Why I love China: Shanghai Wild Animal Park and why you should always be early in China

One day in China, after thinking about what to do for a long~time, I found a post about Shanghai's Wild Animal Park (not Shanghai Zoo), that talked about all the cool things you can do there, including holding a baby lion or tiger for a photo for only 30 Yuan (that's like 4 € only) , or doing a tour in a car out of which the canivorous animals would be feeded directly (which means you'd get great opportunities for photos).

All excited, Jenny and I decided to go there on one of her free days, after I'd finish my Chinese lessons.

If you ever plan on going there, here's a few things to keep in mind:

Make sure you know exactly how to get there.

You need to take Line 2 (subway) until Zhangjiang Technology park and from there on, either take the bus (which is difficult to find, there are multiple buses and it's all only in Chinese) or a taxi. Taxi can get costly, as the park is pretty much at the outskirts of Shanghai,

Be careful, taxi drivers could try to rip you off (I think that happened to us as our taxi far was over 100 Yuan and many people write that theirs was only about 60Yuan)

And the most important thing:

Get there early.

Opening times may be from 8AM to 5PM BUT...not every attraction is opened all the time.
We got there around 2PM, as getting there took much longer than anticipated (almost 2 hours), and the restaurants were already closed, the spot where you could hold a baby tiger was closed (even though there was a sign that said it would be available until 15.30) and you could only take a normal tour, not the one during which you could feed the animals because the other one was closed already as well T^T

For the long time it took getting there, and the entrance fee (130 Yuan for an adult but you can get a student discount) it was a little bit disappointing. Don't make the same mistake as us, and get there early.

Also, make sure you wear comfortable shoes as you'll be doing lots of walking (unless you rent one of those fun little carts to take you around)

Now onto the fun part:

Cute Animals :D

The first few animals we saw after entering were those little cuties:

I think they are used to people throwing down food for them, because as soon as they saw as they all got really curious and hurried over to the wall and looked up.

so cute x3




After looking at these cuties for a while, we decided to go on. The next part of the park greeted us with King Julian himself :D

The area of the lemurs was actually, for us, the coolest part of the park. Why, you might ask?

Well, simply because you could enter their area.

Much better photo opportunities, right?

He didn't seem to be too excited though.

Sorry King Julian, we didn't bring any snacks for you,

Lemurs are not the most photogenetic animals, apparantly.

But there were lots of them, all relaxing somewhere.

Wondering if you could touch them, I carefully went closer with my hand.

I think one of them thought I had food, because he reached for my hand...and then he held onto my finger.
SO CUTE.

Their hands are tiny, it's just like there's a baby wrapping it's whole hand around your pinky.

I tried the same thing again after he let go, but now that he found out there's no food, he only reached for my hand with his foot instead :D

But hey, not many people can say they've held hands with a lemur, right?

Next up in the area were the young lions and tigers. They weren't fully grown up, and I assume as long as they're still "teenagers" they stay in one area together. The adult ones were in seperate areas, only visible during the bus tour.

They seemed all really healthy, and full of energy as they were playing and running around.

Did I also mention how cute they are?
Look at those big paws! :D

They all went inside at a certain time to get their food.

Each of them got half of a chicken.

The next animal we got to see was a very special one.

A Liger!

Ligers are a crossbread between a male lion and a female tiger. It's one of the largest of all felines and it usually shows characteristics of both parents. Can you see the light tiger pattern on his fur? :D

This one seemed a little bored, he (or she) was walking along the glass windows the whole time, turning around, then walking the same way back and repeating his actions.

Even though I said hi, he didn't seem to care much. The poor guy really seemed bored, probably because he was the only one in his area, and I read that ligers are very sociable animals ;-;

The next part of the zoo, which we had to walk a long~ way to, was inhabited by one of the animals I was looking forward to the most.
Say hi to the pandas :D

They're cute, they're chubby and they're super lazy. All they do all day long is sleep, and eat.

They had 4 of them and those who were not sleeping, were all chewing on bamboo.

And they seemed to be constantly smiling : )

Looks like some sort of Yoga practice, but I bet it's just the easiest way to hold the bamboo :D

This one was just a big ball of black and white fluffiness, he was sleeping all rolled up the whole time.

Our next encounter was with a very pretty, yet very curious giraffe.

I called him Kwangsoo, just because.

For your information, this area is not very much closed off. The giraffes can easily lift their heads over the railing which seperated their area from the walking path for visitors.

So while we stood there, taking photos, the giraffe suddenly noticed us.

