{"id":6827,"date":"2018-05-17T15:51:48","date_gmt":"2018-05-17T15:51:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/?p=6827"},"modified":"2018-05-17T15:51:48","modified_gmt":"2018-05-17T15:51:48","slug":"favorite-restaurants-places-to-go-to-and-things-to-do-in-your-host-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/favorite-restaurants-places-to-go-to-and-things-to-do-in-your-host-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Favorite Restaurants, Places to Go to and Things to Do in Your Host Country"},"content":{"rendered":"
When you live abroad in a foreign country, one of the best parts is enjoying all that your host country has to offer. When you first arrive, you don’t know just yet which things are your favorite to do, which restaurants that you’ll frequent a lot, and which places you’ll want to go all the time to. But as you explore around every weekend or month, you get yourself more familiarized with our your new country and start to create all of your new favorites’ lists.<\/div>\n
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Eating out and finding a really tasty restaurant in your host city is the best. Such delicious local food (or ‘expat food’ cuisine) to be had! While not all local restaurants will be the best, there are sure to be some excellent ones. Typically you find these out from the veteran teachers at your school. They’ve been there awhile, so they are the best ones to let you know where to eat out at. And if the cost of living is low where you are, you might just find yourself eating out all the time (see How NOT to save money when working as an international school teacher #2: Go out to eat all the time!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

There are also just your favorite things to do in the city. Maybe it is taking a jog around the corniche if you live in a city in the Middle East. Maybe it is going to a posh bar downtown where a lot of expats frequent, like the Bund in Shanghai, China. Maybe it is just a quiet park that you like in Western Europe where people go to just relax and enjoy the clean air and surrounding nature (and people watch). The best part is you don’t know your favorite things to do in your host city until you arrive. You could say this aspect is one of the more exciting part of living abroad and teaching internationally.<\/p>\n

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Another cool thing to do in your host country and traveling around and exploring the different places it offers. If you like the mountains, hopefully you will live not too far away from one that you go to do on the weekend (let’s say if you live in Zurich). If you like the sea, maybe there will be a nice coast that you can take a local bus to (let’s say north of Barcelona). Enjoying your day at the beach can be a great getaway from your sometimes busy life at your international school. In China, they have these really beautiful water towns. Many international school teachers in Shanghai are bound to have a favorite water town that they frequent every so often.<\/p>\n

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So many favorite things, so little time. Especially if your plan is to only stay 2-3 years in your current host country, it is good to frequent your favorite places and often!\u00a0 Soon enough, you’ll be moving away to live in your next location and you’ll certainly miss all of your current favorite things! (see\u00a0Going back to a place you once lived \u2013 I almost cried!<\/a>)<\/p>\n

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Luckily, International School Community has a comment topic on our school profile pages related to this topic of your favorite host country restaurants, places and things to do. There are a total of\u00a0394 comments<\/strong><\/u>\u00a0(May 2018) that have been submitted by our veteran international school teachers in one of 65 comment topics called – “Name your favorite restaurants, favorite places to go to and favorite things to do in the city.”<\/p>\n

Here are a few of those submitted comments:<\/p>\n

“Cheongna it is pretty easy to get to the famous Hongdae area of Seoul. The area has tons of restaurants, cafes, bars, street food vendors, and live performances.\u00a0In Cheongna itself, there are new places opening all the time. Current favorites are Roy’s (a Mexican place), Wembley’s Bar, Chicken & Beer, Big Grill (a Korean BBQ place), Texas BBQ, and Hans Craft (craft beer pub). For activities, many teachers like to use the boats in Lake Park or go for a picnic. Many teachers enjoy mountain biking and hiking on the nearby trails. Screen golf and screen baseball are fun activities and of course noraebang (singing rooms).” –\u00a0Cheongna Dalton School<\/a>\u00a0(Incheon, South Korea)<\/span> – 42 Total Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Oslo has an amazing fjord. Its cheap and plenty of little islands can be got to for the normal cost of your monthly T-Bane card. There are fantastic restaurants – but you will need a mortgage before going out for a good dinner here. Skiing and hiking are cheap or free and we spend our summers picking berries in the forests and winters skiing or skating. Its a paradise in truth.” –\u00a0Northern Lights International School<\/a>\u00a0(Oslo, Norway)<\/span> – 28\u00a0Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Zurich is definitely a city worth walking through. Ambling through the narrow lanes of the old town is a treat. Pop into either the Fraumunster church to see the stunning Chagall windows or walk to up the tower of the Grossmunster church, or walk into the cript of the Water Church. On a nice day a short boat ride (Kleine rundfahrt) which starts at the main boat docks near Burkliplatz is worth the time.” –\u00a0Zurich International School<\/a>\u00a0(Zurich, Switzerland)<\/span> – 33 Total\u00a0Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n

“Tianjin is a very beautiful city with lots of canals and urban parks and greenways. It is incredibly flat. There are two lakes next to school and expat teachers live in apartments around the lakes. It is a wonderful location for running and exercise in all seasons of the year.” –\u00a0HIKSVS International School<\/a>\u00a0(Tianjin, China)<\/span> – 30 Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n

“One of my personal favorites is a nice place in Paragon called Midtown. They have a large menu with a lot of traditional Thai dishes and a few international options. Some of their spicy dishes are fantastic (if you can handle Thai chili peppers).” –\u00a0NIST International School<\/a>\u00a0(Bangkok, Thailand)<\/span> – 242 Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n

“We just went to Bait Al Luban near to the Corniche Mutrah. The food there is delicious! It really seems like they use fresh ingredients and things made there are done to a really nice perfection. Another favorite restaurant that we’ve been to is in the Wave area. It is a Lebanese restaurant that’s called Zahr El Laymoun. We got some hot and cold mezza dishes and every single one was so tasty. Will definitely be going back to these places soon.” –\u00a0American International School of Muscat<\/a>\u00a0(Muscat, Oman)<\/span> – 34 Comments<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When you live abroad in a foreign country, one of the best parts is enjoying all that your host country has to offer. When you first arrive, you don’t know just yet which things are your favorite to do, which restaurants that you’ll frequent a lot, and which places you’ll want to go all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2161],"tags":[2538,2537,2535,433,33,60,2536,287],"class_list":["post-6827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comment-topic-highlight","tag-favorite-places","tag-favorite-restaurants","tag-favorite-things","tag-host-country","tag-international-teaching","tag-teaching-abroad","tag-things-to-do","tag-traveling"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/floating-restaurant-436782_640.jpg?fit=640%2C480&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2flVT-1M7","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1338,"url":"https:\/\/internationalschoolcommunity.com\/blog\/survey-results-are-in-where-are-you-spending-your-extra-money-while-teaching-abroad\/","url_meta":{"origin":6827,"position":0},"title":"Survey results are in: Where are you spending your ‘extra’ money while teaching abroad?","author":"ISCommunity","date":"September 15, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"The\u00a0survey results\u00a0are in, and it seems as if most visitors and members of\u00a0International School Community\u00a0who voted are spending their 'Extra' money on traveling, clothes and food. 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