MadPsychMum | Parenting + Travel

Guangzhou-HK Day 6: High Speed Train to Disney's Hollywood Hotel

2025-12-30T23:30:00.757+08:00

It was our final breakfast at the Horizon Club before we checked out!

Eggs omelette

I may have over-ordered, since it was our last breakfast at the Horizon Club!
Love the yogurt! 🩷

Eggs Benedict from the ala carte menu

We checked out at 10.30am and hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥179) to Guangzhou South Railway Station. The journey was approximately 30 minutes.

We spotted this interesting 'donut building' on our way to the station! Super cool!

We arrived at 11.25am

Guangzhou South Railway Station was huge!

There were not many people (by China standards at least) as it was their off-peak season for travel 😁

We had booked our Guangzhou to Hong Kong High Speed Rail tickets via the Railway 12306 app 15 days prior to travel as that's when the tickets were released for sale. Our tickets cost CN¥215 per adult and CN¥108 per child, excluding credit card fees. There were many trains to Hong Kong and the duration ranged between 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on the number of stops on the route. We chose the 12.23pm train, which would take 1 hour and 3 minutes!

I'd definitely recommend to arrive at least 1 hour before the train departs as you'd need time to clear security and walk to the platform.

Needed my daily dose of milk tea and got myself a cup from the bubble tea shop

We headed to the platform the moment the gates were opened for boarding and scanned our passports at the gate. The process was very fast and simple.

Our train!

We got to our seats with time to spare and thankfully so, because the train departed 2 minutes ahead of schedule! Do not be late! 😅

At our seats

Seats were comfortable, with a table for placing a tablet or food

The trains look so sleek and cool

The journey was so fast and smooth that in a blink of an eye, we had arrived at Hong Kong West Kowloon Railway Station! It was 1.25pm when we arrived at the platform but due to the dreadfully long immigration clearance process where we had to clear both the China and Hong Kong immigration before we can exit. The whole process took the same amount of time as the train journey itself! 😓 We must not take for granted the efficiency of Singapore's ICA! 💖

By the time we were seated in Tim Ho Wan (loved it ever since we first tried it in 2014), it was already 2.30pm! We were starving! 😖

Follow the signboards to Tim Ho Wan (West Kowloon Station)

Dim sum is a must in Hong Kong

Group photo before the food came

We ordered all of our favourites! Yummy!

The Littlest loved the braised meat on rice!
We also ordered chee cheong fun, vegetables and congee.

My favourite osmanthus jelly and Hong Kong milk tea 😋

The Hubby felt that the Chua Lam's Dim Sum outlet we tried in Guangzhou was cheaper and better than Tim Ho Wan! Although they've lost the wow factor over time, I still thought it was good overall.

After lunch, we walked for about 10 minutes to Kowloon Station to take the MTR train to Disneyland Resort Station.

Walking to Kowloon MTR Station via the bridge

Kowloon MTR Station

Taking the special Disney train

Disneyland Resort Station

The journey took longer than I had expected and it was almost 5pm by the time we boarded the complimentary shuttle to our Disney hotel!

The shuttle bus to our resort

There were 3 official hotels at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort. We've previously stayed at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel in 2016 and Disney Explorers Lodge in 2019, so we decided to stay at Disney's Hollywood Hotel to "complete the set"! 😜

Disney's Hollywood Hotel

Decorated with many Disney elements

The Boy received 2 birthday pins as it was his birthday week!

More Disney elements captured by the Boy

We booked 2 Marvel Standard Rooms at $538 per room per night via Agoda, inclusive of breakfast for 2 adults per room (more details in the next post). We thought the price was reasonable given that Hong Kong hotels in general and Disney hotels in particular were pricey!

Lifts to the guest rooms

Our Marvel room had two beds that were larger than super single but smaller than queen

TV and sitting area

The design of the wall was quite nice

Love the movie themed bed side table and 20th anniversary stationery!

Very small kitchenette and very cute Avengers bedroom slippers

Relatively small bathroom with the usual toiletries

Small but usable bathtub

View from our room

The hotel prepared a small "towel cake" and card for the birthday boy!

There was an ice machine on our floor near our room!

We knew we wouldn't have time to enjoy the pool over the next 2 days so we squeezed in a quick swim before dinner!

Back entrance of Disney's Hollywood Hotel

The pool entrance followed the Hollywood theme

The pool had many life guards and a slide

Enjoying our evening swim

The pool was the smallest of all the 3 Disney official hotels and even though there was a slide, the water wasn't fast flowing so it wasn't very fun because the kids couldn't slide down fast enough.

After swimming, we took the shuttle bus back to Disneyland Resort Station and transferred to the train to Tung Chung Station, where the Citygate Outlets was located. We would visit Citygate Outlets every time we stayed at Hong Kong Disneyland Resort as it was the nearest shopping mall.

Front entrance of Disney's Hollywood Hotel at night

Our journey to Citygate Outlets

Christmas installation at Citygate Outlets

Shine like a star!

Very cute and cheery

Found a nice backdrop for my OOTD photo!

We had arranged to have dinner with my cousin, who was living and working in Hong Kong. She suggested Golden Dragon Sizzling Steak though the queue was relatively long.

Golden Dragon Sizzling Steak

Finally we managed to get a large table for 7

My favourite Hong Kong milk tea (yes #2!) and the sizzling steak

Steak was really good!

After a satisfying dinner, we checked out the supermarket before heading back to our hotel.

Bought strawberries for the Littlest as usual

It seems like we have no fate with the Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car even though it was located right at Citygate Outlets. It was not in operation in 2016 the first time we visited. Oh well.

Looking forward to Hong Kong Disneyland! 😁

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P.S: Here's the full list of my stay at Disney Hotels around the world:

2015: Disney Ambassador Hotel, Tokyo (Japan)
2015: Tokyo Disneyland Hotel (Beauty & the Beast room) (Japan)
2016: Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel (Hong Kong)
2017: Explorer's Hotel, Paris (France)
2018: Sheraton Tokyo Bay Hotel, Tokyo (Japan)
2019: Disney Explorers Lodge, Hong Kong (Hong Kong)
2023: Disney's Coronado Springs Resort, Orlando (USA)

Continue to >> Guangzhou-HK Day 7-8: Hong Kong Disneyland Countdown to 2026
<< Back to Guangzhou-HK Day 5: Beijing Road

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Guangzhou-HK Day 5: Beijing Road

2025-12-29T22:59:00.588+08:00

We have become accustomed to having our breakfast at the Horizon Club every morning in Guangzhou! Such a privilege and luxury! 🤩

We managed to get a table with a nice view of the Canton Tower and Pearl River!

Having our favourites from the buffet table

Really love the fruit yogurt!

After breakfast, we hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥37) to nearby Guangzhou Metro Museum 广州地铁博物馆, just 5 minutes away from our hotel by car. Entry was FREE for all visitors and looked super fun for kids compared to the other museums.

Guangzhou Metro Museum

Super cute mascot!

Love the merch that they had on display! I was tempted to buy everything!

Unfortunately, I had completely forgotten that the museum was not open on Mondays! So we couldn't visit! Super sad! 🥲 We'd have to visit on our next trip!

The Hubby bought the Littlest a gachapon instead

We explored the surrounding area and did not find anything worth visiting.

Wangsheng Plaza

We decided to hail a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥135) directly to Beijing Road Pedestrian Street 北京路步行街 for lunch and shopping.

Our driver dropped us near the Beijing Road Cultural Tourism Zone marker

Yes, I found it interesting that there is a Beijing Road in Guangzhou and not Beijing...

Exploring Beijing Road

Bought Miffy t-shirts for the Eldest and Littlest from Baleno so that they can twin!

Yuan Dynasty Copper Kettle Fountain of 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals

Bought the Littlest's favourite bak kwa from Lai Kei Bakery

A huge temple

We were on the hunt for a lunch place and managed to find the famous Da Ge Fan 大鸽饭 located opposite the huge temple! We took a queue number and waited at the waiting area outside the restaurant for our number to be called.

With many others who were waiting for an available table

We were given a menu to decide what we wanted while waiting

The menu had a lot of pictures to help you decide what to order!

We waited for approximately 20-30 minutes but it didn't feel that long as we were seated and given complimentary drinks. When our number was finally called, we followed a staff to our table.

Freebies from hair tie to gloves!

Love their signature dish, the roast pigeon! Wish we could have ordered 2!

Vegetables, claypot fried rice and claypot pork liver;
The claypot rice we had at Rice Haven the day before was much better!

After lunch, we dropped by the mall next to the restaurant to get strawberries for the Littlest from Grand Supermarket. They are her favourite fruit!

Grand Supermarket was located in this mall

We returned to Beijing Road and continued down the street until we arrived at a huge TopToy and Miniso Land located side by side!

Bought ice cream to munch on as we walked

Our favourite TopToy and Miniso Land side by side!

Miniso Land Guangzhou

Super cute Hello Kitty display

Our verdict: we preferred shopping at Beijing Road over Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street that we had visited 2 days ago. There were more things to see and do!

When we were ready to leave, we walked to somewhere near Tee Mall Beijing Road (not the same Tee Mall as our first day of the trip) to hail a Premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥111) back to our hotel.

Tee Mall at Beijing Road

I noticed many people taking photos and realised that they were taking photos of the heart-shaped tree with a scarf! Super cute!

I brought the kids for a swim before our usual evening canapes.

Final swim in this pool before we check out of our hotel!

Final evening canapes! How fast time flies! 😝

Since it was our last night in Guangzhou, the Hubby, 2 older kids and I walked along the Pearl River to enjoy the beautiful park just beside our hotel.

View of Shangri-La Guangzhou from the park

Pazhou Ferry Terminal is just a 5-minute walk away;
You can board a ferry to Hong Kong and other parts of China from here!

Pearl River at night

Skyline of Guangzhou

You can catch a glimpse of the lighted Canton Tower

Beautiful night for an evening stroll

Spotted the Haizhu Tram Line, which provides passengers with sightseeing views of the Pearl River, Canton Tower and other attractions at a reasonable price: it only costs CN¥2 per person per trip!

The team station closest to our hotel

Can't believe that it was our last night in Guangzhou! We will definitely be back! 🩷

Continue to >> Guangzhou-HK Day 6: High Speed Train to Disney's Hollywood Hotel
<< Back to Guangzhou-HK Day 4: Canton Tower

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on

Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Guangzhou-HK Day 4: Canton Tower

2025-12-28T23:30:00.551+08:00

Since we were not in a hurry, we decided to linger at breakfast at the Horizon Club that morning.

My choice of breakfast that morning

By the time we left our hotel, it was almost 12 noon! We hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥56) to Canton Tower (yes again!) because we wanted to ride the bubble tram that we missed out on 2 days ago! If you know me, you'd know that I love high places! I've had the opportunity of visiting a few towers, including the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world as of this writing!

Saw the Chigang Pagoda from our car

We bought the Observation Deck and Bubble Tram package tickets at CN¥298 per adult and CN¥255 per child/youth above 1.5m or senior aged 60 to 74 years old. Children below 7 years old or seniors 75 years old and above are FREE.

The first thing we did was to take the elevator from the ground floor to Level 107.

Queuing to take the elevator up the tower

Drinking water and tourist guide

View from Level 107

When we were done exploring the Level 107 Observation Deck, we took another elevator to Level 111.

Level 111 was at 448.8m high!

View of the top of Canton Tower and Sky Drop ride from the Level 111 Observation Deck

Here for the Bubble Tram!

Each capsule/cabin can take up to 6 persons

Our turn to ride!

Unobstructed view of Guangdong Museum, which we visited two days ago

We were so high up that we could see the roofs of many tall buildings!

More photos in the capsule/cabin

The world's highest bubble tram / Ferris wheel!

After we disembarked from the Bubble Tram, we spent some time taking in the sights as it's not often we get to see Guangzhou with a bird's eye view! After all, Canton Tower features the highest observation deck in China!

On top of Guangzhou!

More photos with the view

Finally ready to leave

Canton Tower celebrates its 15th anniversary this year!
It's the same age as my Eldest! 😀

If you have time, you can also check out Skyone Celebrity Wax Museum, which is located in the same tower. For our family, we preferred to shop, eat and play at Canton Tower Plaza instead! 😀

Shopping at our favourite toy shop, Top Toy!

Yes, we got more toys! 😅

It was time for lunch and the Hubby chose Rice Haven 谷田稻香.

Rice Haven

Menu of their signature clay pot dishes

Steam egg and vegetables

Spicy tofu and fried egg

Prawn with glass noodles

Stewed beef with mushroom and vegetables

Of course their rice is the highlight of the meal!

I am not a rice person but I'd have to say, the rice was truly incredible! The restaurant really lived up to its name!

I was greedily craving for the barbeque pork buns that we had at Chua Lam's Dim Sum (located opposite of Rice Haven) 2 days ago so we ordered 2 for take away.

Yummy cha shao bao! 😋

After lunch, the Hubby decided to buy tickets for the kids to enjoy the B.Duck City Funs carnival.

The B.Duck carnival at the basement

Our first ride was a carousel where we had to catch flying balls in exchange for little toys;
Each adult can ride for FREE with every paying child.

The staff told us that there were more rides at Level 1

Very colourful B.Duck

The kids walked pass the scary spinning ride

Headed straight for the harmless car ride

The Hubby rode with the Littlest

The final ride of the day

The machine spun round and round and flung the kids about! They loved it!

When it was time for our evening canapes at 6pm, we hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥58) back to our hotel.

We love having our evening canapes everyday!

The Littlest is not always a fan of the canapes so the Hubby bought her favourite strawberries from Canton Tower Plaza's Aeon

The younger kids still had some energy to burn so I brought them to swim in our hotel's indoor pool.

Swimming in the night with very few people in the pool

We all had a great sleep that night!

Continue to >> Guangzhou-HK Day 5: Beijing Road
<< Back to Guangzhou-HK Day 3: Guangzhou Cultural Centre & Shangxiajiu Street

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on

Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Guangzhou-HK Day 3: Guangzhou Cultural Centre & Shangxiajiu Street

2025-12-27T23:30:00.654+08:00

We had breakfast at Horizon Club before heading out to explore Guangzhou.

Littlest picking out her favourite cereal every morning

My breakfast

Eggs benedict from the ala carte menu

After breakfast, we took a Premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥76) to Guangzhou Culture Centre 广州市文化馆, instead of the colleague's recommended Lingan Impression Park. My preferred attraction was located nearer to our hotel and entry was FREE for all visitors!

Took a photo with the beautifully decorated driveway while waiting for our DiDi

Guangzhou Culture Centre
(Address: No.288 Xinjiao Zhong Road, Haizhu District, Guangzhou, Guangdong)

Beautifully reconstructed historical buildings

Great backdrop for photos!

Manmade to resemble actual period architecture to preserve heritage

Exploring various art exhibitions on display

Exploring the pagoda

Incredible view of Guangzhou from the top of the pagoda

Bird's eye view of the park

Great spot for photos!

Exploring the culture of Guangzhou

Interactive screens and other heritage exhibits

We explored the rest of the park grounds after leaving the pagoda.

My kids became the main characters of my photos! So pretty right! 😍

Enjoying the beauty of the fountain

Man-made rock structure that looked very similar to the real thing

Having an ice cream break!

The Eldest is only just realising that her mother can take really good photos of her!! 😅

There's a photo opportunity in every corner!

Lots of historical C-drama vibes!

We had so much fun exploring the centre and definitely loved it more than Yu Yan in Shanghai, which was so small and crowded!

When it was time to leave, we took a premium 6-DiDi (CN¥100) to Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street 上下九步行街 for shopping.

In our luxury DiDi

Shangxiajiu Pedestrian Street

It was time for lunch and Lim Kee Bing Sutt 康记冰室 on the 2nd floor of a commercial building caught his eye!

There were many restaurants, including a McDonald's, in this building

Taking the escalator up to Lim Kee Bing Sutt, a restaurant serving Hong Kong style food

My favourite Hong Kong milk tea and their signature toast

Ice bear in an iced lemon tea that doesn't melt!

Super yummy pork rice, fried bee hoon and pork belly!

We loved the food and wouldn't mind going back again! 😋 With satisfied stomachs, we continued with shopping along the streets.

Many shops along the pedestrian street

Buying tanghulu 糖葫芦, the Eldest's favourite!

