Phnom Penh Trip 2017

Went to Phnom Penh, Cambodia, with a good friend over the labour day long weekend. We talked about going to Phnom Penh since 2 years ago, and finally it materialized before we turned 30. At first, we were looking out for land tours. Eventually, we hired a Tuk Tuk driver [TripAdvisor] to drive us around most of the places on our list. We wanted more nature-related activities, so we went horse riding and hiking as well.

Click on the "Expand All" to view the itinerary details and "Collapse All" to see an overview of the daily happenings.

30/04/2017	Check-in to TEAV Boutique Hotel [TripAdvisor] The hotel is awesome. Check out the review on TripAdvisor. It is mainly written by my friend :D AEON Mall We walked to AEON Mall! We got a bit stuck at the roads, but some kind locals helped us cross the road. When we reached AEON Mall, we window-shopped around for a bit, and was quite surprised that the items were generally expensive.
01/05/2017	Areyksat Equestrian Trail Rides [TripAdvisor] This was one of the highlights of the trip. We went on a 2-hour horse riding at the country side. Our guide, Guillaume, said that more and more people are realizing that they can get to the countryside just over a 10 minutes boat ride. Soon, the countryside will just be as developed as the city. Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum [TripAdvisor] Visiting this place was one of the main reasons I wanted to visit Phnom Penh. Daughters of Cambodia [TripAdvisor] Visited the cafe twice during my stay in Phnom Penh. The food and products were great quality, and the spa was pretty good as well, though not the cheapest around. Daughters was a great programme to help sex workers to exit the industry in a sustainable way. Job training, counselling and medical help were provided to help the girls in transition, so that they can work in other industries such as café, customer service, spa etc.
02/05/2017	Choeung Ek Genocide Museum (Killing Fields) The mass graves, killing tree, victims clothing, bones and skulls were well preserved. The audio guide was informative, included real accounts from survivors as well. Russia market This is a more touristy market, sellers generally can speak simple English. Some haggling is ok. Orussey market [TripAdvisor] A local market, hot and cramped so maybe not everyone will like it here . However many locals do not speak English, so we communicated prices by typing on a calculator. Bought some nice snacks too. I bought the jackfruit glutinous rice which I really liked! National Museum of Cambodia [] Dinner: Genki Sushi To be honest, we ate here becausae we were too tired and just wanted to eating something quick near our hotel. One thing that was cool was that the food was delivered on an "Express Train" beisde the table! I heard that this can also be found in the Genki Sushi in Singapore as well, but the first time I tried it is here.
03/05/2017	Chiso Mountain [TripAdvisor] This place was added to the itinerary only during the trip, but it was surprising good. The temples could almost pass off as Angkor Wat, and they were even older. The large reclining Buddha was quite a view too. The best thing is it is totally not touristy at all! We climbed up the stairs and was rewarded with a nice countryside view. During our trip, we also noticed that a lot of locals like to chill out on a hammock. So we tried it out by buying a drink at the rest point which came with a hammock, overseeing the view on the mountain, it was real cool! Lunch [] Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center [TripAdvisor] [] Tonle Bati [] Dinner: Malis Restaurant [TripAdvisor] We came to this place due to recommendation from the hotel, which is known for good authentic Cambodian food. Indeed, this was one of the best meals we had in Phnom Penh. The indoor portion of restaurant was fully booked when we arrived, so we were seated at the outdoors. The food was pretty good!
03/05/2017	Udong Mountain / Oodong Mountain [] Wat Phnom [] Daughters of Cambodia (Repeat visit) []

Japan Trip Nov 2016

Trying out a new pattern of blogging about an itinerary. Click on the "Expand All" to view the itinerary details and "Collapse All" to see an overview of the daily happenings.

