Tag: vacation

Thoughts on Europe,* overall

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
“Popstar” Tristana (which doesn’t actually exist), smoking it up at WORLDS

*based on vacation, not unfortunate recent events.

I’ve been back in the states for a while now, but it’s admittedly taken a little bit of time to really get back into the swing of my usual routines.  Between shitty weather, workload, and just plain lazy ambivalence, it’s more recently that I’ve been able to get the mental gears going to where I can try and pretend like I know what I’m going to write about when I sit down to write things.

Ultimately, it’s kind of a surreal feeling now that this European trip is now a thing in the past.  For the longest time, it was the thing that the mythical girlfriend and I talked about as the thing to look forward to, the thing that was upcoming, and the thing to get excited about.  Sure, I’m not really that excitable of a person to begin with, but I was certainly feeling the anticipation with the days leading up to my eventual first time trip overseas.

And in the end, it’s a no-brainer to say that I had a great time, and I did a lot of the things I wanted to do, which is mostly eat and drink, and then eat and drink some more, while seeing a bunch of things in between consuming consumables. However, I did spend a good bit of time thinking here and there, about in what ways Europe is really cool, and what things I was beginning to miss from America.

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Photos: Europe Trip – Berlin, Germany WORLDS

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For quite a long time, whenever anyone would inquire about where in the world I would like to go, if I could go anywhere at the drop of a hat, I always responded that Germany was where I would want to go. I didn’t really have much basis behind it, other than the fact that I suppose I wasn’t aching to go visit the Motherland or be all weeabooey and say I wanted to go to Japan; ultimately, I think I always wanted to go somewhere where I could look and feel like a complete foreign tourist, and in my mind, Germany seemed to fit that bill.

Well, thanks to WORLDS, I had my excuse to visit Deutschland, and fulfill that line of thinking. Ultimately, I think I was certainly right, because I was very much the foreign tourist in Berlin, not speaking a lick of German, and aside from the litany of fellow Korean tourists also visiting for WORLDS, being very much in the minority of mostly white people faces.

But the thing is, now in hindsight, I don’t necessarily think that it was everything I had thought it would be.

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Photos: Europe Trip – Amsterdam, Netherlands

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Originally, Amsterdam was not on the original agenda; it would’ve been Paris directly to Berlin, and spend an extra day in Berlin, or something like that. I don’t actually remember how the idea came to fruition, but in the end, I’m very glad that we went to Amsterdam at all, and if I had to pick one place of the four cities seen to come back to first, it would most likely be Amsterdam.

Mind you, I’m not into weed, much less smoking at all, nor do I have an inherent want for prostitutes, so the obvious jokes are not any viable justification at all for why I have such an opinion. Ultimately, it boils down to the fact that Amsterdam is a city that exuded life and activity, seemed so chill (probably due to all the weed), there was a lot of good food, and since we were there for literally a 24-hour span, we most certainly felt like we couldn’t have done a bunch of the things we would’ve liked to have done.

Really, Amsterdam is just a cool city. It’s a vibrant and diverse place, proud of its heritage, and in the end it feels like I barely got to scratch the surface of what potential cool things there could be out there. Seriously, I felt like I could spend several days worth of time walking through alleys, looking down canals, and wandering around the varying neighborhoods just seeing what lies where. It felt like absolutely any type of food in the world (except Korean) could be found there, and naturally if there’s one thing that drives my fat guy problems, it’s the pursuit of new good food.

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Photos: Europe Trip – Paris, France

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After Brussels, we took a train down to Paris, France, where the mythical girlfriend and I would spend a few days doing a boatload of touristy things, eating all of the food and drinking all of the wine.

Not that it was necessarily a bad thing, but if there was one city that genuinely felt, not really that European, I would have to say that would be Paris. Perhaps it’s on account of just how tourist-heavy Paris is in general, but at least where we were staying, right in the heart of the city, it felt almost like New York City. Lots of cars, honking horns, road ragers, large-scale branded department stores and popular international brand stores adorned Rue de Rivoli, which we were right off of, and a Metro stop was almost always within eyesight, to duck into, and take whatever train to whatever destination at the drop of a hat.

