Alicante, Spain

On August 13, 2018September 7, 2018 By treesatravelsLeave a comment

July 16, 2018 – August 13, 2018

As I write this post, Caoliang and I are currently on a five hour train to Barcelona. With the long train ride, I have plenty of time to reflect on my time in Alicante. This city was the first city that I was pretty much on tour for the whole time. Usually, i would only be visiting for a week or two but in Alicante, it was a whole month. Being here for such an extended amount of time really allowed me to see what its like to be an OAM (Official Accompanied Member) on tour.

Alicante has been a really nice city to spend the summer. The city is not to big, has places to shop, museums, old stuff and easy beach access. I really did enjoy my time in this city not only because the city was very manageable but also because Caoliang and I could spend so much time together and be a “normal couple.”

To give you an idea of how my days were here, they usually went a little something like this… waking up around noon, going to the fresh market for groceries, having lunch or coffee with Caoliang before he heads off to work about 4 pm. What’s after? Well Caoliang is gone for work six days a week from about 4 pm to 1:30 am. That is a long time right? So usually I would either make sure the apartment is clean, cook something for myself, watch movies, write, hang out at cafes, or train. In this post I wanted to share some of my favorite spots of Alicante, or spots I often found myself going to.

MERCADO CENTRAL

Like I had mentioned before, we often would go here right after waking up to get fresh groceries. We were lucky enough that our apartment was only a minute walk away. I had never lived so close to a market or had the chance to utilize a market before. When we first went there just to check it out, I thought, man this is way too awesome and convenient to go, we must take advantage! That we did! Everyday we would have fresh fruit and vegetables. It was great! The market consisted of two floors: upstairs was primarily meats and downstairs was seafood and fruits. There were also a few cafes inside where you could immediately sit down to have a bite. With the market, I had to become familiar with asking for things in Spanish. It was a really new and interesting experience for me, one that I could totally get used to!

OLD QUARTER

This part of Alicante was really charming and one of my favorites. It was only a short walk away from our apartment and contained many bars, cafes, restaurants, squares and important churches. My favorite part about the old quarter is just the look of the buildings and the fact that many of the roads are not for cars. Walking around these parts made you really feel like you were in a different time period. Located in the old quarter was also my favorite coffee spot, Madness Coffee, along with some other great cafes and restaurants.

MADNESS COFFEE

This charming little place had the nicest baristas and the best coffee. Caoliang and I often look for coffee spots when we travel. Along with us, many people on tour also enjoy a good cup of coffee. So hearing it through the Totem grapevine, we had to go check it out. This cafe has plenty of seating, two floors of space and even a little cinema room underneath the stairwell. We usually ordered a flat white (2 euros). Every drink or food had great presentation and the whole place was so cohesive and well designed from the plates the cups would be places on, to the recycled coffee machine turned bathroom sink, to the baristas’ custom aprons, this place was awesome! With their delicious coffee, chill ambiance and spacious seating, I often found myself spending time in here every chance I got.

PLAYA DE SAN JUAN

San Juan Beach was definitely my favorite beach of this city. It wasn’t walkable but still easy to get to by tram (20 minutes, 1.45 euro). The beach was really big and because of that, it didn’t seem so crowded like Alicante Beach. I luckily got to enjoy this beach a few times, even spending my 30th birthday here! The water is clear and sand is soft. Also because we had everything we needed for an enjoyable beach day, blankets, sun umbrella, etc., we barely had to spend money while we were there! But of course if you needed, there are sun loungers and umbrellas for rent as well.

SPARTAN STUDIO ALICANTE

I had found this pole studio through Lai in Malaga. I was so happy she connected me to Laura who owned Spartan Studio with her husband Adrian. Training is one of the things that puts some sort of routine in my week while being on tour. It also helps me to maintain my strength when being away from my usual training in Houston. Spartan studio was surprisingly big! Being mainly a pole studio, they had at least seven poles. Along with that, they had three aerial rigging points and a section of the studio that had a pretty high ceiling. Perfecto! I was also happy that to use their facility it would only cost me 50 euros for the month. Laura and Adrian were also super nice people and even though we didn’t fluently speak the same language, their smile and kindness really helped me feel comfortable in a new place.

