Seoul, South Korea: Cafe 2

Date: 30-10-11

Drink: Venti Quod Vanilla Latte

We found this café on our second day of exploring Seoul, which was after the World Championships. The World Championships, by the way, were held at the Olympic Centre where the Olympics took place in Seoul back in the ‘80s. Very cool having the chance to compete at the Olympic stadium! You can read about our first day in Seoul here: http://korastoynova.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/our-first-day-in-seoul/  Anyway, the day after the comp we met with some dance friends of ours from Canada who were also competing at the World Championships, and we headed up to the DMZ. After that tour, we returned to Seoul to walk around, find some good Korean food, and just drink up the city.

Speaking of drinking up the city, we discovered this cute little Starbucks in a crowded back street, one of those stereotypical Asian streets where the roadway in narrow, people are everywhere, signs jut out into the streets from ground level up four stories, and vendors mill about potential customers pushing carts laden with goods. 

 

Seoul, South Korea: Cafe 1

Date: 30-10-11

Drink: Venti Vanilla Latte

Way back-dated, I haven’t done a Starbucks Project post in two full years, but recently a number of people have been visiting the blog and telling me how much they enjoy my posts, and how interesting it is to follow our travels around the world. Luckily, I’ve kept a lot of pictures of interesting Starbucks cafes, and even though I haven’t been posting, I’ve still been taking pictures. So, as I’m sitting here at my favorite Starbucks cafe in Kingston-Upon-Thames, London – back-dated post to come soon – I’ll get you updated on our Korean adventures. And, of course, this puts a 3rd continent on the map!

We went to Seoul in 2011 to represent Bulgaria at the World Standard Championships. Even though it was the end of October, the weather was still rather balmy and comfortable. Because we were in South Korea, we decided to spend a few extra days there to go exploring. We took a tour to go the DMZ, we wandered around downtown Seoul, in and out of their huge markets, the old ones and the new, and slipped in and out of back-alley Korean restaurants to eat some real, authentic Korean food. Simeon was not too happy.

You’ll notice that there is no food listed on any of these posts. Why?? Who would want to eat at Starbucks in the middle of Seoul?? Korean pastries are INCREDIBLE. I’m not joking. I am a Korean pastry fanatic for the rest of my life! We had Korean desserts, Korean Sweet Potato Lattes (not recommended), 7-Nut Lattes (also not recommended), Pumpkin Candy (HIGHLY recommended), fish fresh out of the fish tank, you name it! Korea is awesome for a foodie like me! But what would mornings be without my traditional Vanilla Latte? Terrible, I tell you!

Anyway, this particular Starbucks was two story, and we climbed the stairs and found a great seat next to the window to enjoy our pumpkin candies. It was a great introduction to South Korea.

 

New England Boonies – Manchester, NH

Date: 3-10-2011

Drink: Venti Quod Skinny Vanilla Latte

Food: “Everything” Bagel w/ 2 cream cheeses, Sausage and Egg Breakfast Sandwich

Manchester, New Hampshire

In my most recently published post, “Traversing New England”, on my other blog, I explained how we came to stop and spend the night in a small city called Manchester in New Hampshire. Honestly, all cities in New Hampshire are small. As a West Coast girl, I’ve always had this idea that the East Coast, and New England, was an over-populated region filled with skyscrapers, pollution, and crime. I didn’t realize until our drive through New England how sparsely populated the region really is outside the big cities. But I guess the misconception is fair. Afterall, East Coasters all think Seattle is a frontier town without light or running water, despite the fact that Amazon, Starbucks, Boeing, and Microsoft are from Seattle. The guy who worked the front desk at the hotel we stayed at in Manchester even asked us, “Do you know where Harp is?” We looked at each other confusedly and answered, “No, we’ve never heard of Harp.” To which he replied, “Oh, well Harp is a town in Alaska.” Simeon then said, “Why would we know where Harp is? Alaska is pretty far away from Seattle.” The guy scoffed and waved his hand at us. “Oh, come on,” he said, “Alaska’s not that far from Seattle!” So it just goes to show you, the misconceptions go both ways!

