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.

Yesterday marks the last day of World Cup 2010, also my friend's wedding which was held @ Grand Park City Hall Hotel. Was invited to attend the wedding dinner and did a little bit of filming on our Intian batch's behalf (self willingness that is). Can see how time flies and Sudarpo had finally rang his bells and filled up his nuptials. I was surprised too when he told me that he's getting married. Ou! Sometimes there's event shock that you'll have to digest. LOL! 

Okay, long time never post up shabby photos but might as well this time then. This was taken using my HD camcorder (2 in 1 is always lovely to omit hefty bags n the go)… and 30 mins video compilation (unedited, raw) for our ex-college chaps to see.

First dish, chilled platter is what they called. There's the octopus longan at the center, left is roasted pork, behind salad prawn and followed by roasted duck and jelly fish.

Shark Fin's soup. Please be green. Don't murder anymore sharks! I still have to eat this bowl… I was hungry.

Scallop with white bean and asparagus! Taste really good! Savoring. 

This is a bit creative to put strawberry on. Wasabi Fried Prawn with Strawberry!

The Red Snapper! Great! It's fresh!

Singaporean's favorite… Roasted Chicken with cracker. LOL!

Chinese noodle. I don't quite get it why they serve it on Dish 7? We use to have this on the first dish!

Lastly…. yam dessert! Gluey and sweet!

This meal : 

Click here to watch.

OCKL – Operation Chiong Kuala Lumpur~

25.06.10 – right here, right now! This would be my second holiday (which was planned further back in february) after OCPG2 which was commenced about a week ago. Lol. All this while, the gangs (who's gonna participate in OCKL) keep in touch with one another through facebook and skype. I just can't believe this had been going on since February and the day finally came.

The traffic on the road was slow but luckily I got to check-in an hour before boarding. I was kinda worried that I might miss the flight for good and forfeited the ticket. Unlike airasia, Jetstar does not have any online check-in system so there goes the inconveniency.

Reached KL @ 9pm and head straight downtown via ERL, bought an instant cheese burger from MacD to fill up my stomach a bit before taking another train to Mid Valley (Cititel) and meet up with the gangs. Adrian & SGab was still stuck @ penang due to aircraft delays (Fireflyz) so I had another supper, which was KFC to double fill my stomach. Man, chicken rice had never taste that good with Colonel's recipe. lol… Malaysia's KFC are way better than Singapore's, i was self-indulged, really.

Mike was still working and was a bit late to come and meet with the gangs. It was 11pm, all of us were on the chirit chirit bang bang wheels to go and pick up Ad & Gab, now this time the 2 had landed to complete all 8 of us. I suggested that we have an early breakfast somewhere and Mike brought us to paparich, which would be our first gathering of the trip. An hour of chit chat were confabulated, which was kinda fun and everyone enjoyed. We dismissed at 1am and what everyone needs was a good sleep!

[ Click image to zoom! ]

That drink taste really good.. Soya bean  + red bean + chendol!

( Bryan's Ice-Cream Bun )

( EJ purposely did that on his plate )

 

I didn't sleep much, 2 hours that was. Bryan was worse, he was awaken the entire night maybe It was my snort after all but I couldn't be sure as he explained that it was the cool air from outside. The next morning, I was awaken by melodic tunes and it seemed preety hard to drag yourself off the bed, the head's hefty. Same goes to the rest. I think Mike's worse, he hardly had enough sleep for the entire week as he was our volunteered driver for the entire trip since he is already half KL-gites and knew the roads well :p Appreciate that pal!

26.06.2010 – A beautiful saturday indeed. First thing was heading gombak MRT to check out the bus ticket to Genting. Unfortunately all morning bus ticket was sold out and what's left was afternoon depart. We were in a dilemma but here comes a few touts offering private escort service to genting. instead of paying RM8, wepaid RM70 for 4. There were 8 of us, so it's RM140. I was rather exacerbated with their attitudes and wheedle continuously. I found it offending but also understand they were making a living. We had no choice but to accept their offer since everyone was so keen to go up there, oh well. The irresponsible driver drove like a speed racer which almost got us into cardiac arrest. But he's fast, we reached the cable car platform within 15 mins which usually took 30 mins of average driving.

First things first – buying descent bus ticket @ RM4 each. That's cheap! We had our maggie mee breakfast that costed RM4 abd no meat? Over priced food up there! Well, whatsoever things sold up there are either double or tripled the price of the ordinary. I wonder how ordinary people gotta afford what they couldn't afford. You need to spend at least RM100 min. up there, and for me – I think I roughly spent about RM150 inc. theme park rides. Yeah I did gambled in the casino but won RM25 overall… Lol…. i did won RM200 but I was greedy… You know that, greed is good but greeder could ripped u off no matter how, unless you have some talisman with you to counter those evil precense around; you know what am saying…

( Inside the Cable Car )

We also had those fun rides, from flying coaster, and some other coaster rides, still alright with the thrill. There's a go Kart queue tat we wasted an hour there just for the queues and gave up eventually. Ya, an hour of queue just to acquire a shower cap. Crap! I simply think it's a waste of time, I rather pay extras for express instead.

( Rides in forward angle )

( Rides in other angle )

( Hello Gabby )

( Hello Jamie )

( Hello SW & Mike )
( We have more whacko shots @ EJ's camera. Tune in to Facebook for tags )

( Now this is one heck of the crazy rides that we had @ RM10 – it's flying coaster! The thrills are just fine with me… )

( Ya you have to lie flat and Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee )

Yes, we also tried out puriku. I had never tried thus maniac and gay-like machine and that was my first time with the gangs. So much to do with your desire pose, whichever you like. It costed me RM35 for a 4R photo, as for the fun….. Priceless. We had taken a total of 6 photos from this booth with a lime green background to create fancy visual images behind us. See below…

We need to catch up our bus @ 4.45pm and reached the cable car station just in time, it took us 15 mins or so to descent, lucky enough we're able to catch up with that bus. Phew! Eceryone was exhausted and slept soundly in the bus and we head back home for showers before continue on with the night session.

Dinner @ mid valley, Pasta Zanmai and we had a surprise for Adrian, yeap… It's his belated birthday. He didn't expect that I think. The moose cake taste really good though, everyone likes it. There gies Day 2!

( Dinner @ Pasta Zanmai )

( The SFWs, now with couples LOL!! 10 years later with kids…. )

Sifudo Ramen

Unagi Rice Set

Hotate pizza (behind), and Shifudo pizza!

Here's my Teriyaki Carbonara 

Sponge + Moose Cake with bread crumbs

27.06.2010 – Day 3! Time for mass! Now everyone had a good sleep I recalled as they seemed vigor! We were very late for mass and ended sitting on the second floor facing the wall while listening to the preach. Lol… aduh. The mass ended at 10am and Mike brought everyone for brunch and that would be Seremban's char sew (pork) delight! The honey roasted char sew taste heavenly and feels like having more of it. Later, we had a stroll around Jaya One and Times Square (had Subway for lunch) before departing off Singapore. Flight was delayed half an hour till 7pm, again I was lucky to reach the airport on time to be the last to check-in! Why it has to be like that every time -.-;

The best in Seremban! Honey Roasted Pork!

The sweetness and firmness of the meat will blow you away!

Ordered a bowl of hand made noodle that taste so similar like Sarawak's Kolo mee.. Superb!!! Heard the owner is a master degree holder. Salute his recipe!

Stay tune for our video session @ next post!