Felt like the real honeymoon...

Just back from the airport from our 8 days tokyo trip. Exhausted and kind of relieved to be home. The trip was fabulous. At some point, Yong told me and I agreed heartily that this felt more liked our honeymoon than the Scenery resort trip in Thailand. The cold weather, the beautiful ryokan, meals after meals of fabulous gorgeous jap food, pilgrimage to studio ghibli (yes, yet again!), xmas lightings...

Attached outdoor hot spring at our ryokan in Hakone

Missing Krabi already...

Scenery Resort - The outdoors

We were too paiseh to ask the Thai Auntie to shift her bag. heh...

Part of the farm is open to the public where tourists can come in to feed the sheep and do some major cam-whoring with the lovely surrounding. Not surprised to find a wedding couple doing their pre-wed shots in the resort. After all, we got attracted to Thomas' portfolio because of the shoot he did for a friend in this very resort.

As you can see from the above photos, i was terrified of the overzealous herd. According to my zodiac sign, they are supposed to be docile, gentle and meek. My foot! Or.. hooves.. as we tried to rub off the hooves prints from our tops after their enthusiastic feeding time.

I prefer the calmer ponies.

But the lambs were so cuuuute... they are liked.. little puppies... very frisky puppies...

Sorry i just had to add that photo of Yong in his favorite position. After all these years, I never really gotten over the Ah Beng crushes, I had to marry one!

Btw, for whom interested, you can actually fly in to this resort, well, if you have a private helicopter. We just HAD TO do these crazy shots on the helipad, to the great amusement of the wedding couple and their crew. (or annoyance since they had to wait to use the premise till we got our shots right; wasn't really sure, didn't really care, ha!)

And with such to die for landscape, how can we miss out the narcissistic cam-whore photos? Lovingly selected from hundreds of failed photos. 

Scenery Resort - The warm welcome

The owner of Scenery Resort pull out all the stops to transform the area into THE whimsical countryside farm. Right down to the flushing handle of the toilet bowl. No wonder Thomas (our wedding photographer) highly recommended this place. It is a photographer dream destination. You can put your camera in continuous shot mode and throw it into the air and you will still get good shots.

Unfortunately for us amateur photographers, our cheapo prime lens is so limited that we had to rely on our trusty iphone camera to capture some of the wider angle.

Heaven on earth - Scenery Resort

A very hot and humid one.... :P

3 hours cab ride from airport and here we are... lovingly built paradise in Ratchaburi.. Wish the weather is 23 degree instead of 33 degree though.

Haircut in Tokyo

Good hairdressors are hard to come by. It has been quite a while I walk out of any salon feeling remotely satisfied with my haircut.

Or maybe it's a Cancerian's thing.

Anyway.

I have been thinking about chopping off my hair for a while. (inspired by xteener's recent haircut) Moreover, Tokyo's dry weather made my already straw-looking hair worse. I actually felt embarassed going meetings this week. How pro can you look with hair sticking to your face due to static half the time? What's more, I am reminded of my disheveled self daily by the immaculately made up Japanese gals. Jap gals have gorgeous hair. Period. Even the school girls look straight out from the beauty box website. My hair esteem hit rock bottom.

So this morning, charged with new determination to rid my split ends, I bravely crashed one of the SHIN Hair salon (they have many stores along Harajuku to Shibuya area).

After showing the hair stylist a photo from beautybox, some monosyllabic dialogue made up of "cut", "no perm", "volume" and charades attempts, I said a silent prayer before proceeding to have my hair cut.

My verdict? Double thumbs up.

I was the only customer during the entire haircut. I am not sure if it is because they are all men (3 guys, one cashier, one hairdressor and one shampoo boy), language barrier or their professionalism, but there was no yakking throughout the haircut. If you deem peace as important as me, try to choose hair salons that are not on the main street (this salon was on the 2nd floor of a rather desserted street near to famous Takeshita street at Harajuku and go before noon time.

I have natural straight flat hair. I have never done a straightening perm before but I get asked that ALL the time. As of any straight hair gal, I envy girls born with wavy, curly volumnious hair. I have done a number of perms with varying disasterous results. All in the hope in getting soft curls liked this:

Photo from beauty box

And the SHIN stylist got this for me:

 

Yeah I know it does not look exactly liked the beautybox photo BUT... this is the only hair stylist that managed to curl my hair ends and make them stay curled (the photo is taken after 6 hours of nonstop shopping) with no perm or hair products. That takes skill I tell you. I lost count of how many hair stylists who tried futilely to style/blow my rebond-liked hair. Yes, that includes the expensive ones from Shunji.

This costs me ¥5,250 (about S$85). I am not sure if it is a director cut cos there is only one stylist.

I heard from my Jap colleague that the industry is really competitive and discounts/packages are plenty. She gave me a Coupon book which is really a directory of beauty/hair salons and restuarants. Present it when you walk in and you can get a hair and perm as little as ¥12,000 (about S$200).

 

My dad adores Japan and he said to me once, that you can randomly throw a stone and whichever restaurants it lands on, the food would be of excellent quality.

Looks liked this theory works for the hair salons as well. :)

Delicious Tokyo

"Hamburger" breakfast at Jonathan's

I am hungry all the time this week. Perhaps it is the cold weather. After every seam bursting meal, I will tell myself that this is it. I can't take a single bite of Jap food ever again. 3 hours later, I will be complaining to my colleagues that I am famished.

