Pretty in yukata

Japan, 8-17 Sep 2007


Dressing up was really fun! :)

Click here for my itinerary.

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Prologue

Kel: Have a safe trip. Don't do a porn movie, it won't sell.
D: If you act porn, it'll sell. It'll be on at Yang Tze where the uncles don't bring their spectacles.
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Pearl of the Orient

Shanghai, 7-11 Jul 2007



First trip with just Sito :)

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To maximise the 4-day trip, we took overnight flights both ways. But we were so tired on arrival despite sleeping on the flight that we slept until noon - glad that we could check in at 8am..

Woke hungry and headed for Macs (!) before walking down 南京路 (Nanjing Road) for 人民公园 (People’s Park)..
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Roarrrr!

Singapore, 16 Mar 2007



Just the zoo! :)

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Honestly, I can't remember the last time I went to the zoo; it must have been secondary school, or even primary school!

Last day of term break, there were countless screaming children, but I only remember one who pronounced scary as scaaaly..
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きもちいい！

Japan, 13-19 Dec 2006



I went to hotspring area with three boys. But that was the only shot of us in a hotspring together! Hoho!

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Logging my Kyushu trip - second time in Japan! :) It was really 游山 cos Kyushu is less for city stuff and 玩水 cos of the hot springs!

13 Dec - 福岡

It was such an early flight on 13 Dec.. Was out the previous night at the premier of The Curse of the Golden Flower - missed seeing Chow Yun Fatt himself but caught the opulent imperial settings with blossomy women whose boobs could pop out of their corsets at the next deep breath; another imperial tragedy - and slept rather late. But I chose to take the train to Changi, thrifty all of a sudden..

Some facts before check-in: 23 in tour group; all families except the four of us; no cute guys and all the boys are too young - oh well!
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Showing off Singapore!

Singapore 1-3 Oct 2006



I used to show friends around Oxford when they came visiting but this was the first time I showed my friends around Singapore!

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Took two days of leave to play host to Jens and Eric. Woke up early on Children's Day to fetch Jens from the airport. We met Eric at the hotel; he arrived a short while ago by train. It had been three years since we met!
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Beach holiday with the boys!

Bali, 14-17 Jun 2006



I went to a beach resort with three boys.

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Prologue
A few days before..

Sito: Who is going to bunk with you?
mf: Well, I'm closer to you and Hup. So two of you pls fight to bunk with LY!! :p
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2006 working trips memoir

UK, US and China, 2006

Just wanted to collate my working trips in 2006. Really went to a lot of places that year. Actually I was just helping a sister unit with their outreach efforts. In fact, all my working trips except the 2007 one were for this sister unit. 

This means I still had my own work to do... I remember one night, I was trying to clear some of my own work with boss who was also at the same trip. After a few to and fro emails, he said might as well call and so we did - called the hotel phone. That was 3am *.*

The first trip to London was also when my "flight flu", as I called it, started. Maybe it was too long since I took long trips?

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London, Manchester; 10-15 Mar 2006

This was my first working trip. I was informed to pack and go one week before it happened. My younger self blogged a lot so info on this trip can be found in three posts.

1. The beginning - also struck gold finding this post coz of a random comment from Mother
2. On the plane - yes, need to write :p
3. Finally there! 

I just realised that that was my first and only trip to Manchester (as of 2026) and I didn't see a thing outside of the event haha!

NYC, Boston, Michigan; 31 Mar-6 Apr 2006

Flight flu continued, unabated. So things were a blur. I did my best... Michigan is like Manchester for me :p

1. On arrival
2. All the gory details
3. Homebound

Shanghai; 24-27 Aug 2006

Less rubbish, just one post :p

Ilha Formosa - The Beautiful Isle

Taiwan, 19-28 Nov 2005



The first trip I took with CY and Kel, who didn't know each other beforehand, and no, it was not a matchmaking trip! Hoho!

Click here for my itinerary.

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19 Nov - 你不是日本人吗？

That was the first thing a local said to me when I asked for directions to my hostel - strange cos I thought I looked less Japanese after cutting my hair.. Anyway, that was when I started re-learning the Taiwanese accent; perfected it by the next day. No one can tell I'm foreign unless I stumble upon some phrase I'm used to saying only in English, eg it's 公车 for cab, not 德士 or however you write that, which exposed me as a foreigner!
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The trip with a sacrifice

San Francisco, 11-20 Apr 2005



I might as well just call it my Stanford trip - I went to the city twice. The rest of the time, I was watching Kenshin in YX's room!!

The sacrifice? Sighs, read the second post..

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It's 450pm SF time now. Just back from a late lunch of enchiladas and banana berry smoothie from campus. Took a 40min slow walk to get back to YX's place, could be faster but I hollanded at one point :p

Anyway, this is my third day in Stanford, haven't seen SF city cos I've been lazy!
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Back for the day! Morning we went out to fetch YX's friend Erwin from airport; he's here for some conference in San Jose. We drove straight to Taqueria Cancun in SF city for lunch, satisfying mexican food :) Then we started our adventure from Bay Bridge, after which we made a quick stop at Fisherman's Wharf - I was there on Thurs but Sun was horribly crowded! - before turning to Golden Gate Bridge.
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桜の夢

Japan, 31 Mar-10 Apr 2005



This is the very first time I blogged about my travels in mf-ism :) A couple of my earlier travel logs were on my Frontpage web archive but I don't remember if they were ever published on my now-defunct Geocities webpage!

