Vietnam - Ha Long Bay

I realised I've not finished posting on my trip to Vietnam with my parents.. so let's continue from where I last stopped eheh :D

Second day in Vietnam, we went to Ha Long Bay. Apparently it has just recently been named one of the ' Seven Natural Wonders of the World' :D

It's quite pretty isnt it? :D

Unfortunately, we went during low tide.. so the water was really mirky :S One of my uncles went there during high tide and they swam in the water :D Hmmm.. wish I was there during high tide :D

On our trip around Ha Long, we were taken to a fishing village.. It was super small and they were rearing fish hoping for tourists like us to buy some.

After the fishing village we had our lunch which was pretty simple.. it consisted of fried fish, chips, stir fry vegetables, tofu, rice and fruit :D Pretty simple... Mum and dad weren't impressed LOOOL!!! They wanted better quality seafood since we were at sea LOOL! 

After lunch, we were taken to another village where we could kayak or be rowed on a 'bamboo boat' by the locals.. Of course we had to pay a certain amount for that :D.. but it wasn't bad! It was only 100,000 dong/person which was approximately AUD 5. On our boat we had lunch with a Thai and Japanese.. I think they were co-workers from Bangkok. Anyway, they joined us on our 'bamboo boat' ride :D TEEHEE. 

Seeing, the skinny as rowers steering a full boat of 5 people.. I thought I could give it a try.. ahaha!!  yeah right... At least I managed to move the boat :D.. but it was moving backwards instead ehehe

After my turn, dad wanted to give a try.. ehehe he wasn't successful :D

Our little vessel :D ehehe, at certain points of the 'bamboo boat' tour, we could not go into caves because we were too heavy and the tide was pretty low.

After the kayaking and bamboo boat ride... We went to our last stop on the Ha Long bay tour.. we were taken to a large cave.. I think it's called the 'Heaven Palace Cave'. Legend tells that a long time ago during war, a family of dragons were sent down to Vietnam from Heaven to aid the Vietnamese people. After ending the war in victory, the family of dragons chose to stay in Vietnam because the land was beautiful :D So, it was said that this family of dragons chose to reside in this cave in Ha Long Bay :D ahaha how cool's the legend?? lol... Vietnam seem to have a lot of legends regarding certain animals. Pretty interesting! :D

If you look at the rock formations of the cave in the above picture.. you can see a family of elephants :D

this apparently, is the 'window to heaven' AHAHAH! Just cos there's an opening in the ceiling of the cave :D

A photo in the cave :D The tour guide stuck her finger in the left hand corner.. but whateves :D

After this stop at the cave, we headed back onto our boat and took our bus back to Hanoi. The ride was very tiresome.. it took us 4 hours to get back -.-" sigh... I guess it can be said that the one day tour to Ha Long Bay was very tiring... we leave at 8:30am and return at 8:30pm. If I was to visit Ha Long Bay again, I would take the over night tour of Ha Long Bay :D The trip would be less rushed and there would be more to see :D Also, according to some guests at the hotel, the staff on the over night tour would treat you like royalty :D TEEHEE that would have been fun :D

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

IT'S A NEW YEAR!!! 

This new year is quite different to my other new years... lol.. that's cos I've not thought of my 'new year resolutions' yet.. :S

looks like I gotta get into it :D

anyway.. HAPPY NEW YEAR!






ps: TEEHEE :D this post was posted on the 1/1/12  at 1:01pm :D i'm happy 

We are in VIETNAM!

Today was such a hectic day. We woke up at 3am in KL, to leave at 4am to the airport to catch a 6:15am flight to Hanoi, Vietnam. The flight was pretty good, we were travelling via Air Asia, there were a lot of Vietnamese people heading home. Pretty cool :D

So, we arrived I-don't-know-what-time in the morning and was picked up by a hotel staff and taken to the hotel, which was around 50 minutes away from the airport. First thing we noticed about Vietnam was that the drivers sit on the right hand side of the road!!! like USA.  ZOMG, it was really interesting ahahah! And also, Vietnam seemed like a mixture of Thailand and China. Pretty cool :D

Driver sitting on the left-hand side of the car.

TEEHEE, my camera sucks, but if you noticed there are pigs having a smoggy ride on a bike :D

The houses we passed were really different to the ones in Malaysia and Australia. They were 3-6 storey buildings that were very slim and long, as in long moving towards the back. There were some really really pretty ones and some that were quite ancient.

They are so coool!! I think imma like Vietnam ;D

So, after checking in to our hotel, which was only 45USD/night --> Fairly cheap. We had a 2 hour nap and headed out for lunch.. so it would have been around.. 12-1pm. We walked around the corner and found this Vietnamese shop with some locals. lol! They served grilled vietnamese meat, Viet vermicelli, soup and salad. IT WAS AMAZE! lol, but we were cheated -.-" we paid 110,000 dong which was around 5 USD  and if we convert it to Malaysian ringgit, it would be RM15!!! HMMM.. we don't know if we got cheated just cos we CLEARLY looked like tourists. However, after asking the staff at the hotel, they say 1 meal would cost around 35,000 dong, which is approximately what we paid per person :D.. so I guess it was good :D

After lunch, we walked around the streets and Hoan Kiem Lake which was located only a 1 minute walk away from the hotel.

