I went for a run!

As I was desperately trying to fall asleep on the night of the 30th, I was trying to visualise what kind of exercise I was going to be doing the next day and I thought of going for a run to Arthur's seat! I was so keen on going and was visualising how amazing I would feel and also how beautiful the landscapes would be and so I finally fell asleep with that in mind.

The next morning, it was cold and gloomy and so I decided against my run. 

However, I kept thinking about it the entire morning and finally decided to go for one in the afternoon! and so I went, and I felt amazing running within the first 5 minutes but after those few minutes, I experienced a long on-going battle between stopping and continuing my run 

Honestly, I have no idea why I feel so different when I run on the treadmill and when I run outside :( Maybe it's the weather?? But I was still so glad that I went on the run and managed to get some lovely pictures along the way and also come back with a massive bunch of over-riped bananas for just £2, which I freezed immediately and a bunch of medjool dates! 

It's been 4 days since I bought those bananas but they are still sustaining my banana-ice cream afternoon snacks!! 

How beautiful!!! :')))) 

I shall make it an effort to go on this run more often especially when I'm approaching my final year in uni :( 

Edinburgh, you will always be my favourite city in the UK ♥

Verona

Fun fact: Verona is the city where the story of Romeo and Juliet was set! I didn't know this till we were actually walking along the streets and Justina said: Let's go see Juliet's balcony! 

Verona was another lovely Italian city, entirely different from Venice but still beautiful in its own way! Again, Justina and I had no plans whatsoever of what to do in Verona and we just explored the streets to our liking :) 

This was my fav photo of the trip! 

So many cafes in Italy offer vegan croissants and at the same price as regular croissants!! This is what I call equality for all! They are really flaky yet soft at the same time - just like the original version

What is Italy without gelato 

After endless hours of walking around the city, Justina and I got really tired a slightly cranky and we just wanted a place to chill before dinner because the restaurant that we had planned to go to was only open at 7 

Justina then randomly found this gem of a bar because she saw many people standing outside of it! Typical Singaporean mentality I guess - when a place is crowded, it must be because it is good hahaha We both had a refreshing cocktail each, which came with crisps and mini sandwiches 

We then headed to Ristorante Flora, a vegan restaurant, and to our dismay, it was only open at 7:30 despite it stating 7pm on Google. At least we had arrived only at 7:15 but we were starving by then and really tired :( 

But the food was really good so it was worth the wait! This was a pumpkin dish with mushrooms and yummy macadamia cheese

We also had a platter of flavoured rice balls served with caramelised onions and potatoes and a sweet dipping sauce :) Justina and I then got on the bus back to our air bnb and had a lovely night's rest! 

Despite waking up at 8am the next morning, we only left our air bnb at 10:30am because our train back to Castellanza (the town where my sister was having her exchange in), was only at 4pm and we had already seen most of Verona. So, we headed out in the late morning for brunch at a Saos, a health food cafe, whilst getting some work done (we both had more assignments due). I had an acai bowl and Justina had an incredible green matcha bowl and it was a really lovely and relaxed morning 

After a couple hours, we headed to explore more of the city that we hadn't seen. We came across this beautiful view when we walked towards the river :') 

We also came across a lot more natural environments, which was a nice change from all the man-made buildings and architecture that we had been looking at for the past 2 days. After getting some gelato, we then headed back to our air bnb to grab our bags and got on the train back to Castellanza!

We ended the night with massive and I mean massive (the same size as that huge pizza I had in Venice) for just 5 euros! They were so generous with the toppings as well!! We enjoyed our yummy pizzas whilst watching The Tourist (just because it was shot in Venice hehe) 

The next day, Justina and I attended a cross fit class in the morning followed by a huge grocery shop at the health food store and supermarket. We then had lunch together and Justina went for class in the afternoon and we headed out for dinner with her friends! Dinner was so lovely and Justina's friends are so lovely as well. I am so glad to see that she has found these wonderful people on her exchange and from what I can see, they're probably going to be lifelong friends :'))  

On my last day, I woke up incredibly sore from the cross fit class, lazed around in bed and then prepared breakfast with Justina using Tess Begg's incredible oatmeal hack!! It involves blending your oats with bananas and milk and it cooking it on a pan - it comes out so incredibly creamy with extremely well balanced flavours and I will say no more, you'll just have to try it (I've been having my oatmeal like this every single day). After devouring our oatmeal in the communal kitchen, we headed back to the room and Justina did more work for her Italian exam that she had later that afternoon. Lunch was a yummy meal of a vegetable medley cooked with quinoa in vegetable stock and tomato sauce!! I then did some last minute packing and headed back home to Edinburgh :'(( 

