Living the Daydream: Month 1
(Ft the view from my quarantine hotel! ^^)
I knew that when I started living abroad and hopefully traveling much, much more, I wanted to do monthly recaps. I really value my blog just so I can have something to look back on when I’m older, but the city guides that I create are geared much more towards people who are in middle of planning for their own trip, not necessarily for keeping up with MY life. So this series, Living the Daydream, is for me. It’s going to be a breakdown of all the places I’ve gone as well as a collection of the highlights and lowlights of the month. I also am hoping to keep track how the month progressed (or didn’t) my overall fitness, as well as the growth of this blog!
Maybe I shouldn’t have chosen August to be the month I start doing these monthly recaps, as the first half of the month was spent in the states, running around, getting things together and in order for my departure, and the second half of the month was spent starving in a quarantine hotel in South Korea…lol. But it is, in actuality, the month in which I left the United States for the longest stretch of time yet, so I figured this is the time to start, regardless of how exciting it is.
With any luck, these recaps will get a little more exciting as each month goes by and (fingers crossed) we slowly ease ourselves out of this freaking pandemic.
Where I’ve Been:
Fredericksburg, Virginia
Portage, Michigan
Richmond, Virginia
Busan, South Korea.
Highlights:
Spending my last weekend with Brock’s family in Fredericksburg was definitely a highlight of the month. They’ve become like my second family over the course of the summer, and we made sure our last weekend there counted. I will miss them so much!
Getting to see my whole extended family for the first time in 5 years! The entirety of my extended family (both my Mom and my Dad’s side) lives in the midwest (mainly Michigan) and as a result, we very rarely get to see them. With everyone getting much busier, whether it be thanks to a new job, a new baby, moving domestically, moving abroad (@me), we all figured it was a good time to get together. We flew into Grand Rapids to spend a long weekend at my Aunt and Uncles lake house, and catching up with everyone was much needed after half a decade of not seeing each other. We always have so much fun together, and I’m glad we were able to make that happen before I moved away. We tubed, paddle-boarded, ate good food, and watched the sunset from the boat.
Leaving for South Korea! I’ve been dying to do this ever since I was 14, and it was so surreal that the day finally arrived. The journey was fairly easy as far as long-haul flights go, as the plane was relatively empty due to minimized travel and the required quarantine upon arrival to South Korea, so I was able to lay flat on my row of seats - something that makes a long flight just a little bit more bearable. I always had interesting people next to me that were so much fun to talk to, and it was a pretty seamless, although long, journey.
Lowlights
On the flip side: Leaving for South Korea - LOL! As much as I am excited to be here, to experience a new culture, and to simply have an adventure, leaving my friends, family, boyfriend and new puppy was definitely a hard pill to swallow. The goodbyes at the airport were heartbreaking, especially with COVID-19 still running rampant and there being no viable option for any of them to potentially visit in the future. I cried probably the whole 30 hours it took me to get to my hotel.
Getting my COVID PCR test so that I could board the plane. OMG. If I told you this was an actual nightmare, it would be a gross understatement. With the recent surge of the Delta variant, I made sure to schedule my PCR test well in advance. I scheduled it for the Saturday before I flew, giving me plenty of time, as CVS guaranteed a 1 to 2 day turnaround. When I pulled up to the drive-thru that morning, they informed me that the person who processed the tests didn’t show up to work that day, and that they couldn’t call other locations to tell them that I would be coming in. When I (morphed into a Karen and) called the regional manager, she said that they were booked until October and there was nothing they could do about it. Walgreens was the same deal, and all other PCR tests had a delivery time of three days, which was just not an option. I had an absolute MELTDOWN. I was so angry at CVS for throwing me to the sharks like that, and I was SO STRESSED. My mom, after 3 hours of intense googling and calls with the department of health, eventually sent me to an emergency pop-up testing tent where we paid 170 dollars for an expedited PCR test. As if that wasn’t enough, before swabbing my nose, the nurse took my temperature and told me I had a FEVER - and my heart absolutely sunk. I’ve never been so stressed, but I think it was my absolute panic attack that caused that, because the test came back negative. What should have been a ten minute errand ended up taking four hours, a tank of gas as we ran all over town, and 170 dollars. Thankfully Brock was with me and was able to think straight and help me with everything. I don’t know what I would do without him. —> ft. him staying with me at my best and at my absolute WORST.
Quarantining in South Korea. 14 days all alone in a hotel room, in a country with a 13 hour time difference from home is pretty lonely. I’m writing this post from quarantine, I’m currently on day 8. (But as of the day I’m posting this I’ve been out for 3 days!! The government-issued food is truly terrible, and I’m pretty hungry 24/7. Adjusting to somewhere with this much of a time difference is also pretty tricky, so I’m not doing well with sleeping through the night. I miss human contact, edible food, my friends and family, fresh air and the sun. But at the same time, I’m absolutely terrified to get out and be forced to figure out the immigration office, a foreign bank account, a new phone number, how to get a bed into my third floor walk up, and grocery shopping in a country where I can’t read.
Fitness
Fitness was a little bit of a fail this month, as I was running around constantly, stressing about packing, doing some last minute shopping, saying goodbye to everyone, not to mention I was locked in a shoebox of a hotel room where there’s not even enough floor room to lay down and do crunches. I’ve been able to do some resistance band workouts here and there, but definitely not my finest moments. I’m looking forward to finding a gym near my apartment so that I can get back on the grind.
The Blog
The one good thing, to come out of quarantine (besides being well adjusted to the time difference) however, is the progress that I’ve accomplished here on Emma’s Daydream. I invested in a blogging course that I’ve been working through and I’m really happy with all the valuable information I’ve been able to sit down and learn and implement. I'm working towards a blogging schedule with much more structure - weekly blog uploads, emails, and social media posts. This month, I’ve had 6k pageviews, and I need about 60k page views per month to get accepted into the ad network that I want! I’ve got a LONG way to go, so pinning any of my images, sharing my posts, and commenting means the world to me! Turning this blog into my main source of income is a dream of mine. It’s going to take a LOT of work, time, and energy, but It’s all baby steps as of right now.
In the coming months, I’ll be putting out lots of resources about teaching English in South Korea and hopefully some new city guides as I orient myself and start to explore. I can’t wait to visit Seoul, Jeju, the DMZ, and do lots of hiking. With any luck, quarantine will lift by the time I get to use some of my vacation days and I can hop over to Japan or Hong Kong for a few more Asian adventures.
My biggest accomplishment this month was creating a free pdf for all of you with my top 10 tips and tricks to show you how I travel the world for cheap! You can get your hands on it HERE.
That’s it for August!
I know it wasn’t the most riveting of blog posts, but I hope that you got a deeper peek into my life than you would from a city guide or a piece of information, such as packing guides or how-to articles. As always, I’m so grateful for each and every one of you who are invested in keeping up with my life and support this blog with your consistent views!
If there’s any sort of travel related posts you would want to see from me, be sure to drop suggestions down below.
XOXO,
Emma
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