Just kids

Hey guys, I'm currently working part time at a kindergarten as an assistant. Looking at the right bottom corner of my laptop only realized today is already 20th Ogos, time flies! 6 more working days before I say bye bye to the kids. *I'm gonna miss them badly*

I have always love kids. Back then before I enter University, I had been working there for 8 months right after STPM. I love being surrounded by lovely adorable people giving you positive energy, so healthy for a living. I have totally no anger towards them which actually leading it to my weakness which is having difficulty to control their behavior. Guess, I have a lot more to work on :)

That's yesterday where Jin, this small little monster got really naughty doing all naughty stuff running around the school compound and even hit his friend and I got him punished by sitting him next to me not allowing him to move around where later on leads me to bad dream and I even cry on my bed. *damn* The dream so real yet terribly scary. This got me very guilty and eventually treat him so much better today but the opposite goes to him. He runs to be only every time he got into problem and make another teacher angry. God, please help him to be good and obedient.

Human are selfish in different perspective. For me, I would want the kids to love me like how I love them and seeing them being good and growing smart in the most healthy way. I don't want to nurture monster by giving all those extra attention and eventually spoil them. I know how my heart melts every time their innocent eyes meet mine or them holding my hand with their tiny fingers. I wonder what college student learn taking up early childhood education. Anyway, I did my homework by youtube-ing the recent famous kids song and tie kid hair tutorial.

I got a dream or maybe a wish to be a occupational therapist one day. It would be lovely to make it as a subjob or even retirement job. I want to learn how the whole thing actually process and how does each activities help the patient. I would be glad to help out the kids who face difficulty in growing and to be happy on their daily improvement, it's going to be a big milestone for them to overcome but day by day they step and move forward.

Island Hopping, Langkawi

Another trip during early August with my coursemate reason being cannot resist cheap ticket from airasia. We bought our KL-Langkawi two ways air flight ticket below RM50. It's so much cheaper if we are comparing by travelling with ferry from Penang to Langkawi and the time taken is much longer.

This post is about the island hopping we experience in Langkawi which took us 4 hours+ being our main activities for our second day. We booked our tour one day before from the jetty. We managed to get ourselves discount and booked a small boat for RM250. The normal price is usually RM300, you can bargain with them and normally received great deal if it's off peak season.

So, here's us waiting for our boat at 1.30pm, and another us when we are on the boat on the way to our first destination taking selfie with selfie stick with an iphone. The wind is super strong, hair just blow and tangle up itself in the end, going back spending hours to untangle it. *pity hair*

Our first destination is the lake of the pregnant woman, Pulau Dayang Bunting. This place requires a RM10 entrance fees per person. We are given one hour to spend here. To reach the lake, it require approximate 10 minutes of walking up a long flight stairs up the mountain and down from the other side. 

The scenery here is beautiful surrounded by mountains with dense forest, so fresh you would want to jump into the lake and swim. But note that the lake is very deep, if you doesn't know how to swim, you are advice to be accompany by someone who swims and wear on your life jacket in the correct way buckling all up. None of the girls went down except me as they don't know how to swim and we didn't bring our life jacket along with us leaving it just on the boat.

The water here is just so refreshing where I wish to spent more time here swimming freely in the lake. But too bad, my attire that day doesn't allowed me to do so. This place is highly recommended for swimmers.

We played also the traditional game, sumpit (blow pipe), 6 bullet for RM3. This guy below managed to hit the jackpot :)

Our second destination, Pulau Singa Besar. This is the place for eagle feeding show. The boatman will throw a few pieces of chicken slice on the lake and reverse a little stopping the engine. And in no time, you will see eagle diving down clawing the chicken piece. We reached there around 3pm and by that time the eagle is already full being fed in the morning by lots of other boatman. The best time to watch the eagle feeding will be in the morning where the eagles are starved the whole night and are hunger for food the next day explained our boatman. But still we managed to have a close view of eagles flying in the sky.

Here's our last destination, Pulau Beras Basah. This is an island with soft white sand and beach like. We are given an hour to spent here as well. The girls now is enjoying their sweet time on beach and finally touch down the water as it's shallow. Took a few more shots on them before I joined the water as the scenery here is beautiful too with lesser people compared to Pantai Cenang where is flooded with tourist.

The throwing game starts immediately after we landed

With her beach outfit, I eagerly wanted to snap a few modelling shots of SingYing (hers)

JJ walk away before I get to snap his pose. I'm too slow on pressing the shutter button and miss a few more shots of his

The semi-dry me snapping a photo

Not sure what Gan trying to do, digging hole with leg?

He's caught in action for throwing the sand to others in the water

Just a random shot of Brandon Chong?

And a shot of JJ swimming freely in the sea?

We managed to have a little walk leaving footprint on the sand. Walking to the bridge (jetty like) to snap a few photo of us with the scenery with Gan's new selfie stick. We too spot a few monkeys.

We later end our island hopping by sitting the boat back to the jetty. If there's any more second visit, I would love to have the island hopping in the reverse way as the beach is a little dirty for me leaving sand and saltiness on me. So, I would love to visit the lake last by jumping into the lake and wash away all the dirt, haha! Very evil of me trying to pollute the clean lake. You can discuss your sequences of island hopping with your boatman, just talk to them :) By the way, the sequences of this island hopping of mine is being suggested by my friend who previously visited here. As he said, we get to enjoy our last destination at the beach more and a few more beach activities can be done after all the visit as the girls here don't know how to swim.

If you guys who are reading this article, enjoy your trip!

Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam Itinerary

I finally get to visit Vietnam after few years of wanting to go. My journey starts from Ho Chi Minh, a 5 days 4 night trip. My friend asked me if  I visit Halong Bay, no no no, I didn't manage to go there as I don't have a full plan on my trip this time. It's an urge I bought the ticket just so because it's cheap I couldn't resist. I bought a 2 way ticket for less than RM200 with AirAsia from KLIA 2 to Tan Son Nhat International Airport. To be truth, I thought I can explore Vietnam in just 5 days not knowing how big Vietnam is. After contacting my Vietnam friend only I start with google map myself. Gosh! From Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi take around 30 hours by car, it takes up more than a day! By google search you will get to know, people normally travel Vietnam for 2 weeks from sourth to north. Would love to travel to the North part of Vietnam next time.

Photo taken from the plane. The country is fully pack with buildings.

Where to visit?

Saigon Notre Dame Cathedral

Is a beautiful church to visit, great architecture. A lot of street food to buy in front of this church.

Ben Thanh Market

This is a place for shopping. It's so so pack with thousand of stall in this small building. You can bargain as much as you can up to 80%! You might want to check out the price at other place before you buy your things here. Because their price is way too out of range but the variety is much more compare to other place. And a bonus to it is because the seller here can still understand a bit of English and the communication can still exist. 

I do try to explore other part of Ho Chi Minh which is not tourist spot, you can hardly meet people who speak, it's all about body language, paper and pen. The thing can be very cheap at the other side, but you can't bargain when the thing is expensive and so beautiful you want to buy. It's so fun to explore non tourist spot, as you will go more into their culture and experience more. We took quite some time to walk back with little knowledge of direction and body language with local people.

Saigon Central Post Office

A very beautiful post office which provide variety services. I bought my postcard and sent it out here. There's even rows of table and chair for you to write. The post card here is bought with 5000VND, you can get cheaper ones with 4000VND. The place here is very pretty where there's couple coming here to take wedding photo and a bunch of student taking graduation photo.

Where to eat?

I had previously posted a post about the Vietnam food I tried. Here is a few more photos on the street foods lay beside the road or seller who walk around and not owning a stall.

What is the transportation used?

90% of the transport used in Vietnam is motorcycle. Imagine the amount of motorcycle you need to look at before you cross the road. The traffic is very bad, especially during peak hours you can see thousands of bike on the street. There's no pedestrian traffic light to follow. So how do I cross the road? I'll stand at the side of another people who want to cross the road and follow them, it's like risking your life to just walk. But it's likely up to no accident happen. You'll get used to it after a few days, crossing road like you own it!

During my days in Vietnam, all I travel is by walking except the journey from airport to my hostel I travel by car (taxi). Here in Ho Chi Minh, you can try out the motor-taxi where they call it xe om. The motorcyclist will bring you where you want to go and it can carry up to two passenger per ride with a minimum pay. This is by far the cheapest compared to public bus or trishaw.

Where to stay?

Talking about where to stay, you definitely had lot of choices to choose from and what I had here is just a part of it. It's more favorable to live at District 1 where most of the tourist spot located, this ease all travelling. Most of the hotel here do provide breakfast, remember to ask the receptionist or person-in-charge. By having free breakfast, you get to minimize your expenses as a budget traveler.

I been staying in Bich Duyen for four nights. Booking their largest room which can accommodate three people having a double bed and single bed in it. It's quite spacious for us as we are only two individual. I like the hospitality they provide being very friendly and the room is clean each day provide a new set of toiletries. My room cost only US 25 per night, a smaller room for two is slightly cheaper being US 18 per night. The hotel I stay in provide us free breakfast which include a main dish that can be choose from a menu of 8 choices being bread or noodles, a cup of fruit juice, tea or coffee, watermelon and banana. Very rich breakfast indeed.

How much to spend?

I spent only a total of RM700 for this 5 days 4 nights trip which include everything. The breakdown being:

Flight: RM200

Accommodation: RM200

Mekong Trip: RM40

Food + Shopping: approximate RM300

You might want to bring more if you consider to buy a lot or eat in expensive restaurant. I pay my accommodation and trip using US dollar. They collect US dollar for higher expenses as their Dong is consider quite low.

Bye for now Vietnam, shall visit you some other time. Tell me how's your trip?