16.08.2010 – It was dawn and there were no sun rays glimmered into our room but I did noticed the rest were still sleeping soundly, I fumbled my phone next to me only get to know that it was already 7AM in the morning. Our tour transfers will be arriving in an hour time. I quickly gushed out of my bed and head towards the shower to perk up after an enfeeble yesterday. Probably I didn't sleep well the night before. Right. The queues were on and we had a short breakfast before heading the bay and out to the sea.

Phi phi island is beautiful and I can say that 9 out of 10 who had been there were blown away with it's intrinsic archipelago and underwater life. The sad thing was most of the reef next to these islands died off, that left a few remnants behind – dead corals, faded colors and into oblivion. I am not a marine ecologist but the snorkeling site that I was in had dull underwater life that corals were spotted dead or lifeless and these will have a huge impact on marine biology which is linked to global warming. What makes me upset was the RUBBISH DUMPED INTO THE SEA. These people had not consent of what environmental concerns are, blemishing not only tourist attractions but to the ecology cycle as well. Fortunately, swarms colorful fish can still be spotted at the open sea but not much within the archipelago. Same goes to Bali if I recalled correctly back in 2008.

At about 8am, we were then transferred to Ao Nang speed boat center where all departures to the open sea were, off the route 4203. It looks like we will be place on entourage in a group of 20+ with a speed boat. Interesting. There seemed to have a few nationalities from the Europe continent and a number of Spanish. There's a Spanish chap whom I recalled to have humor along the ride and made our day. LOLs. The ride too approximately half an hour before we reach our first site, The Viking Cave. cont.

Day Tour cost : 750 Baht

Do enjoy those wonderful subjects captured along my journey. Hope it gives you some inspiration.

Okay, this is our breakfast, nothing new but The famous-O American Breakfast. Fancied with the starry fried egg actually and bottom is ham, with sausage, and omelette. Corn flakes, bread & orange juices were among the common served as well (but not shown above).

Look at those sleepy faces. Couldn't help much with. Shirley, Jeannette & Darren.

Same goes to Soon Hong & Moon

But the fun has just begun. We alighted at the beach 500m away from the river basin.

Looking around, enjoying sceneries.

Captured some plants grew on the trunk

Fishing boat on the move to start their daily activities

A few tourists had some shots with locals before departing.

Okay… let's rock n' roll!

And everyone hopped into the boat.

Our tour guide of the day gave some instructions before we leave.

We dropped by this island (not too sure where and the name of the hotel) but it happened to be a 5 star resort in a private island. The price is about 5,000-10,000 baht per night. We got to meet some local Indian-Thai family with amazing stories told onboard.

some rocky cliffs

From this image, it looks like the tourist were having fun on the water, which in fact not that they were on the sandy shores.

This is the kind of sail that's rare around the vicinity.

Soon Hong with his D90 Gear

This… looks like a camel island LOL!

Ahoy! Set Sail & Away!

This guy is trying to be ego

There, we reached The Viking Cave.

We didn't get to explore the Viking Cave since it's governed by local authorities. This had reminded me of the risk of ascending those cranky rock surface to pick birds nest. No safety helmet, webbing, ropes, carabiners – noting but just bamboo sticks. Impressive skills. But one slip on the fall is deadly. Probably these skills were adapted since young. Salute.

We reached Lohsamah Bay, a place where we had our first snorkeling for the day. This is where rubbish spotted and dead corals were present.

Bikini girls were enjoying, obviously.

Too bad, I can't dive into this area with my camera…… longing for a waterproof case that is. We'll not much fish here but there's jelly fish that you should be aware of. A stung can swell your skin and the venom can be fatal especially the pink jellyfish.

Later, we reached Maya Beach, this is where Leonardo Dicarprio filmed 'The Beach'.

Enjoy the rest of the photo @ Maya Beach..

Everyone alight the boat and enjoyed sun basking.

 

And we had a group photo here. Should have brought my gorilla pod along but oh well. Nevermind with that. Hope soon hong don't mind. 

We, then move on to Pileh Bay for sigh seeing – The Lagoon.

This place is beautifully untouched, serene and green.

Also a snorkeling site too but I ain't see any fish swimming around.

The water is turquoise in color and pretty shallow at certain point.

Nice Nice? Feels like coming here again. seriously.

Alright, moving to Phi Phi Don for lunch. The time we walked in, it almost looks like you're walking into a restaurant offering free food. There were no sequence, no queues, no records of any kind – you just walk in and eat. These were pretty standard buffet served, Thai Seafood Soup, plain rice, vegetables, fish fillet, fried chicken, spaghetti, and that's all. However, you are able to order some other foods but you have to pay for that else, eat all you can.

Along Phi Phi Don haven.

