We went back the next morning and got to see how tight it really was in the day. Each day’s driving was more challenging than the last. I felt like the trip so far stretched my driving abilities so much, and while it was a bit hectic, it only made our travel experience richer. The night life was actually quite lively but sadly we didn’t really get to experience much of it since we got in so late, and had to deal with the whole car thing.

Luckily, our AirBnB host was nice enough to let us check out at noon (he seemed like a college student who stayed up late anyway), and we took him up on it since we were so tired from the night before. In the day, we got to walk on top of the old Roman city walls to take in the view of the city and the Mediterranean Sea.

Originally, the plan was to hike La Garoupe, but it was too much to be in the sun and humidity the whole time. Besides, we had already woken up too late for that. Occasionally, we’d walk under an archway in the shade that channeled a constant cool breeze to cool us down – it was rough walking back in the sun though. Instead we just spent our short stay walking around the town.

Antibes is an immensely popular place for people with yachts. It makes a lot of sense – the water is super blue, it’s sunny all the time, and it feels super tropical without being too remote. I even saw a yacht with a helicopter on it – same as the ones I saw on the plane as we arrived in Europe. There’s millionaire yachts, and then billionaire yachts.

After visiting Antibes, we headed over to Cannes for a brief stop. Thus far in our trip, we hadn’t really noticed any sketchy spots until we arrived in Cannes. As we walked from where we parked (near the train station) to the main part of the city, we encountered a few shady characters standing on the side of the street seemingly with nothing to do but to people watch. We walked past them quickly and moved on. Still it was nothing like the sketchiness of the Paris metro. We walked through the main street and eventually reached the Les Murs Peints (“The Painted Walls”)

Not only is the mural showing a film being made, there are a bunch of easter eggs from classic films to look for. For example, there’s C3PO standing with R2D2, the “I’m flying scene” from Titanic, Batman/Joker, and Mickey standing with Minnie Mouse. Afterward, we walked up a hill to a viewpoint of the city.

On our way down, we noticed a quiet little courtyard, and when we went in, a person greeted us telling us that it was the Association of Beaux-Arts of Cannes, a local art school. They were very welcoming and let us wander about admiring their garden in the courtyard. Once we went back down, we stopped for a light pre-dinner snack at Astoux et Brun. We were completely enticed by the smell the aromas of the seafood as we walked past. The appetizer was quiet peculiar to me, but I’m sure was quite normal to the locals.

It’s basically an escargot, but much much smaller – I don’t even know what it’s called. A small toothpick is provided for picking the meat out of the shells. It had the texture of clam but of course much tinier. The rest was quite familiar fare – raw oysters and baked mussels Provençal style. People here love eating outside – it was hard pressed to find any restaurant that didn’t have primarily outdoor seating. The tough part is that when the wasps come, they never leave. We kept having to wave them away and after we finished eating, they started bugging the table beside us to the point that they lost their appetites – there’s no shortage of food for these wasps.

Check here to see more photos of Antibes and Cannes

Beef noodles: a soup noodle with big chunks of half fatty and half lean beef in a beef broth. One of the quintessential parts of Taiwanese food culture.

Hot pot: it’s the idea of taking a pot of boiling water or soup and cooking meat and vegetables in it. Pretty much anything goes here: any kind of meat, vegetable, mushroom, etc.

Stir fried morning glory: not a vegetable that’s common in Canada/USA, but can be found in Asian supermarkets. It looks and feels like green onion with a slightly thicker skin, but tastes like spinach and has a nice crunch.

Szechuan style spicy wontons: the wonton is very similar to other kinds of wontons (ground pork and shrimp in a dough wrapper). In this case, it’s got a spicy, yet savoury sauce that slightly numbs the tongue.

Xiaolongbao (soup dumplings): similar to a wonton as far as its filling goes (it can be pure pork, pure shrimp, or mixed) with a key difference in that it contains hot soup. They originated from Shanghai, but it’s made its way into mainstream Taiwanese cuisine.

Shaoxing drunken chicken: it’s essentially chicken that has been steamed and marinated in a brine of shaoxing wine and chicken broth.

Bubble tea: yet another famous part of Taiwanese cuisine. The original variant was a milk tea with tapioca pearls, but now it’s evolved and comes in many flavours, from any kind of tea to a fruit slushie, with either tapioca pearls or fruit jellies (or even ice cream!)

Grilled giant prawns: Prawns a pretty regular thing in a lot of places, but at the local Shilin nightmarket, they are fished out and cooked only when ordered – so they are guaranteed fresh. These prawns are also HUGE. The three in the photo were around half a pound in total.

Oyster pancake: a popular food at the night markets, it’s essentially an omelette (with added starch for thickness) with oysters inside, with a savoury sauce poured on top.

Popcorn chicken: can be summarized as Taiwan’s take on fried chicken. It’s got Chinese style seasonings such as five-spice, and Thai basil. It can be found at many street vendors and night markets.

