Entrance of the room in Cave Hotel

Today is going to be a post about a really special hotel whereby it only exist in certain places in this world. Well, ladies and gentlemen, I am one of the few who had the previleged to have the experience. What I am trying to say here is that I was invitated to stay and experience one of the few CAVE HOTEL that is left here in this world.

I was invited by the Hotel Bardeneras in Navarra, Spain. The story/history behind this cave hotel is that, more then a hundred years ago, normal people used to live in them as their homes. Each and every home was being literally hand carved/digged by it´s owner. Due to the difficult situations at that particular time, it´s one of the way to put roof above your head. What I was told is that the man of the house, started to dig and carved every new room whenever the lady of the house started her pregnancy. Depending on the size of the room, it can take a person between 6 months to 1 year digging.

A little bit of information regarding the place. The hotel is situated in the desert city of Navarra, Spain called Valtierra. It was a very curious looking hotel. From the outside, as you can see in the last picture below, it does not really portrait anything very

Master bedroom

luxurious or anything close to our daily modern lifestyle. At least for me, it really gives the impression that it will be somehow a very small, low ceiling and dark area or better said, literally a cave! However, when I was

Living Ro

first shown to my room, I was thrown into a plesant surprise. It was NOTHING close to what I thought it would be! My room was a complete apartment with a living room, 2 bedrooms, complete kitchen- YES A COMPLETE KITCHEN & BATHROOM with all its modern bells and whistles and heating for the whole apartment!

Well, to all you aspiring world traveller out there, if you are looking for a real experience of the outdoor but still craving for the modern amenities of our daily spoil life, do try this hotel. It´s an experience whereby you can share with you friends and loved ones. And yes this is also very recommendable for a family outing. Also, if you want to see the video of this particular hotel (Hotel Barnederas) visit hombrelobo-videos de viajes but it will be only in Spanish.

So, start packing your bags and start planning for your next great escapade. xoxo

Hotel Bardeneras

As we know, a take-away cup of coffee like we always get in our favourite down the street Starbucks, we get our coffee-to-go in a paper cup with a lid and a paper tray; however, in Singapore we can get the exact coffee-to-go in the normal Starbucks or we can get in one of their ¨Singaporean Style¨take-away coffee – COFFEE IN A PAPER CUP, A COVER AND A (CURIOUSLY) PLASTIC HANDLE – I think this is genious and really cost saving.

Another different take-away coffee style is like what we can see here. it´s a piping hot coffee with milk in a simple plastic bag and you drink it with a straw. Trust me, I´ve tried it and I find it very nice and the plastic serves it´s purpose. Your fingers will not get burn from holding the container containing hot coffee and you can cool your coffee in the straw a little before it reaches your lips.

This might be a way of bringing a take-away coffee passed down from generations or it can just simply be that it´s an idea well thought of. So, if you ever go down to Singapore (or perhaps also in other parts of Asia), please try this ¨packet coffee¨.

xoxo

I was really scared of motion sickness as you can read in the past blog called ¨Whale watching in Australia¨, I had a very bad time on board that boat. Perhaps, I was really lucky this time round that the sea has been nice to me throughout the whole journey.

This Canary Island & Morocco cruise has been an eye-opener trip for me. The whole cruise is by Holland America Line. They have many others routes around Europe (Northern & Central inclusive Mediterranean), the Americas and what I learned on board the ship is that they do have a round the world cruise whereby I would like to go to one day on board a ship rather then the normal flight.

This cruise has been marketed to be a 5-star cruise and as usual, I was all geared and prepared with the idea and expectations of a 5-star quality services. The check-in before boarding the ship was not that bad. I cannot comment much about the check-in facilities as it all depends as it varies from port to port. We checked-in in Barcelona, Spain and the facilities there are very correct and very straight forward. No complications whatsoever.

Boarding the ship was smooth sailing. We had people waiting at the door greeting everyone boarding. We were shown to our cabin and as you can see, the cabin is nice enough to sleep in. It is bigger then I thought and it was rather a pleasant surprise. The conditions and the amenities on board the ship was well maintained. I did see people working all the time like, painting the railings, cleaning the window/doors and the best of it all, I never did see a single litter on the floor. To that, kudos to the crews for maintaining the ship very well.

