escapades of the elusive kat

The day did not start early, the day started normal. Walked Frankie, double checked my bags, and I went on to the airport. Had breakfast at the airport, and OMG this is the first time I had the Cinnamon Danish from Starbucks and it is DELICIOUS! IKEA Cinnamon Rolls have the stand aside, LOL. Because it's a Danish, it's flakey with a slight crisp. I LOVE IT!

Flight got delayed for around an hour. The food served wasn't bad. I was impressed.

Pilot managed to make good time and landed Singapore only 30 minutes later than the original arrival. Got myself a Grab ride, and got to the hotel this time. I'm staying in Chinatown, and for the price, I was expecting some sort of run down place, but honestly, I do not dislike this hotel and this set up.

You can make the bathroom walls turn cloudy then you can't look through. Everything's in the room, and it's larger than what I'm used to. Also, despite having only a shower, this is the FIRST hotel that the shower stall does not seep water out to the toilet area.

So today was release day of the Hobonichi Techo, but the Hobonichi gang broke the internet LOL. I wasn't able to place my order in the morning. So in Singapore, I decided to head off to a shop that sold Hobonichi. Found a shop, and got the stuff together, then made some calculations and... even with the shipping cost from Japan, buying online was cheaper than buying in Singapore. Later in the evening I go online again and the Hobonichi website is working again. So I placed my order.

Got hit by a sudden pang of hunger. I should have done better research but obviously I didn't haha. So I just went to a random restaurant. In hindsight, I should have gone for some Ba-Ku-Teh.

The area around the hotel I'm staying at, in Chinatown.

The Chinatown night market.

At the end of the street there was this... Temple? Mosque? I think there was a wedding going on?

There was a lot of chanting and singing.

Then I walked past this dessert place so... dessert sweet soup it is! This is a mix of a Sesame soup and Walnut soup (more like Sesame and Walnut paste). It was good. Thick and yummy!

This must still be Chinatown.

Yes, still Chinatown. I had a SGD $1 ice cream.

I decided I wanted to sort out the souvenirs tonight already, so off I went over to Bugis (which was in the direction of Funan, my first stop earlier, so I could have saved a trip, honestly)

I took the bus there, so then decided I'd walk back. It's just over 2km. It's walkable. But. I walk by weird stuff. Such as this church lighted up in red, wtf (it looks like a Chinese honor table)

This one was across the street so I couldn't go in to see (well I could if I went to the end of the street to cross over, but I was lazy).

The Chinese chamber of commerce or something like that, I think.

And then this Armenian church that's gone all disco. Yes, those lights are flashing!

Getting near, Clark Quay, and this is where I'm a little more familiar with.

Back in Chinatown.

Nice quote in the corridor of the hotel.

So my Pikachu luggage tag got messed up (the raised slid that holds the address paper has come off) so I saw a souvenir shop below with another Pikachu, so I got it. NOW I notice there's actually a defect. Pikachu's ears have black tips! This one's missing them!

There, it wouldn't hold the tag. I guess I could super glue it, but oh well.

 

Aaaaand! Here I am, back from my business trip to Seoul. This time the flights were more pleasant. For economy class, it was nice.
Obviously I can't show anything work-related, but yeah, here's a rough run-down of the trip.

It was a 9am flight so I had to leave home around 6ish (company car, thanks). Once landed in Seoul, I had booked a full-day car for the team, so we had a quick trip to our first stop and meeting. After meeting, it was time for dinner!

Korean BBQ!

Since our hotel was in Myeongdong area, we went for a gander around the Myeongdong Night Market. I sort of had some memory of it, but then also I don't really remember it from my last trip.

Cute sketch-portrait shops and pet stores!

Actually what happened was, we had dinner as a team and walked around Myeongdong together. Then we all went back to the hotel. I had a short rest (10 minutes?) and then I went right back out because we were all too polite to actually do anything in the night market, LOL

And so, I did a more thorough walk-around.

Seared Marshmallow ice cream? Check.

There were a few of this HBAF or peanut/almond snack shop.

There's this weird Line Friends Square thing, but you had to register for the "queue" and then wait for your turn.

Anyway, short walk over then I went back to hotel to sleep.

Next morning, I started with a nice run!

This day's assignment was to look at a few office units for rental.

All in all, we visited 6 units. We have units that we like, and units that we don't like. Didn't have a proper lunch but we did stop for coffee two times, and we had a short break around lunch hour and took a quick look at the DDP. NOT recommended on a hot summer's day.

