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Boba in Moscow

It’s arguable that parts of Russia are technically Asian, so you’d expect there to be plenty of boba tea options in the capital. Alas, you actually have to really hunt them down. And I have spent 2 years doing just that, so you don’t have to!

I’ve found these by word of mouth, Instagram, accident, Google, Trip Advisor, and maps- and only two of them were actually on the map. Basically, compiling this list has been my magnum opus. It was a lot of work and I can fairly confidently say that I am the resident expert of boba in Moscow. Even owners of boba shops have been surprised at my list.

Further on, I’ll rank them for you, but if you’re here just to get the closest boba to you, here is my comprehensive list:

  • Central:
    • #1 Mendeleevskaya – Nova Bubble
    • #3 Kitay Gorod – Dav’s Bubble Tea
    • Kitay Gorod – Bubble Mania
    • Lubyanka – Nikolskaya 10 Plaza
    • Serpuhovskaya – Won Cha
    • #2 Serpuhovskaya – Zin Tea
    • Serpuhovskaya – Chick O’Rico
    • Trubnaya – Briket Market – Mo Tea
  • Northwest:
    • Savelovskaya – Chick O’Rico
    • Sokol – Nova Bubble
  • Northeast:
    • #5 Baumanskaya – Dragon Bubble
    • Baumanskaya – Chick O’Rico
    • Schyolkovskaya – Dragon Bubble
  • Southwest:
    • Yugo Zapadnaya – Nova Bubble
    • #4 Leninskiy Prospekt – Bao Bei
    • Prospekt Vernadskogo (2km walk from metro) – Bubbleology

Without further ado, here are my top ratings:

#1. Nova Bubble

Not bad locations- all relatively central, but the real selling point is the their menu is perfectly curated and anything you order is spectacular. Really, the quality here is superb.

https://www.instagram.com/novateamoscow/?hl=en

#2. Zin Tea

Zin Tea has spectacular bubbles- sweet, soft, amazing. It could possibly be a different style, as it’s a Vietnamese shop, but I absolutely loved it. Employees are super nice and take pride in their qulaity. Its also like 10 meters from the Serpuhovskaya metro exit! I think it’s the closest you’ll find to the metro if you’re in a hurry. (The only downsides are that it’s a little more expensive than average and there isn’t much else I am interested in nearby.)

https://www.instagram.com/zin.tea/

#3. Dav bubble tea

This place has tons of options, its in a perfect location, and they must have an A+ supply chain because they never run out of anything (A really common problem lately with Chinese export issues). You can tell it’s a good quality shop because it is all Asian people working there, inside an Asian-focused food court, with TONS of customers. Its a really good staple, especially considering the location.

https://www.instagram.com/doanvat.mos/?hl=en

# 4 Bao Bei

I am conflicted giving Bao Bei my #4 rating. It’s not a great location inside a HUGE mall at the very top in the back. Even if you’re already in the mall it’ll take you another 10 minutes to find it. They seem to have worse supply chain than others and sometimes close completely because of lack of ingredients, so I’d be sure to check their Instagram before making the trek. The employees also aren’t the nicest (which is fine, I might even say normal for Moscow standards). BUT, their tea is SO good. Really one of my favorites. SO concentrated and flavorful. I couldn’t even put it down to talk.

https://www.instagram.com/baobei.tea/

#5. Dragon Bubble Tea

This one is a chain, and their packaging/advertising is super cute. They also have egg puff waffles, cute little fish waffles, and a pretty interesting menu! They also have super authentic fruit teas, just like in China when you’re not looking to drink 500 calories in one go. The reason it ranks #3 though, is that their boba is kinda meh. It was either undercooked or not sweetened at all, but something seemed wrong with it. However, the popping boba in the fruit tea was really, really good. I’m also pretty sure have their own delivery people!

https://www.dragonbubble.ru/

And because I didn’t rate them all, I need to include the Shops to Avoid

Bubble Mania – Bad Quality, No Tapioca

The ONLY thing Bubble Mania has going for it is location. It’s the only one you’ll just happen across while walking in the city. But it’s horrible. Not good flavors, not true milk tea, and they NEVER have black pearl tapioca bubbles. I’ve been a bunch of times and I always walk away disappointed. (As of May 2021, maps says it is permanently closed.)