Kaoliang wine: this wine is made from fermented sorghum. It’s got a nice strong kick, and not so much a wide flavour profile. This alcohol is a big export of the Taiwanese island of Kinmen

Three cup chicken: named after the three key ingredients for the sauce: rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil. The chicken is cooked in the skillet.

Mango shaved ice: mango chunks with mango ice cream on top of mango flavoured shaved ice. It tastes exactly like what one would imagine. The little purple and orange balls are made of taro and potato/sweet potato flour and are nice and chewy.

Of all the food I miss, I’d say it’s the beef noodles. That’s the one thing I have the strongest craving for and unfortunately for me, there aren’t any that I like where I live. To see other parts of my trip to Taipei, click here.

Before my trip, I had no clue what there was to see in Toronto except the CN Tower, and Niagara Falls, which I had already been to. Luckily, this reddit post helped me find few places less traveled.

Royal Ontario Museum

It’s a museum that displays different elements of world culture, art, and natural history. Think British Museum, but much much smaller. One thing the ROM has that a lot of museums don’t are dinosaur fossils! There other exhibits showing world history and culture as well.

Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library

Located on the University of Toronto campus, this library is Canada’s largest repository of publicly accessible rare books and manuscripts in Canada. Among its collection is a copy of Isaac Newton’s Principia from 1687.

Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada

This aquarium is exactly what you’d expect. Lots of different kinds of exotic sealife, sharks, manta rays, etc. The main exhibit is a giant water tank that contains these animals, and a giant conveyor belt takes guests all around. It’s a pretty good aquarium for those who are into that kind of thing

Casa Loma

This is one of the few “château”s in Canada. It was the largest private residence ever built in Canada and was the former residence of Sir Henry Pellatt, a former Major-General in the Canadian Forces. Now it has turned into a tourist attraction. The museum shows off similar things to what one would expect at a European castle: cool architecture, fancy decorations in just about every room, paintings and other art, antiques, and a garden.

And of course, a giant wine collection.

SkullStore Oddity Shop

This place is SUPER out there. This is a store that sells the skeletons of random animals, the skin of snakes, human remains (bones, preserved brain, etc.), taxidermy, preserved bugs, etc. All cruelty free and legally harvested apparently. Half of the store is an actual shop selling these strange items, and the other half is a free museum of even more weird things that aren’t for sale

The Half House

This half a house just sits on the side of the street like any other building. There isn’t a sign explaining why this is, what it’s doing there or anything like that. According to this site, it’s part of the remnants of the neighbourhood that once was here, where the owners at the time sold only half the house, and so the rest of the community developed around it.

St. Lawrence Market

This place felt similar to something like Granville Island in Vancouver, or Pike Place in Seattle – a farmer’s market positioning itself on selling fresh local meats, seafood, produce, etc. It’s a bit out of the way from the downtown core, and when I went, it was almost closing time, so it wasn’t very busy.

The one thing this place has over other farmer’s markets I’ve seen (at least in Seattle and Vancouver) is the variety. If you zoom in on that picture, below, you’ll see what I mean.

Restaurants

Toronto is Canada’s largest city, and therefore has a lot of offer in terms of food. Of all the places I ate at, these two places were definitely the best.

La Palette

This is a French style restaurant near the Kensington district of Toronto. It’s got an interesting selection of game meat, which was the reason why my buddy and I went. They’ve also got a good selection of wine and staff that are knowledgable about it.

For those wondering, horse doesn’t have a strong flavour like beef does, and it chews like super tender beef. Elk on the other hand, tastes kind of like steak with a bit of gaminess, and is actually quite hard to tell the difference unless you’re someone with really sensitive taste buds

Diana’s Seafood Delight

This place is known for their quality oysters and sea urchin, and also precisely the reason why we were there. They have a selection of different oysters from different areas, but if you gave me a blindfold and asked me which oyster was which, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.

Photo albums:

• Toronto
• Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada
• Casa Loma
• SkullStore Oddity Shop
• Royal Ontario Museum

After we arrived in Halong Bay, we set sail!

We got to kayak around some of the islands and visit a giant cave in one of them! Apparently my camera was so bad that all my cave pictures were blurry =/

The chefs on the boat crafted this masterpiece.

At night, we just chilled with the other travellers while looking at the night sky. It had been a while since I’d been anywhere remote enough to actually see a starry night.

The next morning, we were taken a fishing village on the water. They had a fishing boat on display and were explaining the various features of it. The fisherman can even sleep in the boat and has a way to cook on it. He can basically live out on the water.

Next, we went on a boat ride to an oyster farm.

At the oyster farm, the guide explained the process of how pearls were farmed. As a demonstration, the guide asked one of the travelers to randomly pick an oyster out of the tank. The guide took it out and immediately killed it and extracted the pearl and the rest of us immediately wondered, “did she just murder that oyster just to show us there was a pearl inside?” Kind of a waste of an oyster, but okay.

That night after the tour ended and we were all back in Hanoi, we randomly bumped into some of the British travellers that we went on the cruise with. We all went barhopping and bonded over our mutual dislike of the Trump presidency and Brexit. It was real fun!

Link to photo album: here