Blissful Marriage Partner!!!

3rd to get married among the sisters is my Partner. You know the feeling of a very close friend getting married? Its total elation. The same I had when Bestie and Yiyi (though I couldn't go) got hitched.

Beautiful bride:)

Prior to her wedding, we met once to run through the day's itinerary and finalize the day's duties. But it was not easy to meet up since we had a big group (7) and it is not easy to fit in every one's schedules.

And so we reported for duty at 6am on her wedding day not knowing at least half of the sisters group but know them well enough from stories heard throughout our friendship years:)

Not sure what we were so happy about

With the pretty mum to be

The 3 sisters on duty

We had fun bonding while rushing to prepare the games for groom and his band of brothers and look forward to when they arrive. Had a tight schedule to keep to and we were all anxious to make the day event run smoothly.

Running thru the program

Photo with bride before the day starts

Bingo game

Wasabi and chilli bread for the groom and brothers

Checking the ang baos

 Thank god that everything went smoothly and we finished part 1 at 1pm and dispersed to go home and rest before starting part 2 at 4pm. This time, I am more nervous as partner had tasked me as the Chinese MC along with Dear Dear who is in-charged of the English part.

Group shot after tea ceremony

Candid shot

Haven been on the stage since secondary school days where I was trained as a MC too. But it is different this time as it my best friend's wedding. Need to do a good job for her but I have no confidence. The crowd was big at 400 pax. Nearly fainted when I stepped onto the stage.

Blissful Marriage Partner!!

Us with my dearest sister

Us on the stage

Luckily, I think I still did ok though I haven got a chance to ask the bride on her thoughts. Haha.

Toasting the couple

Photo taken during toilet break

Attending Partner's wedding is like having a mini reunion not only with classmates but with course mates since we all came from different classes. It's the most heart warming wedding I ever been since we were self entertaining at the table and have a blast eating and chatting.

Ngee Ann Poly EE Class of 2004 table

Group shot before home sweet home

Wishing you a happy, blissful and everlasting marriage Partner. I'm honoured to be part of your celebrations and help to you on your Big day :)

Day trip to Johor Bahru

 Mr Love is very fond of massage but the services in Singapore are just too expensive to patronise. We tried going once to JB which his colleague recommended but the journey was too far and we weren't really familiar with the roads and gave up after that.

Recently, he keep bugging me to search for something near to go too again and I stumbled across this massage center near to Woodlands Causeway named Bangkok Spa.

Decided to try our luck to make our way there with no GPS help. Only armed with a hand drawn made by my colleague which seriously makes me second guess how accurate it is.

Turns out it's pretty easy though we did got lost in the process.

My directions (Follow at your own risk)

1). Keep right lane after exiting Malaysian Customs (Its a up slope)
2). Go straight, keep left lane, Petronas and Shell station should be on your left. Do not go up the flyover.
3). You will hit a junction which is under the flyover. Turn right.
4). Go straight, make a U-turn at the 2nd U-turn you see along the way. The 1st U-turn should be pretty near to Pelangi (Pink building) but unless you know how to navigate your way through the gardens to get to the place (We don't).
 5). After making U-turn go straight. On the way you will see Jalan Serampang on your left. Go straight further till you see a colourful hotel (Bliss hotel)
 6). Turn into the lane perpendicular to the hotel and Bangkok Spa is 200m down the street.

It's pretty easy if you know where Bliss hotel is, but we didn't know and ended up making a big detour before realising the mistake.

Shop front

The shop opens at 11am and we reached aound this time. It was still pretty quiet and we are one of the 1st customers. The good thing is, there are carpark lots outside the shop and there would be someone helping to look after your car. This is a concern to us since we heard countless stories of smashed windows. Not worth to risk it for a massage.

TV in the room

 We chose the traditional Thai massage package for 2hours at RM95 each. On top of it, we also took a VIP room which means we will have the whole room to oursleves at additional RM30 for the room. They told us that they will be adding 6% GST on top of the charges. It was much later then I realised that we were cheated. GST in Malaysia didn't started till Apr 2015. We went in Dec 2014. Basket.

