may travel blog part 1: fuzhou!

hello cheez-its! it’s time for another blog-series post… this time, it was my first-ever visit to mainland china!

I’ve mentioned this before, but I actually have some relatives living on the mainland! There was a lot I didn’t know about China so I did quite a bit of research ahead of time. I discovered that there's almost no places to use cash, which was quite a surprise to me 0_0

of course chiikawa comes with me everywhere… & this was our meal (Xiamen airlines!)

honestly it was… okay (¯―¯٥) not bad. can't expect much from airplane food, I wasn't even expecting anything ww

On our first off day away from family, we visited a local public museum! It was pretty interesting to see the similarities in architecture and culture compared to some of the museums I've seen in Japan.

It was super hot and moist, so then we got some yummy guava! it was so cheap… something like 20 RMB (400 yen~) for this whole bucket.

I smelled something yummy in the air after browsing for a bit, and we found some exquisite egg tarts… it had an incredibly crunchy thin skin but a super tender egg custard in the middle 😭 sooo good

And of course, I had to take a picture in front of the famous 「三坊七巷」 heart tree 💚. I wonder how hard it must be for gardeners to maintain the shape, especially at the top.

Later in the week we also visited a super traditional temple in the Gushan Mountains. These statues were honestly so cool, just being in it’s presence felt like a supernatural event. ( ºﾛº)✨

Afterwards, we did a hike in the mountains! but I encountered my worst enemy… caterpillars ( ಠдಠ) it was the worst. (i don't hate them but they just make me feel like my soul is leaving my body)

as a reward for conquering my fears, i got to taste fresh durian for the first time! I had smelled it many times before while traveling around South-East Asia but this was my first time actually eating it. It was a crazy experience... and honestly I really like it >w< not good for dieting though...

on our final free day, I went to a cultural artifacts museum! To be honest I just like staring at rare artifacts… this was a clay soldier from the Terracotta Warriors exhibit! Apparently each one was modeled after a real person… so cool 👀

And that's it for my Fuzhou travel blog! I wanted to go to more places around the mainland (especially to scout out future photoshoot areas... huhuhu) but my schedule was mostly set by my relatives. Next time we'll do a more proper exploration and get more yummies >:3

second part of my travel blog will be coming later this week. look forward to it!