Year of Rooster, Year of Travel

For me, it could be the year of travel.

I went to 4 continents in 2 months !

April - Chiang Mai - holiday
May - Australia (business)
May - USA (Holiday)
June - Prague (business)/ Slovakia, Austria (weekend Holiday)

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

USA - What a pleasure to visit Sam and Ailene. They migrated to USA since 2014 and I have not visited them since. Why? I'm afraid of dogs.  But i wanna visit them, I miss their company, their joy and fun.  I had 5 months to practice in Singapore not to be afraid of dogs, but nothing like a real live experience.

Roo and Boo greeted me as soon as I stepped into their house in San Diego.  I screwed up my courage and let them sniffed me. Well, it was okay, alright, not so bad. I can say I over my fear of dogs and this is my lifetime bucket list !

2 weeks in USA, San Diego was relaxing. Unlike most of my travels and tours, I was stationed full time in SD. No packing, unpacking and moving my luggage around. That doesn't mean I was totally bored at one place. It's nice for a change not to move around so much. Ailene, Huey Ting and husband went to outlet malls, shopping malls, a few hikes, many lunches and dinners.  We also went berry picking.  It was a really relaxed holiday.

Weather was nice and cool, we had many walkies with the doggies in the mornings and evenings.

Many plans were made for 2018/2019 - National Parks, skiing etc, hope we can fulfil the palns.

Here is a Youttube link to my vacations in USA.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDgntCLdz-E&t=85s

Iceland and UK November 2016

Iceland

Tour Agent: gjtravel.is

https://youtu.be/PdU_2xbRyfI

United Kingdom 

We applied for SIA Krisflyer and each of us had a free hotel voucher with Millenia chain hotel. We merely paid for the upgrade to family room.
Another 2 nights were spent at Marriots, from rewards mileage.

https://youtu.be/L8HdsrIxCMs  

Machuu Pichuu Hike 3

ADVENTURE 3

On the final day at Machuu pichuu, I went alone to climb Huanya Pichuu as the rest of team is too tired . I hired a local guide to go with me.   It rained all night and I wondered if I should continue with the climb.  However the rain stopped at 6 am and I went as planned.

There were steeper steps all the way up ( I was told 500 steps)  Once again, some steps are so steep that there were chains to  the side so we can pull ourselves up. Sometimes I went onto all 4s to climb.   The climb to Huanyna Picchu is restricted to only 400 people per day. I’m one of the 400 daily !

 

 

However,  ,  the weather was too cloudy when I reached the peak . I waited 1.5 hours but we still couldn't see Machuu Pichuu , I only catch glimpses of the site L  .  I had to make my way down after that as I had to get a bath before checking out of the hotel… The way down is another challenge as it’s rocky, slippery and steep.

 

 

For me, this climb is the highlight of the trip as well. Although I didn't catch sight of MP from here, I had great satisfaction from a good climb and a test of my fitness level

Machuu Pichuu Hike Part 2

Part 2 the anti climax !

 The town was in darkness upon our arrival around 6 pm , and the guides told us , black out in the whole town !!We didn't have any feeling about this initially as we were tired and maybe it’s for one hour ?   We booked our dinner and were brought to the room . However as the dinner went on, we started thinking this is really bad ! We hadn’t had our bath, there is no light  , no heater to boil water ?  Later, we found, to our dismay, that as we live on the 4^th floor, the piping system is not powerful enough to pump water up to the 4^th floor -- !!!

Auntie Winnie and I to strategize how we can clean ourselves .  The hotel actually provided good service , by sending 2 pails of water up to our rooms. We decided to wipe ourselves in the good water and forgo washing our hair.  It was a long early night for us..  We were waken up several times with the loud banging outside and wondering if the power supply had come back

 To our disappointment, early next morning, the power is still not back .  We had to bathe ourselves in the cold pails of water.  Auntie Pat and Yih went to one of the lower level rooms to bath in the cold water ( courtesy of another good hotel service)

We set off around 8 am to explore Machuu  Pichuu site :

Took a 20 minute bus to Machuu Pichuu site base :