Hiiiieeee everyone!!! I'm back from my Phuket trip! Massive updates which shall come into place in a span of a few days. ;)

DAY 1 (18 August 2008) :: Airport -> Kejumukda Fishball -> Gem Store -> Honey -> Cashew Nut -> Temple -> Hotel (Royal Crown) -> Fantasea (Highlight of the Day)

-Airport-

Woke up around 8am+..got ready and went to the lcct by taxi. Reached around 11am+, checked in and ate some McD breakfast while waiting for the plane.

By the way, this is the first time I'm taking AirAsia and it actually scared the shit outta me. I kept having this vision of crashing!! Gosh.
When I told Nadia I was taking AirAsia, she was all "wahh good luck!" wth. haha. I THINK I'm the first among my friends who've actually flown with AirAsia.
So here's my brief review about AirAsia : It's good for budget people like me. Or basically for us young people who are still in college/simply struck with poverty yet has this dream about travelling out of Malaysia.

But it's a totally different story for OLD people because you gotta rush for your seat and um, you know, old people aren't supposed to be rushed. It could turn ugly.

My mom actually bought this "Express Boarding Pass" for all of us so that we could "walk slower" and "reach there first" by 5 minutes.
Total for the Express Boarding Pass was RM250.
I told my mom "why waste the money?"
And she said "I like to take my time to walk to the plane".
I've got nothing to say. Gimmie the money instead la. :(

Anyhoo..continuing with the story..we arrived around 2pm+ (Thailand time) and were escorted to the Hotel van by this Thai fella who could speak mandarin.

-Kejumukda Fishball-

By the time we reached Thailand we were starving.
Soo..Lee, the tour guide of the day, brought us to this store which sells...fishballs and fish...stuff.
I personally dislike fishballs but I think I'll make this an exception.
It's the most tasty fishball noodles I've ever eaten! really!! The soup is really deliciousss.....
Plus the fried fish skin.. I didn't know you could actually eat that like "keropok".
Yummyy~~

-Gem Store-
Next, we proceeded to a Gem Store which was proclaimed as the BIGGEST Gem store in the world. I must say, it IS very big.
The moment we stepped into the store, men with coats and women in Thailand's traditional costume greeted us and escorted us to this dark room where the history of gem making was played.
But, it was in mandarin. Couldn't understand half of it. Sigh. Oh well!
Then, they took us through a mini tour where they showcase a partial "gem-in-the-making".
Couldn't take any pictures at the gem store because cameras were strictly prohibited.
Let me tell you something, sparkly things can make you go high in ecstacy...
OR Maybe it's just me.
There was this really nice red ruby ring with a small heart on it.. wanted to buy but they didn't have my size. They told me I could custom make it to suit my finger but I'll have to wait. I didn't have time!
Bought a necklace instead. hehe.

-Honey-
After the Gem Store we visited a Honey store.
We got some free honey drink and an old man explained to us about the goodness of honey..yadda yadda.
Nothing interesting here.
I was bored outta my mind wishing it would end soon because he seemed to be blabbering on forever. The only thing I liked was the free honey drink.

-Cashew Nut-
Another boring place. I felt like an aunty going around visiting all these "food-stuff" places. Gosh. All we did here was to taste some cashew nut and watch this woman break cashew nuts to show that they were very detailed in picking the perfect cashew nuts. swt.

-Temple-
The last destination before we checked in to our hotel was a temple. I forgot the name of the temple. haha
Wasn't interested in going down at first because it was SO darn hot.
But when me and my sisters saw this row of souvenier shops we hopped down immediately to see what we could buy.
I bought a scarf and picnic hat from the place. Preperation for my beach day out on the second day. ;)

After buying my stuff I thought, "Might as well take a picture with the temple since I'm already there." So there! The first picture of me in Phuket posted on this blog! I know I look ugly, but it's ok, the whole purpose of the picture was actually the temple anwayy. Doesn't it look hot?
I was dying under the sun.
-Hotel Royal Crown-
After suffering in the sun for approximately 20 minutes, we proceeded to our hotel on a hill. It was nearby Patong..
Would've preffered to stay at Patong itself though. You would know the reason soon. I'll be blogging about Patong after this.

