Hat Yai Trip 2007: Day 3

The day started with breakfast at the hotel. And once again the food is the same for the second day in a row, which wasn't surprising. We asked from the hotel staff where we can go shopping as we went to most of the places that we've researched on. They gave us a map and told us about a market near the Clock Tower and an Asian Trade Market which opens in the evening.

Judging from the map that the Clock Tower is within walking distance, we made our way down to the place. Passed by Kim Yong Market along the way.

The Clock Tower is just within 10 minutes walk down the road. The goods sold at street market here was not as good as those in BKK, though the variety is there.

The market here looks like those old style markets in Singapore, like old Tiong Bahru or People's Park.

From the map, it seemed like Big C was not so far away, so we decided to go there on foot. Along the way, we passed by the fountain circus.

And the Jiranakorn Stadium.

However, the shopping mall was nowhere in sight after about 30minutes of walking. On a closer look at the map, then I found that there was an indication on the map which marked "long way" (the map was not drawn to scale). Wanted to take taxi but persevered on, and finally arrived at our destination.

The building was just a 2-storey shopping mall, and Big C was just like Carrefour. Went for a 1-hour foot massage session in the mall, which felt very shiok after such a long walk. Nothing much here though.

And so we took a (shared) tuk tuk back to the hotel for a short rest before going to the night market recommended by the hotel staff.

This night market is quite big compared to the others here in Hat Yai. There were quite a few stalls organized into different lanes. It took us slightly more than an hour to complete walking through all the stalls. Though we didn't get anything here.

After this, we went for dinner at a Japanese restaurant called Fuji Restaurant at Lee Gardens Plaza.

Finally went to a pub called The Pubb for a drink. They offered a 1-for-1 Tiger Beers at ฿80. And there was a band performance here as well.

Hat Yai Trip 2007: Day 2

An early morning view from the hotel room.

Signed up for a half-day tour at a nearby agency, as we didn't have any plans for the day.

First stop, went to look at the 4-faced Buddha up the hill of Hat Yai City Municipal Park. Then the Buddha statue at Brahman Shrine.

Next is the Kuan Im Temple just down the hill

Then we went to look at the reclining Buddha at Wat Hat Yai Nai, passing by the Khlong U Taphao Bridge. This place looks like under maintenance and the guide said people seldom come here anymore

After this, we traveled for about 15 ~ 20 miniutes before reaching Samila Beach.

Here we saw the Mermaid statue

And a rat and cat statue. There is a legend here which says that a dog, a cat, and a mouse, on a Chinese sampan stole the merchant’s magic crystal and tried to swim ashore but drowned and lost their lives. The cat and the mouse became the islands in the Songkhla Lake, which is called into Rat and Cat Island in English.

The tour ended with a visit to a local product shop in Hat Yai City.

After that, it was lunch at a place called Daothiam, just opposite of Odeon Shopping Mall. We ordered some local dish.

After lunch, it was further shopping again. We went to Odeon Shopping Mall and Robinson Department Store.

Then we walked all the way to Diana Department Store which took about 20 minutes...

Took a tuk tuk back to our hotel after the shopping spree. One thing unique about the tuk tuk here is that it was shared with other passengers. And the shared transport costs ฿20 per person. Then had a massage at our hotel before going to Tian Chwu Restaurant to da bao dinner. And that was the end of the day.

Hat Yai Trip 2007: Day 1

My first trip to Hat Yai. Now that there is budget airline flying there, gone are the days of 10+ hours of bus journey there I suppose.

And there is this spin to win game at the Budget Terminal. But we didn't win anything.

After a 1 hour 20 minutes journey, we arrived at the Hat Yai International Airport.

And waiting to clear the custom.

Took a 10-seater vehicle from the Airport to the hotel at Lee Gardens Plaza. The price is the same for up to 10 people at ฿250, so the more people, the less costly the transfer becomes (although its not very costly lah). The hotel is a 33-storey building and the first 7 floors is a shopping mall.

After checking into the hotel, walked around the vicinity of the hotel. Central shopping mall was just opposite of Lee Gardens Plaza. There is a local street market just down the road as well.

