April 2021

So, I quit my job, and April 30th was my last day which means…I am now unemployed?! Well, yes, but I will be starting a new job very soon!! Excited to be entering a new chapter of my life in China but at the same time a bit nervous because I will be doing something that I’ve never done before – I will keep you updated on the status of the new job in future posts, once I get into it. Here’s a recap of April 2021.

Surprise roses from Mr. Husband just because 😉 All those hinting finally worked 😛

Spring evening in Wuhan, between rainy seasons, having passed the cold pre-spring phase and not yet having welcomed the pre-summer heat. Perfect weather that’d only last a few days…

Three lone green leaves amidst a sea of dark red, after the rain.

Happy birthday – not to me! We celebrated the birthday of three friends in April with cake, snacks, and good company at our place.

In April I continued exploring more coffee/drinks shops. Often I’d grab my laptop, a book, and a notebook, order a drink, and either write, read, or daydream for a couple of hours on a weekend afternoon. Top left: classic latte; top right: iced lemon jasmine tea; bottom left: matcha-flavoured yogurt drink; bottom right: “dirty” coffee.

Another recent food-related obsession is curry and I’ve been trying various restaurants that serve curry rice. Here’s one of my favourites – crispy tonkatsu with curry on rice. The curry was rich and flavourful, and the tonkatsu was juicy and tender. Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!

Cats welcoming guests to a coffee shop by sitting in a very…interesting position XD

Meet-up with a friend who came back to Wuhan for a brief visit. Good food and a nice long chat to catch up.

Event of the month: surprise proposal!! I was fortunate to be involved in the planning and execution of the proposal, which was a lot of fun and full of joy and laughter. Congratulations to the newly engaged couple!!

Here we are in May and temperatures have gone up to 30+ degrees Celsius already on some days. Bring it on, summer…bring it on!!

York encounters

In 2017, I spent a weekend in the city of York in England visiting some friends. Instead of hitting up the popular touristy spots (York Minster, for example, which we still passed by but didn’t spend much time exploring), we spent the majority of our time wandering the streets of York. Here are some fun and interesting sightings from the short visit.

Unsure if this was a mermaid or a nymph or some other mythical creature lurking around the corner of Teddy Bear Tea Rooms on Stonegate.

I believe 100% that the roast ham is as succulent as it seems and I regret not getting a chunk right then and there.

Llama in a rainbow shawl, quietly observing the passersby in a corner.

Ah, The Shop That Must Not Be Named. For anyone who wants to acquire some authentic Harry Potter merchandise, this might be the place to go. Funnily I was the YKW (You-Know-Who) in an unofficial Harry Potter role play with my highschool friends… 😛

In recent years, colourful umbrellas lining streets have become popular in cities all over the world. They were interesting at first but gradually lost their charm when they started appearing everywhere =/

Here’s a shop that claims to offer “Two floors of things you don’t need but really really want!” Hmm…I’d believe that, and I would have enjoyed shopping there as much as I liked window-shopping at the Christmas markets of Cologne, where there were a bunch of “cute things that would be nice to have but are too expensive and are cool just to look at”.

I would go grab a drink at Walmgate Ale House just to meet the seemingly friendly ghost that apparently dwells within 😛

Lovely weather – for part of the day, at least, after it had stopped raining.

March 2021

I’m sick again, ugh! Seems like this always happen during the season-changing periods every year, mostly during the transition from winter to summer and vice versa (spring and fall don’t really exist in Wuhan…) It had been raining non-stop for the past week or so and I’m hoping to get better from this cold in a few days. Meanwhile, a bit late but here’s a snapshot of March 2021 😉

Wuhan is known for its cherry blossoms in March but I prefer the humble plum blossoms that could also be found everywhere.

