Iceland, The Healing Journey- Part 1/9: The basics

To be honest, I have never imagined myself traveling to Iceland. But I couldn’t imagine traveling my first trip there without the two girls who pulled me into their trip this time around- D and N who both are seasoned travelers and were very much the backbone of the trip. 

Hamad International Airport (HIA) Doha, Qatar- 1st layover

I practically knew nothing much about Iceland, so I couldn’t really imagine planning in detail for the journey, so much of the itinerary was based on this website: https://fullsuitcase.com/4-days-in-iceland/

The first draft of the itenarary, to roughly know what's there and where the places are. Sneafellsness is located in the purple circle 

I didn’t really have much time to probe around further and list other potential places/tours, but since we had an extra day to travel, we added in Sneafellsness Peninsular. Most of the tourist attractions are on the South Ring Road hence Sneafellsness which is more to the western tip of Iceland wasn’t on the itinerary in the first place. Apart from the South Ring Road, our next big thing, which was why the trip was on in the first place was the Aurora chase. You’ll find out what happens in the next few entries. 

Breakfast in Heathrow Airport, London our 2nd layover while waiting for the last flight into Iceland 

Anyway, this log is more for my future references, but if it helps you, go ahead. Be warned that there will be tonnes of pictures because, in all honesty, I’m still amazed at all the different landscapes, sceneries, and weather that we went through throughout the trip- it’s totally a different sight to see coming from the equator and you could just see and appreciate how great God’s creations are.

So on to the basics:

1) Choose your month carefully. Winter has short daytime and perhaps less time for sightseeing so maybe you’d need a longer duration of the vacation. We were told that the best time to see Aurora is around October-November when it’s about to start winter. Summer, on the other hand, will give you totally different sceneries and perhaps a lot more tourists around. We decided to go around March because Ramadhan falls in April.

2) Weather: Iceland’s weather is pretty unpredictable, especially around wintertime. We went towards the end of March, which was still during winter but at the tail end of it- still a lot of rain and snow and wind but on good days we got clear sky and sunshine. Do check the daytime hours, sunrise, and sunset on the days you’re having your trip. That said, keep in mind that the weather can change instantly too so you probably have to be flexible with your plans.

Found this in the pocket on Iceland Air

True, this

3) Driving seat is on the left side, so if you’re coming from South East Asia like us, we drive on the right side back home; it takes a bit of time time to get used to but definitely do-able, although you do need someone to keep a tab on your driving because everything is just the other way round including the roundabout.

Introducing your first driver, yours truly, thank you. Lucky these girls keep reminding me of the turning and whatnot

4) Taking into consideration the two above points if you go in summer or not-winter time, driving would probably be easier. In winter, it could be challenging. So do make some research about the driving conditions during the month you’re making your trip. Iceland is all about maintaining the natural habitat and nature hence most of the out-of-town roads are single lanes and some off-roads gravel roads too. Winter could be icy-road all the way or muddy, wet roads and you have to switch on your lights at all times. A lot of websites warned that apart from changing weather, the one thing that you need to be on the lookout for is other drivers on the road because you may not know how they would behave. And stick to the speed limit- I mean it, especially when we’re not used to driving on the icy roads.

This was on day 2, at a stop and viewpoint on the way to Golden Circle. 

5) If you have no confidence in driving, or are going in a smaller group or solo trip- don’t drive but book tours instead. There are a lot of tour groups that you can scout and book online- from day-trip to days-trip. Most places have day-tour trips from Reykjavik including Sneafellsness Peninsular, Golden Circle, Blue Lagoon, Vik/Diamond Beach/Glacier hike tour, and even aurora tours. You will probably have to do a lot of research on this though- there is a lot of information online. Unfortunately, Reykjavik doesn’t have a central tourist center rather they are scattered throughout the city hence your best bet is still online. But the good thing is, they are quite prompt with their replies via email so online is still the best way to deal with it.

