Archive for December 2006

Christmas in Singapore is how you would expect it to be, everything in one package. You will (and for sure you will) get to experience, see and enjoy all that is Christma-sy here:

Great shopping experience,

Vivo City

Happy people,

I am happy

people mountain people sea

Over budgeted decorations,

One of the best night life scenes in Asia,

went Ministry of Sound on Christmas eve

Presents,

My Christmas present from Calvin, so pretty~~

And don’t forget, food, food and luscious food~~~~.

unagi roll, my fav~

caviar on salmon sushi, omg, heaven…

I guess to make up for the sentosa trip, all these are the least what one need to do to cure my broken heart *sob*… *drag Calvin to MNG and Victoria Secret warehouse sale!* Hohoho… Did you know Christmas is also a season for Chocolates?! HO HO HO… who wants some cookies and milk.

a shop full of chocolates

this is a Hug Mug, you drink by hugging it with both hands to keep warm

Even the chocolates are up in a mood for a fun food fight...
(Play to see white and dark chocolate battle)

I heard on the radio when I was on my way back to Melaka, a tourist claim Singapore to be one of the best city in the WOLRD to celebrate Christmas. Erm… that’s a bit intense of a claim, but hey, I couldn’t agree more that Singapore do take its Christmas very very serious. Just see how enjoy I am with my fondue… (click video to see)

Merry Christmas y’all!!!!

Wrote by Nicole

I recently discovered that I have this amazing aptitude to sleep through any ride on any transport; ferry, airplane, bus, car, etc. As long as I am alone and I am not steering the wheel, I’m off in dreamland.

I recalled my trip to Europe on a 13-hour plane journey having sweet affair with ‘zhou gong” (Chinese sleeping god). It’s amazing how one can sleep through any journey like that, skipping breakfast, lunch and dinner. I feel proud of myself *sniff*. Maybe that’s the reason why I never had jet lag problems.

Compare to the 13-hour sleep, I guess sleeping my trip back from Singapore on a 5-hour bus ride seemed child’s play. I left rainy Singapore at 8:30am and reached home safely around 2:30pm. And continue to catch my ‘nap’ from 3:25pm till dinner at 8pm.

I ought to get an award for my achievements.

*~*~*~*~*~*

My trip in Singapore was kinda ‘disturbed’ and though I would still say it was a fantastic trip none-the-less, I can’t helped but to feel like cursing when I read the newspaper my first morning in Singapore.

I woke up from my room at around 11am when my friend, Calvin, was already sitting in the living room flipping through the newspaper. He shoved the main page to me as I sat down next to him. “You know your hometown is flooded?” said him. Wow, what wonderful news is it to tell a friend away from home on a Christmas escape.

For those of you who have been to my house, and for those of you who haven’t, and worry that my house would be drowned. Let me say this, the day the water level reaches my front yard is the day the whole of Melaka town is in deep shit.

I mean seriously, my house is situated in one of the highest sea level landing in Melaka state. You need to climb up to my house from the road just to enter my house, literally.

Every time someone asked if my house is affected by the flood, I just felt like laughing. No offence to those flood victims who have my sincere condolences, but you couldn’t help but to crack at this question when you stay where I stay.

Anyway, back to my cursing. There goes my plan to visit ‘Sentosa’ in Singapore, a place I have heard of so many times but never had the chance of visiting, including this round.

….. *stares blankly at the paper* ….. (Feel like flushing the newspaper down the toilet.)

So instead, Calvin took me to what he claims to be the nicest high tea in town for a late brunch. At JW Marriott hotel?

I have two major weak points in life: really good food, mega sales and traveling. Wait, that’s three…? Nevermind. I love to eat, I’m born to be picky, not that I would rather die of hunger if there’s no 5-star restaurant to dine in. I mean that I love to eat exquisite delicacies, exotic food and fine cuisine. I appreciate a well prepared meal and decent atmosphere would add points to it. To me, to be able to enjoy a delectable meal is luxury. And mind you, I live a luxurious life.

Knowing my undying profound love for chocolates, my gut is telling me that Calvin is going to feed me like no body’s business during my trip here with mountains of chocolates. How do I tell?

what a cute Santa~!!

Fresh oysters!! Yum!

I think I am blind @_@

Also the fact that he has prepared at least 3-4 boxes of chocolates for me when I first arrived in Singapore pretty much sums up everything. *loosening my belt*

That Santa looks familiar~ :p

Huh? What diet? What are you talking about? Shut up.