Dinner was at a nearby seafood restaurant.

By the time we finished our dinner, it was pretty late already and there weren't much shops or stalls that was still opened. So we went back to our hotel to rest for the day.

Henry is gone...

Thierry Henry is joining Barcelona... T_T... Now an exodus of players (and manager) seems on the card... Time to re-build the squad again...

Buzz My Day

The event was jointly organized by SBS Transit and SPH. There were some hitches before J, PS, S and I finally formed a team to join. The day started with the registration from before 10am, then the briefing at 1030 before finally the flag off at 11am. There were 250 teams participating in the event, coming up to about 1000 people. As there were still time after we registered, we went to Long John Silver for breakfast as PS didn't have his.

The Team

At the briefing, the hosts was Wenhong (from 100.3) and Hubert Tang (from 91.3).

There was 5 different checkpoints but there were different sets of question booklets in which the checkpoints were in different order. Bonus point will be given when teams visit the first checkpoint in their booklet. This is to ensure that all teams can be dispersed when the game starts.

Our order of checkpoints were as follows:

1. Toa Payoh

Our first stop, took the NEL to Potong Pasir then tranfer to bus 142 to TPY Interchange. Spent quite a while before we found the Buzz Kiosk and complete the task.

2. Paya Lebar

Wide swamp when translated to Malay becomes Paya Lebar. The clues took us to the Malay Village and the Singapore Post Center.

Horn-roof Minangkabau structure

Need to solve some riddles here as well. And J still managed to find time to grab a drink from Coffee Bean... :D

3. The Heeren

As we spent too much time at the last check point, we gotta touch and go at this checkpoint. Linzhi and Suzanne Walker were here, whom I almost couldn't identify... :P. However one of the bus drivers won't let us board the bus without paying. Seems like he didn't know about this event. Had to wait quite some time for the next bus to take us to PS.

4. Chinatown

Time was running out by this time (only less than half an hour left). We ran from the MRT station to the Heritage Center to Sri Mariamman Temple and then Smith Street to take pictures. All this within 15 minutes.

5. Vivo City

No time to do anything here as we just managed to get back in time. But PS managed to spot one of the answers to the questions as we ran back to submit our booklet.

After a gruelling (not really lah) 4-hour rush, we were all given a complimentary sandwich and goodie bags. Free floss candy and pop-corns were being given out as well. We took a rest before going back for the announcement of the result.

Our team number was the first to be announced, much to my surprise... hehe... That means we got the 10th prize; not bad considering we didn't prepare for it. Maybe the last answer spotted by PS made the difference... :P

Of course, credits must also be given to all those who have helped us throughout the race, i.e. Hellspawn, Strike and J's friends etc... and Sotong.

Dinner @ The Mussel Guy

It's The Mussel Guy, not muscle guy... And its a cafe / restaurant at Vivo City where I had dinner with my Uni friends. SK just came back from a 1.5 years overseas working stint and this dinner is sort of like a welcome dinner. Meanwhile it was also another catch up session once again. (Think the last time we met was like SK when was back for a short break last year?). This time, DL, HW, JG, SK and Vic were present.

The food here was ok, although the portion for the main course in the set meal was rather small (although this is acceptable given the price). The baked mussel was not bad though.

I ordered a grilled chicken (served with baked rice) which turned out very much like chicken rice.

Went to the Pacific Coffee Company for a drink after dinner. Initially wanted to go Ben & Jerrys but there were no seats. Sat at the cafe and talked for a while more before we head for home. Hope the next meet up won't be such a long time later again... :P

Birthday Wish List 2007

Now its that time of the year again :P... So what do I want this year, have a look... wahaha...

1. An 80GB external HDD (bigger capacity are welcomed... :P)
   
2. Blue Dragon
   
3. Arsenal 2007-2008 Away Jersey (but then not out in the market yet...Out and available at Queensway for $94)
4. ...
   

Will add on to the list if I thought of anything else... :D

IPPT

Went for IPPT at Maju Camp and failed. As usual it was the chin up (just one short) and the 2.4km run that gave me the problem. Need to train if I really want to pass, I still have 2 weeks of time. But knowing myself, I think RT looms... :P