Don’t we all have a few things we can’t do without when we travel abroad or take road trips?

Well, I thought wouldn’t it be fun to initiate a series “What travels with you?” where I’ll peek into the travel bags of my favourite bloggers to uncover their 4 or 5 most important essentials. To start the ball rolling, I shall begin with me, okay?

I’m usually a light-traveller with a hand-carry luggage because I can’t wait to exit the airport asap! And for this reason I have to resist packing a nail clipper or a pair of scissors.

1. Chollera. For algae goodness and to hopefully ward off constipation.
2. Fish oil. The good oily companion.
3. Moisturizer Needed for my dry skin.
4. Liquid eyeliner. Doubles up as my brow pencil.
5. Aloe vera. All-round wound healer (and hair gel).

Stay tune for more to come!

[p.s. I'm starting with my favourite bloggers but anyone can join in! Just send me (mail at bloomize . com) a landscape photo in high res and your list of 4 to 5 indispensables. Looking forward to hear from you!]

While taking a walk around a lovely residential neighbourhood near my hotel, I was greeted by different kinds of blooms scattered almost everywhere, one of them was the reddish pink Jatropha integerrima (aka Spicy jatropha).

Like I had said before, I favour having a-not-so-pretty surrounding as the background for a photo-shoot, and this spot with the dangling blooms was perfect!

Vietnam (Photography book)

Mon Carnet Vietnamien (A beautifully illustrated book for adoptive parents with one of the nicest drawings of Tiger Balm Oil I’ve ever seen.)

Singapore Home and Decor magazines (You can even find backcopies in this bookshop!)

Crafty books

I’ll be back here in full swing next week. See you soon!

[p.s. If you're waiting for a reply from me, I will be clearing my inbox and you should be hearing from me soon!]

Mini-egg bundles

Roses and other flowers

Minh Ngoc green bean cakes

Rice paper

Trang Tien ice cream

La Casa [12 Nha Tho, Hanoi], a lovely interior + zakka shop

Shops I wish I had visited:

• Hanoi Zakka [29 Hang Hom Street, Hanoi]
• Vietnam Quilts
• Craft Link

Greetings from her capital Hà Nôi!

With this being a working trip, the weekend was the only time we had to explore the city. And like always, we like to do it on foot. We walked a lot under a scorching sun and sought refuge in an air-con cafe, if we happened to see one.

Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum

19 May, the birth anniversary of Uncle Ho (who is none other than Ho Chi Minh)

Florist and her cool bicycle

Old City Gate

Polish embassy

St Joseph’s Cathedral

We tried the strawberry cone

Lenin Square, opposite Flag Tower

Dong Xuan Market

Chubby dollies in a toy shop

Some imported items are tagged in shops

Pretty teapot + teacups in an amusement park

Around a residential neighbourhood

Random jots:

• Exchange rate from the money changer:
  SGD 1.00 = VND 13,200 = USD 0.72

  Exchange rate (13,600) offered at the hotel in Hanoi was more favourable.

• Handling money in 10s and 100s of thousands can be mind-taxing! Paying 40,000 (SGD 3) for my daily package lunch/dinner is really something and so is paying 110,000 for a taxi ride. A quick relief from this sudden trauma was to cover up the last four digits on any value to get a rough conversion.
• Rain that fell in the night marks the advent of summer.
• The day brightens up early at 5am. I woke up one day thinking I’ve overslept but it was only 6am.
• Crossing a busy road in Vietnam is liken to entering into warfare. Sometimes I will walk cross the 1-way, or even 2-way (with no clear divider in the middle!) roads like a fearless warrior…not minding about the mingling with traffic at such close proximity. Feels quite cool even. However other times the mere sight of the swam of never-diminishing motorcycles and cars terrifies and hence dreariness + hesitation sets in…
• Some cab drivers don’t like to give way to crossing pedestrians unlike the more disciplined motorcyclists.
• There are several chic and interesting small boutiques on Ba Trieu street.
• Vodka is cheap. And so are roses.
• Some recommended taxi companies: Hanoi Taxi, Taxi CP and Mai Linh
• The conical hat looks very protective against the sun.
• On the plane journey, I watched an episode of Before and After (大改造!!劇的ビフォーアフター) home makeover show. It was truly a fascinating transformation for a really cramp space for a family of 6. Unthinkable!

I’ll sum up my adventure in Hanoi in 2 more posts – Made in Vietnam and Vietnam + publications.

