Jen Hotel

One of the latest new addition to Orchard Road.
We decided to celebrate Christmas & Boxing day here.

The view is superb 

Like the touch screen lift

View

Good size room

MBS view

Room card

Pool

Not crowded

Night view from room

Day and night views

Mt Takao from Tokyo Shinjuku Station part 1

A day spent hiking

 

 

 

Brochure in Japanese

Mt Takao is easily accessible from Tokyo city.  We took the KEIO line which took less than an hour to reach the foot of the mountain. There are many ways to hike up the mountain with various levels of difficulty.

The base station for start the hike

You can ease the way up by choosing one of the 2 type of cable cars. The first one is the one you are seeing below. The other type is chair lift. Both send you half way up the mountain.

Mt Takao from Tokyo Shinjuku Station part 2

You can visit this place in different seasons and enjoy the beauty.

Most visitors eat this 3-fortune bun here

Comfort food in the cold weather

Beautiful autumn leaves

 You can also try this famous super long hotdog.

At the peak of Mt Takao, if you are lucky, you can catch a glimpse of Mt Fuji.
 

At the peak background is Mt Fuji

Back to Tokyo Meiji Shrine

This time it was a rainy day and we were rewarded with the different feel.
 

Singapore Airlines - time to upgrade (fast!)

a few days ago, SIA was in the news. Profit slide 73%!
Was it shocking to me? Actually NO!

As a matter of fact, I have been wanting to write to blog titled "time to upgrade SIA" after my recently trip on SQ. I also had the chance to take Delta an United.
Surprisingly, my ratings for both airlines are higher than SQ. There are a few factors I will list down here. I think SIA must start looking seriously at its competitors.


Below is inflight entertainment controller. Can you see the centre button totally worn off. I had to use a lot of strength just to activate it. This is totally a show of time to upgrade.

The next thing I noticed was the seat. Both Delta and United are leather seats and very comfortable. However, SQ is still using fabric. and to my horror, I started developing rashes on the back of my thigh after my 8 hour flight on SQ.

The reason why I opt for SQ  flight was usually because of the service (food options). Delta prices are very attractive compared to SQ but that's because their food option is not as good as SQ (or so from my previous experience). 

However, on this long-haul flight, they ran out of snacks. I meant totally NO snack, the stewardess was very nice to offer me instant cup noodle but I was looking for something sweet :(


Therefore, for my next trip, I will not hesitate to go on Delta. Of course till SQ improved or catch up. 


SQ, stop thinking you are the best in the industry. I want to continue to support you. I was the Gold Elite member. I also invested in your stock! Please wake up!

Incheon Airport - Global Tax Free

After all the shopping in Korea, here is a quick look at where to go to get your tax claim at Incheon without missing your flight home.

If you made purchase of 30,000 won or more at a participating retail store, designated by the "Global Blue Tax Free" or "Global Tax Free" logo. Be sure to keep your VAT refund receipt.

 

Gate 28 is where you go and present the receipt/s for the refund.

* Be sure to get the endorsement on the receipt(s) if you are checking-in the items into luggage before clearing custom.

Day Two N Seoul Tower

After lunch, we decided to cover N Seoul Tower since we were so close to the cable car. 

Direction to cable car(N Seoul Tower)

Myeongdong Subway Station Line 4 Exit 3
From escalator up, turn left and you should see a tiny park with a 7-11 on the right. It is actually a Y-junction.
Walk up the street on the side of 7-11 and you will see Pacific hotel at the end of the Y. Take the route on your right side and keep walking.
It is an uphill walk, wear a good pair of shoes and enjoy the walk!

You should reach the cable car station in about 10mins.

Cable car fee? We paid for round trip W22500 for 2A & 1C price.

What is nice at the N Seoul Tower? The area where locks are being locked onto the railings. It is the scene from My Love from Star. The observation tower.

The place was quite crowded on Sunday. However, we noticed not many people pay to go up to the observation tower. Most hang around the outdoor and enjoy the breeze, take pictures of the locks.

After going up to the observation tower, it was about 6pm. We decided we were really tired and needed to go back hotel to rest :)

So we had dinner at this cosy Japanese restaurant in Coex. Thumb up for the food!
I simply love the slice beef of Korea. They are so yummy.

Day Two Seoul Myeongdong

Breakfast at grand kitchen, the nice surrounding and lighting made the photo taking of food very pretty. Breakfast is not fantastic, quite normal for 5stars hotel but nothing particularly nice.

As usual, our free & easy style is to sleep in until we are ready to go touring. 
We left hotel almost 11am and the subway is just 2 mins walk away.
 



