Went for a 4 days/3 nights trip with partner to Algarve, the southern region of Portugal, to catch the last bit of summer sun and sea. As usual, the flight there was a early morning flight on Tap Portugal, with a quick transit at Lisbon. Well, this was where it started to go wrong, with the flight delayed for 30min and by the time we reach Lisbon, we had to literally run to catch our connecting flight. Upon reaching Faro Airport, we waited patiently to collect our luggage and realised something was terribly wrong when the belt stopped and we have yet to see our luggage anywhere. As this was the first time something like this happened to us, we tried to see if anyone mistakenly took our luggage and checked the other belts as well, and after a good 20min of frantic searching, finally went to the ground personnel to report on our loss. The moment the ground crew heard of our situation, she immediately told us that its most likely still in Lisbon, and sounded that its so common to them, when we were fuming like mad! We literally did not have anything with us and were just glad that we had the car rental docs, cash with us. In the end, were told to wait at our hotel for our luggage and if they can find it, will arrive in the night. Blood boiling, but couldn't do anything much, we left the airport and collected our rented car. Getting a Kia Picanto instead of the expected Nissan Micra did not help to calm my partner's feelings down any bit, but seeing the actual car, it turned out to be quite cute and happily engaged on our driver/navigator roles for the trip. The service provided from Avis was pretty good I must say. We paid £75 to rent the car of unlimited milege for 4 days, up to 1000 Euro in accident coverage, and best of all, fuss-free when we returned the car. If you have some additional cash in your pocket and wants a smoother trip to save valuable travelling time, a TomTom system is highly recommended, else detailed maps for navigation are bare essentials.
First stop, off to this small town called Loule, north of Faro, a simple 20min drive from the airport with road signs for major towns as indicative guide. Tried to find the "mercado" or market recommended by travel guide, but looks just like the wet market below my flat back in Bedok. Disgruntled, went of in search of the local eatery and was recommended to a Portuguese restaurant that sells "cheap and good food", as quoted by this chinese shopkeeper who apparently married a portuguese woman, and spoke to us in Mandarin. Place was called Horta Nova, you can see more from JM's album from the link on the right, food was so-so, nothing fantastic, but can't complain much after a bad start to the trip and hunger-panging stomachs.
Next stop, Albufeira, another 20min drive from Loule. Journey on the motorway was very smooth, and I could even get a 150km/hr from our trusty Red Kia Picanto! But the car start to wobble significantly at this speed and could only manage 130 on a steady rate. Praia dos Barcos was the beach we headed to, plenty of tourists there, certainly not one where you want to have some peace and quiet, but after not seeing the sea forso long, its was definitely a worthwhile sight! Bikinis(or lack of tops) galore were also a welcome sight for sure =P
Decided to move on to the resort town which we are staying to check if our luggage has arrived and drove for another 20min to Portimao, off Praia da Rocha. The resort was a bare essential style with lotsa blocks of similar buildings catered specifically to family holidays for the week. Everything ranging from tv remote to kettle have to be rented from the counter on top of the daily room rates. A factor which made us wanting to bring our own kettle from London!!!
Because of the missing luggage, we had to scour the beach front shops to buy contact lens solution for JM to change to her glasses, and we were that dispair to even consider where to buy all our clothes to change, etc the next day if the luggage do disappear to timbuktu. To our greatest relief, our luggage arrived at the resort after our dinner and we couldn't have been happier to see it again.
Next day was to Lagos, Praia da Dona Ana beach. The best beach that I reckon for the entire trip. Small beach front surrounded by high cliffs. Can get pretty crowded though, and as usual, we were attracting alot of curious glances as the only Chinese folks around. Lunch was grilled sardines for JM, a local specialty of Algarve region and a must try for the freshness of the fish. Bet you did not know Tempura originated from Portugal to the east as well! Dinner was another specialty called Piri Piri chicken, but wasn't so nice as the chicken was so tough, its like eating baguette that I was used to. By the way, the beach at Praia da Rocha is a disappointment, its so big, you get tons of tourists and locals, and because its so vast, you can constant "sand storms" blowing at you. I reckon if you lie there and not move for few hours, you will be covered with sand and nobody will know you're there.