Wrote by Nicole

Hello, I am in Singapore!!! HOHOHOHO~~~~

Wrote by Nicole

Munching on a Silver Queen Milk Chocolate and opening another pack of Delfi Chocolates, I slowly attached all my photos up to the net.

Just returned from a half day trip (last night go up, this morning come back) from KL after sending my friend, Yong, to the airport and made him promised me lots of Indonesians chocolates or never come back. :p Silver Queen Milk Chocolates is like the best South-East Asia produced chocolate you can get.

Got cashews one wo.. All cashews series~~ I like...

Quotes from this dude's blog:

If you have been to Indonesia, you probably have heard, seen or eaten this "SilverQueen" chocolate. You can find this kind of chocolate everywhere, from the biggest supermarket to the smallest shop in the villages. The original "SilverQueen" was invented and introduced to the market by my grandpa during the year in 1950s and the most famous one till now is "SilverQueen" milk chocolate bar with cashew nut . Until today, "SilverQueen" remains a leading chocolate brand in Indonesia. There are a lot of flavors, nut varieties and sizes of "SilverQueen".

Erm... sad story, his grandpa died after his wealth was cheated by some china guy, but this Chuang guy who bought the brand from him seems to be pretty well off, he also owned Delfi, the chocolate I am about to put in my mouth now. Mmm.. Nice guy...

Quote:
"Everyone loves chocolate," he says.
But in much of Asia they just don't love it enough.

Rubbish!! Obviously they never met Nicole.

Why do I feel I can keep going and going on this Bali nonsense? I've written as though I have stayed there for one god damn month. So I better make this short and sweet.

So finally, it has reached the last day in Bali - the third day. Bless Airasia's soul, its flight delay has brought more benefit to us than harm. Delay is it? Good, white water rafting before I fly!!

7:30am in the morning and I was already at the lobby waiting for our ride to Ayung River, where most of the Grade 3 white water rafting activities are going on. 1hr 30 mins of bumpy ride in a van and we arrived at the centre where we were asked to make payment. USD 30 per pax for a two-hour ride. Hell, why everything in USD!!

The gears were almost intolerable, oh, gearing up was easy, it's the smell that was excruciating, I doubt they ever washed those things. The head gear smell like rotten fish!!! I'm so going to get lice after this.

We made our way down the sloppy stone steps which, I can tell you, it's a long long way down~

Mom and me

Fast forward 45 minutes into rafting, we stopped at a peaceful area to rest. All I remember from the first three quaters of the hour was my mom screaming fanatically (and my laughing fervently at her :p).

Two ducklings follow papa duck cross the river

Upon stopping, I was already out, into the water, swam and climbed onto the rocks opposite to take some photos and some videos of Ayung river.

See my mom so happy

The sun was hot and the water really cold. What do you do after seeing such a beautiful scenery?

You jump into the water! (Watch video)

Now you know where I got the twig from. =.=;;

Man, the journey didn't end until another 1hr 30mins. It took longer than usual, my leg were so bruised, my left arm hurts like hell, and it was worth every single American cent!

After getting back to the hotel all wet and smelly, took a shower and decided that there's one last thing to do before I leave Bali.

You see this place?

Ei, why are you playing with my hair

Yep, you guessed it! Braidings!!

I always wanted to do this! They tried to rip me for 150,000 rupiah so I tried to bargain. Thus it only cost me 80,000 rupiah, which is probably RM32, ten times cheaper than Malaysia!

can you count how many of them doing my hair?

I get to see Balinese hunks playing netball while 5 ladies (o.O!!) doing my hair at the same time. I feel like a VIP.

30 minutes of having my hair pulled and tagged at in all directions, DONE!!!

Back view

Front view

Yo wassup nigga~~

Wrote by Nicole

When the pilot announced landing was to be made in 5 minutes. I eagerly stuck my face against window like I was going to squeeze myself through the glass. An amazingly flat terrain came into view, like a paper floating on water. I thought to myself: so this is Bali.

The island Bali is truly picturesque that photos just dont do it justice. So I decided to see the entire with my own eyes, from sky view.

looks fun

I think of myself as a wild girl. No, not a party animal, more like a minor adrenalin junkie, I dont do extreme sports (I treasure my life). But I do like small exciting and adventurous stuff, I once challenged Kenny that I will go bungy jumping with him if he tried fried cockroach with me in Thailand. He never got back to me.

