Month: December 2015

Japan

Hokkaido in November

Author ByRyan Lee

Quick tips about Hokkaido:

Jr Train Map

  • The people here do not speak any English… like at all.  You’d expect the hotels to know English, but a majority of the staff couldn’t speak the language even one bit
  • As yen continues to depreciate, the value there keeps getting cheaper.  I was extremely happy with what I was getting for food and for shopping for the price I was paying
  • So yeah it’s a food paradise
  • Since public transportation is quite expensive, and since the weather can be a bit harsh in winter times, I would actually recommend renting a car if you have a group of three or more.  4 days rental was quoted at 29,000 yen including insurance
  • If you are traveling short distances and going with 3 or more people, you can consider riding a taxi too
  • Felt very safe the entire trip
  • If you want to see the autumn leaves, you should go there around Sept / Oct.  If you want to go for skiing / snowboarding, you should go there around December to February
  • Sapporo is a great city, but to appreciate Hokkaido’s scenery, you really have to go outside the city to other parts of Hokkaido

Continue reading Hokkaido in November

Switzerland

Geneva Breaks My Wallet

Author ByRyan Lee

About Geneva:

Geneva is a rather peaceful, quiet city for both the common tourists and locals.  Everything is very calm, it’s got an extremely low crime rate, everything is in order, and it just seems very serene to me.  Too serene in fact.  Sure, visiting here is OK for me, but I definitely cannot live here (otherwise I would be too bored.  I’m more of a big busy city person). Continue reading Geneva Breaks My Wallet

Korea

Seoul – Shopping Heaven

Author ByRyan Lee

Quick tips about Seoul:

  • It is a shopping paradise
  • It’s also a food paradise (especially if you like spicy and KBBQ)
  • We didn’t do any sight seeing, but based on reading from blogs, books and other guides, there isn’t an astounding amount of cultural / historical / scenic things to do (as compared to places in Europe).  A bit similar to Bangkok.  They EXIST but it’s not abundant and should be able to cover in a few days for the major attractions
  • The people there know very little English.  In fact, the salespeople in the retail shops actually speak Mandarin much better than English so prepare to bring some sort of translation book if you can only speak English
  • Transportation is very convenient
  • Although the transition between different train lines is a fair bit of distance… so plan your time accordingly
  • Many 24 hour restaurants
  • Felt safe the entire trip
  • very affordable (compared to HK)
  • actually Seoul is pretty much like Hong Kong except they speak Korean there instead of Cantonese

It’s definitely a trip well worth going, especially if you are into Korean Pop culture.  I’ll show you the places we went (for shopping and eating) so you can have a rough itinerary for your next trip. Continue reading Seoul – Shopping Heaven

China

Yunnan, Where The Pictures Are Prettier Than Reality Part Two

Author ByRyan Lee

Thank you for continuing to read part two of my Yunnan trip.  If you haven’t done so already, you can read part one of my Yunnan trip by clicking here: Part One.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I thought Yunnan was overrated.  I found a couple of locals who were very rude and impolite to us (while those who were extremely friendly and nice towards us were our hotel hosts, tour guides, and restaurants we visited).  Shopkeepers were extremely aggressive with their selling (and I understand that their income may be low, but that doesn’t make me not dislike their aggressiveness), and the bathrooms there were very, very unhygienic.  Even the food wasn’t as tasty as we thought, and sometimes the food wasn’t even cooked (we had dumplings where the meat was still pink >o<).  This is really disappointing as it made us lose trust in FOOD… we immediately lost appetite after this incident. Continue reading Yunnan, Where The Pictures Are Prettier Than Reality Part Two

China

Yunnan, Where The Pictures Are Prettier Than Reality Part One

Author ByRyan Lee

I hate to say this, but I found Yunnan to be one of the more overrated travel destinations I’ve been to (another one being Venice, Italy).  I was incredibly looking forward for this trip as I heard many good things about the scenery and I have a passion for spicy food, but Yunnan did not live up to its expectations.  I must make a disclaimer though that the time spent for this trip was relatively short, and I would suggest at least a week to visit all the scenery provinces in Yunnan.  Instead, we ended up spending 5 days (4 days of sightseeing, the last day was just getting to the airport) at Lijiang and Shangri-La. Continue reading Yunnan, Where The Pictures Are Prettier Than Reality Part One

South Africa

Cape Town Gorgeous

Author ByRyan Lee

Hellooooo Cape Town Gorgeous!

Ask me where my favorite place is to drive, and Cape Town will probably be at the top.  It’s got one of the more scenic and beautiful views for a city.  In fact, Cape Town is probably one of my favorite places I have traveled, ever.  Beautiful weather, beautiful food, beautiful environment, beautiful prices, I mean everything was amazing here!  This is one of the must go to in your life!

*Note: I went during January, which was their summer time.

Side note: I was able to snatch a return plane ticket to Johannesburg for only HKD 50 (to everyone outside of HK that’s about USD 6.5).  Yup, HKD 50!!!  Not including tax and fuel surcharges of course, but still that all amounted to less than 20% of what it will usually cost me.  Had to thank my colleagues for letting me know about the 1st anniversary of fanfares by Cathay Pacific on the day of. Continue reading Cape Town Gorgeous

Misc.

My Bad Experience With American Airlines

Author ByRyan Lee

While browsing through plane ticket deals for a round trip from Hong Kong to Los Angeles, I wasn’t able to find anything within my budget.  I was late to the game, the flight dates were during summer, and I didn’t want to settle on Korean Airlines.  And I had already bought my EDC tickets, so there was no way I was backing off now.

And then I remembered.  Luckily I was walking by and remembered that American Airlines was doing a promotion for setting up a route from Hong Kong to United States, some ad I came across.  So I went to their official site, did a search, and bam.  Cheapest airfare I could find for a reliable airline.  It wasn’t going to be a direct route, (Hong Kong -> Fort Worth, Texas -> Los Angeles) which I’m usually OK with.  It usually means more mileage for me anyway, plus I haven’t had any bad experiences with transfers… until this trip. Continue reading My Bad Experience With American Airlines

Interviews

Living In The EDM World With Skylar

Author ByRyan Lee

With the EDC Las Vegas festival fast approaching, and with electronic dance music (or dance music as some may prefer) manifesting itself globally while intertwining with today’s pop music, I brought along Insomniac employee Skylar Hardenbrook for a quick interview with us about his work life and his views on today’s EDM scene.  Here’s what he has to say – Continue reading Living In The EDM World With Skylar

China

KTV For The Ladies

Author ByRyan Lee

In a world of innocence, KTV simply means an establishment where you can sing karaoke. In our real world, the term KTV can mean more than that, especially for guys. To briefly put, a guy’s version of KTV is an establishment where you can sing karaoke, but with female “accompaniment” that you can choose.

But for this post, I’m actually not going to focus on guy’s version of KTV, I’m going to talk about the much lesser known girl’s version of KTV. Fortunately enough, I managed to get Geo (not real name), an ex-employee of a KTV establishment, to do an interview with me on this topic. Continue reading KTV For The Ladies