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!

London!

I haven't written much about my trip to UK, so I'm going to try now. I hope I'm not forgetting any important stuffs! I have a memory worse than a goldfish so yeah, bear with me here!

So, UK, yeah! Let me just say that it was like a dream being there! I had a big ball of awesomeness throughout my 2-weeks stay and I didn't want to leave! It was colder than I had anticipated too, and I realized now how crazy I was to think that the weather would just be bearable with just one thin jacket. I think I have the tendency to underestimate things, especially weather! In my mind I thought I was a thick-skinned (literally) wonder woman. "Jacket? NO! I don't need this shit!" (while continue packing tank tops and shorts)

Yeah, shame on me. Luckily my sister convinced me to bring along his winter jacket, and that ended up saving my stubborn arse! I would say London was still quite alright without that winter jacket, but as soon as we got to Manchester, goodness, we were welcomed by some crazy hailing action! Even Dearie had to buy a thicker jacket at Manchester United Store, cos the only jacket he brought was this one from Uniqlo. Well, the fact that it was a very cool, suave-looking jacket didn't hurt either.

Oh, sorry for jumping the gun here. Let's start from London, our first stop! I figured we can split this into a few posts so you won't have to read everything at once (read: I'm just lazy, give me a break!)

Our flight from here was like, 9 in the morning so we got there early for a quick breakfast first. I was so excited! Have I told you I love airports and flying in general? Anyway, I think I spent most of my time on the plane watching random stuffs on the entertainment system. (Yay to that!)

It was evening time when we finally landed in London and we actually took the train (or subway, or metro, as the Brits call it?) to reach our hotel! (Bless Dearie and his awesome navigational skills!) We reached our hotel late and most of the places were closed by then. We managed to grab dinner at one of the restaurants in the metro station, which wasn't far from the hotel.

The next few days seemed like a blur, really. We visited all the places we had wanted to see, and more! Tower of London and Tower Bridge were the first few places we checked out on our first day.

You know, just chilling out, at Tower Bridge. 

Second day, we went to Warner Brothers studio where they filmed Harry Potter (yes, I'm a geek that way!) and it was super fun! Seeing all the props and costumes and we even tried Butterbeer! (not so good, though.) If you're a fan, you would really enjoy checking this place out. I hope Dearie enjoyed it too. (I made him watch all the movies before our trip, and he seemed to like them, but that may have something to do with the fact that I might have given him the evil, threatening eye when I asked if he liked the movies. Psst.)

I even got up close and personal to Hedwig!

Third day was an eventful one! We were walking around the city, visiting Buckingham Palace and Trafalgar Square, seeing the Big Ben and London Eye from a distance, and ended our day watching Les Miserables at Queen's Theatre, which was really, really awesome! It was funny though, we went to Buckingham Palace to see the changing of guards, and there were tons of people there. There was this moment when the 'knights' actually rode horses to the palace, and one of the horses pooped on his way, so there was this pile of poop on the street for the rest of the procession. And one of the guards had to walk on that road, and you could tell he's trying to avoid the poop but it was right on his way. Haha. Damn horse can't hold it in!

Also, we caught a glimpse of the Queen twice! (I actually just saw her once, because I was too short. But Dearie saw her twice.) And, that day apparently there was this delegation going to the Palace too, and guess which country?

Indonesia! Ha! Indonesian flags were everywhere, and Dearie made me take picture with it, it was really funny. Overall, the whole experience was just really memorable. 

After seeing the ceremony, we made our way to the theatre to see Les Mis. It was actually quite a distance, but once again, bless Dearie, he managed to find his way (through the map!) and we got there with half an hour to spare. Because we haven't had our meal yet, we decided to step into one of the steak place nearby, and wanted to have a quick bite before the show. But it actually took a while for them to prepare our steak, and by the time our food came, we only had like 10 minutes before the show started and I just gulped my steak like I haven't eaten in one month and in the end left quite a lot of french fries. We rushed back to the theatre, and the show has started! We had to wait until the next scene before they could bring us in, as to not interrupt the show. 

Now, this is one of the things I regretted. When we went to see the show at that time, we didn't have much idea about Les Mis. The reason why we wanted to see it was because it was highly recommended by my sister, but we didn't know much about the story and songs and everything. But since that trip and as soon as we got back to Singapore, Dearie and I started watching the show through DVD and absolutely fell in love with it! There was a period of time when I just played the songs over and over again throughout the day until my younger sister once came in to my room when I was listening to the song for the hundreds of times and she said, "Maniac." Haha.

I made a mental promise to myself that I would go back again just to watch the live musical again because I can definitely appreciate it a lot more now and pay more attention to the details that I may have missed the first time around. 

What a majestic sight, huh? 

The next day, it was Dearie's turn to be geeky so we went to National History Museum to see some dinosaurs! 

Dearie and the love of his love. The T-Rex.

And afterwards, these two geeks went to 221B Baker Street! Woo-hoo!

You can't see it, but I was absolutely freezing here! There was a line of people queueing and it was really, really cold outside my teeth were cracking and I just buried my face into my scarf and I couldn't even talk! Anyway, finally we went in and basically inside they had all these Sherlock Holmes' artifacts from the costumes, pages of the books and the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, figures to re-enact some memorable scenes and a chance for us to snap some pictures.

Us, in Sherlock's living room and fireplace.

We bought some souvenirs from the shop, it was cool!

That was London. It was all I could imagine and more. I wish we could have explored more places and had more time to spend there. I got a bit sad now thinking about it, but hey I will be back, I'm sure of it! As soon as I'm back in Singapore, I'm missing the weather and the cute accents and my scarf and my boots! But most importantly, I'm missing the adventure I got to share with Dearie! It was priceless. 

