Andrea Hearts Traveling

My next stop was Penang, the food capital of Malaysia!!!

I was in food heaven so that’s pretty much all I did… eat, eat, and eat some more!!! In the hostel I met a spanish guy, Marcos, and he was my partner in crime in all my eating escapades!

Kuala Lumpur (KL) seemed big and messy! I did not even know where to start the sightseeing so I kind of gave up on the city from the beginning.

When I arrived in KL I saw that my friend Ida (I met her in China) was there too and immediately made plans to get together and explore the town.

I left Singapore by bus and crossed the border to Malaysia. The border crossing was super easy and the queue took less than 5 minutes in each border. I had heard some horror stories of people spending hours trying to cross and even busses leaving people behind but my crossing was effortless and super quick.

Well… Singapore was hell! It was sooo hot it was not that much fun!

I had no plans at all and no idea what to do so I was extremely happy when I met a french guy, Jean Louis, and we decided to explore the city together. Since I had not planned anything and didn’t want to see anything in particular I just let JL take me wherever he wanted.

I had done tour A and C but my friends hadn’t so I had this wonderful idea of renting a private boat to take us to the best places of A and C, add some more from others tours and come back to El Nido after sunset. I went around town asking for prices and finally found one that gave us a fair price and included everything that we wanted.

Last night my friends Rosavel and Galen made it to El Nido and I couldn’t be any happier of seeing some familiar faces. I somehow convinced them (well, Galen didn’t need any convincing) to go diving and even after some hesitation from Rosavel they agreed to do it.

It took “only” a full day to get to El Nido from Cebu since the airline decided to cancel my flight and make me wait for seven hours in Manila. I had planned to take the bus from Puerto Princesa in the afternoon and arrive in El Nido around 8pm but instead I landed at 6:30pm and was still unsure of what to do. My friend who had been to El Nido advice me not to go at night since the road was windy and bumpy but once I got out of the airport one of the tuk tuk drivers offered me an air con van departing at 7pm for 500 pesos so I decided to take it.

My new friends, Guada and Horacio, didn't have any plans so after we visited the falls they decided to come back to Cebu and join me in Bohol the next day. It is so much nicer when you have people to do things with so I was excited!

Uhhh! The Philippines!!!!

When I came to the Philippines I wasn't super duper excited because I don't like water and being such a water based destination I was kind of dreading it a little but I just had to come and experience the Philippines!

I am so happy to be back to civilization! After getting off the plane in HK I could immediately sense that I was no longer in China, people waited in line, let you go first, and asked you if you needed help… in English!!!!! Ah! It feels good to be understood!

I can't believe how fast a month went by in China!!

It was for sure a huge cultural shock but also a good experience I might say. The last 4 days of my trip I spent them in a town called Dali in Yunnan Province. Dali is supposed to be a hippie-ish town but I found it to be pretty much like many of the made up towns around China with its renovated building and lots of shops (I did not see the hippie-ish side of it!) The town is for sure more Westernized that any other small Chinese town and it's full of cute little cafes and restaurants.

The boys from Luxembourg recommend to stop in Shaxi Instead of going directly to Dali and I am so glad I took their advice!

(To get to Shaxi I had to take a bus from Lijian to Jianchuan and then a local bus to Shaxi)

The whole point to come to Lijiang was to hike the tiger leaping gorge which is supposed to be one of the most amazing hikes in china. After the big bummer of foggy emeishan I wasn't sure anymore if I wanted to hike and see nothing but when I got here the weather was very different and it looked like it was going to be beautiful.

5:30am taxi ride to the airport is no fun!

I think it’s ok to say that the biggest attraction in Chengdu are the pandas!!! So on my last day I woke up super duper early and by 6:30am I was at the bus stop across from my hostel to catch the early bus to the Panda breading and research center.

I did a lot of research about the center and learned that pandas are only active really early in the morning during their feeding time so one must get there right when they open. Just like the koalas in Australia, the pandas in China love to sleep and because they don’t get many nutrients from the bamboo they are really low in energy.

