Cinque Terre

i was somehow enjoying my week in belgium despite the broken foot: i had been thoroughly spoiled. we've visited family, i've met friends and they had all been so wonderful and almost not allowing me to walk because of my condition. pieter, who i was supposed to meet for rock werchter, even came to pick me up and drop me off at the airport when i was to take my flight to pisa to join my inlaws and lovro for the tuscan holiday! but the fun ends and the real challenge began as soon as i got in the airport. i managed to do without my crutches, but walking had to be done really slowly and only in short distances. i found myself really tired in AMS airport and eventually had to ask customer service to send someone from customer services. i had to stay overnight in amsterdam and take a flight to pisa very early the next day. 

after landing i had to be the last to leave the plane since i asked for a wheelchair. i have to admit, being pushed on wheels and receiving special treatment was kinda fun 😄 my arrival was around 8am and mams and paps were to pick me up from sorano, which was more than 3 hours away. so we agreed that i will wait for them for a few hours in the airport, and it was not an issue when i was on a comfortable wheelchair, in an air-conditioned room for people who needed assistance. 

once they've arrived, we headed straight to the next item in the F list: cinque terre. cinque terre refers to the 5 coastal towns in the italian riviera. i booked an apartment in the town of riomagiorre, supposedly the most popular one. the view from the apartment was absolutely amazing.

to get there, we parked the car in la spezia and took the train. this train stops in each of the 5 coastal towns and definitely the best means of transport around the area. typically, a trip to cinque terre would mean taking a few days to explore each of the towns, but we had only planned to stay overnight. luckily we opted to go for a private boat tour to see each one, perhaps the best way to do so in a matter of hours. each town was beautiful, i couldn't stop taking photos. conversely, lovro was lulled by the boat ride and was asleep in no time.

riomagiorre

the boat tour started in riomagiorre, where we stayed. as we pulled away from the dock, i could see why i was convinced to stay here. it looked really picturesque. the cliff provides a great platform for the water fanatics to jump in, and it was quite amusing to watch them from the balcony of our apartment.

manarola

of the five villages, manarola is most abundant with grapevines and therefore produce some good wines. the most popular is a sweet one called schiacchetra.  

corniglia

corniglia is the smallest of the five towns but also the most elevated. apparently difficult to reach by car so visitors have to take the train or hike from another village.

vernazza

some would say that vernazza is probably the most beautiful of the five towns, but it was hard to judge as we have not really explored any aside from riomagiorre. from the pictures i found in google, however, it seemed really beautiful. hidden from our sight is a nice beach and a more postcard-worthy view. 

monterosso

monterosso is the last village from the train station, but the biggest and oldest one. apparently the most visited town aside from riomaggiore, and for such a busy town you could expect a very vivid night life. surely not the right town for us as we have lovro. 😀

after a magnificent boat tour, we stayed in to watch the semi-finals between belgium and france. too bad that didn't end well, and in solidarity with our dismay, the weather was a bit sour the next day. the winds were strong and the waves wild, no boats were allowed to sail. it was also the day we would leave anyway.

and so we crossed another one off the F list, and embarked on a 4-hour drive into the heart of tuscany, yet another to cross off.

Off to Belgium With a Broken Foot

i'd been planning my summer holidays for some time now and i was really excited because it was going to be one of the longest ones to date. I was going to use my 4-week paid sabbatical + 3 weeks of vacation leave. it was going to be epic!

and then, 10 days before my planned departure, i broke my foot. i thought it was just going to be a sprain, and thought i can just tough it out. but speaking to my colleague (who recently broke her foot) and describing to her how swollen my foot was, she bluntly told me "i think you really need to see a doctor now." so i did, and after a trip to the x-ray room, the doctor has confirmed that i have indeed broken my foot!

i told him that it was imperative that i fly out in 10 days so he suggested to do an operation. i said i will do whatever it takes. so he cut open my foot, put some rings around the broken bone, put me in air cast and crutches and armed me with loads of painkillers. nothing was going to stop me from flying out.