Anyways, the prices were agreed before the massage and we only need to pay after the session. No other charges were added.

Mattress

Truth to be told, the masseurs that was assigned to us were pretty good. Working non stop for 2hours and had really good skills. We felt much lighter after that. Though some reviews were negative on the services but we encounter nothing like that.

In fact, we even tipped them a little for the hard work done since it was pretty tough to massage for non stop for 2 hours.

The ambience was good too though I hope the TV would have much more to offer. I nearly fell asleep in between the massage but managed to stay awake since passports and monies are all with me. Mr Love on the other hand took a nap.

 There was also a bathroom in the VIP room where we could change back to our clothes or wash off the oil after the session.

Happy after the massage

 After the massage we were famished. Drove around the neighbourhood and decided to take lunch at Lavender which is a famous bakery and there is a restaurant above the bakery.

Table decorations

 By now we didn't have much cash left since I did not factor in lunch since we are supposed to rush back for a dinner date with my parents. Anyhow we still ordered main course since we were very hungry.

Peppermint tea for me

Expresso for Mr Love

Interior

 The price here is still acceptable if you take in our favourable exchange rate. Ambience is good too with very good service staff.

We order spicy chicken wing before main course and tucked in immediately when it is served. The chicken wings are tasty alright but I do not like my fried chicken to be dipped in sauce since the skin will lost the crispiness which is not exactly to my liking.

Spicy chicken wings

 My prawn Aglio Olio came next. The prawns are big and juicy and grilled to perfection. No kidding.
 Grilling the prawns till they give out a bit of the grilled taste but not chao-tah requires certain skill. The prawns were pretty fresh judging from how easy it is to peel them off the shells.

 My mil once told me that prawns that sticked to their shells are not fresh anymore. So from then on I judged their freshness by how easy it is to peel off the shells. Hehe

My main course

 Mr Love ordered grilled chicken which is quite a big serving and with potate wedges and some seasonal vegetables served alongside. I didnt' get to taste the chicken and couldn't comment much. But the picky eater was very happy with his main course and I assumed it is nice too:)

Mr Love grilled chicken

Wefie in the restaurant

They do served wine here and offered set meals along with it but since we are non drinkers, we gave the set meals a missed. Total bill was around SGD 60 and we left the restaurant happily filled.

The bakery down stairs is not to be missed too if you are a fan of Lavender cakes and bread.

Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 - Busan Iitinerary

Since I changed my travel posts by each place of interest I thought I can share my Busan Itinerary plan as below. This might not be the best way to travel but it's cater to our needs.

Day 1

1:00 - 7:30 - Overnight plane to Korea from Singapore
7:30-8:30 - Clearing immigrations / Exchange of KR pass /MISC
8:30 - 9: 30 - Travel to Seoul vai AREX
9:30- 11:30 - Travel to Camp USO to pay for our day tour /Lunch
12:00- 14:49 - KTX to Busan
14:49-16:00 - Travel to Accomodation + check in
15:00 -20:00- Dinner at Haeundae (Ginseng Chicken Soup) + Around Haeundae

 ---- Rest ----

Day 2

07:00- 08:00 - Rise and Shine/ Breakfast
08:00- 09:00 - Travel to Toseong
09:00 - 09:40 - Travel to Gamcheon Culture Village from Toseong
09:40- 11:00 - Explore Gamcheon Village
11:00 - 11:30 - Back to Toseong/ Travel to Jagalchi Fish market
12:00 - 13:30 - Lunch @ Jagalchi / Explore
13:30 - 15:00 - Went back to accomodation as I am running a fever.
15:00 - 20:30 - Travel to Shinsegae for dinner and shopping (Can allocate more time here if you are visiting Spaland)

---Rest ---


Day 3

07:00- 08:00 - Rise and Shine/ Breakfast
08:00-09:30 - Travel to Haeundae station / Take bus towards Haedongyonggu-sa
09:30 - 11:00 - Around  Haedongyonggu-sa
11:00 - 13:30 - Back to Haeundae  /Lunch (Abalone Porridge)
13:30 - 15:00 -  Travel to Busan station/ Take bus to Taejongdae
15:00 - 17:00 - Around Taejongdae
17:00 - 18:30 - Back to Busan station / Travel to Gwangalli beach
18:30 - 20:30 - Dinner at Gwangalli beach / Around Gwangalli beach

--Rest---

 The acutal plan is to travel to Taejongdae after Jagalchi which is more time saving. But as I was having a pretty high fever on the 2nd day, we decided to shelve the plans and let me get some rest before it turns into something more serious.

