Phuket Day 1

7th July

Our flight was scheduled to depart at 8:20am, hence we had to be at the airport at 6:20am.

Julyn sms-ed at like 5am.

"Hello! Good morinng ! We are at the airport d! Haha"

omg. I just woke up lor. haha. So GL and I had a light brekkie and we took a cab to the airport. Upon reaching, we saw them seating outside wearing their masks. Super cautious man we all. So GL and I put on our masks too. Julyn was the elected hygiene IC for the trip. She made sure our hands are all sanitised after touching something and before having meals. It was a busy job :P

So after checking in, we lazed around and got tempted to eat something warm because I was just freezing. Furthermore, Julyn was having some delish sandwich from O'Briens and Chong Yen

was having a bowl of soup wrapped with pastry from Secret Recipe. The aroma was too

tempting. GL and I decided to just get something warm to eat.

Chicken Cornish Pie. (or puff) It looked just like a curry puff times 10. The size for humongous.

And the filling was that of a chicken pie. Not bad. Very filling. lol.

At 8:20am we officially started our holiday as we took off into the cloudy skies and waited to

touch down in Thailand. :)

Our hotel, Rayaburi Patong Hotel was amazingly good. Okay so the water is greenish (but that's

how the water is in Thailand !: I quote CY. haha) It was super cheap, and the room was really big and comfy ! They even gave us free mineral water. Prior to checking in, Julyn and I bought 2 big bottles of mineral water each as well, the water is greenish, and we wanted clean water to wash our faces with. But it was provided by the hotel ! I guess they know their

water's green too. lol.

Anyway, it was funny cause the 2 rooms were sorta different. One room had an 'open concept bathroom' where there was a window so people bathing could look out and see if the person lying on the bed is watching porn or not. Or, the person lying on the bed could peep into the bathroom. Super 'honeymoon suite'. lol. The other room had a bathtub in the bathroom. And that's it. Boring. haha.

Moving on, our first meal in Thailand !

Yes, we had pizza. zzz. But only because it was freaking RAINING ! The roads were flooded ! Sighs. Luckily we were in a shopping mall and we could have food. We were looking everywhere for some Thai food, but we failed to find one. There was a miserable foodcourt and we totally didn't want to eat there because it looked so pathetic. And that's how we ended up at Pizza Corner.

We ordered a Tom Yum Goong flavoured Pizza. We'll be awful guilty if we don't have a little bit of Thai elements in our first meal at Thailand. It was aawesome btw. Far surpassed our expectations. Or maybe cause we were just super hungry.

We also had a Triple Meat Delight and a plate of Chicken Wings. As well as 2 baskets of Garlic Bread. We finished everything.

740 Baht in total. At first we thought it's really affordable, as after converting, it's only about 30sgd for 4 people. BUT, in the next few days, as we tried the local food and even those in nicer settings, we realised that our first pizza meal in Thailand was darn expensive. zzz. An average meal in Thailand will cost less than 100 Baht per person, if you know where to go :)

After lunch, we rested in our hotel till evening, and we went out to look for food and to do a lil shopping. :) We found a real gem of Phad Thai !

The first Phad Thai we had in Thailand, and the best. Only 50 Baht. One thing about Thai food, they're awfully generous with their seafood. So all our dishes ad plenty of prawns in them. Plenty means 5, 6 or even 7 prawns in one dish. Compared to the usual 3 or 4 we get in Singapore.

We also had Tom Yum Soup and super spicy Mango Salad. Total came up to about 200 Baht. Comapre that to the 700 plus Baht we paid for the PIZZA. sighs.

By the way, note the couple tee GL and I had on. The Thai people loved it. So much. They kept commenting on it. and when we walked the wrong way, meaning, it read VELO instead of LOVE, they would gesture at me and tell me to walk the correct side. This happened like 20 times when we were walking through a night market. I am serious !

Let me present to you Thailand's version of PANCAKES ! This is the BOMB ! omg damn good ! It is similar to our roti prata but less fluffy. It's uber crispy and very very sinful. The dough is deep fried in oil and margarine, and our choice of filling (egg plus bananas) is deep inside till crisp. it is then chopped up and condensed milk is POURED (not drizzled!) over it. And to add on, SUGAR is spooned onto the the whole plate as a finishing touch. OMG. The overall taste is just, damn unforgettable. Sighs. Pancakes will never taste the same again.

