Trip to Kentucky - The Bourbon Trail Day 1

 When Kid #1 goes to Paris with her best friend, and Kid #2 goes on an Alaskan cruise with his grandmother, you can't just sit around and miss them. You gotta take advantage of that!

We tossed around a few ideas, but the one that stuck was a trip that the kids would have absolutely hated. A trip to Kentucky to hit up some of the best bourbon distilleries in the world!

Of course, you start your trip off with a visit to the Delta Sky Club for some (duh) bourbon and a beer. 

Grant flew first class from Tampa to Seattle with his Nana, and he sent me a similar picture from the Delta Sky Club in Tampa. He wrote, "I feel bad for all of those people down there." HA!

Believe it or not, despite being in the Delta family for literally my entire life, I have never been in a Sky Club (formerly known as the Crown Room). We weren't allowed to go when I was young because employees were not permitted. Todd and I were there right at the end of breakfast AND the beginning of lunch so of course, we had both. 

"It's too bad Colleen couldn't be here with Todd to enjoy the Sky Club."

Just kidding, I'm having a blast.

I love the fact that I can sanitize my phone in the Sky Club! 

Next stop, Louisville!

I love flying Embraer aircraft. The 2-2 setup is my favorite!  That guy behind Todd and to the left is giving the staredown!

As we were about to take off, we were right behind a Korean Airlines aircraft! This pic is super cool.

Upon landing in Louisville, they BOMBARD you with bourbon advertisements. And I am perfectly ok with that. I want to be a part of the Makers Mark marketing crew.

Unfortunately, we booked with Budget, and although we KNOW you should never book with Budget, we did anyway. And they did the most Budgety of Budget things. They had ZERO cars when we arrived, and we were maybe at least 5-10 people deep waiting for a car. And they had no ETA for when they would be receiving our car. We quoted Seinfeld a LOT. They said it could be a few hours, they really had no idea when the cars would be arriving, which I find VERY hard to believe since when I make a car reservation, I'm required to give my pickup and drop off time. So. We were able to cancel our reservation and pick up car with Hertz, but we got a late start on our journey to Bardstown.

We arrived before dinner, thankfully! We stayed at the Talbott Inn, which is adjacent to the Old Talbott Tavern - the oldest bourbon bar in THE WORLD! Superlative, check!  This place was SO COOL. So many famous people have come through here, including three presidents - Abraham Lincoln (when he was just a kid), William Henry Harrison and Andrew Jackson. Other famous people who stayed or ate/drank here include Daniel Boone, Louis Phillipe I (the last King of France), George Patton, and even Jesse James, who they say still haunts the place!

This is the Bourbon District in Bardstown - where you can carry an open container in town, provided it was given to you by one of the bars or restaurants in the area.

No alcohol past this point!

Look! The Bardstown trash cans are bourbon barrels!

The Jailer's Inn Bed and Breakfast is right next door to the Old Talbott Tavern and Inn- and it was the site of the Nelson County Jail from 1797-1987.  The old jail, behind Todd is from 1817.

We stopped for a drink at Scout and Scholar Brewing Company because we had some time before our dinner reservations, but we didn't take any pictures. Dinner was at the Rickhouse, which is in the basement of Spalding Hall, a former hospital during the Civil War.

I like to be in pictures too, sometimes.

I did mention this was the basement, didn't I?

Having a pre-dinner drink with my honey (yes, there's bourbon in that blackberry bourbon smash!)

This bread is one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life. I'll just have a plate of that bread, please.

JUST kidding. I had the steak linguini and Todd had the hot brown!

Instead of dessert, we had a flight of bourbon after dinner. 

We chose the Four Roses Yellow Label, the Old Forrester Signature, the Fighting Cock (simply for the name), the Coopers Craft and the Johnny Drum - all types we had not had before!

After dinner, we took a much needed walk back to the Talbott Inn and we enjoyed this really pretty sunset!