6) Accommodation: There are a lot of hotels and BnBs in Reykjavik but limited at the outskirts. My suggestion is to plan the places you wanna see first and then see where the nearest accommodations are and work around that. We made our trip as far as Skaftafell/Jokulsarlon but now looking back I wonder if we could have gotten further east to Hofn. We did however decide that we wanted an “our pace” trip, slow and steady knowing that we would be driving in winter and did not want to rush things through, so maybe these places next time should the opportunity arrives.

The view from our 1st BnB

Our journey took a total of 27 hours from Kuala Lumpur to Reykjavik, via Doha and Heathrow. So we were pretty much jet-lagged and kinda disorientated when we first arrived… well, I was anyway, trying to make sense through the inability to sleep during the flight and sudden weather change- from tropical sunshine to sudden icy-cold around me. So my best advice is still to try to get as much sleep as you can while on the flight.

First thing first when you’ve gotten cleared from the custom and claimed your baggage- toilet, sim card, and car rental. Toilets are clean and well maintained. Simcard provides you with 5G of data at least, so bring a spare phone as a hotspot point- Waze is reliable throughout the journey, and our accommodations were easily found via Waze, even the off-road one. The car rental process however took a bit of time, but if you’ve booked it online, you just have to be patient.

We planned a few free nights in Reykjavik- on the first day of arrival, we booked the Aurora tour so that if it got canceled, we could rebook it again. 

Which was what happened- the unfavourable weather made it impossible to catch Aurora on the day we arrived so we decided to unpack, have dinner at our BnB, and had a good rest instead. 

Next: Part 2/9 Day 1 in Reykjavik

One Step at A Time- #2 GetFriends

//Thursday's Les Mills Tone with serra_lin@IG; a killer session every time, but worth it!

Get acquainted. Get friends. Don't do this alone. I mean, get serious friend(s) who either get into the journey with you or someone to monitor your journey.

Reasons- you need someone to keep a tab on your progress & to keep on motivating you. And trust me, you will get tired and demotivated at times.

//Easy walk at KL Tower Eco Park

//Hiking @ Tabur East

//Picnic & walk at Frim, Kepong

//Coway Run this year

If you have the means (time and financial) invest in a gym membership. Gym places usually have classes- Les Mills (under FF), HIIT-like classes, zumba, yoga etc. You can go to these classes for a starter until you find what you like, your niche- we'll talk more about this in later entries.

Invest in a personal trainer (PT) if it's within your reach/budget- because they can tailor the workout for you and they can correct your forms to avoid injuries. And because at times when you feel like you cannot go on anymore, they will push you past your limit, and you will be thankful for that.
Ask around and talk to the trainers on what they can offer.

//Burn class under Fitness First

//The fun bunch @ FF!

//Another fun bunch (quorum x complete) at the gym

My working hour isn't as flexible and I sometimes ended up finishing late- I can't keep up with some of the classes hence getting a PT was my best option. And hey, like someone said, results don't lie. [Honorary mention : khairulmuzzamir@IG]

Alternative is you can always join programme like Jom Kurus 1Malaysia or Fat Loss Challange programme by Anytime Fitness. Point is, don't walk this journey alone.

We'll talk more about workouts, exercise, and trainers in later posts.

Share with me your experience.

One Step at A Time - #1 The Trigger

This is one post that I've been delaying for months and contemplated many times simply because one, my journey isn't as great compared to others; two, I was never a sports person; and three, I wasn't and still am not sure if I could maintain this (read: istiqamah). The 'what if?' kept coming back.

But as I got more questions on how, perhaps I can share a little bit based on what I know and have practiced. I'll break the journey into different parts with different themes. So we go with first step today:

If you want to lose weight, find your reason(s) / trigger(s) to shed that kilogram and anchor it with (a) goal(s)- must be measurable, do-able and realistic.

Mine? The trigger was patient's comment while I was running the obesity clinic (something that went along the line 'but you're also not as fit to give me this advice on how to lose weight' 😑)

I had many other reasons to start losing weight- I was easily feeling tired and the timing just fit. It was around the time where I no longer need to do weekends round and someone (read: cousin Ummi) was pestering me to join the gym- more excuses to lepak with cuzzies!

