629. Hong Kong | Snapshots

I guess one of the advantages to being sick, especially on a weekend, is that I got caught up on a LOT of work today (though at a slower pace than usual) and two blog posts in one day! I know it has been forever since I did an Asia update but I will try to do as many as possible this week. At least one post a day. Editing these Hong Kong photos makes me miss it. I didn't go to Asia in all of 2017. Hopefully I will be able to again sometime this year..


I'm pretty behind on these Asia posts but you can't really tell in any of the photos except these (if you are familiar with which season of Fendi it's from hahahh)





One of my favourite memories..going out for late night desserts every night with my family there.









One of my favourite buildings there.








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Rockies Roadtrip | Quick Update

Arriving back in Toronto last night. As much as I love travelling and getting away from the city, I always love coming back home to Toronto. I love this city and it is home after all!

As you may have noticed, there was an abrupt end to my daily travel posts from the trip. I knew that if I let myself skip a day, I probably would've kept skipping days. Well I didn't know I would end up not posting at all for the final 11 days of the trip lol. There were a few reasons for this. Mostly because I had no time at all, slow internet, a lot of work, food poisoning, etc.

In the last update, I posted about Victoria. Getting back to our hotel in Vancouver that night was a looong stressful journey, and we ended up getting back super late. So I didn't have time to update. The next morning we left for Whistler where we were to stay for a night. As soon as we checked into our hotel in Whistler, we found out the next morning we had to be on the road already (to Kelowna) at 7am!! Thanks to the Ironman competition which conveniently and coincidentally was happening in Whistler that day. They were going to close a lot of roads and if we didn't leave at 7am we would've had to wait until 5pm that day to be able to drive on the highway again. So I didn't have time that night either.

The next morning, we left at 7am for Kelowna and had no luck getting any food or breakfast until 3-4 hours into the drive I think? Due to the lack of food and lack of sleep, I got extremely carsick and had to keep stopping the car along the way.

After Kelowna, we headed to Banff. I was fine in the car from then on - just had to make sure to sleep enough and eat before the drive lol. That night we arrived pretty late as well and ended up just getting some food at a grocery store for dinner. I am pretty sure I got food poisoning from something I ate. The next day I was bedridden for most of the day because I felt extremely nauseous (luckily that was the first day we decided to just stay in and relax anyway since the previous days had been so stressful and hectic)...I had to catch up on work as well so that's what I did the entire day in bed. It did take me the full day since the internet there was also suuuuper slow..so I didn't even attempt to upload photos and update the blog.

After about 2 days, I had recovered from my food poisoning. The last days of the trip (Calgary and Jasper) went fairly smoothly but consisted of a LOT of driving.

Anyway now I am back in Toronto. Just came back last night. I will definitely be posting the rest of the posts in the upcoming weeks (along with the Asia ones from last year still in progress hahah) but for now I just wanted to make a quick update. The trip was so much fun. So many funny moments and adventures every single day (at one time we literally ran out of gas and almost had to hitch hike to the nearest station or get towed..more on that in a future post). It was my first time travelling with friends and I really enjoyed it. I think we have a pretty similar travel style and personalities so it was great. Next time we reunite will be in Luxembourg! ;)

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586. Rockies Roadtrip | Day 1 (of 20) - YYZ to YVR

I'm currently in Vancouver!! I'm sooo tired right now though (not sure why - I doubt it's jetlag since the time difference is only 3 hours with Toronto) so this will be a quick and brief post. I arrived earlier this evening and came to my aunt's place. I will be staying with her for a few days and seeing relatives/friends until Anouk and Dan arrive for the actual roadtrip. (When I left Toronto, it was pouring rain. Now in Vancouver the weather is perfect; sunny, warm and no humidity. The plane ride over was pretty nice. I loved the view flying over all the States like Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Washington, etc. It was interesting to see the changing landscapes from the plane. I spent most of the flight looking out the window and snapping pics. I will be posting my experiences on Instagram and Snapchat so follow me on there (@leftbanked) if you want! I will also try my best to do daily blog posts.



