702. Peru Trip | Day 1: Impressions of Lima

Hello from Peru! We are currently in our hotel at Paracas as I type this. I have been quite busy since arriving that I haven't had much time for a proper update..but there is a lot I wanted to write about regarding my first impressions of Peru/my first time ever in South America. I'm having a really good time so far.

I'm going to try and limit the photos to a maximum of 5 for these travel diary posts. When I am back in Toronto I will do full in-depth posts.

So we arrived in Lima a couple nights ago..very late at night (1:30am to be exact). It turns out the Pan Am games are being held in Lima this year so our flight was full of team Canada's athletes (mostly rugby players).

We waited quite a long time for our luggage then proceeded out to get a taxi to our hotel. I turned around and recognized a familiar face. By a huge coincidence, it turned out to be a famous travel vlogging/influencer couple that I follow. My boyfriend and I had just watched some of their vlogs from the Amazon before coming on our trip so it was so crazy to see them just as we arrive, walking right beside us (their videos from here were from over a year ago..we had no idea they would be here at this time). I was shocked. We got in our taxi then my boyfriend yelled out that I was a big fan but was too shy to say hi lol.

After that we left the airport and drove to our hotel in Miraflores. By the time we arrived and got settled in it was like 4am so we went to sleep right away.

The next morning, after breakfast we walked around our area a bit. As I mentioned, it is my first time visiting South America but I didn't feel much of a culture shock at all. Lima isn't that different from anywhere I've visited before (I think it has some similarities to Asia, Europe and North America). One thing I noticed is that the driving is pretty crazy. We actually witnessed a full on car crash while walking around Miraflores. We also almost got hit by cars while crossing the street. Then, as we were Uber-ing on the highway..I noticed the car beside us was pretty close. It got closer and closer until it was within an inch of us and I thought for sure we would crash. Luckily our driver swerved out of the way at the last second. So it was a very close call. I'm pretty sure crashes happen there quite often as the roads are a mess and drivers seem to have disregard for driving in lanes.

Another pretty interesting thing I noticed is that there's a lot of sellers on the roads. Like people selling random things on the highway (everything from drinks to selfie sticks to Peruvian flags). I am not sure why someone driving in their car would suddenly feel a desire to buy a flag lol. There's always a lot of traffic though so the cars go pretty slow most of the time..making it possible for these sellers to come around.


For dinner we went to a restaurant called Kjolle, one of the best in Lima. It was an amazing experience! Everything was so uniquely prepared and there were a lot of flavours I've never tasted before. I will devote an entire post to this dinner in a later post. So far, all the food here in Peru have been so good. I was told this before I came and it's definitely true.

Now I will go to sleep..tomorrow we will be going to Huacachina!




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691. Dinner at Envy

On New Year's Day, we went for a tasting menu dinner at Envy. Dishes were a combination of innovative yet traditional. They took a lot of care and attention to detail in plating each course. The photo above is just an intermezzo. I am not sure exactly what it consisted of (everything except the shell was edible) but it was actually one of my favourites of the whole meal. We had 8 courses in total plus an amuse bouche box and the intermezzo. The entire dinner took about 3 hours as we had a bit of a wait in between each course. Other than that I really enjoyed the food and the experience!


Amuse Bouche box


Pork Belly + Eel + Tangerine


Oyster + Beet + Sheep Yogurt


Signature Dish: Caviar (that they suggested we eat from our hand like that) + 62°egg + Garlic


Halibut + Sage + Zucchini


Kolhrabi + Truffle + Hazelnut


Deer + Foie + Pistachio


Fig + Red Wine + Apple Syrup


Bread 'n Butter + Vanilla + Caramel


The personalized menu was a nice touch. My favourites were the pork belly, halibut, kohlrabi and desserts.

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688. Dinner at La Cabra & Last Day in Madrid

On our last evening in Madrid, we had dinner at La Cabra, a Michelin-starred restaurant by chef Javier Aranda. Unfortunately I was pretty sick those days and happened to lose my sense of smell/sense of taste that night. Needless to say, I didn't taste anything at all :( Unluckily this was the only meal during the entire trip I couldn't taste lol. My boyfriend had to describe all the tastes to me along the way. He said everything was really delicious. I still thoroughly enjoyed the experience though, and everything was so beautifully and uniquely presented. Each course came with a different set of utensils that perfectly matched with how to eat it.

