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Dec 2009 Vacation – Hilo , Hawaii

December 28, 2009 in Travel | No comments

SG TO Hawaii Hilo Island

The flight there we took United Airlines there as usual. Purchased Coach tickets and then upgrade to Business Class with the mileage.

Bfast is eight treasure fried rice with scallop, prawns, sausage, and mushrooms in lotus leaf Or you can also take scrambled eggs with grilled chicken sausage and sauteed spinach. Both are accompanied by fresh fruits and bfast breads.Transit at narita is 5 hrs. I forgot to bring the adaptor into my carry on luggage. Luckily the flight to Honolulu is about 7 hours my iPod and MacBook shd be able to last me all the way till I reached.Manage to get a window and a aisle seat for the flight from narita to honolulu. Dinner was Japanese zen selection. Is nice !!

Japanese Meal selection on Business Class flights

By the time we reach Honolulu we are almost zombie already. Sg was 18 hrs behind and we still have another inter island flight to catch from Honolulu which is at Oahu to Big Island. Luckily the flight is short only about 45 mins.We checked in at Hilo Hawaiian hotel paid $10 more per nite to get a ocean view room which faces the coconut island and it has a balcony !!!Nothing much accomplished for the rest of the day. Both of us are damn tired after 24 hours of travelling.Farmers marketlike our wet market. Bought the orchid for head dressing.

 

Hilo Hawaiian Hotel

4 mile scenic drive

There are a few trails that can be explored on foot. The jeep in front of us got broken into. We almost thought is ours and ran back up. The sheriff at the trail entrance informed us about it. To be honest, the 4 mile drive wasnt very impressive. If given a choice , probably will not go on the route again. haha

akaka falls

Laupahoehoe point

The town was attacked by tsunami in 1986. We went to the point and experienced the waves ourselves.though not as destructive as tsunami it was magnificent to see the waves hit onto the cliffs

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Cafe 100

locomocorice with brown sauce like the coney dog sauce with eggs sausages and ham. Recommended by lonely planet. Quite unique actually. Worth a try.After trying Cafe 100, we came to realise everywhere is selling locomoco. HahaWent back to hotel to rest and took a 2 hr sleep. There isn’t sunset yday so we didn’t go to Richardson black sand beach at all.Rainbow fallsActually not very impressive but cos is near Hilo town we take picture and go to voclanoes, There are lots of waterfalls in Hawaii. The other that we went to see is akaka falls. The most impressive is still Niagara Falls.

locomoco rice

Volcano national park.
About 45 mins drive from Hilo. Need to plan around 4 hrs to explore the place completely. We didn’t even do the trail because lack of time n proper equipment.The destruction caused by eruption is massive. We can see over thousands acres of land filled with hrdened lava.

Too bad we are not able to see REAL laval flowing because to view that we need to drive another 90 mins to a private property where they allow special viewing from 5pm to 10pm . And according to the park rangers, may or may not have lava to see and you need flashlight because the place doesnt have street lights and it will get very dark to get ourselves out.

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National Volcano Park

Macadamia plantation.Along the way back to Hilo so we turned in and check the place out. The factory tour is self guided but you can only see from outside a viewing gallery. There is a nuts gift shop and we got all our mac nuts there. Mac nuts in Hawaii is damn cheap. A small can costs only 2.50 usd will probably costs ard 10+ back in sg home.Black sand beach at Richardson ocean park.

Not very impressive though. The only thing that amazes is the Black Sand. Other than that is beach resort which is not very tourist friendly. After you see Wakiki , no other beach front excites me.

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Euro Holidays – Day 02 – Zurich*Lucerne

October 3, 2009 in LifeBits, Travel | No comments

 

There is a 6 hour time difference between Singapore and Zurich. As usual, i got jet lag and woke up every hour at 1am till 4.30am ( Zurich Time ) . Instead of forcing ourselves back to sleep again , we decided to make an early trip to the flea market. there is flea market every weekend in the city centre .

7am streets are still relatively quiet. the trains frequency are also slower in the morning. maybe it is because today is Saturday and is a non working day ?

The flea market is huge but we didn’t get anything because most of the stuff are silverware and winter clothing and we don’t know how to communicate with the locals!! Most of them speak German, Italian and French since the country is surrounded by these 3 countries.

 
Flea Market at Zurich

11 am went to the railway station and used the Swiss pass and board the train to Lucerne. The Swiss pass enable you to purchase a x number of days pass where you can just hop onto the trains “free”. You can get it at the Dynasty Hub in Singapore.  You can go to the website to do some research first. it is quite comprehensive. there are direct trains and trains u need to change so we of course took the direct one to save us trouble. The timing is very accurate so you just have to plan based on what you see on the information screen.

 

chapel bridge at lucerne
took us about 50 minutes to reach Lucerne from Zurich. the hotel is about 10 mins walk from the train station. Hotel flora is located in a very good location. chapel bridge is just behind it and the city centre is just across the Lucerne bridge. They serve damn good breakfast ( included in the room rate ) too. Since food is so expensive in town, we took a very very heavy breakfast before we start our day.

To me, Lucerne looks very like Zurich but is more crowded maybe cos is a Saturday.

2 pm

walk around and took some photos around the atrractions and riverside. There are a lot of photo hotspots in that area we took our time to check it out. The night view is also very beautiful. It happen to be Mid Autumn Festival where we are there so the moon is big , round and bright. Sad thing the europeans dont celebrate them so there isnt any mooncakes for sale.

I went to bucherer and bought a Swiss knife for 78 chf. Bucherer isnt famous for knives. They are famous for selling watches.   Not sure if I were use the knive though but if you don’t get one when u reach Switzerland is like missing something. The Bucherer store in Lucerne is the biggest their so call flagship store. They have about 3 levels and you will be greeted by chinese sales staff . Dont be surprised because most of the customers they get are chinese tourists really. They buy expensive watches like we buy hamburgers. I saw price tags of $100k CHF on some of them. That will be about $140k SGD.

If u ever go to Swiss you have to get the Swiss knife. I reached Italy and regretted I shd get a few more as gifts. They make very nice and presentable gifts and you get free engraving service in most tourist shops. The pricing is more or less the same, i checked a few and they are simliar. However if you visit interlaken , there is a nice little shop there that sells almost every single swiss knife by Victorinox and Wenger which i strongly recommend. The boss is friendly and speaks relatively good english.

 
Macdonald is freaking expensive here . big mac meal upsize is 12 francs. tats about 18 sgd !! The meal below costs almost 24 sgd in Lucerne

 

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as usual went back to hotel for a nap at around 4pm due to jet lag and we over slept again. finally figure out how to use shutter to control the lighting. the night shots are very beautiful!! check them out!