy. (I say a bit because my mouth was on fire, but normal people have a better spice tolerance than I do.)

Hyun hosted 2 North Korean high school students as part of an Embassy program for the night, and we went and got Baskin Robbins. Pretty sure they didn’t have 31 flavors there, but they had a lot!

Amigos Tacos- they made mushrooms taste yummy! Hard to believe. This was the 2^nd day I was in town- and needed Mexican food after dropping my passport off at the Visa Center for Russia.

I even got falafels one day! And they spoiled me with American food that they can get on base. J J

See you around the globe!