On the blog front, you may have noticed that I started monetizing. There are a couple affiliate links (meaning I make a small amount of money if someone purchases something after clicking from my blog) and sponsored posts on Farsickness now. I will always let my readers know when a post has been sponsored, and I only write about topics that I would’ve normally written about, using links that I think are beneficial.

My Favorite Farsickness Posts

Getting Indulged at a Maid Cafe: Visiting a maid cafe was one of the weirdest things I’ve ever done, but also one of the most fun. And very Japanese.

What To Do After Traveling?: What to do next is always a question of concern for me, and probably many other expats and long term travelers. Now that my time in Korea is winding down I’m scrambling to make some plans.

Flashback Friday: 24 Hours in Paris: It was a whirlwind, but I was able to see a lot of Paris, and have a lot of fun, in just 24 hours.

Cheap and Delicious Eats in Tokyo: This post was featured on a large Japanese site and has had over 5,000 hits! Not surprising, as who can resist pictures of delicious things? (Not me.)

Scenes of Tokyo: Walking around Tokyo checking out the different neighborhoods (and comparing it to Seoul) was my favorite way to spend my time in the city.

A Day Trip to Hakone: Black eggs, getting naked in public, and a failed attempt at seeing Mt. Fuji. It was quite the day trip.

What I’ve Been Reading

Travel Rinse Repeat Long Live Tacheles: John’s great post, and absolutely beautiful photos, about the former artist enclave of Tacheles gives me one more reason I’m sad I didn’t make it to Berlin sooner.

Landing Standing F*ck the Temples- Let’s Surf: How We Ignore Travel Guilt & Why You Should To: I’m a horrible traveler in the sense that no matter how much I do, I still feel guilty if I don’t see everything a place has to offer. Tony’s post reminded me that travel is about doing and seeing what makes you happy and that you shouldn’t feel bad about it.

Backpacker Becki Travelling to North Korea- Where Preconceptions and Reality Collide: I toyed with the idea of going to North Korea this summer but ultimately didn’t make it. Becki did a great job not only reporting on what she saw on the government run tour, but also trying to make sense of it all.

Live For Travel Haunted Detroit: I’m not a huge fan of anything scary, but Gina’s pictures of Detroit are stunning, the post is incredibly detailed, and I support getting the word out about this great city.

Y Travel Blog Why Don’t We Greet People With Honour in the Western World?: I’ve become a crazy bower since moving to Korea and have often wondered the same thing as Caz- why don’t we show more respect to others in the West?

Farsickness Around The Internet

ZenKimchi Food Journal A Taste of Korean School Lunches: After my stint guest blogging on NeverSeconds, I wrote a post about Korean school lunches for this popular Korean food blog.

Her Packing List Pros and Cons of Kindle Keyboard 3G from a Kindle Convert: Do you travel with a Kindle or other e-reader? Check out my review of the Kindle Keyboard. I’ll give you a hint about what I think about them- there are more pros than cons.

Backpacks and Bunkbeds A Travel Blogger Interview: Neil was kind enough to feature an interview with me on his great blog.

Hayley on Holiday The Holiday Hits: Best of September 2012: Hayley included my post about Las Vegas in her monthly wrap up and had some very kind words to say about this here blog

All Colores Public Transportation: Fantastic Adventures, Misadventures, and Tips: Ayelet did a really awesome round up of blog posts about public transportation around the world and included my Seoul subway guide.

Upcoming Travel

I have ZERO plans for the month of November, and for the first time in my life, I’m excited about it! My contract ends in a little over 3 (!) months and I need to save as much money as possible before February 15. November will be about snuggling under blankets with tea, getting a lot of back end blog work done, and concentrating on the MatadorU travel writing course I signed up for. Oh, and eating my way through my Korean food bucket list and resting before the madness of December, January, and February begin!

What were your favorite posts around the blogosphere in October? Do you have any travel plans that you are looking forward to in November?

October Wrap Up is a post from: Farsickness

I remember my first travel on my own, it was university time, I had few days of holidays and I wanted to go out and travel, discover something new. I was asking everyone at university if they wanted to go somewhere, we could plan a trip for few days, but no one could, no one had the money to go. So there I was at the cafeteria at uni, feeling so frustrated, I felt all the time that I needed company or someone to go with me to do what I really wanted to do on my own.

There was that moment, where I felt like a cartoon with the light right above my head. Why I am trying to go with someone? If no one wants or can come, you should do it on your own!

That was the start for me, Meritxell as a traveller, my aim was to travel so I decided to go on a trip by myself. I booked a flight to Cagliari, Sardinia. I had never been there before, it was not very risky, in the European Union and could be a good experience for few days.

I caught my plane to Cagliari and went to look for my B&B, I still remember the name and the smell of the place, it was called la terraza sul porto, indeed it had an amazing terrace where you could see all Cagliari.

