It’s been quite some time since I last updated this space, crazy story but I’ve been busy nursing a proximal humerus fracture that occurred while I was on an OCIP trip in Vietnam. Details on another day but meanwhile, I’ve made a short video of my time at Long Đức, Trà Vinh with the lovely children and volunteers who left us with fond memories.
The abbey was founded in the 12th century by Cistercians from Savigny and flourished with credits to royal and aristocratic patronage. Today, it is remodelled into a luxury hotel combining both charm and elegance.
Surrounding it is my favourite part, a tranquil lake with romantic sidewalks. I could listen to The Drums right by these benches here almost forever.
I’ve always wanted to visit Brighton Beach after seeing pictures of the colourful bathing boxes everywhere! Earlier this May, we finally did a short trip down. There wasn’t much to do, especially since it was close to winter and the weather was really cold. The strong winds weren’t thaaat kind to us, but the scenery absolutely made up for it. We were stoked to be able to catch the beautiful sunset!
By train: A 20-minute train ride from the city on the Sandringham line. We took it from Flinders Street Station to Brighton Beach Railway Station. There are two sections of the beach, you have to take a short 500-metre stroll down to the bathing boxes, but it’s a pretty enjoyable stroll given the amazing nature around.
By car: Depending on the amount of traffic, driving from the city to Brighton probably requires around 20 minutes. Council parking is available nearby once you get there.
By bus: Catch the 216 or 219 bus from Melbourne CBD.
This is my Dad, picking up seashells from the shore!
I couldn’t comprehend how all these surfers could tolerate the cold water particularly since it’s sooo cold outside! But it was great watching them surf in such a carefree manner.
I’ve always thought that there would be plenty of space in front of the bathing boxes in the pictures I’ve seen but it was actually a pretty constrained area. With the high tides, we hardly had any space to walk so we ended up jumping from one bathing box to another!
For more Australia adventures, visit here and here. I also did a travel video here so you can watch the sunset in a short timelapse. 🙂
Queen Victoria Market has always been one my favourite places to visit in Melbourne! Imagine Singapore’s Parsabella Farmers Market, but better. Step into a cozy cafe or enjoy street food aside alfresco tables in the cool breeze. Grab some groceries, a couple of healthy snacks (granola, nuts, pumpkin seeds, etc.) and some wonderful goodies for your skin. More pictures below!To avoid disappointment for making a wasted trip down, do note down that QVM is closed on Mondays and Wednesdays!! From 1 June to 31 August though, their Night Market opens from 5pm to 10pm on Wednesdays.
Tuesday/Thursday: 6am-2pm (for produce) and 8am-2pm (for speciality shopping)
Friday: 6am-5pm (for produce) and 8am-3pm (for speciality shopping)
Saturday: 6am-3pm (for produce) and 8am-3pm (for speciality shopping)
Sunday: 9am-4pm (for both produce and speciality shopping)
By Train
By Bus
By Bike
By Tram
Baked goods and brewed coffee – one of the best breakfast combinations. Cappuccino from Market Lane Coffee, coconut macaroons and almond biscotti from the bakery right opposite the glass windows/tables (sorry I can’t remember the name). The almond biscotti pairs perfectly with a dollop of cappuccino foam and the sweetness from the coconut macaroons balances off the bits of bitter in the coffee.
If you’re not up for coffee but some chocolate indulgence, koko black is for you! Their hot chocolate is amazingly rich and luscious. Would never give it a miss each time I’m in Australia.
Check out that charming chocolate art 😉
My family got a few tubs of raw honey back from this store and they loved it!
There’s also a really attractive doughnut truck right at the end of the farmer’s market if you are craving for some sugar and carbs.
Skincare products from Coconut Revolution which I absolutely loved and wish I bought more of! I highly recommend their Coconut Body Butter. It provides a nourishing treatment and tops it off with an amazing coconut scent. They have three kinds of moisturizers: the body lotion, body cream and body butter – in ascending moisturizing levels and thickness. The body butter is the thickest and also the most expensive, but it has the longest lasting effect. Might get my brother to ship more back from Melbourne because their shipping fee costs almost AUD$30 🙁
People watching at Queen Victoria Market can be a really beautiful sight :’)
For more things to do in Melbourne, read here, here, or watch my travel video here!
