Tuesday, January 31, 2017

My YOLO trip: England

It was the first time I board on plane, super excited and kinda nervous, my family were there too, we had a trip in KL

As I entered the boarding gate, I told myself, everything after this gate is gonna be first try.



I lingered around shops, waited at the boarding gate, and board on airplane. Everything was so new to me, look outside from the window in the plane, had my first meal, and I will never forget how much I had sweated on my hands when the flight took off, plane was shaky and noisy.




Plane shaked sometimes and I be like it is crashing down or what? Funny, but i was really scared hehe

I got transfer in hochimin city, it took me 13+3 hours to reach London, it was 7 in the morning, the queue at the customs checkpoint was so crowded, it was cold outside but super hot inside, everyone was wearing coat, so sweaty, I wonder why everyone didn't take off the coat so I didn't too.

I took bus from heathrow to Victoria, before this I met a China girl, she talked to me because she thought I am from china too. We went to terminal2 for the bus to Victoria, but her bus was 10:30am and mine was 9:30am, we talked while we were walking but suddenly she disappeared, I felt super creepy and hopped on bus immediately. I got no wifi or 3G so me and Alyssa used fate to connect with each other. Long distance traveling made me so tired, I took a nap on the bus. Alyssa waited me at Victoria station, I saw her immediately, snapchatting me.




Buckingham Palace



Buckingham Palace, summoning their queen but too bad she wasn't around.
There were lots of people taking photos, sky was blue.



The sky was really stunning, unlike Malaysia's cloudy sky





We put our bags at the Mstay hotel.

Alyssa booked studio cause we wanted to update each other. But seriously we walked too much from 10am to late night and fell asleep right away.
We had long chat in the second dorm we stayed, which was 14 mixed dorm, yeap we whispered in the room -.-

Lesson number 3,
Don't book studio for the first night.



My first meal in UK was McDonald, it was suck, the burger was too dry and no sauce given. The best thing was still fries, I love fries, fries would never be awful. Heh


Mark and Spencer in london is different with what we have in Malaysia or Singapore
look at this supermarket size <3 in Malaysia it is just a small grocery store.





Shopping time !
We planned to join the Boxing Day but in the end all of us didn't buy any shit. For real, don't ever join Boxing Day before you do research. It was super duper crowded and not everything is cheap, those expensive stuffs will remain expensive. Great Sale Singapore is way better.





Winter Wonderland

And the sun went down, Christmas lights were turned on <3 it was amazing, I always like to stare at sparkling shiny lights or ocean or diamond hahahahahaha.




At night, we went to the Christmas market <3 oh my gosh the decoration was so fabulous I love it really really much. There was one part that I saw was the same as me and Ian went in Singapore, that artist kinda doing world tour? I guess hahaha










We had sausage with bread at 5 pounds for each, it was quite big serving so 3 of us shared them together. I love it sooooo muchhhhhh the sausage was soooooo juicy <3 yellow mustard is the best !





Here's the churrosssssssss with chocolate <3 oh my god I missed them...








Alyssa found out that the chocolate fudge will harden so it actually can be peeled off from the paper, so we ate them until the paper became so clean


Soon we are hungry again as we walked, there's a wine called MULLED WINE which served hot, its winter limited







arg didn't focus. Duck meat wrap (?)







~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Second day,
It was 1 degree in the morning, I was awake from the coldness and realized that the window was opened all night, heater was far away from me......


the Hotel was soooo comfortable that we actually slacked until 12pm.
Breakfast on bed, watching movies








Alyssa showed me the 1 pound Kettles, and I showed to Ian, he was so surprised! Hehe cause it's his favourite xD









221B Baker Street..

My favourite~~~ Sherlock holmes!!
with full of excitement I kept taking pictures on the street, but I didn't go into the musuem.
Firstly, I didn't wanna let my Alyssa and her boyfriend wait for me out there, Secondly, there was a long long queue!!





I know it will be another chance to come here so I am willing to wait! heh









<3 compass keychain from the museum







beef charkueyteow in the baker street



 


London Bridge underground



Tower Bridge

there's a christmas market by the river, walked along the market till we reach Tower bridge







purple lights made the bridge creepy HAHA.
we had big big sausage for dinner <3



At night, we walked back to the hostel, made cups of tea, chill and relax.
There's a foosball game in the common area, it's super fun that actually could laugh our abs out!

after that there's a guy joined us, made this game even more fun!






We slept in the 3 layer bunk bed, it's a 33 beds mixed dorm, so the heater wasn't working because the room is too big


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~




Day 3








Croissants breakfast

Croissants and cheese from sainsbury's, croissants in europe is cheap and delicious, even from the supermarket <3



THE HIDDEN TUNNEL ART in Waterloo

As we were on our way to big ben, I saw some mural spray art on street, and then we passed by a tunner entrance which was down below us, I asked 要下去吗?好吧下去啦!!!

then BOOM! it was AMAZINGGGGGG
that's why I like to walk rather than taking public transportation.

<3








artist spotted!






Here comesssss 

THE BIG BEN :D





We took a lot of photos there, SO CROWDED that we have to grab the chance, nobody likes photo bomber x(





Borough Market <3

The market is not far away from our hostel so we could collect our bags after this.
Borough market sells cheese, fruits, veggies, breads, and FOOD !!!!!!

me, people and FOOOODDDDD

First fish and chips in London



Our next station is Liverpool, where Alyssa studies <3
See you in next post <3





Mstay hotel
Price: tbc
address: 39 Queensborough Terrace, Bayswater, London W2 3SY, UK


St Christopher's Inn Village London Bridge
Price: tbc
address: 165 Borough High St, London SE1 1HR, UK

Monday, January 16, 2017

My YOLO trip : The plans maker...