It was a B&B quite big, with different rooms and I had one only for me, so I started exploring the city the first day, eating in the street some pastries, pizza, pasta, incredible food. Trying to be brave when crossing the street, I was always following someone as I thought I was going to get killed in the pedestrian crossing –cars go very fast, or used to at least.

My first day was over, and the second day in the morning I went up to the terrace to have breakfast, when getting back to the room I fell down the stairs and my landlord found me in the floor like a carpet and with a twisted ankle. OMG I remember, I was so pissed, I could not walk and I twisted my ankle the second day I was there in Cagliari, lucky me I had a very nice Landlord Paolo who went to the pharmacy for me to buy me a bandage for my ankle. With my Italian we could understand each other.

So well, there I was with a twisted ankle in an apartment full of stairs and two days ahead of me. Although I was pissed at the beginning I started to think to get the most of it. I went up to through the evil stairs and spent my day in the terrace reading and there is where I met another traveller, he was from Ireland.

He explained me his story, he came to Cagliari and he was supposed to coach surf in a girl’s house he contacted but on the night when he arrived this girl did not show up so he end up with no accommodation and Paolo let him stay in his sofa until he had a free room for him.

I started to think that my misfortune was not that bad, I had two days in the apartment meeting people in the terrace, exploring not the city but the travelers that were in the city, and I loved it!

That was my start, if you want to travel you should do so, no matter what, if no one can join you travel for the sake of travelling. An ankle twisted can be an opportunity to travel through the eyes of other travellers, that was for me. We exchanged emails, I had long conversations with Paolo and could practice my Italian and I discovered another Cagliari and another world from that terrace in la terraza sul porto.

Author Bio:  My name is Meritxell, I am 23 from Barcelona, I love travelling I studied tourism and since I started hearing about the marvellous things there are outside I wanted to discover them. Tourism with me it’s just that, my travel experiences and how I see the world I invite you to join in and see what I see through my eyes.

Flashback Friday: I Became a Traveler in Cagliari is a post from: Farsickness

While there’s no surefire way to learn another language (if there was I’d be able to say a complete sentence in Korean by now), there are some things you can do to make the process a little bit easier.

1. Have no fear. One of the biggest detriments to language learning is being too scared to engage in conversation with native speakers. After studying Italian for four years in university, I moved to Rome. I finally had my big chance to get past the plateau of classroom learning by communicating solely in Italian. Except I didn’t. Every time I went to speak, even to say the simplest things, I froze up and resorted to English and hand gestures. English language learners, don’t be scared. Native English speakers are used to hearing varying levels of English with a litany of different accents. And as someone who knows how terrifying it can be to speak in a foreign language, if it’s not perfect, I understand.

2. Don’t just study the books. Reading about grammar rules, practicing vocabulary flashcards, completing workbook pages. Those are all important, but they shouldn’t be the only things you do to learn a new language. For one, turning page after page of a textbook gets boring. Secondly, a lot of language isn’t just rules, it’s idiomatic expressions, slang, and phrases they don’t teach in books. I know a lot of Kaplan learners agree with me (see the infographic below), a great supplement to studying the books is watching television shows, listening to music, or reading magazines and books in English. Maybe you need subtitles, or have to Google Translate the song lyrics, or read books geared toward two year olds when you’re 25. It doesn’t matter. Start small and the benefits will be big. I used to spend hours translating Tiziano Ferro’s Italian lyrics into English and it helped improve my vocabulary and my sentence structure.

3. Take advantage of your native language. There are probably a lot of English speakers out there looking for help learning your native language. Find these people and set up language exchanges. There are many websites that have been created for just this purpose. And you don’t even have to be living in an English speaking country! If you live in a major city around the world there are probably English speaking expats living there who would love to meet you at a coffee shop or bar and have a conversation. If you aren’t able to meet in person, hope is not lost, many of these sites also have people looking to conduct language exchanges over Skype. Having the chance to talk with a native speaker will help improve your accent, vocabulary, grammar, and, in the end, your confidence. Participating in a language exchange also gives you the chance to be the expert and help out someone learning your language.

Infographic: How to learn Englishvia Kaplan Blog

If learning a language was as easy as just watching a few TV shows or reading a book, we’d all be polyglots by now. Since it’s not that easy we’re stuck doing it the hard way. But with a lot of work (and absolutely no fear) one can surely become a confident English speaker. Or Italian speaker. Or Korean speaker. Why stop at just one?

Have you learned English as a second language? Studied a foreign language in school? Moved to a place where you couldn’t communicate? What are your tips and tricks for learning another language? Leave them in the comments!

Help me win! Post a comment on this page between May 19 and June 1 that includes a link to this post and the name of this blog (Farsickness, in case you forgot). Thank you so much for all of your support!

How to Learn English (Or Any Other Langauge) is a post from: Farsickness