With the amount of carbs (sushi, check; ramen, check; soup rice after yakitori; check) I am walloping down, I won't be surprised if I can't fit into my CNY clothes. Sigh.. what 减肥年?? :P

Cold Cold Tokyo...



Dinner at Yakitori Bar





So freaking cold in Tokyo.. Brrr....

Have been hiding in my hotel room after dinner every night.. told myself I will be more adventurous tonight. Will see. Hibernating seems liked a cozier idea. >.<

Incredible India - Part II

Amish, my tour guide, is a staunch Jaan believer and of cos we had to go to a Jaan temple to have a look. Isn't it an irony that I never visited any of the Indian temples back home and I have to travel 7 hours to marvel at the "authentic" ones?

Grand Central Mumbai .. the most comfortable hotel I have ever stayed! Period.
High tech TV - The TV is on by motion sensor and it mutes when the phone rings 
Choice of pillows AND mattress -I heard of changing pillows but changing your mattress if you don't like the current one? The idea of four housekeepers carrying the new mattress of choice through the door just tickles me and my boss to death.
Sleeping kit -  that comes with eye shade, two aromatherapy sprays (one for destress one for sleep) and dreamkerchief (some wet tissue thingy drench in aromatherapy oil to put by your pillow)
The above is just a few of the thoughtful details they thought of. And what a difference good rest at a fabulous hotel does to your soul!

We managed to squeeze in a visit to Gandhi place and I was awed by the amount of books he had read and the amazing things he had done. It was liked history coming alive as I read his letters written to politicians. And all the old newspapers articles on his liberal ideas on women and the harijans. The above is what he wrote to women and I just had to take a photo and put it up here.

Will be back with the last part of the trip - THE FOOD... *drool*

Incredible India - Part I

I had tried hard to get out of going to India. There were good reasons behind the reluctance. Beside my hunch that the trip would not make a difference to my sales, I also craved to spend more time with Yong since we had been traveling so much. In fact, as I write, he is away in Thailand only after 2 weeks since I came back from India.

Nevertheless, the trip was fruitful. Meetings were great and they definitely helped in my work. But also, I found myself,  most unexpectedly, falling in love with India.

The chaos, the traffic, the impossible overpopulation and invasion of private space. I came to realise there is such thing as "personal space" in India. Cars, human, livestock; You will always find yourself inches away from one of the above at any one time.

The polarizing of the social class... How extremely poor and extremely rich they can be. On one end, babies of beggars playing with dirt alongside the road. The other, 600 staff serving the richest family in India - a grand total of 5 in a 27 storey "home".

Generally Indians are gentle and sweet in nature. They are mostly easy to get along and thank god all knows some basic English. Oh, and the fooooooooood... I have completely, I say, completely let go, let live and LET EAT for a week. My boss who is a Brit with not too small an appetite himself was amazed and amused at my hearty fondness of food.

I took on a personal day tour from Mumbai Moments that came highly recommended from tripadvisor
I would not dare to go on a one on one tour if not for the raving reviews. And no regrets! With US$250 per day, I get a personal guide, driver, lunch, and customized tour in Mumbai. Pricey but with the security I get, I think it is worth it!

Enough of me rumbling.. photos!

I love the streets of India. I love the contrast of the bright clothes Indians are so fond of against the grubby grimy streets. Whether it is the poorer part of town or the upscale prime district, the women are fiercely loyal to their gorgeous colorful saris and punjabi suits.. Which of cos only fueled my desire to own a set!

This is the southern part of Mumbai where beautiful majestic colonial houses stand.. Gandhi home is also in this area. It reminded me so much of London I had to tease my boss if he felt liked home here.. The first picture on top left corner is India's very own Big Ben!

It is fascinating how radically different one part of the city can look from another! And I guess that is why Mumbai has so much character and charm. In contrast, Singapore is just.... too new. A 30 years old building is considered ancient in Singapore. However it is the old buildings that give the city the much needed personality, isn't it? Perhaps that is why Katong remains one of my favorite places in Singapore. :)

This is my favorite part of the tour. I can't remember the name of the holy water place. This is where families gather to perform rituals for their deceased loved ones. And after going around the holy pond, we had a little walk in the neighborhood which I get to see the daily life of the locals more intimately.

These photos were snapped really quickly during the brisk walk back to the car. But they turned out pretty well and became officially my favorite photos from the trip. I love the smile on the roadside barber.

Will be back with more photos in Part II.

I survived India!

Gonna be a short post. It has been an incredible trip to India. Will elaborate more when I have the luxury of time to indulge in a proper blog entry. Meanwhile enjoy the photo highlights of the trip!

Honeymoon destination - Scenery Resort here I come!

Yippee! Finally, after much hassle of wiring the money to the resort (they don't have credit card facility!!!) I have everything set and confirmed for our honeymoon trip!

After the wedding and renovation and not much left in the piggy bank, we decided to jump on the suggestion by Thomas to book a trip to Scenery Resort at Ratchaburi, 2 hours drive away from Bangkok. A much humbler choice compared to our dream honeymoon to New Zealand but hey, at least, there are still the sheeps. hehe..

A departure from the usual beach resort lum nuah holiday. We will do major nuahing in a farm resort instead. Just hope it does not smell too bad.

Check out the photos I drool over every other day in anticipation of August. All photos from sceneryresort.com:

Major crossing of fingers that it will turn out as nice as the photos!

There are only 7 villas within the resorts and we choose Barbados (all villas named after their sheeps) which came highly recommended by Thomas. Check it out!

5 glorious days at the resort with absolutely NOTHING to do! CAN'T WAIT!!!!!