Hello everyone!

In the middle of our trip to Hangzhou we were planning to visit the Hengdian World Studios, aka the "Hollywood of China". Of course my dad wanted to go (as a Chinese drama watcher), but I was a bit skeptical. To travel from where we were staying to Hengdian would have taken several hours. But, we decided that we should go the next day since we didn't have anything else to do.

My dad had told me that he would wake me up early in the morning the next day so we could catch the bus to Hengdian. When I woke up, however, I looked at the time, and it was already past 10:00 a.m.

Just our luck-- there was a heavy rainstorm outside, so we decided to bail on the trip. After a couple hours just lying around refreshing Yahoo News, I decided that I needed to get out. I'm the type of person who gets really antsy when I stay inside all day on my phone. So, we decided to stop by the Botanical Gardens (植物館).

Because it was raining, there were very few other people visiting (which is great since everywhere in Hangzhou is usually packed). My dad wanted to get some Oufen (藕粉), which he ate frequently as a child. Oufen is this sweet, sticky paste made from lotus root (it's a bit hard to describe).

The Botanical Gardens are divided into various different sections with different types of plants. It's a huge stretch of land-- we didn't get to visit all the places because we only stayed there for a couple of hours.

The places we stopped by include: Watching Fish at Yuquan, the Azalea Garden (second to last picture), Han Meilin Art Museum, and a few other locations. One of the flower gardens we wanted to visit we actually couldn't find because the roads weren't finished.

After a couple hours, we left the gardens and went to go eat a late lunch. At this point, my shoes and socks were completely soaked. We went to a chain restuarant in China, and I ordered a bowl of pian er chuan noodles (片兒川) without meat, which was delicious. Just a couple hours later my aunt invited us to eat. Needless to say, we were completely stuffed.

If you like nature and hiking, the Botanical Gardens would definitely be a great place to visit. The greenery is really beautiful (definitely very different from where I live-- the desert). I saw a restaurant in the gardens but it looked like it was closed (although we did visit on a day when there were very few people). However, there were quite a few tea houses that were open, which was where we ate the oufen. As a nature lover, I really enjoyed this destination; it was definitely one of my favorite places we visited on this trip.

Alright, that's the end of this blog post. Thanks for reading!

mel

Hello everyone!

I'm finally blogging about the second half of my summer travels in the beautiful city Hangzhou.

The first day we arrived, we spent most of the day lazing around my grandparents' home because we were so worn out from Taiwan.

The first tourist attraction we stopped by was the Liuhe Padagoda (六和塔). To get there, we rode the bus, but ended up getting off a stop too late. So, we ended up walking back over the Qiantangjiang Bridge (錢塘江橋) to get to the padagoda. The seven-story building had a long winding staircase which we climbed up (I was dying after climbing up the first staircase), decorated with ornate carvings of different creatures and plants. From the top, we were able to see a nice view of the Qiantang river (錢塘江) and the nearby park. After getting off the tower, we found a bell which my dad rung for good luck, health, and happiness for our family members.

Later that day, we walked to my dad's former university campus. I was able to see his old dorm, which is still there as a memorial. We eventually took a bus back home, tired from walking in the hot, humid weather.

The next day we rode a boat through part of the Grand Canal, which is the longest canal in the world and connects Beijing and Hangzhou. We got off the boat to get some drinks at a fancy KFC (the fast food chains there are quite nice) and then headed to the Grand Canal Muesuem.

A couple days later at night my grandpa took us to West Lake (西湖) to watch the colored fountains. Unfortunately, we found out later that the fountains only came on on certain days of the week at certain times for safety reasons. :( Just a warning, some roads (like the path we took) next to Xihu are very crowded. It would be really easy to get lost in the sea of people.

Hangzhou is seriously such a gorgeous city. If you are planning to visit China, Hangzhou would definitely be a great place to stop by.

I'll be back soon with more photos from the rest of my trip. Thanks for reading!

mel

Happy 4th of July everyone!

Last Saturday I visited Santa Barbara and Solvang with my family. We left for Santa Barbara around 10 a.m., and it took us almost 4 hours to get there because of the heavy traffic.

The weather there was cool and sunny, and the air smelled like the ocean. We first ate lunch at a vegetarian restaurant called Mesa Verde. My parents each ordered a brunch bowl (which they didn't like too much), and I ordered a burger made from mushrooms and had butternut cheese. It tasted pretty good, but I made a mess while eating it because it was so tall.

After lunch we drove to a nearby park and walked around for a bit, enjoying the ocean view. Then we went to the Santa Barbara Public Library to browse around. Afterwards we went to the County Courthouse, which is very decorated very beautifully. We climbed up the observation tower and were able to see the town and ocean.

Next we visited the Santa Barbara Mission Church. When we got there mass was in session, but we waited around for a couple of minutes and were able to enter. We were planning to visit UC Santa Barbara but we ran out of time because of all the traffic on the freeway.

Our last stop was Solvang, Little Denmark. We rented a multi-person bike and rode around the town for about an hour (it was tiring but really fun). Afterwards we ate at the Bit O' Denmark restaurant; I ordered the vegetarian primavera with no cheese, which was very oily. Finally we headed back home ( thankfully not too much traffic).

I was really thankful to be able to spend time with my family although we got annoyed with each other after spending hours locked in the car together, haha. I wish we had taken Gremlin with us, but she gets carsick very easily so we decided not to take her.

If you plan to visit Santa Barbara I definitely recommend checking out these places. Thanks for reading!

Hi everyone!

Before I traveled to Taiwan, I was very worried about what I would eat there. I tried to do as much research as I could, finding out what I could eat as a vegan. After I spent a couple of days in Taiwan, I realized that eating as a vegan was not too difficult as there are actually quite a lot of people eating a vegetarian/vegan diet due to religion.

Today I'll be going over veganism in Taiwan and the foods I ate while I stayed there.

Eating vegetarian in Mandarin Chinese is called 素 (pronounced sù). Besides pastries and desserts, Taiwanese cooking doesn't contain a lot of dairy. As for eggs, most of the time, I was asked if I could eat eggs or I just told the waiter that I couldn't eat eggs.

Some things to keep in mind:

• some restaurants use animal fat or boil broth from animal bones (you should tell the staff you are vegan if you are planning to order something fried or with soup)
• some restaurants will not consider their dishes vegetarian/vegan because the pots/pans/grills have touched meat in the past
• vegetarianism/veganism is often associated with Buddhist cuisine which considers strong smelling plants such as onion, scallion, and leek not 素

抓餅 scallion pancake

For breakfast I often ate this pancake with scallion (抓餅 // zhuā bǐng). Sometimes it could be cooked with egg or other non vegan ingredients so make sure you specify what you want.

便當 Taiwanese bento (contains mushroom, tofu, rice, veggies, noodles)

We were often traveling using high speed railways, so it was convenient to buy these Taiwanese lunch boxes (便當 // biàn dang) to eat on the train. At the train stations I was at, they all had vegan options.

便當 (contains fried mushroom, veggies, rice)

a type of seaweed that only blooms on rainy days

(contains tofu, mushroom, veggies, rice)

The dish above is similar to the lunch box, with the various different veggies and side of rice.

noodles with peanut sauce

veggies + stinky tofu

There are a lot of street foods in Taiwan that are vegan; personally, my favorite is fried stinky tofu. Usually the stinky tofu is deep fried in vegetable oils.


At the night markets there are lots of stands selling fruits like the one above (not quite sure what it is). Fruit is can be quite expensive in Taiwan, depending on the fruit.

炒麵 fried noodles with veggies