Traveling with a bunch of monkeys!

I wasn’t sure if I’m going to blog about my sort of weekend getaway trip to Phuket with the keeper and his childhood friends. You see how lazy I got since my new job (not so New now it’s almost 10 months). Anyway,I wanted to share for… if anyone ever come across my blog or if they are searching for an idea for Phuket vacation. So here I go..

Basics
Duration: 4 days 3 nights
People: 6 of us. 4 boys 2 girls.
Airline: Thai Airways
Hotel: Outrigger Laguna Phuket Resort & Villa
Fixed cost (air ticket plus hotel) for the whole trip: HKD 4600 per person.

Standard group photo in front of our boarding gate. We took the 10.25am direct flight, but flight delay due to bad weather, anyway we reached Phuket at 2.30pm local time. It’s about 3 hours flight if you’re wondering.

Prepay SIM with Internet Data
As new gens and with smartphones and social medias, we probably can’t enjoy the fullest without having access to the internet. Don’t bother going roaming. There’s a counter at the baggage claim area, offering prepay SIM card for tourist (TrueMove) at TBH 250 for 5days unlimited data usage. I have zero interest in international call and sms as all can be done freely via whatsapp, line, wechat, viber etc. The only essential is DATA USAGE. To save all troubles as everything is mostly in Thai, just tell the staffs which plan you need, pay them and pass your phone. They will fix it for you.

Car rental
6 of us traveling, taxi or bus is obviously not a good choice so we rent a 4WD. There are few car rental, the big brands like Hertz, Avis, Budget are on your right once you passed the final gate. We picked National though. Budget was expensive and Hertz was fully booked. Anyway,service at National was really pleasant. Took their Toyota Fortune at TBH 10,350 for 3 days, with navigator and full insurance coverage included.
Tips:
# Pay by cash so you won’t have to deal with the currency with your bank after. And a friend told us some car rental convert locally at high price before charging your card. BUT you do have to swipe your card holding some amount for deposit. There won’t be any transaction unless you badly damaged the car.
# Strongly advice not to take your mobile phone as gps navigator. Although you have data access, it’s on 3G and most of the time, it doesn’t work.

Accommodation
We booked a 3 bedrooms Pool Villa at Outrigger Laguna Phuket Resort & Villa. It’s 25 mins drive from the airport and about 35 mins to Phuket Town or Patong. It’s not crowded and definitely no tour group. All are on free and easy, mostly European. Also, 5 mins shuttle bus to hotel’s private beach. The following photos are taken by myself, so it’s real, no photoshop and not as professionally pretty as the hotel’s website’s:

Main pool at the reception. Where you find the resort hotel room, cafe, kids club and tour information counter.

I forgot to take external picture of the villa. It pretty much look exactly like a 2 storey house. First floor, we have a guest toilet, the living & dining area plus open kitchen.

Private pool! It’s a small pool with about 1.4m dept. Not exactly for swimmer but perfectly fine to hang out and play water ball fight with friends.

We bought the ball for about TBH150. The most well spend as everyone loves it. It brought out our inner child. Floating bed is free. Got it from the store room next to the pool.

Bedrooms are pretty much the same. 1 master room with a king bed toilet with jacuzzi and walk in wardrobe, 1 room with a queen bed and sharing toilet with the other room with 2 single bed. Comfortable mattress and squeaky clean.

Oh, and you can take the shuttle bus from your villa to the private beach owns by the hotel group. What to do at the beach? If you’re really asking… Sunbathing, swimming, beach volley ball, foot massage, food and alcohol available. It arrived at Canal Village where you’ll find restaurants, souvenir shops, money changer. There are shuttle bus to Angsana Laguna for Spa and Massage too!

Day Tour
Its definitely cheaper if you have the time to find one in town. We are super lazy so we asked the reception for recommendations. First timer, Phi Phi Islands are a must. And we went with ALP Adventure. No tour group, having different nationalities on board i.e European, Russian, American, Singaporean, African, Australian, Malaysian (myself)，Hong Konger and only 3 PRC.

