If you happens to be in Singapore during the Ramadhan month, you must visit the Ramadhan Bazaar at Geylang Serai, just east of Singapore! You will be amazed by the number of eateries and the big crowds there! I went just in time on the last day of Ramadhan and was quite surprised to see all Muslim friends were so busy working the last day on the eve of Eid.
If us, the Chinese would have been slowing down on the Chinese New Year and closes early for the holiday! Haha. Speaking of the Ramadhan Bazaar, it’s pretty eye opening comparing to the Pasar Ramadhan in Malaysia because it targets youngster more with many hipster food and drinks.
Not everything beautiful was good, they are more likely good on the Instagram but not my kind of food in my taste bud. But, I have to say, food was not cheap, not in the way of Malaysian spending in Singapore, but in a Singapore way, you could easily spend up to 40-50$ at there. Forget about money, and just enjoy the hipster bazaar!
These grilled oyster with different sauce topping are the bomb!
Long queue for cheap takoyaki – $2.50 only for 6 balls, but not perfect.
Really?! Raclette cheese set with just cocktail sausages and potato for $12? Not anymore, cheese cooled in minutes and didn’t finish it.Ramly Burger in Singapore is not as cool as Malaysia’s, no vege in the burger.
Watermelon volcano, just perfect for the humid weather.
Opens only during Ramadhan’s month, so get back next year and you can easily reach there by bus – just search Bazaar Ramadhan Bazaar on Citymapper.
(Spring, 2014) – Thinking back, the night was pretty stupid yet crazy where we wanted to save a night of accommodation by taking the night bus from Amsterdam to Ghent. Didn’t think that the journey took only 4 hours and we arrived in Ghent very early at 2am. The 4hours of nap in bus was totally not enough after a full long day of exploration in Amsterdam. It was a motel’s carpark that we alighted and there’s no sight of public transport or cab at that hour. The motel’s reception was closed too and not a proper place for us to sit.
2am. Heading to Old Town.
No maps, no internet access. But still had a fraction of Google Map loaded earlier in Amsterdam and we were an hour far (by walking) from the old town where we would be staying on the following night.
Assuming that check-in time is about 1.00pm, we had like about 10 hours of not-knowing-what-to-do. ‘Should we just walk to the the old town?’ or ‘Should we wait till the sunrise for the public transport to take us there?’ It’s like 5degree celcius in this spring midnight weather. No where we could see a corridor or corner that we could sleep like a homeless and it’s cold.
After 30 minutes of hesitation, ‘fuck, let’s just do the walk and look for any corner that we could just rest ourselves’. We past by a street of pubs that was very happenings, but a 24h fast food restaurant selling fried chicken caught our attention. Ordered a set and share among 5 of us, we tried to spent as long as we could in the restaurant, and each of us tried to close our eyes on a rotating manner, but later we were shoo off still. We were 45 minutes away from the old town, and we found a real subtle corner that we thought we could spend our night there till morning. Bags down, and we’ve tried to nap through the dirty floor and cold night. I couldn’t do it, it’s too cold, but a friend snore right away on the floor and 4 of us were just wide awake. ‘We are so homeless right now’.
5.30am it was and we only rested for like 30 minutes in this homeless corner of ours. The sound of bird chirping could be heard and drunk party goers started to make their way back. It just doesn’t felt safe and very tired, we were.
St. Nicholas’ Church (Sint-Niklaaskerk)
Dawn arrived and we were at the fringe of old town. Nothing to see at this wee hours and we didn’t even feel excited arriving at the old town because check-in time was still far away and the backpacks were heavily tiring us.
Not far into the old town, the hotel was just in front of us! Dashed into the hotel and the warm atmosphere and sofa greeted us. ‘Well, having able to sit on the sofa is better that by the road side right?’ Thinking that European hotel is stricter than Asian’s hotel, I went upfront to reception just to check what was the earliest time we could check-in, ‘Oh, you could check in as early as you want, right now.’ Shocked to hear about that which we probably think that the hotel was pretty empty.
Because it’s a room for 2 and we had 5 in the company, 3 of us spent a bit time wandering around at the lobby before sneaking up to the hotel room.
6.45am, we were in the hotel, getting ready to have a good sleep till noon before beginning our tour of Ghent, Belgium. What a journey and we got ourselves an extra free night!
The hotel (Ibis Ghent Centrum) was just too spacious for 5 of us, 1 big king-size bed and 1 sofa bed. Perfect!
