My Very First Blog

It's unbelievable that 5 days passed by so fast. With a blink of the eye, I was back from my second Hanoi trip. My first trip was back in March 2013, just 2 years ago. Since that first trip, I had promised myself to revisit this charming city - and that's exactly what I did.

I have to say, this second trip was even more enjoyable than my first one. I'm now missing Hanoi badly but I guess there will always be future trips! I shall blog about this trip soon, but believe it or not, I have to first finish blogging about my Hanoi trip from 2 years ago! LOL!

Anyway, the purpose of today's blog post is to announce the winners of my Contest which I posted before I flew to Hanoi for my holidays. So, without further delay, here are the answers to my questions.

Question 1 : Where am I going for my holidays? Name the country and the city or town.
Answer : Hanoi, Vietnam

Question 2 : Where did I buy something 'naughty' in Hong Kong?
Answer : The Ladies Market in Mongkok

Question 3 : In which year did I visit Terminal 21 in Bangkok and took loads of picture of the mall's toilets?
Answer : 2012

Congrats to the following first two persons who answered my questions correctly! Please email me your address so that I can send you the souvenirs ASAP. My email is mvfblog@gmail.com. Thank you.

The 2 winners are :
1. Mariuca
2. Ishmael Ahab (not supposed to qualify since you are not from Malaysia, but lucky you, I am changing the rules due to insufficient participants)

This time, I was feeling generous and had 3 Bonus Questions for my readers. Here are the answers to the three Bonus Questions.

Bonus Question 1 : What did I eat on board my AirAsia flight from KL?
Answer : Bukhara Briyani Rice

Bonus Question 2 : Where did I visit during the afternoon of 25th March 2015?
Answer : Tam Coc

Bonus Question 3 : What did I have for lunch on 26th March 2015?
Answer : Bun Bo Nam Bo

Unfortunately, not many readers gave these Bonus Questions a try. Anyway there are 2 winners.

The 2 winners are :
1. Mariuca (answered Bonus Question 1 correctly)
2. Merryn Tan (answered all Bonus Questions correctly, but there can only be 1 prize. However, I am giving you 2 souvenirs since you attempted all the questions!)

Congrats! Email me your address to mvfblog@gmail.com. Thank you!

Since I will not be blogging about this Hanoi trip so soon (I need to complete my 2013 Hanoi trip first!) I shall just show you some pictures I took as a preview of what is to come.


Boat ride along the scenic river in Tam Coc



Awesome ca phe trung (egg coffee) at Giang Cafe



Plane and Flag Tower at the Vietnam Military History Museum



Night scene from the Coffee Club after the rain



Inside St Joseph's Cathedral (Nha Tho Lon)



Bizarre display of giant fruits with lopsided furnitures at Ho Chi Minh Museum



Walking the Long Bien Bridge is quite an unforgettable experience!



Statues of man and woman showing off their private parts at Jarai Tomb House attracted lots of attention at the amazing Museum Of Ethnology



Night view of Hanoi streets from the open rooftop of City View Cafe



One interesting cafe in Hanoi - Puku Cafe at Tong Duy Tan street

I do hope that my photos got you hooked and maybe inspire you to book your next holiday in Hanoi. Well, you can bet that I will go visit Hanoi again and again. Stay tuned for my future posts on this wonderful city!

I sorely needed a break, so it's time to go traveling again! By the time you read this post, I am already having my holidays outside Malaysia.

This time, I just want a relaxing holiday, nothing too adventurous. That means there will be some shopping, which I don't do much while traveling. Also, this time I prefer to revisit places I have been before rather than visit new places, although that won't stop me from exploring some new places of course!

Since I will be doing some shopping, I thought it's the perfect time to get some souvenirs for my readers. But I can't be buying souvenirs for everyone, so I shall have a contest. The first TWO people who answer the travel-related questions below correctly will win the souvenirs.

Here are the questions ....

1. Where am I going for my holidays? Name the country and the city or town.

2. Where did I buy something 'naughty' in Hong Kong?

3. In which year did I visit Terminal 21 in Bangkok and took loads of pictures of the mall's toilets?

Can't answer them? No worries, I have provided some hints for you below. All you need is just a little detective work and you will have no problem getting the answers.

Hints for Question 1 : I have been to this country back in 2013, and I am still blogging about it now!

Hints for Question 2 : Just click HERE.

Hints for Question 3 : Just click HERE.

That's it. Easy peasy, right? :)

Now, for a BONUS QUESTION. What? Didn't think I will give a bonus question? LOL!
But, wait .... I have not one, not two, but THREE BONUS QUESTIONS. I am feeling generous. Hahaha! There will be THREE winners for these bonus questions. The first person to get the correct answer to any one of these questions will win a souvenir from me.

BONUS QUESTIONS
1. What did I eat on board my AirAsia flight from KL?

2. Where did I visit during the afternoon of 25th March 2015?

3. What did I have for lunch on 26th March 2015?

Hint : I do not know the answers myself (with the exception of Question 1 as I had pre-ordered my meal online) as they have yet to happen! LOL! To get the answer, you will need to follow me on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. I will be posting about them on all three social networks, especially Instagram. Yes the pictures will be on Instagram first, then Twitter and lastly Facebook. Hehe.

To follow me on Twitter, click HERE.
To follow me on Facebook, click HERE.
To follow me on Instagram, just add my username foongpc.

GOOD LUCK and Have FUN!! :)

RULES & REGULATIONS
1. This contest is open to Malaysians only. (Sorry to my international readers!)

2. You can choose to answer :
a) Questions 1-3 only or
b) Any 1, 2 or all 3 Bonus Questions only or
c) both Questions 1-3 plus any one of the Bonus Questions or
d) ALL the questions in this contest!

