 Before I searched about Hong Kong, I always associated Hong Kong with skyscrapers, concrete jungle, triad, kung fu, and dark alleys. Blame those movies though. Only when I decided to go to Hong Kong that I began to do a bit research about the attractions and places to visit. To my surprise, Hong Kong does have remarkable landscape and amazing hikes as well. Those hikes like Victoria Peak hiking trails, Sai Kung County hikes, Kowloon Peak, Dragon’s back, Lion’s Rock hike are just few of so many amazing hikes in Hong Kong. Although, i did not make all the hike due to drizzling and raining for the consecutive three days when i was there.
My itinerary was already set though, out of 14 days off that I got, 7 days were for Taiwan and 6 days for Hong Kong. But I had also decided to spent one day in Macau and one day in Hong Kong Disneyland. Thus, I only had four days to explore Hong Kong, and I wanted to explore both its nature and city center as well And, I got to do it with my mom. So, I needed to select places and hike that are friendly and medium-rated difficulties in term of elevation and geography. In summary, here's the rough map or itinerary of the four days in Hong Kong (I have excluded Macau and Disneyland Hong Kong in this map). Click to read more about Hong Kong City Exploration.
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 Out of 6 days that I had in Hong Kong, I decided to spent one day in the land of magic – Hong Kong Disneyland. I am not a super fan (more of ordinary fan) of any Disneyland Character, but I like themed park and or amusement park. The idea to enjoy a ride, be it in a carousel, riding a boat in a man-made “scary-unknown” jungle, riding a roller coaster is really fun. I mean, wouldn’t you want to be carried away from this earth for a while and enjoy being carefree and happy for just a moment?
My attractions to nature, landscape, and architecture will always win its place when it comes to concocting an itinerary. But, when I had a chance to experience amusement park, I’ve been on a roll as well. I went to Warner Bros Studio Tour in London on 2015, did bungee jump on 2012 in New Zealand, had a skydiving in Queensland Australia on 2014, had a Hot Balloon ride on Cappadocia on 2013, and this year I heard Disneyland calling my name. In this post, i will share my experience and I will summarise the tips at the end of this post. So, make sure you keep reading (or just scroll down if you’re impatient and want to read the Tips already), haha...  After 7 days in Taiwan from 27 April – 05 May 2018, I left Taiwan for Hong Kong on the fourth Day in Hong Kong, I took a ferry ride from Hong Kong to Macau and went back the same day to Hong Kong. So, this blog post will focus on that day I spent in Macau. Click to read more on tips and how to get to and from Macau.
 On the sixth day, I explore the beauty of Taiwan’s Northeast Coast. On the last day in Taiwan, I explored Shifen Waterfall, Yehliu Geopark and a bit of Taipei.
After I went along the northeast coast of Taiwan, I stayed the night at Airbnb in Ruifeng City. Ruifeng is such a small and beautiful city. Its night market lively and worth exploring. Early in the morning the next day, I boarded an early train to Shifen. Read more to read my journey to Shifen Waterfall and Yehliu Geopark.  On day five, I explored Taroko gorge on a group tour, and in the afternoon, I took a train ride from Hualien to Yilan. Why Yilan? Because it’s a great transit to further north, before I explore Toucheng Township, Pingxi district and Shuangxi District which is basically the east Part of the Taiwan, where it displays rugged cliffs, dramatic sea-view hills, or in another word: BEST COAST OF THE TAIWAN!!