But first, a stop at Toddy's Liquors - a Kentucky brew through!

The wall at Toddy's had this cool Jim Beam sign! I was trying to contain my excitement!

When we got back to the hotel, we saw that a huge 8.8 earthquake hit the Kamchatka region of Russia - and a tsunami alert had been issued. But Grant and my mom were on a cruise ship in Alaska! They were ok since they were protected in the fjords near Juneau.

Next up, a day I have waited all of my adult life for - a visit to Makers Mark!

Trip to Seoul, South Korea - Days 10 & 11

 I did NOT want to leave Seoul - so the fates allowed us to stay one more day!

But when we woke up, we didn't know that. So we took a bunch of pictures of our hotel room to remember what fun we had. We had a nice view of Gangnam!

The bathroom was a traditional Ibis adventure! Ibis never has a big room OR a big bathroom. But the toilet had a seat heater!

Goodbye, Ibis room!

We took our bags down to the lobby for them to hold since we had a flight later in the evening (a REALLY late flight to Istanbul). And we headed out on ONE last adventure - up to Ecojardin salon at Gongdeok Station.  As we walked through the subway station, you can see that they have a "current particulates" sign - this tells you whether you should wear a mask or not.

No need for a mask today, as we headed into the super fun area just to the west of Gyeongbokgung Palace.

Ok, (fake) chicken and beer - you're so funny!  Nat and I stopped for some lunch at Obinseu before we had our 18 step scalp treatment appointment at Ecojardin - but I totally didn't take any lunch pictures. It was awesome though!

After our tasty lunch, we walked to Ecojardin for the 18 step scalp treatment!  This treatment starts with an analysis of your scalp. This one is obviously mine (see the white hair!?) I have only a little bit of oily build up, and my scalp is very red - I'm not sure if that's because I'm Irish, or because I prefer my shower temperature to be almost scalding. Maybe both!

After your microscopic diagnosis, you head to the chair for a massage and a little suction cup machine (cupping?) for the neck area. Arin took GREAT care of me and my scalp. If I wasn't sitting straight up, I would have fallen asleep. It was THAT good. 

A lot of places are doing 15- or 18-step scalp treatments these days, but this all started RIGHT here at Ecojardin. After they tend to your neck, you're given a hot towel followed by a cleansing and exfoliation of the scalp. They use a Galvanic Sealing Brush to ensure that the essential oils they use are absorbed into the scalp.

Next up is the invigorating scrub and maybe my favorite part... the therapeutic steam mist and shampoo in the Yume Spa Bed.

The relaxing shampoo is followed by a Y stick treatment and then it's back into the Yume Spa Bed so they can rinse your hair. It sounds so peaceful in there - like a trickling waterfall. I definitely fell asleep in that room!  A scalp massage and an herbal scalp pack precede the funniest part of the experience - the steam mist hat!

I'm so stylish in my steam mist hat! 

After this, they do a re-diagnosis of your scalp.

You get shown the before and after!

THEN, it's not over - they give you a hair growth tonic and another Y-stick infusion to make sure that gets into your pores and doesn't just sit on your hair.  THEN (I'm very emphatic here!) they style and blow dry your hair. What an experience!

They will give you some freebies (well...) if you fill out a review on Google - and since we loved it so much, we thought, we might as well!  While we were doing this, we noticed the Esquire magazine on the table with Felix from Stray Kids on the cover. My SKZ bias!

They have a very photogenic wall of flowers for any kind of photo op, if you're into that sort of thing!

After our FABULOUS time at EcoJardin, we headed back to the hotel, where we stopped at a little restaurant next door to grab a late lunch/early dinner. I love this sign ha ha.

Afterward, Natalie and I went back to the hotel, grabbed our suitcases - all three, of course, because we came home with lots of KPop albums and beauty products - and headed over to the bus stop to wait for our bus to the airport.

