Through circumstances partially out of our control, but mostly in it, we were staring down the peak of a rollercoaster that was about to take us flying through a week split between LA and Newport Beach, then five (5!) days in Vegas, and then, just for fun, a 10 day trip to Japan we tacked on at the end. Most people, I think, would choose not to do this trip. I also think most people would likely not choose to make it harder on themselves by “adding on” a quick international trip at the end.

But in December my in-laws had just retired and wanted to celebrate with a trip, while also scouting out potential places to move to post-retirement. They had friends in SoCal, and in Vegas, and they wanted to visit them all to do a “how do you like it here” interview with each of them, personally. We were excited to celebrate them, and also excited to use the excuse of already being on the west coast to achieve our own goal of spending New Years in a different country. After scrolling through upsettingly high prices to nearly every major Asian city, we finally found semi-affordable ones to Tokyo, our favorite travel agent was available and said he could work with a last minute timeline, and that was good enough for us.

And so, a little ahead of Christmas, we all headed to the west coast to start our marathon tour. It was too daunting to think about the trip in its entirety, so I didn’t. “We are just going to LA,” I told myself on the plane over.

Given this was a retirement celebration trip my husband wanted to do it big. He’d booked us rooms at the Four Seasons in Beverly Hills, a gorgeous property that feels more like serviced apartments than a typical Four Seasons. It was a great location, and my energy was high: I was excited to be back in LA, and I loved getting to do some runs through the neighborhoods around Beverly Hills. My husband and in-laws were busy shuttling around to the outer stretches of LA to visit friends in all corners of the city, while I stayed mostly at the hotel working.

After two days, it was time to head down to Long Beach, where our party grew by two when we met up with my brother-in-law and his girlfriend. They gave us a quick tour of their neighborhood, but then we had to get back into the car to keep heading south to Newport Beach. We needed to hit the road fast because we needed to check into our hotel, drop our bags, then head immediately to meet another family friend who was cooking us dinner.

My husband had found a little bungalow property down by the beach, and we checked into our surf-themed rooms. Beach decor filled every corner, and it smelled like salt. It was kind of a bizarre property — it was a hotel, but it felt more like someone’s home they managed as an Inn, and every room kind of looked into other rooms. It didn’t really matter, since we’d only be there 2 nights. We dropped our bags, and immediately headed out of Newport Beach to meet them for dinner.

We had a lovely dinner, and got to see the idyllic SoCal life they were living. Fertile fruit trees growing around the yard, a comfortable home, perfect weather year round. I could see my father and mother-in-law exchanging glances that said, this is pretty nice.

We headed back to the hotel, and finally got to bed after a marathon day of driving (and that, really is the California lifestyle). The next morning I got up and headed downstairs to the main area for coffee. I chatted with the man hosting the coffee stand, and he handed me an angel card. “It’s for protection,” he said. I’m not Catholic, but given how much of this trip I had ahead of me, it seemed like it would be in my best interests to take it.

We barely got to see Newport Beach, and most of my memories of this leg of the trip were of being in the throes of a stressful job I didn’t want to do anymore that didn’t allow me to take time off even though no one was working. My husband and his family went out exploring during the day, and I got to take a couple of runs along the beach. We visited Fashion Island, a mall built into a circle so it really does kind of feel like an island, and had brunch at a place along the beach that offered exactly the kind of beachy fare you’d expect from a brunch spot along the beach.

After less than 48 hours, it was time to wrap up our SoCal leg and head to the peak of our trip: spending Christmas in Vegas. I assumed it would likely be close to empty, with everyone home celebrating the various religion-based holidays instead of in the sin capital of the US.

We landed to what I can only describe as absolute chaos.

I have been to Vegas. I know chaos is kind of the whole point. I also lived in New York City and had to commute through Times Square, so I am no stranger to crowds. But Christmas in Vegas is on another level. However many people you’re thinking would spend Christmas in Vegas, multiply it by five. Or ten! Every space was filled with a crushing crowd, families of 10 or more people moving together as a unit, strollers in tow, nobody knowing what direction they were going.

We finally got into our room at the Bellagio after a two hour wait to check in. We got up to our room and unpacked, the third time I’d unpacked so far on this trip we’d only been on for a week. The next morning we woke up and found we would need to wait in line for an hour to get a cup of coffee (famously, Vegas hotels do not ever offer coffee in-room). I took a sip of the coffee we’d just waited an hour for and what seemed to be water lightly flavored with the memory of coffee hit my tongue. The two coffees cost us $25.

We spent that day attempting to navigate the labyrinthian halls of the Bellagio, trying to get from what looked like one end of the hotel of the other until you realized the hotel itself occupied what would normally be multiple city blocks. Every corner you turned, it seemed there were more people than the last hallway. It didn’t feel like the hotel could physically fit more people if it tried.

That first night, we headed to José Andrés steak house, Bazaar Meat. Our server heard the special occasion was celebrating a double retirement and he ran with it. I have never seen someone make a restaurant celebration feel so personal! He stayed with us the entire evening, making us feel like we were the only table, giving us a walkthrough of every type of meat available and giving us a full pros and cons of what sides would pair well with each meat, and what he recommended adding to have the full experience. He had panache, and I could see the smiles on my in-laws face as he cracked jokes, complimented them and thanked them for their hard work, and generally worked the table.

We tried the deconstructed Caesar salad which everyone got a kick out of: imagine the ingredients of Caesar salad, wrapped into little pinwheels and held together by a thin slice of cucumber until they almost looked like kimbap. We tried the DIY martini bar where they wheel the bar over to you and let you (for better or worse) choose your own ingredients. We got all kinds of meat, and finally my father-in-law had the good steak he’d been asking for for months. Dessert came with signature Vegas flair: covered, for no reason, with a sheet of gold leaf.

The next morning we struggled through the same coffee routine, the shuffling through crowds at 7am to get back upstairs routine, the shuffling back through crowds an hour later to get out the door routine. That night after Cirque du Soleil, we got back to the hotel and heard the room next door partying hard with no signs of stopping. I turned to my husband and said, “I really don’t think I can do three more nights of this.” We repacked our suitcases, waited in line for another hour to finally check out at midnight, and caught an Uber up the strip to the Fontainebleau.

One of the newer hotels on the strip, we’d actually stayed there earlier in the year to achieve my birthday dream, seeing Pitbull live in concert. It feels grand inside, the rooms are new and clean, the common areas are beautiful, and most importantly, the coffee wait in the morning is minimal and the coffee fantastic. If the Bellagio had felt like Disneyland on its worst day, the Fontainebleau might as well have been a peaceful isolated mountain retreat. Four people were ahead of us to check in, and the staff were friendly after not having been pushed to their limit for 8 hours. After a quick check in we headed easily upstairs, no crowds to push our way through.

Our room was silent, beautiful, gorgeous. If I could give the Fontainebleau 20 out of 10 stars, I would. I don’t care that it’s in Vegas, after the nightmare that was the Bellagio, it felt like dunking your head into a cold river stream on a hot day.

The next morning we got our coffee and made it back upstairs in under 15 minutes. It was delicious. After dinner that night, my husband and his family wanted to book a last minute magic show. I did not have the energy to make it to back-to-back nights of shows after Cirque du Soleil, so I waved them goodbye and headed off to see what I could get up to.

I walked all the way around the mall twice and was worried I was about to somehow found myself bored in Vegas until finally, I saw a karaoke bar. It turns out, yes, you can book a private karaoke room for yourself. I booked an hour, and worked through the entire back catalog of songs I’d been working on in my vocal classes. After the magic show got out, I convinced my husband to join me and we made it through the entire K-Pop Demon Hunters soundtrack with the help of some very overpriced vodka sodas.

And then, after a few days, it was time to pack up, say goodbye to everyone, and fly back for one night in LA before we headed to Tokyo. By then we’d fully given in to traveling, and 5 days in to our trip we extended it another few days, which rounded up to a full month of traveling.

I would not recommend spending Vegas in Christmas to anyone. I would not recommend traveling for a month straight, or arranging your schedule so you are fully unpacking and repacking every 24-48 hours. But sometimes a vacation is not a vacation, and you have no choice but to be there anyway. Knowing that you are not going to enjoy yourself is kind of freeing, in a way. There’s no pressure to have a good time, or have the perfect vacation. You’re starting in the negative, and the only way to go is up.

And despite it all, I had a good time! Of course I love spending time with my husband, but his family is fun to travel with, too. They’re the good kind of travelers: they know when to meet up and when to say, thanks, I’ve seen enough of you today, I need alone time. I even enjoyed Cirque du Soleil, something I thought I would hate! Now I’m converted and would go see any number of shows. The talent is incredible, and the storyline is so weird, in the most interesting way.

Anyway, if you find yourself in the midst of a “vacation” that is simply not relaxing or idyllic, there’s still something valuable to learn. And maybe that lesson is just that you need to book yourself a karaoke room.

We’d been to Thailand twice before, but never to Koh Samui. Our first trip was to Krabi, and our second was to Phuket. But this time we wanted to try something new: a place that we heard really good reviews about, and yes, okay, fine, we were also influenced by this season of The White Lotus. So we landed on trying Koh Samui.

We did a ton of research scouring YouTube for reviews and ended up picking the Conrad because a. it looked decent, b. it had a private beach, which is hard to come by, and c. we could get a good deal using my husband’s work discount. It seemed fine but I would be lying if I said I was particularly excited about it. It just seemed like, alright, this will be a good hotel.

Instead what followed was one of the most memorable vacations and one of the most magical experiences I’ve had on a trip, to the point that throughout the chaos of the last year, any time I meditated to maintain a shred of sanity, I took myself mentally back here, to the Conrad. When I need to feel peaceful I think of our hotel room looking out over the water at the islands. So, my memories at the Conrad have gotten me through many tough moments over the last year.

What could be yours

A typical day went like this: Wake up in your plush bed, open your eyes, and your first view is the entire ocean stretched out in front of you. Head out of your private villa and up to breakfast, where a variety of fruits, local delicacies, and fresh coconut juice await you. Get a seat by (of course) the ocean, and sip your passionfruit juice as the waves crash beneath you. Spend however long you want at breakfast because time doesn’t matter here.

When you’re ready to get closer to the ocean, head down to the private beach and pick a lounger with fresh towels and water. From there, choose any of the following: snorkeling, paddle boarding, kayaking, jet skiing, swimming, or just relaxing. Do this for as long as you want until you get hungry, head back up for lunch, and repeat. Once it’s dinnertime, head back to your palatial bathroom back at your private villa to wash off the salt and freshen up, then head to dinner to eat a variety of Thai foods like curries and fresh herbal salads prepared with what’s grown on the farm onsite. Cap off your evening at the open air bar next door with cocktails topped with fresh herbs with smells you can’t find back home, all while live musicians play and sing in the background, pairing nicely with the sound of the waves coming up from below.

Head back to your villa and end it all with a soak in the tub, also looking out at the ocean view. And head back to your bed to rest knowing tomorrow, you get to wake up and do it all again.

Arriving at the Conrad

To get there, we flew into Koh Samui airport (which is an adorable outdoor airport). A driver for the hotel came to pick us up, and greeted us with fresh coconuts. From there it was about a 45min drive to the bottom end of the island where the Conrad is located. (This same route in reverse was how we got back to the airport at the end of our stay).

We arrived at the lobby, which is located at the very top of the cliff face that the rest of the property is built into. This means we arrived to an absolutely stunning view of the entire ocean laid out in front of us. We had to wait a bit to check in but barely noticed because we were taking so many photos of the view. We used the wait time until check in to get some drinks at the cafe that’s right next door to the lobby, which was a great little open air cafe to spend some time until our room was ready.

A caveat: the Conrad is not a shiny new hotel. It’s not exceptionally flashy or fancy or freshly renovated. Some parts of it honestly look a little old and worn down and not necessarily high-end luxury. However the location is one that really sticks with you. I don’t think you could have this experience anywhere else. It’s truly magical.

Especially the staff — the staff is hands-down one of the best parts of the Conrad. From the guys who help you out at the beach, to the people are the restaurant, to the women at the spa, everyone was so kind and welcoming, and it was nice to continue to see the same people every day and build a relationship with them.

The Rooms

Every room at the Conrad is its own private villa, meaning every guest has essentially their own tiny home. Inside is a large and comfortable bed and a gorgeous and expansive bathroom with a gigantic tub on one side and a double vanity on the other. But the inside isn’t really what’s important. Everything in the villa is oriented toward one thing: the view. Every single villa faces out onto the ocean, and comes with a private deck and pool to enjoy it from. There is literally no such thing as a room without a view here.

The room itself is very comfortable with great AC, and is a great space to hang out in throughout the day when it’s hot. But we spent a lot of time in the mornings and in the evenings out on the loungers by the pool, relaxing next to the incense that was constantly burning to keep the mosquitoes away. And you can see everything from up there. We watched the light hit the mountains in the mornings, thunderstorms roll in in the afternoons, and golden hour set over the ocean in the evenings. So yes, the rooms are nice, but in my opinion, nothing beats that view.

The private beach

If you do any googling, what you’ll see online is a lot of people complaining that the Conrad’s beach isn’t that good of a beach. It’s small, it’s not that nice, you’re in Koh Samui, you should go to the really good beaches. But I am not looking for the best beach. I’m looking for the most convenient beach. I don’t want to get up early, get all my stuff into bags, and drive for an hour, then sit there and be worried about keeping track of all our stuff, if we have enough water and food, where the bathroom is, etc and then do it all in reverse when we want to go home for the day. That sounds exhausting. I want to be able to go to the ocean when I want, for how long I want, with the freedom to take a nap in my room midday if I so choose. So for me, the trade off at the Conrad was totally worth it. I will give up having the best beach for having easy and comfortable access to a beach.

So that being said, I’m sure there are better beaches on Koh Samui, but this one had everything I needed. Every morning I would start with a walk along the sand to the pier that they have at the very end of the property, then get breakfast, then get changed and race down to the beach so I could spend as much time in the water as possible.

And there’s plenty to do! Once you’re in the water you can wade around, take a swim, lounge on the loungers with endless free water refills, and use any of the equipment they have out. So if you’re bored of lying down, you can: snorkel, paddle board, kayak, and jet ski. Every day I alternated between these activities, wading around for a bit, paddleboarding for a bit, kayaking for a bit, snorkeling for a bit, heading back to the room to refresh, before heading right back out into it again. If I ever needed a break at the beach they had tons of loungers out with fresh towels and big bottles of water, and the bar was only a 10 foot walk away. Our room was only a 5-minute walk away, so it was really easy to come in and out every once in awhile as needed. The main restaurant was another 10-minute or so walk, so it was really easy to get lunch as well.

The food

By now you’re probably wondering about the food. The Conrad has three on-site restaurants. They have a steakhouse, Jahn, at the top of the property that we never saw, and there was a Mediterranean restaurant named Azure by the pool that we tried for lunch and it was fine. But if I am in Thailand, I am there for the food, and I want to be eating Thai food. Thankfully the main restaurant, their Thai restaurant Aow Thai, is exactly what you want from a resort restaurant. It’s beautifully decorated inside, open air so you can enjoy the ocean breeze at night, and has a large menu full of all kinds of Thai dishes. It was nice having a large menu because otherwise, after a week, we might have run out of new things to try, but even after a week we still hadn’t tried everything we wanted to.

They also do little themed nights where they’ll do a hot pot night or a barbecue night, and the staff will walk you through how to do your own hot pot or barbecue. I think it’s nice to have little switch-ups like that because otherwise you could get tired of seeing the same thing every single day without any kind of difference. We tried all the theme nights, plus curries, salads, and appetizers from the regular menu and loved every single meal. Even if I weren’t held hostage on this property, I would still choose to eat here.

Breakfast is also served at Aow Thai every morning. It’s included in your stay, so breakfast was also where we saw the most people. The spread was everything you’d hope for in a breakfast spread: a full fridge of fresh-cut fruit, yogurts and toppings, cooked Thai breakfast staples (like my favorite, congee, with a full topping bar), savory cooked items, sweet items, and in the center they had a table of rotating cuisine. Some mornings it was Indian, some it was Western style. They also had a full refrigerator of juices like watermelon, pineapple, and bright-blue spirulina. Every morning they also had coconuts ready with straws sticking out so you could start your day with fresh coconut water, and it felt really decadent carrying a whole coconut on a plate back to your table.

Next door to the restaurant is the bar, Ko Lounge. At the risk of sounding repetitive, it is also open air and faces out onto the ocean which means you can enjoy your cocktails as the cool ocean breeze hits you and you hear the waves hitting the shore below. We loved ending our evenings at the bar, getting a drink or two, and just relaxing looking out at the way the moon reflected off the water. If this tells you anything, I spent one of those nights frantically on my phone trying to get Ariana Grande tickets, only to lose the Ticketmaster battle and I STILL have nothing but fond memories of our evenings at the bar.

The hotel also has a sustainable cafe named Botanikka at the very top that we went to when we first arrived as we waited for our room since it’s right next to the lobby. They have really fresh coffee and refreshing herbal tea drinks, and it’s a gorgeous rustic little coffee shop with a focus on zero-waste and locally sourced ingredients. However it is at the very top of the property which would have required us calling a car to get up there, so we ended up not going back for the rest of the trip.

The Spa

We always try to prioritize massages while we’re in Thailand, so on our first day we booked a couples’ massage just to say we did it. We called for a car up, since the spa is on the very top of the property, and as we climbed higher and higher, it got more and more secluded. When they led us into the lobby of the spa, we were greeted with floor to ceiling windows with a stunning view of the ocean. I know I’ve spent this entire guide telling you how every building has an ocean view, but due to the elevation this view somehow had even more ocean. Spa music was playing, and Thai scents like lemongrass and citrus wafted through the air. They brought us a selection of oils so we could choose the scent we wanted for our massage, then brought us some butterfly pea water to drink.

Then we were led outside through a lush atrium, and down the stairs into the massage rooms. They started with an herbal foot soak where they massaged and cleaned our feet, then we got on the tables for the massage. The only tragic part is since you’re face down, you miss the view, but I suppose that can’t be helped. We ended up loving the atmosphere so much we booked another massage for a few days later before we’d even left the first massage. I also came back to do a manicure and that I highly recommend, because you can spend the entire 60 minutes staring out at the ocean.

When our treatments were over, they led us back to the lobby, where they served us tea and dried fruit bites made from produce they grow on property (more on that below).

Activities on the property

The Conrad, like a lot of resorts, has a lot of different activities on the calendar. At check-in they gave us a full rundown of the calendar, and while some were more for kids. I’m really into plants and saw they offered a tour of the farm they have on site, so we decided to momentarily take a break from the beach and luxury to get out onto the farm.

During covid they couldn’t accept guests, but wanted to keep their employees employed, so they set up the farm to generate some income, and they’ve kept it growing ever since. Today the produce from the farm is used during breakfast, at the restaurants, and at the spa.

We scheduled our farm tour for two days in and met up at the allotted time at the lobby. From there, we got in a van and they drove us past the manicured lush landscaping of the villas all the way down to the base of the property where the farm is, and suddenly everything got a little more rustic. They have a programmed tour where they walk you through all the sections, showing you how the galangal is grown, where the limes come from, the coconuts, the Thai basil, the peppers growing on bushes; they’ll let you feed banana leaves to water buffalo and goats, and collect eggs from chickens (I do think they pre-cleaned the eggs, but I’d rather they be cleaned than not so I won’t complain about inauthenticity). I actually hadn’t seen galangal growing in the wild before, so it was really cool to see how tall it can grow, and that it looks kind of like a grass.

A few other recommended activities: Book the karaoke room! You get one session free as part of your stay, and you can book a time slot when you get there (it books up fast). The karaoke room is absolutely tricked out, and I wished we’d gone earlier so we could have gone again before we left. Also, do go to the bar when they have live music! It really elevates the experience.

There are a few other activities that I wouldn’t particularly recommend, but could be worth checking out depending on your expectations. The fire show on the beach is really a bunch of guys just kind of hanging out and trying stuff with fire. It’s funny to watch them have fun! But Cirque du Soleil it is not. We also tried the private dinner on the pier; it was a nice idea, but it’s way too far from the kitchen and we could tell the logistics were really stressing the staff out as they had to golf cart their way up and down the property with our courses. It’s also really windy out there, and then it started raining partway through. It was a hilarious memory for us, and the staff really went out of their way to try their best, but I would recommend just eating at the restaurant and saving everyone the headache.

The gym

I know a lot of people reading this will be like why on Earth, at this gorgeous idyllic property, would you spend even a single second in the gym. Well the gym, like every other building on the property, faces out onto the ocean. Also I need to run every day or I will lose my mind. So every day I would head to the gym, pick a treadmill and get my workout in while I stared out at the ocean. It’s the best view I’ve had on a hotel treadmill (or really, any treadmill). I believe it’s open 24 hours, so I could go in anytime. I would even pop in at night to use one of their yoga mats and get a quick stretch in before going to bed. For a hotel gym, it is really well stocked! They’ve got a full weight rack, lots of cardio equipment, and plenty of space. But best of all, pretty much no one was using it so I kind of had a private gym during our stay.

Visiting During the Rainy Season (aka what everyone recommends you not to do)

We visited Koh Samui during the rainy season, which is not known as a heavily touristed time in Thailand. If you read any guide about Thailand, in fact, they will all advise you not to come during the rainy season. Given that our wedding anniversary is more of a fixed vs flexible date, we always end up visiting Asia around this time of year, in October, which is rainy season for better or worse. In general I don’t listen to the guides that say to never travel somewhere during [x] season, like the locals all flee during those months. It’s not bad, just different. Isn’t it fun to add a little serendipity into your trip? I kind of like seeing a place from all angles, not just the perfect one.

Also, I love rain at home, so why wouldn’t I love it on vacation? It also means that you end up at a great spot in a really low touristed season. When I mention all these activities, I never waited for anything. It was always easy to get a snorkel or a paddleboard, and we never had a wait even for the most sought-after item on the beach, the jet ski.

For the most part honestly when we went to the beach there weren’t even other people. Maybe we’d see a family or two, or a couple taking some photos, but that was it. The busiest part of the resort was breakfast because breakfast is included in your stay. After that it clears out, which means we got to enjoy the property relatively to ourselves.

Definitely, there were days with worse weather, and one day it was so choppy we couldn’t go in the ocean. But mostly the weather was fine, and a thunderstorm would roll in and quickly roll out after an hour or so.

And for me, there was nothing like the pleasure of watching a gigantic thunderstorm roll in from the distance, lightning flashing over the sea. I would watch the wall of rain on the ocean getting closer and closer, until we saw the first raindrops start hitting the pool and then finally, hitting the roof of the villa. I saw some truly incredible lightning light shows (and I will include my best slow-mo one below because it is truly awe-inspiring). So yes, rainy season did mean some days were overcast and not as sunny as others, but the trade-off is that I got to see truly incredible thunderstorms that I still think about to this day.

The Five Island View

There are two views at the Conrad, the Ocean View and the Five Islands View (though they both look out at the ocean). At check in they asked which we preferred, and under the pressure of a game time decision we decided five islands was greater than zero, so we went with that. When we got to the room, sure enough, we could see the vast ocean in front of us, the mountains from the mainland way off in the distance, and right up close, five small islands in all different shapes.

Those five islands were my rock throughout our stay. When the sun came up in the morning they looked like dark shadows before the sun rose over them. In the afternoon, the sun fully illuminated them and we could see the trees, cliffs, and beaches that covered each island. In the in the evening as the sun started to set again, it cast a golden glow over them, until the evenings when a thunderstorm would roll in, and we could watch it hit the islands first, knowing it would reach us a few minutes later.

Every night while we were at dinner and the islands had turned dark again, the staff would come by to do turn down service, which included leaving a little Thai snack or dessert on a tray alongside a postcard that would explain to you something about the property or Thailand or Thailand’s culture.

I spent so much of my trip staring out at those islands, and thinking about them, they started leaving more questions than answers. What’s on them? Have people been to them? Do people live on them? What’s the deal with these islands? We realized a day before we left that actually, you can take the jet skis directly out to the islands and check them out. We’d spent days watching people rent the jet skis only to do donuts in front of the beach and assumed that was the furthest you could go. It was only after we watched one person get on and head straight out toward the islands at full speed that my husband went to ask, and the beach staff said oh yeah, you can take the jet ski out as far as you want so long as you make it back in 45 minutes, most people just choose to stay close to the beach. Why?? Maybe I’m too curious but if you give me a jet ski, I’m taking it as far out as I can go.

So we did. We signed the paperwork, got a quick lesson on how to use it, and with my husband driving and me on the back, we headed out full throttle, determined to make it to multiple islands before the 45 minutes was up.

They were further than they appeared, and we spent what felt like ten minutes watching the villas at the resort shrink and shrink until they looked like legos stuck into a cliff. Meanwhile the islands got bigger and bigger, and we realized that they’d looked so tiny from the window but were actually pretty sizable up close. As we got closer we realised these definitely weren’t empty islands at all — we could see little structures made from what looked like debris from the ocean. They were steep and looked impossible to navigate, until we saw tall ladders that could take someone from the beach up to the structures at the very top. Who lived here, we wondered. We did a full circle of the first island, then headed over to the next closest, and saw the same structures built in. At this point we had about 20 minutes left, so we headed back, satisfied we’d at least seen a couple of them, though we left with more questions than answers.

That night we came back after turndown service, and when I turned over the card to see what the night’s topic was, I saw a little illustration of the five islands staring back at me. That night’s theme was all about the five islands. It turns out that there are people that live on them as caretakers of the islands, protecting them. So we enjoyed our little dessert for the night as we looked out at the islands with a newfound appreciation for all their history.

In conclusion

Look, if you’re vacationing in Thailand, I don’t think you can go wrong. It’s why we’ve gone back three times and are moments away from purchasing tickets to go back for our fourth. It is truly one of the best vacation destinations between the hospitality, the food, the culture, and the history.

But, if you want minimal planning and a high payoff, can I recommend the Conrad? It seemed like a simple vacation when we planned it, but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since we got back nearly a year ago. When I’ve meditated this past year, which I’ve had to do a lot, this was the place I visualized. I pictured myself back here sitting on the deck at our villa on the Conrad, looking out at the five islands, watching the last bits of sunset fade from the sky, a thunderstorm rolling in over the mountains to the left. That image kept me sane over the past year. And so for that, I say thank you Conrad, and I’ll be back soon.

Bonus video

And as promised, here’s the best lightning video I captured:

1. Strawberry Espresso Lemonade

📍Cartel Roasting Co, by (but not in) The Grove

The one that started it all. I didn’t even know this existed, I found it after two women walking in front of me went in, I looked to see what it was, it looked cute, so I followed them in. Very analog! Anyway Cartel Roasting Co near The Grove has a lot of good iced options, but I say go for the weirdest: the strawberry. When I ordered, the guy at the register said, “Oooh good choice, I just had that the other day, it sounds unusual but it tastes so good.” And I knew I had made the right choice. It is weird! The flavors don’t make sense. But the mix of fruit-tartness and bitterness from the coffee could hit too hard if the sugar wasn’t there to round it out. Instead, it’s a delicate balance that works perfectly. Run and grab one while you can!

