This is how we weekend

Late night dumplings and cocktails. Early morning granola and coffees with Suzi. Kite flying, yum cha, and kitchen ware rummaging. Champagne sun sets and night time walks. River strolls followed by galleries and old style mansions. More markets then the best combination late lunch of all time.

Friends and fun.

36 hours in Bangkok - what I did and how I did it

Basically I just did what Will and Christine told me to do. 

I stayed at Cabochon Hotel (Sukhumvit Soi 45) where the vibe was old style colonial mansion...mainly because the hotel was housed inside one. Great restaurant and solid cocktails. They made my basil, lemon, pineapple and gin cocktail to measure (not sweet) consistently every time (great dirty martini too!).

I whiled the day walking around Thonglor. Coffee at Ink and Lion, which is excellent and a great gallery space too followed by lots of window shopping. I then lunched at Supanniga Eating Room and browsed vinyl at Bungkumhouse Records and then grabbed a sneaky cocktail at Quince. 

All in all, relaxing day and a bit, having allowed myself the freedom to not do anything remotely touristy with one main goal: to eat Pad Thai. Completed that goal within the first 90 minutes of landing (there was a really really long taxi queue ok?)

Taipei - what we did and how we did it

Most of the credit should go to Will and Christine, who gave us a stack of tips...the main one was stay as close as possible to Da'An. We failed a little at that top tip, but followed others and also found our own.

Boite de bijou is a go to when craving bakery delights like pastries and beautiful sour dough breads. 

Taipei has some great micro-breweries and two lovely little art districts. Combine the two and have a relaxing beer after shopping at either Huashan 1914 Creative Park or Songshan Cultural and Creative park. Both have great shopping options in converted art spaces, though I preferred Huashan, but that might be because it was a beautiful sunny day compared to the grey and rainy day we visited Songshan.

Other good spots: Ounce for cocktails, then followed by Roots Creative for dinner. Roots Creative is one of the best restaurants I've been to in a long time. Clever twists on Asian flavours and cooking. Can't recommend it enough - good wine list, great service and amazing food. Go.

Yong Kang Beef Noodle Soup (No. 17 Ln. 31 Sec. 2 Jinshan S. Rd) as recommended by Will and Christine was great for traditional beef noodles and Take 5 in the same neighbourhood a refreshing change for a gal who misses places where you can just grab a pasta and a salad.

Cheese tarts and Japanese soft serve. If you are in town google will show you the way!

Other things - great galleries to see contemporary art. We were lucky enough to be in town for the Taipei Biennale which had some really interesting work. 

Fantastic Japanese restaurants - little hole in the walls found via google maps.

Great bike riding - get on the metro and head right out of town for a bike ride that'll take you over bridges, through funny little tourist towns and offers a return ride with bike via a ferry trip.