vegan.in.brighton

The more time I spend out of the UK the more I am determined to break out of old habits and customs like buying unnecessary things that clutter up my life and don't add any value or support something (or someone) awesome. The holiday season is the hardest time to step away from consumerist tendencies as the shops are filled with shiny baubles, tempting treats and ultimately pointless but fun things like glittery reindeer and plush Christmas trees. 2014 was the year I decided that I would no longer buy things that didn't add value to my life - yes I am occasionally going to buy frivolous things (I'm not a robot!) but no more impulse purchasing and no more crap. This means that my main holiday gift recommendation is to only fill other peoples homes with things that will enrich their lives, amuse or delight them. Things that serve a purpose, things that you know they'll love and things that support businesses or artists who are doing something cool.

I love to support vegan artists especially, no matter the time of year, and My Zoetrope is always one of the artists at the top of my list. Her calendars always bring a smile to my face with each month's seasonally appropriate animal illustration. I bought Michelle's calendar every year without fail (well, right up until the moment that I decided to leave the country) because it's oh so cute.

You can pick up the totes adorable 2016 Calendar from My Zoetrope on Etsy for $25

Another of my very favourite vegan artists is Lisa aka Panda With Cookie. Her fun handmade eco-felt plush ornaments and cat toys have been fave's of mine for some time and because they're made from recycled plastic bottles rather than wool felt they're 100% vegan. Her custom cat and dog ornaments would make an adorable gift for the animal lover in your life, just send Lisa a picture of the animal in question and she'll be able to render them in plush. How cool is that?! If you're looking for a gift for the coffee fiend or doughnut lover in your life then the Breakfast of Champions magnet set would be a wonderful choice and if you're already the crazy cat lady that I aspire to be you couldn't go wrong with a Catnip Pizza Cat Toy for your whiskered pal.

Grab a custom cat or dog ornament for $20, a Breakfast of Champions magnet set for $15 or a Catnip Pizza Toy for $5 from the Panda With Cookie online store

If the person you're buying for is a traveller at heart they'll need their art to be something they can take with them on the road. This makes these bad ass patches the perfect gift. I've been lusting after Chiaralascura's Vegan Pizza Gang patch for months and the only reason it isn't on my backpack already is because I don't have an address to send it to. If I was gonna join a gang one that features pizza heavily would be top of the list. The second patch is the bad-ass, body posi and feminist as fuck Thick Thighs Save Lives patch which the awesome Lacy from Super Strength Health alerted me to recently.

The Vegan Pizza Gang patch is available here for €12 and the Thick Thighs Save Lives patch is $12 from here

For the chocolate lover in your life there are a million and one great vegan options out there these days, finding something free from dairy is almost as easy as popping into your nearest grocery store but are all of these options truly cruelty free? Sadly not. Thanks to the Food Empowerment Project my eyes have been opened to the realities of child slavery which, to this day, is used in the production of so much of the vegan (and non-vegan of course) chocolate on the market. As I've been vegan for long enough that it doesn't feel like a challenge any more I decided that it was about time that I started paying more attention to where my chocolate is coming from. This hasn't been easy thanks to my transient lifestyle and, honestly, I'm not 100% ontop of it when it comes to eating out but I'm no longer buying chocolate that comes from areas where child slavery is rife. Thankfully the Food Empowerment Project make it easy to find out what's what with their free Chocolate List app and there are a tonne of great options for holiday gifting.

I get myself some Booja Booja as a gift every year and nothing feels cosier than curling up with a book in front of a log fire DVD devouring a box of these truffles. The gorgeous colourful boxes from the new chilled collection would make the perfect gift for anyone hosting you this holiday season and Almond and Sea Salt and Hazelnut Crunch are my two fave' flavours. Booja Booja's Chilled Collection can be found all over the UK in selected Waitrose and Holland and Barrett stores as well as independent retailers. Prices start from £3.99.

If there's a raw foodie on your list this year then Pana Chocolate is the way to go. In fact, raw or not, these bars are deliciously dark, decadent and delish'. My very favourite bar is the Sour Cherry & Vanilla bar which they've included in both holiday themed boxes. You can choose between the Happy Holidays box that contains Cinnamon, Mint, Fig & Orange and Sour Cherry & Vanilla or the Merry Christmas box which includes Coconut & Goji, Mint, Raw Cacao and Sour Cherry & Vanilla. These Pana Chocolate boxes are priced at AUS $29.90 and can be purchased here. Pana Chocolate also have UK site where boxes are priced at £13.90.

If you're based in the US or Canada then you're in luck when it comes to truly cruelty free chocolate options. I was lucky enough to try Chocolate Hollow for the first time when I was in Austin earlier this year (Thanks VVC!) and you really can't go wrong. The Chocolate Hollow range is wonderfully diverse but the Hazelnut Gianduja Log is the stand out for me so grab a bar for yourself as well as one for every stocking you're thinking of stuffing. The Gianduja Log is priced at US $4.49 and can be bought online from here.

Last but by no means least is Lagusta's Luscious. Their decadent offerings are indeed luscious, hovering at the high end of the vegan chocolate spectrum, their chocolates will astound you with their depth of flavour and blow your mind with the sheer inventiveness of it all. Seasonal specials include such delights as the Hazelnut Sugarplum Caramel Bar, Orange Cranberry BonBons and Drinking Chocolate Spheres. Prices start at US $6 for a simple semisweet bar and go up to US $150 for The Caramel Collection. The US $65 Winter Wonderland Box would be my choice and you can't go wrong with a decadent S'Mores Bar priced at $8.

If cookbooks are your friend, father or lovers jam then you can't do better than some of this year's most exciting vegan releases. I haven't been able to cook from any of these yet but I've been hearing nothing but great things and, having met everyone behind these books, I can guarantee that your money is going to great people.

Teff Love by Kittee Berns is an ode to her favourite cuisine on earth, Ethiopian. Jam packed with recipes for everything you need to start creating your own Ethiopian feasts, from berbere spice blends to injera and beyond, this would make a great gift for the more adventurous cook in your life.

Eat Like You Give a Damn is by the duo behind Portland store Herbivore, Michelle Schwegman and Josh Hooten. It is the cookbook of the year for new vegans and would make the perfect gift for anyone who makes you food whether they're knowledgeable about nooch or not!

The Taco Cleanse cookbook is the brainchild of four Austin-based, self-proclaimed, taco scientists and it is literally the only cleanse I will ever get behind. This grade A silliness is right up my street; eat tacos all day, every day for a month to reach fuego level or just dip in a toe with a mild, mood-improving one day cleanse. Like all good diet books (barf) this book features an exercise section (taco yoga with Amey) as well as a chapter on (boozy) supplements and they've even thrown some inspirational quotes in there for good measure.

All of the above books can be bought from great independent retailers like Herbivore or Rabbit Food Grocery as well as awful online retailers that will ship everywhere for free.

I hope that this gift guide has given you some awesome ideas for the people you care about, yourself included, and I hope you have a wonderful holiday season if you're into that kinda thing. I'm currently in Cambodia and I have no idea where I'll be spending Christmas (the holiday I usually celebrate) or if even if I'm actually going to miss it. Time will tell!

This is my final post from this summer's European road trip adventure and to make it that little bit more exciting I'm combining it with my spot on the blog tour for Caitlin from The Vegan Word's super helpful and informative book The Essential Vegan Travel Guide. I'd feel guilty for not writing about Split and Dubrovnik sooner (how has almost 4 months passed so fast?) but they're not going anywhere and life happens y'know. As I mentioned in my post about Pula and Plitviče, Croatia was one of the countries that inspired my European road trip and Split had been at the top of the Croatia list for some time. It just seemed like the kind of city that'd be right up my street and it was all I'd imagined and more. Nick and I stayed a little way out of town, as is often the way with camping, at a spot called Camping Stobreč. The reason we chose that particular campsite was because there's a bus stop right outside with regular busses taking campers and locals alike into the city centre. Perfect.

Vege was one of our first stops in town as we were starving when we first arrived and we knew that this place served solid fast food. It was a little challenging to find as the Happy Cow map I'd taken a screenshot of was a little off the mark leading me to the main road next to the market that Vege is located in. After a little wandering and asking for directions we ascertained that Vege was in the market, if we'd approached from the port or anywhere on that side of town we'd have easily spotted it because there's a huge sign pointing you in the right direction!

It was all a-ok once we arrived though because Vege were slinging out plates of hot fried food fast. I went with the soy meat plate with rice and it was one of my favourite meals of the summer. It was by no means gourmet and it was prepared with more oil than even I would've used at home meaning that it was extra delicious. The rice was tomatoey and plentiful and the mock meat was truly excellent, crispy, tender and totally dreamy. If you wanted to spice it up there were a plethora of hot sauce options to choose from. I didn't feel like it needed tweaking and I was hungry enough that I almost ordered a second plate!

The sights were calling our names though so instead of eating even more delicious food Nick and I set out to explore Diocletian's Palace and the surrounding areas. Rather than being an actual palace, as both of us had incorrectly assumed, Diocletian's Palace is pretty much the whole historic centre of Split. You get to experience it whilst wandering around, people watching, popping into shops and sitting outside cafes passing the time with a drink. We both adored the winding streets, imposing palace walls and the architecture of buildings like the gothic Belltower that's behind me in this picture.

One foodie spot that I'd bookmarked long before our arrival was the vegan leaning health and whole foods chain Bio & Bio. We hadn't seen a well stocked health food store for a while by this point and we were both dreaming of ice cream, soy yoghurts, chocolate and faux meat slices. Bio & Bio definitely didn't disappoint and we dived into their shelves and fridges and filled up a basket in no time. We were excited to see familiar things like Rapunzel's Rice Milk Chocolate, Nick's favourite European cereal brand, and Sojade yoghurts alongside fave's like smoked tofu, blocks of seitan and margarine.

We also picked up some Soyatoo vegan cheese slices which, when eaten cold, might be the worst vegan cheese slices ever. I'm an equal opportunities kinda gal when it comes to vegan cheese, I believe there's space in the world for Toffuti slices as well as a spot for Daiya and a place for expensive nut cheeses. This one though, I'm not so sure! I'm kinda kidding, once melted it was actually pretty okay but on first taste I think the look of horror on my face told Nick everything he needed to know and he refused to bite into it until it had been grilled! I wish I'd had that foresight! Our favourite finds were all chocolate based and we devoured these Bon Ice rice milk ice cream bars in seconds. They're just like a Magnum but without the cruelty, the dark chocolate is my jam and Nick enjoys the milk style version. They were the perfect treat after a hot day of exploring.

Our other favourite treat was this cake that I'd previously tried when I visited Zagreb in 2013. I raved about how great it was then and nothing's changed now. It's made of layers of pancake held together with an agave sweetened chocolate creme which makes it a totally breakfast appropriate cake, just give it fifteen minutes or so outa the fridge before you dive in.

I adored Split, it's a great place to explore on foot and I enjoyed getting lost in the city's winding streets and alleyways as well as promenading along the Riva Harbour walk. The vegan food scene isn't what you'd call buzzing but you'll get by pretty easily especially if you decide to self cater.

After spending time in Split we skipped the country and took our time exploring Bosnia & Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro before popping back into Croatia to check out Dubrovnik once the heat and hecticness of high season was over. This turned out to be a great decision! Of course the harbour was still jam packed with cruise ships and the streets were busy but it was nothing like the summer crush that I'd heard about from visiting friends. Dubrovnik is a breathtakingly beautiful city, I'm not even going to post pictures from inside the old town walls because my iPhone photography couldn't do it justice at all. Not even a little bit. It's mind-blowing. I think I walked around wow-ing all over the place for about an hour. One thing you must do in Dubrovnik, once you've gotten over how ridiculous it looks at ground level, is walk the city walls.

It's a little pricy but it gives you a great feel of the size and layout of the old town and I loved getting a birds eye view of this part of the city. The only thing I would say is don't do it in mid afternoon in summer because it'll be hot hot hot. It's a further walk than you think, about 2km, and there's no shade to speak of.

Because our campsite was out of town, actually in Mlini not in Dubrovnik itself, we were able to split up our sightseeing days with a beach day which was blissful. We stayed at Camping Kate which is only 8km south of old town Dubrovnik and we took the bus into the city to explore. The beaches are within walking distance of the site, you just take some steps down from the back of the campsite and follow some winding roads down towards the sea. I love the clear, still waters of the Adriatic coast and am really glad we choose to stay just outside the city for this reason.

Dubrovnik is lucky to have a wonderful vegetarian restaurant with plenty of vegan options which makes travelling there a joy. Situated up a staircase off of the main drag, take the third street on the left if you're coming from Pile gate, is Nishta one of the best restaurants I've eaten at this year. The atmosphere is wonderful as is the food and the location is fantastic. On our first visit I ordered a couple of starters as my main, the Zelenilo and the Crusty, and Nick opted for the bean smoked seitan burger which he loved and which you can see was served in an enormous flatbread with sweet potato fries and some fantastic salsa.

Terrible name aside the Crusty was fabulous, a departure from what I'd usually order it was comprised of a flax seed cracker crust spread with a sundried tomato sauce and topped with cherry tomatoes, rocket, avocado, courgette and, the thing that drew me in, vegan almond cheese. This was different than I'd expected and not just because the rocket had been replaced with spinach and the whole thing was topped with some surprise goji berries which were swiftly removed! The cheese was creamy and thick and almost like a dressing and holy wow was this delicious. Despite the fact that it was salad it was interesting, filling and almost unbelievably flavourful. I've ordered many a salad since and some, like this one, have been standouts for sure. My other dish, the zucchini spaghetti topped with a raw avocado and lime dressing was also delicious but nowhere near as much of a standout as my other choice.

On our second visit I re-visited the Crusty because I loved it so much and then opted for the intriguing Hi! Pasta as my main.

The Hi! Pasta piqued both my interest and my tastebuds for two reasons, one, olives and two, motar, a Mediterranean herb that I'd never even heard of up until that moment. It turns out that motar is a herb that only grows on rocky parts of the Mediterranean coast, it's hard to put what it tasted like into words though, mild for sure and complimentary to the olive flavours of the dish but like no other herb I can put my finger on. I wasn't so jazzed on the idea of spelt and hemp flour pasta, I've always been a white pasta kinda gal and spelt is one of the things I try to avoid because it's high fibre content messes with my insides (Tmi? Whatever!). It sounded like the most delicious and intriguing dish though so I gave it a whirl and boy was I glad that I did. It was off the charts delicious just as I'd predicted, the flavours are just the kind that I love and it managed to feature olives in a way that didn't overwhelm everything else, I think that can be an easy line to cross. I'm not sure what Nick ordered, some kinda stir fry flavoured with hoisin that we decided was the least interesting of all of the things we tried at Nishta so don't get that, branch out and try the pasta as you won't find a dish quite like it on any other menu.

If you'd like to check out Nishta at dinner time, which I'd highly recommend, the ambiance outside is wonderful, then pop in at lunchtime a couple of days before or call ahead to book a table. Plenty of people were being turned away whilst we were eating because there was just nowhere to seat them. Dubrovnik is definitely a must visit destination, and not just because of the food. I'm so glad that I went, it's an unforgettable place and I'd highly recommend an off-season visit to anyone.

If, like me, you love to travel vegan style then Caitlin, the blogger behind Barcelona based blog The Vegan Word, just wrote the book for you. The Essential Vegan Travel Guide: 2016 Edition is a guidebook that'll teach you how to find vegan food anywhere.

Covering topics ranging from how to eat like a local to how to whip up soup in a coffee maker it contains everything you need to get your vegan travels off of the ground. You can buy The Essential Vegan Travel Guide from Amazon but if you want to support a more ethical company you can buy it via Gumroad. This is the very final stop on the blogger book tour and Caitlin has been running a Twitter competition to win a copy of the book alongside the tour. It closes on the 17th and to enter you just need to tweet a link to my blog post using the hashtag #vegantravelguide and you'll be entered into a prize draw. I'd copy this link http://bit.ly/1ml9c1t if I were you as the length of the direct link will kill your Twitter game! One winner will receive a copy of the book either in print or PDF (perfect for the traveller on the road), crossing my fingers for you!

Nick and I were meant to go to Cambodia in March but after spending longer than planned in Thailand and Vietnam there was no time left - April had arrived by the time our Vietnamese adventures were coming to a close meaning that Cambodia was hotting up to levels that I had no inclination or intention of dealing with! Austin was calling us and it seemed like a much more sensible idea to visit Cambodia the next time Nick and I found ourselves in South East Asia.

That time rolled around quickly and we decided to visit Cambodia earlier this month after our vegetarian festival escapades in Bangkok and Phuket and our month volunteering at Lanta Animal Welfare. It's no secret that my time at LAW was vastly different than I'd expected it to be, it was challenging and stressful in ways that I hadn't even considered it would be and I left feeling more burnt out than I'd felt in years. The simplest things that I'd had no problems with earlier in the year suddenly seemed like insurmountable challenges - booking a train ticket, asking for something vegan in a restaurant, even the pressure of trying to haggle with a tuktuk driver when they were clearly trying to charge something outlandish felt like too much. I basically felt like I wanted to hide from the world which is quite challenging when you're travelling. It wasn't that I didn't want to go to Cambodia, it was more that I didn't want to go anywhere. Staying put wasn't an option though, three days at a nice hotel in Bangkok hadn't pulled me outa my funk anyway and going home didn't feel like a good option either although it definitely crossed my mind. The idea of pulling my favourite DVD box sets and blankets out of storage and cosying up around the Christmas tree with my friends sounded amazing but I knew deep down that this feeling wasn't homesickness.