2. Pandan juice

📍Sapp Coffee Shop, Thai Town

This one I could drink all day, every day. Not too sweet, and with the perfect pebbled crushed ice, and a nice enticing bright green color that makes you feel like it might be healthy (it’s not). I had this with dinner after a hot day, and that plus the Godzilla movie playing in the background were the perfect way to cool off at the end of the day. Goes without saying, I hope, but the pandan flavor is strong. If you don’t know what pandan tastes like, all the more reason to go.

3. Olive lemonade

📍Yala Coffee, Silverlake

Look, the last thing I want on a hot day is alcohol. But I almost always want a dirty martini. Yala solves this particular problem by making an olive lemonade that is 1. alcohol free, 2. lemonade, and 3. olive brine (!!!). Yes, they turned a lemonade into a dirty martini. I could drink 500 of these. Put them on every menu. Lemonade has been allowed to be sweet for too long, the olive juice adds another dimension by making it briny and savory. It’s the salt you need on a hot day, and tastes better than any pre-made electrolyte mix. They also have an apricot espresso tonic that is pretty good (if not a little sweet), but the olive lemonade is the standout for me.

4. Passionfruit Salted Plum Refresher

📍Uncle Fung Coffee Stall, Alhambra

If you’re leaning a little more decadent, try this. It’s got a hint of passionfruit, but what really comes through in the salted plum. On hot and sweaty days, anything salted is welcome, and the plum adds a nice umami touch to an otherwise very-sweet drink. My husband found it too sweet for his taste, so your mileage may vary. I think on a hot day, the sweetness level is perfect.

5. Hoja Santa Agua Fresca

📍Santa Canela, Highland Park

They had a few other drinks that looked interesting at Santa Canela but the hoja santa drink called my name because of the herbal component. Simple and to the point — this is simply ground up hoja santa leaf made into a carbonated agua fresca. Something about it being leafy, green, and herbal makes it feel extra cooling in the summer, and extra healthy. I’m sure it isn’t, but let’s suspend disbelief.

6. Cilantro refresher

📍Gonggan, Silverlake

I think you should order this drink because the amount of cilantro it comes with seems like a prank. And maybe it is. But in a world with rising grocery (and everything) costs, it is refreshing to get something for free. The drink is great too: carbonated, herb-y, and with a nice citrus tang, it’s easily drinkable and revives you on a hot day, perhaps as you walk the hot concrete of Sunset. They also make a tomato basil-ade which was good, but unfortunately not as memorable since it didn’t come topped with an egregious amount of anything.

7. Saffron Kombucha

📍Noma pop up, Silverlake

The best kombucha I’ve had. I’m not even a huge fan of kombucha, and this is unreal. Better than any no- or low- ABV beverage on the market. I cannot believe how good this is. We got the sample pack which comes with two of each flavor, and while I love them all, my favorite was the passionfruit and saffron kombucha. It comes in a radioactive orange reminiscent of the old Crush orange soda I thought was a delicacy because my parents would only let me have one (1) time a year at my grandparents’ house. I don’t know how they made kombucha taste this good, because if it’s possible, why hasn’t anyone else been able to make kombucha that tastes this good? Anyway, go and pick up a sample pack, crack one open and pour it over ice at the end of a long day.

And a bonus 8th: Viennese Latte

📍 Cafe Upper, K town

If you don’t care whether you live or die, live on the edge and get a viennese latte at Cafe Upper. It is essentially some coffee, mixed with a lot of cream and sugar, and topped with what might as well be frosting. I found this cafe while waiting for my husband to finish his haircut nearby, and found this article that directed me here. If you are also on the side of TikTok that shows you the insane Starbucks orders where people order drinks with ratios like 1 shot of espresso : 36 shots of syrup and find your curiosity growing, why not try this elevated version instead. I could only make it through about a quarter before I decided that was enough to put my body through.

What should I try next? Where’s your favorite drink? Please no more viennese latte recommendations, one was enough for a lifetime.

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Just this past week I’ve been running around LA as we try to learn more about areas we’ve never stayed in. We have a bit of a time crunch to find out where to live, and there’s a lot of the city we’re unfamiliar with that we want to explore. Of course I could take my time walking around different areas, but what I need is to see a lot of a neighborhood, quickly and up close. And what better way to do that than running?

There are so many differences between streets, or even from one end of a street to another, that you can only pick up on when you’re exploring on foot. Driving’s too fast to get a good mental model of an area; walking, you get little bits of knowledge about an area here and there as you visit a coffee shop or stop to notice the flowers on the street (please don’t suggest biking, I value staying alive and un-hit by cars). But when I’m running through an area, it’s just the right speed. Slow enough to pay attention and notice the details, but fast enough to blend all those little vignettes of a neighborhood into a larger picture.

As we’ve seen new places come up in an area of LA that’s unfamiliar with us, I tell my husband, alright, I’ll go run around there tomorrow and check it out. When I used to live in Brooklyn, almost a decade ago at this point, my preferred way to tour apartments was to plan appointments by location and run to, from, and between them (not least of which was because the subway simply does not connect Brooklyn to itself, even to this day!).

Running is in my DNA at this point. I’ve been running since I was 12, when my mother signed me up for track against my will because she was worried I wasn’t making enough friends (I wasn’t; it helped). I’ve been running almost daily ever since, which is over 20 years at this point. But it’s so intertwined with who I am that I forget sometimes. My own husband actually told me the other day, I didn’t really realize how important running was to you until we moved in and I saw how much you run and how much you need to run. For me, it’s something I do, like breathing or sleeping. I don’t really race, which really confounds nouveau runners who have just gotten really into marathons, and I don’t really talk about it a ton. But if I don’t do it near every day, my mental health starts to slide into the toilet, and all I can think about is when I’m going to be able to get out and run again.

I got into running by force, but stayed in it as I hit my college and early professional years for two simple reasons: 1) I loved it, and 2) it was the cheapest hobby you can have when you’re making little to no money. So long as you have a good pair of running shoes, you can head out your door for a run. No fancy equipment or expensive gear required. So long as you have a path and some shoes, you’re good to go. All told it comes out to maybe $300 a year if you change your shoes every 6 months. As a 22 year old still grappling with handling my own finances, that math seemed to make sense.

I love that I get to see things I wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. You’d think you’d see the same things running as you do walking, only faster. But you see the city in a different light running. Walking you get to see individual vignettes of a city as you make your way through, pausing and appreciating small pieces of the city at a time. When you’re running, you notice how those moments you walk by are part of a larger story, and you get to see patterns and summaries of the neighborhoods instead of individual pieces.

I love feeling the wind in my hair, I love feeling the power in my body as everything works together to move me forward. Running makes me feel freer than anything else on this planet. I decide where I go, when I go, how fast I go, where I turn down next. I’m in complete control. It’s part of why I don’t like racing. I tried following a few racing plans and I hated that they took my agency away. Run here, at this time, and get exactly this many miles in, at exactly this pace, and do that every day for months until race day, when we’ll tell you exactly where and when you have to run (Also, not for nothing, I simply cannot get up that early). Back when we lived in LA the first time, I signed up for a 10k along San Vicente that started outside our house which seemed reasonable, until I realized I’d need to get up at 4am to make it to start on time, all for the prize of running down an ugly road for 6 miles. I slept in and instead headed out around 11am to run along the beach in Santa Monica, and broke my old PR.

First and foremost, I run for me.

There’s nothing like the feeling of your first run in an area. I have so many memories of my first runs where everything feels mystical and magical and more grand than you can imagine. And I’ve made some of my favorite memories running when I’ve traveled.

On two trips to Japan, we’ve stayed by the Imperial Palace, and I’ve started my mornings along with all the other runners running around the palace. Including one time when I accidentally joined a marathon prep run, except the wrong direction, and suddenly a wall of hundreds of runners was coming at me from the opposite direction and I had to sumimasen my way out. It’s also where I learned that it’s so safe to run there that when runners arrive, they all just set their stuff down on benches and head out for their run, knowing it will be there untouched when they get back. That was wild and almost broke my American-trained brain.

Some of my favorite memories from Korea aren’t seeing wild store activations or getting a ton of treatments; they’re when I was winding down for the day and letting the heat dissipate before heading out for an evening run around the Hangang. When I made plans to spend a month in Korea during June and July, everyone advised that that was a terrible idea and I should travel any other time. It’s monsoon season, and the weather can be unbearably hot and rainy. It was, but I didn’t care. I never really listen to advice not to travel during certain seasons. People live there year round, and you get to see something special when you travel off-peak.

What I saw was that once the sun started setting and the heat came down a little, all the runners and walkers would come out to exercise along the Hangang. I could run for miles down the paths, past planted marshes where crickets hummed, the landscape of Seoul still in the background. Every once in awhile cheers from Jamsil Stadium across the way would break out. This was also when Charli XCX’s Party 4 U was huge and the cheering sounded exactly like the end of the song, which also more often than not was also playing in my headphones.

In Thailand last year, we stayed right by the parks, Lumphini and Benchakitti. Our hotel gave us a brochure when we arrived that showed us the running route we could follow through both parks since they’re connected via a skybridge. I ran out that first morning with the paper brochure in my hand, following along Lumphini Park up to its’ top right corner where the sky bridge supposedly was. I spotted it and started my way up, only to see it had been blocked off for construction. Okay, time to pivot, I thought, and made my way back down. There must be another way.

And so I ran through the street underneath the skybridge and saw dozens of street vendors all setting up for the day, feeling very funny running past them. I made it to Benchakitti park and ran all through it, getting to see the wild landscaping in the first few rays of morning sun alongside all the other runners. The next day I decided to skip running through the morning vendor setup and just do loops around Lumphini Park. And that was how I learned that Lumphini Park is not just home to runners, walkers, and loungers, it is also home to gigantic monitor lizards. Many of them! I had to stop my run because one was very slowly crossing my path. And from then on from our hotel room overlooking the lake, I could finally notice the currents they made as they swam through. I wouldn’t have noticed had I not seen them when I ran through.

In Mexico this past spring, despite the Mérida heat, I managed to fit in some runs. To me, a trip isn’t complete until I do one run around outside. In Mérida I got up early one morning to take a run around the new park that had opened up since we’d last been there, and I wanted to see it before we left. I headed over and did the full loop, running and following the other runners’ lead by sticking to the columns where the shade was. It wasn’t even 8am and it was already almost too hot and sticky for a run, but I and the other runners made our way through the park doing laps until we’d had enough of the heat. As I made my loops, I got to see how everyone used the park and how it was already a community hang out spot even though it’d only been built a couple of years ago. And I also found after my run, there’s an entire cafe dedicated to post-run recovery that even holds its own run clubs (should you want to join one on your next trip).

I like running because more than any other activity, it makes me feel like a local. I’m joining other runners as they start their day, and I’m seeing places that are local at times when I wouldn’t really otherwise. Who advises to spend your vacation going to a local park at 8 in the morning just to see it? These kind of plans don’t usually make your itinerary. But it lets you see the city for a moment as if you lived there.

In Ciudad de México I read a post before I arrived that said there was a great running route around Amsterdam in Condesa. This was a last minute trip, and I hadn’t done any research or planning, and had only spent a grand total of 24 hours in the city before this. So my first morning I tentatively headed out, hoping I’d be able to find the running path. Well, if you haven’t been, it’s kind of unmissable. It’s the largest walking and running path in that area, and it’s a circular street that rounds its way through multiple neighborhoods to leave you right back at your starting point. It’s wide, separate from the road on a median that runs through the middle, and covered by gorgeous trees that hang over and create a lush barrier between you and the traffic on either side. And every morning that trip, I got up and joined the other runners on the path, alongside all the walkers, dogs, and people selling items from the benches.

Most importantly, I got to see the city in a new light, which is all I can ask when I travel.

And with that, I’ll leave you with some playlists from my runs around the world:

And the album that powered my runs around Ciudad de Mexico, but especially the first track. And the album that’s been the soundtrack to all my LA runs, of course :)

Also a note on me before we jump in — I’m 34 (33 when I was on this trip), don’t have acne, and generally have “good” skin. I’m definitely still young, but as I’ve gotten deeper into my 30s I notice more lines, spots, and generally looking tired, all minor, but my goal with these treatments wasn’t to change anything drastically. My goal going into this was to enhance what I have, and just look generally more bright, glowing, and alert.

Treatments

Using a concierge service for booking

First off, if you’re looking to do anything in Seoul, I’d highly recommend booking with a concierge service. I booked with Aneue Concierge, which begins with a meeting with the founder, Jennifer, where she asks about your concerns and what you’re interested in. She then creates a preliminary schedule, and you can adjust or ask any other questions you have. After that and a deposit (you can check her website for current rates), she booked all my appointments, created an itinerary, and arranged translators where needed. I had a perfect experience, and didn’t have to spend time scrolling TikTok or Reddit to figure out what reviews are real or not. While I was there, she was reachable every step of the way and provided really extensive service (even helping me book an emergency hair salon visit after I had booked my own failed experience!)

Year in review: Jennifer is going to be my first email for my next trip. I had an absolutely amazing experience and would honestly only work with a concierge going forward. There are so many clinics out there, but I don’t want to mess around with my face or body. Jennifer only works with trusted doctors that she herself has vetted and tested out, so every doctor is trustworthy and provides great service. It also allowed me to go to clinics that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise because of the translators Aneue Concierge provided.

Lymphatic drainage massage

Jennifer recommended YJ Spa for massages — these were not fun! It’s a lymphatic drainage massage and it hurt pretty much the entire time. However, I felt incredible after, years of tension released, and also it looked like I had lost about 10lbs right after. I went twice while there and I honestly wish I had done one more. The cost for this was $350, which included a full body massage + facial. A quick scheduling note — obviously after you get botox, you can’t do the facial massage part. Make sure to schedule at least one massage before you do your botox.

Year in review: 100% doing this again. I have never had a more effective massage. This is my actual first stop next time I’m there — Jennifer had booked this for me for the same day I landed which I originally thought was a mistake. But Jennifer told me she recommended getting it right off the plane and she was right. It felt incredible to get everything cleared out of your system after a long flight and start the trip feeling rejuvenated and refreshed. I’m planning to get this once at the beginning and once at the end of my next trip.

Lasers

For lasers, Aneue Concierge set me up with WidWin Clinic. I’m not sure the exact combination I got, but the doctor listens to your concerns, assesses your skin, and decides on the right “cocktail” of lasers for you. You start with about 30-40 minutes of numbing cream to prep, then head in to the laser room. It wasn’t too painful, and honestly the aftercare wasn’t too bad. I had a red face for a day or two, then I had a dotted texture for a few days after, then it faded and my skin looked normal. The cost for mine was around $650. For context, I’ve never gotten lasers in the US because usually just one laser is >$1k. This treatment had about 4 different lasers all targeting different areas and concerns.

Year in review: I would 100% get this again, and it’s top of my list for my next trip. My only regret was not going back twice (I believe you can get them every two weeks). It made a huge difference in my skin and cleared up some dark spots, the downtime was minimal, the doctor was so kind, and it really wasn’t painful. Totally worth it.

Skin botox & Rejuran

For skin botox/filler/Rejuran, Aneue Concierge sent me to DrSkinny. Skin botox was a last minute add on but I had heard it could help with rosacea and I’ve always been curious about it, so I added it on. Again this started with numbing cream, then you head in to the treatment room. The rejuran was not painful at all, but the skin botox… I wanted to cry! The doctor was so cute and kept making little “dew! dew!” noises every time the needle went in to distract me. It helped but still hurt. I can’t remember the full price of this, but the Rejuran skin booster + potenza microneedling was around $800. For reference, in the US, a skin booster with microneedling is >$1k. Also apologies, I cannot remember how much the skin botox was but would ballpark somewhere around $500.

Year in review: Yeah, unfortunately I would do all of this again regardless of the pain. The skin botox just gave this gorgeous glass skin effect that was completely worth the awful pain. I also started with minimal rosacea, and it basically completely cleared it up for months. A year in, it’s still reduced from where I started. Although the lack of it flaring up again I would probably attribute more to quitting my insanely stressful job, the skin botox did clear it up pretty much immediately while I was in Korea. It also got rid of any fine lines I had, like around my mouth and eyes. A year in these treatments have worn off of course, but to see the results, the photos below show my skin about four weeks after my treatments, which imo is as close to glass skin as I was hoping to get. Overall the treatments lasted at least six months which in my opinion is worth it.

Lip filler

For lip filler, I ended up going back at the end of my trip to get a small amount in my upper lip. I wish I had done this earlier! I ended up having to rush to do my follow-up appointment 2 days (vs 10 or so days) later to fit it in before I left, but the swelling was still pretty noticeable so I opted not to add any more. The process itself didn’t hurt much, but the aftercare was tough — I had a pretty significant bruise on my lip for about a week after. However it looks completely natural and I don’t think anyone can tell I have lip filler, so the results are worth it. The cost for the lip filler was $400.

Year in review: This was worth it, but please do not be like me. I don’t regret starting out conservative, but I basically paid $400 and had insane bruising for 2 weeks to look exactly the same. .33ml is essentially nothing, and neither I nor my husband (!) can even tell I got lip filler. I also wish I had gotten this earlier in my trip because if you go back after 10-14 days, they will do a complimentary touchup to fix any unevenness or to add more. Since I did this at the end I didn’t have time to see the swelling go down, so when I went for a follow up a few days later they still looked crazy swollen and I didn’t want to add any more. Next time I go I’m going back first thing so I can do a regular follow up. Also I loved DrSkinny, she was so nice!

Collagen threads (and bonus Sofwave review + bonus botox review)

Aneue sent me to BrandNew clinic for more lasers, lipolysis, and collagen threads. I had an amazing time here and can’t wait to come back, everyone was so kind. I got collagen threads to add volume to my mid face bands, where I’ve noticed my skin has started losing volume around my dimples. I asked how it worked and the doctor explained that the threads go in, your body recognizes them as a foreign substance, and tries to fight them off for awhile via inflammation. However, your body can’t make them go away, so eventually they do the next best thing which is to isolate them by building a wall of collagen around them. Over time the threads disappear, but the collagen stays, and the effect lasts about a year. This was completely painless, and the only aftercare is massaging them to make sure they create the most collagen as they can. The cost was about $1k for the threads. No comparison for the US, because they’re not available here.

Year in review: Honestly, the experience for the threads was great, very easy and painless. And I did notice a difference. They last about a year, and although the difference was minimal, now that it’s wearing off I can see my bands are deeper than they were post-treatment. However — it was honestly so minimal of a difference, and it really cost a lot. $1k for the threads! I think I’d rather spend that money on something with more noticeable results.

Bonus year in review for Sofwave: I didn’t initially review this, but I also got Sofwave for tightening under my chin. I didn’t have fat there, I just have skin that causes a double chin and the doctor recommended Sofwave to tighten it. It was a 10/10 pain, and some people do get sedated for this. It was the most painful thing I got done by far. I do have less of a double chin now but it’s tough to tell if it was from that exactly (or if I just got better posture and tongue positioning). But given the cost and the pain, I do not think I could survive this treatment again. I believe it was about $800-1,000 for the treatment.

Extra bonus year in review for botox: I didn’t initially review this because it’s botox and it’s pretty much the same here as in the US, maybe a little cheaper (but do not go too cheap!!! If it’s really cheap, they are probably weakening it). I got botox for a brow lift which I get in the US anyway because my eyes are kind of hooded and the botox lifts my eyelids so I can actually see better. I will continue getting this because, as mentioned, it helps me see better.

I did also get masseter botox for jaw tension, and I would not get this again. It gave me tension relief which is what I wanted, but it completely hollowed out my face in a way that was honestly freaky to see. Basically it completely atrophied that jaw muscle and so when I opened my mouth it just hollowed out completely like I was some kind of scary snake unhinging its jaw. I know some people like the slimming effect but if you don’t have much to lose in that area, be careful! Of course it will go back to normal, but it took another 6 months after it wore off for me to stop looking spooky.

Lipolysis aka fat-dissolving injections

So lipolysis, if you’re unfamiliar, is literally the process of injecting fluids that dissolve your fat. From what I understand, the fluid goes into the fat cells and causes them to expand and burst, and then they get processed through your kidneys and you essentially pee out the waste. This is not available in the US because it’s not legal (yet), but I personally wanted to get it because a. I was curious and b. I had some fat in some areas that wouldn’t go away, but it wasn’t enough to make me want to go through lipo.

During my consultation, I told the doctor where my areas of concern were, and he felt around each area to determine the amount of fat vs muscle. He told me what areas he recommended and what the effect would be, so I decided to go for my arms, thighs, and stomach. I was nervous for it, but the treatment was completely painless aside from a few needle pricks. Maybe it was also painless because he let me play Bad Bunny during the treatment. Every doctor comes up with their own proprietary formula and I’d heard some people say it could be incredibly painful, so I asked the doctor how he’d made his so painless. He said he kept adjusting the formula and testing it on himself until it was painless, so… I really felt like I could trust his expertise. Apparently it has to do with getting the ph right so your body isn’t too shocked when it happens.

I got five total treatments, once in my upper arms, then twice in my thighs and and stomach, and for each area they do two rounds of tightening lasers as well. It’s low downtime, so just avoid heavy exercise/sweating for 3 days. The cost is expensive — it was $1200 for each area which included the injections, plus Onda tightening laser, plus another laser I can’t remember the name of, so it does cover a lot of treatments. I believe you could also skip the lasers and just get the injections for $800 which I did for my second round of treatments. No cost comparison for the US obviously because this treatment isn’t available here.

The results take awhile to process in your body, but I started noticing the difference within about a week. My body continued to lose fat for maybe a month or so after. I think this is good for areas with a small bit of fat, so not enough to do full lipo, but an area where you maybe have some stubborn fat that won’t go away. Honestly I felt fine with my body, but I noticed after I hit 30 I started seeing fat stick around on my hips and upper arms that wouldn’t go away, and I was really curious to try this to see if it worked. The fat loss is permanent, but if you do gain weight again it obviously won’t prevent you from getting fat there again, so they stress making sure you keep your diet/exercise routine good so you don’t just negate the results.

Year in review: I would get this 1000 times over!!! I loved this treatment, and it made the biggest improvement in my self confidence. After I left Korea I had lost 15lbs, and those have stayed off. I think it staying off I can attribute part to this treatment and also part to quitting my insane job that was causing me to have terrible health habits.

My favorite part though was the recovery. They ask you to avoid heavy exercise for 3 days so the injection sites don’t get infected, and then you can go back to regular activity. I was back out exploring Seoul immediately, and back to running regularly within three days. Lipo, I believe, is a much larger and involved recovery. I have complicated feelings talking about weight loss in this age of ozempic where we’re watching people get ridiculously skinny, but I want to be honest that this was a procedure that made a huge impact on feeling better about myself and I absolutely loved the experience and the results.

A couple of other notes: They also add on Onda and another laser as part of this treatment; because the lipolysis was so effective it’s hard for me to tell if the lasers really made a difference. If you do go for this be aware that they are literally pumping you full of liquid, so wherever you get it, you’ll grow a few sizes. I wished I had brought larger sized clothes to change into after because you do grow multiple inches, and buttoning my pants right after the treatment was a struggle. The liquid mostly drains in about 1-2 days so you’ll be back to normal quickly.

Medical checkups

Also — if you’re American, can I recommend also getting a physical while you’re here? The medical system here is great and more focused on prevention and early detection. I got a full medical checkup at Cha Ilsan, also organized by Aneue Concierge, that included full workups and scans of my body, plus an endoscopy and colonoscopy. Yes, that did mean I had to spend part of my vacation preparing for a colonoscopy, but it wasn’t too bad. I now have a full 30-page report on the state of my health that I can refer to, and areas of concern that now I know to monitor. I chose a comprehensive package because I just wanted to do it all if I was already there, but you don’t need to do one as intense. It was the most pleasant (and also comprehensive) medical experience I’ve ever had. Full cost was $750, I shudder to think what the cost would be in the US for what I got!

Year in review: I completely recommend this and plan to get physicals regularly abroad moving forward. Read my full review here!

Beauty services

Aside from skincare treatments, I also did a few beauty treatments. Below, what I’d recommend:

Lashes

AIN Beauty Lab for lash perm - This made the biggest difference on my face, and I’m glad I did this early on so I could look good for the rest of my trip (and skip mascara in the heat). She did an incredible job, and I opted for the keratin treatment and tint as well. All told it was 70,000 won which is about $45.

Year in review: I am definitely coming back here next time, this was a perfect lash lift. I have not had one as good as this since!

Hair

ParkJun Salon, Cheongdam branch - Another appointment coordinated by Aneue Concierge! You can really trust me on hair salon recommendations because I actually had 2 failed salon experiences elsewhere before I ended up here. ParkJun had good english and was a nice salon, and they really fixed a dire hair color situation I had.

Year in review: While I would not get my hair dyed in Seoul again (know what the market is…. if I’m getting a California balayage blonde, let me just get that in California). But I would go back for one of those multi-step head spas. We tried a different one near Myeongdong last time and it was bizarre and not good. But, I would go back to ParkJun because they are known for their scalp treatments, and I had a really great experience in all my (and my husband’s) visits there last year.

Honorable mention for Onyad hair salon in Seongsu, where I went when I first arrived and got the best haircut of my life.

Year in review: I still have no clue what they did because I just asked for a haircut and they gave me one, no consultation or inspo pics, and to date it was the best haircut I’ve ever received. I’m still chasing this haircut! I’ll go back next time to see if it was a fluke or not and report back.

Color analysis

Color Place - I booked the highest tier service to be with the owner, because I also wanted to do body analysis while I was there. I recommend booking this as soon as possible when you arrive so you know for the rest of your trip. They are experts here. Within just a few minutes they had analyzed my face shape, body type, if I was cool- or warm-toned, and what my season was. They have a translator who speaks perfect English with you the whole appointment so nothing gets lost in translation.

Overall I found this really helpful — first they showed me my season and best colors, then showed me celebrities to look at with similar features and colors, showed me what clothing shapes work best for my body type, and what makeup best works for my skin tone. There was so much information, I came home and immediately wrote three pages of notes so I could refer back to it (They give you printouts with information as well).

Year in review: This is more of a one-and-done thing so I wouldn’t go back, but it was absolutely worth it. I have so much more awareness when shopping now about what colors and shapes work for me, so now even if I see something that looks nice, I can go, no, don’t be tempted, that is going to make you look sick. It’s helped so much for my makeup and my clothing, I’d definitely recommend going. And get the full experience! Having the body analysis was one of the most helpful parts. Especially now when I go shopping, I know the exact necklines I should get for tops and which to skip, where pants should hit me, and what lengths jackets should be, which is invaluable information when shopping.

