Captain America: Civil War

5 days after the premiere of Captain America Civil War, I finally caught it! I didn't bother myself with any trailers save the endless Audi and WHIH advertisements looping on YouTube. But I've been anticipating the movie a lot. 

* Updates: I finally caught the movie again with a prime seat and now finally understand the story build up! Everything made sense hahaa
 

 
The movie runs for approximately 2 hours and 20 min. The plot of this instalment centres around the diversion of the Avengers as political, societal and emotional pressure weighs on our heroes.

Busan: Dalmaji-gil Road & Namcheongdong Cherry Blossom Road

Day 2 of my #YoloKorea tour for the seasonal Cherry Blossoms! I returned from Jinhae very late the night before and had a 14 hours (layover included) flight to Korea. You can imagine the amount of effort it took to roll out of bed the next morning.

After Jinhae's famous Cherry Blossom Festival, the next event I wanted to attend was the Hadong Cherry Blossom Festival. Hadong was even further than Jinhae and given my risen hour, it was clearly not a good idea to proceed. So I seek my lovely hostel manager's travel advice and went to Dalmaji-gil road instead! 
 

Korea Shopping Haul !

Even though I went to Korea mainly to catch the Cherry Blossoms, I didn’t waste the chance for a good haul. So I set aside more time to go shopping during this trip hhehehe. Here is my haul video!

 

Day trip to Jinhae Gunhangje & GyeongHwa Train station

Everyone should probably know how obsessed with Cherry Blossoms I am, having flew to Japan twice in a row to catch it. This year, I decided to do something different. I decided at the very last minute to fly to South Korea for them. Yes, It was a blizzard and frivolous arrangement. 

In case you’re interested, Cherry blossoms are called beotkkot in Korean.  

I didn't feel like going to Japan again because I've been there 3 times last year and the bloom I witnessed last year left me entirely satisfied. Fuelled in part by the fact that the flights were all horrendously expensive, I ditched Japan and hopped to South Korea instead! After all , it's been 5 years since I've been there! I want to make an entry about how I plan my itineraries/trips to make it both fun and budget friendly but I don't think anyone would be interested haha. 
 
Anyway I flew into Busan via Vietnam Airline, had a longgggg layover in Noi Bai Airport and finally arrived in Busan. And after checking into my lovely hostel, sped straight to Jinhae. Check out my vlog below!
 

 

Noi Bai Airport, Terminal 1 Sleeping Pods

As I’ve mentioned in my previous posts, I had more than 17 hours of layover in Hanoi’s Noi Bai Airport. I spent 6 hours and 40 minutes lingering in the departure lounge for my first trip. And then spent another daunting 11 hours and 10 minutes in Noi Bai Airport Terminal 1 for the return trip.


I couldn’t stand the idea of lounging around the departure lounge for 11 hours in the wee of the night so I decided to try Noi Bai Airport's new Sleeping Pods. Prior to booking the pods, I considered the possibility of getting a normal hotel room outside of the airport since they were much more affordable, bigger and had all the proper facilities. But the reviews made me a little scared and I didn’t want to risk missing my flight, so I went with a sleeping Pod instead.

Photo from http://noibaiairport.vn/

I arrived at Terminal 2 but rented a pod at Terminal 1 because Terminal 2 only had Twin beds and I didn’t want to waste my money renting an extra bed hehee.

Noi Bai Airport Terminal 2, Departure Lounge

For my Spring Korea trip, I flew with Vietnam Airlines and spend more than 17 hours in Noi Bai Airport. For my first layover of 6 hours 40 minutes, I choose to stay within the Departure/transit zone because it was a little too late to venture out. Coupled with the fact that I had to rush back to the airport to check in for my connecting flight meant I only had less than 4 hours to do any sort of touring. Check out my review of Vietnam Airlines here!

Noi Bair AIrport has 2 Terminals. Terminal 1 is older and as of current, only serves domestic flights. Terminal 2 has just been opened in January 2015, is spanking new and serves international flights. If you are coming into or flying out of Hanoi, it’s likely you will be going to the newly opened Terminal 2. Which is good, because Terminal 2 is so much better!

I wanted to write this entry to share my experience at the Noi Bai Airport Terminal 2 Departure/Transit zone because when I did my own travel research, the lack of information online was so frustrating. So here’s the low down!

 

Noi Bai Airport Website: http://noibaiairport.vn/HOME/Default.aspx

 

 

 

My Vietnam Airlines Experience

For my recent blizzard Korea trip (blizzard because I was crazy enough to decide and then buy the plane tickets 2 days before flying. It was my most frivolous trip yet haha) , I flew with Vietnamese Airlines and had more than 17 hours of layover in total, in Noi Bai Airport. 

 

 

Being the Budget conscious traveller I am and having bought my tickets this late meant I had little flight choices. I went with the cheapest flight from Vietnam Airline. It cost me $496.03, tax and booking fee included. 

Vietnamese airline offers a wide range of flight timings to Seoul and Busan. However, they pretty much all have layovers in Hanoi Airport. check out my short write up of my time at the Hanoi Airport transit/departure area. 

Having layovers twice meant I took 4 different air planes. And I'm here with a short entry about my experience with Vietnam airline. 

How to dye your hair Pink with Food Dye

And so for the past month or so, I've been sporting a vibrant head of peachy pink. I bleached my hair 3 times with Gatsby's EX Hi-Bleach, giving myself a couple of days in between to rest my scalp.

10 tips to travelling Japan for Cheap!

I marvelled my friends when I told them I travelled Japan for 15 days, covered 5 cities, 1 distant village and spent a grand total of just SGD $1730, all inclusive! I kinda cheated a little by spending 6 nights at 2 friend’s place. But given my spending record, even with 6 additional days of accommodation, I doubt I would burst SGD $2000.

And take note that within those 15 days, I did not starve. There were even days that I even splurged on restaurants (Korean Barbeque and Japanese Sukiyaki, yums!) and presents for my family and friends back home. So I'm here to share a few tips on how to travel Japan for cheap.

Tips to packing light for travel!

Packing light is essential for a solo traveller. It is especially important if you need to be on-the-go a lot, chasing trains and changing destination every other day because the weight (or lack of it) will allow you to move faster and be less vulnerable in undesirable situations. In many big cities, navigating the crowded train stations and going up flights of stairs with a bulky luggage is something you will not enjoy. There’s just so many perks to travelling light and I’m here to share with you some tips on how I pack. 

 

 
Just to let you know, I went to Europe for 6 weeks and did the Trans-siberian for 7 weeks all with just a carry on baggage. The key is to prepare even before you open up your suitcase!

There is too much travel packing tips to share so this blog entry shall focus only on tips that directly decreases your travel load.