Easter cake

We managed to return from Thailand's tropical warmth to a Norwegian Easter and even buy a Easter cake! Wish you all a Happy Easter!

My little stalker ♥

Someone who missed us ♥ We have been away for almost a month, so she is like "Cuddly me! Cuddly me! Me! Me! Me!" Whenever I sit or lay down, she jump up and wants to cuddle, and she is stalking me all the way.

00.28

Amsterdam to Trondheim

Soooo tired.... now I just want to get home and jump to a real comfy bed and sleep. We are still at the airport in Amsterdam, waiting for boarding.

Hopefully we will get home by 23-24 o'clock Norwegian time. Really miss my bed now...

Our plane from AMS to TRD

Ready to take off

Supper

Cute - it fit in my hand ^^

From Phuket to Bangkok, and Bangkok to Amsterdam

We are going to take a plane from Phuket to Bangkok, where we transit to another plane and then from Bangkok to Amsterdam.

06.26 From Bangkok to Amsterdam

06.27 From Bangkok to Amsterdam

08.23 Breakfast - Chicken and noodle curry with bread 

16.24 Dinner - Pasta with tomato sauce 

24th March around 05.16

05.16 - We can see that we have left the tropical heat

05.17

05.17

17.49 - Almost there

17.52

17.53

17.54

18.20  - map of the airport - We are going to gate B

18.21 - Finally we have arrived Amssterdam

From 30++ to 2 degrees..... That's Brutal, mother Earth....

Last day in Patong, Phuket, Thailand

This is our last day of our vacation, before the long trip back to Norway, Trondheim. Therefore we take it easy and enjoy the last hours of sun and tropical warmth.

We spent the day walking around the Jungceylon mall, for my mum this was the the last run-up with shopping, and spa.

 And I found out that Jungceylon was once the name given to Phuket back in the 16th Century, when it was one of the major trading locations in the region where everything from foodstuffs to clothing could be found and businesses traded all around the world. Probably why they have a 20m Chinese Junk Boat as their logo.

They have really provided a suitable name for the largest and most diverse shopping mall/area. With over 350 different shops that's spread over 4 zones:

1. Silang Boulevard - The ultimate in Fashion & Lifestyle 
2. Sino Phuket - World class dinning experience
3. Phuket Square - An irresistible entertainment experience and 
4. The Port - Amazing Jungceylon water fountain show.

Jungceylon is simply a shopper's paradise.

The Port - The Chinese Junk Boat 

The Chinese Junk Boat is an outdoor section, and is the main focal point for tourists. The ship is equipped with a hydraulic catwalk for all sorts of events and shows, such as:

• Dancing Water Fountain Show, which is free for daily watch at 13.00, 15.00, 19.00 and 21.00.
• The Amazing Jungceylon Water Screen Show, also is free for daily watch at 19.00 and 21.00.

Phuket Square - The Arcade Zone

The Phuket Square offers entertainments such as cinema, SF Strike Bowl, tune karaoke, arcade and spas.

Again at Fuji Restaurant

It's time for dinner, and we decide to come again at Fuji Restaurant. Usually, we don't visit the same restaurant twice so we can always explore new ones during the trip. However, after our breakfast here we wanted to try more from this restaurant.

So far, this restaurant is the best one! Good food and service, a well working air condition, and the food here is worth every single Thai baht! If you like Japanese cuisine, this is a recommended place to go to!

Like the first visit, we can choice to either order individual dishes or in sets/combination. The sets/combination give you a main dish, side dish and an accessory, some of them even gives you a free drink (coffee, tea or juice/shake), but since it's dinner time now, we don't get the free drink.

This time we choose 1 single dish, 1 side dish, The bunashimeji mushroom and 2 sets combination for sharing. Me and my mum wanted to eat sashimi.

Single dish - Sashimi ship

The Sasimi Ship contain inter alia: salmon, tuna, squid/octopus, crab stick (?) and mackerel. And I have to say, the meat was SO fresh that you could taste the sweetness of it <3 Each chew the meat bounces inside my mouth.

Close up of the Sashimi ship

Combination - Ramen/somen/shirataki, miso soup, steamed and fried rice 

This combination is with steamed and fried rice, noodle with beef, carrots, enokitake mushrooms and onion, and with hot sweet miso soup and egg rolls.

Combination - Beef with rice, salad, miso soup and coffee. 

Overview

Fuji Restaurant at Jungceylon

Breakfast at Fuji Restaurant, a sushi restaurant at Jungceylon mall, and so far, this is the best restaurant we have been to! The food here is good and surprising cheap, and the air conditioning is not just for decoration. You are actually cooled, so you can eat hot food without sweat yourself to death.