Cap it all off with a photo shoot at LeeJ Studios

I don’t think I originally reviewed this but at the very end of my trip (but before I got bruised from lip filler!! This is key.) I had scheduled a photoshoot to get headshots with LeeJ Studios. I think this is 10,000% worth it. I don’t think getting headshots is huge here in the US unless you’re in certain industries, and yet you constantly need decent photos of yourself. Also, I think it’s nice to have really good photos of yourself! I was really worried that this was going to be a waste of money because I was going to be super nervous and awkward in front of the camera and wouldn’t be able to relax enough to get a good shot. It was not a concern at all — they are such professionals at LeeJ and they made me feel so comfortable, hyping me up and giving me direction and I ended up with too many photos of myself that I loved.

They also connect you with a hair and makeup studio that they work with, it’s your choice if you want to use them but I did and they did a literally perfect job. I didn’t even have reference photos, I just described what I wanted and they gave me perfect makeup and hair. They also have clothes available at the shoot, but I brought my own. Unfortunately I lost my messages so I don’t have the total cost on me, but I believe the total cost was around $500 for the photoshoot which included 2 concepts, hair and makeup, all raw images, plus 5 retouched images.

Final reflections on my treatments

Overall I’m so happy with the results. Not that money can buy you happiness etc, but really, it was so worth it to go and get treatments that leave me looking exactly like myself, but much glowier and just slightly better. Now that I’ve gone once, I’m hoping to come back every 6mos or so for another maintenance trip (but will not do all of this on the same trip again…. that was a lot of time around needles).

Final results, from my photoshoot at the end of my trip:

I’ll provide restaurants, of course, but imo you would be completely remiss to not take advantage of the extensive grocery stores in the area too so I’m going to give you a thorough rundown of those as well.

Restaurants

First off, if you want to have a good meal, you need to leave DC. We went into DC for many restaurants; I was never impressed (except for one that I’ll share below). Maryland and Virginia have the superior restaurant selection. A quick orientation before we start: in Maryland, Rockville and Gaithersburg have some of the most diverse restaurant selections (and Gaithersburg was actually rated one of the most diverse cities in the US a few years ago). Virginia has a rich collection of Korean restaurants around Annandale, and an entire center dedicated to Vietnamese cuisine at Eden Center. The real beauty of living here is that with a quick Google, you can find any cuisine you’re looking for.

A caveat before we start — we pretty much mostly eat Asian food, and if we aren’t then we’re eating something from somewhere in Latin America, so that bias is reflected here. We like what we like!

For when you need something fancy

Shia is my ultimate I-need-a-fancy-dinner recommendation. We went there three times, and loved it every time we went. So much so that I did a full writeup of it last year. It’s run by Chef Edward Lee from Culinary Class Wars, and they have a set menu they rotate with the seasons. They strive to be a zero waste kitchen and they do a lot of interesting things to accomplish that goal (like making coasters from the papers they used to apply for their liquor license). The food is comforting, and you can expect a really warm and welcoming experience, a cozy atmosphere, and a very special meal every time. It is the only place in DC I would go back to eat.

China Garden - Where we ended up with my parents in law for pretty much every Chinese holiday. They still do dim sum with the carts on weekends, they have plenty of tables, and it’s a vibrant atmosphere on a holiday. The food is really good, too! Parking is easy and there’s a lot across the street that’s free. During Chinese holidays they also have specialty dishes and it’s worth going to get some really fancy dishes like the lobster served in its shell below.

Pisco Y Nazca - Peruvian food, and recommended to us by the people we worked with to redo our kitchen who are Peruvian. Really incredible food, and although we never made it inside, it’s supposed to be really nice inside as well (and especially the DC location, if I heard correctly). This is more for sitdown, but if you do need a to go option, we would never turn you away from Don Pollo’s. During our kitchen reno when we had limited cooking ability we kind of lived off Don Pollo; the chicken plates are great of course but I love the pollo estofado as well.

Peking Gourmet - Where to go if you need peking duck in a fancy banquet surround. It’s decorated gorgeously inside, and the food is presented beautifully. We made it here for a celebration meal or two, but wish we made it out here more!

Joon - This Persian restaurant opened up across from Tyson’s Corner, and (sorry) we had low expectations. We were wrong. The food is fantastic!! We’ve ordered almost every dish at this point. If you need a meal in the area this is worth it, but it’s also worth traveling out of the way for. I recommend every dish but especially the seasonal hummus which comes with seemingly everything on top, and the duck fesenjan which is incredibly rich and decadent. They also do wine specials on certain days if you’re looking for a happy hour.

For when you want to feel like someone invited you over for dinner

Artha Rini Indonesian - This was my favorite restaurant in the entire area. It’s exactly what I look for in a restaurant. Cute and quaint inside, family run, food that feels like it’s home cooking. I am not a fan of Michelin dining; more than anything I want to feel like I’m in someone’s living room having a meal. And that’s what it feels like here. The food is fantastic too. It’s in Kensington, and you can take a stroll around after through the area as well. If you visit nothing else from this post, visit here! And get the salad made with special Indonesian ginger.

54 Restaurant - Right around the corner from the National Museum of Asian Art in DC, we found this place when we saw the restaurant at the museum had Vietnamese bowls for $20. We came here instead, and had no regrets. It’s really cozy inside, and they call you in, you order at the front, and they bring the food to your table. The portions are large and the meat is beautifully charred. It’s busy inside, but somehow manages to still feel like a home cooking atmosphere.

Filo Cafe - We found Filo Cafe after watching a Youtube video about Filipino breakfast, and we wanted to try it for ourselves. We googled around, and thankfully this was only an 18 minute drive from our house. It’s in a little strip mall next to Goodwill, and it has a lot of options for Filipino food, but especially the breakfast which they serve all day. They also have homemade desserts you can buy as well up front. Cute and has a home-y feel, and it is family run!

For when you want a hidden gem

Eat a Lao - The spot for Lao cuisine. It is so delicious, and you can find some really unique and special dishes here (but my favorite is the crispy rice salad). It’s never too busy inside, but the people who do go, get it. One time my husband posted it on Instagram and a friend in the area DM’d him to say “No, don’t share, this is our favorite hidden spot in the DMV!” So that should give you an idea of how good it is.

Mandalay - Great Burmese food. Tragically we only got takeout from them because Silver Spring was a little out of the way for us, but the food is really delicious and they have a ton of options. My husband has been eating here for decades!

A&J - Northern Chinese cuisine, and conveniently located mere steps away from Eat a Lao. They specialize in soups, and especially noodle soups. We went here during a snowstorm once, and got to enjoy our warm bowls of soup while we watched the snow fall outside. They’ve also got other dishes, like a really interesting greens salad that’s bean curd and soy bean mixed with finely diced mustard greens that I really recommend you order. This is one of my husband’s favorites (not shocking given he is from northern China).

Phở 75 - My husband’s top pick for phở, and you can trust him because it is his favorite food. Personally, I liked the vibe at Pho Hoa Binh, so there are two phở reccs for you.

For when you want to make a day of it

Z & Z Manoushe Bakery - This bakery in Rockville specializes in Lebanese flatbreads, manoushe, and they fire them fresh directly behind the cash register. As you sit, you can watch them fire your order. They have a bunch of different topping options, and they’re all great but really, the bread is what you’re here for. It’s nice and charred and crispy on the outside, and tender on the inside, and piping hot because by the time it comes to your table it’s only been out of the fire for two minutes, max. Semi-limited seating but people move fast and seats open up quickly.

Neighbors Coffee - And if you’re already going to Z & Z, why not stop next door and get a coffee at Neighbors Coffee? They just opened up their physical location after being a mainstay at the Kentlands farmer’s market. They’ve got a rotating set of specialty drinks; currently, it looks like they have a Valencia orange espresso spritz and a mango sticky rice green tea, both of which I wish I’d tried before I left!

Hulu hot pot - There are sooo many hotpot spots in Rockville. This one we loved because the selection of fresh ingredients is extensive, they have great broths (including some southeast asian flavors like a tom yum broth), and a perfectly stocked sauce bar. Make it an all-day thing because a. hot pot takes a long time and b. Yekta Supermarket (coming in the next section) is right next door, so get some grocery shopping done either before or after.

Eden Center is the ultimate all-day place. If you haven’t been, as soon as you can, it is one of the best spots in the entire DMV. It’s an entire center dedicated to Vietnamese restaurants, shops, and markets. I have an entire post dedicated to this spot one day because there is simply too much to get into, but for now, just know that you can’t go wrong with pretty much any restaurant here. If you need some direction, Phở Gà Vàng has the best chicken dishes, and Hai Duong has great bún chả.

After, there are a few dessert shops you can stop by, they all have something unique to offer so wander through a few. There’s a sugarcane juice shop, and a Vietnamese goods shop. And of course there’s Good Fortune, the incredible grocery store at the end of the center (described more later in this post).

Make your last stop Thanh Son Tofu so you can bring it home as fresh as possible. This is a tofu shop, and it’s confusing inside but start at the line by the entrance for dessert. We always get a tofu with ginger sauce, small. Next the line to the left of the cash register is for the fried tofu, which is what you really want. We get a half pound of the mushroom, half pound of the lemongrass. Finally, if you see the perfectly spherical green balls up near the cash register, ask for one of those as well. They’ll call your number when it’s time to pay so just wait around up front. Try the fried tofu the second you get into your car to have it hot. Also, try the green ball (no clue what it is, but it seems to be corn flakes surrounding meat pate, all surrounding a quail egg, and then deep fried). If it’s fresh and crispy you’ve hit the jackpot; eat it now. If it’s been sitting out and is a little cold and stale, wait and re-toast it when you get home. Part of the fun is never knowing when you will enjoy your green prize.

For when you need it to go

Yekta - A market primarily, but with a small kitchen inside. Please note there is no seating, so either take it to go or eat in your car (or get delivery). But it is WELL worth it. We ordered from here approximately 437432 times. I tried ordering Persian food from other places but nothing ever compared. I almost always got the chicken koobideh plate which comes with chicken koobideh kabobs, perfectly tender rice, and a ton of sumac. The tahdig and khoresht is the perfect side dish, and no other tahdig I ordered during my few years here came even close to this one. Get the panir sabzeh for some fresh herbs and walnuts on the side as well. And, for what it’s worth, I also visited a lot of specialty markets in the area and the selection at Yekta is also the best if you’re in the market for Persian/middle eastern ingredients. If you do go to the market pick up some dates from the unmarked containers by checkout, they are incredibly fresh.

Caliente - My absolute favorite for ordering in from. I always got the pollo a la plancha which is chicken, rice, beans, and a salad, aka the perfect balanced meal. We also got a couple of pupusas every time. I lost count of the times we ordered from here, it was my favorite!

Big Greek Cafe - If you want fries, this is where to get them from. They have the best fries in the entire area. This is scientific, I pretty much tried them all and these are the best. I love the greek salad with chicken too — for balance.

Delimanjoo, the sweet potato vendor outside of Lotte - My actual favorite spot in Maryland is the sweet potato vendor outside the Lotte Plaza Market in Rockville. I don’t know what his hours are but the sweet potatoes are perfectly cooked and come out exactly like pudding. Every time we grocery shopped here we picked up a handful to bring home for the rest of the week.

Bob’s Shanghai - Incredible Chinese food. General Bob’s is their take on General Tso’s chicken and please do not dismiss it — they do this dish incredibly, and you can almost eat the whole container in one go because you just want to keep eating the tangy/sweet/savory sauce. They have a no-frills restaurant, or you can order to go. Either are a great experience!

For when you want a lively meal

Han Gang - We came here for Korean food very late in our time here (like literally days before we moved) but wow, the food was fantastic. It’s cute inside, but really the food was just phenomenal. We got four dishes

Yechon - My husband’s favorite restaurant. Also Korean food, and it always feels like a party inside. The food is good, the portions are large, and it’s open late (it used to be open 24 hours!). Honestly it’s just a welcoming dining experience and we loved coming here. My husband loves it so much I commissioned a matchbook print for him last Christmas, which you can purchase too here if it also ends up becoming your favorite.

Bonus: A definitive grocery store ranking, ranked by me

Lotte Plaza Market Rockville - One thing I love about grocery stores in the DMV is that they sell food from every culture. Yes, it may be a Korean grocery store, but it still has a full aisle dedicated to South Asian food, African food, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern food, Latin American, etc. In NYC, I always had to go to specialty markets to find certain ingredients. Not here! This Lotte is new enough, but has an incredibly diverse selection and the produce is in good quality. If you’re cooking something from any cuisine, I am sure you can find it here. The Lottes in the area in general are good for getting everything in one stop, but this one was our most-visited.

Good Fortune - Conveniently located right in Eden Center. It has it all! It veers mostly Asian, but if you’re looking for something you can probably find it here.

H Mart - Okay, there are approximately 6,000 H Marts in the area. We visited almost every one, so here is the ranking: A-tier: H Mart Fairfax, H Mart Centreville, H Mart Herndon. These are the newer ones, which mans they’re larger. If you find one with a food court, those are pretty much always going to be the newer, larger, nicer ones. My top-tier favorite is the Fairfax location, and as a bonus in the spring they also sell seedlings to grow Korean vegetables. B-tier: H Mart Wheaton, H Mart Gaithersburg - fine, serviceable, they get the job done. C-tier: H Mart Falls Church, H Mart Annandale. You might think since they’re close to all the Korean restaurants, they’d be the best. No, it means they were built first, so these are the smallest and oldest H Marts of the bunch. I’d really just recommend driving a little out of the way to go to a newer one vs one of these.

Great Wall Rockville - A little dingy inside, but it has everything you’re looking for. If you need Asian ingredients and you want to stay in Maryland, I’d either go here or Lotte.

The Whole Foods on River Road - Avoid this hellscape at all costs. The parking lot is too small for everyone’s gigantic SUVs and it turns everyone into a lunatic. After I got yelled at by a woman (who blocked me in and then got mad at me…. for not being able to get out?), my husband told me he’d seen other people get into screaming matches the last 3 (out of 3!!) times he’d been there. I don’t know why this center attracts the most on-edge clientele, but the Whole Foods also sucks there so let me cure your curiosity for you: there is no reason to ever go here. Find literally any other grocery store.

And that’s it! If I missed something, don’t tell me; I already moved out. But if you do go somewhere on this list and enjoy it, please let me know!!

I had a fantastic experience, and since I’ve gotten back I’ve had a lot of people ask me about it. I think a lot of people are curious about what medical care is like outside of the US. Mostly, I think, because they hear it’s better. At least speaking from my experience: I had such a great experience to the point that if I need any medical care, I’m going back to Seoul before I book a doctor here in the US. If you’re curious, I want to share the entire experience of what it was like getting an exam in Seoul, complete with pricing, what procedures are included, and the experience itself.

Before I arrived

I worked with Jennifer Seo of Aneue Concierge for the entire process. First we had a video meeting to discuss what my priorities were for the exam, but since she’s coordinated a lot of these for clients, she also told me the tests she usually recommends clients (and particularly women) add on as well. After we met, she sent me a few options for the type of hospital where I could get an exam. You could choose from more luxe facilities where you’d be in a private room all day and have the doctors come to you (for a price), or from a hospital where you get taken from room to room for each part of the exam. I chose the latter option at Cha Ilsan because it’s a new medical facility, and I didn’t really need the most exclusive experience (and coming from the exams in the US…. pretty much anything would be an improvement).

She also sent over PDFs from each hospital that showed their list of checkup packages, which included options like a basic checkup, a cancer focused checkup, heart focused, brain focused, and a full checkup for about $3,000 that included absolutely everything. I chose the cancer one as my base simply because it had pretty much everything I wanted to do already included. It was definitely overkill, but since I was going halfway around the world for this, I didn’t want to do basic, I wanted to do it all. Once we had a set list of procedures and a hospital, she worked with them directly to set everything up and arrange for a translator to be there with me for my appointment.

After our conversations, this was my full list of what I had done. It was all one floor of one center, and includes a full range of doctors from vision, to hearing, to gynecology, to radiology. This was last year so I’m not sure if their prices have changed but my entire cost for everything was $750. I think this would have been in the thousands to have this done in the US, if I could even convince a doctor to give me these tests without symptoms at all.

And now please stick with me as I tell you that the part I was most excited about was getting a colonoscopy. I’m 34, and about a decade off from when the US recommends I get my first one. However, colon cancer rates keep rising in younger people, and I wanted to clear the deck so to speak. Once you have a colonoscopy, you don’t need to get another one for 10 years, so this one will carry me until I hit the recommended age. And since I was already going under, I might as well get an endoscopy as well. Endoscopies are standard for Korea because they had an issue with stomach cancer rates rising rapidly that they’ve actually mitigated pretty well in part by making endoscopies a regular part of checkups.

The colonoscopy prep

Giving you a quick out after this paragraph if you do not want to hear about colonoscopy prep, but I feel like this is the part everyone freaks out about. Let me give you one takeaway even if you do skip ahead: it is not that bad!! Like at all. I really was expecting it to be awful and it wasn’t. Go get a colonoscopy, I promise you it’s not that bad. And at any rate, a colonoscopy cannot be worse than actual cancer, so keep that in mind.

Jennifer has gotten many patients through the prep before, so she let me know what I needed to do to be successful. Basically, starting 3-5 days before the exam I would follow a low residue diet, and then starting the night before, I would stop eating and switch to the actual liquid prep. If you’re unfamiliar, a low residue diet is essentially avoiding anything with fiber or pieces that can get stuck in your colon, like seeds or anything with husks; anything colored, and only having minimal fiber.

I know I said earlier the prep wasn’t bad and honestly it wasn’t, but by my sixth bland meal I was ready to never eat anything beige again. So that was the only bad part, having a really boring diet for a few days. Thankfully the place I was staying at had a kitchenette so I made a lot of congee and lived off the pre packaged cooked chicken breasts they sell in all the convenience stores. I also really think the diet helped make the liquid prep go easier because there was simply nothing I was eating that could stick to my insides.

Two days before my exam, the hospital sent me my prep kit straight to my hotel room so I’d be ready to go. Prep starts the night before the exam, and I had to prepare a liquid that basically just cleans you out. They give you a particular schedule to drink it at, and you just kind of chug it at various intervals. I heard a lot of people say it was awful; honestly, it just tasted like really strong Liquid IV and I didn’t mind it. I don’t actually know what was in it but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was just a lot of electrolytes that make your body reject everything inside. I was expecting it to be really bad immediately but I think it took about an hour and a half to work, to the point I thought my body was either broken or too powerful for the medical grade drink to work.

[and here’s the most graphic it will get, warning] I will not get too detailed but I want to share my experience since that’s what everyone seems to be terrified of. From my experience, once you drink the liquid and it takes effect, you just need to sit on the toilet until it fully runs through you. It literally just feels like you have a liquid thats running through you and cleaning out your colon. Maybe I’m insane, but I did not think it was that bad! I have had food poisoning much worse than this.

There’s no painful stomach cramping and sweating like with food poisoning, it’s really just liquid running through you, non-painfully. Alright well that’s enough of that, but hopefully you get my point which is: I was expecting this to be horrible and I just really think it wasn’t bad at all. I would not let the prep keep you from getting this procedure. That being said, one note — if you’re sharing a hotel room with someone, I would try and get a room to yourself for at least that night just so you’re not having to negotiate bathroom time because I think that would make it way worse.

Anyway, you do one round of the liquid at night, and another round the morning of. Jennifer told me to just drink as much as I could of the mixture in the morning, so long as it was coming out clear, I was okay. And thankfully she told me that because for the last drink I was really struggling to get it down, it was just so much liquid. By the end it really was just liquid and no pain, and my stomach really didn’t feel bad at all. I was definitely hungry, but I wasn’t uncomfortable or hurting.

One last note while we’re here, I would recommend factoring in the 3-5 days of the low residue diet and prep, plus seven days after the exam where you can’t go on a plane into your trip. During the low residue diet phase you can go out and explore as normal, you just have to be careful with your diet. And after the exam, you can go back to regular activity immediately, but you just can’t go on a plane because it can cause complications for up to a week after the procedure.

The day of

Jennifer had arranged for a car to pick me up early in the morning at the hotel in Gangnam to take me to Cha Ilsan, which was about 45min away. Once we arrived, Jennifer helped me check in and pay, and this was also when I was able to add any extra areas of concern that they should look into during the exam. After that, we met up with my provided English translator for the day. She was with me for my entire checkup, staying with me and communicating to make sure I understood exactly what was going on every step of the way.

After paying they gave me my gowns and sent me to the locker room to change. They also gave me a bracelet to put on that they would scan and attach all my results to throughout the day. As a note, if you’re having a colonoscopy, they will want you to remove all jewelry. I had some ear piercings I simply did not know how to remove and so I had to leave them in, and they let me know they just wouldn’t be able to cauterize the wounds if they found anything they needed to cut off. Not the end of the world, but just a note to take care of those before you arrive if you can. Thankfully in my case (spoiler alert) they found nothing so it ended up being a non-issue for me.

After I changed, my translator met up with me and brought me to the the rooms one by one for my tests. We did an InBody body composition scan, a full vision and eye exam, a hearing test where you went into this soundproof booth and clicked a button every time you heard a noise, which was really fun, plus an EKG, a lung function test, and a few other tests. This part was actually really fun and easy and everything went by quickly.

Then the fun was over and it was time for my least favorite part, the blood draw. Thankfully Jennifer had warned them that I do not do well with blood draws (historically, this is the part of most exams where I pass out). They set up the room nicely with the lights down low and had me lay down on a bed to keep me from passing out, and the translator stayed with me and rubbed my arm to keep me calm which she really did not have to do, but helped me stay calm and not faint.

Thankfully it went by quickly, and they let me lay there for a bit to make sure I was okay before continuing. This is when I realized I hadn’t understood what Jennifer and the translator warned me about earlier, which is that they basically put a port in your arm during the blood draw that needs to stay there for the duration of your visit so they can easily connect you to the dye for the CT scan, anesthesia meds for your colonoscopy, etc.

I’m sure some of you are reading this like okay? Who cares? But for those of us terrified of blood and needles it was definitely a hurdle! Thankfully the translator was so kind and could sense I was feeling a little nervous about it, so she made sure to keep chatting with me to keep my attention off of it, which blessedly worked because I actually did manage to stay conscious all day.

Next was the gynecology exam, and she did my pap smear and general exam. Usually I have to schedule separate exams for this so I mention it because it really is annoying to have to go out of the way for an exam at home.

From there it was a flurry of other tests. I went to get my chest x-ray, then for a lung CT where they put a substance into my port that they warned me would make me feel really hot. I laid on a bed that kind of quickly threw me in and out of the machine, so it was over really fast. I’m sure we did a few more tests that I’m forgetting (I am positive there was an ultrasound at one point, maybe of my thyroid?), but eventually it was time to do the endoscopy and colonoscopy. I walked into the room and they greeted me, made sure I was positioned correctly on the bed on my side, my translator said goodbye, and then I don’t remember anything after that because they immediately put me under anesthesia and I fell right asleep.

Next thing I knew I was waking up, and I had no idea if minutes or hours had passed. I think I remember wondering if they had even done it yet. It was definitely the easiest part of the procedure because I didn’t remember anything. After I was awake, the translator met back up with me and brought me back to the locker room to get changed, then brought me downstairs because every exam comes with a coupon for free congee at the end (and given I’d been fasting for hours at this point, I needed it). It was some of the best tasting congee I’ve had, probably because of the fast. I had my congee as the translator and I chatted for a while longer.

Eventually, she got a call, and let me know the driver Jennifer had arranged was ready downstairs. I thanked her for going above and beyond, and her kindness and attentiveness really made my experience what it was that day (I am so sorry I don’t remember her name, I think between the trying not to faint and the anesthesia my memories are not the best for that day). Then it was time to get in the car to head back, still a little woozy from the anesthesia and also probably the lack of liquids and food.

They sent me home with my results on a disk, and later when they got the full results of the lab work they sent me an entire comprehensive 27 page PDF to my email with everything in it. I believe I was at the hospital for a total of 4-5 hours but it passed so quickly it felt like 1-2 max. I remember at the end thinking they must have skipped some tests because it felt like it was over so quickly. When I got my results later, thankfully everything was normal, just some small cysts in different areas that aren’t cause for concern.

I also want to add that when I got this exam I didn’t book it because I thought something was wrong. I booked it because I wanted to get a full health checkpoint during a time when I felt healthy that I could refer to in the future. Now I have a full snapshot of my health, which gives me a baseline I can compare to if things do change. And I wanted to do it in Korea because I simply would never do this in the US due to the costs. I’m scared to even estimate how much this would be here, because I don’t even go to the doctor for the flu because it costs so much even with insurance.

I will say — when I got my results, it was a lot to look through, but I didn’t have any major issues. I’m not sure what would happen if something was identified, but I’m sure I could have asked Jennifer and she could have connected me with the hospital to have them explain the results (and actually if I remember correctly, I think you can schedule a follow up while you’re there to come back to the hospital and have your results explained). My point is, I am sure you would not be left without any resources to understand your results, I just didn’t jump through that particular hoop here.

Overall, this was an incredible medical experience, and I felt really taken care of the whole time. I was alone in a foreign country when I did this but I never felt scared or alone during the process, thanks to Jennifer and my incredible translator. The care went way above and beyond what I’ve received in the US, and what I really appreciate and noticed was a huge focus on preventative care vs. reactive care.

My biggest issue in the US is that with insurance hurdles, whenever I have an actual medical problem most doctors just say, well wait until it’s really bad and then come back. I hate that you have to wait until it’s a crisis to get taken seriously, because you end up needing so much more care. I really, really appreciated that in Korea they wanted to catch things early and fix them before they become a problem. Honestly, I plan to come back here for medical exams in the future just because I feel like it’s a completely different approach to care than we have in the US, and I felt really taken care of.

If you have a trip scheduled, I really recommend booking an exam! It’s so incredibly thorough and (comparatively) affordable. Or, even if you don’t have a trip coming up, to be honest the cost savings might even be worth it to travel just for the exam. And, who would complain about an excuse to travel to Seoul?

Do you have any questions about getting a medical exam in Seoul? Let me know in the comments, I’m happy to answer any other questions!

We started our day at the local market where we met up with Chef Wilson Alonzo, who runs Ya’axche. We were there to get a tour of the local market, and also to help him pick out the ingredients for the meal we’d be spending the rest of the day cooking. One thing I love when I travel is to visit the local markets, mostly because in the US we kind of have the supermarket and maybe a farmer’s market that’s open one day a week. Markets like this, though, are so much more fun to visit. The vegetables are fresher and more local, you get to meet with the same people every time, and you can pop in whenever you need.

