The World Tour...and Now We're Back

안녕하세요 (annyeonghaseyo), xin chào, namaste, こんにちは (Kon’nichiwa), สวัสดี (S̄wạs̄dī), hello, and 你好 (Nǐ hǎo)!

And now hello from America! We have officially arrived back to the US from our Peace Corps service and our travel throughout Asia. We are so excited to be back with our friends and family, but we also would love to share some of our favorite memories from our trip.

Last time you heard from us at the end of February, we had just left Liberia due to a very surprising premature end to our service. We were extremely sad to leave Liberia , but we decided to make the most of being on the other side of the world and took the last ~3 months to travel through Asia.

Above was how we said ‘hello’ in every country we visited: South Korea, Vietnam, India, Japan, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Everyone keeps asking which place was our favorite, and Therese’s was probably Vietnam and Bobby’s was either Vietnam or Japan.

ps - in case you don’t make it through the whole blog, we miss all you guys and hope to see you soon! If our paths don’t cross in the weeks to come, we’d love to Facetime and catch up :)

South Korea

We started our journey in South Korea where we enjoyed the chilly winter weather in Seoul, Joenju-si, and Busan. We enjoyed some amazing Korean food, the incredible night markets, and—Therese’s favorite—karaoke (very popular throughout Asia).

Our favorite part of Korea might be a new drink we learned about in a Soju tasting class. Makgeolli is a rice wine and is the precursor to soju. It is fermented and is a lot less strong with maybe a 5% alcohol content. It is traditionally served in small bowls where you sip on it with friends.

We had a lot of fun playing pool in different countries where we met other young people. In Korea, most people didn’t speak English, and the couple above was no exception. However, pool was a fun way to interact and connect with others despite any language barrier.

One other highlight of South Korea, was the jjimjilbang (찜질방)—a public bathhouse. They generally contain saunas, hot springs, and other relaxing amenities. This was also our first time experiencing nude baths where women and men are separated in their own areas to enjoy the pools. Definitely put us out of our comfort zones, but a cool cultural activity to witness and very relaxing.

Vietnam

After nearly missing our flight from Busan, we flew to Hanoi, Vietnam. We were immediately greeted with the ability to call motorbikes with ride sharing apps like Grab which were a joy to ride around the city.

Vietnam’s highlight was the motorbike tour that we took around Hà Giang. This consisted of us riding with our drivers for three days through the most twisty roads and beautiful landscapes. We stayed two nights at hostels where we would share a traditional Vietnamese meal together, drink too much “happy water” (rice wine), and sing karaoke.

We also went and visited other cities and beautiful areas of the country like Lan Ha Bay, Hue, Hoi An, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City. Everywhere we travelled in Asia we looked for opportunities to escape tourist traps and get to know locals. One example of that came when we learned learned that pickleball has gotten extremely popular in the last year throughout Vietnam. This led us to make many friends playing pickleball at different clubs, as well as even getting featured on a club’s Facebook Livestream.

Small Ad for Vietnam: COME TO THIS COUNTRY. If you’re looking for a country full of beautiful landscapes and the most welcoming people, Vietnam is your place. It has mountains, beautiful bays, caves, forests, cities, old historic towns, and beautiful coasts.

India

From Vietnam, we took an eventful flight to Mumbai on the night before Holi—India’s festival of colors. The airline, Vietjet, threw a celebration of Holi during the flight where the attendants did a dance and handed out treats and coloring books. Definitely the most unique flight we’ve ever been on.

Our first day in India was Holi in Mumbai. We were lucky to play Holi where we threw colored chalk on children and adults through the weaving streets of Mumbai. Later that day, we went to see Martin Garrix play for a Holi celebration.

After Mumbai, we went to Rishikesh, a holy city for Hindus that sits on the Ganges river. We took a yoga class—the city is the world capital of yoga—enjoyed delicious food and the beautiful nature (including hundreds of wild monkeys ). We also had the chance to white water kayak down the class 3 and 4 rapids of the Ganges!

After our time in Rishikesh we caught a sunset train to New Delhi where we were greeted by our long lost friend Simar Kapoor (originally from India before coming to Umich)! Bobby met Simar at Michigan and became close friends, and then introduced Therese to Simar during the summer she worked in NYC.

Simar could not have possibly been a better host as he showed us around his suburb of New Delhi and introduced us to what life is like for young processionals our age in India.

Hong Kong

From New Delhi we caught a flight to Hong Kong. With just a 48 hour stopover to explore Hong Kong, we cruised around the city both by foot and by streetcar to see as much as we could. We also had the pleasure of enjoying one of the world’s smallest and hardest to find hotel rooms in the center of the city.

Japan

We landed in Japan just in time to witness the famous cherry blossom season! Unfortunately for us, we also landed at 12am at the Tokyo airport. Having planned our entire trip day by day as we traveled, we failed to learn that the Japanese public transit system closes down around 11pm every night.

Finding ourselves a $100 Uber from our Airbnb for the night, we did what any resourceful traveler on a budget would. We found the Japanese equivalent of 24 hour waffle house (a chain called Sukiya) and ate a bunch of food and planned out the next few days of our trip as we awaited the first 5am public train of the day.