Sure, the vast majority of overheard conversations and speech are in French, but just about everyone in Paris speaks English, extremely well, and I can’t recall a single time in which I felt incapable of being able to communicate with someone if necessary. International immersion is something that I kind felt like I was seeking out, and I don’t necessarily think I found it in Paris; but considering the polar opposite of what I experienced in Berlin, I’m wondering if it really is a bad thing.

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Photos: Europe Trip – Brussels, Belgium WORLDS

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The first leg of the Europe trip was Brussels, Belgium, where the semifinals of WORLDS was going to take place. It was pretty much a hit the ground running kind of trip, since as soon as we settled into our hotel in Brussels, we power napped for a while due to the jet lag I’d never experienced in my life before; by the time we woke up, it was pretty much time to go to the venue.

There’s nothing I haven’t already said about the WORLDS experience that wasn’t in my prior post about the event as a whole, but at least now I’m putting up some of the pictures from the event, which include my hot mythical girlfriend, as well as some shots from within the arena itself, attempting to show some of the atmosphere, the championship Summoner’s Cup, as well as some post-victory pictures from SK Telecom’s victory over Origen.

The rest of the pictures are more or less a litany of mushy couple selfies, as well as some of the places we hit up in our free time in actual Brussels, and not the shitty area surrounding the Brussels Expo area.

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Musing about WORLDS

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I’m never going to deny the fact that ultimately, the impetus for going out to Europe in the first place came about on account of video games, namely the one that I talk about just about every single day, League of Legends. Given the fact that Riot Games made it clear that the annual World Championships would take place in different countries each year, it was a pretty safe bet back in like March that 2015’s WORLDS was very likely going to take place in Europe, considering the previous two WORLDS were in two of the other primary LoL markets of the United States and South Korea. And when it was confirmed that WORLDS would be scattered throughout Europe, it was full speed ahead on making plans not just for attending WORLDS events, but also providing the opportunity to do some European travels.

But yes, for lack of a better term, it all started with WORLDS, and frankly it ended with WORLDS too, since the entire trip was bookended by the WORLDS semifinals in Brussels, with the finals in Berlin.

Everything in between was the sweet gravy of personal travel and new experiences, with the mythical girlfriend.

Anyway, in an attempt to compartmentalize and try to organize my thoughts into neatly organized brog posts, I’m taking an approach of writing about one thing at a time, if I can manage to stick with it; seeing as how WORLDS was what led us to Europe in the first place, I figure there would be no better place to start talking about my Europe trip than talking about WORLDS.

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The pursuit of exploration

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Growing up, I didn’t travel a whole lot.  Up until I was like maybe 11 years old, my entire world revolved around the states of Virginia and Maryland, bouncing around between family visits and, family visits.  Family vacations as I aged were to places like New York, Chicago, and to Niagara Falls, where we barely crossed into Canada for a spell.

Conventions, afforded me opportunities to visit other states, although I didn’t really explore any of them outside of the respective conventions I went to, but for what it was worth, I started visiting places like California, Georgia and the Carolinas.  And when I became my best impression of a functional adult and got super into baseball, the pursuit of baseball parks has given me the best excuse to visit a whole slew of places I never imagined seeing growing up, like Seattle, Portland, Miami, Boston, Minneapolis, Phoenix and San Diego.

However, aside from visits to cities in adjacent countries Canada and Mexico, I’ve never been outside of the United States.  In fact, I’ve never been out of the western hemisphere in my entire life.  For shame, when you consider the fact that I’ve never been back to the Motherland at any point, and it’s still my goal to ultimately take my mother to Korea one of these days.  I never went, or really had the opportunity for any dramatic international travel in my life; I didn’t go backpacking through Europe, nor did I ever have the aforementioned trip back to the Motherland.  And up until I was really an adult, I guess I didn’t have the financial means and/or the drive to pursue it.

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