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Our 72 hours in Shanghai

3/14/2018

Part of our end-of-semester trip in Asia, we decided to visit Tokyo, Seoul, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. Shanghai was one of those cities that I thought I would never visit, so I still can't believe I had the opportunity to go explore after my semester in Taiwan. However, since we did not have a VISA for China, we could only stay up to 6 days in Shanghai; we stayed for three days, and here is what we did:

We arrived in Shanghai pretty late in the evening, so Marcus and I were both pretty tired. Getting our 3-6 day VISA went fairly smoothly and the officers were very nice and helpful, but that nice atmosphere did not last very long after we left the arrivals hall to go get a taxi. Some lady came up to us pretending to be an employee at the airport and since she had just “finished” her shift, she

would give us a ride into the city because she was going that way anyways…. For a small fee, of course. Us, being the savvy travelers that we are, did not fall for her crap and walked away towards the actual taxi drivers after her trying for a solid 2 minutes to get us into her car (kind of creepy). So, if you ever go to Shanghai, watch out for these “friendly airport employees” – trust me, it’s a scam. After finally getting an actual taxi, we got to our hotel at like 2am and went straight to bed. We were exhausted from 4 days in Hong Kong so trying to catch up on some sleep was necessary.

Important thing to know is that my boyfriend and I are fairly relaxed travelers. We don’t really wake up early to get a super early start to our day, as we wanted to relax during this mini vacation. Our first day, we woke up in-time for the breakfast the hotel offered and went back to our room after to hang out for a little bit longer before exploring the city (we probably fell back asleep). Around noon, we started our day, first stop being The Bund, the waterfront where you have an amazing view onto the skyline of Shanghai. It was superrrr windy and super cloudy (pollution) but the view was incredible. I never thought I would see this skyline in real life, so this was one of the most exciting things of this city trip.

After taking the usual millions of pictures, we walked along the waterfront towards the Yu Garden. We didn’t really know where we were going, making it a good way to explore all the little streets in that part of Shanghai. We walked through this tiny bamboo forest with a bunch of cats everywhere -- it was literally full of cats eating catfood.

Eventually, we finally got to Yu Garden while it was already starting to get dark. Surrounding the Yu Garden there were a bunch of little shops and restaurants with amazing Chinese architecture. The lights were all starting to light-up so we came at the perfect time. Normally we wanted to go inside of the Yu Garden, but since the sun had gone down we wouldn’t have seen much.

After walking around a bit longer in the surrounding streets of the garden, we took the metro back to Nanjing Road to have dinner. Nanjing Road is a huge shopping street, comparable to the Meir in Antwerp but 5x bigger; very easy spot to find a restaurant (with a little higher price though).

At the beginning of our 2nd day in Shanghai, we decided to go get a closer look of the buildings from the skyline. Taking a metro, we got to the other side of the river right by the Oriental Pearl Radio & TV tower. It was a super misty day again, so the view wasn’t that great, but it was cool to be in the middle of all these unique skyscrapers. We walked around for a bit, getting photographed and stared at, but we had honestly gotten used to this by now. Near the Oriental Pearl tower, we had some lunch and tried to decide where to go next (planning ahead of time is not really one of our strong suits).

We both decided on the Jing’an Temple, being one of the more popular temples in Shanghai (I think). We took our time as we explored the gorgeous temple, trying to see every part of

it. In the middle of the temple there was a sculpture where you could try to throw a coin into for good luck (it was much harder than it looked!). Inside of the temple there was a big Buddha statue, where you could worship and pray. It was a very nice, calming temple in the middle of the hustle and bustle that is Shanghai.

After the temple, we wanted to go to the neighborhood of Tianzifang but first made a stop in the street of Xintiandi. This street had a bunch of little shops and restaurants, and cute little lights. It felt super cozy and a bit European. Xintiandi was like a little outdoor mall but with a very relaxed atmosphere. From Xintiandi we made our way over to Tianzifang, which was also filled with cute little shops and restaurants. The small streets of Tianzifang were filled with tourist, but it still had a very local feel to it. We tried these hugggeeeee fries here; biggest fries I have ever seen. And we also bought some little souvenirs (Marcus’s souvenir got confiscated at the airport loll, sorry babe). Besides the Bund, I think this was one of my favorite spots of our trip to Shanghai.

