Bratislava, Vienna, & Korean Thanksgiving: September 2022 Recap

I have not been writing as much as I’d like to (or at least not as much as I think I should be). While August was a month we spent in one place, September was quite the opposite. Here’s what my September looked like:

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WE RODE A BUSINESS CLASS TRAIN

Business (and first) class flights usually steal the limelight, but let me tell you: business class trains are (or can be) pretty awesome, too! Trains are by far my favorite mode of transportation (when things go according to plan), so when the opportunity to book a train in business class came up, we pounced (sort of)!

Like flying, not all business class trains are created equal. The biggest thing to look out for (IMO) is whether you’re traveling by public/government carrier or private. Like so many things in life, the private option tends to beat the public one. We had the option to book our Prague to Bratislava train with either the Czech national rail, České dráhy, or the private, Regiojet.

We had previously taken Regiojet (once or twice) back in 2019 and really enjoyed it. On top of that, our last 2-3 trains this trip on public carriers had not gone according to plan. The standard class on Regiojet was more or less the same cost as second class on CD (České dráhy), so going private seemed like a no-brainer. Then I noticed upgrading all the way to business class (Regiojet offers 4-5 tiers of service) would only cost €11 for both of us.

Business class comes with a glass of sparkling wine, so even if the experience/seat wasn’t different in any way, it’d probably be worth it. While I don’t want to give too much away (I plan to make a video solely about our train experience and compare to other second class trains), suffice it to say it was one of the best decisions of our trip!

WE WENT TO BRATISLAVA

It turns out that not many people prioritize going to Bratislava/Slovakia when they go to Europe. Suffice it to say it is nothing like it’s portrayed in the 2004 movie, Eurotrip. Even more unfortunate, it’s no where near as inexpensive as the movie portrays.

This was my second time going to Bratislava (first time in 2010) and Yunji’s first. While we visited some great places and had some great food, I don’t fully understand Slovakia. It seems like a close (but worse IMO) version of Czech Republic, but everything costs a lot more. Maybe beer is similarly prices, but food costs a lot more than in Czecho.

If you ever have the chance to go, I’d definitely recommend going to see it for yourself. And if I ever start writing more, I’d love to write about the places we loved and the places you’d be safe passing on.

WE WENT TO VIENNA

While Bratislava sort of disappointed, Vienna did not. This was my third time to Vienna (first time again in 2010) and Yunji’s second (we came together in 2019). Expectations may have strongly helped Vienna–we both had extremely low expectations after our last quick stint wasn’t that great. But this time was different.

Vienna was (and I assume still is) gorgeous. Paris & Rome levels of “is this real life?”. I couldn’t believe how many gorgeous buildings and manicured parks there were. The city had energy. The food and drinking scene were great. It didn’t hurt that two of our closest friends were there soaking it all in with us!

Midway through our few days in Vienna, I could picture myself living there. Unfortunately, Austria has one of the hardest naturalization processes in the EU, but it will definitely be somewhere we visit for years to come!

WE SAID GOODBYE TO EUROPE

After almost four months in Europe, we finally said farewell. It was probably the exact right time to leave for me. I enjoyed the trip and wasn’t necessarily in a rush to get home, but I was also not sad to leave. The only critique I have for our trip was that the countries we chose seemed quite similar to one another. If I were to do a long Europe trip again, I might look for countries that provided a starker contrast to one another.

I am probably most likely to be the one to complain about the US, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t things I look forward to when I come “home”. Chief among those things are food, people, and weather. “Home” (read: various California) delivered.

WE SAID HEEEY TO FRIENDS

As mentioned above, we linked up with friends in Vienna early on in September. After we left Vienna, we flew back to LA and dove into catching up with friends there. Most recently we spent a weekend in San Francisco where we tried to cram as much friend time as we could into three days.

WE CELEBRATED KOREAN THANKSGIVING

I had heard of Chuseok, Korean “Thanksgiving”, before, but we had never been in town (read: greater LA) for it in the past.

Chuseok is basically Thanksgiving, Day of the Dead, and Memorial Day all in one. Beyond that, it’s a time where family gets together and does two of my favorite things: eat and drink. I really enjoyed it and hope we can align our calendars to ensure we don’t miss it in the future.