Groupie before we gets wet and wild.

I love the ocean.

Stop by a beach they called the Leonardo DiCaprio Beach. I think it’s from a movie or something but… it’s so crowded! We walked further for some crazy pose.

Selfie with my keeper.

TBH200 for this picture and frame from the agency. We didn’t pay for the videos although I remember posing a lot while he filming haha.

If you’re there for the weekend, don’t missed their weekend market, near Phuket Town, open till 11pm. There are food and goods at cheap price.

Don’t just go to restaurants recommended by the tourist book, explore yourselves. Ask the local, ask the money changer… You might be surprised.

That’s my trip.
xoxo

Just another roll of films

Wow. Mid October already. Have I missed blogging? To be honest, not really. It’s hard to squeeze time for it, too much to write about. Or perhaps it’s all because I haven’t been blogging often, everything piles up, and my fish memory just couldn’t store much that I forgot most of the details. Everytime I try to start blogging again, I end up deleting what I’ve written and just turn away.

Let’s see if I flash to the pictures I took.

So the day I dropped off my siblings at the airport.  Roy and I thought it’d be great to have lunch at discovery bay. U know, to cheer me up as I was a cry baby while sending them off the departure gate. Hey don’t judge, I am a very emotional and family-attached kind of girl.

Thanks to Ms T we got free tickets to watch the FIVB 2013 Hong Kong. It wasn’t as good as the games in 2011. I’ve misses USA and Kazakhstan girls and their spirits in court.

Amazing experience in the dark with beautiful voices. I think I blog about it. Anyway, can’t wait for next year’s.

Uncle Henry and Alex from Taiwan visits. And my buay paiseh request for these spicy biscuits. 

Know this amazingly friendly family for so many years. I practically see Alex growing from pre-school. And bam ! Now he’s taller than me.

Housewarming with the keeper’s childhood buds and plus one. One of them is our interior designer who make our dream home come true. Truly appreciate his effort and dedication.

Our sixth anniversary.  Dining at Shangri La with an absolute delicious 5 course meal by specially prepared by Michelin chef.

One of our favorite things to do on Sundays is hanging out at Sai Kung Town with many angmohs Kids playing around with their rollers & scooters and hunt for good food.

I rarely take pictures with my colleagues.  Somehow thought they are not big fan of camwhoring.  But I do have this one group pic we took at Liz’s birthday lunch. They are my lunch group. 

The keeper and myself are on diet. We have yogurt and salads for weekdays’ dinner. And weekend will be our cheat day except control carb intake at dinner. So it makes our food discovery weekend amazing.

Given our home theme are quite natural and in fact some say it’s very green friendly, we decided to get some real plants to decorate our mini balcony.

So for now,  we got these.

Went camping with the other two pairs at Wan Tsai. (Not the one in HK island). Never though we’d enjoy camping so much. Definitely at least once a month for the next 4months.

Lastly, at the pier.

Love,
-S

Final weeks before work

Dear Dreamers,

Remember I was talking about going into interviews and getting calls? Well, I’ve been offered a pretty good job. As far as I can see, it is challenging and interesting. I expect a total new experience, personal growth and definitely promising career path. I still get calls from the legal firm as I’ve been dropping my resume to be legal assistance. Apparently, no legal or whatsoever background needed like it stated in the job requirement. I assume my language skills put me in advantage. Shall be going back to work life soon once all documents and visa related issues settled. Toast for a better future!

So, after Hokkaido and moving into new apartment and many resume sending and interviews, what have I been doing?
1) Went on drama-marathon.
I finished 5 season of Fringe in like 2 weeks *it make so much sense to me now. I love it, I love the whole idea of parallel universe and all the unexplainable aka fringe science* , season 6 of The Big Bang Theory is over *missing Sheldon already!* , season 4 of The Vampire Diaries is over *finally Damon and Elena together, but seeing Bonnie die crushed me, and I don’t really care about Stefan* , season 3 of Body of Proof is over, season 3 of Nikita is over *Maggie Q is just too hot to ignore*, starting on House now *funny shit!*.

