Travel With A Butterfly

In my previous post, I talked about the accommodations and restaurants of Tulum which you can read right here. Additionally, if you’re looking for tips on how to avoid scams in Mexico, you can read that right here. But right now in this post, we are going to be talking about the things I did in this trip that you can also add to your itinerary when visiting Tulum.

I personally think that staying in the resorts is of itself an activity you should spend some time enjoying rather than just treating it as a place to stay. Not only are there usually different activities to do, but there’s like spa/massage or yoga that you can participate in as well.

But of course outside of the resorts, for this trip, we went to five(!) different cenotes, swam with turtles in Akumal Bay, visited one of the new seven wonders of the world Chichen Itza, and also checked out Tulum Pueblo and took some photos at some touristy spots. Continue reading Get Up Close and Personal with Turtles and Dive into Cenotes in Tulum

Mexico

Taste and Luxe: The Most Amazing Hotels and Most Awesome Food of Tulum

ByRyan Lee

Tulum: A Tropical Paradise You’ll Never Forget! -> I’ve been trying a lot of stuff for ChatGPT, whether it’s for writing lyrics, asking history questions, and helping me write blog posts. So a bit of the stuff you’ll find might be more “ChatGPT” voice, but I’ll include any details where I think it’s missing from my own experience and emotions. ChatGPT is here mainly to make the language more colourful and to provide more facts and information that pertains to each place of interest where I myself am too dumb to know all of it, that way as a reader I hope you’ll also get more insight to what the place is about rather than just rather I like it or not and why.

This post will focus mainly on our hotel resorts and food/restaurants. For things that we did in Tulum and car rental, click here. To read about how to avoid common scams in Mexico (car rental, gas, driving tips), click here.

Anyway, I was pleasantly surprised by Tulum. I didn’t expect it to be as vibrant as it is, but the endless sandy beaches and crystal-clear waters were a sight to behold, not to mention all the water activities this place offers. It reminded me of Bali, a place I cherish very much, and I couldn’t help but feel like I was back in my favorite tropical paradise. As much as I loved Tulum, I was surprised to find that it’s quite pricey. Even more so than what I’m used to paying back in Hong Kong! I was also surprised that it was getting pretty hot at the end of April as well, around 30 degrees I believe. But don’t let that dissuade you from enjoying all that Tulum has to offer.

My trip to Tulum didn’t start that smoothly. I missed my flight to Cancun due to unforeseen traffic on the road the morning after the Coachella festival. This left me with a stressful and frustrating two-three hours of trying to book the next flight at lightning speed. We even almost purchased a flight that departed at 12:30pm/1pm (original flight was like 10:30am) through the phone (since the flight didn’t show up online as it was cutting close to departure) but the man at the check-in counter told us that 5 minutes before check in closes, we had to have paid the flight otherwise it would have been too late and we would have paid and not get on board, so that was another stressful 45 minutes that resulted in us giving up at the payment step. We ended up missing out on all the flights that day and had to take the one that departed that night at 1:30 am! We had to cancel our first night’s lodging (successful) and rearrange our car rental pick up for the second day. If only we had gone to the airport earlier. Live and learn, right? Continue reading Taste and Luxe: The Most Amazing Hotels and Most Awesome Food of Tulum

Travel

Discover New York in 6 Days: One of My Top Ten Meals I’ve Ever Had! (Part Three)

ByRyan Lee

Alright, welcome to the final post on my week long trip to New York City! You can read about Part one and Part two here for the rest of the itinerary. Let’s go straight away talking about Day 5 and Day 6 of my time at NYC.

DAY FIVE

On my way to Flushing

I’ve never been to Flushing before, but in this photo you can see many Chinese characters. Actually in Flushing it feels more like the real Chinatown, whereas the Manhattan Chinatown Continue reading Discover New York in 6 Days: One of My Top Ten Meals I’ve Ever Had! (Part Three)

Travel

Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part Two)

ByRyan Lee

Continuing on from our previous post of Day one of New York (which you can read here for accommodation, transportation, and other things I did), here we will keep talking about the itinerary for my other days. For part three of this blog post, click here– (for Flushing, the real Chinatown, and more Greenwich village and the best meal ever)

DAY TWO

Marathon Coffee (website)

Passed by this coffee place and wanted to give it a try

Can’t really sit down anywhere, so it had to be a to go

Fabletics (website). Saw it was a tennis shop, but it was actually more than that and they sold activewear / sportswear clothing Continue reading Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part Two)

Travel

Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part One)

ByRyan Lee

Having been to New York many many times, I find New York pretty much like home. I always tell people New York is more like Hong Kong than other cities in United States; they’re both top financial cities, they’re both melting pots, they both have lots of skyscrapers and extremely high rents, they both have an eclectic selection of amazing restaurants, they’re known for their direct and blunt attitudes, and Manhattan is to Hong Kong Island and Brooklyn is to Kowloon and Queens is to New Territories. The list of similarities goes on.

