Mon Journal Voyage

Hawaii, Oahu (Honolulu) and Big Island (Kona)

2011-11-23T15:22:00.945+08:00

Sneak peek of Oahu from our plane.

Our hotel room at Hotel Renew.

First stop- International Market Place for lunch.

We shared a plate of Ahi Poke from Blue Water Shrimp at the International Market Place. Ahi Poke is a Hawaiian style cubed yellowedfin tuna sashimi salad. We really enjoyed it.

Shave ice from Island Freeze for dessert. The shave ice was served in a plastic cup/cone, with 3 favours (raspberry, mango and pineapple) and sweetened condensed milk drizzled over the top.

On our second day at Oahu and it was also Thanksgiving day in America. We took an hour hike up the Diamond Head peak. It was well worth the effort as we were rewarded with some spectacular view of Waikiki and surroundings on the top of the 232m extinct volcano. This was also the place that I got my first sunburn for the year of 2011. Tsk tsk.

Back down at the base of the Diamond Head for more shave ice. Yay!

Back at Waikiki, we shared mini cheeseburgers at the Cheeseburger in Paradise in Waikiki for a very late lunch.

Random photos:
Hawaii postie van.

Some weird (but cool) bird with red mohawk crossing the road.

Lifeguard booth at Waikiki beach.

Royal Hawaiian Hotel sticking out like a sore thumb (in my humble opinion).

We spent our third and fourth day just shopping and chilling out. We had lunch at Hau Tree Lani located in the New Otani Hotel. J had the Loco Moco- corned beef hash, cutlet of ground chuck, pork, and sausage on a bed of rice topped mushroom gravy and egg.

I had the Mahi Burger- fish fillet dipped in egg batter then grilled with sliced kamuela tomatoes, lettuce on white kaiser bun.

Getting my coffee fix at Honolulu Coffee Co.

Later in the evening and being a foodie, we decided to go to the Eat the Streets event at some carpark in South Street. Eat the Streets is an event where food trucks come together in a single location serving tasting portions of their popular dishes. We thought it would be a good opportunity for us to try some of the local cuisines. The event was located way out of Waikiki, and the only way for us to get there without a car is to take a tourist trolley to Ala Monana Center and walked about an hour to South Street. Unfortunately, the weather took a turn for the worst. By the time we arrived at South Street, there was a storm. It was a disaster! We stood in the queue for ages waiting for our turn to order under the cold pouring rain and howling wind. We were getting worried about how to return to the hotel. There was no taxi in the area, it was getting dark and the area is not exactly tourist friendly. There was no other choice but for us to walk back. Amidst the panic, I tried to wave down a pizza car thinking it was a taxi, which it nearly stopped for me. The wind was really starting to pick up at one stage, and we decided to take shelter under an apartment block. We saw a lady entering the apartment building, and we asked if she has the number for the taxi. She invited us into her apartment while she looked up for the number. We were really surprised and touched by how trusting and helpful she was, even when she didn't know us. It warm our heart to know that there are still some kind people in the world. Anyway to cut the story short, she couldn't find the number, we excused ourselves and walked all the way back. What did we end up getting from the Eat the Streets?Ahi fried musubi with fried chicken from the Hawaii's Fried Musubi Food Truck and Guava-smoked BBQ pork pizza from Inferno's Food Truck. Really yum... but worth all the effort? Probably not.

Pearl Harbor

Bullet holes from World War II. Wow!

Hawaiian Pizza. You got to have Hawaiian Pizza at Hawaii! It's like having French Fries at France. ;D

Musubi- grilled spam on top of sushi rice. Apparently, Musubi is a popular Hawaiian snack. We came across this little japanese takeaway shop, Iyasume Musubi, tucked away in the corner which sell Musubi. Can't remember when was the last time I had spam, but wow, spam musubi is SO YUM! We were hooked! We were even thinking about getting the "WE LOVE MUSUBI" t-shirt.

We went for the Paradise Cove's Luau with recommendations from our hotel and guide books. It was a fun evening where we greeted with fresh orchids Lei upon arrival, served Mai Tai for refreshments, had traditional Hawaiian Buffet for dinner before the show starts.

For the ladies! YAY!

Snorkling at Hanauma bay.

We saw the most spectacular rainbow which seems to hover over the misty hills like an aurora. Beautiful!

Malasadas from Leonard's Bakery.

We highly recommend the Ono Hawaiian Food if you hapen to be in Honolulu and want to try traditional hawaiian food. It is located at Kapahulu Ave. We shared a combination plate which consists of Kalua pig, laulua, pipikaula, lomi salmon and haupia served with rice.

