things to do – Page 2 – Winta Solstice

Free New York: Food and Music Festival in Brooklyn

October 3, 2016 Winta1 Comment

New York is a giant hub of free things to do. There are always free performances on the sidewalk of busy streets in NYC, from street art to live music, from people on stilts to break dancers on subways, there’s a little bit of fun for everyone. My recent favorite is listening to a saxophonist who plays breathtaking music every morning on my way to work on Wall Street. Of course, I can’t always rely on chance to lead me to these free things to do. For free, fun, non-spontaneous day outs, I rely on a mailing list that updates me on big events that go on throughout the week.

This weekend, we decided to go to the Atlantic Antic Festival and Americana Music Festival right in the heart of Brooklyn. A mash of food, music, clothing, and culture can be found at the annual Atlantic Antic Festival where 10+ blocks of Atlantic Avenue closes for hundreds of vendors to sell and thousands of people to walk through.

Being vegetarian travelers, we have learned to never expect people to have food for us. Especially in Central America and Southeast Asia, “vegetarian” can mean very different things. I have always been very careful while eating out. One can imagine my distress when I found small chunks of chicken in my “vegetable” soup (being vegetarian isn’t really popular in Central America). That said, having food protects us from making rash and costly decisions to buy everything in sight and smell.

We walked past cool buildings full with graffiti of New York innuendos.

At the end of the Atlantic Avenue lies the Americana Music Festival. How awfully convenient for us. We were met with an amazing view of the NYC Skyline, a great crowd in high spirits, and a band that is already playing music. It was a beautiful day to be outside, good thing we came prepared.

With our books and sandwiches, we found a spot to sit and picnic while listening to great American Folk music playing. Brooklyn Americana Festival celebrates its 2nd anniversary this year; the festival features country, blues, and folk music in streets, bars, and piers.

As I listened to a banjo player telling the story of an interactive West Side Story, I thought of how a year later, we are once again gazing at the Manhattan Skyline as the sun sets. About this time last year, we had began our road trip around the United States, New York being one of our first destinations. I had fallen in love with the city and was determined to return. Now, here we are, living the dream life. Work on weekdays, travel in one of the world’s most touristic cities on weekends. We’ve come a very long way to get here, and there’s nowhere else I’d rather be.

About 2 hours after settling down, we were greeted with a beautiful view of sunset over the Manhattan skyline. Growing up in the mountains, I never knew what skyscrapers were, or been on subways, or used a bike to get around. Here, in New York, I feel like the possibilities are endless.

The festival was beautiful all the way to the very end. We watched the sun go down as the stage back light and the city skyline illuminate the night sky, a marvelous sight to behold. As the festival was coming to an end, we packed up our things to head home, looking forward to the next adventure.

Floating on the Clouds: Volcán Acatenango

March 7, 2016 Winta26 Comments

Everyone who visits Guatemala must visit Antigua, and anyone who visits Antigua, must try to climb Acatenango, a dormant volcano since 1972. It is the dream destinations for activities as a backpacker. Cultures, nightlife, colors, foods, nature, ruins… Guatemala has it all! One of the many reasons why Guatemala falls on the top of my favorite list is Acatenango.

Why must you climb this volcano?

Reason 1: Acatenango is a twin peak. That means, sitting right across from it is a twin sister, Fuego, who happens to be a very active and angry erupting volcano. The twin volcanoes Acatenango and Fuego draw hundreds of visits from travelers every day. Fortunately, there have been no casualties of people hiking to see the eruptions.

12592512_10207428749650360_1420307703996003216_n (1) — Fuego, photo taken atop Acatenango

Reason 2: At over 13,000 feet high, Acatenango is the tallest volcano in Guatemala, and the third tallest in Central America. To put this in perspective, Grand Canyon is only 6000 ft deep. Therefore, scaling it is not for the faint of heart.

Not only is Acatenango very tall, the incline is ridiculously steep throughout the hike, averaging about 20 degrees incline. People who wish to scale the volcano are recommended to join a group guided hike. Cuong and I, being budget travelers and very, very brave individuals, decided to go on this trek by ourselves- no guide.

Going up 13,000 feet stressed the importance of traveling light. I only took the things that I truly needed: cellphone (which unfortunately got stolen on the bus ride there), tent and sleeping gear, outerwear, 4 liters of water (heavy, but paid off), 2 giant bags of red beans, 1 bag of apples, 1 bag of tortillas, and 1 bag of bread. All these things were essential in supplementing our energy. We also invested in two sturdy hiking sticks in preparation for the steep hike.

This is the outfit I chose for the big hike.

The Hike took blood and sweat to climb all the way up to Acatenango. With the incline, I felt as if I was trying to climb a vertical wall. About 30 minutes into the hike, I was already out of breath. There was still over 8 hours left!

We took frequent breaks, and were able to admire the beautiful views of the nearby Guatemalan cities.

About an hour into the hike, we encountered park officials, who required that we pay an entrance fee of 50 quetzales (about $7, a pretty hefty fee for Guatemala). We thought that they may just be extorting money from us as corrupt officials. So we haggled it down to about 40Q. It turns out they were legitimate, and were there because they started collecting fees to deter criminals and thieves away from the trail– perfect.

We set off again on long trails of dirt paths, switchbacks into the woods. Once we’re high enough, we started to see beautiful lush green floras. Large vines, thick shrubs, and huge trees surrounded us. The one downside of going on a grand hike without a guide is the inability to know where you’re going.

About halfway through the hike, we were lost. To make it worse, it started to rain. We weren’t going to make it to the peak before nightfall. Thankfully, we ran into two guys who were also hiking to the peak. Misery loves company. We were so happy to meet people who also don’t really know what they’re doing. We set up our tents next to each other and huddled to keep warm and talked through the night. Careful to not deplete our food supply, we restrained ourselves from eating large meals.

The higher we climbed, the colder it was and the thinner the trees became. Pine trees were abundant in this section of the volcano. Soon enough, we reached the cloud forest. It was bizarre to hike through the clouds, and see it around us. I thought of how being above the clouds meant that we can’t be rained on anymore.

Each we start again on the torturous, I would be reminded of why we took the break in the first place. In my head, I was kicking, screaming, and deeply regretted my decision to do this hike.

…. and then…

12417532_10207428750050370_1100226475583692180_n (1) — Above the clouds!

There it was. A deep rumble coming from within the ground. It’s difficult to describe what I felt at the time. It was a mixture of excitement, adrenaline, and fear. It reminded me of the first time I scuba-dived with a whale shark, completely out of my comfort zone.

It was so large, dangerous and strange, yet so natural and comforting.

We were just a two miles from the lava erupting from Fuego. We were close enough to hear and feel Fuego. The angry twin sister erupted every five minutes. Every moment I lost hope on this seemingly never-ending hike, Fuego erupted again, and renewed my determination to finish the hike.

Finally, we’ve reached the top! I thought this moment would never happen. Hours and hours of scaling up the massive volcano.

What they didn’t tell us about the peak: it was freezing cold.

You’d think being on- or near- an erupting volcano would be at least tropical warm. Wrong. There was nothing shielding us from this force of nature. The air is paper thin, the wind is vicious, and it’s absolutely frigid cold. We set up our tent right across from Fuego, seeing first class views of the bright eruptions throughout the night.

That night, we laid wide-awake, freezing, breathing in ashes, and listening to the volcano roar. We watched as the lava fill the night sky with angry, bright red. We were enthralled by the rumble, captivated by the colors, and felt fear of mother nature’s true power. The satisfaction of watching Fuego far outweighs all the hardships we’ve been through. I can’t wait to come back.

10399594_10207428749890366_760704894419302331_n — We set up our tent right across from Fuego, giving us first class views of the eruptions.

I would love to hear from you! Please leave your thoughts, comments, questions, and let’s exchange stories!

via Daily Prompt: Climbing

Robot Restaurant Adventures

December 16, 2015 Winta6 Comments

How often can one say that they’ve been to a robot restaurant? In Japan, the strangest things in the world are easily accessible. As an avid anime and manga enthusiast, I’ve always been fascinated by Japan and its culture. One can say using “unique” to describe Japan is an understatement; Japan comes up with the weirdest and craziest inventions known to the imagination. When I first heard of Robot Restaurant (yes, it is exactly what it sounds like), I knew this was the crazy-Japan-adventure we’ve been searching for. For $40 dollars per ticket, I secured the coolest surprise dinner show for my boyfriend and I on our third night in Japan.

Robot Restaurant was located in Shinjuku- which, in my opinion, is the nerd party central of Tokyo (where you find maid cafes, anime figure collections, manga kissa hotels, pachinko arcades, etc).

Here we are with our very own robots at the entrance of the magical land of robot awesomeness.

Once we passed the entrance, we went down what were probably the best five flights of stairs of our lives. These stairs, walls, ceilings, floors, nooks, and crannies are filled with a million sparkling gems, musical lights, and glittery animations. There was always something to goggle at, and no way to see it all.

If this was all there was to the Robot Restaurant show, I would have already been impressed. But no, this was only the beginning. Once we reached the bottom of the stairs, we arrived at the waiting room before the show. The lounge, if you can believe it, was even more impressive than the staircase.

The bar lounge / waiting room was littered in colorful neon lights. Each table had several miniature robot dinosaurs walking around. While we enjoyed our drinks, we also had the entertainment of a lady-band clad in metal bikinis with wings playing soft lounge music for us.

When it was time for the show, we were led to another room and were assigned our seats. We were then given our two bento-box meals and two drinks, which were included for us to enjoy while we watched the show.

Dinner items for us vegetarians: sushi rice with sesame seeds, radish, tofu, and fried tempura. As with most bento meals, these were very presentated. The food reminded me of dim sum plates back home. I was skeptical of whether one of the chewy-moist sides was vegetarian, but decided it was probably either mushoom or daikon (radish).

As the show started, we were introduced to beautiful set of drums decorated with dragons and phoenix.

Standing behind the colorful lantern drums are the belly dancers, beating their drums and dancing fiercely. It was an exhilarating and very attention-grasping introduction.

The hour flew by, one performance stranger than the next. I felt as if I was Alice in Wonderland. However, in a nutshell: by the end of the show, we saw Amazonian warrior fights, boxing robots, an alien-eating shark robot, huge motorcycles, a giant snake, and definitely a kung-fu panda warrior. Yes, each of the performers were masked with bright LED lights and accompanied by pounding music. The creativity never ceases; there is always something shiny to look at. I would love to take the kids here one day.

Robots twirling in their one-wheel motorcycles

Unfortunately, because we were in dumb-struck awe for most of the show, we were only able to take pictures of some of the acts. It was not the most romantic date in the world, but my S.O. and I walked away feeling like champions, having enjoyed a night full of fun, adventure, and feeling like kids again.