And decided to come a bit closer (those photos are not zoomed in)

And closer,

I had to take a step back, afraid it would start chewing on my camera xD

But Kwangsoo quickly lost interest and left, so we did too ^^  Still, it's nice how close you get to the animals there :D

Our next and final stop was at the Bus tour. Originally we wanted to to the one during which you could feed the animals, but like I said before, we were late and so we only had the choice of doing a normal bus tour or nothing at all ;-;

So of course, since it was already included in the zoo entrance ticket, we did that.

You basically sit in a bus which is driven (a little too quickly) through different, secluded areas that include different animal species. The first one was africa themed, and the animals often walked along the street.

But the driver usually got them to move through honking multiple times. (They didn't seem very impressed though)

The areas with the canivorous animals were seperated not with one, but with two gates, so security is actually good there :D

Unfortunately, since we didn't have any food, and the animals knew that (the buses that have food look completely different from the normal ones), most of them didn't get close enough to take photos, which was a little disappointing.

Except for this wet bear, who lazily strolled along the street once.

I hoped you enjoyed looking at all these animals, and if you plan on visiting the Animal Park, I hope this post helped you a little ^^ Which are your favourite animals? Please tell me, and which zoo that you visited was the best so far? :D

Lovely Greetings to you all,
Lydia

Essence Nail Candies #Oh Lolli Lollipop Review

Hey everyone~

Today you'll be seeing something new...

something that I never posted on this Blog before....

Nail polish.

I normally never post reviews of nail polish, simply because I never use any. My nails are very thin and break easily, and I work part-time at a factory, doing lots of work with my hands so usually, my nails break off and look super short and ugly. Which is why I try not to make them stand out more through applying nail polish. I use clear nail polish at most.

Then I saw this right here:

Essence 6 in 1 nail candies

Colour: Oh Lolli Lollipop

Price: 1,79€

Amount: 8ml

Looks like a normal, light pink nail polish right?

But wait...it says "beautifying nail polish"...?

And 6 in 1 too...

So this is what it claims it does:

click for larger picture

"softly shimmering nail candies with 6 benefits for beautiful, manicured nails: hardening, protecting, filling, fast drying and fruity scented with a high gloss finish"

Sounds good, doesn't it? When I read this, I decided to buy it, since my nails could really use some hardening and protecting nail polish. And the colour seems very subtle, not too much standing out.

excuse my ugly finger and the not-so-perfect focus of my camera ;-;

As you can see, the colour is barely visible. What it mostly does is make your nails seem naturally prettier. Since mine are so thin, they usually look horrible. Applying one layer of this nail polish makes my nails seem more pink-ish and feminine, just prettier in a very natural way.

If you want the colour to be really visible, you need to apply at least 2-3 layers, so I'd say this nail polish is something for those who prefer natural nails over painted ones.

About those "6 in 1" effects..

Protecting - definitely yes, since one layer of nail polish always helps protect my nails a bit

Hardening- I think so, but I might as well just imagine that my nails became a tiny bit more sturdy.

filling- Don't know yet.

fast drying- Nope. Take your time after applying, it tends to still be sticky and not completely hardened after 5 minutes.

fruity scented - I don't think so, I couldn't smell anything

high gloss finish - yes , it finishes kind of glossy...but not too much.

Hope you guys enjoyed this review :D
Did you hear of the brand Essence before? They're quite well-known in Germany, because it's the cheapest brand out there and the quality is quite good for that price ^-^

Do they even sell it in other countries? D:
Tell me, I'm curious ! ^-^

Why Korea is awesome (the foodporn edition): Bingsu

After all those posts about China, here's one about something I really love about Korea.

Bingsu

Bingsu(빙수) or Patbingsu (팥빙수) , for those who are not familiar with it, simply means shaved ice (usually water, sometimes it can also be shaved frozen milk or flavoured ice like green tea) with toppings.

The traditional version includes red bean paste and Ddeok, korean rice cakes, but by now, there's a huge~ variety of flavours and toppings. Fruits, ice-cream, ddeok, sweet condensed milk, cookies, cereals...name it and it's probably included in some sort of bingsu. Nowadays, there are even cafés which offer alcoholic Bingsu.

Because I love Bingsu so much, I'm gonna show you some photos of Bingsu I tried while I was in Korea and tell you which ones tasted the best! (yes I get easily excited over Bingsu)

Our first candidate~

Berry Mix Bingsu

This is a really cool Bingsu with lots of different toppings. It may not have red bean paste, but instead it has vanilla ice-cream, different kinds of berries, ddeok and even cereals on top of it! We also got a small can with sweet condensed milk to pour over it if we wanted it even sweeter ^-^

I tried this one in a small café in Edae. It had an ideal size for two people, if you want to share it with more you might need another one.

