To Miaoli for food [YQasia Day 15 Oct 10]

Location: Taichung, Taiwan

It was a weekend so my uncle brought everyone out to Miaoli for a meal of Hakka food. My aunt’s sister and her family came along in another car.

Before we had our lunch, we dropped by two housing areas to take a look at the latest Be A Weekend Farmer craze in Taiwan. These housing areas cater to city folks who want to grow their own organic vegetables and don’t mind dropping hundred thousand NT$’s for a little patch of land.

Developers fence up the plots and include a little one-room house and a webbed area for planting which also includes a sprinkler. Those who buy these plots probably envision themselves driving two hours out into the suburbs during weekends and collect the fruits and vegetables of their labors.

One of my uncle’s concern for such a place was that hobos would come and stay there while the owners are away. The developer assured that residents can hire security guards for their neighborhood to patrol and avoid such problems.

After the house seeing, we drove for another 30 minutes to the famous Hakka restaurant where meals are cooked for multiples of 4 persons. We had the 8 person set which included noodles wih pig trotters, a whole fish, chicken, radish cake, veggie and soup.

After our stomach-exploding meal, it was back to Taichung.

Over excited little old dog with protruding eyes

During the night, we met up with my mom’s friend and ex-classmate, Aunty Wu. She brought us out to dinner at a Japanese izakaya-like place. Unfortunately, the photos of the restaurant and food were not transferred to my computer so you just have to imagine.

We had thick slices of sashimi, steamed egg, yakitori on sticks, a salad (which I did not touch) and soups in little teapots.

Post-dinner, we visited Aunty Wu’s manfriend (the guy is about 70, I can’t still call him boyfriend, can I?). He was delivering goods but was hit by another motorcycle and broke his leg quite badly. He was put up in a nice private ward and had the whole room to himself.

After a brief chit chat, it was time to head back to my uncle’s. My aunt bought 2 cans of Taiwanese flavored beer for me to try. I tried the pineapple beer first. The aftertaste of beer was much stronger than similar stuff from Japan.

Encouraged by the beer, we went to bed early.

Read more about the Taiwan trip:

Day 0 Flight to Taipei cancelled because of typhoon
Day 1 Flight to Taiwan, bus to Taichung
Day 2 Staying at a hot springs resort in Dongpu
Day 3 Outlet shopping at Sunshine Plaza in Taichung

Buying tix to Shanghai/ Eating on a floating platform in middle of nowhere [YQasia Day 6 Oct 1]

Location: Qiandao Hu

Since Nicole and I did not sign up for any day tours, we were free to wake up whenever we want. “Whenever” turned out to be 8am since we still needed to buy our Oct 3 ticket to Shanghai from the long-distance bus terminal.

Either Wang Xing or her mother-in-law prepared breakfast so we saved on spending for one meal. Breakfast was porridge with two vegetable side dishes. Wang Xing’s mother-in-law helped us pick out cutlery and we only had a pair of chopsticks and our bowl as ammo.

How do you eat porridge with chopsticks? Drink it like soup. If you eat more daintily, you can pick up bits of flowing rice with your chopsticks. That works too.

After breakfast, we went to see if the bicycle rental shop was open. I joked that we could cycle all the way to the bus terminal but everyone vetoed the idea. Anyway, the bike shop wasn’t open yet so we took the public bus.

Bus 7 was already filled up when it reached our stop. Our luck of having seats on public bus ended today and we had to stand for the return trip as well.

At Qiandao Hu’s terminal, there wasn’t any automated vending machine for tickets so we spoke to the lady at the counter for our ticket to Shanghai. It costs 122 yuan each for the 7-hour trip.

We didn’t have any plans for the day after the tickets so we hung around the terminal. We found the tourist information counter and picked up a few maps. The maps encouraged visitors to cycle around the lake. But looking at the map, we realized that it was really a Herculean effort to do so.

We hung around until we were bored and decided to head back to town. The queue at the bus stop was terrible and we didn’t board the first bus that came. We tried to beat the system by hanging out at the drop off point for bus #2.

Unfortunately, the driver was fair and told us to board at the correct place. We sighed and obeyed. At least this bus wasn’t packed with people.

When we got back to town, I told Nicole that I saw a shop selling fresh soy bean milk and that it had Wi-Fi. We went to the place and got very strange drinks. My soy milk tasted like it was made from powder and Nicole’s blueberry cheese milk shake was made from powder and was warm.

We got online and surfed the very limited sites that we could: Foursquare, LinkedIn, Nicole’s Yahoo Mail. That’s about all that was free from the Great Firewall of China.

