Category Archives: Travel

Isabella’s

Besides sensing a food pattern here, I am sure you can tell how much we love our italian cuisine. Due to bad weather our prior dinner engagement at Ghezzi’s fell through. Our friend Scott came to the rescue and suggested that we try out a newly opened restaurant called Isabella’s restaurant and Cocktail Lounge. Sure, why not!

The restaurant is located on the main street that runs through downtown Selinsgrove, PA. The building that the restaurant sits in is what used to be an old bank. Once you are inside you will still find many remnants of the bank in the decor. Old bank ledgers piled on the window ledges, knobs placed all around still from the original bank, the bar area being used is an old teller box, the vault visible from the bar and dining area propped wide open and used as a prepping station. All and all it really boast a Victorian era vibe. We instantly fell in love and we hadn’t even seen the menu, nor tasted the food.

The service was fantastic! The food was outstanding! So much so that we ended up going back a second time while we were home too. We have high hopes that when we are back visiting in the area that the restaurant still operates because we will certainly go back again!

The restaurant is located on 23 S. Market St., Selinsgrove, PA. Hours are Monday to Saturday from 4- 11 p.m.

 

Five Guys

Five Guys burgers and french fries is not your typical fast-food burger chain. The beef patties are fresh, the french fries are cut daily at the restaurant, plus there are boxes of free peanuts for you to take and eat while your patties are cooked up on the grill. Oh, and did I mention they have a digital soda machine that allows you to make your own drink creation.  Check out all of those french fries!

Home For The Holidays

You know, I’ve been humming that Christmas tune in my head all week…I think you know the one…

“Oh there’s no place like home For the holidays, ‘cause no matter how far away you roam, if you want to be happy in a million ways, For the holidays, you can’t beat home, sweet home .”

Really, besides the Grinch, who doubts the lyrics of a Christmas tune anyways?

To think just a few short days ago, I was sitting on the plane becoming so overwhelmed with these crazy persons thoughts about going home for the holidays. Feeling guilty and anxious already about making sure everyone has around the same time to spend with us before even stepping foot back onto US soil. EEK! Can you relate?

Thankfully that anxiety subsided somewhere in the air over what I’m guessing was the state of Washington.

I’m happy to report, We Bees are having such a wonderful trip back home! So much delicious home-cooked food and time spent with people we love so dearly.

For now, I’ll leave you with a few pictures from our merry little Christmas!

Typically we all attend Christmas Eve service but due to the road conditions we thought it would be best to stick close to home.

Christmas Eve with the traditional snack attack fest, this year held at my mothers house.I couldn’t believe the wonderful spread of snacks that she put out for us. Shrimp, spicy cheeses and ring bologna, cookies, and middleswarth chips.   I loved watching my niece and nephew. They seriously sprouted by like weeds! I am sure I have mentioned this before in a past blog post, children always put time into perspective for me.

Followed by opening gifts at the in-laws. Any occasion to involve gifts my sweet sister in-law gets super excited and cannot wait to tear into them, hence gift opening on Christmas eve. It always makes me giggle because her brother is exactly the same! He also is the type to get super excited to give me a gift, what a pair these two.

The traditional Christmas Day breakfast with the in-laws, dry beef and gravy.

Last but certainly not least, the traditional Christmas Day dinner with the other set of grandparents and my family.

Poor Mr. B has been incredibly jet lagged. I guess I better follow suit too.

Run Around

So far its been a crazy busy week, I cannot believe that we are already on day three of our visit home. I knew once we’d get home the hands on the clock would just spin forward ever so quickly. Today we did all sorts of fun little things. We baked raisin cookies, strolled around Giant, and grabbed a bite to eat at Panera Bread.

After baking cookies, we decided to go for a stroll around Giant. Yes, we are really odd and have enjoyed “strolling” around Wal-Mart, Target, Sam’s Club, Heimbach’s, and no trip would be complete without including our local Giant grocery store. Hmmm maybe we can squeeze in a Wegmans too?

Goodness, endless amounts of decisions and options. The experience was almost overwhelming! I found myself wanting to read every single item in the Organic section. It’s incredible how much we take for granted with the endless amounts of selections and sales on food in the US. We are so lucky to be able to just purchase endless amount of stuff. In the end it always leaves me with the thoughts of, do we really need all of this stuff?

We’ve been Panera Bread enthusiast for quite sometime now. The smell of freshly baked bread, the delicious soups, the free wifi, the bakery-cafe atmosphere. We were absolutely delighted to see that they had opened in our hometown while we had been away. I knew we’d have to stop in and grab some lunch sometime while running around. Today just happened to be that day!

Have you ever ate at Panera Bread? What is your favorite thing to order? I think mine is now the Vegetarian garden vegetable with pesto. In the mood for soup? You’ve got to try it out!

Heimbach’s Country Store

When we Bees lived in the area we always picked up candies and lunch meats from Heimbach’s country store. Nothing fancy here folks, just a quaint little country store packed with all sorts of fun foods and trinkets. We had to stop in when we near it, just for a stroll to reminisce. Clearly we are all about nostalgia here folks. Okay, okay, we ended up buying candy for the plane too. We couldn’t pass up the multi-colored black licorice candy and gummy bears.

