Category: Travel Rambles

I went into this city completely blind. Johnny and I went on a week vacation with his family and I knew they had a lot of things planned. All that has done though is left me with an incredible thirst to visit again. The city we stayed in, Vilnius, is the capital of this small country. A small country that actually used to be huge. We had a walking tour of questionable quality, but it did make me curious to discover more about this country.

We stayed at the beautiful Kempinski, right in the center of the city. I enjoyed my mornings sitting on a balcony, espresso in hand, waiting for the rest of the city to wake up. In Beijing when I get up at 6:30 in China I feel like a slacker, the sun rises early and so does everyone else. In Vilnius, the sun ALSO rises early but it takes until around seven am to see anyone. This allowed me to go on some amazing walks around the city by myself. I have spent so many summers seeking out the grungy side of Geneva, and the city center of Vilnius had that perfect mix of old and new town that it inspired me to look the artsy side here too.

The artsy part of town usually starts with coffee and ends with a dive bar; of these things Vilnius has plenty. I didn’t look up anything before I arrived but one walk around the city and I already had several bars and coffee shops for me to head to. StrangeLove, TasteMap, and Crooked Nose & Coffee Stories, those are probably my top coffee shops and they definitely deserve their own post (oh here is it’s post, click!).

There are quite a few interesting things about this city. For one, the building where their president is had no obvious security? Instead they had lights all over the building celebrating 100 years regained after World War I, tourists were taking photos with the installments in front of the building. It was also weirdly new looking, except for the very specific parts of exposed brick on every three buildings. These were supposed to bring character to the buildings and show that they are the REAL buildings that used to be there, just redone.

There is a lot of amazing history in Lithuania. KGB museums, holocaust museums, a palace museum that just opened new rooms. Another option is a free walking tour, a company I found online but wasn’t able to take a tour with was Vilnius with locals. They have a ghost tour, food tour, jewish history tour, and even more that seem really interesting. Next time I visit, and there will be a next time, I want to see everything I can here.

Some things I found in this city that surprised me were a lot of gelato, tons of amber in many forms, and weird weird alcohols. We went to a cave bar with 80 beers all from Lithuania. The most exciting part of the city though was the coffee. Next week expect details about my favorite coffee shops here, along with a million photos of plants. Coffee and plants! my two passions!

What coffee shops have you been to recently? Any new ones?

I was lucky enough to be in Paris when France won the World Cup. It was pretty amazing.

My boyfriend, his siblings, and I ran off the Paris metro into the streets filled with people shouting, climbing, celebrating. We walked to the louvre, saw fireworks explode, waved flags, and cheered for the two stars this country has now earned.

Allez les bleus! I was able to bring out my terrible french on the subway to ask those watching the game what the score was. Being in Paris for a night was only a small part of our vacay to Lithuania (oh yeah, I went to lithuania btw, more on that later), but it ended up being one of the most memorable parts of the trip.

Happy July! How has this happened? May was fast, June was the slowest month in the world. I honestly have no idea where the year is going though, considering I’m posting this two weeks into JULY. June felt pretty wild, I took two trips, explored many new places in Beijing, and I started working with some friends on a graphic design project.

July has already been wonderful, as I spent a little over a week of it in Lithuania! I went with Johnny and his family. They are from Lithuania, his grandpa was there until he was eight years old, then they left because of WWII and the soviet take over.

Some June highlights have to be my trip to Hong Kong where I was able to see friends who used to live in the same STATE as me but I never saw them, and by chance we were in Hong Kong at the same time. I love how small the world is sometimes. I also went on a solo trip to Seoul. I know that means I doubled up on cities but it just feels like a place I need to visit forty times.

I also camped right outside the Great Wall and then hiked eight miles of it. I’m going to include a few of those photos here, but to get the full scoop I’m making a whole other post so you can do it on your own!

We discovered a coffee shop and roaster near our house, Metal Hands. This is located near Wangjing Soho. So in a fifteen minute bike ride we can enjoy amazing coffee and breakfast from some talented baristas. We purchased a two pound bag of espresso for Johnny’s mom. They sell smaller bags of their coffee and huge ones of their espresso. I think in China it’s not yet a common thing for people to make their own espresso drinks at home so the big bags of coffee are probably used for other stores to serve the espresso.

One of the most exciting things that happened in June was the discovery of a new grocery market! This place is amazing. It has a lot of western staple foods, like salsa, romaine lettuce, fruit loops and CHEESE, and some other non-staple foods like coconut milk and chia seeds. Also the CHEAPEST nuts. It’s amazing. I might give you guys a post about the different grocery shopping options I have here? Yes?

A very quick trip to Hong Kong, expect mostly photos and small tidbits. Our flight left Beijing at seven am on Saturday and touched down around eleven. We then had the AWESOME experiences of realizing Didi, which is china’s version of UBER, didn’t work the same here. I was told we could use wechat everywhere but guess what: ya can’t.

