4 More Days to My Cruise to Alaska

Yes! It's four more days before I fly to Alaska.


I will be flying to Anchorage on China Airline on the 4th August. It is an early morning flight. I will reach Taipei CKS airport at 11am and spend 4 hours in-transit before I fly straight to Anchorage. Gosh, what am I going to do in that 4 hours. I will spend 1 night in Anchorage and will travel 3.5 hours by land from Anchorage to Seward, a port in Alaska to board the cruise ship.

The cruise ship that I will be taking is Celerity Summit.

Ship Facts :

Occupancy: 2034

Tonnage: 91,000

Length: 965 ft.

Cruisespeed: 24 knots

I will be spending 7 nights onboard the ship.

The cruise starts from Seward down along the straits of Alaska, passing through various port of calls and places of interest such as Hubbard Glacier, Icy Straits Point, Skagway, Juneau, Ketchikan and finally stopping at Vancouver. The cruise will stop at several ports of call. There are shore excursions that you can take up at each port of call. The main ones are Juneau, Skagway and Ketchikan.

I am planning for a shore excursion at Juneau where I will visit the Mendenhall Glacier, watching humpback and killer whale as well as having a sumptous meal of fresh wild salmon and other seafood.

At Skagway, I am planning to experience the wild like of Alaska by taking a small cruise to Lynn Fjord. On board of the cruise, I will be able to view wild life such as seals, sealions lazing on the coast. If time permits, I will also visit Musher's Camp where Alaskan sled dogs are train. I will have the opportunity to play with the puppies and also sit on a sled pulled by adult sled dogs across a rain forest.

Alaskan sled puppy

These are the three main shore excursions that I die die want to go. Of course there are other shore excursion that I am interested too but they are too expensive for me to take up. Some can cost up to US$ 600 per pax.

I will reach Vancouver on 12 Aug morning. I will be visiting some "must visit" place listed in most travel guides and websites on Vancouver tourism. I plan to visit the Stanley Park in the afternoon the same day I reach Vancouver. On the 13th Aug, I will be visiting the Grouse Mountain and Capilano Suspension Bridge. That will take one whole day.

On the 14th and 15th of Aug, I will be embarking for a short trip to the Canadian Rockies. I will be taking a motorcoach and travel from Vancouver to Calgary and passing through Whitsler, Lac La Jeane, Banff and Lake Louis. I will be spending one nite in Lac La Jeane on the 14th Aug and the tour ends at Calgary on the 15th Aug evening. I will spend one nite at Calgary and flew back to Vancouver on the 16th Aug.

Photo of Canadian Rockies

I am planning to visit Gastown, Chinatown and Westend in Vancouver on 16th and 17th Aug. Will be doing some shopping and sight-seeing at Robson Square (aka our Orchard Road). I will be flying off on the 18th Aug from Vancouver and reach Taipei CKS airport on the 19th Aug. Will be spending a nite in Taipei before flying back from Taipei to Singapore on the 20th Aug.

Photo courtesy of:

www.celebrity.com

www.brewster.ca

May the Force be with You......against Aedes Mosquito

Came across this poster on the notice board of a HDB flat. Finds it amusing. If you are a Star Wars fan, you will know what I mean. :P

Prawn Mee @ Macpherson

I had a very sinful but delicious breakfast this morning. One of Agnes's colleague suggested having our breakfast at a coffee shop at Macpherson. Apparently this coffee shop has the best prawn mee in Singapore. So once again, I cannot resist the temptation and woke up early to meet them to try the "har meen".

The coffee shop is situated near Jacksons hawker centre at Macpherson.

As you can see from the photo, they have many different kinds of prawn mee. You name it they have it. From the normal prawn mee to spare ribs & prawn mee to mushroom prawn mee to even Abalone prawn mee. Price for a normal prawn mee is S$ 3.50.






So without further hesitation, we immediately place our orders.

Clockwise from the left:

Tracy, Francis, Simon, Henry and Agnes.







After about 15 mins, the food came.






The red powder shown above is actually chilly powder. To me this is what makes this prawn mee stands out from the rest. So far, the best prawn noodles I have tasted is at Kallang and Hong Lim hawker centre. The taste of this prawn mee is able to rival the two but with the chilli powder added, it might even surpass them. Adding the chilli powder somehow gives more "ormh" to the taste.





Everyone was busy tugging in to the food when they arrive.

According to Henry, the soup of the prawn mee is at its best between 2 - 3 pm as by then all the goodnes of the ingredients had all went into the soup after a few hours of boiling. The store operates from morning till 4:30pm. A franchisee took over after 4:30pm.