On the 3rd day, the weather was really lousy with rain clouds, but good thing we had planned to go to this local Portimao bazaar that happens on the first Monday of every month, instead of the beach. Well, the bazaar was quite a disappointment, pretty much similar to our pasar malam, but much less variety. After which we headed off to the eclusive beach Praia de Benagil off Lagoa. Quite difficult to find and we had to stop several times to ask the locals for directions, but the find in the end was really worth it. Much smaller beach front as compared to Praia de Ana, but much more secluded as well. The number of people there can be counted with just both hands and we spent a good afternoon lazing there. After which when the hunger comes knocking, we decided to drive out to look for food, and ended up at Praia da Marinha. Another highly recommeneded beach, much bigger, and guidebooks rate that there are scuba activities on the beach reefs. Dinner was to try another specialty that JM wanted to have very much, cataplana. A must have I would say, for 3 at least, even though the menu states that its for 2. You can see from the pictures how big the portions are and its overwhelming with seafood. For €28, its quite a steal! Best meal of our trip!
Last day was another disappointment from the weather end. Dark as it could be, we checked out from the resort early hoping that we can catch another beach before we board the plane. The target beach was to drive to Praia da Falesia off Vilamoura(Dozens of golf courses here). It was so difficult to find that we had to spend an hour and the half figuring out if we were on the right way, and obviously with a bit of tempers straying during the journey. When we reach there, we started packing up after just 5 min upon laying our beach mat as the dark clouds loomed above us. In the end, we just walked along the beach for a good 30 min before heading for a quick lunch and back to the airport.
Overall, it was a good trip, probably better if we have few more days to explore more beaches and the eastern end of Algarve. But as I always say, its the company that matters most.
In conjunction with Mr Kofi Annan's arrival at Pakistan today, have added a link for users to have a way to donate easily to the quake that killed more than 74,000 people and left millions others homeless in Pakistan, Kashmir and India.
Got myself a 2nd hand Palm Treo 600 from ebay a week ago. Needed a phone which I can access my mails on the go due to work, and was kinda getting irritated by my old Sony Ericsson T610's too-slow-to-my-liking interface. To illustrate this point, try to visualize that the letters appearing on the screen is not as fast as your fingers typing on the keypad. But I must say its still a brilliant phone, one of those that has almost everything that you needed. Alas, I have to move on, and after spending 1 week playing around with my "new" toy, thought it is time to pen down my 2 paragraphs of Treo's brilliant lineup of smartphones.
under direct sunlight. The qwerty keyboard is really fun to use, especially composing sms or emails, much better than T9, although I am sure I am still nowhere near the gal who holds the world record for SMS-ing. As compared to Treo 650, there are a few key buttons that are not available in this model, namely the dial and hang up buttons, and the keypad is slightly too close to each other, luckily I have thin fingers, so it doesn't bother me too much. Another key feature which I feel strongly is the lack of a sroller by the side, similar to the one on Clie or even Blackberry. That is very useful if you are scrolling through emails using 1 hand. The home and menu buttons located at the bottom right hand corner are also extremely unfriendly as you will always find it difficult to press it with one hand. This has been remedied in the 650 though. Software is pretty much typical for OS 5 compatibility although I am still struggling to get use to not been able to play the games which I was playing on my hi-res Clie. As I am using SnapperMail to read my mails, I am starting to really understand why Blackberry is such a mass market leader. To have mails pushed to your handheld as and when it is delivered is simply one of the best innovations that RIM has come out with. Many palm apps try to mimic this behaviour by doing sync with your POP/IMAP mailboxes all the time or at intervals, but this just drains the battery at ridiculous rate, since you constantly have to be connected to GPRS. But for 650 owners, there is good news come Jan 06 as Palm has announced that they will be making Blackberry Connect to 650 owners and I think that is when Treo is going to gain much market share again, together with the planned release of Treo 700w.