So first step: Find your absolute resolution. Write down your do-able goal(s)

Mine? To get to ideal body weight, normal BMI, meaning to shed off 10kg. The aim was ~1kg per month (that's what we advice in the obesity clinic- ~1kg per month in the first 6 months)

What's yours?

#wanizsnotes

#onestepatatime

Lustrous New Zealand, North Island - Part 4

Auckland City

You can always google up on what are the tourist attractions in Auckland, but we mainly concentrate on walking up Mount Eden, shopping (for souvenirs) on Queen St (Lush is situated here by the way), went up the Sky Tower and just spend the day walking around the city.
( http://www.newzealand.com/int/feature/auckland-attractions/ )

If you still have fund, you can also choose the Skywalk or Skyjump at the Sky Tower! (http://skywalk.co.nz/) Unfortunately, we sort of ran out of fund by this time and opted out of the jump. Entrance for Sky Tower itself is NZD 28.

Skytower. If you can see the fine lines of cable, that's where the skyjump takes place!

Exquisite New Zealand - Part 3

First of all, wishing you all Eid Mubarak! "Taqabbal Allahu minna wa minkum" May Allah accept (the good deeds) from me and you.

(con't)
We reached Wellington at night; already called Capital View Motel Inn (NZD 145/night) that we were being slightly late- they open until 9 p.m. and if we reached after 9, they’d left the key for us. Had Maggie for dinner and slept the night off.

Wellington

Our hotel was just walking distance from Cuba Street, where the Bucket Fountain is located at. Still early in the morning hence many shops weren’t opened yet, we made our way down to Wellington waterfront and the Queens Wharf, ending up at the Cable Car station.

The plan was to take the Cable Car up the hill through the colourfully led tunnels and walk down the downhill path of the Botanic Garden back to the city. ( http://www.wellingtoncablecar.co.nz/English/What-To-Do.html#AttractionsMap )

But then it started to rain, light drizzle initially and then heavy rain as we were walking back to the city. 'GoogleMapped' a place to eat and we ended up having kebab at Abrakebabra, before heading back to our hotel to dry up. It was raining the rest of the day so we ended up sleeping. If the weather was sunny, we would have walk around and went for museum visits.

"We are going to do a lot of walking today! Rawr!"

Magnificent New Zealand - Part 2

(Warning! This post is LONG. And full of pictures. Don't say I don't warn you okay?)

Rotorua

From Matamata, we then headed to Rotorua, which took us another hour. We stayed for 2 nights in Rotorua at Greenview Hotel (formerly Rotorua Motor Lodge), near the Te Puia where the Pohutu Geyser is located at. It’s around NZD 100 per night. And since the place is near the geyser, there's quite a strong smell of sulphur around, if you don’t mind it.

Back from buying food~

The salted caramel Tim Tam was sooooooooo good!

Dinner at Ali Baba

The initial plan was to explore Rotorua the next day but we decided to go for Bungy / Skydive in Taupo (an hour away from Rotorua) instead... I’m not sure if that’s a miscalculation from our side or not because we ended up only able to do Bungy only- due to the weather (it was raining and the wind was strong) we can’t proceed with the skydiving on the same day.

So in the interest of time, we only managed to visit the The Puia after we came back from Bungy jumping and visited the Museum the next morning before departed for Taupo and then Wellington.

In Te Puia, you will have the chance to experience the Maori culture and visit the Pohutu Geyser on the guided tour. They have different packages, you can check it out here: tepuia.com Our ticket cost about NZD 64

   

Alluring New Zealand, North Island - Part 1

It's been a while since I last visited here it seems... Lots of things happened, been up and down in my real life, changed this blog's layout for easier navigating and I've decided to post regarding our trip to North Island, New Zealand first - simply because it's still fresh in my mind and I'd like to upload the pictures here - before the short Singapore and Penang trip last year. And maybe if I have some time I'll post about Egypt trip as well

This post is more for my documentation and future references, not for those planning on budget trip in NZ. This post will be divided into 3-4 entries for the next few weeks, as to not to clog everything into one post. And I'll be posting not according to dates like I did for Japan, but rather on places we visited. Enjoy!

