At the beach before lockdown

We were at a friend's bach in Pauanui last weekend; the one before the lockdown period. It was really nice to get away from the madness for a little bit. There place backs onto a reserve, and was about 5 minutes walk to the beach. We headed up on Friday night straight after work. I had debated staying longer than the weekend as we had anticipated working from home, but without wifi on the property it meant having to hotspot our phones, and we didn't really know how the situation would have unfolded through days to follow. So we made the sensible decision to come home on Sunday night. It was a great weekend away.

La Boca, Recoleta and Argentinian parrillero in Palermo

Yesterday was pretty much a write-off as it rained and rained all day. We stayed inside and slept until 1pm local time. When we finally left the apartment it was for food, booze and berries. I tried some empanadas from another store - good to try the various versions around.

For dinner I specifically wanted to have Argentinian BBQ. Jef found a local one a few blocks away. By day we would have totally missed it. But when we arrived last night they opened the gate and we stepped into this cool joint; wonderfully smokey and humming with people drinking Malbec and eating meat - lots of meat.











Today the sun was beaming down in Buenos Aires, and perfect for us to go sightseeing. Thank goodness for Uber - it makes getting around a whole lot easier when there is a language barrier. Our first stop - La Boca, famous for its colourful houses and pedestrian street, the Caminito, where tango artists perform and tango-related memorabilia is sold.









Theese photos are of the side streets away from the main area, Caminito. We intended to have lunch here and perhaps watch some tango dancers on the streets. However, with the hoards of tourists, and hawkers with leaflets for their restaurants to pursuade you in, and no sign of any tango dancers "in the wild" (they danced in a small area of a restaurant and only for patrons of that particular restaurant), and dog poo all over the sidewalks - we decided to grab our Uber out of there.

Next stop - Recoleta Cemetery. But first, lunch.



Yeah, we couldn't finish it. Didn't realise how much meat they were going to give us!

Off to see some ornate mausoleums at Recoleta Cemetery. In the heart of the richest area of Argentina, these families much have some big bucks to be here.













The most famous of tombs here, of course, is this one, belonging to Eva Peron.




We walked through some markets before walking back to the apartment, stopping at a nearby park to eat some strawberries. Kien has been in berry heaven here.

We flew away

Wow its been a busy weeek. With hardly any sleep I don't know whether its just jetlag or catching up, but oh my, I'm so tired. We flew away on Wednesday to the other side of the world, and we were fortunate to be able to do so with beds, making the journey a lot easier. We slept pretty much the whole flight - well, Jef and I did. Kien said he eventually decided to sleep, but he had no idea what time that was.





After waking up in the afternoon on Thursday we decided to explore the neighbourhood and see what was around. Have to get some cheese from here tomorrow/today.



Had some street food from this place. He had a bbq going and it smelt devine. He made us some steak and egg sandwiches (some sort of meat, not too sure what).



Kien was facinated with the trees with spikes. He took these pics to show me.



We walked around the beautifully manicured rose gardens with the wind blowing and the threat of rain looming.



















Our week in Buenos Aires is off to a good start.

Shanghai

We were in Shanghai for a couple of days before we caught the cruise. We stayed in a hotel that was away from the touristy Bund area, but close enough that we could walk there, but also have interesting stuff to see around us.











We dined at some awesome local places where we had no idea what we was on the menu and no one spoke a spec of english. We would point at other diner's food that we liked the look of and hoped for the best.



We were walking around and saw a couple of guys wrangling snakes from a rice sack into cages that were already full of snakes. Some of those snakes seemed pretty angry too.



On the afternoon of our first day we walked to The Bund area. Any postcard of Shanghai will show this city scape.




















No sooner had we arrived and it was time for us to set off again.





We enjoyed this city very much, and when we get a chance we'll come back here for a visit.