J surfing...

J chilling out at Waikiki beach.

Took a photo of Hanauma Bay from our plane to the Big Island.

Statues of Hula girls at Kona Airport.

Fairmount Orchids. A nice resort but not too happy with the service. It was located in the middle of nowhere and getting around was a huge problem for us as we do not have a car. We had to eat at the resort, which was really expensive.

We signed up for a tour that took us up to the Mauna Kea, the tallest mountain on Earth. Our tour guide, Rhett, picked us up from our hotel. We enjoyed the drive to the summit of Manua Kea. The dry barren land and rocks looks somewhat similar to Western Australia outback (e.g. Port Hedland).

We saw an owl hunting.

In case you are wondering what J was doing, he was trying to take a photo of his shadow doing the hawaiian hand loose (Shaka) sign.

The evening light was gorgeous. Great for some artistic photography...

At the summit above the clouds.

On our third day at the Big Island, we took the Blue Hawaiian Helicopter tour. It was expensive (US$450 per person) but we think it's worth it. We got a great view of the Madame Pele's lava and volcanic badlands, Hamakua Coast rainforests, sea cliffs, Kohala Mountains valleys and beautiful waterfalls.

We couldn't believe it when we were told that there is still someone living in the midst of the volcano chaos. There were 9 estates in the area and 8 of the estates have been burned down. Leaving only 1 estate sitting alone with volcano ashes and rocks surrounding it. The man who still live in the estate is nickname Lava Jack or Crazy Jack. He converts the estate to a Bed and Breakfast and apparently business has been good recently due to the volcano activity. We were told that he has to hike about an hour across the volcano ashes and rocks to get to the main road for his essentials. CRAZY!

On our way to and from the airport, we saw the whole stretch of black volcanoes rocks where "graffiti" by white pebbles. The taxi driver joked and called it the Big Island Graffiti. I wish we got enough time to create a graffiti of our own. Oh well, maybe next time...

London, Stafford (& bonus stop at Zurich)

2010-12-31T18:00:00.006+08:00

I celebrated my Christmas holiday this year with my family in London and Stafford. We were all really excited about this trip because it has been a while since the whole family went on a holiday together.

We were supposed to arrive at London on the 19 Dec, but just a couple of hours before landing at Heathrow Airport, we were advised that the airport was closed due to the heavy snow fall. We had to turn back and stop at Zurich instead until conditions improved in Heathrow.

So we were stranded at Zurich for 3 days and did not arrived in London until the 21 Dec. I guess we were lucky compared to those who had to sleep on the cold airport floor. Strange as it sounds, but I was actually quite happy to be stranded in Switzerland which felt like a bonus stopover. The only inconvenience was that we couldn't get our luggage back and we had to wear the same thing and lived on whatever that were in our hand luggage for 3 days.

Anyway our accommodation and food during the 3 days while waiting for news from Heathrow Airport were taken care of by Singapore Air. We stayed at Movenpick Hotel at Egerkingen, which is a nice and comfortable hotel, but located in the middle of nowhere- an hour drive from Zurich Airport and an hour drive from Zurich city center. Because we were on standby, waiting for the green light from Heathrow, we were not able to do much but to eat, sleep and wait.

After several days of waiting, Singapore Air decided to fly us to Manchester instead and then arranged buses to take us from Manchester to Heathrow airport. However after we checked into Zurich airport, we were told that Heathrow airport was able to schedule a slot for us. So we were able to fly direct to Heathrow afterall.

You would think that with all the chaos caused by the snow that we would experience (or in my case, rewarded with) plenty of snowing while we were in London and Stafford. Ironically, it snowed only once, two days before Christmas, and only for a couple of hours. Of course, I was feeling bitterly disappointed that it did not snow everyday. Oh well, at least we get to experience a truly white and magical Christmas before the snow has all but melted after Boxing Day.

The lovely Movenpick Hotel at Egerkingen Zurich, where we spent several days in while waiting for news from Heathrow.

My sweet sister #3.

Check-in was painfully slow, as the lady behind the counter has to write each and every single air ticket... the old fasion way!

Arrived in London. Finally! This is my sister #4 trying to suffocate herself with her "baby" pillow in our Hilton Metropo hotel room in London. Don't ask me why. Haha..

View from our hotel room. Note the snow on the buildings roofs.

Arrived in my Auntie's place the next day. The backyard.

Jack.

A rather charming market, not too far from my Auntie's place in Stafford. It was the only day that snowed during the whole time we were in UK.

My ultra cute sister #4. I really like this photo. It seems to capture that "Christmas magic".

My auntie's friend has a horse. We went to the stable to feed the horses.