SANTA BARBARA CASTLE

This castle was huge and very close to where we lived so it was something I got to see everyday. On Caoliang’s first day off, we went to go visit the castle during the evening time. Good thing the place is open until 10 pm because we knew with how hot the days were, there was no way we were going while the sun was out. The castle was free, and once on the right walking path, only took about 15 minutes to get to on foot. The view of the city from the top was also really spectacular and seeing the glowing lights at night was really nice. Even though we just went once, I would definitely recommend anyone visiting Alicante to check it out.

There you have it! Some of my favorite spots of Alicante. Again, I feel so lucky and blessed to be able to see such a nice city and to experience the summer on tour with my husband. Since I know I probably won’t be seeing this city again, the last few days I was in Alicante I really looked at things with different eyes. Truly, truly blessed.

We are currently on our way to Barcelona, like I mentioned earlier, to spend Caoliang’s two days off together before I fly back to Houston. I didn’t get to visit Caoliang while he was touring in Barcelona so I’m pretty keen to see what this highly recommended city will be like.

xx.
t

Florence, Italy

On July 8, 2018July 21, 2018 By treesatravels1 Comment

July 5, 2018

We arrived in the afternoon from Rome by train. Unfortunately for us, we were short one euro for the bus so had to walk to our AirBnB, which was a 25 minutes walk with luggage. It was hot but luckily it wasn’t further. Our hostess was really nice and came to meet us. The apartment was small but had all the essentials and was located really centrally to all the shopping. After resting and letting our sweat dry, we wandered around the city.

This was the first time I DID NOT plan a very clear schedule for the day. Shocking, I know! My little sister had lived in Florence for six months before, and told us that Florence is pretty small so because she said that, I felt like it would be fine to roam around. This first day, we saw many shopping places, squares, statues, churches and a couple markets. The thing about not researching was I didn’t know what anything was!

The feeling of Florence was already very different to Rome. Even though there were tourists, it wasn’t crazy like in Rome. Florence also felt smaller, because it is. We still saw some iconic Florence sights like Brunelleschi’s Dome and the Piazza della Signoria.

After walking around the city center (and having a quick lunch), we headed to the hilltop for the evening hours. The walk wasn’t so bad because we followed our host’s advice of checking out the rose garden before going up all the steps.

Since we were in the garden, it kind of put us almost halfway up the steps to the top. Once we got to the top the view was really nice. You can clearly see the whole city including the famous Duomo (which actually means “house of God” not “dome” like people think).

We spent some time up there taking in the sights and taking photos. Up there was also some cycling event going on. It was like a massive group cycle session. It was pretty cool to see.

Afterwards we went to eat at Enoteca Fuori Porta. We got there a little before dinner rush so there weren’t many people, but most all the terrace was reserved. Thankfully, the host was pretty nice to let us sit at a table with a later reservation (as long as we left by (9:30pm). The weather is so nice when the sun goes down so having a patio seat was good. We had so much carbs in our trip in the few days we were in Italy, I wasn’t sure to have more pasta. But I guess it would be silly not to! We chose pate on toast, a ravioli dish and a stuffed rabbit dish to switch it up a bit.

Since I mentioned dinner, I have to stress how much carbs we have been eating! Too much! I can see how easy it is to gain weight visiting Italy. Every meal we eat consists of 99% carbs! Pizza, pasta, sandwiches…ugh too much! I need a stalk of broccoli or something!

