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

For someone who plan and book my own travels every time, I still find it surprising how I can still make the most basic of mistakes; getting the travel dates in my itinerary all mixed up. Yesterday, I decided to book my accommodation for my trip to Hong Kong in April 2025. I had already been booked on a 5-night cruise that will sail from Singapore to Hong Kong, scheduled to depart on 16th April. However, foolish me happily believed that since it is going to be a 5-night cruise, I will arrive in Hong Kong on 20th April. Nope, its 5-nights and not 5-days. This means I will only arrive in Hong Kong on 21st April. Before this realisation, I had happily booked my accommodation from the 20th April onwards instead of from the 21st onwards. Fortunately, I had chosen the higher-priced package that allows me to modify or cancel without penalty. Otherwise, it will be money down the drain. This mistake had also happened just 2 months prior when I was booking my airline ticket to another destinatio...

On a recent cruise onboard Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas, I visited Hong Kong for the first time via a port visit. While I had traveled to Hong Kong many times previously, all these visits were by air via either Cathay Pacific or Singapore Airlines. This was the first time I visited Hong Kong by sea! View of Hong Kong's water from onboard Spectrum of the Seas berthed at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal, Hong Kong SAR, China (2023) The cruise ship was already berthed at the Kai Tak Cruise Terminal by the time I woke up lazily in my cabin at about 8am. After a quick breakfast at the Windjammer cafe at Deck 14, I disembarked from the ship and was soon onboard the free shuttle bus that ferried cruise passengers from the cruise terminal to different areas of the city. I chose to take the shuttle to Mong Kok and had a great time relaxing over aromatic coffee and delicious waffles whilst people watching at Langham Place. I also found time to shop at the many and varied retail shop...

Month-long Pan-Asia Trip, East and South-Asia Asia This was a major trip which took me months to plan. Because there were many key details to follow such as accommodation, train travel times and inter-city transport connectivities, I had to cancel and re-book many of my hotels and train tickets bookings repeatedly. And also because I was visiting many of the places for the first time, my only source of information was from the internet. Not much of this information was accurate and some of the inaccuracies nearly resulted in me missing my inter-city connections. Lesson learnt and note to self, take information from the internet with a big pinch of salt! But this was a wonderful trip. I am unlikely to be able to go on such a long trip with so many different destinations in one single vacation again anytime soon. Work schedule always dictates that I can go away for at most two weeks at any one time. Thus, I was really glad I...

Gearing up for my vacation......  As I gear up for my upcoming month-long trip, I am busy trying to get as much work done as possible before I travel. While I will always have to work on-the-go, I at least try to keep that to a minimum because I wanted to use my "free" periods in the nights during the trip to write my book. Yes, I am writing a book of short stories.  In-between the sight-seeing and partaking in local festivities like a good old-fashioned tourist, I also intend to explore some other parts of the cities that I am visiting which are not considered "touristy". These will include the Yanaka and Kanda areas of Tokyo as well as some of the often over-looked towns in Niigata and Yamagata Prefectures of western Japan. In Vietnam, I intend to explore Nha Trang on foot. For shopping, of course I would be visiting Tsutaya and Itoya for stationery, Montblanc for pens and Isetan for all kinds of other stuffs that one can only find in Japan. I am not sure what I w...

There are places we visited ever so often, whether the trips were for work or leisure purposes or both. Hong Kong is one city which frequently features in my travel itinerary.  And in May 2023, I finally returned for a visit. A very short trip of only a few days because of my work schedule. Not really enough time for me to re-explore the city and to visit all my favourite eateries and cafes. But nevertheless, it was good to be back in Hong Kong. Night view of Langham Place and its surroundings, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China (2023) Despite the relatively short trip, I still managed to really enjoy myself in my first real vacation of 2023. In-between the few days I had in my itinerary, I got to savour my favourite Hong Kong delicacies including Egg Tarts, Dim Sum and Roast Goose! I also visited my favourite retailers to shop for collectible movie-related figures from Star Wars to Godzilla. I even had time to discover some nice quaint eateries which I shared with my friends ...

