Restaurants. Hotels. Experiences
Whilst researching which hotel to stay in, for our Musandam trip – a friend had mentioned that they stayed in Atana Musandam and loved it. We took on her recommendation – and planned for it. Here’s what to expect, should you plan to stay at Atana Musandam Resort with the kids.
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After 12 years in Dubai and hearing everyone rave about Musandam – we finally made the trip there in February of 2024 during the mid-term school break. What a beautiful place, and such a great spot to go to with the kids as well. Now we know what the fuss is all about! 🙂 Here’s […]
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Did you know there is a zipline in Musandam? It’s also the world’s longest zipline over open water, and officially accredited by the Guinness World Records. Would you give it a try? Here’s a little background, and our experience of the Musandam Zipline – so you can decide if you’re brave enough to give it […]
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The husband and I have never been away – just the two of us, since having all the little people. So when the opportunity came to review Bear Grylls Explorer Camp – we jumped at it. We made arrangements, packed our bags and drove up to Jebel Jais on a glorious Saturday winter morning in […]
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Jais Sky Tour has got to be the highlight of our Jebel Jais Weekend Away. The entire experience, from start to finish was just so much fun. If you are a thrill-seeker, I would definitely recommend you add Jais Sky Tour to your bucket list. What exactly is it? Six ziplines ranging from 300m to […]
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We have been going to Waldorf Astoria at the Palm with the little ones for years now – be it for a daycation, or for a meal. Over the years, we have met a lot of amazing staff – which added to the overall experience, making us return to this beautiful resort again and again. […]
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Having lived in Dubai for more than a decade – the thought of doing a staycation in a hotel attached to Mall of the Emirates would never, ever cross our minds. It’s literally 10 minutes from home and we go to MOE a lot. So why on earth would we even consider staying in the […]
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Have you ever done a Tea Sommelier experience? During our stay in Alila Hinu Bay, I had the opportunity to do a one on one session with the very lovely Maureen in their signature restaurant – Seasalt. The husband was not interested had to stay with the kids in the Kids Club which was conveniently […]
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Right by the Salalah coast lies a luxury resort whose name we may be quite familiar with : Al Baleed Resort Salalah by Anantara. We stayed here with the kids in April 2022 on the second half of our Salalah trip – with just one goal in mind : to relax, and we did just […]
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On the third day in Alila Hinu Bay, we got on a boat with the amazing Frank from Ocean Sense. Similar to the Wadi Darbat excursion, this is booked through Alila and they will organise everything for you. More packed lunches and drinks so you don’t have to worry about all that. Frank picked us up […]
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On the second day in Alila Hinu Bay, we went on an excursion through to Jabal Samhan to Wadi Darbat with the family. You can book this through Alila and they will organise everything for you – including packed lunches and drinks so you can have it as a picnic while you are there. The […]
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Tucked away in Mirbat, Oman – sits an expansive and stunning property by the name of Alila Hinu Bay. We had the privilege of staying here with the family early April 2022 during its soft opening phase. Here’s what we thought of the resort, and why you should definitely add this to your Oman Bucket […]
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We spent 5 nights in Salalah during the Spring Break – April 2022. This was the first time visiting the South Eastern side of Oman – having been to Muscat almost ten years ago now. It was also our first real holiday since Summer of 2019 so we were fairly nervous and excited at the […]
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We’ve been “released” from MIQ for about a week now. In George Michael’s beautiful voice….. “Freedom…!!” There has been a lot of family time, eating, local playground and parks, and just good ol’ chilling. It has been surreal to be out and about – maskless, in a “world” which is more or less covid-free. That […]
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Sitting here in our quarantine hotel room, cup of coffee next to my laptop. It’s 4:52 pm and 14 degree celsius outside. The room is warm, but I’m in 3 layers. My black t-shirt, my 50% off H&M pink jumper, and my awesome blue Uniqlo down jacket. Climatising, it’s called. Maybe I’ll be in shorts […]
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Whilst we did day trips to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Luss, passing by most days to Balloch and Dumbarton where daddy was at, the highlight of the trip was simply our stay in the Shantron Farm. The kids would be watching the ewes and lambs, we saw calves which were a day old still struggling to stand, […]
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Ever missed your flight? Imagine waking up at 5:30am, and waking up a 3 year old and 1 year old. Getting everyone ready, into a taxi, to the airport. Making it to the check-in line, and when asked where you were heading to, the staff simply asks you to join the queue. Get to the […]
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Going through the many photos we took at Sicily makes me want to go on another holiday. The wine, the blue skies with ginormous fluffy cloud. The pasta, the tiramisu, the landscape. The big grin on the 3-year old’s face as she devoured the gelato (and the tantrums that followed on when I attempted to […]
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I spend a lot of time researching where to go when it comes to holidays. I didn’t personally know anyone who had been, so had to ask around for advice in facebook groups and just read a million reviews on booking.com and tripadvisor.com. Schuler Residence (click here, see Apartment Type D) in Taormina caught my […]
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Planning for holidays involves a lot of research and hard work. You hope everything goes to plan, but sometimes, sh*t happens. Here’s the first of our Travel Lessons Learnt series.