July 6, 2018

This day we signed up for a cooking tour. Like I had mentioned, I didn’t plan much for Florence (surprisingly) so we kind of planned things a couple days ahead of doing them. Since we would have a good chunk of time in Florence, Caoliang thought it might be cool to do a cooking tour since we’ve never done such thing. So on this day, we met up with the tour group at 8:45 am. The group was pretty large consisting of at least twenty people (most American or Canadian). The tour was a really fun experience! It was hosted by this company called Walkabout Florence.

It might be too much to tell in detail but basically we started the tour with a walk through the Central Market. Here, our guide Isaac, an American chef who has lived and cooked in Italy for at least ten years, told us about the vendors, foods to buy or cook with, and bought the items we would use to cook our meal for the day.

Then we took a bus 15 minutes outside the city to a venue with a lovely view of the Tuscan hills. We then met Isaac’s cooking partner, this spunky older Italian woman, Carmela. Carmela and Isaac showed us how to make bruchetta, pesto sauce, ragu sauce, how to prepare an Italian pork roast and tiramisu.

We also had an endless amount of red wine and got to eat as we learned.

Isaac also had a little pasta making lesson. He showed us how to make pasta from scratch and also the different types of pasta you could make after you have the dough ready. Then after that we each got to make our own pasta!

A fun fact I learned was in Italian pasta, they typically use the thinner pastas for lighter sauces and thicker pastas for the darker sauces. Also they usually use red onion and red wines for things with red meat and white onion and white wine for lighter meats. When someone asked Isaac why, he said it was primarily for an appearance factor. Oh, another fun things I learned, it is pronounced “bru-sketta” not “bru-shetta” and to say thank you it is “grazi-eh” not “gratsi”!

After the cooking lessons and a few glasses of wine, the whole group sat down to enjoy our homemade lunch! It was really nice to sit with such an amazing view. First, we were served our pesto pasta as our “first course.” The pesto sauce was so good! Also the homemade pasta was just perfect! After the first dish, we had our ragu with the thicker cut pasta. Also very delicious. You think two pasta dishes would fill you up right? Well, we still had the pork with roasted potatoes! By this point I was so stuffed but we still had our tiramisu!! Lunch was one of the best meals we have had in Italy thus far. Not to mention the killer view!

After filling our bellies, we had time to take some photos with the beautiful background and chefs Isaac and Carmela. Once we wrapped up the tour, it was about 4 in the afternoon. The rest of the day we walked around the city more until we called it a day around 8pm. So pooped! But so far, so good.

July 7, 2018

-After returning from PISA-

Once we got back to Florence, we rushed over to the Duomo to go see inside the cathedral before closing time. Unfortunately, when we arrived at 4 pm, the line to get in wrapped all around the cathedral!! There was no way we would make it if we got in line. Also, we tried to buy tickets to the duomo earlier in our Florence stay and they had said tickets were sold out till Tuesday! Looks like we just have to come back to Florence to see this dome and cathedral!

The rest of the day we spent roaming around the city more. We finished off the day at Il Latini restaurant. Our AirBnB host had this place written on her list of food places as a good place for Italian steak. I had no idea Italy was known for their steak! The place didn’t open till 7:30 pm and we arrived at about 8 pm. The place was already pretty crowded! Luckily, we got seated and noticed there were many tourists around us. It’s possible this place was written about in a tour guide since it seemed so popular amongst foreigners.

Skimming through the menu, I saw the Florentine Steak was 50 euros per 100 grams. Since Caoliang and I aren’t too picky with our food, we decided to try other things instead. We ordered a plate of salami to start, a penne with meat sauce, sirloin steak with a side of grilled vegetables and tiramisu to finish it off. We noticed everyone around us (the foreigners) ordered the Florentine steak though. The Florentine steak is prepared rare and for many people, it was too much to eat. We constantly heard foreigners around us ask them to cook the meat longer. I felt it was a little silly to order a steak that was meant to be cooked rare and then just go mess it up and ask them to cook it more. –sigh– Our sirloin was rare and it was bloody but not so much that you felt disgusting eating it (I typically eat steak medium rare).

