Overall, I enjoyed my time there. Usually, after a vacation, I wouldn't really feel that I had left but this time, I really felt that I did. I have a feeling it's due to the exhaustion after visiting Japan and Hong Kong... the time I spent there was enjoyable but very exhausting, since I walked a lot in those two countries.
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Taiwan
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| Taken from my Instagram! which is @karenista if you're curious ;) |
I stayed in Taiwan for 7 days, but technically only toured the country for 5 days, because the damn tour counts the first day when you arrive and the last day that you leave as part of the tour. And guess what, you don't do anything those two days. -_- Kinda disappointing...
Honestly, the only exciting part about Taiwan lies probably in the northern region, since there are more cities there, like Taipei. (Well, I'm a city-oriented girl so that could explain it.) The southern region was kinda boring, if I may say so, unless you love the countryside, of course. But surprisingly, all the hotels I stayed in had offered WiFi, so I guess southern Taiwan had its own merit. :)
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| 7-Eleven in the boonies |
7-Eleven Heaven
7-Eleven is the rage. I heard there were about 9,000 7-Elevens in the whole country (which isn't very big), so you can probably get the gist of how many you could see in one day. Every time the tour bus turned the corner, I'd see a 7-Eleven. Another corner; another 7-Eleven. It was kind of amusing. Even in the boonies, you could trust that you'd find a 7-Eleven somewhere. If not 7-Eleven, maybe a Family Mart or 全家, which is also a popular convenience store, or some Circle K rip offs.
Night Markets...
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| Liu He night market! |
Leaving Early :(
My family had to leave early to catch another separate tour in Japan, we had to cut our visit to Taipei short. Which is an utter shame, since Taipei was the place I very much looked forward to... not the countryside.... So my parents decided that we will come back one day. Without a tour. And spend our time only in the northern region. ^^ LOL
Overall...
Taiwan, overall, was very relaxing though. The tour wasn't too intense, and seeing the greeny hills and trees was refreshing to some level, even though the greeny hills got boring after spending 4 days with them.
There was -ahem- also another factor that made the trip enjoyable, but that'll remain a secret among me and the couple people I've told ;)
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Japan
Japan was very nice. Veeehehehehry nice. But, regrettably, also a liiiittle on the disappointing side. The things that made me feel 'eh' about this trip was the length of the overall trip, and the short amount of time I got to spend in Tokyo. The tour here was 6 days, which means the actual touring takes up only 4. Therefore... I only got to spend ONE day in Tokyo. One.
We started the day in Tokyo really early in the morning, so the day was long, but I'm still really bummed out about it. But it's okay, my parents are deciding for us to come back in the future too. Without a tour. ^^ LOL
Fun fact: There was a person who went/goes to my school who went on this trip, but in a different group (I was Group A and she was Group B).... really super x10 awkward 'cuz I know her and I have friends who know her, but she doesn't know me... hahahaha... I didn't approach her at all though, because of my lovely social anxiety.
Fun fact: There was a person who went/goes to my school who went on this trip, but in a different group (I was Group A and she was Group B).... really super x10 awkward 'cuz I know her and I have friends who know her, but she doesn't know me... hahahaha... I didn't approach her at all though, because of my lovely social anxiety.
Weather
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| Gloomy days in Japan... a pro AND a con. |
The weather was also a factor that made the trip disappointing. Though it was nice, it was raining a lot during the trip, so there was a lot of fog and gray clouds. Which meant that when we went up to Fuji mountain, we saw nothing but a bunch of mist, fog, and gray clouds... which completely covered the view. -_- But we did catch a glimpse of it when we went down the mountain, and amusingly the bus driver pulled over to the side and allowed us to take pictures, LOL
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| My only shot of Fuji Mountain! |
Food
One thing that didn't make this trip disappointing was the fooooooood. FOOOOOOOOD. Every meal was definitely not cheap quality, except for that one evening where we ate at a buffet... but it wasn't entirely bad. The ice cream they served was sooo good... I have a feeling that it was gelato ice cream. But anyway, Japanese sashimi is on point. It literally melts in your mouth ;w; The miso soup there is also my fave...
FOOD SPAM.
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| Fancy Japanese dinner. Those crab legs you see... was heaven in my mouth... idec if that sounded dirty |
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| This was breakfast. |
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| First meal in Japan |
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| One of the lunches |
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| Shabu Shabu!!!! |
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| Japanese BBQ! This meal was so meaty... I couldn't look at meat for a while afterwards |
Hot Springs
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| A lil peek at the hotel room |
That was the best. Alone in the hotel room with the TV on, watching some food channels and a Chinese-Japanese language learning channel with Tsuyoshi Abe ♥︎, while licking my ice cream. Beeeeest.