In doing so, I exlcuded shopping at BIFF square and went ahead to Taejongdae on the 3rd day. Mr Love would not be interested in checking out the shoppoing belts of Busan.

So in conclusion, we did not explore any shopping areas(except Shinsegae) in Busan but was very impressed by the attractions we went too. 

Also, we are not used to keeping late nights. Perhaps this comes with age but even in Singapore we go home pretty early. 

Though technically we have 4days in Busan but we left for Seoul early in the morning on the 4th day. But 3 full days here is enough to cover the main attractions anyway:)

Korea Late Winter Sonata 2015 - Taking Korail / Using Korail pass

 Korail is the national railroad operator in South Korea. Personally, I prefer trains to coaches while travelling and naturally I choose to take train when travelling from Seoul to Busan.

There are 3 kinds of train in Korea:

1) KTX (Korea Train Express)which is the fastest kind of train (equivalent to Bullet train in Japan or Taiwan).

2). ITX (Intercity Train Express) which runs along non-HSR line and have more stops

3). Mugunghwa-ho which is the cheapest but with longer travelling time since it stops at all stops along the way.

Busan station

 We took KTX to and fro Busan which is about 2hours and 45 mins since it is the fastest. But the tickets didn't come cheap. A standard ticket costs KRW58,800 one way. While ITX which takes about 4hours 30 mins costs KRW42,600 and Mugunghwa which takes 5hours 15min will cost KRW 28,600.

2 way return tickets will set us back by SGD120 each. 

Phone booths inside Busan station

 As usual, I did research to see whether there are any promotions for tourists. Besides travelling to Busan, we will also need to take a train to Jeongdongjin.

Going to platforms

 They do have Korail pass in 1,3,5,7 & 10days pass which will allowed unlimited travel on standard class seats of KTX, ITX and Mugunghwa trains within the limited days.

If you are travelling in 2 or more in a group, you are eligible to buy saver passes which is cheaper than individual passes.

KTX train

 After endless calculating, I decided to buy 5days KR pass which will cost KRW 125,700 each for saver pass. This is more expensive than our return tickets to&fro Busan but if we factor in the return tickets to Jeongdongjin then it would save us SGD42 each which is alot.

A 3day pass costs KRW83,700 each for saver pass but we are not able to use it since we are staying in Busan for 4 days. The pass gets activated the minute you exchange it for your tickets.

Eating Kimbap on KTX

 Also we did not plan to take the train to other towns from Busan since it is our first trip and I did not know the surrounding areas well.

This pass is literally useless to us if we didn't squeeze in Jeongdongjin on the 4th day. And so I squeezed in the overnight train to Jeongdongjin on the 4th day of the trip. That is we travelled to Seoul from Busan during the day, checked in and rest and took the overnight train to Jeongdongjin.

We then return back to Seoul on the 5th day which is just nice for us to buy the return tickets with the pass. Yay. Good plan but tiring.

Along the way to Seoul from Busan

Departing Busan for Seoul

 But if you are not travelling to another place on train then perhaps it is better to plan for 3days trip in Busan and buy the 3day pass which will still save you some monies.

KR pass must be booked online at least 3days before departure and you have to enter your credit card details for the booking and use the same card when collecting your passes and also your passports. if you did not exchange the tickets then no charges will be charged to your card.

Pass can be collected from all train stations and we collected ours at the airport counter and brought the KTX ticket to Busan there too. Since Jeongdongjin night train is a hot seller, I decided to book the tickets there and then too.

