Vietnam Part 2

So I just blogged yesterday and here I am again. So rare but heading up to Fraser's tomorrow and I wanted to get done with another Vietnam post first :)

Day 3

Parents booked a tour so we woke up early had breakfast and a car fetching us from the hotel. I think our guide was called Duoc, like Viet Nam Quoc Dang Dang hahaha! Sejarah reference =.=

Went to a wood village first. Passed by the French quarter of the city so pretty! Much nicer than the part we were staying in. Then on the outskirts saw this epic person with cempedaks on his motorcycle LOL. They were huge like twice the size of Malaysian ones. Didn't managed to get a picture :/

Their job... just sawing away all day :O This guy doesn't even use nails for the furniture like the palace in Kuala Kangsar lol.

They always seem very happy when people take pictures of them haha.

Look at them all happy!

Hmm basically these villages all specialise in just one thing, in this case wood. Not much to see actually just houses and houses of people making furniture and a whole lot of dust! Lol. 

Next up was the ceramic village.. self explanatory.

Cute boys *wink wink*.. and their dad haha

So many pots in their house @_@

That's coal! They put them onto the walls to dry.

Not very eventful so far.. It's not like wood ceramic is such a new and fascinating thing haha. Anyway had lunch at a restaurant in the ceramic village.

They like to serve french fries before every meal, don't ask me why. They taste different from ours though.

Behind the restaurant there was this reeealllly cute dog! :D And it was so excited to be see us haha kept jumping around. Probably the cleanest thing around those parts o_O

Went to the ceramic market after.

Made dad pose with the rabbit! Hahaha!

Ceramic Pikachu! Epic fail needless to say LOL.

Heading to the silk village, look at those duckies :)

So the silk village was nothing too interesting, silk factory already visited in China with CO and family. I guess they just had a few more funny looking machines than in China.

But might I mention there was considerably less hooting in the silk village!

Bought a silk scarf at the shop :D Needed for the next day!

Went back to Hanoi city after that. Still afternoon so we walked around the French quarter before going back. On the way back mum commented on the number of people they can fit on a motorcycle and our guide told us that in Vietnam they usually can fit five people on a motorcycle lol! He even said he once saw a guy transporting a buffalo tied on his motorcycle wth.

I'm like, don't wanna take picture with you dad. LOL.

Isn't the French quarter much prettier and cleaner :)

Tea in a pretty French cafe. Snooty waiters though blehh.

Tree growing next to us in the cafe!

Of course, I had chocolate cake. And a coffee.

Mister tree just growing away!

Hoan Kiem lake again on the way back. Hello old man on the bench!

Took a bad picture of the rubbish dump in front of our hotel. HAHA.

Headed over to the Green Mango for dinner. At least I think that's what it's called o.O Pretty nice atmosphere.

My dinner! Chicken, cashew nuts and rice or something like that. Wasn't too good actually.

Bad picture of my pisang goreng for dessert haha. Very good yum yum. Sorry I'm too lazy to edit or crop any of the pictures :X It was Goreng Pisang Bermadu on the menu btw! Haha. 

All right I think I'll stop here for today. Almost one in the morning and I need my beauty sleep for tomorrow. Sorry if this post was a wee bit boring!

The Hunger Games.

Okay so I've disappeared for a week again. Haven't done so very much but yes from the title of this post, I've been obsessed with the The Hunger Games trilogy :)

First heard about this series through a Youtube video and was mildly interested in it but I'd never seen it in the bookshops so I didn't really take much notice. As well as the Maze Runner btw my next book target! And then last year when we were in Penang for the hyy concert I saw a table in Borders laid with the books but they were kinda expensive :( so i passed up on them.

And then if any of you reading know Joey Graceffa on Youtube, which I doubt you do but never mind, he was totally obsessed with The Hunger Games too. That really sparked my curiosity as to what was so freaking awesome about those books >_< 


Soo then they released the trailer for the movie for the first book in the The Hunger Games trilogy, which coincidentally, is titled The Hunger Games HAHAHAHAHHA (okay not funny). Ahhh really regretted not buying the books in Penang.

Anyway, went to MPH in Jusco last week with Cheryl and Emilia and Emilia and I were talking about wanting to read The Hunger Games, and we were like WHY Ipoh so sucky no sell Hunger Games! Wanna read long time liao now got movie some more! And let me tell you we were standing in the Young Adult section or whatever it's called and were standing right in front of the shelf holding The Hunger Games. =.= Somemoreee we were gesturing vaguely in the direction of the books and were commenting on how teen books are all depressing looking now, you know, what will all the vampires and stuff.

So then we moved over to adult fiction when Cheryl was like, I thought you guys wanna buy The Hunger Games. And we were like they don't sell here also! Haha Cheryl and was like got ah! Over there! Yen Jie bought last week! LOL moment when we discovered we were standing in front them the whole time and didn't even notice. Gahhh.

Bought all the three books :) RM 69.90 I think, not bad for three books right.

