Nostalgic..

I still feel like half my soul is left in New Zealand! Although I've just been back for 2 weeks, my travel bug is itching again and I found myself looking at travel packages to Hong Kong! (I think I really have a problem.)

Then again, work has been crazy and coming at me at full force. I know I said that this year will be the greatest year yet, but man, I'm going to have to earn every bit of that dollar. Ha! Okay, I'm supposed to blog about my New Zealand adventure, but I don't even know where to start.

Should I start at how terribly sick I got on the first day we reached Christchurch? Or maybe I should start describing how amazing and gorgeous New Zealand landscape and view is, and how I immediately got depressed that I probably wouldn't see that kind of view ever again. Or hey, maybe I can start writing about that breathtaking stargazing tour we had at Lake Tekapo, seeing Jupiter and the milky way and the most beautiful night sky full of stars that I have ever seen in one lifetime. Or the glow worm caves, or the zipline adventure in Queenstown, or the out-of-this-world Mount Cook and the glaciers at Franz Josef, or the horse riding journey along the lakes and mountains, feeling like Arwen in Lord of The Rings.. and I could go on forever.

But the sad thing is that nothing I would say could do any of it justice. Where's the blue lake and green mountains and bright blue sky?

Brb while I sob myself to sleep, dreaming of the gorgeous view of New Zealand..

Hong Kong and Them Jellyfish!

Last weekend Dearie and I packed our bags and went on our first holiday again since... Bali. (Okay, that wasn't so long ago, I was hoping I could make a more dramatic story by saying that it was our first trip since UK last year and how we really needed this break..) But! For a traveller like me, even half a year without going away seems a like a really long time. (Now I know why I'm constantly broke.)

When we were in Hong Kong the last time, we made a promise to go back and finally we got to fulfil it!

Us in Hong Kong 2 years ago. Time flies!

I won't elaborate much on the trip since it mainly consisted of Dearie hunting for toys and me pretending to be interested, and me hunting for bags and dresses and Dearie pretending to be interested, and us hunting for heavenly Char Siew Pao at Tim Ho Wan (this time we both were really interested), and late-night cravings for KFC chicken.

Honestly I didn't take that many photos in this trip mainly though, because, well, I didn't bring my digital camera, and Dearie isn't exactly Mr. Camera-Ready as proven by these few snapshots...

I might as well just stop trying, right?

I ended up taking selfies a lot (which is annoying since I can do that anytime and anywhere.)

I did, however, take some good pictures of jellyfish when we were at Ocean Park and I have always been fascinated by jellyfish. They are so pretty but dangerous too! Much like humans - who can seem good and nice on the outside, but bleak and poisonous inside. Looks indeed can be very deceiving.

Feast your eyes, fellow jellyfish geek!

I think Dearie had to drag me out of the exhibition because I spent too much time staring at these jellyfish. 

Sorry I haven't been writing much, guys. Life has been kinda crazy, but if you have time do check out my other blog that I share with my sisters over at http://threeof1kind.wordpress.com/ ! My sister is an amazing writer and the blog will basically be more on lifestyle and photography stuffs - fashion, beauty, travel, and everything fun and colourful!

See you on the next post!

Manchester-bound!

Now let’s move on to the part of the trip that Dearie loves the most: Manchester! Being a Manchester United’s biggest fan, it has been his lifelong dream to watch his favorite team in the one and only Theatre of Dreams, and I was more than happy to oblige! He has bought us tickets to the United – Arsenal match and it cost us both our arms and legs (ah! We’re limping!) but it’s a good thing that we both travelled together so we could look for cheaper options in terms of lodging.

However, I have to say that our accommodation history throughout our stay in the UK has been really pleasant. The hotel we stayed at in Manchester was Travelodge, and it was much bigger than Stanley House Hotel in London. But even in London we were pretty happy with our place since we didn’t spend much time inside the room anyway, and they provided decent daily breakfast. The most important thing to us was the location – it had to be convenient and near to the metro station.

Anyway, back to Manchester! (The short attention-span-me.)

So, we made our way to Manchester by train from London. The train ride itself was uneventful but really nice (uneventful in this way means we didn’t get robbed, or take the wrong train, so yeah, uneventful is a good adjective here). Our seats were pre-allocated so it was relatively easy finding out way.

Fast forward to a few hours later…

Hello Manchester! You’so pretty! We arrived in the late afternoon so the sun was shining brightly and the wind was blowing and I was freezing and my luggage was heavy.. Oops, okay, I’m not painting a very good picture here, am I?

Seriously though! We managed to drag our luggage and we initially decided to take a bus to the city near our hotel since we saw there was a free shuttle from the train station. We hopped in, but I wasn’t very certain because I couldn’t see the stop name where our hotel was at in the bus route. Luckily we asked the driver and turned out the bus didn’t go to the place that we wanted to go! So we quickly hopped out and after deliberation, decided to just opt for train!

The train there was nice because it wasn’t underground and we could admire the view along the way! The ride wasn’t long, in no time we arrived in our stop! It was a beautiful place near the river and our hotel was perched nicely in the side of the bridge that connected this side of the road with the one where Old Trafford was.

