food – Page 2 – ThePassportPrincess

Granville Markets & Shopping

January 17, 2018January 17, 2018Sarah1 Comment

Sunday 14th January

Today I fell in love with Vancouver that little bit more.
When I walked outside, there was sunshine! I couldn’t believe it. This whole time I’ve been here the sky has been grey and gloomy with low cloud hanging around and a continuous drizzle.

On Sunday I had signed up for one of the organised Day Trips that the hostel organised and today it was a visit to Granville Island!
To get there, we could take either a short boat ride over or walk along the bridge for half an hour or so onto the island.
As it was a nice day, we opted to walk across, however the blue sky quickly turned to grey when we got to the bridge – there was so much fog!! I felt sorry for all the people living in high-rise apartments buildings as you literally couldn’t see anything outside your window.

When we got to Granville Island, our Hostel Tour Guide told us a little bit about the island.
Apparently Vancouver was called Granville until it was renamed in 1886, but the former name was kept and given to Granville Street (which is on a small inlet called False Creek). The Island was once an industrial manufacturing area, but now it’s a great tourism hotspot full of entertainment, shopping and food.
The thing I loved most about Granville was definitely the food. And my god was there a lot of it. We had about 45 minutes to explore the markets and it’s by far one of (if not the best) markets I have ever been to.

As soon as you walk in, on your right there’s a market selling fresh flowers, up ahead you’ve got a guy selling like 10 different flavours of popcorn, there’s fresh juice, pizza slices, freshly baked muffins, hot-dogs, free-range meat and even freshly made pasta that you can choose along with home-made sauces to accompany.
My first stop was to one of the bakery places where I tossed up whether to get a Lemon Muffin or a Raspberry Scrumpet (I guess it’s kind of like a Scone).
I ended up deciding on the Lemon muffin and popped it in my bag to take home for later.
If I lived close by, I’d love to get my fresh fruit and veges from here – especially if they’re cheaper than the grocery store as I find food quite pricey here.
I was walking with Bella (the German girl) as we stopped at another bakery-type market stall where she got a pie and I bought one of those cheese twist things to snack on.

Then I had to get myself a freshly squeezed juice of course and a slice of Pizza as I saw too many people with them so had to get one as well!
I was tempted to get one of those classic German Sausages but I’m not really a fan of pork so decided to pass this time. Maybe next time! (as there will definitely be a next time)

After 45 minutes, we all met outside at our agreed meeting spot and listened to one of the buskers sing while we finished eating our delicious findings!

Our tour leader took us around Granville Island to have a look at what else it had to offer. We had a look at the House Boats on Sea Village and also took some pictures from the top of a small Hill haha!
I can’t imagine you’d have too much privacy living in the houseboats on Granville, but it’s pretty cool that most of them are two-storeys high which is quite unusual for house boats.
Looking out towards the Vancouver city skyline, you couldn’t see too much because of the fog but I did my best in taking a few pictures 🙂

Once everyone had taken a few pictures, we had the option of either staying to explore on our own or to head back to the hostel with the guide.
Me and the girls decided to stay a bit longer and had a walk around the big Kids Store they had.
I would have loved this if I was younger!
The store is literally made for kids (they even have a smaller door for kids to enter through). There’s a playground inside (kind of like a mini Chipmunks with the foam rolly things) and there’s even a hairdresser for kids! So cute.

When we’d all had enough looking around, we headed back to the hostel for the afternoon.
I was in desperate need of a sit down as my feet were killing me – too small shoes 😦
However, I really needed to buy a Winter hat as I was off to Whistler the next day.
I went to a cheap clothing store a a couple of stores down from the hostel but none of the hats suited me so I branched out a bit further (yes my feet were still crazy sore and blistering) and went to The Bay a couple of more blocks down.
This is the same place I went for my $40 umbrella haha so I knew a hat wasn’t going to be cheap.
I found one with the softest ball on top and tried it on. It’s from a Canadian brand called Pajar who make like Winter Boots and clothes. It did cost a pretty penny but it’s worth it for my cold little ears!

The rest of the night was spent down at the Beaver Bar again for drinks and nibbles with the girls.
I was sooo tired though, so I didn’t last long down there before going back to my dorm room for a read of my book before going to sleep.

I’m currently writing this post a couple of days later and I’m off to dinner now so I’ll leave you all with some more pretty wee pictures I took at the Markets 🙂

Day 71 – Rome

October 25, 2015June 13, 2016Sarah2 Comments

Wednesday 21st October 2015

My second proper day in Rome was a pretty chilled out day. I had washing to do so I loaded it all together and went down the road to the laundry mat.
Thankfully you just paid the guy there and they washed and dried it all for you. No waiting around for me!

As I’d done so much exploring the day before, I Googled somewhere to get my nails done and set off on a walk to find this place called Enhancements.
When I got to the road it was on, I must have walked past it because I couldn’t find it!
After feeling like I just went on a big walk for nothing, I eventually saw it and went in to see if they had any appointments available.
I didn’t even care how much it cost, my feet were in desperate need of a pedicure. You have no idea how gross your toes end up looking when you’re travelling and have no time to care for them! Haha.
Not to mention my finger nails kept breaking every time I so much as glanced at them so I asked about getting a manicure as well.

Thankfully they were free right then and there so I picked some colours for my nails and then went into a room to change into a bathrobe.
I know right! Getting changed just to get my nails done, it was a bit of a fancy schmancy spa. 🛀💱

I got my pedicure first (poor lady). My feet were scrubbed and moisturized and massaged. It was heaven! She honestly did the best job and my toenails look so pretty and pink now 🙂

I then got my manicure and even though she cut my nails nice and short, they look great and now they can finally stop breaking. My yucky black nail I have from jamming it into a door in Croatia is all covered up now too!

