Tag Archives: Asia2015

Anything related to my Asia 2015 trip

SM Mall of Asia & Manila Bay Boat Cruise

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We started off our last day in the Philippines by visiting the Mall of Asia (it was actually a super quick visit because we were hungry. We ended up eating at a Filipino food buffet, La Fiesta, where we had our first taste of Filipino food in the Philippines (lumpia, lichon, chicharon). Also, a side note, Sam and Abi got wayyy too much food that they actually charged for leftovers (which they normally don’t do). Definitely embarrassing and hilarious at the same time.

   
    

We finished off our Philippine (and Asia 2015) vacation on a boat that sailed on Manila Bay, while watching the sun set. We also had more Filipino food (leche flan, pansit).

   
    
   

  

Reveling in Global City (Valkrie, Palace Pool Club, and Revel)

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We started the night by going to Rufae Mae Quinto’s (aka Peachy) condo (which is right beside our hotel, the Fairmont). She has a pretty good view from her balcony (she also has a house maid named Rose and a driver).

   
   
After pre-drinking a bottle of whisky, Peachy took us to Global City. We started off the night at Valkrie. I was pretty impressed by the size and niceness of the club. At Valkrie, Peachy’s brother was celebrating his birthday. Also, at a separate, more exclusive booth upstairs (which had its own bathroom), Peachy’s super model friend (don’t remember her name) and James Reid were celebrating (didn’t remember to get a picture with him though).

At about 2am Peachy took us through Palace Pool Club, then we finished off our Global City outing by chilling with one of her other friends at a club called Velvet.

   

  

  

  

   
    
   

Exploring Makati & Manila (Intramuros / Fort Santiago)

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We started our trip in the Philippines by eating at the Greenbelt shopping center, specifically at an Izakaya restaurant. It was pretty good and relatively cheap for the amount of food we ordered.

  
After, we checked out San Agustin church in Manila, where I was able to catch the last 20 minutes of mass (traffic was unexpectedly terrible, and all map apps estimates were way off). 

   
   
After, we explored the area (Intramuros / Fort Santiago). Not gonna lie, it was kinda sketchy walking around at night. We probably explored for 30 minutes, then called an Uber. In our exploration, we visited Jollibee and the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception of Manila.

   
   

Exploring Phuket: Big Buddha, Wat Chalong

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We arranged a Phuket afternoon tour from www.phukettravelcompany.com. The first stop was a look out point called Kata viewpoint:

   
 
After, we headed towards another view point called Cape Promthep:

  
We then visited a baby elephant:

  
After, we visited the biggest Buddha statue in Thailand (25m x 40m):

   
 
The last stop we did with our tour was Wat Chalong. The most interesting part of this temple is that is has the tooth of the Buddha from 1999.

   
 

Exploring Patong

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After checking into our hotel, Cape Sienna, we ventured off into Patong. Patong (more specifically Bangka Road), is very much like old Vegas, but busier and with lady boy’s everywhere. 

We started off at Jungceylon (a very Western shopping complex), and then grabbed some sushi for dinner.

   
 
Then we headed into Bangla Road, where people were aggressively trying to get us to drink in their bars (sometimes almost to the point of grabbing your arm). We walked to the end of Bangla Road onto the beach, which then we headed back to Bangla Road and grabbed drinks at some bar called Pink. When we got drinks, one lady boy asked me to play a game of connect 4. If I win she buys me a drink, but if I win I buy her a drink. I obviously lost (she plays it every night). 

   
    
    
 

UPDATE: this is the view from our hotel:

  

Wat Plai Laem & USM (again)

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Since we had a bit of extra time, we decided to visit Wat Plai Laem (15 minutes away from Lanna). It seemed slightly more impressive than Wat Pho in Bangkok.

   
    
    

For lunch, instead of eating pad Thai, I decided to try something different. I got something called noodle soy sauce.

  
Also, just wanted to point out that USM is actually a pretty big outdoor airport, which almost feels like a resort (the only thing it lacks is AC). And, there’s complimentary food at the Bangkok Airways waiting area also (I only ate the popcorn though because if the risk level lol).

  
 

Full Moon Party

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We started off the night by going on a speed boat that took us from Ko Samui to Ko Phangan. Not gonna lie, the speed boat went pretty fast and was definitely not as safe as it could be (what people said online was accurate).

Arriving at Ko Phangan, we had to pay 100 baht to enter (but we did get these interesting bracelets in return):

  
After entering the gates, we quickly looked for some sort of string to tie our drink “buckets”. These buckets pretty much housed all our drinks for the entire night (Jack Daniels + Red Bull + Coke). The entire night, we bought 5 buckets in total, so Sam and drank a bit more than 2 buckets each.

  
  
We also got some glow in the dark tattoos to blend in…

   
 
The beach area was filled with venues where you could hear different types of house music (deep, minimal, progressive). Unfortunately no trance music.
   
    
   

  
  
We got to also play with the fire at the beach (this is obviously something I wouldn’t do sober).

   
 
And the last experience (no pics of this) is that for guys to take a piss, you literally just go in the ocean.

 To sum it up, the full moon part is simply a beach party where EDM music is played, you drink out of buckets to get really drunk, you get UV activated tattoos, and you eat a lot of junk food. With that said, I had an awesome time. 

We ended up going back from the party around 4:00am.

USM Airport and Lanna Hotel

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The airport in Ko Samui is actually very basic, but looks really nice. We got taxied from the plane to the “terminal”.

   
   
At the terminal, we spent a good amount of time trying to decide whether to take the speed boat or not to the full moon party (Ko Phangan) since a lot of websites were saying not too (but the advantage is that the times for getting and leaving Phangan were more flexible with the speed boat). We ended up leaving the airport without booking, but we finally decided at the hotel we were gonna do the speed boat (despite the safety concern). To leave the airport, we had to take a private taxi, which cost 300 baht.

   
   
When we got to our hotel, Lanna, they had a mix up with the type of room we wanted, which gave us time to settle on how we were getting to Phangan. And after settling in, we ate lunch/dinner at the hotel, and rested before the big night.

   
    
 

Seoul Station and KTX Ride to Busan

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After the War Memorial, we went to Seoul Station for our train ride to Busan. But, since we had time before departure, we decided to go and sample some of the fast food in the station (KFC, Lotteria and a churro from McDonalds).

   
    
 
The train ride to Busan was definitely 3rd class. Since they had no more tickets for assigned seats (and only standing tickets) for most of the journey, we had to “stand” in the hallway. The last 30 minutes of the trip we were able to get seats (since people got off at earlier stops).