I had to reload some credit onto Whitney’s phone. She lent me her Xiaomi phone and it was running out of credit. I found out that her monthly phone bill is 150 yuan which is rather shocking. Later I found out that the phone company pumps back 60 yuan as part of her phone contract.

Lunchtime at Xiushui Renjia

As gluttons, we were ready for lunch at the stroke of noon. Since Nicole figured out that dinner was at some place far, we went to the fancy restaurant Wang Xing wanted to bring us to that day.

There was a short queue at Xiushui Renjia (秀水人家) [The People of the Beautiful Water, I think.] Everyone in the queue is required to leave their phone numbers. Unfortunately, I didn’t know my number and I told the restaurant employee so.

The employee gave me an incredulous look and said, “How could you not know your number?” *All conversations are translated to English.*

I explained that I borrowed the phone from my friend. In the end, I only left my name and the number of people dining (2 people).

Our turn arrived fast and we picked four dishes from the menu. Our table was by the window and looked out to the square. Since it was a public holiday, there was an event out on the square and loads of people were walking around.

Our meal was fabulous and we managed to finish every scrap. When I was in Peru, I met a Russian lady who proclaimed that China has the best food. I didn’t quite agree then since I thought Malaysian food was awesome as well. But now, I think I’m starting to believe that the best food is found in China.

After our meal, we were tired. Since we needed to head out for dinner at 5pm, Nicole suggested that we head back to Wang Xing’s house for a nap. I agreed and imagine dozing off on the hard spring mattress (which is more comfortable than soft beds).

I took my nap seriously and woke up before 4pm. Whitney said she would pick us up at 4:30pm so we got ready.

Dining on the water

Whitney, her husband and little Cola came to pick us up. They told us that we needed to wait for two other cars from Shanghai so we hung out at a little park beside the lake shore.

The park had exercise equipment for the old. Singapore also has these equipment and I enjoy the “Space Walking” machine and the “Lift Your Own Weight” machine very much.

At the park, there were a lot of kids. I think, generally, there are a lot of kids in China and the parents marry quite young (25-ish).

The boys were playing a rough game of shooting each other’s brains out with toy guns. One particular kid look rather haggard and was very violent with his toy gun.

Cola managed to pee with his pants on. Afterwards, his mom reminded him to tell her if he needs to pee. He then said in his cute voice, “Mommy, I need to pee.” *All conversations are translated to English.*

After Cola had his pants changed, the folks from Shanghai arrived and we all set off to the dinner place.

It turns out, our dinner was in the middle of a valley and we needed to drive on a long unlit, windy, unpaved, mountain road covered with dust. Just beside the road is loads of water so we could end up as fish food if the drivers were not careful.

Finally we reached the end of the road, we still needed to get onto small boats to head to the dining area which was on a floating platform.

The food came out very fast and in very large woks and plates. We had fish cooked in 4 different ways: spicy, milky fish soup, steamed and sashimi form. The steamed fish brought out the tenderness of Qiandao Hu’s fish and was very popular among us at the table. There were quite a lot of stir fried vegetables as well.

We also ate persimmons and mandarins plucked fresh from Whitney’s husband’s family orchard. I’ve never eaten persimmons as juicy. We were told to take off the persimmon’s crown and break it into half to gorge on the flesh.

After the food coma-inducing meal, we set sail back to shore. Whitney’s family brought us back to her sister’s. Nicole and I need to be ready at 6:10am tomorrow so we can be on time for the wedding procession to Lilian’s hometown.

Until tomorrow!

Read the other posts in the YQ in China series:

Day 1 Misadventures at Hangzhou Airport [YQasia Day 1 Sep 26]
Day 2 Swindlers and bicycle misadventures at West Lake
Day 3 Bike returning at West Lake/ Staying with a cute baby [YQasia Day 3 Sep 28]
Day 4 To Thousand-Island Lake by bus [YQasia Day 4 Sep 28]
Day 5 Tour of Qiandao Hu (Thousand-Island Lake) [YQasia Day 5 Sep 30]

How to make your own travel guide for a weekend trip [Weekend Traveller series part 5]

Welcome back to the fortnightly Weekend Traveller series where I share tips and strategies for travelling during the weekend so you can travel more using less work leave. You can find all of the previous posts for weekend end travel here.

Today, you will learn how to make your own travel guide sheets for the weekend end trip so you won’t need to bring a huge guidebook just for a 2-day journey,

Despite the abundance of travel information online, I still like reading guidebooks when I make travel plans. Guidebooks group information of sights and accommodation into areas, which helps you narrow down what to do and places to skip.

