Asia Travel Blog

On China New Year, couple days ago, the Tiananment and Forbidden City became the destination for celebrate the occasion. The tourists came from any where, not only the domestic but also from abroad.

It’s about hundred thousands tourist attended in Tiananment, even the weather wasn’t quite friendly since the temperature was about 6 degree Celcius below zero. The tourists did some activities, not only walking around the places but also took some pictures and visited their relations whom live around there.

Similar condition also could be seen in Forbidden City. The long line happened since many people try to enter the Forbidden City.

Well, on holiday, people try to enjoy the situation without consider the weather. :-)

*the pic is taken from here*

Singapore DUCKtours is a combined city and harbour tour in Singapore, using a refurbished ex-military amphibious vehicle they call as "duck" which can travel on both land and water. The one-hour tour comprises of 40 minutes water tour around Singapore’s Marina Bay area and 20 minutes land tour around Singapore’s civic district. The water tour in the Marina Bay area will show you places around the Singapore Flyer, Benjamin Sheares bridge, the floating platform, Esplanade and the Merlion, while the land tour in the civic district area will show you places around City Hall and the Padang.

The tour departs from Suntec City on an hourly basis between 10am to 7pm, subject to weather conditions. The price is $33 for adult and $17 for child, quite expensive since it’s catered more for tourists. To purchase the tickets, we can approach the ticketing counter, which is located at the Suntec City Mall, near the Convention Centre area. We can use major credit cards for payment.

We will board the duck on an open area just next to the ticketing counter. There is a tour guide who accompanies all the guests throughout the journey and give running commentaries with regards to all the tourist attractions along the way. The best photo stop would be the Merlion, where the duck boat will have a brief stop to allow all guests to take pictures of the Merlion from both sides of the boat.

On Feb 2-4, Kyoto will held Setsubun Festival. Setsubun means the day before the beginning of each seasons and is celebrated yearly on Feb 3.

During this festival, many shrines and temples will do special rituals in order to cleanse away all the evils, which many people believed, are relieved on their body. So, the people can face the future with more clean and pure soul. Usually the people throw beans to expell the evils while yelling “Oni no medama buttsubuse!” (means “Oni’s eyeballs–smash smash!”)

This festival has many variations, since historically this festival is associated with Kansai, the Southern-Central region of Japan’s main island, Honshu. We can find this variations in Tohoku, Fukushima Prefecture, and Aizuwakamatsu.

*the pic is taken from here*

Mount Faber, one of tourist attractions in Singapore, is not really a mountain. It is just a hill, about 106 metres in height, located just north of the Harbourfront area. The highest point is called Faber Point, and from there, we can have a panoramic view of the surrounding areas, including the Harbourfront area and the buildings at Singapore’s central business district area. There’s a small Merlion statue in Faber Point, and on the lower level, there are some stone carvings depicting some of Singapore’s history.

Just further down from Faber Point, there’s a building called The Jewel Box, houses some fine dining restaurants and some souvenir shops. From there, we can also catch a cable car to Harbourfront and Sentosa. Apart from that, there’s nothing much to see and do there other than enjoying the greenery of the secondary rainforest around Mount Faber.

The best way to reach Mount Faber is by taxi. There is a bus service from SBS Transit called Parks 409, which runs from Harbourfront bus interchange to Mount Faber on Saturday, Sunday and public holiday. The bus fare is $1, payable using cash or EZ-Link card. If we drive a car there, finding a parking lot might be difficult, especially during evening peak hours. However, The Jewel Box provides valet service for those who need it.

At the moment, the National Parks Board is building a bridge to connect Mount Faber Park and Telok Blangah Hill Park, with a further connection up to Kent Ridge Park, connecting all the three parks. This means that visitors can jog or walk from one park to another without having to exit the park and/or take other methods of transportation. When I visited Mount Faber recently, I saw that the bridge is still under construction, and might be fully operational in the next couple of months.

Hangzhou, capital city of Zheijang province, is offering tour to a beautiful lake scene, historical temple, until a thousand age tea garden. Visiting this city will remind us how important to live with nature in harmony pattern.

Hangzhou is located in Tianmu mountain with cool air about 15-25 degree celcius. You can called it as a quiet and beautiful city. In Indonesia, you can find the similarity in Puncak or Bandung. Back to Hangzhou, we can find many little rivers with the clean water. In the edge of street, we will see many liu trees in a rows. Many gardens in city corner are maintained and have sharp. Read the rest of this entry »

In Ankara, we can find an extraordinary Roman bathing place, because it’s age is more than 500 years. At least some evidences said that.

