lil C’s 5th time using his passport

I decided to apply for 3.5 days leave and take a week off, initially with the intention to be around when C starts his preschool on 2Jan. But the school was not able to confirm that it could commence operations as it was still pending the TOP certification. (on the 29dec, the school sent an email saying that they managed to get the relevant clearance and will be able to accept kids starting from 2jan)

So with one week of leave, J and I decided not to waste it, but instead we planned a last min trip. We were cracking our brains on where to go but yet does not cost too much since it was less than 1 month away – air tickets tend to soar in prices. We thought of visiting somewhere in China, or Chiang Mai, or Bali or a train ride up to KL. But they were either too short a time to explore everywhere, or flights were too expensive, or we have been there many times before or train rides were too long. So we finally decided this itinerary:

29 Dec 🛫 (Scoot) sin->hatyai

31 Dec 🚃 hatyai->padang besar (Cross border) ->ipoh

2 Jan 🚃 ipoh->kl
4 Jan 🛬 (malindo) kl->sin

This will be 宝贝wolf’s first trip to Thailand as well as Malaysia. I will just telling him that he is very fortunate to have been able to follow his parents to travel in so many trips even before he turns 2, and also attending a professional circus 🎪 show with 🤸‍♂️🤹‍♂️🎡🎠. More on that in a separate post.

Day 1 (29dec2019) – – sin -> hatyai

IMG-20191229-WA0006 — We helped ourselves to a free seat because the plane was not full ✌️

This time round, C didn’t need any milk to ease the earblock / discomfort during take off and landing. Instead, we sat him on our laptop, sang him his favourite nursery rhymes n pat him on his chest.

rpt

The flight was really short at 1h 10mins. And we grabbed our way to aloha hotel, where we were able to check in early! Whee! Second good thing that happened to us! Count our blessings.

Onwards to our walk and discovery trip!

Kim Yong market was 500m away from our accommodation. And it was mainly market with every stall selling all sorts of nuts and dried fruits at 1F, and 2F sold light electronics and children toys. We bought Jumbo roasted Cashew nuts for 380thb/kg.

We also walked to Chen Loong Boat noodles wanting to have it for lunch but at 1+pm, the stall owner told us there’s no more, likely because they were sold out.

IMG-20191229-WA0013 — No more boat noodles.. 🙅‍♀️

Chen Loong Boat Noodles (成龙面条)

Address: 167 Sangchan Rd. Close Leegarden, Opposite May flower hotel, Hat Yai 90110 Thailand

Opening hours: 7.30am – 3.30pm daily

Next up was the Bazaar outside of Centara mall. There were a couple of stalls and one that caught our attention was a stall selling Grilled pork. The way the seller chopped up the pig, it sounded so crispy, and there was a crowd, anything with a crowd can’t go too wrong right? So we decided to get a box to try. The skin was very hard and it was like eating glass. The meat however was grilled with a sweet sauce and not too thick, so the marinate to meat ratio was good and right.

rpt — Whole Grilled glass-ified pig on sale

We went next to ASEAN night Bazaar, where there were all kinds of clothes, souvenirs, and food that was sold.

IMG_20191229_184202 Look through Google map for an array of photos uploaded by various users and get a feel how the market looks like.

J commented that we seemed to have passed an (st)age where we are no longer fascinated with buying souvenirs/moment from local markets.

650m away was Greenway Night Market, which Google map classifies that as a ‘flea market’, whereas ASEAN Night Market is a ‘night market’. It was a roughly 5-10mins walk for us, with a sleeping baby in the mehdai. And to share, there are 2 promo codes to Grab rides to and from Greenway. Try GREENWAY40 which gives you 40% off your fare or GREENWAY50.

IMG_20191229_200445 — The car crowd was more at Greenway as compared to ASEAN.