Anyway, there are two Starbucks in Manchester, and one in Concord, just north of Manchester. Not too many others in New Hampshire. Like I said, it’s a sparsely populated state! We stopped by one on our way up to Canada, three days earlier, but I can’t remember if it was in New Hampshire or Vermont. I’ll look up my path and write a post about that one next.

Link to my post about our travels through New England: http://korastoynova.wordpress.com/2011/10/05/traversing-new-england-and-france/

Manchester's Proximity to Boston

Montreal and Friends

Date: 2-10-2011

Drink: Venti Quod Skinny Vanilla Latte

This was the first time we’d ever been to Montreal, either of us, and unfortunately we didn’t get a chance to see much. We were actually coming from Gatineau (which, by the way, has NO Starbucks cafe. And if you ask the concierge if there is a Starbucks anywhere, they look at each other in confusion and ask us what Starbucks is) where we danced the World Professional 10-Dance Championships. It was a Sunday. We applied for late check-out, slept in, and took our time getting out of the hotel. Driving through Ottawa, we stopped to take some pictures of the Parliamentary buildings, found a Starbucks there but it was closed, then continued on our ways to Montreal.

Starbucks on Rue Universite in Montreal, Quebec

By the time we got to Montreal it was already getting dark outside. We don’t turn our internet on in Canada, as it’s too expensive, so we had directions into the city centre, but the exit we needed was closed. So we took another exit, followed the signs of life, and ended upin the main district by accident. And there, right before us, was a Starbucks! We had skipped breakfast and had already been driving for about 3 hours (if you include our detour to take some pictures of the Parliamentary buildings) so we decided to make a quick stop at Starbucks to fuel up and find out what’s to see in Montreal on a Sunday evening.

And while I was online, one of my former students who had come to Montreal for school contacted me and said, “Hey! I’m in Montreal right now!” So we gave her a call and it turned out she was only two blocks away, at the library studying! So after Sims and I ate some dinner, she joined us for a dessert and to catch up. We didn’t have too much time, as we needed to continue our way south, toward Boston, but it was great to see her! She promised she’d take us around Montreal next time we were in town, and we promised to give ourselves more time.

We may not have seen Montreal in the way most people consider it, but at least we had the chance to drive in and look around a bit, grab a good dinner and catch up with friends. That’s the difficult part about being a dancer. You go to a lot of places, but you don’t have the luxury of spending a lot of time there.

Sims in Montreal!

Mini Starbucks is All it’s Worth

Date: March 19th, 2011 Drink: Venti Shaken Passion-Fruit Iced-Tea Lemonade Food: none Once again, up to Canada for lessons in preparation for the Blackpool Dance Festival and our National Championships, both of which are coming up in May/June. We arrived in Canada early and were both thirsty, so we stopped by the closest Starbucks to the studio, which is on Oak Street in Vancouver. It really is a tiny little café, with a counter that is so high that my elbows are up next to my ears if I try to type on my computer. Luckily the table near the door just opened up so I’m going to hope over there to do some more work.

Unfortunately I have no picture of this one, but it deserves to be logged anyway!

Quiznos and Starbucks a Winning Combination!

Date: March 14^th, 2011

Drink: Grande Triple Skinny Vanilla Latte (Sims didn’t share with me this time)

Food: sorry Starbucks, we had Quiznos (mmmmmm)

the Sears Plaza on Northup and 148th Ave in Bellevue, WA

I realize that I’m about a month behind on my Starbucks posts…. With the commencement of Dancing With the Stars, and the ramp up before the Blackpool Dance Festival, I have had very little time to do anything else, and that means that while I’ve been taking pictures of our Starbucks ventures, I have not been able to update them on the blog.