28/10/2016	Check-in When we reached Haneda Airport, it was about 10pm. Due to some miscommunications, we bought 2 x 72 hours Tokyo subway pass which was quite under-utilized. Anyway, we took the monorail and subway to our apartment at Akihabara and checked in. Supper: Ippudo Instant Ramen Famished, we went to the nearest 7-11 to buy instant ramen for supper. It was interesting to see the branded ramens in instant form, and they still taste pretty good!
29/10/2016	Imperial Palace [] Lunch: Macdonalds Actually, we kind of got lost when walking from Imperial Palace to Yasukuni Shrine. We were so hungry and MacDonalds seem like the lifesaver. Yasukuni Shrine [TripAdvisor] When i was there, there were some ceremony to pray for the dead. Public who wish to pay their respect should wash their hands and mouth outside with the fountain water. (I did not do it) Visit the museum if you are there. The museum had some portions on the various wars fought, but there were all in Japanese I couldn't understand the details, except for those I already knew a bit. There was a section which display the soldiers belongings and last letters to their family members. Many of those letters were translated to English. Many of them were very proud to service their nation with their lives. The section with the pictures of all the people who died during service to Japan was quite similar to the Ground Zero museum at New York. It is a different feeling when you see the faces of those people, rather than just reading about them on text or artefacts display. Meiji Jingu Shrine [TripAdvisor] When we reached, there were many buses of tour groups .. It was quite rowdy and crowded. Nothing much to see too. You can see the same stuff at Yasukuni Shrine and more. Harajuku - too crowded! Harajuku was walking distance from Meiji Jingu, but it was so crowded that we could only walk in the direction that the crowd brings us. It was so uncomfortable that we got out of here within 15 minutes and went to Shinjuku instead. Shinjuku [] Dinner: Taishoken - tsukemen [TripAdvisor] At first we struggled with the Japanese self-ordering machine. Then a Chinese staff served us and explained patiently. We had Tsukemen. It was good but the serving was very big. Both of us couldn't finish it. Later on, I realized this is quite a famous chain for Tsukemen.
30/10/2016	Ueno Park [] Aneyoko Shopping Street [] Lunch: Ichiran Ramen [] Akihabara [] Dinner 1: Standing Sushi at Akihabara [] Dinner 2: Seafood don [] Yodabashi-Akiba It was my favourite night-time activity to visit the Yodabashi near my apartment. Mainly to use the massage machines. The cluster of massage chairs were free for people to sample, and many people just visited for a free massage! The best thing is the salesperson will not disturb you at all, unless you asked for help. The massages were so good!
31/10/2016	Disneysea [] Dinner: Salmon Rice at Disneysea [] Wiler Night Bus We took the Wiler Night bus from Tokyo Station to Osaka. The journey was about 8 hours. Maybe we were too tired from 11 hours of non-stop play at Disneysea, both of us slept soundly through the journey.
1/11/2016	Umeda Sky Building The bus terminal from the night bus was right beside the Umeda Sky Building. So we just stamp chop the attraction straight away. Haha Breakfast: The Cafe Lab [] Tokyu Hands @ Daimaru [] Pokemon Center [] Lunch: Chisozanmai buffet [TripAdvisor] The buffet is cheap considering that most restaurants are selling a set meal at 1200++ yen, and this is about 2k yen for 90 min. Good variety of food, drinks and desserts. There is crab too. I liked the black vinegar drink and the grape jelly. Check-in and rest [] Dinner: Santouka Instant Ramen []
2/11/2016	Osaka Castle [] Snack: Yakisoba, Takoyaki The Takoyaki was really good! After we finished the Takoyaki, we realized it's some award winning one. We tried some other Takoyaki at Dotonbori and it wasn't as good as this one. Remember to get the Takoyaki if you go to Osaka Castle! We had the company of a well-dressed dog while enjoying the Takoyaki too. Shinsabashi [] Lunch: Osaka Ohsho - Tenshin Han + Gyoza + ramen [] Rest [] Dinner: Okinoyaki Dontobori [] Snacks: Takoyaki, Giant Scallop [] Self shopping []
3/11/2016	Osaka Museum of Housing and Living [TripAdvisor] It is a two-storey museum. Upstairs, you get to rent a kimono to walk around a street that was replicating the old Japanese shops. You can play some retro Japanese toys which you can buy later too. It was interesting in that the place would turn dark and bright periodically like day and night time. However, I didn't find this part very enjoyable because it was way too touristy and crowded. The queue for kimono was very long, I did not rent one. The exhibitions downstairs were more interesting, with many miniature figurines doing their daily activities in old Osaka. Look at the exhibitions long enough and it would change to another one. There were some interesting paper animations that show how Osaka changed over time. Great craftwork and details. Tenjimbashi [] Lunch: Osaka Ohsho - Tenshin Han + Gyoza + Vegetables [] Rest and Travel to Nara & check in [] Night Cycle at Nara Town [] Dinner: Cocoyichibanya [] Daiso Shopping [] Enjoy nice Nara home The house we stayed in Nara was quite awesome.