Anyways, dinner was satisfying, especially because we only had one real meal this day! (Oh yeah, our previous meal in the day was more like a brunch and it was a famous boiled beef stomach sandwich from Da Nerbone.) With full tummies and a bit more lifted spirits, we headed home and called it a day!

July 8, 2018

-after the Cinque Terre-

When we got back, we were pretty pooped from a full day tour in Cinque Terre. After resting and washing up, we went out to L’Osteria Di Giovanni for an unexpectedly fancy dinner. Since the night before we didn’t eat the “real” Florentine steak, Caoliang really wanted to have it on our last night.

At Giovanni, we had to wait a little bit for a table but it was easy to see why. The place was pretty packed and busy. The whole evening was really nice with lots of good food, but at a pretty slow pace. After the bread, caprese salad, truffle sauce pasta, and 100 gram Italian steak AND a few glasses of wine, we were stuffed!! Definitely a good way to end our time in Tuscany! Onto the next city! Napoli here we come!

Oh before I sign off.. I wanted to mention the awesome street art we’ve seen in Florence. I think it’s much more than your usual street grafitti. We especially like this little white character and his red hearts. When ever we walk around the city and find it, we try to snap a picture. Florence has a lot of charm and these random pieces of street art definitely add to it!

xx
t.

Welcome to NYC

On October 9, 2017 By treesatravelsLeave a comment

This past summer was pretty full of memorable trips. Along with going to the Bahamas for the first time with my family, I also got to welcome into the country a special person to Caoliang, his twin brother Caoyang.

Having siblings is pretty important to me. I grew up with four other siblings so I know how special it is to have a sisterly or brotherly bond. Caoliang grew up with a twin brother. Both of them were energetic boys who got put into gymnastics at an early age. Fast forwarding to current day, both of them are still very active in their everyday life style even though most of the last few years have been spent apart from each other. Now there was a chance to bring Caoyang to America to study circus arts which would hopefully, bring the Wang brothers a higher chance of sticking closer together in the future.

Before Caoyang arrived into Newark Airport, Caoliang and I had a few days to explore the Big Apple together for the first time. I had traveled to the city before and remember loving everything about it then. It was weird that now coming back, I didn’t love it so much.

I never realized how disgustingly dirty New York City streets are. Literally every corner smells like urine and garbage. I had been to much more denser cities before but even those places, New York seem to beat it levels of horrid smell! I’m not sure if the city is wanting to keep its filthiness to add to the character of the city or what, but it is definitely an issue I wish the city would address.

Besides trying to hold my breath through nearly every street in Manhattan, there were other, more enjoyable things we did in the city as well. With our few days there, we walked The High Line to take a walking break and watch the cars and people go by, checked out what the MoMA had going on, and even met up with a fellow Houstonian friend who had moved to the city.

But the most special thing we did before welcoming Caoyang into the city, was get engaged. So how did it happen? What’s the story? It happened on the Brooklyn Bridge actually. I had never been there before and Caoliang was really keen on taking me there one evening. After a whole day of walking around, I wasn’t the most excited person to go. But I saw how eager he was and figured I get my lazy bum up to check out this bridge. When we arrived, it did exceed my expectations. It was really interesting to be in such an open space with so many cars passing underneath. Also being able to turn around and see buildings lit up and knowing you could literally walk to Brooklyn from there.

So we spent a good amount of time just taking photos of cars and lights and watching cyclist speed by. Finally he handed me his camera and asked me to take a photo of him standing in the center of the walk way with one of the bridge’s arches behind him. Ok, sure. I took a picture or two before he asked if I could take it from a lower vantage point. Um, all right I suppose so. As I was counting off the photo, this adorable guy pulled out a red ring box and only had a massive smile on his face. I clicked the photo and could clearly see excitement and nervousness written all over his face. He didn’t saw anything but just kept a huge grin on his face. It was very sweet and I laughed at the whole situation. After making him stand up to get out of the walk path, I listened to him go into a nervous speech about the whole thing. Finally, he gave me a chance to say yes. It’s funny to write about that night and to think back on it. But it’s a sweet story to tell and will be fun to retell in the years to come.