On day 2, I explore Taichung and Tainan by using ownrides, a customized tour in which we are able to make our itinerary online before Ownrides seek you a driver and you’re good to go. You can go to the post to read more about Ownrides. As I mentioned on that post, it is suitable if you want to go places where public transportations are scarce, and you have limited time with so many places to visit and with the distance from one place to another is far. On this sixth day in Taiwan, I also used ownrides. The taxi driver picked me up at Yilan Train Station, brought me on the road along beautiful east & northeast cost of Taiwan and dropped me at Ruifang as per my request. Click link below to read more about the adventure that surely blew me away!  If you stumble upon this page/post, here’s what you need to know. This is the fifth out of seven posts (about the fifth day, out of my recent seven-days trip to Taiwan). You can read about the other posts here:
Day 1: Exploring Amazing Kaohsiung Day 2: Kaohsiung and Tainan City Day Out Day 3: Sun Moon Lake Day 4: Taichung City Tour On the fourth Day I explore Taichung City, and on the afternoon, I took a train from Taichung to Hualien. It was basically moving from west coast to East Coast via North line. Click link below to know more about the tour  Hello again everyone, this is the fourth out of seven posts about my fourth day trip on Taiwan in Last April 2018 to May 2018. You can read my first post on the previous days spent in Taiwan here:
On my third day in Taiwan, I explored Sun Moon Lake by taking bus from Taichung and went back to Taichung on the very same day. On the fourth day, I explored all the beauties in Taichung, be it in the city center or beyond before taking the train to Hualien for Taroko Gorge adventure. Click below link to read more about my adventure in Taichung!!  This post is the third post out of 7 post (which tells the third day out of my recent seven-days trip to Taiwan). If you just read this post, you can catch up my first post here and my second post here. On the first day, I arrived at Kaohsiung and explore the beauty of Kaohsiung. On the second day, I explore places of interest spread from Kaohsiung to Tainan, and then continued my journey to Taichung using High Speed Railways Train.
On the second day, I arrived at Taichung around 8 pm. The next day (the third day), I planned to Explore Sun Moon Lake (will be abbreviated as SML), one of the most famous landscape in Taiwan.  Before I start, this is my second post out of seven (7) that each tells the seven days of my little exploration of Taiwan. On day one, I arrived in Taiwan at Kaohsiung international airport and I discover myself lost in the beauty of Kaohsiung. On the second day, I traveled from Kaohsiung to Tainan, and then I took High Speed Railway Train from Tainan to Taichung to get further north of Taiwan. You can read my day-1 post here.
So, this post is focused on my exploration of Tainan city and all attractions that are still within Kaohsiung Area, but quite far from Kaohsiung City central. Here’s my itinerary for the second day in Taiwan covering Kaohsiung City Greater Area, Tainan City, and concluded in Taichung.  This post is a series of Posts I will be posting about my recent Trip to Taiwan (on April-May 2018). At this point, I’m thinking of putting post by post by the cities or region I visited on each day. So if I visit more than one city on one day, I will put in a post. The idea is that I hope it can help illustrate the alternatives itineraries to do in a day.
I thought it was about time to visit Taiwan. Many had asked whether I was interested in visiting China, and my answer had been a constant “Not Yet”. China is beautiful, but I wasn’t ready to explore the big main island China, so I went to Taiwan instead. Why? Given a short time, Taiwan is a smaller area that I can treasure in a relatively short time. Based on my research, the Taiwan’s transportations networks are advance, integrated like those in Japan (comparably so), and it has such beautiful landscape on its coastal area and dramatic mountain region. So I decided to visit Taiwan, in a series with Hong Kong and Macau. I will also write about Hong Kong and Macau. But first, click button below to read about my amazing day exploring Kaohsiung :)  While it’s still hot in my memories, i’d like to share everything about my recent trip to Brunei Darussalam. I hope by reading this post, you can decide if Brunei is your next destination ;)
At first, my obsession to visit every country in South East Asia become my solely reason to visit Brunei Darussalam (that, combined with perfect aligned AirAsia flight that matched rough itinerary in mind). But after I did some researches of what gem Brunei hides, especially the Omar Ali Saifuddien Mosque, Ulu Temburong Park, and many more, it easily switches rank. I was instantly obsessed with what Brunei hides and i couldn’t wait to visit and explore all the gems. And now that I have visited Brunei, I can easily say that it has such amazing places, stories, histories, and quickly dissipates the initial motivation I had in the first place. Why Brunei? Why not? It has its unique atmosphere among other places I have visited in South East Asia to name a few. It has National Park for those who enjoy being close in the wild and nature, it has multicultural vibes combined with rich, authentic cultures and histories span for ages, as well as magnetic persona of its kingdom. I hope that if you are currently considering visiting somewhere calm, unique, and enigmatic destination, put Brunei on your list. Read more of my full blog by clicking button below.  This post will tell story about my first (and last) day in Myanmar. I went to Myanmar from 29th November 2017 until 2nd December 2017 (four-days trip). The short itinerary was more or less like this:
I did quite a lot of research on Yangon as per usual, with the help of Lonely Planet Myanmar. During my research I was quite surprise to find so many diverse religious buildings in the city. With Buddhism being the majority in the country, Buddhist Temples and stupas are myriad and occupy almost every corner of the city. What surprised me was that there is also synagogue, Hindu temples, Taoist Temple, Christian and Catholic Church as well. Beside historical buildings, Yangon also has unique neighbourhood in its Downtown, as well as lake in its city. There were also sooo many places of interest in Yangon that I had a hard time to choose to begin with. But, i will go through it one by one. I will also detailing how to getting around in Yangon from what i have experienced, also other travel tips. Click "Continue Reading" Button Below  Bagan is an ancient city in Myanmar, or at least it was. It was founded in the 2nd century, and bloom in 9th-13th centuries with approximately over 10,000 religious monuments were built over the course of 250 years (1000 stupas, 10,000 small temples and 300 monasteries – source: Wikipedia). From these 10,000 monuments, only about 2000 are remain in the region surviving earthquake, weather, and aging.
