“Just save RM1 per day.“ That’s what Satkuru said when JJ asked 2 years ago in May on how much he should save for this 2 day 1 night trip. If you’re wondering how on earth do RM270 (following the save-1-ringgit-per-day rule) be sufficient for our Lake Toba trip, that’s because we’re doing it the real backpacking way. Oh well, not entirely the backpacking way since we stayed at the oh-so-nice-cottage. Heehee! Barely 2 months prior to flying had only Satkuru and I searched frantically for tour agency that can bring us to our destination dirt cheap. We found few…
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Conversations in departure hall
While waiting for my flight back to Malaysia at the departure hall, I couldn’t help but overhear conversation by my fellow Malaysians sitting behind me. 3 young couples of early twenties were asking each other how much they have left from the trip and one by one they ‘announced’ out the amount. After they summed out the amount, one went to the money changer and asked for the exchange rate. The guys came back and told them the rate was 305 (100.000 rupiah ~ RM30.5) and were deliberating should they change their money here or back home. After quick discussion,…
Toba ep2: Beautiful Sipiso-Piso
From the previous post – Toba ep1: RM1/day trip After asking the local on the first destination for this trip, our driver finally found the entrance of Sipiso-Piso Waterfall. The entrance fees costs 30.000 Rupiah for all 13 of us and of course we had to pay 5.000 Rupiah for car park. That wasn’t included in the van package. We quickly got off the van and there it is, the stunning, long and narrow 120m waterfall. It’s unfortunate that it rained earlier as it made the water coming out off the cliff muddy. Nevertheless, the landscape is terrific! No wonder this…
JPN05: Togetsukyo, Arashiyama
I’ve been reading about Arashiyama so much that I felt a sense of satisfaction and tingling of happiness when I was finally there. At the station, one can rent bicycle for Y300 or Y500. Satkuru wanted to cycle but I didn’t want to because it’s cold and the attraction is all walking distance. I even pointed to him that the Tenryu-ji temple is just 8 minutes walk from the station and his argument was because it’s just 8 minutes so we can cycle. At last we didn’t cycle (and I was happy to save that Y300 or Y500) and we…
JPN06: Tenryu-ji
We followed the crowd found ourselves to be facing a white and wooden facade building. “This building must be Tenryu-ji”, I told Satkuru. He just looked back at me, meekly. Used to him not answering me, I went to him and dragged his arm to make him move faster. Suddenly he called for stop and walked to the side with his DSLR ready in his hand. Curious I followed him. Just right beside the souvenir shop, he found this rectangular space where wooden benches are placed conveniently in front of the vending machines and cigarettes ash post in the middle.…
JPN04: of subway and train… and tram too!
On 2nd day, our plan is to get to Kyoto as soon as possible. From Namba station (M20), we took Subway Midosuji Line all the way to Umeda (M16) for 230 yen per person. After clearing the automatic ticket exit gates, we looked at the train lines with the fare besides each station on the white board above the ticket machine again. In our itinerary, I wrote that we’ll be heading to Karasuma with Hankyu Kyoto Line Ltd Exp for Y690, but in the board we found Karasuma with the fare (Y390). That time we didn’t have any idea on how…
JPN02: To Osaka, we go!
When Air Asia X launched its new route to Osaka somewhere in 2nd or 3rd quarter of 2011, we were just trying our luck to see if we could secure any cheap tickets. Little did we know, we did! Without much hesitation, Satkuru got ourselves two tickets. Then only we were thinking if we could make this trip as dirt cheap as we did for our previous trip. Slim chance, as the cheapest accommodation we could find would cost us at least RM100 per person, not per room! Not to mention a bowl of noodles would cost us RM20-RM30. Then…
JPN03: First Cabin Midousuji-Namba
I came across this hotel when I was googling on capsule hotel in Japan. An article on world special lodging mentioned First Cabin and instantly I clicked on the link. The website shows a night stay starting from Y4,800 per person but luckily we managed to secure a cheaper rate at Y3650 per person from Booking.com. Without much hesitation, we placed booking for our first night stay in Japan. When the day finally came, we took exit 13 from Osaka Namba (Nankai-Namba) station as mentioned on the First Cabin’s website. Not only it was so freaking cold, there was wind…
Courtyard by Marriott, XuJiaHui
I stayed here during my business trip in March. The hotel is located just a stone away from the famous shopping malls and entertainment centre. Throughout my 5 days here in Shanghai, 2 nights were spent on exploring the malls in XuJiaHui. But I could only see, couldn’t spend as the malls are like PAVILION, high class ones! Or maybe I didn’t explore deep enough. Haha! Anyway, I took few photos of my room. It’s SPACIOUS and could easily fit in 4 people! I maximised both beds to the max. I lied on the right bed when I watched TV or spoke…
Phuket II: Phuket Fantasea
Having two flights in a day and the 2 hours wait at the LCCT made us very tired and sleepy. Thus, kurubee and I dozed off for an hour or so after getting our room at the Ricos Hotel situated off the famous Bangla Road. We set our alarm to ring at about 4pm (Thai time, which is an hour later than us) and we snoozed that till 4.30pm, Lol. By the time we woke up, we quickly showered and prepared ourselves for our first and only stop for the day, Phuket Fantasea. Our package for Phuket Fantasea including return…