Twosome + Grapefruit Bingsu

What, grapefruit Bingsu? Shouldn't Bingsu be something sweet, you might ask?

Yes, normally. But like I said, there are all kinds of flavours. Koreans are very creative with their Bingsu creations.

As you can see, this Bingsu is made of flavoured shaved ice, not just plain normal ice. It also contains many~ grapefruit bits and has soft ice on top instead of normal ice-cream.

I can never talk enough about how awesome this was. Sour, yet sweet too, thanks to the soft ice. The grapefruit bits seemed quite fresh and were really refreshing. And the portion size was huge, yay :D

Bingsu from Twosome + cafés were by far my favourites. Another flavour that I tried there was milktea Bingsu. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of that, as I tried it on a night before going clubbing (and taking a DSLR with me when going to a club would not be a good idea) T^T

Caffe Bene Oreo Bingsu

So here we have a standard Oreo Bingsu. Oreo cookies, ice-cream on top and normal shaved ice. To be honest, this was the Bingsu I liked the least. It didn't have much flavour, even though I really love oreo cookies. But at least the serving size was gigantic, which is always great.

Cafe Bene Green Tea Bingsu

This was the first Bingsu I ever tried and I loved it :D  Green Tea Bingsu tends to be one of the more traditional ones and usually includes red bean paste, as you can see on the photo. This one also had green tea ice-cream and different nuts on top, and the shaved ice was partially green tea flavoured. Caffe Bene's Bingsus are huge, so always share them with at least two other friends (or only one friend who's starving). 

Patbingsu

My last Bingsu in Korea...oh the memories~

This was the most traditional Bingsu I ate, if you ignore the honeydew.

Look at that big amount of red bean paste~

So yummy :D It also had some powder (probably from nuts), nut pieces, honeydew and rice cakes with red bean filling (red bean-ception) on it. I ate it in a café somewhere in Hongdae which was open 24/7, so it probably was a chain. Finding a good place to eat Bingsu at 3am is not that easy after all.

And now, introducing the prettiest Bingsu:

Strawberry Bingsu

Doesn't  it just look lovely?

This is the first strawberry Bingsu I had that also had some red bean paste ^^  Like most Bingsu, it also had vanilla ice-cream on top and sweet condensed milk on the side that you can choose to pour over it, if you want to.

The portion was really small, probably more fit for one person than two, but it was just so pretty and tasted super sweet ^-^  We tried it somewhere in Edae too. Since Edae is the area around a woman's university, it's a great place for cute desserts and you'll find plenty of them there.

I hope you enjoyed the photos, and if you're craving Bingsu right now, I'm not going to take responsibility for that :P

If you ever tried Bingsu, tell me which is your favourite ^^ Any great café or Bingsu recommendations are very much appreciated, since I'll be going to Korea again next summer and I'm preparing to taste even more Bingsu! :D

Why I love China: Sending Postcards to the future in Suzhou

Welcome to: momi café~ 

I forgot to take a shot of the front entrance, but this is what the second floor looks from outside.
I went there once and I loved it, to bad it's in Suzhou and not in Shanghai, otherwise I would have visited more often.

First of all, here's the menu:

Please click to enlarge it ^^

I decided to order a mango shake, which was around 30 Yuan.

Not too cheap, but it tasted great and like fresh mangoes, so that's okay.

Now onto what's special in this café:

      Postcards

They have huge~ amounts of super cute, creative postcards that you can buy for only 2 Yuan each! (that's just 0,24€)

And somehow, you can send them to your future self? There's a place at the counter where you can do that. Unfortunately, I'm not living in China so I didn't get to try it out, but it seems like a super cute idea.

And the postcards are great, you can spend a long time looking around and deciding which one's to get ^^ 

Even the stairways up to the second floor (where you can sit and enjoy your drink while writing) are filled with postcards.

You can also buy other things instead of postcards. Mugs, Notebooks, home decor...they have it all. The prices are very reasonable and the best part of it: All of the items were produced directly in Suzhou :D Super authentic, isn't it? Those things make great souvenirs ^^

Even if you don't plan to buy anything this place is still great. I didn't plan  to buy things either but oh well...a few postcards won't hurt, right?

Anyways, it's a super nice place to relax and I love the decorations.

The wall of the stairwas was decorated with cool Beijing opera photos.

Upstairs, you can not only sit and enjoy your drink, many people also directly write and decorate their poscards. The café has a box with pencils on every table for that purpose.

Some people got creative on the lamps instead of their postcards :D

You can buy those pictures on the wall too.

That's it so far, I hope you enjoyed seeing a small glimpse of this cute café ^^