I was one of the first people in and headed towards the back of the park where most of the pandas are. While I was walking I hear somebody shout “Andrea”, I turned around and it was a couple from NYC that I met a couple of days ago.

I loved Chengdu!

The city is not all that exciting but the hostel I stayed in made it such a cool experience and the people I met made the trip even more fun!

I spent one morning at the people's park with thousands of Chinese people. The people watching was simply amazing and I had lots of great fun just watching people.
The park is pretty big and there are many activities to do such as rowing a boat, or feeding the koi fish by the pond.

Here is the bonsai garden with tons of cute bonsai trees.

Today I flew to Chengdu from Xi'an and took the airport shuttle to my hostel. Once I got in the shuttle I couldn't believe my eyes, the hall on the bus were full of luggage and we had to climb through bags to find a seat meanwhile the storage under the bus where I put my bag was empty! Sometimes Chinese logic makes no sense to me!

oh my! Getting to Xi’an wasn’t easy! First of all I had to chose from 3 different options: cheap 16 hour sleeper train, “expensive” 6 hour fast train, or more expensive 1.5 hrs flight. I really did not want to sleep in a train by myself and having to take care of my belonging and the thought of a dirty bathroom really did not appeal to me! Going on a plane seemed like a good idea but taxis and the time to get there adds up so I decided to pay for the train because my two last trips on fast train have been really good!

My roommate told me about his tour to the Great Wall and how bad it was; he paid $50 for a "tour" that had an angry Chinese lady guide that only took them to a touristy part of the wall and said they had to be back in an hour and a half otherwise they would be left behind.

Finally made it to Beijing in a 6 hour long ride from Huangshan.

On the way I got to see beautiful scenery but also many many many factories that would have smoke coming out of tubes and polluting the environment and making the towns almost invisible due to the high level of pollution.

Once I got back from Huangshan I decided that it was a good day for a lazy day so I took a shower, did laundry and sat in bed… for hours!

Yellow mountains day! So exciting!

I am impressed that I did not wake up super anxious about today's hike but instead I was excited. I woke up super early to take the 6:20am bus up to the mountains with my Chinese roommate.

I left my hostel at 6:30am to make sure to not miss the 8:31 train to Huangshan!

The metro ride as predicted was good and on time. Strangely we had to all get out of a metro, they closed the doors and made us take another one.

Once I got to the main railway station the adventure began! Trying to figure out things here in china is a little bit more complicated and literally no one speaks English, sometimes not even at the help desks at the stations!

I am gladly to say that after 1hr and 40 mins I finally made it to my train!

And I was also glad that the was decent! I have heard horror stories of Chinese trains so I paid to go on the fast train and expensive train to try to avoid any bad experiences.

After 3 hours and 15 minutes on the train we stopped at a station and a lot of people got out but I noticed that the people sitting next to me didn't get their luggage... strange!

They had long announcements in Chinese but nothing in English! They had been giving info in English such as the stop names and to get out of the front door but this time no english. I was very confused!

We ended up stopping for 35 mins and people went out to smoke and got some food.

In the train I got to observe a lot of Chinese people eating; all the people I saw were chewing on big bones and they were all wearing plastic gloves. One of my many pet peeves is people chewing loudly and with their mouth open and guess what?!? thats the way Chinese people eat. They chewed on the bones, chewed very loudly while talking to one another, and on top of that spitting the bones down to an open bag on their lap, some even spitted the bones on the lap of other people! It was so disturbing!

Finally made it to huangshan and oh my! There is absolutely nothing written in English! I was actually shocked!!!

Thankfully I had the name of the bus I needed to take in Chinese and showed it to a guy that pointed to the bus but otherwise I don't know how I would have done it!

I finally arrived in Tunxi, the super cute town where I'm spending a couple of days in a hostel.

Made it to China, aka the great firewall!
The land of WeChat, AliPay, and sensored Google, Facebook, Instagram and 99% of the things that the rest of the world use on a daily basis!

Getting out of the airport and riding the metro to my hostel made it extremely clear that I was no longer in civilized Asia... I have now entered a new world of screaming and pushing... Can't wait to see what a month here will be like!!!

