#spicyramyun

[jona-no-hime]

#SpicyRamyun with veggies overload! 😋🍜🍴 #FoodPorn #Foodie

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Japan 2014 Part 5 (Last Post) : Osaka Castle

For our last day in Japan, we spent it in Osaka visiting the Osaka Castle. We spent the whole morning here before going to Umeda district for lunch and last minute shopping.

There is an area at the park which is lined with plum trees. I could only imagine how beautiful these would be during Spring. DEFINITELY COMING BACK FOR THAT!

Photos are not allowed inside the castle, so most of the photos were taken outside / at the park. 

This is the end of my Japan 2014 trip, and a start of a beautiful love affair with this country. Japan has been my most favorite / memorable trip so far and I am definitely coming back to witness the cherry blossoms in Spring, the autumn foliage and even snow during winter! Hopefully sooner that later :)

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Eastern & Central Kyoto : Japan 2014 Part 2

We woke up early on our first full day in Japan. We decided to go straight to Kyoto as this city was the priority of our trip. I wanted to visit the different temples and see the beautiful scenery. (Tip: You can go straight to Kyoto upon arriving in Japan as it is nearer and will save you a lot of time.) We took the JR train to Kyoto and after leaving our luggage at our hostel , we went straight to exploring the city!

Shichijo station is the nearest subway station to our hostel. During our stay in Kyoto, we mostly took the subway since the JR was far from most of the tourist attractions in Kyoto. We did take the JR going to Arashiyama and Fushimi Inari, which I will blog about on a separate post.

Our first stop was Yasaka Shrine. 

From there, we walked all the way to Maruyama Park. The trees were mostly green during my visit, but I could imagine how beautiful it would be during the peak of autumn!

We stumbled upon a house with a lot of interesting Japanese banners and flags around it. Apparently, it was a small restaurant so we decided to have brunch here.

My first meal in Japan here was Kyoto’s specialty - soba with mackarel. It was delicious!

After lunch, we continued our walking tour and headed towards Kodaiji Temple. We weren't able to explore the temple, but we just took photos outside the facade.

On the way, we saw different statues of buddhas. You are supposed to touch these statues in order to earn their merit. This particular statue caught my attention. You are supposed to touch a specific body part in order to be "healed".

Beside Kodaiji temple is a Buddhist temple with a large statue of Kuan Yin. We paid the entrance fee to be able to go in, but there is not much to see inside, apart from the statue.

After this, we headed towards Kiyomizudera, which was our last destination for our walking tour.

On the way, we passed a lot of traditional Japanese shops selling snacks and souvenirs.

We also saw a lot of women in traditional Japanese costumes. You can actually rent these for a day. It’s something I will definitely do when I go back to Japan!

Kiyomizudera is one of the most impressive temples in Kyoto. It was built in 798 without using a single nail. It’s amazing how the temple is still intact after thousands of years later. No wonder this is included as a Unesco World Heritage site. 

Here, you will also find the Otowa Waterfalls where you can drink for either health, longevity, and success in studies.

Our next stop was Sanjusangendo which was actually near our hostel. The temple is famous for its 1001 statues of Kannon. the goddess of Mercy. Sadly, tourists are not allowed to take photos inside the temple. Nonetheless, I still recommend tourists to visit this place.

For our dinner, we decided to head back to Gion district to have dinner in Nishiki Market. Nishiki is a street with various vendors selling Japanese delicacies.

It was a fun and exciting experience for a foodie like me.

My favorite snack was the octopus with quail eggs inside :)

After this, we just shopped around the area then went back to our hostel to sleep.This concludes our second day in Japan.

[theramenrater]

#1400: Pulmuone Nature Is Delicious Non-Fried Ramyun Noodle (Spicy Flavor) (New Version) - South Korea

Finished (click image to enlarge). Added sukiyaki beef, egg yolk, green onion, sweet onion and Fresno chilli pepper. The noodles have a nice chewiness to them and seem to have a fresher kind of feel than many. They have a slight crumbliness. The broth has a nice spicy vegetable flavor. The solid ingredients hydrated pretty well. 3.75 out of 5.0 stars. UPC bar code 8801114119068.

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Mt. Pinatubo

Early this year, my boyfriend and I joined the Mt. Pinatubo trek organized by http://trailadventours.com/.

Ever since I started working and earning my own money, I promised myself that I would travel more. Of course, this included exploring different places in the Philippines. 

Joining organized tours is very convenient especially if you don't have enough time (and patience) to make your own itinerary. They take care of everything - from your transportation to providing you with name tags! It's also a great way of meeting and making new friends.

Overall, it was an incredible experience! This was my first time to trek and I am so proud of myself for having conquered Mt. Pinatubo!! (For those of you who do not know me, I live a super sedentary lifestyle. I have no athletic bone in my body and I absolutely hate exercising. LOL!)

Some photos:

After a long trek, you'll be rewarded with the breath taking view of Mt. Pinatubo's crater lake. You can also take a super refreshing swim in the lake!

For those of you who want to try trekking for the first time, I highly recommend this route! It's relatively easy and it's perfect for first-timers. Zambales is also not that far from Manila so it's quite accessible.

A few tips: wear the right pair of shoes! One of my toe nails died from all the trekking downhill! Make sure to also bring a scarf, since it can be quite dusty from all the lahar. Also wear a hat or tie your hair because all the sun exposure can really be damaging to your hair! I ended up having to chop off a few inches of my hair afterwards since the sun really dried my (already fried) hair. ^^;;

If I had more time, I would have loved to try the lahar spa which I read about on some blogs. :) 

Next is for me to start building up my strength and endurance so I can conquer Mt. Pulag!!

[cotstravels-blog-blog]

Bonjour! ♥

Had the opportunity to go to Paris for work early this month and since it's my first time to visit the City of Lights, I took every opportunity that I could to explore the city despite the freezing cold!!!

What I love the most about Paris is that their Metro system is AMAZING. There's a total of 16 lines all in all, so it can be a bit confusing at the beginning, but once you get the hang of it, it's really the best way to travel if you plan on exploring the city.

There are Metro stations located almost everywhere so I wasn't afraid of getting lost despite travelling all alone because I knew that I'd eventually find a Metro station somewhere, even if it isn't the one that I got in / got out of.

There are also trains every 3 minutes so there were hardly any lines to get in and out of the train. I couldn't help but compare this to the Metro (MRT) system here in the Philippines. I can no longer recall the number of times I ended up being late for work because of a "Defective" train. :(

The other thing that I love about Paris is that it is a walking city unlike Manila, where you can hardly go anywhere unless you have a car. 

I didn't really make an "itinerary" for this trip, but I was pleasantly surprised to have been able to go see much more places that what I hoped. Most of the places I've been to (like the Louvre), I didn't really intend to go there, but I just ended up being there. Truly a great adventure! :)

My favorite place in Paris would have to be the Saint Chapelle. The stained glass inside the church literally took my breath away! I also love visiting Churches because of the quiet atmosphere inside. It is one of those rare moments where I get to really reflect about life in general and spend some quality time talking to God.

I didn't get to eat a lot though! I spent whatever free time I could walking around the city and taking photos. Hopefully, if I'd get to go back one more time, I'd use that opportunity to just eat and eat and eat. LOL ^^ 

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Cebu City

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Marche Jean-Talon

Here are some of the photos I took during my visit to Marché Jean-Talon a few weeks ago. Everything was so fresh and so colorful! I really enjoyed looking around and taking photos! So for this blog post, I'll just let the photos do the talking! Enjoy :)

Yellow Cherries - I wish we had them here in Manila! Yum!