Chef Wilson passed out bags to each of us, and then started filling each of our bags as we made our way through the vendors. Some flowers here, peppers there, greens here. He explained each of them, and chatted with the vendors. We even got to have a little snack and try a tamale in the market.

As we made our way down one aisle, someone from the market approached us and asked if could they take a photo with my husband. It turns out they had never seen an Asian person in real life before and wanted to take a photo. My husband obliged, and they all huddled in and got a photo together. After they left, Chef Ana explained that really, tourists don’t come out here often. I kind of wish I had a copy of that photo as a souvenir!

With our shopping complete, we headed outside where a row of tuktuks were lined up in front of us. Chef Wilson asked if we wanted to try taking them back to the farm and everyone emphatically said yes, which was optimistic given we had no clue where we were going. We all hopped in, and the tuktuks started making their way down the paved roads. However, Ya’axche is not on paved roads. Suddenly the paved roads turned to dirt, with rocks and huge divots from past rainstorms that the drivers needed to navigate around. We all jostled around in the back, jumping along with the tuktuk. I looked down and noticed my bag was open and my phone was about one more bump away from falling out, so I was lucky catch that right in time.

Finally we reached the end of where the tuktuks could go, so we got out with our shopping bags and headed the rest of the way on foot. Suddenly we went from untamed wilderness outside to a beautifully landscaped, tranquil property. They grow a lot on property, and fruit trees and other edible plants lined the path.

We all sat down under a long table under a large palapa, and immediately Chef Wilson and his team started serving us food. Fresh fruits from around the property, pickled vegetables, eggs, and everyone’s favorite, sopes. The sopes were so good that even though I knew we had a large meal coming that I wanted to save my appetite for, I still couldn’t resist having extra. It was perfectly crispy on the outside and perfectly delicate and tender inside, and the toppings were the right balance of savory and acidic, with a good mix of textures. I’ve had a lot of sopes but this was the best cooked one I’d ever had.

With everyone full from our first meal, Chef Wilson led us out to the kitchen that would be our home for the day. And when I say day, I mean all day — we’d be cooking out in the Yucatecan sun, chopping, peeling, roasting, and frying for hours.

We looked around where he’d led us out to, and saw one big palapa where kitchen tools hung from every corner; a main section down a little stone step where multiple fires over stone pits burned; beyond that, a field full of pits for cooking in the ground the traditional way; at the very very back, a much larger kitchen staffed by a full team that would be filling in the blanks to supplement our cooking.

Just like last time, we were going to be cooking in the ground so our priority was getting the pit set up asap. Chef Wilson showed us how to build the base with dried palm leaves then logs, cross hatching them and alternating layers of each. He added some paper in between to serve as tinder, then, on top of the logs, he showed us how to stack rocks on top into a pyramid. It was like a game of tetris trying to fit each rock into the exact right spot to make sure it was stable. We finished, until some leaves moving underneath caused one side to tumble. It’s okay, he told us, and we rebuilt it.

With the pyramid assembled, he started pouring oil over it to further help it catch fire, and finally set it alight. It started slow, then started smoking fast. We left it for a bit to burn, then came back to poke down the pyramid until it was a flat bed that we could set the pork on. We covered with more fronds and leaves, then added a metal plate like we were repairing a paved road, and finally covered it all up in dirt.

Now it was time to cook the rest of the meal. He gathered us around a table at the front, and walked us through every ingredient we’d be prepping. One by one, he handed us our assignments. These tomatoes roasted on the fire, here you go. These beans shelled into this bowl, you can work here. These cut like so, those cut like that. For my part, I’d be shelling beans, and I passed a really relaxing half hour or so testing different ways to pop open the shells and get the beans out as everyone else worked around me. It’s nice sometimes to just have one singular task to focus on at a time without worrying about what comes next.

By the time my shelling was done the sun was fully out, and my next assignment was blessedly under the covered palapa. I’d be finely dicing peppers for our kibis, a Lebanese dish made with bulgur wheat and meat mixed with vegetables and then deep fried. There’s a huge Lebanese influence in the Yucatán, and a lot of the dishes they brought here are now part of the culture.

And now, I’d be learning how to make them. As I cut the peppers, other people around the table prepped the other items that would be going into the kibis like onions and herbs, everyone sharing stories or jokes as we worked. As I worked I figured out a system for my peppers and found the best way to julienne and then evenly dice each pepper. I found a lot of peace in just slowly making my way through the large stack of peppers in front of me, one at a time. We had a lot to do, but there was no rush. We’d get it all done when it got done.

After finishing my peppers I took a break to see what the other stations were doing. Out in the sun, the fires were at full capacity. One had a chicken stew filled with vegetables that had been pre-charred on the grates, and it bubbled softly over the fire. After it was finished, the chicken would come out and finish directly on the grates, surrounded by more vegetables charring for a salsa. On another, a pot full of calabacitas cooked until tender. Any dish with squash, I am there. It is my absolute favorite food on the entire planet. All squash or calabacitas are fair game for me, I love them all.

Finally all our prep work was complete, and we gathered back under the palapa to see what we’d be making. I didn’t actually know what anything was supposed to be yet. It’s like knowing there will be a painting, but only seeing the paint colors that will be used. We’d all prepped the items that would be going in, and now we could see how they’d all come together to make our kibis, the soaked bulgur wheat with the meat, onions, peppers, and seasoning to make a wet, grainy mixture.

He took us out to the fire where he’d set up a pot of oil to start frying the kibis. Before we started I had no idea what went into kibis; after we prepped I knew what went into them but didn’t know how it came together; now that I’d seen it come together, I didn’t know what they were supposed to look like. And as we watched Chef Wilson form them by hand, I could finally see they were supposed to be little shapes that look exactly like the shape your hands make when you press them together, little ovals with pointed tips. One by one they went into the oil, and we all stood around and watched as they cooked on all sides until they became a nice golden brown.

And now, it was time for intermission. With our first round of dishes done, we sat down for part one of our meal. We had our kibis, perfectly crisped and golden brown on the outside but tender and wet from the bulgur wheat inside, topped with pickled onions for contrast. I expected to just eat one, but they were so good I had a few more. When else would I have fresh kibis made in the countryside in Yucatán? We had our calabacitas too, and those will always be a hit for me. I could eat bowls of squash if I had the capacity. The chicken from the grates came out in a stew, topped by a little tortilla.

The pork had needed hours in the ground to cook, but by the time we finished this course, it was already time to remove it. Yes, somehow hours had flown by as we chopped, roasted, cooked, and ate. We gathered back around the pit, and started uncovering the pork layer by layer. When they finally pulled it out of the ground and opened up the pot, it was still at a rolling boil, cooked exquisitely. We made our way quickly back to the table where they plated the pork for us so we could eat it fresh. This is when I realized we’d made relleno negro, a traditional Yucatecan dish that comes out black from the blackened chiles that make up the sauce.

And we were not done! We still had two courses of dessert that his team had prepared for us behind the scenes. First up was a cheesecake with pepitas topped with popcorn that I could have eaten multiple slices of, it was so good. Next was a more traditional dessert, which was a thick skinned squash that they had filled with sugar and slow simmered until it became almost like a pudding of itself.

This was one of my favorite days of the trip, and I really enjoyed spending the whole day leisurely cooking. This was my favorite food I had all trip, too. If you’re out in the area, I’d recommend spending a day cooking out in Halachó with Chef Wilson. He runs cooking classes like this frequently, and from their instagram it looks like you can reserve via Whatsapp. He’s spoken about how the challenge is getting people out to his place for the cooking class. But if you can make it out there, it is well, well worth the visit. And of course, La Villa Bonita is running this same trip next year if you want to do the entire Yucatán journey for yourself.

If you can believe it, that is the end of our journey in the Yucatán. See you next week for something entirely different!

Dzibilchaltún, he explained in the van on the way there, is believed to have been built around 1000-900 BCE, and was a city until around the 1500s. If you do some quick math, that’s about 2,500 years. And if you do a little more math, that’s 2,500 years that happened nearly 400 years before you or I came along which kind of feels impossible to comprehend. It’s an active archaeological zone and they’ve excavated and uncovered many buildings, but they think even more are hidden in the forest that surrounds the site (and if you do want to read about the excavation, National Geographic has a fascinating article here).

We arrived, and Angel took us about a 15 minute walk from the main entrance to the part of the site that’s open for tours. They’ve uncovered thousands of structures in the area, and you walk past a lot on this walk without even stopping, just to give you a sense of how many buildings there are. Our first stop at the end of the road was the cenote, Xlacah Cenote, which he explained used to be open for swimming but closed during covid and never reopened (and unfortunately it’s looking like it will stay closed for awhile…). He took us past the cenote over one of the flat structures that make up the site, walking over the same old stones the residents used to use thousands of years ago. As we made it to the other side, the previously small and cozy site suddenly opened up into a vast field dotted with structures, flat and stepped, surrounded by trees.

When we made it out to the main area, I took a moment to look around. This site was enormous. There was a huge building with a wall of steps all the way to the top over to my right (the one at the very back in the photo above), a pyramid to my left, an old Spanish church in the center, and multiple football fields’ worth of length in between them. Angel explained that the building on the left had likely been for administrative purposes, and the pyramid had been used for religious ceremonies. Outside the main area in what was now the jungle were likely houses where the citizens lived. And, if I understand this article correctly, what’s now the field used to be paved in stone to make the town square.

I could hear the wind rustling through the trees mixed with chirps from the birds, the smell of the grass and the field vegetation all around. It struck me how peaceful it was. It also felt powerful to stand here and feel like, this must be similar to what it sounded and smelled like back then, too. They probably also heard the birds chirping, and the wind gently blowing through the trees. And it probably smelled strongly like the same trees and grass too. They weren’t there anymore, but I felt like I was there with them for a moment.

And I think that’s what’s so interesting about physical objects from history, and why I’m so fascinated by it. I felt it in Mexico City at the Museo Nacional de Antropología as well. In school I learned that history is in the distant past, and times and people were so different back then. The thing is, they really weren’t. Look at the ceramics from Mexico from as far back as 4000 BCE, and we’re still making similar ceramics today. And look around at this city from over 3,000 years ago. We still have the same wants and needs: a place for celebrations, a place for important meetings, homes to live in, a peaceful area to live. We still like making art, and we still like making things beautiful.

Our last stop was a walk down the white road to the Temple of the Seven Dolls, so named because when they found it, there were seven dolls with deformities inside. And like some other Mayan temples, this one also has a surprise element: every equinox the sun hits an opening in the temple perfectly to create a visual effect that lets the sun shine perfectly through as it rises.

After, we headed back down the white road to the main entrance to change into our bathing suits because it was time for a 180: heading to the beach. Mérida is a great city, but it’s also very close to the ocean (a fact we didn’t really consider when we were here previously). Most people go to Progreso, but Chuburná is a little lesser known spot to the west.

We got into the vans and headed out to the docks to meet the boats that would take us out. I said beach earlier, but Chuburná isn’t really a traditional beach. It’s a bay that was created on accident in 1988 after Hurricane Gilberto came through and destroyed the land that previously had closed it off from the ocean, which created an opening for the water to come through. Now, it’s more of a peaceful inlet with shallow waters and mangrove forests all around.

As we got into our boat for the day, we met up with another guide who lives in Chuburná and leads these tours to take people around the area. We started off slowly out of the marina, passing birds hanging out in groups on sandbars and little mini islands formed by mangroves. We sped up as we got further out into the sea, and the mangroves and birds fell away as the water turned from a light green to a deeper green-blue. The water was unreal — picture the most beautiful turquoise water you can imagine, with the sun overhead casting glittering light all across the surface.

Then the water started turning green again, the mangroves came back and I realized I could see the bottom again. It couldn’t have been more than a couple of feet at some points. And as I was looking around, the boat stopped. We had a little detour as we got stuck for a few minutes with a flooded engine. I didn’t mind the extra time, especially when it just gave us more time to appreciate the beauty around us. I’ve been to beaches all over the world, but this was unreal. I grew up in Maine, a notably cold state, always looking at images of beaches and tropical places. This looked exactly like I’d transported into one of those desktop screensavers I’d loved staring at as a kid, imagining I’d find myself there one day.

Once we got running again, we joined the other boat and started getting off into kayaks. We were going to go for an adventure paddling through the mangrove forest. It sounds really romantic — just the two of you, in a kayak, floating through a mystical forest of mangroves surrounded by the beauty of nature. It was not. On the way in, the water fights you every way, and the kayaks would simply not cooperate. I’ve kayaked my whole life and I could not crack the code on this particular one. It swung wildly this way and that, we kept running into mangroves, we’d paddle one way and it would take us another. As we made yo-yo progress through the maze we occasionally caught up with other couples and heard everyone having the same conversations as us. “No, paddle the OTHER way!” “Not like that, that’s too much!” “Okay stop, just let me paddle.”

And yet, we persevered. Suddenly the narrow path opened wide into a big swimming hole in the middle of the forest. The guides helped us dock our kayaks on top of the mangroves then set us free to dive in. It must have been from the filtering of the mangroves but the water was crystal clear (and googling, that appears to be exactly what was happening). I have to be honest — I am not huge on lake swimming, as I don’t know what’s lurking down there and I don’t intend to find out. But sometimes it’s worth ignoring your reservations and doing it anyway. It was chilly at first, but warmed up quickly. We spent maybe 30 minutes flipping around in the water, swimming from mangrove stump to mangrove stump, and just generally enjoying being completely surrounded by this dense mangrove forest.

I was ready for another relationship-testing ride back to the boat, but I forgot that if a current goes against you one way, it goes with you the other way (basic physics, I fear). We were one of the first ones out which meant we had a lot of headway in front of us, and we got into the kayak and were surprised at how fast and easily it zipped through the mangroves without us trying. At first we let the current just take us, barely even guiding it, but then we got curious. How fast could we go? So we both counted down and then started paddling as fast as we could, going “Tokyo drifffffft!” around every corner. I didn’t have a speedometer but it felt like we were going 80mph and at some points it was genuinely terrifying, but we couldn’t stop laughing.

The most beautiful part was emerging from the entrance, and we stopped to take some photos. And I’m glad we enjoyed it because once we left the current, it was back to paddling hard just to make it one inch forward. One of the guides pointed out the flamingos across the way and told us we could paddle over to see them if we wanted. We considered it until I did the mental math and realized it would likely take us an hour to get over there at our current sad rate, so we just paddled back to the boat. I saw flamingos up close in real life once, at the Flamingo Casino in Las Vegas, and that will have to do for now.

With our kayak excursion over, the guides took us over to Isla Columpios to relax. Instead of being built onto dry land, Isla Columpios is a collection of palapas built directly over a section of shallow water. Which meant you could leave your boat and wade right over to any hut, order a mojito, and hang out on a hammock for as long as you wanted. We headed over to one and put in our cocktail orders, then got ready to work because we were there to make ceviche. I believe the fish was caught by the guide on the boat who’d been giving us the history of the bay. Apparently, we’d been carrying the ingredients to make the ceviche in the boat with us the whole day. Ana unpacked salmas, which became my new favorite snack of all time (they’re little oven-baked tortilla crackers).

We spent a few hours here, but I could have easily spent an entire day here (or multiple days, honestly). The temperature was perfect, the sun glistened over the water, and we just sat there in the shade of the palapa eating our ceviche as the breeze passed by us, sipping our mojitos. I normally don’t drink when I’m out in the heat because a. I’m not fun and b. I want to stay alive, but I gave up that rule for the day because it sounded like exactly the refreshment I needed. The headache after was well worth it.

Finally it was time for our beach day to end, and we all waded back to the boats. As we made the trip back to the marina, Ana pulled out a bunch of chips to snack on. In my opinion there’s really no greater feeling than getting to test out different chip flavors as you let the breeze from the boat dry you off after a day in the ocean.

If you’re in the area, I’d recommend going out of your way to make it to Isla Columpios. I have no idea how you arrange to get out there, but if you can figure something out, it’s beyond worth it (luckily there do seem to be a lot of tour operators). This was one of the better beach days I’ve had in my life.

Next week, we’re headed back out to the countryside for more Yucatecan cooking. I’ll leave you with the one video I got from kayaking where we didn’t run into trees mid filming:

And one where I caught my husband right as we did because it cracks me up:

I’ve spoken about this before because it is legitimately one of my favorite vacations, but I love La Villa Bonita because it’s the perfect high-reward, low-effort vacation. Every week is focused around cooking, and literally all you have to do is show up. Alongside a small group (<10) of other people, you spend a week exploring, learning, cooking, and hanging out. I keep going back because it’s just an incredibly good time that requires no planning on my end and I always end up having experiences I couldn’t have planned for myself. And this week in the Yucatán was no different! Chef Ana and her husband Robb spent a year visiting the area, trying out different experiences and playing with the itinerary to see what would be the best experience for a week long trip.

Although our home base for this trip was Mérida, they planned an outing outside of the city every other day so we could explore more of the peninsula. The benefit of going with Ana and Robb is that they are really well connected in Mexico and know a lot of chefs around the country, which meant we could go to rural areas and have experiences that would be difficult coordinate by ourselves (or just impossible to find in general). And after a week of cooking the traditional foods with multiple different chefs from the area, it gave me a new appreciation for the area I hadn’t been able to experience from previous visits.

In fact, we did so much that I’m going to split this up into a series over the next few weeks, because each day deserves its own focus. I hope you enjoy traveling to the Yucatán with me (even if you can’t get there right now).

If you’re not familiar with the weather in the Yucatán, let me fill you in: it’s “cool” (read: low 80s) until about 8am, then gets unbelievably hot until about 3-4pm, and then starts cooling down again. So anything you want to do you pretty much need to get it in first thing in the morning or wait until the sun goes down. It’s also not uncommon to have a rainstorm roll through in the afternoons. Every morning started early this trip, which is something I typically hate and avoid at all costs. But there’s something about being forced out of your routine that I think is one of the best parts of traveling. Something that feels awful at home suddenly feels exciting and new because it’s in a different environment.

Day one, we got up early to have breakfast, then piled into the van and made the drive to Valladolid. We were meeting Carlos, who has been creating longaniza and other sausages for many years out of his home and shipping them now daily to restaurants all over the peninsula. He greeted us outside and we all got into our protective gear, and then we headed in to the production room. He and his team demonstrated how they grind the meat, pipe it into the casings, shape it carefully, and twist it into sausages. They also let all of us try too — with supervision! It’s cool to know a sausage I made went out there, eaten by someone (sorry if it was lumpy).

After the sausages are made, they bring them next door to the smoking room. Rows of open-fire ovens stretched out in front of us, each one emitting plumes of smoke. Sausages hung everywhere in the room. If I remember correctly they start in the ovens to cook, then rest on the outskirts of the room for a bit to smoke until they’re ready to be packaged. They make sausages of all types, and we saw about 10 different colors in there.

After we’d finished the tour we headed back outside where his family had prepared a spread of the sausages, alongside handmade tortillas, frijoles, and salsas. I’m getting distracted writing this just remembering the food. My husband and I always ask each other, if you could only eat one cuisine for the rest of your life, what would it be? And for me, I can never decide between Thai or Mexican. It’s really tough to beat how fresh and balanced and flavorful Mexican food is, and it’s always a complete meal hitting every food group. I can’t go too long without it, and have been known to google for the best Mexican restaurants even when I’m halfway around the world (if you’re in Seoul — it’s Escondido). And in fact I’m looking at my photos now as I write this and am salivating and already plotting a trip back.

We got to try at least four different types of the sausages, but the crowd hit was easily the bright green one. Carlos explained to Ana in Spanish as I eavesdropped that the green sausage was the result of a lot of trial and error. He’d had to test the right ratio and combination of ingredients because some ingredients turned brown after cooking, and some didn’t have a good flavor. Finally, he found the right combination to give it the perfect color and flavor. That moment made me grateful I’d kept going to my Spanish classes last year even when I didn’t want to or felt like I’d never get it. There’s really no reward like being able to hear a person explain their process in their own words vs having to rely fully on translating, where inevitably some of the message gets lost in translation.

We said our goodbyes to Carlos and his family, and then we had some time to kill so we headed to the local market to walk around. Ana showed us a vendor who makes great sandals from old car tires and leather. I browsed the wall of sandals and a few caught my eye, but I ended up finding a really gorgeous pair of black sandals where the leather twists. They were super comfortable and molded into my feet like I’d been wearing them forever.

After we made our shoe purchases and finished browsing the market, we headed into the car to drive outside the city again for our final activity for the day. After a long drive down a bumpy dirt road, we arrived at Aldea X-Batun to cook alongside a family of women to learn how to cook traditional Mayan dishes.

We had no time to settle in because we needed to get to work immediately. We were cooking chicken the traditional way, which meant it was going in the ground and it needed three hours to cook. Everyone quickly put on our aprons and gathered around a table as they explained to us all the spices they use to make the chicken, including annatto seeds from their garden which they soak in water and use for the color (a bright orange-red, if you haven’t seen). We prepped it as fast as we could, lowered it into the ground, and then got to work covering it carefully with dirt and leaves to keep the heat in.

With our urgent task out of the way, we could relax a little with the rest of our prep. They walked us around the property and showed us where they grow everything, from the annatto seeds we had just used for the chicken to the squash and fruits, and they showed us hammocks and clothing with colorful designs that their mother weaves by hand.

And then it was time to cook. We joined them under the palapa where we’d be doing all of our cooking, outside in the open air. They showed us how to use all the classic tools, including a metate to grind seeds. It seemed simple enough, and we each tried grinding the seeds on it. We thought we did okay until they took over and we saw how effortlessly they flicked their wrists while they worked the mano (the stone you use to grind) down and turned it into a perfectly smooth paste in what felt like less than a minute.

In the meantime their mother had been roasting pumpkin seeds over the comal, and now it was time to grind them up. They walked us over to a seed grinder attached to a pole, and we took turns winding the arm to grind the seeds. It looked easy but it was a workout — as they watched me struggle they joked to me in Spanish that I wouldn’t need the gym after this, I went to the Mayan gym. They alternated speaking amongst themselves in Mayan, and speaking to us in Spanish. Maybe I’m the last person to know this but I didn’t realize Mayan was still an active language, so it was really cool to hear it spoken.

Traditional Mayan cooking is almost all done by fire. This would be the theme for the week, and every time we cooked we did it surrounded by pots bubbling or vegetables roasting on comals over multiple open fires. Here we had one comal going for toasting tortillas and another for the roasting tomatoes and tamales.

While we waited for those to cook, we took a break to sit down and make sikil pak. Sikil pak is a dip kind of like hummus or salsa, but made from pepitas (pumpkin seeds), tomatoes, cilantro, and some light seasonings. We each got our own little molcajete to make it in so we could make it to our taste and season it how we wanted (for me: always more peppers and no one to complain it’s too spicy!). We got to enjoy it with the tiny tortillas we’d been watching them roast slowly over the comal, which had dehydrated to become chips at that point.

By this point in the day the signature Yucatán heat was in full effect. I learned this the hard way our first time in Mérida, but it’s so hot there that you really shouldn’t be drinking just water or it’ll make you sick. You need to replenish your electrolytes as well. Thankfully they had made us a chaya agua fresca that I kept downing and refilling to keep up with what I was losing. I love all aguas frescas, but fell in love with the chaya one. Chaya (also called Mayan tree spinach) is a natural green that grows easily in the area and is used for a ton of different things, but for the agua fresca it’s blended up into the water with some sugar to make a green juice. It tasted a little earthy and very refreshing, and it brought me back from the edge of dehydration (which was great news because we still had a lot of work to do).

We also got to make the most baby-sized tamales I’d ever seen, each one fitting in the palm of your hand with room to spare. The dough was masa and more chaya, and we wrapped them each delicately in a small piece of banana leaf and roasted them on the comal.

Did you know they don’t use tortilla presses? All tortillas are pressed by hand. It took some failed attempts on our end but they showed us how they nimbly moved the dough in their hands, starting with a round ball in the center then pressing it out and out against the heel of their palm as they rotated it until it became a perfectly even circle. I had never tried pressing a tortilla by hand before, but now I know it is possible in case I find myself with masa but not a press. I thought making tortillas by press vs buying premade was handmade enough, but this was another level of handmade.

Finally it was time to take the chicken out and carefully uncover what we’d so carefully buried just a few hours earlier. When they pulled the chicken out, it looked stunning: bright orange, bubbling, and full of juices. They served it up to us quickly so we could still eat it hot alongside the tortillas we’d all pressed by hand (however lumpy some of them were…). It was rich (muy rico), flavorful (sabroso), and perfectly tender (haven’t learned that word in Spanish class yet… suave maybe?).

We ended with a little bite of cacao, and a little sip of traditional alcohol made from the honey of Melipona bees called Xtabentún. It sounds simple, but the flavors (they told us to have a little bit of alcohol with every bite of chocolate) mixed together so well. It was incredibly rich, but even so I felt like I wanted a whole other bite just so I could keep committing the flavors to memory. I’ve never tasted something like that before: floral and fruity honey taste from the alcohol, cut by the deep richness of the cacao. Not that I’ve never had chocolate and alcohol before, but this was the first time I’d ever tasted alcohol that tasted exactly like this, and cacao prepared in a way that tasted like that. Sometimes when you travel it’s not that you’re trying some brand new ingredient, sometimes it’s trying something you’ve tried before prepared in a way you didn’t know was possible.

I love these kinds of days while traveling. It was relaxed, a lot of hanging out, and being in an environment unlike anything I have at home. And I got to learn how to cook these foods directly from the people who are experts at making them. I travel for exactly this reason. I want to see and learn from people what they’re passionate about and get to see that passion firsthand. And if you are in the area, you can book a cooking class at Aldea X-Batun. I highly recommend it!

Next week, we’re visiting some Mayan ruins, and having a beach day in some of the most magically turquoise waters I’ve ever seen at a bay that only exists by accident.

I didn’t realize it when I started, but my goal for this time was to become an active participant in my life again. I started this period honestly feeling like a backed up, clogged pipe. Nothing was really moving or flowing in my life. But every action I took during this period cleared away a little debris, and then a little more, until slowly a trickle came out, and then finally, the water was flowing again. With life I think it’s so easy to just say, I’ll do it someday, but not right now. But I noticed when I stopped taking action it created this backup of stuck energy that ended up permeating my whole life. Once I started denying myself in one area, it was so easy to just keep saying no. But every time I listen and take action, I’m keeping that pipe from getting clogged again, and keeping it open and clear. It’s tough work! But it’s worth it to feel like I’m actually in charge of my life.

So: here’s what got me out of burnout and excited about life again.

Note: this article contains affiliate links where I may earn a small commission. Absolutely no pressure to buy through these links!

First off: Get some space

In my case my environment was so bad I took the full 3 months of FMLA allowed, as recommended by my therapist. I really don’t think I could have recovered without this space because it gave me the ability to see my situation clearly in a way I couldn’t when I was in it, and gave me energy back to actually recover.