This small town are full of souvenirs and sea activities to look for, diving were among the popular ones operated by caucasians.

Later, we head to Hin Klarng for open sea snorkeling. This is where those sheer underwater sea life were spotted. Watch out for my video coming soon. After half an hour later, we head to Bamboo Island (above).

Bikini girls were present again. Oh yeah, feels like I am in Bondi Beach at certain times except for the landscape.

There goes another!

Nice place to hang out but I don't quite like the sand there. There were lots of coral remnants on the beach and doesn't feel comfortable walking along the beach, really.

There goes the last one. At about 4PM+, we head back to Ao Nang beach and took some rest in the hotel before having a stroll down Ao Nang town, and for dinner!

We dropped by Bernie's Place by taking tuk tuk.. It cost about 20 Baht per person from our place. From the above, it's all you can eat buffet @ only 250 Baht. affordable yet perfecto but most of it were fried / bbq which is not really healthy.

Spaghetti not up to expectation but still fine with it. There's the mash potatoes on the right.

Grilled chicken. Surprisingly it tasted tender and juicy but other claimed that it was too hard and dry. Well, lucky me! There's this BBQ potatoes & satay stick @ rear.

Pork chop & Weisswurst (german hotdog). Taste awesome. Just lack of something.. ah.. mushroom sauce.

Fries & toast

My fav. Pasta & Veggies

Thai Tom Yam Kung. The meat used here was fish but not chicken.

Last but not least, Ice-Cream (self-service)
This, I bloated and couldn't really move around.
I almost threw out due to those heavy food consumed but SATISFIED!!!!!

Hope you enjoyed Day 2. Do Stay tune with my video coming your way. Won't disappoint you!

It's been a while since I last posted my very own self online (narcissist it sounds). Okay, this series will possess a lot of me inside so HOPE U ENJOYED! Bwaahahhaha! Okay, I was away along the weekend and visited Korea for 5 days which my company sponsored each and everyone of us with a brim flight bound Seoul. Jez.. never knew HOLIDAY seasons are that packed and people flocked outta town merciless, escaping the shode of Independence & silly wriggly celebrations.  

05.08.2010 – Early in the morning, I picked up my colleague and head straight to the airport. Cab is not cheap though – A total bill of S$34, but at least 2 of us shared the trip and reserved a few meals later. We checked-in and first thing was windows shopping around Terminal 3 but unfortunately, I've missed out the swirly slide! ARGH!!!! So…. I had Burger King for breakfast again (literally there's nothing much to eat since it's early in the morning), yeah I know it sounds cluttered on food choice but that's the one and only breakfast that everyone is craving for

Took SQ608 from Singapore – Seoul with approximately 6 hours 30 minutes of time spent up in the air. Comfort comes first into mind. People might wondered why we fly Korea with Singapore Airlines? Bad timing!! It was so unfortunate that we're unable to grab the amount of seats in Korean Air as the agency claimed that all seats were fully booked. No choice but to dismissed those beautiful Korean air stewardess. Howdy to Singaporean air crew in return, where there were 2 Korean chicks serving the flight. Great, so they speak Korean language with fluent English aboard. I wondered who's that fair looking lady with Hangul tags on her, those blasting smiles could melt your heart away. Okay, enough chuckling, let's fly!

I haven't get ready man and it looks like I've just woke up from slumber!

Ah, let's see what we have on the menu! 

Damn, we caught some bumpy rides along as the turbulence were strong.

Breakfast served on board : scones & muffin with fruits

Robby Boy said : Delicious! I think he puke

Here's our lunch on board : I've opt for Pan Fried Fish Fillet w/ white wine sauce, ratatouille and parsley potatoes, Pasta & Ham salad as appetizer. There's a FREE KIT KAT Ice Cream too! Now you see why I love SQ to bits.

Touched down Incheon Airport @ 3.25PM (+9GMT) That tower looks a bit odd…

But I like the overall design of the terminal, spacious & (use to be) futuristic albeit domestic airport is much more appealing but too bad you can't see it from this angle. Stay tune as I'll show it to you on the very last post

Weeeee~~~

Aircraft bound Jeju. I like the smiles @ the plane tail. It brightens my day

Transfer to main terminal via train. Train service @ 10 minutes interval. Wow, Koreans queue also… surprisingly. After immigration check, we met our tour guide Kim & photographer, Bae before heading towards Seoul City for sight seeing & dinner.

Along the route, had a snap shot of modern skyscrapers.

Most buildings here are limited to certain floors to withstand earthquake I supposed.

This is Cheonggyecheon (청계천) stream, a man made stream in the city. You can see the crowds romping in the water from the bridge here.

So water is wealth & hapiness to them

Miniature waterfall @ the stream

Ah, it's pretty windy and after this shot, it rained. -.-;

Statues along the road~

Yeah, dropped by Korea Ginseng Chicken Soup for the menu itself. haha!