Greenway sells more interesting stuffs, and in way larger in size. There were different zones, with different emphasis on different stuffs sold. There was also a huge food court area where payment is only acceptable by the card which allows refund for any unused credit. We had a mango smoothie for 49thb. Would recommend that anybody have dinner at Greenway instead of ASEAN for the wider variety.

sawadee-krap BANGKOK

Having travelled Thailand more than 5 times, I’m proud to announce I have yet to officially visited and roam around Bangkok. The only times I set foot on Bangkok were when we were in transit from ChangMai to Phnom Penh, visiting HauKim’s friend Varaphorn at KhaoSan Road, and on our transit from Singapore to Russia, during our Europe trip last year.

This time round, J was there at Bangkok for some affiliate conference and invited me to join on the days after. I gladly accepted. And it being our first overseas trip after donkey asked for dragon’s hand, we thought hey why not try for an overseas engagement photoshoot?!

We actually had a hard time trying to look for a photographer who could fit our dates and our budget! But finally we managed to get FotoInc, the main photographer Jatuporn (nicknamed Aof) is unavailable but offered another of his photographer Kongwat (nicknamed Bom). All the Thais that Aof introduced to me had a nickname! I’m amazed. So looking through Bom’s portfolio on his Facebook page, we were excited to give it a try, and boy, were we so damn pleased and that’s why you read this post. Well, we haven’t received all the photos yet, but I’m sure we won’t be disappointed. Will update again with some photos once we receive it.

So communication happened on Facebook messenger until the day we met Bom and Black who drove us to the bridal gown shop to pick our gown and suit for the photoshoot the next day. They arrived half an hour before our meeting time and yet didn’t rush nor inform us they’ve reached. We felt guilty knowing that since we were just waiting around in our apartment. So the drive didn’t take as long as they have expected it to be. They warned us of delays as there would be Bike-for-Dad event that day and 85 of the roads in Bangkok would be closed.

Bridal shop was at Lad Prao 112, and if I’m not wrong it’s called Finale Wedding Studio. Anyway, we didn’t had to worry a thing, as Bom and Black just took us there and we had our pick. They even have Thai traditional attire! We almost wanted to try them out.

The next homework for us was to think of the other 2 casual attires for the shoot! So the rest of the day was spent shopping like how any Singaporeans would in Bangkok. Platinum Mall, Central World, you name it, they have it.

The next morning, Bom told us Make Up Artist would come over to our apartment to start the make up with us first! 6am in the morning! Somehow it felt like the real wedding.

Make up artist Nueng was fabulous in transforming me while keeping my funky personality! She did a great job making J’s 大小眼 equal too!

Assistant Pal was officially the translator of the day, conversing between us and Bom, she’s a fine young lady, reminded me of the days when I was her age. Without her presence, all of us would be playing a day of charades! ;P

Bom and team rented a spacious 13seater van for our whole day’s itinerary. And before I forget to mention, we asked if it was possible to borrow an iron and Bom brought it down with him! Pal even helped us ironed our shirts while Nueng worked on dressing us up. Such is the friendly, helpful and hospitable personality of the Thais! In the van, Bom had already prepared a cooler box full of water, Thai isotonic drink SPONSOR, and refreshing towel. He was really well prepared, because the weather was so hot, and we almost suffered from heat exhaustion. Along the way, Nueng and Pal also got us fruits and local flavoured ice cream to cool off! The other good thing about engaging locals when doing an overseas photoshoot was that they are familiar with the local culture and the way there – we had the chance to take photographs at the toyshop, with a motorbike, at a make-shift durian stall, with an ice-cream pushcart – all simply by them asking for a sure-give permission.

We headed next to Ministry of Defence, Wat Suthat, The Giant Swing, Democracy Monument, the vast green field Sanum Luang, outside of Grand Palace, and finally at Hua Lamphong Railway Station.

So those interested couples out there, I can hear you asking, so how much did you pay?? Well, I don’t want to spoil the market by broadcasting their price list here. So you could either PM me and I can let you know more about the rates for Dec2015, or you could contact FotoInc directly at info@fotoincstudio.com.