FMLA isn’t an option for everyone, but maybe you can find space for yourself somewhere. Taking a week off even if you’re just at home, taking a day on the weekend to do something just for you. I found it was so easy while working to give up work/life boundaries and just default to giving work all of my time. Even something as small as claiming 30 min daily to go for a walk and refusing to let work come into that space is better than nothing.

For your mindset

Once I had the space, I could start listening to myself and taking steps toward what I actually wanted. I realized I was feeling so stuck because I had the life I was living and these vivid dreams of the life I wanted to live, but I was only taking action toward the life I didn’t want while letting my ideal life just kind of die on the vine. That, more than an oppressively micromanaging boss, will get you to burnout. So the steps to get out of burnout needed to get me closer to realizing what I wanted so I could do something about it.

Do the Artist’s Way

If I could recommend this to you 100 times I would. If I could do it 100 times I would! This is the main thing (besides therapy) that healed me. It is the roadmap for getting out of burnout and tuning back into who you are, and reinvigorating your passion for life. Every negative thought you could possibly have, she anticipates, assures you it’s a normal part of the process, and helps you work through it. It is essentially a 12-week program that gives you a clear path and set of actions to reconnect with your interests and tune into your creativity. I was skeptical at every turn of this book but I gave in and followed the directions and I’m so glad I did.

The reason why this book is key is this: you’re not recovering by just sitting there passively intellectualizing about what’s wrong with you. It kept me continuously taking steps toward the life I wanted in a way that built momentum and encouraged me to keep going, not stay stuck.

What I meant when I said earlier that I had stopped doing things is that internally this was happening: I would have a thought come up like, oh those flowers blooming outside are so pretty, I wish I could watercolor them. And then instead of acting on that desire, suddenly 100 excuses would come up that sounded like: It would be too messy to set up right now, you have other chores to do, that’s a frivolous way to spend time. It’s not even worth getting everything out to watercolor for 5 minutes, and anyway, you’re so out of practice that it won’t even be good and you’ll just be disappointed. Now multiply that thought process across every area in my life and you can see why I was finding it so hard to do things I liked: I was literally fighting with myself to not do them. And you might recognize yourself in some of these thoughts as well. The thing is, they feel true, but they are not. In that instance, I remembered what the book was teaching me and got the kit out anyway, painted, and had a fun time. This book encourages you to do it anyway, even when it feels dumb, or stupid, or ridiculous, which actually fights to break the negative patterns you’ve built up.

You can buy a few places I’m sure but this is the one I purchased.

Weekly therapy

A classic recommendation for a reason. It was so beneficial having someone check in with me and course correct in real time. My therapist specializes in parts work, which I guess has some controversy, but I found it incredibly useful because it gave me separation from “parts” of me that weren’t necessarily me and were causing me stress. For example, the part that kept telling me that I wasn’t doing enough on FMLA and needed to be more productive. My therapist would remind me, oh, that’s interesting that that part sounds a lot like your old manager, that makes sense. You can thank that part for what it’s trying to tell you, and move on. It made me realize oh — I don’t have to believe that I’m lazy and doing nothing. That voice is trying to protect me, but I don’t have to listen to it.

I mentioned this last week but we also did a lot of work around strengthening my authentic voice. I really hadn’t realized how much I was listening to all these other voices I’d internalized and minimizing how I actually felt about things. Actually I realized almost everything I was doing was out of obligation or feeling like I had to. When I started listening to it more, I realized I had a pretty strong point of view, I just was ignoring it. Once I was able to hear it more clearly it became a lot easier to make decisions because I wasn’t being torn in 10 different directions. I just knew instinctively what I wanted to do and I didn’t have to second guess it.

Regularly pursuing my hobbies

Thankfully I had started this before even thinking about FMLA. I take Spanish lessons twice a week, and I also have voice lessons once a week. Partway through FMLA I realized how badly I’d wanted to take dance classes for years but kept telling myself I should wait for a better time. I finally signed up for a class (my first dance class in almost 25 years!), and now I’m on my 3rd week of dance classes as well. I’ve run for decades now and started my first marathon training plan (which I had to abandon early after a sandal-related injury in Mexico) but I loved having the sense of accomplishment after finishing a tough workout, and more than anything I loved feeling like I was back at track practice.

I also remembered I love to write! And so I committed to doing weekly posts on this very blog. Writing every day between journaling and this blog has been so fulfilling. I’ve also started getting into editing my photos a little more seriously, and I started picking up video editing. I forgot I have a degree in Graphic Design. I loved picking out the type for my little Tiktoks and feeling like I was right back in type class! Reconnect with what you loved when you were younger. It’s not too ridiculous! It is essential to gaining back your sanity.

Journal

I have famously always hated journaling, likely because of the constant warfare you experience as a child with your journal being stolen and exposed. Anyway, I started doing this for the Artist’s Way because right off the bat she has you start every morning journaling for three pages. Unfortunately she was right and this has been huge for my healing. I started seeing the same few complaints, wishes, hopes, annoyances, etc come up, and it helped me realize — hey, I’ve said I don’t like this thing four times now. Can I stop doing it? Or, I keep mentioning I want to try this, why haven’t I tried it? I noticed that I started hearing my authentic voice come through clearly in these pages, and it helped me realize, here’s what I like and what I don’t like, and now I can take action.

It also helped me process things. Things that were bugging me that I told myself shouldn’t bug me, so I tried to ignore it. Instead, it came out on the page. Being able to rant in a journal about how dumb/annoying/stupid something is and presenting your entire argument is liberating. After a woman yelled at ME in a parking lot because I wasn’t able to leave after she had blocked me in with her car (?? yes really) I journaled for 5 pages until I calmed down. I love journaling anytime anything is bothering me now. It has helped me actually move on from situations vs telling myself that I should move on while it was still bothering me in the background. Maybe because I can enforce a sort of justice on the pages after the fact by yelling at someone on paper! It feels good, try it.

Journaling is great for processing the past and present, but it’s also great for visualizing your future. I took a workshop during this time about the power of delulu journaling from Mercedes Kraus. If you can find a session that works with you I highly recommend it! If you’re unclear on what your next steps are, journaling about potential life paths is such a powerful way to try on different careers and lifestyles just to see what they could look like for you and figure out how you feel about them.

For your body

You might think the mindset is the hardest part to change. Unfortunately, you would be wrong! You can change your mind now, in this moment. The body, tragically, does not forget so easily, and is going to keep remembering the tension even after you’ve left the situation. For me at least, my mind was quick to change, but my body is still learning it’s not in crisis.

After an intense situation like this, my body (and yours, I’m guessing) was stuck in a perpetual state of tension and anxiety. It takes work to unlearn all the physical patterns your body has learned to cope and to let it relax. The hard part too is that my body was so used to being in crisis it didn’t feel safe to relax so it rejected these activities, and even now I have to convince myself to do them. But every time I do one of these things, I chip away at the stress and prove to myself I’m safe. I don’t do every single one of these every single day, but I try to do most of them most days of the week.

Also apologies in advance — these links are going to be pretty much all Peloton-based. I used to work there so I just use it a lot. Obviously, find what works for you!

• Meditation. Truly a super power for slowing down your brain and reconnecting with your body. I was resistant to meditation and thought I would hate it, but even I had to admit it gave my mind calmness and clarity like nothing else did. Here are a few meditations I love: visualization meditation with Denis, another meditation with Denis, and a walking meditation with Kirra.

• Slow walks. When you walk slow, your thinking slows to match it, according to my therapist. I noticed a huge difference in my anxiety going out for walks and forcing myself to walk slowly (nearly impossible for me after 8 years of living in NYC).

• Baths. Also recommended by my therapist. Taking a bath (especially midday when to my mind, it felt illegal) really forced my body to admit I was safe, because why else would I be taking a bath. That’s not an activity you do when you’re in peril. Turn off the lights, light a candle, and just lay there doing nothing.

• Breathwork. I actually started this because I was doing voice lessons and my coach told me I needed to learn diaphragmatic breathing to sing well. I use Breathwrk because it comes free with my Peloton subscription. It’s just 5 minutes a day of laying on your back, practicing breathing into your stomach for 4 seconds, out for 6. Breathing out longer than in signals to your body it’s okay to rest, and I noticed immediately how much it calmed me down. It also made me realize how shallow I was breathing previously which was keeping me in a state of anxiety.

• Exercise of some sort. I run, and was doing that. I also found it was easy to push myself too hard though, so I had to pull back a few times and just do lower impact cardio. Let your body recover! It’s okay. But try to move for the endorphins. Strength training or some light cardio, whatever is going to convince you to stay consistent.

• Yoga and stretching. I am guilty of avoiding stretching at all costs in the past. But, this means all the tension I’ve been building in my body gets stuck which makes me feel even more anxious. Even 10 minutes a day helps. Here are a few classes I recommend: Kirra’s 15min class, Zachariah’s 10min class, Kirra’s 10min class, Assal’s 10min stretch (in German but the soundtrack is amazing). If you want to go on autopilot, I’m halfway through Hannah Corbin’s 7 days of stretching and I love it. Unfortunately I can’t link it so just search for it in Programs; I’m about to get rehired at Peloton just so I can build the ability to create sharable playlists because this is driving me nuts.

• This guy’s qi gong videos. I have no clue if it’s real qi gong, but these videos are quick and easy to follow along and are a great way to loosen up tension when you wake up

• Use downtime. If you have an iPhone you already have a built in way to shut down apps. I have mine turned on from 11:30pm-8:30am which keeps me from getting stuck scrolling late at night or as soon as I wake up. I found it a little too easy to get stuck on my phone during this time to numb myself so this is an easy and free way to give your brain a break.

Unorthodox healing tips

Get botox
I developed a knot above my eyebrow that would simply not un-tense, no matter how hard I tried to force it to relax. It was keeping me up at night and preventing me from sleeping. Finally, week one of FMLA I had my dentist inject some botox into my forehead. In a few days I had full relief. Look, if you cannot get your muscles to relax by hand, store bought is fine.

Vocal lessons
I mentioned this above with breath work, but if you have any desire, this was such a good pairing for my recovery alongside everything else. It makes you think about your body as a whole instrument, and focus on reducing tension and letting things be effortless. So much of the work we do in class and in my vocal warmups is just learning how to let your body relax in the exact areas you tighten up when you’re anxious, so your chest, neck, and shoulders. It also held me accountable for not letting too much tension build up in my body because I am highly motivated to sing like Ariana Grande and will do whatever it takes to improve my vocal range.

Exposure therapy
I hate to tell you this, but the best way to feel less fear and let your body learn to be safe again is to expose yourself to the thing you’re afraid of, little by little. It’s horrible news, I know. But as I worked through things in therapy, with pretty much every fear I named, my therapist let me know, “So the way we typically work through that is exposure therapy.” I realized that the list of things I was afraid of had grown comically large, and I felt like I was shrinking to avoid life rather than actually living it.

Slowly but surely, I started doing things that I was afraid of, which ranged from as small as being afraid of texting someone back to my actual worst fear which is getting blood drawn (where I do actually pass out from fear). The blood fear I refuse to conquer this year; I have enough on my plate. But the other stuff just made me realize how ridiculous this was. I’m going to avoid going to this thing I want to go to because I might embarrass myself? I’m not going to answer any messages because I might not say the perfect thing? It just made me take stock of my life and realize, alright, I am basically not doing anything I want to in life because fear is making me avoid them. But when I asked myself what the worst case I was trying to avoid was, it was never even that bad. When I thought about it, the worst case would happen and then… I would just move on with my day. What was I so worried about, again?

My point isn’t that fears are stupid, my point is they feel real, and if you let them, they can really run your life. It sounds so simple but I really had never questioned any of these fears I had, just let them grow and keep accumulating and never examining what I was even afraid of. It was as basic as, this makes me feel fear, so avoid. Once I took just a minute to think (or journal) about what the fear actually was, it was almost never that bad. So, I slowly started doing the things I was afraid of and confronting them head on. And everything was fine! This has been so rewarding because it’s increased my surface area for experiencing life again. I cannot tell you how much I had shrank in my own life out of fear, and being able to reclaim some of that space has been really empowering for getting back a sense of control in my life. I think feeling a sense of control over your life again is also key to getting out of burnout.

And in conclusion…

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of things I did during this time:

• Kept going with my vocal classes, and started holding concerts for my husband to get over my stage fright. I cried the first time I did it because I was so scared but I kept going anyway. I have now worked my way through almost all of Ariana’s back catalog

• Kept going with my Spanish classes, and had conversations in Spanish when I went on a trip to Mexico, even though I was scared that I wasn’t good enough at it yet

• Posted my first videos to TikTok and accidentally had a few go viral which was terrifying in its own way, yet I persevere

• Took a solo trip to CDMX and felt like traveling and exploring is what I want to do for the rest of my life

• Reached out to people to thank them for what they connected me with, even though I was terrified of rejection

• Doodled my neighbors’ house and watercolored the azaleas in our yard when they started blooming

• Took myself on a photo walk with a DSLR around our neighborhood to capture spring

• Created an entire business plan for a wide foot shoe company because I am so sick of not being able to find cute shoes for my feet

• Gave myself an assignment to research and visit as many small specialty grocery stores in our area before we leave the area

• Went to a museum, remembered I actually love museums, and went to a bunch more museums

• Went to the public library to go do work, realized I love being at the library

• Did therapy every week even when I really didn’t want to go

• and so on

Looking at this list, it looks like a lot of work. But it felt reenergizing. All of this felt like finally letting myself do what I had been wanting to do for years. And what I’ve found at the end of this period is that I can actually do things again. I used to sit paralyzed by how hard everything seemed, and couldn’t get anything done. I know what I want because I’ve sat and listened to myself through therapy, journaling, and putting myself out there and doing things and seeing how I felt about them. And, I’ve built the muscle of taking action slowly over time, and so now I can act on the things I like. Your list will be different I’m sure! But find out what things you want to do, and then do them. It’s the only way forward.

Some advice as you heal

Adjust your self talk

It is essential to slowly start introducing positive self talk as well. Every time internally I heard “this isn’t even that good, you should just stop” I countered with “this is really impressive that you started, you couldn’t have done this a few months ago. Trying is the only way to get good at something, so keep going!” It feels kind of insane to talk back to yourself but over time, slowly becoming an encouraging, supportive, empathetic voice to yourself does start to stick, and over time my kinder voice got louder than my “everything you do is trash and you are trash” voice.

I practiced this actively in my hobbies too. I joined a dance class to learn a really hard dance (2.0 by BTS if you care), and I remember being in a class surrounded by people who got it when I started thinking oh my god! why can’t you get this! and feeling so frustrated with myself. But I stopped, forced myself to smile, and reminded myself, this is a very hard dance and you have only been learning it for 30 minutes. It’s impressive you have learned as much as you have, and with practice, of course you’re going to learn it. You just need to keep going.

Let your progress be whatever it is

The first 2 weeks of my FMLA felt euphoric, incredible, like I’d finally broken free and everything was behind me. Then I felt the fear creep back in and I felt terrified that something was going to “get” me, like my FMLA would get rejected and I’d be forced to go back. Slowly, I was able to bring my body back down, but some days the fear surged again, and I had to just patiently work to get back to calm again. Even as recently as two weeks ago I had a nightmare that work had refused my resignation and forced me to come back. My point is, be patient with yourself, healing isn’t linear. I know people always say that, but I believed I would be different and that my healing would be linear. It was not! Some days you’ll feel worse than others, some you’ll feel better than others, it’s all part of the journey, and leave space for it all.

The fear isn’t going anywhere, so do it with fear

A lot of this wasn’t easy. I kept waiting for a mythical time when my fear would finally be gone, and then I could finally do the thing I was scared of. But the only way to lessen the fear is to work through it. Before my first dance class I almost turned my car around multiple times because I was so terrified. But I did it anyway and afterwards I was so glad I did. Do it with fear, because every action done with fear raises your threshold for discomfort. I wrote about this a few months ago because it was such a huge realization for me. What’s uncomfortable today can be run of the mill tomorrow.

Okay, those are my tips and resources for recovering from burnout. What are yours? What worked for you? Let me know!

Back in January, I found myself in a truly insane working environment. Like all insane jobs, it didn’t start out like that. When I first started I remember feeling like I’d hit the jackpot: a team that supported each other, interesting work, and a prestigious company. But over time the expectations crept up and up until I realized: I am literally living to work. I have no time to do anything else or think about anything else. My entire life revolves around my job.

I remember working 10-12 hour days for eight months straight, working on weekends, leading two major projects, and still showing up to my performance review where my manager told me that the perception was that I wasn’t doing enough. This was mediocre performance, and the implication was that I could be in trouble next performance review if I didn’t do more. I remember collapsing after that performance review and crying because I was just so exhausted. This was the hardest I had ever worked at any job, and the most work I’d ever done. I could not possibly work harder than this if I tried.

I remember a common refrain from the team leads was, if I’m awake, you can reach me on Slack. And it was true — people were answering messages from 6am to midnight every day. If someone took vacation, they’d be answering Slack and posting PRs multiple times a day, and everyone would praise how admirable they were for “being even more productive on vacation.” I remember thinking, this is so dysfunctional. Why are we praising this? God forbid I want to cook a little dinner and enjoy some time with my husband after work. It felt like every moment I wasn’t working was a moment that would be noted and docked in my next performance review.

Eventually it culminated with me feeling so stressed that the physical symptoms were hard to ignore. I couldn’t sleep, my hair was falling out in chunks, and some days even with everything on my plate I had to get done, all I could do was sit frozen on my couch not even able to cry. I was filled with terror. I still don’t know what this was, but my body would start heating up like I had a fever and my face would turn red even though I wasn’t sick. I remember telling friends, it feels like there’s a lion behind me just about to pounce, that’s how real and serious the fear felt. As my workload got more and more intense, all I could do was lay there most days. I couldn’t handle the constant pings, calls to take on more work, the constant pressure that I wasn’t doing enough.

I had the realization after that performance review that actually, I could totally improve and get a good performance review. But it would mean living a life I didn’t want to live. I looked around at the leaders around me and just felt, I’m glad it’s working for them, but this isn’t a life I aspire to at all. I would be miserable if I had to live like that. I didn’t want to be on Slack from the second I woke up to the second I went to bed, checking my phone and ignoring my husband (who, presumably, I married because I love him and want to spend time with him). I didn’t want to feel guilty on every vacation I took, knowing that I’d have to work extra hard when I got back to make up for my “lapse” in productivity. I didn’t want to give up my weekends and evenings, give up working out, give up taking breaks for walks or meals because I needed to be on and reachable all the time. Everything I knew I needed to do for my health left me feeling guilty because I knew I would stick out in a bad way come review time for enforcing any kind of work life balance.

I also started noticing the phrases I heard from my managers mirrored the tough internal voice I’d been trying to create distance from over the past few years. This environment instead asked me to let that voice get fully back into the driver’s seat. “You’re not doing enough.” “Unless you do it perfectly, don’t bother. 99% might as well be 0%.” “Why can’t you be more like [x]? They’re doing such a good job.” I’m used to hearing these things, but from myself, and I’ve done a lot of work over the past few years to make that voice quieter. But this environment just fueled the inner voice I’d been doing all this work to quiet. I recognized this was unhealthy, but what can you do when you’re trying to stay in a job? I had to manage the dichotomy of knowing those were unhealthy sentiments and I didn’t believe them, but I still had to function like they were true in order to keep my job. It was exhausting.

I’m not here to critique how someone runs a company; every company has to find a way to measure performance. But I recognized for me, it wasn’t a healthy way to work and it wasn’t an environment I could thrive in. I hated living in what felt like a state of constant surveillance, and it also made me worse at my job. I was so scared of how every move looked that I kept tripping up and making mistakes which only made me more frustrated in myself. I couldn’t do my best work when I felt like I was being watched, analyzed, and measured every step of my day, and it just led me to further feel terrified constantly and filled with anxiety.

I had been a software engineer for over 10 years at this point. When I started fresh out of bootcamp (Flatiron School, if you all remember, and yes Karlie Kloss did show up to our class one time), I got into it for the “right” reasons. I genuinely loved it when I started. I loved being able to spend my day solving complex problems. I loved finding an efficient part of a system that everyone else was too scared to touch and mapping out a way to make it more efficient, and then doing it. I didn’t even want recognition! I just loved solving problems and making things efficient because it made me feel good.

Somewhere along the way, though, bureaucracy came in, and that part I hated. I wasn’t solving problems anymore, I was spending my days navigating complex office dynamics. I could not understand why we would pick an objectively wrong project just because it “looked good” to higher ups. I couldn’t understand why we were spending hours in meetings just to say nothing. In fact, I couldn’t understand why I was inside on a computer doing any of this. Tech at the end of the day is all made up. Why is there so much urgency and stress for something that at the end of the day, isn’t even real? I remember looking out my window in every meeting and thinking, there’s a beautiful breeze blowing outside through the trees today, the sun is shining. That’s real. None of what we’re talking about in this meeting is real. What am I even doing here? Can’t everyone see how fake this all is?

I also looked around and realized, a whole day (or days!) could go by without spending time doing a thing I actually liked. At some point over the past few years I had stopped pursuing my interests and started doing only the things I thought would put me in a better position at work because it was more “sensible”. I kept taking a step away from what I actually wanted and liked, and a step toward what I thought I should do for my career, even if I didn’t want to do it. We all do this to some degree, but with this job it really hit me in a way I couldn’t ignore. It was so bad that it made me finally look up and realize I didn’t like any aspect of how I was spending my day.

I realized a lot of the problem wasn’t the job, it was me: when it came down to it, I’ve changed, and everything I like and value now is not present in my job. I want to be creative, I want to write, I want to travel, and I want to share my experiences with people and connect with people. I realized it was grating for me to have a job where it was frowned upon to take time off, and if you traveled, you were expected to keep working. And not for nothing, being in a male dominated industry meant everything I liked was also frowned upon: fashion, makeup, being active on social media. I got so used to having to hide my interests because I’d get judged for liking something so “stupid”. Everything I genuinely loved was something I felt like I had to hide or else I wouldn’t be taken seriously. That is grating!

My therapist finally recommended I take FMLA for anxiety and burnout because there was no good way to heal from this situation while I was in it (I also vividly remember my manager at the time DMing me to demand I tell them why I was taking FMLA… like I was ever going to tell them). As the dust settled, an uncomfortable truth started getting louder and louder, and I had to admit it wasn’t just this job, bad as it was. I actually had not liked my last four jobs. All of them made me miserable and led me to quit. But I felt like I had to stay because a. I’d put 10+ years in and I was finally feeling comfortable in my role and accomplished. And b. I felt like I’d be “crazy” to give up a high paying sensible career to pursue a completely unknown path.

As mentioned previously, I watch a lot of reality shows. I think they are fascinating studies of character. One pattern I notice that frustrates me more than any is watching someone state out loud that the relationship they’re in is bad for them and list out a myriad of reasons for why it’s bad for them that make perfect sense. “Great, break up!” you say as the viewer. And 90% of the time, even though they know it’s wrong for them and why it’s wrong for them, they go back to the person they know because they’re familiar.

It’s really, really hard to resist the siren call of the familiar. It can make you ignore all the reasons and logic you have and make you keep choosing the thing you know is wrong because your nervous system feels safer in the known. I realized like the relationships that made me yell at my screen, I was doing the same thing with my career. I’ve been complaining about my job for years, but always ending it with, but I could never leave. Why? Why can’t I?

Similarly, I realized I had a lot of wants and desires that for whatever reason I didn’t believe were possible for me. I started taking a backseat to my own life. I kept seeing people do things and noticed my reaction was, “Oh, that’s great they did that, I’m so jealous, too bad I can’t do that.” I had these thoughts for years, actually, until FMLA gave me the space to really examine those reactions and be like, sorry? What do I mean, I can’t do that? Aren’t I in charge of my life? Over the last year, I realized that it was because I was living with fear in the driver’s seat. Famously during this time I kept saying, I don’t know what I want to do. I don’t know what I want. And that scared me — how could *I* not know what I want? Aren’t I the one person who’s supposed to know that?

A lot of the work I did in therapy was strengthening my authentic voice so it was clear enough for me to listen to it, vs getting drowned out by the “but you should want this” peer pressure voice, or the “that’s too scary, stay safe” voice that keeps you in the familiar, or any of the other voices. The benefit of a job that is truly about to send you to the hospital is that it forces you to urgently look for answers for how to get out before it gets even worse. I started therapy, and also started journaling, and suddenly my wants were coming out of me and onto the page clearly. Actually, I knew exactly what I wanted. I was just telling myself that those wants were “crazy” or “unstable” or impossible because “everyone will judge me.”

I’ve also been at jobs that were just a little irritating, and I could convince myself they were a good fit, that not everybody’s 100% satisfied all the time. We’re all supposed to hate our jobs, right? I don’t deserve to enjoy my job, it would be greedy of me to think I can avoid suffering and have a career I love. But the benefit of having a truly terrible job is that it stripped away my options. Suddenly that voice telling me doing something different would be “crazy” didn’t sound so convincing. What would be crazy is staying in a career that was making me miserable and physically ill.

I thought burnout was just that I’d taken on too much work and overextended myself. But really I was exhausted from constantly acting against my own wishes. I knew what I wanted clearly, but I kept telling that voice to shut up, don’t be ridiculous. That constant back and forth made it difficult to trust my own instincts; after all, every instinct I had was apparently wrong the way I was beating it down and telling it to stop speaking up.

Even though that voice was getting louder, FMLA gave me the soft landing out of the industry that I needed. I couldn’t fathom leaving a career I had put all my time and effort into. But telling myself it was “just a break” helped soften the blow mentally and gave me space to get out of the immediate crisis without fully taking the big scary leap. I really wasn’t ready yet, honestly. I knew deep down that when I quit, it would be for good. I would not be re-entering the market. Every job search over the past few years had been spiritually harder than the last because I was finding it harder and harder to pretend I cared and wanted to be here.

The more time I spent on FMLA, the better I felt. I felt like I was finally admitting what I liked, pursuing things I love (like writing on this blog!) and not having to show up to a job every day and pretend I’m somebody I’m not. And as the days counted down to the end of my FMLA, the old nightmares and physical symptoms returned. I tried going back for one (1) single day, and sent in my resignation by the afternoon.

This job, and I am incredibly thankful for this, left me no choice. It was SO bad that the answer was clear, screaming at me, in a way I could not ignore like I had before: my body was shutting down, I couldn’t think straight, I couldn’t bring myself to enjoy anything. Everything was coming together to tell me, finally: you’ve gotta leave. This is not for you, you know this is not for you, the jig is up. It’s time to start making other plans. For years what kept me in this career was feeling like I’d regret leaving. But this job made me realize that the only thing I will absolutely regret is never chasing after what I actually want. Maybe I’m giving up 10 years of experience, but the only regret I know I will have is if I look back in another 10 years and I still haven’t had the courage to leave a career I know I hate.