3. If you are a winner for Questions 1-3, you can still be a winner for the Bonus Questions and vice versa. However, if you are a winner to one of the Bonus Questions, you cannot be a winner for the other two Bonus Questions.

4. The contest closes on 30th March at 12pm sharp.

5. The winners will be announced in this blog on 31st March.

Do you ever get off the beaten track when you travel? I always like to do that, and in fact, I did just that while traveling in Hanoi and it was all just to find that famous downed B-52 Bomber, a remnant from the Vietnam War.

To get to the site of the B-52 wreck - which is in the middle of Huu Tiep Lake - you need to navigate through narrow streets which cannot possibly fit a car or a taxi. So, to avoid getting lost, I did the next best thing. I hired a Xe-Om driver.



Xe-Om (pronounced as say ohm) is what Vietnamese referred to as motorcycle taxis. Xe-Om actually means 'hug the driver' but I can assure you I did no such thing although I'm pretty sure you can do that if you want to. LOL!

It's quite safe actually (helmet is provided) if you do not mind seeing cars zooming past and missing you by inches, that is! Oh wait ... in actual fact, I think it was me and the xe-om driver who zoomed past most cars by inches, haha!

How did I capture the photo above? Simple, I put my left hand on his shoulder to balance myself while my right hand held the camera and snapped away! Definitely no time to do any hugging LOL!

One word of caution when you engage a xe-om driver : Make sure you negotiate the price with him before hand, otherwise you might find yourself arguing with him over the price later.

Anyway, this friendly driver led me down some narrow lanes before we finally reached Huu Tiep Lake. Don't know where Huu Tiep Lake is? Just use Google Map and search for the words "Ho Huu Tiep".

But even with Google Map, getting there is pretty tricky. Be prepared to get lost unless of course, you do what I did - hire a xe-om driver! :)



So there it was - the B-52 bomber wreckage with part of it sticking out of the lake! This downed plane was part of the biggest ever bombing campaign (nicknamed "Operation Linebacker II") by US President Nixon before the American troops withdrew from Vietnam.

The plane was probably shot down during the Christmas bombings in December 1972.



History aside, I was not too impressed and even think it's overrated as a tourist attraction. The lake was just a small, somewhat dirty lake surrounded by residential buildings. But then again, this is an important part of history, so it's still worth a visit, at least once in your life!



Note : My post on the Temple Of Literature is put on hold temporarily as I have too many photos and too little time to edit them. I look forward to update that post soon! 

With the blink of an eye, Chinese New Year came and went. Just like that. I miss the Chinese New Year holidays and the festive mood but mostly, I miss the food!!

So today, I will just blog a little about my Chinese New Year of the Goat. By the way, I am too lazy to use my camera these days, so all photos in this post were taken using Xiaomi's Mi3.

One food I really enjoyed this Chinese New Year was the pineapple tarts which I bought from Aeon Supermarket. Priced at only RM10.88 per tub a few days before the first day of Chinese New Year (it was priced at RM13.88 earlier), I quickly bought loads of them!



Look at the generous amount of pineapples! So juicy and so yummy! By the way, if you don't like your pineapple tarts to be a mixture of sweet and sour, then you won't like this. But if you do, these pineapple tarts are heavenly!

I also bought kuih bangkit from Aeon but unfortunately, even though the price was good (I think it was RM8.88), the kuih bangkit itself was not that good. No melt-in-the-mouth but I still bought it because I like the cute shape and design! LOL.



This year, I had my fair share of the scrumptious yee sang at many different Chinese restaurants, but guess what? It was quite unbelievable, but none of them was as good as the yee sang I bought from Aeon!



The generous amount and variety of fresh ingredients made the yee sang from Aeon my top favourite for the year. So yummy! By the way, if you can't see any fish in this yee sang, that's because I did not want to include raw salmon inside. I have stopped eating raw salmon since last year for health reasons.



Now it may seem as if I am promoting Aeon, but in reality, I am not. It just so happens that I like their pineapple tarts and yee sang a lot! Haha!

A few days before Chinese New Year, I received a Chinese New Year card in the mail. I don't receive many cards nowadays (most people prefer to just send CNY greetings via Whatsapp) so I was curious to know who sent this.



Opening it up, I saw that to my surprise, it was from Twilight Man! Thank you Twilight for this nice card! Sorry can't send you a card in return - it would probably reach you after the Chinese New Year so it does not make sense for me to send.



A few years back, my blogger friend Merryn Tan made me an angpow fish. I wanted another one this year so she made me one.



In fact, I requested for two angpow fishes, but she said she ran out of angpows, so she made me an angpow star instead. Do you like it? Thank you Merryn for the angpow fish and star! Next year, I want a real angpow with money inside! Hahaha!



Another online friend Angeline Chee sent me some angpow fishes as well, all the way from Taiping! How nice of her! When I opened up the parcel, I was surprised to see this.



For a moment I hoped it was from Coach. But of course I did not expect anything expensive inside. LOL! These are the angpow fishes she made for me. Thank you Angeline for the awesome packaging!



I like receiving angpows! Who does not? Every year, Astro likes to come out with interesting angpows. This year being the Year of the Goat (or Sheep if you prefer), Astro came out with these cute looking angpows.



Do you like them? I am keeping them as collector's items. I plan to collect them every year so that I will eventually have all 12 animal signs!



How many Mandarin oranges did you eat this year? I did not eat a lot as I think these oranges are pretty unhealthy. Yes, it's true - not all fruits are good for you!



But no matter what, do not throw your Mandarin oranges into the river or sea. Such a waste, no? Better to eat them I say. Haha!

Gosh, I am missing the Chinese New Year already!! Blogging about Chinese New Year makes me miss it even more! Oh well, you just have to move on and look forward to the next Chinese New Year of the Monkey!