Month in Review: January 2023

I don’t know if 2023 is going to be an amazing year or not but I do know it’s off to a pretty incredible start! I’ve had a great January 2023 and can’t wait to tell you all about it.

Highlights

I spent the first two weeks of January going hard on my resolutions-but-not-resolutions (no one likes calling them resolutions anymore, right?), getting ahead on work and enjoying some fun times in the city. On the resolution front I’ve gotten back into reading (thanks to keeping my phone outside the bedroom and reading each night before I go to sleep) and even managed to do a few fun YouTube workouts before my trip.

Colin and I had a fun date night in early January with dinner at Fanny Bay Oysters followed by a Joe Gatto (of Impractical Jokers fame) comedy show. In more socializing, I had a lovely sushi dinner with my friend Jordan and fun video calls with friends and family back in Toronto.

Of course, my UK trip was a huge highlight of the month! My favourite parts included seeing four musicals in three days in London, meeting up with a new travel friend and an old university friend, and exploring the absurdly charming city of Bath. Back in Vancouver, Colin welcomed me home with an airport pick-up, fresh flowers and a clean house. How lucky am I?

Lowlights

My biggest lowlights of January revolved around transportation. While I got an awesome flight deal to the UK ($165 Canadian round trip!) it did involve going from Vancouver to Seattle to Calgary to London just to get there. It took about two days of subways, trains, planes, waits and more subways for me to finally arrive in my London hotel room!

The way back was just as long going from Bath to London to Amsterdam to Calgary to Vancouver via train and plane over two days. I started to feel a bit ill on my long flight from Amsterdam to Calgary, which was no fun.

Another transportation low: I decided to take the bus from my friend’s place in Cheltenham to Bath. Big mistake! While it only cost £8, it was scorching hot on the bus. I thought I was going to pass out by the end!

And, of course, another low point of the month was missing Colin and Ellie while I was away. I love travelling solo but would be lying if I said I wouldn’t rather travel with them. There were so many parts of the trip I wanted to share with Colin and so many cute dogs that made me miss Ellie – guess that’s just a reason to plan a trip back to the UK soon!

Best watch

After finishing up The Mentalist (new to me, a rewatch for Colin) and Jane the Virgin (new to Colin, a rewatch for me) at the end of 2022, we decided to jump back into Suits and Impractical Jokers. We had started both series years ago but never finished them. So now we’re back with a few seasons to watch!

My friend in Cheltenham introduced me to the lovely UK teen series Heartstopper. I watched the whole thing in one day (watching the first four episodes with her, despite the fact that she had just finished the series the day before) and loved it so much!

What’s cooking?

We started 2023 feasting on charcuterie we had picked up for New Year’s Eve. Colin also was gifted an air fryer for Christmas (from me!) so we had some fun air fried meals. As much as I enjoy the food he made, I’m still not convinced the air fried food is worth the hassle of cleaning the air fryer.

In the UK, my favourite meals were:

• A breakfast naan roll at Dishoom that I’m still dreaming about
• Homemade pizza in Cheltenham courtesy of Mireille & Garrett and their fancy pizza equipment
• Cheltenham’s best Indian food served in a pub (and owned by the same people who run the pub serving Thai food across the street)
• The famous Sally Lunn’s buns in Bath
• And chicken curry from Noya’s Kitchen (another one I’m still dreaming about!)

Posts from this month

This month on Teaspoon of Adventure I published:

• 2022: A Year in Review
• Welcome Home! Our New Vancouver Apartment Tour

That’s it – just two posts this month! I have a few more in the works but didn’t get a chance to finish them during my trip. And instead of rushing out bad content, I thought I’d take a couple of weeks off. But look out for lots of travel posts next month!

For my throwback post of the month, I’m going back to January 2019: 3 Days in London – Your Perfect Itinerary. It’s only fitting that I share my London itinerary in honour of my trip back to one of my favourite cities in the world. I had a lovely time in London and highly recommend this itinerary to new visitors!

Reads

One of my 2023 goals was to get back into reading and I’ve had such a strong start. It’s incredible what reading before bed instead of scrolling on your phone will do! Plus, I’ve leaned hard into genres I love (mostly travel memoirs) and taken advantage of listening to audiobooks while I cook, walk Ellie or sit on a plane.