There will gonna be chapters, different places for each, in this blog post I just wanna share with you guys why I went alone because I've been asked by many friends, they saw my snapchat that I went to Europe with different friends and sometimes I was alone.


And now I am backkkkkkk! What a wonderful trip, this would be the best sem break I've ever had!

It's a spontaneous trip that I actually 'informed' my parents that I would be going England and meet my bestie, who is studying in Liverpool. I've been longing for a YOLO trip for soooo long! Before I buy my tickets, this thinking was just in my mind, one day, something got me so mad and I straight away booked return tickets from Expedia.com


It costed me around RM2.4k, I took a picture, asked my bestie for last confirmation, and made payment. I feel nothing on that day but after that, I feel really sucks... I've never been for a trip before, as in, I DON'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO PLAN!!!!!!!

Another thing made me feel panic is I had never spend so much money before after the iphone6S+, I was staring at my bank account and ... fxck ya just make myself broke!


#YOLO

Flight transfer at Ho Chi Minh city, Vietnam



Ok then Alyssa and I Skyped, discussed where and what we gonna do in England, it was my sem break, we read a lots of blogs, did researches of England, my laptop never shut down because there were so many chrome tabs, after that she asked me to try other country in Europe because it's quite a waste if I travel only in England. Somehow she found out that her assignments summation was right after the holidays, which means she was not able to have the bestie trip anymore, but she promised me to spare few days for me <3


At first I was freaked out but the next second I feel YOLO hahaha! Solo trip was in my bucket list for so long and finally I can check it out ! Yoo-hoo

So I list out where I wanna go, its just 19 days, so I have to pick those I really wanna go.


I set budget around RM10k because all of the bloggers I found used around 8k to 10k.
I will do a list later when I'm free... if I'm free..


Sooner, my school starts and I stopped planning because UTAR is University tak ada rehat, I actually put 'plan the fxcking trip' in my planner like so many times, I ignored them eventually.. until one day, Alyssa said Seimin will be going England to find Canon too, Canon is having same course with Alyssa, so he wasn't able to accompany Seimin for the trip after December too so she asked me if I want to go with her, at least we can take care of each other.

Stress is the only way that can push me, so Seimin I am so sorry you were my stress HAHA I sucks at planning and I was like whattt I am going to plan with someone else????? It was really stressful, really really stressful.

She said she will follow my plan and I was like I didn't even have any plan.. I roughly made my first plan as fast as lightning. The route was like this: England, Italy, France, and Netherlands.





Seimin followed me to Italy together her trip had to be ended on 6th of Jan. Italy is such a big place, there were so many places I wanna go but it's just 6 days time for us in Italy, I asked Vina for precious opinion because she is the only person I know who travel a lot. Canon suggested us to go Manarola, so we decided to go Rome, Pisa, Manarola and Milan.

Me and Seimin started to find accommodations from airbnb because I am lazy person I hate doing research, so I just search from what I always see from the advertisement. Thanks to Seimin she did the most and made me feel so small.. x( useless me.


And I was free, she was having exam, and she was free, I was having exam, and when we both were free, she was already in England and we didn't managed to have time and plan together.

During my free time I actually searched and booked my accommodation, it's winter, I don't wanna die in coldness. The dorms I booked were from Agoda.com and Booking.com, Agoda.com got really cheap dorm, 14-mix dorm is the cheapest, which means you will be sleeping with 14 people, it's bunk beds, not on the floor.

To save more money, I booked night bus or early morning flight to the next destination so I can sleep in the bus during the long journey or sleep at the airport so I can catch the early flight too.

I made rough plans for my accommodation and wrote down the time of flights




After my final exam, I just bought my backpack(75L) and it costed me only RM60 from Lazada, after this trip I'm gonna call it disposable backpack, here's the pictures.


bad stitching, canvas is thin, looks weak.


It's lucky that those important part didn't break or tear off. it still accompanied me through the whole journey. I will get a new one, soon! First timer gets forgiveness so I forgave myself hehe.


Deciding what to wear and how many clothes I need to bring is the hardest thing for me because I only got 5 days left after exam. Everything was too rush and I haven't even get my backpack. Luckily i received on time, the next challenge is, what you need to bring.

I borrowed 3 coats, some of my friends asked me to bring 1 or 2, just bring 1 and some said 3 because she doesn't want to look the same in every pictures.


OK I brought 3 because on of my friend's said different countries have different weather, 3 different coats can deal with it.

Lesson #1
if you're first timer and you gonna use backpack too, bring 1 is enough :D don't be stupid like me. Cry...
Long johns and sweaters are more important. Coats will just limit the space in your backpack, I won't bring 3 again if I'm not gonna use big luggage.

Lesson #2
Bring only things you really need, if you still can live without them, leave them at home.

I brought many photographing gadgets, in the end I just used the mini tripod and my selfie sticks. The stupidest thing is I brought book, because I scared that I couldn't sleep in the flights, no wifi there so I was thinking to read a book so it can make me sleepy. heh

I brought 3 knitted sweater too, they couldn't be compressed much using the compression bags, really waste the space.




My backpack was 9.9kg + 1 kanken bag when I left malaysia, and 12kg + 1 extra cabin luggage and kanken bag when I came back.



I reached airport at night, my family and I had dinner at the airport together. It was my father's birthday on the following day so we bought a cake, simple celebration at the airport <3




I think this is the end. Stay tuned to my next post!!!