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When we decided that we were going to spend a few days in Almaty, I was worried that it would be too much like going to another city. Then I saw some of the photos of The Ritz Carlton with the snow-capped mountains in the backdrop and the green parks in front of it – […]
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Address Boulevard Dubai opened its door earlier this year. Yes, I know – another Address 🙂 So everyone knows the infamous Address Downtown Dubai which made headlines news NYE 2016. It’s not that one – this is the brand new beautiful property, which is located opposite Fashion parking, and you got it – along the Emaar […]
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During our four nights in Almaty, we chose to stay in two different hotels, so we could experience different parts of the city. The Rixos was our choice for the first two nights, because it was a) highly-rated in booking.com and tripadvisor b) located in the middle of Almaty city. Here’s a brief summary of […]
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No, we didn’t see Borat. In fact, when I brought this up to our guide whilst walking through the beautiful First Presidents Park, she told me that the people of Kazakhstan are not so fond of him (to put it nicely). The movie was not even filmed in Kazakhstan! So, how was Almaty? Did we […]
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I got a little confused when researching on where to stay in Brasov. After a lot of reading up of reviews, we finally settled on Kronwell. It looked modern, clean, there was parking, and I was running out of time – we had to agree on somewhere. We ended up staying for 3 nights here, […]
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We spent the first two nights of our stay in Romania, in the heart of the city – Bucharest. We figured two nights would do it justice, before we went on our road-trip to the outskirts towards Brasov. Extremely glad that we started our Romanian holiday in Intercontinental Hotel Bucharest – situated just a 10-minute […]
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Romania, what a surprise. We booked ourselves onto a very last-minute trip to Romania on Fly Dubai for Christmas, to return to Dubai for New Year’s Eve. Truth be told, we had a great flight with them to Bucharest – flight was half-full which meant we could put the munchkin down to her own seat […]
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Back home from a short getaway to the capital. We used the 2nd, and last of the staycation voucher in our Isme Elite app this time – a “city getaway” – at Jumeirah Etihad Towers Hotel in Abu Dhabi 🙂 It was either that, or Jumeirah Emirates Towers in Dubai (too close to home, the […]
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First “holiday” away from our apartment last weekend. Social media has been driving me a little nuts lately with photos of everyone on their summer holiday (insert sulk face) . So after a lot of research on the newly launched Isme Elite app, we decided that it was pretty worth it, went ahead – bought it, […]
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If you’re staying in the UAE for Eid, I did a collection of cool deals around town that you may go to, for Citispi – click here to have a browse through 😉 If you’re planning to go away, like step into a plane and fly somewhere, here’s a summary of the places that we’ve […]
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Quite a few weeks ago, we were looking around for somewhere to go for a, what people would call a ‘babymoon’. Now most people (in Dubai) would go to somewhere exotic like Thailand, Maldives, maybe Sri Lanka – but I was past my ‘okay-to-fly’ safe date so we opted for somewhere local. A few clicks […]
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About a year ago, we took a drive out into the desert in search of this placed called ‘Al Qudra’, as recommended by a workmate of mine. I did a post (click here), and a lot of friends and workmates have since gone and sent me photos of their trips with their families which I […]
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What better time to relive our stay in Al Yamm Villas a few months ago, just in time for those planning on where to go for Valentines 🙂 We checked out of Al Sahel Villas ( read about it here ) , and was driven to Al Yamm on the other end of the island. […]
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I would say, the one bedroom pool villa is perfect for couples who’re looking for a bit of a romantic weekend getaway – for that special occasion, or hey, just any other weekend that you feel like spoiling yourselves 🙂
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When you start researching for somewhere to stay in the Amalfi, you could literally spend hours looking at where to base yourself, then after you’re done reading all the blogs, reviews, and recommendations, you’ll need to figure out which exact hotel you want to stay. It’s not cheap in Italy – I’m sure you already […]