I am so grateful to have had the chance to visit my sister on exchange! It was so nice being able to actually see and experience a bit of her life on exchange and I'm also just happy that I could be there for her - it can get quite lonely or sad not seeing family for such a long time! Traveling with my sister is always great because we get along so well, and even when we don't, we deal with it really well and we have similar interests and we're just so chill when we're together!! Love you so much Jie ♥

☾ The dreamy city of Venice ✧

Went to visit my lovely sissy in Italy in the first week of April!! 

The first day I arrived, we were both busy with work/assignments the whole day (I handed mine in at 1:20am in the morning lord) but had to get that done because we were heading to Venice the next morning! 

First thing we did after we arrived was to head to our air bnb, which was so nice but made even nicer by the loveliest and friendliest host! Her name was Monica, and she sat down with us for 15 minutes with a giant map of Venice and gave excellent recommendations of how to get around and where to go! I think what made one day trip so wonderful was the fact that I had zero expectations of the city and therefore everything was good because I had nothing to compare it to. It made such a huge difference to my travel experience and it's something I will definitely keep in mind for future travels :) 

Venice is incredibly beautiful :') 

Monica recommended that we head to a wee town called Burano! It took us about 2.5 hours to get there via 2 boats + waiting times in between but it was worth it. Burano is such a colourful quaint town and Justina mentioned that when you are there, you can't really tell which country you are in (if you get what I mean) - and now looking back at these pictures, I do agree with what she said because Burano is just so different from anything I've seen 

This is my fav VSCO filter M5 hehe

Had this amazing huge vegan pizza for under 10 euros!! and I love that pizzas in Italy (except Milan from what my sister was saying) are thin-crust pizzas!! 

We then headed back to walk around the city of Venice! 

Have to let the pictures do the talking because Venice is really just so dreamy and beautiful 

This was the square of Saint Marc's Basilica, which I would say is the only kinda 'must see' place in Venice. I would highly recommend just not having a plan and exploring the little alleyways and just letting your instincts lead the way!

Beautiful flowers outside a hotel 

Justina and I were just walking along a small street and heard Vivaldi's Winter playing and I commented that it must be a CD playing in some shop but we soon got out of the street and into a huge plaza/square area and found these talented musicians playing the piece!! We stood there for a good 5 minutes listening to their lovely music :')) 

Can you catch the football in the air! 

Cutie dog #1

Cutie dog #2

Cutie dog #3

I found Wally!! 

I found the criminal Wallys!

Being the lovely sister that she is, Justina looked up vegan-friendly restaurants in Venice and we went to Frary's! It served mediterranean food and it was deeeeelicious 

Justina and I then got on a bus back to our air bnb (as our air bnb was in Mestre, which was a town a 30 min bus ride away from Venice City - also Monica recommended that we get the 24 hour transport pass for just 20 euros each but it gave us unlimited access to all forms of transport, which we did utilise a lot). We spent the evening watching Dynasty and quickly fell asleep because we were sooo tired

Look at this amazing breakfast spread prepared by Monica :') We chatted the whole time during breakfast before we parted because Justina and I only spent one day in Venice

After checking out in the morning, Justina and I still had some time to explore the inner city before we hopped on our train to Verona. 

On the right side of this bridge, there was a huge Magnum store and I was really keen on trying hot chocolates here in Italy because they are literally just pure chocolate - and so we headed in to the Magnum store and I got a hot chocolate but with soy milk (so I guess it wasn't the traditional thick Italian hot chocolates) - AND IT WAS SO CREAMY AND DELICIOUS!!! It was so good that Justina and I went back for another one just before we got on our train hehe

Water taxis aka boats are the only mode of transport in Venice and I just thought this was really cute that there was a DHL boat 

Happy girl with her non-fruit flavoured sorbet - Cherry (ok this was fruit but at least not the boring lemon or mango or raspberry) but also Dark Chocolate!! 

 Justina's research then led us to another fully vegan restaurant - La Tecia Vegana for lunch and its appearance put us off a little, but in this case the phrase 'Don't judge a book by its cover' was actually fitting because the food was so unique and incredibly tasting 

This was a yummy vegan lasagne with pretty edible flowers 

This was a walnut ravioli and we had a side of roasted pumpkin as you can see in the background :) 

Next stop, Verona!