Video by Gabriel Goh with our Gopro footages – pretty much sums up our trip to Tioman Island! A few cuts and fish bites here and there, with Zack suffering from a minor decompression sickness after the first dive and Gabes getting lost (LEL) but we are all safe and sound, open water certified! 😀
(P.S.: Please forgive Gabe’s horrible puns)
On the first day after our flight, most of us were really tired so we decided to have a chill aftertoon out of Melbourne CBD. Williamstown was one of our options since we could get to take the ferry ride from the city at Southbank Promenade down to the Yarra river. The Melbourne River Cruises ferry ride was a tad expensive though (AUD$29 for adults) but they have a family package as well!
Confession: We went to Williamstown mainly for the Fish N Chips!! We had really good recommendations for this stall – Off The Pier, Fish and Chippery – but the weather wasn’t exactly in the best of mood and they didn’t have any indoor seats for their customers.
It started to rain and got really cold so we settled for another indoor Fish N Chips restaurant, Williamstown Mussels, to hide from the strong winds.
Guess what? After eating our fills with a huge family combo, we went back to try Off The Pier because we couldn’t leave without getting a bite of “the best Fish and Chips” 😛
And boy did it not let us down!! We got it without the chips because we had so much chips in the previous restaurant. The fish batter was crisp on the outside and the fish was so fresh and tender on the inside. It was so much better than the one in Williamstown Mussels. Prawns were 10/10 amazing too but if I’m not wrong they cost AUD$2.50 per piece. One thing about Australia though – they do not have chilli sauce. So fellow asians, please take note haha.
Williamstown was a really tranquil and peaceful town, but it was a little quiet and isolated – like a seaside village. There wasn’t really much to see except a few quaint shops and cafes.
The scenery was good though, thank God the weather cleared up so we could see the clear, blue skies 😀
The ferry then came to pick us up and we requested for them to drop us near the Direct Factory Outlets (DFO) at South Wharf!
The rest of our day was pretty much spent shopping. DFO South Warf (20 Convention Centre Place, South Wharf VIC 3006, Australia) is one of the best shopping outlets in Melbourne. There is also free wifi in the basement food court for those taking a break from shopping!
I was right there last year as well! They have a huge collection of discounted clothes and shoes from a wide variety of both Australian and International sports and fashion brands! (Adidas, Nike, Converse, New Balance, Nine West, Dr.Martens, UGG, Michael Kors, The London Rebel, Calvin Klein, etc.) I got a pair of Nikes there, shoes are pretty cheap in Australia for some reason. Unfortunately, the shops in Australia close quite early (DFO closes at 6pm) so we didn’t really had much time to shop. I also met up with my brother for a short while before he had to run off to study for his exams.
And that was it! Most updates will be here soon 🙂
For more things to do in Melbourne, read here, here, or watch my travel video here!
Hey m8s I’m back from a family holiday in Australia! New South Whales was amazingly good, refreshing and just what I needed to kickstart my Summer break 🙂
Here’s a video featuring the amazing scenery and nature Aussie had to offer! Will share my favourite places real sooon 😉 Australians are really chill by the way, most of them end work before 5pm and go to the beach to unwind after. Haha it makes me think that Singaporeans are too fast-paced for their own good.
Thx AU it’s been real 😎
Well I decided that I’ll still do travel updates with the photos left in my phone (thank God I still have these) in case something suddenly happens to all my photos again :'(
Blogging from the phone is quite a chore but I’ll try my best… Where’d I stop?
Aaah yes, Lyon. Lovey, lovely, Lyon. I spent one of my best days in France here, the weather was so kind to us and escaping from the hustle and bustle of Paris made it a perfect weekend getaway. 🙂
Erica looked so cosy in our Airbnb apartment I couldn’t help taking this picture of her 🙂
Us outside the Cathédrale St. Jean-Baptiste ^_^
There were so many quaint little cafes and intriguing shops along the streets we had the best time shopping around the area. You also get to listen to random street performances which really liven up the atmosphere.