However, lugging a 1kg guidebook on a trip isn’t that fun. Plus, peering at a guidebook at the intersection of the road only makes you stand out as a tourist. That’s why it’s a lot more convenient to bring your own travel guide sheet which you can use as a reference while you traipse around.

To make your own guide sheet, you will need:

Word processing software such as Microsoft Word
Internet connection
Guidebooks
Travel tickets and hotel reservation information

My inspiration for the DIY weekend guidebook comes from Taiwanese budget travel expert 943.

Preparing the guidesheet

If you have narrowed down the places you want to see, it would make creating the guide sheet a lot easier.

What I like to include in my guide sheet are transportation information (How to get from the airport to the hotel), actual print screen of Google Maps (in case I don’t have internet connection when travelling), To-do lists etc.

This is how a completed guidesheet looks like:

For multiple-day trips, I create one large table for each day. Then I list down the order of things I need/want to do.

Useful information to include in the guidesheet include:

Hotel address (In English as well as the local language–this helped when I was in Thailand.)
Tourist sites/things-to-do or eat (description of the place as well)
Address of places you want to visit (and directions to get there)
Google Maps screenshot of how to get to the location you want to visit

Most guidebooks have online versions so you can copy the description of the sight into your sheet directly instead of typing it.

Once everything is done, you can print the guidesheet. I find that printing 2 pages of the guidesheet into one page and folding it in half it easier to hold.

UPDATE: Download a sample of the above guide sheet: Travel Guide Sheet sample from YQtravelling.com

What other information will you include in a guidesheet? Share them in the comments below:

Missed the previous weekend travel posts?

Part 1: Pros & cons of weekend travel
Part 2: Where to go for Weekend Travel?
Part 3: Choosing transportation for weekend travel
Part 4: Travel planning for weekend trips
Part 5: Make your own travel guide for a weekend trip
Part 6: How to pack for a weekend trip
Part 7: How to use Foursquare to plan a day’s travel
Part 8: Why a weekend trip is the best time to start solo travelling
Part 9: I’m going to Melaka for a weekend trip

A street with two names in Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown

[I haven’t written a lot about my last Visit Malaysia trip which I did with my friend Debbie. As a break from my past posts about my round-the-world trip, I’d like to take you to Kuala Terengganu.]

When I was in Kuala Terengganu, I was surprised to find that the street passing through Chinatown had two names: Jalan Bandar (City Street) and Jalan Kampung China (Chinese Village Street). If someone told me this sooner, I might have felt less anxiety when I was searching for a food outlet.

When preparing for our trip to the east coast of Malaysia, Debbie scouted a list of food places to check out. Among the eateries was Madam Bee’s Kitchen in Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown which specializes in Peranakan food.

On Madam Bee’s website, her address was Jalan Kampung Cina so I set that location on my Google Map.

Detour from Madam Bee’s

When we arrived in Kuala Terengganu, we were famished so we decided to head to Madam Bee’s. All was well as we walked to the street, based on my Google Map app.

We decided to get of the map and turn into a very Chinese street. The whole road was over-the-top Chinese with many lanterns and colorful walls. It was already a month after Chinese New Year so I don’t think the deco were put up for the festival.

While on the street, I kept checking my Google Maps app to see if we were on the right street. The apps showed that we were on Jalan Bandar so I thought that we might run into Jalan Kampung Cina if we just keep on walking.

We walked and walked. It didn’t help that the only sign I looked at listed Jalan Bandar.

I was quite embarrassed that I’ve brought us to the wrong place.

Then suddenly, we saw Madam Bee’s Kitchen with its prominent sign. Hurray!

Madam Bee's Kitchen at Kuala Terengganu's Chinatown — Madam Bee’s Kitchen at Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown

I also saw that one of the road signs kept the old name Jalan Kampung Cina.

Jalan Kampung Cina sign at Kuala Terengganu Chinatown

Sights from Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown

The only thing I knew about Terengganu was that it has a large Malay population so I was curious about Kuala Terengganu’s Chinatown.

The street had many Chinese-influenced shop houses but since it was a public holiday period, I didn’t see a lot of inhabitants.

Retro hair saloon sign at Kuala Terengganu Chinatown

Reflection of Kuala Terengganu Chinatown

Do you know any streets with two names?

Welcome to YQtravelling’s FoodFriday. The day of the week when I show off some of the lovely eats I had while travelling.

Today we’re going to Argentina for a hell lot of barbecued meat.

Before I went to Argentina, I thought I knew barbecue. To me, BBQ is a time when friends gather around and put dainty raw meat such as chicken wings, hotdogs and maybe some slices of meat on top of some charcoal.

Then on my second night, the Buenos Aires hotel I stayed at had a BBQ Thursday. Just hand over 70 pesos and you can eat all you want. When I heard of the event, I thought about how many chicken wings I can eat (many many!) and was glad that beef is popular in Argentina. Now I can replenish my iron supply!

But when I saw the barbecue pit and the meat on it, I realized how wrong I was about Argentina’s BBQ. Those were not chicken wings on the grill, those were huge chunks of meat (fatty parts included without apologies), wrist-sized sausages and half chickens.

Oh, I have to explain. Here, carne (meat) refers to beef.

Some of the guests from the US requested beef that was bleeding, not realizing that different cuts are used for BBQ. Unfortunately, the guys at the hostel didn’t really cook the meat enough so I was feeling a bit queasy after just a few bites.

Not very appetizing asado at the hostel BBQ

Later in the supermarket, I saw a huge part of the meat section devoted for barbeque meat. They looked more like large intestines than meat.

Much better asado at restaurants

After the asado at the hostel, I was quick to dismiss Argentinian asado. But one day, I met the best barbecued meat of my life at a restaurant in Iguazu.

The restaurant is called Vaca Verde (Green Cow) and the owner was a really friendly old man who recommended the house’s asado.

The meat that came out looked a bit charred but the taste was marvelous. The slightly burnt skin tasted sour but the meat was sweet. I gobbled down my share quickly but I wanted more. More of this beautiful meat.

I dreamt about this plate of asado once. It was beautiful.

After the meal, my brain was still hooked on it. I even had a dream where I was served something that tasted exactly the same. Alas, I have not had the dream since then.

Which country serves the best barbeque? Share your thoughts in the comments section below!

Choosing transportation for Weekend Travel [Weekend Traveller series: Part 3]

Welcome to part 3 of the Weekend Traveller series, a fortnightly segment where I share tips and strategies for travelling during the weekend so you can travel more without using your work leave.

Last week, we talked about deciding which places to go for the weekend. Today, we will learn the pros and cons of different transportations for your weekend trip.

Plane

For long distances, planes are your best bet but the ticket prices can be quite expensive if you do not do a lot of planning. I usually buy my air tickets for budget airlines about 6 months in advance when there is a sale. I try not to buy full price tickets because it’s not worth the money.

Pros of planes for weekend travel:

Fast
Comfortable (compared to 6 hours of bus or train)
Not affected by traffic jam

Cons of planes for weekend travel:

Expensive ticket price [Solution: Buy tickets only during promo periods, do not buy luggage for budget flights.]
Terrible arrival/departure timings [Solution: Check other airlines or skip the destination]

Train

If you have good train connections to the places you want to visit, taking the train might be a good option. I love taking night trains because I save on the cost of a night’s accommodation.

Pros of trains for weekend travel:

Relatively cheap prices (at least in Malaysia)
Not affected by traffic jams on the road
Trains with bunks==better sleep

Cons of trains for weekend travel:

Limited tickets for weekend travel [Solution: Buy your tickets in advance]
Shaky train, snoring passengers==not enough sleep [Solution: Sleeping pills? Deal with it.]

Night bus

I put night bus instead of I figure that you will need night buses for long distance travels.

Pros of buses for weekend travel:

Cheap

Cons of night buses for weekend travel:

Bad sleep [Solution: Even I cannot solve this. I just suck it up]

Affected by traffic jams [I was once 5 hours late because of a massive jam. Lesson learned: Take the train ]

Driving

My mom and I had a mini road trip to the most northern part of Borneo island [LINK: Kudat Marina]. I would choose trains and buses over driving for a weekend trip because it’s more tiring. But if the place you are going to doesn’t have good

Pros of driving for weekend travel:

You have a car to drive around

Cons of driving for weekend travel:

Driving is quite tiring, especially for long hours

Boat

If you’re planning an island getaway for the weekend, taking a boat is probably your only choice so I won’t go into the pros and cons.

I haven’t been on any island trips for the weekend but the planning process should be the same: pick a nearby place and a good package so you don’t spend too much money.

Check out the rest of the series here:

#FoodFriday Peruvian seafood soup

Welcome to YQtravelling’s FoodFriday. The day of the week when I show off some of the lovely eats I had while travelling.

