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Cool Travel Stuff. Make a difference for more fun and convenience.

1/22/2015

1. Flying Camera, the drone

When we travel around the world, we would like to capture every amazing moments, magnificent sceneries and mind-blowing landscapes. Sometimes we take pictures in front of the building but never high enough or far away enough. Imagine it’s never short of amazing with unbelievable shots that overlook the river and landscape. Consumer drone is a favorable kickass toy for aerial photography and this flying camera can add a lot of fun to the travel experience. Of course we should take into consideration of legal and security issues when playing this toy. The regulations and legal use of drone are depended on you're in which country.

2. Wide Angle Lens Camera

I believe I can fly, I believe I can touch the sky (Kelly’s lyric from the song of "I believe I can fly”). What does skydiving feel like? The cool thing about skydiving is you’re being voluntarily thrown out of an airplane by a stranger and freak out by the heights and free-falling. When the parachute opens and you realize you’re still alive, you’re soaring through the air looking at the astonishing view around you. It would be great if you wear the small size GoPro camera to capture footage on the fly which is using the wide angle lens to capture the beautiful panoramic view.

3. Hotel Iron to Make Sandwich

I like to eat grilled cheese sandwich. By using the hotel room iron, you can make your grilled cheese sandwich even if you are travelling on the go. It’s impressive and simple enough. But can I really make the grilled cheese sandwich in this way?

4. Tool to overcome language barrier

Translation tools are getting better and better for overcoming the language barrier when you’re travelling around the world. Recently the Google translate apps unveiled a new voice recognition version which allows user to speak one language into their phone and the tool will translate to speak back in the other language easier and quicker. The tool is not limited to voice recognition, it allows text image input from phone camera and then it will provide the text translation over the image. Technology is great to create efficiency in facilitating communication and overcome the difficulties for travelers to navigate street signs in the foreign country or to decide what to order from reading foreign language menu.

5. Mobile Washing Machine

If you’re a frequent traveler or a long haul traveler, you’ll probably prefer to pack light to live with less. But you don’t want to do a lot of laundry in your hotel sink, then how to resolve the laundry problem while travelling? The good news is a product called Dolfi which is using ultrasonic sound waves to wash the clothes without any need for scrubbing or wringing. It’s tiny like a soap bar size and easy to carry. The bad news is it has not been launched in the market yet.

6. Camera Stick for Selfies

One, two, three, great shot. I mean selfie. Not perfect? Why not using camera stick? Ok, nice photo. Wait a minute! Beware there are some countries had banned to use camera stick.

7. Budget Estimation

First thing to do for planning the trip is estimating the budget. You might be a budget backpacker without care much about carrying a backpack weight at 1kg walking from a bus station to the train station and don’t mind to stay in a motel without hot water, toilet flash and with fleas in bedding. Or you’ve changed to use Samsonite instead of backpack and prefer to stay in decent hotel and take a more comfortable way to get to your destination. Of course the budget for a easy traveler and for a pleasure seeker is big difference, you can take the reference from “budget your trip” tool which provide a rough idea for the budget estimation as consolidate from the inputs of other travelers.

8. Plan Your Trip

Rome2rio is one of the most helpful tool that can show you how to get anywhere by different mode of transport and searching for any city, town, landmark, attraction or address across the globe at the same time. Let's try to type-in where you want to go and start searching.

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With Or Without Travel Partner? The Fun Can Turn Into A Nightmare?

1/15/2015

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Traits of annoying travel companion

Every travel experience is once in a lifetime event. Visiting a foreign country can help to break out of our shells to open our eyes of how do other people live their lives. Solo travelling is a good idea? Find someone to travel together and share experience is awesome, isn’t it? It is not difficult to find someone to travel with and travel together when the time of vocation season is coming.

“Hey, you can speak Italian. I want to go to Italy. Do you want to come with me together?”

“If you’re interested in visiting London, you can come with me as I’ll return back home to see my parents during summer time.”

“I want to visit Sicily in northern Italy. But I’m worry about security issue to travel on my own in there. Do you want to join me?”

You might feel loneliness for solo travelling but if you haven’t chosen your travel partner(s) wisely then it is easy for the fun to turn into a nightmare.

What do you think the traits of unwelcome travel mates?

1. Anxious travel mate

Travel has always meant adventure and change, and for some people, that means anxiety. Right from the start planning and preparing for the journey, they’re always worried about non-refundable fares, tight schedule, security issues, natural disaster or any other inconvenience unexpected thing can be happened along the journey. They’re unable to get over it and enjoy travelling. They’re always reminded you that something bad is likely to happen.

2. Total follower

You go, I go. They regard you as a tourist guide. They have no idea to make any single decision for what to do, where to go, what to eat, where to stay. They follow you all the times which can’t help anything but just increase your burden.

3. Talkative partner

They’re talking non-stop. Even though it is nice to get someone to talk with along the journey, you’re tire of your partner talking too much. Eating takes them longer than others. They often end up spoiling the pleasure of site seeing because of their talking. Travel with a talkative person is not totally bad as there will be no silent and dull moment when you’re around.

4. Self-centre patriot

They compare everything with their own country. They want to comment on the buildings, streets, foodies and whatever they see are not as good as the one from their country. It is as if anything out of their country are only second rated.

