Balkan: Winter - November 2015

This was my second trip to the Balkan region. This time round we covered two new countries, Bulgaria and Romania. Wrong timing to go though since by 5pm it was already dark that it felt like 8pm :( The downside of joining an organised tour I suppose. You have to follow their dates. The earlier October departure was cancelled due to insufficient numbers.

What I dislike about this trip besides the short daylight hours was the food. I truly truly hate cold appetiser during winter. Since we joined the non Muslim group, in some restaurants we were served vegetarian dish. It was at best unpalatable and at worst fit to be thrown to the dustbin. Luckily cappucino was served almost every lunch and dinner. Those were good :)

Another thing that I dislike was the frequent and super long toilet stops. Such a waste of time. It resulted in us reaching Ohrid, Shkodra and Podgorica when it was already dark. Imagine going to Ohrid, a UNESCO Heritage town and cannot see their beautiful architecture at all. The beautiful Ohrid Lake was totally dark so your can't see the lake with the nice houses at the background at all. What a disappointment. Same thing with Shkodra and Podgorica. The so called city tour was conducted at night. You can't really see anything :(

What I likeed most was the visit to Kotor Fortress. We were given a few hours free time to explore this city on our own. Since it was winter, the medieval city was quite empty of tourists. So you get the city all to yourself :P

Our itinerary was quite packed. Six days to cover five countries. A nomad holiday :P
21 November 2015    Kuala Lumpur - Istanbul
22 November 2015    Istanbul - Otopeni - Bucharest
23 November 2015    Bucharest - Veliko Tarnovo - Sofia
24 November 2015    Sofia - Rila - Skopje
25 November 2015    Skopje - Ohrid
26 November 2015    Ohrid - Tirana - Shkodra
27 November 2015    Shkodra - Kotor - Podgorica
28 November 2015    Podgorica - Istanbul
29 November 2015    Istanbul - Kuala Lumpur

This tour was organised by Parlo Tours. Tour price was RM6.7k on twin sharing basis. The hotels provided was quite good. The people that joined this tour were mostly friendly and fun loving group except for this four siblings that were a bit selfish. In the bus, 4 of them took 9 seats! Our tour leader was Lai. A serious guy who did his job well. I just wished he took care of our menu better and arranged to rotate the seats in the bus.

I normally felt energised after a short holiday but I came back from this holiday feeling a bit tired. I blamed it on lousy food, the gloomy cold weather and also Turkish Airlines. On our way home, our transit time was 7 hours but the flight was delayed by 5 hours! Imagine 12 hours in Istanbul Airport with no free WiFi. Horror!! Free and fast WiFi in airport should be made a standard practice. We all paid expensive airport tax after all. The least they can provide besides clean toilets is free and fast WiFi right?

I have uploaded 780 pictiures and 16 videos for your viewing pleasure. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtags specific for this trip:
#mks2015Balkan #mks2015Albania #mks2015Romania #mks2015Bulgaria #mks2015Macedonia #mks2015Montenegro

Njoy!!

Japan: Autumn - October 2015

My third time going to Japan. For somebody who doesn't like Japanese food and didn't really enjoy her previous tours to Japan, I sure ended there quite a lot! The good news is I came back from this trip with a better appreciation of Japan and don't mind going there again :)

This time round I went with friends. We decided to go on a budget trip. Total costs for 15 days (14 nights) was just around RM4.3k inclusive of tickets to Disneyland, Disneysea, Tokyo Tower and all other attractions. Cheap right? How do we keep the costs down? We flied Air Asia, brought almost all food from Malaysia, stay at cheap accommodation and buy public transportation passes. I think the main reason why I like this trip is because I get to eat Malaysian food :P Previous trips because I followed group tours I had to eat Japanese food :(

You need to be very fit if you wish to take their mass transit system. It is normal to walk around 10 km a day. Even if you just want to change train lines within the same station, you need to walk very far unlike in London. The places that you wish to visit are also mostly far from the stations. So if you are the type who only walk to your car, better join a tour instead of going to Japan yourself :P Another reason why I like this trip is because I get to experience their public transportation. It was so much fun. Really! You came back also healthier :)

 

Our itinerary was as follows:
29 October 2015     Kuala Lumpur - Tokyo
30 October 2015     Tokyo
31 October 2015     Tokyo
1 November 2015   Tokyo - Kawaguchiko - Tokyo
2 November 2015   Tokyo
3 November 2015   Tokyo
4 November 2015   Tokyo - Nagoya
5 November 2015   Nagoya
6 November 2015   Nagoya
7 November 2015   Nagoya - Osaka
8 November 2015   Osaka
9 November 2015   Osaka
10 November 2015 Osaka - Kyoto - Osaka
11 November 2015 Osaka - Kyoto - Osaka
12 November 2015 Osaka - Kuala Lumpur

We visited Disneyland and Disneysea. I am not really a fan of theme parks (but as always I sure ended up there quite often!) but for these two parks their night fireworks and laser shows made me like theme parks a bit :) So if you go there and like me don't really like to queue for rides, you must stay for the night shows. They are spectacular :)

We went to Lake Kawaguchi to take a look at Fuji Mountain. The day was grey but we were lucky to still be able to view the top part of the mountain while we were cruising on the lake :) Lake Kawaguchi is actually quite big. Make sure you do a research on where is the best place to see autumn leaves and Mount Fuji. We went to a wrong place so we did not get to see so many autumn leaves :( Another thing, if you wish to ride on a scenic train in Kyoto make sure when you board the train it is still daylight. Truly a waste of money if you board at night.

My favourite in this trip is the visit to Port of Nagoya Public Aquarium. First time I get so close to dolphins, belugas, penguins and killer whales :) Do check out the pictures at #mks20151106. They are all super duper cute!

I've uploaded 837 photos on Instagram. You can access them here:
http://instagram.com/mkhasha.n.travels

Hashtag specific for this trip:
#mks2015Japan

Njoy!!