a) I am not in Europe right now! I am in school as of this very minute and thus I do not spend every week travelling the world. That would indeed be a Very Nice Life, but I go cantankerous over midterms and problem sets, too! resting at home before I start work, which means I have ample Free Time to post the last of my photos and berate myself for being a lazy oaf and not posting this sooner.

b) I’m the type of person who draws things out, literally and figuratively. The latter means that I am obscenely late when it comes to travel-blogging. At this rate, you’ll be reading about Portugal in May June (ha ha freaking HA!) and my college graduation two years after the fact (okay, I actually posted about this in time, so no complaints here).

I feel like it’s almost necessary to preface this post by telling you about food. Out of all the three cities, Barcelona had the best food options, hands down. I mean, sure, we marvelled at the splendor that is Antoni Gaudi and we probably had our most relaxing time just lazing about on the beaches of Barceloneta, but YOU GUYS. THE FOOD. If anything, you simply must get Iberian ham in Spain. I don’t even like ham back in the States, and I was already missing jamón ibérico by the time I packed up my bags. And patatas bravas. More on that later in this post.

DAY 7 (03/17):

Anyway. Barcelona. By the time our plane landed, we were already craving dinner. Lugging our suitcases across town from the airport didn’t exactly put us in the highest of spirits, and by the time we finally finished unloading our suitcases at the hostel, I just wanted a bloody sandwich. Or something to make my stomach shut up. This is the part where a cute little vegan restaurant named Juicy Jones enters the picture.

Yes, I got my sandwich. And then some. Juicy Jones was one of my favorite eats in Barcelona, and I ain’t even vegan. I got a nice tofu sandwich and a Sweet Kryptonite milkshake made of soymilk, avocado, and pistachio. This isn’t your typical vanilla or chocolate milkshake, but it’s just one of those things that just somehow works.

The rest of the night consisted of dessert-hopping, which quickly devolved into drinks at Glacial, a pretty relaxed bar that seemed relatively popular with the locals. All I can say is, thank goodness Barcelona sleeps late, because if there’s one gripe I have about travelling, it’s waking up at butt o’clock in the name of sightseeing.

DAY 8 (03/18):

Our second day of Barcelona was aptly named Gaudi Day, seeing as we pretty much devoted the entire day to oohing and ahhing over the works of one Antoni Gaudi. This meant that we were basically traipsing the entire length of Barcelona to catch each one of his buildings. The amount of walking was a total clusterfuck for the soles of our feet, but seeing the architectural genius that is Gaudi? Totally worth it.

Midday was had at Parc Güell, an actual park fashioned by Gaudi. The buildings in the park resemble gingerbread houses (see above), what with the colorful detail and twisting, organic lines. As much as I was looking forward to it, the swarms of people that pervaded the park kind of dampened my experience, but those are just my hermit tendencies talking, not me. Womp-womping aside, the thing I like about Gaudi’s architecture is his sense of whimsy. He’s good at knowing exactly where to insert a jolt of color or a ripple. Just look at some of the details, like the colorful mosaics and the patterns!

The ceiling in Parc Güell

Another detail on the ceiling

Next up was Casa Vicens, one of Gaudi’s earliest works. I honestly can’t get enough of the clashing floral and checkered patterns.

After a fair bit of walking, we headed to Casa Calvet. My favorite part of the building is the balcony design; I love how the balconies flare out elegantly from the building. And I’m in like with the hints of mint green! Also, how lovely are those windows?

The next building up was Casa Milà. Unfortunately, there was quite a bit of construction around the building, so it was hard for me to take a snapshot, let alone feel inspired to venture up to the roof. We also hit up Palau Güell and the Picasso Museum before heading to the Boqueria Market in search of food.

As colorful and lively as the market was, we were particularly craving food in the form of tapas, so off we went to Lonja de Tapas for dinner.

DAY 9 (03/19):

Because the day before wasn’t terribly forgiving for the soles of our feet, we decided to take it relatively easy this time around. We took the subway to Montjuïc, a green, hilly neighborhood with amazing views of the city. We hit up the Fundació Joan Miró, a museum devoted to Miró (duh) and his contemporaries with some really neat installations, and the Olympic Stadium before soaking in the amazing views at the Castell Montjuïc.