Realizing I don’t want to continue with my career has been scary, but that realization was not going to stay down no matter how hard I tried to look the other way. It was coming out one way or the other. And as painful as it has been to realize that, I feel relief. I can finally admit: I don’t like this, and I don’t want this, and I want to choose something different. Being able to say that out loud, more than anything, has helped heal my burnout.

And the other day I had the realization that I feel excited for life again. I’ve started multiple new hobbies and I’m pursuing a career direction I’m genuinely excited about. I’m having fun again, and I feel like there are so many possibilities for me. I feel like I’ve recaptured the excitement for life I had in my twenties I got separated from somewhere over the years. I remember watching people start their own businesses or go freelance and saying oh, I could never do that! I don’t want to have to be in charge and have the responsibility. I had the realization over the past few months that actually, I do want to be in charge of myself. I do want that responsibility. In fact, I’m craving taking the reins again in my own life.

So, that’s where I started from a few months ago. I’ve also never had so many friends in a similar situation — I feel like everyone is bonding right now over how debilitatingly high pressure our jobs have become. Next week, I’m going to share the tips and tricks I did to get me out of burnout and get me genuinely excited about life again. It was hard work! But I feel fulfilled again creating for myself. I’m even sitting here working on this piece at 10pm on a Tuesday, absolutely thrilled that I get to spend this time writing. I can’t imagine doing anything else.

This visit, I went all in on Waymos. This is a newsletter about how I spent a week in LA, but in a larger, more important sense, this is a newsletter fully dedicated to my love of Waymos. Know that anytime I talk about getting anywhere, I took a Waymo. We tried them during our last trip to LA and I liked them; I took them exclusively on this trip to LA and LOVED them. We need to get humans OUT of the driver’s seat the road and put robots IN. It is the safest and most pleasant driving experience I have ever had. I wish every city had them!

I fully believe that humans are not meant for driving, and especially with our attention spans now, it’s just not a good fit for our skillsets. What I really wish is that we had less car-centric cities, but given this is the way cities in the US are built, having more Waymos on the road is the next best thing. If you haven’t taken a Waymo already, get to LA and take them everywhere. You’ll scream for the first 10-15 minutes, then you’ll relax and realize this is the way driving should be.

Anyway, here’s how I spent a week in LA, being kind of a local, kind of a tourist, but definitely in a Waymo.

Staying

We stayed at the Intercontinental in Downtown LA, which is an ideal hotel in a less than ideal location. I’ve never seen a better equipped and less used hotel gym, and the rooms feel more like serviced apartments than a hotel (but get one facing away from the freeways or it will be a nightmare). This was our second stay and I love this hotel, the location is just kind of tragic. However if you need to be in downtown for some reason, it is a really nice hotel.

The weekend

We spent our first morning walking around Venice since we hadn’t been there in years, and to be honest I probably will not be back for a few more years. It’s fine! Lots of shops you see online, but with irl locations on Abbott Kinney. Nothing really of note, except the lettuce wrap fish tacos at Great White were fantastic and a great way to start your day with a cup of vegetables.

We happened to be in town for the LA stop of the Riviera book tour at Bar Besito in Silverlake. I have been trying to attend every cookbook event I can because I want to write a cookbook someday, and love learning about the process directly from the people who wrote it. This was a really personal event where Melanie came over to our table after dinner and we got to chat directly with her about the book, and she graciously answered all our questions. Bar Besito interpreted some of Melanie’s recipes from the book and served them all night, we could not believe how good they were. Every dish that came out had us going, okay we have to serve that the next time we have people over.

On Sunday I had some time to kill in Koreatown while my husband got his hair done at Etude Salon (he’s been going there for years, and he always comes back looking good, if you need a hair salon recc). When we lived here we loved visiting California Market for groceries, which is in the same center. I took a walk through for old times sake and didn’t realize they were selling the protein shakes with crunchy bits in the US now! I literally lived off of them when I was in Seoul last year. So I picked up a chocolate one and a strawberry one (I will take what I can get, but I hate to tell you that you can get flavors like pistachio and black sesame in Seoul).

After, I wanted to find a good coffee shop nearby and found this article from Bon Appetit, and made my way to Cafe Upper about a 10min walk away. I also learned from this article that the Einspänner is the new coffee craze, so I had to try it. It’s kind of like if someone served you just the top of a cake on top of your coffee. Just imagine like four inches of frosting on top of your coffee. It was delicious but I did not finish because I am pretty sure it would have killed me. If you can, good for you and I’ll be thinking of you the next time you get your bloodwork done.

That night we went out to Anajak Thai. Not our first time, but our first time in a long time. It’s still so good! The atmosphere is lively, and if you don’t know, they’re known for wine (they even have a sommelier on staff). We got the skin contact wine made special for Anajak, which the sommelier let us know was made by a former employee who moved up to Napa Valley and started a winery, and now makes this wine just for Anajak. It was delicious! Don’t know if it paired with our food but I didn’t care. We got the chicken, some greens, and ended with mango sticky rice. IMO it’s worth the trip up to the Valley every time.

During the week

On Monday, since we were downtown I headed to the LA Central Library a few blocks from the hotel. Architecturally it is fascinating, and it’s huge, maybe one of the biggest libraries I’ve ever been to. It’s their 100th anniversary this year so they have exhibits out promoting everything you can do at the library, which is a lot. For whatever reason the desks in the inner rooms with no windows were completely packed, but the desks in the sunny top floor on the bridge that looks out over the atrium were empty. I found a spot to work for a few hours that was right next to a water fountain for maximum convenience.

Later that night we got dinner back at our Thai Town staple, Sanamluang. We have been here so much that I consciously made an effort to try a new dish. This time I tried a rice noodle dish that was unreal. Big, wide rice noodles stir fried with wok hei and little bits of egg and chicken, and some greens on the side. I am pretty sure they’re more known for soups but I really haven’t had a bad dish there yet.

By the next day, the new wing of LACMA finally opened, so I took a stroll through. It is HUGE. I was there for two hours and got overwhelmed. It has so much art from all over the world, and to be honest I kind of wish they explained the story behind things a little more, but it was still fun to walk through and the views of the hills behind were worth the ticket alone. If you’ve been to the National Museum of Asian Art in DC, it is actually a lot of the same info and same exhibits, although LACMA also had an interesting exhibit on how artists throughout Latin America interpreted Christian imagery and wove their own culture into the art.

I also, after years of vowing to make it and never finding the time, saw the La Brea tar pits. I’ll say this about them: they are tar pits! And that’s really all there is to know. They are pits, and inside of them is tar. The park around it is nice for walking though. After, I got dinner at one of my non-negotiable restaurant visits when I’m in town, which is Singapore’s Banana Leaf in the Grove. My first time eating there was in 2019 and I’ve been going back ever since. If you’re in the Grove, check it out! It’s near the back by the pickle store.

Another inexplicable favorite restaurant of mine is Seoul Tofu in Sawtelle. It’s just reliably good, and I like the atmosphere inside. Also Sawtelle is absolutely packed now, but you usually don’t have to wait for a table here. I always get sundubu, but this time I was with friends and we also tried the galbi which was really good. After, we went to Korean Ice Co which had just opened, and it was decent shaved ice. I got the melon which tasted exactly like a Melona bar. However, the real move was to go to Chicha. My friend who lives in Sawtelle recommended we try the Orange Lemon Pouchong Tea and it tasted almost exactly like starbursts.

A Shopping Day

I feel like I talk about shopping a lot on this blog. It’s not because I’m some freak for consumerism (well, maybe). But I had a few realizations over the past year: a. my wardrobe somehow became filled with clothes for somebody else, and b. my body has changed sizes a few times which means the clothes I do like no longer fit. And c. I’m also tired of trying to buy clothes online and guessing how they will fit because no one will put measurements or fit information online for some reason. All this to say, shopping in person where I can feel the clothes, see how they drape, and see how they fit on my body is a top priority for me when I travel these days as I try to rebuild my wardrobe.

So, if you too need to find some clothes in person or at least see how clothes actually look on your body, here’s where I went in LA. If you have other recommendations, please let me know!

Secondhand

• Wasteland on Melrose - for me, this store is great because I always end up finding something. This time, I found brand new with tags Ossou jeans in my size for $68, a fitted Vivian Tam top for $58, and a daffodil yellow Coperni bodysuit inexplicably for $30. I remember a few years ago I walked in and thought, I really hope I find the Maisie Wilen marbled jacket I’ve been looking for. And then I did. Sometimes, it is a magical place.

• Gift of Garb - This was my first time here, and the selection was great — lots of relevant, current designers, unique pieces you can’t find elsewhere, and most importantly, lots of color. The prices I also felt like were relatively fair, meaning items that are expensive firsthand were more expensive here, but you could still find some gems. I almost came away with some Cecilie Bahnsen shoes but they were tragically a little too large for me. Definitely worth walking into, and then take the 1 minute walk after to Reunion Coffee and get a matcha pop. This coffee shop was gorgeous and elegant inside, the staff were really friendly and inviting, and the drink was delicious.

• Detoure - The concept here is, influencers donate their PR here, and it becomes a thrift store from their items. It is actually a really good concept, until I remembered most influencers are wearing fast fashion, so it was a lot of that to sift through. I do think it’s worth a visit though, because there are definitely diamonds in the rough — I got a Left on Friday bikini top for $40 in a color I’d been wanting. They also have a skincare section I didn’t go through but looked interesting as well.

• 2nd Street - Love 2nd Street in Tokyo. Here, it was chaos for me. It’s across the street from Detoure so might be worth looking into, but it veered a little streetwear heavy for me.

• Honorable mentions for places on my list that I didn’t make it to: Recess Vintage, and Scout Vintage.

New clothing

• Mohawk General Store - Didn’t get anything here, but the selection is unmatched simply because it’s a lot of brands that you can only find online, all in one store and available for you to try on. I highly recommend stopping in to see what they have, or just to see what things fit like IRL.

• Mohawk Man - Yes, man, not men’s. Same as above, but just for men.

The end of the week

Since we were already downtown, we decided to explore the Arts District which we’d heard about but never been. It’s cute! They have a little shopping building with a few stores like Flamingo Estate, a running store, and Departamento, a place that feels like it is fashion for the year 3026. You enter through the coffee shop Concierge Coffee and head through the mirrored hallway, which spits you out into racks of clothes arranged at angles you would not expect. There’s a lot to see, and we spent about 30-45min wandering around.

After, we got a meal at Loqui which was the perfect lunch: meat, beans, and vegetables over rice. There’s plenty of space to eat outside too, and I think people in LA forget how nice that is! Here on the east coast we have like 1-2 months of good eating outside weather max. It’s what I miss most about the west coast.

Finally, we went around the corner and happened to accidentally find DLR, which just advertised “Japanese denim” outside. Well, I entered just to browse, and it ended up being my absolute favorite shop experience I’ve had (in any country) over the past year. Alex and Jose started this company by word of mouth, and eventually grew into a retail space. Their main focus is on vintage Japanese denim, but they’ve expanded into suiting from designers like Yohji Yamamoto and Comme de Garçons.

If you don’t know, Japanese denim is serious — it is some of the most high-quality denim out there and can come at insane fabric weights like 25oz. The benefit of why you’d want vintage jeans is because someone else has done the work of breaking in the denim for you, and so now they just fit incredibly comfortably. I initially was drawn to a pair of Samurais, but they both kept bringing me more jeans in my size until I found the exact right combination of fit, dye, and length. I ended up with a pair of Evisu’s that fit me like a glove. I have never had better fitting jeans. They are *not* cheap, but the prices are pretty on par with what you’d expect to pay for vintage Japanese denim. And really, I will pay extra to have someone who’s an expert work with me one on one to find the perfect pair of denim. If you need a pair of jeans that fit you perfectly, stop in because they really know their stuff (and, they’re fun to talk to!).

And then we spent our last two nights at events for Netflix is a Joke Fest, where we saw a lot of comedians for the Night of Too Many Stars and where thankfully John Mulaney was my favorite set, because then we went back the next night where he was headlining. This was my first time going to the Hollywood Bowl, and while I wouldn’t recommend going two nights in a row, I was not prepared for what a gorgeous venue it is! The backdrop of the mountains, the Hollywood sign peeking through the background, the ability to have a picnic inside or outside. I can’t wait to go to more events here when we move back.

And on our last day…

Imagine our surprise when one last family visited our house and made an offer, no contingencies, all cash. So right before we left, we found out we’d be coming back very soon. Five weeks, in fact, because that’s all the time we have until close. And we got to sign our counter offer and negotiate in a very LA way: in the back of a Waymo driving through Hollywood. I would not have it any other way!

When I was younger and traveling I would spend hours researching everything I was supposed to see, assembling lists of all the top restaurants, must-see tourist sites, and crafting the perfect itinerary. I would go on those trips and felt satisfied that I did it all. I saw every site the internet recommended seeing, so it was a successful trip, right? I never paid attention to how I felt in those trips, if I was too exhausted but was pushing myself to finish my day’s plan, or if I didn’t really feel like eating at that restaurant but forced it anyway because I “should.” I didn’t really pay attention to what I wanted to do at all, really, I mostly just vacationed the way I was told I was supposed to.

And vacation planning these days is filled with so many “shoulds”. If you’re going to [x], you have to see this. You need to go here. And you have to go because you should, it’s what a good tourist does. Stop scrolling because this is the best way to spend a day in [fill in the blank], many Tiktoks that have ultimately led me to a disappointing experience have promised.

Somewhere over the last year, I stopped caring about vacation “shoulds”. I think it was because we did so many trips last year — Mexico, Seoul, Thailand, and Japan all in one year (because I hated my job and needed an escape to feel alive, but that’s a story for a different day). It meant I got to iterate fast on what makes a perfect itinerary for me, not for someone else. I also followed a lot of online recommendations and realized — oh, I have completely different taste than the person who recommended this. Not bad, just different. It’s also why I try to be upfront here in my travel guides of what my perspective and preferences are, so you can decide if a recommendation makes sense for you. The problem with vacation “shoulds” is that they make it seem like there is only one true itinerary when you travel somewhere, when the reality is that we’re all individuals with different interests and preferences and not everything is going to resonate with us equally.

For me personally, each new trip this past year taught me something new about the way I like to travel, and I was able to put it in practice quickly on our next trip. For my trip to La Villa Bonita, a culinary vacation outside of Mexico City that apparently I can’t stop talking about, for example, I learned I don’t need to pack my day to have a fulfilling and exciting trip. Just gathering for 1-2 activities per day and leaving the rest of the day to enjoy a beautiful environment is plenty. In fact, as I spent most of the day waiting around for things to be done cooking, staring out at the mountains and enjoying a cocktail, I realized pausing to enjoy the environment is the point.

But the big shift for me came on my solo trip to Seoul last year. I was there for four weeks, which meant I had a ton of time. I was also working while I was there, but to keep some normalcy with east coast hours I was splitting my day working early in the mornings and then again late at night. This trip was more of a marathon than a sprint, and I had to pace myself because I couldn’t go run around town to five tourist destinations in the 6-7 hour period I had free. But I also had the luxury of time — there was no need to hit everything week one when I had three more weeks to go. This schedule really changed the pace at which I explored the city, and I did maybe 1-2 things per day while also getting to feel like I was living there, ending every night cooking a peaceful dinner for myself at night in my hotel.

Seoul taught me how to explore the city at a pace I wanted, and to explore the destinations I wanted. I think some people would be shocked to find out that with a month in Seoul I managed to see fewer cultural sites than people usually fit into a few days (NOT a brag, I do want to see them eventually). I never actually made it to Gyeongbokgung Palace (due to a scheduling error, although it is first on my list for next time). I never even made it to a single museum (second on my list for next time). I had an idea of how I would spend my time in Seoul before I got there, assuming I’d be spending my days shopping and doing aesthetic treatments. But once I arrived, I was struck by how many mountains there are around the city and how easy it was to get around. Having lived in both NYC and LA, Seoul to me was the perfect mixture of both cities: the density, walkability, and public transit of New York, but with the nature and beauty of LA.

So I had an itinerary, but I realized the second I got there that actually, I just wanted to be outside as much as possible. Instead of going to every major site on my list I did exactly what I wanted to do, which was enjoy something I simply can’t get at home: generally enjoying living in a big city that’s easy to get around with clean and functioning public transit, that’s also in proximity to a ton of good hiking and walking trails. I took cooking classes, took regular vocal lessons, got a full medical checkup, and yes, I did a lot of aesthetic treatments too. Seoul made me realize how much I love getting aesthetic treatments done, and I’ve made it a point to carve out time for something, a massage, facial, or lash lift on all my trips since. I’m happy to report that since that trip I’ve fallen asleep in three countries while getting a lash lift. It was, to date, the best trip I’ve ever taken. And Seoul is now my new favorite city.

Our trip to Thailand last year was our third visit to Thailand and we had seen all the hot tourist spots. This let us explore the city as we wanted which was apparently to visit Iconsiam 5+ times. We don’t have good malls in the US, sorry! It is a marvel to be inside such a gigantic mall that you can easily spend hours in. We also visited Koh Samui for the first time this trip, and instead of booking a bunch of outings to “see everything we needed to see”, we did no research. We booked the Conrad, which has beachfront access, and just stayed there the entire time. It was the most magical stay I’ve had, and we spent days exclusively at the Conrad playing in the water all day, watching the sunset cast shadows over the five islands that surround the hotel in the afternoon, and watching thunderstorms roll in across the ocean in the evenings, the lightning leaving larger than life streaks in the sky. We didn’t really leave the hotel, and I still wouldn’t change a thing about our trip.

In between Thailand and Japan we did a whirlwind two week trip to California and Las Vegas to celebrate my in-law’s retirement. On a long family trip like that, especially when we were changing hotels every two nights and it was kind of chaos you have to find moments of solitude for your sanity. They had all booked a magic show, and I just knew I needed a break. Instead, I waved them goodbye and walked upstairs to book myself a private karaoke room to practice the songs I’d been singing for weeks in my vocal classes. It was scary, but exhilarating, and I was proud of how brave I was (because I actually was terrified of booking a solo karaoke room! But it turns out it wasn’t a big deal at all).

When we planned our trip to Japan with 3 weeks notice, we were working with a travel agent who we’d worked with previously. In the years since our last trip with him, he’s started specializing more in culinary experiences from visiting farms, to catching fish, to connecting with local chefs. Whenever you plan a trip to Japan, there are so many “shoulds”. We gave up full control this trip, and just gave him the guidance that we love vegetables and unique local experiences. We ended up on one of the most fulfilling trips we’d ever been on, heading out into Matsushima Bay with a local oyster farmer to learn how they’re growing oysters, visiting a local farmer who still grows his mushrooms in logs, and hammering our own copper pots by hand, only to be used later by the chef to cook the mushrooms we’d picked earlier at the farm for a full-circle day.

It was the perfect trip and the only thing I would have changed was adding on a few extra days up north so we could have done even more. Through this trip, I learned that I’m really drawn to farming experiences — when I look at my saved note of vacation ideas for the future, I realized a good portion fall into this category. Visiting tangerine farms in Jeju. Visiting a rice paddy. Going to a farm to see how tea leaves are harvested. And also, I realized one of my favorite days in Bangkok was the day we spent getting outside of the city to visit a coconut farm and learn how they’re organically growing coconuts. And now between these visits I know, so I can start looking for how to add those types of experiences into my next trips.

Since then, I’ve also returned to Mexico City where I visited the Museo Nacional de Antropología in CDMX. I was absolutely enrapt by what I saw! I forgot that I love learning about history, and not just learning about history, but learning about history from the perspective of the country that experienced it. When we went to Vietnam, we saw firsthand how the various wars had affected the country, and we spent a day at the end in Saigon at the war museum.

It is one thing to hear the version of the Vietnam War the US tells, it’s another to see and hear firsthand how it affected the people that live there and the country itself. We got to hear stories of people who had fought and survived, and we got to see how people there still wear all the old war uniforms and helmets that got left behind. And in Mexico too, you see the incredible and vast amount of history is just next door to us. The museum had ceramics that were over 4,000 years old! I love being able to gain new perspectives on history vs hearing the same perspective over and over. It also reminded me that I love museums. It’s only been two months since that visit and I’ve already been to four more museums.

I touched on this last week, but I’ve also learned after going to a lot of fine dining restaurants over the last year that I don’t really like fine dining. After being disappointed with almost every fine-dining meal we tried (except a few, including Shia, Baan Tepa, and Samrub Samrub) that it wasn’t that the restaurant was bad, it just wasn’t connecting with me. Why was I way more satisfied with a more homely meal at a restaurant not necessarily mentioned in any guides than I was with a Michelin-starred restaurant? What was wrong with me?

Well, nothing. I just don’t identify with fine dining, and that’s fine. Now I know what to look for when I look for restaurants. The restaurants that stick out to me all stay with me because they felt warm and comforting: the kimchi jjigae I had after landing in Dublin right after a cold and harsh trip to Iceland where my friend and I swore we would never go back; the crispy pork we ate in Bangkok on little plastic stools crowded in a restaurant; a Vietnamese restaurant in New Jersey that had a tv going and children doing homework in the back.

Even now as I write this tagging along on my husband’s work trip to LA, instead of going out sightseeing all day I spent the morning getting a good long workout in and having sweetgreen for lunch because all I wanted was vegetables. Glamorous no, and it’s not an itinerary you’ll find recommended on any Tiktoks. But it’s what I wanted to do. And because it’s the clearest day we’ve had all week, I’m spending the next couple of hours writing this post from our room on the 34th floor looking out over the mountain ranges that surround the city. I can even see the Hollywood sign. I don’t know — it’s really not aspirational, and I can’t write a guide on it. But sometimes what feels better than crossing items off a list is to say fuck it and do what you want.

So, since we’ve been out and about, here are a few things I’ve loved lately, and I highly recommend you do and check out too, even if you’re not forced to be out of your home.

Where I’m eating

Mostly around the DMV because it is where I live. But there are some others as well!

Neighbors Coffee

We had to leave for a few hours this past weekend, and decided to head to Neighbors Coffee. We first discovered them at the Kentlands Farmer’s Market last year, and now they’ve opened their first standalone cafe. It is so cute inside! And they always have interesting drinks with flavor combos I haven’t seen elsewhere. This time they had their spring menu out and I got an iced raspberry drink with raspberry cold foam that was incredible (I don’t think I’ve actually had raspberry coffee before? Which seems impossible, and yet). And after you get your coffee, can I recommend heading next door to check out…

Z&Z Manoushe Bakery

My favorite secret for finding the good places to eat in the area is looking for reddit threads that ask “What’s the best restaurant for your country’s cuisine in [location]?” They are a treasure trove of suggestions, and that’s how I ended up finding Z&Z. They make Lebanese flatbreads, and I saw them recommended everywhere. It’s because they are that good! My husband got a lamb meatball one, I got the Lebanese bride that came topped with vegetables. They wood fire them right behind the cash register and they come out fresh which meant the inner part of the slice is nice and crispy, and the crust is delicate and tender.

Artha Rini

Look, we did a lot of fine dining last year because… we could? We felt like we should? And I have to say: I don’t get it. It’s not for me. I could care less that something is julienned perfectly. It is too sanitized and also, feels insane to me, like I’m being trapped in a room with stark white walls and no door. Cook with heart and make mistakes! Let me feel something! Please!

So, needless to say, we’ve been pivoting more toward family run restaurants. Artha Rini is perfect if you want a family run restaurant that’s cozy inside, has incredible food cooked with heart, and has dishes that are unique that you can’t find elsewhere. Inside they have a little self-serve water station and shelves all around the restaurant where you can pick up Indonesian snacks to go. I got the soto ayam, and we shared a vegetable salad in a kencur/sand ginger sauce. Everything tasted perfectly homemade and delicious, and I think it’s my new favorite DMV restaurant.

H Mart Herndon (and the Korean restaurant inside, Min Ga Nae)

The grocery stores in the DMV (and really, when I talk about the DMV, I actually do not mean DC at all), here are unmatched too. Gaithersburg and other surrounding cities are consistently ranked among the most ethnically diverse cities in the US. The grocery stores here have sections dedicated to ingredients from what feels like every country.

We’ve been trying to check out every Asian grocery store in the area (which by the way is impossible. There are 11 H Marts in the area alone, and that is only one of 5+ chains). This week we checked out the H Mart in Herndon. In keeping with the theme of diversity, it has a full panadería in the back as well as a full service Korean restaurant. We had planned to make hotpot that night, but saw the Korean restaurant and decided to get that to go instead. It was so good! I got yukgaejang and my husband got jjajangmyeon, and then I got some gamjatang for lunch the next day. Both delicious, and the man at the counter was friendly and welcoming too. I recommend stopping by the next time you need groceries and dinner.

Where I’m going

Theodore Roosevelt Island

The weather is finally nice out, and the pollen has died down which means it’s the sweet spot where we can actually go outside again without dying from either pollen or heat. We drove out to Roosevelt Island for the first time, which is actually a memorial to President Theodore Roosevelt. Since he was so into conservation, the island is allowed to just grow wild, minus the sparse trails that circle the island and the memorial to the president in the middle. It’s about a mile and a half walk around, and it was the perfect way to spend the afternoon surrounded by nature and water on both sides.

Parking is great and easy too since there’s a parking lot right outside the entrance. I can really review the parking lot because we made it there right as it started to thunderstorm, so we waited it out by fully reclining the seats and riding out the storm by taking a nap while the rain hit the sunroof of our Hyundai Ioniq 5 (NOT spon con, I just legitimately love this car. I hate driving and car culture but I love our Ioniq 5!!). When we woke up, the clouds had cleared, the sun was out, and we made the full loop around the island and back to our car just as another rainstorm rolled in.

Cookbook signings

I’m always checking Bold Fork Books’ calendar to see what events they have coming up, and this week they had an event with the author of Lao Kitchen, Saeng Douangdara, to celebrate the launch of his book. It was beautiful to hear the effort and thought that went into this book, how he approached the process, and what he wants to share about Lao food. Inside, it’s stunning (he actually learned photography and shot the images himself!), and perfectly timed given a lot of the recipes feature bamboo, and we have a surplus growing in our backyard right now.

This weekend I’m heading to LA, which leaves me just in time to make it to Melanie Masarin’s book launch event for her book, Riviera, at Bar Besito in Silverlake. I love cookbooks! I hope to write my own someday! But in the meantime, I absolutely love attending cookbook events, hearing and learning from the people who put in the work, and will keep going to as many as I can.

The library

Well first of all, I forgot the library existed. But sometimes you need a free space that you can just exist in, where you can quietly get work done, where everyone else is being quiet. I truly feel like it’s one of the last sacred public places where people are not playing things out loud on their phone at full volume. We’ve started going out to the library constantly whenever we need to leave for a showing, and my productivity has skyrocketed. In fact, most of my last blog posts have been written at the public library. If you need a space to exist for free, with endless water and bathrooms and peace and quiet, I am here to give you a reminder to check out your local library.