My all-time favourite website to search + book air tickets is Zuji. My first purchase 5 years ago was for a pair of return tickets to Tokyo on JAL (costing less than SGD 900 in grand total), about 1 week before the July trip. I’ve been faithfully returning to check out bargains now and then. My most recent purchase was for 4 e-tickets, booked 3 days before the flight.

Some time ago I found Cheap O Air (catered to US and Canada residents only) and noticed that their fares are competitive across quite a number of international carriers. My results were based on comparison with 2 other mega ticketing sites on a few random routes (e.g. LA to Bangkok or LA to Tokyo or LA to Perth).

If I’m in Tokyo, I like to pop in to the ranKing ranQueen shop just to get myself quickly acquainted with the current best-selling goods in the country. Goods are displayed in order of sale rankings and categories range from food, drinks, cosmetics, toiletries, stationery and a whole lot more (including insane/weird stuff you wonder who buys and why).

The Happy Matryoshka Bath Fizz was ranked no.1 for bath salts at the time when I was in the branch at Shibuya.

I bought it not for the fizz but for the 2 matryoshkas – the pink casing (with facial features + flowers outlined just like the cover!) and the innermost surprise doll.

What’s amazing about this is no details are spared! From the packaging, the product tag and even to the mini capsule.

Doesn’t the peanut capsule look like it’s shaped for a matryoshka?

Hello everyone! And hello 2010! This is the year where my oldest internet baby turns 10! A decade old! I’m so happy and proud. It hasn’t been easy. Well, it’s great to be back here tending to my youngest and to start the ball rolling, how about take a look at some random pics I took in Nihon?

Moon and Tokyo Tower at 4pm.

A lighted tower at 4:30pm.

Birds on a railing in Hakone.

Famous black eggs cooked in hot sulphuric spring water in Owakudani (which literally means great boiling valley), Hakone.

Fuming sulphur vents.

I noticed this table with a stamp of Clara (and the free Heidi bag on the poster) on one of our stops and wondered where we could get it stamped on. Then my bro mentioned that he saw a page on Heidi on a coupon booklet given to us when we bought the Hakone Freepass tickets. We then began our journey in search for every stamp as we followed the recommended route to see and experience Hakone.

We had all 6 stamps and of course had to collect the free bags too!

i-swing, the 1-man vehicle on display at Toyota City Showcase.

Love the stamp carving pads by Mizutama and super love the Mizutama blog.

Canted window panels on Tiffany & Co.’s building at Ginza.

Rainbow Bridge and the Statue of Liberty at Odaiba.

We crossed the Rainbow Bridge by foot. If only I could capture the force on photo to correctly present a cold and a very mighty windy afternoon. So mighty that me feared me could be flung onto the road! Despite that, it was still a thrilling and refreshing walk. Utterly enjoyed it!

Random jots:

• Exchange rate from the money changer at the airport:
  SGD 1 = 61.58 Yen

• The cold air gave us energy but the warm (and sometimes stuffy) indoors, drained away the energy pretty quickly, then drove us all to sleepiness. Felt it the strongest during this trip.
• At Okadaya, items have to be paid for at their respective levels.

More pictures laid out at Flickr.

There’s a flashlight on the side of the desk in our hotel room, which is located near the Ueno Station.

Nicholai-do (Holy Resurrection Cathedral) is of Byzantine architecture, built by a Russian missionary, St. Nicholai.

The Cocoon Tower (aka Mode Gauken Cocoon Tower) in Shinjuku houses design colleges and a medical school. The basement is a huge mega bookstore, Book 1st, with 900,000 books!

I wish this sign (top right) on the JR train will someday appear on our MRT trains…”Please set your mobile phone to silent mode and refrain from talking on the phone.”

The Aoyama Flower Market has all things pretty…pretty flower bouquets for sale, a prettily illustrated blackboard and its own pretty book too!

The cool AssistOn shop in Harajuku.

Some zakka buys: grater with ceramic cup, faux wood Dymo tape, leather cords, beads and books.

Random jots:

• Exchange rate from the money changer:
  SGD 1 = 60.98 Yen

• New Izu Hotel
  • A budget hotel near the Ueno Station. Very convenient to reach from the airport and vice versa. One straight train, no transfers required.
  • I booked the semi-double room which is essentially meant for 1 to 2 persons. At 8,000 Yen (about SGD 124 or USD 81) per night, it suits my budget. Hotel rooms are expensive in Tokyo, by the way. But I don’t recommended it if you have claustrophobia because the room and its en suite bathroom are both very very small.
  • The room, though cramp, has a desk, fridge, water pot, phone, clock/alarm/radio, TV, hangers, towel rack, shoe horn, mini shelf, hair dryer, flashlight, yukata and slippers. Shampoo and toothbrushes are also provided.
  • The heated toilet seat is nice and warm on a cold day.
  • Refundable deposit for LAN cable (500 Yen) and 2-pin plug (200 Yen).
  • There’s a convenience store beside it and another one nearby.
  • To get to the hotel from the train station requires climbing up and down the stairs of a bridge, but there is a Tokyo Metro subway exit which will eliminate all that exercise. At Ueno train station, go to the Tokyo Metro subway side and look for the “Tokyo Metro Pass Office”. Next to the office is a path leading to an elevator. Use that elevator to get to the ground level and walk as you would to the hotel as shown on the online map.
• Orange ring replacement gaskets for Luminarc/Borgonovo canning jars are sold at Tokyo Hands.
• The Kinkado is a neighbourly department store without the frills that is seen in posh mega stores. It has 2 buildings, each with a few levels. One building is packed with fabrics and sewing supplies while the other houses knitting, beads and other crafty supplies. You can find a collection of JR train buttons on the fabric side. It also sells cosmetics, accessories, clothing, etc. It’s across the street from the South exit of the Ikebukuro Station, from the Seibu side of the station.
• Fancl is still cheaper in Japan.
• Early March weather was cold. Average temperature hovered around 10-12 degrees Celsius, and dipped to 5-6 degrees at about 6pm.

I’m planning to collect all my jots on travelling to Japan, specifically Tokyo, and put them in one or more posts, which will hit the streets in time to come. It will cover jots on how to get to and from Narita Airport to downtown Tokyo, how to plan your visit, links which were helpful to me when I first step foot in Japan, and so on.

Hi everyone, I’m back and here with me are a few scenes from Vegas.

Convention venue + our home.

A picture next to the desk in the room.

The “Lion Habitat” in MGM.

The lions are relaxing in a state-of-the-art resort, costing 9 million dollars to build. Totally sound-proof and scent-proof against us, the fearful human spectators.

Hub’s kid-at-heart at work here, in a trolley at Target.

Exhibits from the Howard W. Cannon Aviation Museum, within the McCarran International Airport.

“Women’s interest in aviation was reflected in these children’s books of the 1930s.”
Jane, Stewardess of the Airlines by Ruthe S. Wheeler (1934) and Linda Carlton Air Pilot by Edith Lavell (1931)

Some zakka buys: Orla Kiely’s reusable shopping bag, unbleached cheesecloth and a Pyrex measuring cup with that all-important lid.

Random jots:

• Exchange rate from the money changer:
  SGD 1.532 = USD 1.00

• Visas are waived for Singaporeans but it’s imperative to fill up a travel authorization form online. Print a copy, just in case. Have to fill up a waiver card (similar to the form) before the plane touchdown.
• MGM Grand
  • Arrived in Vegas past midnight and checked into MGM. There wasn’t a fridge or kettle in the room. Paid $10 for an air pot and $2.50 to have it delivered to the room. No self collection, pay $2.50 or live without boiling water. A friend had to pay $135 for a fridge! We also requested for 2 pairs of slippers but they were delivered free of charge. What a relief…
  • There are 2 connecting doors, on opposite sides in our room that can link up to 2 adjoining rooms.
  • Free ice from an ice-making machine near the lift lobby, on every floor.
  • LAN connection charge = $15/day.
  • The staff at the concierge was super helpful! They will print out Google road maps/bus routes to help you get to any part of the city.
  • There is always someone smoking somewhere in the hotel, except maybe within the conference centre. Even the non-smoking floors have lingering traces of smoke.
• The Deuce
  • The Deuce bus which travels along the Strip charges $3 for a single trip or $7 for a whole day pass. Announcements of places of interest, hotels and change to other bus routes are made before each stop and they are also shown on the monitor screen. We had to ride on the Deuce then switch to other buses ($1.75/single ticket) to reach K-mart and Target.
  • In the direction towards the McCarran Airport, The Deuce stops at Town Square which has restaurants, and also Borders, Whole Foods, H & M, Banana Republic, just to name a few.
  • On a particular leg of our journey, when we boarded the Deuce and was about to pay the fare, the driver said to us and to the rest of boarding passengers that we don’t have to! Free ride! And we don’t know why!
• It was good to catch the Bonnie Hunt Show, Regis and Kelly (with Anderson Cooper) and reruns of Home Improvement and Still Standing. Then almost every TV channel was reporting on Nadya and her 14 kids!
• The weather was cold + dry, causing some minor bleeding when we blew our noses.

(Prices in USD)

Scenes from Tokyo will be up next Monday.