My life, My memory, My dream: 2019

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Yearly family vacation had us chose Eastern Europe this time. We couldn't afford the livelihood of free and easy trip for our elderly parents, hence going on a tour is a wise decision.

This time we went with Golden Travel Tour (GTT) for they are well-known for Europe tours. In order to accommodate nephew's holiday schedule we chose to go during year-end, which means cold winter time! I've always loved travelling in colder climate but worried that my parents might not be able to take it. This time, I made sure we are all well-prepared before departure.

Poland - Czech - Austria - Hungary: This is the route that we took.

Arriving Poland!

What is a little adventure if there's no mishaps in my life? I should have known by now that it's not always smooth road ahead of me. Third day in vacation, I've lost my purse due to pickpocket. It was the last night in Poland and I haven't started spending money yet! I told myself it's alright, my passport and phone are still with me. Somehow, I still got a little bit moody. I've heard various stories of people being stolen their bags, pickpocket at Eastern Europe. I've been careful but apparently not cautious enough.

Every cloud has a silver lining it seems. I managed to make a police report upon arrival at Vienna on day eight of our trip, and this serves as an evidence to do my travel insurance claims later.

These 12 days went by quickly and every place we went was merely a touch and go version. Well, the cons of following a tour. But this experience gave me a glimpse of the place that I would love to return to someday and explore further. While saving money for the next trip, let's just recall all the happy moments by scrolling through the beautiful photos.

Palace on the Water - Lazienki, Poland

Taking a stroll with my boy at the park

Auschwitz Camp, Poland

Family photo at Wieliczka Mine Salt

Wawel Royal Castle, Poland

Prague Castle, Czech

Charles Bridge, Czech

The Prague Astronomical Clock

Famous spa town at Karlovy Vary

Cesky Krumlov, a UNESCO World Heritage Site

Love Lock Bridge, Salzburg Austria

Hallstat, Austria

The only photo of me at Vienna, Austria

I didn't want to write too much on this post because the routes weren't planned by ourselves. Gonna end this lengthy "photo album" post with a cute video of my daddy, my first love💗

Full itinerary here.

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Just a week back from Vietnam, here I am on the go again. This time to Sabah, The Land of Borneo to visit long time friends and relatives, also as a short getaway to detoxify myself.

Though there’s nothing too special about Sabah, I try to make each trip meaningful by doing something different / new. And this time around, I joined a leisure dive by myself. It wasn’t an easy decision as I’ve always been timid. To venture into the vast blue sea by myself with a bunch of strangers took a lot of courage in me. At this time, I’m missing my adventurous girls. Being with them, I know I’m in safe hands. But one shouldn’t be too dependent all the time, no?

Though’ the dive experience wasn’t an impressive one as the dive sites were mostly sandy bottoms with limited visibility and not many sea creatures to see, but I still find serenity under the water listening to my own breath sounds. I find myself doing better each time I dive, less panic and more buoyancy control. And that’s a good thing to know.

On a dive alone

Other than diving searching for some bravery within, main purpose here is to visit old friends. Friends who were there throughout the past one decade, lifting each other if we fell too hard to the ground, and still do. Being with them (and their babies) for the past few days made me realize we really are grown ups now and we had long move on to different stages of life. Our topics of conversations have changed, our point of view towards life no longer the same as university days.

Meeting baby Spencer for the first time 💗

We had fun being together everyday, waking up in the same house - going places together, doing things in a group just like the olden days. The parents have mini breaks from their babies cause’ me and another friend who came to visit helped out to carry / play with them. Then, we have our private time to do some drinking and long talks at night when the babies are settled down.

I have to admit that I sometimes still miss our younger carefree days, but I guess we have all reach this stage of life where we understand that life is a movement forward. There’s not much time to even juggle the current days, let alone reminiscing the past.

Most friends only stay for a period of time, and when we move on, or priorities change, so do our friends. I’m glad that this group still sticks around, and hopefully always will. And one day, when we finally look back - we can say to each other “Ahhh, we’ve come this far”.

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My first visit in the country is to this coastal city located at the south of Vietnam. This is a new destination which only comes to light in these recent few years. This is a healing trip for a friend and a short escapade for me as I, too have my own fair share of heartache to tend to.