Anyway, I’ve mentioned in my last few posts that we’ve been going to Canada on the weekends. We normally leave Vancouver at around noon, and if there is not terrible traffic at the border, we’re normally back in Bellevue by between 2:30 and 3:00, which gives us just enough time to grab some lunch. Luckily, the Sears Plaza is just up the street from the dance studio, and in that strip mall, Starbucks and Quiznos are right next to each other. This gives me ample opportunity to grab a coffee while Simeon is ordering lunch.

This café is very small, with nothing more than the barista counter, advertisements, and a couple of chairs, in front. But the seating area, narrow as it is, stretches back along the side of the barista counter. The configuration of the café is very much like the cafes we see often in London, where the retail spaces are about one room wide, but can extend up to three rooms back. For a lot of people from the studio, this is a regular hang out. The closer Starbucks, on the corner of 140^th Ave and Bel-Red Rd, is packed tight, noisy, and usually crowded with baby strollers. It’s a hectic location. But this Starbucks, on Northup and 148^th Ave, is a bit quieter and therefore a nice place to go for a little coffee and a wind-down.

Gold Level At Last!

Ha ha! I am finally at Gold Level status! It would have happened so much sooner if Starbcuks counted international purchases… but they don’t. They don’t even count Canada. And since the majority of our Starbucks purchases are made whilst en route to somewhere, and somewhere is often out of the country, it takes a while to build up enough visits just based on our American purchases. Anyway, the point is, at last we are Gold! And all I can say is… it’s about frickin’ time!!

Searching for Coffee in “Mormon-Town”

Date: March 10^th, 11^th, and 12^th, 2011

Drink: Venti Quod Vanilla Latte at least all three times, the new Cocoa Cappuccino (tall), Grande Nonfat Chai Tea Latte

Food: can’t remember everything we ate each time (we had breakfast every morning there), but I did try the Salted Caramel Square once, and it’s really good

Every year, we travel down to Provo, UT, for the NDCA Amateur DanceSport National Championships. We’ve danced this competition eleven consecutive times. We were Youth National Champions in 2002 and were National Finalists a total of nine times! We taught couples of ours to the title of champion at least 5 times, and we’ve taught a countless number of national finalists. The competition is held on the BYU campus, in the university’s basketball stadium, and given the popularity of ballroom dancing in Utah, there is normally a huge crowd of enthusiastic onlookers. NDCA President Brian McDonald fondly calls this competition the “Blackpool of America”, a piece of prestige not lost upon the attendees of this fun competition.

There is just one big problem with holding a National Championships in Utah: this area is primarily Mormon, and ballroom dancers are primarily not. Now, understand that I have nothing against Mormons. I hold Mormons as some of my closest acquaintances; and, something I want to make very clear, I highly respect Mormons and their values. It’s just that I am very much not Mormon, and I find the Mormon rules and codes to be restrictive to the extreme. This coming from a Catholic! Because the competition is held on the BYU campus, all competitors are expected to adhere to BYU’s dress code, which is so difficult because of the restrictions that oftentimes we cannot wear our normal costumes and frequently must have costumes made specifically for that event. But this is something I can deal with. What I have a hard time with is their restriction on coffee (and alcohol, but that’s for another post). If there are two things the Catholic Church does not restrict, it’s coffee and alcohol.

outside the Orem, UT Starbucks

There is no Starbucks Café in Provo, Utah. There is a Starbucks stand tucked neatly away inside a Barnes and Noble, but it closes far too early for us late night dancers. And not only is there not a Starbucks Café, there is actually no café that I know of in Provo. So we have to hop in the car and drive about 10 minutes north to Orem, to University Mall, to go to Starbucks. The nicest thing is that it’s actually on the way if you’re driving into Provo from Salt Lake City, which we did our first day there. We went in, found a seat, opened up our computers to do some work and enjoyed our long awaited breakfast. We were starving and I was in a nasty mood from my experiences with Delta Airlines, which you can read about on my other blog here: http://korastoynova.wordpress.com/2011/03/11/the-horrors-of-delta-airlines/

No sooner had we started into our breakfast than I looked up and the saw the mother of one of our preteen students walk in the door with her eight-year-old son in tow. “Hey!” she greeted with a cheerier-than-9am smile. “If there’s any place to find you, it’d be here!”