i made sure to get a written document from him to allow me to fly out and then we went our merry way to the airport. my air cast AKA robo-foot had been attracting attention, and my t-shirt was aptly describing someone who broke her foot and still stubbornly insisting on traveling. 😄

after what you can imagine to be a very uncomfortable long haul flight only made better by being wheelchair-assisted, we were scooped up from the airport by my loving parents in law. we arrived july 1st, and as per original plans they were meant to be on a road trip with lovro on the 4th while i go and rock it out with my friend pieter at Rock Werchter. for obvious reasons, i could not go to that festival anymore and was instead going to be on house arrest. luckily, my days in Bruges were not meant to be a bore! 

on wednesday we went to zeebrugge and i saw a familiar sight. exactly a year ago, we boarded this beautiful yacht in illullisiat, greenland for a 3-week expedition. and since the captain (my father in law of course) was there with us too, then a picture with Moonlight was to be had.

thursday i've met willy over salad and BarBar beer and we agreed to watch the belgium-brazil match the next evening at Le Trappiste - a popular and amazing bar in an old dungeon. the best part: belgium won! the streets have gone mad! so mad that i don't remember how much beer i had that night. nor do i recall whatever happened to those silly belgian sunglasses. 😁 amazingly, i made it back home in my bicycle. success!

and then for the weekend, i had amazing company again. olivier knew of my misfortune and decided to spend the weekend with me. we set off to explore bruges with me at the back of the electric bike. the weather was fantastic.  

even though i've been visiting bruges every year i have never actually taken a canal cruise. with my broken foot it seemed like a good idea to see the small town through the canals, and so we hopped on a boat. it was quite warm and being on a cruise under the sun, we definitely deserved some beer. in the evening i managed to score a table at a popular local restaurant called Ribs n' Beer that serves unlimited racks of ribs. they have a popular sauce made of chocolate and ribs but we decided to stick to the original recipe. afterwards, we came back to the beloved dungeon for a beer.

sunday was a visit to minnewater park. it was quite warm, so sitting by the water, watching the lovely swans gracefully move about while having my most favorite belgian snack frikandel speciaal was such a treat. 

little did i know that this wonderful weekend was a prelude to something even more special. but that's a story that peaks in greece. stay tuned 😉

Trek for Hope Family Edition: Muar Adventures

as you can tell by now i'm fast becoming a regular in the adventures unlimited "malaysia unlimited" trips. fun adventures over the weekend with great company, it's not hard to see why. even though mondays back to work are usually a pain (mostly literal), accomplishing something over the weekend is really addictive.

last weekend, i've decided to introduce my kid to outdoor adventures via this same company. more than a month ago i saw a meetup for a family edition trip to muar, a historic town in malaysia. after reading their pitch about why parents should include kids in outdoor activities, i was convinced it is a good chance to put lovro's curiosity to test. my 4 year-old, while adorably well-behaved, seem to be too careful and not very adventurous. he won't even walk on sand! once, i tried to take him to walk the imbiah trail in sentosa with me, but he freaked out as soon as he saw a spider! but i thought that if i take him on a trip with other families and kids he might be enticed to be more receptive and come out of his comfort zone.

before this trip i kept setting up the expectation that we were going on an adventure, to get him all excited. it totally worked as he didn't complain about waking up at 6:15am to get on a cab. we met with the group in woodlands mrt at 7am and left promptly.

it was quite a drive, but he got a chance to sleep somehow. we arrived in sabak awor resort just before noon. the room was quite basic, but functional. AC, water heating and toilet works great. after all, we were not planning to stay in the room other than to sleep! our day was packed with activities that we're very much looking forward to.

after a quick check-in we headed straight to the restaurant for a highly-anticipated lunch. the buffet was very good, but we were so hungry we forgot to take photos 😁

after a quick break we started our first activity: tarzan jungle park. initially i thought it was going to be a 'real' jungle exploration, so when i saw jungle park i thought it didn't look very impressive. however, i was proved wrong. there was much to do and see in this small park! 

i was taken back to my childhood. as a kid, i loved climbing trees. our neighborhood had a lot of kerson cherry trees, and even though i never liked to eat the fruit, i enjoyed climbing up the trees to harvest them. i'd give them to the neighborhood kids, or even feed them to the neighbors' goats! but i loved getting high up the tree, looking over the horizon or just down to see what's going on around the village. i haven't climbed trees in a very long time, and in this jungle park i got to realize that i still enjoy it. 

lovro also got a taste of it as simon steadied him as he navigated through the tree branches, then richard held him for photo ops. i was so proud of my little explorer for such a daring move! 

