Hong Kong

你好，

And welcome to today's post about Hong Kong (香港)!

As some of you may already know, Hong Kong is a "Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China". It is a former British colony and this can be seen in things such as left-hand traffic and the plugs. Hong Kong is a very densely populated city, and apartments and housing in general, is very small. Hong Kong offers a great variety of things to do and foods to eat. I have been to Hong Kong three times in the past year, and really enjoyed each stay. Since I live in Shanghai, flights to Hong Kong are pretty cheap. The first time I went to Hong Kong was October break in 2014 with my family, then with my schools dance company in June 2015 and then once more with my best friend and her family for October break 2015. 

A typical Hong Kong view

So what can you do in Hong Kong? 

One of my absolute favourite places in Hong Kong is of course, Disneyland. Disney is a must-see place at least once in your life, no matter what age you are. The Hong Kong Disneyland is the smallest Disney in the world, which also means that it is pretty crowded at times, but you can still have a fun time there even if there are a lot of people. Disneyland is especially good if you have small children travelling with you. The Disneyland is also very easy to access, since you can actually take the metro with the pink line, to the stop Disneyland. My school's dance company actually performed in this Disneyland and it was an amazing experience :) On both times that I went to Disney, the weather was extremely hot and humid, so I would suggest bringing a lot of water and even energy drinks like gatorade with you when you go. 

Disneyland at night

Our performance at Disney

Toy Story Land

Night parade

Disney at night

Another must see place in Hong Kong is the Victoria Peak. The mountain excels in almost a vertical slope and the tram that you take to the top is an old tram that is dependent on just one cable. It was pretty scary, because it felt like the tram would fall but we made it out alive :). The view from the top was amazing; you could see the whole city of Hong Kong. On top of the mountain, there was a huge shopping mall with a lot of restaurants and stores. We actually went to a restaurant called Bubba Gump Shrimp (from Forrest Gump) and it was really nice (but only go if you like shrimps, because that's the only thing you'll be eating). Overall Victoria Peak was really nice and the views were, as I already said, amazing.

Panorama from the top

The tram

The tram

View from the tram

The last place I would suggest going is the Lamma Island. The Lamma Island is one of Hong Kong's many islands, and this one is a lot more undeveloped than, for example, the Hong Kong island. The Lamma Island is known for it's "hippie-like" people. A lot of expats even live on this island. There were no cars, minimal water pipes and electricity. A lot of the people living on the Lamma island work on the Hong Kong island, and it takes around 40 minutes to get there with a boat. It was very interesting to see a completely different side of Hong Kong and I would very much suggest going here. There was also a very lovely beach, where a lot of people (including my brothers) went swimming.

The beach 

Streets of the Lamma Island

Some boats and houses

My brothers collecting rocks :) 

Of course, you when you're in Hong Kong, you have to go shopping. The best place to go shopping is the IFC mall (and the area around it) and the Causeway Bay area. There are a lot of Western and Asian stores, and also restaurants in case you get hungry. As for moving around, I would suggest always taking the metro, because it is a very good and cheap way to go around. You could also take a taxi, but that is more expensive.

Admiralty area at night

Admiralty

More of admiralty 

The Hong Kong skyline

Metro

That's it for this post! And as you already know, leave questions and improvements in the comment section below and I will definitely do my best to answer them. And hopefully you are all enjoying this blog, we only have four more locations left.

Thank you for reading,

Karoliina 

Palawan pt II

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Kamusta!

And welcome to part II of our Palawan adventure. Our story continues with our trip up to El Nido, which is a more touristy destination. The car journey was an interesting experience. The car we took to El Nido was a van packed with 14 people plus the luggage of 11 people. The journey was also a really bumpy and curvy road; kind of like a rollercoaster. Well, at least the views were nice and in the five hours or so we saw a lot of amazing sights, but also the very poor and undeveloped side of the Philippines. People live in 'houses' that are made up of leaves and bamboo with no windows, and usually the families have a cow, pig or chicken, which they will probably eat on a festival day. Even though the people live in such poor conditions, they are still so happy and friendly.

This is the van we took to El Nido from Saband with our luggage on top 

Our hotel (called the Bayview Hotel El Nido) was located on top of a hill and the view was amazing (see picture below). The hotel was really new and a lot of things, like the hot water and breakfast, weren't always working, but the people there were very lovely and did everything they could to give a pleasant stay for the guests. 