So, we carried on travelling. I pushed myself to keep going, to have fun, and to try new things every day. Nick and I travelled overland to Siem Reap as planned, this is a wonderful experience and far superior to flying. If you have the time I'd highly recommend it. You start at 5:30am at Hua Lamphong station in Bangkok where you pay 48 baht / $1.32 / £0.88 for a ticket for the 5:55am train to Aranyaprathet. It's a 6 hour journey in a regular carriage with windows and fans rather than air conditioning. I loved that there was no barrier between me and the countryside I was travelling through. When you get off the train you need to get a tuktuk to the border where you'll walk through Thai departures and then Cambodian arrivals. This process takes about an hour. You then make your way to the free shuttle bus which takes you to the local bus station where you can either hop onto a mini van or a bus to Siem Reap. This will cost either $9 or $10 dollars and take 3 or 4 hours depending on your chosen method. Nick and I went with the mini van because we didn't want to wait an hour for the bus to arrive and then spend an extra hour on the bus. I definitely felt that 12 hours travelling was going to be enough for one day!

The next day we probably should have dived headfirst into exploring the temples of Angkor but I needed to have more of a chilled day so we explored the town, ate some food and booked a bike tour to explore the temples the next day. The tour was great, we went with Grasshopper Adventures and a full day tour lasting from 7:30am - 4pm and cost $39pp including water and lunch. This on top of our accommodation broke the budget for the day before we'd even purchased our 3 day Angkor passes but it was totally worth it. I loved getting to explore the region by bike and, as well as seeing the temples for the first time, I met some great people and cycled through villages and rice paddies that I know I wouldn't have discovered myself. I'm not a great cyclist - cycling on sand in particular is hugely challenging and of course I fell off but taking a tour definitely gave me more confidence. The whole experience also made me realise that sometimes it's actually nice to follow rather than having to always make your own path which, as independent travellers, is something Nick and I don't do a lot of.

Ta Prohm

We kept our momentum going by booking a tuktuk to take us to Angkor Wat for sunrise the next day and it was one of the more surreal experiences of our travels so far. The tuktuk picks you up at 5am and zooming along in the dark with the company of all of the other tourists and tuktuk drivers making the same pilgrimage was actually really fun. I took note of the bloggers behind Vegan Food Quest's tips on watching the sunrise at Angkor Wat and decided to create a playlist and pop some headphones in to make the experience more enjoyable. The place was packed and no offence to the guy next to me regaling his guide with stories about Seattle but damn dude, learn to sit with silence. It's okay! Every single moment doesn't need to be filled with chatter.

Angkor Wat in the morning.

That afternoon the realities of travel hit us hard, we were tired and snappy and not our usual selves at all. Nick and I don't really argue, I'm not saying that to make us sound perfect but we do agree on most things from politics to music (except the Beatles!) and also believe in talking about everything. Life's too short to argue about ridiculous things or to bear grudges about things you don't want to vocalise. The harsh realises of getting older have made us realise that you never know when the last moment you'll see someone will be so it's so important to be kind, to think about your words and to assess whether arguing is really necessary. But we weren't doing that! We'd started bickering about the stupidest shit and it was getting ridiculous so we sat down and tried to work out what the hell was going on and quickly realised that we were both feeling the exact same way about our travels. We were completely burnt out, upset about the month we spent volunteering and, on top of all of that, feeling really guilty for having these feelings at all. We are hyper aware that being able to travel is a privilege and not only that but that we're living out the dreams of some of our friends and family members as well as some of the readers of this blog. This awareness definitely makes it harder when you're struggling to enjoy yourself - we kept asking ourselves how we could be feeling like this when we were exploring one of the most amazing places in the world? We talked about privilege and wondered if we're actually spoilt assholes. We cried a lot. We talked about going home. In the midst of all of that though we were happy that we were both feeling this way, it made it more of a real thing rather than just a whole mess of thoughts and feelings churning around in our brains that we hadn't been able to articulate yet and that were affecting the way that we were feeling and behaving towards each other as well as tainting the experiences we were having along the way.

In the end we decided not to make any snap decisions, we took another half day tour of the temples with our driver Mr Sam. We soaked up the beauty of Bayon's many buddhas for a second time and revisited one of my favourite spots, Ta Prohm, as well as spending a long time wandering around Preah Kahn. Early on in the day we hit up Phnom Bakheng, somewhere people usually head at sunset, meaning that it was both peaceful and beautiful during our visit. I think we encountered 7 other people in total and I was also glad that we weren't experiencing the peak visitor hour elephants - realising that people pay to be taken up a relatively small hill by elephant made me sad enough without having to see it with my own eyes. Gorgeous Ta Som was another of our stops and it was probably my favourite of them all, it's smaller and less busy than Ta Prohm but with even more trees growing around and in amongst the ruins. The Eastern Gopura pictured below was probably my favourite spot of all.

Preah Kahn early in the morning.

Ta Som

We then booked our bus tickets to Phnom Penh and decided that we'd make some solid decisions after spending a day or two there. After trying to explore the Royal Palace complex and ending up crying in the shade of a big tree rather than marvelling at the silver pagoda with everyone else we decided we needed to move on. We needed to change our scene and to go somewhere that would reignite out desire to explore and to discover new things. We worked out that so far this year we've spent seven months in SE Asia and that for us, for now, that was enough. We had flights booked to Japan via Hong Kong for early March and we knew that we were still excited about those plans, every time I glance down at my Japan inspired polaroid tattoo I get excited about those plans, so we sat down and thought through every possible way to make Japan happen earlier. We knew that in reality, because of visa restrictions, money and plans to volunteer in Fukushima, that it wouldn't really be possible but we thought that perhaps we could decide on somewhere else that excited us in the same way that Japan excites us and in the same way that SE Asia excited us at the beginning of the year. In the end we settled on Taiwan! It wasn't difficult. I've wanted to visit Taiwan for ages, the climate is perfect (yes, the heat is one of the reasons I need to get out of SE Asia), the food looks wonderful, travelling within the country is affordable, and Nick didn't need a whole lot of convincing. We moved our Hong Kong flights forward by 6 weeks, we booked return flights between Hong Kong and Taipei, found the most adorable Air B&B and, just like that, a new plan was born. Thankfully we booked the original flight between Bangkok and Hong Kong with Avios points and had plenty leftover so making all of these new travel plans cost less than £100 - accommodation excluded of douse. Just like that we felt excited again! Just making those changes to our plans renewed my motivation and excitement and I felt like my wanderlust had well and truly returned!

Would I recommend a trip to Siem Reap? Absolutely! The temples of Angkor are a must visit destination but activities aside being vegan is easy in Siem Reap - we even found a supermarket that had Clif bars! Our favourite place to chow down was Chamkar, a veggie spot off of pub street that was vegan aside from the cheese that could be added to one menu item. I think we ate there five or six times. I would highly recommend the Wedding Day Dip which is made from peanuts, creamy coconut and mushrooms and is served with excellent crusty French bread. It's fantastic and super flavourful as well as being massive, far too much for a starter for one person - this is a dish that's meant for sharing. I also loved their spaghetti with pesto which was just what I needed when I was craving pasta and their Stirring Curry was another excellent choice. I wish that they had the option to order white rice as brown isn't my favourite but I think I'm in the minority there. My second favourite spot was Sister Srey Cafe. They're more than just a cafe because they do a whole lot of good work within the local community including supporting students, building wells, helping street children and working with Hearts to Harmony, a local NGO. They also have a few marked vegan options ranging from raw cakes to stir fry and from smoothie bowls to Khmer breakfast soup which is a bargainous $3 a bowl. I went for the soup at any and all times of day, I loved the simplicity of it. It was brothy and there were plenty of noodles and, even more importantly, the veggies were tender but with a little crunch. Their chocolate, banana and avocado cake is also a must eat and Nick highly recommends the passionfruit cheesecake.

Khemer Breakfast Soup

Once Nick and I had finalised our travels plans it felt like a weight had lifted and we thoroughly enjoyed our final days exploring Phnom Penh, the food at Evergreen Vegetarian was a highlight as were the sandwiches we enjoyed from ARTillery. We also felt energised enough by our new plans that we were able to reverse our overland journey back to Bangkok rather than giving in to the temptation to make things easier and fly. We're currently in Bangkok which is turning out to be the prefect spot to spend Christmas. It's no secret that I love twinkly lights and Xmas music almost as much as time spent with friends over the festive season so being here with Nick is proving to be a lot of fun. We're staying at an Air B&B with a kitchen so we're having a great time hunting for ridiculous (and, yes, wildly overpriced) vegan eats for our Christmas dinner as well as riding the BTS all over Sukhumvit to gaze at the amazing light displays outside of every mall. We've made Face Time dates with friends, have been drinking matcha soy lattes almost every day and are currently deciding which movies to cosy up and watch to get us in the festive spirit - of course I'm leaning towards The Holiday and Love Actually as always!

Another year is coming to a close and 2015 has been filled with some seriously epic adventures! I've travelled extensively on three continents and my year has been filled with more fun times than I can count. It's without a doubt been a life changing kinda year, I always feel that I grow as a person as each year rolls on by (that's the point right?!) but I don't think I've had a year that's changed my perspectives and outlooks more than this one in a very long time. Despite missing having a home base on occasions I'm still loving my new travel lifestyle, the excitement of exploring a new place is still one of my driving forces and I can't wait to keep adventuring next year. Having eaten around 80% of my meals at restaurants, cafes, food trucks and street stalls this year my top 10 list was the hardest I've ever compiled... How do you choose just 10 things when you've eaten so much amazing food? Well, you make lists, delete lists, trawl through your iPhoto library, contemplate booking flights back to Vietnam to eat more, remember that there's a whole lot of amazing vegan food in the world and then you sit the fuck down, start writing, and take a break once you're almost done because item number one on the list is only 15 minutes away and you need to eat it RIGHT NOW!

The food featured on the list is in the order in which I devoured them rather than ranking them from 1 - 10, that would've been too hard and also silly because on any given day I could be craving something different. Who am I to say that waffles are better than pierogis?! Putting this list together is always challenging but I love using it as a way to reflect on my experiences and adventures - whilst searching for food photos I'm reminded of fantastic hikes, time spent with friends and the many beautiful beaches I've been lucky enough to explore among other things. As always only new-to-me dishes make the list so I've ruthlessly discounted things like the The Del Ray from The Vegan Nom as well as Veganista's amazing ice creams, check out my Top Ten Eats of 2014 list for more awesome Austin eats as well as favourites from Brighton, New York, Tokyo and Kyoto.
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1 - Chocolate Banana Waffles from Veganerie in Bangkok

I visited Veganerie for the first time back in February and I've lost count of how many times I've returned. The Chocolate Banana Waffle Plate is my go-to because it's the perfect food combo of chocolate with more chocolate on top. I usually triple chocolate it up with a scoop of chocolate ice cream but sometimes I branch out and go with something more adventurous like matcha. Whatever ice cream you pick will be excellent though so don't stress if you only have one chance! The whipped cream served with this dish is one of the dreamiest things I've ever eaten, it's like a puffy cloud of deliciousness and I could probably eat a whole bowlful.

Veganerie 4th Floor MercuryVille Mall, Chit Lom BTS, Bangkok, Thailand

2 - Green Thai Curry from the May Kaidee cooking class in Chiang Mai

As someone with an allergy to peppers I knew that travelling in Thailand was going to be a challenge. Chilli is a mainstay in Thai cooking so I went into my travels knowing that I'd have to skip the curries and papaya salads even when dining at vegan restaurants. I decided to e-mail May Kaidee on the off chance that they would be willing to modify a cooking class to be chilli free and I hit the jackpot. They were happy to switch things up and to use fresh green and red peppercorns instead of chillies meaning that I was able to try Massaman Curry, Green Papaya Salad, Tom Ya and Tom Kha soups alongside the flavourful, creamy, pumpkin filled Thai Green Curry which was, in my opinion, the star of the show. This was such a special experience and it was so great to be able to try dishes that I'd otherwise never have been able to eat.

May Kaidee 29/4 Chang Moi Kao Road, Chiang Mai, Thailand

3 - Mushroom Hot Pot from An Nhu Quan Chay in Hoi An

I fell in love with bubbling, steamy, cook-at-the-table hot pots as soon as I arrived in Vietnam and my love affair continued until the moment I left the country. The best of the best is to be found at An Nhu Quan Chay in Hoi An which is a place worth travelling to for a whole heap of other reasons - spoiler alert: It's freaking beautiful. This hot pot was filled to the brim with mushrooms, tomatoes, silken tofu, greens and herbs and served with a side of fermented tofu which is one of the best foods in the whole world ever.

An Nhu Quan Chay 516 Hai Bà Trung, Hoi An, Vietnam

4 - Bahn Mi from Chay Bahn Mi in Nha Trang

I'm pretty sure that this is the best sandwich in the world. I'm not being hyperbolic it's just really that good. The bread was perfectly light and crisp and the sandwich is spread with some kinda epic sauce before being stuffed with lettuce, crisp pickled veggies, fresh coriander, cucumber strips, sliced tomatoes and four kinds of mock meat / tofu. There was a wheaty faux pork, a wheaty faux chicken, some kinda baked soy loaf (I'd guess ham style) and the pièce de résistance, a handful of crispy sweet marinated sesame soy protein. This was my first ever banh mi experience and I'm pretty sure that it ruined all future sandwiches for me because I don't think it can get any better than this. Oh yeah and it costs 10,000 VND / .31p / 46¢. Street food at it's finest.

Chay Banh Mi Hung Vuong Street, Nha Trang, Vietnam

5 - Conenut from Sweet Ritual in Austin

Ice cream cone. Doughnut. Conenut. Genius! As soon as this appeared in my Instagram feed one morning I was making plans to meet Stephanie at Sweet Ritual to eat the hell outa it. I knew that you couldn't go wrong with soft serve topped with a doughnut topped with more soft serve but even I hadn't imagined that it'd be SO right. The doughnut was vanilla lavender and I topped the whole thing off with rainbow sprinkles. Yes it was messy to eat and yes it was totally worth it. Dessert perfection. 'Nuff said.

Sweet Ritual 4500 Duval Street, Austin, TX, USA

6 - Everything from Lagusta's Luscious in New Paltz / Online

I genuinely believe that you couldn't go wrong with anything from Lagusta's Luscious. Anywhere that puts so much care and effort into their chocolate making couldn't create something terrible if they tried and, if they did, they wouldn't actually sell it! I took advantage of my time staying at an Air B&B in Austin earlier this year to order some LL chocolates and I am 100% sure that it's the best chocolate in the world. If I was being forced to pick a favourite I'd choose the Peanut Caramel Bar but the Rosemary Sea Salt Truffles were like a dream come true and their S'mores bar made me wanna pack up and move to New Paltz. My #lifegoals for 2016 include visiting the mothership and trying the Yuzu Creams.

Lagusta's Luscious 25 North Front Street, New Paltz, NY, USA

7 - Pierogies from Glonojad in Krakow

Like with my Vietnamese banh mi adventure I'd never tried a pierogi before visiting Poland. I know!! Finding a vegan version was harder than I'd imagined but I hit the jackpot at Glonojad. The pierogis were stuffed with lentils and served with an appropriate trio of salads that included beetroot, carrot and raisin and cabbage. I enjoyed this as much for the experience as for the food itself and I'd recommend this dish to anyone with plans to check out Krakow in 2016.

Glonojad Plac Matejki 2, Krakow, Poland

8 - Bistek from Hotel Am Brilliantengrund in Vienna

I love it when you find exceptional vegan food in unexpected places. This hotel restaurant is situated in and around a courtyard in Vienna's 1070 district and specialises in Pinoy dishes. Almost everything on the menu can be veganised and I ordered the Bistek which utilises thinly cut seitan instead of animal protein in the veg option. The tender seitan is marinated in a soya citrus dressing and is perfectly complimented by the crisp fried onions and peppery rocket said that accompany it. I tried a few other dishes from the menu and whilst they were all delicious this was the stand out for me.

Hotel Am Brilliantengrund Bandgasse 4, Vienna, Austria

9 - The Vegano from Gelatoteca SuSo in Venice

Gelatoteca SuSo's veganised white with black cherry ice cream easily made the top ten list. No deliberating required. It's easily the fluffiest, creamiest ice cream I've ever eaten (vegan or not) and getting to partake in this traditional flavour from a traditional ice cream spot right in the centre of Venice was one of my favourite travel experiences to date.

Gelatoteca SuSo Calle De La Bissa 5453A, Venice, Italy

10 - Wedding Day Dip from Chamkar in Siem Reap

If you're looking for something to sustain you during your Angkor explorations look no further than this dip. Made from creamy coconut, peanuts and mushrooms it's more than the sum of it's parts for sure. Served with perfectly soft French bread it's so delightful that I ordered it on numerous occasions during my short stay in the city and would happily buy and eat it by the jar.