This post will tell stories of my 2nd day out of four days adventure in Myanmar on November 30th, 2017 and I will cover the other day on another post. I arrived in Nyaung-U, a small town near Bagan using night bus departing from Yangon. I had no time to sleep except in the Bus (I barely sleep on the bus) and arrived in Nyaung-U around 5 am in the morning. The pick-up arranged from the Hotel in Bagan picked us up and I arrived at the Hotel around 5:30 am. After taking shower and short rest, I quickly sprinted to have adventure of the day: Exploring temples in Bagan. I had only one day in Bagan since the following day I needed to go to Inle Lake for another adventure. Although I will eventually list the temples, I would like to also share about details of how to get to the Bagan, where is Bagan actually located, a bit of its history, where to stay in Bagan, Where is Nyaung-U anyway and what’s the relations to Bagan, and all the nitty-gritty about Bagan. Make sure you click "continue reading" button below to read the whole stories ;)  My recent vacation to Samosir Island had been a short one. It was meant to be a reunion. My friend from Canada was coming to Indonesia for a holiday. She, my other friend from Medan area, and myself had not been seeing each other for 9 years (although we keep updating each other on WhatsApp, emails, phone calls, or even Skype calls) and we wanted to meet somewhere.
I was living in Duri, small area three hours from Pekanbaru (capital city of Riau Province in Sumatera Island), and my friend were born Pekanbaru and the other one is living in Medan Area so we thought that going to Samosir Island was a great idea. Tow out of three of us had not been to Samosir, although one of them had been there myriad time. It was great, because at least one of us could be guide for all of us. It was a very short trip for such a big and beautiful area, so although we made seeing the most amazing ones, I felt like was not even close to enough. We decided only for the weekend because we already have our own plans, and that was it. So, the title for this post should be “How to NOT explore Samosir Island and Lake Toba in ONLY 2 days” – since it’s certainly won’t be enough. Make sure you check the link below to read more on my journal on those two-days travel;) Yeayy ! i have just finished my blog on Singapore. I have visited this country Several times now in the span of 8 years (2009 - 2017) yet i just somehow managed to blog about it. If you are considering a trip to Singapore, considering to revisit Singapore, or if you think you've had enough of Singapore, or maybe it's not even on your list, then check out this post. Hopefully it will inspire you to visit the country that has LOTS to offer. Make sure you click the "Check out the Post" Button below ;) and let me know what you think, post any comments or feedback or what you want to see more on my post of Singapore. Thank you!  Marina Bay Sands Photo taken on 23 December 2017 from OCBC Skywalks in Gardens by the Bay
This is actually a main page for my travel blog. For a specific places i visited, you can point your cursor to the travel blog, and each categories (or countries) will appear. Click any categories you'd like to visit and each blog post will appear there.
This blog is in progress since as i'm moving from wordpress to weebly. Hopefully i have more to come and i can share experiences during my travel. Don't hesitate to drop comments or feedbacks ! :) Thank you... |
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