Photo credit for most of the photos goes to BOM. =D

—–

So exactly 60 days after our photoshoot, we finally received the long-awaited parcel from Bangkok! It took so long partly because of the Chinese New Year Public Holiday in Singapore as well. So we received 200 in prints, and the same 200 in DVD as well as a sleek golden USB drive.

Here’s a sneak peak of some of the best:

Jarrod & Hazel (007 of 200) — Along Chinatown at the start of the day.

Jarrod & Hazel (043 of 200) — have some bird’s nest?

Jarrod & Hazel (074 of 200) — Time always stop when we are together..

Jarrod & Hazel (084 of 200) — Look who’s the photographer now!

Jarrod & Hazel (101 of 200) — Merry go round the giant swing¬

Jarrod & Hazel (112 of 200) — with the blessings of a thousand buddha

Jarrod & Hazel (116 of 200) — OPPA gangnam style

Jarrod & Hazel (122 of 200) — What’s that you say?

Jarrod & Hazel (125 of 200) — Democracy Monument

Jarrod & Hazel (144 of 200) — Por-por.. tuk-tuk’s coming right behind

Jarrod & Hazel (154 of 200) — Walking blissfully with my hand in yours.

Jarrod & Hazel (175 of 200) — The portable flash is genius!

Jarrod & Hazel (200 of 200) — we belong together

Jarrod & Hazel (180 of 200) — pointing at the pointy nose

Jarrod & Hazel (193 of 200) — The next time we are in the train, I hope it would be heading for some destination

Jarrod & Hazel (197 of 200) — The light behind outlines the silhouette of two becoming one.

ADVENTURES aplenty!

Time flies when you are enjoying yourself, for sure! It’s like you just want it to stop at that moment, so that you can relish the joy you had. 3days with a bunch of crazy fellas in relaxing Krabi where booze was so cheap, was definitely not enough. Not to mention, the days were not enough as well. But we managed to come to a consensus that we would have white water rafting and elephant trekking on the third day. White water rafting wasn’t anything new to me, but elephant trekking yea, I’ve not tried it before.

The morning before we woke up 1 hour earlier (due to my neglience), and waited another 1hour before our minivan transfer arrived after breakfast, so thinking we had lots of time at hand, we snoozed our alarms umpteen times, and snuggled in the comfort of the thick duvet cover, not wanting to get out of bed. Mark and XiWen was kind enough to order our breakfast for us, so that it would be ready by the time we were downstairs. The minivan came while we were halfway thru our breakfast, so we gobled our morsels of food, at the speed HsiEn usually finishes his food, and off we were, on our way to our adventure with Mother Nature.

CIMG1942 — Mark trying to use the jam-brake as an excuse to torture the two

CIMG1943 — the calm looking river, which we are supposed to have our white-water rafting

None of us had the water proofing casing for the camera, so there wasn’t any shot of us during the white water rafting segment. And knowing most, if not all, the particapants would not bring their cameras, the company leveraged on that, and got a few photo points, just like how you would expect them along the roller coaster rides at the amusement parks. But neither of us bought the pictures, because they were just too overly priced. It was meant as a tourist trap. =/

The 8 of us split into 2 rafts, and I think my raft was lucky enough to get a fun guide. He steered the raft in the directions where we would get more bumps and kick out of it, and played with his paddle like it was a fencing equipment, which really set En, Kim, Rod and Zel attacking each other (and just in case you were wondering who these people were, they are HsiEn, HauKim, Jarrod, and me. Jarrod introduced us with our new 1-syllabus names to the guide for easy reference. HAHA)

It would have been more fun if there weren’t 101 rafts in the river. I began to wonder that if there were so many raft during a non-peak period, I couldn’t imagine how the river would be dotted with yellow, blue and red raft during the peak period. It would have caused some massive jam.

