Archive | Travel RSS feed for this section

It’s All About Food

3 Sep

The four day escapade was all about food too besides drinking, rejuvenating and rediscovering ourselves. Being in Club Med, the food spread was simply sumptuous with so many choices and free flow just like the drinks.

Big portion, I couldn’t finish

The eating started on Friday with a Nasi Lemak breakfast at Chong Hwa Curry Laksa Restaurant at Batu Caves before the noon golf game. Then it was that cholesterol-laden seafood dinner in Kuantan that was oh-so-good.

A must stop in Kemaman

But the next morning, breakfast at the hotel was just meh, so we drove to Kemaman to have a second breakfast at the very famous Hai Peng coffee shop. Even I who don’t drink coffee these days (because of my Endometriosis) thought the coffee was very good along with some local Kueh and Nasi Dagang Trengganu. The Nasi Dagang’s curry was slightly sweet yet a little sour but not too spicy and we both enjoyed it very much, something new and different for us.

The welcome meal at Club Med, noodles!

Felt like a glutton

It’s an eye opener when one discovers a new food, what more at this dinosaur age. So officially, I must put on record that I like, of all things, boiled peas… having it for several meals.

Peas for every occasion!

By Monday, it’s time to go home, so no more alcohol because we have to drive. I had my one last pea affair for breakfast and we did the Tree Top Challenge before saying goodbye to all the friendly young and very likeable GOs of Club Med.

The little pack was expensive but piping hot nice

We decided not to stay on for lunch at the village and headed for Zaman Restaurant instead for their famed packet Nasi Lemak. We were not disappointed. Satisfied with another check on our food list, we were ready to get home but along the way, we decided to detour to Genting Highlands!

Most expensive dessert for this trip!

We stopped at the Premium Outlet for dessert and did some shopping before finally arriving home at 7.30pm. The anniversary alphabet trip is completed.

Tags: , , , ,

Happy Anniversary to Us, Part 2

2 Sep

All good things must always come to an end. Our anniversary trip this year has just been awesome as we did everything from ‘A’ right through to ‘G’.

A good drive, hardly any cars

We left town on Friday for a round of golf at Royal Pahang Golf Club in Kuantan. A leisurely but fast-paced three hour round as there was hardly any other golfers. And dinner that night was at the famed Ana Ikan Bakar Petai for some cholesterol-laden seafood, a little indulgence. Obviously the 16/8 diet is out the window these few days.

Prawn, squid, stingray and the local ‘otak-otak’

The next day, we did the unthinkable, visiting the local mini zoo! Hahaha… but it was quite fun as we enjoyed the animals and the walk around the place, taking away some of the dinner guilt. When it was time to check in, we headed for Club Med in Cherating.

And the drinking, I mean fun began.

Drinks on Day One

Day two was a day of more drinking and activities. I managed to get some sun to even out my tan. And I chalked up 12 drinks. Pretty good with the first (beer) at 11.00 and the last (cocktail) 12 hours later, the bulk of it from 5.00pm onwards.

The one beer and 11 cocktails on Day 2

Rock climbing, sun tanning, hiking

Happy Anniversary to us! Cheers

We wrap up our getaway today and head back to reality. Hope the drive isn’t too bad. I look forward to what we will do next year when we celebrate the 25th milestone! Happy anniversary to us again.

Tags: , , , ,

Happy Anniversary to Us

30 Aug

It’s August already but it feels like 2019 is coming to an end, having gone by so fast with so many changes in both our lives this year. The most significant being M2 going off to college in January and M1 graduating in June. Tomorrow is yet another milestone, our wedding anniversary!

As we celebrate our 24th anniversary, I reflect back with mostly good and happy thoughts of our relationship and love for what we have built together as a team – our family, our home and our design studio.

Not every road to success is a smooth journey; there’s bound to be bumps and potholes along the way but that’s part and parcel of what makes a relationship work – to listen, to compromise and to sync as one to take on this exciting and sometimes challenging journey together.

Happy anniversary to us! And to celebrate the occasion, we are off for the usual alphabet escapade trip. Be back four days later… ta!

Tags: , , , , , , ,

Beyond 1000 Days

22 Jul

I must say I didn’t let go of the Daily Bonus trek when I was traveling to the US. It’s amazing that the chain didn’t break for both the iPad Mini and iPhone XR even with all that different time zones when we were flying. But sadly, the chain broke for the iPhone5S because I did not bring the phone along as a spare. There was no need for it especially when it had all this battery problems.

As for the Daily Bonus pursuit, basically all I did was checked both devices after 24 hours when there was wifi connection. Sure enough, the chain continued! Woo hoo…

So as of today, both are on Day 1064. Crazy….

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Delightful Discovery, Part 2

11 Jul

It is when one travels that one finds treasures and delightful discoveries. Besides the Hasegawa EggPlane that I found, I found a couple more things.

Discovery # 1: a Waldo book entitled ‘The Totally Essential Travel Collection’. Yes, I am fond of Waldo and this book totally has me absorbed looking for him whenever I need a breather from staring at my monitor for too long in the office.

img_4242

Discovery #2: paint brushes from Michaels. I was like a kid in a candy store browsing the aisles looking longingly at all the art supplies. In the end, I opted for value, variety and quantity, and picked up these two packs of brushes which will come in super handy to use after the carving process.

img_4195

With such delightful discoveries, it’s no surprise that I started carving a new piece last night so that I can use the brushes. As for Waldo, staring at the monitor is now not so tedious. Life is good!