------

New Zealand was a rerouted holiday for the 3 of us, under certain circumstances. Yup, this time around it was only the 3 of us apparently. I decided on the destination but really the mastermind behind the journey was Zeti. We took off on May 15^th, the night flight (celebrated Mom’s birthday in the morning) and surprise surprise! We met an ex-college mate who was also taking the same flight with us! We flew with Air Asia, which had a 75-min transit in Gold Coast; bought in-flight meal and baggage so our total ticket price per person was roughly RM 2100. 

The flight from KL to Gold Coast Australia took about 8 hours and another 3 hours from Gold Coast to Auckland. Time-wise Gold Coast is 2 hours ahead of KL and Auckland is 4 hours ahead of KL.

[ Digitalian : Hey Yeah! ]

幸せって何なの？　笑顔あふれること
Just what is happiness?　It's when the smiles overflow naturally

Day 6, April 13th: Universal Studio Japan!

Website: https://www.usj.co.jp/e/

7.30 a.m: From Osaka station we took the JR Loop Line to Nishikujo Station and changed train to USJ (Sakurajima Line). By the time we reached there, it was around 8 a.m- had an hour plus to kill since Universal Studio Japan opens at 9.30 a.m. At the gate, you can see the roller coaster track and everyone was already excited; the lines were already formed.

The train stops at Universal-City Station

Before Mel arrived

And a-MUST picture, of course!

Roller-coaseter HollywoodDream/BackDrop right at the entrance- this raised the tension UP!

Here Mel, Ija and Nik's colleague from BNM who’s studying at Waseda University joined us. While Ija went to pick her up, Sham and Zeti planned on our ‘journey' for the day i.e. which ride to take first. Yes, as you can see, we were OCD like that and time matters.  

Hogwarts- where Harry Potter and The Forbidden Journey ride is!

And we 'graduated!' One of the best rides EVER!

As soon as the gates opened, we rushed a.k.a. run for Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey (3D) in Wizarding World of Harry Potter- our intention was to get the 'timed entry ticket' (almost similar concept as FastPass in Disney Sea - read Day 3, April 10th : DisneySea! ) so we can spend the time waiting for our turn on another ride first but apparently there was no timed ticked for Harry Potter that morning, so we just went in instead (timed entry ticket may be needed during peaked season). This ride is HIGHLY recommended. It’s an indoor-suspended roller-coaster-like ride, with a caution of motion-sickness. You may also encounter fans with Hogwarts robes lining up along with you :D

Where to next? Hogsmeade of course!

Love love love Harry Potter area! And add the cloudy weather, it was almost like real winter!

Hogswarts Express

We took some time to taste the Butterbeer- sweet sweet caramalized drink, took some photos and bought some souvenirs.

Butterbeer came as hot or cold, with the mug or disposable cups :)

In one of the shops : Dervish and Banges I believe

Next, we headed to Hollywood area for the roller coaster ride: Hollywood Dream (front-forward ride) and Backdrop (backward roller coaster ride). In the interest of time, we chose Backdrop and planned to come back later for the other, but it had to be that exact moment when they had to pause the ride due to strong wind :( 

Quickly deciding which ride to take because we didn't buy the VIP pass

So we headed to Space Fantasy Ride, a 4D roller-coaster ride, also HIGHLY recommended. Next was Spiderman, another 3D-ride which is much like Transformer in Universal Studio Singapore (USS).