There were some interesting AI stuff in the DDP as well. A photo-booth thing where you stand in front and then it'll give you suggestions on what clothes to buy.

The second coffee/snack stop we made was in Gangnam area, Nudake. Very cute croissants (croissants?) shaped like an onigiri or some other such thing. Even the sofa had croissent legs!

The croissants were actually pretty good.

We wanted to go to the Starfield Library, but it was getting late and the team wanted their own "me" time, so we decided to head off to the Hyundai Seoul, the newest shopping mall, and disperse there. I did a quick walk around to see what it's like.

Then I made my way by the subway to... the Starfield Library. The photos on the web made it look huge, but when I was there it was just pretty... small.

After this, I braved the bus network. Which, I would like to recommend an app, called Moovit. It tells you the transportation directions (like bus, train, subway, etc). Since it was just too much sun during lunch, I made my way back to the DDP. The streets surrounding the DDP turned into a night market when I went there, full of stalls. So I did the requisite gander around too.

Eventually made my way to this secret bar, Jean Frigo. It must be some French brand as the menu was showing the price in Euros as well. The facade just looks like a fake vegetable or fruit shop, but if you brave it and open one of the freezer doors, you get into the bar.

It's mainly fruit juice based cocktail. But I wanted the cinammon apple punch and it was exactly that that was sold out.

I had planned to eat at the bar but their dishes looked a bit heavy (everything was attractively cheese, cheese, and cheese) so I decided to skip it. Went back again to Myeongdong and had a croissant Taiyaki for dinner.

Next day, after my morning run, and going into my Boss' room to wake him up and send him off, I went out for more walk around. I wanted to go to the cathedral, but I missed a road and instead walked around the block.

Might as well look what's around.

This "Maldong" place is soooooo weird. I will come back later as this was open (8:00am) but it was empty and products not ready yet.

Went back to the hotel to send off my remaining 2 colleagues (I decided to stay an extra day), and after that, went for lunch. FINALLY! My favorite pork knuckle restaurant in Seoul! Myth Jokbal! But, I was one lonely person so I was only allowed to order from the set meal menu... so there were a bunch of other kimchi appetiser items that I don't eat.

I decided to go to the National Palace Museum of Seoul, they had some interesting exhibits. Pity I was like 3 days too early as they had an interesting Notre Dame exhibit going on show 2-July.

Really interesting stuff.

Then to the Gyeongbokgung. I wasn't sure at first but mid-way I realized I was here before already.

These kids were either part of a youth tour group or something, anyway, they were doing free guided tours. It was interesting to see their command of the English Language, they had pretty good pronunciation (American) when they were reciting the spiel, but when they had to speak freely, they couldn't. At the end of the tour they wanted me to say something about the tour so I just said it was nice to have brief guide and intro to different parts of the palace.

Random palace pictures.

On the way back I finally managed to find the Cathedral entrance and went in there. I wanted to go light a candle for my Uncle as I missed his wake and funeral, but I guess candle lighting isn't a thing in Korea? They didn't even have a candle rack.

I went back to that weird pink Maldong place for a donut.

The peanut store, I got a bunch of nuts to bring home. Oh yeah I also stopped at a Olive Young for a bunch of facial face masks.

I did walk over a few more places such as the Lotte Department Store but I didn't really have much to buy in those luxury chains where we had a store back home as well, so, not much shopping on that front.

It then started to rain, and rained through the following day, so I just spent the morning having a nice breakfast and then hiding indoors until it was time to take the bus to the airport again.

So with Day 3, I'm starting to look to returning back home already. Short holidays are so exciting before it starts but then you get sad very soon too haha.

The day starting with me making my way to Fu Hang Soy Milk 阜杭豆漿 for breakfast, but then when I saw the queue go around the block, I decided to cut my losses and crossed to the opposite Starbucks. After a short status update on Facebook, my friends tell me the queue goes very fast, so I still have a chance tomorrow to check that out.


Wearing my new glasses already!


I again braved the public bus system. It got me to thinking why I'm always so averse to taking public busses when on holiday. I guess the way my mind somehow sees it is, with a train or tram, there are tracks, so the train will only go along that route. Whereas a bus, the driver can drive the bus anywhere.


My first stop of the day was Museum of World Religions. When I was searching for something different to do, this came up, and I thoroughly enjoyed the visit. Well, very first impressions of the exhibits, I thought it was just a very "surface job" of putting some basic information off of Wiki and then putting together a collection of artifacts of that religion as display. But. That was because those were the 2 religions I knew a bit more of, Christianity and Judaism, and a bit of Ancient Egypt. But then for the other religions that I didn't know anything about, it got more informative, and I even learnt some new tidbits.


