Jiufen, Taiwan ~ I truly enjoyed the ambiance of this little mountain town. Now I completely understand why people always say that Jiufen gives off Studio Ghibli vibes—because it genuinely does! Wandering through its narrow, winding alleys felt like stepping into a whimsical, animated world. The red lanterns swaying in the breeze, the old tea houses perched on the hillside, and the mist rolling in from the mountains all create a dreamy, almost otherworldly atmosphere. Continue reading
For our second trip in 2024, we spent five days in Bali! It’s a place we’ve been meaning to visit for a while and had originally booked a trip to in 2020, but the pandemic forced the airline to cancel our flight. It feels so fulfilling to finally tick this off our list after four years.
For our second anniversary, we opted for a 7-day trip to Coron, Palawan. It’s one of the best diving destinations in the Philippines and we are so excited to experience Coron as freedivers! After taking our freediving lessons back in April 2022, we just couldn’t get enough of the ocean. It’s one thing to be in its presence and another to be one with the ocean. It’s so refreshing, calming, and peaceful to be able to do freediving and explore the underwater world.
Hello, everyone. This is such an overdue post and I want to catch this blog up in terms of documenting my travels, so here’s the details of our 5-day Palawan trip back in June 2023. I got writer’s block due to working as a writer during the past year and a half, that’s why I wasn’t able to share this experience here, but I’m back so here goes! I will also be posting my 2024 travels in the next few weeks.
Anyway, my husband and I make it a point to travel to one local destination and one interantional destination per year and on our anniversary in February 2023, we went to Thailand, so in June we decided to go to Palawan.
Of course, our trip wouldn’t be complete if I don’t drop by bookstores and shop for books. I knew that they have one of my favorite bookstores when travelling in Asia (I haven’t travelled outside of Asia yet, but you get my point), Books Kinokuniya, so it was instantly on our itinerary! But we also dropped by Open House at Central Embassy Mall which I learned from Kathryn Bernardo’s Instagram post when she went to Thailand last year. Ever since I saw her post about this beautiful bookstore, I knew that I wanted to visit it and that’s why I convinced my husband to spend our first anniversary in Thailand.
Open House is located at the 6th floor of Central Embassy mall. Take note, they occupy the WHOLE floor. They sell different kinds of books from educational, cultural, memoirs, and fiction. They also have cafe’s and restaurant’s inside the bookstore! It was really a cool place to visit if you’re a bookworm like me. Oh, and they also offer art materials for painting, drawing, etc. Continue reading
I can’t believe that it’s already been a year since we got married! The past year has been nothing but wonderful, and for our first wedding anniversary, we decided to celebrate it in a different country — Thailand. It’s one of the countries in Asia that I want to visit because of their famous beaches and shopping malls, but I recently found out about their massive selection of books and huge bookstores. That’s for a different post though, because this specific blog post will be about the time that we’ve spent in the wonderful island of Phuket.
We stayed at Woraburi Phuket Resort & Spa which was situated at the heart of Karon Beach. The beach itself is pretty accessible from the hotel because Woraburi is just across from it. We booked a superior room, but we were upgraded to their deluxe room for free. The room is big and spacious with a strong touch of classic Thailand. The hotel staff were very kind and accommodating, especially for us foreign to the place. The breakfast food buffet was great; they serve different food each morning. Plus, they also have free Bangkok iced popsicles for their guests!
As the world slowly lifts travel restrictions and opens up to tourists, we celebrated my husband’s birthday in Bohol. It’s a domestic travel, which I pretty much appreciated because our home country is very beautiful and there are so many places we have yet to visit. We’ve planned this trip after our Boracay trip in February, and we were lucky enough that the restrictions did not heighten.
We stayed at Panglao Sea Resort which is a very lovely and peaceful place at the heart of Panglao Island. The staff and the owner are all very friendly and accommodating. We definitely fell in love with the place as well as the food. Continue reading
I just wanted to share with you our quick yet very fun trip to Batangas for a freediving session with one of the best freedivers, Gen Abanillo. I’ve always watched my then-boyfriend (now-husband) dive deep under water whenever we go to the beach and I’ve always envied it. If you don’t know yet, I used to be a swimmer at school when I was in elementary. So I kind of feel frustrated that I can’t go that deep under the sea. Well, of course, pool swimming and laps are different than swimming in open water, so that answers that. Continue reading
Lenn of Spades ♠ 