Taipei, let's get started!

One of the cutest asian cities around the world, similar to Hong Kong and full of japanese influences lays beyond my eyes: Taipei. Skyscarpers, highways, beautiful old streets, sky lanterns is what I see around me. I'm in an Uber heading towards Shilin Night Market for a taste of what means Taipei by night. Live cooking stations full of street food, mostly chinese style and thousands of shops. The market is half covered and half open air. The weather is perfect, around 25 degrees.  Lots of people in the market which indicates this is a popular place. I find lots of cute korean stuff: cute hats and broches, some nice dresses. Prices are good, you can even bargain a little bit. This market seems neverending. I try some local food: french fries with seaweed, honey Lemon Tea and  the famous pineapple cake. Around midnight market is still crowded. Reflexology spas seem very popular around this time.  

                                                                                                                  Second day I head over  Chiufen village, situated on the northeast coast. New Taipei city is called this area. Weather is not that great, cloudy and rainy due to the taifun in Phillipines. Chiufen or Jiufen is an old city in the mountains, used to be under japanese occupation and famous for his gold mine. The old street is narrow and very busy despite the rainy weather. Chinese lampions everywhere, streefood, lots of teahouses. We get some Oolong Tea in one of them. We go up to the last floor. The view would have been perfect if the sky would have had been clear. The landscape of the sea with big rocks inside kind of reminds me of the big ocean drive in Australia. We walk down the streets, heading to a colorful temple we spoted on our way from the car. Beautiful old streets, full of history, ceramic shops and the cutest coffee shop ever. We make a coffee shop and this place has a better view than the teahouse but the sky is covered in clouds now. I can notice that taiwanese people love pets, every shop, restaurant or anything is full of cute dogs and cats. They even walk them in pet strollers. We were supposed to head over Pingxi for a sky lantern experience but the rain is getting heavier So We go back to the city.

Our next stop is Taipei 101. We check the observatory and the visibility is 90% So We go up to 91 floor. This used to be the tallest building in the world before the burj khalifa.   After Taipei 101 I head over Wufenpu market. Similar to Shilin Night Market but between this two I would recomend Shilin. Even So it takes me two hours to check the entire market.

The weather is not getting any better but I still decide to visit  the Elephant Mountain. This is a hiking trail with lots of view points over Taipei 101. The hike takes about 30 minutes and includes lots of stairs. The view is amazing. 

Amazing Bali

I think Bali has always been on my wishlist so I was quite happy when I finally landed on this exotic island. Can't remember a lot of details about Denpasar Airport. We stayed in a nice resort in Nusa Dua, with an amazing beach and pool.

I was expecting Bali to be a budist island, but I discovered that has more hindu rather than budists. The traffic on this island is quite hectic. Lots of cars and scuters, narrow roads and traffic jams. One of the biggest attractions on the island is Kuta, a fun place full of bars, crowded at night time.
My first day in Bali I went to visit a traditional house. I don't remember much about this except that they have a baldachin bed outside and I think it's pretty cool to sleep there although there are a lot of insects. Our next stop was a rice field where you can enjoy a bike ride. Then we went to visit a bali luwak coffee shop. I wasn't very familiar at that time with this but I would't repeat the experience now as I know they were exploating the civet cats. If kopi luwak coffee (part digested coffee beans) is produced in nature by free civet cats, I don't support the fact that some people are cageing the civet cats and feed them with coffee beans and laxatives. They were serving there different types of coffee.

Another stop we had was the Kintamani volcano. This place is very popular for trekking. I was surprised that this area was very populated with street sellers and a lot of them they were selling puppies. After we took some photos we decided to go to Ubud for lunch. We found a really cute restaurant in the city centre with amazing food. The entire experience was quite good as we were sitting on the floor. Our next stop was The Monkey Forest. You have to be really careful with your bags here as monkeys likes to steel. The funny fact is that they trade everything they get from you for food. We finished our day with a nice balinese massage in Nusa Dua.
Second day we headed towards Ulun Danu Bratan, a temple situated at the edge of Lake Bratan. The landscape around this area is amazing.

Pura Tanah Lot is another temple we visited that day. This temple is situated on a rock next to the ocean. It's a great place to take amazing photos. You can get inside the temple to get a blessing from the monks. There is also a cave where is supposed to live a giant snake who is protecting the temple. Also next to the temple you can find an open market where they sell everything from clothes, souvenirs, handcraft, paintings, fresh fruits.

It's all about the beach: Part 3 Los Angeles

Been already for a couple of days in California and decided to go to check the famous Newport Beach. This city is part of the Orange County. It takes about 40 minutes drive to reach there from LA. It's full of beautiful houses and some of the houses have sea view. If u go Out of your villa, you are literally on the beach. The beach is pretty clean and large, But very basic. People are either bringing their own sunbeds or they are Using towels. I didn't see Any point where u can rent sunbeds. A lot of people on the corniche, jogging, Walking dogs. We fall in love with a house. It was full of details. Every single thing it looked like it was neant to be in the perfect spot. The owner is a jeweller and the house is full of artistic details. Later on we found a brazilian juice bar where we had a delicious acai smoothie. There are also a couple of restaurants around that area.