Julyn and I with the Pancake Man. 30 Baht for 1 pancake. He charged us extra for being tourists. I'm pretty sure I saw him charging the locals 10-20 baht only. But on wells. It's superb!

1 day in Phuket was tiring and not enough ! We didn't manage to go to Phuket Town to go to the night market. It's only available during weekends :(. And I didn't get to go watch those lady boys perform. lol. There're plenty in shopping malls and in restaurants though. It's really normal there to have them serving and attending to you.

At night, we went to Macs because Chong Yen and Julyn wanted and NEEDED to have PORK BURGER ! GL and I have not tried Pork Burger from Macs before so we went along, ,and we tried it. It's really nice :) Only 33 Baht for a Pork Burger :) Cheap.

After the burger, we went to a Massage Parlour. There're SO MANY along the streets with the Thai Girls just calling out the prices and the packages. So we chose one and we went in. All of us had a 1 hour long foot massage. 200 Baht. After conversion, only about SGD8. It was money well spent. They were really skillful, and so strong la. When she pressed my leg muscles it hurt okay. dang. but i just gritted my teeth. haha. They used tons of baby oil and cream to massage the legs, right up to the thighs. It ended with a 10 minute back and shoulder massage where they pulled my arms and arched my back and I found out I'm super inflexible. zzz. Anyway, service was good, and we were happy customers :) Lots of caucasians there tipped their masseuse, but we are poor students and we only paid what was required which was 200 Baht each. lol.

After that, we retired to our rooms, happy, and contented. The next day would be a busy one, as we had to wake up early and set off to Phi Phi Island. But that, will be another post.

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I'm packing my room now. Have to vacate Hall 6 by the 15th of July. They're kicking me out because they have to prepare the room for the next batch of occupants. And sadly, I can't extend because I don't have a new hall to shift to. (Halls are under renovation, and if you get a room in hall in the first round, you're allowed to extend your stay till your new room is ready. And since I don't have a room, Hall 6 isn't gonna let me stay till goodness knows when right. Oh wells) So it's back to Malacca on the 16th, till August 4th, I would think. If I do get a room before that, I may come back earlier.

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Back to packing now ! (and Harper's Island. lol)

so brown now.

I'm back in Singapore after 4 days of scorching sun (mixed with a teeny bit of rain), lots of sea water, ocean breeze, and Thai food !

Awesome fun trip !

My first time in Thailand, first time taking a long boat, first time going for a massage (which totally rocks !), and first time travelling overseas with Jul and ChongYen !

More photos and trip updates soon when Julyn sends me photos...

Coming up next, will be a trip back to Malacca, with Guoliang comiong along for a few days :)

When I was back in Malacca, I spent oodle loads of time in Breakthrough Cafe (and I absolutely miss the food now !)

This is the latest addition to the menu. Sunshine Toast. Cause the yolk is so sunshine-ny. And it's such a healthy and yummy brekkie I love love it lots.

Had a post-Father's Day Dinner when Michelle came back. Family photo at Chong Sek. After dinner, had a walk around Jonker Street.

10 days kinda flew by in Malacca because I was kinda 'working' in the cafe by taking orders, serving, and cleaning tables whenever they needed my help. So I'll be spending a lot of time there whenever I go back to Malacca.

And today, I finally watched Transformers. I couldn't distinguish between the good and bad autobots. Too much metal. But it was pretty well directed though, and there were some wit in between the clashing metal scenes. Good movie and is worth watching in the cinema. :)

1 more week to Phuket and I'm super duper excited !

back back back !

Jackline tagged me. I've not done tags in a long long time. But this is a short one. So, I'll do it :D

List 10 things that you want for your birthday, doesn't matter whether the things that you want is possible or impossible to get. And in no order of preference:

1.) A Marley
2.) A home-baked birthday cake (I only got this once ! Another one please :D)
3.) A never-ending vacation to places all over the world.
4.) To never ever grow fat no matter how much I eat
5.) To be able to run and swim and go shopping everyday (which means, I don't wanna work. lol)
6.) To go on a shoe shopping spree and keep all my shoes in a big big shoe closet. (The same goes for clothes)
7.) To always have love with me.
8.) To have everyone I love happy and healthy always.
9.) My own awesome room, with a clean, edgy design, and loads of high tech equipment in it.
10.) And finally, my own chef who will whip up anything I desire !