We spent a total of nearly two weeks in New York and Philadelphia. Meeting Caoliang’s closest family member was not so much nerve wrecking for me but more exciting. I was happy I finally can meet someone he calls family and see how he is with his brother. The whole experience of meeting him and helping him get settled into a new environment and culture was exhausting. I’ll spare you the day by day details. But at the end of it, we successfully helped him set up his new living space, show him how to get into downtown Philadelphia, and showed him how to get to his new school campus, Circadium.

To give you a little back-story on a strange sounding name for a school, Circadium is a new circus school that just recently opened up in Philadelphia. It was actually born with the name, Philadelphia School of Circus Arts but with the growth over the years, it has taken on new grounds and a new name. The creators Greg and Shana Kennedy are friends of Caoliang and have been awesome at helping Caoyang get adjusted in a new life. I also got the pleasure of meeting his couple and seeing the site of the new school. They actually purchased land and property of an old Catholic church. Once it was fully theirs, they redesigned and changed the interior to fit the needs of their students. Honestly the place looked amazing. I wish I could be attending this school!

This trip to the East Coast wasn’t finished just yet. After feeling like parents that are sending their only child off to college, Caoliang and I said farewell to Caoyang and headed back to New York City for friends’ wedding. The wedding ceremony of Guilhem and Liz Cauchoi was set in Tarrytown, New York with an amazing backdrop of a castle-like mansion, Lyndhurst. It was such a joy to witness their love and be part of this celebration. After an evening of good food, great company, and plenty of dancing, we had only one day left in the city before going our separate ways.

Any new, or old, place I get to travel with Caoliang is such a treat. Each time, I realize how lucky and blessed we are to even be able to have such trips! Because of all the great things that happened these two weeks, it will definitely be a memorable one!

Video Bonus! It’s just two seconds but put them all together and you get my whole trip!! Enjoy clips of my trip to the East Coast HERE!

TO STAY: NYC AirBnB, Doubletree by Hilton Tarrytown, City Rooms Chelsea
TO EAT: The Spotted Pig (NYC), Xi’An Famous Foods (NYC), RANA (NYC)

Tran Clan’s Bahamian Adventure

On October 3, 2017 By treesatravels2 Comments

As previously promised, my first actual post about travel will date back to earlier this summer, July to be exact. For the first time in a few years, my whole family would be taking a holiday together. The last time this happened was actually on my 25th birthday, four years ago! Since I had been out of the country, my family had gone on a few trips without me. It was a bummer not to be there those years but this summer I would make up for it in an awesome trip to the Bahamas!

I won’t give you a play by play but more of the high lights of this trip. I have a total of seven people in my family including myself. For this trip, however, my little sister’s boyfriend, John joined us as well. After two flights, we landed in Nassau, Bahamas. It was our first time there so everyone was pretty excited. The great thing about my siblings and I (well one of the great things) is that we all had the same mind in choosing a beach destination for our summer holiday. I love the beach and will always choose warm weather over the cold so this was great!

Originally, my mother was planning to book Atlantis All-Inclusive Resort. Now this place looked crazy! With the world’s largest open-air marine habitat, 141-acre waterscape, 11 pools, a full casino, golf course AND four miles of beach, who wouldn’t be excited for this! But, to our disappointment, Atlantis’ all-inclusive packages were fully booked. Ouch.. But that didn’t deter us from our holiday. Instead, my mother found Breezes Resort and Spa, which did have all-inclusive packages available for our dates.