Chamkar The Passage, Old Market, Siem Reap, Cambodia

And the honourable mention goes to... Alpro Creamoso Lemon Pie Yoghurt

How can yoghurt be this good? This is the perfect combo of tangy and creamy and I made sure that the van was stocked up with these as often as possible whilst road tripping around Europe this summer. Soy yoghurts were one of the cornerstones of my breakfast game back in the UK and have been something that I've missed a lot whilst travelling this year. I definitely made the most of easily accessible and delicious yoghurts this summer as anyone who follows me on Instagram can attest to!

My travels will soon be crossing into their second year and 2016 is going to be taking me to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea and who knows where else after that... as I'm discovering even the super organised and planning obsessed can't possibly know where they'll want to be in July when it isn't even January yet.

I'm hungry! I'm often hungry, at least three or four times a day, and when I'm not hungry I could always eat. I'm munching on onigiri as I write this. When everyone's rolling around clutching their bellies after a big lunch and talking about how there's no way they'll have room for dinner I know that an afternoon snack is probably in my future. In our fucked up society this is something that, as a woman, I'm meant to feel ashamed of and it's bullshit. Diets, cleanses, detoxing and clean eating are shoved in our faces at every turn especially at this time of year and more and more of my peers seem to be jumping on the bandwagon. It makes me sad. Why are we made to feel guilty for needing, no, wanting, to eat? Why are we made to feel like we need to "cleanse" ourselves after a food based celebration? Why is eating associated with guilt and "being naughty"? I'll tell you why, it's because as women we're meant to make ourselves as small as possible, to take up the least space and to conform to societal beauty ideals so that we don't offend anyone with our fat or body hair or perceived ugliness. I don't want to see food as "a treat", as something to reward myself for "being good all week" or because it's my god damned birthday and I don't want to try to diet & exercise my body down to a certain size or weight because that's what society deems acceptable. I've been there and done that and I don't want to do it again. Food is a necessity damnit! We need to eat at least three times a day if not more and I want that food to be filled with nourishing and tasty carbs, proteins, fats and sugars and I want it to be delicious. I'm not suggesting that health is unimportant, I try to get my 10,000 steps in most days whilst I'm exploring the world and I actually enjoy going to the gym but that's because these things are good for my mental health as well as my physical health. The way most people seem to be approaching cleanses, detoxing and "new year new you" diets seem far from okay from a mental health perspective.

That's why I decided to embark upon a New Year Taco Cleanse! I think that regular me is pretty rad, belly fat and all, but life can always be improved by more tacos. I want to show people that cleansing can be about fun rather than about restricting fun. In 2016 I also intend to continue being relentlessly body positive as I explore the world - even when visiting countries where I can't fit into 99.9% of the clothes and even on days when my brain is trying to sabotage my radical self love ideals.

As I'm travelling right now I just did a mild cleanse that lasted a day. I knew that any of the levels above that one would be too ambitious and Thailand is (sadly) not a land full of abundant taco opportunities. I managed to get Nick on board with my plans too, I promised him delicious food not glowing skin. I know what he likes! It didn't take a whole lot of convincing although there was one big hurdle. The moment that we found out that pizza cannot be a taco sent us reeling. A day where you rule out the possibility of pizza sounded awful. We wondered if this was really the cleanse for us? Thankfully we soon realised that pizza cannot be the taco but it can go inside the taco - these are the kind of rules that I'm so glad the Taco Scientists are around to explain to me. Eventually Nick agreed to come on board saying "I trust them. They've done science".

The first thing on the agenda was to make a taco shopping list, we knew that finding tortillas would be challenging and the closest we came were Old El Paso wraps that are available in almost every supermarket in Bangkok that sells imported goods - think Gourmet Market not 7/eleven. For each recipe our first step was to cut them into appropriate taco sizes. A taco needs to be something that can be eaten with one hand and we didn't want to accidentally stray into burrito territory so we cut around a bowl to make our wraps taco sized.

Next we took a look over the recipes together and decided that whilst they looked both delicious and simple that they were, for the most part, not going to be realistic, we're saying in a place with a kitchen with no herbs, no spices and minimal equipment after all. Thankfully Jessica, one of the esteemed Taco Scientists, has tips scattered throughout the book for those of us who do not love to or do not have the ability to cook. Thanks Jessica!

One recipe that we were easily able to get on board with was the Accelerated Breakfast Taco. It's a simple but totally genius combo of Peanut Butter, cereal and fruit. I went with smooth PB, Krispies and a banana and hot damn was this a great start to my day. It contains all of the great food groups, carbs, protein, fat and sugar all in one handy, easy to eat, tortilla. Breakfast perfection.

Another thing I realised whilst reading The Taco Cleanse is that as someone who fully believes in the mantra "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" the taco is the perfect food. A tortilla is essentially an edible napkin! Who needs a plate when a tortilla exists? This book hits all of the right notes! Ever since I was a young kid I always appreciated ice cream cones and not just because ice cream is delicious but because the cone is edible and just like ice cream in a cone tacos are a zero waste food!

I was also very pleased to hear that the Taco Scientists believe in microwaving plant foods (never yourself or an animal!) because the humble microwave was one of the few tools at my disposal. I'm currently in a Bangkok Air B&B and only have two electric burners, one pan, a tiny toaster oven and a microwave to play with. Don't feel sorry for me though there's also a rooftop pool, a gym and movie theatres, shops and pizza by the slice within walking distance. Pizza by the slice is seriously one of my favourite things ever! One of things I found at a grocery store nearby was the inspiration for this next taco, Amy's rice macaroni and cheese! It's made with Daiya, cooks in 5 minutes, is almost unbelievably delicious and contains enough mac and cheese to adequately fill two tortillas.

Mac and cheese tacos are a beautiful thing and after eating them I didn't feel hungry any more! I felt happy and ready to power through the afternoon.

Quite often my hunger appears in the form of cravings - I find that it's best to listen to my body in these situations and to give it whatever the hell it wants. Fries for dessert? Sure! Hummus for breakfast? Go for it! That night I fancied my favourite salad from May Veggie Home in Bangkok. It's full of layers of crunchy veggies like carrots, cabbage and beetroot, and topped with deep fried vegan shrimp. It's also served with an amazing thousand island dressing which I could slather on pretty much anything and call it dinner. Nick was in the market for the Duck Teriyaki from their menu so a plan was born, we'd get takeout and then taco it up whilst watching a movie.

You'll have to excuse the terrible photo - I was hungry and in no mood for messing around. We piled one taco high with crisp salad, faux fish and thousand island dressing and the other with steamed rice, mock duck and teriyaki sauce. This was fusion food as it's (lazy) best.

Despite not actually making many of the recipes from the book I know that they'll be amazing, partly because they sound delicious and partly because taco scientist Stephanie has cooked for me in the past and it was indeed amazing. The Taco Cleanse team were happy for me to share one of the recipes from the book with y'all and I chose the Inspiring Churro-Waffle Tacos because it's up there with one of the first recipes I'd have made from the book if I was settled somewhere and also because I know that I have at least one reader who likes to waffle unusual things and who will probably enjoy this recipe!

Inspiring Churro-Waffle Tacos

Makes 3 churro-waffle tacos

We at Taco Headquartershave a fondness for churros, but there are inherent issues preventing churro consumption on a Taco Cleanse. Deep-fryer temperatures can be finicky and splattering oil can be painful. Most relevant to our concerns, a churro is not a taco. The crunchy fritters emerge from the hot oil as a star-shaped extrusion, void of taco benefits. We have reformulated the batter to work in a waffle iron, allowing the finished churro to be folded in half. Fill your cinnamon-kissed churro taco with a banana and agave nectar to maintain peak levels.

Tortillas:

½ cup (106 g) sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup (120 g) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 cup (240 ml) water
¼ cup (60 ml) canola oil
¼ cup (60 ml) agave nectar

Fillings

3 bananas, sliced in half lengthwise
Agave nectar

On a shallow plate, whisk together ¼ cup (53 g) sugar and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon and set aside. Whisk together the cornstarch, flour, baking powder, salt, remaining ¼ cup sugar, and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon in a large bowl. Add the water and oil to the bowl and stir until just combined. Follow your waffle iron’s directions to cook the waffles, using 2/3 cup (160 ml) of the batter for each. Press one side of each waffle into the plate of cinnamon sugar while still warm. With the sugar side up, lay 2 banana halves side by side on one half of the waffle. Drizzle with agave nectar and fold waffle in half to cradle the bananas.

The Taco Cleanse team have also been generous enough to let me run a giveaway today! Can I get a hell yeah?! If you live in the UK or Ireland you can get your paws on a copy of The Taco Cleanse cookbook and lifestyle guide by leaving a comment below telling me what you'd put in a taco if I was passing you a warm flour tortilla right now. Make sure you leave some contact info in your comment, it can be your blog, E-mail address, Twitter or Instagram, whatever's most likely to grab your attention so that I can get in touch, get your deet's and pass them on to the publishers so that you can get on with making epic tacos and improving your life ASAP. The giveaway will close on Tuesday January 12th at 8am GMT and the winner will be selected at random. If I don't hear from my chosen winner within 24 hours I'll select a new one so pay attention!

One of my favourite things about travelling long term is the ability to stop and just breathe for a while. After a bout of travel fatigue brought on by some unexpected travel challenges Nick and I decided to come back to Thailand and to stop in Bangkok for a month. It's been great to get to know the city better and to live in a more chilled way rather than trying to cram as much exploring as possible into every single moment. We've even been to the movies! We have a favourite restaurant (more on that next week!), we've been meeting friends and Instagram buddies when they've been passing through the city, we've started learning Japanese and we've even had the time to start planning our next adventure(s). These are all challenging things to do when you're living life of perpetual movement! To enable us to do this without breaking the bank or driving ourselves crazy looking for last minute Priceline deals every day we've been Air B&B hopping all over the Sukhumvit BTS line. To help us save some cash for the next leg of our adventure we've also been eating in which I've loved. I don't always want to get my shit together to go out for breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day and we all know I'm not gonna be skipping a meal! Having a kitchen means that I can eat a proper breakfast in my PJ's - you have no idea how happy that makes me!

My breakfasts range from soy yoghurts (you can pick these up at 7/eleven now!) and cereal to fried tofu or a big bowl of noodles but lunch tends to be where the fun comes in. I love wandering around supermarkets looking for exciting vegan products and having a kitchen with a fridge, freezer and cooking facilities means that so much more of the store is open for consideration.

The Gourmet Market chain is one of my favourite places to look for fun vegan food stuffs, their freezer sections are particularly interesting and my favourite location is the one inside the Terminal 21 Mall. Not only do they have some Amy's boxed meals, including the Daiya Mac & Cheese and the chocolate cake, but if you dig deep you can find all sorts of delicious dumplings. My favourites include the Taro Bao, the Shiitake Bao, the Tofu and Vegetable Crispy Dumplings and the Oishii Taro Gyoza which are totally a dessert dumpling. Genius. Aside from the Tofu and Veg dumplings which are a Korean import all of these have the Jay logo printed on the packet which makes picking up something vegan easy - just make sure you turn stuff over, you never know where the sticker will be lurking!

Tofu & Vegetable Dumplings

Oishii Taro Gyoza

Most of the Gourmet Market locations, Terminal 21 and Siam Paragon in particular, also hold a great selection of tofu, mock meats and noodles within their outlets including these Veggie Ramen noodles. They're very obviously packed full of chilli so I've never tried them but given how often Nick eats them I'll vouch for their deliciousness. They even have the Vegan Society logo on the back which isn't something I've spotted often in Asia.

Sometimes during this (almost) year of travelling something familiar and comforting is just what I've been in the market for, so to speak, and another place I became a fan of recently is Villa Market. This is just a straight up import store and almost everything is priced accordingly. If you're in the market for vegan salt and vinegar crisps, hummus, root beer or good olive oil then Villa Market is the place to go. Word of warning for Euro Vegan peeps, Villa Market also sell reasonably priced Vitalite but it isn't vegan. It's apparently a rip off brand and it contains milk!!

The two branches I've checked out are at Sukhumvit Soi 11, by Nana BTS station, and at 595 Sukhumvit Road which is in-between Asok and Phrom Phong BTS stations but closest to Phrom Phong. Phrom Phong BTS is serendipitously also right by EmQuartier Mall where you'll find Veganerie's smaller second location so you can load up on desserts to go with your fancy imported goodies!

Villa Market is also the spot to visit if you just need some goddamn bread. I love Thailand but I also love bread and the vegan bread situation here is usually pretty dire. I spent an afternoon contacting everyone who makes bread in this city until I came across Maison Jean Philippe who make ridiculously good sourdough bread using only four ingredients. All of the loaves at Villa Market are vegan friendly and you'll be able to spot them as their name is stamped on the paper bag!

They also have a brand new retail store, located at The Commons in Thonglor (closet BTS stop Thong Lo), which sells much more bread as well as pastries and stuff so I'd check the vegan friendliness if you're paying them a visit. I haven't made it out to The Commons yet but I'm very tempted because they also sell Marou Chocolate, a Vietnamese Fair-trade certified bean to bar chocolate which looks epic. Finding Food Empowerment Project certified chocolate in this city is beyond challenging and the only kind I've found is from M&S. The one vegan bar they have in stock is a little on the sweet side for me, if I want sweeter chocolate I need it to be Vego bar sweet and my dark chocolate needs to be at least 70% plus. No middle ground!

The Villa Market location at 595 Sukhumvit Road is usually the better stocked of the two VM's I've checked out and the stock does vary between the two spots - I've never seen Earth Balance in the 595 location for example, only in the Soi 11 location (and it's £7 so I didn't buy it!), and the reverse is true with the Linda McCartney sausage rolls. Nick and I picked up a very silly combo of things to whip up a feast with over Xmas, it was fantastic!

Oh hi! It's been just over a week since I left Bangkok and arrived in Taipei and I'm loving it here. It's amazing how a change in both pace and climate have reenergised me and reignited my passion for exploring. Whilst I loved the time I spent in SE Asia this past year, 8 fun-packed months in total, I've definitely learnt that hot weather is just not for me in the long term. Good to know! Relentless heat seems to sap my energy in a way that even the darkest winter days don't manage to do and there's only so much exploring I can get done in the heat before I just want to curl up and hide in an air conditioned room or, when I reach breaking point, in another country with much milder weather. This weekend's cold snap aside January in Taipei is very similar to March or April in the south of England, drizzly and around 17°. I find it so much easier to explore a new city wrapped in a few layers and with an umbrella to hand than I do when the mercury is hitting 30° plus every day.

I'm going to be spending a month in Taipei and this marks the start of a slightly different style of travel for me. Over the next 6 months I'll be spending longer in each place I visit, a month here, a month in Tokyo, a couple of months volunteering at a cat sanctuary, some travel in-between and an open month in South Korea at the end... maybe by then I'll want to be moving constantly again? For now though I've definitely been missing some of the great things that come with being settled somewhere more long term - making friends, cooking breakfast at home, having the occasional chilled day, getting to know somewhere properly, actually unpacking my backpack. And on top of all of that Air B&B style accommodation is cheaper if you stop somewhere for a month or more.

This is my new street, I love it! I'm definitely still in that stage of being somewhere new where literally every single sign and doorway and shop front is fascinating. I love that feeling!

It's sometimes hard to know where to base yourself when you've never been somewhere before so a good bet is to pick something within walking distance of a couple of different MRT / metro / tube stations, that way you can get almost anywhere in your new city easily. The MRT here is a really cheap way to get around if you aren't in the mood for walking long distances and one of the first things Nick and I did is sort ourselves out with shiny new Easy Cards. It wasn't as easy as Lonely Planet made it out to be as you can only buy a new Easy Card at stations on the blue line... it took us exploring a couple of red and green line stations before we worked that out though!

I'm obviously going to write some more in depth posts about being vegan in Taipei but so far so good. Being vegan here is super easy and there are dining options for most budgets. I've also been surprised and totally delighted by how much variation there is in the vegan cuisine here. So far I've enjoyed bubbling, flavourful hot pots, delicate risottos, French macarons, ice cream cakes, huge bowls of ramen heaped with veggies and mock meats, ridiculous sandwiches, great bread, Taiwanese pineapple cake, tiramisu, and some of the best Japanese food I've ever tasted. There's even an all vegan supermarket here and thanks to Instagram I went out last night and met a whole bunch of local vegans who I'm hoping to spend more time with over the coming weeks.

I'm also loving having a tiny but totally perfectly sized kitchen. It has one electric hob, perfect for all of my tofu scramble needs, as well as a microwave and a toaster oven that just fits in two slices of bread. As you can imagine my toast game has been pretty strong this week! There's even a weekend farmer's market just a short walk from my apartment and whilst I don't see myself cooking up anything fancy and veggie-full it's a great place to get some fruit, fresh juice and sweet potatoes which I have grown to love since I've been in Asia.

Another of my favourite things about Taiwan so far is that the people here are so friendly. The Taiwanese people I've met are seriously rivalling Albanians for the much coveted most hospitable people ever crown. It seems like everywhere I go people want to give me free food, advice about where to eat and their telephone numbers just in case I get lost or have a question about Taipei. My Air B&B host even sent her friend round with a rug to cover the tiled floor in the apartment prior to the weekend as the temperatures were set to drop down to 3° and she was worried that we'd have cold feet! Taipei also seems to be a very dog friendly city - everywhere I go I see cute dogs dressed in their winter jackets hanging out with their humans who clearly love them. Best!