Lunch was some buffet spread, but because there were 101×6 people, there were like not much food enough for everybody. But we were lucky to be among the first few to get the lunch, so being Singaporeans, we took heapful of food and all. A visit to the waterfall ensued after the lunch, and I really enjoyed that, because it reminded me of the ODAC trips I went to.

CIMG1948 — the mini trek back to the vehicle

On the vehicle, we tried with all our mights, with simple English and lots of actions to try to ask this Thai guy whether elephants are afraid of mice. So what we got out of it was that Chang1 was elephant, and Chang2 was monkey. But it was enough to entertain all of us on the whole journey.

Elephant trekking felt to me like a slow roller coaster, because of the huge movements in their steps. Their skin was rough, and the ‘hairs’ you see on their back and the top of their heads, were nothing but pricky. It was kind of a new and exciting experience for all of us, I suppose. And I hope HauKim doesn’t read this, but I must confessed that I dropped his spectacle case into the river where it was infested with all the elephant dungs. =/ Wahaha…

Monkey show and elephant show next. They were chained by the throat, seems kinda painful. If I were one of them, I guessed I would have hated human beings, taking my suffering as their enjoyment. But oh wells, life is cruel.

CIMG1951 — I bet I can't even lift the human equivalent of that

CIMG1958 — I wanted to pet it, but I poked its eye instead

CIMG1963 — a 3 year old elephant trained to entertain

CIMG1965 — the elephant's massaging Jamie's jewel

CIMG1966 — everybody slept through the van ride

So, the group finally decided to spend the night at Ao Nang beach, where I really thought was the best place in Krabi, but didn’t want to strongly reccommend, just in case some of them didn’t like it as much, but it turns out that everybody felt it was the best place to be! Haha. We had buffet dinner, a few drinks, and a massage there, and the 2 couples tailor-made some suits too.

CIMG1971 — pancake (the roti-prata wannabe) in the making

CIMG1973 — that's banana pancake, if I'm not wrong

CIMG1981 — drinks at the bar area, where something happened, but I shan't elaborate. 😛

It was a miracle that we managed to wake everybody up in time for our check out and our flight! Thanks to those that were very sober, and not in a stupor. This Krabi trip was different from the one I had one and a half years ago, but I like it all the same!

ISLAND-hopping on a slow bumboat

Krabi is one hour behind Singapore, and in the drunken stupor from the night before, I woke everyone up one hour before our supposed reveille timing. =/ I was still wondering why the 2 couples refused to open their door even after my repeated knocking. The rest of the 4 of us, HauKim, Jarrod, HsiEn and I fell asleep in one room when there were 2 rooms for us (Well we could have saved some money there! Haha). They were woken up by me early, so they all had time to freshen up with a morning bath.

CIMG1863 — follow up on the gayness from the night before

One of the consolation of staying in Thip’s Residence was that it provided breakfast every morning. Although not a buffet spread, the American breakfast was enough to fill up our stomachs.

The minivan that was supposed to pick us up from the hotel was one hour late! And that left us quite restless. When it was finally here, some of us fell asleep in it during the journey. =/

CIMG1891 — setting off on this slow wooden boat

CIMG1894 — exhibiting their roomie love 🙂

And after 45minutes on the boat, we finally reached the first island. It was shallow snorkelling first, and the first place where we encountered purplish jellyfish, which really excited us, because of the risk of poison.

Got up the boat again, this time to the other islands which allowed for deep sea snorkelling. This was not meant for any weak swimmer, because there really was no place for you to rest until you went up the boat again. Even if you had to readjust the goggles or the tube, you had to be constantly threading water. It was no easy feat for me, and this just reinforced the fact that my body needs some reconstruction!

