Jungceylon, Phuket's Shopping Destination

One of the main reason why we choose to stay in Loveli Boutique Guesthouse was because it located few steps away from Jungceylon, the largest shopping center tucked in the heart of Patong houses more than 200 lifestyle and leisure shops. We went here like almost everyday not for shopping purpose, but sometimes to hunt for foods and also a place for some free air-condition moment.

#1: It even house of two Thai own department store and supermarket chain, Robinson and Big C.

#2: Not just for shopping, Jungceylon is also an ideal place for dining enthusiasts. 

In this Sino Phuket Zone, we saw that there are so many kind of restaurants, bars and coffee shops serving Thai, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, western cuisines and more. Seriously, no worry of being hungry at all.  We went to hunt for our breakfast once we arrived Phuket on the first day before waiting for check-in into our guesthouse, and we ended up in everybody's favourite famous fast food chain, McDonald. 

#3: Pork Samurai Burger and Pineapple Pie which totally can't found in Malaysia. #onlyinthai

#4: Not forgetting to take photo with Ronald McD wherever you visit Thailand and do the welcoming sign. #onlyinthai

 

#5: My first try on Swensen ice-cream

I always wanna try this Swensen when I stumbled across those bloggers who went Thailand and tried this before. Like I did said before in my previous post, ice-cream is my all time favourite ice-cream. Well, from my opinion, Swensen seems to be too sweet but the taste can still acceptable. Imagine my friends and I had ice-cream twice in a day; previous one was while we're walking to Patong Beach (click here). Obviously thanks to the hot scorching weather for making us keep craving for something cold to cool down our body.  

#6:Jungceylon huge pirate ship build in the center of the mall

#7: Cute and colourful elephant statues

I'm not sure what were these statues represents for or maybe serve for somekind of occasions or events, but we found all of these elephants caught our attention instantly. Without waiting any longer, it's time for non-stop photoshooting moments with these all adorable and colour elephant statues. If you happen to read my blog earlier, you will find out that I love to take photos with colourful statues such as

#8: Group photo with my best buddies together with Thai elephant statues

#9: This is my favourite one - I ♥ Phuket

#10: Even AirAsia took chance to advertise themselves in Phuket-style tuk tuk

Some of the spots we saw nearby our guesthouse:

#11: Anyone interest with Bangla Thai Boxing?

#13: Different kind of creative T-shirt design

#14: Thai so-called petrol station

#15: Last but not least, their crazy and complicated cable

Patong Beach, Popular Beach of Phuket

Date of Visit: 6th January 2012

On the second day of our Phuket trip, it's kinda free and easy as we didn't bought any travel package for the day time. After breakfast, we decided heading to the famous and well-developed beach, Patong Beach. The path from our guesthouse to the beach took more than 10 minutes and if we knew the shortcut, it might be shorter but we're unsure with the shortcut. Walking through halfway, I spotted a random ice-cream shop that I felt so tempted wanna have them. Oh well, afterall it's my favourite dessert and hard for me to resist it and because of that, my friends said, "Let's go in!". Yes, I went in happily just like a little girl.

#1: We ordered two kind of ice-creams; Caramel Chocolate & Banana with Strawberry.

If you ask me the comparison between these with the global chain of ice-cream restaurant, Swensen, it's hard for me to do the comparision cause for me, I just super duper love ice-cream. Ice-cream melt my heart easily. Done with ice-cream, we continue to walk to Patong Beach. 

#2: Tsunami Hazard Zone Signboard

Since ever the tsunami disaster which happened back in year 2004, Thailand is taking serious action on everyone's safety by putting the warning and safety signboard.

#3: Finally we reached the beach when we saw tons of beautiful umbrellas and deck chairs.

Patong Beach turned out to be too commercialised and crowded. Mainly because especially the Caucasians, they prefer to workship the sun. Some of them can just lay down on the chair for whole day without doing anything. By the way, the chairs are for rent, not free of charge. The charge of each chair is about 100 baht per person and can use it until they close. But for us, we don't want to waste our money on that.

#4: Patong Beach is kinda long and wide beach.

Quite number of water activities available here; jet-skiing, parasailing, sightseeing boats and more but we didn't even bother with that as we tried to avoid from getting wet. Silly us for not bringing extra spare of clothes.   

#5: Two sightseeing boats

Despite the overcrowded especially with foreign tourists, we managed to take quite number of good shots. What I means a photo with vibrant blue sky and crystal clear blue sea as the background. If you wanna have a serene and quiet place to relax your mind and soul, definitely this Patong Beach will not be your choice.

#6: My Flipper slipper

#7: Left our footprints in Patong Beach

Besides the beach, there are number of stalls selling different kind of goods nearby; such swimsuits, souvenirs, foods and more. Especially for the ladies, if you are hunting for sexy and yet cheap bikini, try to look for the stalls nearby Patong Beach because for the last time I heard from a friend of mine, she bought as low as RM20 for a set of bikini. Talking about a great bargain, here.

It's not hard to find Patong Beach. Just ask the local if you're lost and don't worry, Thai people are absolutely one of the friendliest people on earth.

