Note : Photograph @ 2,3,4 by me and contents by respective author / publisher.

The new magazine in town

Error 1 : I should have informed the young man to change his shirt. OMG! Right, image still acceptable except for the garnishing, should have put red chili on it to make it more vibrant. See original here.

I am quite satisfied with the left image (did a bit background settings) but a bit blur for some part of the dish though. Right image is plausible still. See original here.

Error 2 : Tobokki not sharp enough and color is kinda jumble up with the table cloth and as for the Sam Gye Tang on the right, there was no garnishing on top of the chicken. Too plain! They over-cropped my photos I think. See original here and here.

Cheers.

You can try the EQ & SQ Test here & IQ Test here. Well, it took me some time to complete all 144 questions. Here are my results in 2 parts for your reference.

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Gayness & Enjoy! hahaha!

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!

Click to Zoom [+]

The video below showed us sheer beauty of what earth has to offer. It's a real neat video with the music along.

15.08.2010 - Feeble mind and lack of sleep, 3 hours of rest is never enough. I still remembered Darren were sleeping soundly that no matter how hard I knocked or called, he was not aware of. I have no choice but to inform the counter about my situation. Luckily I was able to grab a key in from them. Tunes Hotel. Oh dear! Imagine a hotel without additional door cards, cable phones or even cleansing agent for a comfy bath; that's a hostel more like it. Everything amenities in the hotel is about $, but of course you pay what you get.

We took a cab to LCC Terminal @ RM80 for 4 and departed at 1PM in the afternoon. I thought the flight took approximately 2 hours but unfortunately it's the timezone that I have to be aware of. 

Arrived Krabi @ 1.35pm(+7GMT). Simple airport and noticed only an officer working on the b-scan which took us quite some times on the queue. We saw a man holding an A4 paper with the word 'Ms. Shirley' on it and followed him blindly without any further questions asked. I don't think the driver understands us and so, we departed off to our hotel, Royal Nakara @ Ao Nang. Half way on the road, the hotel staff buzz us and questioned if we're really on our way to the hotel and therefore, we passed the phone to the driver. To our surprise, all of us had made a huge mistake! We're on the wrong vehicle heading to the wrong hotel, however, after some negotiation between the 2 parties (on the phone), we managed to reach our own hotel safely. The driver himself had a little chagrin and occasionally chuckled. As for the 6 of us, we were utterly guffawed. We then realized a grey section  printed on the A4 paper referring to some other resort. Neither any of us nor the driver noticed it. LOL!

致团友留念:

