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

Kowloon, Hong Kong,  China A slightly different of version this article was first published on this blog in June 2024. While I have visited Hong Kong multiple times over the years, my typical travel itinerary has always been direct air flights between Singapore and Hong Kong. Sailing into Hong Kong via a cruise ship was thus a very different experience. I had since done that twice. This article describes the first time I sailed to Hong Kong from Kagoshima onboard Royal Caribbean's Spectrum of the Seas in August 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. This was the first time I visited Hong Kong 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 . A first fo...

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 desti...

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...

Hong Kong is a small city crammed with people and more people. Yet, Hong Kong is a very interesting place with just about anything and everything all packed into a small city with a total land area of about 2750 square kilometres.  In my many visits to Hong Kong, which is just under 4 hours by flight from my home in Singapore, I have almost always make it a point to visit the famed Goldfish Market. The name Goldfish Market is a slight misnomer. Because in the streets that make up this so-called Goldfish Market, shops lining the narrow streets peddled all kinds of tropical and marine fishes, besides the traditional goldfish.  Colourful freshwater shrimps for sale, Goldfish Market, Mong Kok, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China (2016) There are also many shops which sell reptiles including many types of Geckos as well as the occasional Chameleons. Various types of tortoises and turtles are also sold as pets here. These include species such as the Star Tortoises, Leo...