My favourite presentation was the eggs dish. I thought the square stands they were on were just pieces of paper to prop them up. But they were edible. I think they were made of extremely thin slices of fried potatoes.





The following day, with a few hours to spare before going to the airport, we just walked around the city park and streets:









& I got a new Kenzo sweater!


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651. Shanghai | Fu He Hui

We went to Fu He Hui for dinner one night in Shanghai. It is a Michelin-starred vegetarian fine dining restaurant. All the rooms are private and you can only order the tasting menus which feature a variety of exotic vegetables and fungi. It was a really nice experience and peaceful atmosphere.













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524. Day 10 | PVG to HKG

We've arrived in Hong Kong!! Our two-hour flight over from Shanghai ended up getting delayed by 2 hours, so our trip over took twice as long. My sister and a few of my aunts came to pick us up from the airport. We flew with Hong Kong Airlines for the first time, which seems to be quite a new airline. As we did the baggage drop, they told me to go into the baggage check room as there was an issue with my luggage. I had to open it for them and then they confiscated my nail polish and nail polish remover (which had very very little left...and was in my checked luggage anyway - not carry on!). A bit strange because that has never happened to me before with any other airline. Not sure why I wasn't allowed to bring that on as they even sold nail polish in the duty free shops which means it is allowed on the plane.

Also one thing I'm really happy about is having fast and reliable Internet again. & not having to go through the hassle of signing onto my VPN every time. It was really challenging in China..the Internet is extremely slow and always suddenly disconnects.

Today for our final meal in Shanghai, we went to a restaurant called Ye Olde Station for traditional Shanghai food. I loved the restaurant's atmosphere and the food was amazing as well. It is set in a historic building dating back to the 1800s. It was once a monastery then remodelled into a train station. The restaurant had a lot of antiques on display with a few old train carriages set out back (see photo above). It doesn't have a Michelin star just yet but it is one of their "recommended restaurants" in their guide. We had such amazing food in Shanghai...really going to miss it!!



Shanghai Pudong Airport


I'm starting to really dislike flying. I used to love being on long-haul flights (because it meant I was going on vacation) but now vacations are more common for me and I always look forward to the destination so much I just wish I could get there quicker. After the super long 14-hr trip over from Canada, this 2-hr flight over seemed like nothing. Even with the delay. Then I realized when we go back to Toronto it will be like 7 times the length of this flight lol :s Not looking forward to that..


Probably the worst quality photo I will ever post on here lol. It is the view of the sea flying into Hong Kong..look at the sea of boats/ships/yachts down there! There are sooo many of them. The view from the plane was so nice, but impossible to capture in a photo.

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523. Day 9 | Final Day in Shanghai

This was sadly our final day in Shanghai, and the day we ate the best. I really enjoyed it here and would like to return someday..because of our short time here and the horrible rainy weather, we didn't get to fully explore it. In the morning my cousin had to go swimming, so we walked around the clubhouse while we waited. It was so beautiful inside!! I really love this huge chandelier and ceiling. Apparently the area is one of the wealthiest of Shanghai, so the mansions are all huge and beautiful. It doesn't even look like typical Shanghai, with palm trees everywhere and so much open land. By the way, if you haven't already, you can follow me on Snapchat for more (Username: Leftbanked).



My favourite car!! Except not in yellow.


Then we went to an area a bit outside of Shanghai called Suzhou for lunch at Din Tai Fung. It's considered as the best restaurant for "xiaolongbao" and some of its locations even have Michelin stars. I'm not that into xiaolongbao but I loved everything else we ordered there. Will post more in a later post. The mall it was in was beautiful as well and had a Caffe Florian!! I was surprised to see they opened a location there. I love that place. I used to go to the one in Harrods every day when I visited London lol.


Then we went to Eslite Bookstore, a famous bookstore originating from Taipei. It was really nice in there but unfortunately we didn't have a lot of time to spend there. It's not just a bookstore..I'd call it more of a department store for uniquely designed products. I wanted so many things but most were large and not possible to bring back home. I wish we had a store like that in Toronto..because it's really hard for me to find things I like, and this place was perfect as I liked almost everything!


For dinner we went to Fu Hei He restaurant. Everything was vegetarian and served like a tasting menu (8 courses). It has won many awards before and is #19 of Asia's best restaurants! It also has a Michelin star. We had a private room for our table. It was such a fun experience and perfect way to end the Shanghai portion of our trip.

I will do a full post on this dinner later! I'm going to have blog content for months and months when I return...

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