So on that note, we continued our trip to Manchester. Until the next post, let me leave you with this picture of me with Darth Vader himself, built from Lego.

We are going to UK!

I pretty much ruined the surprise with that title already, right?

So yeah, folks! Greg and I are going to UK!

It all started with one girl who has a dream of travelling to the land of fish and chips, shepherd's pie, and Gordon Ramsay. And then she met a boy who has been wanting his whole life to watch his favourite team play at the Theatre of Dreams. Oh hey! Apparently they match! So there began the journey of brave decision that this girl and this boy will visit UK together and fulfil both their lifelong dreams.

*Curtains drawn, audience claps*

Oookay. This is not Broadway! Snap out of it! Okay, seriously, it all just started with us being like, "Hey, I want to go somewhere far!" (this should be understandable since all we did was going to KL and Bintan, for goodness sake.) We've also gone to Bali twice and Hong Kong once, and I've gone to Pasir Ris like, a lot. Like, a lot lot, and that doesn't count as going overseas, although it sure feels like that sometimes, if you ask me.

I wanted to go somewhere where I can't find Nasi Lemak or Chicken Rice, or come across locals bargaining for fake jerseys. I wanted a long plane ride. The whole in-flight meals (and not just peanuts and bottled water). Asking for directions. I wanted a different weather, a different accent, a whole new experience that Greg and I can take all in together. Because we both love travelling. Or scheming, as we call it.

Once we decided "let's do it!", we realized it's not as easy to plan as we both have to fit in the right timing so that we can catch United play. Back then, the schedule for the new season wasn't even out yet, so we couldn't really anything yet. The whole UK scheme just seemed almost unreal, like we were just fantasizing about it.

The other problem once the schedule was out, was to determine how long we were going to stay and which places in UK we were going to go. I initially wanted to go to Dublin, it's been a dream too, especially after the teenage me watched "Once", this Irish movie about the story of two musicians, and of course, those movies I've seen that were shot in Ireland were just breathtaking! But then, I realized, that I needed Ireland Visa to specifically go to Dublin. My Irish friend also told me that it wasn't worth it to just stay in Dublin for 3-4 nights and not being able to see the countryside, which is according to him, is the real Ireland. "Dublin is becoming more and more commercialized like London these days," he said.

So after some contemplating, we decided to swap Dublin with Edinburgh! And we are going to go for 2 weeks, visiting London,  Manchester (obviously), Newcastle and Edinburgh! Yay, I'm so excited!

We've booked the flights, hotels for London and Manchester, our travel insurance, and I've submitted my UK Visa application, and took leave from work, so I guess we're all set! There are still many things to plan out, like hotel for Edinburgh and train tickets to get us from one place to another, and of course, our itinerary!

We still have a little more than a month to figure things out but suggestions are welcomed if you have any! I can't wait to go and see people like these...

Whoops!

This great hotel website

Movers and shakers of the world!

(Isn't that an empowering opening or what?!)

Some of you are probably wondering (or not), about this big banner right here on my right. Why am I suddenly putting a travel site?

I used to have a lot of family vacations when I was growing up, and it's something I would never trade for anything. The whole experience makes up my childhood, and even though I don't remember much about watching transvestites' shows in Bangkok, crossing the river to Hongkong, and feeding kangaroos in Sydney, I knew we were all there, and everytime we got together, snippets of funny stories from those trips never ceased to make us laugh.

It has been so long since we have one of those family trips, it's harder now to get all of us together now that we're busy with our own things. The next chance we get, it's gonna happen for sure. My dad has been working too hard, and what for? What's the point if he can't even enjoy himself? Take a break once in a while?

The last trip that I've gone was that month-long trip to the States, and I absolutely loved it. It reminds me how much I love travelling in the first place. (also part of why I love The Amazing Race so much.) I think everyone should travel more, and see the world, because there's nothing like it, really.

So when you're all ready to conquer the world, there's still the issue of accomodation. When we already spend much on the plane ticket itself, we sometimes compromise on the hotels. But we shouldn't; it's one of the most important aspect of a trip, because you don't really want to share bathroom with 10 other people in a hostel, or worry about hygene for that matter. My friends and I spent a lot of time choosing hotels for our trip, because we wanted it to be cheap, but still good enough. We compared prices, locations, services from various sites and had to read many reviews before making our decision. It's a lot of hassle.

Well, that's why I'm putting this site here. I came across it the other day and I really wanna share it with you guys. They are offering affordable hotels rates in Asia Pacific region in just one site. Here.

From all around Asia to Australia, it's so easy to find whatever hotels you want under any budgets (from cheaper to more luxurious!) For each country, you can find list of specific locations, and the site will show you all hotels within that area that you want, complete with the map, photos, hotel details, and rates.

(For example, if you click Indonesia, you will be able to see all hotels from each province and island. It really doesn't get any easier than this to plan a trip anywhere.)

I also love the fact that in each location you choose, they provide background information and popular places in the area, which makes it even easier for us to know where to visit!

If I knew about this sooner, I would advise my dad to take a look before he went to Hongkong a few weeks ago. So yeah, I thought I'd share it here, and hopefully some of you find this useful. Here's the website again. Here. Take a look and be inspired. Ha! It certainly makes me wanna pack my bags and leave for Cook Island or something. (Saw that on Survivor!)

In that note, we definitely need a family vacation again.

On a separate note, hope you guys have a great day. I'm gonna blog more later on.