What We Ate: HK edition!

Hello Friends! I just wanted to post what we ate on our vacation in Hong Kong. This is mostly pictures because I love food pictures, and also I don’t understand the Chinese/mandarin language so there’s no way I can translate food descriptions. To be honest, we encountered quite the language barrier during our trip too so ordering was kinda difficult, but the food was great! For the first time in my life, I had fried frogs! It was flavorful (similar to chicken) but kinda boney in my opinion. My sisters tried it too but they didn’t like it. One thing I like to do when traveling is try new food that we can’t get at home.

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Plane food!

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I didn’t care so much for our food during our 12 hour flight.

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Fresh fruits on the streets of Hong KONG

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Braised Pork Belly that Zach finds really tasty!

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Deep Fried Snapper with bitter melon!

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Pork Ribs!

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Vietnamese Pork Chop style..Everybody loved this dish

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Starbucks and Dimsum! We had Starbucks everyday on this Vacation:) I love me some starbucks!

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Zach assembling our take out Chinese food! This is for the whole family (not just for the two of us).

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Deep Fried fish and Braised pork belly (one of my fave meal during the vacation)

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After Dinner Pic outside the restaurant!

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Meat galore just outside on the street!

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This meal right here made Zach sick because of the price! Rice and beef stew (of some sort) was close to US $25..HA

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Roaming around the night market!

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After checking out their night market, we got hungry so off to one of the restaurants that served seafood. I don’t remember the name of the place but it was crowded and we thought it must be good. The food was great, the service not so much.

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Krammy not impressed..hehe

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Fried Frog!

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Ate and I at a restaurant at the Peak!

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DisneyLand Lunch

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Lunch at IFC mall! The place was really good too.

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Disneyland, Hong Kong

Disneyland was the main reason why we wanted to visit Hong Kong. We wanted to bring my nephews there. They’re at the age where they can appreciate theme parks. My sisters and I have been to Disneyland HK 10 years ago, the first year they opened. It was the first Disneyland I’ve been to.  It was such a magical experience for us. In my opinion, your first Disney trip will always be special:) After being here in the States for almost 8 years, I’ve been fortunate enough to visit some theme parks, Disney CA included, and I can say that Disneyland HK is my least favorite one (I’ve never been to Disney Paris / Tokyo) so far from my experience. The castle was so small in comparison to other Disney parks. The food was OK (close to terrible IMO). The shows were not as good as Disney CA (especially the Lion King; it was disappointing). We even skipped the Frozen show because we prioritized the Mystic Manor ride (which was worth it for us). The rides were great! We loved Space Mountain, Mystic Manor, RC Racer, and everybody’s favorite the Grizzly Gulch (except my mom, she opted out). My nephews enjoyed the Go Cart thing but had to wait for an hour just to get in. Both the parades and the fireworks didn’t disappoint! It was a tiring day for everybody but seeing the faces of our nephews made it all worth while:) Personally, I have no desire to go back to this Disney park, but for my nephews I would gladly do it again!

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Naay parade mga sisterets, busy ba sa selfie!hahaa

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Kissy faces!

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It’s a small world ride! This is a must when you’re in Disneyland.

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Krammy is getting tired already!

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So he was really happy that Uncle Zach gave him a shoulder ride!

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Going back to the hotel now after a long, fun tiring day!

Big Bus Tour, Hong Kong!

Hello Friends! On our third full day in Hong Kong my family decided to do the Big Bus tour to see the HK as we were limited in time and we wanted to check out the city and other touristy places with less hassle. The tour bus was perfect in our opinion. The sisters and I were a little worried that the bus would have lots of issues (base on some reviews), but thankfully we had a good experience and found the tour comfortable. Our Tour included the Peak Tram, Star Ferry/Harbour tour, Hongkong Island, Kowloon; boat tour around Aberdeen Harbour (our boat driver was very accommodating to us / offering to take pictures without us asking him!) now that is customer service:)

There’s probably nothing special about the tour bus in general but I know my family, especially my nephews, loved being in the top part of the double decker open bus. They don’t have this in the Philippines (not in our our city) so it was neat to see them experience HK this way. If you want a comfortable sight seeing experience with limited time, I would recommend this tour. I had such a wonderful time with my family:)

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The Tram was crowded as expected!