Regarding the ship, we were greeted by our room steward and he was a very nice man. He really knows how to handle passangers. However, we had a slight problem when we went to the front desk of the cruise. We received a charge on our card that we were not aware of. We went to the front office in search of an explaination but to my horror, he just told us to read the website and dissed us away. BTW, in comparison to what it said in the website, the numbers charged did not tally at all! The front office guy, simply wouldn´t want to explain the breakdown to us and we had to find the explanation ourselves. Well, that was a very bad start but, putting that aside, lets just focus on the positive side of the whole experience.

In my coming post, I will tell you more about the cruise, the food, the places we´ve docked and etc. Till the next post everyone……… xoxo

Anyway, when we were in Sydney, Australia, I was being convinced to go on a whale watching on a boat. I agree that whale watching is one of the few things in life that is worth doing. It is one of the most beautiful scene that I have ever seen. They are so big but looking at them that close gives you a feeling on how gentle these mammals are. They took away all my fears of the sea. They are not that easy to see. You have to really go all the way out into the deep sea to see them only if you are lucky. This is because during these whale watching trips, you are not 100% guaranteed that they might surface or appear before you. You might even do the whole trip and spend hours sailing out into the sea and come back without seeing any.

However, when we were there, we were lucky enough to catch a glimps of a whale. Well, to be exact, when we first sail out, the area whereby we should see some whale, we didn’t see any. We went about half hour up further into the open ocean and we finally see one. As you can see in the picture, when you see a whale surfacing, all watchers ran towards the front of the boat to snap photos.

At that time, we all on the boat had a pleasant surprise. After the first whale surfaced, about 5 minutes later, more whales started to surfaced in all directions. We also saw a mother whale with her little one swimming next to her. It was such a magnificent view.

During this specific whale watching trip, I had both good and bad experiences. The good thing is that I see it for myself how a giant can be so gentle and not afraid of human existence in their environment. The bad experience that I had was that right before I board the boat, I had a complete meal and while we were sailing into the open sea, I was throwing up like hell. So, as a warning to everyone, DO NOT EAT RIGHT BEFORE SAILING! I learned it the hard way (LOL)!

Another thing to me that is a very bad experience and it actually pisses me off was that while we were all sailing into the deep sea, some people were actually smoking on board the boat. Well, at least they were smoking in the open deck and I have no problem or have anything against smokers BUT the thing that I cannot accept, some of these smokers actually threw away their cigarette buds INTO THE SEA! I also saw that happening even when the whales were surfacing close to out boat.

On that note, whale watching was a big success and one of the few activities that’s worth doing. To all smokers, if you really have to smoke when on board a ship or boat, please, please, please, and I am begging you, not to throw cigarette buds into the water. Go buy yourself an ashtray, keep your cigarettes buds with you and throw it away in a rubbis bin when you reach land. If not, just smack yourself with a nicotine patch while you are on this kind of trips. Do us and yourself a favor and just enjoy……….. xoxo

To me, the decoration that they have is so fashionable right now. The whole house is just filled with French antiques. The furnitures from the carpets to the table centre piece were antiques from different century. The whole setting and ambiance of the whole apartment is just so well done. The big piano by the window just add elegance to the whole ensemble.

This apartment is a splendid choice if you are looking for a different kind of holiday or if you are tired of sleeping in hotel rooms. This will give you the freedom to relax without being cooped up in a 23 sqm room, cook your own little hot meal and put your feet up while feeling at home. Also, to all of you out there who have plenty of change in your pockets and are thinking of investing into buying an old apartment with history and charm, you can rent this kind of apartment to try it out and feel how is it like to live in it.

The reason why I said that you have to try this apartment is that these apartments are not the same as the new and modern apartments that many of us live in today. These apartments are a piece of history one way or another and they have been standing for many many years.

I am telling you this is because these apartments/houses have their faults and these faults are the real charm! What I mean by faults is that the floor creeks as you walk over them. Cold wind passes through the little gap in the window and the doors are somewhat bent at the corners and cannot close properly and these faults, like I’ve said before, are the charm and the beauty of these kind of property.