2) Family reunion.
Brother is back from the Kingdom. It’s been a year since we last sit and talk. He really is different now. Acting like an adult at time. We actually sat and have serious adult-to-adult kind of talk for an hour in a cafe while Mr. R is at the salon. And we all went the memorial park to say “hello” to our grandparents, and uncle. As much as I hate we are all separated, parents in MY, brother in UK, big sis in HK and baby sis undecided yet, there is nothing much we can do about it.

Look at us. We are nothing alike yet we share the same feelings for each other. Siblings, your forever best friend and partner in crime.

It’s daddy’s birthday and early father’s day celebration. We coincidentally wore black and dark blue that night.

Mr. R has been taken as our family member for many years now. We just seems to go without saying.

3) Playing the host and guests.
BFF of 11 years came over to HK. Stayed for almost a week. 4 of them. We met each other when we are 14yo. Never thought we’d stick with each other for so many years. The 4 of us, we are so different. Different personality, different attitude, different background. Yet, we manage to keep this friendship living. It’s almost a miracle given that I am doing a long distance most of the year. I transfer to another school at our 3th year, then flew to Melbourne at our 5th year, then staying in Hong Kong for good since our 9th year. I guess it’s the effort we all putting into this friendship that make it work.

It’s Mr T first time in HK. Being super touristy that day, from Causeway Bay to Wanzai, then head up to the Peak for this awesome but look rather fake night view before taking the ferry to Tsim Tsa Tsui Arena Star-walk.

It’s always me, Ms. K and Mr. C back in our old days. Finally a different combination of us! Proud to say, we’ve been together for 11 years. ♥

Didn’t know our guest room bed, 2 single bed side by side can fit the 6 of us in bed! We forgot to take a proper group picture as all are busy shopping and eating.

First day shopping at the Shatin town center and City Gate Outlet. Obviously, Mr T went nuts!

Last day of shopping before they pack to go. Still, Mr Teh conquering by quantity.

Please plan your next trip well. We shall cut down the shopping and begin our outdoor activities!!

Big fat smiles ,
S ♥

Basically Birthday and Sipadan

Oh. It’s been a very long while. Anyway, I just haven’t got the time to blog. Haven’t got time to list my 2013 to-do list too.

January went by. And now, February ends. Not much happen but definitely too lazy to go through with words. Lets just do those prior CNY. Keeping it simple, just pictures and captions.

In January ’13…
Homemade 25th birthday cake by Bobo
Birthday outing with Roy to Panda Cafe @ Saikung

In early February ’13… I went Sipadan,  divers heaven with Roy, Louis and KC. Love the place so much I’m definitely going back!
Flew to Sipadan from some awesome dive trips.
Sipadan Water Village Resort,  Sabah. Love it!
Dive buddies – Irene,  Sen,  Serene,  Naito -san,  Louis,  K.C., Roy and our dive master,  Valentine!
Closest and prettiest Nemo Fish picture ever with my Olympus XZ-1
Great self-dive experience
Surprise birthday celebration!  HAPPY 25th my dearest

Mandarin fish!  Super cute. Self dive to Paradise 1 only to find it and take pictures of it.

So many sea turtle around you don’t even have to look for it.

Saw many frog fish. This is in orange (obviously). Met some white, yellow and green ones too.

Puffer fish not puffing.  Spent so much time frightening it, hoping it will puff up but it didn’t.

Swimming with or across a pool of fishes are always fun. Of course not barracuda!

A lot of reef shark and white tip shark around. Not in luck for hammer shark though. Maybe next time!

Angry squid from our night dive.

Sunbathing at our own deck with a can or two of 100plus.

You barely recognize anyone under water.. Maybe through his or her gear? or silly move…

At Sipadan Island. After paying entry fees,.everyone must register. The protection is necessary. Btw, only 120 people allowed per day.