Nick and I have a whole spreadsheet of day trips to go on and sights to see but one spot that needed to be ticked off early was Houtong, often known as Houtong cat village! Yeah you read that right, cat village! Houtong is situated about an hour and 20 minutes from Taipei by train. You catch one train from Taipei main station to Ruifang and then change trains and catch another train to Houtong. Obviously it was super cute and as well as actual cats there were cat statues, cat signs, cat shrines, cat based artwork and shops selling cat things. I bought some adorable kitty socks! I think that pictures can do this place more justice than words can...

Im not 100% sure how Houtong became a cat town. It seems like it used to be a mining town but after that industry collapsed a cat loving villager got some volunteers together to look after the abandoned cats and now Houtong has become a whole village of cat lovers as well as a much visited tourist destination. It was such a cute place for a day out! I didn't find any vegan food there though, there isn't even a convenience store, so don't forget to pack some snacks.

Have you travelled in Taiwan before? Is there anywhere that needs to be on my must-visit list? If you want to keep up to date with what I'm eating, thinking and looking at on a daily basis you can follow me on Twitter or Instagram.

I've been in Taipei for two weeks now and I love it now just as much as I did upon first impressions. It's a real foodie city so of course I've been delving into that side of things and it seems that Tiramisu is the hot trend right now. You can get a rice and soy based version at Vegan Heaven, a raw version at The Green ROOM, and a super authentic coffee-full version with the perfect ratio of cake to cream at Soul R Vegan.

You can also grab a piece at Yummy Vegan House in the Beitou district and at the Xindian branch of Loving Hut. I'm sure there are more delicious variations of this Italian dessert to be found in the city and I'm looking forward to stumbling upon them!

Tiramisu aside Soul R Vegan has become one of my favourite spots to visit in the city. They're at the pricier end of the spectrum because of their location in the Da'an area but the combo of delicious desserts, fun flavoured tea lattes and hot frothy soy milk drinks has me well and truly won over.

Both their rose tea latte and their chocolate brownie, more like a dense nutty cake than a brownie, are well worth the splurge but the tiramisu is where it's at if you only have one chance to stop by.

Disappointingly the service at Soul R Vegan is a bit hit and miss, everyone working there is incredibly friendly, speaks amazing English, and happily answers all of my menu questions, but I definitely find it confusing when your meal comes out with a dessert first, then a drink, then the main part of your meal, followed by another drink and then the second dessert. When Nick and I have been for lunch we've really enjoyed our creamy risottos and sandwich combo plates but on our first visit Nick had almost finished his meal before mine had even arrived and of course he waited a polite amount of time before digging in. I'm not opposed to this in more casual settings but it's not what I'd usually expect from somewhere more upscale.

Another of my fave's so far is casual neighbourhood joint About Animals where you can get a delicious hot cocoa and a bacon sandwich in an openly queer friendly environment. If you're into craft beers and ciders this is also the place for you. For me though it's all about this sandwich!

Lightly toasted bacon cheese bread piled high with vegan bacon, a hash brown and crispy lettuce and topped off with both a smear of peanut butter and a squeeze of mustard. It's the perfect sandwich and the fries that accompany it are both crisp and excellently flavoured. About Animals is located around the corner from iVegan, Taipei's 100% vegan supermarket, and my favourite place to shop in the city. Not having to read ingredient labels is awesome although I wish that they didn't sell products by companies that test on animals. They do have almost all of the ingredients for a bacon sarnie though which is a definite win but you'll need to make a pit stop at either the Guangfu or RenAi Road Loving Hut branches to score some vegan margarine unless you want to spend 350TWD / £7 / $11 on a tub of Earth Balance.

Another of my go-to iVegan purchases is this sesame seed covered, ketchup drizzled hot dog roll. It's ridiculously cheap, 30TWD / 65p / 90¢, totally delicious and the perfect day trip snack alongside some fruit from iVegan's excellent produce section and a piece of pineapple cake from either Loving Hut or Vegan Heaven.

This next recommendation isn't food based but you can eat there... mysterious! NanShan theatre is a second-run or second chance cinema and it seems to be the done thing to rock up with a steaming bowl of noodles or a handful of snacks from the closest 7/eleven.

I'd never heard of a second-run cinema until I stumbled upon NanShan but I have fallen head over heels for both the place and the concept. NanShan is situated in a 60's era movie theatre, think slightly less comfy seats than in a brand new theatre and squat toilets in the bathrooms, and they show movies that are no longer on at the regular cinema but that haven't yet been released on DVD. As the weather here has been hovering somewhere in-between rain, rain and more rain since we arrived the cinema is the perfect place to chill after spending the morning walking around one of Taipei's many museums. At 140TWD / £2.90 / $4.20 for a ticket that'll get you into as many movies as you want all day long it's also a solid budget friendly entertainment option. Nan Shan is located on lane 24 off of Tonghuà Street in the Da'an area and it has four screens showing 8 movies throughout the day so the chances of finding something you'll enjoy is high. It's a true Taiwanese experience and I'd highly recommend it. Bonus: Vegan Heaven is only a short walk away so if you have a gap between movies you can fuel up with some of the world's best sugary treats.

There are a few super cool things about stopping in one place for a while. Firstly, you get to know it well; you know where the best desserts are at and how to get from point A to point B quickly, you become familiar with the quirky customs and rules that seemed baffling on day one and you get to inhabit that fun middle ground between travelling and living somewhere. Secondly, if you befriend enough vegan travellers online / in real life some of them are bound to be passing through and you can hang out. This happened most recently with Jhenn (of mac & cheese supper club fame) here in Taipei and prior to that with Cici in Bangkok. Thirdly, if you're lucky and put in a little effort on social media you get to meet the vegans that live in your chosen town or city. If the place you decide to spend some time is Taipei you'll quickly realise that everyone is ridiculously friendly and will invite you to birthday dinners, insist on ordering lunch for you from their favourite place and if you're really lucky they'll take you on an epic night market tour.

Saturday night saw me meeting up with fellow travel blogger and Instagrammer Stephie of The Caffeinated Vegan and her partner James for an evening of walking, talking and eating our way around Keelung's bustling night market. Because Taipei is fast becoming a must visit destination for all kinds of travellers but especially foodies and vegans, Jhenn, aka The Vegan Ronin, and Sam from Indefinite Adventures came along for an evening of adventure-eating too. Keelung is situated right on the coast and it takes about 35 minutes to get there by train from Taipei Main Station. Because this is Asia and everything is awesome that'll only set you back about 40TWD / 80p / $1.20.

Our first stop was this all vegan stall where Stephie dived in and ordered a whole bunch of stuff for us to try. I was super happy about this because I would have had no idea where to begin, in fact this is one of those places that unless you're in the know or better at spotting the correct symbols from the middle of a slow moving but intense crowd you might not even notice that this was a vegan spot at all. We somehow managed to grab enough seats for everyone together so that we could share (and photograph) everything.

We ordered so much food that I won't show you all of it but here are some of our faves. This tofu roll thing was an excellent start, I don't really know what was inside but the piece I had was delish'.

This herby soup with seitan wasn't a big favourite with anyone else on my side of the table but I loved its delicate flavours despite the fact that I burnt my tongue so badly with my first spoonful that I had to dodge through the crowds to the nearest 7/eleven to get a cold drink immediately!

I only nibbled a little piece of tofu from the edge of this epic mock meat and tofu platter because it was covered in chilli sauce but yuuuum, it was so tasty! Everyone devoured this fast so I'd say it was a group fave' for sure.

On the way home on the train we were chatting about our favourite eats and more than one person named this curry as their favourite dish so here it is. I didn't try it but I trust that it'd be a solid order.

I would imagine that ordering any of these dishes is going to be a challenge if you're language skills are as bad as mine so if something looks appealing take a screenshot and show the people working what you'd like to try! I've totally done this in restaurants after spying something that looked so good on a blog or on Instagram but upon sitting down realising that I have no way of deciphering the menu! I felt like it might seem rude at first but as long as you're polite enough to have learnt to say hello and thank you it seems that most people find this ordering technique endearing / amusing!

The second stop on our grand night market tour took us to this wonderful sweet potato hash brown stand. These definitely sit at the greasier end of the hash brown spectrum but they're freaking delicious because of it! I devoured mine as soon as it had cooled enough for me to take a bite due to the aforementioned tongue burning soup.

I kinda wished that I'd gone back for seconds because greasy fried potatoes are totally my thing but then we were faced with our next dining option, bao burgers or Gua Bao. What?! I love bao and I love burgers and putting these two things together is something I'd heard of but never tried. I was super happy to get down with some vegetarian pork belly and obviously I got the combo which comes with a hash brown. WINNING!

I can't show you a picture because the ones I took are too awful to look at let alone to put out there in the world but trust me here, it was amazing. The mock meat is all saucy and there's a layer of crunchy, sugary, herby goodness in there too - peanuts and coriander I think - plus the bonus hash brown which came with a little ketchup sachet - I'm pretty sure that it was my favourite food that night.

Water aside I don't drink a whole lot of fun drinks, I enjoy a matcha latte and I'm finally getting into other teas but fizzy drinks make my stomach feel strange these days, coffee makes my head / body feel odd and I straight up hate 99.9% of milkshakes (I'm a-ok with the chocolate one from The Wynn in Las Vegas but THAT IS IT). I'd assumed that bubble tea would fall firmly into the hate pile but James let me try his tropical passionfruit bubble tea with coconut jelly and tapioca pearls and it was love at first sip. I (okay, I enlisted his help!) ordered one immediately and have been grabbing one whenever I spot a CoCo ever since. James ordered his without sugar so I do too, it has a couple of scoops of passionfruit pulp in there so my tastebuds don't think it needs anything extra.

Dessert was our next stop but I was essentially drinking a dessert already so I didn't get too into this traditional Taiwanese feast. Douhua (please correct me if I'm getting the name wrong!) is a sweet tofu based pudding which is topped with all sorts of stuff, this one has peanuts, shaved ice, beans and tapioca pearls. If I'm totally honest I wasn't a huge fan. I think that it was just a bit too out there for me, it definitely wasn't bad, I happily ate more than a few mouthfuls, but it wasn't really doing anything for me y'know? I think that you have to try it if you're visiting Taiwan though, Jhenn loved it! I much preferred the delicious peanut topped mochi which was super fresh and perfect.

After we'd finished eating dessert everyone was pretty full and it was getting kinda late but both me and Sam had one more question - is there more vegan food? The answer was yes so we made just one more stop to grab some super moorish fried sweet potato balls. These reminded me of something that I tried at the vegetarian festival in Thailand but these were a whole lot tastier. Everyone agreed that if they'd been sugar coated or greasy they would've been too much at the end of an evening of eating but as they were they were just right.

I had the best time exploring Keelung night market with my new vegan buddies, it was such a fun evening and I loved getting acquainted with a Taiwanese night market after spending so much time exploring them in Thailand during the vegetarian festival. Stephie and James are most excellent hosts and they happen to run a vegan Air B&B in Taipei so if you're looking for somewhere to crash in the city hit them up!

Wherever I am in the world you can guarantee that I'll be searching for the best desserts and holy wow, I really hit the jackpot in Taipei. Vegan Heaven started out in Jiaoxi, a small town about an hour away from Taipei, but recently expanded to include a location in the capital. This has been a great move for two reasons, firstly it means that more locals and travellers can sample their delicious world class baked goods and secondly more people get to meet Li, the baker and business owner behind Vegan Heaven. Li's infectiously cheerful personality really made my day every time I visited the store and her passion for baking means that she's really invested in getting her product line spot on.

Now I've eaten at a lot of bakeries during my travels so the first thing that struck me when I walked into Vegan Heaven was that there was almost nothing there that I'd seen in a vegan bakery case before. It was so exciting to see new things - delicate tarts, macarons and delicious looking mini cakes rather than the usual cupcakes, cinnamon rolls and carrot cake slices which, don't get me wrong, I love, but new things are fun too!

As you can see Vegan Heaven's macarons look gorgeous and they taste incredible too. One thing that I've seriously missed out on whilst travelling this past year or so is the whole aquafaba chickpea water macaron / meringue / everything you'd bake with eggs craze and everyone's Instagram pictures and blog posts have been making me hella jealous. I wasn't able to try every single flavour but I did sample the Vanilla Chocolate, Matcha, Sesame, Lemon, Blackberry, Rose, and Coffee Hazelnut macarons. They also had Mango available but it never appealed.

The rose flavour and the hazelnut coffee flavour were my favourites by miles. I adore rose flavoured drinks and desserts and the combo of rose with a berry filling that really popped was fantastic. I could quite literally eat a hundred! Coffee hazelnut is a classic dessert combo and one that works perfectly in this format. Vegan Heaven's macarons are super light and delicate and, despite having to cast my mind back almost two decades, genuinely just as amazing as I remember the egg based versions being.

Tarts are a favourite sweet of mine, I love that they feel fancier than a cake somehow, and there are plenty to choose from here. From fruity Pear to tart Lemon all the way to mousse filled Blueberry Chocolate and Salted Caramel Chocolate Vegan Heaven has you covered whatever your preference.

The Chocolate Tart (pictured above) with it's cheesecake-esque layer hidden inside was my very favourite closely followed by the super tart lemon tart. If cake is more your thang then the Apple Caramel Cream Cake is off the charts delicious. I shared one of these with Nick and I've never regretted anything more! Why oh why didn't we get one each?! Moist sponge, caramelised apples, caramel and a perfectly delicate mousse-like cream to top it off. I'm desperate for another!

Vegan Heaven's tiramisu was another firm favourite. It's by no means traditional but it is both light and fluffy. Comprised of layers of chocolatey sponge cake and a rice and soy based whipped cream which is light and flavourful without ever veering into cloying territory it's a heavenly dessert but one in which I didn't sense even a hint of coffee. Traditional or not I could eat this anytime anywhere, and I have because it comes in a cardboard cup and with a little cardboard spoon. Perfect for vegging out on the sofa, munching on at the cinema (that's a-ok in Taiwan!) or even nibbling on as you walk down the street. What more could you want? Maybe a second one.

Vegan Heaven also has you covered if you need to grab something for breakfast or to take on your hike up Elephant Mountain to gaze out at Taipei 101. The individually wrapped pineapple cakes, a Taiwanese speciality, are a must-try and the super light tea infused banana bread made more than one excellent breakfast.

Vegan Heaven also sell the best lemon drizzle cake I've ever tasted, I wish that I had the skills to make a lemon cake that's so perfectly light and flavourful - one day! I can't wait to swing by their super central location one last time before I head to Hong Kong on Tuesday, getting to eat two or three more delicious desserts is going to be a great way to say goodbye to Taiwan but most of all I'm excited to see Li again! She might be the nicest person I've ever met and I don't think I'll ever be able to repay her generosity - free baked treats aside she gifted Nick and I with noodles and Taiwanese snacks to see us through the new year period (she was worried that stores and restaurants would be closed and finding something to eat might be tricky - she was right!) as well as the most delicious jar of homemade lemon jam. Her and her partner even bought Nick and I lunch from their favourite local take-out spot on more than one occasion! She's basically the sweetest (and the most excitable!) person you will ever encounter and I would urge you to visit asap so that she can fill you with both joy and delicious treats.

Top tip: Go early! Vegan Heaven opens at 12:00 and closes at 6:30 and they're super popular so if you arrive late in the afternoon there'll be less goodies to choose from. Oh and grab a ginger soy milk, you won't regret it!

Have I sold you on a trip to Taipei yet? I have one more (noodle filled) post coming up next week and then I'll fill you in on my trip around the Taiwanese coast.

Noodles are up there with my pizza on my favourite foods list and they're definitely going to be some of the best possible fuel for your Taiwanese adventures. Walking up elephant mountain to catch a glimpse of Taipei 101 is high up on my list of must do's for travellers visiting the city. When I was walking around the business district Taipei 101 didn't look that big but from up above you get a whole different sense of scale as well as an amazing view of Taipei's urban sprawl. On a clear day you can even see planes taking off from Songshan airport. Pretty cool!

Taipei has a huge wealth of noodle options, enough that it would be almost impossible to write about them all although I am of course going to try. The first noodle spot on my agenda was Vege Creek simply because it was the most frequent answer to the question "where's your favourite place to eat in Taipei". It seems that everyone loves it and for good reason. It's a simple modern vegan twist on a traditional concept, you rock up, grab a basket, fill it with your choice of greens, veggies, proteins and a noodle token and then take it to the counter where it'll be tallied up and cooked for you.

I was always amazed at the selection of things on offer and I love, love, loved the high level of customisation that goes into the meal. In the mood for tofu? Cool, there are three or four tofu options including yuba. Fancy adding something deep fried and delicious? No problem! Are you a straight up vegetable fan? That's cool too, you can load up on everything from pak choi and spinach to three or four kinds of mushrooms as well as green beans, aubergine, baby corn, seaweed knots and more. Noodle wise there are five kinds to choose from ranging from fried to spinach. I usually went with the ramen noodle option, as well as a little bunch of pak choi, a couple of varieties of mushroom (oyster is my absolute fave), some pumpkin, a handful of carrots, a couple of types of tofu and always some faux ham pieces.