The streets were super crowded by the time we decided to leave and we found it so difficult to get a DiDi! We had to walk to a less crowded road and wait for almost 30 minutes before we finally got a 6-seater DiDi (CN¥178) back to our hotel! Thank God!

We got back in time for our usual evening canapes!

The spread of cooked food

My choice of canapes that day

The Mum and Littlest wanted to rest in the hotel after canapes so the Hubby, two older kids and I headed to Canton Tower at night since it was just 10 minutes away by DiDi. We were hoping to catch the daily night show but we missed it.

Canton Tower at night

Bought bread from Holiland after trying the free bread that they were giving away at the entrance!

Since it was my Boy's birthday, we also brought him to eat his favourite ramen!

Konjiki Hototogisu

The Boy and his ramen

Unfortunately, while the Boy typically ranks ramen at A- or B-tier (with Ichiran at the S-tier, as in S for "super"! 😅), he ranked this tonkotsu ramen at the C-tier! The soup was really terrible and tasted nothing like tonkotsu!!! Maybe the restaurant in Tokyo was Michelin but this outlet certainly was not!! The Boy was so sad 😔

As we shopped around in Canton Tower Plaza, we spotted The King's Clay Sculptor, which sold all kinds of clay figurines!

The Boy wanted these clay figurines for his birthday!

They were part of a large collection of Plant vs. Zombies figurines!
There were so many to choose from!

We returned to our hotel to celebrate the Boy's birthday with a complimentary cake provided by Shangri-La Hotel!

Complimentary cake and rose

I brought my own candles and balloons! 😁

I can't believe that my only son is 12 years old! How fast time flies!

HAPPY 12th BIRTHDAY MY DARLING BOY!

Continue to >> Guangzhou-Hong Kong Day 4: Canton Tower
<< Back to Guangzhou-Hong Kong Day 2: Guangdong Museum & Canton Tower Plaza

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on

Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Guangzhou-HK Day 2: Guangdong Museum & Canton Tower Plaza

2025-12-26T23:30:00.588+08:00

We woke up and headed to the Horizon Club for our breakfast.

View of the river in the morning

There wasn't a table big enough for our family so we had to split up;
the Littlest and I took the table by the window.

Bread and hot food

Fruits

Interesting honey dispenser and juicer for fresh orange juice every morning!

My choice of breakfast, which included beef noodles and omelette from the ala carte menu

Wanton noodles from the ala carte menu

I had yogurt everyday because it was so good! (left);
Pancakes from the ala carte menu (right).

We definitely over-ordered but we couldn't resist trying everything on the menu as they all looked so good! 😅

After breakfast, we hailed a 6-seater DiDi (CN¥66) to Guangdong Museum 广东省博物馆, which was just 15 minutes away.

Waiting for our DiDi at the lobby

Entry to the museum was FREE for all visitors but you'd need to scan a QR code with your WeChat App to book a slot before entering (closed on Monday)!

We have arrived at Guangdong Museum

The building was designed to look like an ancient, metallic treasure chest or jewellery box

Huge central entry area

3D map of Guangdong

Exploring the exhibits

Learning about Guangdong's nature environments

Crystal and other precious stones found in Guangdong

Beautiful stone sculpture that caught my eye

We found out that the Jade Chicken was a highlight of the Guangdong Museum;
The jade carving was incredibly realistic!

Marine animal hall

Felt like the natural history museums we've visited
(the most recent being Manila)

Dinosaur bones

Traditional Chinese interior

Interactive screens

More exhibits

We spent about 1.5 hours exploring the museum! It was really educational for the kids! When we left we saw the Canton Tower 广州塔 in the distance and took pictures with it.

View of the Canton Tower from Guangdong Museum

Since it was nearby, we hailed a 6-seater DiDi (CN¥48) to the tower, and decided to spend time shopping at Canton Tower Plaza before buying tickets for the tower.

Canton Tower Plaza

Sanrio Gift Gate and Pop Mart

We initially planned to have lunch at Shang Dian Dim Sum restaurant but it was no longer in operation! The Hubby decided on Chua Lam's Dim Sum 蔡澜点心 instead.

Menu of authentic Cantonese cuisine

Restaurant was quiet because it was past the lunch hours

Roast pigeon was one of their signature dishes

Beef and prawn claypot

Barbeque pork buns were also the highlight and my favourite food! (left);
Mango pudding for the Eldest (right).

After a satisfying lunch, we continued our shopping!

Bought a cute luggage at OCE

Shopped at our favourite shop, TopToy!

The Eldest got the biggest keychain from a blind box 😅

Bought winter clothes for the kids from Xiong Mao as they were having a big sale!

Free gifts with minimum spend

We had spent so much time shopping that by the time we wanted to buy tickets for the bubble tram, they were sold out until 8pm! We decided to return another day instead and took a 6-seater Didi (CN¥58) to our hotel for evening canapes.

Got a sofa table by the window

My plate of colourful snacks

After our canapes, we brought the kids to the indoor pool for a swim.

Entrance to the pool

Small bathrobes for little kids (left);
Lounging by the pool (right).

The pool was a good size!

Jacuzzi was super cold! Not warm at all!

After our swim, the Boy was feeling hungry so the Hubby, Boy and I walked to the nearest McDonald's to buy food just before it closed at 10pm! Super lucky! 😅

Photo with the Shangri-La Guangzhou signboard

Crossing the bridge to Element 6 Mall

McDonald's at Element 6

The walk was about 2.5km so I managed to clock 20k steps for the day and hit all my fitness goals! 😄

Continue to >> Guangzhou-Hong Kong Day 3: Guangzhou Cultural Centre & Shangxiajiu Street
<< Back to Guangzhou-Hong Kong Day 1: Shangri-La Guangzhou Horizon Club & Tianhe City

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on

Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Guangzhou-HK Day 1: Shangri-La Guangzhou Horizon Club & Tianhe City

2025-12-25T23:30:00.823+08:00

Incredibly, this was my 10th vacation for the year! I've done 5 flights (BJ-SH, HCMC, Cebu, Manila, Busan-Seoul), 2 ferries journeys (Batam, Bintan) and 2 short road trips (Malacca, JB) this year! 🤭

We booked our Singapore Airlines tickets in June 2025 because the Hubby spontaneously suggested a trip in December to countdown to the new year. As it was the super peak period, we decided on Guangzhou and Hong Kong because the multi-city tickets were the cheapest at S$586 per adult and S$447 per child (inclusive of seat selection). Incidentally, this would be the last child fare for the Boy! 😆

The whole family woke up excitedly at 5am on Christmas morning to board our usual maxi cab to Changi Airport Terminal 3.

We love travelling via our usual driver's maxi cab as it's super spacious!

Disney-themed decorations to promote Disney Adventure cruise!

Disney Christmas trees

Playing at a playground during transit

Coincidentally, my colleague was also at T3 at around the same time! Her flight to Shanghai was about 1 hour earlier than ours so we met up at the transit area! 😄

We headed to our gate when it was time to board our plane and departed Singapore at 8.05am as scheduled. Although we had complimentary seat selection (as we were travelling with a child), we could only get separate individual seats in the system! This meant that my kids had to sit alone, which made no sense so I wrote in to Singapore Airlines to highlight the issue. After some negotiation, I managed to get seats with my two younger kids while the Eldest, Hubby and Mum sat individually.

Alone with my 2 younger kids

Kids meal for the Littlest

The Boy was old enough and didn't need me much 😀

It was a pretty smooth flight and after flying for about 4 hours, we arrived at Baiyun International Airport Terminal 2 at 12pm (no time difference between Singapore & China).

Welcome to Guangzhou!

There was a long queue at customs so by the time we were done, we had worked up an appetite. We spotted a McDonald's in the corner and decided to have lunch. We do love eating at McDonald's all around the world (London, Melbourne, Sydney, Melaka, Bali, Dubai, Cebu, just to name a few).

McDonald's at Baiyun Airport

Using the self-ordering kiosk to buy our beef burgers

Interesting flavours that were different from Singapore!

After lunch, we hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥320) to our hotel.

Walked to the Car Hailing Pick-up Point to board our DiDi

Thankfully the car was so huge that it was able to contain most of our luggage in the boot!

Spacious seats

We would be staying at Shangri-La Hotel Guangzhou (our 5th Shangri-la stay this year! 🤭).

Shangri-La Hotel building can be seen from the bridge

A super huge Christmas tree made up of bears greeted us on arrival!

We checked in at the Horizon Lounge as we had booked 2 Horizon Deluxe Rooms via the Shangri-la app at $299 per room per night (inclusive of breakfast, evening canapés, all-day lounge access and other Horizon Club benefits).

Horizon Club floor

Our room with a king bed

Large bathroom with bathtub;
You can watch TV while soaking in the bathtub!

Huge bathtub

Dressing table and coffee machine

View from our room window

If you look closely, there's a gokart track on the roof of the building next door (left);
Complimentary fruits (right).

Complimentary candy

Shangri-La kindly added a complimentary single bed for the Boy, who was more than excited that he did not have to share a bed!

The hotel had the usual Shangri-La amenities such as a spa, gym, both indoor and outdoor pools and even tennis courts!

Good size gym

Indoor pool

Outdoor pools were closed during winter

It was time for our evening canapes at Horizon Lounge at 5pm.

We got a table with a great view

View of the Pearl River 珠江 from our table

Cheeses, fruits and hot food

Nicely decorated pastries

Bread and alcohol

Although the food was good, it was definitely not as good as China World Hotel in Beijing

You can actually see the Canton Tower 广州塔 from the Horizon Club Lounge!

We left our hotel at 6.30pm via premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥69) to Tee Mall at Tianhe City (next to Sheraton Hotel Guangzhou).

Shangri-la Hotel was fully lighted up with changing lights at night! (left)
The nearest station is Pudong Railway Station (right)

Photos at the lobby while waiting for our DiDi

As it was the peak hour, our ride to the mall took us longer than expected due to the congestion. Our destination was a popular shopping district and super crowded when we were there! Likely because it was Christmas Day! 😅

Tee Mall

Interesting shops with cute merchandise

Activity sticker packs were so cheap that I bought many of them for the Littlest!

Aeon supermarket

We were hungry after all the shopping but we could not find a restaurant that wasn't crowded! There were long queues everywhere so we decided to leave the mall and search the streets for a quieter restaurant. We approached a quiet street and spotted Nemeida Pizza.

Nemeida Pizza

Food was pretty good; my Boy loved the pizza! 😋

With our stomachs filled, we hailed a premium 6-seater DiDi (CN¥78.50) back to our hotel to rest for the night! Looking forward to exploring more of Guangzhou! 😄

MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!

~~~~~~~~

P.S: We're proud Shangri-la Circle members; read about our Shangri-La experiences around the world:

2014: Shangri-La at the Shard, London (UK)
2014: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2016: Shangri-La Singapore
2016: Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu (Philippines)
2017: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2017: Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour (Hello Kitty Room) (Malaysia)
2018: Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
2020: Shangri-La Singapore
2021: Shangri-La Singapore (Hubby's birthday)
2022: Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa (Singapore)
2024: Shangri-La Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
2024: Shangri-La Tanjung Aru Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia)
2025: China World Hotel, Beijing (China)
2025: Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai (China)
2025: Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu (Philippines)
2025: Makati Shangri-La, Manila (Philippines)

Continue to >> Guangzhou-Hong Kong Day 2: Guangdong Museum & Canton Tower Plaza

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Guangzhou & Hong Kong, China as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Bintan Day 2-3: Lagoi Bay, SpaLab & My Reflections

2025-12-14T23:30:00.675+08:00

DAY 2

I didn't sleep well the night before as the pillows were really flat! I woke up at around 6am and decided to spend some quiet time alone, praying at the balcony.

Beautiful view of the pool and hotel from our room

It started to rain!

When the rest of the family were awake, we headed to Rempah Kitchen at 8am for breakfast.

Christmas decorations

Different food counters

Love the variety of sambal, sauces and crackers!

Donuts and pancakes

Cotton candy for the kids!

The skies finally cleared after our breakfast so we headed to the pool for our first swim!

Super excited to check out the pool!

Lagoon-style pool with the usual pool-side bar

View of our room from the pool

Mum decided to chill on the pool chair

Enjoying quality time in the water

Cool water feature

Huge shallow pool for little kids

Water fountains!

The beach was right in front of the hotel

After washing up, we walked for about 5 minutes to Plaza Lagoi, the only place for shopping in the area.

At the entrance of our hotel

Walking to Plaza Lagoi

It's resort-style shopping, similar to Bali Collection in Nusa Dua

You can buy souvenirs and other necessities at Mustafa Centre

Found a nice shop selling handmade Indonesian jewellery!
Bought these earrings for the BFFs and myself because I love the colours!

Mum bought kueh lapis from Mama B

Took a break and had ice cream at Gelatologi!

Flavours to choose from

As the Littlest didn't eat much during breakfast (she's extremely picky), I bought ramen for her from Ramen Sanpachi 38. It tasted average but was one of the cheapest ramen I've bought and thankfully the Littlest finished it! 😃

We walked back to the hotel via the beach.

Welcome to Lagoi Bay!

Mandatory group selfie!

Popped by Yeah Mart for some essentials

Exploring the beach

After we returned to our hotel, the Mum and Littlest stayed in the room while the Sister, Eldest and I headed to our hotel lobby. We were waiting for our complimentary transport to SpaLab for our pre-booked massages.

We received complimentary fish food from the hotel staff and fed the koi in the pond while waiting!

Our transport has arrived!

SpaLab was actually located at Plaza Lagoi, where we were earlier! 😅

SpaLab

Enjoying our welcome drinks

We did our massages in a room together 😊

Our massages were good but definitely not worth the Rp650k (approximately S$52) price tag! The massages that we had in Batam were almost 3 times cheaper and just as good!

Lounge for guests to relax and try their kueh lapis after our massages

The spa provided complimentary transport back to our hotel and we joined the Mum and Littlest in the room. We spent quality time just chatting until it was time for dinner.

We decided to have our dinner at Rempah Kitchen again because we loved it so much the day before!

We sat at the outdoor section of the restaurant this time

The 5 of us have the same face because we all got it from my Mum! 😁

Seafood soup and kang kong in spicy sauce

Fried rice

Fish soup (I think!)

Had to order my favourite beef soup again!

After a good dinner, we ended the night taking photos of the lighted up hotel.

The El Lagoi sign at night

The last night of our very short trip

Goodnight! 🌃

DAY 3

The moment we woke up that morning, we called the Front Desk to request for late check out. They were able to allow us to check out at 4.30pm for one room! That meant that we could spend more time at the pool! 🥳

With our check out secured, we had breakfast at Rempah Kitchen.

My breakfast - gotta love me a good teh tarik!

We headed to the pool immediately after breakfast but just as we were about to get in, it started raining heavily! When the rain did not let up, we returned to our rooms and spent the time moving our belongings to the Mum & Sister's room instead.

It was almost noon when the rain finally stopped! The Littlest was super excited to jump into the pool!

The Mum joined us this time!

Since we wanted to continue swimming, we popped by El Lagoi for lunch as the restaurant allowed us to dine in our swimming attire.

El Lagoi in the day

We got an indoor table instead of our preferred one outdoors next to the pool as the latter was too wet

Drinks, spinach and mushroom soups and chicken wings
(Nothing memorable)

Tomato pasta and fries for the Littlest
(Pasta was quite bland)

Roasted chicken was ok

Crème brûlée and complimentary fruits on the house

The meal was nothing special for the price. The convenience and ease of accessing the pool was the restaurant's only plus point for me! 😅

Littlest couldn't wait to jump into the pool once she had finished her food!

Loving the pool

While we were dining, the Sister and Eldest went to get something from the room and happened to bump into housekeeping staff, who returned them our valuables that I had left in the safe when we checked out of my room! 😬 So grateful to the staff for keeping them safe! Of course, I wrote a stellar commendation to the hotel to thank them! 😁

We were really sad when it came time for us to leave! After we washed up and checked out of our room, we boarded the complimentary shuttle service at 4.30pm to the ferry terminal.

Comfortable shuttle bus

We arrived at the Bandar Bentan Telani Ferry Terminal at 4.45pm and joined the queue to clear customs after I collected our boarding tickets from the Bintan Resort Ferries counter.

We started the queue at Gate 1 since we had the Littlest with us

Our ferry departed punctually at 5.45pm

The journey was 1 hour 10 minutes and we arrived at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and cleared customs by 8pm. All in all, a very good trip! 😀

My Reflections

I've heard from friends about how boring Bintan is and have to say that I've personally experienced it as a first time visitor! If not for our amazing hotel, where we spent most of our time relaxing and enjoying each other's company, there was nothing much to do! Everything was also more expensive than Batam, though the service was better (you get what you pay for I guess)! It was a great getaway while we were there but I don't think we would make it a regular visit like we do for Batam! 😅

Can't wait for our next Heng Girls' trip!

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Past Heng Girls Vacations:

2015: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2016: Cebu, Philippines
2017: Batam, Indonesia
2018: Langkawi, Malaysia
2019: Festive Hotel Staycation
2020: Crowne Plaza Staycation
2021: Park Royal Collection Marina Bay Staycation
2024: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

<< Back to Bintan Day 1: Four Points by Sheraton, Lagoi Bay

~~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Bintan, Indonesia

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Bintan Day 1: Four Points by Sheraton, Lagoi Bay

2025-12-12T23:30:00.646+08:00

We try to plan a Heng Girls' Trip annually and were super happy that we organised one at the last minute this year! 🥳 We booked our ferry tickets via Bintan Resort Ferries, the only ferry service to Lagoi Bay. Our two-way tickets cost S$98 per adult and $86 per child (12 years old and under), which was more expensive than our ferry tickets to Batam!

We agreed to meet at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal at 3pm, however, the girls and I arrived at 3.20pm due to the heavy rain.

It was our first time at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal!

Ferry counters

After we had checked in and collected our boarding tickets, we had tea and coffee at Woon's Kopi while we completed our Indonesia Arrival Card online. It was quite a long form so it's best to do it before your arrival in Indonesia! We had plenty of time to submit ours before we cleared customs.

At the waiting area after clearing customs

Excited to start our Girls' Trip!

Our ferry ended being delayed and instead of departing at 5pm as scheduled, we departed at 5.25pm.

Boarding our ferry

Our Bintan Resorts Ferry

Comfortable seats and a table for using my tablet

The journey to Bintan was only 1 hour and we arrived at Bandar Bentan Telani Ferry Terminal at 5.30pm Bintan time (Bintan is 1 hour behind Singapore).

Welcome to Bintan!

Clearing customs was easy as there were few ferries. Once we were done with security checks, we met up with a staff from Four Points by Sheraton Bintan, Lagoi Bay, who ushered us to special waiting area for hotel guests. Once all the guests were present, we were guided to the FREE shuttle service that would take us from the ferry terminal to the hotel (you'd need to inform the hotel prior to your visit).

Waiting area for guests of Four Points By Sheraton

On the shuttle bus!

Arrival at the hotel, just 10 minutes away from the ferry terminal

It was 6.30pm by the time we arrived at the hotel. We were more than excited to check in and hunt for dinner! 😵

Our hotel at night

Walking along the corridors to our room at the end of the building

We had booked two Deluxe Pool Twin Rooms at S$262 per room per night, inclusive of breakfast (details in next post).

The twin beds were larger than super single!
My two girls could squeeze in one while I had my own bed! 🥳

Kitchenette, luggage rack and dining areas

Wardrobe with bathrobes, safe and slippers

Bathroom with no bathtub

Toiletries and other amenities

Love the huge balcony, which faces the pool and sea!

I had informed the hotel in advance that it was my mum's birthday and they kindly prepared something special for her in her room! She was so surprised when we sang "happy birthday" as she entered her room! 😁

A complimentary cake and beautiful decorations on her bed!

She was super happy!

They even designed the mirror! So cool!

Other than the huge pool (details in the next post), there was also a spa, Fitness Center and Kids Club on premise.

24 hours Fitness Center

After we celebrated the Mum's birthday, we hurried to El Lagoi for dinner as we were starving!

El Lagoi

However, we discovered that the restaurant only served BBQ buffet every Friday and Saturday night. Since the buffet was not worth it for a group of girls with small appetites, we headed to Rempah Kitchen where they served ala carte menu items instead.

Rempah Kitchen

We enjoyed the live singing! 🎵

Couldn't wait for our food as we were famished! 😖

Clockwise from left: Mango smoothie;
Broccoli and mushroom;
Pasta the Smurf (spaghetti with tomato sauce) from the Kids Menu.

Clockwise from left: Rice is served with every dish!;
Soto Betawi, an authentic beef soup with tribe and lung;
Some rice and sausage dish that my mum ordered.

Sate Padang, which is spicy beef satay served with yellow Indonesian curry, rice flour ball, rice cake and fried shallots

Can't remember what this soup was called but it had fish

Clockwise from left: Pisang Goreng served with honey, chocolate sauce and ice cream;
Complimentary cakes and fruits from the buffet as the staff was very apologetic about making us wait so long for our food!

My favourite dish was the beef soup! It was so incredible and the best I've had so far! It was a super good meal and we paid Rp1,157k (about S$90) after 10% discount for hotel guests! 😊

We headed back to our room after dinner as I was still recovering from a migraine while the Sister started feeling "flu-ish". We decided to sleep early so that we would have enough rest for the next day! 😊

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P.S: Read about our experiences with Marriott Bonvoy around the world:

2018: Sheraton Tokyo Bay Hotel (Japan)
2020: JW Marriott (Singapore)
2022: Westin Desaru Coast Resort (Malaysia)
2022: Westin Resort Nusa Dua (Bali, Indonesia)
2024: W Dubai, The Palm (United Arab Emirates)
2024: Sheraton Kuching Hotel (Sarawak, Malaysia)

Past Heng Girls Vacations:

2015: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
2016: Cebu, Philippines
2017: Batam, Indonesia
2018: Langkawi, Malaysia
2019: Festive Hotel Staycation
2020: Crowne Plaza Staycation
2021: Park Royal Collection Marina Bay Staycation
2024: Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia

Continue to >> Bintan Day 2-3: Lagoi Bay, SpaLab & My Reflections

~~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Bintan, Indonesia

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Busan-Seoul Day 11-12: Seongsu, Dongdaemun & Flight Home

2025-11-29T23:30:00.834+08:00

DAY 11

It was our last breakfast at Cafe Stanford as we wouldn't have time to eat it the next day.

Final breakfast at Cafe Stanford for this trip

After breakfast, the Hubby suggested that we visit Seongsu, also known as the 'Brooklyn of Seoul'. We took Line 2 (green) to Seongsu Station.

Seongsu street

While we were exploring the neighbourhood, we randomly discovered Cafe Be Art and decided to check it out.

Climbing the stairs to Cafe Be Art

Cozy dining environment

We needed two tables for our big family

Food at the counter

The Eldest and I were the ones who love cafe food!
The drinks were good!

Super yummy waffles and cake

Balcony area

We really love the food but it was not substantial enough for the rest of the family. The Hubby spotted Mealbon Korean Restaurant for lunch.

Mealbon Korean Restaurant

They were known for their noodle soup sets;
Soup was full of flavour though slightly spicy due to the pepper.

Pork rice set

The Eldest and I ended up being too full to walk! 🤣 Before we left, we popped by Artbox Seongsu as it was so interestingly decorated!

Google Translate the Korean words:
"Caution. When an alien invasion occurs, cute people are taken first!" 😂

We decided to visit Dongdaemun next, as the last time we had visited was 12 years ago! We took Line 2 (green) to Dongdaemun History & Culture Park Station (Exit 1).

Discovered an interesting 'heart' installation at the stairs

Beautiful architecture

Dongdaemun was also full of shops but much less crowded than Myeongdong. Some malls we passed by/visited include Dongdaemun Design Plaza, HelloAPM and Doota Mall. Perhaps it was an ordinary Friday afternoon, hence it was super quiet.

Clothes here looked nice but was pricey compared to Myeongdong

Doota Mall

Doota Knight Garden

With nothing much to buy except for some clothes the Hubby managed to get from Northface at Doota Mall, we headed to Cheonggyecheon Stream to take some photos.

Dongdaemun's famous urban canal

Locals love to take walks along the scenic canal

Having fun on the stepping stones
(While being constantly warned by this mama not to fall into the water or else!)

An oasis in the middle of the city

Enjoying the sound of water flowing

The kids had fun crossing the stream again and again!

We spotted the actual Dongdaemun (Great East Gate), officially known as Heunginjimun, and walked over to take photos! It looked very similar to Sungnyemun aka Namdaemun (Great South Gate) that we had visited two years ago!

Heunginjimun

Heunginjimun Park

Starting point for the hike up to Seoul City Wall

Part of Seoul City Wall

You can even see N Seoul Tower from the top!
(We were there 5 days ago)

Peaking through the wall

It was a fun and easy climb and worth it for the view of the city!

Love the beautiful trees in the park!
We also found a good spot to take pictures with Heunginjimun! 😁

We walked to Dongdaemun Station (located very close by) and took Line 4 (light blue) back to Myeongdong for dinner. Since it was our last dinner in Seoul before we flew back, we decided to splurge on Korean BBQ at Woo Bros restaurant (we really enjoyed the food here during our previous trip)!

Gotta have all of our favourite Korean dishes!

The beef was expensive but so very good! 👍

Pork belly was good too!

Last dinner of this trip! How fast time flies!

After a very satisfying dinner, the kids wanted desserts at SulBing Cafe again. We indulged them since it was our last chance to eat them before we returned to Singapore!

Chocolate waffles and bingsu!

We had to sleep early so that we could get up at 4am the next morning. Can't believe that our trip was coming to an end! 😭

DAY 12

We had to give our usual hotel buffet breakfast a miss as we had to leave the hotel at 5am. I guess it was just as well since we had already eaten it for 6 days in a row! 😅

We had booked a Jumbo taxi via our hotel the day before and met our driver at the lobby at our agreed time. The journey to Incheon International Airport was about 45 minutes and we arrived at Terminal 1 at 5.45am.

After checking in our luggage and clearing customs, I collected our tax refunds and my purchase from the Duty Free stores.

Don't forget to get your receipts verified before clearing customs so that you can get your tax refunds easily at the Tax Refund counters

Collecting my purchase from the Duty Free counters

The Littlest finally had some time to play at Pororo playground, which she didn't have time to do so in the last trip.

Pororo Playground

Super excited to play!

Our Singapore Airlines plane departed on time at 8.50am.

Boarding our plane

Goodbye Seoul!

Kid's meal

Rice and beef for the adults

Our flight was 6 hours 35 minutes and we arrived in Singapore at 2.25pm.

The familiar control tower at Changi Airport 😁

It's good to be home! 🥰

My Reflections

As a first time visitor to Busan, we enjoyed the food and affordable prices as compared to Seoul. There's also a variety of different sightseeing attractions; whatever Seoul has, it seems that Busan also has, maybe a bit smaller. A Busan taxi driver shared that Busan has the best weather in all of South Korea and he's not wrong 😃

Pins and other souvenirs to add to my collection! 😁

We may not return to Seoul (we've already visited 3 times!) but we'll definitely visit Busan again! Until then... annyeong!

~~~~~~~~

P.S: Attractions we have previous visited in Seoul:

<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 10: Starfield COEX Mall & Lotte Mart Jamsil

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Busan and Seoul, South Korea as well as other travel itineraries!

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Busan-Seoul Day 10: Starfield COEX & Lotte Mart Jamsil

2025-11-27T23:30:00.483+08:00

After having breakfast at Cafe Stanford, we set out to take Line 2 (green) to Samsung Station to visit Starfield COEX Mall. The last time we were here, we had a good shopping haul during the Black Friday sales so the Hubby wanted to visit again.

It's a colder day today at Starfield COEX Mall

Taking photos with the beautiful Christmas decorations!

Starfield Library

More photos!

However, we didn't find any deals this time except for a heavily discounted thick pants for the Eldest (it was better than those she had seen in Myeongdong)!

The Littlest found many Kpop Demon Hunters to take photos with!

Disappointed with shopping, we looked for a restaurant for lunch. We decided to split up because the Hubby, Eldest and I wanted to eat spicy Korean food while the Mum-in-law, Boy and Littlest wanted Japanese ramen.

Queueing at Menshoku

Ordering ramen from the screens

The Boy said the ramen was very good! 😃

According to Google Translate, the Korean words on the signboard say "Seoul Kkakdugi", a type of radish dish

The food we ordered!

We decided to leave after lunch as there was nothing much that we wanted to buy. We remembered how much we enjoyed shopping at Lotte Mart in Busan and decided to visit Lotte Mart Zettaplex for our final supermarket shopping spree! We took Line 2 (green) to Jamsil Station, where we passed through just 2 days prior!

Lotte Mart Zettaplex at Lotte World

Christmas/winter decorations at Lotte Mart

My colleague highly recommended these Korean potato chips (left), so I bought many boxes home as gifts;
Of course we had the Littlest's favourite fruit (right)!
They were super fresh and inexpensive here! 🍓

She kept snatching the brother's Avocado toy so we had to get one for her

I grabbed as many snacks as I could feasibly carry back to the hotel!! Filled a whole cart! *laughs* 🤭

With our foldable shopping bags full, we headed back to our hotel to drop off our shopping.

View from the train on our way back

We rested in the hotel before heading out for dinner. The Eldest and I wanted to dine at the famous Myeongdong Kyoja but the rest of the family did not so we decided to split up again.

Myeongdong Kyoja

The spicy noodles were really good! Better than I expected!

The Eldest and I really enjoyed our kyoja! Will I queue for it? No.
But if I don't have to queue then I don't mind eating it again!

The Hubby brought the rest of the family to the chicken BBQ restaurant that we had eaten for dinner 4 days ago when the Mum-in-law was feeling unwell and did not join us.

Yummy BBQ and cheesy bread

After our dinner, the Eldest and I continued with shopping in the streets of Myeongdong. Suddenly, strong cold winds blew through the streets onto the bodies of all of us unsuspecting shoppers and we shivered! I wasn't wearing my puffer jacket as I wasn't expecting a sudden dip in temperature to 4°C! I felt cold for the first time this trip (I don't feel cold easily)! 🥶😅

We tried to take shelter in the warmth of the shops and that really helped us to keep warm. Once we were done with shopping, we headed back to the hotel.

Along the way, we spotted a food cart selling egg bread and the Eldest wanted one

Happy to be back in the comfort of our hotel!

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 11-12: Seongsu, Dongdaemun & Flight Home
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 9: National Museum of Korea, Noryangjin Market & Namdaemun

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Busan-Seoul Day 9: National Museum of Korea, Noryangjin Market & Namdaemun

2025-11-26T23:30:00.639+08:00

Started our day at 8am with our usual laundry run and breakfast at Cafe Stanford.

Was a bit tired of the food and decided to get creative with my own DIY mini croissant 😉

When we were ready to set out, we took Line 2 (green) to City Hall Station, transferred to Line 1 (dark blue) to Yongsan Station.

Yongsan Station

At Yongsan Station, we transferred to Gyeongui-Joungang Line (turquoise) to Ichon Station. We walked from Exit 2 to our destination, the National Museum of Korea! Entry was FREE for all visitors! 😀

It can be quite a long walk from the station so the Moving Walkway was very helpful! 😊

Found a bench at the surrounding park for the older kids to have their breakfast

The National Museum was surrounded by a beautiful park!

National Museum of Korea

Beautiful weather for a day out!

Spot the N Seoul Tower in the background!
(We were just there 3 days ago)

We locked our belongings in the complimentary lockers, which were large enough for luggage!

I had contemplated between the War Memorial of Korea and National Museum of Korea and eventually decided on the latter because it has a Children's Museum! Entry is FREE but registration online is required.

The Korean words mean "Children's Museum" (according to Google)

Super cute areas for kids to play

The theme for the Children's Museum was Heritage Quest, where kids learn about Korean history through play

Big area for kids to run around and interact with various screens and things

These fun puzzles and "toys" are replicas of actual artefacts found in the galleries! Super cool!

Interactive screen for learning about artefacts in the museum

More puzzles to stimulate the mind

Such a captivating place for kids!

Playing games

I love that the kids were not just playing, they were also learning about Korean history at the same time! They had a great time! I'd rank it among the top children's museums we have visited, which includes Melbourne Museum and National Gallery Singapore.

