801. Bangkok Part 7 | Chatuchak Market & My New Bag!

My new bag! I love it so much. I've wanted an Alma BB for a really long time, but I've always wanted the vernis version in red/cherry colour but never went through with buying it. A couple weeks ago when we went to Iconsiam, I wanted to check if the store had one. I wasn't fully convinced I would buy it still. They didn't have the vernis but they had this one. I tried it on and instantly fell in love! This is in epi leather with a jacquard strap which I now love a lot more than the vernis, plus it will be easier to maintain. I realize that most of my bags and other designer items were purchased vacations abroad. I like having a memory attached to them, plus most of the time it's less expensive than getting from Canada.

This is a really useful travel bag, even though it is a bit small. But definitely a lot more convenient for every day use than my Alma MM lol.

I really like eating out at these local spots. This noodle place is my favourite for soup noodles. All the food here is so cheap! They always range from $2-3 per dish, are so delicious, and quick to be served. Our area is really good for eating. The entire street behind us is lined with food carts and little restaurants. We are also very close to a night market called Bangrak Bazaar which we just stumbled upon a couple nights ago.

Hanging our laundry outside to dry. Unfortunately my boyfriend has lost about 6 of his underwear, thanks to a gust of wind. I wonder what new lives they are living now.

On our first weekend, we visited Chatuchak Market. It's the largest market in Thailand (possibly all of Asia), with 27 sections and 15,000 stalls. They only open on weekends. They sell everything and anything you can possibly want. I am not sure how big of an area we covered that day but we mainly looked at the clothing section and pets section. Sadly, due to COVID, many shops were closed. But even with the closed stalls, there was still a lot to see.

This store sells fake/plastic fruits and vegetables. I'm not sure what the purpose would be lol.

Lastly, the pets section! From my understanding, each stall is occupied by a different breeder. I wanted to take one back so badly. I felt bad for the dogs being stuck there in such small spaces though, especially the Tibetan Mastiffs.

The Tibetan Mastiffs! They are HUGE! I am not sure if you can tell the size from this photo. I've only seen them in photos and videos before but never in person.

Rabbits are the only animal I don't like for some reason. But these furry ones are cute.



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786. Morocco Part 13 | Ceramics and Rug Shopping

Fes is the capital of arts and culture in Morocco, and it's easy to see why. I really love their style of decor here. It's all very colourful, a bit whimsical and primarily handmade. Even the buildings in the medina and little alleyways have a lot of paintings.

My favourite souvenirs from here are the ceramics. The rugs are also very beautiful. If I was in the market for one I would definitely want to get it here. I prefer their style to Persian rugs which I don't really like to be honest. The Moroccan ones are more modern (but timeless) with more colours and images.

We visited this rug store set inside a huge riad. Their rooms were piled up with rugs of all sizes. I think there must have been tens of thousands. The entire riad was covered in mosaics. It was all very beautiful and detailed.

We were also brought to the rooftop to see the view

We also visited this ceramics factory. This man is preparing the clay.

Artisans at work.

Every piece of the mosaics are made by hand. They are used for the tables behind or walls and floors. I can't imagine how many hours are spent to make one table (or to cover an entire riad).

Half finished. I assume they go through different layers of paint.

I love/wanted to buy EVERYTHING!!

Finished pieces

In the end, we ended up buying these (+ 1 other thing not shown in the picture). It took me quite a long time to choose and narrow down what I wanted, and also to haggle down the price lol. The tajine is for cooking with and a gift for my mom. It's pretty heavy. I wonder why tajines are not more popular worldwide. I really love them. The factory shipped everything back to Toronto for us as there's no way we could lug these around in our suitcases lol.

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658. Eurotrip Day 3 of 28 | Shopping and Nobu

Today was a good day. I had a pretty productive morning work session. Then I had a successful shopping trip. Then a delicious dinner at Nobu. It's my final night in London. Tomorrow night I fly to Spain..I am really excited to see my boyfriend again. We've only been apart a few days but it feels like way longer hahah. I feel I didn't do as much in London this time..but it was nice to catch up with Anouk. I'm really looking forward to the rest of my trip.

There is a Le Pain Quotidien right beside my hotel so I went there for breakfast and a few hours of work this morning. It was definitely the most enjoyable "work breakfast" I ever had. I really liked the atmosphere there and the staff were really nice. & I loved the porridge!


Then shopping at Selfridges!



There was this Fendi pop-up in Selfridges. I got a hazelnut gelato popsicle. It was sooo delicious.

Then I went to the Adidas store across the street, not planning to really get anything (since I was just in the Toronto store recently and didn't find anything I liked). I loved it here! The selection is so much better than in Toronto (as with most stores lol) and I found so many things I wanted. A lot of the designs I've never even seen. I bought these things here, except the pale pink tshirt. The fit resembled a wet suit too much. Just when I thought my Stellasport/Stella McCartney Adidas phase was over lol.