I am as down to earth as a girl can be; dig in the mud if I must. Despite my hatred to sun exposure, it never stopped me from climbing the 3^rd highest mountain in the UK; or walked the Western Europe solo with nothing but 10 shirts and two slacks.

But I can be really vain and superficial when I wish to be. I have probably one too many collections of perfumes and make ups one person will ever be able to finish in her entire lifetime, same goes with clothes, accessories and skincare products. My city friends will never see Nicole the way my traveling buddies see, and vice versa.

I like the way I am and I wouldnt have it any other way. Im a nature lover, which explains why Scotland is still my favourite place on earth. I love the city life too, busy night life and overcrowded shopping malls; never seem to be able to detach myself from KL.

Anyway, I shall leave all these personal details to another time for another blog entry, I just had one of those expressive moment suddenly. Lets get back to my episode of wild and crazy Nicole.

So there I was, back at the beach again where the captain dropped us off. There sure are a lot of activities going on at the sea.

Wa, four sharing one banana :p

Mommy, so many 'superman'

I also want to be part of the action,

I drove this thing on full speed, woo hoo~~

Finally, time to head up to sky. I'm all geared~

red glove on the left, blue glove on the right

I was afraid if I took my camera up into the sky with me, I would freak and dropped into the water hundred of feet below and smashed into billion of pieces. So, apology for the non stop cackling from my mom. =.=

note: I will never understand the pain experienced by that guy who shouted 'oh nuts', hurray for girls!!

A day of fun left me breakfastless and lunchless, too excited. Thus at night, we went for the most romantic dinner, at this location!

Restaurant at Jimbaran bay

Breathtaking sunset

Food to order? Seafood of course! What else~

Yum yum, I can't wait~

They call squid "Cumi-cumi", no wonder when I order for sotong bakar ('sotong' - malay language for squid), they didn't understand what I wanted when there's a whole bunch of squid in front of them.

Best "ikan bakar" I ever had! (BBQ fish)

The "ketam bakar" is sooo juicy (BBQ crab)

Good food, good atmostphere, good scenery, gorgeous people. What more can I asked for?!!!

Wrote by Nicole

The second day when I woke up after a sweet night sleeping in the comfort of my lovely hotel room, I decided its time for some activities.

Hohoho.. this is what I have been waiting for.. Nicole is heading out to sea!!

We rented a glass bottom boat by the beach, paid in US dollars!! And out to sea we go. Wee~~~~

Focusing our attention to the bottom of the boat as the driver streer our way away from land, I realised the sea of Bali was not what I had expected. Shallow and grassy...

Yea you heard me, Grass!! Theres freaking real land grass in the sea!! A whole lot of them!

Watch this for proof,

No joke, this is the first time I see real grass growing in sea water AKA salted water. Poor uncle, always have to take out the grass from the propeller, that's how shallow the sea is.

Do I resemble my mom? 'peace~'

Slowly, we moved into deeper area, and the Captain suggested us to do a bit of snorkeling.

So after I changed into swimsuit (I already wear inside la) and put on my life jacket, the captain and I made a dive from the back of the boat. My mom was determined to stay on the boat.

I must say, she was smart choosing not to dip in, cause the water was so COLD~~!!!

Jumping up and down in the water

mmm.. not bad actually

let's snorkel!

I wouldn't say Bali sea is the best I have been to. If I have to compare, I would say the sea in Redang (an island in Malaysia) is much clearer, more fishes, and more varieties of corals. But still it's (Bali) definitely worth a go, especially you don't get to see underwater land grass everyday. And the water is hell cold!

redang corals

redang fishies

After snorkeling, the captain took us to Turtle Island, with me soaking wet... =.= (what are you thinking). So I let down my hair to air dry.

I don't want to explain what's on Turtle Island, it would make me sound retarded. Besides, who named the island in the first place, it's like calling my hometown Melaka after Melaka tree. Mr. Obvious?

Click on the video to see the difference between a 5 year-old turtle and a 40 year-old turtle. Apology for the lack of camera techniques, my mom is a technophobe~

For those of you who don't understand Mandarin, the first part I was asking a fellow tourist to help my mom with the camera. The second part, my mom had problem differentiating taking a photo and a video with a camera, thus left me feeling like an idiot. >_<