Strolling in Phuket Part I

 

It was a bad mistake to be visiting Phuket during their monsoon season. The rain came and go countless times a day. Our tour guide drove us in a van for most of the day and we stopped by many viewing points including this Karon View Point. This was the only stop at view points that wasn't raining so we quickly snapped a few.

  

The Giant Buddha is still under construction, but we decided to go nevertheless. The statue is already seated on the hill, but its base and the gardens around it were still being constructed. When it is completed, it should be a spectacle.

  

Phuket Old Town reminds me of parts in Chinatown, Singapore, or even Melaka and Penang. These buildings have strong European feel and also local motifs of the 1880's. The shophouses are preserved to its best and painted with beautiful colours.

  

We asked our local guide to drop us at a local food store so that we could get some snacks for people back at home. He promptly brought us to Pornthip, which is a one-stop-get-all kinda place. It was crowded with Japanese tourists, for goodness' sake! Haha...

 

And lastly, on that weekend night, we had a 3-hour long walk at its local weekend market. This huge market sells everything from cheap clothes, to electronics, to spa products and food! Great place to end a day in Phuket, without all the beaches :)

Spa Experiments in Phuket

 

Before i've been to Phuket I've never been to a spa. The girls brought me there to experience so many different kinds of spa at a much cheaper rate than in Singapore. We started off at Venus Spa, tucked Mercure Hotel near our abode in Phuket.

     

We had pre-booked its Green Tea special package before we left Singapore. The package includes a floral foot bath, 15 minutes steam bath, green tea body scrub, green tea aromatherapy massage and lastly a cucumber/aloe vera yogurt mask. 

  

We were there right after our touchdown in the late afternoon and 4 of us were the only customers there. Pretty exclusive and the rooms were comfortable and relaxing.

  

We had initially planned to go Kayaking into a cave full of monkeys and bats on the 3rd day but we got rain-washed out. Sooooo, we went to a highly recommended spa near our hotel - Let's Relax. However it was fully booked for the day and we only made reservation for that same night and went shopping instead.

 

The building looks like a colonial house and on the inside it is nicely decorated with flowers and sofas. Once you walk in you feel so much at home and the service was good too. They didn't allow photography within the building.

 

 We signed up for a package that includes 30 minutes of Thai foot reflexology and 90 minutes hot stone massage. Hot stone massage is particularly expensive in Singapore, fetching more than SGD 200 for 60 minutes, but here, i think we did it for less than SGD 100. The stones are heated , then placed at specific points on the body. The masseuse then applies lemongrass essential oil and uses the same stones to massage the muscles on the body.

 

Just before our flight, we went to another highly-raved spa, this one is Oriental, which specialises in Thai Massage. This one is shiok!! We had a 2 hour Thai massage, 60 minutes manicure-pedicure and 60 minutes facial.The Thai massage was particularly punishing but totally worth it. We got bended, folded and stretched like a rag doll, and i felt like a contestant in a wrestling match but it was really good! Sixian, who has a low threshold of pain, kept moaning and the three of us were so entertained :)

Fear Factor

 

Having a walk in a pasar malam in Phuket was a breeze, it was drizzling and the locals + tourists were all polite. The stall owners were smiley and everyone was intrigued by the things being sold. Prior to going, Tze Ching and I were already eager to see a stall selling bugs. Finally we found it tucked in a small corner.

  

Alrighty, we found our choice for catch of the day. Our local guide told us that the silk worm tastes the best but we sort of chickened out, and went for the milder grasshopper instead :)

     

Must take a few snapshots to commemorate this moment in time... haha....cheers~~

  

Om Nom Nom Nom Nom...... we chomped on it like Cookie Monster.....Hmm....

 

It was fine, cos they sprinkled seasonings on top of the bugs before serving. These grasshoppers were sold in a packet of 100 g but we couldn't finish them all. Up to a point, the sharp edges on the grasshopper's legs makes your throat really itchy and irritated that you just had to stop for a drink of water.

Cookie Monster at the Bakery

Haha i think i'm a little deranged like Cookie Monster, cos i always have alot of fun watching him being maniac. Barrels of laughter, this video! Poor Guy Smiley!! Must watch!!

Kantok

Our first meal in Phuket was at Kantok in Burasari Hotel. It is a highly recommended restaurant in Phuket and is just next door from where we were staying. It was raining, but the live music and performance managed to just lift our spirits.

   

Their signature dish, Roast Red Duck Curry, are scrumptious plump pieces of roast duck in a fiery coconut cream red curry sauce. It was a bewildering experience to be eating duck curry, but a pleasant one. Surprisingly, the tastes blended well and it wasn't an awkward match.

 

We wanted to order clear Tom Yum soup, but placed a wrong request. Instead, we got this Tom Kha Kai, which is chicken in coconut milk soup. Well, this soup is slightly bordering on the creamy side for me. Wished that we had ordered the Tom Yum though.