there were a bunch of other fun things to do in this park. it's too bad that the guide were explaining about the park in mandarin so i didn't follow much of what was said, but the folks in the group would kindly translate some stuff. from what i understood there were some kampong games we could do like walking on 2 sticks or a 3-people relay while walking on logs (i don't really know the names) but we all took a shot at those. they were not easy!

after a sweaty recreation, we earned our right to the next activity: otak-otak challenge! we were to make otak-otak (not from scratch though, just to put them on the leaves and grill). the host said the mixture was meant to make 25-30 pieces of otak-otak. we were split into 2 groups, and tasks were delegated. i helped to scoop the otak into the leaves and lovro was the designated stapler guy to secure the otak for grilling. 

our team made 29 pieces while team b made 32. our team won! we earned the otak-otak badge of excellence 💪 lovro was very happy! 

after that tasty snacking, i was glad we had almost an hour to rest. lovro definitely needed a power nap before the cruise. 

we started the eco-tour cruise at 5:30pm. in our itinerary we knew that we were going for a firefly cruise, but we started out early so we can see the sunset and the mangrove. it was quite an educational cruise, again as the group would translate snippets of the information from the guide in english so that sucan and i could understand. that said, i couldn't share much information about the history of the muar river and the surroundings, but we saw a lot of interesting wildlife there! lucky for us we had richard and his amazing camera, who were able to take good shots of the animals we could only see from a distance. i especially loved the dusty leaf monkey, its face was so cute!  

we ended up going back right as the sun set so we could take nice sunset photos as we got off the boat. however, it was not dark enough for us to see fireflies. so the plan was to go for dinner first then come back for another round for the firefly cruise.

while we all stood in awe to enjoy the sunset, lovro was enjoying playing with uncle sucan and the rest of the folks. and then, it was time to eat again!

we set back out to the river at 8:30pm to see fireflies. it was magical! some of the trees had a lot of fireflies in them they were blinking like christmas lights. we couldn't capture this magnificence in photos or videos though, but it was probably the higlight of the trip for me. it was so special to experience it with my darling son, who'd happily point out where the fireflies were while locked in his mama's embrace. awww 💓

the next morning, the group was to set off to bukit mor for a short hiking. it was not suitable for lovro so we opted to sleep in and just chill. we were able to have late breakfast (that porridge with pumpkin was so shiok!) and just chilled by the restaurant as we watched a man catch some prawns. lovro enjoyed cheering him on. he would say nooooo! whenever he'd pull the fishing rod without a catch, and encouraged him to 'try again!'. he also had fun chasing roosters haha

after that we meant to go to the donhu jurassic garden but as it rained heavily we had to wait it out. we still visited although rather late, around past 11 and we were to leave by noon. luckily i brought the scooter with me, which made it a mere dash to get to this place. it seemed that an hour visit was just nice, we didn't need that much time to spend there. it was free to visit the dinos, but i got lovro to ride on a dinosaur for 5 ringgit, which he enjoyed very much. 

the merry holidays bus just came around past noon to pick us up from the jurassic garden and then we were off for seafood lunch! 

we had assam fish and other seafood for lunch, which was initially planned for dinner. it worked out quite well in fact, when sucan told me that the other parents wanted to be back in singapore early and skip the group dinner in malaysia: i also didn't want to be out too late as lovro would have classes the next day too. 

post lunch was the muar town tour. we stopped to take photos of the loving sisters mural, then had afternoon tea/coffee break at 434 coffee. then we raided an otak factory to tabao some otak and then finally glutton street ave 4 for some street food and beverages. yes, we did a lot of eating in this trip!

we reached the malaysian checkpoint before 8pm and it was surprisingly smooth on the way back to woodlands checkpoint. it was such a pleasant surprise to get back without the human and traffic jam! 

we got home past 10pm and i hurriedly tucked lovro in bed. before he dozed off, he said, "i like malaysia! i wanna go back to malaysia!" i suppose i could say with confidence that he definitely had a blast in this trip, and i'm glad we did it with adventures unlimited. i'm looking forward to the next one. 

------------------------
trek for hope - family edition: muar adventures
organized by adventures unlimited
june 2-3 2018

most photos borrowed from richard chia (the really nice photos!)

special thanks to sucan and simon for being such wonderful hosts and very awesome with lovro! but i'm sorry sucan, he said uncle simon is his favorite 😝