Thailand Graduation Trip - Part 2 Phuket (Day 6 and 7)

Right! I better get going with this if not I will never finish it! Haha

Alright for day 6 and 7, which were our last two days, I didn't take much photos :( Cause in day 6 we went for the ATV ride, water rafting and waterfall trekking! The photos are in Weilun's underwater camera which I'm still in the process of downloading, and it's not done yet. So I'll post them later okay! :) So yup cause of these activities I didn't bring my camera out. But here are some photos I took in day 6 after the activities! :)

Oh and some photos of cute monkeys from the monkey cave before the day begins! :)

 My brother from another species

 On the way back to Phuket from Pha Nga (outside of Phuket)

Fruit stalls!

 So I bought this fruit called Salak!

Which I also eat in Indonesia, and they're called Salak too

Thankfully it didn't rain during our activities -_-

And after we returned to Phuket, we wash up and then we decided to end of our trip (being the last night here) to go for a drink! But before that we went to search for food. So we walked along the beach street but couldn't find anything suitable. So we decided to go walk along Bangla road, which is famous for its night life! And to our luck we find a nice food fair :D So we just bought food and we share it together hehe. And there was an awesome singer too!

And after searching for a place to settle for our drinks, we decided to go to Red Hot Bar along the Ratuthin street, near the intersection of Soi Bangla. To all who are going Phuket, I highly recommend you to go there for a drink haha. Love the band and the atmosphere! They have jug margaritas too! We ordered a jug, and I ordered uhhh...

 

Okay here's the story I got real high that night haha. Drank (and shared) two pints and one bottle of Chang. Plus the jug margaritas. I forgot what happened but I remember that I vomited when I reached the hotel. And I got severe hangover the day after. Oh dear haha. But it's a great night I must say! Would love to come back :D

And yes the picture beside is the jug margarita hehe

Right so that's all for the last night in Phuket. For the last day, we decided to swim at the hotel after breakfast, wash up, and then we went for lunch. Before lunch we decided to go to Patong Beach to walk around but the weather was not on our side so we rushed back to the street. We decided to go to Jungceylon for lunch at a restaurant called the Soup Restaurant. And then we spent the rest of the afternoon walking around Patong :)

We were trying hard to look for the Thai Iced Tea! Haha, we found an unattended stall near Ratuthin street but no one came. So we decided to walk along Patong beach again and... We found it! Alright here are some photos I took during that afternoon.

 Patong Beach in the late morning

(Note the dark clouds at the back :P)

 En route Jungceylon via tuk tuk!

 We walked Patong Beach for this! Hahaha

And it tasted so good.

 Fine day at Patong beach

 The famous pancake stall!

 And what we found when we're back at the hotel HAHAHA

Oh man blogging about this trip made me really miss our trip so very much! At the same time I must also say that it's been a wonderful time I had with the 5 of us. I'm so glad that we went for this trip together and braved Thailand together. And quite thankful that weather has been on our side as well. I really love Thailand, it's a uniquely beautiful place. I would love to come back when I have the chance. I'll definitely be back! :')

And to end off this post, here's our jump shot at Patong!

 

Thanks for everything JAMBS!

-JAMBSGT13-

Thailand Graduation Trip - Part 1 Bangkok (Day 3 and 4)

Right, continuing on!

For the third day, which was a Sunday (7/4) we decided to go for the boat tour down the Chao Praya river. We bought a one day pass which entitled us to stop anywhere we want, but we just decided to stop at a few stops and not everything since we didn't have the whole day. So the places we went were: Wang Lang Pier, Chinatown (Yaowarat), Wat Arun, and then we took the boat back to take the BTS back to Siam (pronounce Sa-yam, not Siam!),

Alright so our first stop was Wang Lang Pier,where there was the Wang Lang market, a temple where we feed the birds and fishes, and a school haha. It's just like alleys and it was quite interesting to walk around there. I can tell it's not a touristy place cause in the market, almost everything is in Thai haha. Bought some street food there too!

There are lots of food stalls, clothes stalls and so on. But we were full from breakfast so we didn't get to try the full meal. Though I would really love to sit in one of their eateries there to eat! But yes I was full from breakfast and the street snacks we had haha.

I truly enjoyed walking around Wang Lang though, it's pretty cool and an eye-opener. But once again, Wang Lang reminds me of my hometown heh. Just that everyone speaks Thai.



In Wang Lang we also found a spot where we could buy some breads and feed the birds and fishes. I think it's just for the fishes but the birds (thanks to evolution) join the party and went for the feeding frenzy too haha. It was my first time like feeding SO many birds, it's really a lot haha. Rather frenzy but a fun experience I must say. Doing good deeds.