One of the highly anticipated exhibition that I was looking forward, but felt slightly short-changed by my expectations, especially since going to the yearly HiFi equivalent in Singapore. Wasn't able to take pictures of a few vendors that caught my eye as I was in a rush to catch the Manyoo/Chelski match, and having the restriction of only able to go in at 1.30pm did not help at all.
Another interesting exhibit was from Ferguson Hill Studios. They had these pairs of loudspeakers and bass that will probably take up half of your standard room, and their design is soooooo....neat! Made entirely of perpex, they are 100% see-through. The soundstage was incredible, vocals perfectly delivered and mid and highs were nice, but not perfect. As the test disc were clearly towards vocals and details. All these will set you back a cool £11,000, although you can order a set of similar but at a much smaller size to pair with you iMac for just under £500, expected to be ready by Jan 06.
On the bright side, did manage to go to a few places worth mentioning. First thing to get when you're in the city is to get the tourist metro card that costs me $24 for a week's unlimited usage on the metro as well as the bus. Each journey costs $2 and basically, the more you take, the more you will save. Its really useful especially after a long walk around the streets and you just want another mode of transportation to get you to your next destination. Times Sq is probably worth a stop to look at the glitzy neon lightings, although I was told this is nothing compared to Tokyo. Take a walk through the streets and head towards the Rockefeller Ctr for some shopping. If you are on a budget like me, H&M is a definite stopover, with good designs at very affordable prices, much better than London for sure! Didn't get a chance to go Central Park but would strongly recommend you to visit this gigantic 100% man-made park smack right in the center of Manhattan. Take a metro down to Union Sq and get off to see the Flatiron building, a triangle shaped building that has plenty of character when you look at it from the Broadway junction directly infront of it. You could get a peek of it again if you rerun your spiderman DVD in your closet.
Lost my original post while trying to add this memorable pic of my first and probably last U2 concert. A definite must-do if you have a chance!
I snaked through Ul. Old Arbat, where stores of touristy stuff were sold to tourist like me. This was where I found Macdonalds(my source of dinners and breakfast for 2 days) and Hard Rock Cafe. The street was lined with stalls selling the dolls that contains a smaller doll and a smaller one, so on and so forth till it gets to small to see it. Other common sights included street artists doing portraits of people for 20-50 roubles on the spot. Been ill-advised by my close kin to bring only USD, I found out at the entrance of the Kremlin that they only accept roubles. 
And so I had to make my way back to Arbat street to change some roubles and make my way back to Kremlin entrance. Now here is the interesting bit, if you are planning for a trip soon, this was my experience, and you might be able to pick up a tip or 2 on some cost saving measures(disclaimer!). Entrance to the Kremlin cost 300 roubles, entrance to the Armoury Chamber cost an additional 50 roubles. To take pictures, thats another 50 roubles, and if you carry a bag similar to my haversack(normal mambo bag), then thats another 60 roubles to safekeep it, in case you plan to bomb one of the Cathedrals in it. And make sure you plan your trip well as the Kremlin closes at 5pm.
The immediate relief was followed by a smooth clearance from the passport controls upon touchdown and seeing a Russian woman carrying a signboard that says 'Mr Tang' the moment I collected my luggage. I was immediately led to a driver who speaks no English and whisked away to the Golden Ring Hotel just off the junction of Smolenskaya Square. Out of the airport, the first signs of the immerse growth potential in the country, a mega IKEA outlet. Certainly seems bigger than the ones in London that I been to. Reaching the hotel, was only glad that I was given a room to check in at 06.30am. Certainly needed a washup before getting into office. Rooms cost £160 a night, considered to be 5 stars, but have heard that anything less than 4 stars is probably not worth paying as well. The room looked good and tidy, although was disappointed that it was a single bed(but what I am to complain!!!). Good thing that I was given a room on the 20th floor, highest from I can see from the lift buttons, therefore a splendid view of the city. Toilet seems much more luxurious than the rest of the sections and was well pleased by the good service that the hotel gave during the entire stay even though I was such a difficult customer(ie. tried requesting for free internet, asked for power adaptor and even asked to borrow an umbrella when raining).
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