We had no idea what this was, but we did the touristy thing and took a picture with it :D

The roads were filled with traffic, so crossing the road was such a challenge. We read an 'introduction' book prepared by the hotel staff and one of the 'tips' given was when crossing the road, we should stand behind the locals and cross with them in a group while holding hands. lol! So, the man below in the next picture was our 'guide' while crossing the road in the above picture EHEHHE Thank You God for him :D

This was at the entrance of some building that was part of the lake. I found 1000 dong :D YAYERH! free $$$

My parents :D

Hoan Kiem Lake, Hanoi Old Quater.

Along the lake we saw TONNNES of couples taking wedding photos. Okay, not exaggerating.. I think we saw about a minimum of 10 couples taking photos.

This was one of the couples :D

we kept on walking and we kept on running into things to eat :D

Here are some pictures.

Pomelo for 10,000 dong, 0.50 USD

Viet cold desert  for 15,000 dong, less than 1 USD. If i'm not mistaken.. the white liquid stuff is a mixture of yoghurt and coconut milk. IT WAS SUPER YUM! Mum ordered another bowl :D TEEHEE

Us eating amongst the locals and a couple of tourists.

At a cafe next to the lake.

Dad and his pineapple turnover. Man, Vietnamese pastry is so yum!

Parents discussing our itinerary for the week :)

One of the busy streets.

We bought some Vietnamese 'kuih' or little cakes. It was 10 pieces for 15,000 dong ( less than 1 USD) I think..

We really liked the food!

If I counted the amount of times we ate today within 3 hours it would have been FIVE times! LOOOL! This trip is pretty fun :D

Home home home/Malaysia

We arrived in Kuala Lumpur around 7am local time. The flight was with Emirates and it was a REALLY REALLY good flight! The only sucky thing was there weren't any good looking air-stewards/stewardess and a crying child was almost placed on our row the whole flight :S THANK GOD the air-stewards moved them behind. Mann.. to be honest, I was partially annoyed that there was a crying child next to us cos how would I get enough sleeep? It was already 3am in the morning and I was in quite a bad mood.

But I was also feeling sorry for the parents because I reckon they were so embarrassed that their child was disturbing the comfort of their fellow passengers. Anyway, it reminded me of our family trip to Malaysia when Josiah was just a baby :D

Okay first thing that hit me in Malaysia was the HEAT! like, zomg the sweat just came on and on and on.. -.-" so bad. Second thing that I noticed in Malaysia was my hair goes super frizzy! Especially the blonde/end bits. It never used to be like this.. but I think after bleaching it and stuff... the structure's changed and it's more fragile. *reminder: buy hair oil and good shampoo.

You know what's the most annoyingest when travelling? Answer: Forgetting to pack basic essentials. E.g. #1 I forgot to pack my pajamas -.-" now what am I gonna sleep in? E.g. #2 I forgot to pack shampoo, now what am I gonna wash my hair with? E.g. #3 I forgot to pack a hair dryer -.-" now I've gotta walk around with wet hair.. lol! But yeah.. I'm staying with my relatives in Malaysia and will be going into a hotel later on.. so I guess they would provide stuff.. but still! the inconvenience!!

Here are some malaysian pics :D

What's a trip without some plane pics? :D

Durian BABYY!

alterations

On Sunday Sharmeen, Jess, Kim-anh and I went to Savers for some shopping and I came out with three stuffs :D I was really happy cos I found what I wanted i.e. high waisted pants.

The high waisted pants was like... high waisted shorts that go down till the knee.. so I had plans to cut off a certain length to make them into SHORTS and to 'hem' them up myself. lol.

I had to use safety pins to pin the correct length cos we ran out of the normal pins lol! Can you see the thread at the border? tat's my handy work :D LOL! 

I didn't take a before picture of the shorts.. but I laid the cut out pieces to just show the actual length of the shorts.

This is after I sewed up the length and stuff..

This is how the shorts looked on me :D EHEHHE The stripped top was also one of the shirts I got from savers :D

Here's the second top I got from savers with the altered shorts :D EHEHHE The top is also the top that both Kim-anh and Sharmeen did not like. When I came out of the changing room I was like

'Heyyy guys do you like this?!?!!! I really like it!!'

Kim-anh:  'Nahh.. I don't like it..' 

 'whaaaat? :(((' and I look at Sharmeen 

Sharmeen: 'yeahhhh.. I don't like it as well' 

AHAHAHHAAH!! but in the end I still got it :D cos I really liked it lol. I bought it cos you rarely find striped shirts... like the vertical ones, also.. I liked it how it was huge cos it'll be really cooling and comfortable.

Like the shorts, I also altered the shirt by taking in the sleeves.. I think originally it fell below my elbow, but now it just sits nicely on the elbows :D EHEHHE I was so proud about my hemming that I showed mum the above top that I hemmed and she FULLL ON BUST OUT LAUGHING! I was like AHAHAHHAHA as wells! cos.. idk why lol :D anyway.. she laughed cos she said I didn't do it right. but I was like..

but it's just hemming eheheh, how is 'doing it right'?

Nevermind, we can take it to malaysia and they can sew it properly. wahahha!

ahah okkkk then, but it looks like it's part of the pattern! I even used white thread to make it look like it's part of it.

Ahhhhahaha okay

Also, mum thought that my top looked like a nursing uniform :( which.. to be honest.. I guess it looks like it AHAHAH! BUT STILL okaaay?!?!  I like it  :D