After that we walked back to the pier again to catch the next boat to our next destination which was Chinatown or also known as Yaowarat. We headed there to hunt for stuff to bring back, and also to hunt for yummy food! Cause they're famous for the food hehe.







Yaowarat speaks Chinatown to me haha. Almost all the signs have Chinese writings on it. And even the shopholders can speak both Thai and Chinese. We just walked around to get some food. Their street food is quite good! We found food like Chwee Kueh (though I mist say I prefer Singapore one haha) and also a bottle of freshly squeeze promergrenate juice is all I need after walking on such a hot day! And also, we had a bowl of Bird's nest dessert which is nice as well.

And not to forget we brought back the famous pork floss spring-roll :)




After walking back we headed for our next destination which is Wat Arun - Temple of the Dawn. It's a pretty nice temple, grand and majestic, tall and beautifully sculptured! Can't believe it's constructed in the 1800s. Without much technology yet the temple looks awesome. Artisan in its best form. And the climb up was really challenging, but the climbing down was EVEN more challenging haha. Well cause it's super steep!

But it's fun :)










And here are more pictures during the boat tour. Don't worry I took more than this heh. After Wat Arun we took the boat back to the Central Pier to go back to Saphan Taksin station to go back to Siam as we were heading for Platinum mall!

Us at the boat, thanks to a nice boat-lady who helped us take this!

 Wat Arun in the distance

I didn't take a lot of photos at Platinum. Actually I did just that it was taken with my Lomo and the films are still being processed now so sorry no photos! Besides it's only shopping haha. But it's a great way to end my last night in Bangkok by having an awesome foot reflexology, shoulder, back and head massage with Weilun! It's so relaxing and aaahhhhh hahaha.

The last day was spent on last minute shopping too. Same, I didn't take much pictures but I have to share with your this "nice food"! Too bad you can't eat it.

THIS PORK DISH IS SO GOOD OMG hahahaha. It's like slices of roasted pork, dumplings and vegetables. The pork was so crispy and salty and just perfect! The soup was okay, but the pork elevated the dish to seventh heaven! Really good. Oh gawd I think I can eat this everyday, just that I wish it won't bring me cardiovascular problems.

Alright, just gonna end off this post with some photos of Bangkok Traffic, the infamous one haha. And one last photo of Suvarnhabumi before we boarded the plane to Phuket. Thanks for reading! :D

 The infamous Bangkok Traffic

I realised why the motorcycles are in such formation

Hint: Look at the shadow

 Waiting

 5 of us on our way to the airport!

 While waiting for our flight to Phuket

Thailand Graduation Trip - Part 1 Bangkok Done!

Thailand Graduation Trip - Part 1 Bangkok (Day 1 and 2)

Right! Here's the post about my trip. I'm gonna blog about Bangkok first hehe.

Anyway so like all journeys, we begin in Changi (duh!). We met at 6.30 AM as our flight was at 8.30 AM, checked in early and we just decided to walk around T2 before waiting at the gate. Co-incidentally we even met Raudha who's also heading for Bangkok! :) The Tiger Airways flight was pleasant, not for me though, thanks to my headache and nausea urgghhh. And we arrived in Bangkok on time and so on! And we decided to get the Thai numbers with unlimited 3G for 7days! :)

We took the City Line train which took us from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Phaya Thai station, which we then change over to the BTS line to Chit Lom, which is our station near the hotel. It's quite cool cause we got to use interesting coin (as shown beside) for our "card"! Well some stations do have their "card" as well, perhaps the one from the airport uses the coin hehe.

The journey to Chit Lom station was... Tiring but fun! Haha lugging our luggages up and down, and some stations don't have escalators (like Chit Lom) so we had no choice but to carry our luggages down the stairs. Well it's good exercise before we start our 7 day gastronomical journey in Thailand I suppose! Nevertheless we conquered it all, checked-in our hotels, unpack a bit and began our Bangkok adventure with Centralworld for food!

So we were walking around Centralworld, which is a mall near our hotel and we were so famished, we found a nice restaurant for our lunch! One thing I love about traveling is trusting your instinct. Cause I remembered this restaurant only has its menu in Thai and Chinese. And... I don't know what food but I just look at the picture and it looks good so I eat it! Here is a photo :P

After lunch we went back to our hotel before making our way to our first shopping hunt: Union Mall! It is located at Phahon Yothin station so we bought our train ticket and made our way there. And we take photos once we reached the station with the train! Haha. Union mall has both clothing and apparels. And their top floor has some cool art works!