Some nifty installations too


They did a floor diagram thing.


So on Buddhaism, it said that "reincarnation" is like just a passage of life. The true target of Buddhaism is not reincarnate. It sounded funny to me because in many Cantonese way of expression, "reincarnate as something better" is the "game". So. It sort of made me think. To want to reincarnate as something better means you still have a want. To be able to achieve "not to reincarnate" would mean you are happy enough with life and there is nothing more for you to chase after.


One of the weird parts was the Mayan religion. Why are there crosses and Mary? There was no explanation on the information card there. So I'm stumped. Best guess is they were putting together how the Mayan religion survived to the current day, so it's somewhat incorporated some other religions into it?


Another part of the exhibitions that I thought was pretty good effort was putting together artifacts of different stages of life in the different religions. So when it's a new-born, there's a set of clothes or things the religions do, growing up, adulthood, marriage, sickness, death. The only weird thing was for marriage they only had an Indian dress (sarong?)


Some nice patterns.


Another part of the museum was some exhibit of oceans and nature and stuff. Here there are some swings. The waves are moving images, and there's this constant sound of waves being played.


I did sit on a swing and let it slowly sway and I'd say it was pretty cool.


I am part of the ocean. But the cool thing here is that the lights have a sequence of dimming/turning stronger and looking at the infinity mirror made it look like moving waves too!


The last part is like those Japanese temples "wishing trees". Write whatever and then stick on these paper rocks.


I braved the bus system again, but it was packed full. So I deviated from the suggested route, and got off the bus when it stopped at some underground station, and I changed my mode of transport. This Japanese place is well known for the thick cut sashimi. It wasn't bad, but I think I prefer a thin cut sashimi. Moreover, I dropped my power bank here and when I tried to get off my seat to pick it up (the staff did see but did not help me) and because of the legs of the chairs are weird (they're curved outwards or something) so I actually tripped and hit my left shoulder on a pillar. I seem to be OK now but I suspect tomorrow I'll be sore.


Oh, the next place is super recommended! Miniatures Museum of Taiwan. I'll admit the very first part of the exhibits was a bit creepy (dolls, creepy looking dolls), but once it got to the models and miniature replica of stuff, it was an amazing visit!


Admit, these are pretty creepy.


But then these others are amazing!


Christine (Phantom of the Opera) and Dinosaur Wonderland hahaha


Some random bookshop that was all frenchi-frenchie


My favorite tea-house in Taiwan: smith&hsu. There used to be so many branches, now there's just this one. I tried a seasonal scone - Cinnamon flavored and it was pretty good.


I paced myself for a bit. I did one last shopping and then returned to the hotel for a bit of a rest, then later at night I went to Liaoning Night Market, and immediately regretted it. Because.


The PEOPLE! It was impossible to walk through. First I got a sweet potato balls snack thing. Was good but not worth it to be open-aired sardines. Then in some stall or another, I saw there was a queue, so it must be good, so I queued for the scallion pancake. I requested the extra option of salted egg sauce. I didn't feel like standing around these people to eat, so I made my way back (after diligently walking down and back up the row of stalls. Yes. The Night Market Experience. Done). Passed by a juice shop and got a cup of watermelon juice.


I returned to my hostel, but since these scallion pancakes are usually very oily, and the added salty egg sauce must be double so, i did not want to eat in my room, so I went to the common room to eat it and type this up... when... when... whennnnnnnn..... THE BEST SURPRISE HAPPENED!

PUPPIES!!!!!!!!! The real Bosses of the place, I suppose LOL. Four Jack Russels and one Shiba Inu. The Shiba Inu, as Shibas go, was aloof. Oh but the Jacks were friendly. I couldn't help myself. I saw abandoned my unlocked iPad and phone and went to sit on the ground and frolicked with the Jacks LOL. I am so happy I went to the horrible night market. If not, I'd just stay holed in my room and not meet these beauties!

Taipei, Taipei! Hello from Taipei!

I still went to work this morning, but left the office at 3pm-ish (how dare I LOL) so that I could get to the airport in time for my 5.30pm flight. So it happened that I got to see the sunset. The Check-In lady needed a bit more training. She looked at my passport left and right and then asked me, "what nationality is this?" And I had to say "Austria. The one in Europe. No kangaroos." She got the joke, but she couldn't read the German on the cover "Republik Osterreich". My dear, on the first page inside, the country is named in different languages.


