Hainan 24

 we first took a flight from Changi Airport to Haikou international airport, had to reach airport at 4am and wake up realllyyyy reallyyyy early for this :( 

ate small breakfast 

boarding soon to our Scoot flight!

DAY 1: HAIKOU

landed in Haikou at 930am after a 3hr flight,  to a very misty and gloomy weather + light rain 

gold silver dragon hotel (our hotel) right opposite railway station 

 海口金银龙大酒店(高铁东站店) was where we stayed, right opposite 海口东高铁站。

 We met up with our Hainan relative - Yue Yu 二姨  . We had lunch at 新海府和乐蟹肉粥, which was the first restaurant we saw whenzdropped off the didi at 骑楼老街。 Tried claypot crab porridge  and a 传统小吃-大煎堆. Its made up of glutinous rice flour skin . Supposed to knock 3 times with a small hammer to break the ball, and inside is glutinous rice .

We visited qilou oldstreet- its a street with old architecture , lined with food and shopping . We tried 椰子冻,  a coconut with jelly inside. 

骑楼老街

Next, we went to  云洞图书馆，futuristic looking library in Haikou by the sea. Yue Yu said sometimes will flood there if got typhoon. We cant go into the library as need a local- registered ID. The library is right beside a famous bridge - View of the ShiJi 世纪桥. 

After that we went to Chagee bubble tea shop  to rest in the afternoon, before going to a night market  (海大夜市）, which only starts after 6pm. 

^ Got stuck in the midst of the street vendors setting up the food street

                   We were just walking in the middke of the street and suddenly all the vendors started to roll out the mats in front if their stalls at the exact same time. It felt straight out of a disney movie.

dinner (we tried 抱罗粉 and 海南粉)

These 2 noodle dishes are  typical dishes in Hainan,  but we cant really tell the difference in taste- maybe only ingredients are slightly different. 

          The food here is really cheap, a bowl of 抱罗粉 was just $2+, and considering its a tourist attraction. All the flavours here are so new and dofferent from sg. 

Day 2: Wenchang

fresh coconut from Yue Yu's house 

          Started off with a small bus and coconuts 🥥 yum

          Stop 1: Yueyu’s sister (Yuexia)’s house

We were shown around the very big house by (uncle who?), who was bounding up the stairs so quickly. They had a garden outside where they planted all their own crops and they plucked fresh cikgu from their trees to give us. There was literally juice spraying out from the cikgu as it was plucked from the branch. 

Also there was a dog in the garden 

^ our bus with the house and the address of the house

GROUP PHOTO!!!!  

bottom row, from left to right: Yue Xia's husband, Yue Xia, Yue Yun, Yue Yu

top row, from left to right: Yue Xia's son, Grandaunt Rose, Auntie Alicia, Popo, JX, Daddy, YK, Mummy

doggy

          Intermission: Ate yiBua on the bus which is a sticky kueh thing wraoped around a mixture of peanuts + a lot of ginger. Apparently its bigger and more gingery than the ones sold in sg. Each yibua was wrapped in coconut leaves. (the people in hainan seem to like to use coconut leaves)

the yiBua eating in the bus (can see the entire plastic bag full of it in the background

          Stop 2: Popo’s grandpa’s house

          A really big plot of land with a lot of background history and even more realatives. The whole place was just swammed with our relatives talking in rapid accented chinese / hainanese (dont recognise them, dont understand them). We saw many fat chickens and a chicken laying an egg though.

          Stop 3: Ah Kang’s shop

          A traditional cny lunch with food cooked by our relatives. They used burning wood as their fire (it can’t get more authentic), and their rice was a sticky block wrapped in coconut leaves (like katupat but bigger). 

(Photo of popo waving goodbye to them)

They were super happy to host us and kept asking us to come back soon.

              Stop 4: Coconut museum

              The moment we went in the tour guide started rapping and we sped through the whole tour, where we just saw the making of their coconut products and the workers involved. The place looks exactly like what you see in “how its made” documentaries.