My mum and dad.

My sister #2.

Christmas Day. Me scrapping ice off the windscreen.

My sister #4 scrapping ice off the side window.

Street outside my Auntie's house.

Boxing day. A walk at The Chase.

Back in London, and our second last day in UK. All the snow has melted. It was a very foggy day.

There is something about this photo that I thought gave me that "DeJa Vu" feeling. Until I realised that I took a similar photo at the exact same spot when I was at London in May.

Adelaide

2010-08-22T21:21:00.002+08:00

Was in Adelaide for a three days conference. I didn't have time to explore Adelaide properly, but managed to sneek in half an hour to take a walk down the shopping street which is essentially just one street. I also visited the historic Hahndorf, Adelaide's oldest German Settlement, which I quite enjoy.

Behind my hotel

Adelaide's shopping street

Hahndorf

London

2010-05-27T20:52:00.000+08:00

London, the last destination of our holiday, before we head back to Singapore and then Perth…Time flies when you are having fun!

Lake District

2010-05-23T19:23:00.024+08:00

We visited my auntie at Stafford, a small town an hour-ish from London via train. My auntie treated us to a weekend away at the beautiful Lake District about four hours drive from Stafford. We stayed at the Storrs Hall self catering lodge which has a fantastic view of the lake.

Wild bluebells that spread across the hill. A spectacular sight that happens only a couple of weeks during spring. We are so lucky to be able to see this!

Carlisle Castle.

High tea at Storrs Hall.

Wild garlic flowers.

Brussels

2010-05-20T15:27:00.051+08:00

What can I say- we got sick from eating way too much chocolates and ice cream within 2 hours we were in Brussels! There are shops in every corner of the streets, selling gourmet chocolates and Belgium waffles. The delicious smell of chocolates and fresh waffles everywhere makes it so hard for us to resist the temptation!

Brussels is the home of TinTin, one of J’s favourite childhood cartoons, and therefore you can imagine his excitement when we were at the Comic Strip Center.

Atomium

Miniature Brussels old townhouses in Miniature Europe.

The real thing.

Amsterdam

2010-05-17T22:01:00.018+08:00

It’s probably not fair to judge Amsterdam based on our first impression of her. It’s just our luck that when we arrived at Amsterdam on Friday, the rubbish collectors have been on strike for nearly a week. The weekend we were there also happened to be a long weekend, and hence it was really crowded everywhere. The bad weather during our first two days at Amsterdam did not help either.

However on Monday, our last day at Amsterdam, the rubbish was cleared off the street (assuming that the rubbish collectors have got what they wanted), the tourists have returned home, and the sky was blue, Amsterdam quickly becomes one of our favourite cities that we have visited so far.

Amsterdam is a very interesting place. There are many things about Amsterdam that fascinates us. For example, the coffee houses (not to be mistaken for cafes) where people go to smoke special herbs. There are shops that sell starter kits to grow the special herbs at home. There is the red light district with its window prostitutes. And the strangest thing of all is there is an old church located right in the middle of the red light district. And then there are the canal boats that people still live in. We managed to catch a glimpse inside some of these boats, and they are actually very well furnished, like a modern apartment.

Of course, we did the usual touristy thing by visiting the Anne Frank Huis, the Van Gogh Museum and the Diamond Museum. We also took a day tour to visit the windmills at Zaanse Schans. We also visited the villages of Edam, Volendam, Marken and fishermen’s villages along the former Zuiderzee.

Prague

2010-05-13T23:00:00.000+08:00

Prague, or to be specific, the Old Town and Lesser Town of Prague, is a very pretty place. This is probably the place where Walt Disney got their inspiration for their illustration of the fairytale land (e.g. Beauty and the Beast, Cinderella) from.

The townhouses sits beside each other like pretty cakes, in pastel colours of pink, blue, green, yellow and brown, and the façade of these townhouses with beautiful decorations. All the pavements and roads in Prague are made of medieval cobblestones (great to look at but not so great to walk on!). The Prague Castle sits on the hill above Vltava River provides a spectacular view of the city.

Vienna

2010-05-08T17:10:00.000+08:00

Not feeling very motivated to keep this blog going as it takes forever to resize and upload the photos onto this blog.

Vienna, in my opinon, is like a smaller scale of Paris. Not as grand, but equally charming. To be honest, I didn't like Vienna as much as I thought I would. Perhaps it was the bad weather, as it rained four days out of the five we were there. Or maybe I have too high an expectation for this place before I came, as it is afterall the place of classical music and waltz. We attended a concert on our second night at Vienna, which played the music of Johann Strauss and Mozart. Again, the concert didn't quite meet my expectation.