While the Mum-in-law watched the kids at the Children's Museum, the Hubby, Eldest and I explored the main galleries at the opposite end of the building. It was a relatively large building with lots to see!

The main building

Very artistic and architectural!

This is the Gyeongcheonsa Pagoda, which has been designated a National Treasure of Korea.
The kids stack up blocks to form a kids version of this pagoda in the Children's Museum! Super cool!

There's something exquisite about ewers/jugs that I'm really drawn to!

Duck-shaped ewers, among other interesting exhibits at the museum

Exhibition on ancient Greece

Exhibition on Japan, one of their closest neighbours

After hitting 10k steps, we felt it was time to go meet up with the rest of the family. We stopped by the museum's store in search of souvenirs and found a very cute clutch whose design was inspired by actual artefacts known as melon-shaped ewers (aka jugs) that are very distinctive of the Korean Goryeo dynasty.

I had to bring this cute souvenir home and add to my collection of purses! 🤭

After we had reconvened with the rest of the family, we left the museum. We had a great time and highly recommend it!

Beautiful weather for exploring the museum

We took the Gyeongui-Joungang Line (turquoise) from Ichon to Yongsan stations and transferred to Line 1 (blue) to Noryangjin Station.

Crossing the sea

Noryangjin Station Exit 9

Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market

This was our 3rd visit to Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market (1st visit in 2014 and 2nd in 2023) as our family loves seafood! We promised to bring the Mum-in-law to try their live abalone! The selection of seafood was not as vast nor as affordable as Jagalchi Market in Busan so we didn't order as much.

We ordered fresh prawns for the Littlest because they are her favourite!

We bought 2 regular crabs for ₩35,000

We also ordered salmon and yellowfin tuna sashimi for ₩70,000

We only spent ₩88,000 for seafood this time (excluding cooking fees). Much more controlled than in Jagalchi Market *laughs*.

We ate at the restaurant next to the one we had dined at 2 years ago

This restaurant had private rooms for large groups!

Super fresh sashimi (left) and seafood hotpot (right)

Live abalone (left) and grilled prawns (right)

The Boy ate most of the crabs because he didn't get to eat much of the king crab in Jagalchi Market because he wasn't feeling well (left);

After a very satisfying late lunch / early dinner, we took Line 1 (dark blue) to Seoul Station and transferred to Line 4 (light blue) train to Hoehyeon Station. We were here to shop at Namdaemun! We enjoyed shopping here during our last time visit.

Newly built shelter for the Namdaemun Market!

Eating tteokbokki (left) and buying beautiful hanbok for the kids' cousins (right)

When it started to get late, we decided to walk back to our hotel since it was located nearby (about 10-15 minutes walk). Since we'd pass by Myeongdong, we shopped at the shops along the way.

We discovered NYUNYU House, which sold all kinds of cute stuff! Such a gem!

Love the walls of super cute keychains! Had to buy a dozen! Couldn't resist!

Accessories store with reasonable prices (left);
Northface flagship store (right).
[Tip: don't bother joining the queue; just take the stairs down to the basement store (which has no queue), shop there for a while then take the lift up]

Yummy street food!

We munched on food that we bought from the street carts as we were still full from our late seafood lunch. Instead, we saved our stomachs for Korea's famous bingsu! 😋 SulBing Cafe was located just behind our hotel and was very popular so we decided to give it a try!

Excited for our desserts at SulBing Cafe!

We ordered waffles for the Littlest (left);
Churros and mango bingsu (right).

The place was packed with people hence it was a rather long wait for our food but it was worth the wait! So yummy! 🤩

It was a super sweet end to another great day in Seoul! 🩷

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 10: Starfield COEX & Lotte Mart Jamsil
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 8: Lotte World Adventure After 4

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Busan and Seoul, South Korea as well as other travel itineraries!

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Busan-Seoul Day 8: Lotte World Adventure After 4

2025-11-25T23:30:00.889+08:00

We didn't intend to wake up at 7am but we did and decided to have an early breakfast at Cafe Stanford.

Our usual breakfast choices every morning

We planned to do simple shopping in the Myeongdong neighbourhood in the morning as the Mum-in-law was still not feeling well and we had to take a call from the son's teacher about his PSLE score. Fate would have it that we wouldn't be able to collect his results in person because we were in Seoul! 😅 Incidentally, we were also overseas during the release of my Eldest's PSLE score but could check it online because of COVID. Come to think of it, I did not even collect my own PSLE results in person because I was at a church camp! *laughs* Play was evidently more important than the collection of results for me! 🤭

We headed to the nearest Shinsegae to shop at Louis Vuitton and Duty Free.

Huge 3D screen at Shinsegae!

In the LV store for men as the Hubby wanted to get new shoes

We were still at the LV store at around 11.30am when we received the call from the Boy's teacher! It was super nice of him to inform us of the Boy's results over the phone so that we could submit his secondary school choices online 🙂

Since we were busy in the morning, it made sense for us to visit Lotte World Adventure after 4pm (instead of full day) since the tickets were cheaper. We took the Line 2 (green) train to Jamsil Station.

Entrance to Lotte Department Store

We headed straight to the Level 3 Korean restaurant that we had enjoyed during our last visit! We especially love the beef seaweed soup! 😋

Back to the same restaurant that we loved!

Super hungry!

We used to love their abalone porridge because it was much better than what we have in Singapore, but we all agreed that they were much better in Busan!!
The Mum-in-law still enjoyed it as it was comfort food when not feeling one's best.

The seaweed soup was as impressive as we remembered! 😋

Flat fish was so good we ordered another one!

The whole meal cost us ₩93,500, which was more expensive than Busan but still cheaper than Singapore!

After a good lunch, we took the lift down to B1 to buy Lotte World Adventure After 4 Park and Museum tickets, which cost us ₩41,600 per adult, ₩36,000 per youth (13-18 years old), ₩39,600 per child (3-12 years old) due to a MasterCard promotion. I had forgotten that seniors who were above 65 years old had special rate else we could have saved on the Mum-in-law's ticket! 😓

We joined the large group of people like us who were waiting to enter the park at 4pm at the main entrance.

Standard ticket prices

Huge ice rink at B2

As we did not get to explore Underland at B1 during our last visit, we headed there for our first ride of the day, Fairy Trail Dream Boats.

Secret passage to Underland from Level 1

Kiddy boat ride for kids and one accompanying adult only

The Boy was not yet 12 years old so he managed to ride with the Mum-in-law!
He could barely fit inside though 😅

Next was Wild Jungle VR, which was really a harmless simulation ride but the Boy refused to ride it as he thought it would be scary.

Wild Jungle VR Ride

The other rides at the Underland had long wait times so we headed to Magic Island.

Carousel and monorail at Level 1

With the castle at Magic Island

We wanted to ride the 5G Atlantis ride but sadly it was closed! We rode the Petit Pang Pang instead.

Cheap thrill ride! 😆

Many of the rides on Magic Island were closed for refurbishment so we returned indoors to ride the World Monorail located at Level 3.

View of Level 1 from the monorail

Inside the monorail...

...which can accommodate all 6 of us!

The Eldest and I wanted to introduce the family to Pharaoh's Fury at Level 4, which was not as thrilling as expected when we tried it, but the wait time was an astonishing 130 minutes! We had to ride Across Dark instead but it was a really boring ride in contrast!

3D show with outdated effects

It was so boring that we decided to ride Adventures of Sindbad as we remembered it to be more exciting! Before we did that, however, we took a short break to take photos and eat ice cream!

Littlest willingly posed for these photos 😛

Littlest loves Teenieping! She was super happy when she saw it!

Teenieping house

Different flavours of ice cream to choose from

Yum! 😋

The Boy didn't like the drops in Adventures of Sindbad so he waited for us somewhere nearby. Honestly, we didn't really understand the story as it was in Korean and only rode it for the thrilling drops! 😅

Adventures of Sinbad

It took me a while but I managed to convince the Boy to ride Fly Venture with the rest of us. It was very similar to the Soaring ride in EPCOT.

Managed to convince the apprehensive Boy to take the ride

We're flying! 😃

We really love the many special effects! Despite his initial hesitance, the Boy later declared that to be the best ride he ever took! 😄 It was really good! 👍

Our next ride was Dragon Wild Shooting and 3D Desperados as they were just next door.

Dragons Wild Shooting was a pretty fun shooting ride

3D Desperados was a shooting game as well, but we each got our own horses.
It wasn't easy to aim because we were further away from the screen.

That concludes our rides as it was almost time for the Lotte World Happy Christmas Parade! The Hubby went with the kids to buy snacks while I stayed behind to 'chope' an area for our family to watch the parade.

Managed to get an area near the center

Fake snow and lights

Christmas elves

Christmas floats

Littlest joined the other kids to meet a mascot

The end of the parade marked the end of our time at Lotte World! Even though we only spent 4.5 hours at the park, we managed to ride all our must-rides except for Pharaoh's Fury! 🥳

If you want bigger and more thrilling rides, you should consider visiting Everland. For us, we were pretty satisfied with Lotte World ☺️

Spotted a super cute Sanrio shop on our way to the train station

The Hubby bought mini taiyaki for the Littlest as they were her favourite!

We returned to Myeongdong via the train and were supposed to have dinner somewhere in Myeongdong. I decided instead to bring the Littlest back to our hotel as both of us were still full from eating the food during the parade. The rest of the family had dinner at a nearby Japanese restaurant without us. The food was not worth mentioning according to the Hubby, as it was below expectations 😅 It was a good thing I didn't join them then 🤭

It was such a blessing to be able to sink into a comfortable bed and sleep through the night! 🩷

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 9: National Museum of Korea, Noryangjin Market & Namdaemun
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 7: Gyeongbokgung & Hongdae

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Busan-Seoul Day 7: Gyeongbokgung & Hongdae

2025-11-24T23:30:00.418+08:00

The two older kids continued sleeping while the rest of us had breakfast at Cafe Stanford.

There was carbonara pasta that day!

After breakfast, we headed out to take the train to Euljiro 3-ga Station and transferred to Line 3 (orange) to Gyeongbokgung Station.

We followed the signs underground to Gyeongbokgung

We exited the underground and arrived just outside of the National Palace Museum of Korea, right next to Gyeongbokgung.

National Palace Museum of Korea

Exploring the area

At the main entrance
(Littlest was wearing her older sister's hanbok that I had ~~hoarded~~kept)

We joined the queue for a staff to take this photo for us! 😁

Since we've explored Gyeongbokgung previously, we decided not to do it again. Instead, we brought the Mum-in-law to the famous ginseng chicken soup at Tosokchon Samgyetang, our must-visit for every Seoul trip!

There's always a long line outside the restaurant

We spotted Mirabeau cafe just opposite and noticed that they prided themselves on their homemade hot chocolate. Obviously the chocolate lovers had to try it!

They've introduced an explanation sheet for tourists! 😅

We ordered the black chicken soup (₩25,000), premium signature chicken soup (₩26,000) and signature chicken soup (₩20,000)

We got a traditional Korean dining table this time

The signature chicken soup! So yummy!
Interestingly, this was tastier than the black chicken the Hubby ordered.

After lunch, we headed to our next destination.

Gyeongbokgung Station

We took Line 3 (orange) to Euljiro 3-ga and transferred to Line 2 (green) to Hongik University Station (Exit 8). We arrived at Hongdae for some shopping!

Exploring the neighbourhood

Found a Gachapon shop and got his favourite Kirby

Hongdae shopping streets

Super tall ice cream for only ₩3,000

While we were shopping, the Mum-in-law started to feel unwell and we had to rush back to our hotel by train so that she can rest. Thankfully, I had my mini pharmacy with me so I was able to give her the medicine she needed.

Soft toys that the Boy bought from a shop in Hongdae

While the Mum-in-law rested in her room, we headed out in search of dinner in the neighbouring area. We headed to Lotte Department Store opposite our hotel to buy groceries from Lotte Supermarket (closes at 8pm) but it was too crowded.

Lotte Department Store

In the elevator looking out onto the streets

We bought burgers for the Boy at Lotteria as he loved the one he made at Kidzania. Unfortunately he couldn't quite get the same feels from the burger we ordered 😅

Lotteria dinner

We took pictures with the beautiful Christmas decoration outside.

Giant Christmas tree

Me with the Christmas light up, taken by my kids

Showing my kids what photos with good angles and composition look like 🤭
(In contrast to theirs...)

Love the huge 3D screens that were everywhere in Seoul

The Eldest and I were craving ramyeon so the both of us plus the Hubby explored Myeongdong in search of a restaurant after we sent the two Littlest back to the hotel. We settled on a restaurant that also served porridge so that we can take it away for the Mum-in-law.

Twoowt?

Soup was average, definitely not as good as yesterday's lunch

Ramyeon was better but definitely not the best

We were disappointed by our dinner but well, we needed something simple as we had to rush back to the hotel with food for the Mum-in-law. Hope that she will feel better soon! 🤞🏻

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 8: Lotte World Adventure After 4
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 6: Namsan, N Seoul Tower & Myeongdong

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Busan-Seoul Day 6: Namsan, N Seoul Tower & Myeongdong

2025-11-23T23:30:00.800+08:00

We woke up at 8am and brought our clothes for washing before having breakfast at Cafe Stanford (we timed it in such a way that our laundry would be done by the time we finished breakfast).

Cafe Stanford

Breakfast buffet

Our table

Littlest had cereal and orange juice almost everyday while the Mum-in-law had rice

My choice of breakfast

The variety of food was limited and the taste was so-so, at times terrible. The two older kids felt that it was not worth it to wake up early for it. Since our package only came with breakfast for 4 persons, we allowed them to sleep in for the rest of the mornings while the rest of us went for breakfast.

We returned to the room and got ready for our visit to Namsan. Although the Hubby and I have previously visited Namsan Park in 2013, we wanted to bring the kids and Mum-in-law, as you can't say you've visited Seoul unless you've seen the famous N Seoul Tower on Namsan! It has been featured in many K-dramas, including Kpop Demon Hunters! 😄

We planned to take the Namsan Cable Car as we had done in our previous trip. I guided our group to the cable car base station based on memory from seeing the route on Google Maps (I have very good navigation skills you see, no need live navigation) 😁

We walked past the Bank of Korea Money Museum, which was a super cool building

Slight climb up a slope to reach the inclined lift

There was a super long queue at the lift so I asked the Mum-in-law if she preferred to wait or climb the stairs. She was game to climb the stairs but then regretted later because it was a lot of stairs! 😅

Climbing the first flight of stairs, which was still doable

Halfway point photo with the Namsan Moon;
We wouldn't have gotten a photo if we didn't climb the stairs! #silverlining 😅

We climbed more stairs before we reached the ticketing booth, where we bought tickets for the Namsan Cable Car. It cost us ₩15,000 per adult and ₩11,500 per child under 12 years old.

Lo and behold, we had to climb more flights of stairs because the lift was reserved only for PWDs! 😅 It was not an issue for me (since I exercise everyday and can consider it a part of my usual exercise), but not easy for my Mum-in-law!

Entrance at the 3rd Floor!

Queuing to board the cable car

Managed to find a good spot near the window

View of the cable car station

View of Myeongdong from the cable car

On arrival at the peak station, we found ourselves climbing more stairs before we reached the top of Namsan!

Love locks were everywhere on Namsan

Photos with N Seoul Tower

Namsan Octagonal Pavillion

Trees at the peak

Enjoying the view

Family photo!

Beautifully painted stones

Geographical marker that indicates the geographical center of Seoul!

Love locks tree and bending bench

View from the top

Lookout to the park below

Family photo taken by a kind Ajumma

I found some nice pins from the gift shop to add to my collection!

The Boy was fascinated by the brick walls, which reminded him of the Great Wall of China

Photo of my kids

We spotted a lift and took it down to the first floor.

This path leads to a bus stop where you can take the bus if you preferred not to take the cable car

Photo with the Littlest

Unsure about the significance of the pandas...

We bought snacks from BHC Chicken

When we have finished exploring, we returned to the cable car station.

Got a good view of the N Seoul Tower on the way to the cable car station

Riding the cable car

Goodbye Namsan! 👋🏻

We decided to take the inclined lift down as the queue was short.

Squeezing onto the lift as we travelled down

We walked for about 5-10 minutes to our favourite Gimbap Cheonguk at Myeongdong for lunch.