From there, we took a cable car down to the shoreline at Barceloneta, where we snacked on jamón-flavored chips and watched the sun set on the beach. All in all, a pretty relaxing day.

For dinner, we got coffee and the famed Iberian ham sandwich (famously dubbed the “Best Sandwich in the World” by Mark Bittman) at Cafe Viena. Because obviously you can never get enough of the rich, succulent goodness that is quality Iberic ham.

DAY 10 (03/20):

This was our last day in Barcelona and our last day of our vacation, period. We didn’t actually do anything, except eat, eat, and — well, eat. We had all slept in from the night before, which meant that by the time we hit up Bar Tomas way up north in Barcelona, the clock was already approaching the early afternoon. Which is a good a time as ever to indulge in patatas bravas, yes?

For those who have not heard of patatas bravas, they’re basically fried potato chunks draped in creamy mayonnaise and hot sauce. It hardly sounds groundbreaking as a must-eat dish (pommes frites, anyone?!), but one fry, and it’s basically hook, line, and sink. Pairing it up with beer was definitely a good move. Bar Tomas itself was pretty nice; even during a lazy afternoon, I was still rubbing elbows with locals as we stuffed our faces with croquettes and sausages and the like.

Within walking distance was a cute little pastry shop called Foix de Sarrià that had some mighty delicious desserts on display.

After lazing about on the beach (again) and running about in an unsuccessful bid for a relatively affordable paella dinner, we finally settled on Cervecería Catalana, a tapas restaurant. To say we went all out would be a bit of an understatement:

Fried artichokes

Fried squid

Stuffed red pepper

Baked Camembert

Mushrooms

Seafood risotto — easily my favorite of the bunch

As we split a pitcher of sangria, we were overstuffed, but honestly, it was the perfect Last Supper. And so ends my spring break trip, three months after the fact. COUGH. Either way, it’s been real, Spain and Portugal. Peace.

P.S. All of the photos from my trip are here, if you want to have another look!

• In May, I went home for two weeks and managed to get myself sick with a fever.
• I worked for most of the summer doing webdesign for my school’s IT department.
• I went absolutely crazy over the World Cup. We installed a huge projector at work so we could watch all the games live, and during the weekends, my friends and I would go out to different bars/pubs in NY to cheer for our favorite teams (DEUTSCHLAND ♥!). Fun and merriment (and beer) were had by all!

Overall, my summer (June and July) was pretty low-key — pretty much just chilling out in New York. And studying for LSATs, but let’s think happy thoughts here! August was pretty exciting though, because I went to Kenya with my family! Out of all the places I’ve been, Kenya ranks pretty high up there on my All Time Favorite Places list. The people are genuinely welcoming, the weather is nice and breezy, the landscape is too gorgeous for words, and the animals, oh my god. I’m talking lions, zebras, gazelles, elephants, buffalo, giraffes, flamingos, hippos, monkeys, etc etc. It’s one thing to see them on the Discovery Channel or in a zoo, but it’s a whole different experience to stand right in front of a herd of zebras or walk balk to your tent only to find a monkey sitting right outside the door.

During the late summer, all the animals in the Serengeti of Tanzania migrate northwards to Kenya, so we came at a good time. We went on a safari through the major parks in Kenya: Aberdare for elephants, Lake Nakuru for flamingos and monkeys, Hell’s Gate for hippos and giraffes, and Masai Mara for everything else and then some. I posted all my photos in my Flickr set, if you’d like to take a look! Or you could just scroll down (click to view larger!).

I already miss it so much.

• crammed for my final projects and exams.
• got featured on Smashing Magazine’s May wallpaper showcase.
• finished my junior year of university.
• got an apartment in NY with two friends for the summer.
• flew back home to Shanghai.
• went to the Shanghai 2010 World Expo.
• went to Taiwan last weekend.