I got myself a window seat because I figured I'm traveling alone and this way I don't have to give way to anyone. However, I would come to regret a little, not for the window seat, but for my actual neighbour.

We flew over the HZM Bridge, and there's a part of it that's actually underwater (in a tunnel of course), and I got to get a shot of it.


Flight was just 1 hour 20 minutes. When we landed, my immediate neighbour (seats of 3 and 3) was all latisses-faire and did not move. She wanted to let everyone out before she moved. Heck! I got myself a very front seat so that I could leave first! So I made to climb over her, and only then she said "okay, okay," and moved out. She had to take her large bag from the overhead.


Ah, I did the Tourist TWD 5000 lucky draw thing and... NADA! No luck! I'm unhappy, LOL. The reason I wanted to come to Taipei was to have a go at that and get the 5000 (I'm speaking as if winning the TWD5000 is a given LOL). No free money, so I can only move on and take the MRT train to Taipei Main Station. Soon I got to my hostel. I'm pretty happy with my choice this time. It's a hostel, but I chose a private room. Toilet and shower included. Although there is no separation of the shower and the toilet, I'm not here to luxuriate in baths and showers. It gets the job done. The bed is upstairs and the downstairs bed-like place will be my bag dumping ground haha.


If my Mom sees this she's gonna hate it. She hates these "unproper" bathrooms (no dedicated shower area) and all these stairs. But hey, hotels are unimaginably expensive in Taipei, I simply needed a roof over my head and a place to put my bags. I'll live.


Since it was already 9pm-ish by the time I got to downtown, I first went to get a late night dinner at Shida Night Market. But is it because it's a Thursday night? It's... empty..... at least, my "usual dinner place" here was still open. 大台北 "Taipei Soy Sauce Braised Food" was still open. The staff have changed, and it was a bit funny. I remember before they used to call foreign strangers like "missy" or "mister". (In some other places like Bangkok I've heard a direct "lady"). But I guess they've changed somewhat. Now the catch phrase is "My Friend!" And for some reason I kind of got the feeling that I was in India.... LOL.


Basically you choose whatever ingredient you want and they will cook it in their special soup base. I was eating solo so I had to control what I got. One of my Taiwan favorites is this "Pork Blood Cake " 豬血糕. Maybe it's really pork blood, and mixed with some glutinous rice flour to make a cake sort of thing.


After this very satisfying dinner, I made my leisurely way back to the hostel. Stopped at a cosmetics shop and bought some beauty face masks for these 3 nights, and then near the hostel to the convenience store and bought my milk for tomorrow.

The plan tomorrow is to get some local breakfast, then go up to Dansui (Tamsui)... I'll probably stop at Beitou on the way for a walk around and look-see of the Hot Springs, then at Dansui I'm going to brave it and take a bus to some temple deep in the... non-city area. Wuji Tianyuan Temple.

That's the plan, but we'll see.

 Budget airline woes, LOL.

Online check in was live for my flight tomorrow to Tokyo. It's a budget airline so I didn't pre-buy a specific seat. But I thought it would be like other airlines, that upon online check in, I can choose specific "free area" seats, and that since I bought 2 tickets together, that even if it's auto-seating we would be seated together.

Noooooppppeeee. We were separated, and we each were assigned to a window seat. I got miffed, so decided to pay for the seat. And since I'm paying for a seat, I'm not going to pay for any normal seat. I paid for the up front "sweet seats". I chose row 3. We each on the aisle seat next to each other. Seems like nobody chose those seats. Goooood. Row 3 was a strategy as well. The likelihood of Chinese or Japanese choosing Row 4 seats is lower. (Four sounds like death LOL). So chance of being kicked behind is lower. Since it's a redeye flight, I plan to sleep all the way.

The exit row seats were available to choose, but I figured, exit row seats are bestowed upon, not paid for, and besides, I was upgraded to an exit row seat once. Yes, excellent leg room. But I also did not want to part with my handbag, which, there was no seat in front of me to put my bag underneath it, so had to part with it and it went up to the compartment. I did not like it.

I'm counting on my friend who promised she would take care of the cash, since she has a Japanese Yen account. I took all my leftover JPYs and my Boss had some coins lying around on his desk for 3 years, so I took them. (I told him I was taking them. He was fine. It was less than JPY 2000 anyway). Besides, even if cash is king in Japan, I can still use my credit card in the city, and my Suica should have some cash in it too (unless it goes out of order).

