First Stop of Hawaiian Honeymoon: Kahala Hotel in Oahu

My wife and I were originally going to go to Europe for our honeymoon but in order to do that she had to apply for an Italian visa since we wanted to explore Rome and Venice. Since wedding planning was stressful enough, we had to "settle" for Hawaii. Life is tough isn't it?

We decided to spend our first week in Oahu. I wanted to make our first three nights very special, so I took my wife to the Kahala Hotel. It wasn't cheap by any means but it was a great start to our honeymoon. As mentioned in my previous blog post, the staff, the room, the valet parking (free the first night), and beach were fantastic. It was much better than Waikiki Beach, but as mentioned before, you'll have to pay a lot more for style. However, was it worth it? Most definitely. Here are some pictures of the Kahala Hotel:

The beach is literally 20-30 feet from the hotel premises and it was clean and not overly crowded. We arrived at the hotel at 4:00pm to get settled in. Later on, I took a picture as sunset was approaching. The pond in the picture had many fish and also on the other side there is a pool for dolphins to swim in. You would probably have to pay to swim with the dolphins or you can watch others for free.

Here's a view of the beach itself as the sun was going down. There were much fewer people compared to Waikiki Beach. It was Paradise!

The next day we hit the beach! This is one view. There were a few people but not overwhelming.

This picture will give you a better idea how beautiful the scenery was. You can see the mountains, palm trees, and beautiful water. My wife and I were both stunned.

When we arrived at our hotel room, chocolate and fruit were waiting for us. I'm not sure if the hotel remembered that it was my honeymoon or not but we were both quite impressed. The chocolate even had sea salt in it, which threw my wife for a loop. But it was still good!

Here's the lobby of the Kahala Hotel. It's definitely a classy place! If you wanted to have dinner here, there's a room in the background of this picture. That is literally 20 feet from the beach as well.

Here's another view of the hotel from the outside. You can see a heated pool which is walking distance from the beacn and the manmade lake for the dolphins to swim in. It's a pretty stunning scene. My wife was a bit spoiled; she didn't want to swim in the pool since the beautiful beach was just as close and the water was just as warm.

Finally, here's a view of the hotel from the beach. The hot tub and pool are off to the right. I wish I had taken more pictures of the room but I will tell you this. In the room, you'll find a bathtub, shower, iron, wi-fi, I-Phone chargers, plenty of towels, two bottles of water each day, excellent shampoo and shower gel, soap, and a refrigerator. Forgive me if I'm forgetting something, but those are my essentials. :)


Mahalo and see you next time!


Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy

Overview of my Honeymoon with my wife Eunhee

I just got back from my honeymoon in Hawaii a week ago. And after two weeks in Hawaii (one week in Oahu and one week in Kauai), I came away with some observations. I'll post later more specifically about the trip in a later post (pictures to be included) but I'll start by giving you a summary of our trip to Hawaii.

1. We didn't stay at Waikiki Beach but we did stop by. I found it to be very crowded and full of tourists. I wouldn't recommend staying there.

2. The Kahala Hotel in Oahu was extremely expensive but for a honeymoon it was fantastic. The staff was very friendly, we had a fantastic beach view hotel room, the room had all of the amenities you could possibly want, and the rooms were clean and nice.

3. Kailua Beach (Oahu) is much better than Waikiki and has less people. It was absolutely beautiful. We stayed at someone's home in Kailua using airbnb.com and we had a nice experience. It was also only about a 15-minute walk from the beach.

4. The Ambassador Hotel in Waikiki doesn't look very attractive from the outside but the room we chose was excellent. It was our last night in Hawaii, so I wanted my wife to enjoy one last night in a great room. They said that the beach view was unavailable, yet we got a penthouse room which was huge. We had a big living room, a kitchen, and a decent sized bedroom with two beds. I'm not sure why we got two beds though (haha).

5. People were friendly on both islands. I rented a car at Enterprise at Honolulu Airport and when the lady I was dealing found out it was my honeymoon, she gave me a bigger car at no extra charge. When I rented a car at Hertz (Lihue Airport, Kauai), the clerk was also friendly with me there. When we ate at various restaurants, we got great service as well.

6. If you go to Kauai, expect to see chickens and roosters everywhere. It was a sight to see and it never got old!

7. You can drive around most of the island of Kauai in half a day. It's not very big at all. In fact it's 32 miles in diameter. I explored 60% of the island in a week. Kauai also happens to be the oldest island among all of the Hawaiian islands.

8. A helicopter ride over the island of Kauai will run you $150 if you want to see the whole island and about $350 if you want the helicopter to make about 5-6 stops at some various beautiful spots on the island.

9. You can get cheap Chinese, Vietnamese, or Japanese food without any problems. We also had great Mexican food and pizza in Kauai. You won't have many problems finding good food. However as you head north on the island of Kauai, it gets a bit more expensive especially in the city of Hanalei. The only major shopping mall is near the airport in Lihue which is called the Kukui Grove Shopping Center. It has stores such as Macy's, Long's Drugs, a shoe store, Starbucks, K-Mart, Ross Dress For Less. You can also go to a Hawaiian ramen place, Kim Chee 9 Korean restaurant, Ho's Chinese Kitchen, Jamba Juice, Genki Sushi, and L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.

10. The best sites on the island of Kauai that I was able to see were Waimea Canyon (southwest part of Kauai), Poipu Beach (south side), and Allerton Gardens (city of Koloa-south side). The most unique and tropical beach was at Wainiha where there are a lot of winding roads that have one-lane bridges as you drive through area full of trees. We also stayed at hotels near Wailua and Kapaa (that had decent beaches (few people and warm water).

More to come later!


Scott Worden (L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy

12 Days Until I Marry the Love of My Life!

It's pretty amazing that after 40 years of being on this Earth, I'll finally be married. Dating didn't come natural for me from the very beginning. In high school I never had a girlfriend. In university, I just started dating and didn't really know how to do it. From the ages of 21-27, I was immature and fell in love with women that I thought were too strong-willed like my mom. When I felt that they were too strong-willed, I would run away from the issue instead of fixing it. I wasn't good at handling conflicts and fixing problems. I just wanted to escape if things got difficult.

When I was 27, I came to Korea to live on my own and to teach English to elementary and middle school students. I went through stressful times and felt like I needed a woman for stability. At the same time, I just hated being single. My first relationship had a hot temper, so that didn't last. I dated a girl that I thought was my dream girl but she was young and found another guy. I dated a sweet, Christian girl, and thought she could be the one but I couldn't speak any Korean at the time and she couldn't speak any English. In a nutshell, my first year had some great moments but it was very frustrating overall.

As I got more adapted to dating in Korea, I got too selective. I wanted to find the perfect match: Cute, Christian, and someone who would support me. When I would find a Christian, and if I was physically attracted to her, she would be looking for the perfect guy and I wasn't that guy. When I found a woman that was physically attractive and liked me, she usually wasn't Christian. I dated a couple of those kinds of ladies, but realized that the relationship was too superficial. She had to have God in her life or I would just continue the search. However, I also needed spark to coincide with that.

In spring of 2014, the search was about to be over. I found a woman on a Christian dating website called ChristianDatingForFree.com. It was amazing since few women on that site lived in Korea. On top of that most of the women that lived in Korea on that site were inactive. Then Eunhee sent me a message that was completely unexpected.  She told me that she liked my profile because I said "I am looking for  a long term relationship."

On May 10, 2014, we met for the first time. She seemed nervous and a bit cautious but something intrigued me about her. Not only was she cute, but she said she was giving up her job in trade to become a missionary. Wow! A woman of God! Then I asked her where she was going. She said she wanted to be a missionary in the country where she was from: China. For about 6 months, I struggled to deal with that since I told myself that I never wanted to live in China. I had a really bad travel experience in Shanghai in 2011 and after that trip, I pretty much canceled China off my list as places to live in the future. Lo and bohold, the Lord had other plans five years later. We started dating on May 28, 2014 and everyday had gotten better and better especially after the six-month mark.



I proposed at the Grand Hyatt near Samseong Station on the year after our one-year anniversary. It was a very special night of champagne, steak, cake, and her accepting my proposal. I knew that I made the right decision! She was so happy and she had no idea that the proposal was coming. She did say that I was acting a bit weird but it was because I was nervous and wanted the timing to be exactly right.



Two years later, I am very satisfied that I have a very sweet, special, fiancé (technically married after we got our wedding certificate in China last month). She is very patient, easygoing, loves children, loves me, and most importantly loves Jesus. What more could I ask for? I am very blessed!



Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy

I Got Blessed By a Tom N Toms Cashier in Gangnam

There is one Tom N Toms that I enjoy going to on a Saturday night. It's between Gangnam Station and Shinnonhyun Station (on the Yeoksam-dong side of the street) in Seoul. I usually go there on Saturday nights after spending time during the day with my fiancé. It's my chance to catch up on some Bible reading, study Korean, or just read a non-fiction or fiction book that I'm reading at the time.

Over the course of the past three months, I was always greeted by a friendly cashier and I made sure that I brought my empty cup back after I was done drinking. He seemed to appreciate my courtesy.

Last Saturday the cashier started talking to me in Korean. He said that he was looking for an English teacher and he knew that he needed some practice learning English. I kindly gave him my email address and phone number and he seemed very thrilled about it.

The following week after I gave him my contact details, he seemed a bit embarrassed. Maybe he felt too nervous to contact me (Koreans are really shy about speaking English), so he didn't know what to say after I had given him my contact information the week prior to that. However, he was still friendly and he knew what I wanted to drink (iced cafe latte). Then I noticed that he punched in "grande" into the cash register when all I wanted was a tall size. I even reminded him by saying "tall size" but he just nodded and smiled. Then later, he told me in Korean that he "upgraded" my drink by giving me a larger drink for the price of a smaller one. I thought that was pretty awesome.

In my 12 years of living in Korea, things like this happen every once in awhile, and it makes me really appreciate the nature of Korean people. If you make an effort to speak the language and be friendly at the same time, most of the time you'll have a good experience dealing with cashiers or store clerks. And you just never know; you might get blessed in the process.

Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy

Teaching a Female Police Officer

Last night, I taught a really nice woman in her late twenties. She is a police officer in Samseong-dong (not too far from COEX Mall) in the Gangnam-gu area of Seoul. She told me that her job was rewarding but difficult. Also her working hours varied everyday, so I'm sure it was very hard on her physically since she could only exercise once a week. To give you an example, one day she would work during the day, another would be at night and then back to the day time the following day. I asked her what the hardest part of her job was. She said it was dealing with rude, drunk older men. That must be difficult in a male-dominated society where police officers are not respected. While at the English academy that I work at, She has been studying using her own money. I applaud her for doing something that's very rewarding with little pay and little respect. I hope and pray that as she improves her English, more job opportunities will come her way.


Scott Worden (The L.A./Seoul Guy)
Instagram: l.a.seoulguy