After snacking and shopping at Tianzifang, we had dinner in the French Concession which I am pretty sure is a very popular neighborhood for expats because that’s basically all we saw there. After 5 months of only Taiwanese and other Asian foods, I didn’t feel that bad for not fully taking advantage of the Chinese food Shanghai had to offer – that night, we had nachos at an Irish pub…. In China haha.

Our trip to Shanghai was super short and very basic when it comes to the places we visited. If I ever go back, I hope to explore some of the surrounding cities and perhaps do some day trips to other cool places around Shanghai! These 2 days, regardless of how fast they went by, gave me a nice look on the Chinese culture and the busy life of Shanghai. If you were to ask me where to go in Asia, Shanghai would not be my first suggestion, but perhaps it is in the top 10 places that I have visited in Asia.

Off to my next adventure…

With love,
Sara

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What should you go do in hong kong?

3/5/2018

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Hong Kong is such an amazing city, and I am so fortunate to have been twice this past year (yes, that’s how much I loved it!). The streets are always busy with cars, people, and lit up by the most intense street signs I have ever seen. Whether you are into fashion, food, nature/hikes, photography, or just the Asian culture in general, Hong Kong should be on your bucket list for places to see ASAP! Here are a few of the many, many things you can do in Hong Kong:

Victoria Harbor is one of the first things I always go see in Hong Kong. The harbor gives you a beautiful panorama view of the Hong Kong Island skyline and is a perfect way to start your stay in Hong Kong (as you kind of get a sense of how big and how insane it is). You can walk around the waterfront and enjoy the gorgeous skyline. Avenue of the Stars is also at the waterfront of Victoria Harbor, where you can walk through and relive some of the most celebrated moments in Asia’s movie industry with sculptures of a bunch of famous stars (while still enjoying the view of the skyline).
Symphony of Lights
Perhaps my favorite time to go to the waterfront to see the skyline of Hong Kong island is at night when all the lights are on. To make it even better, every night at 8pm the skyline of Hong Kong lights up to perform one of the world’s best light shows. With the help of LED screens, search lights, lasers, and lighting, the beautiful light show is performed. In my opinion, I was a little disappointed in the two light shows I saw. It was definitely cool to see and would recommend it to any first-time visitors in Hong Kong, but I was expecting something different.

If you are a nature lover and like to go hiking, Dragon’s Back Trail is a really good place to start when in Hong Kong. I hiked Dragon’s Back when I was in Hong Kong for a class trip. I don’t generally love hikes but woooow it was worth it. Not just the views and whatever but just being there with some really cool people I luckily get to call my friends – honestly, priceless. Most of the hike was stairs and small uphill pathways (very

fun at the time…) and walking through the woods towards our end-point. We ended our hike at the cutest little local beach called Big Wave Beach. Local surfers were surfing in the water while we, more specifically... me, were just relaxing on the beach after our 3-4 hour hike. Dragon’s Back is not the only hiking trail Hong Kong has to offer, but definitely one that should be on your to-do list.

You cannot go to Hong Kong without visiting at least one temple! The first temple I ever visited in Hong Kong was the Wong Tai Sin Temple. Located in the north part of Kowloon, it is super easy to get to with the subway. Arriving at the temple, you will automatically smell the incense burning and see the locals and visitors praying to the Gods. It was pretty surreal being able to see such a big part of the Hong Kong culture. This temple was very colorful and very busy, and probably one of my favorite temples I’ve ever been to. Please remember to be respectful when entering such areas, don’t be a stupid tourist or a certain YouTuber.

Not far from the Wong Tai Sin Temple is the Ten Thousand Buddha Monastery. Yes, there are ten thousand Buddha’s here (i mean .. maybe, I actually have no idea.. BUT there are definitely a lot). While walking up what feels like ten thousand steps, you will see a bunch of Buddha’s along the stairs. Each one seems to have a different face or characteristic; a really cool and unique thing to see. Once you reach the top, there is a bigger Buddha where locals or visitors worship and pray (so be respectful, kids). The monastery has more small Buddha’s and colorful smaller temples. Maybe when we went it was not during peak season as there were not many other visitors, so it was very calm and relaxing after a long day in the busy Hong Kong streets.

Victoria Peak is located in Central on Hong Kong Island and rises above all the skyscrapers that Hong Kong has to offer. To get to the top, you can either hike up to the top (not what I did) or take the peak tram to the top (what I did). At the top, like any other tourist attraction, there is a place to buy souvenirs and eat over-priced meals. But, there is also a platform that gives you a 360 view of Hong Kong. This view is probably even more breathtaking than the view at Victoria Harbor. To get a nice picture, you will have to fight off some other overly excited tourists, but it will be so worth it! Peak tram tickets are fairly cheap and get you to the top pretty quickly; however, you will have to wait in the (long) lines to get onto a tram (still worth it, though).