The menu is well made, each dishes is explained in detail and with pictures, so you know exactly what you have ordered. The menu gives you the choice to either order individual dishes or in sets/combination.

When ordering sets/combination, you get a main dish, side dish and an accessory, some of them even gives you a free drink (coffee, tea or juice/shake), depends on what time you arrive at. The sets / combination may look like small portions, but you will be feeling full. We order 3 sets/combination for sharing, so that we can try as much as possible.

Combination - Udon with gyoza and rice

Combination - Bento box with miso soup

The Bento contain assorted tempura, chicken teriyaki, and sushi (salmon and tuna). The fish used for sushi and sashimi is fresh and properly prepared.

Most of us know them as "lunch boxes" that we bring from home. But in Japan, Bento, or boxed meals, are inexpensive, single portion take out meals served in a box. They usually consist of small portions of meat, vegetables, fish or pickles together with rice. Bento come in both hot and cold varieties and are sold at specially restaurants, supermarkets and convenience stores, and are a favorite item at train stations and airports.

Combination - Beef teriyaki with miso soup and rice. Side dish - Mushroom Bunashimeji

We also ordered a side dish, Bunashimeji mushroom, who is also know as The Brown beech or The Brown Clamshell mushroom.

Royal Kitchen at The Royal Paradise Hotel & Spa

My mom's friend who has been our guide in this trip, took us to a well known restaurant in Patong, The Royal Kitchen, which are located in The Royal Parradise Hotel & Spa.

This restaurant serve traditional Cantonese cuisine, where their two signature dishes are Peking Duck and Roast Succulent Pig. The restaurant is located on the 25th floor of Paradise wing, which makes it the island's tallest hotel tower, and with a 180 degree views it's gives of a romantic and calming view across the bay. It's indeed a perfect places for fireworks view in New Years.

However, it's reputations for good food, ends with a huge disappointment for me. With all the praise the restaurant got on our way there, gave us an expectation that didn't hold. They had the appearance for a 5 stars restaurant but with a serving for a bad common restaurant. Perhaps we was unlucky with the timing, that it's not tourist season, but that is no excuse for a restaurant to do a bad work. If you are open, then you should keep up your standard.

Anyways, this was our food experience at Royal Kitchen, it started at the entrance with bad service, no waitress and people who worked there, gave no intention of leading us to a tables, despite the fact that we had booked. When we got a table, we didn't get the menu before 8 minutes later. 

We ordered 6 different dishes for sharing, one of them is my favorite dish, Pineapple fried rice, and to my surprise I found ants crawling with the rice... OK, maybe they was unlucky with the pineapple, sometimes it's difficult to see or get rid of all dirt on it's surface or between the leaves. Anyways, got rid of the ants and started on the dish. There was almost no shrimp in it, or the main ingredients, the pineapple meats. In fact, it's was simply lack of the most ingredients , except for rice. Fucking A....

We also ordered Thick stir fried noodles, another favorite of mine, the dish tasted burnt, it was literally burnt. They even tried to cover it up by putting all the burned on the bottom. The whole dish tasted like coal... 

The other dishes were OK, but poor in taste, almost no seasoning, but comparison they was much better than the Pineapple fried rice and Thick stir fried noodles.

Vegetable soup with tofu

Pork

Fried vegetable with eggs and shrimp

Pineapple fried rise

Some kind of Chop Suey with pork

Scuba diving

Since my brat stages, I have always been fascinated and loved going under water, especially looking for all the life and treasures in the ocean. So taking the diving certification, have always been in my "must-do-list" in life.

Last time I tried to take the certification was in Vietnam, but we didn't have enough time to complete the course. However, this time, I am going to complete it! I am going to Check it out of the list!

Before arriving Patong we have informed my mum's friend about my wish of the certification, so while she waited for us, she have looked up 3 schools in advance. Today we are going to visit and get some more information from each of them.

In the end, I decided to go for All 4 Diving Academy. They were the most expensive one, but compared to the other two, this had a more professional impression of what they are doing. The instructor at All 4 Diving, spoke fluent English, and he took his time to answer our questions and explained in details.

He informed that they for the moment have instructors who can English, Chinese, France and Spanish available, and they can offer the textbook in many different languages, such as English, Norwegian, Chinese, Japanese, German, French, Italian and Spanish. And even more if we want the digital version.

We can choose between a 3 days course or a 4 days course. The different is the among of theory you have to go through. With 3 days you get all theory all at once, with 4 days they divide it up so you don't get stuffed with too much information at once. 

