TANKS Travel Tales - a travelogue.......

Petaling Jaya, Selangor This article was first published on my other blog,  Monde des Stylos . This other bloc entered on anything and everything related to Pens and Stationery. Attending a local Pen Show is a personal milestone in my Journaling hobby. At such events, I get to not only meet like-minded enthusiasts in the world of pens and stationery, but also get to see and touch many of the pens and stationery that I would otherwise only get to see virtually from photographs online. Traveling from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur just to attend a Pen Show was the first time I travel specifically for such an event. Certainly a Travel Bucket List item for me! ****************** This was only my second time attending a pen show. And because it was the inaugural  Malaysia International Pen Show  and it was also held in a venue relatively close to my home city, I decided to travel to attend the show; also taking the opportunity to meet up with friends whom I have not met for so...

Malaysia's KTM is currently the only service provider that runs regular trains between Johor Bahru in Malaysia and Woodlands in Singapore . Nothing spectacular or amazing, I personally consider this as just a regular inter-city train connection between Peninsular Malaysia 's southern most city of Johor Bahru ( JB ) with Singapore's northern region of Woodlands. The only difference between typical inter-city trains and this service, is that this train service actually crosses an international border between two countries even though the actual journey each way is less than 5 minutes. Therefore, passports and travel documents are required for immigration and customs clearance purposes. Named the  KTM Shuttle Tebrau , this train service is highly subsidised when tickets are purchased in Malaysia at JB Sentral Station's Ticket Counters . Return tickets from JB to Singapore generally cost only RM5 at the time of the publishing of this blog article.  Buying the tickets in...

Johor Bahru (JB) is located at the southern tip of Peninsular Malaysia and is connected to Singapore via the Causeway , across the Straits of Johor. Due to its close geographical proximity to Singapore, as well as the favourable currency exchange rate between the Singapore Dollar (SGD) and the Malaysian Ringgit (RM), many Singaporeans and Malaysians working in Singapore, typically made day trips to JB via the Causeway. During these day trips, most travelers will dine and shop. It is not uncommon to see folks returning to Singapore from, JB in the late afternoons and evenings, laden with shopping bags. This happens on most days, not just the weekends. Although during weekends, the crowds crossing the Causeway are noticeably larger. Being someone who does not really enjoy being in a crowd, I mostly stay away from such day trips. On occasions when I drove across the Causeway, it was mostly to travel further inland into Malaysia, either to Kuala Lumpur or to Ipoh. But on one weekday after...

Kumamoto , Kumamoto Prefecture, Japan This article was first published on this blog in April 2024. Prior to this trip, I had already know about Kumamoto and their cute mascot, Kumamon . This day trip was a port visit when the cruise ship Spectrum of the Seas made a port call as part of the cruise from Yokohama to Singapore in August 2023. Originally not part of the itinerary, this port visit was a last minute insertion after the ship had to skip port visits to Shimizu and Osaka due to Typhoon Lan . I was not upset about the skipping of the two scheduled port visits because I understand the importance of safety for everyone onboard, both passengers and crew. I was instead thrilled about the last minute inclusion of Kumamoto (via Yatsushiro Port ) as a port stop. And thus, one of my bucket travel list item to visit Kumamoto was achieved. ****************** I visited the city of Kumamoto for the first time in August 2023 as part of a port visit by the cruise ship I was saili...

Kuala Kansar , Perak, Malaysia This article was first published on this blog in June 2025. Far flung exotic locations from our home cities. These are usually the places on most people's Travel Bucket List . But there are also locations near to our home cities that can be equally amazing and more than worthy of being on anyone's Travel Bucket List. For me, Kuala Kangsar is one of these places on my Travel Bucket List. Located in peninsular Malaysia in the state of Perak, Kuala Bangsar is just under 600km from my home city of Singapore . From Singapore, it is accessible by land (around 9 to 10 hours on a leisurely drive along Malaysia' North -South Highway) or by air (via Ipoh followed by road).  Kuala Kangsar is of course, also easily reached by road or rail from Padang Besar (Perlis), Alor Setar (Kedah), Butterworth (Penang), Ipoh (Perak) and Kuala Lumpur. ****************** Kuala Kangsar  is located along the  Kangsar River  near  Ipoh , the State Capital ...

This was my fifth cruise overall on Royal Caribbean's (RCL) ships and my first time cruising onboard Ovation of the Seas . The ship was on its re-positioning cruise from Brisbane and I boarded it in Singapore as it continued on its way to Vietnam , Hong Kong and Okinawa . My cruise was only from Singapore to Hong Kong in April 2025. It was a 5-night cruise with a single stopover in Vietnam's Chân Mây Port . Ovation of the Seas at port,  Chân Mây,  Huế Province, Vietnam (2025) On boarding day in Singapore, we boarded the ship on time at 11am as scheduled. This being my fifth time onboard a RCL ship, I was rather familiar with the embarkation day procedures, including heading straight for the safety briefing before taking the elevator to Deck 14 for my lunch at Windjammer .  Since it was only 11am, Windjammer was still not really crowded. It usually got really crowded around 12pm onwards when one could start to see folks walking around looking for tables. Rooms were usu...