Changing tastes......  As time passes, we all grow older and hopefully wiser and richer. But that's not the topic for this month's Travel Bits. Rather, the topic I am writing about is about changing tastes. Now, tastes can mean anything from the food we eat to analogies of our take on other aspects of life, from culture to the arts. And also the mundane like personal hobbies. So, how do all these changes in tastes connect to travel? Plenty! Even if we travel back to the same city and same town every year, our change in tastes such as the food we like, the hobbies we take on and so forth, will likely lead us to discover "new" things in the same old city or town that we think we know so much about just because we have been visiting for the umpteen time. In my case, my recent interest in fountain pens has led me to look for shops to view and purchase pens to add to my collection when I travel. I have been to Hong Kong numerous times and each time on my visit, I will alwa...

I usually do not have a detailed to-do list prepared for any of my trips. I am a traveller who prefers to take things easy and enjoy the unplanned chanced encounters; whether it is a trip experience or making a new friend during my travels. The only planned items in my leisure travel are hotel accommodations and airplane, train or bus tickets, especially if my itinerary includes commuting between cities. Anything else is left to chance. For my upcoming trip to Hong Kong next month in the first week of May, I do have a couple of to-do items lined up though. In a dinner conversation with friends over the weekend, I was reminded that there have been some new places of interests in the city. And one among these certainly raised my interest. This is the new Hong Kong Palace Museum. Only officially opened in July 2022, the museum is located in the West Kowloon district and showcase artefacts from the National Palace Museum in Beijing's Forbidden City. Having never visited Beijing before,...

China, Hong Kong SAR, South Island Region This article was originally published in this blog in September 2020. Drawing inspirations from travel variety programs from Japan, I had always wondered what would the experience be like if I were to randomly choose a train or subway line, hop on the train and alight at as many stations as time permits, walk and explore around the locale of each station and than hop back onto the same train line, continuing until the last stop. In other words, experiencing a train journey without any fixed plans or maps. Since I will mostly be within walking distance of each station that I alighted at, no maps will be necessary and I can simply explore and enjoy the sights and sounds without having to worry about losing my way. This was what I did when I last visited Hong Kong in January 2019. I chose the South Island MTR Line because this was a line that extended out into the sub-urban regions of Hong Kong, away from the...

I missed the days when with just a few clicks on the internet, I could purchase my air tickets and hotel accommodation and off I go to my next travel destination. For me, the excitement of travel began as soon as I reached my departure airport, searched for the airline's check-in gates via the airport's departure lobby's signages and check-in my luggages for the trip. While I now await the time when travel can resume without restrictions, I can only looked back on the travel photos of my previous trips and wish for the day when I can go on my next trip. Airport signage, Shanghai Pudong International Airport, Pudong, Shanghai, China (2015)

Its almost Christmas of 2020....... and time for my travel reminiscence of the year....... 20 December 2020, 5 days to Christmas. Time to slow down, take things easy and enjoy the festive period between Christmas and New Year. And the year-end period is also typically the time when I reminiscence for the year that is ending, including my travels for the past twelve months. This year's reminiscence of travel is definitely different from years past. With Covid being the wrecking ball that it has been on almost everything in 2020, travel had been an impossibility or near-impossibility. For the whole of this year, my one and only trip out of my country of residence was in late January 2020 when I travelled to Malaysia's Kuala Lumpur and areas around it in Selangor State. The trip was memorable in the time spent with family members located across the border, not knowing at that time that it will be quite a while before I will get to see them face-to-face again. Yes, we still keep in...

    "A journey of a thousand li starts beneath one's feet ."  Contemporary translation: "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" - Lao Tzu, ancient Chinese Philosopher and Writer, 4th century BC* Traditional-style house, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China (2015) *Lao Tzu was a legendary ancient Chinese philosopher and writer. He was also reputedly the founder of Taoism. There is no firmed confirmation of the period when Lao Tzu lived. Dates ranged between the 4th century to 6th century BC.

For me, travelling is a holistic experience. I do not travel to a place just to visit its most famous tourist attractions or world-renowned sites. Of course, I do love visiting those much-talked about attractions and sites. However, I usually prefer to keep a day or two of my trips free of any plans. On these days, I would simply wander around without any fixed plans. Taking in the sights, sounds and experiences that I serendipitously chanced upon. And these were often the moments when I felt that I had truly visited the destinations. Some of my friends said I was wasting precious vacation time and limited trip days doing just nothing. But for me, these moments of wandering around without fixed plans were reflective of the wanderlust in me, the travel bug. A cute poster interspersing a pig's head with the Chinese character for Fu (good fortune) on a noticeboard inside South Horizons Station of the South Island Line, Ap Lei Chau, Hong Kong SAR, China (2019) Despite having visited Ho...