They are in partnership/organization with PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) who is the world's largest recreational diving membership and diver training organization. And they have their own swimming pool next to the venue for practices, so we don't need to travel to different places for theory and practice like the other two schools. 

The second school we visited had almost the same price, but lack of service and textbook. Despite the fact that school looked good, they didn't have the textbook in English and will take them 1-2 days to get a hold of one. The person we spoke to didn't give any interests to inform us, we had to dig out the answer out of her, and since her English wasn't good either, we had a little communication problem. 

The third school was super cheap, however the instructor couldn't speak English at all, and they didn't inform or show what partnership/organization they was part of. Skeptical. And bad communication already before we go down? Nope! No Thank You! Not gonna happen! 

So back to All 4 Diving, I choose the 3 days course, since I already have some experience from before. However if the instructor mean that I can not theory/practical good enough they won't let me try out in the ocean and I have to take one day extra for what I lack. I agree, with the terms.

With all signatures and payment done, I start next day with theory and video lecture from 0900-1500, and then going to the pool and try it out in practical. Then day 2 and 3, out to the sea, with 3 dives each day for practical. Between each dive we will practice 1-3 thing depend how quick I learn, after each dive I have to take a new theory test. For the trip out to the sea, they will come and pick me up at 0700 and we will be back at the hotel around 1800.

Since this is a important course for me, I didn't focus on taking pictures. So the only pictures I have of this whole course was when we was on the boat getting from A to B and back.

Morning

Afternoon

Evening

MK Gold Restaurant at Jungceylon

Today we spent all day in the mall Jungceylon, where my mum and her friend went all crazy on the stores. Jungceylon is the biggest shopping center in Patong, here you can find everything you can think of with a European price, but maybe with some bargain you may get it cheaper or if you are a good hunter and can find the jackpot in the stores.

Jungceylon has many stores as it has restaurants. Honestly, it's the perfect place for both shopping and dining enthusiasts. They have serving for Thai, European, Korean, Japanese and Chinese cuisine. And every serving places have it charms that make it's almost impossible to decide where you want to go first.

After much back and forth, we came to an agreement. Today's dinner will be Chinese cuisine.

Mango shake

Sweet pork and fried pork with rice

Rice with decorate with a little brown rice

Thailand, Phuket, Patong

After 3 hours and 23 minutes on the plane, we have finally arrived Phuket. Next step is getting our self to the Andakira Hotel in Patong, about 30-45 minutes from the airport, depends on the traffic.

We are going to meet up with my mother's friend who is a regular guest in Patong, and also the one who recommended us this hotel. In our first stay here, she will be our guide.

The hotel is much nicer than we expected, maybe a little dull in color selection in some rooms, but still, very new and good facilities, and best of all good located.

We are just far enough from the downtown to get a good night sleep, and less than 10 minutes walk to get to the mall, clubs and beach.

Our room

From Hong Kong to Phuket

And the day finally come where we are going to Thailand, Phuket for 7 days.
Since we aren't traveling in a typical vacation time, it's quite few people around the airport this time of day.

The Airport have put up some decorative from the old times in Hong Kong. So while waiting for boarding we walked around and looked.

Our gate to Phuket

Some decorative from the old times in HK

Pulled rickshaw - used for public transportation in 1898

A pulled rickshaw is a popular form for transportation for one or two people, where the runner pulled the cart. This kind of transportation were imported from Japan around 1880.

Standing in line for boarding

Last day in China, Hong Kong

Our 11 days in Hong Kong is nearing its end, and I have to say I am looking forward for our real vacation to start in Thailand, Phuket.

Since arrival we have been packed with activities and plans, so during a day we've been through 4-5 different places/districts. Everyday going all round Hong Kong city for visiting family and friends, and everyday we have to get up early to visit Grandma who have recently been moved to a nursing home in Ap Lei Chau.

All in all, this have been stressful and we are looking forward for a little peace and quiet time for our self.

So for the first time, we have spent all day in Tseung Kwan O (將軍澳), packing and sorting out our luggage, gifts and souvenir from friends and family. What to take with us to Phuket, and what to ship back to Norway. After several hours we went to the post office with 3, 5 kg packages to be sent back to Norway.

After the packages were mailed, it was time for a well deserved dinner. We ordered 5 different dishes and shared between us.

Sweet pork with rice.

Noodles in beef soup

Rice noodles soup

Lemon juice with honey and ginger

Sweet corn soup with eggs

Mint juice with gel and honey

Steamed fish