In september I decided to go to Malibu. There is a lot of traffic in that area but the landscape is great. There are plenty of things to explore all over that place. I would have love it to stop and take pictures with every single thing but I wasn't having so much time available. I wanted to reach Paradise Cove Beach Cafe Malibu. It has a lot of nice feedbacks about the food and the place itself. It's located towards the end of Malibu. It's a beautiful place. It's a piece of isolated beach featuring a nice restaurant with private beach and parking. They have sunbeds with seaview. In September the weather is starting to get a little bit colder but in the sun is pretty warm. The water was pretty cold but it's the perfect weather for taking a walk on the beach and take plenty of photos. The restaurant has a pretty good menu, featuring a lot of seafood but all the portions are quite big, they go better for sharing. You can sit inside or outside where they have a beautiful terrace, straight on the sand. It's a beautiful place. I did enjoy it and for sure I'll come back there.

A walk in Rodeo Drive: Los Angeles Part 2

As I wasn't much impressed yet about Los Angeles I was about to be as my uber driver was going through Beverly Hills on our way to Rodeo Drive. Funny fact my uber driver was pretty famous as he played in Criminal Minds, CSI, and a couple more series. I knew about Rodeo Drive from another friend. It's situated in the heart of Beverly Hills. It features luxury shopping boutiques, beauty salons, famous clinics, cute restaurants and if you are lucky enough you can even spot celebrities. I wanted to do a little bit of shopping so I stopped at my favourite shops: BCBG Max Azria, Guess and Coach. Loaded with bags I headed towards Anastasia Beverly Hills in search of her famous face illuminator. I have to say that the customer service in all this area is impecable. Staff is very friendly and useful. Stolling around that area got me thirsty so I stopped at Nesspresso for the best ice coffee in town. Quite dissapointing was the fact that internet is not easy to find in that area. Luckly I found a little bit so I can order my uber and head over to my friend's school of acting. It was my first time using uber so I kind of got the address wrong and reached in Santa Monica, but the uber driver was nice and because I was romanian and his boss was romanian as well, he took me back to Santa Monica Street in LA where I was finally reunited with my friend. He was nice enough to return me also the shopping bag which I had forgotten in his car. After 2 hours of watching my friends collegues performing on stage, I was so tired that I fell asleep while my friend was performing... Pretty embarassing... Spending this time with all this future wannabe actors, I find out that they work pretty damn hard to get money to pay their acting classes (often like waiters, bartenders, sellers, uber drivers) and mostly they get to win castings were they have to work for free because the market is overhelmed and if they won't accept, someone else will and maybe that's their chance to shine. After the classes was finally done we headed towards a korean barbeque which is like a popular thing in LA. I have never tried korean food before but since I entered the place I understood me & korean food are a big no no. They basically let you select the meat, and you have a grill on the table in front of you and u get to grill your own meat. Meat comes cut into very thin slices so it's easy to grill. U're also receiveing tofu, condiments (the famous kimchi, the smell of it almost killed me) and you get to enjoy korean beer. Not my favourite type of experience for sure.

After a couple of months, in September 2016 I had the chance to return to LA. This time my friend wasn't there anymore so I rented a car and returned to Rodeo Drive because I wanted to buy a Coach bag. Got even 10% discount for being international shopper. I went back to Anastasia Beverly Hills to buy some products requested by a friend. I found it cute that all the shops were having cute bottles of water, mini size, with their brand which they were distributing to customers. Got a pedicure done in a cute nail salon Voila where they were some fancy people, and 2 kardashians look alike. Walked down the streets enjoying the good weather. Returned to Nesspresso for more of their ice coffee. Found a really cute organic supermarket: Whole Foods Market. Enjoyed a refreshing organic smoothie and contemplated about how would my life be if I would live in Beverly Hills.

Lost in the city of angels: Los Angeles Part 1

 Even if I'm a huge fan of travelling until recently I avoided going to the USA mostly because of the lentgh of the flights. My first encounter with the american land was made in April 2016 when I decided to visit my friend who was studying acting in Los Angeles. I took a direct flight to LA from Dubai, operated by Emirates Airline. The flight has more or less 15 hours but I managed to sleep for 10 hours and for the remaining time I watched 2 movies (their entertainment sistem is quite good as they always  have the latest movies). I reached LA in an afternoon. LAX (Tom Bradley Internatinal) is a huge airport but immigration and baggage collection went smooth. In 40 minutes from landing I got collected by my friend and we start driving around the busy roads of LA. We stopped at a 7\11 for a small shopping and I got shocked with the look of the people in the parking, pretty much homeless people. I was surprised to find out that we were in downtown LA. As we are usually expecting downtown to be a good area. I found out this is not the case for LA. My friend wanted to take me with her to her acting classes that evening but I was jetlagged and despite the 10 hours of sleep from the aircraft I was ready to sleep again.
Second morning I woke up full of energy and ready to explore the city. We drove to Griffith Observatory where we took a couple of photos with the Hollywood sign. This observatory is located on the mount Hollywood in Griffith Park, it was build in 1935 and is the best spot for observing the famous Hollywood sign. There are trekking paths all around that area and vegetation. We walked for 30 minutes around that area and than we decided to leave as it was a pretty hot morning. Our next stop was Walk of Fame. It was pretty challenging to find a parking here. Very crowded area, full of turists,street sellers and spiced with some beggers. I got a little dissapointed by this street as in reality in not as glam as on tv. We managed to take a couple of pictures and we had an early lunch as my friend was having a busy afternoon. I continued my day in Beverly Hills but about this I'll tell you more in a future post.