We went our seperate ways after we finish all our food. It was a great way to start our Saturday with.

Mexican Mania at Magarita's

Last nite was one of my regular foodie outing with Felix and Dexter. We went to try some Mexican food last evening with my two friends.


The restaurant is call Magarita's situated along Katong. It was highly recommended by Dexter, who is our food guru. Trust me, so far the food that he recommended to me has not failed me. So we decided to try it out .

The ambience of the restaurant is rather unique. Warm colours are being used to spice up the ambience through paintings, wall paints and furniture. When we arrive, we were the only group of customer. But after reading the menu for 15 mins, the crowd started to arrive. There were althogether 5 tables occupied, which we considered it to be good business for a Wednesday evening.




We couldn't decide what to order so we asked one of the waiteress to make some recommendation. All in all, we ordered two appetizers, two main course and a jug of peach & honey concoction. We were all very hungry and while waiting anxiously for the food to arrive, we smell the good aroma of other dishes ordered by other customers. That made us even hungrier.


After waiting that felt like ages, the first appetizer finally arrive. It's Avocado with Prawns. Chopped avocado fruit were mixed with prawns and sauce, and served on the skin of avocado. The taste is cool, rich and slightly sour. The avocado flesh blended seamlessly with fresh prawns and the sauce. It is very a good appetizer to start with.




Next appetizer is Grilled Portamello Mushroom with white sauce. There were two pieces of mushroom submerged in white sauce. The mushroom were very fresh and as u cut it with your cutlery, the juice within the mushroom will ooze out. The sauce goes very well with the mushroom and "succulent" is the word to describe the texture of the mushroom when u chew on it.


Now come the main course. The first main course that arrived is the Corn-fed Fish - highly recommended by Dexter, as he had tried it during his last visit. It is fish fillet fried to golden brown with white sauce, rice and raw vegetables. This is also another delicious dish as the fish fillet taste fresh and the texture of the meat is fine and smooth as silk.



The second main course is the Fajitaas. We ordered mixed filling which comes with grilled sliced beef, grilled chicken breast strips and onions. The meat are very juicy and it taste great with the onion. Before it arrives on our table, we can smell itfrom the kitchen, which makes us more eager to try it. Once it is on the table, three of us immediate get on with wrapping the filling with the bread provided, like making "popiah". We ordered another three serving of the bread to finish off the rest of the fillings with a satisfied "aargh"

The peach & honey drink that we ordered is also great as it is medium bodied and not very sweet. It helps to refresh our taste bud and prepare it for the next dish.

After the meal, we proceed to have our dessert and chit chat session at Secret Recipe. For some unknown reason, the idea of trying the dessert at Margarita's never came to our mind. We ordered a chocolate & banana cake with coffee and juice. We left after we are done with the cake.

Our verdict on Magarita:

Food taste: Very good
Food portion: Small
Ambience : Good (aircon a bit too cold)
Price: Expensive (S$ 123+ for the meal for three)

My First Digital Camera

After reading about many blogs of others, resistance is futil for me. So here I am sitting down writing my first blog.

After do a bit of research, I finally bought my first digital camera so that I can take beautiful pictures during my Alaska Cruise in August. Its the Panasonic Lumix FZ5. It comes with a picture quality of 5 mega pixels and 12x optical zoom. A bit bulky but I like the features that are packed into this camera.

This is a camera that is suitable for beginner who may demands more customisation in their photography in future. Why do I say so? That's because this camera allows you to turn the features on auto as well as manual. But it is not an SLR.I bought this camera last Saturday from Best Denki at Plaza Singapura. I immediate start to read the user manuals when I reach home that day. I also try to play with it as I read the user manual. After playing with it for a while, I decided it is time to stop. So I put the camera into the camera pouch. After I put it into the pouch, I have some difficulty in closing the camera pouch. So I try to force it in a bit. I thought it would be ok. I WAS WRONG! As the camera pouch is rather stiff, it pushed against the camera when I try to force it to close. To my horror, the view finder cover actually came off! I was like....oh...oh....siao liao. I am in big trouble! Just bought the camera for a few hours and it broke! After taking a deep breathe, my mind started thinking for solutions. I remembered the salesman told me that I can exchange for a new set within 7 days of my purchase. So I decided to bring it down tomorrow to exchange. I didn't sleep well that night.

I went to Best Denki the next morning. I told the sales girl what happen. I was expecting some form of resistance and I have prepare all my reasons and excuses to exchange it successfully. But the sales girl immediately told me that they will replace with a new set. No question ask! I was so happy. I went home with a newly replace camera and this time I put it into the camera pouch carefully.:)