4/11/2016	Cycle to Nara Park [TripAdvisor] There are many wild deers freely roaming around the park. They love the shika-senbei which you can buy at the stalls for about 150 yen. If you buy a pack, many of them will crowd around you. I didn't buy the senbei but I picked up one from the floor, then a deer from far away came over to me. A deer even licked my hands to see if there is senbei! Generally the deers are not afraid of human and you can really go up close and take photos with them!! Most of the deers look like they have their antlers cut away though, except for a few. It was very nice to cycle around, I had a great time. Happened to be holding a food festival when I was there too. Todaiji Temple [TripAdvisor] Impressive big bronze Buddha. Worth coming to take a look. It was very crowded on the day I went due to several student group excursions and some tour groups.. As it is located inside the Nara Park, there were wild deers roaming around the outside of the temple too. Take note of the opening hours (8-4.30pm) too. I didn't consider that during planning and arrived at Nara only in the late afternoon, so i had to shift my plans to visit in the next morning. Lunch @ Nara Food Festival: Yuzu Pepper Omelette, Pumpkin Melon, Okinoyaki We were lucky to chance upon the Nara Food festival. We bought the Yuzu Pepper Omelette, Pumpkin Melon and Okinoyaki to share between two of us. Actually, they are quite average but the ambience was kind of fun to be in a "festival" atmosphere. Check out and Travel to Kyoto to check in [] Cycle to Nijo Castle [TripAdvisor] I cycled there, realized there is a bicycle parking fee of 200 yen on top of the 600 yen admission fee.You can look at the murals of the rooms for different functions in the place lived by the Shogun. Most of the rooms were empty. The garden was very nice and well-kempt too. Snack: Green Tea mochi [] Cycle past Imperial Palace [] Dinner: Udon + Don [] Rest [] Cycle to Gion []
5/11/2016	Cycle to Doutor for breakfast [] Kyoto Station - Taqbin luggages! [] Lunch: Ramen Road @ Kyoto Station [] Kinkaku-ji [TripAdvisor] The temple looked really nice, both in real and in picture. However there was really nothing else to do except (waiting for a spot and) taking pictures of the golden temple from across the lake. You can't enter it. It was very crowded on the day I visited (Friday 2.30pm), there were several tour groups so it was very rowdy and not very pleasant. The place was quite commercialized, they even sell sake inside. Admission is 400 yen, the ticket looked interesting. I took a public bus in from Kyoto station, and then a bus out to Sanjusangendo and was stuck in slow traffic. Sanjusangendo was more worth a visit in my opinion. Sanjusangendo [TripAdvisor] The 1001 Bodhisattva Kannon (kuanyin) statues was the most impressive religious work I have ever seen. Each of them is human size with 11 heads and 42 hands, each hand had an eye. Each hand governs 25 worlds and 40x25 (minus the 2 regular hands) gives the thousand hand thousand eye. There were sculptures and stories of the different gods, very interesting. This place was less touristy than Kinkuku-ji, and definitely more worth a visit! I bought a charm there too. Admission is 600 yen, no photos and shoes allowed in the main hall. I managed to get in at 4.24pm before last entry at 4.30pm, was so worried to miss it! Dinner: Kitayama buffet [TripAdvisor] the food quality was average. the pizza and croquette were good, the chinese food were quite bad (the chinese dumpling had no soup inside and the skin was very thick and hard). Drinks selection was limited. It is acceptable but I wouldn't really recommend this place. Shopping at bookshop @ Aeon Mall [] Wiler Bus to Tokyo []
6/11/2016	Breakfast: Soba noodles [] Tokyo Tower [] Oedo Onsen Monogatari [] Lunch: Tsukemen [] Check in @ Mystay Kamata Hotel [TripAdvisor] The hotel was very clean. The bathroom felt posh with nice smelling soaps. I sent my luggages from Kyoto via taqbin, and my luggages were waiting in my room when I checked in, very convenient. Good service too. I booked here for one night stay before early morning flight to Haneda airport. The train ride was quite short but need not a short walk to Keikyu-Kamata station. Would recommend this place. Dinner: Cocoyichibanya []
7/11/2016	Haneda Airport [] Breakfast: 7-eleven instant macoroni []