After checking in at our hotel, it was probably around 4 or 5pm, and Dearie couldn’t wait to go to the stadium! The match happened the next day, so we still had that evening to go check out the place first before the big mayhem the following day. What was memorable about it too was the weather! The moment we stepped out of the hotel, it was hailing! Real ice falling down from the sky! What a welcome, Manchester.

The walk to Old Trafford itself probably took 15-20 minutes. And there we were, at the Sir Matt Busby Way! Throughout our 3-days stay in Manchester, we probably went to Old Trafford like 5 times.  Well, that’s the main purpose we were there! Anyway, that evening we just walked around the stadium, took obligatory pictures and checked out the United store. This was when Dearie bought the thick black jacket that would survive him throughout the rest of the journey.

The next day passed by like a blur! We woke up early and quick to dress in our Manchester United’s attire – Dearie in his red jersey, topped with Cantona scarf that he bought the day before, and moi in the blue one. The atmosphere was so lively on our way to the stadium as we saw fellow fans going there as well. The surroundings of the stadium now resembled a flea market, with booths and people selling match scarves, shirts and all sorts of memorabilia! 

Oh! Another awesome experience I must share here is the pre-match lunch in the Red Café! People who bought the VIP package were entitled this lunch before the match and it was amazing! We sat with 6 other people in the table, two from Ireland, two from Malaysia, the other two from the States and then there were us. What’s fun was during the meal itself, they actually distributed a quiz that we could fill in as a table, and the table with the best score would win some prize! The questions in the quiz itself mostly circled around sports, although I remember there was one question of: “What is the name of Jamie’s Cullum’s wife?” to which we answered, “Mrs. Cullum.” Well, that certainly isn’t wrong!

Anyway, the questions weren’t easy okay! But the group managed to answer quite a fair bit, and to my amazement, Dearie actually knew way more than I thought! I know he’s a major United fan, but his sports knowledge really went beyond that, and it made me proud! (Aww!) Especially when one of the Irish guy was a sports journalist, yet Dearie had more knowledge than him, it seemed. Even though our table didn’t win in the end, I think that was a very good and clever idea to get everyone engaged before the match, and a chance for us to actually make new friends along the way too!

Next, the match! All I remembered was walking and trying to find our seats, and all I could see was people, people and more people! We had really good seats at Sir Alex Ferguson stand and wow, the view from up there was simply sensational! I think these pictures can describe better than any words. I could see Rooney, Van Persie, Ferdinand and all those players I usually could only watch from the television screen at home. If I was excited, I can’t imagine how Dearie must have felt!

The game was fantastic and we won! The energy was contagious, people were cheering and shouting and singing along, and it seemed like everyone was in pure sync. We were like droids army, systematically standing in line and following orders. (Weird metaphor, but you get the drift, don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t YOU?)

The match ended with a 2-1 victory! Woo-hoo! I nearly had to drag Dearie outta there, cos he was kept asking me for pictures with his Cantona scarf. Bless him! Going out after the match was a pandemonium again! We made a stop at the store again to buy even more stuffs and we both bought the table-cloth jerseys and other souvenirs like coasters, mugs, and figures.

The next time we were at Old Trafford again was the following day when we went for the stadium tour and museum tour, checking out the football field up close and personal, hanging out in the players’ dressing room (no biggie..) and getting too much info on the club and its history that I cared to know. Haha, kidding! It was really fun!

One evening in Manchester, we went out to the city and had quite fancy Italian dinner with a friend of mine who was living there. I think otherwise we wouldn’t have figured out a way to go to the city beyond our hotel and Old Trafford so it was pretty special. Oh! Near to our hotel, there was this shopping center that has Nike’s factory outlet and I’m sure Dearie loved it because he bought tons of cheap football jerseys for his friends back home!

Thank you Manchester for the awesome experience! Thanks for making my Dearie's dreams come true too!

❤

Unforgettable Hong Kong!

So guess who just came back from a weekend in Hong Kong last week? Me! Me! Me! Pick me!

Okay, that was lame. Sorry. Hey, it's been ages since I wrote here and it's been equally long that I haven't been entertaining myself with my silly jokes. And I'm gonna post so many photos here, you better be really, really afraid.

So anyway, in a nutshell, it was a really fun and memorable trip. And who knew being a lightbulb could be this great? Yes, you heard that right. I went with my couple friends. But they are both equally fun, adventurous people to be around and at the end of the day, I was sorta glad it turned out that way because otherwise, I figured my girl friend and I would have spent so much time being confused and lost like two blind mice. At least now we were three blind mice and that sounded much more comforting, don't you think?

I think we did exactly what we set out to do, and went to the places that we wanted to go, so really, it was great. It was refreshing being in a different city (although, Hong Kong felt so much like Singapore at times), but it was still different and unfamiliar I cherished every minute of it.

We went sightseeing from morning 'til night, until our legs felt like they were ready to drop any second. The highlight of the trip was probably The Peak for me, but I definitely liked Macau for different reasons too. We went to Macau on our second day when our spirit was at the all-time high! Checking out The Venetian Hotel with their romantic man-made canals was great too! At The Peak, we visited Madam Tussauds and took gazillions of photos in the Viewing Terrace at the top.