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

When Will I Recover

9 Jul

It’s been nine days since we returned from the US and both of us have not fully recovered from the jet lag! My goodness… it’s taking rather long.

Every night the whole of last week, we were waking up twice in the middle of the night at two hour intervals. The only one night I slept throughout until morning was last Friday when I went out for dinner with my golf buddies and I drank whiskey. I think it helped. The other nights were normal routines without any aids or meds to expedite the recovery.

So how long does one take to recover from jet lag?

From what I read online, it would take about a day to recover for each time zone crossed. Hmm… the time difference for us is 15 hours, so about two weeks to recover? Gosh…

Generally, jet lag is worse when traveling from West to East. We started out from Portland, and headed East to Salt Lake City, Amsterdam and finally Kuala Lumpur, that’s going East all the way. With the extra one stop (at SLC), long transit time and flying, maybe that’s why we are taking longer than a week to recover. Our 2012 trip to the US, we flew from East to West, San Francisco to Kuala Lumpur and that time, I took a week to recover from the jet lag.

Well, I woke up once at five this morning instead of twice before sunrise. Maybe a sign that I am recovering. Hopefully by the end of this week, the body would finally catch up with the time zone I am in and totally recover from the jet lag.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A Delightful Discovery

8 Jul

img_4119

When I was young, I used to build hobby model aircrafts because my only sibling was into Tamiya models. I guess his interest rubbed off on me. There was one series that I particularly like which was the Hasegawa EggPlane series because they were very cute unlike those macho Tamiya aircrafts.

So it was with utter delight that I discovered an EggPlane at a hobby & craft shop in Corvallis during our recent trip to the US. I am definitely looking forward to assembling my egg-shaped plane soonest possible.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Bags are Finally Home

4 Jul

Yesterday the bags were finally delivered, at 9.55pm! It was a long day for us waiting for them and the bags, I supposed for their delay and ‘adventure’.

I must say, the last three days I wasn’t overly stressed over our delayed bags. Sure there was some anxiety initially because of the unknown and no updates. But soon after, there was confidence that KLM would sort it out. It was just a matter of time.

For such a global airline, KLM was very approachable when they responded to my queries rather quickly in my opinion. They had many channels to be contacted: Facebook, Messenger, Twitter, email, WhatsApp and Customer Contact Centre.

I chose WhatsApp because to me, the other platforms were either too worldly or corporate and not personal enough. The key here is being approachable rather than professional and I am glad I chose this channel.

The exchanges with KLM on WhatsApp helped bring them down to a more personal level and faster too, giving a lot more reassurance than email, which I used with a regional airline in April and they responded a day later.

Lessons learned here: always label your check-in bags (which we did), buy travel insurance (which we did too and will claim for the delay), make full use of the best and fastest communication platform to stay informed thus, avoiding stress and have a positive attitude towards the situation, it helps.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

The Bags are Still Not Here, Part 2

3 Jul

The perils of jet lag continues! Waking up at 5.30am yesterday morning not for golf but due to jet lag seem to have clouded my senses.

I misinterpreted the information on the status of our bags as stated on the website that KLM provided. Bag One will leave Amsterdam Schiphol Airport on 2nd July, not arrive at KLIA on the said date. And the airport baggage claims office called yesterday evening to confirm this.

What this means then is that Bag One will arrive on 3rd July, today and delivered to us in the evening. Haish…

Meanwhile up till yesterday, Bag Two was still being traced. Dear oh dear…

Work and worry took the toll on me and last night, I crashed at 9.30pm; I couldn’t hold up and brave the anxiety anymore. And this morning I woke up at 3.30am. I’m not complaining though because there was a text message from KLM saying Bag Two is currently being transported to KUL! Yay.

I checked the website and indeed, Bag Two was labeled ‘Rushbag’ and on flight KL809 en route to KLIA. I hope it’s the same flight as Bag One.

We hope to receive both bags this evening. Fingers crossed.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The Bags are Still Not Here

2 Jul

Yesterday evening fighting jet lag, we waited in vain for our bags to be delivered. It was exasperating to call the airport and put on hold until the line went dead. Eeesh…

We checked Delta’s website—as we checked-in at their counter and our KLM flight codeshare with them—and the status showed the last entry being ‘Bags removed planeside at SLC’. What did this mean? They never left Salt Lake City? But we were told they were stuck in Amsterdam! Gulp.

So using the power of social media, I messaged KLM directly on WhatsApp last night and they responded in less than an hour. Pretty good. They gave me a new site to check which I did. And status showed ‘Tracking continues and to check later’. Hmm… at that point, it was getting late and the body couldn’t hold up anymore, what else can we do but sleep?

This morning, I woke up at 5.30am unable to sleep anymore. And I checked again. There’s some progress – the same website showed one bag, not both, is on the next flight in. As we did only one PIR (Property Irregularity Report) for both bags, how come status indicated only one bag coming in? Is it not necessary to indicate both? Hmm… not very reassuring I thought. I queried KLM this morning and they responded after an hour and a half. The second bag is still being traced! Goodness. But there’s no need for another PIR.

A quick counter check on flightaware.com showed the aircraft departed but was late. And Schiphol itself is experiencing a lot of delays, an average of 43 minutes for arrivals and one hour three minutes for departures.

We were just there on Sunday and our departure was delayed 24 minutes; I thought it was the inconsiderate dude (whom the Captain did announce to everyone) who came onboard late. But it’s actually more technical than that with the delays at such lengths for inbound and outbound.

Well, looks like we have to hang on again tonight to receive bag one of two coming home. Stay tuned for the adventures of Bag Two.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →