Phoebe and Priscilla came over for a surprise 1 day stay and I spent my day with them. Here are some photos to round off a pleasant 2008.





















On the left is Phoebe, and on the right is her own drawing of herself.
(Yes there's an upside down A Xiang for those of u who know, proudly drawn by Jane, my partner in class!)




















This is Stanley, taken on his last day in Singapore, wearing the Burger King crown.

Labels: Guides EOY camp 2008

I did something new today! Bet u can't think what it is. I taught my aunty to use the computer lol! Mind you, my aunty is a 63 year old grandmother who shuns using the SCV control cos she doesn't know how to use it! Actually, I didn't teach her much la, I just told her to use the mousepad to scroll up and down to see photos of our family taken by my cousin. And tell her to click on the link to go to the next page. Then she started saying like how her getai friends even know how to do internet banking on the computer.
hmm.. that's all. Besides that, I'm literally wasting my time on Facebook, sending people Flowers, joining pet society and wondering if there is a faster way of getting coins besides visiting friends' pets (so I can buy furniture for my bare house!). I have been doing something useful though, and that is considering my options for my future education path ! Initially, I thought I would just go to JC and slog for 2 more years since I don't really know what I want to be. I still remember what one of our seniors told us that in JC, u have double the things to study, yet u have half the time to do it. Then 2 days ago, I read through some poly materials and thought that I can try joining the business school in SP! 3 years, get a good foundation on what I'm going to do for the rest of my life and by the time I graduate, I can go get a job. Then after working for 2 years of so, I could apply for scholarships to overseas universities. Hahaha sounds perfect but it's all tentative.

ok that's all. :)

I'm kicking myself in the head now cos I deleted so many of the photos taken in Vietnam after developing them!!! GRrrrr. I hardly have any photos of Ho Chi Minh now and I don't have any photo of Hanoi at all- not that I took many photos in Hanoi, but we went to this UNESCO World Heritage site called Ha Long bay (roughly means descending dragon) when we were in Hanoi, which is amazing!

We went out to the sea and while I was on the upper deck, I nearly froze from the strong and icy seabreeze that never stops! Hmm.. Ha Long Bay consists of many little islands, about 960+ to be exact. Some of them are small, and many of them are names after what they resemble. For example, there was this one island shaped like a man and was isolated from the rest of the cluster of islands, so the tour guide told us that piece of rock is called Lonely Man fishing! lol and there are others called 2 chickens kissing (funny name) and incense burner, even though it looked like a tooth to me. It feels very good to go out to sea and admire the vast blue expanse of water. For a moment I thought there were some marine animals surfacing from the sea (like dolphins) cos we could see white colours appearing here and there. But upon closer observations, it was just the waves breaking and white bubbles..

Then we entered this cave inside one of the big islands, called the Heavenly Celestial Cave which was discovered in 1992 by a fisherman. The cave is illuminated by colourful artificial lights which, in my opinion, spoil the own nature of the cave. But it sort of fuels the image that it is "celestial", u know. Anyway, the features inside the cave are very unique, some are smooth like a cauliflower or mushroom, others are jagged and lined up in a row like the chicken legs hanging in every chicken rice stall (lol!). There were many tourists (just like me) inside that cave, busy snapping pictures and listening to the tour guide's tales of the (man-made) stories behind the natural features of the caves. They will say that the cave resembles a ___ and then graudually a story will unfold .. blahblah.. i didn't listen to any of those at all. Too bad I don't have any pics to post..

heheh I tried taking a photo of the pictures we developed (left). Can u see a man's face (top right) and a guerrilla (bottom)?


Ha Long Bay was our last stop in Vietnam before we returned to Hanoi via a 3 hour bus ride for 2 more days of walking around the big big city. It 's really troublesome and kinda frustrating that the museums are open from 7 and closes at 11.30 am. Who visits museums at such an early hour anyway? And they don't open again till the next day. It's much more difficult to buy things in Vietnam cos shopkeepers quote such horrendous prices! One shopkeeper even quoted US$100 for a pair of men's shoes sold along the streetside shops. But on the last day, we bought 2 more bags! One is a red roxy bag and another is a orange the north face sling bag which has many compartments and is useful for travelling as u can put many things inside. O ya, these 2 bags cost 190 000 dong (Sing$19), after haggling from 220 000 with a soft spoken lady. If u want to buy things in Hanoi, I read somewhere that it's best to go shopping earlier cos the shopkeepers will be more willing to give u discount to buy their stuff as they believe it brings them good luck.


























Before we arrived at Hanoi, we spent one night at Hue, another city in Central Vietnam. We visited the Hue citadel, which is like a miniature version of the Forbidden Palace in China (I didn't say this! The receptionist, An, in the hotel we stayed at painted this analogy to us). But even though it sounds puny, we didn't even manage to finish walking around the whole place! Some parts are quite remote, and others are under restoration after being damaged during the Vietnam war in er.. 1975? We couldn't even see the Emperor's palace at all, it was probably fully blown up by the bombs.. sheesh. The entrance palace has dragon carvings along its top (left pic).


























This is a picture of the food we ate in a restaurant in Hue. We always have fruit shakes in nearly every meal that we eat in Vietnam, cos the fruits are good! Especially my favourite mango fruit juice! The one take in this picture is carrot fruit juice, however. And on the top u can see 2 sticks of satay-like food, that is the special kind of food unique to Hue. It is eated by wrapping one of those and the veggie in rice paper.
The food here is nice, but I like even better the food in a restaurant in Hanoi, and I can even remember the address: 7 Dinh Liet Rd in Hoan Kiem district!! The food there is fantastic! Zucchini (which is mini version of cucumber)... beef curry... and haha I really like the mushroom in both restaurants!! aiya I can't rmb what else I had but there're all very delicious! Heheh I was too busy eating to take any photo of the food.

Labels: Ha Long bay, hanoi, hue, vietnam

Lots of new experiences I encountered in this trip in Vietnam, including sleeping on a sleeper bus for the first time, and crossing the really crowded and frenetic roads crammed with way too many morotcycles in Ho Chi Minh city (HCMC). That was an eye opening experience for me!

Also, I realised I can baragin quite well! LOL when we shopped in the Ben Thanh market in HCMC, the shopkeepers recognise that we are tourists and will tai (extort) us. The shopkeeper offered 200 000 dong (S$20) for a bag which I liked, and I insisted on 80 000 dong ~ And guess what? The lady accepted it ! Hehe Also, another time when my aunty was buying 3 sets of pyjamas for her grandchildren, the lady quoted 370 000 dong ($37) but in the end, she sold it to us at 180 000 dong (although I wasn't there to do the haggling cos my cousin was infuriated with my aunty for troubling the lady to take out so many clothes without asking for the price first, so I just gave the wallet to my cousin and kept a far distance away, hoping to bi4 nan4, u know) . In Singapore I don't baragin, but please if any of u ever go to Vietnam, just quote less than half or even one third of the price the shopkeepers offer. And check out a few stalls before u make ur purchase. :) PS I'm not being aunty, this is the way to buy things over here lol.


Anyway, I'm now in Hoi An, a much more peaceful and serene town (and not to mention smaller) than HCMC. We have already finished touring the main places within less than 1 and a half days & my uncle, aunty and cousin are resting in their hotel rooms. O the food here is unique to this place, and yesterday we ate lunch at this stall by the roadside facing the river new dishes called cao lau (pronunce gao3 lao3) and ban vac, which english name is called white rose. aiya I don't have the photos now.. cannot show u but the food is really nice, esp the ban vac, which is like another version of dumplings, but wrapped in a different skin, smth like the sun kueh which we find in singapore. We even went back to the same stall for dinner.


Besides the food, the scenery and the overall atmosphere here at Hoi An is more relaxed than at HCMC, which even my globetrotter cousin cannot stand. When you are out at the roads in HCMC, it's just facing incessant honking by motorcyclists and I'm so glad that the hostel we stayed in was away from the main road and offered us much needed tranquility. But I really marvel at the skilfulness of the motorcyclists, who just weave in and out of the traffic, jostling with the bigger buses and cars for space on the roads. And do u know they hardly have traffic lights ? Pedestrians just zig zag across the road to get to the opposite side. haha rather dangerous but it's an exciting break from the orderly roads of Singapore.


Did u know that this whole town of Hoi An is a UNESCO World Heritage site? The architecture is carefully preserved and restored. Surprisingly, we managed to buy several things here, from bags to souvenir shirts (and not at HCMC or Hanoi). There is an 73 year old man selling bags in one of the shops we went into. He was very friendly and even knew how to speak Chinese (which is rare) and gave us good prices for the bags we bought.

Labels: ho chi minh, hoi an, vietnam holiday

YAY I'll be going to Vietnam tomorrow!

:D