is 2010 a year of traveling?

first, mas announced the singapore dollar would be allowed to appreciate in value throughout this year. thereafter i have a pending trip to visit my parents in brunei during cny. come april, i'll be in japan. next my sis invited me to join her to visit perth, australia in the later part of this year!

nevertheless, the feedback i got was perth is a pretty boring place. i am trying to convince my sister to change plans and head over to hong kong and macau instead haha.

at the same time, there are probably plans to visit either the americas or europe, but none of these plans are concrete anyway, and will probably be chucked aside. fact is, my current earning capacity cannot sustain a traveling lifestyle.

anyway, now busy studying for my japanese exams tomorrow. a little anxious as it covers all the elementary contents, plus the fact that i am not very good with tenses, even in english! wish me luck =).

and so... i'm going for another trip again

seems like i will be flying every 2 months for leisure or holiday! i have just booked a ticket to tokyo by all nippon airways (ana), scheduled to depart early april.

i am somewhat excited yet apprehensive about this trip. till now, i have never flown to any places further than guangzhou, and moreover, this will be the first time i am traveling to a place when it's not summer!

however, i am mindful that tokyo is the most expensive city in the world, which means, $ is an important factor. this trip is challenging for me considering that i am currently paid peanuts and due to the complete absence of a full aws or any bonuses, i will have to keep saving a huge chunk of my monthly salary=(. it is perhaps time to reconsider some priorities in my current life.

anyway, pardon me for the rant. i have decided to stay at sunroute plaza shinjuku, after all the great reviews from tripadvisor. at the very least i believed the hotel is very reasonably priced for its location.

nothing concrete planned yet, but some of the places in mind would be:
- tsukiji fish market
- ginza, akihabara, harajuku, roppongi, ueno, shibuya crossing
- mount fuji and the fuji five lakes
- hakone and great boiling valley
- some museums
- the controversial yasukuni shrine
- imperial palace
- odaiba
- rainbow bridge / tokyo tower
- etc. etc.

really looking forward to this trip.

recently - christmas in bangkok

not too long ago i was invited by my poly-buddy to spend christmas in bangkok with some thai friends. as people around me have been traveling like nobody's business, i felt my travel-bug biting and decided to tag along.

it was my first time at the "new" suvarnabhumi airport. our friendly thai friends picked us from the airport and played hosts to us.

we stayed in one of our friend's semi-detached house on the outskirts of bangkok.

we visited a few key landmarks - siam paragon, central plaza, wat arun and wat pho, with the sleeping buddha. though it was my second time visiting the wats, i still enjoyed it.

foodwise our hosts managed pretty well. throughout our 3.5 days in bangkok, i never felt hungry. i had never had so much delicious thai food continuously in my entire life! we were even treated to an 800-baht buffet in one of the major hotels.

i love their tom-yum kfc drumlets and mango sticky rice. a must try =).

actually we were not allowed to pay for our food. any attempt to dissuade them otherwise ends up in the argument along the line of "this is my country and i shall treat you to the delicacies she has to offer." !! i hope we didn't burn a hole in their pockets.

as for shopping we only managed to tailor-made some shirts at one of the recommended tailors in sukhumvit area from hwz forums. 2400-baht for 2 shirts for the coming chinese new year=). other than that we didn't do much shopping =(

it was an extremely enjoyable getaway and i spent less than sgd200 in total=).

day 5 & 6 - guangzhou, guangdong

woke up quite early in the morning to get ready for the last leg of our trip - guangzhou! i was quite excited yet tired. we had been rushing from point a to point b for the past few days.

took a kwee kwan (岐关) bus to guangzhou proper for rmb70. the ride took 2 hours with a stopover.

stayed in a pretty rundown hotel - hotel lido near beijing pedestrian street. it's a little far from the guangzhou metro station (公园前) though.

we went to this place called dishifulu (第十甫路) for some street shopping for the night, similar to browsing through the ladies street in hk. had a so-so dinner there. there wasn't enough time to get to the up-down-nine-street (上下九路), haiz.

the next morning, we had a great dim sum breakfast. even now, back in singapore as i am typing this, i still miss the food in guangzhou. i just cannot find any tastier dim sum in singapore, even red star loses.

the first picture is the chee cheong fun. yummy yummy *slurp!!

i still remember my china colleague teased me with this statement: "now you finally understand why we china people dislike the food in singapore!". i just had to agree.

visited some temples in guangzhou. went to an interesting place called the chen clan academy - 陈家祠. apparently this area used to be inhabited by the chens and they came to pool their money to set up a study academy in this area. even the metro station is named chen clan academy station.

so of course we visited the chen clan academy for a couple of 10 rmbs. i kinda like architectures from these eras. they just seemed so majestic yet organized.

alas, it's a pity i didn't get to visit the tomb of the nanyue king - the era before the present-day guangdong is incorporated into china proper.

next up on our itinerary is the pearl river cruise. went for a quick lunch and a last-minute shopping for gifts before the cruise starts. luckily we can dump everything in our hotel room along the way =).

so it has came to the end of the trip. it was quite an eventful trip and an eye-opener for me. the china portrayed by her people in singapore is in sharp contrast to the image projected within china. anyway, if possible, i would love to visit china again since i dun need a visa to go there=).

day 3 & 4 - zhuhai, guangdong

it ponders me that many of my friends have no idea where zhuhai is located. it is immediately adjacent to macau just like shenzhen is immediately adjacent to hong kong. it is known as china's city of romance.

from shenzhen shekou ferry terminal(蛇口客运站), we took a one hour ferry ride to zhuhai jiuzhougang ferry terminal(九洲港码头) for around rmb90. it was to be a city i develop a love-hate relationship with.

the first thing that strikes me was the beautiful scenery. their sea has three different dynamic colors. interesting!

our itinerary for the day was to check-in, do some sight-seeing, shop in the huge gongbei underground complex and had a seafood dinner. zhuhai is famous for fresh and tasty seafood!

we stayed at one of the 3-room apartments in guangdong regency hotel for rmb 700 a night. we felt pampered by the generous space and i had my own room =).

a view from my room overlooking macau.

engaged a local for a short tour around the city. my camera of seven years died somewhere along the way - sad. evening came and we went to the huge underground shopping complex. luckily we did not lost our way in the shopping complex. i bought a pair of diesel shoes for rmb70 =).

had a seafood dinner at one of the seafood restaurants near the complex - just opposite the immigration border with macau.

the next day, we went to the summer palace. actually it is a partial replica of the original summer palace in beijing. interesting place with lots of performances.

btw we received a fake cny10 note here. the top note below is a fake.

we did some last minute shopping for the night as we'll leave for guangzhou by bus the next day. had a sumptuous dinner at one of the most famous restaurant - 金月轩 for only around rmb200.

in summary, what i like about this city is:
- cheap taxi, going anywhere within the city is rmb10
- beautiful scenery
- great seafood
- people are friendlier
- city is relatively clean