I CREATED THINGS

September was not my hottest content month. While I slightly improved on my YouTube output compared to August, that was about my only improvement. Going forward, I’m not sure if I’ll go back to 2 YouTube videos per week and have no clue how much I’ll plan to write.

I PUBLISHED 5 YOUTUBE VIDEOS

As mentioned above, I improved on August’s 4 videos. However, I previously was in a long streak of doing 2 videos per week. I was starting to feel burnt out and doing one video per week has been just enough to keep me busy without adding any stress.

Here are the videos I published in September:

I WROTE 1 BLOG POST

I only did my August recap. I hope to find the drive to write more on the places I eat and itineraries I’d recommend!

I MADE 3 TIKTOKS

Yikes. This was a personal low. It’s the sixth day in October, and I haven’t edited a single TikTok/short form video. I have tons of vertical video at my disposal but need to stop being lazy.

September highlights include a hilarious Google Maps review of John’s Incredible Pizza and a Japan toilet joke.

COMMITMENTS

This remains something helpful for me but maybe not interesting to y’all? I also learned I need to re-check what my goals even are during the month:

SEPTEMBER RECAP

Go on 6 runs of 2+ miles ✅
- 12+
Catch up with 2 friends via call/FT ?
- I think I did this? I definitely caught up with more than 2 people IRL
6 tiktoks/week ❌
- Ultra fail

Mixed bag of results. A definite success, a definite fail, and a maybe success? Good at getting in the groove for exercising. Bad at editing more #content.

OCTOBER GOALS

Create a new YouTube channel
Edit/upload 5 previously filmed TikToks
Go on 2 runs of 10K/6.25 miles
Edit a non-vlog, non-recap video for YouTube

I drastically lowered my TikTok goals, changed my fitness goals from frequency to distance, and gave myself an attainable goal for a YouTube video. I don’t think there are excuses to miss any of the above four, but if I had to guess it’ll be TikTok or YouTube that fails.

I READ 7 BOOKS

This month I read:

I followed up a strong August with an even stronger September. However, when I see how much Jack Reacher I “read” (lot of audiobook-ing this month), I’m not how sure “strong” is the right word to use.

Leviathan Falls was excellent as is the entire Expanse series. For the Reacher books, I’d rank them in the following order from worst to best: Blue Moon, Make Me, The Midnight Line, Past Tense, and Killing Floor.

While Dial A for Aunties wasn’t incredible, I did read it in 2 days, so that says something. If you’re missing Crazy Rich Asians, this might sate you.

LEARNING & LANGUAGE

I combined these categories this month because language learning is top of mind, and I couldn’t think of anything else I’m learning (maybe wedding planning?).

Duolingo is much improved since I last logged on in 2019. I am currently on a 20-day streak and have really been enjoying it. I’m mostly focussing on Korean and Spanish, but once I know where our next trip is, I’ll focus on that for my target language.

MONEY/FINANCES

Ouch. August was up and down. September was just brutal. While it does suck, I continue to not be worried about the stock market or my portfolio at all.

PORTFOLIO

This was the first month I abstained from checking my Personal Capital. I’m sure I lost six figures and that’s sad, but I didn’t feel like going through the heartache. I’m not sure when the market will return to March or Jan 2022 highs, but I am certain it will. Meanwhile, I try to control the only thing I really can: spend.

SPEND

September was a low spend month because we only spent ~8 days in Europe and spent the rest with family (save a trip to SF last weekend).

Accommodation: $225
- F&B: $300
- Transport: $170
- Activities & misc: $1
Total for me: ~$696
- Total for 2: $1,392

Everything is low across the board, and that’s mainly due to us freeloading with family at home. The aberration might be transportation. Gas in California was almost $7 last week, so of course we have been doing the bulk of our interstate driving at this time.

WHAT’S NEXT?

While I drunkenly booked a trip to Mexico (Guadalajara & PV–flights and all), I ended up canceling it the next day. After four months in Europe and several weekends spent driving, we are tired.

I won’t totally rule out a trip to Mexico in October, or November, or December, but as of now we are staying put in California. Looking ahead, we are trying to figure out a ~6 month trip to South East Asia in 2023. I only just learned it’s spelled South East Asia and not Southeast Asia yesterday. Well, that’s all for now. Thanks for reading and see y’all soon!