Double B: Bangkok & Brunei Trip 2013

When I met Bangkok for the very first time October last year (click HERE), I wish and pray hardly that I could able to go there again and yes, my wish was granted whereby my family and I did visit Bangkok for this year Chinese New Year holiday.

My dad almost signed up with tour company that cost almost RM3,000 per pax and luckily I managed to stop him from doing so. Imagine with that amount of money, I could travel and shop like crazy in Bangkok twice. So ended up, and once again I in charge of becoming the tour planner as well as as their so called "tour guide"; from booking the airtickets, reserve hotel rooms to arrange tour for 10 people. 

#1: We flew with Royal Brunei and transit in Brunei 

It's been so long I never flew with  this airline as I used to travel with them like almost every week when I was kid, according to my parents.

#2: We were so surprised when our deluxe room being upgraded to Presidential Suite but only for first night.

Since I went Bangkok before but for my family members, this was their first visit, some places I went for second time, which I think worth and highly recommended for their eye opening.

#3: Terminal 21 - Good shopping place with unique concept

#4: Damneon Sadouk Floating Market

#5: Finally got to find the famous coconut ice-cream stall in Chatuchak Weekend Market

Whereas some I came across for the very first time such as:

#6: Wat Pho - Temple of Reclining Buddha via Chao Phraya Tourist Boat

#7: Stopby Chinatown for Chinese cuisines

#8: 4 hours long roadtrip just to get closer with these tamed tigers in Tiger Temple Kanchanaburi Seriously a #butthurt case

Not just Bangkok that we went, due to our 9 hours transit in Brunei while waiting back to KK, we're heading down to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital city of Brunei for huge and scrumptious sushi at Escapade, the best Japanese restaurant in Brunei which highly recommended by most of my friends and family.

#10: My shopping haul: 4 dresses, 12 tops, 2 shorts, 7 skirts, 4 bags & accessories

Talking about shopping, I can't deny that Bangkok is my favourite place to shop compare to my experience in Shenzhen, Jakarta, Bandung, Seoul and other cities I went before. Definitely for sure, I will go Bangkok again for third time. I think Bangkok has put spell on me, gosh!

By the way, my blog - Travel & Living Journal of DT has being nominated for 4 categories in MITBCA or Malaysia International Tourism Bloggers Conference & Awards; "Tourism Shopping Blog", "Tourism Travel Blog", "Tourism Blog of The Year" and "Tourism Destination Blog" by some mystery but sweet lil angels, which he/she doesn't want to reveal himself/herself.



Actually I kinda hate begging for votes from you guys but if you think my blog deserve those categories, I would appreciate if you could cast a vote for my blog. Follow the following steps if you like to vote my blog:

1. Go to MITBCA website - link.
2. Register with your email or you can even log in with Facebook (the easiest way but no worry, it won't appear in your Facebook page)
3. Click "VOTE" and remember, you can only vote one only for each category. 

Among all the categories at this moment, my blog got the highest votes for "Tourism Shopping Blog" category. Hence, kindly please cast more votes for this category.

Thank you guys and let me know if you had voted for my blog. Voting start now until 22nd February 2013.

Phuket Simon Cabaret, The Ladyboy Show

Phuket Day 1 (Part I) - Loveli Boutique Hotel 
Phuket Day 1 (Part II) - Cashew Nut Factory, Wat Chalong, Karon View Point & Promthep Cape

Date of Visit: 05th January 2012

After my friends and I back from our half day tour wander around Phuket - click HERE, we went back to the guesthouse for few minutes break before going for our next activity which was the Simon Cabaret, the lady boy entertainment show.

 #1: The entrance

Simon Cabaret is only available in the evening, with three showtime; 6.00 pm, 7.45 pm and 9.30 pm and it is recommended to book in advance cause it is quite popular especially among the Caucasian tourists and might be fully booked. We bought this Simon Cabaret tickets through our guesthouse which costs 700baht per person and it's included hotel transfer too.

#2

#3

As we reached here quite early, we were entertained by a group of glamorous performers that wear stylish, elegant and some even extravaganza costumes before the show start. This group of performers even persuaded all the audiences, including us to take photo together but beware that, it was not free of charge. Luckily I was so smart enough as I wait for the audience to take photos with these performers and see whether they request for any tips or not and yes, indeed they did requested. Make sure you ask for the price before taking any photo with them. The minimum amount they requested was 40 baht for each performer.

They still allowed the audiences to take photos in general without any charge and here are some shots that I managed to take:

#4: Oh my! They don't even looked like man. 

#5: Their stylish and bling-bling costumes 

#6: Try to persuade the audiences to take photos with them

#7

#8

#9

Finally we decided to take photo with her, I means him. Each of us need to pay him 40 baht for taking photo with him but we were allowed to take as how many shots as we want.

The seats are divided into two; VIP seats and regular seats. For the price of 700 baht which we paid for, it's for regular seats which will be a bit far behind. But we still managed to enjoy the show despite the location of our seats. For the VIP seats, the fare will be 800 baht for adult and 600 baht for children. All the audiences were given free one bottle of mineral water.