Everything you choose will be braised in an aromatic spice and soy sauce flavoured stock which is a traditional Chinese cooking technique called Lu Wei. Usually my meal came out at around 200TWD / £4 / $5.50 which feels like a total bargain for such a delicious meal that's totally tailored to whatever you're craving that day. In the centre of the table you'll find mix ins like chilli sauce, sesame oil, pomelo dressing, toona (a Chinese herb from the mahogany tree that I'd never heard of until this trip), and sesame seeds which means that you can tweak the flavours even more. I loved every meal I ate at Vege Creek and if I could pick one place up from Taipei up and move it to wherever I end up living it'd totally be this one.

Top tip: There's a second branch of Vege Creek located in the basement food court of the Eslite building on DunHua South Road and a third inside the Breeze shopping centre on Song Gao Road.

Hot Pot is a dish that I fell in love with in Vietnam and have been dreaming of ever since. Loving Hut at Guangfu specialises in the dish and I headed there as soon as I realised that my cravings could be fulfilled. They have a huge range of broth options to choose from but the veggies and noodles stay the same. I thought that I'd communicated my need for a chilli free meal pretty clearly when I ordered a soy milky pumpkin broth but as is often the case something got lost in translation and there were a few very small pieces floating in the broth - we picked them out and I guess they'd been in there for a short enough time that I was a-ok and didn't break out in any kind of rash. Always a bonus at dinner!

This is probably one of my favourite Loving Huts, the menu isn't huge but everything I tried there was decent. Aside from the flavourful bubbling hot pots I would recommend trying the Chinese roti which is flavoured with toona and that is more like a cross between a thick savoury pancake and a scallion pancake than any roti I've ever seen. I also enjoyed the pumpkin soup and both the tofu and shrimp skewers. The apple pie ice cream cake is another win if you're in the market for something sweet and cold.

Top tip: If like me you can't live without bread there's an excellent bakery called GakuDen in-between Sun Yat Sen station and Loving Hut Guangfu. They label their vegan breads and I tried an excellent baguette, a fantastic olive filled ciabatta and some flavourful nutty wholewheat buns. Just look out for the Quan 1 symbol which denotes vegan food*! *In some cases you'll need to ask about honey as the symbol doesn't cover it but in this case all of the breads I asked about were bee product free.

Taipei can be a tough spot for a traveller on a limited budget especially if you don't have your own kitchen which is why the MiKai branch of Loving Hut is such a great find. I actually ordered the Wonton Soup which really isn't noodles but Nick went for the herb soup which is enough of a noodle-ful dish that I'll let this place slip into my noodle post.

These delicious brothy faux meat filled soups cost about 45TWD / £1 / $1.35 which is an unbelievable bargain that had me questioning my grasp of the exchange rate for a good few minutes.

Any regular reader of my blog knows that Japanese cuisine is where my heart's at so I was excited to read about Hoshina on Kip's blog when I was researching my trip to Taiwan. Hoshina is located in the foodie DaAn area just down the street from the Guangfu branch of Loving hut, it's 100% veggie and the menu clearly states which things are ovo or lacto vegan - their descriptions not mine. The dishes on the menu are simple and often make one thing the star. Udon noodles are their speciality and you can watch them being made through the window before you even enter the restaurant. I tried a few things from the menu but the standouts were the sesame tofu with wasabi, the fresher than fresh udon noodles served cold with a sesame dipping sauce and the seasonal asparagus special (not asparagus as I know it but a Chinese variety also known as dragon beard vegetable) which consisted of the vegetable and a thick flavourful sesame sauce that was reminiscent of a mild creamy peanut satay.

The noodles really did live up to the hype and they stand out as the best udon I've ever eaten. The asparagus special is something that I'm dying to recreate and I also enjoyed the black sesame tofu which came with an almost fruity miso dressing and the cabbage rolls whilst Nick was a fan of the spicy udon soup.

I can hardly believe that my time in Taiwan is over and that my travels had me landing in Hong Kong a few hours ago, this year is flying by! I've loved every minute spent exploring Taipei and I'm hoping that my posts will inspire you to push this great city to the top of your must-visit list. If you follow me on social media you know that after my month in Taipei I spent a couple of weeks travelling around Taiwan by train checking out hot springs, national parks and each city's vegan eats and I can't wait to tell you all about it next time. See ya then!

Oh hey there! After two weeks spent travelling around Taiwan and another week exploring Hong Kong I'm back in Tokyo. I last visited Japan in 2014 and fell in love. I've been dying to come back ever since and here I am. I literally couldn't be happier. I almost shed a tear as I was riding the Yamanote line yesterday because I had one of those I kinda can't believe that this is my life moments. Writing that felt weird. I'm scared that it sounded smug. I hope not. I guess part of the reason that I find it hard to believe that I get to be here again is because my life used to be so different. I used to live in a moulding basement flat with no electricity or hot water and a drug addict flatmate who did some pretty awful things to me. I also spend a lot of time analysing my privilege and I know that getting to travel this much is for sure a privilege so I just feel lucky a lot of the time.

One of the first places I went was Takeshita Street in Harajuku, a mecca for youth fashion and everything cute. A lot has changed since I was there last, fashions have obviously changed, I spotted a lot more cat unicorn hoodies and less heart shaped sunglasses on this first wander and I saw plenty of the heart window backpacks that have been popping up on the Tokyo fashion social media accounts I follow for a while now. There are also a whole lot more crepe places now that the whole Harajuku crepe trend is an internationally known phenomenon. There's also an unofficial mascot now and I loooove her!

Another thing that's new since I was last in Japan is that Starbucks now have a vegan doughnut! I'd actually never been to Starbucks until I came to Tokyo for the first time, I obviously hate their business practices but what can I say, I'm weak and the soy milk situation here is very dairy-ful. Without speaking the language a dairy free latte is not easy to come by. As they've upped their vegan game with this cake doughnut (ask for the cakey doughnut) I'm giving up on feeling guilty about capitalism for a sec' and embracing the deliciousness. Best enjoyed alongside a matcha soy latte!

T's Tan Tan was another obvious spot to revisit and Nick and I made it there yesterday. Located on Keiyo Street inside Tokyo Station this can be a challenging spot to find given the maze like nature of the station. Purchasing a platform ticket and just following signs for Keiyo Steet will get you there though, just keep walking. This is their new pork-style ramen which comes with pickles and dumplings. It was one of the best things I've eaten recently and I'll be going back again soon.

Whilst Nick and I were adventuring late last night we stumbled upon a parade of PomPomPurins in Shinjuku station! They're there to celebrate the pup's 20th birthday and I was SO EXCITED to see them! I love PomPomPurin!

So far being back in Japan just feels right, I mean where else in the world can you stumble across plushy life sized characters to cuddle in a place where everyone just waits for each other to take pictures before jumping in?! I kinda feel at home here which is weird given that I've probably spent 11 days here ever and that I can't even join a gym because I'm tattooed! I'm looking forward to seeing whether this feeling intensifies or changes completely over the next month.

Nick and I were lucky enough to snag a somewhat affordable Air B&B in the Koenji area of Tokyo, it's a cute area that's much more residential than where we stayed last time but that still has fun looking bars, 24 hour convenience stores, veggie restaurants and interesting second hand shops. This is our little kitchen, the one-burner no-oven thing is normal for Japan and the fridge, microwave and toaster oven are just the other side of the curtain in the lounge area. There are no work surfaces so I smooshed my tofu in a bowl the sink before whipping up a tofu scramble this morning.

It's been raining all day today so we spent the morning shopping for hair dye (me!), headphones (Nick!) and chocolate (to share!) and then grabbed some onigiri and inari tofu from the convenience store for lunch before spending the afternoon cuddled up on the sofa re-watching Lost in Translation for the millionth time and scoffing the majority of the chocolate.

If you enjoy white chocolate and haven't tried the iChoc White Vanilla bar yet you need to get on it ASAP. I don't know what I've been waiting for, it's on the Food Empowerment Project's "Yay list" (as I call it) and it's by far the best vegan white chocolate I've ever tried. It's seriously so good! I'm also excited about fiiiiinally getting to fix my hair, my roots are a disaster and my pink is super faded. It's so much to be reunited with fun cruelty free hair stuff. I also made a little trip to LUSH yesterday because the prices in Hong Kong were pretty extortionate. I picked up a tub of their herbalism cleanser which I'm hoping will sort out the spot sitch' going on on my face, my skin's been breaking out all over the place recently which is strange given that I've never been prone to them before. I think it's the combo of constant climate changes, sun cream and the fact that I'm the worst and maybe remember to wash my face once a week! I know. I'm gross! I'll be back with some Tokyo food pic's, Hong Kong info and updates on my travels around Taiwan soon but for now I'll just be here enjoying my favourite place in the world.

Being back in Tokyo is throwing up so many feelings, I love it here so much that if you told me I could move here tomorrow I'd be beyond overjoyed but being here for so long with no specific purpose has me thinking hard about the different experiences you have somewhere when you're on holiday vs travelling vs settling somewhere. Last time Nick and I were here we weren't really sticking to a strict budget but this time is different, our SE Asia appropriate travel budget doesn't stretch anywhere near as far in Japan as it did in Thailand, Vietnam, Laos or Taiwan so we're having to be a little more careful than usual. When it's been cold out we've been chillaxing under a pile of blankets at the Air B&B rather than catching a movie and we're eating meals at home at least once or twice a day. Our biggest travel expense is almost always food - I can skip an expensive touristy thing like heading to the top of the highest building in favour of exploring an area on foot for a day; popping into shops, admiring the street art and just soaking in the atmosphere, but I'm never going to skip a meal! So far my favourite breakfast / lunch / dinner spot is T's Tan Tan which I mentioned last time. I love it - it's super reasonably priced and filling as well as being delicious and I love that ramen is a meal suitable for any time of day.

Ain Soph Ripple is another contender for fave' restaurant - it's a casual burger place with a small but totally excellent menu. I'm obsessed with both the cheese fries and the crispy chicken burger.

The cheese fries are made with Sheese and on my last visit I was excited to learn they they make the chicken patties themselves from shredded soy meat, wheat gluten and other yummies. They also have the best buns. You know when you get a burger and it looks like it should be great but the bun is totally inflexible making it impossible to fit in your mouth? Well Ripple's burger buns are the polar opposite of that sad scenario. They're substantial whilst being perfectly soft and they make this burger superior to 99.9% of the other burgers in the world - I mentioned on Instagram that they're currently sharing the top spot in my mind with an Arlo's burger which is the highest possible compliment.

On Monday I met up with a whole load of lovely vegans at Ain Soph's Ripple location as one of the women who works there decided to arrange a little vegan junk food meet up before her shift started - it was so cool to meet some Japanese vegans as well as Westerners living in Japan.

As well as chatting about music, sharing food and getting some essential and super helpful Japanese language tips Nick and I were also able to get the lowdown on being vegan in Japan including discovering where to buy black salt, which brands of tonkatsu sauce (or just sauce as it's often known here) are vegan and where the best doughnuts are at. In my last post I mentioned the doughnuts from Starbucks but these might be even better! Doughnut Plant's doughnuts are epic and as of right now there are four kinds to choose from, two baked doughnuts, one soy milk and one soy caramel, and two seasonal doughnuts glazed with cranberry or soy caramel. Nick and I swung by their Shinjuku location and grabbed a seasonal soy cranberry and a seasonal soy caramel to share.

We devoured them immediately and holy yum were they good! The soy cranberry was my favourite, the glaze was tart and flavourful and I liked that the soy caramel wasn't overpowering or boarding on sickly. Last time I was in Japan doughnut plant doughnuts were eggless but there weren't any vegan options due to some supplier issues, I'm super excited that the soy milk doughnuts are back in the game and I'll definitely be grabbing these again.

In-between eating, meet up's and more eating I've been managing to fit in time for a little non-food related shopping. I was flicking through some photos from my '14 Japan trip last week and I realised that I was wearing the exact same clothes as I'd brought with me on this trip! I basically live in a black denim skirt, leggings and a black hoodie. I also realised that every single one of the 16 items of clothing in my packing cube fall within the black / grey spectrum. I'm usually cool with that, if you're going to travel with a tiny capsule wardrobe it may as well all match but I just couldn't stick with it here. Harajuku street styles have been shaping my fashion related choices (if you can call them that) ever since I first flicked through a Fruits book in Brighton as a teen and I just couldn't deal with wearing the same handful of outfits I've been wearing for almost 15 months any longer!

Last time I was in Tokyo I struggled to find any clothes that fit me, I was probably a size smaller then but clothes here are made for people with completely different body shapes to mine so I spent my time hunting for accessories which is always my fave kinda shopping. After my trip I did a little research into plus sized shopping in Japan because whilst I was there I totally saw adorably dressed women on the street who didn't fit into the narrow range of sizes sold in most stores and I was determined to find out where they were shopping. One place that came up again and again was Punyus where I bought the skirt I'm wearing in the picture. I've wanted a skirt like this since I first saw Bianca Stratford all dressed up for prom in 10 Things I Hate About You! It makes me feel fancy and yay for stores with skirts that go past mid thigh! I also finally bought a denim jacket because it's far too cold here for just a hoodie and a thin jumper to work, the day I bought this I was wearing a Herbivore vest, two t-shirts, a jumper and a hoodie as well as a scarf and a hat and I was freezing so it was a necessary purchase. Not so necessary but totally adorable is this pastel panda jumper and a selection of bracelets, hair bands and badges. Love. Love. Love.

From clothes straight back to my main love, food, despite being crazy in love with the iChoc white chocolate from my last blog post 594¥/ £3.65/ $5.22 a bar is a little unsustainable when you eat as much chocolate as I do on an ideal day. You can buy Lindt chocolate for less but it's not Food Empowerment Project certified so it's a no-go for me. I decided to look into doing an iHerb order and discovered that shipping to Japan is actually even faster and cheaper than to the UK! Nick and I dove right in and ordered a whole load of Alter Eco and Vivani bars for just 385¥/ £2.35/ $3.38 each. Much more sustainable!

We also got some Clif bars and Surf Sweets (for the junk food meet up) as well as a face mask that I should have checked the size of before purchasing. I'm gonna have to face mask pretty regularly to use all of this before flying to South Korea in June! If you live anywhere in the world and want to give iHerb a whirl you'll get $5 off of your first order if you use my code which is JOJ321. Alter Eco chocolate (get the Quinoa bar!) and Peanut Butter Clif bars aside my fave' items to order from there include Hurrah lip balms, Giovanni leave in conditioner (although for some reason it's illegal to ship this to Japan!), Dandies marshmallows and Earth Balance White Cheddar Puffs.

What else is new? My hair is now blonde with a little pink, I'm saving the purple I bought for when it's warm enough so sit around in my underwear dying my hair for two hours! My skin's already getting better after a week using LUSH's Herbalism which is a huge yay. I'm having some serious writers block when it comes to tackling the backlog of Taiwan and Hong Kong writing I have to do, I think I'm just so wrapped up in Tokyo that I don't want to write about anything else so that's what I'm going to keep doing for now. My search for Kewpie mayo continues... there are actually other brands of egg free vegan mayo but I've become a little obsessed with trying this iconic brand! As soon as I've tracked it down (or admitted defeat) I intend to whip up some okonomiyaki, I've always wanted to try it and where better to make it than in Japan where the ingredients should be easy to come by? I've been eyeing up both this recipe and this recipe (if I can work out how to replace the vegg) or perhaps this one although I don't have a blender. Let me know in the comments if you have any other recipe suggestions but keep in mind that I don't have any cookbooks or egg replacers and I can't eat chickpea flour.

See ya next time!

Being away from home is the hardest when your friends are going through the toughest of times. You can't be there for them in the way that you'd like and you end up with a feeling of helplessness mixed with sadness mixed with I don't know what else. Feeling like this also got me thinking that I don't even know where I consider home to be anymore, for years it's been Brighton but honestly my friends are so scattered (thanks to the joy of connecting with wonderful people online!) that I don't consider any one place home these days. I honestly have no idea where I'm going to end up when I stop travelling... if I stop travelling. I love Brighton but I don't know if it's going to be quite the right fit for me after this journey which is gonna be hella confusing given that I've been Vegan in Brighton for years. How do you move away from somewhere that's such a huge part of who you are?!

I'm still madly in love with Tokyo despite the fact that we're going through another cold snap here. It hit 8º C yesterday but the wind bites at your exposed skin making it feel even colder. Despite the chill I ventured out to meet up with some of the vegans I hung out with last week as well as some new peeps at T's Restaurant which is run by the same people who own and run everybody's favourite spot T's TanTan. It was so fun and the food was amazing. I ordered a cheesy baked rice dish with a side of soy chicken with mayonnaise dressing and salad as well as a chocolate parfait for dessert.

The rice casserole was perfectly creamy and delicious but the parfait was killer. As soon as I finished eating I was already looking at my calendar and working out when to go back to eat it again. The whipped cream was layered with caramel ice cream, chocolate sauce, bananas, macadamia nuts, cake croutons, pumpkin seeds, and crunchy corn flakes which is such a genius idea that I'll be adding them to any and all parfait's I make in the future. T's have a broader range of dishes to choose from on the dinner menu including one of my favourite dishes ever, lasagne, so I suspect a re-visit is gonna be on the cards! Meeting vegans whilst travelling is the best and I'm hoping to squeeze in a little hanami party with my new friends before Nick and I skip town and head for cat land!

I spent a lot of this week exploring Koenji, the area I'm staying in, because when the weather's cold you don't always want to stray far from home. Also we chose the area because we read that it was cute and quirky with fun independent stores and, of course, vegan eats.

Everything is so cute here! We haven't found any vegan soft serve yet (although I've heard a rumour that Go Muffins Go might do it) and I have definitely been looking at people's sakura soft serve cones with just the tiniest bit of jealousy. Earlier I quipped that I'd kill for sakura soft serve and then quickly took it back remembering that you have to kill a cow for dairy ice cream and um, just no! Not cool! In amongst the American themed retro and vintage stores that have flooded the area south of Koenji's station we've stumbled upon cat themed stores, supermarkets, fruit & veg stalls and an excellent liquor store where I picked up a little bottle of limited edition matcha Khalua. We also discovered Sempre Pizza which has one vegan pie on the menu, a classic marinara, which is perfectly delicious as well as a total bargain at 410¥.

We've also eaten huge plates of soy meat and chips at punk rock styled gastro bar Vespera's Falafel and scoped out the menu at Meunota. Hopefully we'll make it there soon!

Elsewhere in Tokyo I've been putting shopping on the back burner in favour of eating and art-ing. Sadly there are only so many clothes and accessories a person can fit into a 38L backpack although I did go on a sticker purchasing spree at Tokyu Hands yesterday. Stickers are small okay!

Hananda Rosso was a fave' from our last sojourn in the city and we hit them up for burgers the other day after a stroll through Harajuku. It was just as delicious as I remembered and I can see us heading back again soon.

Starbucks Japan have knocked it outa the park with their new range of soy whipped cream and this special limited edition Matcha Soy Whip Frap. It's excellent although it hasn't replaced my hot matcha latte yet - it's just too cold for me to drink something so icy, Nick's all over it though! I really hope that the soy whip is popular enough that it sticks around.

Don't you love that they give you a soy milk sticker here? They also hand you a soy milk card which you trade for your drink just to make sure that there haven't been any mix up's along the way.

Doughnuts have of course featured in my week! As the season has changed and spring is in the air Doughnut Plant NYC's seasonal cranberry and caramel doughnuts have disappeared and have been replaced with matcha and strawberry. I tried the matcha once but I wasn't a fan, it was too strong for me with too much of a bitter matcha aftertaste, but the strawberry is stellar. Last Saturday we got up early and ventured to the Farmer's Market at the UN University with both bread and muffins in our sights. The market had a bread theme and vegan bread was easy to come by but Go Muffins Go were the stars of the show.

Their impressive muffin display almost cleared out my wallet before the day had really begun but it was so worth it. Who can say no to flavours like choco banana, strawberry choc chip and tomato with onions and sake lees? Delicious. I love, love, loved that they had a savoury muffin option - I'm the person who will go for the pizza scroll over the cinnamon roll nine times outa ten so it's always much appreciated when people keep us savoury lovers in mind. After wandering around the market and doing a little window shopping we popped to Cori Vegan Food Stand at Omotesando's 246 market, an upscale food truck lot with permanent carts and stands. Cori is, as far as I could tell, the only vegan dining option there but the menu is so great that they have you covered whatever you're in the market for.

I went for the vegetable bowl and Nick chose the potato salad baguette. Both were excellent but my bowl was clearly the winning choice despite it being served on a plate! It came with soy meat nuggets, scrambled tofu, mushrooms, salad and brown rice and was covered in a totally delicious sauce. There's also a spicy option if that's your jam. I'll be revisiting Cori as soon as the weather warms up enough that sitting outside seems fun, crossing my fingers that it happens soon!

When it's chilly out museums are always a good option and the Ōta Memorial Museum of Art in Shibuya was top of my list.

It's a small museum and it's focus is firmly on wood block prints. With only around 70 works on show at a time it'll take around an hour to check it out. You can't take pictures inside the museum but the main reason that it piqued my interest is that there was a special exhibit of Hokusai's work including the super famous The Great Wave of Kanagawa. It was great to finally see it in the flesh alongside some of the other wood block prints from the Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuju series most of which I'd never seen before.

One spot we were more than willing to brave the cold for was the Gotokuji temple. I first spotted this place when browsing the Tokyo hashtag on Instagram because everyone's pics were of Maneki Neko or lucky cats. I was excited to check them out because they're pretty cute en masse!

So adorable!

Oh and I finally made Okonomiyaki! I didn't use any of the recipes I linked to last time but a new one that a friend sent me a link to on Twitter. It's from VegNews and is a Terry Hope recipe so I had high hopes that it'd be delicious. It uses nagaimo, or Chinese yam, as a binder / starch which was perfect as it's a vegetable I'd seen at countless markets here and had no idea what it was let alone what to use it for. It's super sticky inside and when grated the thing it's closest to texture wise is egg white - vegetables are cool and weird!

This was a pretty solid first attempt, I think I overdid it a little on the tonkatsu sauce which was a little overpowering and I think I'll tweak the recipe a little next time. I want to try adding black salt and maybe a little baking powder but there will definitely be a next time - it's such a great snack / breakfast / dinner option!

Exploring aside one way that I'm trying to make the most of my time in Japan is by reading and listening to books that are set here as well as (very slowly) learning Japanese and getting started on the first notes and scribbles for a Japan zine! Eeek! I'm currently listing to Murakami's Wild Sheep Chase. I've never listened to an audio book before and I can't tell whether I'm enjoying it or not. I find the narrator's American accent distracting especially when he puts on a high pitched voce for the women's side of conversations - is that usual in audio books? Can they not hire a woman so that the conversation flows more normally? I blame the patriarchy. Reading wise I'm getting stuck into The Book of Tokyo which is a collection of ten short stories set in Tokyo. I've also read My Year of Meats, Strange Weather in Tokyo, The Guest Cat and some Murakami - Norwegian Wood, Wind/Pinball and Colourless Tsukuru Tazaki plus the aforementioned audio book. Do you have any Japanese book rec's? I'm not into anything violent or scary though, no horror, crime or thrillers!

I've already started my next Tokyo post because the blossoms are popping out and I am delighted by their presence. I swear that I am also writing about Taiwan and Hong Kong in fits and bursts here and there but I feel like I need to share Tokyo with you right now y'know?! I hope you're enjoying reading about it as much as I'm enjoying writing about it!

I wasn't kidding when I recently described Harajuku as my spiritual home. I adore everything about spending hours wandering the crowded streets whether I'm shopping with money burning a hole in my pocket or with no cash at all. It's always a joy. Having grown up inspired by the fashions coming out of this area of Tokyo getting to take part in the Harajuku Fashion Walk last weekend felt like a conclusion of a dream! I felt nervous going along to the meeting point, I thought that perhaps my style isn't quite out-there enough for the walk these days. A very white Air B&B bathroom means that my hair is still blonde not mauve and most of my clothes are in storage! Still, I headed to the meeting point and bumped into an Instagram friend and some of her friends who were also visiting Tokyo and we quickly bonded over group photo awkwardness and our shared love of everything Japanese.

I didn't take a single picture during the walk as I was being swept along in the fun of it all but Nick snapped this one in front of MoshiMoshi Box, you can see Harajuku Fashion Walk organiser Junnyan in the foreground! As soon as the walk and subsequent photoshoot were over we hightailed it back to Takeshita Street to get our Purikura on. I love these ridiculous booths and it turns out that six people really is the upper limit if you want all of your faces in the frame!

No visit to Tokyo would be complete without a visit to some kinda crazy cafe, maid cafe's are off of my list due to the creepy dude factor and the robot cafe is hugely pricy but the Sebastian Masuda designed Kawaii Monster Cafe hits all of the right buttons in terms of style and price. The cake shaped merry-go-round is amazing, our booth in the Mushroom Disco was the coolest and even the toilets there are fun and colourful.

Of course there was no vegan food on the menu which is a shame because vegan Rainbow Spaghetti followed by a Colourful Poison Cake Parfait would have been uh-mazing but we managed to find a couple of non-milky drinks on the menu. This is the Druggy Cocktail Experiment, it didn't taste very boozy and pouring the colourful syrup and alcohol into the fizzy drink was fun.

This is a total a must-visit in my mind, I'd highly recommend it especially if you can time it so that you arrive in time for one of the shows where the staff / performers dance to fun pop songs on the carousel. Good times!

I decided recently that I'd like to inject a little more body positivity into my corner of the blogosphere as it's something that's quite lacking in the vegan blog world. There are some great body-posi vegan bloggers out there, Lacy and Jenny immediately spring to mind, but nowhere near as many as there are "health" focussed / clean eating peeps and that needs to change.

I mentioned my issues with Purikura's editing of photos last week but something I've become more aware of recently is just how much people edit their own photographs when posting to social media! It isn't just machines that make your skin whiter and your "blemishes" disappear, there are apps for that too! There are even apps that you hold up to your face that make make-up appear. As someone whose eyes are wide open to the beauty industry's shit I probably shouldn't be surprised by this stuff. I made the decision to stop wearing make up on a daily basis years ago after a colleague of mine told me that she could never live without make up. I started questioning my reasons for putting on make up every day and decided to stop until I worked out why I never left the house without at least eyeliner, eyeshadow and mascara. I don't really wear make up anymore aside from the odd bit of eye make up, splash of lip colour or sprinkling of glitter on fancy occasions and I've been travelling with just a mascara and a tinted lip gloss for 16 months now. This shouldn't be an achievement but it feels like it is.

As a feminist I'm hyper-aware of how pervasive societal standards of beauty are and a couple of years ago I decided to make a concerted effort to practice radical self love and to be body positive all the damn time. Even when it's really freaking hard. Even when I notice that I've gained some weight because my bikini no longer fits, even when my skin breaks out, even when I'm having one of those days where I look in the mirror and somehow feel uglier than I did the day before. This is just what happens when beauty norms and unrealistic standards of beauty team up and make my brain play tricks on me! You can't just become uglier overnight! Beauty is such a horrible way to judge yourself anyway, like, how is that in any way as important as being quick witted or compassionate or an amazing photographer? And where did these standards even come from? Who decides what is and isn't considered beautiful? That's a rhetorical question. If you look at art throughout the ages, whether that's 17th century oil paintings or modern day photography, you can see how much what's considered ideal and attractive has changed so why buy into today's standards and ideals?

One thing that's really helped me on my body positivity journey is diversifying my social media. I learnt this trick from Jess Baker and it works! I stopped following people who only post very photoshopped pictures of themselves and started following people like RadFatVegan, BodyPosiPanda and Jess Baker herself. I like to check out the #effyourbeautystandards tag to see babely bodies of all shapes, sizes and gender identities. I'm not saying that I never have a non body-posi thought but I'm so much more aware of what these thought are now - rubbish. I ask myself, would you ever think that about someone else's body? 100 times out of 100 the answer is no, of course not, and if I wouldn't think it about my best friend then I shouldn't be thinking it about myself. I know that being a cis gendered, white lady who's just hanging out on the chubby side of what society deems acceptable means that I have it easier than a lot of people when it comes to seeing myself represented in the media - I imagine that a whole host of things that I can't comprehend, anything from gender dysphoria to mental / physical health issues, can affect your body positivity journey, but I feel like diversifying your social media so that your feed is filled with as many different body types as possible would be a positive step for anyone.

Years ago I would never have put this picture out there in the world, I may have even deleted it because my face looks a little chubby or because it's not a "flattering angle" whatever the hell that means. Fuck flattering. This picture reminds me of a moment in time where I was laughing and happy and having the best goddamn time. It's cute as fuck!

The day after our Kawaii Monster Cafe extravaganza Nick and I met up with our new pals Chelsea, Mel and Em for burgers and cheese fries at Ain Soph Ripple and then a couple of days after that, on their last day in town, we had a little hanami picnic at Yoyogi Park. Last time Nick and I were in Tokyo we loved seeing everyone hanging out beneath the blossoms sharing food and laughing with friends and this year we got to join in on the fun!

We all brought delicious vegan eats to share including inari tofu, salted and ume onigiri, doughnuts from Doughnut Plant NYC, limited edition sakura Pepsi, vanilla ice cream, pudding and strawberry flavoured soy milks, nori and plum flavoured crisps and, of course, pizza!

I love Sempre Pizza for being a cheap and delicious vegan pizza option, that was something that was sorely lacking on our last trip to Tokyo, and whilst I love Japanese food sometimes you jut need something wheat filled and garlicky and comforting!

Our hanami party was even joined by an adorable little dog who was having a picnic with her human friends. She had no interest in our snacks, she just wanted us to stroke her and we were more than happy to oblige!

Post-picnic, as dusk crept into darkness, we took one last walk down Takeshita Street - for this trip anyway! I hope we'll all be back in Japan together one day - perhaps we really will start the vegan crepe restaurant of our dreams?!

I can't believe I'm leaving Tokyo tomorrow. This month feels like it's gone really fast but when I think back to the activities of my first few days here it feels like forever ago. I'm excited about heading north to get stuck into another volunteer project. It's no secret that I love cats so getting to be surrounded by them all day every day is going to be dreamy but I am of course feeling anxious about the challenges ahead (hopefully not as great as at my last volunteer gig!) as well as the living sitch'. The accommodation consists of a shared space with at least four other people as well as Nick and I. I guess it'll be like sharing a hostel dorm, but as someone who likes solitude and alone time (or just straight up couple time if ya know what I mean!) and who usually books a single / double room at a hostel it's going to throw me out of my comfort zone. Bring it on!

I left Tokyo exactly two weeks ago yesterday and as is usual for me I took a lil' blogging break whilst I was getting settled in my new space. Inawashiro feels like a different world compared to Tokyo, the pace of life is incredibly different as is the way I'm spending my days. Nick and I are volunteering at Japan Cat Network where we're managing a team of volunteers as well as their social media. On top of that I'm trying to work on fundraising ideas and community outreach but those have taken a back seat as I work on more pressing things; getting to know the cats, learning how to use Facebook and cleaning and tidying a mountain of things. This is the house we're currently sharing with five people, 23 cats and two dogs!

The house has three cat rooms filled with kitties with all sorts of different personalities, foibles, likes and dislikes and bonding with some of them is definitely a challenging process. Most of the cats here were rescued from the exclusion zone in Fukushima so we don't know most of their histories. It's clear that some had homes and families and we suspect that some did not. Nick and I have picked some of the most challenging kitties and are spending a little time each day trying to make friends with them. Each cat room has an outdoor space and some of the kitties love to sit and watch the world go by. These kitties are Peanut and Claude who are BFFs!

Sleeping arrangements at the shelter are interesting, for the first week Nick and I slept in separate bunk beds alongside another volunteer in a curtained off area in the living room. After someone left to travel around Japan we swiftly stole her space and have managed to squeeze ourselves into this area in the loft just above the living area. It's a cute and cosy space with absolutely no privacy at all!

If I stretch out in bed my feet touch the feet of another volunteer and both him and the woman who sleeps in the curtained off area next to his need to walk past our "room" to get anywhere. It's cute though and I'm beyond appreciative of the free accommodation despite the um, challenges, it throws up but it turns out that 10 days is my breaking point for living like this. Day 10 was when I started plotting an overnight escape and today, day 12, was when Nick booked a hotel in Sendai because he's worried I may have some kinda breakdown without a break from our new living arrangements. I'm eagerly awaiting the end of my shift tomorrow and my day off on Friday because as well as a quiet, peaceful hotel room where you don't have to pick up other peoples socks, listen to their guitar playing or move their washing up to get to the sink Sendai also has a T's Tan Tan where I will be eating my bodyweight in food that I didn't have to cook for myself.

During our first week here I totally lost my cooking mojo. Despite having an oven for the first time in almost a year I wasn't really feeling it in the kitchen and all I ate for about a week were Clif bars, 7/eleven onigiri, bread (from a mix), tofu scramble and bananas. I think the new living sitch' combined with the increased workload just made me reach for anything quick, easy and delicious. After a week I reached out to my Twitter pals, got them to toss some suggestions my way, and headed to the second nearest supermarket which is much better than the closer one and, really, what's an extra five minutes added onto a 40 minute journey? Our walk to the supermarket consists of fields, quiet streets and the odd house here and there. In winter when the mountains are covered in snow the area is a lot busier, apparently it's the same in summer when Lake Inawashiro draws an influx of visitors that rival the crowds of winter ski and snowboard freaks but currently we're in-between seasons so it's almost eerily peaceful.

We found a lot of fantastic things at the supermarket; fun veggies, accidentally vegan pancake mix, sugar syrup, miso, tots (you can't even get tots in England!), macaroni and more. Within a few hours I'd whipped up some garlicky tomato sauce for spaghetti which was deliciously simple. Next Nick made pancakes from the mix which were uh-mazing, better than most of the pancakes I've made from scratch but that isn't saying a lot as Nick is the pancake queen in our house.

Nick also whipped up an amazing mac and cheese sauce starting with a simple oil based roux and adding soy milk, miso, nooch, garlic powder, dijon mustard, salt and pepper. It was perfect and creamy and we'll definitely be making it again.

Since then my kitchen mojo is well and truly back with a vengeance and I'm eating similarly to the way I used to eat at home - loads of carbs, not enough veggies, more than the occasional dessert, lots of yumminess. I made Okonomiyaki, whipped up a dip based on the crock cheeze from the Uncheese Cookbook, veganised a box mix gingerbread cake using applesauce, roasted potatoes with thyme and salt, made a coleslaw with a simple mayo, soy milk and lemon juice dressing, and whipped up the Marbled Banana Bread from The PPK for a fellow volunteers birthday. Of course I sometimes fall back on my favourite packet ramen from Natural House fancied up with some pak choi and oyster mushrooms after a long day of tidying, cleaning, cat petting and dog walking but sometimes that's as much effort as you can put into a meal and that's a-ok.