The last few weeks of school are always horrendous, because there’s one thing piling on top of another, and if you’re absolute pants at time management like I am, you end up pulling all-nighters and putting off tasks such as … um, updating this blog. But no matter! I mean, I rant about academia enough in real life to the point of annoyance, so let’s talk about something fun. Like the my Taiwan trip last weekend!

My mom and I were in Taipei for three days, where we visited a couple museums and temples, like the Chiang Kai-Shek and the Sun Yat-sen memorials. In a way, it was like revisiting my China Civ history class again. I mean, come on — in the gift shop, they were selling plastic dolls of a baby Chiang Kai-Shek in a diaper.

Oh yeah, we also happened to eat ridiculous amounts of food. Grass jelly, boba, stinky tofu, shaved ice, steamed buns … you name it. One thing that Taipei is known for is the night market. Street vendors have stands and stands of snacks that usually total less than $1 USD each.

Like these steamed pork buns!

Or these pancakes…

…or these noodles. Oodles of noodles!

I was mad bloated by the time I walked out of the market — and this was just the street food. We also ended up eating splendidly delicious things like:

…red bean cakes. There’s a stand where they bake the dough on the spot, and then they add the filling of your choice, whether it be red bean, vanilla cream, coconut, minced pork, or whathaveyou. And then they wrap the dough and filling into this nifty cake like you see here! The cake dough is also amazingly light and fluffy so it doesn’t sit in your stomach and leave you with the feeling that you suddenly gained 38 pounds.

Vietnamese spring rolls

… and grass jelly, taro, & red bean dessert at Meet Fresh. It might not look aesthetically pleasing from the photo above, but it was amazingly good, like eating bubble tea in a bowl with extra bubbles. It had the chewy tapioca-like texture and the sweet taste of a coffee-coconut-taro-hybrid. A bit like the sago I had a while back in Singapore, I might add.

Taipei was a refreshing change from Shanghai and New York. For one, it’s cleaner. Like, you get fined if you eat or drink or even chew gum on the subway. And there are so many bikes. Every time I crossed the street, cars weren’t so much the issue when there were 2384993 motorcycles and scooters zooming past me. Too bad the weather isn’t much different from Shanghai’s usual muggy heat. Though honestly, who cares when you have TONS of good food. Clearly I’ve got my priorities straight.

I started off the day with a trip to the Musée d’Orsay. It’s one of my favourite museums: a former train station filled with works of my favorite artists (Gauguin! Courbet! Renoir!) but sadly, they don’t allow photos. But if you love Impressionist art (or art history in gen) and happen to be in Paris, it’s every bit worth the visit!

Next up, I went to Musée Rodin which had this neat sculpture garden along with the actual museum. The weather was nice enough for me to sit outside and appreciate the famed sculpture below:

…The Thinker. I’m so used to seeing this on campus that seeing it in Paris didn’t really resonate with me. But once I stepped inside the actual museum, there were several sculptures that caught my eye:

Come lunchtime, I was starving and went to L’As du Falafel, where I ate one of the best falafel pitas that my taste buds have ever encountered.

A pita chock-full of eggplant, lettuce, cucumbers, and falafel? Um, yes please. After that, I did lots of window-shopping and not a whole lot of actual shopping. And I ended up at the Arc du Triomphe, because … well, just because it’s the Arc du Triomphe. Here, have some painfully tourist-y photos!

I wasn’t too keen on paying the ticket to stand right under the arc, so I passed and resorted to taking photos from the street across. I then went to Place de la Madeleine, where they had Maille. Maille has the best mustard ever. I mean, come on, their boutique has mustard on tap. And their mustard ranges from plain to fig & cilantro to berry to vanilla. If that isn’t brilliant, then I don’t know what is.

clockwise from left: red berry, apricot & curry, pesto & rocket (arugula), fig & cilantro, parmesan & basil, and dried tomato & pepper

Anyway, the next and final installment of the Paris posts will be coming soon! There will be macarons.