We found out that our Thai secondary school friend, Aphicha, is in town! Well he's studying in the UK and it's good to hear that he's back in Bangkok for his holiday. It's been so long since I met him (like 4 years ago?) and so we decided to have dinner with him. We waited for him at Union Mall before we decide where to go for dinner. Well what can I say, he never change! Haha. It's good to see him again nevertheless, feels like we're back in Tanglin :)

We decided to go have some Thai food, and Aphicha knows where so we went to this restaurant called Sorndaeng, which apparently is quite famous since 1957 I think, looking at their signboard. We ordered a few dishes and yes the food there is really yummy! Like seriously good. Okay shall explain the food below hehe.

This is not all of course, we had more but these are the ones where I took photo of :P

So we have some stir fried cabbage. I like the sauce/gravy they used, it's something I've never tasted before! Well being someone who likes stir-fried stuff, and who eats stir-fried stuff that is. Then we have my favourite Som Tum which is Papaya Salad, and then followed by the famous pineapple fried rice. And one interesting dish: Hor Mok! Which, if I say correctly, it's steamed fish paste. I saw it in TV before haha. And it tasted really good! :)







Before we leave we all take a group shot in the restaurant. 

And then Aphicha brought us to a night fair which was set up by the different government sectors of Thailand! Like I saw the different ministries, defence sectors and so on. And I found out that it's for charity. It is really definitely something you won't find in tours or guidebooks (maybe) of Thailand. So I'm really glad that Aphicha has brought us there, to experience what the locals do on weekends. Definitely a night I won't forget! So Thanks for that Aphicha :)

And it was rather an exciting night where we couldn't find a taxi! But we eventually did haha.

And that's all for day 1, what an interesting day isn't it! It was just one day and I couldn't wait to see more of Bangkok, to see what this city has to offer! To be continued....



For the second day, it was just a whole day of shopping! We went to Chatuchak market, which is only opened during the weekend. That's the reason why we left on Friday haha. So it was just a whole day of shopping, and also we had a massage! Umm didn't take photo of the loots I got but anyway here are some photos I took in Chatuchak! :)

 A day ending in Chatuchak

Ice cream seller, everywhere!

This is an interesting sight actually. It was 6 PM when (I think) the national anthem was playing or something like that. And suddenly everyone just stood still for a moment. Even a car before us stopped! I was wondering why did the car stop? And then I went oh.. Okay.

Bye Chatuchak!

 5 of us and our happy loots!

For dinner we decided to head to Bangkok famous Khao San road! Yup I've been wanting to go there too, since almost all the sites recommended to go there. And I'm interested to go there after reading the book "The Beach" by Alex Garland! :P We cabbed there and when I arrived there, oh yeah things were pretty interesting! I guess the book really described what I saw there. The endless throngs of backpackers, street food, drunk people and so on. 

What can I say - Khao San, where the world travelers meet in Bangkok! I'm glad I went there teehee.

And here are the street food that we ate! From frilled mushroom, to Padthais, to banana crepe and also... Yes, CRICKETS haha. Well Weilun and I ate them that is. I find they taste like prawn. Best insect I've ever eaten haha (from wasp to scorpions, ants and my latest edition, crickets). We also actually dined at this restaurant. It looked so posh and so on but their service was bleah. Not gonna dine there anymore, if I go back to Khao San that is. But well, I really like Khao San night life! I think it's pretty interesting, and I hope to stay there longer when I come back :)

Alrighty that is all for day one and day two! And to end this post I shall end it with my beautiful face eating my favourite crickets! Yum!

Day 3 and 4 to be continued

10 months ago

This photo was taken exactly 10 months ago. The 12th of September 2011, in Duolun County, Inner Mongolia, China. I took this photo of my Overseas Community Involvement Programme (OCIP) team mates when we were there, being a part of an environmental project called 

Green Desert by Asian Journeys.

27 of us went there, planted 1133 fir tree saplings. In an attempt to make the desert green. Surely mother earth has returned her favour to us. As we planted those saplings, we do too plant seeds of friendship among us. The friendship forged, memories captured, stories written.

10 months ago I was standing there in our planting site. The day, 12/9/2011 was the day when we finished planting our saplings. I could remember clearly that it was slightly drizzling. I was feeling down, for I know there wouldn’t be any nice sunset to mark this special day. But I was wrong.

The rain stopped, the sky cleared a little. And the sky turned yellowish-orange. It was a nice moment and we all lined up above the railway track near our planting site. I took my camera, I know it would make a nice shot with the sun against their backs. And so I did. And this is what it is.

The memories, the sight of them as I took this photo is now being preserved for eternity. Till one day when I lost it. But then this photo is enough to make me remember that exact moment by which my mates are standing there waiting for their photo to be taken.

The memories of the trip still linger with me like the autumn air that we breathed. The people, the view, the food, the smell, the air, the coldness, everything. Duolun, the blue skies, the cold wind.

I miss them so much.