Restaurant Review: Bowens Island Restaurant

Charleston is a place close to my heart. My husband proposed to me at Boone Plantation in Mt. Pleasant. For a foodie, you won’t be disappointed with the food offerings in the city. If you read my post in December, I posted about our trip with my sister and my brother who visited from San Francisco.

On our day trip to Charleston on April 16, I told my sister that we had to go back to Bowens Island for their tasty oysters. Since my sister also enjoyed the oysters, she agreed to add it to our itinerary. Bowens Island Restaurant is just minutes away from Folly Beach. On our trip last December, my sister put this on our itinerary as a possible option to experience the beach. When we arrived, the beach turned out to be a river. Since we lucked out on the beach, we decided to enjoy the food.

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  Soft Shelled Crab Platter

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  Bucket of Steamed Oysters

Bowens Island Restaurant was featured in several of Travel Channel’s food episodes. From Andrew Zimmern, Man v Food and Unique Eats. We learned about this restaurant from Andrew Zimmern’s Bizarre Foods America. We wanted to try it out because of the oysters. The restaurant is open Tuesday to Saturday (5:00pm to 9:30pm). The restaurant fills up fast and lines are expected.

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Chasing Sakura Trees

Sakura Trees or Cherry Blossom Trees seems to be a difficult travel experience to schedule as the trees peak bloom dates vary every year. The first time I tried to schedule a vacation to view the sakura trees in Japan was in 2017. Usually, the first week of April is a safe date to schedule your vacation to view these trees. However, when my sisters and I visited Osaka for the first time, it wasn’t even peak bloom yet. There might be one or two trees in the entire location that we were in that’s in full bloom and a lot of people are in that one tree trying to get a good photograph.

This year, my sister want to experience the Cherry Blossoms in Washington, DC and when she was fixing our schedule, the National Park Service was predicting peak bloom during the Easter weekend. Unfortunately, due to weather changes, the peak bloom was a week earlier. We still pushed through with our vacation as she said it peak bloom usually last two weeks before the flowers changed to leaves.

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On April 3, 2021, we had an early start and parked less than a mile from Lincoln Memorial. The majority of the cherry blossom trees in Washington DC is located at the Tidal Basin area. When we drived into DC, we were excited as the trees are still full of cherry blossom flowers. From the parking lot we booked on SpotHero, we tried the scooters which litter the streets. We didn’t taken into account the wide area of no parking zone for scooters in famous locations of DC. In the end, we had to walk from one place to the other just to reach our destinations.

10 Ways to Save Money While Travelling

We recently went on a road trip to Alexandria, VA and Washington D.C. for the cherry blossom festival. My husband and I love to travel but with COVID-19 it’s scary to be on a plane or on a cruise. Hopefully, things will get back to normal so we could fly and visit our relatives back West or even back to the Philippines.

With all the traveling I made since 2012, here are some ways to save money while travelling:

Quote of the Day

The darkness that overwhelmed you can be stopped with a THOUGHT

March 2021 Personal Challenge Update

Spring has sprung and I would like to thank my readers for being my accountability partners in my personal challenge. For this month, here’s an update on how I’m doing. I know it’s not my usual post but I really need to write it all down to be accountable.

Health:

• Log all food I ate. – Going strong. I’m not sure though if the calories intakes are correct.
• 10 flights of stairs a day – There were three days in March that I missed completing this goal. On one of them, I missed it by 1 flight of stairs. I really thought I completed it but apparently not. On the second missed day, I was sick and my husband forbade me to complete it. On the third missed day, I had a late start and by the time it hit 12mn, I only completed 9 flights.
• Strength training twice a week: This is still going but sometimes I don’t feel like doing it. Getting bored perhaps?
• Plank for 2 mins: I added planking mid-month and started with 30 mins. I will gradually increase it till I hit my goal of 2 mins. Hopefully, I will be able to reach that 2 min goal. I’ve tried it several times before but I wasn’t able to complete it ever. The longest I’ve ever done is 1 min.
• Eat salad once a week: I was able to eat salad once this month. I’ve been eating a lot of crab cakes too. I think I will remove this on my challenge for next month.
• 6 months seizure free!!! I can now go back and drive!!
• COVID-19 vaccine: I got my first dose last March 18 with my second dose scheduled on April 13.