Through the rest of our time in Japan we got to see some of the most stunning cherry blossoms and eat by far some of the best food of our lives. We are still dreaming about the udon noodles…

After scootering, walking, and training all across Tokyo, we got to take the bullet train up to Minimaki, a small traditional onsen town in the mountains north of Tokyo. An onsen is a natural hot spring used for relaxation and health benefits, often accompanied by a traditional ryokan house that visitors can sleep in. The onsen we visited was very rustic, traditional, and charming, and we loved every second of it.

From Minimaki we caught the bullet train and an overnight bus to Osaka. After exploring all over Osaka, we got to make 2 day trips to the nearby city of Kyoto. Arguably the highlight of Japan, we got to meetup with our new friends Atsushi and Momoka.

We had met Atsushi only a few weeks earlier while travelling in India. While waiting for a large auto-rickshaw/tuk tuk to fill up with passengers, Atsushi sat down next to us. After chatting on our ride, we invited him to dinner and really hit it off. By the time we were saying goodbye, we were already making plans to visit him and his girlfriend in Kyoto a few weeks later.

Our final highlight from Japan has to be attending a Hanshin Tigers baseball game. The Tigers are arguably Japan’s most famous professional baseball team, and beloved by their insanely dedicated fanbase. Japanese baseball is unique from American baseball primarily by its crowds and team rituals. The atmosphere is truly electric and all we’ll say is if you’re a baseball fan, you should add it to your bucket list.

Thailand

Our first stop in Thailand was Bangkok. Bangkok’s sprawling city is truly incredible. Even more incredible is the mall culture in Thailand. Almost every attraction (aside from temples) in Bangkok is contained in a mall. These mega malls are spread all across the city and are unlike anything we’ve ever experienced.

Besides the amazing food and malls, the highlight of Bangkok had to be the Muay Thai fight we attended. We splurged and got ringside seats at Rajadamnern, Thailand’s most famous Muay Thai venue. We saw 8 fights and multiple knockouts, and our eyes were glued to the fighters at every moment. Neither of us having attended a fighting event prior, this was truly a special memory.

From Bangkok we caught a bus up to Chiang Mai to celebrate the 3 day long Thai New Year known as Songkran. Thai New Year puts American New Year’s to shame. Everyone from toddlers to grandparents are off work and out on the streets for 3 straight days competing in a giant water fight.

We’re talking pickup trucks full of people with giant trash cans of ice cold water, water guns everywhere, and giant concert stages setup playing music and soaking the crowd with water.

It’s all free, open to the public, and we could not have felt more welcome. Chiang Mai’s downtown is surrounded by a moat filled with water, which naturally turns into the reload point for everyone during Songkran. It’s unreal, we couldn’t stop smiling, and we can’t recommend enough timing your future visit to Thailand around Songkran.

After Chiang Mai we headed south and explored two of Thailand’s islands, Phi Phi and Koh Samui. On Phi Phi we went on two amazing scuba dives, hiked up to the island’s highest point, and did some open water swimming in the crystal clear bay.

On Koh Samui (where the White Lotus TV show was filmed) we relaxed and hung out at an incredible cliff side villa Airbnb and a tiny home beach house (the prices of which we never could’ve afforded in America). We also learned to play padel at the most random court we stumbled upon. The owners were great and taught us to play. Both islands were insanely beautiful and offered a nice chance for us to relax a little after 2 months of nonstop travel.

Malaysia

Not having known a lot about Malaysia, we were really impressed by our few days here. We caught a series of vans from Koh Samui and made the land border crossing into Malaysia. We only got to spend a few days in Malaysia’s two biggest cities, Georgetown and Kuala Lumpur, but we had a ton of fun.

Georgetown has a fascinating history going back to its days as a British colony and strong ties to China. What remains is a unique blend of British, Chinese, and Malay culture. We even found ourselves stumbling into a snooker bar where we traded our usual pool cues in for some much longer snooker cues.

Both cities were extremely walkable and had many amazing vistas and parks. We even stumbled across a pretty intense organized tricycle race of little children ripping through this park in Kuala Lumpur, complete with announcers, animated parents, and even a few tricycle crashes.

Taiwan

Last but not least, we visited Taipei City in Taiwan. We were only here for about 5 days, and we were definitely starting to get pretty tired of being on the move everyday. Taipei is an awesome city though, and we had a ton of fun cruising around on their city bikes, which can be unlocked and docked all over the city for only a quarter or two.

We finished our Asia journey strong with a few more insanely delicious dishes, most notably a soup dumpling spot on the Michelin Guide that was truly unreal.

We packed a lot into our final days abroad. We tried and failed to get into an all Mandarin mahjong game, cruised around the coast of an old Taiwanese fishing town, hung out at a cozy Nintendo Switch cafe, and played with some adorable fluffy kitties at a cat cafe. Therese also enjoyed a ton of bubble tea as Taiwan is where it was created.

Coming straight back to America after leaving Liberia so suddenly would’ve been really mentally hard for so many reasons. We’re insanely grateful to have softened that blow and had the chance to explore so many bucket list countries over the last 3 months.

Immediately after landing in the US, we were able to catch Therese’s brother’s PhD graduation in Clemson, SC and see her entire family, including our two favorite nephews.

We’re officially back and trying to figure out what comes next. We’re temporarily moving to Brooklyn, New York this month for some summer work, but we’re actively on the hunt for our next big thing and are all ears if you have anything you think we should look into :)

Miss you all and sending love,

Bobby and Therese

ps - message us if you want to meet up in New York between June 24th and July 20th