The Hofburgh Palace. In the Palace, we visited the Kaiserappartements (original apartments and offices of Emperor Franz Joseph and Empress Elisabeth), Sisi (aka Empress Elisabeth) Musesum and Schatzkammer (Imperial Tresury). After this visit, I was so fascinated with the life of Empress Elisabeth that I brought the book "The Reluctant Empress, a biography of Empress Elisabeth of Austria" by Brigitte Hamann. Don't have many photos of the Hofburgh Palace as we are not allowed to take photos inside the Palace.

The Belvedere Palace which is now an art gallery housed the works of Klimt and Schiele which I particularly enjoyed.

One of the oldest Ferris Wheel in the world.

The Schonbrunn Palace.

Switzerland

2010-05-03T00:50:00.028+08:00

Switzerland is so spectacularly beautiful!

It is spring now, and the snows on most of the mountains have already melted. We can only imagine that it is even more spectacular during winter when the snow covers the mountains, fields and houses. We have decided to come back to Switzerland in the very near future during winter, to visit all of Switzerland and to do some skiing, snowboarding and trekking.

We spent two days each in Zermatt, Interlaken, Luzern and Zurich. Not enough time to do everything that we wanted, but just enough to cover the important spots. Weather has been perfect in Zermatt and Interlaken, but our good luck with the great weather since the first day of our holiday has come to an end, as it has been raining the whole time when we were in Luzern and Zurich. We are expecting more rain for the rest of this week.

We will be leaving Switzerland tomorrow, and moving on to Austria, which also means that we have reached the half way mark of our holiday. For those who don't already know, you can leave comments on this blog by clicking on the comment link below each post. We would love to hear from you.

ZERMATT

View from our hotel room. The snowcap mountain on the right is Matterhorn.

In the train to Gornergrat (3089m high).

Dog in photo below is Saint Bernhard. Occupation: The Switzerland national dog, mountain rescue dog and part-time tourist attraction/entertainer. When we reached Gornergrat, the large dog casually lay down on the snow in its most adorable pose, waiting for all the tourists to finish taking photographs of it, before getting up again for a more personal one to one photo opportunity. You can see that it loves the attention.

Close up photo of the Matterhorn.

INTERLAKEN

Jungfraujoch, top of Europe, at 3454m.

LUZERN

This grafitti on the bin reminded us of somebody we know, who looks equally dodgy! No prizes for guessing it right.

The dying Lion of Luzern. Globetrotter Mark Twain described the Lion of Luzern as "the saddest and most moving piece of rock in the world".

ZURICH

Didn't take many photos at Zurich due to the bad weather. I really hate to get my camera wet! But here's a couple...

Milano

2010-05-01T16:03:00.001+08:00

We are now in Luzern (Lucerne) Switzerland. We stayed in Zermatt and Interlaken for a couple of nights each, but more on Switzerland in my next post.

Back to Milano (Milan), our last stop in Italy before we left for Switzerland.

This is J expressing his disappointment when we found out that tickets to see the Leonardo de Vinci’s Last Supper in Santa Maria Delle Grazie were completely sold out for the next two weeks and that the itinerary for next day at Milano (Milan) will be shopping!

Anyway, we learned that visits to see the Last Supper were restricted to 25 people at any one time for 15 minutes. Therefore if you are going to Milano and planning to see the Last Supper, we suggest that you reserve the tickets at least one month in advance.

We spent about 3 days in Milano. There wasn’t much that we wanted to see in Milano, except Milano’s Duomo and Galleria Vittorio Emanuela II, and of course the Last Supper which we missed out on.

For now, here’s some photos of our time in Milano.

Venezia

2010-04-23T04:17:00.029+08:00

I love Venezia (Venice), for its’ canals, bridges, old buildings, and particularly for its’ quirky maze-like narrow streets. I also like that there are no traffic lights, no motor vehicles, and no bicycles. We had the most relaxing three days in Venezia, which felt like a holiday from our holiday.

The only way to get around in Venezia is either by foot or by boat. One can never be in a rush to get to anywhere in Venezia. The water buses, Venezia’s only form of public transport, travels at such cruising speed that you can’t help but wonder if it would have been faster if you walk instead. That provided if you don’t get lost.

Even with a map, getting lost in Venezia is inevitable. Most of the streets have no street signs! Our iphone with the google map app comes in handy as it has a GPS function which indicates our current position on the map, which helped us navigate our way through.