There are two dogs living at the shelter, Addy and Chacha. They've both been here for five years now and whilst they love the company of volunteers they are very much in need of a forever home. The constant changes and lack of stability that come with somewhere being solely run by volunteers can't be good for them. They need to be adopted together because they are best friends in the truest sense of the words, where Addy goes, Chacha goes and they really do make the most adorable pair.

Chacha.

Addy and I celebrating a volunteers birthday! She didn't get any cake.

And then of course there are the cats, if I'm completely honest I've been too busy using my limited time (the time not spend hauling stuff out from underneath tarps, putting on load after load of laundry, scrubbing, cleaning and tidying) playing, stroking and petting the cats to take many pictures. I don't keep my phone on me at all times and when you're heading into a cat room with a basket full of food bowls in one hand and a hoover in the other the last thing on my mind is my camera! I have taken a few shots and hopefully, when the majority of the tidying and organising is done, there'll be more time for both cat pictures and fancying up the cat rooms to make their lives here even more fun.

Simon.

Chibi and Tart

Penny

Maya

Just like Addy and Chacha all of the cats have been here for at least five years, there's one group of five, a group of six and then a group of 12 very frightened cats. They're all looking for homes but I keep hearing differing things about whether we'll adopt to places outside of Japan. Socialising some of the cats is hard, there are cats in Room B, where the 12 frightened cats live, that still run from me as soon as I enter the room and there are cats in there that'll take a treat from my hand. Penny (pictured above) will let me stroke her if I approach slowly whilst she's sitting on the bed but anywhere else? Hell no! She'll give me a good claws-out whack on the hand if I try to stoke her whilst she's wandering past me as I read or if I try to give her a little tickle behind the ear before feeding time. I'm learning that cats are even more complex than I thought and that I'm at once desperate to make them all my friends and scared of getting too attached. I'm looking forward to what the next six weeks holds and I'll be getting back to my regular posting schedule asap!

Tokyo Disneyland is going to be an interesting experience for those well versed in Disney parks as well as Disney newbies like Nick and I. The queueing is unlike any other theme park we've ever attended but if you go in with a plan you're sure to have a fun day.

The first decision you need to make is which park to visit. There are two Tokyo parks, Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea. Both are conveniently located in the same place right by Maihama station but they're worlds apart when it comes to rides. After watching some helpful videos on the Disney website we ascertained that Tokyo Disney Sea is the park with the scariest rides and therefor wasn't for us! I prefer something more mellow, think Professor Burps Bubbleworks not the Flying Carpet. I can get down with little rollercoasters but I prefer not to go upside down and I don't like that feeling where you plummet towards the ground leaving your stomach a few meters above you and Nick can't deal with things that spin... it was at this point that we wondered whether we should really be going to a theme park at all but we wanted to give it a shot as we were doubtful that we'd ever end up at any of the other Disney parks.

Nick has less patience when it comes to queueing than I do (weird given that he is the more patient one in almost any other situation!) so he did a tonne of research and read a lot of blog posts about how to get the most out of a one day visit to Tokyo Disneyland and I'm going to share what we learnt with you.

My first tip is to check the crowd calendar. Tokyo is the most populated city on earth and the Disney parks are only a short ride on the metro from the centre meaning that it's busy, busy, busy all the time. We were there on a yellow day (76) and we saw queues of 200 minutes for the most popular rides at peak times. Japanese school holidays are of course at different time of year to those in the rest of the world so don't assume it'll be quiet aside from during the July - August summer holidays!

Tip number two, once you've decided on an appropriate day buy your tickets in advance. You can purchase tickets from booths at convenience stores if you can read Japanese but if not I'd recommend getting them from the Disney Store in Shibuya.

Tip number three! Arrive early. Not 9am early, 7am early. You want to be in the queue outside with your tickets in hand by 7:30am at the latest. Yes, this means that you'll probably have to get up at 5am. Yes, it's totally worth it. If you don't arrive early you'll miss out on all of the Fast Pass goodness and your day will be considerably less fun.

This moves us nicely to tip number four, make a plan. You don't want to be left standing staring at the map you downloaded a PDF of on your phone wondering where to go first when the gates have opened because you need to get on it fast. People run. Disney have people everywhere smiling at you and welcoming you to the park but also telling you to slow down and to stop running. You can get away with a very swift walk! Your plan may well be different depending on which rides you're most excited about but here's a rundown of what Nick and I did. Firstly we fast-walked to the Monsters Inc ride to get a FastPass.

This is tip five, utilise Fast Passes. With queues often hovering around the two hour mark you're going to want to use the fast passes. For those of you who are not familiar these passes mean that you can skip the queue to your chosen ride. Use them for the rides with the longest queue times to get the most out of them. To get a FastPass head to the FastPass booth located by your chosen ride, put your ticket under the scanner and take your pass. You get a one hour window to come back and ride and you can get your next FastPass after two hours or the start time of your current pass has passed, whatever comes first. We got our Monsters inc FastPass at 8:05 and our window was from 9:45 - 10:45. As soon as we had our passes in hand we fast-walked to Pooh's Hunny Hunt. It's vegan because Pooh is a bear and it's a-ok for him to eat honey!

This was one of our top choice rides and it was SO fun. The wait at that time of the morning was only 30 minutes which was pretty amazing when you compared it to the queue times later in the day. I won't ruin the surprise of what happens during the ride but the Tigger section was super cool! After ticking ride one of the day off of the list we headed to the Haunted Mansion for ride two because we still had an hour before we could get a new FastPass or ride the Monster's Inc ride. It was super spooky and they have some really cool special effects going on in there - it's a little different to the much loved and often mocked Haunted Mansion ride on Brighton Pier that's for sure. We had a few moments to spare after riding the Haunted Mansion to soak in some of the Disney magic as we wandered over to Big Thunder Mountain Railroad to get our next FastPass. BTMR was a ride that we were both excited about and we knew the queues would be long so fast passing was the only option to save our sanity. On the way over we saw that the queue times for Splash Mountain were already over 140 minutes but thanks to our research we knew a sneaky tip to get around that!

Tip six, utilise the single rider queue on Splash Mountain. If you go up to the FastPass queue for Splash Mountain and say "single rider" you'll be funnelled into a special queue designed to fill any empty seats left by groups of three or five or whatever. It does mean that you'll be riding with some new friends rather than the ones you came with but I'd rather do the that stand in an unnecessary queue!

Moving on, with our new FastPass tickets safely secured in my jacket pocket we headed back to Tomorrowland to ride the Monsters Inc ride. It was another fun one and again seeing the queue made us glad that we'd had the foresight to FastPass it. This wall is just around the corner from the store and it's where every single group of Japanese kids visiting the park takes a group photo!

They're all more adorable than us because the majority of Japanese kids visiting the park with their friends will have some kinda coordinated outfit going on. Maybe they'll just have co-ordinating minnie mouse bow headbands or matching three-eyed squeeze toy alien hats but you'll also see groups in full on matching outfits. It's seriously one of the most fun places to people watch ever!

We rode a couple of the rides that we weren't super excited about after Monster's Inc because the queues were so short that it was worthwhile. It's a Small World is something I'd heard of - apparently the song's a big deal or something, it didn't feature in my childhood as far as I can remember but any ride involving a tiny boat is good with me! We also checked out Snow White's Adventure which we enjoyed more than we thought we would. After that we checked out Tom Sawyer Island and rode the super sedate Western River Railroad before grabbing our next FastPass for Star Tours.

After our super fun ride on Big Thunder Mountain Railroad we wondered whether we could FastPass and go again because it was so much fun but passes for it had already closed. By this point our stomaches were growling and we decided that it was clearly time for a snack and a sit down. This moves us nicely onto tip number seven, if you're vegan take your own food. Tokyo Disney have a whole load of allergy guides on their website but none of them are overly helpful for vegans as meat and most fish products are not allergens. They also state that if you have allergies that cannot be met by the park's allergy menus that you can bring your own food. Our bags were searched at the entrance and we had no issues at all despite having bags that were clearly stuffed full of inari tofu, onigiri, Clif bars, bananas (bad choice btw), Happy Date bars, Chip Star crisps and chocolate. I've heard rumours that there's a vegan cheeseless pizza on the menu at the Pan Galactic Pizza Port in Tomorrowland and that Eastside Cafe in the World Bazaar has a vegan pasta dish. The pizza option is intriguing for sure, although I can't see anything about it on the online menu, but 2000¥ for slightly dubious pasta with tomato sauce? I'm good with my own snacks thanks! Now if you're bringing a picnic you're meant to eat at the designated picnic ares just outside the park but we decided that we'd just eat one snack at a time on a bench inside the park whilst people watching. I don't think that our munching on onigiri was ruining the magic for anyone!

My eighth and ninth tips are pretty simple but take a reusable water bottle and wear comfortable shoes. There are drinking water fountains all over the park. Drinks aren't that pricy compared to what you'd pay at a UK theme park but why pay for water when you can get it for free? The shoes part should be a given but I can see how a pair of red glitter heels might seem like a great part of your Disney co-ord! Before you choose your cutest shoes keep in mind that Nick and I walked 13.6 miles during our day at Disney and in anything other than my Sketchers I think my feet would have given up long before the park closed.

Our FastPass time for Star Tours wasn't until 4:40 so we had some more time to check out some of the smaller rides. We hopped onto the Jungle Cruise Wildlife Expedition, rode the slightly dull Mark Twain Riverboat and I had a ride on the carousel. We then grabbed our next FastPasses for Buzz Lightyear - by this time of day there were none left for any of the major rides so we were glad that we'd decided that Space Mountain would have been too scary for us anyway. Star Tours was by far the scariest ride of the day, it's a simulator but hoo-boy did that thing drop us all the way from outer space into the sea in a terrifyingly real fashion. I gripped onto my armrest for the duration of the ride and then leant on a wall outside feeling a little queasy for ten minutes afterwards!

After checking out the carousel one more time Nick and I headed to the Dream Lights Parade which was super fun to watch. Because this is Japan and everyone here is wonderfully polite people stayed seated so that you could still see even if you were in the third row. Also, the floats are humongous so you can't really miss 'em!

After the parade there was time for a quick twirl on Dumbo's Flying Elephants before catching the Once Upon a Time show where they light up the palace with all sorts of cool lazers and some kinda movie featuring princesses and stuff. There were fireworks at the end too which were cool and I definitely enjoyed the magical feeling of the show.

At this point it was time to squeeze in a few more rides before the park closed so we rode the Peter Pan Flight which was way more fun than we'd imagined it would be. We finally stood in the single rider line for Splash Mountain for a whole ten minutes before hopping into consecutive logs and riding the flume. It was without a doubt the best log flume I've ever been on, there were a couple of small drops as well as a larger one but there was plenty of time spent just bobbing around in the boat checking out the scenery which I enjoyed. Pinocchio's Daring Adventure was our second last ride of the day and I'd say that it's skippable unless you're a huge fan, we just chose it because there was no line! Lastly we had time to squeeze onto the last journey through the Haunted Mansion which was totally worth the second ride as I spotted some things I hadn't seen the first time around.

By this point we were beyond exhausted and totally happy to hop onto the train back towards Tokyo Station. We managed to do almost everything on our list, I never made it onto the Star Jets because the queue was never short enough to wait alone and it was too fast and spinny looking for Nick to even consider it. We also missed the Happiness on High fireworks but we felt that the firework display during the Once Upon a Time show was enough for one day so that seemed like a reasonable choice.

Overall I'd say that a visit to one of the Tokyo Disney parks would make a great day out for anyone with a love of kitsch visiting Tokyo for more than a week or big Disney fans who'll be in Tokyo for shorter periods of time. The rides were fun, especially Pooh's Hunny Hunt, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Splash Mountain and Monster's Inc but the people watching was definitely my favourite part of the day.

I have a couple of questions for Disney fans! Firstly, do people co-ordnate outfits with their friends at any of the other parks? I feel like this must just be a Japanese thing as I see people co-ordinating with their friends all over the place here! Secondly, is popcorn a big deal at all Disney parks? At the Tokyo park we saw people carrying their own Disney popcorn buckets, presumably from previous visits, and as far as I can tell they're taken to get refilled at all of the fun flavoured popcorn stands around the park! I saw Monsters Inc buckets, Snowman buckets, Minnie Mouse bow shaped buckets. I even saw a triple layered pastel coloured popcorn bucket! Super kawaii!!

After exploring Taiwan and before travelling onwards to Japan Nick and I spent a long weekend in Hong Kong. It wasn't a city that had ever piqued my interest enough to book a trip there but it seemed like a somewhat logical stop between Taipei and Tokyo thanks to some cheap air mile flights so we decided to go for it.

We arrived bright and early and after catching the bus into town to our hotel in North Point we headed to our second stop, Manna Fast Slow Food. Manna are a healthy wrap, salad and juice spot located right in the swanky downtown area of Hong Kong. I was craving something carby and I'd heard great things about their wraps so it seemed like the perfect first stop.

After perusing their menu for a few minutes, you can choose either a wrap or a salad with four fillings for HK$90 / £8 / $11.60, and wishing that the prices weren't so ridiculous when compared to Taiwan, I decided on a tofu and hummus wrap with avocado and rocket. When ordering you need to keep in mind that you can get any 4 toppings for your money, tofu, fries, hummus and falafel are in the same price bracket as lettuce, tomatoes, mint and sprouts!! That seems a little strange to me, who would choose sprouts instead of hummus when they cost the same?! I felt a little strange choosing rocket instead of fries but I thought that one salady item would make the wrap pretty great and I was right.

Despite all of my best plans I was not expecting Manna to have slathered a super spicy spread throughout my wrap so annoyingly, after one bite, I had to go and buy another one specifying that I didn't want any za'atar. This was especially frustrating as I'd googled Za'atar whilst waiting in line to double check that it wouldn't have chilli, I'd only eaten it a couple of times before and I couldn't remember! According to the internet Za'atar has thyme, oregano, marjoram, toasted sesame seeds and salt. No chilli! No paprika! Nothing that'll make my face break out in a rash and cause me to have intense stomach cramps and joint swelling for days or weeks on end. But this was so spicy that Nick could hardly eat his own wrap let alone mine as well so we figured it was worth spending the extra cash for me not to be allergic to my lunch! Once I had my non-spicy wrap in hand my hanger subsided and it was really freaking good, the flatbread itself was perfect and they were generous with all of the fillings.

Our next stop was Green Common in Central because I'd heard a rumour that they had Miyoko's Kitchen cheeses in stock. Epic vegan cheese is kinda unheard of in Asia so there was no way that I was missing out on this splurge. At the airport whilst waiting for our flight to Hong Kong I perused my Vida Vegan Con Bazaar pictures desperately trying to remember what my favourite cheese was but alas they only had Sun-dried Tomato Garlic and Double Cream Chive (perhaps Loire Valley Fig doesn't travel so well?) so my decision was made.

As I'm not a huge sun-dried tomato fan I went with the Classic Double Cream Chive and I was super pleased with my decision. It's so good! I was also excited to spot some Follow Your Heart Mozzarella shreds so we grabbed a bag of those as I had a pizza based plan in mind! We browsed around the rest of the store and were impressed with their wide range of imported American products, they had both Beyond Meat and Gardein, and they were all fairly reasonably priced given they they were imported from the US in cold storage. The prices of the British imports were wildly out of control through, they had Moo Free bars for the equivalent of £8 a bar so we left the chocolate on the shelf.

After our brief whirl around Green Common we stopped at Marks and Spencer's because well, we're Brit's in Hong Kong, we had to! After marvelling at the price of imported ready meals and margarine we grabbed a vegan baguette and some gelatine and beeswax free gummy sweets (vegan wine gums y'all!) and went on our way. Tiredness meant that it was time for one of my favourite travel activities - the bed picnic!

The next day we were up bright and early and we decided that to offset the slightly ridiculous cost of food (compared with what we'd been spending in Asia up until this point) we'd ride the unbelievably cheap tram about the place for the day. It's a cool way to see some sights and if you get an upstairs window seat it's a little like taking one of those tourist busses.

After much walking, riding the escalators and popping into temples fuelled by anther Manna wrap we popped into our most local Loving Hut for dinner. The set dinner and lunch menus are pretty reasonably priced and you get rice, soup or tea and your choice of three mains for HK$48 / £4.30 / $6.20 . On our first trip we hit the jackpot with some barbecued chicken and on our second I had an amazing stewed tofu dish, braised aubergines, five spice mushrooms and a vegan egg.

I hadn't noticed this on day one but for HK$5 / 45p / 65¢ you can throw a vegan egg onto your meal! It was actually really good, very much like a non-dippy fried egg, the "yolk" and the "white" were different textures and I bet it would make an epic sandwich. I'm kinda regretting not getting a few of these to go and combining them with some M&S baguette and some Miyoko cheese for the ultimate filthy sandwich!