After shopping and stopping for some desserts, we decided to take a mini hike up to the La Basilique de Nôtre Dame de Fourvière perched on top of Fourvière hill. I found out after that you can also choose to take a tram to the top with a regular metro or bus ticket, but I’d choose to walk again if the weather was good. Erica was a lovely travel companion hehehe.
Best. Decision. Yet. The view was so pretty it made us so happy. We stayed there until sunset because ~good vibes~. Visiting the Basilica and getting this amazing paranomic view was free, and the entry to the Museum of Religious Art is 5 euros.
Lyon, you’re beautiful. And I can’t wait to be back one day 🙂
Last but not least, we both took a Blablacar back to Paris that weekend and it was so great!!
Blablacar is a car-sharing service where a local picks up people going in the same direction. The cost is almost the same or sometimes cheaper than taking a train, depending on your driver. Although travelling time may be slightly longer, I highly recommend it because you get to chat with the locals and look at awesome scenery along the way.
Here’s a picture of our ride back 😀
Namaste /ˈnʌməsteɪ/, one of the (only) Nepali words I actually used throughout my whole trip. The Nepalese say it as a greeting with a namaskar.
I still remember the feelings of disappointment I felt last year when my OCIP trip to Nepal got cancelled because of the earthquake. So I was really thankful to have gotten another opportunity to visit Nepal this semester because I’m taking this Wee Kim Wee module, Regional Strategic Communication Management.
The trip was a huge eye-opener to the vast Nepali culture and rich community spirit. We were there to work on the marketing efforts for a sustainable rainwater harvesting system of this company named Smartpaani, which could better the lives of many households in Nepal, since most of them rely on various groundwater sources that does not guarantee cleanliness or purchase tanker water. It was really inspiring to meet so many people who are passionate about what they do, and about making the world a better place to live in. Our guides weren’t merely a huge help to us physically, they were lovely travel companions and shared with us the Nepalese way of life. To learn from these people and their stories, I think that’s what travelling is really all about, besides the other glitz and glamorous aspects of it.
I didn’t actually intend to make a video before the trip but I had accumulated quite a bit of footage because we were filming for our projects. Decided to compile all of them because it’d made something good to look back onto 🙂 so.. here it is!
(Please pardon the shaky, grainy and unfocused bits because I wanted to include almost everything for memory’s sake 🙁 )
After watching the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Paris has always been a dream.
Most opinions I’ve heard about Paris are on either extreme sides of the spectrum – you either love it or you hate it. It’s definitely the former for me. Well it may be a little too fast-paced sometimes. More often than not, you start to realise that everyone else is walking faster than you. But looking back at these photos make me miss the lovely city already. I did have a wonderful time, the city has an alluring charm that only those who step into it would understand and being able to experience that was such a treat. I’m already looking forward to head back and hopefully share this experience with the people I love next time.
All the hearsay about the French being rude didn’t turn out to be true for me. In fact, I’ve actually met a lot of kind strangers without whom I might have ended up wandering in circles like a stray cat. The French people are proud of their language, they are not rude. They love people who try to speak a little French because it shows them we’re putting in some form of effort to be a part of their culture. But of course, having attended a month’s worth of French lessons, I’d say French is definitely a difficult language to grasp but hey, learning a few words won’t hurt!
Basic useful French phrases to know:
View overlooking the Seine River, taken from the Eiffel Tower.
Facing east from the Eiffel Tower. Here you can see the gold dome of Les Invalides. Besides being a burial site for previous outstanding French war heroes, it was also once commissioned by Louis XIV as a hospital for soldiers.
The view overlooking southeast over Champ de Mars from the Eiffel Tower, towards École Militaire at the end of the lawn. The tall black building sticking out is actually Tour Montparnasse, where you can get an amazing view of Paris and the Eiffel Tower. (Because you can’t actually see the Eiffel Tower from the Eiffel Tower, ha. More pics on that later!)I’m always in awe of the fabulous architecture in Paris (and the unbelievable amount of good-looking people). Parisians have an extraordinary good fashion sense, especially in Winter. (｡♥‿♥｡)
Alright, more updates real soon. In the meantime, au revoir and have a lovely chinese new year folks! 🙂
***