Cruising Our Way to Penang & Phuket

Posted on 19 Feb 2023 by OnColouredPens

I first heard of a cruise ship when I was in elementary school, we had one neighbour who was working in a cruise ship. But I never really knew what was a cruise ship back then, until I saw the movie Titanic.

Fast forward to March 2017, we had the chance to onboard a cruise ship. My husbands good friend was working in a cruise ship and it happened that they were in Singapore, he invited us over for a ship tour. That was my first encounter of a huge ship. I was… lost for words. It was so huge that I was scared. Good thing at that time we only toured around, never really “travelled/ cruise”. After the ship tour, I told myself… I am not going to try cruising in that huge ship, it was scary!

Six years later, here I am on-board my first cruise! Together with my husband and our friends, we on-boarded the Royal Caribbean Spectrum of the Seas. It was… an experience on another level. In this vacation, this is the first time that I didn’t really care about taking photos (lots of photos), I still have few to share though. I was there to experience the life in a cruise and I did it!

Day One

We departed Singapore on Feb. 2. First thing we did when we on-boarded was to have lunch, then proceed to tour around. Food photos deserve a separate post. 🙂

Day Two

The ship was scheduled to arrived in Penang, Malaysia at around 2:30pm. While waiting for the ship to dock, we busied ourselves in the different activities that the ship offers. Abby and I went to attend a morning dance exercise then we went for Bingo (which we never won). Right after the Bingo we went straight to lunch and waited for the ship to dock at Penang. We never booked any excursion in Penang, we planned to just walk around the port or took a hop-on-hop-off bus. However, when we were looking for the bus stop, the rain started to pour. 😦 We weren’t able to reach the bus stop for hop-on-hop-off, instead of running back to the ship, we decided to just relax in the nearby hawker centre. The moment the rain stopped, we decided to just go back to the ship and call it a day.

Day Three

Day 3 was the day I am most excited. We reached Phuket Thailand in the morning and I was able to witness the sunrise! We booked an excursion for Phang Nga Bay. It took a 2 hour bus ride to reach the province of Phnag Nga then we need to take a long-tailed boat to see the Phang Nga National Park. It was a very good and fun experience. Our guide pointed the famous James Bond Island, and being me, don’t have a good photo of that island. After the tour we had lunch at a Muslim Fishing Village, then proceed back to the mainland province. Before going back to Phuket, we went to visited a Buddhist Temple, rest for a while then continue with the long bus ride to Phuket. When we reached Phuket, we decided to walk around the famous Pattaya Beach for a while before going back to the ship.

Phuket is one of my dream destination, me being there even for a few hours made my heart full. Will I be going back to Phuket? Definitely! I wanted to experience more of Phuket, someday.

Day Four

Day 4 was cruising day back to Singapore. Everyone was tired but happy. We had a blast of course since it was our last day cruising. We never planned anything on this day, the guys were at the casino while us ladies was just roaming around the ship, eating our hearts out.

Back in Singapore

And just like that, our 4 day cruise is over. My tummy was full. My heart was full. My memory bank was fuller! It was an experience I will truly remember forever. Food and shows will be posted separately. I need to gather my thoughts again, especially for the shows. I don’t know if I can find the right words to describe them.

To my husband, thank you for sponsoring this trip, without your generosity, I won’t be able to experience this. hehehehe… To Neng and Jomz, thank you for being good travel buddies and thank you for taking videos and photos for us! To Ate Ana, Kuya Jimmy and Abby, thank you for encouraging us 4 to experience this cruise ship! It was so worth it! Till our next trip again. Hoping we will be complete by then.

Random Thoughts

Random Life Update

Posted on 27 Apr 2019 by OnColouredPens

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on. Robert Frost

For the past few months I didn’t get the chance to sit down and give time to update my blog. Every time I plan to update I always end up making up so many excuses not too. I always end up wasting my time scrolling instagram, twitter and youtube. I have wasted so much time in social media!

Last night I made a promise to myself that I will have sometime today to sit down and sort some photos and write a short update. I know I just need some good kick in the ass to make myself from moving forward. I just need to remind myself the reason why started this blog from the beginning.

To pull myself from a great slumber, I decided to make a summary of the last months shenanigans.

January
I flew back to Singapore to join the husband and it was not easy move for me. I had a hard time adjusting again. Part of me was happy that we’re back but part of me was sad leaving my mother again. Despite with all the mixed emotions I had, I have to pick up myself and continue with life and remind myself the everything happens for a reason.

February
Despite with the mixed emotions I had from the last month I was able to pull through, and a lot of good things happened. I played Pokemon Go again, hehehehe… But the highlight for me this month was going to Blackpink’s concert. 🙂 Yes, I went to see Blackpink live! It was our friend Ronald (the biggest BP fan I know) who got us the tickets. To be honest, I never imagined that my first KCon will be BP, if I had the resources, I could have chosen to watch SHINee, EXO or CNBlue. But nevertheless, I had the best time of my life during their concert, I was dancing and singing and clapping and shouting at the same time! hahahaha…

The best part of this experience was seeing them up close, Ronald won a soundcheck pass but he gave it up for me. I was able to see them with normal clothes on (plain shirts and jeans) and with less make up. At that time I forgot that I am 30+++ yrs old! hahahaha… I was surrounded with kids and teens and fanboys! hahahaha…

March
I found myself playing PoGo almost every day, and found myself playing one whole day on the weekends. There are times that I will refuse to go and play but the husband has millions of reasons to give just to convince me, and one of them is food! Every time he mentions about food the next thing I knew, Im on the road playing. Oh the power of food over me.