My hostel welcomed me by having a designated smoking area right at the entrance and having to go through a cloud of smoke to check-in!

I dropped my bags off and since it was already 8pm I set off to find some food! The street food looked unappealing and to be honest it was very intimidating to not know what they were selling and had no way to communicate with anybody to find out if the food was vegetarian (probably not!)

I just spent 30 long days in China and even though I have traveled to many countries I think China in particular was a huge shock for me. I had a hard time adjusting to their culture because it is not only hugely different from mine but it actually goes so against my believes and the way I think people should behave.

I am not writing this to offend the Chinese culture, I get that we are different and that’s why I love traveling and seeing the differences between cultures and the way people behave. Writing my impression is just the way I processed what was going on for me.

Well, I am glad I did not toss the black dress I packed for Kay's wedding because I got to use it in yet another wedding, this time... Korean style!

I do not know if there is such a thing as a Korean style wedding but the wedding I attended was a weird mix of Western with some (maybe) Korean aspects.

We got to the wedding hall and it was full of people and big flower arrangements that looked like the coronas we send back home in El Salvador when people pass away!

I have to start by saying that I made a huge mistake and I underestimated the beauty and the traveling potential of South Korea!!! I really haven't heard much about South Korea and it is not really in the "traveling map" of a lot of people.

Before going to South Korea of course I reached out to my friend Bianca for some advice since she has been living there for 13 years. She said that I could spend a year in South Korea but I know just how much she loves it so I settled for 10 days... HUGE HUGE HUGE mistake! South Korea is beautiful! It deserves twice that much time or even more but the good part is... I will be coming back for more!!!

After Busan I took a fast speed train all the way to Seoul and spent the next 6 days staying with Bianca, having fresh green smoothies (thanks to her awesome vitamix skills) every morning and eating fresh almond butter... I was in heaven!

First things first... Dinner...
Bianca cooked a delicious meal and made salad... ahhhh I missed salad and veggies so much! In Japan there was such a lack of fresh vegetables and they consider a salad a bed of cabbage with some shredded carrots on top and 5 pieces of corn... but now... it's fruit and veggies galore! I'm happy!

After eating dinner we went for a looooong walk around Seoul.

We started right outside of her door and walked through the wall of Seoul

I spent my last night in Japan in Fukuoka but there wasn't really anything to do in there. I went to the tourist information to ask for some guidance and the girl just kept saying "shopping, shopping" after many back and forth of "shopping" and "no shopping" she gave me a map to Canal street (or something like that.) I imagined a little Venice... but no... it was a shopping mall that the only thing it had in common with Venice was how easy one can get lost in the alleys!

The next day I took the ferry to Busan from Fukuoka in the late afternoon. Once I got to South Korea I got my passport stamped and the officer had a good laugh at the fact that I was staying at the "Kimchee guesthouse" haha.

I Proceeded to the metro and made it to my hostel. In the room I met one girl from Jakarta, Indonesia, and soon after 2 Czech girls walked in. We started talking and soon we were all on the floor talking about the sightseeing spots in Busan.

I really find it better to stay in hostels with shared rooms than hotels by myself since I get to meet other travelers and explore the city with them. After planning some sight seeing we were all starving so we went to grab some Korean food together!

Japan was amazing and sometimes I can't help but think of how a wonderful world it would be if more people/ countries were like Japan!

The country is very calm and people are not really faced with the adversities of every day living, they adjust to situations where there is nothing that they can do. For example, that day when the JR stopped for almost half hour and nobody complained! 1. There was no one to complain to and 2. There was nothing that could be done by complaining! In general, in my country, and many others, people would get frustrated, make annoyed noises, look at their watch, curse, curse, and curse some more! Not here, not in Japan! People just kept calm and went back to their phones or conversations! No one, absolutely no one spoke!

There is this island in Hiroshima called Miyajima, famous for the torii in the middle of the water so on my second day with my new friend Hannah we went to explore the beautiful island!

It was super cute to see Hannah super excited about Miyajima, she said it was a dream of hers to go to Miyajima so she kept saying "Today my dream is coming true!"

