Day 2 to Russia: Bangkoooookkkkkkkkkk - Chiang Mai

Day 1 to Russia: Kuala Lumpur - Butterworth - Bangkok

10 Sleeps in Taiwan (Part 2)

I had to get up well before sunrise the next day to meet with an old friend who was also playing client role on this trip at the airport. He, along with his bandmates flew in from San Fran to play a few gigs in Taiwan and that was why I was there, to document their shows and their tour around Taiwan. 

It was an expected 6 hours drive down south to Kenting, the very most southern part of Taiwan for their first show. The drive down was alright, I reckon cos we were all sleeping most of the time. We made a stop halfway through for late lunch and toilet break, and the rest stop took me by complete surprise! It's not like how our NKVE's rest stop is at all, it felt like we were inside a mall. 

The rest of the journey was pretty alright, the highways in Taiwan are pretty damn good I have to say. Clean and at most part it is elevated, so scenery ain't too shabby either. Then at one point, there was slight traffic and naturally we all wanted to know why, and well, sad to say on our first day in Taiwan, we saw a dead body! Yikes! That's right. I couldn't bring myself to look at it though, turned my head away but looked out for the car which threw the victim onto the road. It was pretty numbing for all of us, I think it was all our first time seeing a dead body on the road. For some reason, the police didn't cover the body, I sure hope it's cos they didn't have body bags not just cause they don't cover them in Taiwan, because we did see the policemen laying out cones and measuring distances. I thought the first thing one would do is to cover up the body. Anyway....... let's move on from morbidness.

It felt like the WHOLE of Taiwan was under a spell of grey that weekend. Seriously, the clouds from Taiwan right up to Kenting looked all grey the whole way through. I imagine that's what it must feel like being in London? Heh. Our hotel in Kenting was pretty decent, though we spent like an hour just to get to our hotel because of the traffic. Mind you, that very weekend, the whole of Taiwan was on a break, Spring Break that is. I swear it felt like the whole of Taiwan was in Kenting that weekend. They had rave parties, foam parties and all sorts of parties. Streets were packed to the brim!!

Street food was everywhere! There were beer girls even! I kinda imagine it to be like Cancun/Miami spring break only this is in Taiwan. Flashy cars, scantily clad girls. You name it, they had it! It was kind of an experience for me, specially when I had no expectations of Taiwan. But wow, Kenting sure did take me by pleasant surprise!

We went to Spring Scream right after we checked-in the hotel cos the boys were playing that night itself. Spring Scream is an annual indie music festival in Kenting, Taiwan. It's usually a weekend event, but this year it seems that performances even started as early as Wednesday. 

It's a by the seaside event, nestled in the trees. Some would call it a hippie like event, I call it a perfect place for an event.

It wasn't too big, it felt intimate and somewhat just right. 

There's also a campsite for those who didn't want to pay for the hotels that weekend (three times the price that weekend). I remember seeing a guy in just a loin cloth, I kid you not, a loin cloth. I guess you could call it a hippie like fest. Heh.

Of course the best part is discovering new music!! The girls on the left are known as 依錚依靜 (Yi-Cheng Yi-Ching), they're identical twins. Check them out here! Then there was this other female vocalist who really drew me in, she goes by the name of Frandé. Also this other band, which somewhat had a glam/pop/rock vibe, I don't know what genre it is lah ok, but their tunes were catchy and that's Red Flower. If you have the time and don't mind some Mandarin tunes, make sure you give them a listen alright? Oh and not forgetting my friend's band of course!! Hah! Dream Rush! An American band singing Mandarin songs, what the what?! Yea, so the vocalist is Singaporean, guitarist is Malaysian, drummer is from Hong Kong and the bassist and other guitarist are Americans, talk about an international band eh?

And that my friends, is a wrap up of my weekend at Spring Scream, Kenting! 

10 sleeps in Taiwan (Part 1)

"The current temperature in Taipei is 27 degrees".

Anticipating to have an overlook of Taiwan from up above, the captain's announcement was my cue to wake up to look outside the window. Behold! What sight that met my eyes, nothing but endless mass of clouds, and by that I mean gloomy clouds. Hello, Gloomy Taiwan!

I got to Taiwan, with no expectations whatsoever. In fact, the only expectation I had for the entire trip was my first night's accommodation because I booked it personally, other than that, I left everything up to Taiwan to surprise me.  Now, you got to know that I went to a Chinese primary school. Having said that, my reading and conversational Mandarin skills was never really in the window to begin with, but whatever that was in the window went right outside after primary school.

I was first forced to put my very rusty Mandarin into use when I had to ask which bus to take into the city. Luckily for me, maps  of Taipei city was up for grabs upon collecting my luggage. All I needed to do, was point to the MRT station I wanted to get to and utter the word "有巴士去吗?" (got bus go there ar).

