Cookie travels

I visited the beautiful country of Malaysia last year in one of my travels. It was a seminar and study visit with a group of delegates from Bangladesh. Incorporated in this trip was a chance to see the scenic wonders of this country. Genting Highlands was among the places we visited.

Genting Highlands is located on a mountain peak at 1700 meters above sea level. Our hired bus took us about an hour’s drive from Kuala Lumpur to reach this place. Genting Highlands is also known as the “Las Vegas of Malaysia” or the “City of Entertainment” where you can find the officially authorized land-based casino in this country, in other words this casino is legal.

Me and my colleague didn’t want to miss the chance to see what’s inside this so called Las Vegas of Malaysia, so we made this Las vegas our first stop when we arrived Genting Highlands. At the entrance you can see that the security was tight and you should be properly dressed. There were some tourists who were not allowed inside but we passed security check and happily walked in. Just think, we were properly dressed .

A lot of visitors were playing inside. You can see customers playing slot machines and other casino games like poker, blackjack. I observed that the Poker Tables were definitely of good quality. I wonder where they were ordered.

Our trip inside the casino was short. We didn’t even walk further down the room. We went in halfway, looked around and decided to leave. We didn’t play. We would rather spend our few hours in Genting Highlands for sightseeing.

If you are fascinated by ruins, ancient Thai architecture and history, a visit to Si Satchanalai Historical Park, Thailand may possibly charm you.

Si Satchanalai reflects a combination of Khmer, Sri Lankan and Thai styles. The architectural and sculptural structures of the Wat or temples are evidence of Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism influences long before the introduction of Theravada Buddhism. Here is what one writer described it:

A journey to the old town of Si Satchanalai does not give only the pleasure of seeing old magnificent ruins. The art, the values, and the religious convictions of our ancestors have made themselves felt in everything that is left at the Si Satchanalai Historical Park. They are ancient records of the past that have a lot to tell about the glory of the Sukhothai Kingdom. (source)

There are four temples situated at the center of Si Satchanalai: Wat Chang Lom, Wat Chedi Ched Thaew, Wat Suan Kaew Utayan Yai, and Wat Nag Phraya. We will take a virtual tour to each of these temples in succeeding posts. You know, its candidate of the week in THAILAND’S TOP DESTINATIONS, so let’s learn more about it.

Related Post:
Si Satchanalai Historical Park, Thailand

Our family went to Stockholm last May on board Viking Lines’ M/S Isabella. We left the port of Turku, Finland at 9PM and reached Stockholm at 6.30AM local time.

We were eagerly waiting for the ship to dock at Turku port that night. Kids were getting bored and impatient but as the ship approached, excitement stirred. It took some time before we could enter M/S Isabella coz it just arrived from Stockholm and so passengers were getting off. As soon as all was clear, we were allowed to enter the ship. And this was the scenario, the cleaners were very busy changing the bed sheets, cleaning the room, etc. they were all in a hurry, running in the hallway trying to finish their assigned job on schedule. Then in a few minutes there was an announcement asking them to leave coz the ship’s departing. Well, they finished their jobs on time.

We booked a four-berth family cabin, our small but comfy room which was equipped with radio plus alarm clock, air-conditioning, toilet, and shower. You could take shower coz toiletries and towels were provided, even plastic cups if you want water from tap. So, don’t worry if you haven’t taken a shower prior to the cruise.

After eating our take-away pizza, the kids were very eager to escape from our cabin. They couldn’t wait to go to the entertainment section where there were arcade games, Wii room, ball pool area, and playroom.

Hubby wanted to have some fun, too. So he tried playing the poker game and luckily win some few Euros which he spent on another slot machine. Something like the pirate game (I forgot the exact name) where you drop one coin at a time and the machine keeps pushing out the numerous coins inside so we could have as much coin as we want, if we are lucky. The game was so exciting and addicting. The kids enjoyed watching their dad play and collecting the coins coming out from the slot machine. They also wanted to play. Hubby kept on dropping coins but we were not so lucky in the end. We lost. Haha…

There are a lot of things to make you enjoy aside from the games. There’s music, food, shopping, and more. So we all had a great time in this cruise.

