Tag: travel

The Underground Love.

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As I was sieving through my London pictures on Facebook to write my last post, I discovered something about myself: I may have a secret love for the London Underground. Not sure whether this is because of my love for trains, or that I keep roaming around the city which forced me to spend a lot of my time in the tunnels or whether I am just plain weird, I seem to be taking pictures incessantly of anything related to the Tube.

Let’s face it: I think the Tube is fascinating.

Now I know some of you will jump in protest. I am perfectly aware that the London railway system is not the most reliable thing in the world. And despite having only been in London three times, I have had my fair share of disrupted railways, Tube not running on important days like Christmas and getting lost in the tunnels (no surprise there). In fact, when Singapore recently introduced TV screens to indicate the service operation for each of its MRT lines, I joked to my friend that we have dropped to London standard since this means that the service will be disrupted often enough to warrant such investment.

Having said that, you’ve got to admit that London Underground is fascinating. Being the oldest metro system in the world, it is still functioning until now since its opening in 1863. It now has 270 stations with 402 kilometres of track. So I suppose we just have to be more forgiving for the slow upgrades because to be frank, most people would not have the foresight of 150 years or so?

Anyway, whatever your views towards the Tube are, some love just can’t be explained. So here it is, in pictures, my love story with the London Underground.

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What I didn’t expect from London.

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You can say that I’m lucky. It has been a childhood dream of mine to visit England, London in particular, thanks to all Enid Blyton’s books, Harry Potter and Daniel Radcliffe. And now in the past four years, I have visited London 3 times and loved it very much there. (I did have to wait for 21 years before my first visit, but hey, it is still a dream come true!)

Being one of the most visited cities in the world, London should hold little surprise for anyone: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, London Bridge, the royal family, Hyde Park, Harrods, you name it. But I guess that’s the beauty of travelling, no matter how much you read about it, the experience you have is your own and no amount of research through travel guides could foretell what you will see there nor the many pleasant surprises that you may encounter.

Like the fact that after all this day-dreaming, the first picture I took in London was actually of the DLR.

Anything that moved was exciting.
Anything that moved was exciting.

Continue reading “What I didn’t expect from London.” →

Jakarta, through different eyes.

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It is funny that ever since I started this blog in December, I haven’t actually been travelling. The only place I have visited since Christmas day was my hometown, Jakarta. Under normal circumstances, I would not count such as travelling. However, my latest trip back home was far from normal. Five friends of three different nationalities came along with me to spend a long weekend in Jakarta, which certainly had to count for something. Hence, this is my first real post-travel blog post ever since this blog was set up, and I am pleased that I am writing about my own hometown.

I remember fretting for a few weeks leading up to the trip, trying to plan a perfect getaway for my friends. Living in Jakarta for 17 years as a rather antisocial person meant that I was practically clueless about cool hangout places and interesting things to do. So it was really down to a bit of online research, asking some more experienced friends  for tips and outsourcing the tour guide service to two of my friends that I managed to pull the weekend through, very successfully if I may say so.

As a reminder for myself, I have listed down the below of what I deem to be the winning recipe for my fantastic weekend in Jakarta.

  1. Food, glorious food. Always fill the trip with good food. From artery-clogging sweet martabak, to a goat’s eye in milky soup to crispy curly fish – when every single meal is to be remembered, even if all else fails, the food will always be fond memories. After all, the closest way to a person’s heart is through the stomach.
    Crispy, curly fish.
    Crispy, curly fish.
    An eye for an eye.
    An eye for an eye.
    Ingredients: flour, sugar, butter (loads of them), chocolate, cheese, condensed milk, more butter.
    Ingredients: flour, sugar, butter (loads of them), chocolate, cheese, condensed milk, more butter.

    Continue reading “Jakarta, through different eyes.” →

Nepal, food wise.

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I am perfectly aware that I do still have a long overdue post to write about my trip to Nepal in April last year. But in the spirit of Chinese New Year overeating (which also explains the absence of posts over the past week due to uncontrollable food consumption), I thought it would be wise to slot in this post about Nepalese food, inspired by the recent post-trip gathering to a Nepalese restaurant in Little India in Singapore.

Before that, just a little background regarding me and food photography: I hate taking pictures of food. It is perhaps partly due to the fact that I believe in just indulging in the food the moment you see it, but mostly due to me being just plain lazy. I don’t have the habit of taking out my phone/camera and snap pictures of the dishes that are served in front of me. Unless if it looks something like this.

This certainly warrants some exception.
This certainly warrants some exception.

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Jeg Elsker Danmark.

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(Translation: I love Denmark.)

If there ever was a statistic collected on how many times a person visits Denmark in their lifetime, I probably would be an outlier, at the FAR high side. Having visited the country four times over the past five years and meeting the PRINCE once while visiting (OKAY, I will stop bragging about it after this post, maybe), I think I can safely declare that Denmark is indeed my favourite country in the world.

Those who know me will know about my love for Denmark and suspect that I have a secret Danish boyfriend. But those who know me well, will know that I can just be weird that way.

Having said that, I don’t think I am THAT weird. There are so many things about the country that do not get the glory it deserves (although that’s partly the reason why I love it so much since it doesn’t get too much attention). Just like how a lot of people did not know that giant corporations such as Lego, Maersk and Carlsberg are from Denmark, here are the list of some cool things that I love from the Land of the Vikings, that you may or may not already know:

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A Mobile Debate.