Outward journey: Paris Nord to Brussels Midi
Inbound journey: Brussels Midi to Paris Nord

Basically, I ended up taking advantage of the Eurostar and bought tickets for a day trip to Brussels! An hour and a half later, I was no longer in France. Purse in tow and camera in hand, I made my way out of Gare Midi and walked my way up Anspachlaan, the main road in downtown Brussels. Along the way, I came across Bourse/Beurs which is basically the stock exchange.

A lot prettier than the NYSE, if I do say so myself. And that was just the side view.

Anyway, a few turns eastward, and I finally got to Manneken Pis, which translates to um, “little man urinating.” If London has Big Ben and Paris has the Eiffel Tower, then Brussels has Manneken Pis. I remember when I was younger, my dad came back from a business trip in Belgium and brought back a wine bottle opener of the Manneken Pis with a strategically-placed corkscrew. So I suppose that was my first impression of the much-beloved icon. Anywho, I digress. I was expecting some huge, elaborate fountain but it was actually quite small — it barely took up a tiny corner of the street block. And no, that’s not what she said. For such a little guy, he drew a quite a large crowd.

Apparently there is a Janneken Pis (a female counterpart!) out there, but I didn’t get to visit. Maybe next time!

A few blocks north and I made it to Grote Markt or Grand Place, which is pretty much the main square of Brussels. Again, to make an analogy, Times Square is to New York as Piccadilly Circus is to London as Grand Place is to Brussels. Except Grand Place doesn’t have the garish neon lights or absurdly large billboards; instead, it has some of the most beautiful architecture, dating back to the 17th century. Suffice to say, the buildings definitely brought out my inner art history nerd.

This is the Brussels Town Hall, which is situated in Grand Place. Ugh, the details are totally mind-blowing.

These buildings also surround the perimeter of Grand Place; they used to be guildhalls back in the day, but now they mostly consist of different shops and boutiques.

Because food always manages to worm its way into my entries, I’ll talk about brunch that day. I’d totally talk about breakfast, except breakfast was a mere croissant and a coffee on the train. How exciting. Anyway — brunch. Brunch was had at the flagship Le Pain Quotidien. Basically, Le Pain Quotidien (or Het Dagelijks Brood) is a chain of restaurant-bakery-lovechildren with some of the most fabulous baked goods out there. The scones and spreads are incredibly delicious in all their sweet, fattening glory, and they can make some amazing tartines (open-faced sandwiches). There are a couple locations scattered around New York and I’ve even been to the one in London, but when I found myself at the Grand Sablon neighborhood, the all-too-familiar sign of Le Pain Quotidien came calling and I figured what the hell, might as well dine at the original!

Raspberry limonade!

My boeuf basilic tartine: beef tartare, pesto, parmesan, and cilantro on wheat bread! The beef tartare initially threw me off guard, but I really liked it! Might have been the pesto that sealed the deal.

After brunch, I walked over to the Grand Palais. The gates were locked (thwarted!), but I was still able to snap a couple pictures, like the one above.

One of my favorite aspects of Brussels is the architecture, by far. Brussels is so photogenic; it’s hard to take a shitty picture of the city when there’s so much art nouveau. And the detail! So, so stunning and picturesque.

I went on a Monday, so nearly all the museums were closed. I was a little disappointed when I found this out, but I’m kind of glad, because I spent most of the day walking around and ooh-ing and ah-ing over the amazing architecture and I know I probably would have spent the entire day in the Magritte or the Horta museum and missed the train. So there!

By the late afternoon, I was hungry yet again, and I got the moules-frites at Chez-Leon. Three words: mussels and fries.

So basically, I had this huge platter of fried mussels and a helping of fries on the side … I’ll let the photo speak for itself. After this meal, I was reminded once again that the best comas are food comas.

Oh, and I also had a glass of lambic raspberry beer! I love beer but holy mother, raspberry beer seriously tastes like juice. Brussels definitely has some amazing-tasting beer, and I ended up buying some bottles of Trappist beer and lambic beer (cassis and apple flavored!) to bring back home.

I then went back to Gare Midi, my newly-bought chocolates, pralines, and beer in tow as I headed back to good ol’ Paris. All in all, a good day.

