March and April 2025 has just flown by.
In March we ticked off another bucket list item—seeing cherry blossoms in Washington DC!
But also tried to spend more time in Houston experiencing more delicious food and events. With only a few months left of living in Houston, we’re making a conscious effort to get out and about more in Houston.
It was also a creatively exciting month, as I finally started writing on Substack (more on that next!)
Writing on Substack
After months of toying with the idea of starting on Substack, March was the month I finally stopped procrastinating and jumped in.
If you didn’t know Substack is newsletter platform that has evolved over time into a multi-media platform where you can share videos, short form content, publish podcast episodes and create a paid subscription newsletter.
Even though it’s a writing platform, it’s become very popular with photographers as many felt disenfranchised with Instagram.
I’ve published 23 essays over 6 weeks and I have really enjoyed the community vibe.
I’ve even gathered 44 subscribers and 88 followers to date!
Sharing your photos and writing is easy on Substack. The writing interface is simple and clean. There’s very little you need to get caught up customising (unlike if you were writing on your own wordpress blog like this!).
All in all, it’s been a refreshing creative outlet to be able to share photos, short form posts along with long form writing—all in my place.
I have no idea where writing on Substack will lead, and I’m still trying to work out the balance between writing on Substack and here on my blog. But I’m not letting that stop me from simply enjoying the experience of writing, sharing stories and sharing my photos.
If you have a Substack, drop the link in the comments—I would love to follow your work.
And if you’re interested in following my stuff on Substack, check it out here.
The Houston Rodeo experience
March also means Rodeo season here in Houston — and this year, we went twice!
The first time, we got to watch the rodeo from a corporate box, thanks to my husband’s company. It was a great experience to see the show from the middle of the stands where the corporate boxes are located. The box also included food and drink, which meant we were well fed throughout the 4+ hours we were there. Even the dessert cart came around!
The second time, we went with 3 other expat friends to watch Post Malone perform. But before the rodeo we wandered around the carnival grounds to play some classic carnival games and have some not-so-delicious carnival food.
Post Malone live was incredible. A really fun experience to watch him perform live, and the energy was super high. He was probably one of the highlight concerts for the whole Rodeo program this year.
Dining Out in Houston, Texas
The restaurant highlight for March was definitely… restaurant March!
Finally got to dine at this one Michelin star restaurant.
It was truly a unique dining experience. The Michelin guide list the cuisine as “creative”—they’re not wrong. It’s one of the more creative 6-course meals we’ve had in a long time.
This is their 9th “season” and the theme for this season is La Serenissima: The Republic of Venice. Basically a modern twist on Venetian food.
$185 for a 1 Michelin star 6-course meal is not cheap, but for the quality, service and dining experience, it was good value for month
The experience from arrival through to exiting the restaurant was impeccable. All the staff we encountered were very professional, warm and friendly.
The restaurant itself was also beautiful, modern but with plenty of creative flair.
The dining experience started with snacks (snacktiles) and an aperitif in the welcome lounge. Once you were sufficiently relaxed, they brought you to your table in the main dining room to begin your dinner experience. At the end of the dinner, we were gifted a small bag containing chocolates, chamomile tea and our dinner menu.
A few more restaurants we tried and liked in March:
- Dinner at Hugo’s: A Houston Mexican institution. We finally made our way to Hugo’s after living in Houston for a year and half.
- Lunch at Moon Rabbit: A modern Vietnamese restaurant serving classics like pho, but some of the dishes had a modern twist to traditional Vietnamese dishes.
- Brunch at Dandelion Cafe: A charming little brunch in the Heights where we caught up with friends.
- Lunch at Pappas Burgers: If you like juicy meaty burgers, then this place is for you. As the name suggest, it’s part of the Pappas family of restaurants that are well known in Houston. While the burgers were good, I prefer smaller smash burgers over these giant juicy burgers.
- Brunch at Ema: Mexican and Latin American inspired brunch cafe in the Heights. Highly recommend the coffee, pastries and hot food. Go early if you can, by the time we finished up brunch, the line was out the door around midday.
Seeing Cherry Blossom in Washington DC
The travel highlight for March 2025 was our visit to Washington DC to see the beautiful cherry blossoms along the Tidal Basin (and in many other places around DC).
Each year, the exact dates the cherry blossoms are expected to be at peak bloom is different. I’ve been keeping a careful eye on the bloom predictions and once it was out for 2025, I jumped straight into booking our flights and accommodation.
Luckily, the tentative dates I’ve scheduled for our Washington DC trip was exactly when the peak bloom was predicted to occur.
DC was buzzing with local and foreign tourists. There to see cherry blossoms but also all the other attractions on the National Mall—the White House, Washington Monument, Jefferson Memorial, the many Smithsonian museums etc.
Besides seeing the cherry blossoms, we also visited:
- Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture: Seriously impressive. Highly recommend grabbing a timed entry ticket in advance — the day passes were all snapped up when we visited.
- Library of Congress: We snagged a 3:30 PM timed ticket and it took about 15 minutes to get inside. The architecture inside? Absolutely jaw-dropping. We didn’t make it into the Reading Room itself, but the overlook into the room was beautiful.
- Arlington National Cemetery: Mainly to see the Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, walk around Arlington House and see John F Kennedy’s grave site.
- The Steven F. Udvar-Hazy air and space museum, outside of Washington DC: My husband really into aircrafts so it was a fun 2 hour for him to see a huge collection of aviation and space artifacts, large and small aircrafts. A few aircraft highlights were the Space Shuttle Discovery, Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird and an Air France Concorde jet
- Georgetown: Known for the famous Georgetown University. But it’s also a great inner DC suburb to walk around. Filled with restaurants, cafes, popular shops and beautiful classically American townhouse and leafy green streets.
- Wandered along Embassy Row, spotting all the different countries’ embassies and their embassy architecture.
- People’s House Museum: to learn more about the the White House, the history and how it functions behind the scenes.
For the 3 nights in Washington DC, we stayed at the Kimpton Bannerker Hotel, north of the White House. It was right across the road from the Australian Embassy!
If you ever visit Washington DC just know that hotels are expensive. The hotel was one an IHG hotel and since we had the IHG credit card we got a big haul of points from our stay and a small room upgrade. The room was modern and one of the more spacious rooms we’ve stayed at in a big American city. The main downside was that our room was facing the main road and we could hear a lot of road noise throughout the day.
Thankfully during the night it wasn’t too noisy and we were able to sleep through it.
DC is mostly a walking city, so expect to put a lot of steps in. But if you’re travelling between districts, the Metro system is convenient and affordable.
Making Travel Planning Easier (Free Template in Notion)
A goal without a plan is a dream.
So the first step to start travelling and exploring more is to get organised and intentional about making a plan and locking in travel dates ahead of time so the trips actually happens.
But I get it. There’s a lot to juggling when it comes to travel planning—itinerary, accommodation, flight options, things to do, recommended food and drink places etc.
I wouldn’t recommend keeping track of all that in your head. I’m a big Notion fan and I use that to plan and track all our trips. I also use it for other things like meal planning, tracking my tasks and projects, and keeping track of my camera gear etc.
Notion is free to use, hyper customisable and saves you time by giving you the ability to templatise things you do often.
So you’re not reinventing the wheel each time you want to plan a new trip in Notion.
If you want to make travel planning easier, start with downloading my free Travel Hub Template System in Notion that’s been downloaded more than 824+ times below:
Final Thoughts
That’s a wrap for March 2025. It was a busy month of getting out and about in Houston, experiencing new restaurants and ticking off another bucket list item for America.
Until next time, happy travelling!
Janice.
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