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Perfect Planning and Immaculate Central Europe Sightseeing Travel

cecil — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:10:43 +0000

Perfect! Put aside the re-opening of Europe airports just a week before our flight to London and re-closing of London airports few days after our flight back to where I’m now, due to the Iceland’s volcanic ash, all my hard works in planning for my Europe trip have been paid off perfectly!

All planned and booked domestic air and train travels were as scheduled. Conditions of all pre-booked accommodations were as expected and safe. No single one of us (a group of 5) experienced any theft and loss of important travel documents. Not a single one of us fell sick during the period. No one from us gonna break the bank from this trip. What could I say! I shall call this an immaculate Europe sight-seeing self-travel trip! Hooray!!

Why planning was so important to ‘this trip‘ to central Europe? Off course, many backpackers may prefer to travel as they go, to plan as they travel. This is great when you have plenty of time and travel by yourself or with your couple. You can take your sweet time to relax and plan for your next stop. But not in our case. I had only 14 days and I’m bringing a group who haven’t been there, couldn’t speak English very well and hadn’t got enough self-travelling experience. For them, visiting as many travel sites as they could during these 14 days was their priority objectives. What could I do? I had to plan everything well ahead so we would not waste much time in sourcing cheap accommodations and transportation.

What’s more? We had limited budget. Planning ahead saved us lots of monies especially where London hotels are generally expensive especially in the city centre. Out of my expectation, this happened to domestic train and air tickets as well. The earlier you book them online, the cheaper you can get the tickets!

Furthermore, pick-pockets are getting more serious in Europe travel destinations and in public transports. Planning ahead means we were well prepared to take care of our belongings especially our travel documents. Less acting like tourists asking around for help made us less ‘attractive‘ to be others ‘target‘!

Lastly, because I planned for our complete travel itineraries, I had planned such a way that we always stayed where were convenient for our next stop. We stayed nearby St. Pancras International train station as we took Eurostar to Paris. I chose one of those Paris hotels near the Gard Du Nord train station so we didn’t have to carry our heavy luggage and walked too far to catch our next train to Amsterdam.

These planning was essential for such a tight travel schedule. We traveled to central Europe as scheduled and most things, if not all, turned out perfectly, except some of those little hiccup and unpleasant experiences….err… what… SHHH. Subscribe to this blog feed via RSS or Email to receive upcoming stories on my Europe travel. – Travel Feeder, the ultimate travel photo blog

Travel By Photos – First Afternoon at Patong Beach, the beach

cecil — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 15:58:08 +0000

What Patong Beach is first famous for? The beach off course! I’ve posted quite a number of Phuket travel stories so far but I still haven’t posted much things about the beach itself. This is it: The Patong Beach, the beach itself. We reached Phuket and Patong in the morning, had our first look at Patong Beach and had our first lunch at Jungceylon shopping mall. After lunch, we walked around the town to get some feel of the environment and local culture, and we headed back to our Safari Beach Resort for a brief nap…. zzzzzzzz.

In the late afternoon, we went out again. This time we were walking down to the beach, just across the Beach Road in front of our hotel (this is the best part of Safari Beach Hotel which situated in front of the beach and next door to Bangla Street). Have you ever experienced this: You thought of going somewhere or buying something on travel but you did not do it in the first place and you started to say to yourself, “Nevermind, I still can do that LATER”? And what would happen next? You would never have the 2nd chance to do it! It happened to me on my Gold Coast travel where we thought of going back to see the sunset at Surfers Paradise on our last day but we failed eventually as bad traffic delayed our way back from Hinterland and it was already night hours when we reached home…

So, whatever you think you want to do or see or buy on travel, DO IT IMMEDIATELY or you’re going to miss it! Same with our fun hours at the beach of Patong. If we delayed to go to the beach on our first day in Patong evening, we were going to miss the best evening sunlight in Patong as there were too cloudy to see sunset on the rest of our days in Phuket!

I love the late afternoon sunlight at Patong beach. The beach was so attractive under it…

While many tourists were sunbathing under the sun, there were many other activities going on the beach.

Beach parachute ride is a famous activities at Patong Beach.

We were doing something else…. crab catching!

Jetskiing is another favourite sport on the beach.

Love sunlight, lovely wife…

Beach soccer is among the local favourite sport on the beach. There are a lot of Thai soccer talents out there…

An illusion of moving sand after wave tides, one of my favourite shot.

Beach chairs could be rented for sunbathing and there are also best for people watching!

Singha Beer on the beach! Lovely!

The best part on the beach of Patong: visitors were served with complimentary Starbucks coffee! Wonderful! I couldn’t find any of this in Malaysian beach. Can you?

An unique feeling of tasting coffee on beach!