This place is located in Cankiri street, in office district at Ankara. Actually, this place is open museum which divided into 2 part. The first part is the bathing place, and the second is street pillar bit in the east of bathing place. Read the rest of this entry »

Sentosa, a small island located south of Singapore, is one of the country’s most visited tourist destinations. With only S$2 entrance fee per person (excluding transport), going to Sentosa is now much more affordable compared to several years ago when the entrance fee was still a hefty S$6 per person. There are many ways to enter Sentosa, and the most convenient and cheapest method is to take the Sentosa Express monorail from VivoCity shopping mall, with a transport fee of a mere S$1. Alternatively, you can also take the Sentosa bus from Harbourfront bus interchange with the same fee. Taking the cable car from Harbourfront tower or Mount Faber to enter Sentosa is also possible, with a much higher fee. Once we enter Sentosa, all the transportation methods within Sentosa (bus, monorail, tram) are free.

There are many attractions inside Sentosa, each with its own entrance fee, which is on top of the S$2 entrance fee into the island. One of the attractions which tourists usually visit is Dolphin Lagoon, which is located near to the Palawan beach in Sentosa. The entrance fee is quite steep, S$19.90 for adult and S$12.70 for child, however the fee includes the entrance tickets for both Dolphin Lagoon and Underwater World. To reach Dolphin Lagoon, we can take the Sentosa Express monorail to the Beach station, and from there, we can take the Palawan beach tram which will bring us right into Dolphin Lagoon’s doorstep. Alternatively, we can also take the red or yellow line bus within Sentosa.

There are dolphin show sessions where we can watch all the pink dolphins in action, four times daily at 11am, 1:30pm, 3:30pm and 5:30pm. It’s advisable that we manage the time properly and be at the Dolphin Lagoon gate at least 30-45 minutes before the show time. This is to ensure that we get the best seats for the show. Take note that the waiting time for buses and trams in Sentosa is quite long, especially during peak holiday period where Sentosa can get very crowded and it seems that the available buses and trams are outnumbered by the visitors.

After each session, there’s a meet and greet session where we can touch the dolphins and have your photos taken with them. For this, we would need to pay additional $15 fee per photo session, and each session is valid for up to two persons. We will have to go to one of the two corners of the lagoon compound and queue there to have our pictures being taken while touching the dolphins. We can then collect the photo at the souvenir shop near the exit of the lagoon complex. If we have another friend with a camera there, we can also ask the friend to take our pictures with the dolphin, so we can also have our own version of the photo.

Do not forget that the admission fee for Dolphin Lagoon includes the admission to Underwater World, which will be valid on the same day. So we might want to manage our time properly so we can visit both attractions on the same day. Underwater World opens until 9pm daily while the last show session is at 5:30pm daily, so if we reach Sentosa in the afternoon, we might want to watch the Dolphin Lagoon show first before heading to the Underwater World, which is located on the other side of the island.

Thulhaagiri, means “Lover Paradise”, is located in North of Male. You can reach it about 25 minutes from the Male Airport International, using speed boat. This island is surrounded by a magnificent beautification of sea, because once you see it, I’m sure you won’t leave the beach (also the island).

Like other beaches on Maldives’ islands, the beach in Thulhaagiri has white sands. The situation in this island is quite quiet and remote, the 2 things are needed for you who are looking for a clarity and natural nature.

The beach is also provide a natural capital to be looking for. You can snorkeling or diving to see this beautification. You can also do some beach’s activities, like beach volley, canoeing, or just sunbathing.

I have visitted Shenzen recently and I think this town is quite beautiful. Shenzhen is a sub-provincial city of Guangdong province in southern People’s Republic of China, situated next to Hong Kong.

Despite the fact the town’s natural landscapes are very common, but the government was successful creating any creative and unique tourism attraction and destination.

One of the town’s tourism sites which amused me is “Window of the World”. This site is located at Overseas Chinese Town along the beautiful Shenzhen Bay, covering an area of 480,000 sqm. Read the rest of this entry »

The Wikipedia describes:

Revenues from petroleum and natural gas contribute less than 6% (2006) of Dubai’s US$ 37 billion economy (2005). A majority of the emirate’s revenues are from the Jebel Ali free zone authority (JAFZA) and, increasingly, from tourism and other service-oriented businesses. Dubai has attracted world-wide attention through innovative real estate projects and sports events.

But for me, its indicator was quite simple: I saw all clocks in the Dubai International Airport (even in the toilets!) are branded name’s Rolex! Wheew!

From my blog | Dubai’s airport picture credit