http://www.bubblemania.ru/en/

Chick O’Rico – Expensive, Gross

They aren’t marketed purely as a boba place, so I’ll cut them some slack, but I don’t recommend getting tea here at all. It’s wildly overpriced, (500 Rubles!) and not good at all. I’ve never not finished a cup of bubble tea, until I tried Chick O’Rico’s. Flavorless, undercooked bubbles, bland tea, only 3 flavors? and they all come with cheese foam on top which is the worst trend ever.

https://www.instagram.com/chick.orico/

Tea Funny – AKA Public Enemy #1

I have one more thing to say about the quest for bubble tea in Moscow- beware of Tea Funny. They’re ALL over the map, both Yandex maps and Google maps. But they don’t exist. I don’t know if they did at one point, but they definitely don’t anymore.

Because I am utterly obsessed with milk tea and frequently fixate on stupid things, I sometimes wonder if the whole thing is a practical joke and that’s why it’s named Tea Funny, but that’s probably a bit of a stretch. All I want to say is don’t even try to go to Tea Funny.

https://teafunnycafe.com/ru/where/Moskva/

Things go out of business and change so often in Moscow that you can’t depend on anything sticking around. I’ve heard rumors that there used to be TONS of boba shops in Moscow, but not anymore.

As of now, June 2021, this is your most comprehensive boba list. I swear it. I don’t even mind that writing it qualifies me as a bit of a lunatic.

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Is It Safe to Buy Huawei in China and Use it in the US?

I always try to title these blogs so that it might come up if you are looking for really specific information. The word “safe” is really subjective though. Like is the Chinese government going to spy on you if you have a Huawei? Well… Yeah.

Should you care? Meh. Does it make you unsafe? I’d venture to say no.

My big worry when I was in China was “will it work outside of China?” And “can I use an American sim card with it?”

And then when I was finally all set to buy one, Huawei blocked Google. No Google play store on Huawei? That was really a deal-breaker for me.

I didn’t know anyone who owned a Huawei that I could ask about it, but there was one day we ran into a bunch of teenagers in a cafe and they wanted to practice English, so I asked them if you could still get any apps I might want like Twitter and Facebook and Netflix and stuff. They said not to worry about it, but everything I saw online said it was incompatible and that you could get most apps from the Huawei store, but not everything.

Eventually I decided to take the risk and just buy one. The price was right, and I couldn’t say no to those camera specs.

I was a little worried about setting up a new phone in mainland China without a VPN, but it turned out better than I could have possibly imagined.

I turned it on for the first time and it offered to port all of my apps over from my old phone over bluetooth!! Including Google play store!!

As long as your old phone is still functional, I’d say you have absolutely nothing to worry about when switching to a Huawei.

My only side note that I want to include is that sometimes American apps don’t sync notifications super well, but it’s not a big deal to me.

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Europe Russia Uncategorized

Is Moscow Safe for Solo Female Travel?

As an American, I have sort of been brainwashed to think Russia is a little bit evil, scary, and not safe. But I recently hit my one year mark living in Moscow and I was realizing how incredibly safe I feel here.

Consider any megacity; the more people there are, the more crime there is destined to be, right? But Moscow is a lot safer than other comparable cities.

I know I wouldn’t feel comfortable walking alone at night in New York City, and I would make extra sure to hold onto my stuff and lock my doors in almost any of the other megacities, like LA, Delhi, Mexico City, Buenos Aires, or even Paris. Interestingly, I did feel incredibly safe in the Chinese megacities I’ve been to though.

I feel like I have said it 1,000 times, but Moscow is a very comfortable place to live. Transportation is safe, well-connected, and cheap, crime is low, I’m not overly worried about pickpockets, the average neighborhood/building isn’t dangerous, and at least from my own perspective, harassment from men is even lower here. Guys just leave you alone.

In a culture where women are generally dressed in their most expensive clothes, shoes, and jewels, with expensive haircuts, manicures, lip fillers and fake eyelashes, men will still (for the most part) surprisingly leave them be. They do tend to leer, but that is a general Russian trait, not just men being creepy.