Why not…

• Take a dance class! I recently took my first dance class in over 25 (!) years. It is a great way to have to actively practice kind self talk in the moment because otherwise you would end up crying in the middle of the dance floor as everyone else watched. Anyway it’s been a ton of fun, and I’ve been going weekly for about a month now. If you’re in the DMV, WJ Dance has a great roster of classes.

• Visit a Saks that’s closing near you? We are lucky (or unlucky) enough to have 2 closing near us, in Chevy Chase and Tyson’s (I made a video of what it was like inside the Chevy Chase one). EVERYTHING is for sale, and you get see things like: 200 mannequins grouped together to greet you as you descend into a basement, the back stock rooms that are completely open because why not, the entire Jo Malone shelving display ready to be brought home immediately. I guess it could be seen as sad, but I thought it was oddly thrilling to run around this in-between liminal space we usually don’t get to see. It feels forbidden! I bought some limited edition art and might head back for a makeup mirror (and to see it descend further into chaos).

• Prep for summer by adding a UPF protection to your laundry? I just found Lemon of the Sun on TikTok, bought a bag, and used it on my first load. You don’t notice any difference in the feel of your clothing, but it adds UPF 30-50+ to every item. I am a freak about sun protection after living in LA and have been looking for something like this for years. It’s easy to use and I’m going to actually do another load to protect more clothing before I head out to LA this weekend. I’m not paid at all by them I just legitimately love sun protection in all forms.

• Grill up a bunch of wings and do the entire Hot Ones challenge? We recently ordered the lineup after watching BTS go through it. I am not going to lie to you — I can handle a lot of spice and even I had a moment where I was like, “oh I really might not make it”. But it was so fun to go through and feel them get progressively more dangerous. And my advice, for free: keep separate napkins for your hands and for your face.

• Wear an outfit for fun without over analyzing whether it works? Here are a couple, one I did not wear because it was too cold, and one that I did to the book signing:

• Go for a photo walk around your neighborhood? I recently took over one of my husband’s old digital cameras, and took a walk around our neighborhood to capture azalea season. It was fun, refreshing, and free, I highly recommend. Can you tell I’m doing The Artist’s Way?

And a bonus photo of azalea season in our neighborhood:

That’s all for now. Have a great week, get outside and do something!

I did a ton of research for this trip, so I’m going to include my reviews and recommendations, but also check the end of the post for all the guides I used and recommend for even more information.

Staying

CDMX is the land of adorable and chic guest houses. Last time I stayed at Casa Izeba and it was a very cute stay. But the real draw is that it’s next door to the famous Panaderia Rosetta and so every morning, the breakfast includes fresh pastries from next door but without waiting in any line. It was worth it for us because otherwise I don’t care how good a pastry may be, I’m not waiting in a line around the block. I have a vacation to enjoy!

If you’re looking for less of an aesthetic stay and just want the amenities of a hotel (like a full service gym), the Mondrian in Condesa has an ideal location, great gym, and a good included breakfast. I stayed because I had a deal with credit card points, and also I booked this trip last minute and pretty much every guest house was booked up (so a good note to book your accommodations early). The rooms were not the most aesthetic, but it was a very comfortable home base and the location was perfect because I could walk right out the door to walk around Condesa, or head out and start my morning running around the tree-lined Amsterdam Ave alongside all the other runners.

Of course, Roma Norte is a great neighborhood, as is Juárez. I’ve also heard Polanco is relaxed to stay in, and it’s close to the park for longer runs. There are more neighborhoods of course, and about 6 million more guest houses to check out, but these should be a good start. Obviously there are many more neighborhoods, but these are really easy neighborhoods to use as a home base for your trip.

A quick rapid fire of other places that were unfortunately booked during my stay, but came highly recommended: The Red Tree House, Brick Hotel, and Ignacia Guest House.

Bakeries

I am gluten and dairy free because of my weak stomach, but usually when I travel I try to power through, bring digestive pills with me and just eat everything. However, we were coming off a week in Mérida where I had just eaten everything, and was not feeling so good. So day one I scouted out the gluten free bakeries in CDMX.

• Chokolat pimienta was super cute inside, and they had tons of items, all good! I got a little bow tie shaped pastry and some kind of chocolate covered lady finger and really enjoyed them.

• My absolute favorite was Aranciatta. They had a huge selection of savory to sweet items, all gluten free. I got a sardine avocado toast, a tiramisu, and an americano and sat on the sidewalk reading my book for a good hour. It’s on a quiet street corner and perfect for hanging out for awhile. And the food was great because I really did have to go double check that it was gluten free (it was).

• La Otilia was okay. The selection looked a little sad when I went a couple of hours before closing so I left empty handed, so I might need to give them another chance.

Restaurants

My priority when I travel is eating vegetables. I want as many vegetables as possible. Especially coming off a week of indulgent eating, I needed to give my stomach more of a break than usual.

• Caracol de Mar - This was my first dinner in CDMX. I got the purslane salad that had a perfect balance of textures — tender crunch from the purslane, harder crunch from thinly sliced celery, and then a mexican green that had a nice satisfying crisp crunch, all brought together with some lemon zest. I dream about that salad. But the coconut meat tostada was memorable too. I forgot what I had ordered, and spent the first few bites trying to figure out what type of fish this was until I remembered it was coconut. If you order nothing else, get the tostada! I reserved via OpenTable.

• Baldío - realllly good tasting menu. I did the full tasting, plus the non alcoholic pairing (I’ve been choosing those lately just because I’m really curious what restaurants will do for it — Mexican restaurants do great ones because they have tepache which adds so much depth of flavor that you don’t even miss the alcohol. Unrelated, but my all time favorite mocktails were at Acopio in the Bay Area, probably because they use tepache). Everything tasted great, especially the corn tamale they made that had both corn inside and was covered in a corn sauce, and then topped with tiny delicate flowers for a beautiful presentation. I reserved via OpenTable.

• I went to Cafe Comunidad twice while there and spent time just hanging out at the seats by the windows, people watching. It’s cozy and comfortable inside, plenty of people doing some work on their laptops, and the food was good. I got some mushroom birria tacos and they were the perfect not-too-filling late lunch. I just walked in and was fine getting a seat.

• Lardo - I went on the last night and was worried I would regret it because it is so hyped up (and usually hyped spots fall flat in real life). No, Lardo is well worth it. Everything was phenomenal and flavorful, the environment was lively and exciting, they have a charcuterie slicer at the bar (!!), and the servers were fun. I had a grand old time dining solo. I got the lamb kebabs and they were unbelievable — tender and juicy lamb almost like a sloppy joe consistency (sorry for the uncouth comparison but it’s all I can think of), and the most tender delicate flatbread as the vehicle to eat it with. I was in disbelief it was so good and texted my husband “Okay you have to come back here with me next time look at this” along with like 30 photos of my dinner so you know it’s good. I reserved via OpenTable.

Cafes

I thought Seoul had a lot of cafes, and then I came to CDMX. There are cafes everywhere. And so many are good, aesthetic, cute, etc. Spend as much time as you can visiting and hanging out in cafes anywhere you can. To be honest you can just walk around and find a good cafe on pretty much every block, but here are a few highlights of the ones I went to.

• El Minutito is recommended everywhere and all over TikTok, but it is worth the hype. Very cute inside, and they have a DIY charcuterie bar! Pick your pickles, cheese, potato chips, etc and get a little snack.

• Rumor is attached to the clothing store Cueva and is right by the park. Get the yuzu espresso tonic on a hot day, it’s perfect.

• I went by Odette which everyone recommends but I can’t tell you how it is because that was way too long of a line for me. Instead I walked around the corner and went into…

• Solovino, which stands out for having the cutest logo, a little napping dog. I got a pistachio latte and a hat with the dog, and don’t regret either.

• Okalité is a gorgeous tea house in Juárez, and another place I sat down and spent an hour or two reading by the window.

• Casa Melibea off of Amsterdam was cute, airy and spacious inside, with mostly outdoor seating. They also have cute home items but check the price! I almost bought a $5 coffee and $65 notebook.

Sightseeing

Museums

• Mexico is old. It has a truly unfathomable amount of history. At the Museo Nacional de Antropología, you can see pottery that is over 4,000 years old. That is incredible. I would highly, highly recommend a guided tour because otherwise I think it would be easy to get overwhelmed — I did this one led by Erika who is an archeologist. She was able to explain things so well and with so much context (and passion!). I learned way more than I thought I could and gained a whole new appreciation for the history of Mexico. This was easily hands-down the best thing I did in CDMX

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• I ended up at Museo de Arte Moderno completely accidentally because the Uber was supposed to drop me off by the botanical gardens, but dropped me off here instead. I decided to go along with the universe and go in, and was immediately greeted with Las Dos Fridas, a painting I had had to copy in art class as a child. The universe has a funny way of giving us exactly what we need, if we listen! The museum had lots of great surrealist art, art from Frida Kahlo and Deiga Rivera plus a sculpture garden outside.

• Museo Tamayo was right across the street, so I went in as well. It’s a quick museum, but has some interesting pieces, including one ezxhibit of an artist plus the artist who inspired her to become an artist, shown together for the first time in conversation. That was really cool to see.

• After, I went to Chapultapec Castle. It’s 100 pesos to go up, and you do have to walk up. Honestly I thought the castle itself was fine, but the walk up was worth the money in itself. You get a good vantage point of the city, and when I went the jacarandas were all in bloom. It reminded me a lot of the walk up to Namsan Tower in Seoul. And by the way, you can do all of this in one day — Museo de Arte Moderno, Museo Tamayo, the botanical gardens, and Chapultapec Castle are all across from each other. Or I did at least, but maybe I’m insane.

• I ran out of time this time, but next trip I do want to go see Frida Kahlo’s home, as well as visit some of the architecturally significant homes in the city. There are a lot to tour, I just wanted to be outside mostly this trip. I really wanted to go to Museo Anahuacalli because it also has tons of older items which are my favorite, but it will have to wait until next trip. Also on my list is Templo Mayor Museum, which is another old museum, focused on the Aztecs.

Being outside

• There are so many good parks and public spaces. My recommendation is to go into as many as you can, find a bench, and just zone out. Outside Museo Tamayo there are some fantastic benches that are angled so all you can do is look up at the sky, and I spent like an hour there just staring at the trees. Right across the street is Bosque de Chapultapec which has tons of public space to hang out in, and also tons of people out enjoying the park.

• For official parks, I was right next to Parque Mexico so I went there a lot. It’s the perfect place to grab coffee at any one of the 800 coffee shops that surround the park and then find a bench to hang out on. Parque España is nearby as well and nice to hang out in, but is a little smaller. I spent what felt like half my vacation walking through the parks, journaling on a bench in the parks, or grabbing a coffee and wandering the grounds. It is just so nice to have so many spaces to hang out without any pressure. If you’re coming from the US, I know there’s so much pressure to do everything on vacation, but make some time to hang out and do nothing too because it is rare for us, and we should enjoy it.

• After visiting the museums, I did make it to the botanical gardens in Chapultapec. I wouldn’t exactly go out of your way to see them since they’re pretty small, but if you’re in the area it’s a nice way to spend 45 minutes walking around the grounds and seeing what’s in bloom.

• Everyone recommended Libreria Porrua by the lake in Chapultapec….. unless I’m missing something, this is not at all worth going to. It is nice inside? Kind of? But it was basically hundreds of exhausted tourists all shoving past each other trying to find a seat.

Other activities

• Why not get a facial? I went to Youth For Us (recommended by Amy Shio’s substack here) and had a very relaxing experience (aka I fell asleep).

• Or, spend an entire day on a food tour? Last time we were in CDMX we had 24hrs there, and we spent 10 of them on this Culinary Backstreets food tour. It was incredible. You walk all around the neighborhood of Azcapotzalco trying everything, from sit down restaurants to street food, tacos, drinks, ice cream, pulque under an overpass… it is a truly marathon experience. Tiring, yes, but a great way to cross trying everything off your list all at once.

Shopping

If you can, book a tour with María, who used to be an editor at Elle and Elle Decor Mexico, to learn the inside knowledge of Mexican design in Juárez. She took me all around the neighborhood and showed me so many different shops, explained details about each of them, and got me really oriented in this neighborhood. It was only a 2ish hour tour and I think we visited >10 shops.

Clothing:

• Hermanos Kouri for running/exercise clothes. I regret not getting more of the running shorts, because they actually stay fully in place!

• I wanted everything in Caan Crudo. It’s minimalist but unique statement pieces. I really regret not getting a pair of clogs with stones on top. It’s a small shop and they haven’t been open for long, but it has plenty to choose from still.

• In one big building, you’ll find: Esperanza Home, Boyfriend’s Shirt, and a few more stores, so it’s worth going level by level to check it out. Boyfriend’s Shirt has really interestingly cut tailored pieces, and I wanted a few things but sizing was tragically limited when I went. Esperanza Home has a good selection of, as you might guess, home goods.

• Lorena Saravia - expensive! But very unique and interesting pieces. It’s worth going to check it out for the boots alone.

Home:

• If you see a Lago, go in. There are a few of them around the city, but they all have a great selection of Latin American designers, and have everything from clothes, home goods, and jewelry. I went to all three, the one in Polanco is the largest, but the selection is great in all three.

• Onora in Polanco had a fantastic selection of home goods, and the staff was so friendly! I got a gorgeous candle holder shaped like a pineapple in a bright red glaze.

• Selección Marsella is the first store María took me into, and if you need anything home related, it’s a must visit. The owners are interior designers, and as they find items sourcing for the clients, anything they love or find especially unique comes to this store, so the selection is top-notch. I got one of María’s own linen robes from her line Cardo Santo which will be perfect for lounging around in the summer.

• I wandered into Altiva Mexico while walking around Condesa, and it has a great selection of home items, jewelry, and a few clothes. I loved all the little ceramics, and wished I had more room in my suitcase.

• Atlawa makes acrylic home goods, and they are bright. If you want anything fun, colorful, statement-making, come here. I regret not getting a set of orange and cream shot glasses (complete with matching tray).

• I cannot find this on Google Maps at all but there was also a place called Artesano on the corner of a block in Juárez, along Calle Marsella (I think this is it). If it’s open and you walk by, I’d recommend stopping in. It’s an art house but they have multiple floors of really unique art pieces and home decor, most available for purchase. It’s like a combo museum/gift shop but everything inside was really unique.

• Misses: I saw Utilitario recommended everywhere, and yes the prices are cheap, but the quality matches the price, I think. I don’t know, I’m not really in a place in my life where I need stuff for stuff’s sake, I want it to be something unique, or high quality.

Other shops:

• Xinú Perfumes in Juárez is definitely worth a visit. I didn’t go this time because I’d gone last time, but it is an experience inside. I got their green perfume and to me it smells like buttery croissants, rhubarb, and an open grassy field (exactly what I want to smell like).

• While you’re there — go to a pharmacy like Farmacias del Ahorro and get tretinoin. It is less expensive and you can get it without a prescription. Just walk up to the counter and ask for tretinoina and your percentage, ie .025 or .05 por ciento). And while you’re there, pick up some Treda, which I’ve heard is a gold standard for curing stomach trouble fast. I didn’t need any this trip thankfully but picked some up to put in my emergency kit.

• Ánima Sustentable for by the kilo snacks. María took me in here and I filled a bag with some chili dried mango. It was the perfect snack to come home to after a long day.

Random survival tips

If you also drink an upsettingly large amount of water go ahead and UberEats (or DiDi) a big order of water for yourself day one. Maybe some Topo Chico or Penafiel as well. I did this day one and was grateful I wasn’t constantly worried about where to get drinkable water while also not having to lug a huge amount back from the store.

One of my favorite things to do on vacation is to get food delivery and eat alone in my room at night, especially if I’ve been out all day. I can’t think of anything more luxurious! UberEats and DiDi both work, but I used UberEats just because I’ve used it more. I ordered from:

• Toks - a grilled chicken breast + a big plate of vegetables, exactly what I wanted

• Eno Roma - another pechuga de pollo a la plancha, lentil soup, and a ginger and lemon tea

• My absolute favorite was Alma de Barro Navarte because they had the best packaging, and the food was really good. I got a milpas soup (more vegetables) and chicken tinga, and they came with tortillas packaged in little tortilla warmers! So cute and made me feel like my in-hotel meal was more special.

Also, if you see “salmas crackers” as an option — always get them. They are so good.

For travel around the city, again Uber and DiDi both work. For the airport, apps are contentious and so you’ll need to use a taxi. On the way in there are tons of kiosks near the exit where you can tell them where you’re going, they’ll give you a slip, and you walk out to the area and a driver will come to you. On the way back, I just asked the hotel to get me one to go back to the airport.

The metro in CDMX works great, we did take it last trip, but this time I didn’t just because I wanted to walk everywhere. But if you’re going further distances, it is great for getting around.

Resources

• If you need any resource, read Amy Shio’s guides! She has multiple posts about her favorite places in CDMX, and these were the guides I used the most while there. Plus, some of them have save-able Google maps you can download directly.

• Alyssa Coscarelli’s guide on instagram

• Paid, but Jenny Mollen’s guide is good as well

• This guide has a good roundup of shops with summaries as well

• This wellness-based guide has a lot of good resources too

One thing all my favorite cookbooks share is that it HAS to have pictures! There is no point in publishing a cookbook if you’re not going to include pictures of the dishes, in my opinion. If I’ve never heard of a dish before, I need some visual guidance to help me recreate it. It is my number one pet peeve and if I were a book publisher I would personally stop any cookbook without pictures of every dish from ever heading to print.

So that being said, over the years, I’ve collected a lot of cookbooks, and some stand out far and beyond the rest. They all have beautiful photos of each dish, bring me into a new culture and cuisine, and introduced me to new flavor combinations that have now become part of my regular rotation.

Note: some of these links are affiliate links, and I may earn a small commission on those links.

Bangkok, Simple Thai, and Southern Thai Grill from Leela Punyaratabandhu

These books got me through the pandemic. We took our first trip to Thailand in March 2020, had an amazing trip, returned back home and immediately went into lockdown. Thankfully my husband had ordered all three of Leela’s books beforehand, and even more thankfully, the Southeast Asian wholesaler down the street from us in NYC turned to home delivery during the pandemic which meant we had immediate access to every Thai ingredient we could need.

Before the pandemic I knew how to cook generally, but my repertoire wasn’t very large. And I didn’t really need to learn, living in NYC. Whatever food I wanted was right outside my doorstep. Except during the pandemic, finally it wasn’t and if I wanted to eat the food I missed, I would have to learn how to make it. So between fantasizing about the last time I felt freedom in Thailand, missing restaurant quality food, and the easy access to Thai ingredients, I spent the entire pandemic cooking through as many recipes as I could from her books. I am emotionally attached to these books now and will never give them up, even with all the food stains and folded pages and broken spines.

Here is my personal breakdown of her books. I consider all three essential personally (but understand not everyone will want three new cookbooks).

Flavors of the Southeast Asian Grill is, unsurprisingly, best if you have access to a grill. However there are some salads in there that I have made time and time again, like a grape and mint salad seasoned with fish sauce and garlic that is the perfect summer salad to cut through the heat, or the grilled eggplant salad covered in fresh herbs, toasted nuts, and a salty-sour coconut cream dressing that I’ve already made twice this month.

Simple Thai is a good starter point for quick and easy weeknight recipes that don’t have too many specialty ingredients. This is full of stir fries we love to make, like one ginger chicken stir fry we’ve made dozens of times, or my absolute personal favorite, a kabocha squash stir fry that has you cook the squash in a pot with water and soy sauce/oyster sauce until the liquid evaporates, and then, you scramble eggs into it. It is the perfect side dish (or main, honestly) for every single meal, and at this point I don’t even use the book anymore because I can cook it from memory.

Bangkok, however, is my favorite. Every recipe comes out perfectly. Here you’ll find more specialty ingredients, but it’s worth it. Make the curry paste from scratch and see how it tastes. I have too many favorites in this book to even name! There’s a green curry recipe that’s better than any I’ve ordered, in Thailand included. There’s a pomelo and shrimp salad that we make nearly weekly in the summer. Same with som tam made with corn instead of green papaya that is the idyllic summer side dish.

There’s a whole section on relishes, and a hell relish that’s dried fish and bird’s eye chilies that goes well on everything (and this reminds me, I need to make another batch). And another watermelon salad with a cotton candy-esque sugary fish floss that’s unreal and I’ve made for multiple dinner parties. Her writing is also beautiful, and it’s worth ordering just to read her vignettes into life in Bangkok in between the recipes, like the story of a stormy ride across the Chao Praya that leads into the Pomelo salad recipe. Also essential for me is her newsletter, The Epestle, which I will always subscribe to because I personally want to fund her to keep writing cookbooks.

Maangchi’s Big Book of Korean Cooking

Maangchi’s book, to me, is the bible for Korean food. Any Korean recipe you want to make, you can find in here. And for that reason, it also weighs about 6lbs. Everything has a very classic taste, and the recipes will never steer you wrong. I use it constantly because it is just so reliable. I love her kimchi recipe (and when we make kimchi at home, this is the recipe we follow), her soups (especially the doenjang jjigae), and all the banchan. Any time I want to make a banchan dish, I go flip through the section and see what catches my eye based on what we have in the fridge. I especially love the broccoli tofu banchan.

Umma

Umma is a newer addition to our shelves but wow, it has quickly changed the way I cook. There is one soup in particular called Daepae samgyeopsal yachae jjim (대패 삼겹살 야채 찜) that I now cook multiple times per month because it is so easy and heart warming. It also got me into maesil-cheong, or plum syrup, which is now my preferred sweetener for everything because it is so versatile, adds an umami kind of sweet, and also dissolves easily because it’s a syrup and not crystals. Also, crucially, it’s not too sweet. The sauce section is also not to be missed — there is a gochujang honey mustard sauce that I make as a dip for all vegetables now, and also it introduced me to sesame oil with salt for Korean bbq, which is now the only sauce I want to eat grilled meats with.

Asada

I wanted a goal last summer, and made my goal to make as many recipes as possible from Asada. We had just installed a grill with a natural gas line which meant never running out of gas and ever since we have gone wild on grilling. Every recipe from this book is great and easy to follow, but a few have really stood out.

My absolute favorite is the grilled caesar salad that I have made and adapted countless times now. Make a little caesar dressing (recipe in the book), grill some vegetables (romaine is great, however bok choy cut in half then grilled is absolutely perfect. This type of bok choy, specifically). Grill a little bread for some croutons, and you have a quick and delicious side dish. I usually make enough dressing for a few days, and we will literally just keep grilling greens every night for dinner and adding the dressing until it runs out. There’s also a fried mashed potato and corn tortilla with lemon zest that we make anytime someone comes over for dinner and we want to impress them, especially if they’re vegetarian. If you have access to a grill at all, I’d get this book and try to cook as much of it as you can.

Mi Cocina and Salsa Daddy by Rick Martínez

Since you’re already here reading I need to give you a personal anecdote about Mi Cocina. When my preorder of this book got delivered, I was running late to dinner with a friend so I unwrapped it, flipped through it quickly, then set it down and ran out the door. While at dinner (at Bonnie’s, please order an MSG martini aka the best dirty martini in the world for me if you go), there was a group up front that was clearly celebrating something, and they all looked vaguely familiar but neither my friend nor I could place anyone so we just went on with dinner. When I told my husband he did some sleuthing and found out it was Rick Martínez and his crew from Bon Appetit, celebrating the release of his book. So, now I feel personally invested in its success because I accidentally attended the launch celebration.

Mi Cocina - Personal connections aside, this book has become indispensable to me. I’ve cooked the pozole verde more times than I can count, as well as the chileatole verde which has the most comforting corn-tasting broth thanks to the addition of the corn cobs. Anytime I want to have Mexican food for dinner, I browse through this cookbook first to see what I’ve bookmarked.

Salsa Daddy - I loved Mi Cocina so much that when he announced Salsa Daddy, I immediately ordered that too. All the ones I’ve tried so far are great, but the one that really stands out that I make constantly now is the “Jalapeño Daddy” salsa that is simply jalapeños, garlic powder, and salt, mixed together. 3 ingredients and less than 10 minutes, but it tastes like something much more complex to make.

Coconut and Sambal

Coconut and Sambal is an Indonesian cookbook that was also essential for our mental health during the pandemic. It is absolutely perfect if you want a soup recipe, and it introduced me to the idea of serving soups at home with tons of toppings. Now serving a soup feels incomplete without some fresh herbs, pickled chilis, and some kecap manis on the side. There’s a bok choy and mushroom side dish recipe that’s delicious and we’ve made many times, and tastes like takeout you’d get at a Cantonese restaurant with the silky corn-starch sauce. And of course, a lengthy section on sambals, all delicious. The soups though are really where it’s at. Every soup is an absolute banger.

Nothing Fancy

Well, for better or worse, Nothing Fancy has gotten me out of pretty much every dinner party predicament I’ve ever had. Do you need to make an entire meal with large portions that tastes incredible but takes minimal effort and has easy to find ingredients? Then this is your book. Everything tastes deeply impressive, the ingredients are available pretty much at every grocery store, and they take maybe 30min max to cook. I think I’ve cooked at least one recipe from this book for every dinner party I’ve had. It is my essential companion for cooking for other people.

And a bonus rapid fire of some other cookbooks I love:

• Aloha Kitchen - I don’t cook a ton from here, but there is one recipe I have made more than any other. It’s a chicken noodle soup made with glass noodles, and I don’t know how or why but it ends up tasting almost exactly like Campbell’s chicken noodle soup. Whenever I need to feel better I make this. I use rotisserie chicken instead of fresh though, to save time and my energy.

• Sambal Shiok - exclusively because there is an almond flour cardamom cake (gluten free!) recipe in there with a greek yogurt frosting combo that is THE perfect dessert for: a dinner party, a long weekend at home, a Tuesday…. it’s just the perfect cake for any day and situation and takes minimal time and ingredients to make.

• Penang Local - This is just a solid, cute cookbook. I like that it’s organized by breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert. The breakfast section is my favorite, and my go-to when I want to make a special breakfast on the weekend. I love the Kuih Serabai, or rice pancakes.

• A subscription to Cook’s Illustrated - This should probably be higher in my list because I love Cook’s Illustrated. I save every issue. If you need a gift to give yourself, treat yourself tto his subscription. I always look forward to the illustration on the back, and it goes into the science of cooking on something fascinating, and I come away from every issue having learned something new. We’ve also ripped out a few recipes, laminated them, and turned them into regulars in our house. Most notably, the nian gao recipe from last year which we now make quarterly.

