799. Bangkok Part 5 | Exploring our Neighbourhood

We've been out of quarantine for a few days now and I finally have a bit of time to update! We've had quite an eventful few days (probably a combination of being stuck inside for so long plus there's sooo much to do and see in Bangkok) - we explored our neighbourhood a bit (Bang Rak), visited Iconsiam mall, visited Chatuchak market, visited Asiatique, visited Chinatown, and walked around a lot. We are loving the city so far and having an amazing time. The weather here is extremely hot but its bearable/I am slowly getting used to it. I really love the street food culture and the shopping! Everything is so cheap. The Thai people are also extremely friendly.

The photo above is the view from our place. I really love it. We are staying at State Tower which is the building where the movie Hangover was filmed. There is an amazing rooftop bar/restaurant which I'm excited to check out.

Quick photo of our place. I forgot to take more photos before it got all messy now so I'll take more after we have it cleaned.

Our first meal! There's street food stands literally everywhere here.

So many power cables everywhere

My first purchase - these Fila sneakers.
They were only $15 CAD!! (& they are real from an actual store - not fake ones I found on the street)

I think this is how the street food stalls wash the dishes and everything

Our view at night

First night's dinner

This congee place (Jok Prince) is really good! It's located right behind our building. We came a couple times for breakfast already. They have been in the Michelin guide for many years and is really inexpensive (like $2-3 a bowl)

Our building!

There's a lot of temples and shrines everywhere on the street

There were fireworks last night. Not sure what the occasion was..



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584. Shanghai | Yuyuan Garden

I just took a look at today's date on the calendar on my screen and almost had a mini heart attack when I realized I'm leaving for my next trip very soon - next week to be precise. It was planned quite a long time ago and I always kept thinking it's far away and we still had lots more time to plan...but as always, time had flown by way too fast and I feel I still have a million things to do before I leave!! I really wish I had more time in a day and/or was better at managing my time. Or just have less things I want to do overall. I wish I had more time for this blog, my second blog/website, catch up on all my magazine subscriptions as they come in (about 25 issues behind now? lol), not miss any yoga classes, work out more, cook more, etcetc...

Anyways, what inspired me to make this post was the fact that I had wanted to finish up all my Asia posts before I go on my trip. But as you can see, that didn't happen. I still have a lot more posts to make and there's now no way that I can finish them all before I leave. I'd have to post about 3 a day lol. So I guess I'll just have to mix up all my travel posts from now on.

I'm not sure if I mentioned yet where I'm going for my next trip? I'm not going overseas this time but I am going somewhere with a couple friends from overseas. I will reveal the destination closer to the date..can't wait!

For now, here are some photos from our days in Shanghai visiting Yuyuan Garden. It's a beautiful garden spread over 5 acres believed to have been built over 400 years ago during the Ming Dynasty. We only got to see a small part of it. I'd love to visit Shanghai again and explore more here because I really loved the architecture here.















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538. Day 24 | Cheung Chau

Today we went to the island of Cheung Chau for hiking and a lot of cool street food. I had visited a couple times when I was younger, but had no recollection. I really enjoyed it there today. We went hiking up a mountain to look down at an incredible view. It was about 26C degrees today and with the sun shining down on us as we were hiking, it was really hot and tiring. But the view was so worth it. Also at the top there was a lot of wind so it was nice and relaxing. Then we had some cold desserts when we got back down.

This was part of our hike. As always, it is a lot more impressive in person. I really love the city life but I also love being in nature. If I lived here I would like to go hiking around different mountains all the time.



Here is my "sheet" of watermelon. We saw a man eating one on the street..then another one who was eating it then threw it away after a few bites. I thought it looked really cool (& I love watermelon!) so I had to try one. I kind of suspected it wouldn't taste that good since it was frozen. & I was right. There was pretty much no taste..I had about half and got rid of it after, just like the guy did lol.



A nice sunset as we were leaving.



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520. Day 6 | Yuyuan Garden, Shanghai

Today was the final day of our tour (that we joined..not of the whole Asia trip!). It went by really fast. We drove all the way from Huangshan back to Shanghai, which took about 6 hours. By the time we got to Shanghai, it was already early evening. Luckily my mom and I are staying in Shanghai for a few more days as we have some relatives here and they will be taking us around. I think the most famous landmark of Shanghai is the Oriental Pearl Tower. We saw it from a distance today..it's really beautiful and colourful. It constantly changes colours and sparkles. I can't wait to explore more of the city and The Bund! Also there is one place I've wanted to visit in Shanghai since 2010. That should be a clue for what it is lol..I actually posted about it on my secondary blog back then (now deleted). Hopefully we'll get a chance to visit.

Today in Shanghai we went around this place called Yuyuan (or Yu) Garden. I loved it there. Lots of street food and "xiaolongbao". I loved the old style of buildings and streets there.





On a side note - the worst thing about China is the toilet situation. Most of them you have to squat. & most of them are really dirty with no toilet paper. I encountered two of the worst today. It was raining the whole day (in Huangshan and Shanghai). The first one we were at this museum and I had to go...the washroom was kind of in a small separate building on its own, at the back. Not even a building. Maybe just a small shed. So I walked out in the rain and when I got there I see it just opened into one stall. There were no lights inside and it was just a hole in the ground. I had no choice but to use it lol..just the worst scenario I thought, in the dark and all wet from the rain. No sink to wash my hands either. But that wasn't the worst. The second one..we made a pit stop for lunch along the highway. The building we went into was this food court, half under construction. It turns out the washrooms were not built yet so they had porta pottys. It was still raining at this time. Porta pottys are the worst, even if they are actual sitting toilets. But these were squatting porta pottys, with the most horrible smell inside. Nowhere to wash our hands there either.

Sorry to end this post in this way lol. On a more positive note, since our tour has now ended..we get to sleep in a bit later tomorrow morning! Well, waking up at 7am (in 5 hours) instead of 5am wake ups like we did the past several days.

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