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

Fresh from a trip and looking forward to another......  I had just returned home recently from a short 4-days trip to Hong Kong. Looking at my travel calendar, I have no other trips for the year except for an almost month-long trip to multiple cities in Asia in August. So, while I settle myself down at home to get use to my daily work-routine, I have nothing to look forward to in terms of travel. Except for August, no other travels are in store for me in 2023, no other leisure and no work trips. Perhaps that's good. It will make me appreciate and enjoy my upcoming month-long Asian cities grand-trip a lot more. More time for planning and anticipation. 1/200 scale Airbus A380 model planes on display, Narita Airport, Narita, Chiba Prefecture, Japan (2019)

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 ...

While I have made plans and confirmed my air tickets and hotel accommodation for my upcoming short trip to Hong Kong in the later part of this week, I just couldn't resist clicking on the "Buy" buttons of some online web-stores due to the amazing promotional prices on offer.  Seeing that their "promised" delivery dates will be just-in-time for me to receive these items right before I jet off to enjoy Hong Kong's delicious food, the "scheduled" delivery dates for the same items after I made my payments had quickly "shifted" to a few days, later! Now, this is going to be a problem. If the said deliveries are going to be happening when I am away, then there is no way either myself or anyone else can be at home to receive the parcels because I don't stay with family. Moral of the story? Always assume the "promised" delivery dates of online platforms as "expected" or "estimated" dates rather than dates cast in...

  "Your life's  journey is a collection of the trips in your lifetime ." -  Anonymous  Angkor Thom Complex, Angkor National Park, Cambodia (2022)

Switzerland, Lucerne, Magic of Lucerne This article was originally published in this blog in December 2016. While this article was not generally written in the style of the first-person narrative, it nevertheless reflects my experiences and thoughts during my visit way back in 2009. Excerpt from this blog post: "Stroll around the city and take in the sights and sounds. Be awed by this beautiful city. I took a relaxed walking tour of the city on my own and the walk "connected" me to the heartbeat that is Lucerne." ****************** The city of Lucerne is located in central Switzerland and is the capital of the Canton of Lucerne. The people in Lucerne speaks mostly German since it is located in the German speaking part of Switzerland. History and Geography Sometime in the year AD 1290, Lucerne became self-sufficient as a functioning city with a sustainable population size. Together with three other neighbouring cantons, Lucerne formed the Swiss Confederacy in the yea...

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...

  " To travel is not to escape life, But to learn about life." -  Anonymous  Snapshots from Old Town, Ipoh, Perak, Malaysia (2023)