An hour later, there I was right smack in the city with my bags in hand. First thing I felt was the nice chilled air, then I noticed how grey and monotoned all the buildings were. It somewhat felt like a communist ran country, although the exact place I got off was filled with colourful signages and bright lights. It's been a while since I've been in a country solo and boy was I excited!

After I settled in my room, charged up my phone I headed out to the streets for a walk and to get myself sorted out for dinner. It was drizzling very lightly, but it was still very walkable without an umbrella. The lights from signages was overwhelming to say the least, but I liked it. I don't know why, but I feel Taipei is like a less busy, less expensive Tokyo, though I've not ever been there.

I walked around for about an hour plus before I started feeling hungry. Now, one of the first comments I got from my friends whose been to Taiwan was the food! How great it was and what not. So, naturally being a pescatarian (one who doesn't eat meat except fish), my easiest choice was to go Japanese! Unfortunately for me, the restaurant I walked into didn't have an English menu and that was when I sort of panicked. I got the waiter to kind of tell me bout their choices, I didn't even know all the names of the fishes until he mentioned something that sounded like Salmon!!

With my belly full, it was time to head back for some good shut eye because the next 9 sleeps in Taiwan was all about work.

Till the next post...! More photos then too :)

Carol

Postponed

So, we had to postpone our trip due to visa applications to a week...and then our dear old, trustworthy PM announced that elections will be on the 5th, so being the good citizens that we are...

Naturally we're staying back to vote first. So, that another whole week that we're pushing back before we leave.

:)

Visa Tales

Apologies to all our fans and ardent readers, all 3 of you, for our 1 week absence. The fact of the matter is that we were busy tanning ourselves, living it up and generally just consuming a lot of crazy shakes.

But the absolute truth is that both Carol and I have been so busy with work that we've not had the time to do much for our upcoming trip. Some interesting things did happen from when we went to get our Chinese visas done last week though:

1. We got them done. 

For Malaysians, it costs RM30 for 30 days, but plus processing and Chinese employee English lessons fund contribution fees, it amounts up to RM58. The application process now requires you to provide proof of your flight in and out of China plus your hotel booking but if you do not have that, you can declare your reasons on a form which was what we did. Fill up forms and make an appointment here. 5 days to process visa, or you can pay more for same day collection (approx RM300) at the consulate (Plaza OSK, Jalan Ampang).

2. Managed to finally get in touch with the Kazakhstan embassy (115, Jalan Ampang Hilir)! It's not too complicated for this, just show up at the embassy during operating hours - 9 - 11am on Monday, Wednesday, Friday - to submit in your application. Process takes 5 working days, proof of travel and hotel also required. Forms available here.

3. Russian visa....haiihhhhhhh....

We've been told that this would be a lengthy process. And we were correctly informed. It wasn't the easiest thing to get info from the consulate in the first place so right after we were done at China, we just hopped on a cab and nipped down to Russia. Got into the consulate office; it's a tiny office almost full of people and one little old Indian lady behind a counter. We got there in time to hear her say "Okay everyone. If you're not flying this or next week, please go home and come back again next week. I won't be processing any more applications today." This, before 11am.

Anyways. We stepped out of the office to discuss our next step of action when a girl standing outside must've overheard us, and asked "Hey, are you guys going to Russia for work or tourism?" From there our conversation led us to find out that she and her boyfriend are doing almost the exact same thing as us! Ivan and Lyvonne are headed back to London to maintain their PR and you can find out more about them and their trip on their (much more colourful and better looking) blog here.

Update: Russian visa for Malaysians costs RM165. You have to be very careful about stating your dates of entry and departure; once approved you're only allowed in within that duration of time. But before all that, you would first need to get a letter of invitation/visa support letter. Now details on this part is a little bit unclear. Some online sites offer you this letter for as low as USD$20 but if you do it with our Malaysian consulate, you can get it done for RM375. This on top of the standard visa fee. Carol enquired with a tour agency and it would set us back RM650+ to have it done with them. Interestingly, at our point of meeting, Ivan and Lyvonne were about to check out an agency down at KL Sentral who claimed they could do the whole thing for RM300++. 

So while Carol is away shooting in Taiwan this week, I will be making my way down to the Kazakhstan embassy to get my visa done first. This week we'll also be deciding how to move forward with our Russian visas. Hopefully our next post will have more fruitful and ball wrenching stories. Till then, here're the pictures we're using for our modeling applications I mean visas.

Tip: Keep in mind that when you go get your visa done, you will have to leave your passport at the consulate/embassy till it's time for collection. So don't plan to get all visas done in one day. Not that we thought we could.

Should we cross into China in a cargo boat?

We found a fast cheaper way to get to China direct from the north of Thailand! It involves

1. a Chinese cargo boat

2. us having to register as "boat crew"
3. this toilet

Shall we do it?!