I enjoyed every moment here. The dive experience, the sunset… of course,.this is all because of my most amazing companion, Mr M.

We just Love diving.  15 dives in 5D4N 😀

Reviewing 2012

Few more days till we say good bye, 2012. Despite the ridiculous world-end joke and countless of lives taken by natural disaster and some by corrupted monster. It has been good to me. I just looked back my photos from 2012 and some little notes I’ve been writing througout the year. It’s all quite beautiful. Sometimes you don’t realize how much you’ve done and what happened in a year until it’s all over!

So let’s do a little recap. Mostly for myself, really.

Roy and I rang in the new year in Taiwan, which included good food from local restaurant to night markets, and comfortable stay at Taipei, Beitou and Taoyuan.

Shortly afterwards, I celebrate my forever-21 birthday with closest friends (seemingly my only crowd too) in Hong Kong. With most delicious cheesecake cake, hometown favourite’s bah-kut-teh and homemade party food.

That same month, Roy and I went home for Chinese New Year. The first Chinese New Year without granny. Prayed. Missed. Smiled.

Travel to Chiangmai, Chiangrai, Laos, Myanmar and Bangkok with Roy, his sister and father in February.

Start working with Roy’s father in March. A motor manufactory. Office based in Hong Kong. Department? International trade and development. Job title?  Business Development Manager. Job description? Mostly acting as a translator, then, some sales operation, handling customer inquiry and follow up, and production organizer.

April, my first business trip to Taipei.time 3D2N , Taipei, Taichung and Taoyuan.

Stay up all night for the Champion League Finals in May with the boys, mahjongs, blackjack, poker, boardgame and lots of snacks.

Another business trip in June, to Japan! Excited. I haven’t been to Japan since 1995. So , business or not, busy or not, it’s still a great trip. 4days 3nights in Tokyo. Shibuya, Shinjuku, Odaiba, Asakusa; Sushi, sashimi, crepe, ice cream, ramen, bento; even went hot-spring at Ooedoonsen!

A lot happen between July and August…

Visit Sophia and spend time catching up with her mother after months.

Applied to study law and accepted by HKU.

Girlfriend, Claudia finally came for few days.

Completed our probationary period. Having my very own work station.

Exploring different summer activity such as Kayaking…

and clam fetching

Then, September. Marked the fifth year. 1827days together. Not long, but definitely not short.

Travel month – October… I went Taipei and Taichung with Roy and my parents. Then to Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto with Roy.

November, big month! Most important of year 2012. Roy and I bought a place of our own. A place we proudly call “our home”. Although it means years of loan repayment and certainly one of the biggest commitment, but we are truly happy. We are very blessed, to have supportive family, to have good luck in property hunting, to have the bank approved our mortage loan. Thank you.

Early Christmas celebration and Bear’s belated birthday celebration the night before our flight. It’s been a while.

Flew to Wuhan with Roy and his mother to visit her family, relatives. Great luck to have experienced first snow on Christmas night.

xoxo

10 years

Dear dreamers,

“Okay, update me ! You have 30mins.”

That’s sort of the opening line when I see my girlfriend.

I was home. For 38hours. Specifically for my parents awesome restaurant ~ Grand Kingdom at Tropicana Citymall’s grand opening. *Please be noted Grand Kingdom has nothing to do with other restaurants in town with same first name – Grand xxxxxxxx.*

Anyway, this girl was on half day leave just to see me, to talk to me and to congrats my parents. Not forgetting to mention my big bro and big boy who stayed 3 hours doing the same. What did I do to have them by my side ? For 10 years. Well , if you really do asked … I guess it’s a little fate, a little effort, a little tolerance, a little sincerity, a little love and HELL LOTS OF LUCK !