Soo yeah I've been reading The Hunger Games this week, just finished the last book (Mockingjay) this morning. Was reading for a long time in the early morning with Emilia who was reading the first book, yay!

Okay quick review: Awesome. Go and pick it up now, if you haven't already. A few pages into the first book and I was hooked. By the first page I already knew I liked the Suzanne Collins' style of writing. FYI: The Hunger Games is an annual event where 24 tributes are sent into an arena to fight and kill each other until only one remains, who is crowned the victor. Ahhh even you don't like gory stuff like me, you'll like it :) I just hope the movie isn't too gory! Oh and Catching Fire isn't as interesting as the first book, but don't be put off because it's sort of just leading up to the third book. Definitely a must-read! I even lost sleep reading the books late into the night =_=

Which actually reminds me, I have had nightmares for two nights because of these books. Gah I think it's only because I read them at night before I sleep.

Go and watch the official trailer for the movie! So excited yay! :D

Extra large poster just for fun! Haha.

Oh and by the way the cast for this movie - exactly how I imagined the characters to look like. Except for Cinna who wasn't mentioned in the book to be black (if I remember correctly), but if I'd imagined him to be so that was how I'd have imagined him to look like. So YES eagerly anticipating the movie :)

I'll be back for more posts on Vietnam soon, if I can still remember what we did lol.

Vietnam Part 1

I'm back home. Finally! Spent six days (or five, technically) in Hanoi with mum and dad. Forgot to bring my camera cuz I'm just awesome like that so just using photos taken with mum's camera. Not gonna upload any of the photos to Facebook cuz I only like doing albums when there are photos that need to be tagged, which in this case... none. Yeahh so just gonna jump right into it! :D

Day 1

Took a bus straight to KLIA, had lunch and on the plane we went haha.

Goodbye Malaysia! Looks nice from the plane leh.

And hello Vietnam! 

Seems like such a big difference huh. All highways and buildings in KL but paddy fields everywhere outside Hanoi.

Okay first thing upon arrival was: Ahh sangat cold and no wifi in in the airport! Seriously! Hahah. Just too pampered by the wifi in KLIA already. Ordered an airport cab to take us to our hotel. Toyota Camry leh haha so big. They drive on the right side in Vietnam, and they just love to hoot for nothing. Btw the vans and mini buses have this really annoying hoot which is like two quickly alternating notes which even fade away at the end lol! Another first impression was wah very hazy seriously it's like just bare everywhere and more motorcycles than cars. A little bit depressing actually. 

Random pic of one of the main roads. There's actually someone selling Valentine's Day flowers way at the back :)

First day was quite uneventful, checked into the hotel which has a mini rubbish dump in front of it lol! Hanoi Imperial Hotel, by the way. (Later found out we were staying in the old quarter, which is like our old town) Went for dinner at a nearby restaurant (food was not bad but kinda oily, Vietnam style!) and then walked around for a while. They treat the sides of the pavements like rubbish dumps! It's like, don't want this? just throw it onto the street lol. 

They still carry they're wares around like this! And those are not chicken eggs.

Mum bought some little tangerines by the roadside on the way back to the hotel and the woman wanted 100,000 VND for them but mum only had USD in large notes with her because for some reason she decided not to change to Vietnamese Dong =_= So anyway she was like I don't want ady I don't have so much I only have 1 USD. And the woman was like ok lah ok lah. So mum only ended up paying 1/5 of the original price. That woman must really make a profit if people usually pay what she asks for. o_O

Also went to this DVD shop (pirated, obviously hahah) and the DVDs are like dirt cheap omg! You can get a movie for like RM 3 there. Three or four seasons of your favourite tv show for RM 30-45. Mum and dad went a bit crazy with the buying, we spent such a long time there. :O I think I only bought two DVDs and both cello related so guai leh so guai leh hahah.

Day 2

View of the street from the breakfast room.

The weird skinny buildings o.O

Walked out of the hotel and it was drizzling but their rain is so different from ours! The rain was really fine, kinda like a not-so-good humidifier. Tak payah use umbrella pun haha. Not like our rain which comes down in giant droplets >.<

The streets were already muddy since they have like an insane amount of dust and like the clever person I am, I didn't bring shoes and only brought the slippers I was wearing. =_= So we had to find a shoe shop to buy shoes for me. In the end randomly bought a pair of Adidas (fake, probably lol!) shoes. The salesgirl actually brought a sock for me to put on before trying. And let me tell you it was a really disgusting looking sock urgh @_@ Told her I didn't need it no way I was gonna put that thing on no siree. Anyway she spoke Malay! Hahah. Dunno how she knew we were Malaysian but she suddenly asked me whether I spoke it and started speaking Malay to us. Much more fluent than her English wow.

New shoes. Lolllll.

I didn't even ask to take a picture with her stuff! Didn't want to actually. She saw mum's camera I guess and just walked up and dumped her hat and basket thingy (no idea what it's called haha) on me and was like take picture no charge o_O Just her way of getting tourists to feel obliged to buy her stuff =.= Look at those tiny pineapples btw!

Hoan Kiem Lake. Apparently there are giant tortoises inside. But they don't appear very often.

Hahah look at lame dad looking at the chicken thingy the woman was trying to sell to him. He actually bought it.

Lunch beside the lake. The waitress was really snooty gah. The pizza was actually really good :)

They just sell those baguettes uncovered by the street! Awesome...-ly unhygienic.

Went for the water puppet show after lunch, which apparently is what everybody goes to see when they go to Hanoi. And you have to pay 1 USD if you want to take pictures during the show. Just another way to squeeze more money out of people =.=

Music before the show started!

The main instrument is the Vietnamese Dan Bau. Apparently long ago young girls weren't allowed to listen the guy playing the dan bau in fear that they would fall in love with him haha! The rest are just chinese instruments because Vietnam itself doesn't have many traditional musical instruments. You can see the erhu, yangqin and dizi right there. They guy playing the guitar also brought out something like a ruan lol! 

Water puppets! There was a story line to some of it.

Otherwise, just synchronized 'dancing' haha.

I actually wasn't too entertained almost fell asleep a couple of times. Maybe I just don't know how to appreciate it XD

Went to the temple in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake after the show. They used all chinese characters there! Apparently they used to use chinese characters in their writing but with their language before they started to use the roman letters.

Nothing of significance just thought this was pretty haha.

Just, you know, standing there with an umbrella

Hey hey it's a tortoise :)

Giant tortoise that lives in the lake o.o Not sure if it was a real one but if it was.. WHOA.

Big fruit! Mum made me stand next to it for comparison =,= It was a very short plant in a pot, mind.

Walked back to the hotel! They have trees growing everywhere.

Just cooking the chicken on the street! LOL.

We decided to have tea at a restaurant just opposite our hotel. Eat, eat and eat it's all I do. I think it was called Rainbow cafe or something like that. :)

Had bananas wrapped in pancakes and drizzled with chocolate sauce :) The pancakes were really thin and the chocolate didn't really taste like chocolate. O.o

Forgot to add that Vietnamese people are mostly very good looking! All the random (young) people you see on the streets, in the shops, wherever. And all so slim not an overweight person in sight. But old ady not good looking anymore hahahah. Oh and most of the girls wear their hair in neat ponytails. The trend there possibly? o.O The receptionists and bellboys also quite good looking mannn. The girl at the reception counter was so pretty and sophisticated looking! :))

We went to a very highly rated restaurant for dinner after resting for a while. Madame Hien I think it was called. Took us so long to find the place!

The outside! Nice rightt.

Just like a house haha.

It's like 95% ang mohs dining there. Maybe too expensive for the locals but the prices are all very reasonable/cheap, at least compared to fine dining in Malaysia.

Not so very good picture of my meal, beef noodles. Doesn't look much right? But very tasty aghhh! Originally didn't plan on eating much but I polished off this whole dish because it was too good :)

Soo full after that meal luckily still had a chance to walk some of it off haha. The local teenagers don't hang out in shopping malls or whatnot like us they just sit around on the streets! Lol. They just sit on little stools and eat kuaci sambil chitchat. So many people out on the streets lor!

The stools they sit on. So little right!

Okay so I think I'll leave it here for now. Gotta finish The Hunger Games first and finish up my other work! Lol.

Valentine's Day! ♥

It's been almost two weeks! I'm finally sitting here at my table to blog.

Happy Valentine's Day people!!
Off with the Forever Alone crap. You're still young, you still got friends & family to teman you this day. Haha.

 I did my nails for Valentine's Day! Kinda failed but I guess they look okay from afar :)

So I spent one day at Emilia's last week because my parents were in KL, and then was in Penang with her and Cheryl until yesterday! Finally back home in my room and I'm leaving again tomorrow. Le sigh.

Anyway we took the bus there for the first time excluding CO trips :) and Rachel's mum picked us up from the bus station. Or terminal? Not sure, but whatever haha. We stayed at Rachel's house btw, thanks Rachel for letting us invade your room! :)

Did quite some shopping and eating this trip, somehow I managed not to spend too much money though. Gonna become bankrupt soon! Haha.

Didn't take any pictures whatsoever while we were there, so I'm gonna steal pictures from Emilia's album on Facebook :D

Our nails! @ Paddington House of Pancakes

Mine, pink; Emilia, lavender; Cheryl, red.

My pancakes! With maple syrup and butter.

Pretty fountain at Times Square :)

Rachel's little brother, also known as LikeABoss. :D

Winter Warmer's cafe at Queensbay Mall. Xin Ning's workplace!

Rapid bus from Queensbay!

Times Square again. Each of us took a picture like this there :)

Swimming! Just look at LikeABoss lol!

Group photo! The one and only Goh Qichen's birthday haha.

Okay Google Chrome has decided to make things difficult for me and won't let me add any more photos. So I guess that's it :) See you next week when I come back bloggie!