Chester: Hidden Gem In The Northwest England – I had no idea that northwest England has such a beautiful place other than the modern skyline and cultural city of Liverpool. 45 minutes of Merseyrail ride out of Liverpool is the city of Chester, filled with black and white Tudor buildings, ancient Roman ruins and surrounded by city walls.
When I visited Chester, it was like the 5th cities I’ve visited in UK (after Newcastle, Edinburgh, London, Manchester & Liverpool) and to my surprise, the architecture of the little town was beautiful. Interestingly, Chester is a town that’s popular with British tourists, but virtually unknown to most foreign tourists. It’s not surprise that Asian is hardly seen on the street.
It’s a small town, you can finish touring the place in half a day, but there’s some interesting activities to do too, like visiting to the Chester Zoo, checking out the Chester Race and rowing down the River Dee. So is it worth visiting Chester? Absolutely, if you’re going to be in Manchester of Liverpool, you can easily get to Chester from there!
Manchester: Piccadilly Garden, Town Hall & Chinatown – In February, I went to Manchester for a very short while, a day spent but didn’t really visit much places. It was like a business trip to me as it was to attend some conference event. Though, I still managed to walk passed some cool places in the city like the Piccadilly Garden, the Town Hall & Chinatown.
Whenever one heard of ‘Manchester’, the names of Manchester United, Manchester City & Old Trafford Stadium will come to mind. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to visit any of the famous football clubs! Sad, but still the day in Manchester was still fun meeting up with a Penang friend and also checking out a new place in the UK. If were to compare with Newcastle, I would say Newcastle is more a small town, and Manchester is a small city. There’s no such thing as big city in UK except London, maybe Glasgow too. At least, in Manchester, you would still see people walking on the street, but not in Newcastle.
Few more weeks left for me living in the UK and I don’t think I have any more opportunity to visit Manchester anymore. But if I have the chance in the future, I still want to visit Old Trafford Stadium and check out the Salford Quay, and also have a good Chinese food at the Chinatown as I’ve read that Manchester has the most Chinese population in the UK. Yeah?
The Wheel of Manchester! This photo was taken the next day before I leave Manchester. =D
Chinatown that was really quiet but has more shops compare to Newcastle. No doubt, London has the most happening Chinatown.
London: Interesting Camdem Town & Market – The hustle and bustle of metropolitan of London does has a cool funky side of it at Camden Market of Camden Town! This part is London is totally different from the downtown area and it’s fun, cheap, artsy, cool and fun! The Punk-style was also said to be born here!
Camden Market is reputed in London for its punk shops, cheap eats and bargains! For a visitor from Asia like me, it feels like Asia, selling cheap stuff like souvenirs, clothing, collectibles, antiques, and of course food! The food did look quite attractive at first, but after walking around the whole market, it seems like almost every stalls sell the same food, only different is the name – Chinese Food, Thai Food, Indian Food. If you look closely, most of them are take-all-you-can-in-a-box. Of course, there’s still some interesting food!
Nothing to buy, Chinese food I ate was not as good as I thought, but it’s a lovely and fun visit to Camden Market!
17-Days Eastern Europe Trip Itinerary Recap – Finally my blog posts about my Winter Trip in 2013 has finally comes to an end, here’s a recap of everything I’ve posted for your reference if you are planning for a trip to Eastern Europe. Don’t forget to include Cesky Krumlov if you are going to Prague and perhaps add another day to Lake Bled which is quite near to Vienna. You can also add in another couple days for Hallstatt too! Cheers!
18 Hours Ride From Prague To London By Bus and Sunrise At French Border – My Eastern Europe Winter Trip blog post series is coming to an end right now with this last post that shows me travelling back to London from Prague in a superlong 18-hours bus ride! It would take just about 2 hours to fly from Prague to London, but we opted for the long way because flying back 3 days before New Year costs like £100 and the bus we took was like about £55 and it’s the cheapest way!
It’s surely a long ride and we didn’t know how we could survive it but yeah, we managed to reach London, happily with a little smile on the face and tiredness. The long-distance bus started from Prague, calling at a few stops – Plzen, Nurnberg, Heidelbern, Dover and finally London! We packed a fried rice for each of us from a nearby Chinese restaurant for dinner and armed our tablet with movies and music to pass the time. Surprisingly, most of my time was spent sleeping!