I love you guys ! Really ! There are flaws in each of us , we sees , we joke about it , we even hates it… but we accept it anyway. For no other reason but to keep this friendship going as we age 🙂

Sincerely,
Dreamer

Picture Post July

Another month passed. Let pictures explain my month ^^

#1 My office in Kwun Tong

#2 Favourite BBQ place at BBQ King

#3 Claudia came visit.

#4 My favourite perfume bar atm – Bebe Powder from Log On. I smell just like baby now ^^

#5 We went Lamma Island light hiking on weekend. Good sunny day. Too sunny.

#6 HKU accepted my application to study law. Decided not to accept the offer though. I know it’s silly. I sent in the application, the reject the offer. But I have on-going plan, I couldn’t afford to pay both. Knowing I’m qualified to study law in HKU, there’s really no rush in getting it now, I can do it anytime. So, final decision to this is : POSTPONED.

#7 Finally seeing& playing with Baby Sophia and catching up with her mother after almost 3 months. Baby Sophia chooses her own English name. Apparently she has reaction and smiles when we call her Sophia. She does smiles like an angel. Top left of this picture, she smiles to me when I say ” Sophia, smiles ! ”

#8 Current favourite yogurt ice-cream ! Bought from Circle K convenient store.

#9 Also my current favourite, Japanese Beef on rice with chili flakes and kimchi !

Lastly, ending this lazy post with ….

BABY SOPHIA ❤ ❤

*Hugs & kisses*

Champion League Finals 2012

Good morning earthling.

Apparently I’m still awake. For Bayern and Chelsea. They are at penalty now. I simply have no interest on which to be the Champion anymore. Exhausted. Stayed up all night for the game. It’s been a very long time. Have to admit I really am getting older, no sleep is definitely torturing!

Our preparation with the game.

Met up with the boys ard 9pm last night. Then, mahjong – blackjack – poker – board game – football.

Anyway, congratulation to Chelsea, the champion.

Sun rising. Roy driving while me blogging. Going home now. Wanting to sleep.

Chinese New Year 2012

Dear earthlings,

*warning*

Super long post!!!!!

Helped out daddy to get ready for Chor Yat Bai Tin Gong. It’s a tradition. Where we offer goods and pray to Gods on the first day of Chinese New Year.

Happy Chinese New Year ! Gong Xi Fa Cai to everyone. I don’t care if you are Chinese, Indian, Malay, Russian, Australian, British, American, African, Hungarian, Mexican, Japanese, Taiwanese, Italian, German etc etc. Everyone should celebrate such a happy festival ! And everyone wants prosperity, right no?

Chang’s family portraits on Chinese New Year Eve @ Grand Imperial, Bangsar Shopping Centre

Liew or Low’s family portrait on Chinese New Year eve @ Grand Imperial, Bangsar Shopping Centre

Jia Jia came back for Chinese New Year too! Visited her and played with her for few hours.

So I was home for a week. Its never enough =( Its different feeling now that I’ve decided to live in Hong Kong, where I call it home too. But it’s never the same when you are not living with daddy, mommy, meimei anymore. I’d always have homesick whenever I’m away. Then, my BFFs and close relatives who pamper me like a queen aren’t at reachable distance. Sometimes I still feel alone here even though Roy has been working really hard to not let me feel that.

Traveller, have you ever smell the country’s air with your heart?
Roy and I realized there’s differences. When we stepped out of Airasia airbus, first breath of the Malaysia’s air. We smiled.
” This is smell of my home” I said.
” Yes, this is the smell of my second home, Malaysia” he said.
When you are traveling next time, take sometime to cherish air you breath in. Differentiate them. I remember Melbourne’s air is full of chills and gives a study mode vibes. Taiwan’s air is pure and filled with a sense of simple life unlike Hong kong’s wet, polluted and busy air.

A piece of my cny was missing until second day of cny… When we chant for you. I felt your presence. I felt your energy. I felt… Happy. Then, I look into your eyes, smiling, and softly say ” ah maa, gong xi fa cai”

*Breath*

This cny is definitely different. Granny is not with us, physically. I didn’t realize her presence is so important. Her absence changes the cny mood. Granny, your leaving did affect us. Now I truly understand why people always say, “家有一老，如有一寶”.