Though evening sun is bright, scattered clouds blocked parts of the sunset unfortunately…

The best dusk scene I could captured on the day in Patong Beach. The sun set at 7pm and we left the beach for our first dinner in Patong! What we did at night after dinner? Exploration on the Bangla Street, the most happening street in Patong and Phuket!

Don’t miss my upcoming stories on Phuket travel. I will try to wrap up the whole story of my travel to Phuket before this May. Why? In May I will write and concentrate more on my exciting short 14-day tour to Western Europe!

p/s: If you think this travel photo blog has something you are looking for and is worth for your reading, please support me by one of these ways: Subscribe to Travel Feeder’s feeds for free upcoming stories via RSS or email; Search and purchase my favourite photos from istockphoto; Get your camera stuffs through my link to Amazon where you won’t lose anything and I could earn some commission, or, buy me a cup of coffee. Thank you. – Travel Feeder.

South Yangtze China Tour Final Update – The final 4 days summary

cecil — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 09:03:39 +0000

It’s time now to conclude the whole stories of my packaged travel to Shanghai and other 4 cities in South Yangtze region of China. We spent 8 days in the tour to cover many tourist attractions in Shanghai, Hangzhou, SuZhou, Nanjing, Wuxi and also the water village, Wuzhen. For the first 4 days, we explored the financial capital of China, Shanghai, and also the 2 cities of heaven on the earth which were Hangzhou and Suzhou. I’ve posted a half way summary for these first 4 days of tour earlier. Click this link below if you haven’t got a clue where we are coming from:

South Yangtze China Packaged Travel Halfway Update – Where Have I Been On The First 4 Days?

On the fifth day, we traveled to another significant city in South Yangtze region of China, Nanjing and followed by Wuxi, before traveling back to Shanghai. Here are the stories for the final 4 days of travel in China:

In Nanjing, we visited the SongMeiLing villa;
Later in the evening, we came to Nanjing Bridge and visited the crystal inner art gallery;
At night, we went shopping at the largest pedestrian precinct in Nanjing, the FuZhiMiao;
On the next morning, we explored the Nanjing Wall at QinHuai Scenic Area;
Being the biggest hoax of our tour, we bought a jade pendent from a jade factory;
After having lunch in Nanjing, we progressed to another scenic city of Wuxi;
On our way there, I realised we would not have such fun if we didn’t pack these 5 items into our luggage before traveling to China;
In Wuxi, the first attraction to visit would definitely the Lingshan giant buddha;
I recorded a video also on the scene of “Buddha being bathed by nine dragons”;
That’s nothing much on Wuxi nightlife where we only went to a shopping mall;
Early in the next morning, we took a fresh air at Lihu Lake scenic area;
What else could we do in Wuxi? Check out the film shooting base of “Three Kingdom City”;
What could we drink in Wuxi? I had a Taihu Lake Water beer!
Taihu Lake is also famous for its freshwater cultured pearls;
Enough looking at pearls ladies? Let’s move to go back to Shanghai!
We were close. We shopped and drank for the last evening at Nanjing Street, the biggest shopping street in China!
Still exploring Shanghai on the final day? Yes. We dropped by the TongRenTang chinese pharmaceutical centre before taking the Shanghai Meglev Train to the airport.

Long stories isn’t it? Sorry if it took you so long to follow me on my travel experience in China last last Autumn. However, you may find it interesting and informative to guide you through the packaged tour or at least you would have a preliminary idea on what you should expect from this type of all-inclusive packaged tour to South Yangtze China.

Good news for me! I’ve finally concluded my weblog on China tour, for this round. Next. So I could concentrate my next travel stories on Phuket…

p/s: If you think this travel blog is worth for your reading, please support me by one of these ways: Subscribe to Travel Feeder’s feeds for free upcoming stories via RSS or email; Search and purchase my favourite photos from istockphoto; Get your camera stuffs through my link to Amazon where you won’t lose anything and I could earn some commission, or, buy me a cup of coffee as you like. Thank you. – Travel Feeder.

South Yangtze China Tour Finale – Shanghai Maglev Train

cecil — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 16:25:21 +0000

Finally, I’m going to wrap up the story of my South Yangtze China in this post. We woke up in the morning and it was already our 8th and final day in China. After having our breakfast in our hotel, KuaiJie by Holiday Inn, we checked out the hotel and headed to our final destination in Shanghai. I couldn’t resist and took a few photos of the scenes around since it was my last chance to do so.

If you were following these stories since the beginning of the tour, this is the only group shot of all 5 of us, posing in front of the hotel.

Well, we left our hotel and arrived at this place shortly. I haven’t mentioned where we went to, have I?