After checking into the hostel we went out on the street. I honestly felt so overwhelmed by Hong Kong. When researching things, there were so many comments about different areas and if you are or aren’t on the island, if you are going to a beach or a bar, I just was overwhelmed. So we wung it. or winged it. Whichever is correct, that’s what we did. I knew there were cool streets, things to look at, things to eat and figured we would just find them!

I actually was lucky enough to have friends in town for the one night we were in Hong Kong. We learned about the relationship between Hong Kong and China, the political climate, and if they can tell when people come form China, whether from Shezngen, Beijing, or somewhere deep in the Yunnan province. We went to an afternoon tea, which was awesome. There we had egg tarts, pineapple bread, and lemon tea. When you go to Hong Kong and have lemon tea, be sure to squish the lemons at the bottom of the glass and then mix all the lemon juice around your drink. Super refreshing in the insanely humid city.

We walked through the streets for a while until I declared it way too humid for the outside world. Then we went to the Golden Computer store and Sim City and looked at millions of wires, cords, laptops, computers, dvds, and cameras. I almost bought this film camera but decided against it until I could figure out how to get film developed in Beijing.

Over all, my Hong Kong trip showed me that I really do value nature and water, two things I thought I wouldn’t miss while living in a city. It did however make me realize that even though Beijing is one of the most populated cities in the world, it doesn’t feel that way. Hong Kong felt PACKED. Walking down the street, going to the metro, it was a struggle. Maybe its just down to the fact that the street sizes were different? Not sure.

Johnny and I also have come to rely on pictures on menu’s when traveling. This usually works out great, and we can use the little bits of Mandarin that we know to communicate further. In Hong Kong, every speaks Cantonese. So we were back to square one. For dinner we went to this place that had huge lines so we knew it would be good. We waited, we had sidewalk drinks, we waited more. When we finally sat down, it became clear to us that it was some sort of build your own noodle dish… with no pictures. neither of us had brought our phones and we ended up just guessing on what to put in our dish. It was delicious, but also kind of scary! I would recommend this adventure brought on by silly choices, 10/10 would do again.

Now it’s summer here in Beijing! June has become a bit more humid no where near Seoul or Hong Kong though. I’m appreciating the dry heat and the abundance of watermelons. Enjoy this picture of my dinner while I write this:

So it was a normal Friday night, except I live in China and my landlord, his wife, and daughter came over to teach us how to cook dumplings, or as they are called here, jiao zi.

This magical thing happens when you move somewhere that operates in a language you don’t know: You figure out that people are really similar all over the world. For example, most dads are going to be proud of their five year old daughters. Most moms are going to tell you about a recipe their grandma told them, and most kids will draw a picture and give it to you. So, these people who we have only met once when they fixed our bathroom came over to show us that even though their english was broken, they were willing to go the extra mile to make us feel welcome.

Our landlord has owned our apartment for years and used to live their himself. I don’t understand the way china does real estate. He said his English name is Michael because he liked Michael Jackson/Jordan. He, his wife Harriet and daughter Carol came over to help us make a traditional meal. We bought flour, and they brought every thing else.

When they showed up they had gifts which made my heart feel like it could spill over. Two drawings from Carol, a hair catcher for our bathroom drain (something I tried to order online but just couldn’t figure out), and a silk fan from The Forbidden City. All these things, and they were helping us make dinner?! Amazing.

First, they showed us how to make the dough which was just flour and water. You get a bowl of flour and add water little by little while gently kneading it. After you get a dough, let it rest for thirty minutes. While it was resting we talked about places to visit in the city, how Harriet and Michael had met, and how amazing Carol is at five years old. They honestly seemed so curious as to how comfortable we were in the apartment, did we like china, what were the differences from America. I mean we were curious too! They told us about how the streets and bus stops were named and we live right off of Safe World bus stop, so that is comforting.

After the dough came the filling which they had prepared. Harriet and Carol were busting out these jiao zi, it was amazing. Johnny and I struggled to keep up with their pace but eventually I made some nice looking ones. They were very kind, it made me feel comfortable with making mistakes. Our living room floor is covered with flour, but it didn’t matter to me.

After a while the jiao zi were made, and it was time to boil them and eat! We set out plates, vinegar, and bowls. The delicious jiao zi were gone in seconds, but Harriet kept making more for us to keep in our freezer. She said we can freeze them and keep them for month, or we can cook them the next morning. This meal is typically a family event where everyone takes part in making the food. You could tell which ones Johnny and I made, but that didn’t mean they were any less delicious.

I feel so much more comfortable in my own kitchen now after seeing someone else use it effectively. I have looked up recipes for sweet potato pancakes, how to make street food at home, and now know how to make my own fresh noodles. Like how cool is it to know I can just MAKE noodles? This is 100% a night I won’t forget, when where we were shown incredible kindness in our Chinese home. It makes me feel even better about out choice to come here.

Hey when I come back to the states, jiao zi party anyone?