Aside from PoGo, Im also busy being a wife, a friend and an employee… hahaha… just making it clear.

April
When April came, my energy was on the highest by far for this year. 🙂 My babies are coming to visit us! (actually they are coming for the Pokemon Safari Event) They are my cousins children and Im very close to them.

Fast forward to the Pokemon Safari Event. I never thought the event will turn out that way. Palawan Beach (Sentosa) was flooded with players not only from Singapore but across the globe! Though the weather was crazy during that day, we had so much fun. Sadly, I don’t have much photos during the event. 😦

The following day after the Safari event we went to Melaka for a day trip. It was the kids first time and our second time. And as usual first agenda was to catch Pokemons, second was food trip and site seeing was the last. We were there for only few hours but we had so much fun.

After having so much fun for couple of days, we’re back to reality. Visitors are back home, husband and I are back to our regular programming.

To end this update… Im making another promise to my self, Ill update once a week. k.tnx.bye! 🙂

Travel

Photo Diary: Putrajaya

Posted on 1 May 201717 May 2017 by OnColouredPens

The third instalment of my Malaysian photo diary goes to Putrajaya!

Putrajaya, officially the Federal Territory of Putrajaya, is a planned city and the federal administrative centre of Malaysia. The seat of government was shifted in 1999 from Kuala Lumpur to Putrajaya, because of overcrowding and congestion in the former. Kuala Lumpur remains Malaysia’s national capital, and is the seat of the King and the Parliament, and is the country’s commercial and financial centre. Putrajaya was the idea of former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad. It became Malaysia’s third Federal Territory, after Kuala Lumpur and Labuan, in 2001. Wikipedia

Below are some of the photos I snapped while strolling around Putrajaya, enjoy!

cof

Putrajaya09 — Putrajaya Ministry of Finance

cof

cof — Thank you Putrajaya for the wonderful experience! I hope to see you again.

Food, Travel

Photo Diary: Food Tripping

Posted on 27 Apr 201727 Apr 2017 by OnColouredPens

What is visiting Kuala Lumpur without going for a food trip. And where is the best place for that? None other than the very famous Jalan Alor! Though anywhere in KL is really a heaven for food tripping, but Jalan Alor for me ranks the 1st.

Jalan-Alor-02

Good thing the place where we stayed in is just a five cartwheels away. So, after a very tiring day we head down to Jalan Alor for our dinner and drinks. I have compiled ~~all~~ the food we ate during our stay in KL, not in the photos are Mee Goring which by the way I finished within 3 minutes, I was too hungry plus its really yum. Egg Prata which the husband had for every breakfast (3 days). According to him, egg prata in KL tastes different from what we get here in SG, which I couldn’t agree more. And oh, finally I got the chance to try their Roti Canai, (Plain Prata here). The look is the same from plain prata but the taste is really different, maybe the way they knead the dough? Not sure.

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And lastly, what is visiting KL without dropping at Petronas Tower! As I’ve mentioned in my previous post, its my third time visiting the city, but I always see to it that I have a spare time to drop by to this gorgeous beauty.

Petronas-Tower-02

Travel

Photo Diary: Batu Caves

Posted on 22 Apr 2017 by OnColouredPens

The husband and I decided to travel to KL for the long weekend, without any itinerary. Anyways we’ve been to KL for 2 times, so we are a bit familiar with the city.

On our first day we decided to head down to Batu Caves, since we almost covered the city from the last time we were there.

What we expect?

We expect, that the stairs would be too high and that their will be a big temple at the top. But in reality, the stairs is really not high. (This is a personal opinion, as the two of us is used of taking high stair cases.) Their is a temple, but not as big as what we thought.

Expect to be greeted by the little creatures (monkeys) while climbing. You can take photo as long as you want, but in my case I didn’t dare, I was too afraid. We saw a lot of people feeding them, though their was a BIG signage that says DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS! Why can’t they just follow simple rules and instructions?

Below are the some of the photos we took, enjoy!

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If you are planning to visit the cave any time soon, I’ve list down some friendly reminders. 🙂

I suggest you wear a pants or a maxi skirt (ladies only). For they wont allow you to climb unless you are covered enough. If you don’t want to wear pants or maxis, no worries as you can rent a wrap around for 5RM.
Bring extra bottle of water, it is nice to be hydrated all the time while climbing.
Observe cleanliness and do not be too loud while you are there, remember its a sacred place for our Hindu brothers and sisters.
Lastly, please DO NOT FEED THE MONKEYS.