Okie. Some unrealistic. Some realistic. Some achievable. Some, totally impossible.

Still, I can dream. :)


Now, on a different topic. I'M IN MALACCA !!

lol. amazing. I'll be here for about 10 days or so. Haven't decided yet. I still feel that I should go back to Singapore a little earlier before Phuket so that I can exercise a little after all the overeating in Malacca. :P

Subject registration is tomorrow. I'm scared. Scared I won't get what I want :(:(

And and, I have my Malaysia number already ! My own! Not my mum's or Ester's ! Ask me for it. hehehehe :)

All right. Just cause I need to see something new instead of International Museum Day when I log into my blog. I'll update.

Had yummy Swensen's Ice Cream on one of the days last week. Just for fun. Just cause I had a buy 1 free 1 sundae coupon. Yam Ice Cream with Longan. Surprisingly, refreshingly, good. But they cheated me out of my marshmallow. The description clearly states that there's supposed to be marshmallows !

Tried Aston's Specialties at The Cathay for the first time. Queue was freaking long. Its the price to pay for good food at affordable prices. GL and I went at 5:30pm and there was already a queue. After our movie (The Taking of Pelham 123), we passed by the shop, and the queue was snaking around. Will try the other outlets next time.

Had Father's Day dinner with GL's family at Geylang. I detest dirty old men who loiter in dark alleys screening girls. The food was average this time round. Had the usual crab beehoon, prawn balls with salted duck yolk, mushroom tofu, steamed fish, and fried fermented tofu.

Been putting a lot of calories into my body the past few weeks.

Not to mention, my crazy obsession with Peanut Pancakes. Every single time I pass a peanut pancake stall (whether Jollibean or those hawker stalls), I can just hear the pancakes calling out to me to buy them. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. And sometimes in the office, I get crazy cravings for these peanut pancakes I'll go all the way to City Hall just to get a slice. oh good God ! I'm mad.

Thankfully, internship's ending this Friday. So hopefully the craze with the pancakes will stop with it.

I stayed in hall today instead of going to work. I woke up nice and early, felt sick. Washed up anyway, hoping that I'll feel more awake after the splash of water on my face. nope. Didn't work. tried changing into my office clothing and tied my hair. Looked in the mirror and was disgusted by my sickly face. I sms'ed my supervisor and told her I'm unwell. Sms'ed Apple told her I'm sick. Sms'ed GL to tell him I'm down with flu. And I went back to sleep. Woke up feeling oodles better. And oodles hungry. Thus I went to Nanyang Mart and bought some biscuits which I munched on for breakfast and lunch. And now for dinner, finally some real food.

I'm thinking what hairstyle should I have next. Really itching to do something to this head of hair.

Wonder if Ester would like to go for a 'snip snip' too. lol.

International Museum Day

31st of May was International Museum Day- Admission to most museums in Singapore was FREE ! So, we decided to spend our Sunday loitering in museums. lol.

The night before, we checked the website, planned the route, planned how to get to the museums. On the list was Asian Civilisation Museum, NEWater Visitor Centre, Philatelic Museum and 8Q.

NEWater Visitor Centre is in Tanah Merah, which is really very very far, and we had registered for their 10:30am tour. So we left NTU at around 8:45am, had breakfast at Pioneer, and off we went. Sigh. So far. And we only just caught the shuttle bus, in time. It was very tight timing.

The place is actually quite pretty with a lot of water-oriented ornaments and decorations.

The tour was led by a 63-year old man. Martin. He's quite funny. And his presentation throughout the tour is very children-friendly, which was very entertaining for the adults as well.

The first place we were led to was a screening room, which is similar to a cinema. We watched a short video clip about NEWater and its importance to SIngapore bla bla. Luckily it was only 7 minutes because I got bored after 3 minutes.

Another room we were led into, and more explanation given by Martin.

Very interactive with lots of gadgets to play with.