CIMG1898 — after the bread has all been snatched up

CIMG1899 — the Thai guide with a sea urchin

The guide grabbed me and brought me around in search of beautiful things under the sea. But it really was a pity that I couldn’t see much due to my short-sightedness. But half the blurness was the water itself, which I was really quite disappointed in. Because the last time I came here, the water was absolutely clear and 100% awesome. I grew really tired after the long swim, I reckon I must have snorkelled for 45minutes or so. The lifeform under sea were really quite a sight, with many colourful clams, and baraccudas, water snake, and tadpole-liked jellyfishes which stung some of us.

CIMG1900 — fighting to get up the ladder

CIMG1902 — tired and slept while sitting

Last stop, at Phra-Nang cave.

That concluded our island hops, and left me quite breathless, because everytime I’m in the water, the guide pulled me away to snorkel in the big sea. After we left the boat, we grabbed 3 humogous chicken legs and hopped on a Song-thaew that brought us to Krabi town. The 3 other passengers on the Song-thaew must have hated us for been so noisy, and consuming the fragant chicken legs right in their nose. HAHA.

CIMG1906 — they managed to eat the chicken while holding on to their dear lives

When we finally reached Krabi town, we scouted around for food because the chicken leg that we had just appetise-d us! We stopped by every food stall on the roadside that caught our attention, and savoured what I suppose would be their daily fare.

CIMG1909 — bee-hoon with very spicy chicken curry

Then we wondered into this place called the Krabi-night plaza that looks really deserted, but it probably was because it was in the day. Who knows?! They might have some real activities held there every night!

And we finally found the market, where there was a collection of stalls selling all sorts of food, I would liken this to our food courts!

CIMG1918 — sausage wrapped in ham-chee-peng

CIMG1922 — chinese corn and ang-moh corn 😛

CIMG1929 — pastry that sold for 1Baht each! cheap cheap!

CIMG1932 — PadThai with the rubbery feel

And we dropped by 7eleven again for our daily fix of alcohol, and chips (just this time round we got the 2 bottles of vodka from a stall beside it because they sold it cheaper).

CIMG1937 — that's 7 packets of differen flavoured chips in his hands

This time round, we played the drinking game again, setting the rule that we had to clap our hands before we could laugh, and not allowing anybody to converse in English or Mandarin. It was really hilarious, especially when everybody cannot control their actions and speech. There’s a video of the segment we spoke in Hokkien (and Cantonese) on FaceBook, so if you are interested, you should be able to find it easily. But one thing hasn’t changed, Jarrod was still aimed to be everybody’s buddy because we wanted to bring down the Tank of Hall 4!

SA-WA-DEE-KARRR

I’ve been to Krabi twice before, both trips with NTU ODAC gang of friends. But this time round, it was different, the company was the friends I made in hall, and it was supposed to be a relac-one-corner trip.

Before the actual naration for the trip begins, let me introduce the crews onboard! AHOJ. 😀

and last but not least,

And so, we embarked on our journey to Thailand on Tiger Airways from Singapore’s Budget Terminal.

When we reached Krabi International Airport, we were supposed to find one of the guys who would pick us up to our hotel. XiWen was the one who made the arrangement, so we were looking out for any namecards with ‘Ms XiWen’ on it, but all we could find was ‘Mr XiWen’. The 7 of us laughed our heads off while XiWen frowned at the sight of it. Haha.

CIMG1694 — On the airport transfer to our hotel. The driver's in the picture too!

Our driver, Tu, had basic knowledge of English and we wanted to know how to say certain things in Thai. Jarrod started by asking how to say ‘guy’ and ‘girl’. Tu understood a little, by replying that guy was poo-chai, but he didn’t really get it when we asked about ‘girl’, so Jarrod did something like a charade, pointing to himself and saying poo-chai, and pointing to me and asking what. Tu appeared like he understood and spouted tomp. So we were happily using poo-chai and tomp all the way. We only realised that tomp was not what we intended to be when we spoke with the hotel staffs, and in fact it meant a transvetite. That really got them sniggering when we mentioned it.