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Warning: This post was started when I was under the influence of Long Island Ice Tea and finished after I completed 30 km cycle ride the morning after. Read at your own risk.

To get mobile SIM card with data plan or not to get during travels – that has been a constant debate that I have. After several trial and error, I have come to a conclusion.

My verdict: No. A basic SIM card would do. Having constant internet access during travel does more harm than good (except maybe when travelling solo).

With my stellar ability to get lost, you would think that having internet access on-the-go during travel is essential for my survival. Google Maps for one is like a heaven-sent tool for a direction idiot like me. It certainly makes travelling more convenient, but I would not call it a necessity.

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Awesome Scratch Map and Bieber.

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I love birthdays. I think it is such a happy thing to celebrate the day you were born into this beautiful world to meet all the awesome people you meet.

Especially when you meet people who know and understand you so well that they give you just the right present that you have been looking for. Anyone who knows me will know that if you buy something travel-related, you will never go very wrong. But if you get me a scratch map of Europe, that’s like hitting the bull’s eye. It’s the kind of gifts that when you unwrap them you will go, “Oooh, I have always wanted one of these!”

I have always had this fascination for maps. I don’t even know why since it’s not like I read them particularly well. I’m almost a map illiterate, but I suppose I do pretty alright for those high-level maps that just show a country’s borders and its major cities. There is something simply fascinating about knowing where in this big, big world I have been.

So you can imagine my excitement when I unwrapped my very first birthday present and found this!

Here comes my perfect reason to travel to Europe again.
Here comes my perfect reason to travel to Europe again.

Continue reading “Awesome Scratch Map and Bieber.” →

The Prince and I.

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One of the perks of being a part-time badminton journalist is that you get access to all the press conference rooms and speak to all the world-renowned badminton players. In most places, you get to sit at the best seats for free since you will be the one telling the whole world about how awesome the tournament is. For an avid badminton fan (okay, almost maniac) like me, it was more than I could have asked for.

But another less known perk of being a badminton journalist is that you get to meet other non-badminton famous people. Like the minister of sports. Or a prince.

Yes, you read it correctly, a P R I N C E. I still can’t believe it till this moment. I have met and spoken to a real life PRINCE. Even though it was more than a year ago, I’m still hyperventilating as I’m writing about it. It all happened so fast that I did not even have time to faint right there and then.

I was just doing my post badminton match ritual at Copenhagen Masters 2012 in well, Copenhagen. It always pretty much goes by this sequence: you sit and watch a badminton match, when a match finishes you run off to the press conference room to interview the players if they interest you, then you return to the media room to jot down the quotes into your computer and return to the stadium again to catch the next match and repeat the same steps.

But that day I decided to break the cycle. I guess it was because I was rather tired from running around the stadium, but after interviewing one of the players, I did not return immediately to the media room. Instead a few of us decided to just hang around after a press conference and rested our feet. It had been a long day.

Suddenly the door opened and a few important looking men came into the room.

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Myanmar: Good to know before you go.

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We all need a balance in our lives.

To me, one of the most important balances to have is being able to see all the important sights during travel while still having that element of surprise. It is the balance between the “Ohh, I’m glad to see this world-renowned structure” and “Wow, I did not know such beauty exist in this world!”.

If that makes sense.

There were a few times during my trip in Myanmar that I thought to myself “thank goodness my friend told me about this” or “I wish I had known this before”. In my sincere attempt to continue to be Myanmar tourism evangelist, I have compiled this list of good-to-know-before-you-go so you can maximise your trip without me spoiling much of the surprise the place beholds.

  1. Flip flops are the way to go. Forget about your sneakers or flats. By the end of my trip, I visited more than 30 temples and none of them allowed you to wear any footwear inside. Unless you have extremely patient friends who don’t mind to wait while you tie and untie your shoelaces and unless you want dirt-stained footwear as keepsakes from Myanmar, stick to the flip flops. One tip: bring a plastic bag to carry your flip flops around the temple since most places will ask for donation if you put your footwear at a cabinet outside the temple.
    Expect to see these signs everywhere in Myanmar (minus the monkeys)
    Expect to see these signs everywhere in Myanmar (minus the monkeys)

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Busy travelling?

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For my last-day-of-the-year and new year’s reading, a friend of mine (the same one who sent me the link that inspired my travelling solo post) gave me this interesting article, “Busy isn’t respectable anymore”.

Which got me thinking.

I certainly have been guilty of some of the notion of busyness that was mentioned in the article. However, if there was one accomplishment that I have achieved in 2013, it would be that the fact that I still feel I am living in Singapore despite travelling out almost every month to about 10 countries in a year. That I’m not too busy travelling to actually be in Singapore.

Which is such a contrast to how I felt in 2011. I did very frequent travelling back then as well, but I felt very distanced from what was happening here. That was why in 2012, I decided to travel much more sparingly and to have longer gaps in between. That seemed to work okay until nearing the end of the year when all hell broke loose. I felt so suffocated by the lack of travel that I decided to take off for a solo trip to Europe. (Now you see how the different pieces come together? All these travels are meant to be, really).

So being the overanalyser that I am, I tried to analyse what was so different last year (yes, 2013 is already last year) and 2011.

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