Bored during another session of explaining how NEWater is used in the factories.

It was a 75-minute tour, and I especially liked how the rooms were all connected to each other, letting the different topics of NEWater come together rather smoothly without much interruption. After that, since were already at Tanah Merah, we went to Bedok Interchange for lunch.

Quite famous, and quite nice chwee kueh. We also had some mini chai pao which wasn't very nice.

Next we headed all the way to town, to look for Asian Civilization Museum.

BUT, we couldn't find it. sighs. So we went to 8Q first. It's a museum with really abstract art and I didn't understand one bit of it. Shame on me.

There was a flea market on the ground floor. But the sun was scorching hot, we couldn't explore it. Couldn't, and wouldn't.

One of the rooms which had nothing but rows of headsets. When you put them on, you hear, static noise, and.. some techno sound. I don't get it :(

Other rooms which carried other works of art with differing themes.

Next, we went to The Peranakan Museum. Which wasn't on the original plan, but since we couldn't find ACM, we decided to go here instead.

The place was extremely crowded. Positively spilling with people. Hence I didn't take many photos. It's a really nice place though. I like it better than 8Q. haha.

Next stop was the Philatelic Museum.

A mailman's bag of letters.

An ancient stamp dispenser.

An ancient postbox.

An ancient bike. Well not so ancient. But quite old still.

There was a cooking demonstration

Wanted to sample the cooking. But didn't. lol.

We were super duper tired after that. Too much walking in uncomfortable sandles. lol. Had a peanut pancake in Funan Digital Mall and went back to sleep. hehe.

Still, it's a different way to spend the weekend. Typically, we would just hit the malls, catch a movie, have dinner and go home..

I have decided I'm not a big fan of museums. Don't think I would pay to go in one. So the next time's probably at next year's IMD ! Maybe will pay a visit to ACM then. haha!

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On Saturday, we had dim sum at Red Star Restaurant. This very very old but quite high class chinese restaurant at Chin Swee Road. Tough to locate because it's on the 7th storey of an old hdb-lookalike building. The tiny lift at the bottom isn't a reflection of the size of the restaurant because it was humongous ! I was pretty surprised at the decor and the size of the place, given that the elevator could only fit probably 8 people at one go. And that's pushing it.

Dim sum was good. Ate my har kow and siew mai. and my char siew pao. and chee cheong fun. hehe. All my favourite foods in one sitting. Nice.

TWO WEEKS MORE till.. till.. internship ends :)

Saw the trailer for this new movie before watching Monsters vs. Aliens. The baby panda is freaking CUTE omg. So so so adorable, and it was so funny when the small boy had to carry the panda cub across the river ! I so wanna watch this movie ! haha.

And, guess what, WWF is holding a charity screening of the movie on 10th of June. LOL. But I doubt I'll get to watch it then. May only go to help out in registration :(

Anyway, I watched Monsters vs. Aliens and The Ramen Girl during the weekend. Seriously, you will want to eat ramen after watching The Ramen Girl. Guoliang and I the other way round lor. We ate ramen at Men-ichi, Jurong Point, and then we watched the movie. After that I told him I wanna eat ramen again but he said 'Cannot'. :(

I want to watch Terminator as well, but Guoliang doesn't want to ! Maybe when I go back to Malacca, and IF it's still showing in the cinema, I'll go catch it. haha. Transformers and Harry Potter next ! :)

I also had a random breakfast and grocery shopping day with Pelie, Danny and Meng Han last weekend. We were a fine sight lor. Year 1 to Year 3 outing. hahahaha. We tasted all the food in NTUC that was on promotion- chocos, milk, and even some vegetarian dumpling.

I'm also watching a new series currently. Harper's Island. Pretty gory. My cup of tea I guess. But somehow, it doesn't appeal to me as much as Prison Break. sighs. I'll still watch it though. Movies and series are my entertainment at night ever since Guoliang left me in Hall Six. Boo. hahaha.

Okay. I think I want to buy a camera. Not so soon, but I want to buy one. My own camera this time. Guoliang has one but he NEVER brings it out when we go out. So obviously no photos. So sad.

This is such a messed up entry because everything is jumbled up. But oh wells. It'll suffice.

:)