Thursday, 15th January 2015 Hiking up Diamond Head State Monument was a fun thing for me to do in Hawaii other than visiting the beaches and war memorials. As someone of average fitness and who is not into trekking, I found the trail to be very manageable. I probably took about an hour to reach the summit from the starting point, reachable by a short bus ride from Waikiki Beach. I had to pay a small admission fee at the ticket booth before embarking on my climb. The well-managed trail was relatively easy to conquer even though I encountered a stretch of dark tunnels and steep stairways on my way to the top. The views of Waikiki from the summit were awesome. In fact, there were plenty of picture taking opportunities along the way which eventually ... read more

Tuesday, 13th January 2015 I took an early morning flight out from Oakland to Honolulu via Hawaiian Air. The morning snack was nothing more than a fresh fruit platter with some cheese and crackers plus a nice serving of Hawaiian Host chocolates. I am never a cheese person but I must admit that it went really well with the rest of the platter. A refreshing pineapple juice was served on board. 5 hours into my journey, I arrived at Honolulu feeling refreshed and ready for my adventure on the island. I boarded "The Bus" from the airport to my hotel at downtown Waikiki, the beach strip of Oahu Island. The whole commute took more than an hour but at just USD 2.50, this must be one of the cheapest airport commute in the world. I arrived ... read more

Sunday, 11th January 2015 Sightseeing was kept to the minimum today since it was quite late by the time we woke up (no thanks to the jetlag). After a quick brunch, I followed H to Berkeley where I continued the BART to Embarcadero Station. Coming from the eastern suburbs, this was the first stop that defined San Francisco downtown proper after crossing the Bay Bridge. I walked over to the San Francisco Railway Museum at the corner of Market Street to take a peep. On normal occasions, I would be extremely excited at the prospect of viewing the vintage street cars display. Perhaps, it was plain tiredness from the long journey that I did a quick walk through before exiting the museum in 20 minutes. The ferry building marketplace, oftened touted as one of the must-visit ... read more

Friday, 9th January 2015 I'm on the road again - this time to a brand new frontier, in a brand new year. I would be away from home for 17 days this time round - the longest trip I've ever made in my lifetime thus far. The trip was decided relatively "last minute". Tickets were booked in late November 2014. And after deciding where I should go, I booked 2 more trips within my big trip in USA - 5 Days to Hawaii and 2 Days to Los Angeles. The rest of my time was divided between Berkeley, San Francisco and Oakland. For some reason, as I approached 9th January 2015, I wasn't really looking forward to this USA trip. I dismissed this as a form of travel fatigue as I was travelling quite frequently over ... read more

Saturday, 27th December 2014 After breakfast at Coffee Valley, we took a walk around the historic downtown core before hailing a taxi to Holiday Plaza for my massage routine. For the weekend, we chose to stay at Hotel Tebrau CT as it was right opposite Jusco Tebrau City and 5 minutes to Tesco Hypermarket. The meal choices we picked today were quite sensible ranging from Vivo pizzas to Japanese hotpots. In between meals, we found time for a somewhat expensive coffee break at Lavender Café. This was a great weekend for us to try out new eateries and stay experiences. Our hotel stay turned out to be rather forgettable even though the train ride back to Singapore the following afternoon was quite a pleasant surprise.... read more