Road trip to Malacca with daddy, mommy, meimei, hoho, aunt Eva, uncle Henry, Patrick and our very professional local guide Ms Lim and her brother, Mr Danny Lim. Oh, bff tag along to meet up her boyf in Malacca ^-^

Family pic. Simon Chang Shuhang!!! You are missing again! But no worry you’re always in our thoughts.

Family friend who also call my parents sister and brother-in-law – Aunt Eva, Uncle Henry and Patrick from Taiwan visited. Was going to miss the meet up but we changed our flight. I’m glad we extended our stay though. Giving the opportunity to spend some times catching up and get to know each other better (considering the last time Was 13 years ago). Sharing our passion in Taiwan’s delicacies of course! And road trip to Malacca for more Malaysia’s Nyonya food. Definitely must go back with Jose and Jack and baby yihan!

With “BFF” Claudia Loh in car on the way to Malacca.

Managed to catch up with BFF of 10 years the night before I left. Can you believe it? 10 years. Man, we are really aging now. 10 years ago, we were classmate of 2F3 in Catholic High School. Somehow, we sort of click and decided to call each other “names”.

Had dinner with “Ah Gor” Weil Xuan Teh, Goon Wey Yong, “Ah Boy” Alvin Chin, Cami Wong, “Ah Yun or Jie” Houi Yun Koe, Sin Han, myself “Ah Wei or Jie” and Roy Mok at Flying Chillies, The Gardens. I thought it was just casual catch-up-when-ah wei-is-back dinner until I saw the plates and guessed there will be cake. Then it got out of control when Flying Chillies sound system started playing birthday song and all staffs group up around our table and sang me birthday song! They didn’t plan the song singing part. They just passed them the cake. Flying Chillies’ staffs simply friendly and nice enough to do it.

Group pic at the corner of Flying Chillies.

Roy got to “tumpang” my cake because his birthday is coming soon ^-^

Although it’s a little embarrassing (because everyone were looking at us), but I am really happy. I’m happy I have them. I am happy we make effort to keep close and maintain this friendship. I’m happy they surprised me. Thank you darlings ❤

 

With love,
Sylvia Chang

7+8+9

Dear I’m so lazy to blog. Was suppose to blog about some perspective related or opinion on QiuTing and Silver’s BFF drama because i knew someone who used to be bff and turn ugly just like them but got so distracted by other things (Was busy catching up with Vampire Diaries, The Secret Circle, Chuck and the discovery’s anti-whaling documentary of Sea Shepherd), maybe I will talk about it again… Later… If I remember how I felt about it LoL

So, yesterday was my birthday. Another year wiser. (Yes, I refuse to say another year older) anyway, birthday dinner was different this year. Instead of the usual and boring BBQ or steamboat style or restaurant dining. We decided to do something special. Like a house party style! Went over to Big Bo’s place for home cook food. Main dish is Malaysia’s traditional Bah-kut-teh! Introducing Malaysia cuisine to my HKians 🙂 Then Big Bo cook Curry Beef, Swiss sauce chicken Wong, honey coated sausages too! It’s delicious baby. Big Bo can cook ! Damn, pretty and young mother of our friend Billy who is more like a friend of us rather than a friend’s parent 🙂
 Finally got Cheese Cake as birthday cake! We decided to “give up” Bear Bear who don’t eat Cheese-related product and bought the cheese cake as my birthday cake (^_^) Best decision ever! Everyone enjoy the cake and all shows happy face.
 I don’t have many friends in Hong Kong. So they are really the limited ones I felt good and happy together. We enjoy doing activities together playing board game, card game, mahjong, tennis, badminton, hiking and dining.

Last but not forgotten, the boyfriend and myself. This is the 5th birthday celebration with him by my side.

With love & blessings,
Sylvia x