September 16, 2016September 16, 2016 / Stephanie Leave a comment

Airport Restaurants Around the Globe We’d Like to Try Soon

Guest Post by Gregor McGleish

Just like flight delays and the occasional layovers, hunger can strike at the blink of an eye. Come to think of it, it’s probably one of the reasons why convenience stores are like an oasis in the middle of a desert at an empty airport terminal. We all know how the challenges of travelling entails more than just long plane rides, bouts of boredom, and unavoidable language barriers. Add those to a grumbling stomach, and we’ve got the perfect recipe for a ruined vacation.

September 15, 2016 / Stephanie 2 Comments

Tokyo – The End of our Adventure

After another successful high-speed train ride we arrived at our final destination, Tokyo. Looking back on it, we couldn’t have picked a better place to go out with a bang! Fabulous meals, bright lights, all you can eat sushi, and late nights of Karaoke, was the perfect end to six months of exploration. We ended up finding an Air BnB a couple of stops away from the Shinjuku area, in a great neighborhood with reasonably priced local restaurants and an amazing bakery we frequented almost daily.

September 12, 2016 / Stephanie Leave a comment

Temples and Castles in Osaka and Kyoto Japan

The day had finally arrived; we landed in Japan, the tenth and final country on our six-month journey. It was hard to believe that our world tour was finally coming to an end, but we were excited to live up our last 10 days in three different Japanese cities hopefully getting a good taste (literally) of the country. Our first stop in Japan was Osaka, a port city on the Japanese island of Honshu known for it’s modern architecture, bright nightlife and amazing selection of street food. We’d been told that Osaka was like a smaller version of Tokyo, but after visiting Tokyo we’d say that it had its own distinct personality.

September 11, 2016 / Stephanie Leave a comment

Wheeling Taste of the Town

Growing up in Northbrook, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for restaurants in Chicago’s north shore. I grew up running around the warehouse-style space at Bob Chin’s, attending Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s at Bucca Di Beppo, and most recently celebrating my bridal shower at Cooper’s Hawk. These three restaurants along with nearly two-dozen others from Wheeling’s restaurant row along with other north shore favorites are part of the Taste of the Town event happening this Wednesday, September 14.

August 31, 2016 / Jeremy Levinson Leave a comment

Exploring Korea – Don’t Worry, We Stayed South

When mapping out the grand itinerary before we left home, we had Korea in mind but didn’t necessarily know what it offered as a tourist destination. We knew it would make geographical sense to go after China and before Japan, the final leg of our journey. Luckily we didn’t make any changes because we ended up having a great time in Seoul. It offered history due to the Korean War and current conflicts with North Korea, an interesting shopping and fashion culture and an amazing food scene.

August 3, 2016 / Jeremy Levinson 1 Comment

Xi’an and the Terracotta Warriors

Xi’an was a late add on to our journey and really only made the cut due to a couple of factors. We initially planned on visiting the country of Laos when mapping out our trip, but due to the time it was going to take to travel to and from there we decided to forgo it. You can’t do it all! These extra seven to ten days gave us some more flexibility and allowed us to add on a day in cities we already knew we wanted to visit along with finding new places we hadn’t spent much time researching before we left home. The city of Xi’an is home to the Terracotta Warriors, a truly impressive piece of Chinese history due to their age and how recently they were discovered. With our newfound time, we bought a train ticket to Xi’an, a flight from Xi’an to Seoul instead of from Beijing as first planned, and off we went.

July 30, 2016July 30, 2016 / Jeremy Levinson 2 Comments

Exploring the Wonders of Beijing

Just as we were finally getting the hang of getting around Shanghai, it was time to depart for Beijing. We took the bullet train and it was fantastic. The train got up over 300 km/hr, the seats were comfortable and just a lot less hassle than going to an airport. Before we knew it we had arrived and dropped off our stuff at our hotel. We really came to love this hotel that was well priced, had a hostel feel, and a great coffee bar for breakfasts. Around Beijing there are different streets and neighborhoods that are referred to as hutongs. It was kind of a mystery to us what comprised a hutong and what didn’t. Sometimes it seemed to be if it was an old neighborhood that still had the same architecture from hundreds of years ago, other times it was because it was a busy shopping and restaurant district.

July 28, 2016 / Stephanie Leave a comment

The Great Wall of China

Visiting the Great Wall of China was one of the highlights from our entire trip. While, we have a full Beijing post coming up, we took so many photos of the wall we wanted to share them in a separate post as well. We visited the Jinshanling portion of the wall which is a bit more off the beaten path than some of the other parts of the wall tourists typically visit. But, we wanted to be sure that our visit wouldn’t be overcrowded with people so we could really take our time exploring as well as get some photos of the wall’s stark beauty.

July 25, 2016 / Stephanie 2 Comments

Shanghai and Hangzhou

Even after traveling throughout Asia for three months, neither Jeremy or I were prepared for the culture shock we had once we arrived in China. First of all, we didn’t realize how much we’ve come to rely on Google (for mail, searches, maps, translating, etc) until we didn’t have access to it. A loss of Google combined with no Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat made us feel really isolated and far from home. In addition, the people of Shanghai weren’t the warmest or most welcoming and on our first day we only met one Chinese person that spoke English. The Internet in our Air BnB wasn’t strong enough to connect to our VPN which would have given us access to the rest of the world and we both had mini panic sessions about booking our next flights/buses, signing up for health insurance for our arrival home, and speaking with our friends and families. Luckily over the course of our time in China our views of the country and its people changed for the better as we traveled to different cities and had access to better wifi!

July 22, 2016 / Stephanie Leave a comment

Ham and Sherry – Hong Kong

We’d heard that Hong Kong is one of the best food cities in the world and were excited to spend a week trying a variety of different cuisines. I’d done a lot of restaurant research before we arrived and kept coming across Hong Kong food blogs that listed Ham and Sherry as one of the best restaurants in the city for high quality, delicious tapas and small plates. After emailing with the restaurant’s PR contact I learned that Ham and Sherry (part of the 22 Ships restaurant group) recently announced Chef Aaron Gillespie as the new executive chef, allowing us the amazing opportunity to dine at Ham and Sherry while chatting with chef Aaron about the great Hong Kong food scene.

Beyond ExpecTASTEtions

Eat with your Mouth, Taste with your Soul