Since I read 9 books this month (more than half of what I read all of last year!), I’ll just leave you with a short review for each:

Do Not Go Gentle. Go to Paris. by Gail Schilling
The travel memoir of a 60-something woman who finally goes on her lifelong trip to France, teaching us that it’s never too late to chase your dreams but go now, because time isn’t guaranteed. Inspiring!

One Year Off by David Elliot Cohen
A family of five takes off to spend 1996 travelling the world! I really enjoyed hearing about their family travels but wish the trip had been a bit more recent, as it felt very dated.

Several People Are Typing by Calvin Kasulke
A book written entirely in Slack messages with a side of sci-fi and romance thrown in the mix. Interesting format and short read but didn’t work for me.

Somebody Feed Phil the Book by Phil Rosenthal
As a huge fan of this TV show, Colin got me the companion coffee table/cook book for Christmas. It skewed a little too heavy on the cook book side for my liking, but was still fun to read.

Ten Years a Nomad by Matthew Kepnes
I’ve been a fan of Matthew Kepnes – better known as Nomadic Matt – for years and loved the travel stories he told. But a lot of this book is full of (in my opinion) half-baked travel philosophies that were not fun to read.

One Day in December by Josie Silver
My first contemporary romance in a long time! Some of the dialogue felt too emotional and drawn out but the story was sweet and I stayed up much too late to finish it.

Not Afraid of the Fall by Kyle James
The travel diary of Kyle and his girlfriend’s 114 day trip around the world. While it was fun to follow their travels, the diary-style of this book felt a little monotonous and almost narratively-lazy.

Rediscovering Travel by Seth Kugel
Written by a previous New York Times’ Frugal Traveler, this book was a big miss for me. I enjoyed the travel stories but so much of the book read like judgmental travel preaching that was either too basic or too niche. I kept asking, “Who is this book for?” (Answer: Not me!)

Spare by Prince Harry
I had to read this one! It was really interesting to hear Harry’s perspective on his life, growing up without his mum and everything he and “Meg” went through. I used to be pretty into the royals but am definitely seeing the far more toxic side to the monarchy!

Travels

This month saw me travelling to London, Cheltenham and Bath in England. It was so nice to be back out on the road!

In London I mostly saw shows and enjoyed strolling around the city between shows. But since this was my 10th visit to London, it was nice to skip most of the tourist sites and enjoy a slower and more local pace. I then headed up to Cheltenham where a great friend from university now lives. I loved having a slow work day on the couch (watching way too much Disney+), catching up with my friend and her partner, and checking out a town I never would have visited on my own.

And then it was onto Bath, where I had the best time exploring the charming city and getting in all of my sightseeing. I can’t believe I haven’t been to Bath before – it’s so cute, there’s so much to see and do, and the dining options are awesome. I can’t wait to go back and will definitely have to bring Colin next time! 

Where I have travelled in January:

• Jan 2014: In 2014, I headed to Iceland for a few solo days before carrying onto Amsterdam where I studied abroad. I loved having a little mini adventure before school started and seeing Iceland’s natural beauty in just six hours of sunlight per day!
• Jan 2019: 2019 was not only the year we moved to Prague but also the year we spent Jan/Feb in Southeast Asia! Colin and I visited Singapore, Siem Reap, Phuket, Chiang Mai and Bangkok (plus layovers in Tokyo both ways). We haven’t been back to Asia since but I hope we can change that soon!
• Jan 2020: Three years ago I also spent a few January days in London seeing shows, eating Chinese food and meeting up with my siblings before we started our Spain trip! It was wild to see how much the city had changed in just a few years – it was not this busy in 2020!

Gratitude

I’m incredibly grateful to Colin and my mom this month! My mom offered to watch Ellie for a week while I was away, giving Colin a break and then dropping Ellie off with a boatload of Costco snacks for us. And Colin not only supported me in travelling solo but held down the house and dog care while I was away, plus gave me an awesome welcome home. Thank you, Moo & Colin!

Bonus gratitude: I also really lucked out on my UK trip. On the way to the London, I got a whole three seats on the plane to myself, meaning I could lie down and sleep. And during my 10 days in the UK, it didn’t rain once!

Coming up next

I actually don’t have any big plans for February 2023! But I don’t mind. I think it’ll be a great month to catch up on work and stay on my goals/resolutions. Plus, I have so many UK blog posts to write!

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I hope you had an awesome January and start to 2023!