turkey

like:

• hospitality
• historical scenes
• flowers
• balloon
• food
• & more

dislike:

• hotel in rural areas
• rural roads
• also food

turkey in flickr

egl kcja05-0622

• food: ok thru agency arrangement even only last included (beef steam pot) & self paid ones are good
• accommodation: lotte world jeju is very good. courtyard by marriott seoul times square is new, but a bit small. and the design of toilet sucks. glass door of shower has a gap between ground & lower hinge so water keeps running out… btw we can watch now tv & cctv 1 in courtyard.
• scenes: quite balanced
• time arrangement: as best as they can
• tour guides (egl’s wicky, local agency’s joy & photographer peter): excellent. can accomplish nearly every needs and provide lots of side info

=> target: 25-35 years old couple. they have energy, start to have money to spend, and start to know how to enjoy the trip

P.S. Pix on flickr

taipei

we, four boys & a girl, started our journey on 23rd by takin' cathay's b777-300 near noon (boys only) and used an hour and a bit more to land on taoyuan airport there. nt$200 was used to get visa and another $140 was paid for shuttle bus.

the hotel is just next to sun yat-sen memorial hall (but we didn't go there until the last day). after unloading our luggage, we went to taipei 101 for sightseeing. there was a package during mid-autumn festival so we could go to 91/F (89/F originally) without extra ticket. took few shots there, we went to flagstore of eslite books nearby as one of us needed to buy things there. due to rain, we took our late dinner at shilin night market (the only one with cover) before back to hotel.

second day was away taipei city and went to northeasy side by train. we dropped off at rueitang, then took a taxi to jioufen. there were so many people as that was a public holiday in taiwan (the day before mid-autumn festival). we bought some souvenirs there. later we took a public bus to keelung under "nice" driving skill. we had a look at miaokou night market before we took another train back to taipei. this night we went to ximending for our dinner.

next morning we took metro taipei to have hot spring in beitou. few hours later we went to tamsui which is nearby. but we were a bit late, we didn't have enough time to take a look of hong mao cheng before the lovely sunset down in front of fisherman's wharf. dinner was taken at tan tsai noddle in downtown taipei and we continued to hunt for taipei night markets for rest of night.

the last day was credited to museums. first was chiang kai-shek memorial hall, but interior was under maintenance. so we quickly moved to another spot, national taiwan museum, to get some basic information about ecosystem and taiwanese aborigines. in bad luck that miniatures museum of taiwan was closed after public holidays, so we moved to din tai fung to take our last lunch in taipei. before going to the airport, sun yat-sen memorial hall which is next to our hotel was the last site we visited.

more: flickr gallery

cheung chau

the latest one night trip destination: cheung chau

we queued for over half an hour to have a walk in the cheung po tsai cave. is that the cave used by pirate cheung? i don't think so. it's too damn small, hard to store or stay for a longer time. but the boy renting flashlight is a special. he walked outside the rusted railing and the path is just only a foot wide next to the cliff with slippers only!

the house is really crappy, the worst among the years. small, insecure, dirty toilet, damn a/c. we could not control the temparture, wind speed. and there were water droplets coming out. later on, the machine sounded mad and made us awake. so we needed to turn it off!

shares: flickr, youtube

p.s. cheung po chai = cheung po tsai? which one is correct?

ocean spring

my friends got a two-day trip organised by hong thai (yeah again) on x'mas day. total 43 were in this tour (nine were us - seven wests & two girls from a west). and one of west's colleague also joined the trip with her family.

first was to a jewellery factory called italia to visit & a try to make jewellery. but as far as i know, no one is interested and we wasted an hour there. we took lunch in a restaurant (worse than those in guilin) and we went to a small playground. we played kart, fishing, & archery there.

we headed to the spring directly and got the rooms. first played snooker and we took the dinner (this one was ok). after the dinner we played table tennis & badminton for a moment. some then went to spring while others were back to rooms. before sleeping, we shared local-made chicken which was ordered during dinner.

we took our buffet breakfast next morning (not bad) and we played snooker again. we had a brief guide about the spring before we took a bus to ferry terminal. we were cheated by our guide that there are lots of restaurants nearby and we nearly missed the ship. and i finished one, two, buckle my shoe in these two days



back to hk, we seven were still together and had karaoke buffet before back home.

travel agency: 3/5 - price a bit too expensive

ship: 3.5/5 - a bit slower

tour guide: 3.5/5 - a bit cheating us on last meal

hotel: 3.5/5 - some parts are fixing while some i cannot play...

coach: 3.5/5 - nothing special

food: 3/5 - a bit worse but the chicken order for supper is good

view: 4/5 - a bit smoky, the hotel view is ok, the laser shown at the night was seen when i was in sky

weather: 5/5 - fine

guilin

travel agency: 4/5 - good in this price range

airline: 3.5/5 - too full even in this period

tour guide: 4/5 - a bit too many phone calls

hotel: 3.5/5 - a bit old; breakfast not too hot; but tv played friends season 9!

coach: 3/5 - too many insects inside

food: 3/5 - nothing special; taste is ok

view: 4.5/5 - a bit smoky, river is a bit dry; but best were being shown

weather: 5/5 - fine, not cold, not hot, no rain, not too dry

special: 6/5 - a korean workin' in hk picked his parents to join the tour. and celebrated his mon's birthday on the last day. cool!

some pix here