The view from our hotel room window

Sunset from our hotel room window

There were four puppies at the reception of the hotel; my brothers were very excited

As I already mentioned, El Nido is located in the northern part of Palawan and there are 45 smaller islands in front of El Nido. A very popular thing to do here is 'island-hopping' where you get on a boat at 9 o'clock in the morning and go on different trips to the islands, eat lunch there, and get back to the hotel at around 4 o'clock in the afternoon. My family and I went on all four different island-hopping trips that the hotel offered and really enjoyed all of them. I would recommend the island hopping to all families whose children are comfortable in the water. If your children (or you) can't swim, you can still go on the trips but it may be a bit boring since a lot of the time is spent snorkling in the water. 

The beach next to our hotel

Our first trip was tour C and the first stop on this trip was at a small lagoon, where you had to swim through a small crack in the wall of the island. The lagoon was stunning and the whole experience was like from a beautifully filmed documentary. This pattern continued on with the next three trips, all of them being really good with amazing things to see.

Our lunch waiting

The boat

Some of the views

Hopefully these two posts gave you and idea of what to expect if you visit Palawan. My family and I saw so many amazing places and animals, that live in this beautiful environment. Hopefully the increasing amount of tourism won't completely ruin the place, because already, the difference between Sabang (with a minimal amount of tourism) and El Nido (with a lot of tourists) is big when looking at pollution and trash. Of course, we have to remember that tourism is the only way for these people to get money. 

The seawater there was extremely warm (almost 30 degrees celsius), which meant that there were a lot of jellyfish. The small jellyfish just sting you a little bit and it doesn't really hurt, but it for sure is very annoying. This was basically the only bad thing about the island-hopping trips. 

Overall our trip was very good and we all enjoyed it a lot. And as I said before, no words or pictures can fully describe the views and sights we saw; instead, you have to experience it yourself. As always, leave any questions and improvements in the comment section below :)

Thank you so much for reading,

Karoliina 

Palawan pt I

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Kamusta!

And welcome to today's blog post about Palawan, Philippines :)

My family and I went to the Palawan island in February 2015, and we really enjoyed our stay there. This post will be a bit different, since I'll be telling you more of what we actually did and writing fully from personal experience.

The view from our Bungalow

The Palawan island was definitely the most beautiful place I have ever visited. The views were absolutely incredible and no pictures or words can fully describe the unbelievable place. When my family was looking at different holiday destinations, we were thinking of going to a nice, calm locations without a huge mass of tourists, and this wish was definitely fulfilled with our visit to Palawan.

We flew to from Shanghai to Manila to Puerto Princesa on Friday the 13th (scary, I know right) and the airport in Puerto Princesa was definitely the smallest airport ever, even though Puerto Princesa is in fact the biggest city in Palawan. We actually forgot our big camera (which I was in charge of) so the pictures in this post aren't as high quality as the should be. All the flights were actually good and we didn't crash (even though it was Friday the 13th). We had ordered a car to pick us up from the airport and take us into a small town called Sabang. When we were in the car, it was pitch black outside, which meant that we had no idea where we were going and the roads were extremely bumpy. This trip took us about 1,5h and when we arrived at our hotel, we all went straight to bed.

Sabang was pretty much in the middle of no where. A very small fisherman town, with two holiday resorts (including ours) and a few tiny supermarkets. There was barely any other tourists there, which meant that we were pretty much the only people there. The resort we stayed at was really lovely and eco-friendly. It had a pool, but since the sea was about 20 meters away from our bungalows, we spent most of our time in the sea. We really enjoyed the blue sky and the clear water, since that is something you don't experience very often in Shanghai. For the first time, even my little brothers really enjoyed being in the sea and spent about 70% of the five days we were there in the water.

On the fourth day we were in Sabang, was the only cloudy day, so we took a car to a near by town to go zip-lining. It was the first time ever that I did zip-lining and even though it was pretty scary, it was an amazing experience and I would definitely recommend going :)

A not that good picture of my dad zip-lining - but you get the idea

After zip-lining, we went to a Mangrove forest boat trip, where a lovely old Filipino lady gave us a tour on the forests. She told us all about the different animals that hide in the forests and how the locals do everything they possibly can to preserve these forests. As for now, Palawan doesn't get that many tourists and the people who visit are recommended to think as ecologically as possible. Of course, tourism brings them more money, but with money comes trash, pollution and people who ONLY care about the money.