All type of cameras and even including those handphone which have camera and video are strictly prohibited from recording and taking any photos during the shows. The staffs were indeed taking serious action on this as I saw one of the audience's video camere was being confiscated immediately. However, I managed to find a video from YouTube for Simon Cabaret's trailer.

Overall, I was entertained with this 1.5 hours show and mesmerized especially with the detailed and amazing decorated backdrop settings and stage displays. All the performers wore glittering and great costumes throughout the show and it's still hard for me to believe that it was actually all of these performance were performed by males. Not just they sang in different kind of languages, but they do dance different country traditional dances too such as Bollywood dance, Korean dance and lots more.

I will recommend this if only you haven't watch any kind of this show in elsewhere, or else you might feel boring and not worth. Because this is my first time ever to watch this kind of lady show, what I can said was, "It's simply took my breath away." It's one of a kind home of entertainment in Phuket to everyone, including the children too.

NOTE: This is auto-publish post cause I am currently having another vacation again!

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Cashew Nut Factory, Wat Chalong, Karon View Point, Promthep Cape & Seafood Dinner

NOTE: Kinda busy with preparation for CNY, therefore my blog not being updated for almost a week. By the way, wishing all my readers a prosperity, wealthy & healthy year ahead. Welcome the water snake year and get bless. Happy Chinese New Year everyone. 

Date of Visit: 05th January 2012

Since we had wasted half of our day upon arriving in Phuket, I suggested to my friends for a half day tour around Phuket. One of the guesthouse's host, Neil told us that the rate charge for 6 hours tour would be 1,500 baht and one car can accommodate up to 4 people whereas for 9 hours tour would be 1,800 baht. We agreed to take the 6 hours tour although the 9 hours tour seems to be more worthwhile but we had another plan at night, which I will blog in the next post.

Few of the places I did do some research before leaving to Phuket except for the last destination, which was suggested by Neil that shouldn't miss out by any traveller or tourist.

Cashew Nut Factory

 #1: Cashew nut factory

Our first stop was this cashew nut factory, by the name of Sri Bhurapha Orchid. It was the first ever cashew nut factory in Phuket. To our surprised, first time we came across the juice of cashew nut which locally known as Cashewy. As for the cashew nut itself, we spotted that not just the original flavour, there is so many kind of different flavours to choose from; spicy, BBQ, honey, garlic, coconut, butter and even Tom Yam flavour. Not fancy cashew nuts? No worry cause besides cashew nuts, this shop has a whole range of dried fruits and dried seafood too. Plus, this shop even sell some souvenir items such as keychains, fridge magnets, postcards and more.

Wat Chalong

When in Thailand, must do the Thai's thing. Visiting the wats or known as Buddhist temples is one of the things you shouldn't miss out in any city of Thailand, including Phuket. We visited Wat Chalong, the largest and most visited temple in Phuket.

All the shrines and temples here are perfectly well-maintained and amazingly beautiful.

Bear in mind as this is a religious compound, therefore must dress appropriately. Yes, you can still wear a very short pants and short skirts but you will given a "sarong" before entering the temple and return it once done with wandering around the temple. Besides that, we also had to remove our shoe before entering the temple.

Although this temple is free entrance but it relies on donation for the maintenance and to keep running. Therefore, don't be stingy and be a generous person to donate some.

Karon View Point

With our driver, Lob

Our third pitstop was Karon View Point, which is around 35-40 minutes drive from Patong Beach. This place is highly recommended for a spectacular panoramic view of the island. 

From this viewpoint, it gives a complete view of all 3 beaches on the south side of Phuket Island; Karon Beaches, Kata Yai and Kata Noi. 

A group photo with my besties

Promthep Alternative Energy Station

Although Phuket is just a small little island, but it is well-equipped with signboard everywhere. Talking about lost if you drive by yourself, definitely you won't. 

This one is actually not included in my itinerary but our driver purposely stopped by here for another picaresque. Absolutely stunning view and it was very serene too.

Promthep Cape

Last but not least, this place was actually recommended by Neil, our guesthouse' host that we should visit this place when in Phuket. Indeed, upon arriving this place, we saw tons of tourists as this place is a staple of many tour itineraries.

There is some commercial going on while waiting for the sunset. We're guessing might be car commercials and spotted number of pretty and sexy ladies too. 

 

After waiting for 30 minutes, here is the moment that each and everyone of us were here for - the mesmerising and breath-taking sunset view.  

Phong Phang Seafood Restaurant

Seafood for dinner (Clockwise from Top Left); Spicy Seafood Tom Yam Soup, Steamed Squid Egg with Lemon & Chilli Sauce and Spicy Local Green Vegetable Salad.

Before heading back to the guesthouse, my friend suggested to our driver that she wanna has seafood for dinner and recommended which is the best in Phuket. Hence, Lob which is our driver brought us to this Phong Phang Seafood Restaurant for a decent and fresh meals. While enjoying our meal, we felt the breezy wind as this restaurant is located besides the seaside. For 3 meals together with white rice and beverages, the total damages that we paid was 760baht. Consider quite cheap for a seafood meal. 

Anyhow, our first day in Phuket didn't ended with seafood dinner. We got some night to catch up and wanna know more? Stay tune for the next post.

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