   

Whenever i have Thai, I always crave for this, but not all Thai food establishments serve it. Kantok offers Thai street food Fluffy and Light Thai Fish Cakes with sweet chilli sauce. It's an addictive mix of herbs and fish meat fried to perfection. It instantly boosts your appetite for more to come!

  

 Lastly, a nice dish of mixed vegetables wrapped in omelette. Finally, a dish that is not spicy for the sake of Tze Ching's stomach....haha.... It was OK, but the other dishes were far more superior. However, all of us were starving so every single dish was wiped clean and enjoyed thoroughly.

Kite Flying at Marina Barrage

Sunny Sunday afternoon, I just wanted to quench my thirst with some cold fruits, rich with water. A picnic sounds like a jolly good idea!

It was 3 pm, scorching hot in Marina Barrage. My friends and I decided to try out kite flying. Edwin is a seasoned kite flyer, perhaps he could give us a pointer or two.

We had some problems with our Buzz Lightyear kite which kept wanting to get tangled with itself. After about 1.5 hrs, we started to get a real sunburn and a stiff neck. 

Our poor chocolate cupcake was getting warmer and warmer. We had to quickly savour it before it disappears away as a big messy blob in the box! 

 

As it gets cooler in the evening, more and more patrons flock to the grassy patch to get their own kite flying high :)

Kranji War Memorial

For quite some time i've been zooming past Kranji War Memorial on an expressway nearby. It could also be seen from afar by the MRT track.  Just one fine sunny day, i stopped by for a closer look.

The memorial is placed in a sprawling ground in Kranji. It is dedicated to the men and women who died defending Malaya against the invading Japanese during World War II. The war cemetery has 4,458 number of graves, laid in rows of beautifully-tended lawns.

Sadly, more than 850 of these are unidentified and simply marked as 'a soldier'. 

After the graves, you will arrive at 12 columns of Memorial Wall  with names inscribed on them. When was there, i found a wreath of Poppy Flowers. The poppy flower is a symbol worn on Remembrance Day, i remember it was everywhere during my trip to London where Westminster Abbey's lawn was filled with them during Remembrance Day.

 

On the walls are names of 24,000 allied servicemen whose bodies were never found. A good visit to a solemn place to remind us of the bloody past in Singapore.

Yurou Learning To Pray

A clip of Yurou praying to God. At first, we thought that she was so patiently praying, then later when she's finished, you could audibly hear her saying 'Cake neh?'....haha...apparently Andrea is bribing her with cake in this video....

Shopping Kaki (Part 8)

Bugis Junction....oh yeah...i used to love this place cos of its layout. It looks like an air-conditioned old street in Singapore. However, i haven't been there for the longest time cos it's not really convenient and this place gets extremely crowded on weekends. With many new malls coming up, this place just seems to be getting smaller and smaller. It still wins the 'stylish' award for me, at least.

Causeway Point in Woodlands is currently undergoing major renovations. A once old, worn mall is now spanking new! It also has many new stores and wide choices of food available. They have also taken out the space wasting old escalator and modified some of its orientation. A good change for me! I am still waiting for the final works to be completed to have a good walk there. Finally there is a decent and large shopping mall nearby!

Funan IT Mall - cameras, gadgets, computers, TVs, printers....a testosterone hang-out place...you get the idea ;)

Once you get out of Yishun MRT, you will discover North Point right beside it. Like Jurong Point, it used to be tiny, and has slowly expanded. It now has a old wing as well as a new wing. Although of a decent size, i could never really find anything to buy in this place....how odd~~~

Ahhhhh.... Queensway Shopping Centre is the place to go for cheaper sporting goods. We never fail to come here to get the best deals for sport shoes, football jerseys, rackets etc. On the top floor, you could also get specialty shops to make trophies, rubber stamps, name tags and stuff like that. Oh, and a small stall on its ground floor sells pretty mean Penang fare.

Marina Bay Sands Sky Park

The Marina Bay Sands is the latest landmark in Singapore, with its breathtaking architecture and the resemblance to joss sticks... haha....Been around the vicinity several times and each time is a special photo-taking experience.

This time i was there, it was high time to pay a visit to its famous Skypark. The Sands Skypark is basically a viewing platform situated right on top of the '3 joss sticks'. The famous way to describe it is that it is longer than an Eiffel Tower lying down.!~

Once on top, it was a sight to behold. It is especially dazzling at night, just like Hong Kong's Victoria Peak. Although Hong Kong has a much nicer skyline, i suppose Singapore's night lights will do as well. The Singapore Flyer looks like a huge tambourine standing.

Looking down from another side you will see the lotus-shaped Art Science Museum just in front of the floating platform where the nation holds its National Day Parade for the last few years.

I love how the sillouette of the buildings are reflected in the waters by the bay. Although the skypark is above 70 storeys, it wasn't windy at all, making viewing an easy job without us having to get flyaway hair get in the way, or wardrobe malfunctions :P

And the answer was because the glass panels are built really high up, so the winds were not able to reach us. It is pretty daunting to look down all the way cos it was all see-through,