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Been here in Manila for a week now for work. Didn’t think I’ll find time to blog, but here I am, sitting in my hotel room here in Makati, typing away 🙂 Here’s Mr Mustard’s rare appearance today while I was walking to work. Pretty nice place ay, this area. It’s my 6th visit back […]
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Well, technically, I didn’t drive. G did. And he insisted that he wanted to, eventhough every other article online was telling us otherwise. And you know what? It was fun, and if you’re a pretty good driver (or better than me), I still do recommend it. Why? It’s a lot more flexible, you can stop […]
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Why don’t we have a bathtub in our bedroom? Now if your wife asks you this, an easy way to make her happy is to take her to a Beach Suite in Sofitel the Palm 🙂 So, picture this. The bellboy takes you to your suite and you try your best to keep calm when […]
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Credits goes all to the sister-in-law for picking this dreamy castle-like restaurant for our first meal in the Amalfi Coast 🙂 Thanks M! Now, you’re staying somewhere in the Amalfi and you don’t where to go for dinner. If you’re based not too far from Maiori, I recommend you book yourself a table in Torre […]
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A collection of postcard-perfect images of Tuscany, as you would imagine it 🙂 We went from Florence – Lucca (verry pretty lil wall-bound town…click here for Mr Mustard’s photo there!) – Pisa (yes, just to the Leaning Tower!) – Stayed in Castellina in Chianti ( Palazzo Squarcalupi, amazing ;)). Then from Castellina through Radda and […]
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Onboard Emirates, en route from Venice back to Dubai. Hello everyone 🙂 I usually just pick a handful to write about after a holiday, and since we have two more hours to go before we land in DXB, here’s my write up of one of the highlights of our trip – our stay in the […]
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Home from work drinks at Iris 🙂 In blogging mood. So here’s one, specially written for Nada Al Ghowainim from Undefined Declarations. We met briefly at the Coffee Club Middle East launch many months ago. Very sweet girl, and recently she was on twitter asking for somewhere to recommend for a staycation to Abu Dhabi for […]
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I like Vida’s concept. They do things simple, and minimal, and they do it well. Over the last year or so we’ve reviewed quite a few of their outlets as part of an invitation, and would honestly recommend it to friends and workmates. Just recently, we were invited for a staycation at the hotel (yay!). I […]
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Good morning ! St Hilarion Castle was for us, the highlight of our short trip to Cyprus. After going to Nicosia and crossing the “Cyprus/Turkey” border, we went further north towards Girne. On the way you pass by Kyrenia, and please do make a stop at the castle. It is to me, very different to the […]
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Prior to our trip to Cyprus, I did honestly very little research on where to go, where to eat, what to do. I had remember reading somewhere that Samantha from Foodiva was Greek-Cypriot-British, so off I went to her site and found this. We actually printed this out (yes, on paper!) and for the next four days […]
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We’re back! 🙂 I normally get lazy to do travel blog posts, as that’s where Mr Mustard comes into play…… Here’s the first of hopefully more to come, of our lil getaway to Cyprus…… On the fourth day in Cyprus, we drove west towards Paphos. As we were walking along the marina, we heard a […]
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How to get there? I don’t know how to do this insert Googlemaps into blog business so here’s as good as it gets. Search ‘Al Qudra Camping Oasis’ and it’ll pop out. Easy, right? The GPS coordinates are 24.837536, 55.376665. For some reason the lakes don’t show up if you’re in ‘Map’ mode so change it to Satellite […]
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During our short trip in Harbin, we spent a lot of time on Zhong Yang Da Jie (Central Street). If there’s one thing you can do in freezing winter weather, it is to walk. A lot 🙂 As one of the longest pedestrian walkways in China, it is cobbled-stone, with shops and restaurants to both […]
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I probably should have done this post four months ago. Here’s what I managed to snap, in minus 25 degree celcius. Let me introduce to you, the Harubin International Ice Festival, when we went there on the 5th of January 2015. Never been so cold in my life!
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Somebody tell me who did the interior design for Meydan Hotel’s rooms? I love it!
