January 8, 2017
It was a cold Sunday morning and the rain was falling. lol My sister and I rented a car and drove for around forty mintues to Snoqualmie Falls. Again it was super cold and super windy when we got there so I just took a selfie of my curls before the wind destroyed it. lol I spent a whole lot of time curling it so it deserves a selfie. ;b
I’m such a sucker for airline promo fares and this time, we booked cheap tickets to China! I’ve always wanted to go to the Great Wall but I always hesitated because there’s currently no direct flights to Beijing or Shanghai from Cebu. (EDIT March 2018: There’s already a direct flight from Cebu-Shanghai through China Eastern Airlines) Also, China is one of the countries where a US citizen needs a tourist visa. 
There’s definitely a first time for everything and this was the first time that I myself applied for a tourist visa! I was a little nervous, since I don’t have a lot of stamps in my Philippine passport.
First and foremost, I would like to let everyone know that the Chinese Consulate has opened again in Cebu on March 2017. Don’t bother searching it in Google because the address there is still the old address. I’m not sure why they didn’t bother to change it considering a lot of people follow what they see online – like me! It’s super misleading! We actually went to the Cebu-Fil Chinese building before the guard there directed us to its new location, at the Mandarin Plaza Hotel. So this is the complete address and contact number (where someone actually picked up) of the current Chinese Consulate in Cebu:
Chinese Consulate Cebu
25th Floor, Mandarin Plaza Hotel
J. Solon Dr, Cebu City, Cebu
(032) 505-1035
They only pick up from 9am-11am. You may also try to contact Mandarin Hotel (032 266-1111) and have your call forwarded to the Chinese Consulate if you can’t contact their number.
January 7, 2017
I went on a quick visit to my family in Los Angeles for New Year’s. I stayed there for a month so my sister and I had to plan a last minute sister out-of-state-trip. We initially planned on going to New Orleans but the plane tickets to Seattle were much cheaper and the weather was bad at New Orleans at that time.. not that Seattle’s was any good. It rained a whole lot during our visit. lol
Jan 6, 2017
After battling jetlag, I finally got out of my bed and went out of the house. Lol I bought a Universal Studios Annual Pass from Costco for USD 110. The one day pass for that day was USD 105 so I just got the annual pass. I can still remember back in 2004-2007ish, day passes were only USD 39 for California residents and they would have a promo of buy one day and get the whole year free. I can’t believe it has almost tripled now but nonetheless, people are still flocking into the park especially now that the Harry Potter World has opened.
The last time I was in LA, the Harry Potter World was still closed. I just took this photo after exiting the studio tour back when I visited on January 2016. I told myself that I had to go back again this year to visit the newly opened Wizarding World of Harry Potter…
July 10, 2016
Right when we decided that we will visit Rome, I immediately searched for the Pope’s schedule. I was sad that the Pope didn’t have any parade scheduled for the whole month of July but I was really glad that he held Angelus prayers on every Sunday of the month. And so I scheduled our visit to Vatican on a Sunday to be in the presence of the Pope.
July 9, 2016
We only stayed a few days in Rome and with all the places that we had to cover, we had to make every day count! We started our venture into ancient Rome at the largest amphitheater that was ever built, the Colosseum.
July 6, 2016
We initially planned to just go directly to Rome from Venice and do a day trip to Florence and Pisa because I thought about how hard it was to move from one city to another with our luggage. But I wasn’t sure if doing a day trip to both cities would give us enough time so we just looked for a hotel near the train station in Florence and stayed there for two nights.
July 5, 2016
We felt like we already went through all of Venice the day before so we took the morning off from touristing and got ourselves some rest. We loved the hotel that we stayed in so we just staycationed. Woke up for our hotel breakfast and snoozed back to sleep after. lol
June 30, 2016
It’s day two at the city of love! We were up early and had breakfast at Tita Mona’s once again. She prepared corned beef, potato omelette, spam, and croissant for breakfast. We were so full! 🙂
We had to walk to Trocadero from Tita Mona’s place, which was I around 20 minutes away, to catch the Hop On Hop Off Bus. We opted to do this so that we could go around Paris and see the all the tourist spots in one day. From what I can remember, we paid around 30-40 Euros for 1-day bus tour + River cruise.
The whole cr3w! 😉
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June 29, 2016
After our marvelous time in Amsterdam, it was time to move on to a more serious city, Paris. We arrived just before lunch. Our friends went directly to Paris from London so we just met up with them.
The Adventures of Ting Ting 