Friday, February 29, 2008

Las Vegas Trip

I was blessed - to be able to go US again for meetings.
I was blessed - to meet a new gang of friends from PG @ US.
I was blessed - to be able to follow them to visit Las Vegas last weekend.

We planned for LV trip on Friday during dinner and we went off on Saturday morning as early as 4am. Stopped by LV Premium Outlets for lunch & a little shopping and all the way to LV. The only place we walked is the famous Las Vegas Boulevard with all the nice hotels & casinos everywhere. Well, I never walked so much in my life before - at least not that I remember. We started walking from 4pm to 10.30pm (with stops in between of course) and we still couldn't finish the whole street. Anyway, cut the crap and pictures time! :)

The gang who went to LV together (4 out of 7)

M&M


Coca Cola

Harley Davidson

Would you wear these necklaces?

Musical Fountains

Hotel Entrance @ LV

Paris? Neh...

Me @ Mini Venice

A glimpse of the night views @ LV

Tuesday, February 12, 2008

Time Flies

I was browsing through my pictures in my computer. And I accidentally found this picture that made me burst into laughter! Look at Marcus...! He used to look so innocent. :P

Year 2003 @ my graduation


Year 2007 China Family Trip

Can you see the changes among us? It's just hilarious! :D

Sunday, February 10, 2008

Honeymoon in Bali

Everyone is busy with Chinese New Year - be it busy eating, busy playing, busy meeting up or busy with the preparation. :P. And that's why my update on my honeymoon trip delayed till now.

Overall, it was a great trip. Well, it is always fun to travel with EG to explore new things.

The beautiful island


Few good things to be thankful:

1. I booked our trip through Air Asia which includes the ticket & accomodation. Since this is a honeymoon, we chose a better hotel and better facilities (even though we know we might not use it) so that we have a memorable honeymoon. The hotel doesn't provide airport transfer for any package book thru Air Asia. However, since I chose Garden Villa (i.e. room with a small garden) and the hotel provides free airport transfer.

2. When we checked in to the hotel, for some reasons, we were upgraded to family suite. Ah well, we don't really need that because family suite has 2 single beds and 1 double bed. But anyway, the room was really spacious and comfy.

The comfy bed

The extra single beds

3. We went to Kuta and engaged a tour on the second day to visit around Tanah Lot - Uluwatu - Jimbaran. This is risky as I have read a lot about guides trying to get more money from customers during visiting. However, our tour guide that we engaged is really a nice guy. And we paid much cheaper. Even though he can't really speak English very well but since we could speak BM, it helps a lot in our conversation. He even told us how to bargain, how to order food and what to do to get good deals.

4. We got another tour guide contact from a friend before we went to Bali and he brought us to Ubud area & the other sides on Bali. The sight seeing was good. Food was very good too. He charged more expensive but he told us a lot about the place, the people and Bali culture. That's something that I really enjoy a lot in an overseas tour.

5. This honeymoon trip was free and easy. We didn't do much plannings before we went since we were busy with wedding preparation. A lot of the things were ad hoc and were decided there and then. Anyway, I referred to some other Bali traveling packages in some brochures on my way back, to my surprise we visited most of the places.

6. It was raining season in Bali during end of Jan. But during our trip, it only drizzled once when we were driving to the volcano, and the rain stopped when we reached there. Amazing. So we still had a great trip and didn't miss anything!

A lot of Balinese mistaken us as Japanese and kept telling us Konichiwa. Both the drivers told us that EG looks like a jap who has been in Bali for 1 month as we got tanned in the trip. The weather in Bali was really really hot. I have never sweat so much in my life before - probably only if I play badminton, that's like N years ago. :P. I put a lot of sun block on my face & my arms, but i still got tanned a little.

Again, I am not going to talk much about the details during our trip. I'll let the pictures do the talking. I have also uploaded all the pics to facebook - the latest & hottest trend thing. :P

The offering on the streets in Bali


30 minutes Horsie ride around Kuta - it was too hot

Art Village

Tanah Lot - Can you see the temple?

Very nice sunset @ Uluwatu

Unfriendly monkeys @ Uluwatu

Famous Kecak Dance by the sunset

Very delicious though expensive seafood dinner @ Jimbaran

Bali version of lion dance - Barong dance

Yum yum roasted pork @ Warung Ibu Oka

Spectacular Rice Terrace

Volcano

Lake Batur - old volcano crater

Romantic smoked duck dinner @ Bebek Bengil


I am never a shopping person so I didn't do much shopping in Bali. On the other hand, I enjoy finding out the culture of the place everytime I went traveling. A note to those who intend to visit Bali, for all shoppings esp. the stalls on the street, try to bargain AT LEAST 50% (Note: It's AT LEAST). If you could, go for 70%. Normally you can get what you want. Some girls enjoy the bargaining thrill, but for me it's stressful. However, EG enjoyed it very much as he found his favoraite and bought a lot of souvenirs for his friends, colleagues & himself!

Souvenirs from Bali.
There are a lot of Jap in Bali and that's why there are a lot of cat figurines in Bali.
Somehow the arrangement reminds me of transformers, i don't know why :P