On our first smog-free day in the city we hopped onto the funicular and headed up Victoria Peak for some classic touristing. This was a classic HK experience in that when you get off of the tram you're in a mall and as you follow signs to the observation deck it becomes clear that you're headed towards an area where they're gonna charge you to look at the view! I can't tell you how many of these "stuck in a mall" experiences Nick and I had in the city, it began to get a little silly after a while. I'm not at all prone to getting lost but Hong Kong had me wanting to scream at Google Maps on more than a few occasions. Four stories up in the mall we made a quick turn around and started trying to find a way out - we were in luck with the third set of doors we tried and walked around to the free observation spot to the left of the mall.

The view was gorgeous and were even able to enjoy it alone for five minutes before a tour group from a cruise ship arrived. They were actually quite cute and seemed to be having fun spotting their ship from the top of the peak! We soon got hungry though and as soon as I realised that the tram stop was close to Pure Veggie House I knew that we'd be getting our dim sum on. To say that I love dumplings would be a massive understatement, they're one of my favourite food groups, and dim sum is one of my favourite ways to dine. Nick and I had good dim sum in Taipei but this was a whole 'nother level. If the prices had been close to Taipei prices we'd have stayed there eating all afternoon.

We ate gyoza, steamed buns, shumai, these little sweet flaky pastries and some big flat rice noodle things stuffed with mushrooms and greens.

Both the shu mai and the gyoza were the best I've ever tasted and the steamed buns were delightful. Everything was basically perfect and I cannot recommend Pure Veggie House highly enough. It's on the pricy side hence the light ordering and the fact that we only dined there once but it's more than worth the visit. We walked down from the restaurant and then took a people watching break in Hong Kong Park. Like all of the parks we checked out in Hong Kong this isn't the place for kicking a ball around, it's more of a well manicured landscape garden than a park but it certainly seemed to be the place to head with the photographer you've hired for the day to take your family holiday snaps!

By that evening we were getting a little tired of city life and decided to take a day trip to Ping Shan to walk the heritage trail the next day. I was really glad that we did this, it was fun despite some of the attractions on the trail being things like an old well (a plaque where there was once a well!) but the more serene moments more than made up for them.

Trail aside it was a great area to get to know as it seemed much more normal then the centre of the city which, I have to admit, I described on more than one occasion as an awful capitalist playground. Whilst we were walking the trail we saw school kids taking their lunch breaks, street vendors selling cheap eats and men heading to the mosque. Thanks to Happy Cow we also found Lotus Healthy Vegetarian a fantastic little restaurant where they serve up simple traditional dishes. The mock meats aren't vegan so stick to the tofu and vegetable dishes and you'll be good. I went with a really simple steamed aubergine and pumpkin dish with rice which was perfect. I adore aubergines and these were delightful.

The next day we did something completely different and headed to a yoga festival. For doughnuts. After getting lost in a mall and stuck on the wrong side of a highway for about 45 minutes we made it to the park where the little fest' was taking place. By the time we arrived (a little before lunch) there were only two doughnuts and a few cupcakes left - apparently yoga people get up early!

If you've travelled half way across town to a yoga festival just for doughnuts then they'd better be good and thankfully Rebel Girl smashed my expectations outa the park. Their cupcakes were beyond decent but their doughnuts were uh-mazing. Chocolate with caramel can go either way for me, sometimes the caramel is just too much, but Rebel Girl got this spot on. If they'd had more I'd have spent hours lying in the park eating doughnuts!

After getting our doughnut on (and finding our way back across than damned highway) we headed right across Kowloon to see a different side of the city. Mong Kok is Hong Kong's busiest district and the second most populated area on earth after the Dharavi Slums in Mumbai. Strangely whilst it did feel hella busy (it being a Saturday afternoon and all) it wasn't claustrophobic, the streets were teeming with people but the markets were fascinating enough that the crowds didn't bother me and because it wasn't that hot it was nowhere near as intense as the night markets I visited during Thailand's vegetarian festival last year.

After spending hours wandering around the streets soaking in the bustling markets and lively atmosphere we popped into Veggie Family for a spot of lunch. We were pretty hungry and the prices were really reasonable so we went big with our order and got an assorted mock meat plate to share.

That was obviously a fantastic decision, you can't go wrong with a mock meat plate and as soon as they put it down in-front of us I knew we'd made the right decision. The three types of seitan differed in both texture and flavour and I was very excited to see my favourite red pork taking centre stage. I love that stuff!

I don't remember the name of my main course but it was basically braised tofu with mushrooms and bok choy and it was beyond delicious. It was super saucy, the tofu was tender and the veggies were cooked perfectly. It stands out as a Hong Kong highlight for sure.

One of my other fave' spots in Kowloon was An Sin Vegetarian, another dim sum place that literally couldn't be more different than Pure Veggie House. There are no fancy table cloths or people refilling your tea here, this is hole-in-the-wall dining at it's best. There's a menu outside but of course we couldn't read it so after enquiring about eggs and milk we just pointed at the the things we wanted from the huge range of things we could eat.

I didn't get any pictures of the food I ate from An Sin because I mainly devoured their dim sum in the dark on the park bench opposite their shop like the classy lady that I am. We tried their perfectly greasy spring rolls, turnip cake, sesame balls, steamed pork buns, bean curd skin rolls and anything else that took our fancy. It was all amazing and so cheap, it didn't seem to matter how much food we were buying it always came to about HK$40 / £4 / $5

Lastly, we had to visit Pizza Express! Just in case you don't know Pizza Express are a UK based pizza chain with restaurants in practically every town. It was the place my family headed to celebrate every birthday or special occasion when I was a kid (and it's still the only place my dad and I ever meet up to eat!), it was the place my friends and I would go as students when we were feeling like pretending to be fancy and it was where Nick and I had many dates early on in our relationship - I think he just took me there so that I didn't realise that he pretty much only ate pizza! As well as the familiarity being hard to resist I'm a huge pizza fan and Pizza Express has always been good to vegans. They've had a well labelled allergen menu for years now, they let you bring your own cheese as long as it's in a sealed bag and they recently added a vegan pizza to the menu in their UK restaurants.

They actually have a vegetarian pizza on their menu in Hong Kong that's made with marinated Beyond Meat crumbles and that could totally be made vegan if you switched the cheese but alas, the chilli wasn't removable, so I just went with some of my favourite veggies - mushrooms, asparagus, olives and cherry tomatoes to top my pizza. It was delicious! I miss pizza a lot whilst I'm travelling in countries where it isn't easy to find. I'm kiiiinda fussy when it comes to pizza, I'm a-ok with cheeseless but the crust and sauce have to be reeeeally good for me to think that it's an acceptable option. Don't give me a cracker-like crust with a tiny smear of tomato puree and a couple of limp veggies and call it a pizza. The paring of a nostalgic UK pizza with one of my favourite American melty cheeses brought back tonnes of fond food memories. Getting to eat this halfway around the world was the perfect end to our long weekend in Hong Kong.

Not a single person who I've mentioned Inawashiro to has known where it is so this probably isn't going to be my most searched for or most shared blog post but it'll be relevant for any vegans coming to volunteer at Japan Cat Network, ski on Mount Bandai or to take in a slice of rural Japan. If it can help even one person then I'll feel like I'm doing my travel blogging job right.

Before coming up here I had no idea whether eating vegan would be a challenge or plain sailing. I suspected it'd learn towards the tougher end of the spectrum so I arrived with two tote bags filled with snacks, burger mixes, vegan mayo, chocolate, and margarine collected from various health food stores in Tokyo. Despite there being no veg friendly restaurants in the vicinity eating here hasn't been difficult at all. Luckily the Japan Cat Network kitchen is tooled up with gas burners, a microwave, an oven and two kinds of blender as well as some more unusual items like a takoyaki pan, and Japanese supermarkets always, always, always have tofu, rice, and exciting veggies so I was never gonna starve.

There's actually a 7/Eleven just across the road from the shelter so I've been able to find inari sushi, plain onigiri, ume onigiri, ume and sakura onigiri, Chipstar crisps, plum crisps, sweet sugared sweet potatoes, edamame, and tofu very easily. If you're planning a trip to Japan check out my Pictorial Vegan Convenience Store Guide to find out what you can eat at 7/Eleven, Lawson and Family Mart stores all over the country. A couple of weeks ago these vegan Soy Joy bars appeared on the shelves of 7/Eleven which was pretty exciting. Despite the name the majority of Soy Joy products aren't vegan but these are and whilst I didn't love the pink wrapped bar, it tasted really artificial, I was very into the one in the white wrapper which reminded me a little of shortbread.

There are two supermarkets in Inawashiro and York Benimaru is the better of the two. It's always well stocked and has a great produce department as well as must have items like soy milk, Kewpie egg free mayo, nori, potato starch, pasta, noodles, and almond meal. I made a couple of almond meal based cheeses when my vegan cheese cravings kicked in a month into my stay here - both the parmesan and the baked almond feta recipes from the Maple Spice blog are delicious, easy to make and work out cheaper than buying nut cheese back in the UK.

If you're anything like me you're going to want to whip up some Japanese dishes whilst you're staying in Japan and I found everything I needed to make tofu ankake, okonomiyaki, and takoyaki at York Benimaru.

I also found everything I needed (bar the nooch, thanks iHerb!) to make dishes like the Maple Spice lemony parmesan pasta (Yes, I'm in love with that blog!), tofu omelettes, and mac and cheese.

Alongside Japanese supermarket staples York Benimaru also stocks fun items like tots, accidentally vegan pancake mix, and vegan jelly.

There's a Daiso situated right next door to York Benimaru which is great for affordable sesame oil, vegan inari pouches (the ones sold at 7/Eleven contain fish), cheap(ish) nuts and, of course, cute stationary and hair clips.

If, like me, you plan to spend a long time in Inawashiro you might want to get yourself over to iHerb to pick up some necessities. There is no vegan chocolate to be found in this part of Japan so ordering some NibMor, Alter Eco and Vivani bars online was a must. I love how many reasonably priced Food Empowerment certified chocolate products iHerb stock. I also ordered Peanut Butter Puffins cereal, Tasty brand fruit gummies, Surf Sweets sour worms (which I'm saving until my Birthday in a couple of weeks!), conditioner, soap, nooch, Envirokids Choco Crisp cereal, and Clif bars. I only but their peanut butter bars, their chocolate containing bars are not on Food Empowerment Project's good list and I'm not such a big fan of their blueberry, apricot, or oatmeal raisin walnut bars.

One thing that I was surprised by when I arrived in Inawashiro is that the closest cafe to the shelter, Comaya Cafe, is a dairy free cafe. They do bake with eggs and sell meat, fish and honey filled items so questions still need to be asked but straight away I spotted that they sell vegan margarine which I didn't think I would be able to find outside of Tokyo or Sendai. Score! I didn't actually eat there because I need to save as much cash as possible for my Korean adventures (I fly to Seoul in a week!) but I'm sure they could make a vegan meal if you can explain what you can and can't eat in Japanese as no English is spoken.

If you need to spend time somewhere a little more bustling then the closest city to Inawashiro is Koriyama which is 45 minutes away by train. Koriyama has both a Starbucks and a LUSH in the station, Purikura machines to play with at the arcade above Tower Records, and Lawson and Family Mart stores if you need to switch up your onigiri game. The konbini opposite Starbucks in the station also sells the vegan Morinaga brownies and flapjacks which I'm a big fan of.

If you need to go a little further afield like Nick and I did when we took a little break from communal living you can get to Sendai from Koriyama in about an hour and a half by Shinkansen. Sendai is the nearest city with a vegan restaurant and it's well worth the visit. Anyone who's ever been to Tokyo has raved about T's Tan Tan and their Sendai branch is just as good.

They have a larger menu in the evenings featuring dishes like gyoza, soy meat ankake wth rice, and a few other things. I thoroughly enjoyed the soy meat ankake and it definitely inspired one of my cooking adventures at the shelter.

If you're considering coming to Inawashiro to volunteer at Japan Cat Network check out this post about my first couple of weeks volunteering and keep your eyes peeled for my next blog post to see some kitty pics and to read more about JCN. Have a great weekend!

Oh Japan, it's only been a week but I miss you already. A little over a year ago when I was working out how to get back to my favourite place in the world I realised that my ideal volunteer gig would be in Japan (duh!) and would involve cats - a quick google search later and I discovered Japan Cat Network. I'd never heard of Inawashiro but I knew that I'd be able to live in Japan for free surrounded by cats - what could be better?

Japan Cat Network existed as an organisation prior to the Fukushima disaster but the Fukushima shelter itself was formed in 2011 after the Tohoku area of Japan was devastated by the Tsunami and ensuing nuclear disaster. One of Japan Cat Network's founders began rescuing animals who were left behind in the area as well as fostering cats for evacuees who were unable to take their animals with them. Japan Cat Network are a true no-kill shelter and whilst they don't take in many new animals right now they do assist local people if they find that they need to re-home an animal.

As a volunteer a typical day at the shelter involves dog walking, cleaning cat rooms, cat socialising, doing laundry, cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, and living areas, updating social media, planning the next open day, and working on projects around the house. Pretty fun right? It certainly didn't feel like work on an average day.

Nick and I were managing the shelter whilst we were there so we were also in charge of masterminding fundraising ideas, updating the volunteer info books, getting everyone working to a schedule, making daily and weekly schedules, and getting the place ship shape again after a long cold winter. The volunteer who arrived before us described the shelter as "feeling a little abandoned" and it certainly wasn't in the best state when we arrived. Nick and I worked a few 10 hour days scrubbing every inch of the place, from the cat rooms to the bathroom, and even the shed until it felt like a real homey and welcoming space again.

I made a cat book using pictures a previous volunteer and pro-photographer had taken of all of the cats with info about them in Japanese and English.

Before we had the cat book it was always tough when we had Japanese visitors because we were almost completely unable to communicate with them in a helpful way. Realistically, because of Japan Cat Network's off of the beaten track location, it's Japanese people who are most likely to adopt or foster the cats so working on this was super important to me. It was actually something I wanted to do at Lanta Animal Welfare but they wouldn't let me. I think that at any shelter run by Westerners in another country it's of upmost importance to have as much information available in the language of the country you're in as possible - at some places I've volunteered there's been no info at all and the staff wonder why locals never visit!

I also made a snazzy new sign for the front of the building so that people walking past could read a little bit more about the work we were doing. It was nice to put my time learning to write Hiragana and Katakana to good use!

There are twenty three cats living in the three cat rooms at the Fukushima shelter but there are also two dogs, Addy and ChaCha, who live in the main part of the house with the volunteers. They sleep in the living area (or on one of the bunk beds) and act like part of the family. In reality they probably find the constantly changing cast of volunteer carers quite stressful and both myself and everyone else working at or with Japan Cat Network would love to find them a forever home. They come as a pair and they are suer friendly as well as ridiculously cute.

The cats at the shelter range from almost unbelievably affectionate to timid and from playful to wary. There are cats at the shelter who, despite mine and Nick's best efforts, will not let humans touch them, but we were able to make amazing progress with some of the cats. When we arrived Fay would literally back into a corner and hiss at you if you came within a foot of her. If you reached out a hand so that she could sniff it she'd swipe at you with her claws out and we were told not to go near her by our fellow volunteers. Of course we ignored that advice and Nick made her his project cat. By the end of the month she would climb onto his lap to take treats from his hand and on our last day we spent 25 minutes playing with her and a little ball. It felt like the perfect reward for all of our efforts and we spent the first few minutes of playtime just looking at each other unable to believe that it was happening. She's lovely and I would totally adopt her tomorrow. Even if she never let me stroke her that'd be cool. Some cats, like some people, probably just don't enjoy being touched or perhaps they really have to trust you before they'll let you go for a little pet. Either way it'd be worth it to get to see her grumpy little face every day!

Three of the cats at the shelter, Charlie, Tom, and Nikki have few or no teeth and have to eat a special diet and visit the vet regularly. These cats clearly had a tough life on the streets after the Fukushima disaster and are still struggling. Charlie is the oldest cat at the shelter and whilst the volunteers at the shelter give her the best care possible I hope that neither she nor any of the other cats have to spend the rest of their lives there. Nikki similarly would love to find a fur-ever home, she's very much a lap cat and is without a doubt the most affectionate cat at the shelter. If you even kneel down in cat room A, even for a second, she'll jump onto your lap ready for cuddles. Isn't she adorable? She has super soft fur too!

During our time at the shelter I set up a Big Cartel store so that it would be easier for people to order merchandise. Before it was up and running people had to happen upon a blog post with pictures of what was for sale and then fill in a slightly too complicated google doc to order. In this day and age when shopping is so easy nobody was doing that so I'm hoping that the store will make things easier for people.

As well as cute tote bags like the one pictured above they also have long sleeved t's in loads of different colours and sizes. I have a grey and black 3/4 length sleeved one that I looooove. It's totally perfect for when Nick's blasting the air-con in our hotel and I need to warm up! If you'd like to support Japan Cat Network you can buy some merchandise, make a donation (thank you so much to all of my wonderful readers, IG buddies and Twitter friends who took part in the donation drive last month), or send some treats, food or cat litter from the Amazon wish list their way.

I'm not sure where my travels are taking me this winter but I'd happily return to Inawashiro to volunteer at Japan Cat Network again. When the hardest thing about a job is having to say goodbye at the end you know for sure that it was a positive experience.

If you'd like to read more about volunteering at Japan Cat Network then check out this post. If you're interested in how I survived as a vegan in a small Japanese town read my Vegan in Inawashiro post here.

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