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What a weekend 😀 So, G picked me up from work on Thursday, and off we went up north, driving along the west-coast of the UAE towards Ras Al Khaimah 🙂 We’ve only been up to RAK once since moving here , and honestly never had any reason to go back up since. Good thing […]
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A photo-post of our early morning trip to Hatta, located south-east of Dubai 🙂 G was meeting up mates at the Hatta mountainbike meeting point and since mum was here, thought we’ll tag along and make a mini trip out of it. “See some mountains” 😉 Keen mountain-bikers probably see this every weekend, but for […]
Read MoreIn the mood to do a short write-up on Christmas Eve here from down under 😉 Merry Christmas everybody! Just a tip for those who are flying home next time for Christmas. Do your online check-in once you can. Apparently Emirates has the right to be overbooked, and this was what happened to us on […]
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Where the heck is Khorfakkan, you ask me? 🙂 Back in June when I first heard about Oceanic Khorfakkan I stuck it in google and realized that it’s on the east coast, just underneath where all the other Fujairah resorts are laid along the coastline. We have never been to the east coast, so I […]
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You have a flight at 6am in the morning (say, to Santorini? 🙂 ) and you don’t want to stress missing the flight. Stay here. It’s nothing exceptional but it’s a 2 minute walk from the hotel door to the airport. It’s comfortable, proper bathroom amenities, and you will get a good night’s sleep.
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March 12th 2014, I came across PinayFlyingHigh‘s blog post on her travels in 2013. I saw the photo of Meteora and immediately fell in love 🙂 Mental note added : Need to go there some day. So when we were planning our trip to Greece, I said to G, we have to go there, we have […]
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If you much prefer somewhere quieter, away from the hoards of tourists, and a little lighter on the wallet but still equally luxurious, you could give Vedema Resort in Megalochori a try 🙂 We bid farewell to our cave-house on Tuesday afternoon, and started our journey down south to the little town of Megalochori. It […]
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Back, and broke, in Dubai, ha ha. Time to choose a few things to write about 🙂 Why not start with the highlight of our trip – Santorini Secret. I had spent a lot of time on booking.com and tripadvisor reading endless reviews and scrolling through photos of hotels in Santorini. Other than Oia, all the […]
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4:05 pm Kathmandu time, we’ve only just departed 7 minutes ago and currently at 5634m in the air. Humbling to know that Mt Everest is at 8848m and about 100 people attempt to climb it each year. Amazing. Definitely not something in G or my bucket list 😉 Maybe a plane ride over it next time. Onto Hyatt, […]
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1:28pm, local Kathmandu time. G and I are sitting in the departure hall of Tribhuwan International Airport, legs perched on our hand carries, waiting to fly home. FZ578 is delayed for an hour, argh. Looking out through windows here reminds me a little of being in Queenstown. Mountains, blue skies, endless clouds. Unfortunately, the similarities end […]
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Day Three – Khaketi Region Here’s the route that Giorgi took us on, that I do recommend you do if you plan to spend a day in Khaketi. If you like bit of history/culture of orthodox Christian churches, a tour of Georgia’s biggest winery plus drink good Georgian wine and whisky, breathtaking views of a […]
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Day Two – Kazbegi Georgia is so beautiful. Kazbegi reminds us a bit of New Zealand, The green, the lush mountains, the rivers, the sheep. Haha, a lot of sheep! Stepantsminda is the last lil town we went to, which is just before Russia. Ooo, if only we got our visas ay. Then we can […]
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Dedicated to our guide Giorgi, who was super 🙂 From airport transfers, to taking us from one hotel to other, to walking us back in case we got lost, to stopping at the randomnest places so we could photos, to taking us to hidden bakeries at the roadside, local cafes that you would never know […]
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We checked out of Punta on the third day, and got dropped off at Tropical Suites ( Thanks Alessandro!) located in the centre of Bocas Town. Glad we chose it ay, cheers to Tripadvisor’s recommendation – it was really good for Bocas standards. Clean, spacious, and they gifted us a bottle of champagne as well, aww. […]
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The only souvenirs we took from Punta were memories, a million photos, and about 250 sandfly-bites all over my body. I wouldn’t trade it for anything though. It would have been good if G shared some of these bites, but unfortunately I am just a lot more sweeter than he is 😀 Here’s my honest […]
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Sitting cross-legged in our suite, cheers to Trump Ocean Club for spoiling us 🙂 We’re much in need of this after getting sunburnt snorkelling off Bocas Del Toro, and eaten alive by sandflies at Punta Caracol. Gonna jump on the shuttle in an hour to the nearest mall to Casco Vejo, thought I’ll do a […]
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Last Eid, G and I did a mini trip to a few spots in Europe. Got pretty lazy after we returned, managed to do two posts which were our highlights 🙂 Sandeman’s, and Salzburg. My brief review on the SPG hotels we stayed in Vienna.