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| Cooking channel! |
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| Um????? /?????? |
Toilets
One thing about toilets: most of the toilets in the hotels were the ones that could clean your butt. I never used the jet spray thingy 'cuz it seems really awks but my mom now wants a toilet that could clean your butt. =_= Okay, mom...
And plus, I found this really weird thing at a toilet stall at a mall in Tokyo... "flushing sound effect"... I wonder what it's for....
An Unexpected Win
When we were having lunch one day, we weren't supposed to lift up our bento boxes until the server told us so, because there was a prize thing under 2 of them. Okay, usually I never really win these things, so I was like whatever... but literally two seconds before the server told us to lift up the bento box, I saw this white, laminated thing under mine and I was like O_O. |
| The card + the persimmon candy. |
Turns out I did win.
LOL. It was uncomfortable for a few seconds 'cuz everyone was looking at me... (I really do have social anxiety....) The prize wasn't anything special though, just a box of this candy thing. But wow. The one time that I don't anticipate winning something, I win something. Ooookay, life. This reminds me of the time that I won this 8 gb USB at an SAT thing at my school. I totally wasn't anticipating that either.
Miscellaneous
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| I forgot what movie this was |
Also, on long bus rides, the tour guide played some Studio Ghibli movies for us :D In Japanese of course, but with English subtitles. We watched Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rosso, The Wind Rises (oh God this one was really sad), and HOWL'S MOVING CASTLE omfg ♥︎ It was niiiice.
Overall...
Overall, the Japan trip was fun.. there was a playful mood throughout the whole trip, so it was nice. But there wasn't WiFi in every hotel, so I'd have to give it to Taiwan for that ;)At first, I had this bubbly feeling knowing that every person who walked by was pure Japanese... it sounds kinda weird, but it's just that I've idolized Japanese actors/actresses from far away for so long, and now that I was there, staying and walking and seeing so many of the same race it's like wooOoAh. I dunno. I'm weird.
Japanese people are actually quite good looking. They're also really nice and polite. (Their manners are on point) My mom was like, you won't be able to tell if that person hates you or not because of those manners. LOL I will always remember that guy at the airport...
But, for the first time in my life, whenever I heard Mandarin from someone passing by, I have never felt so relieved to hear it. It is quite scary to go to a country where you don't know the language... (I only know a few Japanese terms through dramas, which is pretty pathetic LOL) Even though Mandarin isn't my primary Asian language, Cantonese is, I still felt relieved... which was weird.
Photos of Things I Spazzed Over About
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| RAINBOW BRIDGE.... It screams Itakiss: Love in Tokyo. ;) |
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| TOKYO TOWER MUDDAFUUKA (I took this in a moving vehicle okay it looks fabulous) |
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| If you know who Aiba Masaki and Ohno Satoshi are, I love you so much. |
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| BAD PICTURE OF TOKYO SKYTREE: ALSO FROM ITAZURA NA KISS //SCREAMS// |
Photos from Osaka (bc they're pretty)
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Hong Kong
After Japan, we had our long-awaited plane trip back to Hong Kong. Finally, I could understand what people were saying. Compared to the other times I've been there, I went to a lot more places this time, because my mom called up her uncle and she asked if he could take the time to show us around, to which he agreed.
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| View from the hotel room. At night, you can see Temple Street very easily. |
Weather
The weather in Hong Kong was on and off. Sometimes it would rain a little, sometimes it would stop. There was this really weird time that it started raining super hard all of a sudden after we entered a 7-Eleven across our hotel... and literally five seconds ago we were outside LOL
The day we left, we heard that there was a level 3(?) typhoon coming in the next day O_O Thank God we didn't leave the next day or else it would've been bad...
Shopping
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| From Sino Centre |
I did my K-Pop merchandise shopping at my fave store at Sino Centre *wink* and bought things for myself and a couple friends there... I swear, I spend so much there that I wonder if the shop owner recognizes me...
Then I went to Langham Place and went to the CD Warehouse shop up at the top-of-the-top floor. The first time I went there, I bought 2 CD's; VIXX's Eternity album and VIXX's collab album with Okdal. (so I have every VIXX album as of right now :D) The second time I went there, which was a couple days later, I bought Apink's Pink Blossom album, Super Junior's Spy album, and this Coldplay CD bundle WHICH WAS SOOO WORTH IT 'cuz the bundle had 4 ALBUMS (Parachutes, A Rush of Blood to the Head, Viva la Vida, and X&Y) FOR 134 HKD... which is... do the math... ROUGHLY $4 PER ALBUM.
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| My album haul |
OAMSDLAKGAJSDLFKHAGK I was so happy omg. If you're a K-Pop fan going to Hong Kong, I suggest you buy some albums there, 'cuz certain albums are a little cheaper at CD Warehouse (like VIXX albums, for example). Not all of them though, like EXO or Super Junior albums, but it's worth a shot. I know there are cheaper places in Hong Kong but I like CD Warehouse 'cause they're trustworthy and organized, and they put stickers on the K-albums indicating if they're imported from S. Korea or China/Taiwan or Japan.
