My Travel Blog

I haven’t stayed in a cabin before, but my friend in Finland told me that it’s nice. He even helped his friend to build a cabin last summer and he can now enjoy a nice sauna in that cabin this winter. I hope that one day I will have the money and time to visit Finland too, but it’s just too far away!

If I would to try an cabin holiday, maybe the Pigeon Forge cabins might be a better option. At least they are situated in US and there are more interesting places to visit in US, as comparing to Finland. I found that having a nice and quiet holiday at a cabin may not be a bad idea after all, even if I might be dying of shopping 3 days later. LOL!

How I wish I’m a multi millionaire, there are so many interesting places to go, but I need the money!

I have been to Bangkok for a few times. Even if some of my friends don’t like the place, I still love Bangkok. It’s a nice place for shopping and I like the food. It’s easy to get tasty and spicy food at a very cheap price. Besides that, I like to visit the temples. It’s a nice place for taking photos if you are allowed to. I found that the artwork is very delicate, and I spent lots of time admiring the details when I was there.

If you are wondering which one you shouldn’t miss, I would suggest the Grand Palace. It’s really a masterpiece! But please make sure that you wear long pants and tops with sleeves, if I’m not mistaken, there is a dress code.

Wat Phra Kaew or the Temple of the Emerald Buddha (officially known as Wat Phra Sri Rattana Satsadaram) is regarded as the most important Buddhist temple in Thailand. Located in the historic centre of Bangkok, within the grounds of the Grand Palace, it enshrines Phra Kaew Morakot (the Emerald Buddha), the highly revered Buddha image meticulously carved from a single block of jade. The Emerald Buddha (Phra Putta Maha Mani Ratana Patimakorn) is a Buddha image in the meditating position in the style of the Lanna school of the north, dating from the 15th century AD.

Besides that, Bangkok is a nice place for shopping! I bought a lot of clothes from the wholesale market, but I can’t remember its name. I will have to ask my BIL about this since he’s staying in Bangkok. But there is a nice place to shop in Bangkok, and it’s called MBK Center.

I bought a lot of things from that shopping mall and it’s huge. I guess if I have a lot of money, I might buy more than I did! I wonder if I need mover NYC to move my stuffs after a shopping spree? LOL!

I was hoping to go there this Thursday, just for a few days, but I can’t persuade hubby. Sigh…What a pity.

There are a lot of shopping spots in Korea, but I don’t think we had time for all. If I’m going to Korea again, I would hope to cover as much as possible since there are lots of nice clothes and body shop supplies which are hard to be missed. I will list down a few shopping spots that if you are going to Korea, don’t miss all of them. But if your schedule is tight, you can shortlist a few just like I did.

• Myeong-dong: Ladies, you are looking for clothes, shoes and accessories, don’t miss this place. It’s truly a shopping haven to shopaholic like me, and if you come here at night, the streets will be nicer. You can also bargain for a cheaper price at some stores, but not all. There are a few shopping centers around here as well, such as KOZNEY, Shinsegae, and Lotte Department Store besides the famous Namdaemun Market.

• Namdaemun Market: We missed this famous market that sells clothes, sunglasses, daily stuffs, food and shoes. It’s a pity that I didn’t manage to shop here, but hopefully, I will return to Korea again and check out all those nice stuffs as recommended by my tour guide.
• Dongdaemun Market: Another shopping haven in Korea! There are lots of nice clothes and shoes here, and I bought lots of them. LOL! I got a pair of nice boots here too, but I haven’t worn them until today! Nonetheless, if you want to know about fashion in Korea, this is a place where you can get almost everything. Of course, bargain for a better price! One of the store actually offered me fake LV bags, but I didn’t get any. You can find fake stuffs like that too.
• Insa-dong: I missed this too. If you are looking for stuffs that can represent Korea’s culture, you should not miss this place. So, blame it on my tight agenda!
• Itaewon: I like this street a lot since I bought some stuffs here as well. There are lots of clothes available here, but I got a few pairs of socks which were really cute. Besides that, it’s my first time having a pork hamburger from McDonald’s. We can’t find pork hamburger at McD here!
• Apgujeong: You can forget about finding cheap stuffs here, so I didn’t go there. I aim was to get more stuffs from Korea on limited budget. LOL!

In short, Korea is nice for shopping, but the language barrier is too much to bear. Luckily I had a handsome translator aka photographer following us around. He’s great, and he helped us a lot in getting those price cut down. But still, try not to compare the price of the things you can get over here, ok?

I found it’s harder to be romantic since we are married with kids. We go everywhere with the kids, and hubby and I have never had a vacation without them. I would love to have some romantic getaway with him next time when the kids are older though. I’m not hoping for an expensive vacation though, if it’s only the two of us, a few days away on bed and breakfast will be just fine. It might be one of the best romantic christmas gifts too, if we can do this during December.

