Amsterdam is the capital and the most populated city of the Netherlands. The train station is just right in the central of the city. While I was there, I could see there were more bicycles and boats than cars.
You could see performances along the roads and in cafes.
Amsterdam is a city of water and almost every household has a boat for recreational and work.
You could also join in the free walking tour.
You could leave the sex museum and torture museum out of your itinerary as they are not interactive.
I would recommend a night visit to the red light district as this is an eye-opener for many of us.
I think the visit to the Van Gogh museum is most fruitful. I could see the original Sunflower and other familiar paintings by Vincent Van Gogh and learned more about the artist.
The tourist information center is next the train station.
If you have the time, you could take the sightseeing boat trip and cruise along the canals.
There are 5 Royal Palaces in Seoul. The entrance for each palace is 3,000 won but if you are wearing the traditional Korean Hanbok, you can enter the palace for free. There is the change of guard ceremony at 10 am and 2pm at the entrance of the Gyeongbokgung Gate. This should be in your definitely must watch list. I found out that these people are not real guards. They are employed by the tourist board to entertain the tourists.
From Seoul, I took the bus from the Dong Seoul Bus Terminal to Danyang for 19,800 won (S$24.73) and arrived at the Danyang Danuri Center. The bus trip is about 2 hours. Got a taxi for 4,000 won (S$5) to the Sono Moon Resort and stayed there for 3 days and 2 nights. You can also use the Korean T-card and take the local bus from the Danuri Center to the resort, it is about 4 bus stops. You can even walk from the Danyang Danuri Center and passed by the traditional market to reach the resort as it is just one straight road down, about 30 minutes of slow walk.
There is a water park inside the Sono Moon Resort but it was closed when I was there. There are also supermarket, bakery shop, restaurant and children play area at the basement of the resort. Worth staying for a few days.
The Mancheonha Skywalk is about 3 km from the Sono Moon Resort. Could take a slow morning walk.
The 30-metre high Manchenha Skywalk is free but you have to pay 3,000 won (S$3.75) for the bus to bring you up there. As the weather is not good, the other activities like the Alpine coaster and zipline were closed.
Took the local bus from the Danyang Danuri Center to Jacheon Station to take the train to Busan. The train ticket is 47,400 won (S$59.20) and the journey is about 2.5 hours.
The bento fast food was too good that I went to the same place 3 times.
We had the TeamBuilding event in the Universal Studio Singapore, Sentosa. We were gave the doscounted entrance tickets and meal vouchers. We had to queue for the rides, shows and even for foods as the place is packed with people from all over the worls, the theme park did not close just for us. This is a long, hot, tiring, exciting and enjoying day.
My solo backpacking trip to Australia was full of excitements. I visited Perth, Adelaide, Tasmania, Melbourne, Canberra, Newcastle and Sydney.
Perth 珀斯Fremantle 弗里曼特尔
I flew with SIA and arrived in Perth. I took the Indian Pacific Train to get across the desert from Perth to Adelaide. I was thinking of taking the ferry from Adelaide to Tasmania but after some considerations, I ended up taking Tiger Airways.
The Fram in Perth 农场
During the trip, I even went to visit the smaller cities like Cook Town, Kalgoorlie, Fremantle, Glenelg and St Kilda. I asked the locals for accommodation and when I misbehaved and got chased out of the house, I went to stay in the backpacker.
Adelaide 阿德莱德Indian Pacific train 印度太平洋火车
One morning when I woke up from the couch, I found a dog was sleeping next to me for the whole night. I went to the nude beach and realized that I was the only person wearing clothes. I attended a night party in a farm on top of the mountain.
Hobart 霍巴特Launceston 朗切斯顿
I naturally fall in love with Sydney Habour without a second thought when I saw her. I was just unable to resist the beauty.
Sydney Harbour 悉尼港
I walked from the city of Melbourne to the St Kilda beach. It was the day of the Pride Parade. An eye opener for me.
Sydney 悉尼St Kilda 圣基尔达
During the trip, I saw an amazing scene of a family of 4 well-behaved kangaroos waited patiently by the side of the road for the vehicle to pass by than they started to hop across the road. I almost got cheated near Chinatown and I finally witnessed the Australian Day on 26 January.
Melbourne 墨尔本
Though Canberra and Newcastle are a bit boring, I managed to entertain myself by trying to take interesting pictures. I was glad that I have visited Tasmania as both Hobart and Launceston are worth the trip.
Newcastle 纽卡斯尔Canberra 堪培拉
Brisbane and Gold Coast were just just a 5 days of stopping over when I came back from New Zealand in another trip.
We set off for a five-day and four-night trekking trip to Taman Negara. This is located along the borders of Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang in Peninsular Malaysia. Here, we would like to share our adventure with you.
The 14 of us boarded the train at about 8.20 p.m and spent our first night together in the seventh freezing compartment. We arrived at the Jerantut train station at about 2 a.m. and met up with the Malaysian co-coordinator. We were then taken to the Taman HQ base camp, which was about 70 km away from the train station.
After having breakfast in the floating restaurant at about 7 a.m., we took two speedboats to Kuala Kenyam where we started the 16 km trek with plenty of up and down slopes. We had two local guides attached to us for the trek.
Leeches were found almost everywhere in the jungle. They crawled quietly up to our shoes and penetrated through our socks to suck our blood. We came well prepared with bottles of vinegar to get rid of these bloodsuckers. During the trip we also encountered hornet attack and one of the members was sent to the local hospital for treatment.
Along the way, we visited three caves – the wide cave, the bat cave and the elephant cave. We spent our second night together in the elephant cave. Though we did not see any elephant, we did see fresh elephants’ footprints on the ground not far from our sleeping area. According to the guides, elephants only come to stay in the cave during November to March.
We visited the Orang Asli tribe, the first aboriginal tribe to inhabit the Malay Peninsula. These people are generally short, dark-skinned, with flat-facial features and tight woolly hair. They live a nomadic life in the jungle. As the Orang Asli tribe people are great guides for the jungle, we took the opportunity to learn how to hunt animals with a blow pipe and to start a fire using stones, wood and cloth.
We completed the trek the next day at about 4 p.m. The same speedboats took us back to the base camp where we could clean up, rest and eat. We had our third night in the air-conditioned Tahan Guest House.
The next morning, we were brought to experience the Canopy Walk. The Canopy Walkway is about 450 metres long and 20 metres above the ground and is built on top of the vegetation in the forest. This walkway is connected from one tree to another by the use of ropes. No nails, bolts or nuts were used.
We left the guesthouse at about midnight and headed for the train station. The train left at 2 a.m. for Singapore. We spent another night sleeping in the cold freezing compartment of the train
We reached Woodland checkpoint finally at about 10 a.m. the next morning.
