canal - Travel With A Butterfly

Before coming to Venice, you would have this romantic image of the city in your mind – gondolas with strong masculine men with baritone voices singing while the gondola tours around the city, buildings floating magically on water, and an abundant number of celebrities being spotted here and there.

Unfortunately, this blog post isn’t going to continue on with this illusion, but rather I will paint you the proper picture of what Venice is.

Despite its water canals that you see on its postcards, you get quite used to it within a couple hours while reaching there. Instead, you’ll see these water canals very soon as similar to roads, whereby they are sort of “hurdles” you have to get through. You get water taxis that bring you to different places. Maybe it’s the murky weather I got when I was there, but Venice was definitely much more romantic hearing about it than actually seeing it. Continue reading Artsy Venice

Prior to this trip, people told me that a few days in Osaka would be sufficient. As a tourist after visiting the city, I’d agree. Osaka isn’t really a boring city. I am sure if I lived there, I would have fun there. It also gives off a fun, youthful, and vibrant culture to it. Not to mention there is a lot of shopping and good food there.

But Osaka is like any other city with its own foods and shopping. However as a tourist, you would definitely have enough time to visit all the important attractions within 3 days. Mind you, I was there for about 2.5 days… but from my research online and from my guidebook, I felt I have covered the major attractions that I had to see.

And Osaka is a convenient stop for you to travel to other major parts of Japan – Kyoto, Nara, and Kobe to name a few. And the nightlife there seems to be pretty happening on any given weekday. Continue reading A Vibrant Energy In Osaka