Banchan Served… Noodle (누들), Kimchi (김치), Ggakdugi (깍두기), and Soju (소주)!

Here's a big bowl of Ginseng Chicken Soup / Sam Gye Tang (삼계탕) with glutinous rice inside the chicken, garnished with young scallions. Yeah, this is a young chicken in the pot! Ideally, this Sam Gye Tang is not salty and you seasoned according to your own taste. Healthy and green

After dinner, it was about 7PM and we had a short stroll @ Dong Dae Mun (동대문) market. I didn't buy much here since it was a bit pricey and wholesale wise, you ought to buy a dozen for goodness sake!

So what i did was lifestyle nonetheless.

Since Robby Boy wants a free Internet Connection to chat with his GF. I had my latte, he had his chat @ iL Mare Cafe @ Department Store

We checked-in Rasung Hotel at 11pm. Looks kinda run down and I had my spooky experience (TV was turned on before we entered the room) on Day 3 back in this hotel. OMG!

Stay tune for Day 2.

28.10.2008 – Last day of thrill before departing back to Singapore. In my views, Taiwanese are amicable as compared to Hong Kee at least, they greet the customers with a grin, literally the japanese greeting style, and simply euphony. E.g. Welcome , " 欢迎光临~~~" Oh that's what I remembered. I do enjoy this trip with my parents albeit following tours are quite convenient for old folks but you cannot avoid those sales people 'looting' your purse with their eloquence. That's normal incident of following tours so grab on your map if you think that free and easy suits you more!

Nothing to do much on that particular day as our flight were scheduled to depart @ 3PM. So I woke up as usual, had breakfast with parents and off for a stroll via train – not far but only a few stops for some sight seeing. Parents nagged that time was a constraint that we moved early to avoid being late. Oh dear!

Had breakfast @ our hotel restaurant at the balcony (Fortuna Haiyatt Hotel) and I was dang disappointed with the menu. Look what we have here? Sweet potato (okay that's fine), Braised egg (omg), Fried spring roll (omg), veggies…

Fried vermicelli (oh dear)

But…. good to see sandwich brother on the menu.. and… ham, and some Taiwanese sausage. Ugh… I never like the taste of Taiwanese sausage, German bratwurst better!!

This Meal : 

Don't get me wrong.. this praise is for brother sandwich that save the day! Wuhahhaaha!

The sign are mostly written in mandarin so you have to watch your route closely. From Zhong Shan (中山) station, we traveled to Jiantan (剑潭) which I had no idea where we head to, but according to the tourist guide, it says there's a national park somewhere here, named Yang Ming Shan (阳明山) but eventually it goes LOL, that we're required to travel some distance from this train station. Oh well, looks like my mandarin are heading towards unproficiency level.

Not too bad! I discovered Rolls Royce!

So we head for airport @ 11.30AM

Reached the airport within 30 mins

This is Taoyuan International Airport

Early check-in to avoid any mishap and paid that tour guide Lin a lump sum of compulsory tour fees before heading to departure hall.

Ah, but before that this is the only food that could be found in the departure hall. Looks like Nandos – not! Just some local braised chicken rice.

A340 on tarmac

Ready to take off~

And this is what I had on the flight, pork chop rice! Yummy! But I dislike that sponge cake (top left) – reminds me of those chinese sponge cake for ritual offerings.

Alright let's recap my Taiwan trip for the year 2008.

[ Day 1- Arrived Taiwan - Prologue ]

[ Day 1 - Visited Fisherman's Wharf @ Dan Shui (Taipei County) ]
Lover's bridge & hot destination for wedding photography.

[ Day 1 - Dan Shui Old Street & Shi Lin Night Market (Taipei County) ]
Check out Ah Po Steel Egg @ Dan Shui & Try to bargain hard with the locals in Shi Lin Night Market.

[ Day 2 - Jiu Fen (KeeLung City) ]
Buy your souvenirs here from customized stamp to keychains & chopsticks. Also, try their Taiwanese style ABC!

[ Day 2 - Yilan National Traditional Arts Center (Yilan County) ]
Rich in adobe brick architecture 

[ Day 2 - On the way to HuaLian County ]
The locomotive is here to fetch us to HuaLian where I get to see those games played in the 80s' + Fireworks on the shelf too.

[ Day 3 - Take a tour to ChihSing Tan & Takoro Gorge (Hualian / Taitung County) ]
The scenic was simply breathtaking and such beautiful waterfall never be seen.
Late evening, we arrived Taitung's Hot Spring Resort.