One minor problem when it comes to men here though, is drinking culture. There is always at least one completely drunk guy on the metro- just absolutely smashed, and you obviously can’t trust a guy like that not to do something erratic, but even so, I’d trust a drunk Russian man to still maintain a semblance of social acceptability over a drunk American man any day.

I ride the metro alone every day for almost 2 hours, and I walk home in the dark on small unlit backstreets every night too. (Not that I come home super late, it’s just dark for 14 hours a day most of the year.) I’ve never had any problems. I even feel comfortable taking a quick snooze on the train during rush hour, provided I manage to snag a seat! I get paid in cash, and sometimes I let a few months worth of paychecks collect in my sock drawer before I take them to an ATM, and I am still not stressed about someone taking my bag, or watching me make my deposit at the bank. I would never feel safe doing any of that in any other megacity.

The cold and the dark are hard to handle, but being harassed, mugged, or assaulted is not on my list of worries in Moscow at all.

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Renting an Apartment in Italy

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Russia Uncategorized

Survival Russian

I have a set list of phrases you should learn in every language, but there are a few extra explanations and phrases to learn that are specific to Russian. Also please forgive my ridiculous phonetic spellings.

  1. Yes & No
    • I’m sure you already know these ones- Да & нет (Dah & Nyet)
  2. Hello
    • Before coming to Russia I thought hello was priviet. That’s more like hi, and you only say it to your friends or little kids. It’s important in Russia to greet everyone, if you’re in an elevator with someone, before you check out at a store, when walking into a business- you need to say it a lot, which is hard because it’s one of the most difficult words to pronounce.
    • Здравствуйте is how it’s written in Cyrillic. The google translate phonetic spelling is Zdravstvuyte, and my own personal spelling is Ztravstvootyay.
  3. I’m sorry/ Excuse me
    • There are two, and I’m still not 100% what the difference is between them. The first is Извините. Google phonetics is Izvinite and mine is Izvenitye. I definitely hear this more than the other one, but the other one seems more intense, like you really did something wrong. It is простите. Google writes prostite and I write prostitye. But it’s okay to just use the first.
  4. I can’t speak Russian
    • My favorite phrase- я не говорю по русски.
    • Google writes: ya ne govoryu po russki.
    • I write: ya nyeh govoroo po rooski.
    • I usually start this phrase with an apology.
  5. Please & Thank you (and you’re welcome)
    • Please and you’re welcome are the same in Russian- пожалуйста. Google phonetics: pozhaluysta, my phonetics: puhzhaloostuh.
    • Thank you is Спасибо pronounced spasiba.
  6. I would like this
    • In most languages, the most polite way to ask for something is say I would like this, but it’s not something normal to say in Russian. Luckily the normal thing to say is way easier to pronounce and remember! People just say the equivalent of may I this? можно это? Pronounced mozhnuh eta.
    • It’s also what you would say if you were asking permission to enter a building, or pet a dog, or take something. Just say можно.
  7. This is good.
    • This is good, that’s enough, I’m good, everything is fine, alright. хорошо, pronounced kherasho. Super helpful and common word.

Russian Specific Extras:

  1. I’m finished/that’s all
    • One of my favorite words in Russian it also sort of means Ta da! Все, pronounced vsyo or fsyo.
  2. How much?
    • Сколько? Pronounced skolka.
  3. Where?
    • Где? Pronounced G’dey. And a lot of the things you might ask for directions to are cognates- like toilet or restaurant or museum or metro.
  4. English
    • It may be helpful for you to learn the word for English too. You can ask for an English menu, or an English map, or ask if someone knows English instead of just staring at them.
    • The word for English is английский, pronounced onglisky.

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How Technology Opens Up Travel

Can you even imagine walking through a foreign country with a paper map? When we travel we can do so much on our phones- maps, translators, taxi apps, googling history, social customs and expectations, laws, what to do in an emergency, and exchange rates…

Whenever I go somewhere that I know my grandparents visited before I was born, I have to consider how they were even able to do it. They had paper maps, they had to call the airline for tickets, they had to bring cash with them to convert, they wrote paper letters back home, and I know they didn’t speak the language at all. I can’t even fathom how they were able to find their way around in the day to day.