Trek For Hope - The Twin Peaks of the Grand Corderilla, Philippines 2016

I signed up for the Trek For Hope at Phillippines in March 2016. Trek For Hope is something like integrating trekking with community work, a really cool concept to do two things I like in a single trip. We visited Mount Ugo and Mount Pulag for the Trek, and collaborated with Oikos Helping Hands to understand and help the poor for the Hope side.

The Preparation

This trip was unlike any other hiking trip I had been to. Besides including community work as part of the trip itinerary, all of the participants had to be involved in the planning and execution of the community day. We were planning a carnival event for the people to have a fun day, Singaporean style.

About two months before the trip, we were grouped into small groups to think of station activities for the carnival or get some tasks done. Besides the carnival preparations, training hikes were organised to prepare us for the hike, especially the beginners. Actually it was more like a get-to-know-your-to-be-travel-mates kind of thing, pretty interesting. Special mention to Lay Hoon for all these pre-trip efforts, it takes a lot of dedication to plan an event at such scale.

For the pre-trip preparation, I was working on designing the wristbands for the carnival and also a station game. There were some last minute changes though, so I was doing the photo booth on the actual day. The wristbands was used to allow the participants to keep track of the stations they visited and claim a prize after visiting all.

Can you guess some of the station games from the wristband icons?

The Trek

We visited Mount Ugo (2100+m) and Mount Pulag (2900+ m). In preparation for the hike, I went for a few training hikes to Gunung Arong, Gunung Lembak and Bukit Fraser. After the actual hike, I realised that mountain height does not directly translate to trek difficulty, it also depends on the trail taken and the terrain type.

The trekking terrain was quite straightforward

The cool thing about trekking up Mount Ugo and Mount Pulag was that it was a scenic view throughout the hike! This was different from my usual hikes where you only get rewarded with a view at the summit. Maybe this is a characteristic of trekking in a Corderilla region. In fact, the view along the trek was nicer than that at the summit of Mount Ugo.

View along the trek to Mount Ugo

As for Mount Pulag, we took one of the easiest trails which started quite high up the mountain. We started the summit ascend at about 2+ am and reached the summit at about 5+ am. Along the way, the star view was very beautiful. I spotted Jupiter, Mars, Saturn and Venus too.

Milky Way, photo by Yi Xiang

Venus above the sun! Screenshot beside in case you don't believe me. 

Sunrise above a sea of clouds was beautiful

We even played a game of bridge at the summit of Mount Pulag.

The Camping

We camped outdoors for 2 nights. The first night at Domolpos Elementary School, the second night at Lusod Village. It was my first time camping overnight, exciting!

Our camps at Domolpos Elementary School. The blue one was where I stayed.

I slept in the tent with two other girls, but the tent size was the same, so it was really cramped! The tent specs indicated it could fit 3 Americans, but 3 Asian girls was stretching it already.

Me and my tent

One of the fun things was the sing song sessions! Simon brought along a guitar-lele, I brought my long-neglected harmonica. Sometimes my harmonica would get stuck when the temperature was to cold.

Jamming sessions! 

We got to interact with the kids at the Domolpos School too.

The kids sang a song for us!

I lost my headlamp after the first night, so the second night felt terrible for me! Felt like a blind person.

Our tents at Lusod Village

Caught the sunset at Lusod Village.

The People

I think what makes a trip particularly memorable is always about the people you spent time with. Trip companions make or break your experience.

For this trip, I signed up with two of my colleagues cum hiking buddies. We were referred to as the 笨笨 / weird trio in this blog post by the two kids in the trip. I have one more colleague in the trip too, that makes it 4 of us from the same company! We were just being very crazy and speak in stupid languages. I am not always like that when I travel, but the presence of another crazy person amplified my craziness and I probably had the same return effect. The vicious cycle resulted in a superdose of craziness, and infected some of our new friends too. It was really fun, I laughed very hard a lot during the trip, which on hindsight was a very precious thing in this sometimes-not-so-fun world.

Many people told me that I am very lucky to have colleagues who take care of me. Yup, thank you you guys!

I made a lot of new friends too, young and old.

Look at the stupid people!

The Local Experience

We had probably read about or seen pictures on the poverty-stricken state of some of the developing countries like Philippines, but it's a wholly different experience to be within them and feel the place and people.

What hit me the most was the home visit sessions, where we witnessed the unimaginable living conditions of the very poor. Many are still living in slums on the roadside or riverside, their home exterior decorated with piles of garbage which also served as some of their food and income source.