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Tram Selfie!

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Selfie with my siblings!

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HA! this picture makes me laugh..Zach likes to take candid pics thus our faces looks funny in this! #reallife

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All the Titas took pictures and they don’t know where to look!

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The look on my nephews faces says they’re not impressed!

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Mama!

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Here comes the Bus!

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About to watch the Symphony of Lights (It was Ok for us, nothing special)

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Ocean Park, Hong Kong

Hello Everyone! I Hope you’re all having a good weekend. We’re still recovering at home from our nasty colds and annoying coughs. I just wanted to share our Ocean Park adventures with family during our 2 weeks vacation. Me and my sisters visited this park 10 years ago, we had a great memory about our experience thus we wanted to visit it again so the rest of the family can see what it’s all about.

The Park is so big that I don’t think we were able to see the whole place.  We had to prioritize what shows and places we wanted to see because  we didn’t have a lot of time and also their cable car was not working that day (what a bummer). Too bad also that my nephews were too short for a lot of the rides.  Maybe next time we visit that won’t be a problem!:)

Here’s a  description of the Ocean Park, Hong Kong (source: wikipedia): Ocean Park Hong Kong, commonly known as Ocean Park, is a marine mammal park, oceanarium, animal theme park and amusement park, situated in Wong Chuk Hang and Nam Long Shan in the Southern District of Hong Kong.

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Bus ride going to Ocean Park!

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I love this picture of my Nephew Krammy, he was laughing at himself while trying this hat (miss you Kram)!

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Eboy (another Nephew) miss you Eb!

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I’m the only one looking at the camera?

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Lazy and sleepy Panda!

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About to watch the Dolphin and Seal show ( I was disappointed honestly, I feel like the show 10 years ago was so much better)

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Lunch at Terrace Cafe (disappointed at how expensive the food was yet the quality was mediocre; I guess you’re paying the view of the restaurant)

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Excuse my double chin! Bad Angle! HA..

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After Lunch, we’re off to the Jellyfish museum which was very cool and one of my fave in the Park.

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Candid picture of my Mom, sis, and nephew! They were laughing at my older sister while Zach was giving her a hard time on one of the rides they took.

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I forgot the name of this ride, it was fun watching my family act like crazy kids..

Back From Vacation!

Hello Friends! I’ve been MIA for the last couple of weeks because we went to visit my family back in the Philippines. We spent 5 days in Hong Kong, 5 days in Manila (Philippines) and another 5 days in my hometown CDO (Cagayan De Oro). We just got back early Thursday. We got sick on our last few days and are still recovering till now. We had so much fun spending time with family and friends  Lots of memories were made for sure! Time flies so fast whenever you are having fun.  We are so grateful that we were able to do this vacation (debt free!) and looking forward to our next adventures with family! Thank You Lord:)

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We had Seattle to Taipei to HK trip

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Up early in HK looking for starbucks and some dimsum for breakfast! Excuse our faces                                    #hagardoversoza

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with Mama and Zach;HK public transport (MTR) is one of the best in the world.

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Dog Parking?

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Zach enjoyed durian at our house in CDO. One of the creamiest durians ever!

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My Mom made sure we had Lechon once a week we were there. The best lechon for us.

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After dinner at this yummy and very affordable local Restaurant!

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Gotta visit Ocean Park when you find yourself in HK

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Lunch at the Terrace Cafe; expensive but OK food (the view is great though)

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we checked their night market (i forgot the name)

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Big Bus tour of the city

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The Peak

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The Sampan Boat tour!

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Symphony of Lights night time show

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Disneyland Hong Kong

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My Nephews enjoying the Pool at Hyatt City of Dreams

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Swimming at Duka Bay with cousins

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with our Cousins and Auntie (my mom side of the family)

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Me swimming at Luxe Hotel in my hometown.

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Lunch with my friends!

Happy Labor Day!

Hello friends! Hope you had a relaxing labor day weekend. Ours was a good one! The hubs and I enjoyed sushi and Korean drama (our latest thing!) friday evening. Take out food and movie/tv show marathon is one of my favorite date nights with hubs. The weather lately is one of the reasons we prefer staying at home. We’ve been having lots of thunderstorms and Riley is always stressed when he hears the thunder. No matter what we do to comfort him, nothing seems to work.