After that I rushed back to my hotel to drop everything off before going to meet Anouk for a quick drink prior to our dinner.

Then dinner at Nobu! It was my first time here. The food was all really good. I over-ordered though, as usual, and left feeling really full. I will make a separate post dedicated to this dinner in the future.


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531. Day 17 | Nara and Kobe

Tonight is our last night in Japan! :( We have a half day here tomorrow then we are back in Hong Kong tomorrow night. This morning the sun finally came out. We went to Nara Park. I was quite excited to see this beautiful heron. I had always wanted to see a heron in the wild. We watched this one catch and eat a few fish.

However I was mostly looking forward to seeing the deer here! There are apparently over 1000 of them that roam the park. I've never had an encounter like that with a deer before..in Canada, all the wild deer are rare to spot and run away immediately as soon as they see you. So seeing them in the wild is always a special moment. & today we even got to go up and pet them all.

We were able to feed them "deer crackers" ..I actually tasted a piece myself lol. It tasted like nothing. I think it's kind of like a dog treat (I've tasted a dog treat before as well..tasted the same/like nothing - as they shouldn't eat sugars or flavours).



They were so adorable! This was an enclosed area with a few younger deer. The others are allowed to roam all around.



Then we attended a sushi-making class which then ended up being our lunch.


Then we went to a city called Kobe, world famous for its kobe beef! We had a few hours here to explore and shop on our own. This bakery we went to was called Uncle Jam's Bakery. They sell all these different kinds of Anpanman breads. I got a chocolate and custard one. Each is a different flavour and it took us so long to choose..I wanted them all lol. They were delicious!!


*Now this is going to be quite a long story, of the most expensive drink I've ever purchased (in a way), which I managed to do even after the store was closed*

So even with a few hours of shopping today, I didn't manage to buy anything. I had actually been really good so far on this trip. We've been around Shanghai, Hong Kong and now Kyoto/Osaka for over 2 weeks already and I had purchased really little. I always thought the main thing I wanted to get on this trip was a new camera.

That is until we got back to the hotel tonight. Our hotel here is huge and has a LOT of clothing boutiques but unfortunately, we are always out during the hours they're open so we never got a chance to shop around here. We arrived back at our hotel tonight around 8:30pm. All the clothing shops in the hotel close at that time as well or even earlier. Except for a 7-11 convenience store. Last night we went there I got a "16 Tea" - tea made from 16 different vegetables. It was really nice to drink, especially before bed, so I wanted one again tonight. So..that ended up being the most expensive tea I have ever purchased lol. Because I ended up buying a pair of shoes along with it!

Yesterday I mentioned trying on sandals with fur at the department store. I had been wanting fur shoes for a long time already; ever since I discovered the Pierre Hardy fur sneakers. Unfortunately those ones weren't able to be shipped to Canada because of the fur I assume, and over the past few weeks I've seen some fur ones here in Asia but none were even close to what I wanted. I actually have kind of a different taste in fashion than most people..the fur shoes are kind of crazy and I don't know if many people like them, but I really love them. This is what they look like. I should also mention that I don't like many things but when I find something I do like...I try to get it no matter what.

Anyways back to the tea purchase. After I got the tea, my mom wanted to walk through one hallway as there was an art store with some nice paintings/dolls in the window that she wanted to look at. Right beside that boutique was another where I spotted some pink fur sneakers in the window. They caught my eye immediately as the style was exactly what I wanted (& now I realize I like them even more than the Pierre Hardy ones). The shop had already been closed for maybe 20 minutes, but the 2 sales associates were still inside possibly eating their dinner. They saw us peeking in..then told us they were closed but let us in anyway as I said all I wanted to do was take a look at the shoes. I didn't even think to buy them because they were bright pink. Then she comes up behind me with the pair in another colour...the perfect shade of navy blue!! My favourite colour. They were so beautiful I knew I wanted them immediately. I tried them on and immediately loved them. Slowly got past the sticker shock and decided to buy them. I know if it was anything else, this would have been a really impulsive purchase (since I was kind of forced to make a decision to buy them or not right away..as the store was already closed and I felt bad for asking to go in after hours). But the sales associates were so nice and patient, as they all are in Japan. I knew if I didn't get them I would regret it, and I had been wanting shoes like that since forever. & finally found the perfect ones :D

I ended up purchasing them and they walked us out the store. There was a looong hallway to walk up the stairs to the lobby, but the sales associates stood there waving to us and bowing the entire time, until we were out of sight. We know this because we looked back a few times to check if they were really still there lol. It was probably a 20-30 second walk.

I will post pics of them a later time but they are on my Snapchat (username - leftbanked) if you want to take a look! ;)


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