MILAN, TAKE TWO

During our first trip together in Milan, all we cared about were visiting the museums of Hennes and Mauritz a.k.a. H&M Stores, the historical Coco boutique a.k.a. Chanel, the birthplace of Miuccia a.k.a. Prada, and all those other fashion-y shops.  Y'know, you get the idea.  As a result, we ended up going home with crappy photos (later, you'll see!) and blurred memories of those 4 days.  

But, we were young then.

That's why on our second time together in Milan, we paid more attention to its culture, its people, food, and whatever is worth taking note of.

Downtown Milan  

The drive from Malpensa airport to downtown Milan takes around 1 hour.

Taking the cab from the airport to the city costs a lot of money.  We learned it the hard way.  Almost 6 thousand pesos for a taxi ride is just... just so... never mind.  Time to move on. 

We stayed at Genius Hotel Downtown (http://www.geniushoteldowntown.com), a 3-star family-run hotel in Via Porlezza, located right at the city center.  It is just a short walk from the Duomo!  Check out Google Maps to see how good its location is (click here).  Their rooms are reasonably priced too!  The hotel we stayed at during our first Milan trip is so friggin expensive that it's not even funny.  We paid US$695 per person for a 4day3night-stay at Hotel Vittoria Milano (http://www.hotelvittoriamilano.it) in Via Petro Calvi.  To be fair, it wasn't entirely the hotel's fault.  We didn't know that our trip falls during the Milan Moda Donna Fashion Trade and (drum roll please) tadaaaaaa... Milan Fashion Week!  So, hotels jacked up their prices during those dates.  When planning a trip to a city, make sure there are no trade fairs or major concerts going on to avoid ridiculous hotel prices (unless you're really going there for that). 

DESIGNER BICYCLES

We don't know why, but we have this thing for bicycles.

We think it'd be so cool to go around in matching pink and purple bicycles with baskets in front, pompoms on the handles, equipped with loud horns.  We especially love the vintage (or vintage-looking) ones, and we always take photos of them.

Osaka

Ho Chi Minh

Palma de Mallorca

Shanghai

Milan

Ho Chi Minh

Palma de Mallorca

Imagine how stunned we were when we saw this bike in Gucci Nanjing Road while we were in Shanghai.  We seriously drooled over it.

Gucci Bike displayed at Nanjing Road in Shanghai 

We know we're not allowed to take photos inside the store but we just had to sneak one shot for this bike.  It probably costs as much as a Honda sedan, but then riding a Gucci bike is way cooler, isn't it?.  If it's any consolation, you get free Gucci clutches. Haha.

Here are photos of other designer bikes we found!

Okay we're getting depressed now, gottta go!!! Bye! 

TRAVEL BUDDIES

Finding someone who can travel with you isn't easy.  You can ask a hundred friends and they would all love to go, but not all of them would be really willing to shell out for a trip.  Even if you find some who'd be willing, it's not guaranteed that you'd want to visit the same city.  Even if you find someone who'd want to visit the same city you're interested in, you might find out later on that your schedules do not match. And even if (luckily) both your schedules agree and you decided to push through with your plans, you might just realize that YOU.DONT.GET.ALONG.

"There ain't no surer way to find out whether you like people or hate them than to travel with them." -Mark Twain

Yes, you get along with each other so well back home. Fine. But the thing is, back home, you don't spend breakfast, lunch, and dinner together everyday.  You don't sleep on the same room every night.  You don't really discuss if visiting a museum is a worthier way to spend the afternoon than going shopping.  As soon as you step foot on an unfamiliar place, outside your comfort zone, it is completely normal to have a different set of priorities and concerns. 

"It is better to travel alone than with a bad companion." - An African Proverb

 

Of course you can't ditch each other in the middle of your trip just because you realized you don't like each other, but one good way to overcome this or at least make things a little easier is to give each other their own time.  Make each other feel that it's totally normal and okay if one would like to spend an afternoon in a cafe, while the other spends her time oggling at the shops.

"Travel only with thy equals or thy betters.  If there are none, travel alone."

-The Dhammapada

   

We are lucky because we, Macy and Karol, are equal.  As in EQUALLY BAD.  Hahaha.  A perfect example is how much we agree on "maintaining" (or, not maintaining) the room that we share.  Our room will always start looking like:

The Royal Pacific in HK

The next day, after dressing up, it will be like:

Costa Luminosa cabin

Or after eating takeaways it will be like:

Genius Downtown Hotel in Milan

It's like we have a mutual agreement that states It's absolutely okay to be messy because the housekeeper will clean it later anyway.  No we don't want to give the housekeeper a hard time, it's just that... we're messy.  Sometimes we feel bad especially if the housekeeper is kinda old already.  We try to make it up though by doing little things like:

A note for our housekeeper from Honduras.  We wanted to add "We never intended our room to get this messy and we're sorry because we know you're probably so tired already of cleaning other people's mess.  We'll try to do better tomorrow." but Macy's Basic Spanish Phrases App for Iphone doesn't have that.

GREENHILLS AROUND THE WORLD

We find it a bit surprising that even in cities considered as fashion forward, freaky knock-offs still find their way into fashionable foreign shores. It’s also funny how you find some clever designs from the original mutate into a fake monstrosity. Say a Speedy wannabe with the chunky chains of the Stam bag all over, isn’t that scary? hahaha! Seriously, these are creations of design geniuses and they’re not priced as such for nothing. We’d rather buy local or brandless stuff than support those counterfeit producers. Jazzz saying!

Here are some photos we took during our trips.  Let's start with an assortment of Hermes Birkins.

From simple knock-offs...

hermes birkin from a market in Shanghai

to deadly crocodile ones...

croc birkin in Milan

to the most ridiculous you'll ever find.

monster birkins in Korea

 There are all the other premium designer bags as well.

LV and Prada knock-offs in Italy

purse galore in Italy

And other sorts of accessories to match!! Haha.

shiny shimmery scarves in Italy

belts at a market in Vietnam

sandals from Cyprus