The tickets were okay priced, free for people above 60?65?, and came with coupons for the souvenir shop selling many coconut products, so it was quite worth it. Coconut milk, coconut biscuuits, coconut candy… you name ur, they’ve got it.

              Stop 5: ?? Beach

              Rode ATV

              Supposed to see (bridge name?) but it was partly destroyed by the typhoon and cordoned off.

also saw many locals climbing over the barbed wire and fences to go onto the pier just to fish

and... a tired popo

              Dinner: Coconut chicken

              A local delicacy (recommended by a didi driver), which is basically hotpot, but with coconut juice as the soup base. It gives a unique flavour.

Vatican City - Jan '15

I never knew Vatican City was a country by itself until this trip. It was across a beautiful bridge from Rome. They have so many of such bridges - reminded me of Budapest! 

Reached St Peter's Basilica. It's huuuge, we were there at 10am, thus wasn't too many people to get in. 

We did a video call with yk and jx simultaneously and they were really amused. 

The interior some is said to be able to fit the Statue of Liberty - it's that tall!

Confession room

Jesus's birth

More gelato indulgence..

And oh yes, saw structures like this around the city and people getting water off this.. 

Sigh. It's a short 2 days .. And home sweet home. Pax back for yq this time round so I guess it's less stressful as minus the prep work for flight back. 

Rome Italy Jan'15

A great trip to start the new year.. It had been so long since the last time I was in Europe! 

It is almost turning out as an annual trip- went Bali in Dec 2012 and Jan 2014. But I still feel a great sense of pride as I walk towards the aircraft knowing that yq is in the cockpit. The only tinge of sadness is that we had to leave jx behind- it's only her first week at school.. 

I hate overnight flights. And this is exactly one. Flew off after 1am and had an excruciating 13hr flight where i hardly slept. Reached Sheraton around 9am Rome time.. 

Started the day with a walk in the heart of town and with Marcello Theatre.. 

Walked along little cobbled streets (which is so Europe) and had lunch at a quaint little place called Vinando.. Food was ok although not great .. 

Walked across to take a look at the Altar of the Fatherland..

Visited piazza navona, where there are 3 fountains with an artist's square with caricatures drawings.. 

 And isn't this typical window sill so beautiful? 

Next up is the Panteon- one of the main sights of Rome. 

Near the Panteon is a famous gelato shop- and what's Italy without gelato right? There are many such stores scattered around but this is probably the biggest and crowded one I have seen. 

With a gelato in hand, we strolled towards the Spanish steps. Loads of tourists here because right behind this fountain is the shopping street of all the famous Italian branded stores! 

We then proceeded to the Trevis Fountain- was hugely disappointed to see that it was under maintenance! It was my most anticipated sight because it was where 飞上云霄2 scenes were shot and it would have looked breath taking:(taken from the web)

Next up... Is the very iconic Colosseum.. It was a far walk from the city centre so we took a train from the Spanish steps to get there. 

Right beside the colosseum was the Roman forum. Entry tickets of 12 euro were required to enter the interior of both places thus we only captured the grandeur from outside. It would have been a day's worth of hiking as the compound is huge. 

We managed to cover all the above sights between 12 to 5pm including lunch. Good walking shoes needed. We were terribly lucky - weather was perfect about 15 degrees.. 

More random ruins which were scattered around the city..

Had time to spare before we took the shuttle bus back at 530pm so we sat down for hot chocolate at picturesque riverside - a great way to end the Rome-ing day with my date.

For Italian fare, as per all European food, it's not exactly cheap but as pasta is also not cheap in Singapore- comparatively its pretty affordable here, about 10- 15 euro per serving. Meals usually come with bread baskets so it's still filling.   I was looking out very much for tortellini but the places we visited only has ravioli so I had 2 meals of it- once at our hotel cafe :

And 2nd meal of ravioli was on day 2, after our Vatican City trip. We trudged to this little restaurant in Rome slightly off city centre called Roma Sparita. It was recommended by one of the captains and had good reviews with its Italian dishes online: