Getting Out of the Bubble

When my American friend, Alex, came to visit the UK, I wanted to show him a little bit of another side of Europe as well. Somewhere different to London, and not too touristy. I didn’t want to go to Paris, or Rome, some places were too similar to England, and others too far afield for a couple days. Eventually we set on Lisbon, but weeks of procrastinating led to the flight prices rising to astronomical prices – one again it was back to the drawing board. Finally I went rogue and just booked Budapest. Budapest is somewhere that people have always raved about to me, my sister described it as her favourite place in Europe, and it has a reputation as being a pretty cool and vibrant city. It seemed like a good choice. Budapest may not be on everyone’s radar, but it is firmly entrenched as one of the must see cities of Eastern Europe (although the Hungarians don’t appreciate being called part of Eastern Europe). The city has a long and varied history and a lot of this is reflected in

Put down the fortune cookies, throw out the beef in black bean sauce - this is the real food of China as I know it. One of the things I loved the most about China was the food. The first words I learnt to say revolved around ordering my dinner in little restaurants, and travelling in China was always accompanied by new dishes and enticing smells. Of everything I learnt about China as a country, one of the things I learnt the best was how it has such a huge mix of different cuisines and how it's really impossible to define Chinese food by one dish or one style, but what shocked me the most about the food in China was how little it resembled any of the Chinese food I had eaten in the UK. There weren't any prawn crackers, the food wasn't covered in sticky sauces, and even the food that had the names of foods I recognised didn't taste anything like what I'd eaten and enjoyed at home. It was nothing like the local Chinese takeaway, no, it was a million times better. Si