The only part that was not so happy was waiting at the French border for like 2 hours, it’s like a massive traffic jam at the immigration but the unhappy moment was counter by a good welcome of sunrise! Immigration was quick at the French side but the immigration officer questioned me a lot at the English side and tried to use a magnifying glass to look close at my English Student VISA as if it’s fake. WTF, but never mind, I knew about this early already.
Astonished that the bus went into a train and then the trained travelled in the sea through the English Channel in Channel Tunnel. I thought it was gonna be the ferry that took us across, but luckily it was the train as it’s faster, else have to spend another 2 hours on the bus. Reached London at 11am and yeah, we survived the long bus ride.
At Prague’s bus station – Praha Florenc.
Long long queue at the French side.
Bus into train, through Channel Tunnel, into England! Amazed!
Eastern Europe Trip // Prague: Prague Castle – Last day in Prague and the Prague Castle was truly the highlight of our visit to the city. Rest atop a hill overlooking the beautiful Vltava River and the old centre of Prague, it is extremely difficult to miss the beauty and impressiveness of this symbol of Czech Republic.
No exact date of when it was founded but many ‘think’ that it was founded sometime in 880. Since then, it has suffered a long history of changing regimes and a few wars. The castle had served as home for the Bohemian kings, Roman emperiors, Nazi leaders and communist government officials! Nowadays, it functions as the residence and office for the President of Czech Republic and continues as a popular attraction for visitors like us!
Without using any public transport, we took our slow time up to the castle, and I can assure you that it looks far, but it’s really easy and fast to get on top.
Eastern Europe Trip // Prague: Grand Cafe Orient, A Cool Cubist Cafe – Ola! I’ve just came back from my Spain & Porgual summer trip and it was a fun and hot one! Back to Newcastle right now and I’ve plenty of free time to share with you about my travel experience. Continue on what I’ve left previously where I was in Prague during my Eastern Europe Trip, here I want to bring you a cool cubist cafe in Prague – the Grand Cafe Orient.
If you are wondering what is cubist, cubisim is an early 20th-century avant-garde art movement by Georges Braque and the famous Pablo Picasso and the interior of this cafe is styled after the cubism.
During the trip, we were like addicted to cafe exploring after checking out the few in Budapest and Vienna. So we found this Grand Cafe Orient which is located in the House of the Black Madonna in the city. Amazed by the interior and atmosphere, but the beverage did not catch my attention. Well, Prague is a small city and we took the exploration slow and easy. Thus, an hour of short break in the cafe, enjoying cubism interior was relaxing!
Eastern Europe Trip // Prague: Walk In The Old Town, Jewish Quarter & Charles Bridge – Prague stands out as one of the few cities in Europe that emerged from World War 2 with its medieval old town still intact entirely. As you wander its cobblestoned streets of the old town, sometimes it can feels like you’ve been travelled back in time.
Prague is a little city, but equipped with a good network of public transport like tram and subway. Though, my favourite and cheapest way of transporting around is by walking and basically, the main attractions in the city are walkable. We joined a free walking tour which brought us through the Old Town, to the Jewish Quarter which the tour would be ended at the super famous and beautiful Charles Bridge.
The photo series below will brings you into the tour of Prague. Prague is small; although it’s the capital of Czech Republic, you could not notice any skyscraper in the city, 90% of the buildings have a long history behind them. Strolling along the street in the city will give you a relaxing sensation. It’s just so chill, calm and touristy! Basically, I find that Prague is like a living museum, with their unique culture, somewhat interesting, but not to the extend of awesome! Nevertheless, there’s a few thing that were quite magnificent and attractive to me – Charles Bridge, Prague Castle and the Prague Astronomical Clock.
Cut the crap and enjoy the photos of Prague below. Other note, I thought of finishing my blog post series of my Winter Eastern Europe Trip in this week, but then I failed to achieve my target as I was too busy with work lately. Well, I shall continue it when I come back from my short summer gateaway this coming week, so stay tuned and I am definitely going to wrap up the whole thing soon! Cheers!
Cool and funny installation outside Mosaic House.
Wenceslas Square in the morning with the National Museum of Czech Republic in background.
I know how it works. Wahahaha.
The famous Prague Astronimical Clock.
The Jewish Cemetery, the tour guide told us that they bury the body on top of each other, so it’s quite deep down there!
Prague Castle at background.
On the super awesome Charles Bridge, but with lots of tourist!