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Day 1 - 初めて、東京！

I have to start with the flight, which itself was interesting. The big screens with the usual flight info were showing live feed from a camera outside the aircraft. We saw the runway from a totally different angle: the lights were white as the plane cruised along and turned to a whole new set of pink as the plane got ready for take-off. We both saw and felt ourselves soaring into the night skies!

By the time I reached Ryokan Kangetsu, it was already late morning. After a short rest, I set off for Shinjuku from where I would embark on a trip to see an old friend: Kitty-chan!
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Second trip to Malaysia!

Malacca, 27-29 Dec 2004



My first trip to Malaysia was in late 2003 - to JB! Went along with Yan and her friends for shopping and seafood.

For Malacca, I'm not too sure about the dates.. We could have been there for four days.. Anyway, three or four days, it was a bit too long. Or we didn't where to go :p Later trips to Malacca became more and more fun with our cousins who knew where to go!

Blogged a little about this trip, but that was when I just started blogging so there was no pictures. So I'll let the pictures say more now!

Written 10 Apr 2011.

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Spent a long time chatting here.. For some reason, I only took it in B&W!


A building we passed by, with 3D advertisement on the side:


Another building along the way - I like old and new stuff, ok..


But old buildings have a kind of charm that draws me to them - to look, not live in them unless they come with modern sanitation!

Another old building :)


Found a rickshaw!


Also found some scary mannequins in a showcase - I last saw these in shopping malls in Singapore when I was a kid. I think it was somewhere in Katong...


PS: Thankfully, these mannequins were no longer there when I went back to Malacca some years later..

Now, time for some poser shots!

That was a youthful me, still a little chubby from four years in the UK but with perfect skin! Was carrying my bag from Bangkok and my shoes from Oxford days..


卖豆腐！Hoho!


The gaze... But I should have removed the bag!


That was in Malaqa House, btw. I liked it.

Sawatdee kha!

Bangkok 22-25 May 2004


Source: http://wikitravel.org/en/Image:Tuktukpktalad05b.jpg

I don't remember much of this trip but I do have some recommendations:

1. Go for a Thai massage - feel your body move in ways you never think possible!
2. Also go for a Chinese massage, including foot reflexology!
3. Shop your heart out - just be prepared for the heat at Chatuchak
4. Watch a tiger show - we regretted not going...
5. Go for a massage again!

Oh, and if you bargain too hard for the tuktuk, the driver may just decide to drop you some distance away from your destination!! =(

Somehow, I didn't really enjoy my trip - must be the heat. And how tiny the Thai girls are - I couldn't buy any clothes there, sob sob!

Will update if I go to Bangkok again!

Welcome to Cornwall!

Cornwall, 16-20 Sep 2003



We handed in our dissertation on 15 Sep 2003, I think, and the very next day, we set off for our road trip after securing two cars two hours after we were supposed to set off - the guy who promised us a van for all nine of us couldn't be found *.* Luckily we hadn't paid any deposit!

Written based on memory and some scanned photos, 13 Apr 2011. Photos are from my fellow roadtrippers unless otherwise stated.

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Tuesday, 16 Sep

It took us some five hours or more to get to St Ives in Cornwall. Jens was driving the bigger car and Ridhi the smaller one. I was in Ridhi's car following Jens. And suddenly at a roundabout, I saw this thing rolled across the road right in front of us! Somehow it conjured the image of a penguin, perhaps of the dark colour.. But guess what? It was something from one of the wheels of the bigger car!! :p

No other mishaps except for a short distance during which we were a little lost... Back then, it was all maps!

We rented a nice cottage from a middle aged couple. I can no longer remember the name of the cottage but I remember that it took me a while to find cottages that could accommodate all of us! In this one, we had to move beds around, but we settled in well..

Wednesday, 17 Sep

The reason for choosing St Ives was Land's End - top picture.

We went by Marazion on the way back. I have no idea what we were doing there! We were consulting the maps there so perhaps we were lost and somehow found ourselves there? :p


And since we were there, and it was low tide, we walked over to St Michael's Mount where a castle beckoned.

Thursday, 18 Sep

Checking out was fun - by pushing the key through the letter hole in the door! But apparently the bristles along the way caught the key and the couple emailed me to say that they couldn't find the key on the other side of the door hoho!

With all our bags in the cars, we headed off to the Eden Project!


To me, rainforests weren't that big a deal but I suppose for people in the UK, in Europe, it's not something they see every day..

The journey to the second and last cottage in Bodmin was interesting. Somehow, we couldn't get on the right track. At one point, the bigger car had to drive through a really narrow gravel road - we were directed there by a local. Indeed, we got to our cottage!

It was so nice! The lady who owned the placed welcomed us warmly, and brought us around the main cottage and the games room (woohoo!), before leading us to the kitchen where she revealed a covered basket of scones and clotted cream! Heavenly!

But we still wanted dinner and we drove out to the supermarket. On the way back, there was a loud bang from the big car and we had a punctured tyre *.*

Friday - 19 Sep

We went to Tintagel Castle, once claimed to be the birthplace of King Arthur.. Um, complicated.. Anyway, I remember climbing a lot. And it was very windy. But we had an enjoyable afternoon sitting on grass patches here and there, just relaxing..

Someone took a photo of me taking a photo!


At dinner in our Bodmin cottage:


Saturday, 20 Sep

Our little road trip came to an end this day. This was really the beginning of the end of everything actually.. I left Oxford shortly after that, sighs =(