I was going to take my old point-and-shoot Canon, but then as I was looking for something else, I found my "newer than the point-and-shoot, older-than-my-out-of-order-panasonic" Canon DSLR, so decided I would be taking that. The default zoom lens that came with the camera when I bought it is dead (auto focus went wonky), though I do have a spare prime lens (50mm or 55mm, I forgot)... but I think I may go buy a new basic zoom lens in Japan (just a regular 18-55mm). The camera body (EOS 1000D) is also old and parts of the soft plasticy parts (the USB slot cover) is crumbling... argh should I buy a brand new camera then? Again, abstain!

And that's that! I'll miss the puppies probably by the second morning, find out I packed clothes that are too warm (the temperatures look cold, but I don't know). Which. I guess I better go pack now. 

Right. The Wuhan Pneumonia Scare. The Coronavirus. Whheee!

Not really as scary as the media has made it to be, at least, in my circles. It’s caused a bit of inconvenience in that face masks and hand sanitizers are like gold currently, prices are skyrocketing.

I always had a stash of face masks anyway so it’s fine. I don’t use hand sanitizers. I prefer to outright wash my hands.

And I was gutsy enough to travel out to Hong Kong yesterday as well! My good friends C and P have our annual “Third-day of Chinese New Year Lunch” (Chinese custom: don’t visit people on the third day of CNY as you’re going to argue 赤口) in Disneyland this time. I thought it was simply because of the character dim sum, and C thought it was because it’s “the year of the Rat” (so, Mickey Mouse), and well, P says it was simply to eat.

No surprises though, the food sucked LOL (as one would imagine these cutesy foods would taste). Though they didn’t even actually looked nice... *shrugs*



The park (Disneyland) was actually closed yesterday! We simply just went there for lunch. Shopped a bit at the gift shop (got a nifty knit cardigan-poncho thing for half price!) Then, back to Macau. Immigration was clunky with the extra health check point. But otherwise it wasn’t too bad.

Can’t believe I actually went to HK Disney twice this month. Took mom (and her friend) there last week to have a walk around and this time for lunch.

Actually, I’m on a short getaway again. And once again, it’s Taipei. With a friend. I have only a few friends, so I don’t really have much choice when it comes to travel buddies. And no, I’m not complaining. I dare not complain about it. I came in with my eyes wide open.

It’s just that every time I go on a trip with this particular friend, I inevitable need another solo trip to calm me down. I think I have a slight OCD problem.

I don’t mind changing plans. If we decided to go to the beach, but then on-day find out it’s raining or way too hot, I’m ok with changing the plan.

What I’m not ok with is, we made plans to go to the beach. It involves making a long complicated trip. We have embarked on said complicated trip. And then out on a whim, a change of mind. “Let’s go there instead.” No. No. And noooooo. It’s not even on the way or anywhere nearby the beach. My brain can’t process that. She’s talking because she can’t stand the quiet, but it’s only quiet because of herself. I try to make conversation but then she’s playing a game on her phone or reading some online novel. Well, so what do I do? It’s childish, but I do the same - when she’s done and wanting to talk again. Petty yes, rewarding too, if I’m feeling vindictive enough.

Well, we didn’t really go to any beach. I’m just putting it in a less complicated way for easy understanding.

And all that mumbling. If you have something to say, say it! Open your mouth! Don’t talk with your mouth closed!

And the half arsed research. We went to some city outskirts place. After arriving, I found out my friend had no idea what to do and where to go. Then she just whips out her phone and says “we can walk 50 meters from here to the bus stop and take the bus to tutututu!”

The tutututu above is not et cetera. It’s really what she said. Meaning she said nothing. 50 meters which direction go which bus stop? Take the bus take what bus? With destination of where? Nothing.

But calm down, kat, you knew this was going to happen, when she said she would plan it all, so calm down.

Annoyed, I whipped out my phone and map and decided to go to one park. We started walking. Entry to the park involved a long long flight of stairs. She got spooked and wanted to scale around the block to see if there is a non-stairs way up there. We walked a good hour to reach a temple up there. When all was done and looked, she started up and said “let’s go to this place, but I need to ask how to get there.” Ok, I can work with that, because that is a clear, concise endpoint. So we make our way back, but I went down the stairs that she refused to go up. In less than 5 minutes we were down. Yes. Almost an hour going up and less than 5 minutes going down. All because of stairs.