5. Boss or expert style

They regard themselves as bosses or experts. They’re proud to mention that they already know about everything in the world. They have the experience to eat the best food in the world and have travelled around every corner of the world. They always have an opinion on everything.

6. Someone who is always late

Someone who is always late and you can’t trust them to be on time. If you’re in a package tour, I hate those people who are always late to miss out the meet up time. Everyone have to wait for them, they are so selfish to waste the other people's time.

7. Tons of luggage

Light travelers can maneuver more nimbly on and off trains or planes. Some people can’t agree with the notion of pack light to live with less. They pack tons of stuffs and even if they don’t mind to carry heavy luggage throughout the journey, they’re bordering you to affect the mobility which you need to help them to carry or maneuver the stuffs.

Solo travelling has the advantage to offer you complete freedom to decide where to go, where to eat and where to stay. You make all the decisions to control your journey. For many people, they have wonderful time to travel alone and it can be gorgeous experience, not a big deal. Years before when I was on a cruise, I chatted with a tourist and asked him: “What do you think about the cruise trip? Is it boring to stay in the ship wandering around for weeks?” He smiled, “Well, it depends on with whom you are going to travel. I’m so happy to travel with my buddy on the cruise, embrace and surround with the openness of sky and ocean. Imagine when you are flying on the plane, it’s boring, but you just have to endure for hours. But if you’re taking a cruise, it’s talking about weeks of time staying in the ship, therefore travel with good friend or with the loved one make a lot of difference.”

Travel with companion is still a good idea for me.

Have a nice trip.

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Snapshots of Asian Food Tour

1/8/2015

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1. Bangkok

What’s good to eat in Thailand? You’ll not want to miss out the Thai noodle. The ingredients are mixtures of fish plates, fish ball, fried fish skins, wontons, minced pork, preserved vegetables, dry and fried onions, lettuces, sliced pork, splash of pork oil, pepper, fish sauce and chili. What an amazing noodle assortment! Local people also like to use "Tamarind" as cooking material, mixed with fish to make the soap with special delicious taste.

In Chatuchak weekend market, tea seller will perform the special skill of making the Thai iced tea. Is there anything to do with the taste of the tea by this skill?!

In Bangkok shopping mall, this "black stone" bun and ice-cream in Japanese style is interesting.

2. Japan

You can find the best of kaiseki in Kyoto. Kaiseki is a traditional multi-course dinner with a combination of delicious taste, elegant tableware and artistic food culture in Japan. It's using seasonal ingredients at the peak of freshness applying with cooking methods to maximize the ingredients natural favor. The cuisine are including raw and cooked food; fried and deep fried; barbecue and boiled. Each course is delicate, high quality and small size. The chef arranges the food to display like an aesthetic picture delivering total sensory experience. Kaiseki is not only regarded as the food to eat, it is a piece of art to appreciate. In our daily life, we’re always in a hurry and going for the first food we see. We don’t want to spend a lot of time or energy on food. We accept thing that we do not appeal just because out of desperation and convenience. Kaiseki is kind a food culture to tell every experience is once in a life time event, enjoy a meal is particular at that time in that place only, and the diner deserve to enjoy the unique and the best.

Do you like to eat the Japanese mochi rice cake? The texture is soft and nice to eat. Pounding mochi to make the rice cake need the special skill in controlling the speed and force. Woww!! take a look of the super high speed of pounding, it's awesome.

3. Hong Kong

Hong Kong is a wonderland for foodies? It is no doubt for sure. I believe there is no other place that can provide the variety of foodies that is mind-boggling to satisfy even the picky tongue. Hong Kong people work very hard to earn money for living and for eating good food. They are willing to pay for eating the food in best quality, the demand is high and the supply is versatile. Whatever you like to eat the eastern or western style; seafood or dim sum; Asian or Chinese cuisine; upscale or street food; you are probably can find what you want and you will not be disappointed. Unfortunately, there were many Hong Kong reputable restaurants with long history were closed down due to the high rental cost. But you can still able to find very good foodies in the non-tourist residential area. Find them if you can, probably by the help of local insiders.

4. Myanmar

"Lephet Thoke" can be represented as one of the local typical food in Myanmar. The basic ingredients are pickled tea leaves mixing with peanuts, deep fried beans, garlic, shrimps, sesame, green lemon, fish sauce, dry onions and chili. People eat lephet thoke as snack or as appetizer. In Myanmar, the typical desert of caramel banana and milky coconut cake are also very nice. Is there any other special food in Myanmar? You can try the deep-fried cricket or tree worms (Tik Kuang Poo). You may feel it tastes like fried cheese for Tik Kuang Poo if you don’t think it is disgusting.

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Women Blossom Blog

Cool Travel Stuff. Make a difference for more fun and convenience.

1. Flying Camera, the drone

2. Wide Angle Lens Camera

3. Hotel Iron to Make Sandwich

4. Tool to overcome language barrier

5. Mobile Washing Machine

6. Camera Stick for Selfies

7. Budget Estimation

8. Plan Your Trip

With Or Without Travel Partner? The Fun Can Turn Into A Nightmare?

Traits of annoying travel companion

1. Anxious travel mate

2. Total follower

3. Talkative partner

4. Self-centre patriot

5. Boss or expert style

6. Someone who is always late

7. Tons of luggage

Snapshots of Asian Food Tour

1. Bangkok

2. Japan

3. Hong Kong

4. Myanmar

Catherine

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