“Yeah!” I jokingly replied. “But who’s the one with the gold card?”

She laughed as she got in line. “You know it! I’ve needed this all morning!”

She hadn’t even ordered when three judges from the competition walked in, one of whom we are lucky enough to call a good friend of ours. “Well, hello you two,” said the judge in his soft German accent.

“Time for some, coffee, huh?” Simeon replied with a grin.

“Yeah,” the judge replied with a sly smile, “we have to get our own because [Organizer] won’t provide it for us. You know how it is.”

And yes, I do. There’s no judgment in his voice. Neither is there any in our friendly roll of the eyes. We don’t blame Mormons for sticking to their principles. In fact, we respect them for it. But let’s face it – we need our coffee!

a beautiful view of the mountains behind Starbucks on that cloudless Thursday morning

Starbucks Cafe on the Ridge in Snoqualmie, WA

Date: log date March 9^th, 2011; this is in fact a regular location for us

Drink: this time, Venti Quod Vanilla Latte

Food: this time, 2 breakfast sandwiches and 1 Chonga Bagel with 3 Cream Cheeses

Snoqualmie, WA

One of our regular cafes, the Snoqualmie café is not actually in Snoqualmie proper, but in a neighborhood of Snoqualmie appropriately called “The Ridge”. Many of you may never have heard of Snoqualmie, or if you had it means nothing to you. But the little town of no more than 5,000 or so people called Snoqualmie is the gorgeous, mountain town we call home. And I’m not joking when I say Snoqualmie is gorgeous. We live in the town proper, which is an old railroad town pushed up against a river called the Snoqualmie River that, it’s true, floods at least once a year. We don’t get hit by the floods every time, but you can bet the people living on the riverside do. You may be able to relate to the slightly larger neighboring town of North Bend, where a popular sitcom from the ‘70s was filmed called “Twin Peaks”. Snoqualmie is about a 5 minute drive west of North Bend.

Anyway, recently people have decided that Snoqualmie is a really cool place to live, but they don’t like the idea of floods. So developers tore out their cookie-cutter plans a built up a Stepford Wives looking neighborhood called Snoqualmie Ridge, called so because it is geographically up on the ridge overlooking the Snoqualmie Valley. It has none of the charm of a small railroad town, but all of the amenities you would expect of a Stepford Wives neighborhood. Hence (sorry, Starbucks, but it’s true) a Starbucks Café. That said, the café on the Ridge is actually quite nice. It’s big, has a large counter that not all locations boast, includes cute little sections instead of a more open floorplan, and even offers a book exchange which I think is really nice and doesn’t cost the café anything to run, since people just bring in their books and place them on the shelves, available for anyone to grab.

inside the spacious cafe

If you happen to be driving out east in I-90 from Seattle, or coming back in from the Pass, make sure to save a little time to stop in Snoqualmie. Simeon and I fell in love with the town the moment we drove through its 2-block downtown. Make sure you visit Snoqualmie Falls, the Pacific Northwest’s largest falls (in terms of cubic feet per second, I think), grab lunch at the Salish Lodge’s Attic Lounge, peek at Snoqualmie’s outdoor railroad museum, and get a coffee to go at Starbucks on the Ridge. Trust me, it will be worth your while.

beautiful Snoqualmie Falls, less than 2 miles away from Starbucks and (the other way) our house

Check In: Exit 232 off I-5 in Skagit Valley, Washington

Checking in at the Starbucks Cafe in Skagit Valley. Luckily got a better picture to include in my post about this cafe, where you can view it at https://starbuckproject.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/starbucks-cafe-off-i-5-in-skagit-valley-washington/
Today I gave myself a special high calorie treat with my 15 Star card: a Venti Green Tea Frappuccino! Mmmmmmmmm! Awesome desert :):):)