China is a huge country with varied landscapes; many of which are stunning and too beautiful to describe with words. In my few visits to the country, I had experienced both the beauty of China's spectacular nature as well as its awesome cityscapes. In a visit to Shenzhen, I came across one such view soon after I had checked in to a hotel located at one of the high floors of a modern skyscraper. The view? Skyscrapers amidst rolling hills! A sight to behold and one that left me spellbound as I stood at the ceiling-to-floor windows of the hotel lobby admiring the beautiful views of the city and its wondrous natural beauty. I was soon joined by my friends who stood equally spellbound by the beautiful sights of a modern city backed by green rolling hills in the distance. Skyscrapers amidst rolling hills, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China (2015) More skyscrapers with hills in the horizon, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China (2015)

The blue-collar neighbourhood of Sham Shui Po is located in Kowloon. While it is seldom mentioned or considered in travel articles on Hong Kong, Sham Shui Po is actually a particularly vibrant part of what Hong Kong is. Populated by working class folks, the traveler will find in Sham Shui Po the "real" Hong Kong.  Interspersed amongst this densely populated neighbourhood are many shops, street markets and food vendors. Here, one can easily discover that the shopping and food are much more affordable than in the more affluent parts of Hong Kong. The vibrant streets of Sham Shui Po are always crowded with people coming and going, Sham Shui Po, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China (2019) Personally, I always make it a point to drop by Sham Shui Po for its food, especially the freshly baked egg tarts which I really enjoyed. There is also the shopping. Stuffed toys, modelling kits, stationery and clothing are just the few of the many stuff that can be bought here. ...

Travel Planning....... When it comes to travel, it is always good to do some advance planning. I am not suggesting that we have to plan to the last minute details of each trip including the waking up time for each day of the trip and so on and so forth. What I suggest is some form of broad planning that helps to make the trip more hassle-free and enjoyable. These are the tips I myself follow for each trip that I took. For shorter trips, I may skip some of the steps. But in general, following these trips has always help me to ease easily into my travel and help take away some of the stress of going to a new place each time I travel. Air travel has made airports the typical gateway for most overseas trips. Departure Hall, Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong SAR, China (2017) Research - I typically read a bit about the country or city before each visit. With smartphones and connectivity to the internet readily available, it is always easy to find some t...

Of all modern wide body airliners, none is arguably more impressive than the Airbus A380-800.   And its not just the aesthetics that made the A380 the favourite airliner for most travellers. The interior of the plane is spacious and grand. More importantly, it does not gives one the claustrophobic feel. Take offs and landings are usually smooth and turbulences encountered in-flight are typically  less disturbing to the passengers, probably due to the size and bulk of this massive aircraft. The cabin is also relatively quiet as the plane cruises to its destination, providing a good ambience for the passengers to rest or catch up on some sleep, especially on those red-eye flights. Personally, the A380-800 is my number one choice when it comes to flying. This is especially so during long haul flights. Whenever possible, I usually try to select flights serviced using the A380 when booking my flight tickets. I will even go as far as to give up the so-called premium flight ...

Connecting Flights....... This coming weekend, I will be traveling to Taipei (TPE) via Hong Kong (HKG). Because my flights were booked on different airlines under different booking codes, I have to collect my check-in luggage upon arrival in HKG from SIN, clear immigration and customs, check-in again for my next flight from HKG to TPE, go through immigration again as well as the necessary security checks before I can emerge airside at the airport for my connecting flight. Departure Hall of the Hong Kong International Airport, Hong Kong SAR, China (2017) Sounds like a hassle? Not when I will be flying J-Class (a.k.a. Business Class) on both sectors from SIN to HKG via SQ (Singapore Airlines) and HKG to TPE via CX (Cathay Pacific) on tickets paid with air miles. Sure, there are hassles with the connecting flights on 2 different airlines with different booking codes but they are worth it.  In order to ensure that I have a seamless transit at the Hong Kong ...