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A lot of people, family and friends, made this wedding, special. We’ll save the personal photos to be shared on Facebook 🙂 On top of our loves ones, we would like to thank the following people, who made this wedding, even more beautiful : Vanessa from Bella Cupcakes. Sometime G and I walk around Dubai […]
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We took so many photos on our Eid break – here’s just a few of my favourites from the 3-days in Munich 🙂 Our short break there was entirely planned to Sandeman’s. A good friend of mine from high school recommended Sandemans to me before we left for our OE. Definitely one of the best travel […]
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I’m gonna try and let the photos do more of the talking, mainly because a) it does and b) I’m lazy (again) – hehe! Of all the random hotels we stayed in over our Eid break, Hotel Altstadt was our favourite-st 🙂 For those who hasn’t been to Salzburg – go! It’s such a beautiful […]
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I took mum to Fairmont The Palm two weekends ago. We checked into the Fairmont Gold View Room on the 10th floor, and to our nice surprise found a pot full of bloomin’ red roses and a personalised note to me. Opened it up and in it was a hand scrawled note ‘Dear Ms. X, […]
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Sitting in the Fairmont Gold Lounge, glass of bubbly to my right, Viva magazine on the left with the oh-so-hot Diane Kruger staring back at me. A group of expats are sitting outside on the verandah having drinks, overlooking the marina. It’s beautiful here. I feel like I’m on holiday, yet again. And it’s literally […]
Read MoreInspired by the travelling gnome concept from Amelie, may I present you, The Adventures of Mr. Mustard. You can find him on Instagram : MrMustard1
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Apparently, Tiger Woods, Rory McIlroy and Justin Rose was staying in St Regis as well when we were there last night. We didn’t know that until were leaving! Grrr! Should’ve gone down early to have breakfast and just sat there allllllll morning ay! Damn. Least we got to see them play at the HSBC Golf […]
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We did Petra in 4 hours – which is to be honest actually quite fast because you can, if you want to – spend a whole full day in there. Tight in time I’ll say because Jalal had asked us to meet him at 12:30p.m so we can make our trip out to the Wadi […]
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Back on the couch blogging. The service at Beachcombers yesterday was quite disappointing ay. I’ll bitch about it on a different blog post 🙁 Now I’m a bit confused how to format the photos cause there’s so many! I’ll stick to slideshow because it’s less work for me, haha. ( April 2015 Update, Just changed […]
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My first time doing a travel post here. Hee hee not sure how to format it but I’ll just type away until it’s time to get ready for birthday brunch at Beachcombers *so excited*! We booked with Jordan Memories and Wonders tours probably 6 weeks before Eid, after some googling and researching. Back then, I […]
Read MoreI have so much to blog on, haven’t found time since we got home this week! G and I went to Jordan for EID last weekend. It’s a short 3-hour flight away and definitely a place worth visiting! I’ll catch up on the sight-seeing part later – first off, a little review on my special […]
Read MoreIt’s quite funny how I was bitchin’ about Emirates just a few days ago (click here), and next thing I know I ended up on Business Class on the way home to Dubai. It’s like someone heard my complaints and was trying to make it up to me for the bad experience, haha. Long story […]
Read MoreOn board EK337 to Manila. It’s 5.05p.m Manila time and I should be there in another 4 hours. Ah, can’t wait 🙂 I wasn’t planning to blog inflight. Watched ‘The Lucky One’ (isn’t he beautiful), did a bit of work, read a bit of Hello!, and now I’m tuned into John Mayer’s new album ‘Born […]
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Back from a wonderful holiday in Muscat, Oman. Cheers to the troupe – we all had an amazing time. Didn’t even know that there were so many dolphins in the Gulf of Oman! We didn’t pick the Radisson. It was one of those – “Where are you guys staying? – Oh-okay, we’ll do that too” things. […]
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Grand Millenium Hotel : Our First Home in Dubai Ah, finally it’s okay to write about the place where we stayed for 3 whole months, as we’ve moved out to our new home 😉 This little article is for the families who have been put in Grand Millenium as their ‘first home’, having flown from […]
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If you are coming to Dubai, and you’re not sure which tour to go with – I highly recommend you choose Arabian Night Tours, and get Ali to be your man. He told us his sand dune bashing was just ‘medium’ intensity but mum and I were sweating all over by the end of it […]
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