Hubby discovered this restaurant by chance and we have loved it ever since

Traditional Korean restaurant

Bibimbap

Gimbap and soups

The gimbap was so good! One of the best I've eaten! 👍🏻 The meal was also inexpensive and definitely value for money! Highly recommended by my foodie family 😃

After a satisfying lunch, we proceeded with shopping! Obviously. We're at Myeongdong! 😆🤭 I couldn't wait to introduce the Mum-in-law to the 12-storey Daiso that we had visited on our last trip! There was long queue for the lift so I made the crazy decision to climb the stairs all the way to the 12th floor (and clock my exercise at the same time)! 😅 While the Mum-in-law and Littlest waited for the lift, the Eldest decided to join me and regretted once she reached the 5th floor... 😬 We made it to the top though and worked our way back down... 😃

Littlest had a lot of fun shopping because this mummy bought everything she wanted (everything was so cheap!!!)

We hauled our Daiso shopping loot back to our hotel so that the Eldest and I can continue our round two of shopping at Olive Young!

The Eldest's favourite store in Korea and possibly the whole world!

Mum-in-law was feeling tired (and a bit unwell) after all the shopping so she didn't join us for dinner. The Hubby decided on a Korean BBQ restaurant near our hotel.

Excited for our meal!

We ordered chicken since that was on their signboard!

The Boy and Littlest's favourite steamed egg (a must at every meal!)

Yummy beef soup

The Boy loves the cheesy bread!
He ranked it at the top of his list of favourite food in Korea!

It has been a long day and we couldn't wait to sink into our beds! Good night Seoul and see you tomorrow! 😴

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 7: Gyeongbokgung & Hongdae
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 5: KTX Train to Stanford Hotel Myeongdong

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Busan-Seoul Day 5: KTX Train to Stanford Hotel Myeongdong

2025-11-22T23:30:00.799+08:00

We had simple bread and cup noodles for breakfast in our hotel room before we checked out at 9.15am. The jumbo taxi we had booked via the hotel picked us up at 9.30am to take us to Busan Station. We paid ₩60,000, which was pricey but worth it for the service, comfort and convenience.

Busan Station

Huge signboards with English, Chinese and Japanese words

On arrival at Busan Station, we looked at the Information Board for information on our KTX high speed train to Seoul. The staff informed us that details on the track number will only be available 15 minutes before our departure time.

Since we had time, we explored the station in search of food to bring onboard the train for our lunch.

There's a food court at the 2nd floor

We bought food and milk tea from Eggbox

It was soon time to head to the platform and we headed to our train. We had booked our first class tickets directly on the Korail website (28 days prior) and paid ₩83,700 per adult and ₩53,800 per child. The difference between regular and first class was ₩23,900 per ticket, which we thought was reasonable since first class had wider seats, more leg room and a complimentary snack box each.

Boarded our train and headed to our preassigned seats

We departed Busan at 11am sharp

Getting our FREE bottled water for 1st class passengers from a vending machine

Free KTX snack box for 1st class passengers

Getting ready to watch my K Drama

Eating my toast from Eggbox while enjoying the beautiful view

It was interesting that no one came to check our tickets. Probably an honour-based system. After travelling for 2 hours 45 minutes, we arrived at Seoul Station at 1.47pm.

Seoul Station

We joined the very long queue for taxis (at least 20 people) and eventually got into two regular taxis. At ₩10,000 per taxi, the price was very reasonable for the journey to our hotel.

After previously staying at PJ Hotel in 2013, Solaria Nishitetsu Myeongdong and Lotte Hotel World in 2023, we decided to stay at Stanford Hotel Myeongdong this time. The hotel lobby was located at the 9th floor of the building so do look out for the lifts behind the Apple Store.

Stanford Hotel lobby

We had booked 2 Family Twin Room at S$311 per room per night (inclusive of breakfast for 2 adults per room, more details in the next post). It was much more expensive than our stay at Lotte Hotel Busan but at least each room can accommodate up to 4 adults, which was very comfortable for our family of 6. Our rooms were also much bigger than the Myeongdong hotel we had stayed in our previous trip.

Two double beds

Sofa area

View of Lotte Department Store and surrounding streets from our room.
We could see the Christmas lights at night.

Complimentary snack pack from Stanford Hotel

Very small cupboard and wardrobe

Good size bathroom with bathtub

Breakfast info in the lift (left) and water dispenser just outside our room (right)

The hotel also had a laundry room and a gym. The first thing we did after unpacking was to do our laundry! There were laundry facilities within the hotel for the convenience of guests. We loved the convenience so much that we did our laundry every morning during breakfast.

Each load of washing cost ₩3,000 and you pay by inserting cash into the machine

Good size gym for a 3-star hotel

Our only complaint about the hotel, other than the price, was the inability to adjust the temperature in our room, making us feel very hot during the afternoon due to the afternoon sun. Thankfully it was much cooler and comfortable at night.

Exterior of Stanford Hotel (left) and the hotel's main entrance (right)

After a long day of travelling, we had dinner at a restaurant just next to our hotel.

153 Gupo Noodles

Self ordering and payment kiosks at each table; very convenient! 😅

Various noodles and pork with rice; food was decent but not the best we've eaten.

After dinner, we walked and shopped at the nearby Myeongdong area as we had done previously.

Streets of Myeongdong behind our hotel

So many people in Myeongdong!

Huge HBAF Almond Store in Myeongdong!

The Boy wanted to try the grilled lobster with cheese! He loved it! 😃

We loved Artbox!
There were many outlets in Myeongdong area alone because they were so popular!

Artbox photobooth

Choosing our iron-on patches for our keychains
(These photos were obviously by the Boy 🤪)

This time I made a keychain for myself too! 😁

Super cute Wiggle Wiggle store!

Wiggle Wiggle photobooth

We were feeling hungry after covering almost the whole of the Myeongdong area and had fried chicken from Kkanbu since the Hubby really liked it since our last trip.

Looking forward to our meal!

Beer from the tap, Korean fried chicken and cheese sticks

We returned back to our hotel after a fulfilling supper.

Beautiful Christmas light up at Lotte Town Myeongdong!

Even though we had walked a lot, a check on my Huawei smart watch showed that I had not hit my exercise target of 45 minutes! Since we had feasted a lot, I decided to exercise in my room to hit my target! 😅 Yes I've become that person; however it was the reason why I did not gain any weight after our trip 🤭

Looking forward to exploring more of Seoul! 😁

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 6: Namsan, N Seoul Tower & Myeongdong
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 4: Jagalchi Market & Gamcheon Culture Village

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Busan-Seoul Day 4: Jagalchi Market & Gamcheon Culture Village

2025-11-21T23:30:00.598+08:00

It's the Hubby's birthday today so we're heading back to Jagalchi Market for the Hubby's favourite live seafood! 😋

Beautiful colours of the sunrise from our room window that morning

As we had done on the first day of our trip, we took Line 1 (orange) from Seomyeon Station to Nampo Station (Exit 2). We arrived at around 10.30am, which was good timing since the market and most restaurants opened at 9am and 10am respectively.

Jagalchi Market

We headed straight into the wholesale market since it was closed on 3 days ago when we visited

The Hubby randomly picked stall 218 as the sellers were super friendly and could speak English

Clockwise from left: Various seafood;
Four live sea urchins for ₩20,000;
Four fresh abalone for ₩15,000.

The Littlest's favourite prawns were ₩70,000 for 6
(not exactly the cheapest but she really loves prawns!)

Super huge 3.5kg king crab for ₩270,000!

The Mum-in-law and I got the Hubby the king crab for his birthday present, just as I had done 2 years ago at Noryangjin Fish Market in Seoul! 😆

Once we were done with choosing our seafood, the seller Mr Kim directed us to their partner restaurant located upstairs.

We sat at a table by the window

Clockwise from left: The Littlest loved the prawns!;
Super huge prawns! No wonder so expensive!;
Sea urchins were fresh but a bit small.

Look at the massive king crab! So yummy! 😋

Fresh abalone for the abalone-loving Mum-in-law

We loved the fish so much that we went back to Mr Kim to get another!

Various scallops, oysters and cockles that Mr Kim threw in for FREE

The total cost for our seafood meal was ₩407,000, inclusive of cooking fees. It was our most expensive meal of this trip! 🤭💸

After a very satisfying lunch, we consulted the Naver app (Google Maps does not work well in Korea) for the best route to Gamcheon Culture Village. The app directed us to take the train to Toseong Station and walk from Exit 6 to a bus stop where we can take a few buses to the village.

Walking to the bus stop and taking Bus 2

We alighted at this bus stop, according to the directions of the bus announcement

It was a great weather for taking beautiful photos! It was a bit sunny but the sky was blue!

Great photo spot for taking photos with the famous Gamcheon Culture Village

Love this family photo!

More photo ops!

Interesting decor

We discovered the Gamcheon Culture Village Souvenir Shop where we bought a lot of really cool souvenirs to support the village

The village was very interesting, with many interesting things to buy!

Some examples of the art that can be found in every corner of the village

Gamcheon Cultural Village was known for being artistic so the Hubby wanted to get an artist to draw a cartoon caricature of both of us. We found a shop where the artist, who goes by @Kimjakaworks on Instagram, drew a caricature of the Hubby and I in just 15 minutes.

Samples of her works

With the finished product at the front of her shop

The finished art piece! 😁

We also climbed the hill just to see the famous The Little Prince. I have no idea what this story is or means but we took pictures because it was rather cute.

Cute photo of my family

Another view of Gamcheon Culture Village

When we were done with exploring the village, we hailed two taxis back to Lotte Department Store Gwangbok (cost ₩7100 per taxi). We returned to Lotte Mart as we loved it so much on the first day!

We bought buns and pastries from OPS (hits and misses)

When we were done with shopping, we returned to our hotel to drop off our shopping before heading for dinner.

Outside the beautifully lighted Lotte Department Store Busan

For our final dinner in Busan for this trip, we headed back to Dudong Chuksan as we had loved it since the first night we tried it!

Enjoying our yummy Korean BBQ

We really ordered a lot of meat and the final cost of our meal was ₩95,500, significantly cheaper than Singapore! 😄

We ended the night with Sauna at our hotel before we packed up our luggage in preparation for departure the next day!

Can't believe 4 days went by in such a flash! We definitely should have planned for more days in Busan! We will be back! 🫰🏻

You can consider these alternative attractions in Busan:

Lotte World Busan
Skyline Luge Busan
National Maritime Museum
Oryukdo Skywalk
Gukje Market

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 5: KTX Train to Stanford Hotel Myeongdong
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 3: Kidzania Busan

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Busan-Seoul Day 3: Kidzania Busan

2025-11-20T23:30:00.899+08:00

We left later than expected because the Boy wasn't feeling well after throwing up a lot the whole night! As usual, it was my mini pharmacy in my bag to the rescue! 😅 Thank God that he was feeling much better by morning and we headed out to buy our breakfast from Paris Baguette (as we had done the day before).

We were headed back to Centum City, so we took the train to Centum City Station. We were going to Centum City Mall this time and had to walked through Shinsegae Departmental Store, which opened at 10.30am.

Centum City Mall

It was a pretty easy walk and we arrived at Kidzania Busan at 10.45am.

Kidzania Busan registration counter

We bought the Day Passes (10am to 7.30pm) at ₩65,000 per child (16 years old and under) and ₩20,000 per adult. Tickets were much cheaper than Singapore, with Half a Day options available as well! The kids were given ample Kidzos (Kidzania money) to be used for activities.

Entering Kidzania via the 'airport' gates

I was surprised that the Eldest wanted to go! After further questioning, she revealed that she has always loved Kidzania and have many fond memories there. Well, she has been to Kidzania the most - Kidzania Singapore when it first opened in 2017 (and multiple times thereafter), Kidzania Kuala Lumpur with her brother for his first visit, and Kidzania Bangkok in 2019 when the Littlest was just a baby. This was the Littlest's first visit as a participant! 😃

Inside the mini city of Kidzania Busan!

The best thing about Kidzania Busan was the digital queue system! The kids could tap their wrist tags at the machines to reserve activities without having to queue physically! Super convenient! Parents can also reserve online via a queue reservation app but it was in Korean and difficult for non-Korean users.

It took less than 5 minutes for me to figure out what to do and once I did, the kids caught on very quickly and were soon reserving activities independently

The girls decided to start with the Vet Clinic while the boy chose the Game Development Center.

Cute little veterinarians Treating animals at the Vet Clinic

The Boy said he played more games than he developed! 😅

The staff spoke very little English but they tried their best to communicate with my kids once the staff knew that they weren't Korean. To their credit, my kids also tried their best to understand and guess what was happening but observing body language and following what the other kids did. Somehow, things worked out! 😄

Immediately after their respective activities, the kids quickly reserved the Cooking School, one of the more popular activities.

The kids put on their yellow aprons and got to work!

Learning how to make food like a real cooking school!

Expectations (left) vs reality (right)

My kids reported that the process was super fun and were super excited to try the food they made! Unfortunately, it was not up to the taste of my foodie kids! 😅

The kids wanted to try all the food-related activities but they were mostly full nearing lunchtime. So we decided to do other activities such as the Pharmacy while waiting for those they wanted to be available.

Dressing up as pharmacists

This activity required the kids to understand Korean as there were many explanations and less hands-on activity. Thankfully, there was a Korean girl who was better in English and could translate for them (so sweet of her)! After the activity, the Eldest reflected that they should have done more 'action' type of activities rather than the 'talking' types so that it would be more fun for them 😅

The kids wanted to drive miniature cars at the Driving Track so they had to get their driving licences from the Driving School.

The miniature Kia branding was so on point and perfect for the activity! 😄

Wearing their driver outfits to learn driving!

Kids had no idea what the words say and had to wing it most of the time! 😅
Of course it meant that they had many 'accidents' 😅

They got their driving licenses together! 😄

The kids reserved a spot on their must-have activity, Ramen R&D Center, before our whole family had lunch at the Main Square (payment with real money and not Kidzos of course)!

Main Square restaurant

After a simple lunch of noodles and rice, the kids returned to Ramen R&D Center for their activity. The kids reported that it was one of their top 3 activities for the day!

Super cute uniforms!
(The Boy had to wear the staff uniform cos he was so big!😅)

Learning about the noodle-making process

Sealing the cup noodles

The kids took turns to press the button on the machine to seal their cup noodles

Completed cup noodles!

It was the end of the morning session for many of the kids who were there for a school excursion. There were significantly less kids in the afternoon so my kids were the only ones at the Bottling Plant.

Chilsung Cider Bottling Plant
(My kids love this drink!)

The very kind staff who tried her best to explain the process to the kids with her very limited English. She did an awesome job and the kids loved the session!

The kids proceeded to reserve the next available session at the Driving Track and waited for 45 minutes as each session could only take up to 4 kids.

Learning how to drive the super cute miniature Kia cars

The older kids could still fit into the cars!

The Littlest had no problems steering the car

Driving was fun though the course was a bit short

While the kids had fun, the Hubby and Mum-in-law hung out at the Parents' Lounge on the Mezzanine floor.

Comfortable seating for parents to chill

Clubhouse for the babies and toddlers

View of Kidzania from the Mezzanine floor

The kids headed up to the Mezzanine floor to try being a cabin crew at the Crew Training Facility.

Cabin crew for Jin Air

Miniature versions of Jin Air's cabin crew uniform

Watching the kids from TV screens (left);
The kids exited the activity via the slide! (right)

The girls wanted to try the Beauty Salon so the Boy went on his own to the Boating School.

The girls painting their nails at the Beauty Salon;
Littlest loved it so much that she ranked this her top activity for the day! 😅

The Boy waited patiently for the activity to start

He looked bored because he couldn't understand the explanation in Korean at all and had to figure out how to steer the boat on his own

The kids decided to try conducting a surgery at the Kidzania Hospital next.

Watching them via the TV screens

Sucking out 'blood' during surgery

The older kids reported that these 2 staff were the least comfortable communicating in English and were really awkward during the session. The Eldest said the silence was deafening! 😅 The Littlest seemed to have had the most fun though 😃

The queue for Burger Lab earlier in the day finally emptied as even more kids left Kidzania with only 2 more hours to closing. It was my kids' turn! Thankfully they had a chance to try this because it was rated their top 3 best activity of the day! 😃

Burger by Lotteria

Wearing the Lotteria uniforms and making customised burgers to suit their tastes!

Yummy burgers! The boy loved his so much!

It was only 6pm but we decided we have done enough at Kidzania and it was time to go! 🙂

So thankful to the lovely staff who were amazing to my kids despite the language barrier! It made the experience so much better! It goes to show that words are not the only means of communication! 😆 The kids had so much fun and enjoyed the time of playing together! 😍🩷 It was great seeing my kids bonding together! No regrets!

Final photo at the Kidzania Independence Fountain

We walked to Shinsegae Department Store basement level to buy food that we wanted to try.

The Hubby and his mum were fans of pork trotters and these looked really good!

Yummy

There was a winter clothing sale happening at Lotte Trevi Plaza and we managed to buy a National Geographic winter jacket for the Boy at half the usual price! So worth it! 👍🏻

Lotte Trevi Plaza

After paying for the jacket and getting our tax refunds, we took the train back to our hotel. The Hubby promised the Eldest to buy her favourite necklace from Vivienne Westwood as a reward and so we were there to fulfil the promise 🤭

Super elated that she managed to get the necklace that she had always wanted!

We had a late dinner at an abalone porridge restaurant near our hotel.

Signboard in Chinese to attract tourists I suppose

The abalone porridge was good! 👍🏻

Piping hot premium abalone porridge with a whole abalone!

After a delicious dinner, we returned to our hotel and ended the night with our usual sauna/spa. The lovely hot waters of the public bath really refreshed our bodies!

~~~~~~~~

P.S: Read about our experiences at KidZanias around the world:

2017: KidZania Singapore
2017: KidZania Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
2019: KidZania Bangkok (Thailand)

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 4: Jagalchi Market & Gamcheon Culture Village
<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 2: Spa Land Centum City & Haeundae Blueline Park

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Busan-Seoul Day 2: Spa Land Centum City & Haeundae Blueline Park

2025-11-19T23:30:01.166+08:00

We woke up at 8am and prepared to leave while the Hubby and Mum-in-law ate cup noodles in the room.

Morning view from our room window

We left our hotel at around 9.30am and headed to the nearest Paris Baguette Cafe to buy bread for the rest of the family who did not eat in the room.

Yummy bread from Paris Baguette Cafe

We wanted to visit the famous Spa Land, which was located at Centum City. We took Line 2 (green) from Seomyeon Station to Centum City Station (direct train).

Spa Land was located within Shinsegae Shopping Mall, at Level 1.

We entered Shinsegae via this entrance once we exited the train station

Look out for the entrance to Spa Land, nestled between Prada and Dior

Spa Land Shinsegae

The Littlest did not meet the minimum age of 7 years old (she just missed it by 2 months!) so the Mum-in-law brought her to shop at Shinsegae Department Store instead. We bought tickets for the rest of the family, which cost ₩25,000 per adult and ₩20,000 per student (ages 8-18 years old). We were each given a key that could be worn on our wrists. The key was used to unlock lockers and even pay for food and services.

We stored our footwear at the shoe lockers on entry; each person was allocated to a locker that corresponded to the key number on our wrists.

Map of Spa Land to orientated ourselves to the 2 floors and 1 mezzanine level

After collecting our spa clothes, we headed to the Woman's Locker to change.

Walking to the Woman's Locker

Sneaked a photo of the interior of the lockers when the area was empty;
Photo of us in our spa outfits at the entrance.

The Woman's Locker was directly connected to the Woman's Bath so we took a bath first. There were 22 baths to choose from, with varying temperatures, so there's something for everyone. I really enjoyed the baths! Warm and relaxing! Spa Land even provided hair oil, which I used generously on my very dry hair! It was so good! 🤭

After we got dressed, we explored the rest of Spa Land. We discovered the Outdoor Feet Bath, which we enjoyed more than we expected!

Directions in case you got lost in Spa Land! 😅

Help yourself to coats in case you feel cold outside

Relaxing on the swing

The foot reflexology pool was great!

Different-sized cubicles if you wanted more privacy

Cubicles for one-on-one chats

Of course we had to check out the 13 unique dry saunas that Spa Land was famous for!

Yellow ocher room and salt room

Exploring the different rooms on the Mezzanine Floor

We felt nothing in the Body Sound Room... Not sure what it is for...

There were relaxation rooms and restaurants on Level 2 but we decided not to visit. Some of the people here could really sleep in the rooms from morning to afternoon! 😅 Slacking is totally not my thing so the Girl and I bought a vanilla soft serve ice cream instead!

Order at the counter and 'pay' using your locker key
(You'd settle the payment when you exit)

Getting our yummy soft serve from the machine and enjoying it!

We returned to the Outdoor Feet Bath because we really loved it! We didn't need coats this time as our bodies were already fully warmed up!

We love hanging out outdoors!

After about 2.5 hours, we decided to regroup with the rest of the family even though we could use the spa for up to 4 hours. It was time for lunch and the Hubby decided on Il Forno at Level 9 of the mall.

Salad and Meatballs at Il Forno

Pizza and pasta

My Littlest loves the good ole Bolognese pasta!

After lunch, we walked outside to explore Zooraji, a mini park with dinosaurs on the same floor!

Zooraji

Long neck dinosaur (I don't know their names obviously 😅)

Triceratops (I only know the easy ones! 😅)

It's quite fun taking photos with dinosaurs

Slide built within a dinosaur structure

View from the roof

The Hubby wanted to try raw oysters from the Shinsegae supermarket.

The oyster lovers enjoying their oysters!

Unfortunately, the Boy started vomitting a lot that night and thought it was the oysters but it was more likely that he caught a virus as his dad was ok. As a result of the negative association, the Boy developed an aversion for oysters! The dad lost his oyster-buddy overnight and was devastated! 🫠😢 Hope that it's just a phase... 🤞🏻

We decided to leave at close to 3pm and hailed two regular taxis at the taxi stand along the road where there were many taxis waiting (each taxi cost about ₩8,000). We arrived at Haeundae Blueline Park (Mipo Station) after about 20 minutes.

Haeundae Blueline Park

We realised when buying tickets at the ticketing counter that the Sky Capsule was not in operation! Super sad!

Since we could not ride the Sky Capsule, we had little choice but to ride the Beach Train, which cost us ₩12,000 per adult and ₩8,400 per child (below 12 years old). The next available train was at 4.30pm so we had to wait for about 45 minutes.

The Sky Capsule was closed for maintenance;
You can see Busan x The Sky, the tallest building in Busan, in the background

View of the sea from a viewing platform near Mipo Station

While waiting, we took some photos along the boardwalk and ate cheese sticks and ice cream.

Bought my Boy's favourite cheese sticks from this food cart

Enjoying their afternoon snacks

It finally came time for us to board the Haeundae Blueline Beach Train!

Beach train

It was very crowded but we managed to snag a couple of seats while the rest of us stood

Watching the beautiful Haeundae coastline as we passed by

It was almost time for sunset! Super beautiful!

Haewol Observatory

We travelled from Mipo Station all the way to Songjeong Station.

All the stations on the route are displayed on trains and at each station

Since we bought return tickets, we took the train back to Mipo Station

Along the way, we decided to stop at Daritdol Skywalk Station and take photos at the Cheongsapo Daritdol Skywalk.

The Daritdol Skywalk Station

Cheongsapo Daritdol Skywalk Observatory

Kids took the stairs down to this lookout to be closer to the sea

Beautiful views of Busan coastline at sunset!

Family photo taken by the Mum-in-law

Glass floors to see the sea below!

It was fun for us but not for folks with a fear of heights 😅

Surrounded by nature

Information board explaining the significance of Cheongsapo

View of the opposite side

Once we were done, we had wanted to board the next train to Mipo but realised our tickets did not allow for repeated boarding! We had to walk to Cheongsapo Station to see if we can hail two taxis instead.

It was a nice 10-minute walk to Cheongsapo Station

There were some taxis waiting in line for passengers near the station so we got into two regular taxis (₩6,500 per taxi) and headed to Wonjo Abalone Porridge for dinner.

Wonjo Abalone Porridge

We were super hungry and couldn't wait to eat!

Various dishes we ordered

Of course the winner had to be the abalone porridge! It was so good! 👍🏻

Our meal cost us ₩128,000, which was very reasonable for our large family! 😄

After dinner, as we were contemplating whether to take the metro or taxi back to our hotel, a regular taxi pulled up on the road beside us and waited to see if we'd "take the bait" 🤭 We did, because it was just too convenient! 😝 Although each taxi cost us ₩17,400, it was so worth it for the convenience and time savings.

We ended the night with our usual sauna/spa at our hotel before resting early for the night! It had been a tired but fruitful day! 🩷

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 3: Kidzania Busan

<< Back to Busan-Seoul Day 1: Jagalchi Market, Lotte Mall Gwangbok & Lotte Hotel Busan

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Busan-Seoul Day 1: Jagalchi Market, Lotte Mall Gwangbok & Lotte Hotel Busan

2025-11-18T23:30:01.196+08:00

I'd been looking out for good flight deals for our annual winter trip since the end of last year and could not find a good deal for Japan (the guys' first choice)! SQ & ANA tickets were at least $1000 each and no, I will not consider other airlines! 😔🫤

We had previously discussed the possibility of a flight to Busan and return flight from Seoul as we'd promised to bring my Mum-in-law for her first trip to South Korea. I found a good deal in January for multi-city (Busan-Seoul) tickets via Singapore Airlines at only $612 per adult and $606 per child (cheapest so far)! 🥳🎉

We excitedly piled our luggage into our usual maxi cab (cost $60) and arrived at Changi Airport Terminal 2 at 9.15pm the day before.

Disney decorations at Changi Airport

My son loves taking pictures of his avocado toy on his journey

We had plenty of time at transit so I managed to have my last cup of my favourite teh-c (I won't be able to drink it for the next 12 days! 😩). When we reached the gate, we discovered that our flight was slightly delayed by 30 minutes. We finally departed Singapore at 12 midnight.

Goodbye for now Singapore!

The Littlest's child meal

I decided to order a fruit platter instead of the regular meals as I can't eat a heavy meal after midnight

The journey was about 6 hours 15 minutes but it felt like a long time as we couldn't sleep at all! Due to multiple turbulences on our flight, we were awoken many times by the captain's announcement for passengers to fasten our seatbelts! We each had less than an hour's sleep on the plane! 🫩🥱😴

We finally arrived at Gimhae International Airport in Busan at 7am (Korea time, Korea is 1 hour ahead of Singapore).

Gimhae International Airport Terminal 1

Welcome to Busan!

Say hi to Busan's official mascot, Boogi, a friendly seagull ☺️

We could have taken the train to our hotel but we preferred the taxi as it was more convenient for our family of 6. We headed to the taxi queue and got a Jumbo Taxi for ₩50,000.

We got a friendly and helpful driver

The journey took about 45 minutes due to the morning peak hour traffic and we arrived at Lotte Hotel Busan at 9am. We chose to stay with the Lotte Group as we enjoyed our previous stay at Lotte Hotel World. Lotte Hotel Busan was also conveniently located in the heart of Busan, next to Seomyeon Station for easy commuting. It has many facilities including both indoor and outdoor heated pools, spa, gym and even a golf course!

Lotte Hotel Busan

We could only check in at 2pm hence we left our luggage at the hotel's concierge and headed to the nearest 7-Eleven to buy a T-money card for the Littlest. She had to pay for transportation as she had turned 6 this year. We bought a specially designed card for foreigners for ₩4,000 (see picture below). To ensure that the card would deduct the child fare, we produced the Littlest's passport so that the staff can programme the card with the Littlest's date of birth.

We then proceeded to Seomyeon Station where I topped up our existing T-money cards that we had bought from our previous trip at the recharge machines. The machines were not difficult to use once you get the hang of it.

Travelling on the subway with the newest T-money card we had bought

Waiting patiently for our train

We took Line 1 (orange) from Seomyeon Station to Nampo Station to visit Jagalchi Market, the biggest seafood market in South Korea!

To get there, exit from Exit 2 and walk away from Lotte Mall (which should be behind you) towards the Busan Tourist Information Center. At the junction, turn left and walk straight until you see Jagalchi Market.

Jagalchi Market

On arrival, we were shocked to find out that Jagalchi Market was not open that day!

Closed on the first, third and fifth Tuesday of every month! 😭😱

As we were starving, we had little choice but to look for a restaurant to have our lunch. We randomly picked one located opposite the market.

Many restaurants to choose from but we chose the one with the red signboard

Seafood was live and fresh but very expensive!

Clockwise from top left: We were the only ones in the restaurant;
Grilled prawns that we regretted ordering as the amount did not justify the price;
Fresh raw oysters and various sashimi.

Medium-sized abalone

The mixed seafood hotpot soup was probably the most value-for-money of our meal

The service was excellent but portion sizes were small and definitely not as worth it as eating at the seafood market itself (the sellers usually charge wholesale prices)! We will definitely not eat at the restaurants opposite the market again!

After our lunch, we explored the areas near the market. The wind was super strong and cold so make sure you're prepared with thick jackets!

I love Jagalchi Market! 😄

The Littlest was in the mood to pose for pictures!

We walked to nearby Lotte Mall Gwangbok to do some shopping and buy groceries.

Lotte Mall Gwangbok

The macarons at Nampodang looked so pretty and delicious that we bought a box!

We bought the famous walnut-shaped cakes from Jatpumun Geujip Hodu-gwaja, which according to Google means "that house's walnut cakes with pine nuts"

Food Avenue Supermarket

Got some of our groceries from this very atas supermarket

Bought fishcakes from Goraesa Eomuk Fishcake Shop, which was very well-known in South Korea

Eating the piping hot fishcakes on the spot

We were also happy to explore Lotte Mart, our favourite supermarket in Korea!

Lotte Mart

There were so many floors that we shopped so much, we had no energy left for the Observation Deck at the 13th floor! 😅

With our shopping bags full, we headed back via the subway to Lotte Hotel Busan to check in.

Special entrance from Lotte Department Store Seomyeon to Lotte Hotel

We booked two Deluxe Family Twin Rooms at S$201 per room per night (each room accommodates 3 adults), inclusive of spa and gym access but no pool access. We decided not to pay more to use the pools since it'll be too cold to swim at the outdoor pool. The hotels in Busan were definitely cheaper than the hotels in Seoul!

Good size bathroom with bathtub

Toiletries

Wardrobe, safe and bathroom slippers

One double bed and one single bed

Room has adequate amenities and a good view of Seomyeon

View of the golf course and outdoor pool from our room window

After unpacking our things, the whole family took a much needed 2-hour nap to recuperate from our lack of sleep on the plane! We woke up at around 6pm starving and ready for dinner!

The beautiful interior of the lifts

Beautiful Christmas decorations at the lobby

Avocado 🥑 and Christmas 🎄

As we explored the Seomyeon area, looking for a restaurant for dinner, the Hubby spotted Dudong Chuksan just opposite our hotel.

Dudong Chuksan
(Disclaimer: I used Google Lens for the English translation of the signboard and have no idea if it's accurate 😅).

So ready for a good dinner after a good nap!

Ordered from a touchscreen with the help of Google Lens!
BBQ pork was their speciality! Super yummy!

Kimchi was good!
The steamed egg was also a staple for the younger kids; they each had one! We ordered three in total because they loved it so much! 😅

Love the bibimbap! It's so good! 😋

The total cost of our meal was ₩100,000, which was value-for-money given how much food we ordered!

After a satisfying meal, we headed to the nearest 7-Eleven to grab snacks and drinks before returning to our hotel in time for the Sauna/Spa (which closes at 10pm). Unlike Japan, only guests above 14 years old could enter so only the Hubby, Eldest and I went as the Mum-in-law preferred to rest in the room with the younger kids.

Lotte Department Store and Hotel at night

Entrance to the Woman's Sauna/Spa

The public hot baths in the Sauna/Spa;
it's a must to be naked and follow communal bath regulations.
Photo Credit: Lotte Hotel Busan

Products free for all to use after bath

The experience was very similar to Lotte Hotel World and the Eldest and I enjoyed our mother-daughter time every evening! My body was so relaxed! 😁

Eating the pretty macarons we bought for supper! So cute right! 🤩

After a long flight and first day in Busan, we were so ready to turn in early for the night! Can't wait to explore more of Busan! 😄

Continue to >> Busan-Seoul Day 2: Spa Land Centum City & Haeundae Blueline Park

~~~~~~

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Manila Day 3-4: Lucky Chinatown, Flight Home & My Reflections

2025-09-02T23:30:00.486+08:00

DAY 3

We had breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge as we enjoyed it the day before.

Different range of pastries compared to the day before!
As usual, I couldn't decide which to eat!

Cheeses and other food from the buffet line

Dim sum and other food from the ala carte menu

We headed to the pool for a swim after breakfast to burn off the calories! 😝

Swimming pool

It was unusually quiet without the kids and therefore we could have long conversations without being interrupted! 😆 Of course we missed them! 😁

After our swim, we hailed a Grab (₱380) to Lucky Chinatown to have lunch at King Chef Seafood Restaurant.

Our Grab passed the famous Binondo Church on our way to Lucky Chinatown

Lucky Chinatown
(Of course they had to have a huge fortune cat at the entrance!)

It's like Chinese New Year every day in this mall! 😂

King Chef

A variety of Chinese dishes

The prawn was so good!

The Hubby ordered their signature Peking duck and frankly it wasn't that bad but once you've had the real deal in Beijing, it's hard to be impressed! 😅

After lunch, we explored the mall and spent most of our time shopping at KKV. Even though I've visited other outlets in Malacca, twice in Batam and even in Singapore (JEM level 3), I was still excited to check this one out as each store sold different products.

KKV in Lucky Chinatown Manila

Found a cute shop called Mumuso, which was like an imitation version of Miniso! 😅

We bought so many things that we filled a huge foldable bag and decided to hail a Grab (₱371) back to our hotel.

It was time for our last evening canapes for this trip!

We love the window seat as we can only get it when it's just us without the kids!!

My choice for our final canapes

We headed to the nearby malls, Landmark and Glorietta, for our final shopping for this trip!

AquaFlask is really affordable here!

Huge SM Store that we didn't even have time to visit as the malls were so big

SM Supermarket at B1

We definitely could not finish exploring all the malls in the area and would have to return to Manila again!

DAY 4

We checked out of our hotel after we had breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge.

My yummy breakfast 😋

Ordered creme brulee French toast again because I liked it so much previously!

Requested for mangoes and they were amazing!!

Interestingly, Shangri-la was selling very delicious mooncakes and we decided to buy some back for the family!

Mooncakes tasting

Four days really flew by and it was time for us to head home! 😔

Photo at our hotel's lobby

We hailed a Grab (₱225) to Ninoy Aquino International Airport to catch our flight home.

Checking in our luggage at the counters

Headed to the SilverKris Lounge after dropping off our luggage

Less variety than in Singapore

Lounge wasn't as big as the one in Singapore of course

Food was reasonable

The staff would update us on the flight details so that we can enjoy the lounge for as long as possible before heading to the gate.

Our plane was expected to depart at 2.15pm

Super excited for my spacious seat in Business Class 🥳

We preordered our main courses via Book the Cook but the selection was limited to the menu that they were already serving onboard, unlike for our previous flight

I chose beef for my main course

One of the crew noticed that I loved TWG tea and gave me extra bags! (left);
Cake and fruit for dessert (right)

Photo taken by a cabin crew

Enjoying our drinks and seat, though this one doesn't recline all the way

Our flight home was only 2 hours and 50 minutes, which was too short for us to fully enjoy our business class seat! 😅 We arrived in Singapore at 5.45pm.

SG60 at Changi Airport

It's good to be home! 🥰

My Reflections

As a first time visitor to Manila, we were impressed by the variety of food that was available. No matter your culinary preference, you're sure to find something suitable (at least that was my experience)! The shopping malls were also larger than I had expected and we ended up spending more time shopping than I had anticipated! 😅

I love that the museums were free and I learnt a lot more about Philippines besides the sandy beaches of Cebu, which was the only other Filipino destination I've visited. It's too bad that we couldn't visit the outdoor attractions due to the rainy weather.

Potential places to visit on our next trip:

Intramuros: Fort Santiago
Ruins of American Barracks
The Manila Cathedral
SM Mall of Asia

It was a good break away just the two of us! Can't wait to return to Manila with the rest of the family! 😊

<< Back to Manila Day 2: National Museum of Anthropology & Natural History

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Manila Day 2: National Museum of Anthropology & Natural History

2025-08-31T23:30:00.470+08:00

We had our breakfast at the Horizon Club Lounge and could order ala carte items from their menu or help ourselves with the food at the buffet line.

Buffet area

As someone who is loves bread and pastries, I really love the wide selection of pastries! 😍 I would have eaten everything if I could that would kill my diet!! 😭
I only allowed myself to have 2 and it was so hard to choose!! 😅

Bread station

DIY breakfast wrap station

I ordered the creme brulee french toast (left) and customised omelette (right)

The Hubby ordered the dim sum (left) and noodles (top right) from the menu.

My favourite was the french toast while the Hubby liked the dim sum! Food was super good and we were so full by the time we were done! 😅

After breakfast, we hailed a Grab (₱472) to the National Museum of Anthropology, but the driver dropped us erroneously at the National Museum of Fine Arts, which was just next door!

National Museum of Fine Arts

We would only have enough energy for two museums and decided to give the fine arts a miss! 😅 Thankfully, most of the national museums were within walking distance from each other and FREE for all visitors! 🥳 You'd just need to produce personal identification for registration at the entrance.

National Museum of Anthropology

Very impressive main entrance!

One of the many galleries within the museum

Watching a video to learn about the people and culture

Traditional art of textile-making

Beautiful costumes (left) and traditional tattoo methods (right)

Small dinosaur fossils

We headed next door to the National Museum of Natural History. We've visited many natural history museums around the world, such as Singapore's Natural History Museum, London's Natural History Museum and Melbourne Museum.

National Museum of Natural History

Interesting architecture that captivates the eye!

We went to the basement to take the glass elevator up to the top floor
(this is the only way to ride the elevator)

Large crocodile found in the waters of the Philippines

Various galleries on each floor; we found an exhibit of the reef stonefish that we saw while snorkeling in Shangri-la Cebu (bottom right)!

Other wildlife found in the Philippines

The Marine Realm

Philippines is made up of multiple islands which means the health of marine life and the seas is vital!

We enjoyed the galleries and managed to clock a lot of steps in both museums! I'd recommend visiting since it's free and you get to learn more about Philippines.

We hailed a Grab (₱84) to nearby Harbor View Restaurant (just 10 minutes away) for lunch.

A part of the dining area of the restaurant was on the water so we could feel the strong sea breeze! 💨

We ordered quite a lot of food for the 2 of us and half-wished our kids were with us to finish it hehe 😅
Love the prawn and squid were super good! 👍🏻

Fresh fish

This is one of the best mango dessert I've ever eaten! Highly recommend it! 😋
I hope to bring my mango-loving daughter to try this one day! 😬

While we were dining, it started to rain very heavily! However, the dining area was still comfortable and we could continue to finish our meal.

The food is not that cheap but we loved the taste and quality so it was worth it to us! We probably ordered too much but no regrets! 🤭😄

The rain did not stop when we were leaving the restaurant so we had a bit of difficulty hailing a Grab. Thankfully our Grab (₱493) arrived after waiting for about 20-30 minutes and we were on our way back to our hotel. I rested in the room for a bit before heading for evening canapes at the Horizon Lounge.

My choice of food this time

We walked to the nearby The Landmark and Glorietta malls for shopping. The whole Makati shopping district is made up of many malls that were interconnected. It took us thousands of steps to walk through the malls and even then, we decided to turn back before we reached the end!

Bought fried chicken and bubble tea from this stall at The Landmark basement food court

Realised that there was Jollibee in the mall next door and bought those as well!
(The Hubby is a big fan of fried chicken!)

We were super tired after a long day of walking and went to bed early because we can! 😄🤭

Continue to >> Manila Day 3-4: Lucky Chinatown, Flight Home & My Reflections
<< Back to Manila Day 1: Makati Shangri-la Horizon Club

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Manila Day 1: Makati Shangri-La Horizon Club

2025-08-30T23:30:00.673+08:00

The Hubby was in between jobs this year and wanted a short break before he started his new job. He suggested visiting Manila instead of Cambodia (the initial plan) due to the Cambodian-Thai conflict. Manila was close enough for a short trip and neither of us had been to the city before.

As this would be our first couple trip since Kuala Lumpur in 2018, we wanted to travel by Singapore Airlines Business Class, our first Business experience ever! 😄 We redeemed our flights at 48,000 KrisFlyer miles per person (converted from credit card points). It wasn't the best deal but since we booked quite last minute, it was good enough for us ☺️

Since we had access to the Singapore Airlines Lounge, we arrived at Changi Airport Terminal 2 at 9.15am before our flight to make the most of it! 😀💗

My outfit consisted of a simple black top from Uniqlo and colourful skirt from The Missing Piece

Our first time at the SilverKris Lounge!

Similar to the hotel club lounges we were used to

Variety and quality of food was good! Especially the chwee kueh and laksa!

Good selection of snacks, tea and cheeses!

Enjoying the lounge before our flight!

There was also a decent selection of alcohol and ice-cream! We enjoyed the lounge so much that we left a little too late and arrived at the gate when half of the people had already boarded the plane! 😅

Our Singapore Airlines plane

We walked straight to the boarding counter. I'd have to say that it was a great feeling being able to board the plane without having to queue! 😁

Spacious storage

Amazing legroom! 🤩

We chose side-by-side seats as seat selection was complimentary

Enjoying his first drink onboard

Noise cancelling headphones!

Love that the seat reclines to almost fully horizontal!

Our plane departed at 12.10pm and I almost didn't notice as I was too busy enjoying my seat and it's facilities! 😅

The cabin crew confirmed our lunch main courses that we had booked via Book the Cook prior to our flight. The Hubby chose the steak while I had lobster! 😋

Appetiser was prawn and vegetables

My lobster main course was great, but not as fantastic as the butter which came with the bread! I can survive without rice but I cannot give up good bread and butter! 😍

Hubby's steak was delicious! (left);
Fruits and drinks to complement our meal (right).

If you thought the service in economy was good, the service in business class was exceptional! 😄 We were well-taken care of by the crew! SQ cabin crew deserved to win the Best Cabin Crew Award 2025! 👏 This is why I continue to fly Singapore Airlines, despite much cheaper prices on other airlines! 🤭

Before we knew it, 3 hours had passed and we were about to land in Manila! The flight duration of 3 hours 30 minutes was obviously too short!!! 😆🤭

We arrived at Ninoy Aquino International Airport at 3.45pm (no time difference between Singapore & Philippines).

Baggage claim

We hailed a Grab (₱365) to our Makati Shangri-La Hotel, our 4th Shangri-la accommodation this year! 🤭

Photo credit: Makati Shangri-la

We checked in at the Horizon Club Lounge on the 24th floor as we had booked a Horizon Room.

Horizon Club

Dining area

We booked the Horizon Club Deluxe King Room via Agoda at S$290 per room per night, which is inclusive of breakfast (details in the next post), evening cocktails and canapés, all-day lounge access and other Horizon Club benefits.

Spacious room with a king size bed

Another view of the room

View of the city from our window

Complimentary coffee, tea, water and chocolates from the hotel!
I brought the chocolates home as a souvenir for my Boy and he enjoyed it!

Wardrobe and luggage rack

Spacious bathroom with a bathtub

Our favourite aspects of the hotel that we liked include its close proximity to many malls in the area and amenities such as a swimming pool and a large, very well-equipped gym!

The Hubby said the gym was as big as a Fitness Centre!

After all the feasting at the SilverKris Lounge and on the plane, we both decided to exercise for about an hour to work up an appetite before our evening canapés at the Horizon Club Lounge (more eating)!😄😜

Snacks and alcohol

Very warm and romantic setting 😃

My plates of yummy food! 😋

After eating so much, we had to go for a walk to the neighbouring malls!🚶🏼‍♀️

Our hotel at night

The Landmark

Food court at the basement of Landmark

We realised we haven't eaten much vegetables so we bought some from this stall

There was also a supermarket where we managed to get our groceries.

The Landmark was only one of many malls in the area that we stayed in! We didn't have time to explore the other malls and planned to do so in the days to come! 😉

~~~~~~~~

P.S: We're proud Shangri-la Circle members; read about our Shangri-La experiences around the world:

2014: Shangri-La at the Shard, London (UK)
2014: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2016: Shangri-La Singapore
2016: Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu (Philippines)
2017: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2017: Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour (Hello Kitty Room) (Malaysia)
2018: Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
2020: Shangri-La Singapore
2021: Shangri-La Singapore (Hubby's birthday)
2022: Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa (Singapore)
2024: Shangri-La Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
2024: Shangri-La Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia)
2025: China World Hotel, Beijing (China)
2025: Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai (China)
2025: Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu (Philippines)

Continue to >> Manila Day 2: National Museum of Anthropology & Natural History

~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Manila, Philippines

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Celebrating SG60 in Batam: Oakwood Hotel & Grand Batam Mall

2025-08-10T23:30:00.813+08:00

DAY 1

We decided to spend SG60 in Batam over the National Day weekend, just as we had done during SG50 and the year before! *laughs*

We booked our ferry via Majestic Fast Ferry at S$76 per person.

With the super excited Littlest!

For some reason, the journey felt very short and we arrived at Batam Centre in less than 1 hour! Although it was so crowded at immigration, we managed to cut the time in half by completing the Indonesia Arrival Card online and going through the automatic gates.

Once we had cleared customs, we walked to Megamall via the overhead bridge and hailed a Grab to our hotel. We had loved Grand Batam Mall so much during our last trip that we decided to stay at Oakwood Hotel & Apartments Grand Batam because it was located next to the mall!

My outfit for the trip (left) and Oakwood Hotel (right)

Oakwood Hotel swimming pool

We were super kiasu and booked the 2-Bedroom Premier Suite in August last year (since there was free cancellation) 🤭 The suite cost only S$282 per night, which was a super good deal! 😆 We were also incredibly lucky to be allocated the room on the highest floor (22nd) in the building! The view was super amazing! 😍

The living room was super spacious and perfect for my daily morning exercise

Master bedroom

View from the window of the master bedroom

Wardrobe and door to the master bathroom

Large master bathroom with a huge bathtub

Toiletries and toilet

Second bedroom with twin beds (for the kids)

Common bathroom

Full size kitchen with oven, microwave, water dispenser, fridge and most importantly, a washing machine!

Full size dining table

Super spacious balcony

Love the view of the sea and surrounding areas from the balcony!

We were just steps to the Grand Batam Mall, located just next to our hotel! We had a great time shopping at our favourite stores and the supermarket!

Buying bubble tea of course!

Oh!Some aka KKV aka the "yellow shop"

I had discovered this shop on our previous Batam trip and since then have shopped in a similar store in Malacca. Singapore also has one in JEM! I love the "yellow shop" for its value-for-money products, which are different in each country I had visited. It reminded me of the joy I had when I first discovered Mr DIY, which sadly no longer holds the same appeal.

The family decided to have dinner at Daun Pisang Resto.

An Indonesian restaurant

Satay was delicious

Food was decent but not good enough to satisfy the Foodie family. Feeling dissatified, the kids asked for dessert!

Eldest had matcha ice-cream (left) while the Boy had some cheese pancake thingy (right)

We returned to the hotel for a night swim!

Oakwood hotel swimming pool

Family photo at the pool

It was a great end to the first day of our trip!

DAY 2

I woke up really early even though I didn't set an alarm so I exercised in the comfort of the living room for an hour before I woke the kids.

Enjoying the view from the balcony

The kids and I were looking forward to the fluffy pancakes at Pan & Co but they only opened at 10am so we were starving by the time we headed over! 😵 It was so worth the wait though!

Fluffy pancakes at Pan & Co

Drinks were not so good (left) but the Boy loved his pasta (right)

The Eldest's favourite was the matcha fluffy pancakes! 🥞

After breakfast, we headed to Siam Odyssey, located right beside our hotel entrance. Although there were many massage places near our hotel, we thought this one was the most convenient and value-for-money. We had booked the 11am slot the day before for 90-minute Balinese oil massages (Rp380k per person) for 3 persons (Hubby, Eldest and I).

Siam Odyssey

Feet washing before our massages

The massage was cheap and good! We loved it so much that we booked another session for the next day! 😄

We had lunch at Toby's Estate.

Everything looked so good! I wanted to try everything! 😜

Yummy!

Drinks, salad and pasta were so good!

Love my egg croissant! So yummy! 😋

We spent the rest of the afternoon shopping at the mall.

Kids playing a life-size game (left);
One of my favourite stores, which I first discovered on my first London trip in 2014 (right)

We took a Grab to Harbour Bay Seafood for dinner.

Entrance to the restaurant

The seating area of the restaurant faces the sea and they served live seafood

The food was fresh and tasty!

We enjoyed our food with a beautiful view of sea and the setting sun!

After dinner, we walked for 5 minutes to Marriott Hotel Harbour Bay as the adults wanted to enjoy their alcoholic drinks at the Marriott Sky Bar.

The kids were only posing for this picture; they didn't stay there for long!

You can see the Pacific Palace Hotel, which looks exactly like a cruise ship!

The Mum-in-law and I don't drink alcohol so we brought the kids back to our hotel for a night swim. Both kids and adults had the best time that night! 😆

DAY 3

The next morning, the Hubby, 2 girls and I had breakfast at Toby's Estate (we love the food there!) while the rest of the family had buffet breakfast at the hotel's restaurant.

Strong coffee in the morning!

Yummy breakfast!

The kids had a final swim before we checked out from our hotel.

Having fun in the pool

While the kids swam, I awaited the delivery of our Sun Li Batam Layer Cakes that I had ordered via Whatsapp. I love their kueh lapis and have been buying from them ever since our first trip with the Eldest in 2011.

Sun Li Batam Layer Cakes

After packing the boxes into our luggage (they're not light so do remember to bring a luggage!) and checking out of our hotel, the Hubby, Eldest and I had our final 60-minute massages at Siam Odyssey.

Final massage of the trip!

We had lunch at Toby's Estate again, the final time for this trip because the rest of the family didn't get to eat it for breakfast! 😅

Mac and cheese (my Boy's favourite!), fried calamari and black rice that looked really strange but tasted so good!

Bolognese pasta, salad and rice with oxtail

We were so full from lunch that we skipped dinner! 😀

After our meal, we returned to our hotel to retrieve our luggage and called for 2 Grab cars to Batam Center Ferry Terminal. We had to wait a long time for our car because of the rain and peak hour!

By the time we had arrived at the terminal, there was a large crowd gathered at the base of the escalator leading up to the immigration. Due to the large crowd of people returning to Singapore, the staff had to do crowd control by allowing only those whose ferry was due to leave in an hour or less to enter first. As we still had time, we were held at the holding area until it was our turn. Honestly, it would have been better had there been a proper system and waiting areas. Without it, some people were in standing around in states of panic and wondering what was happening.

Despite the crowd, we managed to clear immigration without any issues. The queue was longer than usual (it was a super peak period) but with a bit of patience, it was still manageable in my opinion (if you hate crowds then travel off-peak).

Disembarking our ferry at Harbourfront Ferry Terminal

Overall it was a great short trip for our family! 😃

HAPPY SG60 to all my fellow Singaporeans!!!