-FantaSea-
Around 6pm+ the hotel taxi took us to FantaSea. It's some sort of an amusement park which is 10x better than our Genting and Sunway Lagoon combined.

I was super excited and was jumping around like a kid in FantaSea. Thank God no one I know would've ever bumped into me there or it'll very likely I'd get caught in the most embarassing position.
FantaSea! FantaSea~

Doesn't the candy coloured lights make you feel like a kid again?
I know it has this hypnotizing power over me telling me "Regina you are now a 5 year old".

These are actually souvenier SHOPS.

They've really out-done themselves in decorating. Gotta give them a thumbs up for that. It looks amazing in the afternoon but it looks INCREDIBLE at night. You won't believe how beautiful it is in real life!

You'd feel as though you're walking around in a cartoon land where everything is happy,prim and proper.

This is their..um, toilet. haha
Fascinating?
My sis was calling out to me while I was taking a photo at the entrance. "Che!" she said.
and I said "What?"
Then she pointed at this bizarre wash basin where water flows from a buffalo's nose.

It's so unique!

While walking we saw this "Jungle" themed area and obviously, being the curious cat I am, I walked straight in.
There was a midget petting a snake and I thought it was a real snake. But upon closer inspection, it was actually a stuffed toy. This would be the right time for me to say :I was incredibly Zhar Dou.
However, the midget was too cute. I had to take a picture with him and the stuffed toy. hahaha.


You could actually enter a "mini zoo" through the jungle-themed store.
The moment you walk in, you would see this (pic above). It has this ancient feeling to it with the sounds and smell.
I was actually quite afraid that something might jump out and scare me BUT, I'm super egoistic so I pretended not to be afraid and told me sister "nothing one lah!" while walking ahead of my parents.
When we reached this small BLACK tunnel, I was praying "oh God, please don't let anything scare me. I'd get a heart attack"

I was so wrong.

We entered into this magical place which was all WHITE!
This is where they display their pretty white peacocks. Didn't take pictures of peacocks because it's the surrounding I was so excited about.

Every few minutes or so they would turn off the white lights and fluorescent lights would come on, giving it that icy cold feeling like the picture above.

This picture is taken when the white lights were on.
Still pretty. =)
There was this beautiful girl in an angel dress standing by the winding staircase and I just had to take a picture with her!

Decided to post two pictures for you people to compare between the white and fluorescent lights. hehe

Continued walking and there were other displays such as snakes, birds, etc.
But THIS really caught my eye. The Tiger Kingdom.

Look at how exaggerated the cage is!
The glass are actually magnified to make the tiger look bigger than it really is.
My jaw dropped when I saw this because, goodness, it's really fit for a king.

The tiger kept walking from left to right and right to left while some of the other tigers were sleeping in a corner. Couldn't get a decent shot of the tiger. It's all blurry. :(


After the whole "mini zoo" walk which was totally NOT mini, we walked towards our dinner place.
While walking.. this particular jewelry shop stopped me right on my tracks. It's all white and sparkly, it BLINDED me.
Look at me staring at the shiny-ness in awe.

Oh right, this was the end of the "mini zoo". It ends right outside the lake where you could see people from the opposite side coming into the park.

And THIS my dear friends was our dinner place!
It looks magnificent.
The whole place was like a dreamland.
Inside of the restaraunt it looks like this!
Tables and chairs and food enough for 4000 people.

Looks grand eh?
It's a buffet dinner which costs only Rm 60/about 600 baht per person. Totally worth it.

Why of course I had to take a picture of myself in the toilet.

Around 9pm+ we went for the FantaSea show at the Palace of the Elephants. The show has to be paid for seperately and my parents paid for the golden seat. We got one of the best view!


It's one of the most magnificent show I've ever seen.
The props, co-ordination of dances, the way they trained the animals to move according to their signal, the special effects was just incredible.

The show ended around 11pm and I decided to take a picture of these bird cages outside the arena because it looks pretty. haha

And so, this marks the end of the first beautiful day in Phuket. =)

Stay tuned for Day 2's post : Phi Phi Island(I know the name sounds incredibly weird)! and many other updates. haha.
Here's a sneak preview on what to expect for the up and coming post!
Fun at the Beach! Wooohooo~!