Riverside slums

Me taking a picture of the garbage filled slums

What was equally disturbing was the tessellations of election posters pasted everywhere on the streets. We wonder what had the government done for the people. Why was resources spent on printing election posters instead of helping the people?

Election posters. Image taken from Google Images

Many strong and abled youths are full-time scavengers, sometimes young kids forgoing their education to scavenge for income. That is such a waste of human resource! If only they had the opportunities to hone a proper skill and get a job to make a living for themselves and contribute to the society. They would lead a better life, the world would benefit from the human resource.

Kids scavenging at the river 

During the house visits, we get to ask them any questions we like. I like to ask the kids what do they want to be when they grow up. I feel that the ambition of the young people shapes future of the nation.

Justin, leftmost, wants to serve the military when he grows up

As mentioned earlier, we planned a carnival for the locals to have some fun. Actually, we had just as much fun. Many of the locals were very friendly to us.

This woman offered to let me carry her baby and take a photo!

Conclusion

It was a very unique and meaningful trip! It opened my eyes to the beauty of nature and the people of Philippines. Thanks Simon and Lydia for organizing!

Check out Simon's post on this trip too!

An event plaque sponsored by Howard, one of the TFH participants!

Mont Tremblant, Toronto, Niagara Falls

Following the work trip in Montreal, I extended the trip for 4 days for personal travel. I would love to stay longer, but I have already planned for a house warming party for my new house before I knew about the trip.

The original plan was this - I would join my colleague at Mont Tremblant for two days of skiing, followed by two days at Niagara Falls on my own. After I booked my flights, I found that the train schedules couldn't match up. So the plan changed to 2 days of skiing, 1 day at Toronto and 1 day at Niagara Falls - which turned out to be nicer.

Highlights of Montreal (Work Trip)

Haven't updated the blog for some time. I went for a few small trips in between, but I was too busy with my house renovation for the past few months that I didn't really has the time and energy to sit down and write blog posts.

I was in Montreal for NIPS 2015 conference from 7 - 12 Dec. The trip was only confirmed about 2 weeks before departure, and I was busy worrying about moving house during that time. I moved into my new house on 4 Dec, and I flew on 5 Dec night. Before the trip, I only had time to worry about buying enough winter clothing and making sure that accommodations and flights are in order.  It was my first time traveling to a cold country for winter, so all my winter clothings were new!!

As it was a work trip, there was very limited time for exploring the city. The conference schedule was quite crazy, it usually starts around 9 am and the schedule runs till 11.59 pm including the poster sessions. The lunch breaks were long though, usually 2 hours and sometimes more. Sometimes we use the lunch break for a much needed nap to overcome the 13-hour jet lag, sometimes we explore the region a bit. Below is a summary of the places we explored during the breaks.

Mont Royal, McGill University
We took a lunch time hike up Mont Royal. That was when we found out Montreal downtown is very small. It took us just slightly over an hour to walk from our conference place at Palais de Congrès, past McGill University, up the observatory chalet at Mont Royal (190 m high) and back down. We were walking very fast though, at a slightly uncomfortable pace for me.

It was an easy hike up to the observatory deck, because it's just climbing stairs all the way. At the observatory chalet (190 m), you get a nice city view of Montreal. The summit is just another 30 m higher but the horizontal distance was far, and I think there's no view at the summit, so we didn't summit. People say that if you are just going to visit one place in Montreal you should come here. That's not a bad advice, considering that you can see most of Montreal downtown from here. You can even see the Jacques-Cartier bridge at the far left too.

Panorama view from Chalet du Mont Royal

Honeymoon: East Java Adventure!

I got married on 1 August 2015! After spending so much money on wedding, we were quite budget conscious and did not plan for a honeymoon at first. However, the announcement of the Jubilee long weekend made it too tempting to take a honeymoon without burning too much leave, thanks to SG50! I decided to plan a honeymoon trip to a nearby country, hopefully spending less than S$1000 per pax for the entire trip.

Mount Bromo and Ijen Crater has been on my to-go list. I had planned to go there with a hiking group by myself, then I saw a 7D6N East Java trip itinerary for the Jubilee weekend which covers Mount Bromo, Ijen Crater, snorkelling at Menjangan island and water rafting at Probolingo. I think we really spent less than S$1000 per pax for this trip! The flight was really expensive nearer the long weekend, so we flew over there 1 day earlier to get a cheaper flight. Yes the difference in price saved was enough to cover the extra night of accommodation and expenditure - extra holiday at a lower price!