Anyway, we made our way to that one place she wanted to go, so working on that, I worked out a simple itinerary of seeing that place then stopping at a market place for lunch that’s on the way. She agreed. Then she went and bought hotdog snacks. Giving me one. Sorry. I refused. Yes I know she’s being nice. But I’m going to have lunch right after, and everyone knows I don’t snack before a main meal. Besides, she didn’t ask if I wanted one before she ordered. So no. I refused it. Sorry for my lack of tact.

All these silly human interactions aside, it’s been great. I’ve had some really great food, and even got to see a couple of cool temples, and of course it being Taipei, night markets and really good food!

I need to find a mall or something to hide now as there is now a slight drizzle. Need to kill time around 5-ish then we have to make our way back to the hotel then the airport.

I sneaked out of the office today to go to the bank to pick up my Yen notes that I reserved. On my way there, an either Indian (?) or Pakistani (?) (I'm thinking more Indian) guy called "Ma'am! Ma'am! do you speak English?"

I thought he was a tourist and was lost and needed help. So I just went ahead and "yeah, how can I help you?"

And he goes, "Ma'am, you have a lucky face. You are going to be so lucky next month. You have such a lucky face. In fact, you are going to have 3 lucky incidents next month....."

My mind was racing and going 140 miles per second and I was filling the rest of his speech in my head. "If you want to know what this good luck is then you have to pay me xxxx" or something along those lines.

Then, in that one nano-second after that thought raced through my mind, I got mad. So mad! I just waved my arm and said "oh don't waste my time!" and turned around and walked off.

The nerve!

Anyway!

Tokyo!

I'm a long-time fan of a Japanese singer. At one point in time, I braved the language barriers and somehow actually managed to join her fanclub, and she even wrote me a letter. I still like her, though my passion has dwindled off. I managed to get to Taipei to see her second "world tour" as well. For her first "world tour", I actually missed it as I didn't know about it, despite her having a stop in Hong Kong (on the same day as the Kelly Clarkson concert in Macau, which I had bought tickets for early on) (though if I had known of the Japanese singer's concert in Hong Kong, I would have ditched Kelly Clarkson for her).

Anyway, said singer is going to hold a live this year (21-Oct) and the word going around is that this is her last solo live and she's going to focus solely on her group project (JAM Project).

On a Facebook fan group one of the fans there said he was going to get tickets through an intermediary buyer. Due to some previous conversation exchange, he agreed to help me get a ticket as well. However, after the tickets were successfully bought (I hear you had to win a lottery to be able to buy them, or something), the guy stopped contacting. I didn't even pay him yet. I'm not pushing to pay him, but after he said the tickets were bought, I did go and arrange my flight tickets and hotel. LOL.

I tried to get him to talk like "so how do you want me to pay you? how much? (due to the intermediary buyer costs as well)

Well, if in the end the guy pulls a no-show on me that's fine. It's Tokyo. I'm bound to be able to find some other entertainment. It'll be a pity to miss her last solo live concert, but I'll live. And if the guy does show up with the ticket, then I'll pay him and we'll go see the concert. I'm cool either way.

My flight tickets were redeemed from my flight miles (so I only paid like some USD$40 for tax only) and since I'm travelling alone I'm staying at a hostel in a female only dorm. I'm going to hunt for nice stationary, and I know there is a fountain pen and ink shop that lets you mix your own ink color!

It's gonna be fun! I need to survive these 2 weeks first!

Hello!

After some 24+ hours of traveling, I’m in Porto!

Had a +/-12-hour flight from Hong Kong to Amsterdam, and after 2-hours, a second 2-hour flight from Amsterdam to Porto. The coolest thing was, there is a check in service in Macau that we can check in our bags from Macau, and then not care a thing about them and then see them in Porto. The attendant said it’s a service only available with Air France and KLM.

Flight itself was ok. Pleasant. Couldn’t sleep much on the plane. The movies were a letdown though. Before the flight, I checked the movie catalogue and there was quite a few movies I wanted to watch, but in the end, in-flight, I found only 1.

It’s a Japanese movie called “Color me true” (今夜、ロマンス劇場で). It wasn’t what I expected to be, but still good. I thought it would be a gag style comedy but it was actually touching.

Anyway, in this hotel, I just slept a couple hours and now am sitting in the toilet. Despite the doctor cleared me to fly, I’m actually still not 100% well. I guess because if the flight (air pressure change and all that), and my intestines being super sensitive and irritable lately, I’ve now got quite a gassy tummy. Doctors say it’s all fine (yes, I went to 2 doctors) so I guess I just have to deal with it.

Friends are still snoozing, they can sleep! Well, I’m gonna wake them up a little after 7am as they requested.

Até a próxima!