Here are some cherry blossoms but they were not from Wuhan…this photo was taken in Taiyuan in Shanxi province! ZJ had a weekend business trip and I thought I’d tag along for a few days because I hadn’t been to Taiyuan before…heh 😛

Jinyang Lake in Taiyuan, with the West Hills across from the lake. The lake was actually a lot bigger than I had expected, and I would have liked to stay for a bit longer but it was a rather chilly day and the winds were strong. I could imagine it being gorgeous during the summer in Taiyuan!

A lone bell hanging from a temple along the way during my visit to the giant stone Buddha at Meng Hill in Taiyuan.

Coffee for two in Taiyuan, after ZJ’s lunch with his colleagues and my visit to the stone Buddha at Meng Hill. If you see an owl at the bottom of the large pitcher, you’re not hallucinating – it was sitting on top of an owl coaster, ha!

Iced latte at a coffee shop overlooking the Yangtze River in Wuhan. Lately I’ve been spending a lot of free weekend afternoons exploring independent coffee shops around Wuhan, having a cup of latte and either writing or just chilling and daydreaming…

An unusually nice day in Wuhan, with temperatures in the 20s. The parks are filled with people out to enjoy the sun, including ZJ and me and this couple having a rest side by side.

These plush dolls were not in a shop and were in fact in an open area in a mall where anyone could go up and grab one. But the sign says “There are security camers above watching who is stealing the sheep”…so can I take one or not?!?!?!

Finally, a collage of our dear friend Shanshan who, as usual, likes to pose for the camera, whether she did it on purpose or not. I haven’t yet been scratched or injured by her so we’re still on friendly terms…heh.

Wandering in Warsaw: Łazienki Park

Łazienki Park (“Ła” is pronounced as “wa”) was my final stop in Warsaw and I almost didn’t go. It hadn’t been on my list of places to visit but I had about two hours before I had to head to the airport, so I dropped by for a brief stroll. And thankfully I did because it became my favourite part of Warsaw. The park was larger than I had imagined and thus within the two hours, I barely covered a small part of this urban paradise. Such a treasure waiting to be discovered…

Idyllic representation of a city park, surrounded by peace and serenity. Not a fan of the signs of urban life in the background (white high-rise building) but that can’t be helped in the city center.

Vibrant signs of life are to be seen everywhere around the park. Among them, a gorgeous mandarin duck caught my attention, as did several playful red squirrels here and there. And a gentleman in stone…???

Flowers were in full bloom in late spring and the lush greenery made me forget that I was still in a city.

More wandering around the park before heading to the airport, ending my short Polish weekend getaway.

Finally, the peacock. I’ve already mentioned him in the “Beautiful things in Warsaw” post but I can’t resist showing him off again here. First and possibly the only time in my life seeing a peacock opening up his train (new terminology learned, thanks Wiki) to assert his reign. Stole my heart right there ❤

Wandering in Warsaw

There are places that I travelled to, primarily not because I really wanted to see the place, but because someone I knew wanted to go but couldn’t. It’s not a gesture to brag by saying, “Look, I’m where you want to be!” but more like…”I’m fulfilling one of your wishes on your behalf, though I really wish you were here with me.” The first place was Luxembourg. I think my uncle meant it as a joke and picked Luxembourg randomly on the map of Europe, but when he told me, it just stuck with me, and I went as my first weekend trip away from Belgium.

The other place was Warsaw. Whenever I asked my dad if there was anywhere in Europe he really wanted to visit, he’d say Poland, specifically Warsaw. I don’t know if there was any particular reason, but I think he had the impression that Poland is a good representation of the Eastern European countries, if he could only pick one.

Well, my dad still hasn’t gotten the chance to go to Poland but alas, I knew I had to go and see what it was about Warsaw that attracted my him. So I went for a weekend in 2017 and, for the first time in my life, photographed a streak of lightning and saw a peacock spread its feathers. Of course, these are only two of many reasons why the two days in Warsaw left a deep impression in my memory. After almost four years, I am blogging about this trip from recollection, so a lot of details may not be accurate. But this will be a reminder to head back with my dad in the future, to fulfill his wish for and with him.

