Trip to Dominican Republic (Day 5)...Exploring Dominican Culture

Dominican Cocina

We took a cultural tour of Dominican Republic one day. I was really excited about seeing and learning a little about Dominican people's lives.


We drove to a small village in a mountain to a local elementary school. It's summer vacation time and they were having a summer school. The kids were very sweet. A boy gave me a flower.


Dominican Republic is the third largest coffee growing country of the world (#1 is Columbia and #2 is Brazil). A family grower of coffee and cacao welcomed us at their property. Dominican Republic is also famous for its premium chocolate and cocoa. The owner, Peppy, and his family live in a traditional Dominican-style house. His wife and daughter were busy in the kitchen to prepare lunch.


We learned about traditional coffee and cacao making. Peppy showed us how to roast coffee. The freshly roasted, ground, and brewed coffee tasted incredible.


Peppy broke the freshly harvest cacao from the tree and broke it to let us taste the fresh cacao fruits. I was told not to chew on it but just suck. It was quite sweet with a soft tartness. So nice. Then, he ground the dry cacao fruit (beans) to let us taste. We also tasted hot cocoa made from the freshly ground cocoa. I must say it was the best hot cocoa I've ever tasted!


We also visited a cigar maker. Dominican cigar is also very famous. This artisan maker rolls about 250 cigars a day, all by himself! Jason bought several cigars (including flavored cigars). In their property, I also tasted Mamajuana, which is a traditional Dominican drink, made from Dominican rum, red wine, honey, and herbs. Very exotic and nice.


For lunch, we enjoyed Dominican BBQ and fried chicken. So good!


After lunch, we visited a beach which is popular among locals (so you don't see other tourists).  The ocean was so calm and gorgeous. I enjoyed swimming for a while. It was also entertaining to see some local boys practicing acrobatic dancing. They were very good!

It was such a fun and wonderful tour, that made me love this country more and more.

Trip to Dominican Republic (Day 3 and 4)...Keep eating and relaxing

My throat was pretty badly hurt from the cold and I was coughing so much the first few days. But, thanks to all the good food and nice relaxing time, I was on the way to recovery.


Breakfast in the terrace was always something to look forward to. I enjoyed different smoothies every morning. They also make really good omelets.


Beach time.


Lunch time. Shrimp seviche, special burger, grilled lobster are among our favorites.


More lunch. I even had a whole rib-eye steak, after gazpacho and salad, by myself with cocktail. I was definitely getting better!


More beach and also walk.

Trip to Dominican Republic (Day 1 and 2)...Sick Days

View from our room in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic

Jason and I started our summer vacation. This year, our destination is Dominican Republic. It's our first time to visit there and we are very excited about it. We have been to Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico past years, so we decided to change a bit and picked this country.

From LA, we flew to Washington DC for a connecting flight, and it was about 3 hours from DC. It's quite far away! I caught a cold a few days earlier, so I was under the weather during the travel. But, I tried my best to just beat it.


We finally got to Punta Cana of Dominican Republic. Our private pick-up took us to our resort from the airport. The weather was gorgeous. We checked in and got to our room. Our room was so gorgeous! We got a ocean front room with a huge balcony with a large jacuzzi, overlooking the ocean. It's going to be our home for the next 8 days.


We were admiring the view from our room.


Beautiful white sand beach and aqua blue ocean. When we got back to our room after a short walk on the beach, there was a cute surprise from the concierge waiting.


The next day, we had Dominican style breakfast, with grilled eggs, sausage, bacon, and mashed green plantain. It was very good. I was still not recovering from sickness, so after breakfast, I spent most of the day in the balcony just resting and also writing for the donabe cookbook. Jason had some activities in the ocean and got a lot of tan already. For dinner, I was feeling a little better, so we had a nice Dominican-style dinner by the beach, finished with rum coffee (flambé at table). I hope I can beat the cold quickly and enjoy the ocean soon.