[ Day 4 - Visited Fo Guang Shan Monastery & Dream Mall (Taitung County / Kaohsiung City) ]
Late evening, we arrived KaohSiung and witnessed some local protested. Check out Love River & Liu He Night Market (六合夜市)

[ Day 5 - Visited Wen Wu Temple & Formosan Aboriginal Cultural Village (Kaohsiung City / Nantou County) ]
Sun Moon Lake was awesome but we didn't get to enjoy the scenery, Late evening, we arrived Nantou County and ascent the mountains for our Sweden Holiday Homestay, also one of my favorite destination. It's really cool up there.

[ Day 6 - Enjoyed that breathtaking view & check out Chingjing Veterans Farm (Nantou County) ]
You should visit this destination as the weather up there is generally mild all year round and the veteran farms is 1750m above sea level where you get to see those sheep grazing hard. 

[ Day 6 - Travel north to Taichung via THSR + Zhong Lie Si Ancestral Hall + Taipei 101 ( Taichung / Hsinchu / Taipei City) ]
The High Speed Rail are competent with Japan's Shinkansen but I don't find Taiwanese snack savoring my gastronomy – maybe am way too Malaysian to gobble up those.

 

Day 7 refer above and there you go, that's a wrap for my Taiwan Adventure with my parents. Now it's time to blog about other countries after all these while. I do hope that in days to come I can update future post in greater speed.

~再会~

Joseph.

30.01.2010 – I was back in Kuching for my 2nd sister's wedding and it was a real challenge for me to work solo but luckily a primary school mate buzz up and offered help the following day, also a Nikon D80 user so it's pretty easy for me to guide through just in case. Am totally embarrassed that I had totally forgotten about Wemine's ang pao (red packet) after the shootings. Guess I have to postpone and pass to him during CNY.

Met up with fellow EJ @ Tarot cafe on 31st afternoon while waiting for his wife. OMG! That MangoMelon was really awesome! You gotta try that if you have the chance. The ingredients are pudding, mango slice, cincau, watermelon balls and sago. (see photo here and here)

After the wedding dinner on 31st evening, I had some catch up with Darren & Shirley @ Atmosphera Cafe – just opposite The Spring Mall. Man… the ambience of the cafe are too comfy and you could doze off anytime (see photo here, here and here). I must say that banana smoothies was really tasty and slurpie! Definitely a place for everyone to gather!!

Albeit the busy schedule, am glad to meet up a few local photographers in a singular timeframe. I met Nolan.C (plurkers) @ Pandungan and the herbal tea prepared by him was awesome (so good of Nolan to treat me but I have to pay him since he's doing business… thanks for his generosity); cool down body temperature and heat inside my body. Good start for the rest of the day just in case I have anything that's oily; whilst Edwin.L at Starbucks, Percint88 on that night – just some 5 minutes drive from home. It's been a year since we last communicate and glad he still remembered me; we shared some insights there as well but too bad I gotta leave early for my sister's wedding preps. The conversation lasted for half an hour.

Also, met Gerard.L and Allen.A at Chang Chun Coffee (Abel Rd) shop on monday morning for laksa breakfast. An hour chat with Gerard and another half for Allen and oops… guess what? Allen was late cuz' he woke up late. LOL! Then, there came an old man selling a basket of snacks / fruits. I've heard pathos & stories about this old man so I purchased 2 packets of banana snacks for RM6 (although it's a bit pricey but I hope that amount of $ could buy him 2 meals). Click here to read his story (picture attached on site).

Before I depart off Singapore on Monday afternoon, I had a pleasant lunch with mom @ Imperial Duck (see photo)… and bought some TOTO (Lotto) for mom in case if luck spurs on her. hehehe! Gawd… I almost miss my flight again and it was already 1.30PM and my flight was scheduled to depart @ 2.50PM Luckily I sped off to the airport on time and reached within 7 minutes. Phew! If not, I'll have to accept similar fate just like my past KL incident. 

Tiring week indeed. Enjoy the photos & descriptions.

Kolo mee at large! Well, this is the only stall found at Pandungan that's still opened late afternoon (about 3.30PM) and also nearby Nolan's Liang Teh Shop Taste good though… any kolo mee made in Kuching taste good

Ordered some wanton and aw!!! It's soft and delicious!! Just like those made by Hong Kee's.

Our famous Kuching 3 Layered Milk Tea or what is called as ' Teh C Peng '. Only available in Kuching and you cannot find anywhere else . Bottom part is syrup, center part is milk and top part is the tea itself.

Of course, not forgetting our famous Sarawak Laksa. This stall is @ Chang Chun, Abel Road. Had this on monday morning with 2 peeps.

Gerard Nokia-ing.. Taukeh si beh eng….

Late comer… Allen with his Teh C.

Wemine, my primary school friend with his new toy!

And yes, I was back for my sister's wedding. Something wrong with this pix. By right parents should sit down LOL! Oh well, we don't mind and no taboo about that.