This year, I wanted to go to New York because I wanted to attend NFT NYC. While the conference itself was happening, the usual events from blue chip NFT communities were not hosting alongside the main conference, apparently because they were boycotting to give a message to the main conference people about feeling used, so this year NFT NYC was not as lit as the two years prior. Continue reading Discover New York in 6 Days: Skip the Tourist Traps and Dive into Genuine NYC Magic Nobody Talks About! (Part One)

Travel

A Perfect Three Day Itinerary in Los Angeles

ByRyan Lee

I’ve been to Los Angeles many times, because I studied college there, and so a couple of my friends are based there, and because it just so happens to be a place that has many events there or nearby, one time in Las Vegas for EDC Vegas, and this time to go to Coachella. It just so happens that we had three days in Los Angeles to spend before going to Palm Springs, so here I will outline a good itinerary for three days in LA. Take note – this post is not for first timers, or maybe even second timers in LA; you’ll probably want to visit more “touristy” attractions and places if that’s what you’re aiming for.

Continue reading A Perfect Three Day Itinerary in Los Angeles

Travel

Meeting Rapper Royce 5’9″, One Half of Bad Meets Evil, in Detroit

ByRyan Lee

Going to Detroit probably isn’t on most people’s bucket list. It wasn’t on mine either. But owning an NFT gave me the chance to meet one of Detroit’s most notable rappers. Since I was going to NFT NYC, I thought I’d take the chance to also go to Detroit, because who knows when the next time I’ll be in US again. Better now than never.

So after confirming that I would go to New York, I also booked my flight tickets to go to Detroit. But like I said, it really was just to visit Royce 5’9″ and his Heaven Studio, so I booked a roundtrip ticket to go and come back on the same day. It was incredibly, incredibly exhausting.

This blog post will be quite short, simply because the only exposure I had of Detroit was my ride to the studio in Birmingham and back. So to say I know Detroit at all would be laughable, straight up embarrassing. Continue reading Meeting Rapper Royce 5’9″, One Half of Bad Meets Evil, in Detroit

Events

One Coachella Is All It Takes (and Tips on Surviving Coachella)

ByRyan Lee

“One Coachella is all it takes, falling in love with you, possibilities, you look like all you need…”

Coachella has always been a part of my bucket list of things to do in my life. Told myself, better to go now than when I start having to take care of children or having to take care of my family or when I start to have more life responsibilities in general. Since I wasn’t really working at the moment, and considering my age, it was sort of a “now or never” kind of moment. Plus, I wanted to go NFT NYC the week before, so the entire sequence of events flowed perfectly.

I for one enjoyed the lineup this year. For me, it felt like Coachella emphasised on Latino artists, international acts, hip hop, dance/electronic/techno, and up and coming artists from online platforms such as Youtube creators. Acts we got to see included – Blackpink, Calvin Harris, Testpilot (Deadmau5), Metro Boomin with The Weeknd, Jackson Wang, Eric Prydz, Kaytranada, Skillrex, and more. Personally would have liked if Frank Ocean was there instead of Blink 182, but unfortunate for the replacement. Continue reading One Coachella Is All It Takes (and Tips on Surviving Coachella)

Mexico

Try To Stay In The Hotel Zone in Cancun

ByRyan Lee

We arrived in the evening to Cancun from a 3 hour drive from Chichen Itza, spent the next morning in Akumal Bay then afternoon and evening at Cancun, and the day after, morning till early afternoon at Cancun until we had to go to the airport. I guess adding it all up, we spent roughly two days in total in Cancun, which gave us a good feel of what Cancun had to offer.

And while most tourists have the option to neglect the main areas of Cancun and only dine, shop, and party around the Hotel Zone, we opted to stay in the Downtown area. We did so not for the purpose of trying to understand what real Cancun is like, but merely just for a cheaper accommodation.

Still, I was glad to get a feel of downtown Cancun because of where we stayed, but I would still recommend everyone to try to stay in the Hotel Zone just because it’s just a much nicer area in general, from hotels to the roads. Downtown Cancun is much more run down than hotel zone.

Continue reading Try To Stay In The Hotel Zone in Cancun

Mexico

I Got Pulled Over By The Cops TWICE Within 15 Minutes in Tulum! (And Other Tips You Should Know)

ByRyan Lee

The first time I was pulled over by the cops, I was paranoid. It was literally my first day ever in Mexico. Even though I only had one cocktail in Arca a few hours before driving, which would have been way below the alcohol limit of .08 in Mexico (equivalent to about five drinks), I was still in fear. Would I need to be in jail? Or would I need to bribe them? They stopped our car, looked around the back, asked for my driver’s license (gave them my international one), and after a few minutes, let me go and said it was a “precaution”. Maybe they were just picking on me for looking Asian and touristy, maybe they were attempting to be bribed but realised I might either be too savvy or too stupid to do so. In either case, I was relieved I was let go soon after without any repercussions.

Driving in Mexico is definitely quite an experience. People are driving twice the speed limit at times, the lines indicating the lanes will sometimes just “disappear” or “merge” into the next one, leaving you little time to react to switch to another lane, and police is rampant, especially at night. Most police were holding rifles, reminding me of my experience in South Africa.

This post will give you all the tips and advice I have researched and experienced so that your time in Tulum and Cancun can be even more smooth sailing. I will talk about the scams in rental car agencies and gas stations, police bribing, and of course driving in Mexico and other tips you should be aware of. So if you’re planning to visit the Riviera Maya of Mexico, read the whole post so that I can help you (and at the end I will talk about my 2nd time being stopped). Continue reading I Got Pulled Over By The Cops TWICE Within 15 Minutes in Tulum! (And Other Tips You Should Know)