From the JR station we took a Ferry over to the island and as we approached it we could see the tori floating in the middle of the ocean. Once we landed we started walking and noticed that just like in Nara there were hundreds of deer all around!!!
In nara I saw this deer come from behind and grab a map out of a boy's hands and started eating it, here the same thing happened!!! These deers are not very bright!!!

I arrived in Hiroshima mid day and of course I put my bags away and headed to the street.

There really isn't much to see or do in Hiroshima other than visiting the A-Bomb dome and the museum so I headed there. With map in hand and a couple of yens I took the tram and was there in no time.

The A-Bomb dome is the one building that is still up in Hiroshima and shows the devastation of the atomic bomb. It is really sad to see and read what happened back then but it is also impressive how the city has overcome such a terrible event and built itself up. Hiroshima is now called the peace city and they have created the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park.

Today I decided to wake up extra early (and by extra early I mean 7am!) to visit fushimi Inari.

Temples get super crowded by 9-10am so I knew I had to beat the crowd if I wanted some Torii pictures without that many people.

By 8:30 I had arrived at Inari station and I walked to the big torii across the street. I was surprised to already see some people but it was good enough to take a couple of pictures and not feel overwhelmed by all the tourists!

This morning my roommate Rebecca, from Germany, and I decided to go to Koyasan for the day. Last night we were really unsure about the trip because the forecast said thunderstorms but based on our experience with Japanese weather the forecast is always wrong.

So excited for my trip to Kyoto!!!

I slept in Kanazawa and took the 11am train to Kyoto. It has been a couple of very busy days sightseeing and walking non stop so today after checking in into my awesome hostel I decided to stay in, catch up on the blog and relax.

At around 6pm I was starving so I came down from my bunk and met one of my roommates, Rebecca, and ended up joining her and her Japanese friend, Rimi, for dinner.

In many cities the train station is the place to eat! On the bottom floor there are heaps of restaurants full with locals.

It was very interesting to go there because all of the restaurants had windows displaying the plates that they sell. The food is made out of plastic but it actually looks exactly like the dish you are served! It is so impressive!

I decided to try a new dish... cold Udon!

After having a great dinner we, of course, wanted some dessert so we decided to go get some cake... some matcha cake!!! (Matcha is HUGE here in Japan! they make absolutely everything you can imagine with matcha!)

While having dinner we talked about the plastic food and the display and how different that is from where we come from (Rebecca and I) and told Rimi that back home you get a menu with no pictures or displays, you order and it's a mistery what your dish will look like. She was very surprised by it just like we were surprised to see all the very realistic plastic dishes!

After dinner we went back to the common area in the hostel where we were able to make new friends and plan some sight seeing for the next day!

Exploring Kyoto was a lot of fun!

The first day I walked around town with Arthur from France, and Heike from Germany! Our day started in...

The Bamboo Forest!

We took the JR train from Kyoto station and then walked around the bamboo forest. It was really pretty but at the same time very touristy!

We had some fun taking pictures with the GoPro!

After we walked around the bamboo forest (which wasn't very long) we went to check out the bridge (which was not exciting at all.) It was so hot already at 10:30am that we decided just to sit and look at the bridge from far away.

We saw these Geishas but I'm unsure if they are real ones or ordinary people dressed up as geishas.

From the Bamboo Forest we went to the famous Kinkaku-ji, aka the Golden Temple!

On the bus on our way there we met a Korean older couple from the Bay Area and they stayed with Arthur and I for the whole day.

The Golden temple was very beautiful but other than looking at it for afar there is nothing else to do so we quickly got the bus to check out the Nijojo Castle.

By now it was probably 3pm and the sun was so strong and the heat was almost unbearable (at least for me), everybody was sweating, and stinky... yuk!

The heat sometimes it's too much for me, and the humidity makes it 100% worst! I have given up on the idea of having decent hair! My hair is curly and crazy all the time!

The best part of the castle was the mist at the beginning! haha Once you enter there were hoses spraying all guests with mists... I so needed it!