Today we’re slurping some soups made of fruits of the sea in Peru.

Some time ago, I talked about Latin America’s ceviche, a dish with raw fish cooked in lime or lemon juice. Today, we’re still eating food from under the sea but it’s cooked using fire.

I love soups and this extends to noodle dishes in soup. There is something very comforting about a food that doesn’t require you to chew too much.

I also like my soups tongue-burningly hot because that’s when I know that I am alive. I’m a bit of a masochist when it comes to soup.

Seafood soups in Peru

Seafood soups in Peru were unlike the Chinese soups that I’m used to. Instead of clear soup, we have a stock that is bright orange. The ingredients always seem to threaten to escape from the bowls which are huge.

#FoodFriday I love ceviche!

Where to find cheap food in Aguas Calientes [#FoodFriday]

#FoodFriday Lactose-less milk in Peru

Where I’m off to next: China and Taiwan

Hello everyone! My 2-week break from blogging has just ended and I’m very excited to tell you about where I’m heading off to next.

On September 26, I’ll be flying to Hangzhou, China, where I will meet up with my friend Nicole. We’re spending a few days there before heading to Zhejiang for the wedding of our friend. After the wedding (and hopefully without a hangover), we will be going to Shanghai.

As it’s the National Day holidays in China then, I’m crossing all my fingers, toes and limbs that transportation will be smooth and we can get good hotel rooms at affordable rates.

After Shanghai, I’m flying to Taipei where I’ll be meeting my parents for a 10-day trip around the island. We’ll also be taking advantage of cheap tour groups organized by the Taiwanese government for overseas Chinese. Let’s hope we don’t fall into some strange loveboat tour. ;)

Do you live in either Hangzhou, Shanghai or Taiwan? Share your travel tips with me in the comments or on Facebook!

Where on earth is YQ?

Now, I’m back home in Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia. Even though I’ve written about being homeless, I’ve come to realize that this place that I’ve lived in for a good 18 years of my life is really home–at least for now.

What have I been doing these few days? Besides helping out at my parents’ shops, I’ve been playing a bit of mahjong with my mom’s and working on the first draft of a Chinese travel memoir.

Wait… A memoir in Chinese? Yes, I working on a Chinese book first because my parents haven’t really been following my journey on my blog because English is not their main language.

Sad to say, I’ve only reached the end of Anuradhapura in my draft and that’s the first 10 days of the trip! I need to find out a way to be stop being so long winded.

I’ll be heading back to Singapore at the end of October to look for a “real job”. If you know any company that’s looking for a travel and writing-loving person, ping me a note here in the comments or drop me an e-mail [yqtravelling AT gmail.com]. Thanks!

Safe travels,

Where to go for Weekend Travel? [Weekend Traveller series: Part 2]

Welcome to part 2 of the Weekend Traveller series, a fortnightly segment where I share tips and strategies for travelling during the weekend so you can travel more without using your work leave.

how to choose weekend trip destination — How to choose your weekend trip destination.

Last week, I talked about the pros and cons of weekend travelling. Today, we’ll be looking at how to choose a destination for your weekend travel so you save on travel time and cost.

Back when I still had a job during which I took quite a lot of weekend travel, the destinations that I chose were based on the challenges that I gave myself and the availability of cheap air tickets from AirAsia (Bangkok, Jakarta and Kuching are a few examples).

Unless you have similar self-imposed travel challenges, you’ll most likely choose the destination based on places you actually want to visit. (I’ll admit that there are some Malaysian states which I’d rather not go at all.)

Main factor for choosing a weekend travel destination

To choose a weekend travel destination, you must keep in mind the how much time you will be able to spend there which really means the time of arrival and departure. To enjoy a place, I’d say you need a minimum of 24 hours of visiting time.

So when you are making travel plans, you have to see that the transportation timing is right. It’s better to travel 13 hours on a night bus on Friday and reach on a Saturday morning than it is to take a 1-hour plane ride that reaches the destination at 4pm on a Saturday.

What you can do now is list down a few locations that you want to go for a weekend trip. Next you should do your research on what transportation there are for you to get there. (Coincidentally, transportation choices is our next discussion topic.)

Good weekend travel destinations from Singapore

Since I was based in Singapore when I started my travelling craze, I’ll list down a few places you can consider visiting for your weekend travel:

Bangkok, Thailand
Every capital city on the peninsula of Malaysia (That’s 11 of them!)
Kuching, Malaysia
Jakarta, Indonesia

Sadly, my hometown Kota Kinabalu does not make a good weekend travel destination from Singapore because of the bad AirAsia flight timing. Boo hoo.