Things have changed so much for us and become so much more accessible. Being afraid of a language barrier is no longer an excuse for not visiting a foreign country. There are so many resources that have popped up even in the past 10 years that completely change the way we travel.

I went to Europe for the first time in college, in 2016. At the time it was pretty tricky to get set up with a sim card for your phone- you needed to register for it, pay for it in cash in person, and you needed to change the settings deep in your phone to even get it to work. On that trip I went to 5 different countries- starting and ending in Spain, so that’s where I got my SIM card. At the time, when you crossed a county’s borders you lost service, so I would always make sure to download the language on google translate and a section of the map on google maps before we went so I could still access it without wifi. Within 2 years, even that changed! Now if you have a European sim card, it’ll work throughout the EU!

On Christmas day in Prague, my boyfriend got so sick with food poisoning that we needed to find some medicine. I remember using our hostel’s wifi to open the route to a hospital, only to find it was closed. I found free wifi at a cafe and mapped to another hospital, also closed. I did it 4 times before finally giving up. I went all over the city and I felt like such an idiot having to stand outside windows and steal wifi. Even that was better than having no smartphone and no map though.

Having the technology we have today means you can go anywhere and deal with any situation that might have held you back before.

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How Much Should I Charge for Private English Lessons?

The hardest part of teaching for me is always deciding how much to charge, and its a big part of why I tend towards working for companies, rather than offering private lessons at all. It’s just easier when someone else sets the pay and you agree to it. I hate haggling, and it’s so much worse when you need to set a price based on how much you value yourself.

You should think about what you would be paid for the same job in your home country and base it somewhere off of there. Consider things like demand for native English teachers, level of interest in learning English in the country, and how much the parents would be willing to pay.

I think a good base throughout Europe or Asia is around the equivalent of $20 USD per academic hour (45 minutes). I think any lower than that is selling yourself short. You should also charge more incrementally for more kids, or if you have to travel, or longer lessons, etc.

If you have lots of experience and are super qualified you should of course charge more for that too. I only have a few years of English teaching experience, but I have almost a decade of swim teaching experience, so I charge twice as much for it. I also know that there is a low supply of swim teachers, whereas nearly every American and Brit who goes abroad teaches English.

It’s always a balance for me to compare if the extra money is worth it for the extra pressure I put on myself to be “worth” the money, versus getting less money, but feeling more relaxed when teaching.

Really it’s all relative. Don’t undervalue yourself, but don’t take advantage of people. You can ask for more, and if it’s too much for them to pay, they’ll let you know. My only advice is to not stress about it too much.

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Moscow in the Summer

The Moscow Perfume Smell- One of my favorite things about Moscow is the smell. I know, I know, that sounds insane. But I swear, late spring through fall, the streets themselves smell SO GOOD. They give off this magical, perfumey smell, all over the city. I’ve brought this up to tons of people and most of them have no idea what I’m talking about, but I know it’s not in my head. I smelled it the very first day I was here, in September of 2019, then it disappeared through the Winter, but it was back in May and I was so happy! It you ever come to Moscow you have to keep a nose out for it.

No Hot Water- Another, not-so-fun, seasonal tidbit about living in Moscow is that for a week or so in the spring/summer, the city turns off the hot water to make sure the pipes are in good working order for the winter. And the water in the pipes is icy. I thought it would be tolerable to take some cold showers, but it’s so cold I’ve actually taken to bringing the electric kettle into the bathroom with me. 3/4th ice water, 1/4th boiling water makes your shower a bit of a hassle, but at least its tolerable!

Nothing Ever Dries- In the winter because the heat is on so high clothes dry crazy fast on a drying rack inside. I felt like it was magic and it’s been one of my favorite things here, but I didn’t think about what would happen in the spring. That magic of course goes away as soon as the heat turns off. Good luck drying a single sock inside in the summer.

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Phrases To Learn Wherever You Go

I have had way too many experiences with Americans going abroad and getting ANGRY that someone doesn’t speak English. Can you imagine???

I understand that learning a language is hard, and learning the language for every country you visit is not feasible at all, but I think at the bare minimum you should learn a few phrases before you go somewhere where they speak a different language.

