Happy Chinese Lunar New Year!

Lunar New Year

That’s right, Happy Lunar New Year to all you wonderful people!

I have been reading on this Chinese New Year and it seems that it is the year of the Sheep / Goat / Ram. And since I was born on this particular year, I am a part of the lucky Lunar New Year!

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And since it’s supposed to be my lucky year, I have so many fun adventures awaiting my 2015 year. I’ve officially dubbed this as my boss lady year and I am ready to kick some butt in the world and make my wildest dreams come true.

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I have some moves in mind this year that I can’t wait to share once everything has been finalized, but it’s really my time to get off my bum and make life happen.

And I want to extend the invitation to having an amazing year not only to all my Homie sheep/ goat/ rams out there, but to every Chinese zodiac animal out there to make 2015 your year. Just go out and do something you never would’ve done in your wildest dreams, like skydive or even travel to different state or country for the first time. Just go out and do it. We all have many years to live, but why wait. Just do it now and see how life will unfold for you. And hey if it doesn’t work out, then at least you tried. Plus success comes after failing and I’m ready for both.

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Meeting Samantha Brown – My Travel Idol

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Since it’s that time for the Travel & Adventure Expo in San Diego again. I wanted to share a moment that made my life so much more awesome. (I’m sure you already know, but check out the video below [Yes, that did rhyme])


(Please excuse the shake in my voice when I ask her a question, I was talking to my travel idol, you can only image all the nerves running in body)

So with that being said, I kept telling myself that 2014 was going to be my year (just like every other year is) and I truly made sure it was. I did some amazing things and accomplished so many awesome goals (Europe, job promotion, etc). Today, I want to share with everyone another great moment of my 2014 year.

I want to share a little story of one of the many reasons why I decided traveling was going to be one my life goals. It all starts with one person. Samantha Brown.

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St. Maarten, Philipsburg – Island #2

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To continue on with my Eastern Caribbean Cruise Getaway, our next stop is going to make you wish you were in that warm beach now.

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My next island adventure was at St. Maarten, Philipsburg. (And if you don’t remember, my last island adventure was at Puerto Rico).

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St. Maarten is a beautiful beach city. But it also has some fickle weather where it can rain one minute and have the sun shining high the next. But we were lucky to catch mostly the sun.

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Here you can see the clouds slightly forming into rain clouds.
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From our port we had to take a little boat to get to the main city. Once at the city it was shops, restaurants, and the most beautiful sandy white beach I had ever seen in my life at that point.

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We decided to walk around the city before going out by the beach. We found a little church and went inside. It was small, but dainty and had so much character to it.

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We went into shops and I ended up buying some souvenirs for my family here. One of them was a cute little green dress for my goddaughter.

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Around noon we decided to try some local food. And what’s more local than some jerk chicken and what the drink the Caribbean is known for: Rum.

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We saw this cute outside restaurant that had a grill going in both the front and the back and a bartender all right next to the beach. Safe to say, it was absolutely delicious and I ate that chicken right up. Oh how I wish I can go back and eat that chicken once again.

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After a few rounds of blended rum, it was time to hit the beach. This day we were actually able to relax by the beach and enjoy the sun and water. And of course that is exactly what I did. We rented out two chairs and an umbrella and I set out for the water.

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San Juan, Puerto Rico – My First Island Adventure

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Remember my Eastern Caribbean Diary series video? If you don’t, check it out here!

Well it’s time to start up that Getaway. Quite a few of you may be experiencing some extreme weather that has rain, snow and gloomy days, especially for those in the East Coast with your snow blizzard. I decided to bring some island fun to brighten those days!

Welcome to the first stop on my Eastern Caribbean Getaway!

Island #1: Puerto Rico.

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The first island we hit was San Juan, Puerto Rico and it is a beautiful island. And it is even more gorgeous when it’s the first piece of land you see after being on a cruise ship for 3 days straight.

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The island we were docking to was San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico. We had no real agenda for this day (or any of the island days really). So with such little time in the town we opted to just explore the city near the port station, which is known as Old San Juan.

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As soon as we got off the ship we were smacked with humidity, hot sticky humidity. My undone hair got frizzy within a second. But that didn’t stop me from seeing the beauty that San Juan had to offer.

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Old San Juan had such beautiful Spanish architecture as well as narrow cobblestone streets and then it is also surrounded by massive defensive stone walls and forts. It is a sight to behold.

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Many of the fort buildings were turned into government buildings as tourism started to boom. Like the building called the La Princessa used to be a municipal jail, but it has now become Puerto Rico Tourism Company building.