Feel free to check out the photos. We didn’t even know they still made candy cigarettes anymore…

 


 

Tourist

You know, we have been living in South Korea for quite some time now. There are still just so many different things on my list that I want to get out and experience while living on this peninsula. This weekend we had a change of plans, so we decided to tackle one of those touristy things on that little old list of mine.

I STILL love being a tourist! It just doesn’t get old to me.

We headed into Seoul and took a Han River cruise at night.

The river is such a beautiful part of the city of Seoul. There are various tours that you can take to enjoy the Han River. We ended up taking the hour and a half cruise at night for only 15,000 won per person, roughly $15.00. What a great option to admire the city and its lights in the reflection of the water.

Prepare yourself for some photo overload…

We were just taken away with all the bridge and building structures. Speaking of bridges, half way into the tour the boat goes underneath the Banpo Bridge. Once it gets to the other-side, it turns itself around and waits for a few brief moments. After those few moments pass, you get to see a spectacular water and light show. What a treat! The Banpo bridge fountain is the worlds longest bridge fountains in the world. Wait to go Korea!

The fountain is programmed to play various shows throughout the day and into the night. At night we learned that the fountain has 200 multicolored lights. These rainbow like lights illuminate the fountain and are synchronization with music. How peaceful!

After the show, once everyone got in the opportunity to snap pictures of themselves. Kimchi! The boat announces that it will be going back under the Banpo bridge. If you don’t want to get wet, move under the boats awning area. Some did not listen nor care and got soaked. You know me, with the cool Autumn night air coming off of the river, It didn’t take me very long to seek out shelter.

How long have you been in your city? Do you like to do touristy things too? What are some of your favorites?

Grab the map coordinates here

Mt. Seorak

After a weekend of scuba diving, Mr. B surprised me with a night/day away taking in the beautiful sights of Seoraksan. This has been a destination on my list of places to see before we’d ever leave Korea. Seoraksan is the third highest mountain in South Korea, perhaps one of the most picturesque too. The highest peak of the mountain reaches 5,603 feet! We didn’t quite make it that far, almost! No way, just kidding. Unfortunately we bees don’t have the billy goat gene in us.

We took a chance on the Mt. Seoraksan Tourist Hotel. The location is right inside of the national park. You literately walk out the lobby door and straight onto any hike you’d like. It was perfect! We lucked out and were able to grab a room too. The cost was 50,000 Won a person. Ohh but the views, wait until you see what we got to lay in bed and admire in the morning. We recommend the hotel and plan on staying there again if we go back.

As the sun set over the park, I kept thinking how much this place reminded me of a Harry Potter movie. I don’t know if it was the darkness settling in for the night, with all of the large overhanging trees? Whatever the case the feeling of being at Hogwarts. I know I am being silly, but it was just so much fun!

The next morning we woke up grabbed a small bite to eat at the hotel’s coffee shop. Fresh homemade yogurt. YUM!

And we were off!

First stop was to take the cable car up the side of the mountain.

We all piled into this bright yellow car….

HAHA! No just kidding again..

You could hardly tell that you were in a cable car. The ride was smooth. I wasn’t sure what i’d think or how i’d take it going so high. But, I loved every minute of it. Even after Mr. B read the sign before getting onto the car that said, “If the weather changed while we were at the top we’d be responsible for ourselves to get back down”. Now that leaves one feeling confident about their decision to board the car, right?

Once we got to the top we were just in total awe. This mountain was a total refresher to the soul. Some of the tree tops were starting to turn vibrant reds and you could see the ocean and the city of Sokcho glisten out into the distance. I could have stayed up there for days daydreaming about the views.

After the observatory area at the cable car, we followed a path that took you up into the side of the mountain. Unsure of what we were to find but very eager for the adventure.

Once we got to the end of the path, we found ourselves on the side of a mountain peak. The only real place to go was up. So up is where we went. We straddled some serious rocks along the way up. My knees were shaking, Mr. B kept telling me, “three points of contact”. One, two, three, kept going over and over in my mind.

We made it! We survived the climb at Mt. Seorak!

Of course we expected to find this at the top of the steep climb!

Too funny! How about a personal engraved souvenir? You’ve got to appreciate the Korean way of life.

So how about those hiking outfits? This is serious business dressing the part. They even carry ski pole looking walking sticks. Just watch you don’t accidently get stabbed by one. Next time we hike Soyo mountain near our place I think we need a fun colorful outfit too. What do you say Mr. B?

I don’t think I can even put into words the view from that climb. I will continue to try..

Nope.. I still can’t. Just look at the photos and imagine endless blue sky.

Secretly I kept trying to postpone the climb back down. I knew it was going to involve a lot of butt sliding and rope gripping. Thankfully with a wish and a few prayers we made it safely back down.

After the hike back down, I said to Mr. B, the one thing I love so much about Korea is that you get to experience these amazingly awesome things like that trechorous climb. The cliffs and trails are not all fenced up, there are no forms or waivers that you must sign your life away on due to the unsafe risks involved. No, for the most part, there are no railings. Just remember three points of contact and you will be fine.

After the cable car ride down we strolled around a bit, ate lunch and got back on the road.

What an amazing place!

Until we meet again Mt. Seorak.

Sincerely,


Grab the map coordinates here