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

Singapore, Marina Bay, Marina Bay Sands, ArtScience Museum What counts as a bucket list item? For me, a bucket list item don't have to be something extraordinary. It can be something simple, something close to my heart. I do not have to climb the highest peak in the world or travel to the ends of the world to qualify a bucket list item; although those epic adventures would certainly have counted as not just bucket list items but special bucket list items! Bucket list items can be achieved closer to home, in one's own backyard or anywhere as long as it fulfils a special place in one's heart. ****************** Being a huge fan of the Star Wars franchise, I was naturally very excited when the "Star Wars Identities"  exhibition was staged in Singapore in the first half of this year. Needless to say, I made time to visit. Although I wish that there were more range and depth in the exhibits, I am still grateful that I was able to visit in person. ...

  "Looking at the Moon, Up in the night sky, Sitting in my room, Wandering where I will travel to next, My fantasies take flight. "  -  Timothy Tan, author of this blog - tankstraveltales   Stain Glass on Ceiling, National Museum, Singapore (2016)

A "vacation" by any other name....... As international border closures remain strictly in force, I have decided that an overseas vacation pre-pandemic style is simply neither possible nor practical. While it is true that I can theoretically travel to a couple of destinations currently, the required administrative loops and hurdles that I will have to jump through just to travel to these "select" destinations immediately made even the idea of leisure travel impractical. For example, based on the number of COVID testings one have to undergo just for a one or two-week trip, which can be as many as four or even five tests, simply don't make sense. Besides the costs involved (assuming an average of USD$110 per test), there are still the inconveniences of having to travel to designated clinics for these tests, queue up, wait, waste precious vacation time and to top it all the up, grapple with the amount of extra paperwork just to prove that I am vaccinated and also do...

There are the normal ways of going about doing things and there are the innovative ways to do the same things. In Taipei City's Beitou District, the Beitou Public Library is an example of innovation and creative artistry. While the library building itself is both an architectural wonder and a breadth of fresh air in creativity, the interiors of this beautiful library boasts the same creative ingenuity. Examples include the reading areas. There are outdoor reading areas which look out into the greenery and neighbourhood scenery, bringing readers close to nature. While for those who prefer to be indoors, some of the indoor reading and study areas have been created to resemble the ambience of a warm and welcoming cafe rather than a blend public library. The clever use of architecture and design promotes not just an innovative approach to city living but also introduce a gentleness into the lives of the local people. Indoor reading and study area, Beitou Public Library, Beitou, Taipei ...

Malaysia, Perak, Batu Gajah This previous post in this travelogue was first published on 13 February 2016. The trip was made earlier in the same month before the article's published date on this blog. Read on for a brief history of this supposedly haunted abandoned castle located in the midst of lush palm tree plantations. ****************** Despite the title, there is nothing really supernatural about this article. But the title is neither a tease nor click bait. There are indeed stories and rumours of ghostly apparitions being observed in and around this castle! As are often the cases in stories of most haunted castle / mansions, tales of the supernatural are typically intertwined with actual historical events and people. View of Kellie's Castle as seen through the camera lens of my iPhone 6s Plus as I circled the castle in an anticlockwise direction, Batu Gajah, Perak, Malaysia (2016) Kellie's Castle (or the ruins of what remains) is located in Perak State of Malaysia. B...

How often do we take everyday sights and sounds for granted when we travel? An impressive building and architectural structure I saw and photographed while travelling on foot from Harrods to the London Natural History Museum, South Kensington, London, UK (2017) A mundane road, a bus ferrying passengers going about its daily routine, people sitting around chatting or resting and pedestrians passing by with shopping bags. Surely, these are sights and sounds that can be found in every country, city, town or neighbourhood.  Not exactly true. Because every place has its own unique sights and sounds. Yes, the flow of people and public transport or the grind of everyday life are structured to achieve the same aims; daily living. But the way each place achieves this is different. There is something unique about every place, even within the same neighbourhood, town, city or country. It is this uniqueness which gives every place an identity of its own.  As an example, London's Piccadill...

Leisure travel....... soon? Sunday morning. As usual, I woke up late, preferring to sleep in on weekend mornings, just so to differentiate between the weekend and weekday mornings of my new work-from-home lifestyle. As I went through the motion of eating my quotidian breakfast of cereal, oats and eggs while browsing the news websites on my laptop, with a little check on the current Olympic medal tally (today, 8 August 2021, is the last day of the Tokyo "2020" Olympics), it suddenly dawned upon me that leisure travel may soon be possible again in this part of the world. Of course, a lot still depend on the "ifs" and "buts" but there is now a small glimmer of hope that folks looking to travel for leisure may be permitted to do so, subject to some minor inconveniences such as swabbing, re-swabbing and more re-swabbing for viral particles that may be hiding somewhere up in the deep recesses of the travellers' nostrils. Meanwhile airports, airlines and othe...