It is one thing to see Hong Kong streets in the daytime but seeing and exploring them in the evening is a completely different experience! Watch the streets light-up while exploring the streets of Kowloon, Tsim Sha Tsui, or Central at night. The streets are covered in street signs, most of them Chinese characters in bright colors. At night, you can also visit night markets if you are looking for some cheap

clothes or souvenirs. If you are used to night markets in Taiwan (like me), these are a lot different… no food, no drinks, just cheap clothes and souvenirs – so we did not stay very long. Popular night markets people visit in Hong Kong are the Ladies Market and Temple Street night market.

Ready to explore the night life Hong Kong has to offer?? Take a taxi to Lan Kwai Fong and explore the streets filled with bars, restaurants, and clubs. Going out in Lan Kwai Fong was one of the highlights of my first trip to Hong Kong. The streets were packed with people and music. Being in this amazing country, with these amazing people, having drinks with good music – again, priceless!!! We started our night at this little bar located on a street corner that had great deals on shots…😏 After, we headed to a club where we stayed for the rest of the night, enjoying each other’s company and loving life. The atmosphere in Lan Kwai Fong is one I hope everyone will one day experience.

Alright so this was one of my “I HAVE TO GO THERE” when visiting Hong Kong for the first time. Located on Lantau Island, the Tian Tan Buddha is a little further from Hong Kong center than other tourist attractions. It took us about 1.5-2 hours getting there by subway and bus (and waiting in line to get onto the bus). There is a little shopping street before getting to the Big Buddha statue, where you can get souvenirs and other little items. To get right up to the Buddha, you can walk up the stairs on the hill while getting a nice view of the surrounding greenery. Please, please, please make time to go visit the Big Buddha!!!!

If you are getting a bit sick of being in the middle of the busy street-life of Hong Kong, take a walk through Kowloon Park! The park has different sections and things to see, one of them being flamingos! Walking through the calm park surrounded by skyscrapers was a nice way to relax during my trip, even though I was always ready to go back into the busy city life.

Hong Kong is known for its dim sum, so it is a must-try when visiting! My favorite restaurant for dim-sum in Hong Kong is Crystal Jade, which is located very close to Victoria Harbor in the shopping mall Harbor City. Here, you can get a bunch of different dim sum but also other dishes with noodles or rice – its veryyyyy good. There are a bunch of other more local restaurants that serve dim sum, so try and explore the streets a little bit until you find a place that you like (the dim sum will be good everywhere you go!)

This location is a little bit more for those who are into taking photos and like cool, unique, and more local spots. In this estate, on top of some random parking lot, there is one of the coolest photo spots I have ever been to. I really don’t know how to describe it or what it is used for (besides instagrammers trying to get the perfect picture). On top of this parking lot you also get a nice view of typical Hong Kong apartment buildings; colorful and a lot of apartments in one building. If you want a cool picture and have some extra time -- take an Uber to the Lok Wah Estate.

The Chi Lin Nunnery was a very peaceful and calming place. The nunnery is in the middle of the city and high-rise buildings, but it is a super quiet place. While exploring, you will see visitors pray and worship the Gods, so another place to experience this part of the Hong Kong culture. When you have seen everything, you can head down to the Nan Lian Garden to walk through another quiet and calm place in the middle of busy Hong Kong. The garden is a decent size, so take your time to enjoy it fully.

Another location specifically for photographers, or anyone who loves some unique architecture. At the Choi Hung Estate Basketball Courts, you are in the midst of rainbow apartment buildings. The basketball court colors also have a retro feel to them. So the combination of rainbow buildings, nicely colored basketball courts, and local kids playing after school makes it a great stop on your to-see list in Hong Kong. It took us like 20 minutes to actually find the basketball courts, so after confusing the locals sitting outside for 20 minutes we were happy to finally find the photo-taking hotspot.

Taking in the city of Hong Kong can be done by exploring the Central district of Hong Kong Island. Being in between all the tall buildings, walking through the busy streets, and trying some local foods is how you really get to experience a city. You don’t need to have a specific destination, as all the streets will lead you somewhere cool (whether you are looking for it or not). In Central you will find the art district, Statue Square, a never-ending escalator, Lan Kwai Fong, nice local restaurants, amazing shopping, and so much more!