Then we went for Terminator 2- a 4D theatre, much like Shrek in USS; the interlude before we entered the main hall was entertaining, except if you can’t understand Japanese ^^;; If you look at the map below, we went from Harry Potter, then made our journey clockwise. From Space Fantasy, we went straight to Spiderman, then only went for Terminator- because of the waiting time (Terminator's waiting time was longer and Spiderman was shorter). They also have lockers to keep your belonging while you take the rides :)

Cyberdine System, where Terminator is taking place, situated in between Space Fantasy and Spiderman.
Refer to map below:

The route that we took - red (1st) then blue (2nd) then green (3rd); will be explained more below

We tried to catch Hollywood Dream (number 08 in the map above),  which has reopened after the wind subsided, but the waiting time was too long (up to 120 minutes!) so we went to Back to The Future in San Francisco area- another 4D miniride. It was nice but by this time, I had enough of 4D rides already. A walkthrough ride, Backdraft is similar to Hurricane in USS- with a lot of explanation before you enter the main hall and experience the heat of ‘how they make the scene’. So if you don’t understand Japanese, you can skip Backdraft, in my honest opinion. 

New York Area: Rides are Terminator 2 (3D theater) & The Amazing Adventure of Spiderman (3D ride)

Fooling around while the rest went to restroom

It was already raining by the time we finished Backdraft so we thought, what the heck, let’s get wet and go to Jurrasic Park! Here we have to take timed entry ticket, so the friendly staff helped us :) We had almost an hour to kill before our turn for the ride so we headed to Amity Village for Jaws, a water-boat adventure ride. Had some churros before we went in and took the ride with Mel joining us there (she went for Evangelion 4D ride in Universal Cool Japan after Harry Potter). Jaws from upfront made me go “Eh, just a boat ride?” but why, how wrong was I??! HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! I salute our boat driver for making it fun too!!

Waiting in line for Jaws- yes, there's a chance that you'll get wet!

The entrance

Apologies for the dark picture, we only had the chance to properly take photos afterwards, towards the evening

We ate lunch while waiting for our Jurrasic Park ride turn. Jurrasic Park concept here is more or less similar to USS but the boat is not the round-shaped boat, and the fall, for me was more abrupt and thrilling. It was already 4 pm by the end of it so we decided to catch Backdrop by hook or by crook AND managed to despite the long waiting time and had to wait some more for them to put clips on our scarves. But!! BACKDROP SAIKOU (the best)!! Two thumbs up!!!! You'll be seated in an individual seat with a music system personalized for you at your seat; so while waiting in line to get onto the ride, they'll list the song list on the tv monitors playing on loop. When you are seated, you may choose which song you wanted; I chose one of SMAP's song listed.

The on-loop video explaining about the ride

With all major rides done, we went to the Guest Service area to pray- they understood and would lead you to an empty room to pray :) On weekdays, USJ closes at 8pm. So we had another hour and a half to spend before going home and with everyone having different ideas on how to spend the remaining time, we split up: Me, Ira and Zeti went for souvenirs shopping and photographing session while Sham, Izzat and Ija went to catch Hollywood Dream, front-face ride and Nik and Mel went to catch the remaining rides that we haven't tried (we skipped entirely Universal Wonderland area & Waterworld area). 

Picture time! A-la in New York, haha!!

Try to find this alley for a picture with the Spidey!

We were lucky that when we got there, there weren't many people :D

  

Catching the sunset at the harbour

And dropped by Minion Mart for souvenir 

It was starting to rain by the time we finished shopping, hence the raincoat

Made it in time for the Magical Starlight Parade (we agreed to meet up at a corner near the Universal Cool Studio area by 7 pm) only to be informed by Mel that the parade was cancelled because of the rain. So we waited for others and decided to go to Hard Rock Cafe shop & Shonen Jump store outside USJ. It was then decided that we have dinner at Saizeriya J

I was already feeling very sick at this time, with headache and chills; Sham gave me panadol and drank a lot of clear fluid :(  On the way back, we dropped by the ticket counter in Shin-Osaka station to reserve seats for Shinkansen ride for tomorrow. By the time we reached the hotel, I was already having dizzy spell but the hot bath was sooooo soothing, felt like I could fall asleep in it!

Related link: Universal Studio Singapore (2013) (and upcoming Universal Studio Singapore, 2015)

Next: The Rain-Tour in Takayama

Preserved old town with streets and streets of beautiful traditional houses