• You will notice that although we cook a lot of Asian food, Chinese food is completely missing. You might think oh wow, do they hate Chinese food? No. Actually, I am banned from cooking it. Every time I have tried to make a Chinese dish from recipe my husband (who is Chinese) goes “no that’s not right. That recipe is wrong. Let me take over.” Anyway, that being said, the only one he uses and approves of is Woks of Life.

I have a highly specific and personal connection to Thailand: it was the first international trip my husband and I took together, and it was right before the pandemic (as in, we flew home like, March 5, 2020). We went straight into lockdown which meant that trip was the last taste of freedom we had. A couple lucky factors then combined, and we happened to be three blocks from Southeast Asian restaurant supplier that had opened up to home delivery, and we had just ordered all three of Leela Punyaratabandhu's cookbooks. So, I spent a lot of the pandemic inside learning how to cook Thai food and trying to recreate the memories of the last time we were outside.

For me, Thai food is personal, but it’s also (in my opinion) some of the best food in the world. And this is why I love Thai Town in LA. You can try a truly huge variety of food that tastes like what you get in Thailand. And, there is simply sooo much to do there. It’s dense, packed into a few major blocks, which also makes it walkable. Get a coffee, grab a meal, pick up some desserts, and then do some grocery shopping. When we first moved to LA the corporate apartment we were in was about a 10min drive to Thai Town, and for the three months we were staying there, we were there constantly. So of the year I spent in LA, it feels like I spent nearly half of it in Thai Town. I love it, and I think everyone should visit!

And so: here’s a practical guide for experiencing Thai Town.

Getting there

Thai Town is primarily located on Hollywood Blvd and Sunset Blvd (Hollywood being the main one). It is small enough that it is walkable between all the places I’m mentioning, so you can park once and do everything later.

Go ahead and skip if reading about parking is not of interest to you. If you’re planning on walking around, the best option is to find a spot on one of the side streets that connects Hollywood and Sunset since it’s free and doesn’t have a time limit. There’s another lot by Banh Kanom Thai that is valet parking which sometimes is worth the money to not deal with parking. Pa Ord has a small parking lot near it that’s limited but we’ve had luck finding spots. Both grocery stores have parking, but Silom parking is dedicated to the grocery store, and for Bangluck…. truly good luck parking in that lot which it shares with a few other restaurants. We sometimes found a spot but it’s a little more cutthroat there.

For food

We like to get there around midday so we can start with a coffee at Obet & Del’s. They always have interesting specialty drinks, like an ube latte or Thai Town latte. It’s sunny and bright inside, the drinks are good, even if this weren’t in Thai Town it would be one of my favorite coffee shops. And it’s nice to get a drink and hang out first before you walk to your next location.

After, pick a restaurant. We have tried a full variety, but regrettably have not made it to every single one yet. That being said, I really don’t think you can go wrong, all of them we’ve tried are good in their own way, they just specialize in different things. So pick what you’re feeling! However, I will give you a rundown of everywhere we’ve tried below.

• Sapp Coffee Shop - July 2026 update: this one is my new favorite! We went back and had an amazing meal there. Really cozy inside, and the service is really friendly. Get the hoi joh while you’re there, which are little wheels of chicken and crab meat rolled in tofu and deep fried, served with a sweet-spicy sauce. I got the kha nom jeen namya, or fish balls in yellow curry over rice noodles, and my husband got the boat noodles. Both were great (and the boat noodle broth was perfectly spiced), but the hoi joh stole the show. Called a coffee shop, but surprise, you are going to be getting food here. I don’t actually know if they even have coffee.

• Ruen Pair - This was old reliable for us. The food was always great, the wait was usually reasonable, and it’s also across the plaza from the dessert shop so you can really maximize your time there. We’ve gotten soups, curries, omelets… I don’t think we’ve ever had a single bad dish there. And it’s always packed and lively which I like while eating. I don’t want to sit in a sad empty restaurant. I want bustle!

• Pa Ord Noodle - THE place for boat noodles. They are serious about spice levels, so be honest with yourself about what you can handle. My husband orders medium and barely survives (he is not a spice lover). I order spicy or very spicy because I want a near death experience when I eat, I think it’s perfect.

• Sanamluang Cafe Hollywood - I don’t actually know if it’s good here because I can’t judge it objectively. To me I love it because we would always go here after grocery shopping at Bangluck, and if it was nice, we’d sit outside. Whereas other restaurants might have a wait due to space, Sanamluang is big and so you can pretty much always just walk in. That disclaimer being out there though, I do think the food is good! We always get Thai teas and a soup for a classic combo. They also have yen ta fo (a bright pink soup) the last time I checked, which I love simply because it is pink.

• Northern Thai Food Club - July 2026 update: They specialize, as you might guess, in northern Thai food. I believe they used to be carry out only, but now they actually are a full sit down restaurant with <10 tables. We went for dinner and tried a variety of dishes, from the sour and herbed e-san sausages, a sour pork and mustard green soup, a nam prik plate (actually the only Thai restaurant I’ve been to in the US that serves a nam prik plate, somehow? They are everywhere in Thailand), and a bamboo shoot salad. All tasty and I’d recommend them all, but especially the e-san sausages and a nam prik plate.

• Jitlada - Everyone knows about Jitlada. The food is good! But the food in the other restaurants in Thai Town is good too, so try the others as well. Go to Jitlada if you want a scene while you eat. That being said the crying tiger salad was really tasty.

Dessert

Please do not skip this step. Oh you’re not a dessert person, huge congrats to you on being better than everyone. Today, you are a dessert person because you need to go to Banh Kanom, a must-have experience in Thai Town. It’s inside the same center as Ruen Pair which makes for an easy commute after you’re done with lunch. There are so many desserts here, but I always go for the Thai tea custard, which is in the fridges all the way in the back. But go ahead and browse first — they have tons of snacks and packaged desserts up front. When you’re ready, make your way to the counter, where they have even more Thai desserts that they make fresh in house. If I remember correctly they also have different specialties depending on the day, so check out what they have available that day and pick out what looks good.

For grocery shopping

When you need groceries or cooking equipment, there are two main grocery stores. Bangluck Market, and Silom Supermarket, which are pretty much across the street from each other. Silom has a dedicated parking lot and is larger, and has a lot of cooking equipment. Bangluck is smaller but has everything you need, and I like it for the simple reason that it’s really sunny and bright inside.

Even though Silom is more convenient, we ended up at Bangluck a lot more. They both hold a special place in my heart though because when we first moved in to our corporate apartment with its minimal cooking equipment, these markets are where we drove the first week to immediately get a wok, a cleaver, a stir fry spatula and all the chopsticks we’d need to get through three months without our own cooking equipment. And it’s where we kept coming back to get ingredients for dinner, and the entire time in that corporate apartment we pretty much lived off of Thai style stir fries (a huge thank you to nam prik pao for working overtime those days).

We’ve actually been back to both since we moved back to LA a few weeks ago, and Silom has a ton more now. The real benefit to Silom is they have ready-made nam prik (relishes/sauces) and curry pastes at the front. I recommend picking up a few nam prik, some good raw vegetables, and assembling your own nam prik plate for an easy summer meal.

Bonus mention: LAX-C

If you’re really curious though, mentioning Thai food in LA would be incomplete without mentioning LAX-C, which has been described as Thai Costco. Right by downtown LA in a warehouse, it’s an event. You get Thai ingredients in bulk, so about 50 scallions per bag, greens in quantities you wouldn’t believe, and any dry good you can imagine. And the real move is to grocery shop and on your way out, stop by the cafe, where they make an ever-changing set of curries and dishes fresh every day from the ingredients in the store. Load your groceries in, and then eat in the car (because there are little to no tables). There are also stalls just outside of LAX-C that look good but I’ve never tried them because between the groceries and the cafe we are usually good on food. If you go, report back and let me know how they are.

In conclusion

I love Thai Town. To date, the Thai Town in LA is only one of two designated official Thai Towns in all of the US. So this place really is special! Next time you’re in LA, go and make a day of it.

However, we were both so completely consumed by our work situations that we just… didn’t. We never looked at the final itinerary. We even debated cancelling the trip because we were each so stressed. But it was our anniversary, so we packed up, got on the plane, and headed to Vietnam. And I’m glad we never looked at the itinerary, because what followed was one of the most hilarious vacation experiences we’ve ever had.

What if you had an elaborate 2 week trip planned, but knew nothing about it? Where even minute to minute you had no idea what’s coming next. I’ll tell you: it’s hilarious. There is nothing funnier than having such a serious situation (a 2 week trip, you’ve traveled halfway across the world, and you’ve taken time out of your schedule and a good chunk of money to go on) and have NO idea what’s happening. We had so many moments where we were like okay, sure! I guess this is what we’re doing. It was not relaxing, and we did not come back feeling rejuvenated. But half the experience ended up being the fact that we had no preconceived notions going into the trip and were simply just going with the flow.

Hà Nội

We showed up in Hà Nội. We were at least aware of the city we were arriving in. Immediately, we were picked up by our guide, Hà, and he took us through back alleys and up multiple stairways to a family’s personal home. They run a restaurant inside, only when they feel like it, and only for one group at a time because that’s all there’s room for inside. They specialize in Chả cá Lã Vọng, the turmeric fish dish cooked fresh in front of you with fresh herbs. We sat there, jet lagged and confused on if this was where we were supposed to be (because, again, we had not read the itinerary whatsoever), as they chatted with us and cooked the fish in front of us, supplying us with more herbs and a shrimp dipping sauce as we needed more. I remember loving the food, and actually loving the conversation, but having just come off a 30 hour flight journey, barely being able to comprehend what was going on. Thankfully even through the jet lag fog, I knew this was a good dish and we actually do still make it at home now.

After what felt like an eternity at dinner due to the jet lag but what was probably just a regular time for dinner to take, we finally got to head to our hotel. At this point, we could have finally settled in, opened up the email with our itinerary, and prepared ourselves for what was to come the follow two weeks. But we didn’t. Instead we settled into bed and got caught up on our sleep. If at least we were not going to prepare mentally, we could prepare physically.

The next few days we relied on our guide to tell us where we needed to be, and that was pretty much the extent to which we knew what was going on. Every day went by like that. Every evening our guide would tell us when and where we’d meet up the next day, and every morning, my husband and I got up, got ready, and showed up at the designated meeting spot at the designated meeting time having no idea what was coming next. The only thing we knew each day was what time to be ready. After that, it was in god’s (and our guide’s) hands.

After a few days in Hà Nội, our guide Hà informed us we’d be checking out and heading to the mountains. Sure! After a few hours of driving through mountain roads, we showed up to a truly rural area. The car had to stop short of the house and we had to walk up a steep, curving hill with everything we had with us to get to the home stay. We showed up and it was a rustic stay — one big wooden room with cots, separated by thin curtain “rooms” and mosquito nets around each bed, that we’d be sleeping in alongside our guide and the driver. The bathrooms were outhouses with no real ceiling that were open to where everyone had to pass by, so there was not much by way of privacy.

This is an experience that I would typically read on an itinerary and say skip! remove! pass! Bring me to a hotel please. And that’s the beauty of not reading the itinerary, because I never had time to object. It was too late, I was already here and we were a 4 hour drive from Hà Nội. The only way out was through. Instead, because we went, we had a heartwarming home cooked meal by the family that owns the home stay, and we got to celebrate the mother’s birthday.

We had the classic dish of meat wrapped in leaves and fried (delicate, tasty, full of fat and flavor), alongside about 10 other side dishes prepared from local ingredients, all delicious. What I remember most about the food in Vietnam (and what I miss most about it) is how heartwarming and home cooked everything tasted. It all tasted like something I might make at home for someone, or what someone who cares about me might make for me when I’m over visiting. It was delicious, fresh, and balanced. Always plenty of vegetables, plenty of herbs, a form of rice, a protein, and plenty of lemongrass and fish sauce.

We also got to meet a local man that trip who’d lived there through the various periods of wars, and survived. He took us around and showed us everything there was to see — the big cave where you could go to cool down as it was about 20 degrees colder than outside, the river, where they grew their tea leaves, where they grew their chili peppers. I even got to try one. It was spicy, he warned, and was surprised when I said I would be okay that I really was okay after trying it.

The next day we woke up and Hà said, okay, today we’re going to do a little hike. Sure! We did not realize by “hike” he meant we were going on a 4-hour journey from the top of the mountain we were currently on all the way down to the base of the mountain where the river starts. It was a peaceful walk, and we just kind of meandered our way down through the forest and past rice paddies and mountain ranges.

We reached the end, and took a ferry across the river to the restaurant where we’d be having lunch, and ate our meal, which felt like a huge reward after the unexpected (to us) hike. After, our guide told us to go ahead and nap. Nap? Was this in the schedule? We kind of laid down and relaxed, but our guide seemed disturbed that we wouldn’t sleep. What kind of people do all that activity and don’t need a nap after? Instead, we laid there together on the wooden benches, looking over our photos of the day and giggling about how hilarious this trip was as the breeze drifted over us.

Hạ Long Bay

After that experience, I am guessing the travel agent knew we’d need a bit of a luxe experience, so we prepared to head to Hạ Long Bay next. Everyone said it with reverence, like it was a hugely popular place. And it is, we just didn’t bother to google it. I had literally no concept of what Hạ Long Bay was. And I’m glad I didn’t. I was in awe the entire time. I had never even seen pictures of landscapes like this, let alone knew that I could exist in them.

Everywhere the boat turned, there was a seemingly endless array of Karst blobs rising from the water, little trees and shrubs and birds resting on top of them. I grew up reading a lot of Dr. Seuss, and it felt like I was living inside one of his worlds. The cruise itself was stunning, and had an open air bath tub that looked out onto the ocean around us. I’ve never seen anything like it.

At some point, and I’ve lost track of what city we were in at this point, we got to meet a local man who’d lived through multiple wars and had gone on to have a beautiful family. He now specializes in making alcohol, and he had a fully sustainable enterprise running. It was incredible — his pigs lived in a room next to the main house, and as pigs do, they sh*t. After they relieve themselves, it gets rinsed down into a chamber below the distillery setup. As the … mixture… ferments, it releases gasses. Those gasses then get funneled up into a sustainable and never-ending supply of gas to light the flame needed for distilling his alcohol. His home was filled with all kinds of alcohol — ones with fruits inside, ones with birds inside, ones with snakes inside, ones with birds and snakes inside. We got to try them all. And I think because I didn’t know ahead of time what I was getting into, I didn’t have time to overthink it. You just have to trust.

The animals are cleaned VERY well before going into the alcohol, they both assured us, so I said alright, fuck it, let’s drink a bird. And it was fine! But mainly because I was there and open to what was happening, I also got to connect with this man by drinking his alcohol, learning about his life, and being in his home, and being a polite and curious and open-minded guest. I am all for knowing what you like, but I also think that sometimes you don’t know what you like until you try it. Also, maybe you know you’re not going to like it, you don’t like it, but you still have an interesting experience. I would have had a decidedly worse trip had I closed myself and said no, I’m not trying that.

Saigon and the Mekong Delta

At the tale end of the trip, we’d traveled the length of Vietnam from Hà Nội down to Saigon. But we weren’t done traveling south, and we had one more home stay to go. Our tour guide for this region took us down to the area he grew up, the Mekong Delta. We got most of the way there, but the car wouldn’t be able to make it the whole way so we’d need to transfer our bags to a bike as we walked. However, conveniently it had also just started to downpour. We sat under the awning of a family restaurant that was graciously letting people stop and wait out the rain. We sat there alongside everyone else in plastic chairs as we watched the rain fall and create rivers and puddles everywhere. Everyone was pretty patient, and didn’t seem too attached to getting anywhere at a certain time. And neither were we. Whenever the rain stopped, we’d continue, but really, the timing didn’t matter. And so we sat, and watched the rain fall in sheets.

Finally, the rain stopped, and we made it to the family’s home that would be hosting our Mekong Delta stay. They greeted us, and we got to work right away cooking with them. They walked us through grinding the paste to make Bánh Xèo, and we sat with them and assembled our little pancakes. I remember being in that kitchen and not being able to stop looking around. Everything had a place, and it was impeccably organized, and felt like home. We were hoping to own our own home one day, and I remember taking photos of their kitchen being like, yes, I want to have things organized like this in my kitchen one day. And, years later when we took on a kitchen renovation of our own, I did pull up those images and use them as inspiration.

Thankfully for that night, that was the extent of our shift in the kitchen, and they sent us outside to the table to wait to be served our meal. We sat at a picnic table under a pagoda with some little lamps, surrounded by the lush array of plants that grow easily in this fertile area. Crickets chirped, and they brought us some diet cokes. We could hear various houses across the river unwinding with some karaoke at night (and that’s what Vietnam sounds like to me, the sound of motorbike engines, and the sound of multiple karaoke sessions happening in tandem). We had our food, cooked fresh by the couple and served immediately to us. This stay was a little less rustic, and we had a full separate building with private bedroom and bathroom there, plus some little amenities they left us.

The next morning we said goodbye to the couple, and our guide took us on a bike tour through the neighborhood so we could stop in at various houses to learn how different things were made. We actually had a few bike tours that trip, and it made us both love biking. The bike paths were these narrow pathways in between fields of vegetation and water, and it was so peaceful. No hard biking, just flat road, beautiful scenery, and nowhere really to be. We stopped in to one home to learn how to make the mats people use to sleep on. We also brought home some table mats they had made which were a little more suitcase friendly, and I use them on our bar at home now to add some color and remind us of this peaceful day spent biking around Mekong.

We ended with my favorite thing to do on any trip: taking a leisurely walk in the countryside with someone who grew up there and knows the plants, who every so often pulls a leaf off a tree or pulls at a piece of bark and says, try this and guess what it is. He gave us different herbs, fresh cinnamon bark, and some local greens that only grow there. I was truly content walking along in the sunshine, trying a little leaf of this and that, guided by someone who had been doing this their whole life.

I’m going to be honest, it was not a relaxing trip and I did not leave feeling refreshed and recharged. Every minute was activity packed; I didn’t even write about half the things we did there. But it was a trip full of experiences I could have never imagined, and ones that I think about regularly to this day. I think everyone should try a vacation like this. Give up control. Give in to having an unexpected or unplanned experience. Resist the urge to plan and optimize every minute of every day. Let things happen. Most of all, let uncomfortable things happen! Don’t try to swerve and avoid them. You learn more in the times you’re uncomfortable than the times where you’re 100% in control.

Looking back it all kind of feels like a fever dream. But my point is this. You really gain something by letting go. Feeling the need to micromanage every aspect of a trip (or, of life) is only the illusion of control. At some point, you have to accept that despite your carefully researched plans, perfectly curated Google map, spreadsheet of dates and times to be somewhere, life is going to happen in a way that you did not plan for. And you’re going to have to adapt and pivot. Why not hold onto plans loosely? Give up a little bit of control? What’s the worst that could happen? Something unexpected? Great, now your surface area of what you know you can handle has grown. Add drinking bird alcohol to the list — now you know you can survive.

Anyway I was glad to be back and see more of the city and actually get to experience some of it this time. It’s a vibrant city with so much to do, and a truly overwhelming number of restaurants, bars, and cafes to check out. We actually spent most of the time traveling outside the city, but we still had a fair amount of time to explore the city too.

Some of my recommendations come from exploring around, and some come from the team at La Villa Bonita. If you’re interested in learning more about the Yucatán area in general and the cooking specific to the Yucatán, I’d recommend signing up for one of their weeks for next year, because we got to meet up with some really incredible chefs that we wouldn’t have been able to find on our own and see parts of the peninsula we would not have seen otherwise. (I am not paid by them lol I just legitimately love their trips.) Anyway, here’s a little guide to Mérida!

To stay

This is the land of gorgeous and plentiful Airbnbs. Every other door seems to be an Airbnb, for better or for worse. It’s been 5 years, but I still dream of coming back and spending a week (or a few) at the original Airbnb we stayed at, Casa Wayib. It was one big main house with a living room, kitchen, dining room, then two bedrooms connected via the courtyard outside alongside a pool. There was also a shaded rooftop for napping during the afternoon, and a grill for cooking at night. I dream of going back to this Airbnb, because it was the perfect place to relax for a week or two.

For hotels, we booked our first night at Hotel Sureño. It was fine! Cute, but if I’m in Mérida, it’s tough to beat staying in a house for the same price. That being said, the breakfast at the hotel restaurant was good, and the location was nice right next to Paseo de Montejo.

For sightseeing and experiences

The city comes alive in the mornings, before the sun’s gotten too hot, and in the evenings, when the sun’s gone down again and the heat breaks a bit. It means during the day, it’s a great time to be inside napping. It breaks your day into two: the morning is a great time to get up and run any errands, go for breakfast or coffee, and then head back home and relax around 10 or 11 when it starts getting too hot. Nap for a bit, and then get ready for the second part of your day after the sun goes down. A specific tip, but if you see Peñafiel mineral water, either the lime twist or the coco taste better than water on a hot day.

When you first get there, I’d recommend taking a tour of the city to learn more about the history. We did a tour at the tail end of our first visit, and I was like oh, I wish I’d done this when we first got here so I knew more about the city as I was walking around. Especially with the amount of history and periods the city went through, it’s interesting to learn what stories the architecture tells you about the history of the city. I’d recommend a tour with Eduardo, who we have accidentally taken a tour with twice. Once when we first visited in 2021, and then again this last time as part of the organized trip. We kept thinking he seemed familiar during our tour this trip, but finally looked it up after the tour and realized he was in fact the same person. So, we can really vouch that he knows the city well and can give you a good overview of Mérida. It also meant I looked like a star student this time as I brought up questions based on what he had taught us last time.

There is no way you will avoid walking down Paseo de Montejo. It’s a beautiful boulevard to walk up and down, and has plenty of shade. One of the best times is to go on Sunday morning while it’s shut down for traffic. Everyone from the city is out riding bikes, running, getting coffees or aguas frescas and walking the boulevard. There are a ton of museums and old mansions to tour as well. We didn’t have much free time this visit but did see a few last time, and all were interesting to tour and learn more about the history of how henequen really brought a huge amount of wealth in and shaped the city. And of course, the Dulcería y Sorbetería Colón is a must visit for some fruit sorbet (my favorite is mamey!).

There is tons of art to see, and many, many galleries. If you see an open gallery, go on in. There is so much interesting art happening. We had a guided gallery tour arranged by the team at La Villa Bonita, but there are plenty of galleries you can walk into and learn more about their art and the artists.

For running — they opened a new park since the last time we visited, Gran Parque La Plancha. It’s beautiful! It’s perfect for a morning or nighttime run, and the entire pathway is covered so it protects you from the sun. There’s a lot to see inside the park as well, including a little lake. It’s a really nice space and its fun to join everyone for runs in the morning. And after your run, stop by Estamina Cafe for a recovery drink. It’s a running-themed cafe with recovery drinks, gels for your run, and clothes for running as well. I didn’t make it to one, but they do run groups as well.

There are so many Airbnb experiences offered here and I’d recommend trying some. Last time we did a cooking class with Coco, and she hosted us in her home and taught us how to make classic Yucatecan food like cochinita pibil and papadzules. I think there’s no better way to learn about a place than to learn how they cook and eat. Also, it is worth visiting some cenotes while you’re there. The experience we did isn’t up anymore, but it’s nice to see a few and experience them since they are everywhere.

Lastly — go to the beach! We missed it during our first visit, but ended up going out to Chuburná and it was one of the most stunningly beautiful white sand beaches. Truly idyllic. You can also kayak through mangroves as well, and pull up to the beach bar at Islas Columpios.

If you need a massage — we had a magical couples massage at Boho Spa Calle 60. Mostly it was magical because with 30 minutes left to go, we could hear the thunder rolling in, and by the time we left it was a full downpour. I love rain! But the massages were good too and the building was beautiful.

For shopping

For shopping, spend some time at Casa T’ho. I think we spent 3 hours there. It’s a restaurant/cafe/collection of boutiques of Mexican designers so you can kind of do it all. On our free day Saturday we showed up for breakfast in the morning and ate while musicians played live music next to us. For the boutiques, they surround the courtyard, and there are simply so many of them to see. At Artesano, my husband got a linen outfit for our final group dinner that night, and I got a blanket and some pillow covers. I also got a gorgeous bright red and leather halter top at La Troupe. At Sandra Weil, I got a notebook because I just started The Artist’s Way and suddenly am in need of a lot more journals than I was previously. I didn’t get anything at Daniela Bustos Maya, but I was really tempted by the gorgeous fringed pieces she had.

Coqui Coqui was fun to stop in, if for nothing else just to see the inside. It looks decadent inside. Offerings are sparse, as they mainly sell perfumes, but when we went they also had a section of beautiful suede travel bags that were nice to look at. Otherwise it’s mainly a beautiful space to see. I’ve also heard Taller Maya is good to check out, but I didn’t make it there. Los Milagritos had a lot of cute trinkets and home items, all from around Mexico. They also do a craft class where you can make your own sacred heart, we didn’t have time, but it looked fun!

Where to eat and drink

Restaurants/Bars

Conchitas Oyster Bar - If you go to one place in this entire post, make it here (for dinner or lunch!). Amaaaazing seafood. Get the grilled oysters, at least one per person. The mixed seafood tostada is incredible, so is everything. No reservations and space is limited, so you might have to wait for a table, but usually people move quick here so you’re not waiting long.

Bartolomé - My favorite meal I had here. The restaurant itself is moody, dim, and romantic, set in what feels like a beautifully decorated old mansion. The food was phenomenal, drinks were equally good. Owned by the same people who opened Micaela Mar Y Leña, but I think this is better.

Micaela Mar y Leña - That being said, Micaela’s is still good, and very cute inside. It’s very fun vibe, and everything is from grill.

El Cuarto de Tula - Really fun cuban bar with good drinks (ie the mojito) and live music! He got us up and out of our seats and the whole house was dancing. Really fun and lively bar.

La Pigua - Tragically did not make it to our reservation due to being grounded by an epic thunderstorm in Houston. However, I’ve heard it’s amazing, please go for me and report back.

Kuuk - Will just say, this was a very cool space and the food was good, but not great. Of all the meals I had, this was the one I’d least regret having skipped. They are doing some interesting stuff with making their own kombucha though, so if you can swing letting them give you a tour of the kombucha room, it might be nice.

Cafes

The Coffee - Minimalist Japanese cafe, but get the ginger espresso tonic. It’s hot and you need to rehydrate with some mineralized water. Order through the screens

SOCO - good coffee, but also good pastries and baked goods. Cute inside and plenty of people working from there, should you need to (but I hope if you’re here, you’re on vacation).

Estamina Cafe - Mentioned above, but I’m mentioning it again here. The espresso tonic is good! They also have a lot of other drinks, like juices and spritzes if you want a drink but don’t necessarily want caffeine.

Bernardino - Didn’t make it here since we only walked past on our last day, but it looked cute inside! It’s a cafe but also a wine bar.