Hong Kong is one of my favorite Asian cities I have traveled to, so I recommend it to anyone looking for their next destination! This lists only a few of the many things to do, so I hope to add to this list in the future when I visit Hong Kong again!

With love,
Sara

PS: check out my video montage of my last trip to HK at the top of this post :)

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Exploring The Island of Cebu // The Philippines

11/25/2017

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Seeing that the Philippines are super close to Taiwan, I could not give up the opportunity to go travel around a bit in another new country! The Philippines have an incredible amount of different islands, so all of the Philippines I was not able to see in just 5 days. We spent our long weekend away on the island of Cebu.

From Taichung, we took a bus to get to the airport in Taipei. It went super fast and was super cheap so I will definitely be doing this again instead of getting a taxi to drive us 2 hours to the airport.. for like 10x the price. From Taipei, we took a non stop flight to the island of Cebu! Seeing that in the city of Cebu there is not really that much to see, our first stop was on the West part of the island: Moalboal.

It was a 3+ hour drive there, so we didn’t really get to see the little beach village in the daylight on our first day, but the vibes in the evening were nevertheless amazing! We stayed in the area of Panagsama beach (incase anyone cares). After arriving at our Airbnb, we went out right away to go explore. There were little restaurants, bars, massage places, souvenirs shops, etc. about 5 minute walk from our house, so it was perfect. We had dinner, some drinks, and later went for a much needed massage (that only cost 5€..). A very nice, relaxing night after a whole day of traveling!

Yay! Our first full day on Cebu island. We booked a day trip to go to the Kawasan waterfalls in Moalboal today, as it is one of the best waterfalls on this part of the island. So after we got breakfast, we headed over to where we would meet our tour guides. To get to the waterfalls, we had to drive for about 45 minutes. This was nice to hear because I had slept super bad the night before so I was excited to be able to close my eyes for a bit in the car. Little did I know, we would be taking a motorcycle type tricycle type taxi. I am not sure if these are sold this way, but I had never seen or been on anything like it. It was not very relaxing (I definitely couldn’t sleep), but it was super fun actually. We sped through the rainy streets of Moalboal and a short 45 minutes later we got to where the tour would begin. We decided that we wanted to see and experience the waterfalls by canyoneering. You can also go trecking or something, or just hike from the bottom to each waterfall.

Canyoneering is starting from the top of the mountain/waterfall and hiking, climbing, swimming, sliding, falling, jumping... (I think you get my gist) down. In the photos the water looked super clear and super relaxed so we thought this would be the best way to see the waterfalls. Hmm.. you should know that the night before, and maybe even the days before, there was a storm with a lot of rain. So the current was strong and water levels were very high, maybe not the best conditions to go climb down a waterfall but hey, we are brave and adventurous students (lol) so yeah of course we would still do it. (Btw, we only found out about the high levels and strong current after already being partly down the waterfall so really we didn’t have much choice but to continue on down for the next 3-4 hours).

Regardless of the occasional slipping off of a rock, or getting carried away by the strong current and having your tour guide grab your arm (aka life saver), it was a lot of fun. I don’t think I have done anything this “thrill seeking” in a while. I honestly felt like we were on an episode of survivor and we had to find our way back to civilization by hiking and climbing through the jungle. After 5 hours of “canyoneering” and two scratched up and blue knees, we made it out of the jungle alive. 💪🏼🐒

We got back to the office to grab our bags and got a ride (tricycle motorcycle taxi ride) from the canyoneering company to our new Airbnb in Lambug Beach, where we will be staying for one night. We were honestly so tired from the whole day that when we got to our room, the only thing we thought of was food and relaxing. The landlord was nice enough to order us some foooood, so we didn’t even have to leave the house (perfect). We ended the night by staying up waiting for our fourth partner in crime to join us after her mini trip of visiting her friend on another island. 😴

Waking up in Lambug Beach Saturday morning to the sun shining was the best way to wake up. I could feel the warmth from the sun radiate through the window and heat our room; I loved it. We quickly got ready and ate breakfast, and then headed straight to the beach. We had about an hour of good sunshine until, of course, it had to start raining. At first it was some light rain, not a big deal, we stayed on the beach and kind of just ignored it.

