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

London, England, United Kingdom The West End is located north of the River Thames and as its name suggests, west of the city of London. Most of London's major tourist attractions and entertainment venues are found here. Watching musicals at the West End can fairly be said to be one of the most common entertainment experiences sought by tourists visiting London. And I was no different. However, I only managed to find the time to watch my first musical at the West End after numerous visits to London; although this was not the first musical I had watched, having attended performances of musicals back in my home city as well as in other cities around the world. But my first time watching a musical in the famous West End was only during my 8th visit to London and that musical was The Lion King . On subsequent visits to London, I caught performances of Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables amongst others. Posters featuring the Les Miserables musical at a West End theatre, London, Eng

Singapore's Gardens by the Bay is famous worldwide as a beautiful garden located right in the city, next to the Central Business District (CBD).  During a staycation in August 2020 at the Marina Bay Sands hotel, I took this photograph of a night view of Gardens by the Bay. This photo was not a drone-taken picture but one that was taken with my iphone 12 Max Pro from the Observation Deck of the Marina Bay Sands hotel just after the sun had set. Night view of Gardens by the Bay, Marina Bay, Singapore (2020)

Next Travel Destinations....... when leisure travel resumes... After months of not being able to travel due to the current pandemic, I must admit I missed travelling and am looking forward to my next trips when leisure travel is able to resume. My last vacation before the closures and restriction of international borders was when I travelled to Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia) in end-Jan 2020. While my last flight before the pandemic swept the world was in November 2019 when I travelled to Seattle (United States) on a business trip. As and when international borders closures and restrictions are lifted, the destinations for my first leisure trips will be Tokyo and Taipei. I missed the food and the shopping in both of these cities. Neon-lit giant billboards in Akihabara, Chiyoda Ward, Tokyo, Japan (2017) In Tokyo, I love dining on donburi (rice bowl dish); unadon (rice bowl topped with fillets of charcoal-grilled eel glazed with special sauce) and kaisendon (seafood rice bowl with slices of s

  "Change is ever-present, we never get to visit the same place twice."  - Timothy Tan, author of this travel blog, tankstraveltales Torrii Gate, Nara, Nara Prefecture, Japan (2018)

Located in Iwakuni in Yamaguchi Prefecture, the original Iwakuni Castle was built in the year 1608. Sited at the top of Mount Shiroyama, the castle must had looked a formidable obstacle to any attackers in the 17th century. However, merely seven years after the building of the castle was completed, it was torn down based on a decree ( Ikkoku-ichijo ) from the Shogun Tokugawa leyasu.  The present castle at the site was a re-constructed structure in 1962. As in most castles in Japan of today, the Iwakuni Castle is more akin to a museum than a place of residence. Inside the castle are displays of artefacts from the Edo period including samurai body amor and swords. Iwakuni Castle, Iwakuni, Yamaguchi Prefecture, Japan (2019) At the top of the castle, which is four storeys high, one can get a bird's eye view of the famous Kintai-kyo Bridge. The castle is accessible via a ropeway cable car. The station is a mere five minutes walk from the Kintai-kyo Bridge. From the upper station, a joyf

Traditional-styled watercraft are unique and defined the people whom the designs of these crafts originated. They are also extremely photogenic subjects even when framed against simple and common backgrounds like the beach or just the sea. When I first visited Lombok in 2014, I had no lack of subjects to photograph while walking along the beach looking for watercraft. The photograph in this blog post shows a fleet of jukung on the beach at sunset. These small outriggers are traditionally used for fishing. More modern usage includes ferrying scuba divers to their favourite dive sites around the many islands of Indonesia.  Fleet of Jukung on the beach at sunset, Senggigi Beach, Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia (2014)

For medium and short haul flights as well as flying in the premium cabins on long haul flights, I typically prefer to have a window seat. The reason being that I could have great views of the sky from the sky! And this totally beat the inconveniences usually associated with a window seat such when having to leave your seat for the washroom or when there was a need to stretch the legs during those long flights. Like most avid travelers, I am currently grounded due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Border closures being the primary culprit for me being stuck in my home city. But being grounded also gave me the time to go through many of the photographs I took on my past trips. While digitally archiving the photographs of my previous trips, I came across these photographs I took from my window seat while flying over the Western Australian region of Gascoyne on my way home from Perth to Singapore during a trip in 2018. From the real-time flight route map, I had recorded in my journal that these ph

Mount Bromo, Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park, East Java, Indonesia This was a previous article written by myself and posted in this travelogue blog in Dec 2014. Mount Bromo was the first active volcano which I had climbed during my travels. A planned trip to climb Japan's much revered Mount Fuji in 2020, also an active volcano, was postponed indefinitely due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. ****************** Located in the eastern part of the island of Java in Indonesia, Mount Bromo is an active volcano. Its local name is Gunung Bromo. At an altitude of about 2,329 meters (about 7640 ft), Mount Bromo is not a particularly high peak and is actually quite accessible to the average tourists. Smoke rising from the crater of Mount Bromo,  Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park,  East Java, Indonesia (2002) Mount Bromo,  Bromo Tengger Semeru National Park,  East Java, Indonesia (2002) I climbed the peak of Bromo during a visit in 2002 when I was visiting Surabaya, the second lar