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

    "Connections in our travels, Make for lasting memories and friendship." -  Timothy Tan, author of this blog Sunset, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (2018)

To resume travel..... or stay put for now? As authorities in many countries started to peel back on travel restrictions, many who have had enough of being unable to travel have cheered these decisions and started travelling or planning to travel again. I am not referring to those who generally have justified needs to travel; whether this is for business, work, or to visit immediate family members, relatives and friends due to one reason or another. What I am talking about are those who resume travel for leisure's sake. The justifications put forth by these leisure travellers are that they need a break. So what kind of "break" do they really need? I am not sure. But to throw caution to the winds and embark on leisure travel at this moment in time just to sight-see may not be exactly a good idea. Apart from having to "jostle" with those who really need to travel for limited air tickets (many airlines are still not back to full operational capacity vis-a-vis pre-pa...

Everybody can probably agree that travelling provide us with the opportunities to see and experience new things. One of these new experiences is street art. I am sure we have all seen street art before, both at home and abroad. But just when I thought I had seen most forms of street art that the mind can imagine, I was in for a pleasant surprise. When I visited Fremantle in June 2018, the street art that I saw was a whole new level. Basically, the whole street was one gigantic artwork!  And the artwork became more gorgeous as the elevation that I viewed it from increased. I climbed a flight of stairs to a vantage point, just to take in the whole perspective that this piece of artwork was meant to be. And I was not disappointed. Street Art, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (2018)

Keeping a Travel Journal....... Travel journals can be a very useful item during one's travels. Not only does a journal allows one to jot down experiences encountered during a trip which may otherwise just become another fading memory, it also allows one to keep notes of the destinations, the next destinations and so on. In this day and age, a journal does not has to be a hardcopy notebook. A simple digital notepad or a simple travel app can serve as a travel journal. Personally, I prefer a hardcopy notebook although I had use a combination of both physical notebooks and digital notepads as my travel journals. Taking notes about the places just visited, short write-ups of experiences encountered and sketches of what one saw and experienced are just some of the many stuff that can go into a travel journal. Weeks, months or even years later, looking through the old travel journal is almost certain to bring back great memories of a past trip that has long been consigned t...

Having mobile phones with good cameras provide us with the opportunity to take interesting photographs whether we are at home, at work or traveling. The convenience that comes with taking photographs with our mobile phones means we are unlikely to miss out on those good photo opportunities wherever we are. While strolling along the beach on a nice afternoon at Fremantle, I came across this group of children playing and enjoying themselves during a day out in the sun. With my mobile phone, I zoomed in and took this photograph. The innocence of childhood captured in the photo brought back memories of my own childhood and set me on an introspective mood. Children playing at the beach, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (2018)

2018 Travel Review....... In 2018, I did not travel as much as I wanted due to work commitments. Compared to the preceding year of 2017, I traveled a lot less. Nevertheless, I still managed to clock some amazing personal trips and got to visit many places for the first time. These included the cities of Moriyama, Omnihachiman and Takashima in Japan's Shiga Prefecture and also Perth and its surrounding areas in Western Australia. I also got to visit Indonesia's beautiful island of Bali for the first time in 2 years as well as my favourite and usual destination cities of Hong Kong and Taipei. And all these trips within a year in which I was supposedly "grounded" in my home city because of work!  Fireworks over the harbour to celebrate Western Australia Day on the night of 3 June 2018, Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia (2018) My travel in Shiga in April 2018 was amongst one of the best trips I had ever taken. The itinerary was intentionally p...