One thing I gotta comment on was the weather, though. It was drizzling throughout the time we were there, and it was kind of a bummer. 'Cos everywhere roads were slippery and damp, and we had to bring umbrella everywhere. Plus, the air got so hazy and foggy that at some point, we couldn't really see anything when we were on top of The Peak. But it got better as the day went on and despite all that, we still had a good time and the photos didn't turn out so bad, don't you think?

Alright, then, food! Okay, so I was told by many friends here before I left, that I had to try this, and that, this dimsum in this street, that dessert in that place, etc etc. But once we were there, it was really hard to spot these places, especially with our tight schedule! So we sort of just went to the major places that we wanted to go, and grabbed lunch and dinner at the area. We picked the most local and chinese place we could find, and just..went with it. The eateries there were all so small though. Seats were packed and all the menus were written in Chinese I could only stare at it blankly. We survived, though. The power of body language.

Next on, shopping. Same goes with that. I've heard warnings of people going crazy while shopping in Hong Kong that I have especially set aside some money to go wild. But we really didn't have time for that either! We went to Ladies' Market over at Mong Kok but didn't really see anything special. We bought the standard 'I Love HK' T-Shirt that we wore the next day but that's it. Oh, and a pair of slippers.

That about summed up our adventure, and I really hope I could do these little trips over the weekend again more often!

Bintan Revisited

So I haven't really blogged about my family trip to Bintan last weekend, life has been quite a handful. But I've just gotten the pictures from my sis' camera so the good memories are flooding back again!

Anyway, the reason why we went to Bintan in the first place was first of all because Sis won a free stay at Bintan Lagoon Resort from her company as a reward for her excellent work! Yeah, she's been doing a great job there, and unlike other companies (ehem ehem), hers really make sure the employees feel appreciated. So she got a free room for two nights and we thought why not ask our Dad to join too and make this a family vacation? It's been ages since we had that. In fact, I can't remember the last time. Ever since our mom passed away, family vacation has been the least on our thoughts, but I think it's important now that we do it sometimes.

So we booked another room since they wouldn't allow 5 people to stay in only 1 room. And my sister and I took a day of leave on Friday and set out to Bintan until Sunday!

The ferry was super clean, and throughout the journey the television was playing Mickey Mouse cartoon. Not exactly engaging, but it was at least something to look at. The trip by ferry only took an hour or so.

After we arrived at the Bintan Ferry Terminal and got through Immigration, we were taken to a bus which would take us to the resort.

And this was what greeted us there. Some four dancers came out and danced to the local music played by these local musicians. It was quite nice, and we were given welcome drinks also. The check-in was fast, and we settled in our room.

To sleep? Don't you always goof around in the bed everytime you stay in a hotel, though?

We then went for lunch at an Indonesian-Chinese fusion restaurant in the resort. The fried rice was heavenly! That first day Dad wanted to see a friend of his in the city, so we rented a car and drove to Bintan city, which took 3 hours of commuting! I think the main difference was, well, in the resort we pay everything by Singapore Dollars still, and in the city, it was more resembling Indonesia. You'd find local food and small shops at the side of the streets selling corn, satay and meatballs and we use Rupiahs! Home sweet home. ;)

While waiting for Dad talking to his friend, we were outside goofing around and taking pictures.

See? The familiar sight of meatball seller on the street. None you can see in Singapore, but a sight of this, and you know you're home. (Well, if you're Indonesian like me. Duh.)

After we got back, we didn't do much of anything since it was already late! We just relaxed in our hotel room, and oh, we did buy some Padang food in the city so we had that for dinner.

The next day, we woke up early for breakfast and then it was water sport time! We tried out banana boat and also jetski which was such a rush! It was really awesome being outdoor and near the sea!

The restaurant / chilling area from the outside.

Palm trees and blue sky! We couldn't take pictures while we were jet skiing 'cos the camera shouldn't be wet! Quite bummed out that there weren't any pictures, but hey, it's all in here anyway, right? (pointing to the brain) Alright, that was dorky. We spent the entire morning and afternoon playing in the sea and came back to the room feeling energized but exhausted!

At night we had dinner at a fancy Italian restaurant, played footsie at the recreational room, had karaoke and watched telly until we fell asleep. It was a great day!

Food! Food! Glorious food!

On Sunday we had breakfast early and headed to the beach to take some pictures.



The weather was great when we were there. The day we were playing in the water, it wasn't so sunny, it was a little cloudy even, so that was great. On Sunday, it was way too hot outside, you can tell it from the pictures. So we thought, "wow, thank goodness we were doing all the sports yesterday, otherwise I would have been burnt to crisp!"

So at about 11 am, we boarded the bus back to the ferry terminal and headed home to Singapore. I know it was a short trip, but it was great and I'm glad we did it. :) So 'til next time!

Escapism

The weekend we stripped off our gadgets and troubles to just, be.

Which is not too hard, really. With that ocean?