Now Breezes, well if you got a chance to click the links above, you could kind of already feel what we felt in having to settle for it over Atlantis. It didn’t have the massive waterpark or the full casino, but it looked promising. Once arriving to Breezes, you could tell one thing straight away, “Man this place is dated!” With decor and architecture that looked like it was built in the 80s with no updates, this place looked like we stepped back in time. And the rooms! My little brother described it as, “Looks like where nuns sleep!” Now what he meant by that was the rooms were so simple in furniture and amenities it looked like a nun’s room in a convent.

Even though the resort wasn’t what we were picturing, the point was we were with each other and intended to enjoy this all-inclusive package as much as we could! So let the sun bathing begin!!

For the four nights we stayed there, we got a lot of sun. I mean ALOT. The sun was so strong in Nassau that sunblock was a definite necessity. Along with lying out on the beach, we of course enjoyed the clear blue waters as well. I was very impressed with Nassau and their clarity of ocean water. It felt like you were in a swimming pool!! Breezes had a netted off swimming area but even in that, we were able to see some fish and even find some starfish!

Being that Breezes was an all inclusive resort, they also had many other activities that you could partake in. Some of the things we tried were stand up paddle boarding, kayaking, a trapeze class, and volleyball. I favorite out of those was the trapeze class. It was a bit terrifying at first, being that high up but after doing it a couple times I felt like I could master it easily. It was fun to scare myself and then get over the fear.

Even though my favorite was trapeze, I think my family’s favorite was volleyball! We played so much of it and with so many players; we never had to ask anyone else if they wanted to join. This trip I also learned that my dad is pretty good at volleyball, while my mom on the other hand…needs some practice.

An all-inclusive resort is fun, but for adventure seekers like myself and my siblings, this could become a bit dull. Luckily for us, we had booked an excursion with Stuart’s Cove before our trip online. After doing research on popular Nassau excursions, my siblings and John decided on the SUB Adventure. We all gravitated toward that choice because it would be a new experience for all of us being that none of us had ever seen a SUB or partook in it before. The SUB was like an underwater Vespa. In the SUB, your head goes into this helmet that stays dry and has constant air pumping into it. Now I had done something similar to this in Boracay so felt like it would be familiar. To my surprise, it was more different than I expected.

Our SUB experience was a little rocky at first. We had an early pick up time with a shuttle that never came. We had to call Stuart’s Cove and pick a few bones with them. In the end, we got picked up and received some free goodies for them forgetting to get us. Once situated, we got taken out to a bigger boat with more people from cruise ships. It was kind of a funny site. There were some big, tough guys on the boat but they appeared so weak because they were seasick. Just imagine, both sides of the boat was people getting sick. Yikes! Had to be sure to stay at the back of the boat! Finally it was our turn. All of us got seated in our SUB and dropped into the water. You constantly have to blow out your ears to adjust to the pressure. I found myself really being aware of my breathing. I did not want to get seasick!! When we all got in the water, it was a pretty cool experience to “drive” around the ocean trying to catch up with each other and touch the pretty fish that cam around. There was this one point I saw a bunch of fish swarming John’s SUB. I thought to myself, “Cool! What a nice photo!” The hilarious thing I found out later was he only had so many fish around him because he actually threw up a little in his helmet! Free fish food!

The experiences at Breezes and the Bahamas were some to remember. The resort may not of been perfect, or the excursions arranged so well – but the time we got to spend together was. Looking back on holidays like this, I feel even more grateful for the family I got to be born into. With loving parents and siblings that actually get along, I know I am one of the lucky ones.

Video Bonus! Check out my little brother, Johnny’s awesome video from our trip to the Bahamas by clicking HERE.

Don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE for future posts and feel free to leave comments, ask questions, etc!

RESORT: breezes.com
EXCURSION: stuartcove.com

treesa travels

Tag: summer

Alicante, Spain

Florence, Italy

Welcome to NYC

Tran Clan’s Bahamian Adventure