We tried again to ask, this time asking about durians. But because there was no actions that really resembled durians, HsiEn drew a durian on a napkin we found on the minivan, hoping Tu was able to tell us the Thai word. But before we could show him the picture, he shouted out to us that there was a durian stall when we passed it by on the road. Jarrod and I looked at HsiEn, and laughed at his attempt to draw when Tu understood durian! Turns out that durians are called tu-lian.

CIMG1698 — we changed from charade to pictionary

We reached after a half-hour’s drive, to our accomodation at Ao Nang Mao area. It looked really posh and resort-like, quite world’s apart from the mosquito infested hut that I stayed in my first trip there.

Once in the room, we threw our bags on the floor, changed out to more comfortable attire and was out to explore the town market which was a 5 minutes walk from our hotel.

CIMG1712 — a wide array of fried food on sticks

CIMG1717 — monkey apple, and not at all nice

CIMG1721 — thailand tu-lian uses knife to slice it open HAHA

The tu-lian was not at all creamy, in fact, it was crunchy, and really really sweet. It was quite a sight (and taste!) to see how they open the durians in Thailand. We tried to open it with the Singapore way, by using the palms to split the shell open, but to no avail.

We left the market, and walked along the beach, in search for a restaurant to eat a proper dinner.

CIMG1748 — what's Thailand without TOM-YUM-GAI???

After dinner, we grabbed beer, wine and some mixer at the 7eleven convenience store, before heading back to our hotel to waste the night away! WAHAHA.

CIMG1757 — wanting beer so much that he is kissing the bottle on 7eleven's floor

CIMG1768 — that's what happens when you put a bunch of scantily clad boys together

CIMG1777 — the couple doing their exercises

We played one drinking game and another reverse pyramid. There was a rule card in the game, and they came up with the idea that before anybody wanted to speak, they had to wave their hands in the air, and if they didn’t they would incur forfeits by drinking.

There was another rule card which was the buddy card, simply to say, anybody that drew that card could choose someone else to buddy with him/her such that everytime he/she had to drink, the buddy drinks as well. And because we knew jarrod the tank had high alcohol tolerances, we kept arrowing him.

CIMG1809 — towards the end, jarrod begging for tolong

The only saving grace was that half the time we were drinking water, so at least that helped to flush out the alcohol in our system, or else, I think we wouldn’t have been able to wake up on time for 4-islands hopping the next day.

NAKHON brings thailand to you!

You’ve probably heard me ‘advertise’ this Thai eatery before, but it was really good that I suggested to have dinner there with the 3 crazy peeps.

lakhon13 — now my turn to be stupid. zzz.

This is a must-try with 4.5 thumbs up out of 5! 🙂

What: Nakhon Kitchen
Where: Blk 212 Hougang Street 21, #01-341
Tel: 6286 8785
When: 10am to 11pm, daily
Nearest MRT: Kovan

my one day thai HOLIDAY

CIMG1113 — stir-fried beef in Thai style

What do the above 6 pictures say of my Sunday? With the hint of the title, somebody would have guessed that I was on a holiday on Phuket, or maybe Krabi or Phi Phi island! Haha.. But no no, I was all the while in Singapore, and my passport lying snugly in my drawer. 😛

The morning was spent at East Coast beach, with the ai-xin fried beehoon and many more other things. I made the same kite as the one I did in Prague, and it was flying well, just not rising up to the sky; it only flew to the height of the surrounding trees. =/ Daddy said he will make a better kite with some small investments in materials from a hobby shop. So we shall wait and see. We also frisbee-d, rollerblate-d, and napped. Such a nice way to relax on a Sunday, especially when it’s not packed with people as if it’s Orchard Road.

Had dinner over at this Thai restaurant called Nakhon’s Kitchen in Hougang Street 21. The food was yum-yum. We had green curry, tom yam soup, stir fried KangKong, stir fried beef and the pineapple rice! Authentic taste from Thailand at less than $40 for 4 people! What a steal, cheaper than flying on budget airline to get to Thailand! Hohoho. :O