However, like 20 minutes later the rain started to really come down. Being on a public beach, there was no place to sit with a decent roof, so we hid under a tree, which still got us as wet as just standing in the open rain. The thing I hate most about rain is having my clothes get soaked and not being able to properly dry them, and because we were traveling to the next location a few hours later, this was going to be the case; traveling 2 hours with a bag of wet clothes. Putting my drama queen attitude aside, I knew everything was going to get wet regardless so we enjoyed the remainder of the morning and went into the ocean; enjoying the warm water while outside of the water it was getting pretty cold.

Before heading for lunch, we went back to our airbnb and got into some clean, dry clothes. Then we were picked up by another one of those tricycle motorcycle taxi rides to bring us to where we could get some food and also take a bus later to go down south to Oslob.
Getting a bus took foreverrrr, and whenever one passed us it was always so full that people were even standing where the doors usually close. Luckily, these two taxi guys started talking to us and offered a private ride down to Oslob for a certain price. After some negotiating (which you really have to do in this country because they might take advantage of the situation if you don’t play hard) our HUGEEE (limo) van arrived and drove us down about 2 hours.

By the time we found our hotel, everyone seemed pretty K.O.. I am not sure if this was all over the Philippines on this day, but when we arrived at our hotel, we were invited to join the family for a home cooked dinner they had prepared for us. They kept saying “it’s fiesta!”, so what I understood from it is on this day, all family guests or hotel guests get offered dinner. The food was really good, and again, it was done for us so we didn’t have to worry about anything – definitely a nice feeling of having to do nothing after a long day.

During dinner, we had made the plan for the following day which would require us to wake up around 6am. At the time, we didn’t really look forward to waking up this early, but wow… it was so, so worth it.

Getting a very, very early start to today, we also started the day with a very, very exciting activity. We had signed up to go swimming, in open water, with whale sharks!!! These animals are super safe for humans and (I don’t think) can do any harm to us, which makes it a little less bad-ass for swimming with them but WOW, I DON'T CARE - IT WAS AWESOME.

There were so many of them and they were so chill with us just swimming there, I still can’t believe it. The company where we got our gear had warned us not to get too close, and not to touch the whale sharks (obviously) but it was so hard not to because the SHARKS were the ones getting too close and swimming into us. At one point, I was just coming back up from trying to take some underwater pictures, one of the sharks basically swam between my legs like this was some kind of game or something; not giving a single ****. What I liked most about this experience was that the sharks were in the open water; yes, I am sure they don’t love humans annoying them but at least they were able to swim away if they wanted to. I loved it --- If you go to Oslob, go swimming with whale sharks!! Do it!!!

The rest of the day was super relaxed and super needed. We laid out by the pool (I was almost the whole day in the pool) and everyone just got to do what they wanted that day- read, write, swim, sleep. The weather was warm and sunny all day; it was perfect.
In the evening we did what we always do --eat, drink, talk about conspiracy theories, then sleep.

Today, we would leave Oslob and go back north to the city of Cebu. This being our last day, we thought it’d be best to go back closer to the airport so we didn’t have to leave at 2am with a bus to catch our flight early Tuesday morning.

We woke up relaxed.. very relaxed. Got breakfast, packed, and took the cheapest and easiest bus I have ever taken. Going from Oslob to Cebu City, which is like a 4-hour drive, it only cost us 260 pesos/3.25 euros. I think a bus ticket from my place in Antwerp to my grandparents’ house (30-minute ride) already costs more than that. The bus back to Cebu is where we spent most of our day, especially seeing that from the bus station to our hotel was another hour by Uber.

I was feeling pretty sick by the end of the day, not enough sleep I guess, so I was all for ending the night early. We went for dinner in Lapu Lapu, not a very special town. Walked around a little bit in this not so special town, then got a ride back to our room. We had to get up supppperrrrr early (again) the next day, as our flight back was at 7am (I promise you, I barely slept this vacation). So seeing that the next morning we would be gone by 7, today was our last official day in the Philippines, and here is where our 5-day vacation came to an end.

The Philippines had been on my “to-go” list ever since I was accepted to come study here in Taiwan. It is super close and super beautiful so it would be extremely unfortunate if I didn’t get to go. These 5 days off were exactly what kind of vacation I needed; a mix of relaxing and actually doing/seeing things. The Philippines have soooo many islands, so I am not scraping it off of my list yet; there is so much more to see (and plenty of more time to see it all one day)!

On to the next adventure...

With love,
Sara

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