Well, if you want to feel like a queen or a king from our previous centuries, go splurge on these kind of holiday experiences. Trust me, it will be a very nice experience for you to remember for the rest of your lives.

Well, like in fashion, the old become the new. And currently, vintage is the most fashionable thing to have. To all you fashionista out there, don’t just carry a vintage Louise Vuitton or Chanel, go experience a vintage apartment or house too. Let us spread our wings and experience something new whenever we can. xoxo

We were just walking around Tokyo after a very long flight and finding our way to a Shinkasen station when we saw the stations full of shop selling food. All these shops were literally covered with customers. Me being me, I peeked in between the people and I saw these neatly packed food in plastic containers and some were even in a wooden box. They were so irresistable.

We went back the next day to the station to catch a shinkasen to start our Japan tour. I make sure that we were about 1 hour early as I wanted to spend some time going through some of the bento-filled-shops to see and buy them.

There were just too many to choose from and from one shop to another, we always found something different to buy. In the end we ended up buying one wooden bento each. We both actually hid our bento boxes in our bags as we needed to board the shinkasen. I was hungry at that time and the thought of the bento in my bag didn´t help a bit at all! As we entered the shinkasen, we really appreciate the cleanliness and the peacefulness in the train. Everything was so clean and everyone was whispering when they talk. We took our seats and as the shinkasen was moving, at the corner of my eyes, I saw this young japanese lady took out her home-prepared bento box and started eating! When I started looking around, there were more japanese eating their bento in the train. I was so happy to see it that I started eating mine.

Frankly, I did not expect much from a packeted food bought from a food stall in a train station, but to my pleasant surprise, the bento was so nice! The sashimi tasted so good that it can be that it´s been bought from a restaurant instead! It didn´t take me long to clean out my bento box. One thing that I realised is that the japanese do not litter! They actually keep all their rubbish in their bag and throw them away later at home or whenever they see a rubbish bin. That is one culture that we all human have to learn and that is the ultimate reason why I think they can have the luxury to eat in a public transport and at the same time enjoy a really clean train and atmosphere. Kudos to the Japanese!

Not only you can buy bento box in the shops in train stations, I think you can get it almost everywhere if you pay close attention to the places in Japan. Also, Asian are so into food that you can get food literally anywhere you go in Asia and in Japan, you can get not only hot drinks from the vending machines, you can also get hot meals and a hot bowl of soup from a vending machines! How cool is that?

Japan has really opened up my eyes on food culture, food presentation and the various ways we can get food. You just need to be a little bit creative and go that extra mile to make life easier. Hey! Who said that you can only get junk food from the vending machines?

From my personal experience, if you decide to go there, it’s worth taking the whole package with dinner and breakfast and please splurge into booking the glass igloo room itself if you are there for a good time and comfort. However, if you are feeling rather adventurous, then by all means go get the cheap ice rooms. Yes! I did say ice rooms as those rooms are really made of SNOW! You have to sleep in your clothes and boots as you will be sleeping in a room equivalent to a freezer.

Now, let me tell you a little bit about the time that I was there. We went to kakslautanen hoping to see the Northern Lights. However, the whole area was brightly lit that it was even difficult to see the stars. On top of all that we had a neighbor who was such a pain. I guessed that they came in a group of about 4 couples and only one of the couple had the glass igloo rooms booked. When night falls, it seems like all 4 couples were inside the glass igloo having a party with loud music. I have a very strong feeling that the other 3 couples had booked the ice rooms and was way too cold to sleep in. On top of that they were coming in and out of the igloo with their head lights / head torch on and was walking/skiing/running with no respect of others and mind you ladies and gentlemen, they were neither kids nor young couples.

So, the moral of the stories here is that, please think of others when we go to these beautiful exotic places as all of us paid the same money as you did.

Once again, like I’ve said earlier, go for the ice rooms if only you are adventurous. If not, don’t be such a cheapskate by going for a cheap room and later snug into the better ones paid by your other friends.