Palace of Culture and Science, a prominent landmark in Warsaw. Dark clouds were approaching and a storm was anticipated, so I had to dash quickly to get inside before I got soaked. There was a viewing terrace at the top of the building where I enjoyed a panoramic view of Warsaw in the midst of a thunderstorm…

Same building viewed from a different angle, lit up in rainbow colours during the night, after the storm. I mistakenly thought that this was the building known as “Stalin’s Birthday Cake” but that was actually the Academy of Science in Riga, though they do look similar.

The old town square in Warsaw looks like any quintessential old town square found in almost every city in Europe. Don’t get me wrong, it is very pretty, especially on a nice day under blue skies. Ironically, unlike Bratislava, Warsaw didn’t come off as melancholic…or “blue”.

Quiet morning after the rain, with not-so-blue skies this time (a day after the previous photo).

I quite liked these carvings on the walls of the University of Warsaw Library (Biblioteka Uniwersytecka w Warszawie, or BUW). There were actually eight panels and it took a bit of research to find out about the two pictured here. On the left is the score for B-Moll Study by Karol Szymanowski, a Polish composer (source), and on the right is Collatz conjecture algorithm coded in Pascal (according to Reddit).

I thought this was just a random sculpture of a mermaid with a sword and shield but apparently the Mermaid of Warsaw is a symbol of the city. She appears on the city’s coat of arms and there are various sculptures of her across the city, the one in the photo standing next to the Vistula River by the Świętokrzyski Bridge.

And here is a silhouette of a unicorn and a girl on the “unicorn well”, next to St. Kazimierz Church in the New Town. Apparently the unicorn had been on the coat of arms of the New Town, according to Wikipedia, again. I’m quite stoked to be learning so much, after four years, about the symbols that appear in these images that I took without much thought. Pretty amazing the amount of information you can find out there by Googling “Warsaw unicorn”…

Chillin’ in the park, under the shadows, in the sunlight. Of course that wasn’t me in the hanging cage (is there a specific name for that?) but I wouldn’t mind switching with those folks… 😉

Time for some food!!! I was looking forward to dining at Rózana in Warsaw because I’ve heard great things about it from various sources. After sitting down, I decided to get the roasted duck, which was described to be “served on apple and forest cranberry sauce with potatoes and fried apple”. I love a good duck dish everywhere I go, and while this one was nice, I couldn’t help comparing it with the duck roast that I had in Prague. As a result, the Polish version appeared a little underwhelming because the one in Prague was just sooooooooooooooooooooo good. A bit unfair I know, sorry!

Pierogies, or dumplings, are perhaps Poland’s national dish and if not, they are still massively popular. There are restaurants specialized in serving pierogies, Zapiecek being one restaurant chain that can be seen all over the place in Warsaw. Obviously I had to try some, and I went for the mixed pierogies with Ruthenian dumplings (cottage cheese with potatoes) and dumplings with meat and cabbage. The dumplings were served with a very greasy but flavourful bacon gravy. I was surprised to find that these dumplings were quite similar to the Chinese pan-fried ones (pot stickers). Would I get them again? Why, certainly I would!

Of course, the trip wouldn’t be complete without cabbage rolls, or gołąbki, as they’re called in Poland. There’s something irresistible about cabbage rolls but I didn’t know that I was getting it when I ordered. “Polish gołąbki” on the menu didn’t mean a thing to me (gotta order something mysterious once in a while) and I was surprised and glad that it was indeed a cabbage roll dish, which was oh-so-delicious!

Always carrying my best travel buddies, Mr. Nikon and Boo from Mario, with me all around the world. It would have been nice to share the lovely food with some good company but my dad wasn’t there at that time and I hadn’t met Mr.ZJ back then, so some trips such as this one had to be completed alone. That didn’t stop me from enjoying a nice beer with the gołąbki, ha!

I left out one place that I will write about in the next entry and that is Łazienki Park, which was probably my favourite place in Warsaw (out of the limited number of places I visited). Lots of green coming up in the next post!