These are my survival phrases in any language:

  1. Yes & No
    • They’re usually really easy words because they’re used so often!
  2. Hello (and goodbye)
    • It’s polite in most western countries, but it’s actually considered pretty rude not to greet people in some countries.
    • It’s usually the first word to learn for any language and it’s really cool to have a collection of them.
  3. I’m sorry/ Excuse me
    • Sometimes it’s the same word!
  4. I can’t speak… (Chinese, Russian, Czech, Spanish, Polish, etc.)
    • My number one absolute MOST used phrase in any language. lol
  5. Please & Thank you (and you’re welcome)
    • Being extra polite will really make up for the fact that talking to you and helping you is a huge hassle when you can’t speak the same language.
  6. I would like… (this or that)
    • My go to for ordering. “I would like this please” and point.
    • It’s usually a more complicated conjugation (since it’s in the conditional) but if you aren’t learning the whole language, it’s a lot easier to learn the whole phrase.
  7. This is good.
    • Surprisingly useful phrase. You can use it in a restaurant to compliment the food, or tell a taxi driver that this is a good place to stop and they don’t have to go further into a crowded parking lot.

There are lots of other phrases that would be helpful to learn, but I think these are the ones that will help you the most!

And make sure to do your research on the best translations of these phrases. Like normally I would say “I would like this please” but it’s not a normal thing to say in Russian. Instead, they say “mozhnuh” which is like may I. And in Chinese there are two ways to say I’m sorry: “dway boo chee” or “boo how yeesuh” and they’re used differently in different circumstances. And in many languages you can say versions of hello, but the informal versions are rude to say to someone older than you. Languages are tricky, but they’re so fun!

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Do NOT Work For A Teaching Agency

I want to teach English abroad.

Should I work for an agency or directly for a school?

It’s a question that I think everyone should ask themselves before they decide to teach abroad, but many people don’t even know to ask it.

It’s so much easier to just send your info to an agency and have them set up all your paperwork, housing, contracts, and school placements without a second thought.

From my personal experience, I’ve met a lot more people who went with a teaching agency than did things on their own, and its fine really, it’s whatever you feel safer, and more comfortable doing! I am only posting this so people can make an informed decision.

If you work abroad for an agency I can guarantee that you will lose profits and have less freedom, whereas if you do the work yourself, you can choose which city to live in, which apartment to live in, you can haggle for pay and benefits, and most importantly you have the freedom to quit without paying a huge penalty to the agency if you decide a certain school isn’t right for you.

I worked for a school that had 8 foreign teachers. 5 of us were hired directly by the school, and 3 of us were hired from agencies. I know there were some minor differences in pay for the teachers who were hired directly based on need and experience, but the real difference was between direct hires and agency hires. I made 24,000 yuan a month (about $3,500), 2 of the agency hires made 19,000/ month ($2,700) for the same exact job even though they had much more experience teaching than I did, and one poor teacher only made 11,000/ month ($1,500) from his agency and he had no choice in where he lived, so he lived almost an hour away with a terrible roommate, whereas I lived in a luxury apartment a 10 minute walk away. The agency just keeps all that money for being a middleman. When he found out he was making less than half as much as us, he brought it up to the agency and found out he’d have to pay THEM 22,000 yuan to get out of his contract.

I’ll admit it is frustrating dealing with visa paperwork, deciding which school to work at, which city to live in, and finding and renting your own apartment, but you can’t argue how much better I had it simply because I had the freedom to work for myself.

There are also tons of resources when putting your resume out there and comparing schools. We got the most hits from DavesESLCafe

This doesn’t apply only to China either. When I started applying for jobs in Russia, I found 2 options that looked really good. One was a chain of kindergartens, and one turned out to be an agency. The school I chose pays 175,000 rubles a month to teach 5 kids with an assistant. The agency wanted me to work at 5 different schools across the city, working crazy hours and living in shared housing that wasn’t even covered and they wanted to pay me 75,000 for it. The only plus side would have been that I wouldn’t have had to look for my own apartment, but for more than double the pay, I’ll accept the hassle.

The very last point I want to make is that while it’s a great opportunity to teach and travel abroad, it’s still a job and it’s hard- you should be getting paid for it. Please do not pay someone for the opportunity to work abroad. That’s crazy and you could be making tons of money instead of hemorrhaging it.

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