We left Nijojo and headed to Fushimi, the thousand torii temple, in hopes to see the sunset! We started to walk up and I saw a sign and went right where we shouldn't so we missed sunset but we got to see a place that seem like a cemetery full of torii.

Since we missed sunset and it got dark Arthur and I had fun taking night shots with the torii.

On our way back to Kyoto I got a message from Rebecca to meet up for dinner and ended up going to a place that Rimi had recommended the night before.
We waited in line for like a minute or two and to our surprise we had to buy our meal from a vending machine/ computer and pay there. We got to pick what we wanted and select the size and 30 seconds after we sat down the food came!

The dish served there is a bowl with rice, veggies, and some sort of protein and next to it there is a pot of stock that you need to put into the bowl; in addition, there were some side dishes and we had no idea how to eat it. Thank goodness there was a Japanese girl sitting next to Arthur and he was telling us how the girl was eating the dish and we just copied her! It was really funny!!!

The forecast for my second day in Kyoto said rain so I chose to stay in town and explore Kyoto under my umbrella!

My first stop was nishito market

All kinds of rice crackers!

The candy that they make is super cute!

More fermented vegetables!!!

While walking in the Nishito garden I stumbled upon the Japanese dollar store and it was sooo cool! Lots of unnecessary things for 100Yen!

They even had hello kitty utensils

I know that fruit is really really expensive in Japan but sometimes it was just too ridiculous... $16 for these many grapes?! You could buy 2 decent meals from a restaurant for that much!

In the market I found a Hello kitty craze gone snoopy! They literally had everything snoopy you can imagine!

When I walk in a market what I enjoy the most is people watching and I try to take pictures of their every day living... Somehow black and white makes it a little cooler in my opinion!

After a stroll around the market I decided to walk to Gion, aka geisha street.

On my way I stopped by a couple of temples...

... and a candy store that was super cool and made me think of how much the Turners would love it... maybe uncle Paul will bring them to Kyoto someday for some candy! haha

They make these super cool rolled candy with little figures inside.. the kyoto pack had torii and little kimono girls! SOOO cute!

Then finally made it to Gion!! They say that if you are lucky you can see a geisha... I saw one even before getting into the main street!

Well, apparently she is a Geisha in training! A girl on instagram knew her and corrected me saying that she is not Geisha but a maiko (an apprentice.)

The area around Gion didn't have much to see so other than the built up excitement that you might see a geisha there is nothing!

I decided to keep walking and check out some of the temples. I walked to Ninen-zaka and Kiyomizudera. Around the Gion area and the temple area there are some shops where you can rent a kimono and they do your hair and make up so I saw so many girls dressed up with Kimonos, and even little girls and men! I thought of doing it because it would be cool to have picture with the kimono but it was way too hot and walking looked uncomfortable.

This temple was one of my favorite... I just love love love all the bright colors, and the contrast with the roof and how pretty they look together!

From this temple I could see a nice view of Kyoto and Kyoto tower!

I then decided to take the bus to yet another temple and when we were by Gion I saw the Yasaka-jinja shrine that I forgot to visit and I quickly got out of the bus to check it out.

The busses in Kyoto are amazing! It's a little hard to understand the routes but once inside you get into your bus it tells you what stops to take for the different sights! Makes it super easy for tourists!

I then checked out Ginkakuji temple but it was not worth it, very out of the way and pretty much nothing to see! It is a nice little walk in the garden but that was it.

Path of philosophy

Maybe philosophers came here to get inspired but I came to get frustrated! Nothing to see and I was getting wet!

Then I realized that my expectations were the ones getting on the way! I was expecting something very different and I was disappointed so I looked at this walk from a different point of view which was to just enjoy the moment and just like that I started to relax and enjoy the walk!

Then I took the bus to the biggest Torii I have ever seen in my entire life!

On my way back to the hostel on the bus I saw an area that looked cool so I decided to get off the bus and walk without direction!
I loved walking through little streets and just see how life is here in Kyoto! I even got to see a Geisha walking to work that night!

This restaurant's pantry was the stairs!

My time in Kyoto was amazing! Then off to Hiroshima!!!

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