But for the time being, all I have in mind is still family vacation. There will be a day when they just refuse to follow their parents everywhere, so let me enjoy more family vacation away with my kids a little longer.

The main reason why I like Lotte World is because I used to watch the Korean series named Stairway to Heaven. The show was filmed at Lotte World and I think most of fans remember how pretty the Merry-Go-Round is in the series.

We were too rushing and I had forgotten to snap a photo of that Merry-Go-Round! Yikes!!! But I managed to snap a nice photo of the castle with lots of beautiful lightings on it. If you have been here, you would know how pretty this place is at night and none of the lighting stores can be prettier than Lotte World.

Hubby, me and our niece

We didn’t manage to visit every corner of the amusement park, but I like the Gyro Drop in Magic Island. It’s a 70m high ride which drops in a twisting free-fall at a speed of 100km/h. It’s quite scaring but I like it.

Waiting to go up!

Too bad we didn’t have more time for Lotte World, if not I would try out all those adventurous rides.

Don’t tell me you have no idea what Winter Sonata is. You are clearly not from Asia if you haven’t heard of this popular Korean series, Winter Sonata. The idea of visiting Korea came across my mind since I was a big fan of Korean series a few years ago, and one of my all time favorite drama is Winter Sonata. That’s the reason why I wanted to see Nanyi Island in my own eyes.

But when I was there, it was not showing, but the trees were nice and it’s a nice place for photo shot. Hubby and I were so silly, we even took some photos by imitating those poses we saw in posters. Of course, I won’t show the world how laughable those photos are, and I will only show a group photo of our tour members:

The Group Photo

There were some ostriches running freely on the island. I dared not take any photos with them as they didn’t look friendly to me. But they managed to capture lots of attention from the kids though. Most of the tourists were there just to check out the scenes where Winter Sonata was taken, so it’s kind of crowded on the day I went. But if you walked further back to the end, the scenery is much better and it was very relaxing. You can forget about those March Madness tickets because I would prefer to have spend a nice afternoon here then watching a live match!

But if I go to Nanyi again, I hope that it’s showing. It will be much nicer if it snows.

I didn’t go to JiZhou Island when I was visiting Korea. It was not in the agenda and even if we could have added it in, we wouldn’t want to spend another day changing flights as the guys wanted to spend more time skiing. So if I ever visit Korea again, I want to visit JiZhou Island. The scenery is breathtaking and it will be a nice place for photo shot. I better make sure that I get myself a good camera first before I visit the island.

But I wonder which season should I visit the island? I saw the photos of my friend who went in spring and they are lovely. The flowers are so nice! But some friends of mine where during autumn and their photos look like these…

No matter what, I think I need to bring some Jane Iredale makeup so that I will look nice in the photos. It’s such a nice island for photo shot!

I suggested to hubby that even if we can’t have oversea trip this holiday, how about we try to visit a nice place locally since there are lots of interesting places in Malaysia? One of the places I have in mind is Pedu Lake. My hubby is a golfaholic, so if I told him that he can try out the golf course, he will mostly like agree on going to that destination. He has not tried out the golf course at Pedu Lake, that’s why I have this place in mind now.

But if he really wants to play golf there, he will have to invite some of his golfer friends along. If not, how can he tee off alone on his flight? Unless other golfers are willing to add him in.

I guess it would be nice to have a trip to Pedu Lake. Maybe hubby can also get a few set of Nike golf and try out his swings at the course! However, I still have a few places in mind, let me find out more details about the rest of the destinations first before discussing to hubby about my holiday plans.

If you are going to Korea with your kids, this is one of the theme parks that you shouldn’t miss out. It’s just like Disney, but it has its own characters and lots of interesting games at the theme park. You will have to allocate more than one day here if you intended to experience all it has to offer. We were only there for about 3 hours, so we didn’t have a chance to check out every corner of the theme park.

But there is one thing that you shouldn’t miss. It’s the Wild Safari that you can see how tigers and lions live if harmony. We saw 2 ligers, cubs to the lion father and the tiger mother which are the famous attraction in Korea as well. I didn’t snap the photos of them, and how I am really regret about it! But once hubby has lots of $$$ in his checking account, I will bring my kids there again.

BTW, they are going to have a Christmas festival soon, so don’t miss it as well.

I talked to my parents recently and my dad is still interested to go to China. There are so many places in China that he wishes to visit, especially The Great Wall of China. But my mum was skeptical about the trip as she can’t walk a lot. She’s not being fit since her cancel treatment and she might also need some osteoarthritis relief too if she needs to walk that much.

Most of the trips to China need a lot of walking. I’ve read those brochures about Shanghai and Beijing, where my dad is more interested in, and the tours look very packed to me. I’m still not ready to bring my kids there, unless hubby comes along. I don’t think my parents can help out much as my kids keep to be carried a lot and it will be very tiring for them.

Let’s see what my brother say when he’s back from the Beijing Olympic 2008 tour next year.