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And along the walkway of where the La Princessa stands, their Spanish markets are lined up for snacks of wonderful Puerto Rican delicacies.

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Lastly, we went full tourist by visiting the restaurant Señor Frog. But with such little time in Puerto Rico, it just meant for me visit it at another time with more time to actually explore and enjoy the town and go to an actual beach.

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All aboard! Hogwarts Express

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I don’t know why, but whenever the Christmas season comes along I always want to watch Harry Potter. And as you may have seen in my first European post, I’m kind of a Harry Potter geek. My 4th grade teacher read us the first chapter of the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone book and I was immediately hooked.

I’ve gone to midnight book releases, read one of those thick books in a day, re-read every book at least 3 times. I’ve gone to midnight showings of the movie and I even wrote my first ever Fan Fiction novel (the only novel I’ve ever written beginning to end) of a love story with Harry Potter characters on to a website called Quizzilla when I was in middle school (and since then I’ve loved writing fiction stories in my spare time and hope to one day publish a fiction book).

So yes, I am a big Harry Potter Geek. Capital H-P-G.

Since England is the main location of Harry Potter, I of course fell in love with London. All I ever wanted to be was a witch on my way to Hogwarts in London.

Well I got to live out my fantasy, even if it was for a brief moment.

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A Happy Update

So it has been quite a long time since I have updated and first and foremost, I would like to apologize to everyone for my absence.

Life has gotten the best of me and I have been extremely busy and sick and just a million other excuses that I could go on and on again.

While I want to write everyday and blog and take pictures, it can be a bit overwhelming with my schedule. So I have decided to take a small break for the Holidays (I already started that, I know). But I shall take a small break and re-organize my life.

I have every intention to keep this blog going, I have such great things I want to share with the world, but my planning and execution is not the best at the moment. So I’m going to take a small break, spend the holidays with my loved ones and then re-organize things.

And today, I had just received amazing news at my current job, I have officially been offered a permanent staff position! YAY! And with that being said, that means more responsibility and a busier schedule, but that won’t stop me with traveling, writing, photography, videotaping, etc.

This blog is still in its early runs, but I will do my best and hope to make it grow into something beautiful and something I love to do. Travel is still my passion and so is writing, so I will forever keep doing this.

As for now, I will enjoy my holidays and I hope you enjoy yours too. I may post something once or twice within my little break, but most of the time I will be planning for a better execution for this website.

Have a happy holidays, Merry Christmas to all and Happy New Year. I hope you all have wonderful holidays and share it with loved ones. Take a break, enjoy life and make the last days of 2014 count.

As for this post, I will share some beautiful photos of the moon I took earlier this week. I like to appreciate little things like this and hope to capture it and share it with the world. Hope you enjoy!

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Happy holidays, keep reaching for that moon and travel on my travelers.

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Paris, France – Rain, Crêpes and the Eiffel Tower

Our second day in Europe, we hopped on the Eurostar and made our way to the beautiful city of Paris.

Now Paris is beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Our hotel came with a little view and even just that was breathtaking.

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Our amazing view from our top floor window.

We were a bit tired from all the trains, metros, and walking, but we couldn’t stay inside on our first night in Paris. So we settled our stuff down, took a quick breather and were out the door to explore the city.

Alex booked this hotel called Fred Hotel. It was only about a 30-40 minute walk to the Eiffel Tower. Well to save us a few bucks for the metro, we decided to just walk.

It’s truly not a far walk to the Eiffel Tower, that is, until you get lost.

With no navigation system, we had to rely on this little city maps I had of Paris to get there. Right off the bat, we had already missed a turn and ended up walking about 10 minutes in the wrong direction. So we had to turn back, and there we missed another turn somehow.

After trying a bit more walking, we were starting to get frustrated that we had no idea where we even were. No navigation system really sucks when you’re in a foreign land.

And to the best of our luck, it started to rain. And I don’t mean a small sprinkle. It started to pour. So there we were at a corner trying to look at the maps on my phone and it starts to pour that we can’t even read the map without my phone drowning from the rain.

Luckily, my good navigation systems and map reading (Alex can back me up on this, I was usually always right when it came to directions in Europe) we were finally headed in the right direction to the Eiffel Tower.

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So close, but still so much walking.

Finally after what felt like an eternity of walking, we saw the Eiffel tower and got so excited. Unfortunately, the Eiffel tower looked closer than it actually was and we still had a bit of walking to do. But even through all the rain and frustrations of being lost, we made it the beautiful Eiffel tower.

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