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We finished the Korean drama “That Winter, The Wind Blows”. I really like the lead stars, they look so good together but the ending of the show was a little disappointing for us.

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Saturday we went to the Evergreen State Fair! Had a blast with my In laws and we ate too much fair food:)

Elephant ear! Too much butter and sugar goodness..
Elephant ear! Too much butter and sugar goodness..

We went to church Sunday morning, did a little grocery shopping after. Enjoyed teriyaki for lunch and a nap and lots of cuddling with Riley. We started another Korean drama show that my friend Faye recommended (Fated to Love) which is on Netflix right now. We finished the 20 episodes in 2 days ( I think we are lightly obsessed with RomCom shows lately).

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Today (Monday,Labor Day) I did a lot in the kitchen. I roasted the tomatoes that we got from our garden and prepared Rileys food for 2 weeks. I wish we “trained” Riley how to eat commercial dog food (I’m sure there’s lot of decent dog food we can get him). I’ve been cooking his meal for the last year already ( Our vet gave me some recipes to use). He’s our fur baby so it’s worth it for us to make dog food from scratch,know what’s in his food. Back to the tomatoes, I’m looking forward to using my roasted tomatoes in the coming weeks for soups and pasta dishes.

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We had Mexican takeout for our dinner tonight, nachos and beef taquitos are always good! Hubs bought some Krispy Kreme donuts for us because it was a long and tiring day of kitchen work:)

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Hope you all have a good rest of the week everyone!

Evergreen State Fair!

Hello friends! Hope you’re all having a good weekend. Today, me and the hubs met up with my In laws at the Evergreen State Fair (45 minutes drive from our place) and had a great time. I really like going to the fair (my personal favorite is the Washington State Fair) because it’s big, there are so many activities, and I love all the crazy things I get to see. The hubs is not so much into it, but he did it for me (according to him). We got lucky that the weather was perfect today, at least while we were there! We initially wanted to go last week, but it was raining hard and had a bad storm. We watched the animals (cows, horses, goats) but we missed the dogs, pigs, and sheep. It was a fun time with my In laws, I think everybody’s favorite about the fair was definitely the food. We totally dig the blooming onion! Till the next fair…

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Jeans and light Jacket and comfy shoes #ootd

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I’m digging the 1956 calendar

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Bulky TV

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Blooming Onion

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Fresh Lemonade

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Busy making honey?

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                                                                          Elephant ear anyone?

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Eggplant in a container,so cool!

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What we’ve been eating lately!

Happy September friends! Although It’s not yet “officially” fall, the weather outside seems like it is. It’s been raining the whole time and windy too. I think it’s time to get out some of my fall decorations ( I don’t have a lot), burn some fall candles, drink a Starbucks Pumpkin spice latte to really put me in the fall spirit. I love fall but the constant rain is annoying. Anyways, I wanted to share some of our meals that we’ve been having in the last part of August! We’ve eaten most of our meals at home and had take out for most weekends (we budgeted for it!). Looking forward to eating soup and stews in the coming weeks:) *Food picture overload ahead…

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Bagel and lox, coffee for breakfast (we don’t eat this regularly though)

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Sausage, eggs, avocado for dinner

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Loco Moco (spam,eggs,beef pattie)

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Spaghetti

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Short ribs and polenta

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Chinese take out as we celebrate 10 years together (7 years married)

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Caprese salad (tomatoes and basil from the garden)

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Hotdogs and caprese salad

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Beef stroganoff and green beans

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Fried rice

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Deep fried ribs (to go with our rice)

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Filipino breakfast *dried fish and eggs

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Dried fish and mung bean soup

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Steak and potatoes, broccolli

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Braised short ribs

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Spicy Garlic shrimp

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Spam Musubi made by Hubs

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Fried chicken (Pioneer woman recipe), corn and cucumber salad

Our take outs:

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Chinese food

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Terriyake beef, gyoza

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Jack n the Box take out food (cheap and unhealthy meal kind of weekend)

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Pizza from our local place!

We dined at the Ram restaurant with my In laws 2 weeks ago:

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Enjoyed Dimsum at Dough zone after church:

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