Shanghai. As a foreigner, you could probably spend a lifetime in Shanghai and never scratch the surface with what this amazing city has to offer. I only had 3 days. But in those 3 days, it was an amazing and surreal experience.
For our third year anniversary Ke and I ate at La Folie, a restaurant known for having some of the best foie gras in San Francisco. When we visited La Folie, they had a summer chef’s tasting menu as well as their standard tasting menu where you can choose which dishes you want out of a select few.
After a week Xi’an, Ke and I made our way south to Hangzhou, a beautiful city about an hour away from Shanghai. We took an overnight train from Xi’an and had our own room with beds. It was my first time on a train like that. In China, security at train stations is pretty tight and we had to make a crazy dash through the station to board our train on time.
While in Xi’an, my fiance and I, along with some of his family, spent a day to drive out and visit the cultural centers for Taoist Gods. One center was dedicated to Laozi, as well as the many Taoist gods. Afterwards we went to the temple specifically dedicated to the god of fortune Cai Shen :D.
One of the many items on my bucket list is to be fluent in another language. I didn’t have the luck of being born in Europe where it seems like babies are born speaking a minimum of three languages. And even though I grew up in Miami, I was a stubborn teenager who didn’t take advantage of the wealth of culture and language around me. If I had the drive I have now, I would definitely be fluent in Spanish.
My obsession with matcha most likely began when I was an exchange student in Tokyo. My first introduction to matcha was Kit Kats followed by matcha pastries and ice cream! When I returned to Miami after studying abroad, I was a little bummed out by the lack of Asian treats and at the time I had to order in bulk from places like Amazon.
During my stay in Chicago, I dined at Alinea to celebrate my fiance’s 30th birthday. Alinea is an absolute delight. From the moment we walked in, it felt as if we walked into a surreal, futuresque movie. We walked down a dimly-lit, slanted hallway and stopped at a wall that opened to reveal the restaurant.