嘻嘻嘻~第一次摆那么大的乌龙让大家觉得有点尴尬,尤其是司机,没有确定客人身份在开车,真让人耐人寻味. 最终司机也得跟有关酒店谈判才把我们送到酒店大门(而不是门口). 下次记得把眼睛瞪大点哦! 以免超级乌龙篇在上演,免的无辜被抛. 我在想哦..那位'Shirley'会不气馁到拿司机来当沙包来打叻. 哈!

~~~

We checked in our hotel and hopped on a Jeepsy to Krabi Town for leisure walk, exploring their night markets and most importantly, their local food & delicacies. Cheap, creative and affordable that's all I could say. After the night market stroll, we took the jeepsy ride back to our hotel @ 60 Baht per pax. There goes our Day 1.

On the van, on the way to Royal Nakara when we realized something is not right. Moon & Hong

Shirley, Jeannette & Law

We checked-in soon after we alight. Per night is 3,500 Baht with 2 queen size bed and a single bed. Not too bad as we checked. Staff was friendly and approachable but too bad only a room key was given.

Random hotel shoot. A quiet place but there were some constructions going on around. It seemed like there were a few resorts / hotels erected within the vicinity.

Our hotel room with 2 queen size bed + a single bed where I took this photo.

There's a kitchen too for us to cook (with a microwave), a mini bar station as well

Another angle near the sliding door.

These 2 girls were really tired that they had siesta after this shot. lol

We had a short stroll along Ao Nang stretch with souvenir shops, restaurants & cafe, tailors etc., similar to Bali I would say.

The group is ready for Jeepsy ride to Krabi Town!

In the Jeepsy ride, you're able to observe wonderful sceneries around, tagged along with a few tourists @ just 50 Baht (morning/  afternoon price).

Incidental shot of local life. There's much to tell of.

30 minutes later, we're @ Krabi Town. Looks very much alike our Serian (Sarawak Region) town yeah.

Dropped by 7-Eleven to buy some drinks to quench our thirst. This soya bean milk is really lovely.

Krabi Street Snacks / 甲米街边小吃

FYI, this market is only available on weekends. We're lucky enough to drop by and wriggle through those foods offered by locals. I bet you won't wanna miss this. This is Weekend Walking Street!

Fresh flowers on sale.

Fresh milk blend according to your choice. Good to see but not too sure if it's good to consume. Kinda odd but creative.

This aunty is preparing hot spring roll for us on the spot, skin made of flour and ingredients were shredded turnip, carrots & mushroom.

There you go, Thai Spring Roll (Popiah) with sweet chili sauce. Not bad, not too oily I reckon.

There, another stall selling BBQ Sticks but the meat was too salty. Still cooking from the above.

Didn't get to try the barbeque fish but there's more!

Thai Satay, juicy and tender!

Do you have any idea what this is? It's Fried Chicken Skin! Weeeeeeee! Ya I had a few. It's really crispy! You should try it chicken lovers! But… not too much of it. 

This is another type of flat fishball, served with chili sauce. Man… it's spicy & hot!

We came across this Scooby Doo van selling Pan Cakes and gawd, there's a variety of it that we don't know what to eat!

It's kinda unique actually. We love the settings and food from this stall!

The stall owner preparing our orders.  This is similar to our very own Roti Canai but literally it's cooked in the Thai way.

There, Banana Pancake is awesome!

This market reminds me of our very own Satok Sunday Market (Kuching, Sarawak Region).

Up next, we had cheese pancake! WOOT! Taste really good but the melted cheese made the dough flab. Still, acceptable.

Sit in a line and enjoy pancakes. Oh, that's what I called ENJOY! Sabai Dee Mai!

Barbeque Squid on the go.

It taste kinda odd going down in a full piece. I think it's the marinated sauce which was uneven. 

Many many more satay-like sticks

Thai Fried Rice with egg. Take a look at the yolk, it's orange color. Sometimes, I was kinda worried if it's an artificial egg. There were cases in China reported. I give it a pass on this. Next….

Steamed Thai Chicken Rice. Okay.. that looks kinda new to me. Didn't get to try cause we had a little bit of this and that along. Pass.

So I did managed to try out this yolk yam delicacies. It taste really floury. One is enough.

Ah, the famous miniature Thai pineapple is a must try. Sweet and juicy!

Tubes of colorful drinks

Thai hotdog / Weisswurst! Not too salty and similar to Taiwan hotdog. Usually served with raw cabbage and small chilies.

Thai coconut is the bomb especially for one hot day like this!!

The famous Mango Glutinous Rice. The condiment is a bit too sweet but it's a good combination for 3 different types of sticky rice.

I think it's coloring for the 2.

Thai style Char Kueh Teow. Sweet but not salty. Another weird combination.

Little busker rendering their instruments. They are really talented. I have a video on this, I'll try to post up @ my facebook.

Oh yeah, this is coconut Ice-Cream. My first try told me that it taste mediocre. The scoops was a bit too sweet though.

Drawing was (and still is) my compassionate hobby and every time I looked at these people, I felt like joining with a brush and paper.

Little souvenirs on your pick. The varieties are eye opening really.

These little puppet is perfect for lovers I supposed.

She rides!

Sunset @ Krabi Town. Noticed that interesting traffic light with a man carrying bulks. haha!

There's another market in Krabi Town. It's the fruit market but along you can check out some food and cloths, not far from walking street.

On our way back, I came across this flamboyant lanterns. Not quite! It's foldable and easy to attach. I bought it for 300 Baht for the medium size.

SUPPER TIME!

Yeah, we bought some cup noodle @ 7-Eleven with dumpling and cocktail hotdogs. Unhealthy presence but oh well, it's our college mates reunion. WTH

Of course, accompanied with a few beverages. You see, we have black soya milk, Singha, Heineken, & Asahi. Beer is really that cheap @ Thailand.

There you go! More cocktails and Dumpling… We bloated after.

And Whalla! Khot Kun Khab. We did the same back in 2008 here.
Nikon CLS were used above.

Stay tune for Day 2. Hope you enjoyed.

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.

^{dang shi nin hang guk o lil guk sa ha na yo?}

^{ye, chu kuen.}

9th August will be Singapore's National Day and heard a lot of Singaporeans flocking out of the country for holidays. This time on, Korea seemed to be a popular destination for summer goers. 7 hours sounds long but it's just some distance away. Anyway, am off to this city with all sorts of cool architecture to glimpse on. Incheon airport specifically, was rated one of the best in the world after Changi & HKIA! I gotta check that out!

Team building is nothing new in an organisation and this trip is to fulfill the purpose of it. But let's say 90% of the time we'll be strolling @ major cities including down town Seoul, Cheong gye jeong, Suwon, Daepohang, Sorak, Dong Dae Mun, Myeong Dong so on, and so on.

I heard Airasia had recently launched flights from KL-Incheon too with as low as RM275 return ticket. This ticket we bought is S$938 per pax via SQ so I assume that future long haul flights to Incheon will be a bit cheaper competing with rivals like Airasia X. I believe commercial airline is much more viable compared to those flights that does not provide any entertainment and food on board. Likewise, Airasia X is still cheap on the go when it comes to promo.

I'll be roaming over so text message is welcome but online updates is mere I supposed. Let's see if they do provide Free Wi-Fi else where. Till then.

Gumapsumnida.
Jang Gang Wi ssueda^^

Due to copyright concerns, I cannot publish all featured dish but whalla, I do have some side dishes on the shots. Oh, the morning session had plenty of it and had my full lunch @ Bakezin instead

This is my Aglio Olio with ham & bacon! Oh, those chili padi were flaming spicy!

Guess what? It's oily though! Didn't quite like it but olive was used which gave me a relieve.

Dinner time @ a Korean mom's house. She cooked Kimchi Chicken Soup. First time I had this and it's really strange, brings back memories of Tom Yam & Asam culinary. Not too bad!

This is a type preserved leaf that's only available in Korea, not sure what it's named, and behind it was another type of minty preserved leaf followed by squid (non-fermented) haha.

There, the popular Korean Kim-Chi.