December 31st '08 - January 4th '09 Sydney, Australia

"Happy 2009!"

31st of December 2008, we caught an early morning flight from Gold Coast to Sydney. It was nice of Jerry to pick us up at the airport which gave us a bit more relaxing time at our Ibis Olympic Park hotel before heading out into the city centre later in the evening. Our Olympic Park experience was very good. Novotel ran the Ibis check-in counter, the lobby was very impressive as for any Novotel hotels. The construction that turned the former dump site into an Olympic Park for the 2000 summer Olympic games in Sydney is beautiful. although a bit of a commute via train from the city, the park is filled with beautiful hotels and venues. We didn't have much choice as all the hotels in the city was booked up.

We caught a train into the city later in the evening, grabbed a quick bite at a Korean restaurant, before headed down George Street towards the Rocks, there we squeezed ourselves into the crowd and hung around for the fireworks. The 9pm show was good and the midnight show was grand. Sydney is world known for its fireworks display. It was amazing and I think it could have been a lot more enjoyable at a further distance because our best view was the bridge, rather than all three barges.

On the 1st New Years day, we visited the famous fish market. We think is because of New Years that it wasn't as packed as usual. The three of us enjoyed a seafood lunch by the harbour and took a drive a by the famous Bondi beach.

Our first two nights were at the Ibis Olympic Park, while our last two was at another Ibis in the city on Pitt & Liverpool, right across from the World Square and a stroll away from Queen Victoria Building, Paddy's Market, and Darling Harbour. On the first night in the city we did a lot of walking around the World Square before the four of us headed for a moonlight cinema. On our last night, we simply walked around downtown and too pictures, especially around Darling Harbour and Sydney Harbour. We later on waited till it got dark before heading out again for night shots after a Korean dinner.

December 28th - 31st Gold Coast, Australia

"Crikey"

Gold Coast, Australia is magnificent. Beautiful beaches, weather, and people gives this city a wonderful personality. The blazing sun during the day was something we both had to get use to after being in a humid country for a while. But the difference is clear once we stepped foot into Aussie.

We stayed in between Broadbeach and Surfers Paradise at the Crowne Plaza Surfers Paradise hotel. The hotel itself was great, very spacious room and friendly staff, however, it was a 20min walk to Surfers Paradise. Good thing is that the bus stops are right at our doorstep. We did a bit of walking on our first day and on the second day we went off on a tour to Noosa and the Sunshine coast. We stopped by the Australian Zoo home to the late Steve Erwin. Noosa was beautifully designed, is very much like Denman and Davie on a sandy beach.

We hopped on the bus which took us straight to the Currumbin wildlife sanctuary. There we played with Kangaroos and got a picture with Koala. Queensland is the only state where we get to hold a koala for a photo! Look how worried Blinky is when Susy is holding him.

December 20th Kuala Lumpur

"Around Town"

After spending a few months here, we finally got a chance to head around the city and just do tourists stuff. Although I've been around KL many times, there were still a few main sites I've yet to see. First off was the palace or Istana that we constantly drive by every day. We got a chance to take pictures with the horses. Later on in the day, we ventured off to the KL towers. This was a very difficult place to find, we were able to see the Tower from a distance, it was so close yet so far. In the end we manage to figure out from all the one ways, closed medians, and tough directions. Sinage, streets, and city design isn't quite driver friendly in KL.

After having a late lunch in the KL tower. We took a short drive to the Pavilion shopping mall where we spent the rest of our evening and took some night shots of the streets. The following day we also visited a temple by Bukit Saputeh.

November 22nd - 29th Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

"Wedding Bells"

This was Alvin's special night, as many family went home to take part in his wedding. Family members helped pitch in in getting last minute preparations done down to the T. Overall it was very nice to see a lot of family members whom I've either never met or haven't seen for a long time. It was a very busy and hectic week yet it turned out amazing! My mom flew in just the nick of time to join in the evening dinner making the event much more memorable.

November 8th & 9th Singapore

"Happy Birthdays"

On our birthdays, we took a trip by bus down to Singapore. Although it seems to be "just down the road" to some, it is still a 5 1/2 hr. bus ride. We wanted to do something simple that we both enjoy but can hardly do it in KL. After checking in at our hotel the Clarke Quay Novotel, we strolled along the Singapore river in the evening, walking, talking, and laughing. This one trip celebrated both of our birthdays mine on the 8th and hers on the 9th. This was a short one night weekend trip to a place down the road which we are both quite familiar with.

October 4th - 7th Siem Reap, Cambodia

"Angkor Wat"

Siem Reap is one of the most tourist friendly place I've been to thus far. The city is great for tourists. All the transportation, food, and tuk tuk prices are standardized, taking away the fear of getting ripped off. It didn't matter if we took a shuttle or a taxi from the airport or hotel arranged transportation, it was all the same price. The cool thing about this trip was they used USD, even their exchange rate to their Cambodian Riel was standardized. Don't bother changing your $ for Riel at the airport cause you will get ripped off like I did. Just have a lot of $1 USD.