I went to the Helsinki City Museum last week and I really appreciated the artifacts and the paintings on display. I was on tour actually in Helsinki that day with my young sis, dad and mom. My young sis is what you call an art lover. There was one painting that caught her attention as we moved around the museum. It was a colorful reddish painting depicting a fire in Helsinki during that era. After our museum tour she also wanted to go to the gallery of Finnish architecture but then we didn’t have much time as we had this task of touring most tourist attractions in a day.

You might be one travel bug like her traveling in Massachusetts. I was browsing the web last night and found a number of art galleries in Massachusetts area alone. Art collectors who are traveling in Massachusetts might want to purchase some of these art pieces and bring them back home. People who appreciate art pieces can be lured to purchase beautiful art collections once they enter into any of these galleries especially if they have a budget for it.

If purchasing is not a hindrance, then shipping this piece of art is neither a problem. Take advantage of an Art Moving service available online at imaginemindseye.com if you are in Massachusetts. Be aware that there is a special technique involved in shipping works of art. The packaging material should also suit the piece of art or collection to be shipped. Hence, poor packaging might lead to damaging a piece of fragile art. So take shipping of art pieces seriously. Give Mind’s Eye a ring at 1-800-428-9800 before that beautiful piece of art gets damaged.

Most travelers have become photo and video enthusiasts, capturing as much as they can of their travel with the beautiful sights explored. After taking the shots, it would be nice to document travel photos or videos with some home craft ideas find online, in particular the digital scrapbooking. If you visit Mylifetime.com, you will learn that this multimedia company among their other services, offers travelers and general users with a great space to upload photos and videos, and ultimately share them with our family and friends in e-cards, slideshows and digital scrapbooks thru email, blog or in print. So actually, you are not limited to digital scrapbooking here. More so, you can add music and words to your photos and videos, plus select from among the hundreds of designs they provide. Creating great digital scrapbook and others is easy and free. Takes only 5 minutes!

The recently concluded 43rd Pori Jazz Festival organized during 12-20 July 2008 included 110 full concerts with 70 of them open to public for free. Pori Jazz is not an event for grown-ups only. Kids were encouraged to take part in this event. In fact, Pori Jazz Kids concerts and workshops were free. Pori Jazz 2008 sold a total of 66,000 tickets compared to last year’s 58,000 tickets. This might be due to the fact that among the many invited performers, the legendary Carlos Santana is present. His concert alone at Kirjurinluoto Arena held last Friday, 18th of July sold 34,000 tickets with all tickets sold out.

Here are some photos taken during this event and more coming up:

band performing at 43rd Pori Jazz Festival

people walking at Jazz Street lined with shops selling food, candies,
souvenirs, shoes, bags, and other items

Some football fans must be heading off to Geneva these days, among other venues, to cheer for their favorite team as they play in the Euro 2008 game. Today’s tournament is Group A: Czech Republic versus Portugal playing live at Stade de Geneve, Geneva. Which of these teams is going to move on to the quarter finals?

You can bring your thoughts to writing at the football picks message board of Addictsports.com, which has by far a number of members who like baseball and other sports . You can share with members in the sports forum whatever you want to say and discuss about your favorite sports, be it football, baseball, basketball, hockey, your favorite team, season, anything about sports. Enjoy talking about the sports you like and meet new friends here.

And by the way, if you are in Geneva, don’t forget to buy one of those Swiss chocolates before your flight back home. You can get it at the Co-op with additionally some good-priced souvenirs. It’s located on Rue du Commerce, takes about 30 minute walk from Cornavin train station.

Some people are just addicted to sports. Take for instance the American football or simply football, a popular sport in the United States played solely by male gender in leagues of various size, age and quality, throughout the country. A football fanatic might consider traveling to any region in America just to watch and cheer at their favorite football team. Is that so? Perhaps, coz he’s a sports fanatic. So if I mention here that you can catch some free football picks online to go together with your passion, maybe I will hear some cheers. Some though might just be happy talking the same language with other sports enthusiasts or following sports information online.

Addictsports.com is an online website that can provide sports enthusiasts with a daily dose of sports. You might want to check out their recommended sites such as fan blogs and NFL picks, their sport forums, and the humor in sports. And may I remind you that you need to be registered in order to get full advantage of this website. So register now and meet other hard core sports aficionados, fanatics, enthusiasts, addicts, whatever… so no more traveling to watch a game? I bet you still will. Cheers coming up.