They claimed it as the branch of Beijing’s TongRenTang （同仁堂）traditional chinese pharmaceutical centre. I claimed it as the final travel hoax of our China tour! I’m not sure whether this is the authorised branch of TongRenTang, maybe you can tell me from this photo I took at the main entrance. According to our group member who went to the original centre in Beijing, packaging of medicine seemed different which I have no idea. I called it a hoax because it didn’t look like a conventional medicine store but more like a spa-like wellness centre. I called it so because when we went into the building, we were brought by a sales rep into a small hall. Without informing or explaining, a group of young therapists came in with a pile of warm water and offered us a foot reflexology session! Some of us declined the offer and we sat aside waiting while the rest were enjoying their session. Then a lady in uniform that looked like a physician came in to explain about the history of TongRenTang to us.

While those friends whose feet soaked in the warm water were enjoying the reflexology session, again, few physician came into the hall and approached them to offer pulse diagnosis on their health. This was the catch! Your feet were held by the therapist and physician were holding your hand. Where could you run? After making a diagnosis, the physician will suggest a course of treatment from their full range of chinese medicine or herbs. Coincidentally, out of those 10 members who did the pulse diagnosis, all 10 of them were diagnosed with some kind illness and had bought some medicine from TongRenTang! Believe it or not? No doubt, their diagnosis skill and results were very convincing. But can you afford not to buy anything after the physician told you to treat your illness as soon as possible? At the end of it, our group bought over thousands bucks of Chinese traditional medicine! “We… are the champion, my friend…”

Same with other travel hoax of the package, we had lunch in the same building. At around 12:30pm we left Shanghai. Oops! Not quite. We headed to LongYang Road station in Pudong district of Shanghai to take a train to the airport. Passing by the Nanpu Bridge again, I took these photos from inside of our coach.

The scene was actually filtered by the coach window with sunscreen. The result was not really satisfactorily. What I did was to try to savage them with PS Element6 again. Some stains on the coach window glass panel could still be noticed though…

We took the fastest train on earth, the Shanghai Maglev Train, SMT! It cost RMB50 per person. Off course, it’s included in our all-in travel package.

I was quite excited to go up this escalator to the platform… How fast could it be? 200km/h? 300km/h? What’s the maximum speed of a F1 Ferrari race car? 360km/h? We will see…

Nothing special of the platform other than a huge tunnel roof.

There was it! The SMT train, or the Shanghai Magnetic Levitation Demonstration Operation Line.

The distance from Longyang station to Pudong airport station is 30km and this SMT could reach there in 7min and 20sec!! Can you believe that?

The cabin is spacious and seat are comfortable. Noise level are tremendously low and without much vibration either. Objects and scenes outside were moving backward really really quick as soon as the train took off.

Look at the speed! It reached the maximum speed of 430Km/h in just 3 minutes!! And it wasn’t wobbling and I was still steady enough to take this shot!

This is the departure hall of Pudong International Airport of Shanghai. So I shall conclude our travel to South Yangtze China here. Bye bye Shanghai and China! I shall see you again later this year!

Hope you have enjoyed reading this and all my other stories of the tour in Travel Feeder. If you haven’t, please do so by reading this first. Thanks. – Travel Feeder.

Nanjing Road – The Biggest Shopping Street Of Shanghai

cecil — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:46:57 +0000

Nanjing Road was our last tourist spot in Shanghai also the last evening of our 8-days packaged travel to South Yangtze China. To refresh your memory (I know I have dragged the stories of the tour a bit too long… ), this was part of the night excursion add-on package we paid 200 bucks extra to the original which did not cover any activities after dinner, such as the night cruise of HuangPu River, The night of Xihu show, GuanQian shopping pedestrian of Suzhou and also the FuZiMiao pedestrian precinct in Nanjing.

Nanjing Road(南京路) is the busiest, biggest and also the longest shopping street in the world. Measuring around 6KM long, Nanjing Road is currently covering 2 sections of the road, namely Nanjing Road East and Nanjing Road West. Originally it was only the east pedestrian precinct section in The Bund but now it stretches out to the west to People Square (人民广场).

Since it was our last night in China, we did serious shopping at the shopping street. Visitors from all over the world as well as the locals come here to do their shopping and people watching. International restaurant chains and local eateries could also be found along the street. Here are some of the photos I took with my Panasonic Lumix FZ28.

They are my fellow tour members.

We had a great time there. Though exhausted after 7 days of rushing tour around the South Yangtze China, we were still able to shop for almost one and a half hour there and bought some souvenirs and gifts (extra over what we had bought in GuanQian Street).

Did we go back to our hotel after that? Not really! While we still had some energy, we requested our tour leader, Ah Mei to bring us to the ‘night spot’ of Shanghai, The XinTianDi (新天地). XinTianDi is Shanghai famous upmarket entertainment hub with exclusive dining and shopping outlets. It is situated at the alley in between ancient buildings of the city similar to what we have here in Bintang Walk of Kuala Lumpur. – Travel Feeder.