18 February 2013, Monday After spending the past four nights in Tokyo, it was time to head to Nikko, a town about 150km north of the Japanese capital. At 7am, I woke up, did my final packing and checked out of my hostel. I then walked to Asakusa station to catch the Tobu Nikko train. […]
Author: Holden
Just an avid traveller who loves exploring the world and sharing my experiences...
17 February 2013, Sunday Today, acting on my friend MB’s recommendation, I made a day trip to a coastal town called Kamakura and the nearby island of Enoshima, located about an hour south of Tokyo. I had not heard of these two places before so it was great that MB suggested them to me. At […]
16 February 2013, Saturday This morning, I woke up relatively late at 9:15am. At 10am, I left my hostel and took a leisurely walk through Nakamise Shopping Street, just a short distance away from my hostel in Asakusa. I enjoyed looking at the colourful Japanese lanterns and other exquisite souvenir items on sale. They all […]
15 February 2013, Friday This morning, I woke up at 7:30am and had a simple breakfast of toast and coffee at my Sakura Hostel. At 9am, I made my way to my first destination – Ueno. I decided to walk from my hostel in Asakusa to Ueno as I wasn’t in a hurry and I […]
Since COVID-19 isn’t going away anytime soon, that means I won’t be travelling for some time yet. Thus, this is the perfect moment to revisit my older trips that I did not get to blog about in the past. This 2013 trip to Tokyo was a fabulous one. It was my second time to Japan […]
14 March 2013, Thursday For our last full day in Bali, we had breakfast at Flapjaks, a casual restaurant offering home-made pancakes, waffles and gelatos. After that, we went to Petitenget Beach to have a look. Bali is famous for its many beaches and Petitenget is popular among surfers for its rolling waves. However, it […]
13 March 2013, Wednesday It was Day 7 of our trip and we had a few hours in the morning to spend at Gili Trawangan before making our way back to Bali. Breakfast at our Alam Gili resort was sumptuous as usual. After that, we went for a walk around our resort to take in […]
12 March 2013, Tuesday Today is Nyepi, the Balinese Day of Silence. Nyepi is a day of fasting, silence and meditation and the following day is celebrated as New Year’s Day for the Balinese. It is a Hindu celebration mainly celebrated in Bali, which has a majority Hindu population, unlike the rest of Indonesia, which […]
11 March 2013, Monday Today, we moved on from Padang Bai in Bali to Gili Trawangan (Gili T) in Lombok. Gili T is one of the three Gili islands – the other two are Gili Meno and Gili Air. In fact, the word “Gili” means “small island” in the local Sasek dialect, so there are […]
10 March 2013, Sunday We had an early start as we were climbing Mount Batur today. After waking up at 3:20am, we washed up and left our hotel at 3:50am for the starting point. The drive took only six minutes and we reached a small office for the Association of Mount Batur Trekking Guides. We […]
DAY 3: 9 March 2013, Saturday (Note: I managed to dig out my old diary and extracted some information from my journal entry, so this post contains more details compared to the previous two days) After spending our first two days chilling in Ubud, it was time to move on to Kintamani, an area on […]
DAY 2: 8 March 2013, Friday For our second day in Bali, we continued exploring Ubud. We woke up at 9am for a hearty breakfast at our hotel before heading out at 10:40am to visit one of the rice fields at Sari Organik, located about 3km away on foot but about 6km away by car. […]
It’s time to revisit another past trip…in March 2013, I visited Bali for the first time. For many Westerners, Bali is one of those must-go, bucket list destinations, with its white sand beaches, legendary sunsets and laid-back charm attracting hordes of tourists each year. Fortunately for us in Singapore, paradise is less than three hours […]
Since COVID-19 has curtailed all my travel plans for the foreseeable future, it is now a good time to post about some of my past trips that I didn’t get to write about. I shall start with this amazing trip to Nepal that I undertook in end-2013, which stretched into 2014. Nepal is one of […]
A little over two years after I returned from my Grand Adventure on 8 August 2018, I finally completed writing my blog posts of the 100 days spent during the trip. I had initially targeted to complete the posts on 8 August 2020 (exactly two years after my return), but I missed the mark by […]
Asia | Malaysia | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 100 – Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur) / Singapore
8 August 2018, Wednesday Today is the day…Day 100 and the day I return home to Singapore. I woke up feeling a mixture of excitement and sadness – excited because I will finally be back in a familiar place I love so much; and sad because it marks the end of this wonderful Grand Adventure. […]
Asia | Malaysia | Thailand | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 99 – Thailand (Hat Yai) / Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur)
7 August 2018, Tuesday After an uneventful day in Hat Yai yesterday, I was very eager to move on to Kuala Lumpur today. I checked out of my hostel at 6:40am and walked to Haadyai Station, aka Hat Yai Junction railway station, less than 10 minutes away. Yesterday, I had already purchased my ticket for […]
6 August 2018, Monday I slept pretty well on the train last night. The bed was comfortable and spacious enough despite having to place my big backpack on the corner of the bed. I woke up intermittently from 4am onwards, mainly because the air-conditioning was getting really cold. At 5:50am, a vendor came on board […]
Asia | Thailand | The Grand Adventure 2018
The Grand Adventure: Day 97 – Thailand (Bangkok / Hat Yai)
5 August 2018, Sunday Today, I’ll be making my way down south to Hat Yai, the largest town in the Songkhla province of Thailand, close to the border of Peninsular Malaysia. With each journey, I am inching ever closer to home. My overnight train will only depart at 3:10pm, so I still have the morning […]
4 August 2018, Saturday As I arrived late in Bangkok yesterday, I didn’t have much time to explore the city last night. Today, I had a full day ahead of me and I was raring to go. At 8:30am, I had breakfast at my hostel. It was a simple spread of toast, cereal and coffee. […]