as drizzy drake said, “better late than never, but never late is better.” we (and by we, i mean i) will be working on the second half of that quote as we wrap up the final month of summer.

for those of you that are new here, my name is kristin tappan or k.tap as many people call me. i have been blogging since january of 2019. an unfortunate trend is that this blog falls to the bottom of my to do list when things are more chaotic on the work front. i have slowly but surely been working to figure out how to play catch up from the end of last year and last year certainly ended with a bang. four countries across asia in a little under two weeks with one of your best friends across the holiday season? i could not recommend it more.

when maddie (one of my old RAs turned friends) invited me to her wedding in january of 2025 in vietnam, my immediate answer was yes. i had been dying to go to asia and this was the perfect opportunity to do so. my thought process was if i am going to travel thousands miles to another continent, let’s make the fucking most of it. when thinking what other places seemed nonnegotiable, the top three were indonesia (specifically, bali), japan (as a whole) and seoul in south korea. when thinking about who might be crazy enough to commit to four countries i had never been to while also missing a california christmas and new year celebration, the first person that came to mind was melissa. i can picture myself curled up on her couch with her pitbull and asking her if she had plans for christmas of 2025 – her response was “where are we going? i’m in.” and that is how our tour of asia went from a simple idea to a real plan.

i was fixated on being in bali for christmas which meant we needed that to be the first leg of the trip. ho chi minh city for the wedding would be second. we would explore japan to ring in the new year there afterwards and end with a short and peaceful trip to seoul. melissa used her amex to book our flights in the event we ran into issues, there would be a concierge to do the leg work to get us rebooked. i handled lodging and our itinerary as a whole, especially with melissa being kind enough to agree to being my plus one.

let’s get to it – first stop: bali!

if you are coming from the west coast, i would highly recommend a redeye. we left at nearly midnight and with our first leg being roughly 15 hours, the goal was to sleep for about half that time. we had a five hour layover in taipei before officially landing in bali. we looked and felt like we had traveled for 24 hours however when we got to our villa, absolutely none of that mattered.

i knew we would be lifeless upon our arrival to bali so there were no plans for night one either than getting settled, enjoying the amenities of our villa and hydrating because we knew that the cabana we rented accommodate six people would be occupied by just half that the following day. i will never go to bali without going to finn’s beach club.

melissa and i were so obsessed with our host that we asked him to join us at the day party and he agreed. for roughly $250 usd, the three of us partied for about six hours before hitting the minimum. we had truly seen nothing like it – the service was impeccable, the food was delicious, the drinks packed a punch, the music catered to people across all generations and places and the magic shows were captivating.

for christmas day, we took a different approach – a spa day and dinner at the four seasons. i saw this spa on a comedian’s instagram months before going and figured it might be a stretch because while i am not pinching pennies, i also do not have hbo special money. something told me to look it up anyway. when i did, i kept recalculating the total cost as i was positive i must have been doing the conversions wrong. how was a 2.5 hour spa experience $48 usd per person including gratuity? this does in fact exist. welcome to putri bali spa.

to know me is to know few things compare to a good massage + bath combo. the detox package at the spa included 15 minutes in a sauna, infused waters, an hour long massage, a full body sugar scrub, a rainfall shower, a 30-45 minute soak in a flower bath and fresh pressed juices to enjoy while in the tub.

after the spa, we went back to our villa to get ready for christmas dinner and enjoyed to best meal we had while in bali at riverside at the four seasons.

we were so sad to leave the next day but before boarding our flight, told our host we would be back in february of 2027 for my birthday. i think he thought we might be kidding until i booked out every villa on the property a few months ago. i am nothing if not a planner. next stop? ho chi minh city.

arriving a couple of days before the wedding was important to me both to leave a buffer in the event anything did not go according to plan and to have time to see some of vietnam outside of the wedding. our first stop? 2cms wine bar.

the service? 10 out of 10. we got to hear the story of how the couple founded the establishment, try foods that were completely new to us and fall in love with new wines in a place that is clearly valued by locals.

on our second day in vietnam, melissa and i had separate agendas. i attended a tea for our bride to be, maddie. melissa did room service in bed.

while this all sounds incredibly innocent, we were fighting for our lives later that night/early the next morning aka wedding day. we were given strict instructions to take a pill called travelan before every single meal. up until this point, neither of us had missed a dose. with this being the one meal we did not consume together, we did not have an accountability partner to remind one another and when i tell you we paid for it, that would be the grossest understatement of the year. let’s just say we are grateful to have been sick on alternating hours.

even still, we were determined to make it to the wedding and were so glad we did. the love was reverberating off of the couple.

our favorite part of the wedding? hearing the groom’s mother talk about how much their family loved the bride, maddie. our least favorite part? not being able to enjoy any of the eight (maybe even 10?) course dinner due to needing to slowly eat ice chips to not get sick at the table. melissa and i have ZERO pictures together from this day. and the next day? we were off to japan!

we landed around midnight and by the time we got to our hotel, it was around 2am. we had the best uber driver and he was in a full blown suit and left his car running to walk hundreds of feet to get us inside of our hotel and be sure that any language barriers would not complicate our check-in experience. i will NEVER get over how clean japan is. to be honest, i need to go back for a couple of weeks as there is so much to do and see. with melissa and i not operating at full capacity, the things were able to accomplish were keeping a meal down, some light walking around various cities and some vintage shopping. i took ZERO photos of the one sushi meal we had in japan which if you know me is truly wild.

on january 1st, we made our way to seoul for 48 hours. the goal was simple: find all of the good skincare and eat well now that our stomachs were operating at full capacity. we did just that.

not pictured? bags of korean skincare that would have cost us at least $1000 usd that we spent a couple hundred dollars on instead. we left seoul at 5pm on saturday, january 3rd and landed at 9am on saturday, january 3rd. gaining that time on the way back was critical before jumping into a work week.

the part of the trip for us was bali however the best part for me was being able to experience four new countries with one of my favorite humans on earth.

going to asia and have questions? message me!

xoxo,

k.tap