When I told people that I would be going for honeymoon in Indonesia, the first response is usually "is it Bali?". Not entirely wrong, because we were snorkeling in Bali waters at Menjangan island. When I elaborated about the activities I would be doing for my honeymoon, most people found it strange. Maybe the default style of honeymoon is resort-style at Bali or Maldives, or a long trip to Europe or somewhere exotic. I don't look like a sporty person, many said. That is true, I can't even swim, but there is always a first time to anything!

Honeymoon: Mount Bromo

Right after our Ijen Crater hike, we set off for the Mount Bromo sunrise that very night at around 11pm. We visited Mount Bromo on 10 August 2015. We changed to a jeep to travel up the Pananjakan viewpoint to wait for the sunrise. According to the guide, the best way to enjoy Mount Bromo is to view the sunrise from this view point first, followed by a trek up Mount Bromo.

I expected the place to be about as cold as Ijen, but I was underdressed again - It was much colder! We bought wool scarves and hat and it was not enough. I rented another thick jacket and still felt cold. Luckily it was all very cheap despite the place being a famous tourist attraction. The toilet was tourist rates though, 2k for small business and 3k for big business hahaha. No tissue too.

We reached the viewpoint about 1h before sunrise, and it was already quite crowded. The crowd never stopped streaming in until sunrise was over. No wonder the travel websites advised coming early to get a good spot to watch the sunrise.

Honeymoon: Ijen Crater

On Singapore's 50th birthday, we were trekking Ijen Crater. It is an active volcano famous for it's turquoise acidic crater lake, the blue fire and the sulphur miners.

We checked out from our hotel at Bondowoso at 10.30pm to head towards Ijen at Banyuwangi, and reached around 1.30 am. When I stepped out of the van, it dawned on me that I was severely underdressed. It was so cold, and everyone else were all covered up. Luckily, one of my travel mates lent me a long sleeve tshirt and I bought a pair of gloves there. 

Ijen stands at 2400 m high, but was much more manageable compared to my previous hikes at Gunung Datuk and Gunung Lembak (we took the more challenging trek at Lembak). The trek was generally steep but on pavement walk, no difficult terrains till the crater rim. Now I know that the height of a mountain may not be representative of the difficulty of a hike, it is the terrain that defines the difficulty. There is also a rest point at around 1850 m checkpoint.

Sunrise Hike at Gunung Datuk

I went on my first mountain hike at Gunung Datuk on 30 May 2015. Gunung Datuk is located near Rembau, the highest peak in Negeri Sembilan at 884 m.

I bought all my trekking gears just a few days before the trip - a pair of trekking shoes, hiking socks, small backpack and pants. That's one of the rare occasion where I am wearing so many new things on me, not even during Chinese New Year! You can tell how inexperienced I am to hiking.

We set off from Marsling MRT at about 11.15 pm, reaching the start point at about 3.30 am. There were some traffic jam near the customs due to the long weekend, so it could have been a shorter ride. After some briefing by the trekking guides, we started the ascend at about 4 am. It was pitch dark at this hour, I could hardly see much ahead with a headlamp.

The Gunung Datuk Signboard

How much I could see in the dark

After a short walk from the starting point, the nightmare begins. I have read that the first one-third of the ascend is the most challenging due to steep inclinations. Indeed, it was so steep that I often find myself climbing on all fours, or using a rope to pull myself up the boulders. In less than 20 minutes or so into the hike, I was dripping sweat and breathing heavily. Occasionally I was questioning myself why did I put myself into such a situation - I would otherwise be unconscious in my cozy bed at this hour!

The hiking trail was well-defined, with red arrows and yellow tapes to keep you on track. When you see spider web in front of you, it's the wrong way. Sometimes when the path in front looks impossible to move ahead, look left and right to find an alternative path. When in doubt, upwards is the direction.

Most of the trip members are regular hikers, I think it's supposed to be an easy hike for them. Luckily there was a group of slower hikers whom I could hike comfortably with, it's really scary when you're all alone in the darkness. It is also more comforting when someone is supporting and suffering with you.

The ladders on the boulders signalled the end of our uphill struggle. There were 4 shaky ladders to climb before reaching the summit, I think it is less scary to climb up fast.

