asia 2019
tour of asia, done the right way
At the start of 2018, Kei (my travel bud and best mate) had an epiphany to do a tour of Asia at the beginning of 2019. At the start of January 2019, it wasn’t a dream anymore.
Our travel dates: Jan 2nd - 27th 2019.
We were lucky enough to have either family or friends everywhere we went that took us around. This didn’t only save us so much time, but took the thinking away from us. This just means that our itinerary was not very planned, rather planned on the day or with who we were travelling with. However, see below for a little about each place we went to and the. things we did, from what I can recall…
a lil video I put together of our trip
itinerary
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Places we went to:
Choi Hung Estate
Victoria Peak
Shek-O Dragons Back Hike
Sai Wan Swimming Shed
Yick Fat Building
Chun Yeung Street Wet Market
Lok Wah South Estate
Chi Lin Nunnery
Nan Lian Garden
These are the places that I photographed/remembered but we definitely visited more that I can’t quite remember.
Hong Kong is a bustling city and we stayed in Tsim Sha Tsui. I highly recommend staying here when visiting HK as it is very, very central to everything, e.g. the new side and old sides of Hong Kong.
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Places we went to:
Ruins of St. Paul's
Senado Square
A-Ma Temple
Fortaleza do Monte: Home of the Macau Museum
Fisherman's Wharf
SkyCab at Wynn Palace Resort
With only limited days here, we were lucky to spend it with a close friend who took us around by car. We stayed in the Hyatt and I can highly recommend staying here if you wish to stay in the casino/hotel area.
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Unfortunately, I had no itinerary for this part of the trip and rather had my cousin take us around. We did however go to Mayland Resort Guangzhou for their hot-springs and that was very, very good! They had all sorts of hot-springs including different types of fruits and the lavender hot-spring was a highlight.
Otherwise, we visited the Canton Tower and surrounding areas.
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We flew into Taipei but met our high school friend in Tainan and spent 3 days there before heading up to Taipei. The highlight of Tainan was the food. It felt like we were never, ever hungry and everything we ate was delicious.
We did visit the Chimei Museaum which had a great variety of pieces and worth a visit. We ate fried chicken and bowled almost every night - this combo is a must try. This city is much quieter and definitely worth having a guide. It’s a little harder to travel around if you don’t have a car as it’s not as built up as Taipei.
The last couple days we headed up to Taipei by train.
Places we visited in Taipei:
National Palace Museum
Addiction Aquatic Development
Pingxi Lantern Festival
Taipei 101
Jiufen Laojie
Gold Museum in Jinguashi
EZ live house
I may have missed a couple things that we did but these were the main sites we visited. I strongly recommend getting a driver for the day as this makes commuting to some of the more rural places a lot easier as there weren’t any train stations nearby. Otherwise, the PT in and around Taipei city is very, very effective and super easy to get around.
Make sure to have pearl milk tea and hot pot while in Taiwan…the birth places of these items! If you are into live music, definitely check out EZ live house for a good night out!! (See below for a snippet)
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8 days in Tokyo was more of a relaxing leg for us as it was our final stop.
This was spent more of less shopping or re-visiting places that we had been to in the past.
We stayed with Kei’s host family from his school trip a couple years back.
However, I highly recommend staying around the Shibuya area for easy access to PT as the metro system is probably the best in the world.
I can’t seem to find an itinerary anywhere and we more or less planned everything we did by the day. However, check out my Japan 2019 trip for a more detailed itinerary of what to do.
a snippet of a live house we went to in Taipei called ‘EZ’
my recommendations
While it’s hard to put together a couple of recommendations from travelling to 4 different countries, here were 4 of my favourites…
eat seafood from Addiction Aquatic Development in Taipei
eat at Uobei Shibuya Dogenzaka in Tokyo
visit Choi Hung Estate for their colourful basketball courts in Hong Kong
fly a lantern at the Pingxi Lantern Festival in Taipei
addiction aquatic development
A gourmet marketplace in the Zhongshan District, this is a seafood lover’s paradise. From hot pot to sushi to fish grilled or fried, the independently owned stalls offer seafood cooked with almost every method imaginable. We went with crab… delicious.
uobei shibuya dogenzaka
Probably the most famous sushi train in Tokyo, and rightfully so. 100% put this on your list. Best to click on the image to see our full scale demolition… yes… that is 50 plates 😋
choi hung estate
Honestly, these building are some of the most vibrant and stunning public housing buildings I’ve seen. The bright rainbow colours make it a very aesthetic location to come and snap a photo - or play basketball if thats what you desire.
Per wikipedia: The Choi Hung Estate (“Choi Hung” meaning ‘rainbow’ in Chinese) is an old public housing estate in Hong Kong that was built in 1964. This complex features 11 blocks of residential apartment buildings, a car park, and a basketball court.
pingxi lantern festival
Feels like something out of Disney with endless lanterns being set free into the sky. The dates are very limited so be sure to time it so you can be part of the proper festivities.
A history lesson by Offy Chang for Cathay Pacific
The tradition dates back to the Qing dynasty, when Pingxi was a remote but affluent district that had to deal with bandits. Villagers often took to the mountains to escape these dangers in winter. When the worst of the winter had passed, sky lanterns were flown to signal that it was safe for them to return. This became the Lantern Festival, now Pingxi’s most important cultural event, held on the 15th day of the first lunar month (19 February next year). Although you can release sky lanterns any day of the year, Lantern Festival and Mid-Autumn Festival (24 September this year) are the most popular periods for the tradition.