On the first day we took a trip to see how the locals lived on water. This massive body of water flows over like a massive lake during the months of September to February. A lot of the locals will move with the water levels. The little bushes sticking out from the top of the water are actually trees. As the water level retreats, the locals will move their floating houses, schools, farms, etc. out to where they water takes them. The massive rise in water levels also explains why there are a lot of yellow fresh dirt on the roads, as most of the roads are submerge under water for a good few months of the year. We got a chance to visit school students and surprisingly a lot of places are Korean sponsored.

Angkor Wat is the major attraction in Siem Reap. We got to visit other historical temples around well Angkor Thom. Angkor Thom is the larger of the two complex. Angkor Thom has a number of temples on its site, while Angkor Wat is the largest single temple in the world to date. I got a chance to climb a few of these small steps, getting to the top was exhausting enough, until I realize I still had to come down.

The most enjoyable part of the city was definitely the food. It is very cheap considering this is one of the most visited place on the planet. $1 or $2 can already get u dinner of course if u want to go gourmet a la carte, then $22 will do including drinks :) and I'm talking about some serious BBQ, FYI Kangaroo tasted the best. Pub street is the place to visit. It is packed with local tourist police and fenced off at night making pedestrian traffic only.

September 13th - 16th Medan, Indonesia

"Dangerously Safe"

Medan is the third largest city in Indonesia, and close to one of the epoch volcanic site of all time Brastagi, home to volcanoes Sinabung and Sibayak. Locals are mostly of Bataknese ethnicity. We arrived from KL early in the morning before taking a drive up to Brastagi where we spent our first night. This was a beautiful tourist attraction, however, the road to get here is another story. Two way traffic single lanes, with trucks taking up most of the lanes coming directly at you and did I forget to mention there are no street lights. And Vancouverites complain about the Sea to Sky highway was bad.

This is my second visit to Indonesia and I guess after travelling around to places like Thailand and Bali, I was a bit more prepared than most people going to Medan for the first time. Susy did give me a heads up, and when I got there, the physical environment didn't bother me as much. Horrible traffic, serious pollution, unfriendly people, disastrous road conditions, and a whole new set of laws. I will write more about my thoughts on Indonesia in my other blog "Ideas and thoughts" which you can access from my dashboard.

Although the city was horribly congested, I must admit that the cars don't really move all that fast. The traffic might look dangerous, but with the cars moving so slow, u can't get into a fatal car accident. No need to worry about thieves car jacking you or stealing things out of the trunk of your car. There aren't enough room to open the car door for carjackers to make their move! I couldn't take a video of the traffic or any pictures, because I can't stick my hand out of the window without hitting someone.

One thing I did noticed when we went for dinner is that every car in the parking lot was an SUV. Almost all of the people there drive SUVs due to the road horrible conditions. Majority of these vehicles are also owned by the Chinese minority. Rarely any Chinese rode scooters. A lot of the locals had their entire family of 5 on a scooter. Watching them maneuver through traffic with so many passengers was quite exciting.

August 28th - September 2nd Krabi, Thailand

"Phi Phi Don & Phi Phi Lay"

Krabi, one of the newer featured beach attractions of Thailand. This is certainly one of the more beautiful places to visit. This region was one of the many devastated by the Tsunami which struck on December 26th, 2004.

We stayed at the Krabi Resort in Ao Nang. Footsteps away from an outdoor food court and the shopping strip, which every little outlet sold very similar products. Our hotel was OK, definitely wasn't 4 star as it was claimed to be. It is relatively quite, but the tap water was very salty and our sheets felt icky. In fact the price didn't justify the room if u compare it internationally but is one of the cheaper ones we found. Other hotels in other regions goes as high as $1200 USD a night.

Island hopping is must do when visiting either Krabi or Phuket. These two cities offers similar tours from different directions. We had a chance to hop our way to Phi Phi Don & Phi Phi Lay, where the featured film The Beach was filmed, and also James Bond Island as the locals called it after the movie 007 Man with the Golden Gun was filmed there. The beaches are amazing as we got close with a lot of monkeys, fishes, and of course ate a lot of coconuts. Our tours also included a short stop at the floating market where we took a short break and had lunch. The coolest part of my experience was when we're on the boat coasting to the islands with the same couple from the day before, turns out they are from Montreal. It is quite an experience talking about hockey in Thailand, while island hopping.

The entire experience in Krabi overall was alright. It didn't live up to the hype for us, because it was too westernized. Everyone spoke very good English and the local delights were toned down for the visitors' taste. This was a much different Thai experience than the one I got in Bangkok. In Bangkok very few vendors spoke English, and the environment is just different.

On the exciting note was when we got held back for two days because our original flight on the 31st was cancelled due to the protest in Bangkok. Protesters in the southern region showed support by shutting down airports in Phuket, Hat Yai, and Krabi. This forced us to stay a few extra nights, which was fine for me, but Susy had to go back to work. We were scrambling to find a way out, and we even purchased bus tickets to Bangkok, hopping to catch a flight out of Thailand and somehow connect back to KL. Luckily we didn't have to endure that 12 hr bus ride, because after a day the airports reopened with military presence. We were able to book a flight back to KL directly from Krabi, forfeiting our bus ticket to Bangkok. I guess these are the things you can't budget for when going on trips.