Mangrove forest

Us planting our own mangrove trees

When we got back to  our hotel, a guard came with a young lady to show me and my brothers a tiny, tiny newly-hatched turtle. Me and my brother were allowed to let this turtle go to the water, and this was definitely an amazing experience as well. There are about 1000-2000 turtles living in the Palawan area, but because of the pollution in the water, turtles die a lot due to the consumption of plastic that people throw in the water.

The turtle we helped next to my brothers hand

This is what we did on the first week of being in Palawan. The rest of the time we just chilled at the beach, went on beach runs and ate a lot of good food. The resort we stayed at was called the Dalyon and it was a really lovely resort. In the next post I will talk about our trip to El Nido (which is still on Palawan). But for now, thank you for reading and as always, leave question  and improvements in the comment section below.

Karoliina

Gorgeous sunset 

London

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Hello,

And welcome to todays post about London, England. London is such a beautiful city to visit, especially in the summer time when the weather isn't too hot but not too cold either. London is the perfect location for a fun, city holiday that will be interesting for all ages. 

My mum and I went to London in summer 2014 and enjoyed it a lot. It was a long weekend filled with some serious shopping and sightseeing. All the locals in London were very nice and helpful, and overall the trip was very good. The only bad thing about London (as well as a lot of other places) was that the hotels were extremely expensive, unless you got lucky and found a cheap alternative. 

Tower Bridge

Of course, when you're in London you obviously have to go see the changing of the guards at the Royal Buckingham Palace, where the Queen of England lives. Even though (in my opinion) the changing of the guards is a bit overrated, it is still a must-see in London. I would suggest going to the Buckingham palace pretty early to get a good spot so you can see properly. If you keep your eyes open, you might even spot the Queen in one of the windows of the palace :)

Buckingham Palace

Horse-police in front of the Buckingham Palace

Another must see place is the natural history museum. This museum you can enter free of charge and the museum is very well kept and interesting even for the younger people who might be travelling with you. The only bad thing is that the museum is always very crowded, but apart from that, I really enjoyed looking and reading all the interesting facts about the different things in the museum. The museum is divided into four different zones; the blue, red, orange and green zones. Each zone contains different things such as animals, human biology, geography etc. If you visit the museum in the winter time, you can also go ice-skating in the famous ice rink in front of the museum, which costs £12. 

Natural History Museum 

One place me and my mum didn't have time to go to (and also my mum didn't want to go to) was the Warner Bros Harry Potter studios. If you are a hardcore Harry Potter fan like I am, the Harry Potter studios would be an amazing place to visit. There you have all the different objects they used in the movies, and all the costumes etc, and the guided tours give you more in depth explanations of each of the different things and what they were used for. If I were to go back to England at some point in my life, I will definitely want to visit the Harry Potter studios. For more information (ticket prices etc) click here to access the Warner Bros website. You can also click here to access a vlog of a YouTuber called Zoella, which roughly shows you the experience you will get when you visit the studios (warning: spoilers). 

Telephone box in the streets of London

As for sights, a thing I would also definitely recommend seeing is the Big Ben and the London Eye. My mum and I actually didn't go on the London Eye, because of the long queue, but the experience would probably be amazing; seeing London from up above. By taking the tube (the London underground) to the Westminster station, you will arrive right next to the Big Ben. From here, you can take amazing pictures of the typical London view, as I did (see pictures below). You could also walk to the Big Ben from the Buckingham Palace, because the walk isn't that long (I would definitely suggest walking, especially if the weather is lovely).

The Big Ben

Lastly, a place I would recommend for shopping is the Oxford Street and the Westfield Mall. Oxford Street literally has all the stores a teenager (or any shopping lover for that matter) needs and wants to shop in. Oxford street has for example: Primark, H&M, Lush, Urban Outfitters, New Look, Bershka and many, many more that you can discover here. The same is with the Westfield mall; it is filled all the most popular stores (mostly the same ones that are on Oxford Street). I would suggest picking your shopping location depending on the weather; if it is a nice day go to Oxford Street which is, obviously, outside and it's a rainy day, go to the Westfield Mall, which is indoors. My mum and I went to both of these locations and I found both of them to be extremely good. To get more information on the Westfield mall, you can click here.

That's about all I have for you today! I hope you found this post helpful and if you have any questions or improvement ideas, you can leave them in the comment section below.

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas (for those who celebrate it) and I hope to see you soon with my next blog post :)

Thank you for reading,

Karoliina