I walked away probably spending the most I ever have on my nails but it was 100x better than going to one of the Asian nail spas that use cheap nail polishes. She honestly did the best job ever!
And everything was cleaned and sterilized and nice products were used. (I notice these things as I used to be a beauty therapist)
😯
It’s crazy how I’m excited that the products someone is using on my nails are clean. It shows how shady some nail bars are back home.

Anyways, once my nails were all dry, I paid and left to walk aimlessly around Rome.

I was feeling a bit hungry so went to a random restaurant that looked good and ordered some Pasta.
I’d had so much lasagna lately that I decided to mix it up a bit and get a Cabornara.

It was very fulling!
That will probably be my last pasta dish for a very long time. I try and not eat it too much back home because I get sooo bloated when I eat really carby food. 😩

I went on a search for souvenirs after lunch time but couldn’t really find anything I loved. Or anything I could buy that would easily fit in my bag…it’s really getting harder and harder to buy stuff. I might just have to stick with clothes now as they’re the lightest.

I went to the Termini train station on my way back to the hostel to try and figure out what train I had to take the next morning to get to the airport.
It seemed kinda simple, just buy a ticket from the kiosk and find your train at the time.
If you’re ever in Rome and need to get to the Airport, taking the train seems like the thing to do to save money.
They had a Lindt store at the train station too so I went in to have a browse and ended up leaving with 2 boxes of Lindt chocolate recipes to make back at home. I got a Chocolate mousse recipe and a chocolate lava cake type thing. Along with a box of powdered Lindt hot chocolate to make back in New Zealand. It’s funny coz all the instructions are in Italian so I’ll see how I go with trying to translate it haha.

It’s good i’m travelling by myself as I was very boring when I got back to my hostel. I had a bit of alone time so I took advantage of the Wi fi and ended up watching more episodes of Teen Mom 2 in my room.
I’m really feeling for Leah here…can’t believe her and Jeremy got a divorce! He defiantly needed to be a more supportive husband while she was going through all that shit. (People who watch this show will know what I’m on about) 👿

Later on I went downstairs to the bar and met up with my friend from Top Deck Nick. He was sitting with some new people so I joined them and we started discussing our travels. Turns out they’d just been in Croatia too and they were the other boat of people sailing at the same time as us!
When I started talking about where I’d been in Croatia we all clicked and realized we’d been at the same club the night I got really drunk in Croatia. They remembered me as the girl who ‘did a dance off with one of the girls from their group’
I was now currently sitting in front of this girl and they thought it was hilarious. Me and the girl finally introduced ourselves and had a good laugh. We’re friends on Facebook now and we realized we had a mutual friend too! (One of my old flat mates I lived with) such a small word when you’re travelling…

I ended up going out for dinner with them to a restaurant next door to the hostel and we all had some more Italian food! Yes I got a pasta but it was defiantly my last one this time!!

I had a slightly early night and went back to my room about 11pm to organise my stuff for the next morning.

Last night in Rome complete!

Day 58 – London

October 15, 2015November 29, 2015Sarah7 Comments

8th October 2015

This was my second to last day in London so I spent it doing something actually touristy.
I met up with Kara (from my top deck tour) and her sister Larni at the Tower of London.

We bought our tickets to get in and decided to wait around for a tour that was about to start. It ended up being really fun because our tour guide was funny and knew so much about the Tower of London.

Before visiting, I didn’t really know much about the Tower of London. Just that it was a castle on the north bank of the River Thames in central London.

Basically the castle was used as a prison from 1100 until 1952 although that wasn’t it’s main purpose. It also served as a royal residence and is now the place that holds the crown jewels!

In the 16th and 17th centuries when the castle was mainly used as a prison, it held many figures within its walls who had fallen into disgrace, such as Elizabeth I before she became queen.
That’s where the saying “sent to the Tower” comes from. Even though there was lots of torture and death that happened at the castle, only seven people were executed within the Tower.
Executions were more commonly held on the notorious Tower Hill to the north of the castle, with 112 occurring there over a 400-year period.

Once we’d explored nearly every inch of the castle, we headed off to get some lunch at the Borough Markets.

I wasn’t really expecting much from the markets, but if you’re ever in London and you love to eat like me. Go!!!
It was probably one of my highlights of London haha.
It’s a huge food market underneath railway lines in Southwark, Central London.

When we got there, we said “oh my god!!” And “ahh look at this!” About 100 times when we discovered something delicious to eat.

There was everything from hot made sandwiches filled with either chicken, bacon, pork or haloumi.

There was cheesecakes to buy by the slice, brownies, pastries, cupcakes, chocolates and fudge, donuts and other hot meals. Ahh I was in heaven! We didn’t know what to buy but ended up settling on one of the sandwiches. I got a haloumi filled one which was so good! And a cup of cider to go with it 🙂

Now that I’m recapping this blog, I really want to go back and have another sandwich haha
Eventually we decided to go home and meet up again later on. One of the girls from our Top Deck tour who lives in London was having her birthday dinner that night so we had to head home to get dressed and re-do our faces haha.

Once I had gone back to my hostel and gotten ready, I headed to the tube to catch the train out to Soho.
I met the girls at this restaurant/club (which I now can’t remember the name of) and we had drinks and dinner before heading downstairs for some dancing.
We may have gotten a bit drunk as wine was £12 a bottle woohoo!

A few of the girls left after that so it was just me and the sisters left.

Eventually after not being able to get into another club, we headed home for the night.
As Kara was going to the airport the next day and so was I, we agreed to meet at the Gatwick airport train station and catch the train together for our departure from London .