Singapore & Thailand!

Touched down in four countries in five days. And it was amazing!

February 20th: Taiwan -> Singapore

We arrived mid afternoon to a hot and humid Singapore. The air was crystal clear and we had a lot to see in not a lot of time. We ran to make an evening show of the Gardens by the Bay SuperTree Show. This is an area owned by the Marina Bay Sands hotel. The gardens are 50% botanical garden and 50% SuperTree - aka massive fake trees that have lights and walkways and restaurants - pretty sick right? We took one metro stop down to the Promenade where the Singapore Flyer is located. This is Singapore's version of the London Eye. It had amazing views and I would definitely recommend catching the latest ride at 10:15 with online tickets. We ended the night looping back to the original metro station passing the lantern festival going on the famous double helix bridge which, you guessed it, is inspired by DNA.

February 21st: Singapore -> Thailand

Our one year anniversary! Spent getting the most out of our last hours in Singapore and eating Pad Thai in our Phuket beachside resort. Tis the life of a college student, right? Just kidding. We literally ran around Singapore to see Little India, the Merlion Statue, Raffles Hotel, and the lookout deck of the Marina Bay Sands. All are shown below :) Getting to our Thailand hotel was a struggle but it did not disappoint!

February 22nd: Phuket (Patong Beach)

Beach day! I kept my word and we spent an entire day being beach bums and getting burnt to a crisp (literally). All we did was beach, pool, ping pong, pina colada, and kayak. To grab some food we went to a local night market but it was an overall relaxing day.

February 23rd/24th: Phuket -> Shanghai

A couple hours in the pool and then off to the airport! We had a super long layover so the rest of the day was spent in the Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur airports. We arrived in Shanghai early the 24th!


It was an absolutely incredible trip and I adored every minute. From Taiwan, Singapore, to Thailand - we saw so much and experienced so many different things. Thanks to everyone for reading and a thank you to my parents for allowing me to travel! And exciting news: Mamma and Papa Warne will be in Shanghai this week!!! Can't wait to share with them why I love Shanghai so much! More to come, but as always...

love,
kpk

Taiwan!

Hello everyone!

I'm updating you from our hotel in Taipei! Rhett and I agree, this is one of our favorite cities. In fact, we can't wait until the day that we can explore the whole island.

We arrived super late on Valentine's Day and took a bus into the city and then a cab to our hotel (which is by some GREAT shopping... a constant distraction for me). Next day we visited Longshan Temple, Taipei 101, and Elephant Mountain. We had an amazing view of the city as the lights came on - magical! Today we took a hop-on/hop-off tour bus along the entire northern coast of Taiwan. The full trip without stops is just under two hours and the highlights were the coastal beach cities and Yehliu Geopark (rock formations from sea erosion).

But... the granddaddy of Taipei that we have completely become addicted to? Night Markets. You can read all about them before you get here but there's really nothing that compares. Vendors upon vendors selling all types of food, goodies, and games. Everything is ordered chaos, another facet of Taipei we have come to admire! Everyone is so kind, smart, law-abiding, and patient. Refreshing! As for the night markets, we have decided to walk the entirety of the market (picking up food to eat as we walk) then decide on one game to play per night.

First stop was Shilin Night Market off Jiantan Station on the Red Line. We walked around for nearly two hours and tried their famous fried chicken, shaved ice, and bean bag game. Tonight we went two markets! First was Tamsui Old Street (off Tamsui station) where we bought some funky socks and ridiculously huge ice cream cones. Last, we went to Ningxia Night Market (Zhongshan station). This market specializes in food and our samplings included a noodle/omelette pork roll covered in eel sauce (my favorite), deep fried cheesy prawn, spicy grilled corn, and boba! But to be honest, we had the most fun playing a ping-pong ball game and we won an adorable little ram after the 2015 chinese new year of the ram coming up. His name is Rammie and he's awesome. We've started a new trend of taking pictures of "Rammie's firsts" (first metro ride, mcdonalds, etc). Look for more pics to come!

love,
kpk

1. The cone of all cones

2. The most famous rock: Queen's Head

3. Today's goodies!

4. Famous fried chicken that was actually bigger than my head

5. First street food in taipei!

6. Taipei by day

7. Taipei by night!

8. Shaved ice - like tasting a cloud covered in sweets

9. Longshan temple - the decorations here are much more colorful and ornate

10. The Geopark

11. Festival decorations being set up for New Years!

12. Rammie!

13. The noodle egg thing.... Delicious!

Ice Ice Baby

na na na na na na na na.

Welcome to Harbin! The coldest place I have been ... EVER! Temperatures were in the negatives the entire time we were there but nothing too drastic (only 10 below)! It was a winter wonderland but only tolerable thanks to 3 layers of pants, 2 shirts, 2 jackets, 2 pairs of mittens, 2 pairs of socks, and handwarmers all over my body. Craziness. But, hey, you've got to do it. The Harbin ice festival is like nothing else in the world. Between the snow sculptures that can be seen by day and the ice sculptures that are lit up at night, there was always something exciting to see.

We started off our first day with a walk down the pedestrian street sampling street food (our favorites: hot coca-cola and cream popsicles, go figure), then walking across the frozen songhua river to reach the snow sculpture park. These are serious sculptures, too. Competitors come from around the world to carve their frozen masterpieces and past winners/famous sculptors create the park centerpieces. The largest display was easily the size of a football field! After regaining feeling in our toes and playing a couple hands of shanghai poker at a local cafe we ventured over to the main event of the festival: da bing jie (大冰界) literally translated as "big ice world." It was freezing at night but that is the best time to see it all lit up :) SO worth the entrance fee. We ran around like kids and did all of the touristy things: ice slides, lookout towers, corny pictures, holding an arctic fox, taking shots at the ice bar... it was a blast.

The next morning we woke up bright and early to go see the Siberian tiger park. We first held a baby tiger, then took a bus tour of their segregated "parks" which hold free-roaming tigers, and then walked around the young lion enclosure where we proceeded to see a few unique things... 1. A real-live liger (half tiger/half lion) 2. A pheasant clinging to dear life in a tree while being taunted by lurking tigers below and 3. We saw who's live chicken would last the longest out of the 4 we threw into the den. I would like to argue that mine lasted longer.... however, it never made it to the ground. It was quite the experience but I am happy to be back in Shanghai and not spending 30 minutes piling on layers every morning.

Here are pics from the trip! Talk to you all soon!

love,
kpk