They have these fine dust FREE ZONE areas in various parts of Seoul because the fine dust particulate levels can be VERY high. Natalie went over to the one near the bus stop and took this picture. At this latitude, all of the winds predominately come from the west... which is, of course... China. South Korea has it's own issues with traffic and manufacturing but China produces a large majority of the smog in Seoul.

I FINALLY GOT A PICTURE OF HYUN BIN! He was on this digital advertisement for watches and I kept missing him... but I finally saw him before our bus picked us up to head to Incheon.

One of the most unique things about driving in Seoul was the fact that they have, right in the middle of the roadway, these little U-turn lanes. No need to go to a light, you can just U-turn legally right in the middle of the road!

We also went by this brushless car wash, which is very necessary in smoggy Seoul. But it's funny that it's just a car wash here among the rest of the buildings.

Goodbye Seoul Tower!

But. Of course this entire trip home did not go as planned. When we got to the airport, we were trying to check our bags for the flight when a woman who worked there asked us, "Where are you going to today?" And we said, "Boston, via Istanbul." She then proceeded to ask us whether we would be willing to fly direct, the next day, from Seoul to Boston on Korean Air. They offered to put us up in a VERY nice hotel (this one: the Grand Hyatt in Incheon), and pay us 300 Euros each (roughly about $675 total) for our troubles. This was a VERY tempting offer. We actually debated it. For a very long time. We had a full day in Istanbul planned with Touristanbul which we would miss if we took the direct flight. And neither of us have ever been to Istanbul. Obviously by the photo above, you know that we took the direct Korean Air flight the next day, because here we are at the hotel - Natalie is on the random soccer field they have between the two wings of the hotel.

There is a corridor that takes you from one wing of the hotel (where we were staying) to the other. We walked over because just about everything is in the other wing - like the bar, the breakfast area, etc.

But look at these pretty flowers in the other wing! We went to the bar, I grabbed a drink and we went back to the room where Natalie was able to soak in a huge tub and relax before our trip the next day.

And if you want to visit Seoul, and you only walk away with one piece of advice, it would be this:  Get to the airport at least 3 hours ahead of time! There are so many levels of security and passport control and whatever else. You leave one line, and get immediately into another line. It's so frustrating. But we made it with literal minutes to spare. There aren't places like Hudson News where you can grab a soda and a snack. Instead, you can just buy a Louis Vuitton or something before your flight, which is far more impractical - where are the 7-11s here? 

Eventually we boarded, and we were unfortunately not sitting together. Good news though, I found Lovely Runner on the TV!

And LOOK! Jin's FESTA concert that he had a hot minute after he was released from the military! Yes! I'm definitely watching this!

Awwww, my short haired Jinnie!

I was seated between two total nitwits. We hadn't even taken off yet and this lady was sleeping on my shoulder. No thank you. Later in the flight, I had dropped my neck pillow, which I found... underneath her bare feet. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Even later, after I went to the back of the plane to see Natalie for a bit, she put her phone in my seatback pocket and then was handing me stuff from my tray table when her alarm started going off. I'm like... what is happening here???

Thank goodness Jin was so cute and kept me distracted.

Dinner was pretty good! Not the worst I've had. Both people next to me didn't speak Korean or English, so I just had to show them what I was eating and they just pointed to my meal.

GRANT! I can watch Interstellar! (This is his favorite movie!) Too bad you're not on the plane with me, buddy.

Somewhere mid flight-ish, there was a snack break. It was a FREAKING CORN DOG. Get outta town with this. I was so happy. It was awesome.

Natalie was in the very last row of the plane, but we got up from time to time to stand by the drink and snack cart and do some squats together. My kid is hydrating well!

The sunrise was beautiful. I will never not be in awe of the Earth's beauty.

We arrived at 10:20 in the morning, grabbed our bags and were squealing with delight when Todd picked us up from the airport! He's the best - I think he missed us!

Until next time, Seoul! This was one of the very best trips EVER!