However, this post is not to dwell on our sadness - but a compliment to ourselves for making the spontaneous decision to come, to brave through the scary traffic and hot weather, as well as facing those Chinese tourists 🤣

My first visit in the country is to this coastal city located at the south of Vietnam. This is a new destination which only comes to light in these recent few years. This is a healing trip for a friend and a short escapade for me as I, too have my own fair share of heartache to tend to.

However, this post is not to dwell on our sadness - but a compliment to ourselves for making the spontaneous decision to come, to brave through the scary traffic and hot weather, as well as facing those Chinese tourists 🤣

My eczema flared like mad over the course of 4 days 3 nights here. But, we managed to take somewhat satisfying photos. There’s not too much to explore here - so we took our time slowly to the must-visit places.

Day 1

Checked into our stay at Citadines Bayfront Nha Trang. It’s located at the main beach along Tran Phu Street, where most of the hotels are. Our first place to go after the local lunch was Hon Chong "just rocks". The weather was unbelievably hot - but also because of this hot weather photos turned out really nice with the blue skies and white clouds. We spent a good 1.5 hours under the sun trying to get good photos, and to "fight" for photo-worthy spots with other tourists. By the end of first day, i was already exhausted.

Day 2
Today we woke up really early to catch the sunrise on our beachfront. As I thought we being really early at 5am, I saw that the beach was already packed with people, and some were even in the sea. That made me wonder where did all these people came from, and what time exactly they woke up to be swimming in the sea at 5am already. I guess, this trip is becoming a quite tiring one 😓
Lucky us, we made a spa booking for today (it is also for the birthday girl) hence we could stay in and just relax for the rest of the day.
We took a spa package from Galina Mudbath & Spa, and had a private bamboo room for ourselves. The spa didn't disappoint and the masseuse for whole body massage was so good I ended up falling asleep. Delicious lunch served in our private room after the spa experience was a plus point! Feeling all energized, we treated ourselves with an iced vietnam coffee at one of the famous coffee chains - Ice Coffee.

Happy Birthday my pc mate, my work companion, my best friend :)

A birthday is not complete without a birthday cake I said. And hence, after dinner at The Lantern we decided to walk to this cafe where I googled sell cakes! Google map said it was just a 15mins walk, but what we didnt't realise a 15mins walk at Vietnam (w the busting traffic and hot weather) could become way more than that. As exhausted and dehydrated we were, we finally reached Brownie Homie. Happy birthday, girl!

Day 3
Me being in love with the sky - no matter it's sunrise, sunset, rainbows, mellow rains, I forced myself out of bed at 5am to catch the sunrise. Again, i was greeted by massive crowd at the beachfront but that didn't hinder me much. It was a cloudy day, and the sunrise wasn't a great one - but the sound of waves and sea breeze calmed me much. Today we prepped ourselves properly for crazy weather out there w hand-held fans (bought from Dam market last night), sunglasses, sunblock, and plenty of water before starting our tour of the day.

Po Nagar Cham

First stop was to Po Nagar Cham Towers. Built between the 7th and 12th centuries, these impressive towers are still actively used for worship. The towers serve as the Holy See, honoring Yang ino Po Nagar, the goddess of the Dua (Liu) clan, which ruled over the southern part of the Cham kingdom. By the end of this tour, we were already sweating profusely and knew that we couldn't move on the the next stop at this state. Instead, we went to An Cafe to grab an early lunch and iced drinks to quench our never-ending thirst.

Nha Trang Stone Church; King Cathedral

Second stop was to King Cathedral. It is also know as the Nha Trang Stone Church as the church was made entirely out of stone. This cathedral remains one of the most important remnants of French architecture. Though this was just a small place to visit, we spent a good couple of hours here to get our seemingly perfect pictures. I ~~really~~ finally liked how the photos turned out.

Third and last stop of the day was to Long Son Pagoda. We had a tiring uphill hike to before reaching the top where the great white Buddha sits. However, we weren't impressed by this place and did a very brief visit. On the last night here, we decided to treat ourselves to a good Japanese restaurant, Sushi Kiwami - and that wrapped up our trip nicely.

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