Check out the rest of the series here:

Can you think of places you can go for weekend trips? Share them in the comments below.

Final day in Hong Kong=Eat all the food! [YQrtw Day 130 Aug 18]

Location: Hong Kong

[I am now blogging at Hong Kong International Airport. I’ve managed to misplace my camera (as well as break my glasses). I dislike posts with no photos so I’ll be recycling some of my Twitter photos of the day. That also means there’s only photo of food. Boo.]

Like yesterday, I woke up at an ungodly hour. However, I’ve made improvements with my jetlag and today wake-up time was 4am instead of 2am.

After posting my posts and a bit of Facebook games, I packed my suitcase for the final time. Since I only bought 20kg with AirAsia this time, I had to strategize my packing.

I packed most of the liquids into my suitcase and other lighter things such as clothes into my backpack. If I discover that the suitcase is overweight, Ill transfer some of the things to my backpack. If the suitcase is underweight, I’ll toss my backpack into my check in quota.

After everything was ready, I head out for breakfast. There wasn’t much choice around before 8am so I went back to the porridge place and got their signature dish as well as a “spring roll”. That meal was actually for 1.5 persons but I didn’t have dinner last night so let’s all forgive me for being a glutton.

After breakfast, I walked around the area, thinking up places to visit. Sadly, the shops weren’t open so I did the next best thing: Eat more food.

Next on my list was the egg tart from the cafe in Excelsior hotel. I had them on the first day and the memories of the flaky pastry is still in my mind. Plus, they have a coffee and egg tarts set. I’ve not had coffee for three days.

After coffee and desserts, I needed to pass time before check out time. As usual, I opt for the most comfortable way of sightseeing–public transportation! I took the tram from Causeway Bay to one of the terminals and back to the same place.

While I was on the tram, my sister helped research things I could eat nearby. One of her finds were a “bolo bun” place which I noted on Foursquare.

I got back to the hostel and checked out. Since the reception area was in another building, I had to drag all my things there. The landlady allowed me to leave my things before my bus to the airport.

Now that checkout is done, it’s time for more food. My stomach couldn’t handle a full meal so I head to the “bolo bun” place with the aid of Foursquare.

Despite the name “bolo”, meaning pineapple in Cantonese, the bun does not contain any pineapple. It’s supposedly in the shape of a pineapple, thus the name.

After the meal, I still have about 2.5 hours to waste. I decided to take the tram to Happy Valley where the horse race tracks are. Coincidentally, this is where a few foot massage shops are (according to Foursquare, again).

I found the recommended foot massage place and sat for 50 minute of good-painful massage. The masseuse kneaded my foot like it was dough. While slapping my lower leg, he even commented that it was very stiff. Four months of travelling does bring stiff legs.

After the massage, it was about time for me to head back to the hostel and to the airport. Before I went to get my luggage, I checked out a few skincare shops (Watson and Sasa) to find something my sister requested.

There wasn’t any of what she wanted but I managed to buy something I want. I was thinking that I was losing interest in skincare since I’ve been doing the very basic while travelling. Thankfully I still have the urge to buy things. Long live consumerism!

To the airport

Near the hostel, there’s a bus stop where the direct bus to the airport stops. After bidding the landlady farewell, I dragged all my things and waited.

The bus arrived and there weren’t a lot of people. However, more people boarded at subsequent stops and the luggage storage place was crammed full of luggage.

The bus passed the sides of central Hong Kong, went into the underground tunnel and then the bridge to Lantau Island where the airport is. From the bus, I saw shops, mountains, cable cars and the road sign to Disney Land.

Pretty soon, we reached the airport. I dragged my stuff with me to Terminal 1 for a bit of shopping. I did get one bag which will replace my current slingbag for my future travels (in September!). It was a lot pricier than I expected but I really need one as the current is breaking at the seams.

Next was to Terminal 2 where my check in counter was. There was a free-to-use weigh so I checked to see if my bags were under 20kg. The total weight wasn’t so I had to do a bit more shifting before I got the weight undercontrol.

I checked in and went to the bathroom. I managed to break my glasses. I also discovered that I couldn’t find my camera after I got into the boarding area. Thank goodness all these happened on the last day!

A break for now

After today’s post, I’m taking a 2-week break from blogging to recharge and to find a stable internet connection (my parents cancelled the home phone line so no broadband for us).

If you miss my posts (aww shucks), please do go back and read the old posts.

Tag: travel