KR pass is issue to you like a receipt and you have to keep it and produce it every time you wanna buy the train tickets.

The only down side is we are unable to book advance online tickets if buying KR pass. You can only starting booking once you exchange for your pass. No problem if you are travelling during non peak period like us.

Besides KTX, we took Mugunghwa train while going to Jeongdongjin. This is the only available type of train that travels to the East coast of South Korea. Total travelling time is around 6hours and we choose a 11pm train which will arrive at Jeongdongjin at 4.30am.

Departing for Jeongdongjin

 Mugunghwa train interior is notably older than other trains in comparison. Not that it is 
uncomfortable but it is just a note.

You can hang your coats here

 There is a cafe for Mugunghwa trains and you can get quite a bit of snacks inside if you are hungry. But since we took an overnight train, we sleep all the way to our destination. Furthermore, I brought quite a bit of snacks with me for the trip.

Mugunghwa in train cafe

 The very cool thing is, I found a KTV room in Mugunghwa trains and also massage chairs which yu have to pay to use in both cases. It is so cool can. Not even KTX have these. In fact there is no cafe carriage for KTX trains, just staff pushing the food cart along the train for sale.

Controller

Screen and KTV machine

Massage chair

Cafe carriage tables

Mugunghwa train interior

 We took ITX- Cheongchun to Gapyeong for our day trip to Petite France. It was pretty special as we did not exit the station even as we took metro to Cheongnyangni station.

Initially I thought we could tap out at Gapyeong since the platforms are just right beside each other. When travelling to Jeongdongjin which is also from Cheongnyangni station, we did exit the metro station and then went into the train platform. But we also have valid tickets which we brought before hand.

Platform for ITX Cheongchun trains

 All platforms in Cheongnyangni are specific to travelling different areas of South Korea. Trains for specific regions will stop at specific platforms.

The goondos us sat on the platform waiting for the train to arrive but I still have this nagging feeling of the need to buy valid train tickets since I am not sure Gapyeong will accept T-cards.

Furthermore I keep seeing everyone holding to their tickets, got more uneasy.

Then I went near the boarding area and saw some instructions board and read it for fun. Thank god for my curiousity cause after reading then I realised we were supposed to tap out on 1 of the machines and purchase tickets to Gapyeong.

With only 5mins before train arrival, we raced up the esclator to go search for the machines

Instructions on how to tap out and buy tickets

I didn't have time to take picture of the machines so I will explained here how to go about it.

You need not exit the gates but you will need to locate the transit card reader and tap your card on the right side of the reader to indicate that you exit from Cheongnyangni station. The machines I went to are just right infront of the escalators as you come up from the platforms.

Then you buy your tickets from the ticketing machine. There are instructions in English and Chinese. Pretty easy to use and you will be issued the ticket cards.

Then you go down to the platform where trains will be departing for Gapyeong and take the train.

We did this under 5min and is back at the platform just as the train pulls into station.

In any case if you didn't buy any tickets and board the train, you will not have a seat since all tickets have assigned seats. The train master will then make you pay on the spot but I am not sure whether the tickets will have a penalty like the Taiwan trains.

Train tickets

There are also non seating tickets if the train is full and you will need stand outside the main seating area. But there are a 6seats there too so if you are lucky enough you will also get a seat even though you are holding standing tickets.

Seats at standing area

Automatic doors

We tapped in again at Cheongnyangni station as we disembarked from ITX-Cheongchun and did not have to exit the station gates. We then transferred to the Metro.

The machine is usually locate near escalators on the platform and will have instructions on it.

Tapping machines

ITX-Cheongchun

Vending machine on platform

Similar to Taiwan Railway, Korail also have a website that you can check the train timetables and fares. You can also book the tickets in advance online but if you are planning to buy KR pass then this is not applicable to you. Korail Tickets booking

Overall, I find it managable to travel on Korail in Korea. Though it might sometime be a bit confusing and also with the language barrier. The good thing is there are English announcements on all stations and also estimated time of arrival. I would set alarm near to the arrival time and listen more intently to the announcements.