Shaky ladders

The ladders toward the summit

We took several short rests on the way up, and we waited for each other to make sure nobody is left alone. Overall we took close to 3 hours to reach the summit, so the sky was no longer fully dark. I think the regular hikers took about 2-2.5 hours to reach the top, rewarded with the night city view and the stars.

Morning view of Malacca City

It was very windy at the summit. I brought a windbreaker because I read about that before the hike. The summit was quite crowded with local hikers probably due to the holiday weekend, and that this is a popular hiking destination. I was quite annoyed by the smokers who polluted the otherwise fresh mountain air. Nonetheless it was nice just sitting around, taking selfies and taking pictures with fellow hikers.

Hints of sunrise

Very soon it was time for the descend. I struggled a bit when getting into position at some of the ladders. At first, the descend was quite easy, I could look around and enjoy the scenery around me.

Funky fungi seen along the way, and a suspicious looking egg

The torture began once again when we reached the steep segment. I had to squat down several times to descend large boulders, once even sliding down! There were several big hiking student groups going upwards, so we had to stop and wait at several bottleneck points. Although it is generally unpleasant to hike in a crowd, the Malay students were generally polite and friendly. Many of them would lend a helping hand if you need one.

A view of the path in daylight

Fellow hiker waiting for the upstream to pass

My legs turned jelly during the descend, but there was no choice except to keep going. Again I was slapping myself for getting into such a fix, but I figured I was better off just focusing on the next step and the next. I think I took around 2 hours to complete the descend, well enough time for some of the more experienced hikers to finish 3 bowls of chendol while waiting for the slower group.

After the hike, we headed to Malacca City for lunch and some R&R before heading back to Singapore. It was nice hanging out with the fellow hikers, listening to their travel stories and feeling inspired again.

Overall, it was a memorable experience for me being my first mountain hike. It was gruelling and torturous for me at several segments of the hike, but now I get a taste of what hiking is like. Yes I would like to go for more hiking trips in the future, but not without proper training like this time (I was totally unprepared physically).

Bucket list item: To climb a mountain - checked!

Korea Trip: Concluding Thoughts

So many posts on the Korea Trip! After all it's 9 days of travel so there's a bit of content to cover. A summary of the posts covered:

Highlights of Korea Trip May 2015 (Part 1 of 3): Nami Island, Gyeongbokgong, Deoksugung
Highlights of Korea Trip May 2015 (Part 2 of 3): N Seoul Tower, Painters Performance
Highlights of Korea Trip May 2015 (Part 3 of 3): Jeju
Shopping in Korea

Korean People

We got to visit some nice places in Korea, but our visit coincide with Korea's family weekend, causing 4+ hour traffic jam and massive crowds on the first two days of our tour. We get to see more Koreans though, and as the tour guide said, Koreans like to wear very bright colors, and they can be very pushy. I used to have a better impression of Koreans, as I thought they wear very nice clothes are are as graceful as the kpop girls.

We also observed that most adult Korean girls have double eyelids, but most Korean little girls have single eyelids.

Cute little Korean girl with natural eyelids

Korean Food

Most of our food in the package tour are Korean style food, usually consisting of a steamboat, several refillable fermented cold dishes and rice. One day we had BBQ instead of the steamboat. One day we had bibimbab. One day we had Ginseng Chicken. None of the food really excite me, but they fill my stomach. I have never been a fan of Korean food anyway, but after 9 days of Korean food, I am going on a strike!

Typical Korean Meal

There are some interesting street foods though. Unfortunately I don't have much pictures of them right now. Of course, not as exciting as those found in Taiwan night markets.

Cheese Egg Bun

If you force me to name ONE food which is so good that I can't forget, it must be the cheese garlic bread from Angel-in-us coffee cafe. It was really good. We wanted to eat again but we realized that not every Angel-in-us cafe have it. The pastry differs from branch to branch.

Cheese Garlic Bread from Angel-in-us Coffee near Namsam Park

Korean Transport

We took the metro at Korea on our free day. Some of the gantries look quite cool. The doors are always open, maybe they will only close when you attempt to cross without scanning your card.

Gantry at Korean metro

The inside of the stations look about the same as everywhere else

The Tour Package

As mentioned in the Part 1 post, the trip consist of 6 people, 3 from my family and 3 from my boyfriend's family. We are glad that we took a tour package, because it's easier to suit a big group consisting mostly of old folks. When all of us walked together, it can be really inefficient because everyone can have different ideas of how to do things, and we can end up immobile. With a tour package, there is a specified time to report back to the bus at every attraction point. So we can start off together and we can go on our own before going back to the tour bus at the specified time and hopefully have meals together.

However, in Korean restaurants, each table consist of table of 4, so our group of 6 usually have to be split into 4-2. Sometimes we are placed on consecutive tables, other times we are split into different rows. What disappointed me was that we were always the group that is split up into non-consecutive tables. There was another group of 5 and a group of 6 that never had to be split up throughout the whole trip. Only our group get split up all the time, even though they could just put a 2 person group to join us instead of splitting us. If it was really necessary to split up the group of 6, I think it would be fairer to sometimes split us and sometimes the other group, not splitting the same group all the time.

One of the major advantage of a tour package is that transport is all covered, especially in a country working in an unfamiliar language, it can be more challenging to navigate by public transport or walking.

The most irritating thing of going on a tour is that they must bring you to shops for you to spend money. It is really wasting time and money. You can say that the money spent is a choice, but the old folks don't really have a sense of how much their cash is worth in the foreign currency, and they tend to overspend quite a lot. They get very eloquent sales people to sell health products at very inflated prices, using scare tactics to coerce you into parting with your cash. My bf's dad bought the ginseng powder, costing us 1.5 million won - SGD $1800++. Urgh, feel the blood oozing out my heart.

One thing I think that was not very ethical of Hong Thai Travel agency was that they made everyone "upgrade" their tour by adding 90k won/pax (~S$114/pax) to cover a duck meal to replace a meal that was supposed to be self-paid, upgrading the included seafood steamboat with some raw seafood, and adding a DIY soap making into the itinerary. Actually, I accidentally fell asleep when he was saying this, the next thing I knew was that he was collecting so much money from us. When I was wondering what I was paying for, my family told me just pay just pay.. so I paid..

Later on I went to clarify with the tour guide after all, I just paid so much money, shouldn't I be aware of what I was paying for? After understanding the package, I decided to withdraw from the seafood upgrade, since the basic seafood is more than enough for us, and we got a refund of 30k per pax. Actually, the Singapore tour lead had initially told me that the seafood upgrade cost 35k won per pax, so we didn't actually get a full refund from the seafood upgrade. As for the duck meal, I actually would still prefer to pay for what we want to eat, but the tour guide said it would be inconvenient since the whole bus are going to the same place. Same for the DIY soap making, we had little choice but to pay for it because otherwise we are just going to sit outside and wait for everyone else.

So instead of 90k / pax, we paid 60k / pax. At least we didn't pay so much for what we don't want. In the end, we found out from other tour members that they did not eat much of the seafood upgrade, because they don't dare to eat so much raw stuff. I felt heartache for them for paying so much for something they did not like, and were not given the option not to pay for it. The tour guide actually told me not to tell people that we got a partial refund, but I later think it was quite an unethical move. The duck meal was one of the worst meals too, and in the itinerary it was supposed to be self-paid meal. We would not have taken this if we had a choice of what to eat.

At the end of the trip, the photographer will also give everybody a photo album to make you buy some photos. The evil trick was that they did not give 1 album per family. They gave my mum 1 album, my aunt 1 album, my bf's parents 1 album and us 1 album - 4 albums in total. In the end, my mum and aunt paid the full price because they did not haggle, while my bf's parents paid a discounted price. For me, we just bought 1 picture. We later realized that some photos were duplicate, and were awed at the how unethical they can get to suck more money out of us. The worse thing is, the old folks who aren't very good with money just paid them without questioning, without allowing us to say a word more.

Will I patronize Hong Thai again, or recommend it to others? A big NO from me. They were not the cheapest package in the first place, and that is OK, provided the tour is suitable for us. Poor planning of seating arrangement? Maybe the tour lead was young and inexperienced, and it's not a major issue to fuss over. What I could not accept was their unethical ways of pressuring unsuspecting customers to fork out so much money into things they would rather not have. I'm not sure if other tour agencies are like that too.

It is the first time for us to go on a mega family trip like that. Family trips are rare for us in the first place, so I treasure the memories a lot. There were a lot of unhappiness throughout too, but I don't know how better to manage them anyway. Sometimes one-sided efforts aren't enough to make everybody happy. "You need to allow yourself to be happy!", I subtly told my mum one day.