But before I get started with the photos, let me just say that getting to Paris was an absolute hellish, frustrating nightmare. The original plan was that I had a flight from New York to Paris with a brief layover in Zurich. I would leave at 6pm, arrive at Charles DeGaulle at 1pm. I ended up in Paris at 7:30pm. Here’s what went terribly wrong:

• I left my campus at 3pm, hoping to make my 6:10pm flight. Normally it takes 30 minutes by cab.
• Surprise! It took 3 hours to get there, thanks to a killer combo of NY rain and Friday afternoon rush hour. Needless to say, I missed the flight to Zurich.
• I was put on a new flight to Zurich (and later, Paris), except this one would be 3 hours later, at 9pm. Okay, no big deal. I got dinner and patiently waited at the gate.
• Except it totally became a big deal when this flight was delayed by 2 hours…
• …and I missed my connecting flight by a mere 15 minutes.
• I got put on a new connecting flight to Paris, except I had to wait 3 more hours for this one. I was not amused in the slightest, but at this point, there’s nothing you can really do except take advantage of the complimentary 20 euro meal voucher. And wait.
• I barely made the flight because I had stupidly written down the gate for a Paris flight from a different airline, when I had to go to a different gate at the opposite end of the terminal. Let’s just say that two bags, two separate check-ins, and a 20 minute sprint do not mesh well.

Once I got to Paris though, everything went by smoothly. I was a little disappointed because 6 hours worth of plans were set aside thanks to me being late to the airport by 30 minutes, but hey, what can you do. After meeting up with my friend, we went to dinner and then a friend’s birthday party. Surprisingly, I fared pretty well amidst all that jetlag.

The next day (Sunday!), my friend and I went to Marché Richard Lenoir, a Thursday/Sunday market that sells all these fresh foods! Perhaps my favorite stall was the chicken lady, who sells these amazingly savoury chickens like the ones below:

My friend and I devoured the thyme chicken in a matter of minutes. I even broke the provided plastic fork in the process of my gluttony, because the chicken was that good.

After lunch at the market, we went to Berthillon on Ile Saint-Louis for some ice cream. I don’t think I can ever eat ice cream again without comparing it to Berthillon, because for the love of all that is holy, they have the most wonderful ice cream. Normally, I avoid using superlatives, especially when it comes to describing food, but this is way justified.

I had a scoop of pink grapefruit sorbet and another of gingerbread ice cream, topped with chantilly. The sorbet actually had the tartness of real grapefruit, and the gingerbread had the tiny pieces of — well, gingerbread. Such a shame that I can’t buy it in America!

Notre Dame — the much beloved Gothic spectacle — was only a short walk away.

Gothic architecture isn’t really my favorite, but I’m always in awe of the amount of detail. Stunning!

Very close to the cathedral was Shakespeare & Company, a very cute little bookstore in the Left Bank. The owner lets young writers stay in the bookstore, as evidenced by the beds and writing desks nestled between the bookshelves.

I was getting a little hungry again, so I went to Pierre Hermé which makes the best macarons known to mankind (again, me with the superlatives). I had originally planned to go later in the week, but I figured I could use a little snack.

I bought the olive oil macaron and the wasabi-strawberry macaron. The olive oil macaron has a very rich, buttery taste, but it has a little olive-y kick to it. Definitely a new favorite. The wasabi and strawberry macaron sounds horribly gross, but I go crazy for wasabi-flavored things, so I wasn’t going to pass this one up. There’s a sharp hint of mustard, but it’s balanced out by the sweet strawberries in the middle, so the overall effect is this slightly spicy strawberry taste. It’s not as disgusting as it sounds; I actually liked it quite a bit!

Ladurée also makes some mighty good macarons and other baked goods (as evidenced by the pink cake above!), so I ended up stopping there to buy a box to save for later. Afterwards, my friend and I went to Le Grand Colbert, where I had a nice dinner of steak-frites! A fun fact: we were sitting in the exact same booth where they filmed Something’s Gotta Give!

After that, I went back to snooze because I was headed for a trip to Brussels the following day. More on that later!