photo dump – Alyssa in France

May Photo Dump

Didn’t I just do an April Photo dump? I know it was mainly about Seoul, but still. I’m actually leaving for Seoul AGAIN in less than five days. Time Flies.

May started with a weekend trip to Tianjin. Wandering streets that were vaguely European and staying in an expensive hotel, Tianjin became a city I want to visit again solely for feeling luxe.

Giant malls are still everywhere I go in China, but here they seemed to be even more of a date night or night life spot than the ones I have frequented in Beijing. Clothing store with dirt cheap tshirts, the same design on twenty different colors, and sizes that intimidate me enough to just stick to H&M for now.

My apartment is on the bottom floor, and the windows are basically pointing toward other walls. My friends however, have a great view that reminds me that we live in a city. Maybe my bedroom in on the bottom floor, but it’s the bottom floor of a 25 floor building. While driving at night from one location to another I can’t help to do anything but look at the lights, the characters, the signs for things I can’t understand and feel happy.

The Beijing summer is starting, which means I want to be outside all the time in the warmth of the sun, but not the smog. I have started running outside when I have a mask on and there is a low pollution count. The park near my home is amazing, and I’m so thankful I have seen Beijing grow from a dirty cold winter landscape to a blossomed, lush, green landscape. I can’t wait to return to the big tourist spots now that everything is GREEN.

May was the only month I didn’t take a trip in. I have trips planned until NOVEMBER. Places in Asia, eastern Europe, a trip back home for a bit. So I hope I’ll be able to keep up with everything. As much as I love just travel blogging, I hope to just regular blog. Like maybe I’ll write about how the Beijing water ruined my hair and how I saved. Maybe something about how I had to adjust my cooking style in China and that I FINALLY can eat spicy food.

March &;photo dump

This month was one of the most interesting in my life. It has been so fun having each day be different, but also slightly exhausting. I’m excited to finally understand the routine of life here so I can figure out how to have real energy. I think in April I’m going to try to do some sort of phone detox. I’ll let you know how that goes, but I will try to not let it effect my photos.

I turned 24 this month, which sometimes feels crazy old. At dinner with my boyfriend, I sat and thought about how I want to set goals and achieve them. So I’ll be posting a goal list here later in April.

I was walking to the bank and saw these two girls. They just looked so casual and cool. Excuse me for being a lame seventeen magazine.

I don’t know what this little nook is, but this gate is always closed.

I went out to dinner with a group of new women I met. It was amazing. Also, I am starting to like spicy foods! Finally.

Flat white cafe. Man, so beautiful. And one of my fav parts of town.

The delicioussss breakfast at flat white cafe. I loved it. This place is going to find a home on my blog and my wallet.

This pink store was just. Everything I could have wanted.

This store had a lot of games like at an arcade or something. There was also a bar. Don’t worry, I’m going back to investigate.

Neon lights, pink everywhere, the weirdest and most interesting things.

Beijing; photo dump

Okay, so my first week in Beijing is almost complete. I have a million thoughts going around my head, so we are going to start with a bit of a word vomit and move into a photo dump.

We arrived super late at night and went straight to the hostel. We are staying at The Red Lantern House, which is not only flipping adorable, but also in a great location. We are staying in a room with just the two of us, and for three nights it is 700 RMB which translates to about 104 USD. That is expensive for a hostel, BUT we are staying in like a private room. The other dorm rooms are a lot cheaper and just as nice.

Here is the hostel:

The next day, we ate a ton of great food, and also did some boring stuff. Let’s talk food first. So it’s true that in Asian cultures you get like a big plate of food and everyone shares it’s like (INSERT AMERICAN RESTAURANT THAT HAS SHARING PORTIONS HERE). In one breakfast, we had: dumplings, red bean oatmeal, noodles, cucumbers, and soy milk. Then for lunch we had this plate of chicken, some spinach, peanuts, a pepper dish, and a soup.

By the way, I’m not leaving these names out because I want to. I have no idea what this is called. But man it was SO GOOD. Then for dinner we had some other chicken thing, another soup, and more cucumbers. I am living my best food life. It actually just occurred to me yesterday that I have no idea when I last used a fork?

Anyway HERE IS THE FOOD:

This second day we did mainly boring things like phones stuff and bank stuff. Which took foreverrrrrr, but it’s kind of like if I worked at a bank and someone with a Chinese name, address, passport, etc needed a bank account, I would have no clue how to do that, or put that into the English system we use! So it was a lot of patience on both ends. See above photo for some snacks we bought for our three hour stint at the bank.

The day after that we went on a few tours of the big places and they kind of speak for themselves. Like, these places are older than America. It’s pretty amazing learning about Chinese culture/history by being right next to it. So we went to The Forbidden City, the old Summer Palace, Beihai Park. For the Forbidden City we had a tour guide, and I really was happy to have him. If you don’t have a guide of some sort it’s kind of hard to understand WHY each detail is so important.

The thing we have done the most of while being here is walk. We have walked so dang much. There is no question about it. My calves, my feet, my thighs, they feel it. That’s probably why I’m ~~googling~~ baiduing massage places right now.

Some non-typical things we have done are go to a local brewery, eat jiānbǐng, take the metro confidently, go to a few coffee shops, and stroll through Gulou street. I’m really excited to experience the art district eventually, but that is near where we will be staying next, so we didn’t want to trek all the way over there to see something we will live by.

I’m going to include a vlog of our travel later and the first week here because I feel like that might help you guys see things better? I don’t know how to explain how interesting China is, and sometimes videos do more than photos, so that’s basically it. Let me know if you like the vlog, pleaseeee. I have no idea how to do one and this week was a really weird one so I tried to make it the best it could be!

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Photo dump ft. travel woes from a recent trip to New Jersey.

I just arrived back home after a really lovely memorial day weekend in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey. I went for a wedding, it was super beautiful. I saw so many friends from college, the bride and groom are such inspiring people to me, my roommate from college stayed with me for a bit, so it was all really great. But not without a ton of travel mishaps.

I had a flight out of Lexington at 5:20pm, and I was supposed to arrive around 7:30 or 8pm in Newark. Unfortunately, because of a millions different reasons, my flight did not take off until 8pm. Yeah, it was an insanely long time in the airport, and there is nothing to do in the Lexington airport. Once I arrived in Newark, I spent about 30 minutes waiting for my one checked bag, I bit the bullet and asked someone if it could be lost.

and it was!

So I have to complete a full on top model challenge before going to the wedding the next day. It was a huge success, I bought a dress and shoes and make up all before 9 am! It was very intense. If you guys don’t already, make sure you pack all of the essentials in your carry on. I decided to check my bag at the last-minute since I had wedding presents in it, so I really should have made sure I had some kind of outfit plan for the next morning.

I also headed into New York City again, this time with my boyfriend for part of the day. We met up with my parents later to see a show and go to dinner.

We walked up through Central Park, I reenacted a scene from Little Manhattan, ate at Tom’s diner for lunch where I made many jazz sounds, and took the subway. A very exciting time. Something I used when I went into the city was an app called Cool Cousin. It features interesting maps made but unique people who live in various cities. It’s kind of like the USE-IT maps I’ve talked about before, but I like how you can find a person who is similar to you and use their specific maps. Stay tuned to a travel app specific post coming in a little while- and no, google translate will not be on there.

The rest of the weekend was spent canoeing or playing games with my little sister. Then I headed home to get on with my regularly scheduled trivia games nights. Did you know that every night in Lexington there is trivia going on somewhere? It’s true. Below you’ll find photos from my week, a visual story of what I see and do weekly.