Minnesota - perfect squares


South Dakota - at first I thought it was the desert but I guess it's grasslands/prairies..


Montana - my favourite! I want to go here so badly. Lots of mountains and beautiful landscapes





I really want to do a roadtrip all across the US someday


& finally, arriving in Vancouver...more to come tomorrow!

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540. HKG to YYZ

After almost a month away, I am now back in Toronto! Going from nice ~25C degree weather to ~10C..but I got a lot of Fall/Winter clothes in Asia that I'm excited to wear here lol. At the start of our trip, we flew from Toronto to Shanghai which felt like the longest flight I've ever been on (even though I've flown to Asia many times before so know what to expect)..that one in particular felt longer for some reason. Maybe because I was too excited to arrive there. This flight back today felt really short and I actually slept for most of it. I thought we were still halfway through the flight when my mom woke me up and told me they were handing out breakfast. Then I checked and saw there was like an hour left until landing, which was a nice surprise since I was still expecting 7 hours left. Also another great thing is that we flew "back in time"..since Hong Kong is currently 13 hours ahead of Toronto. So it's like we didn't even lose much time at all.

There was a LOT of turbulence on the flight (which happened exactly as I was taking these photos above and below..so I had trouble holding the camera steady). That wasn't the worst I experienced though. On 2 flights I've been on in the past, the turbulence was so bad the plane actually did a large drop and we all flew up a few inches over the seats and people screamed lol. That was the scariest moments I've ever had on a plane.

Now I have a lot to catch up on..mostly for the blog. I have enough blog posts to last me until my next vacation at least lol. I took about ~2300 photos in total. I mentioned before I wanted to try taking videos and editing them on this trip but I wasn't able to do that unfortunately =\ I think I should test it out first here in Toronto, as it would require a lot more time to film and take photos at the same time which I wasn't able to do on this trip.

So here are a couple photos from the Arctic, and a few from my last day in Hong Kong. My favourite view is flying over mountains. Especially in the Arctic. I LOVE these remote parts of the world and have always wanted to visit the Arctic..it's so beautiful.






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437. PEK to HKG

After several days in Beijing, we flew to Hong Kong. The older I get, the more I love Hong Kong. I have been there several times when I was younger, but only began to fully appreciate it this time. I am not sure if I can ever live there but I love visiting. There's so much to do there and the shopping is the best.


Leaving Beijing


Short flight over to Hong Kong..


Perrier water fizzed out and ruined my Keepall :( The water stains are unfortunately permanent.


Landed in Hong Kong..picked up some of these at the bakery


Breakfast the next morning at a little cafe/restaurant/eatery..not sure what to call them. I always look forward to the breakfasts.

I'll be posting lots more from HK very soon!

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425. ASIA

Hello from Hong Kong!! So we have spent the past several days in Beijing, and got here to Hong Kong last night. As I said in my previous post..I had been planning to do daily blog posts. Unfortunately, China had pretty much everything blocked (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, WhatsApp, Gmail & most importantly..my blog) so I was unable to come online as often as I had hoped, and to update my blog. I was able to come on someimes with my roaming plan (in exchange for a huge phone bill waiting for me back home). Now in HK, I am finally able to come on again but I have a LOT of Beijing posts to catch up on. I had an amazing time, I wish we could've spent more time there.

It's really late now and I have to sleep soon, but I wanted to give you a quick update. Here's the photos taken before the flight and as we were landing...I will try to start today on daily posts!!


Before this, its been over a year since I have gone on an international flight/in the international departures at Pearson Airport..so I'm not sure how new this area is. It definitely didn't look like this when I was here in 2013. I really like the new look and all the seating & iPads.











The flight from Toronto to Beijing was about 13 hours. Surprisingly, the time passed by pretty fast. I had been prepared for a long boring flight. We flew over the Arctic and I was able to get some shots of the amazing view.

After landing, we drove about 2 hours in traffic before arriving at our hotel. The lobby was beautiful..it smelled really nice in there too. I'll do a full post on it in a future post!

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