~~~~~~

P.S: Here're our experiences with other Batam accommodations:

2011: Harris Resort Batam Waterfront (over the New Year's Day weekend)
2013: Harris Hotel Batam Centre
2014: Harris Hotel Batam Centre
2015: Novotel Hotel
2019: Grand I Hotel
2022: Montigo Resorts Nongsa Batam
2024: Asialink Hotel by Prasanthi

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Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on

Batam, Indonesia as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Cebu Day 3-4: Snorkeling, Kayaking, Jollibee & Flight Home

2025-06-16T23:30:00.557+08:00

DAY 3

As per the Hubby's suggestion, our family woke up at 6am for snorkeling, in the hopes of seeing more sea creatures! 🩷

Can't believe we woke up at dawn for snorkeling! 🤭😅

The resort's private beach just after sunrise

Feeding the fish! 🐟

Up close and personal with the wildlife!

Had fun snorkeling as a family in the super clear waters! 🤿

Most common fish are the Sergeant Major Fish!

The Hubby really knows fish (we have a lot of fish at home *laughs*)! The sea creatures were in abundance and we managed to see many corals, Blue Sea Stars, a Moray Eel, Anemonefish, Sea Urchin, Parrotfish and Butterflyfish (Googled their names obviously, I'm not a fish expert! *laughs*).

The sun gets scorching hot much earlier in Cebu and the animals started to hide by 8.45am. We decided to return to our rooms to wash up before heading to Tides restaurant for breakfast.

Super hungry and couldn't wait for breakfast!

It was Father's Day so the restaurant specially decorated an area to celebrate the Dads!

Our spacious table

Yummy!

After breakfast, we changed back into our swimming suits and headed to the pool. The Eldest, the Boy and I went kayaking (complimentary for Ocean Club guests) while the Hubby watched the Littlest. We probably chose the wrong time to kayak as the sun was burning by the time we rowing out to sea! Thank God that I had lathered sunscreen on myself and the kids so we were not completely sunburnt! 😅

Kayaking by myself while the kids got the double kayak

Had a super fun time kayaking with my kids!

We met up with the Hubby and Littlest and headed to the Ocean Wing Pool, which was nice and warm!

Ocean Wing Pool

Simple pool that was away from the crowds

When we got hungry again, we washed up and headed to the nearest Jollibee for lunch (the Eldest decided to stay at the hotel).

Grabbed some quick bites at the Ocean Club Lounge before heading out

The Jollibee opposite Barangay Mactan Fire Station

Ordered sausage bun for the Boy and rice for the Hubby and Littlest

A bucket of chicken to share

Honestly, we were disappointed that the food at this outlet did not meet our expectation of what was typical of Jollibee! 😞

We returned to the hotel and headed to the Ocean Club Lounge for evening canapés.

We got a sofa area this time

Of course it was back into the pool once the sun has set! My family really loves to swim! 🤭

The pool was really warm so it was really enjoyable

We proceeded for dinner at Acqua restaurant after swimming.

The restaurant was kid-friendly 🙂

Pizza and other food that we ordered

Paccheri ai frutti di Mare (Italian pasta served with mixed seafood in tomato)

Tagliatelline alla Chitarra Vongole (pasta with clams and bottarga)

The food, especially the pasta, was really good! We enjoyed the meal even more as I'd used my Shangri-la Circle reward points to pay for the meal 🤭

We spent most of our time at the resort and therefore did not visit attractions such as Anjo World Theme Park or Cebu Ocean Park. The kids didn't care; they love being in the pool all day long!

DAY 4

We decided to let the kids sleep in while the Hubby and I head to the beach at 5.30am for our final morning of snorkeling.

Without the kids, we were able to spot even more sea creatures! On top of the fish that we had seen the day before, we also spotted a Picasso Triggerfish, a Flat Fish and two Reef Stonefish!

Picasso Triggerfish (left) and Flat Fish (top right)

We snorkelled for 3 hours and had an amazing time! It was barely 9am when we returned to our rooms and our kids were still sleeping 😅

After the kids woke up, we headed to Tides for breakfast.

What I ate

The hotel gave us complimentary late check out at 2pm so we had time for one last swim at the pool! 🥳

The younger kids were disappointed that this would be their last swim for this trip

Final family photo at the balcony (I'll miss the view so much!)

We took a Grab at 1.30pm and thankfully got a car almost immediately. There was no traffic jam so we arrived at Mactan Cebu International Airport at 1.55pm.

Mactan International Airport

After we checked in our luggage and cleared customs, the family had lunch at a Japanese restaurant in the airport (I gave lunch a miss as I was still full from breakfast)!

Nippon Ramen

I wanted to do some last minute shopping but the souvenirs at the shops were too expensive!

Our plane departed Cebu at 3.45pm.

Boarding our plane

Kid-friendly amenities and food

Pasta with fish

Our flight was 3 hour 15 minutes and we arrived in Singapore at around 7pm.

We had a great trip! It was good to be home! 🏡

<< Back to Cebu II Day 1-2: Shangri-La Mactan Ocean Club

~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Cebu, Philippines

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!

Cebu II Day 1-2: Shangri-La Mactan Ocean Club

2025-06-14T23:30:00.693+08:00

DAY 1

We booked our tickets via Singapore Airlines at $279 per adult/child (inclusive of seat selection)! I had a great time during my first visit and was excited for the Hubby and family to experience Mactan as well! 😁

We arrived at Changi Airport Terminal 2 at around 8.30am and had our breakfast in the transit area.

Our second time this year taking pictures with the huge pond at T2 Transit! 😊

We had our usual toast breakfast from Coffee & Toast 😋 Gotta have my favourite Teh-C before we flew off to a foreign country that doesn't have it! 😬

Our flight was supposed to depart at 11am but it ended up taking off at 11.20am instead.

Enjoying our flight and meals

After flying for about 3 hours and 30 minutes (thankful for a smooth flight), we arrived at Mactan Cebu International Airport at 2.50pm (no time difference between Singapore & Philippines).

Welcome to Cebu!

Once we landed, we had to complete a virtual arrival card for every person in our group. It took some time as we were unfamiliar with the process but we got help from a friendly airport staff! So thankful for him!

After we had cleared customs, we bought some drinks and snacks from the convenience store before hailing a Grab to our accommodation. Grab is my best choice in the Philippines for affordable and reliable transport 😀

Quick stop at Nomad before boarding our Grab

No prizes for guessing our accommodation! 🤭 I'd been so impressed by Shangri-La Mactan since my first visit in 2016 and have been wanting to bring the family ever since!

Checking in and enjoying our welcome drink!

All ready for our weekend of fun!

Instead of the Family Room we had stayed previously, we decided to splurge on two Ocean Club Rooms so that we can enjoy the Horizon Club facilities. It cost us $494 per room per night, inclusive of breakfast, afternoon tea and evening canapés (my kids are so blessed)! 😬

We were super happy to find out that Shangri-la had upgraded one of our rooms to the Ocean Wing Panorama Suite! The suite was huge!

Small counter with water and amenities near the door

Dining table and study area in the living room

Bedroom with TV

Comfy additional seating

Spacious bathroom with the usual amenities and L'occitane products!

Separate bathtub and shower with kids amenities provided as well! Super cute!

Left: Complimentary basket of fruits and nuts;
Right: Walk-in wardrobe with bathrobes and inside and outside slippers.

I love hanging out in the huge balcony! 😍

Amazing views of the ocean

Amazing views of the beach and resort!

View of the Ocean Wing Pool from our balcony
(There were two swimming pools in the resort!)

The balcony was my favourite aspect of the room and we spent so much time hanging out there! The resort also ensured that we received the contour pillows (for side-sleepers like me) that I ordered via the Shangri-la app! It made such a big difference to my sleep quality! So far, I've only had contour pillows at Gevora Hotel (Dubai) and China World Hotel (Beijing). It was a great start to our trip! 😍

View of the Main Wing Pool from the bathroom window

The other Ocean Club Room had a balcony with a sea view as well, albeit smaller than the suite. The two older kids were super lucky to have had the room all to themselves as the Littlest could sleep on the sofa in the suite (the 3 of them were supposed to share the king bed)! 😅

Bathroom and balcony of the Ocean Club Room

We were so excited to head to the Ocean Club Lounge for evening canapés but were disappointed to find out that the Littlest was not allowed in the lounge during Happy Hour! This was unlike our experience at Shangri-la Dubai and China World Hotel! I have given feedback to the hotel, as I don't see why kids were not allowed given that the resort catered to families. We had little choice but to take turns as someone had to take care of the Littlest in the room.

Spread of food at the Ocean Club Lounge

Little bites to fill your stomach! 😋

Selection of alcohol

We loved the selection of cheeses

What's on my plate?

After our evening canapés, we were all ready to hit the pool all dressed in our swim suits. However, the moment we stepped out of the lift of the ground floor, we saw that it was raining heavily with lightning and thunder! Such a bummer! 😮‍💨

We had little choice but to return to our rooms and call Grab for dinner. The food was not fantastic but it would do as we were too lazy to leave the comfort of our suite!

Made full use of our dining table

While the kids were sleeping, the Hubby and I spent quality time chatting in the balcony! The rain had stopped and there was a cool breeze after the rain blowing onto our faces!

Night view of the beach and sea from our balcony

It was a great night! ☺️💤

DAY 2

I must have slept really well on my contour pillow as I woke up really early at 6am the next morning!

It was already super bright at 6am! The sun rises early in this part of the world 😐

We headed to the Tides for our breakfast.

Chef-customised noodles and omelette plus kids corner

Local desserts and bread

Your choice of yogurt and toppings!

Your choice of ice cream and toppings!

We enjoyed the variety and quality of the food! Super yummy! 😋

After breakfast, we headed out to the sea for snorkeling! All Ocean Club rooms and suites come with complimentary rental of snorkeling gear, which you can obtain from the beach counter.

Beautiful morning for snorkeling!

Shangri-La Mactan's private beach

View of the beach and the Ocean Wing building from the sea

Our suite is on the second highest floor and first from the left (with the large balcony)

Having fun in the sand and the sea

The Boy's first time snorkeling! He had a great time!

Eldest was wearing the snorkeling mask we got from Decathlon

Photos of the coral and sea creatures that we managed to capture with our phones

Unlike 9 years ago, there were much less live corals due to the earthquake. We also did not manage to see many animals as it was getting hot. The Hubby said that we would have better luck if we went earlier in the morning (which we did the next day).

The kids soon got bored so we headed to the Main Pool.

It was super hot but the kids enjoyed their swim!

Kids loved the slide, which was just for kids below 12 years old

The Littlest also loved the smaller water playground

When it finally got too scorching hot to swim, I herded the family back to our rooms to wash up before heading to the Ocean Club Lounge for a quick snack.

Loving the snacks, hot chocolate and the view!

The snacks alone were not enough to fill us of course; we took a Grab to Kaya at Time Square Mactan for lunch.

Time Square Mactan

Kaya, a restaurant specialising in Korean BBQ

Look at the beef we ordered! So yummy! 😋

This was part of the lunch set we ordered

Various side dishes and the kids' favourite steamed egg

The food was delicious! Everyone enjoyed our lunch! 😄

We walked over to Mactan Town Center to check out the supermarket.

We shopped at Mr DIY and Merrymart Grocery

Had to get ice-cream and Happy Meal from McDonald's
(it's like a tradition for us to eat at Macs all over the world; for example in Dubai and USA)

We took a Grab back to our hotel just in time for afternoon tea and evening canapes (this trip was mainly eating and swimming! 😅).

Love the tea, cheeses and other bites

We headed to the pool again for a night swim.

Sunset in Mactan

Mega large chess!

The pool was heated to a perfect temperature! It wasn't cold at all!

We managed to catch snippets of a live performance before we headed back to our room

We didn't manage to bring the Littlest to Adventure Zone, unlike the Eldest during our last trip. The Littlest didn't seem to mind it much as she was more than happy with the pool! 😊

Looking forward to enjoying more quality time together as a family!

~~~~~~~~

P.S: We're proud Shangri-la Circle members; read about our Shangri-La experiences around the world:

2014: Shangri-La at the Shard, London (UK)
2014: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2016: Shangri-La Singapore
2016: Shangri-La Mactan, Cebu (Philippines)
2017: Shangri-La Golden Sands, Penang (Malaysia)
2017: Hotel Jen Puteri Harbour (Hello Kitty Room) (Malaysia)
2018: Shangri-La Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
2020: Shangri-La Singapore
2021: Shangri-La Singapore (Hubby's birthday)
2022: Shangri-La Rasa Sentosa (Singapore)
2024: Shangri-La Dubai (United Arab Emirates)
2024: Shangri-La Tanjung Aru, Kota Kinabalu (Malaysia)
2025: China World Hotel, Beijing (China)
2025: Pudong Shangri-La, Shanghai (China)

Continue to >> Cebu II Day 3-4: Snorkeling, Kayaking, Jollibee & Flight Home

~~~~~~

Visit MADPSYCHMUM TRAVELS for the rest of my posts on Cebu, Philippines

as well as other travel itineraries!

Please also follow my travel adventures on Instagram via the hashtag #madpsychmumtravels!