flymoniker: travel

So on last Thursday F and I skipped sleep altogether and reached the airport at 4 am for our flight. Starving and sleepy, we had my second favourite brekkie in the world - half-boiled eggs and kaya toast. Yumsy!

So bright and early... I had to strain my eyes to look outside the window.

Vivi for the journey. Couldn't get Vivi Japan so ended up getting the Taiwan one. Still couldn't read the content wtf. But the cover girls are hot! My favourite one is the one on the right. Look at those collarbones ~

Lol photo op fail. The guy in the aisle seat very tulan already so no more :(

Note to self: Bright sunlight and no sleep = extremely unflattering

We arrive at Hyatt Regency Tsim Sha Tsui after a long jam. Cab fare was close to 300 HKD = 60 SGD. HK's standard of living seems to have risen. Even some lousy cha chan teng's noodles also 5 SGD. The awesome bah chor mee at the coffeeshop near F's place is only 2.50 lor.

Hehe scan scan your room key

Room wasn't that fantastic. Just reassuringly comfortable. With all the basic stuff. So it kinda felt like a ripoff at 300+ SGD per night. I wanted to stay at the Mira with all the cool tech stuff and egg chair but F said nooooo. :(

The only part I really adored in the entire room was the tap. Hehehe.

We only had 3 days, so it was kinda a rushed trip so after washing up we headed to the shopping mall K11 below our hotel (like, literally in the basement) and randomly picked a restaurant to grab a bite before shopping.

F's beef stew and noodles. We were expecting the noodles to be dry and the beef to be mixed with the noodles but... haha.

Looks very nondescript but the beef was really tender and bursting with flavour, the noodles QQ, the soup tasted of real stock and nothing of MSG at all.

LOL sliced cucumber from my noodles. I HATE CUCUMBER.

Frigging awesome xiao long baos (XLBs). See, you go to some random place in HK and their XLBs are way better than the best ones in Singapore.

These seriously had loads of soup in them. Plus, the meat inside was extremely tasty, and the skin was paper thin but still managed to hold all the soup in it. In Singapore, we get thick skin and drops of soup AND the skin still breaks.

Ok the reason why we have contorted faces is because... we were sucking the soup out of the hole at the top of the XLB. That's how much soup it held. Suck some of the soup out, then stuff the whole thing in your mouth. Best mouthgasm EVER.

Ok this one looks flat cos I sucked 80% of the soup already.

On F: H&M leather jacket, Agnes B shirt, Lykelihood structured harem shorts, gladiators from Granville Circuit.

Ok I know I look super nondescript but I was dressed down for an entire day of shopping lor.
*Grumbles* I wore my boots to the airport and didn't get a photo op but now that I'm wearing my slouchy shirt/leggings/flipflops combo he wants to take photos. Great.

On me: H&M slouchy top, leather paneled leggings from Granville Circuit, beloved Chanel backpack and Havis, obviously.

A short break to grab a bite in between shopping at some cafe.

Bacon and onion quiche

Side of salad

Half of F's tuna mayo sub (He was too hungry to wait)

We were on our way on the subway (My first time taking the subway in other countries!!! Mainly because the cab uncles are SO mean and terrible and their subway is really fucking efficient) to Causeway Bay and we had to change trains until we saw the mob waiting to change trains. There were QUEUES. ON THE PLATFORM ITSELF. It was so nerve-wrecking we got off at Admiralty (F keeps doing the Woodlands' next! joke) and wandered around till we found a food court.

Hou Sek! Even some lousy food court also serve delicious fare. :/ The soup is actually milky okay.

My favourite!!! Gong Cha - So much better than Koi man. I had their classic one with fresh cream or something on top of the bubble tea. Cream that's SALTY, k. Very very nice. And a super huge cup (about same as Koi's size) is 2 SGD. TWO DOLLARS HOR!!!! Koi costs about the same as Starbucks lor.

I think I drank it 2 or 3 times while we were in HK. In fact, every time we saw one outlet, I got a cup. Hehe.

After lots of crazy shopping we went to an alfresco bar that had its restaurant indoors. We actually went there for oysters... Little did I know F had his hidden agenda.

Ta-dah!! His 'agenda' for coming here.

WTF its rim was as big as the widest part of my face -.-

After that it rained heavily and I cursed F repeatedly (I wanted to cab back to the hotel since we were really laden with lots of shopping carriers) because now we didn't have a hope of getting a cab without getting our things and ourselves wet. Also, he picked the only bar without an umbrella escort service. -.-

I'm extremely happy with my shopping done there!!!!!!!!! Don't know if I'll do a haul from hong kong post cos I bought... a significant amount. And also, Momo will get on my back for 'showing off'. So... we'll see how it goes.

x

Yeah that's right we went to Bandung! Farley has been raving about it for a long time (he went there 4, 5 years ago) and on his persuasion, our trip diverted from Taiwan to Bangkok then to Bandung!

Day 1

Us at Claud's place before leaving for the airport

I wanted to bring my Miu Miu wristlet for shopping but the girls said I would get mugged/forget/lose it so I borrowed a sling bag from Kelyn which turned out to be amazingly practical. The Agnes B keepall however, was simply NOT ENOUGH to hold what I bought back.

K's Victoria's Secret holdall. It's pretty but it has a impractical fixed shape. Which means you can't do the sit-on-luggage-and-zip thing.

Checking in

Budget airport food

There's Secret Recipe, but it's overpriced and disgusting.

Our aeroplane - really budget we had to climb a makeshift staircase to board.

I look like a movie star right?! Haha wind in hair: check. Shot in the midst of walking: check. Heh heh. Ok don't talk about my clothes I was dressed for a day of flying and transport.

Bye Singapore!

We took this shot to see how much more luggage we're coming back with. You'll see that in Part 2.

Our room

Ok K shot this while trying to figure out how to turn on the flash on my digital camera

Discussing shopping plans for the next day

There's a staircase in our suite!!!!

This is what I see every morning when I wake up. The inside of a roof (:

At first I thought I was bring stalkerish when I took photos of them from the upper level then I saw....

HAHA K did the same thing

Dunkin' Donuts we got on the way to our boutique hotel

Room service! Extorbitant as expected at 10 SGD a plate (plus we had room service like twice. Or thrice.) when standard of living in Indonesia is way low.

Day 2

I look so awful here. Direct sunlight = unflattering.

This is embarrassing but I figured it'll be a laugh. The girls laughed at it because my roots made the bun look badgerish.

Breakfast

I actually ate Koko Crunch and Mee Soto everyday. Yummy. And the fresh milk in Indo are all full-fat and it's super good. And sinful.

Bluebird taxis! They're the only company to run by meter.

How most of the houses in Bandung look - even though we saw gigantuan castles and lofts... I WANT I WANT

But what's really terrible is that you see young kids playing on the road (like, on the road itself and Bandung's traffic is dire), stuffing each other into giant plastic bags, motorists carrying three pillion passengers on a normal-sized bike, teenagers walking up to cars playing guitars, beggars knocking on windows to ask for money... It's so sad. And you can't even help any of them because they snatch your money and stuff when you open your window.