We visited the Palazzo Ducale (Doge’s Place) and Galleria dell’Accademia. The Galleria dell’s Accademia is a little of a disappointment. Lucky for us, entry was free on that day for some reason. Apparently, the gallery kept some of their more famous artworks (including Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man) away and only bring them out during special occasions or upon request! We didn’t get to see the Vitruyian Man!

Rome

2010-04-20T05:06:00.002+08:00

Rome, or Roma as the Italians call it here, seems to be sustained entirely on tourism. I’m guessing 60% of the people here are tourists, and a lot of them seem to be Americans.

We had a great time here in Rome. The weather was near to perfect, except for the sudden downpour in the afternoon on Monday, following by 15 minutes of hail. The bad weather only lasted for an hour, and it was back to sunshine and blue skies for the rest of the day.

The food is good, as you would expect it here in Italy, with mouth watering pizza and pasta. Although the one thing to note is that the bread that they bring out with every meal are not complimentary, and have costed us about 2 Euro to 4 Euro per meal each. The bread is often stale. We are going to try to say no to these “un-complimentary” breads for the rest of our time in Italy.

The highlights of our time in Rome are the Colosseo and Vatican City. Foro Romano is also worth a visit, if you got the time. Highly recommend a guided tour to go through these places, as I believe we need to understand the meaning/reason before the buildings, structures and artworks to fully appreciate them.

We were approached by a young 20-ish blonde American girl who asked if we are interested to go on a guided tour through the Colosseo. We were a little hesitant at first because it seems a little dodgy, but as it costed only 10 Euro for the tour plus a complimentary tour in Foro Romano, we decided to give it a go. Because it was culture week, entry to the Colosseo was free.

It turned out to be the best impulsive decision. We were guided through the Colosseo and Foro Romano by professional licence guides. We were so happy with them that, the next day, we went on another guided tour at the Vatican City with the same tour operator.

Colosseo

On the hop-on-hop-off bus.

Fontana Di Trevi

Vatican

Pantheon

Au Revoir Paris, Ciao Rome

2010-04-19T05:26:00.007+08:00

We say “Au Revoir” to Paris yesterday, and arrived in Rome last night at 8.40pm, after a long 12 hours train journey which involved train transfers at Basel Switzerland and Milan Italy. (Note: apparently, ciao also means hello in Italian.)

I believe you probably heard about the volcano eruption in Iceland that has caused major disruption to all the major airports in Europe. Thank goodness we have decided to take the trains and have purchased our tickets and reserved all our seats while we were in Australia. We are also glad that we have pre-booked all our accommodations.

There are long queues of people trying to get on trains because the planes are cancelled. It was chaotic! When we checked into our hotel last night, we were behind a guy who was trying to find accommodations and was advised that most of the hotels are fully booked because a lot of people are stranded due to the flights cancellation.

Anyway, here are some more photos of the glamorous Paris. The weather has been beautiful the whole time we were in Paris. Highly recommend Musee Du Louvre, Hotel Des Invalides, and Chateau de Versailles which deserve a full day each in order to explore everything properly.

Musee Du Louvre

The famous Laduree macarons. Yum!

Petite Palais- Check out the spectacular gold door

Grand Palais- Reflection of the gold door from Petit Palais across the road on the glass window of Grand Palais

Gold dome of Hotel Des Invalides

Sacre-Coeur

The overrated Moulin Rouge

Inside the palace of Chateau de Versailles

Some random homeless snowman. Awww...

Arc De Triomphe at night

Paris Statue of Liberty

This must be the 100th photo I took of the Eiffel Tower. Do you know that the Eiffel Tower "sparkles" every hour.

The last photo I took at Paris.

Paris, Day 1

2010-04-12T05:10:00.000+08:00

Bonjour from Paris! We arrived at Paris Charles de Gaulle airport this morning at 6am, after a 17 hours flight, not including the 5 hours stop over at Singapore. We took a shuttle bus from the airport, which stopped at Arc de Triomphe. From there, with our backpacks on our back and luggages dragging behind us, we strolled through the street of Paris for 20 minutes before we reached our hotel. The hotel looks deceptively closer on the map...

When we alighted from the shuttle bus and onto the streets around Arc de Triomphe, we noticed that we were surrounded by a huge mob of people wearing something that looked like garbage bag, running everywhere. We thought it was rather strange, and it took us a while before we realised that we are standing in the midst of a marathon. The event is sort of similar to the City to Surf in Perth.

After we checked into our hotel, we headed back to Arc de Triomphe for a closer look. From there we strolled through the famous Des Champs Elysees, went past Grand Palais, Petit Palais, Eiffel Tower and Palais de Chaillot.

Below some photos from our walk.

9 sleeps to go...

2010-04-01T22:22:00.001+08:00