As we were new to the subway system and we did not do much homework on the places we like to go, we chose a simply direct line to experience it. 
We took subway to Seoul Station to get a feel of the big city.
After yesterday disappointment in the Coex mall, we were amazed with our shopping luck because lotte mart was closed!!!
We walked around the Lotte Outlets.

After that we decided to go myeongdong, which turned out to be a much better choice with more crowd and shops.  There were also a lot of street vendors selling foodstuff and accessories on weekend.



We had lunch around 2+pm at han's deli located along Myeongdong 8-gil (Exit 6 of Myeongdong Station Line turned left, walked about 100metre) It is on the left of the sidewalk 5th level. A lot of youngster frequent this eating place.

What I like about eating in Seoul is that they provide free flow of water. Firstly I do not need to lug bottles of water around for the whole day, it is heavy for sightseeing. Secondly, I do not need to buy sugar-loaded drink that will create havoc on my weight :)

Day One Seoul

Incheon Airport immigration is very impressive, the clearance is very fast, only took 3-5 mins to clear, there is no queue. Very efficient.

Airport shuttle was also a quick short wait, one hour journey by shuttle from airport  to hotel, with some minor jam nearer town on a sat afternoon.
We arrived at the hotel at about 5+pm, as it is summer, the sky will turn dark nearing 8pm. 

Hotel room interior is quite old.
 
 Coex shopping is also quite very disappointing, very different from what I read on the internet. There is on-going construction and a limited small shopping area.

At shopping malls like Hyundai dept store, there are seats just outside lifts  for shopping-tired customers to sit and wait. Very considerate service.Thumb up.

After a quick dinner at Coex, we went in search of the G25 convenience shop for t-money. It was quite a small store and I was disappointed that  that they didn't carry hello kitty t-money. By the time we got the t-money, the sky had turned dark and we decided to go back for an early night.

Actually subway in Korea is easy to navigate if u know the line number and the exit. Else it takes a long while to figure out anything :)
Talk about it in the next blog!

Seoul-fun

For first-timers to Seoul, many of you may be worried about the language barrier, how easy it is to get around? Actually, if you plan ahead, it is quite possible to find your way around Seoul. The subway is very well-developed.
Good if you can get hold of the tourist map and the subway map well in advance. With those, you can research on your itinerary, places you want to visit, the subway line and station number, the exit number, and voila! ready to go! Welcome to my journey! Arrival into Incheon International Airport!

Skyview from a condo

Not bad if you can wake up to this view everyday!

Can you see the Singapore Flyer at the far end, slightly to the right from the central, just beneath the clouds.

A sunny day in Singapore.

 

Where to catch the sight of the mempat trees aka singapore sakura

 Usually these trees blossom around aug every year after the dry spell in july.
This round the drought was in jan/feb. rain only came in march. Hence the blossom period was towards end of mar till early week of apr. approximately 2 weeks before they wither. They wither even beautifully onto the ground. what a beautiful sight. I only wish the National Park plant them in parks, gardens so that when they blossom, people can go and enjoy the beautiful sight safely. Now most of them are planted along the roadsides, it is quite dangerous  and difficult to be enjoying a 'pinic' in such areas. And most of the time, i noticed there is only maximum of 3 trees in a row, usually in 3 different shades (soft pink, bright pink and white) except for one stretch of road.

Places that I saw them:
1) Lor Chuan towards serangoon gardens
2) along the centre divider of TPE near tampines stetch
3) entrance to CTE southbound at Yio Chu Kang, just next to the condo
4) Beginning of Bishan Park next to the traffic light opposite Bishan MRT depot
5) Along braddell road towards Thomson Road. This stretch has the most number of trees, at least 10 of them. But it is very difficult to take picture if you are in the moving vehicle.
6) Paya Lebar road towards Sims Ave after PIE.
7) Old Choa Chu Kang Road

Mempat Trees blossoming week

Finally after the long month drought, the rain came.
And suddenly the whole island bustled into lovely flowers of soft pink, bright pink and white flowers from the mempat trees. It came so sudden and everywhere u go, u can catch them along roads.

 

This is what I managed to capture along the road during the peak of blossoming.

Singapore Night View in Bishan

Blocks of brightly lit housing apartments against a night sky of grey

Outlet mall hopping last Oct

After returning from the States 2 months ago, I finally sat down to pin drop all the outlet malls we went in Florida through our road trip from Orlando to Miami.
Actually the outlet malls were mainly used as our pit stops to replenish ourselves during the long hours drive. We had our meals, toilet break, shopping, and rest.