If you're a fan of Coldplay or any other singer, definitely try your luck there-- you could possibly find a deal like the one I found with Coldplay *3*
I wanted to see if they had Itazura na Kiss: Love in Tokyo on DVD there, but they only had K-Dramas so... :( They didn't have Heroes either... :(
Sightseeing
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| PANDAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS |
The next day, I think, my mom's uncle and aunt took us to this place (idk the name, unfortunately) that is apparently a popular tourist attraction for celebrities. We had to take a ferry there, and I ate fried ice cream there for the first time in my life LOL. The taste was quite interesting. They also took us to Saikung (西貢) to eat seafood there :D The seafood at Saikung was really nice (and big O_O) and, according to my parents, relatively cheap... idk. It didn't seem cheap to me. LOL
After the expensive buffet that I'll be talking about under the next subheading, mum's uncle and aunt took us to the Avenue of Stars thingy. Man, that place was really pretty. I've been there before, but not at night... It's the perfect place for couples, and the perfect place for a single person to feel 10 times more single. And it was funny seeing people scrambling around Jackie Chan's handprints on the floor...
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| It looked 10x better than what this picture shows T_T |
Expensive Buffet
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| What the place looked like |
My parents invited my mom's uncle and aunt to an expensive buffet to thank them for showing us places, and MAN this buffet was SO GOOOOoooOOD
The ambience was so nice... there was a candle on the table and a live singer person who sung live for a period of time and a guy playing the piano... man.
I devoured so many snow crab legs. And the seafood cream soup was SO DELICIOUS but I was getting full so I could only drink one small bowl... I would've drunk so many if I wasn't full... There were a lot of good foods but I don't really remember too much of them.
EXCEPT FOR THIS ONE THINGY. Oh my God, it was like a piece of THE SOFTEST, MOST MELTY PIECE OF MEAT... the lil meat cube was placed on top of a cracker thing and OHOHO GOD THE CUBE LITERALLY MELTS IN YOUR MOUTH. You don't even need to chew, man... (well, you have to chew for the cracker)
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| Hot chocolate :D |
People were fighting over that meat thingy, literally. I had to stand in line and wait for the guy preparing it to put the plate out, and once the guy put it out, EVERYONE SCRAMBLED FOR IT AND TOOK LIKE 3000 PIECES AT ONE TIME oh god it was so frustrating.
Near the end of our eating endeavors, this nice young lady came up and asked each of us what we wanted to drink, and even though I said I didn't want anything, she insisted and offered me hot chocolate... for which I couldn't resist LOL. I was like oh damn girl how did you know...
Mosquito Bites
In Taiwan, I had no mosquito bites at all. I thought this was weird, because when I was younger and went to places in Asia, the mosquitoes always loved me and my blood. Luuuurrrved. So I was really happy that I didn't get any this time.
But then.
When I was in Hong Kong, the mosquito bites (5+ bites, to be a lil more specific) I got from the last tourist stop in Japan had surfaced. And they were not small ones.
I didn't realize it until I got to Hong Kong, because I started sweating profusely from the humidity... and the sweat started to irritate the bites. I started scratching. Scratching until it started to get a little red... until it started to swell...
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| Take that color of red and add about 3 shades of intensity and that's how red it was on the first day. |
One morning I decided to wear long jeans, 'cuz I didn't want more mosquitoes to bite me but that turned out to be a horrible mistake, because the jeans irritated my already existing bites and GUESS WHAT
Those 5+ bites ALL BECAME INFECTED!!!
Hooray for stupid Karen!!!
They became super red and swollen, and at one point, I couldn't even walk 'cuz this one bite at the bottom of my right leg had swollen the ankle area near my foot. The mosquito cream that my parents bought in HK didn't even work at that point either. They were too infected.
My mom got super worried and so she asked this guy standing around who was working (he was those kinds of people who tried to get people to buy apartments LOL) and he was a good guy; he told my mom there were doctors all over the place but recommended the hospital nearby since it was most trustworthy, and hailed a cab for us.
So. I had to go to a Hong Kong hospital for infected mosquito bites. It sounds kinda stupid, but really, the bites were getting really bad. The doctor had to prescribe me those hunka-huge antibiotic pills to get rid of the bites... and it didn't really start working until the 3rd day.
The bites were so red that I was afraid people would get the wrong idea and think that they're bruises and think that my parents beat me or something LOLOLOL
But I'm all good now ^^ There are brown spots on some of my bites but that's because I ate a little bit of red meat while they were still infected. It's starting to go away though.
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