It’s end of August! Which means the time for mid-autumn festival. I’ve been looking for information about the event this year (only yesterday actually 😅) but couldn’t find anything.
Today, I went to Vivocity to collect my ezcharm from Golden Village (GV) cinema. I’m not familiar with the mall layout and ended up at 3rd floor where I saw a sign about VivoCity’s Curious Adventures and it is about Alice in Wonderland lanterns!! I walked excitedly to the SkyPark and there it is! The lanterns 😍
I was there from 5.20pm to 5.30pm. Didn’t take too many photos because I thought it would be better if they are on. I left the park and continued with my original plan. Go to GV cinema. Once I’m done, I had dinner in one of the resto there. The whole time I was eating, I was contemplating between going home and waiting for the evening sky. After further consideration (and some suggestions from my friends), I decided to wait until it’s dark (or at least until the lantern is on. I went up to the SkyPark again around 6.30pm and sat near the pool.
At 7.00pm, they turned on the lantern!! Soooo pretty ❤ I only have my Samsung phone with me and the first few shots were not that good because all I can see is the lights inside the lantern individually, not as one whole object. Hence, I switched the mode to Pro mode. There I could set the ISO to 100, and set the apperture so I could balance the lights. And voila, here they are :
Since I was there already, I decided to wait for a little while until the sky darker and took another round of photos. Still using pro mode on Samsung phone.
This mid-autumn lantern will last until 22 September 2019 at VivoCity Mall. If you want to visit, come at or after 7.00pm when they have turned on the lanterns. There is another event as well related to this Wonderland, you can read more here.
Where to go for my next mid-autumn lantern obsession? Maybe Gardens By The Bay!
Thank you for reading. Happy shooting the pretty lanterns 😉
After a tiring day visiting temples in Angkor city, the 3rd day we decided to do some relaxing activity. After breakfast, we met our remorge driver in front of the hotel and headed to Artisans d’Angkor.
Artisans d’Angkor is a handicraft workshop center. They have workshops for wood carving, stone carving, silver plated, fabric painting and so on. They are open daily from 8 am to 6 pm and free entrance. Once we arrived there, someone welcomed us and became our tour guide for the entire stay. And the great thing is it was free of charge! Yes, they also provided free guided tour in our language.
It was very interesting and fascinating to see the process of crafting the product. They are very talented indeed. There were a lot of questions popped up in my head, mainly about “how did they do it?! how did they have such an inspiration?!”. For a person who can’t create any art, these things are always amaze me. It such an amazing trip to this place! Please take a look of some pictures I took there 🙂
Wood CarvingStep by step of how they do wood carving
Using a metal version as a model for wood carving
Stone CarvingFrom a block of stone to a beautiful statueStone carving for Temple Restoration project
Elephant stone carving (model & work-in-process)
Silver plating
Step-by-step process. An amazing end product!
Silk painting. Look at that level of detail!
Silk Weaving
Silkworm Cocoon
Silk weaving
After we finished visiting all their workshops, we arrived at the shop where they sell their product. The shop is pretty big with a lot of product from every workshop. I enjoyed strolling around the shop and adored the pretty stuff. Make sure you make time to visit this place if you like handicraft. Happy Shopping!
Artisan d’Angkor Souvenir Shop
Assorted silk scarves
Artisan d’Angkor Souvenir Shop
Cute stone piggy
Next place we visited was Angkor National Museum. Another fascinating place to visit! The entrance fee is US$12 for adult. We had to leave our bag at the counter and they gave us a small bag to put our wallet and phone (and camera for me). Unfortunately, we were not allowed to take photo in most rooms so my camera had no use there.
Small bag for our stuff
When we entered the area, I had a low expectation of this museum. Thankfully I was wrong! This museum is a must-visit for a history lover or an art lover. There are total 9 galleries in Angkor National Museum and my favorite is the Exclusive Gallery which has 1000 Buddha Images. I didn’t count them, of course.. but there are many of Buddha statues in that gallery. All different kind of Buddha. Amazing images. Visit their website to have a sneak peek on how does the gallery look like and to get to know other information. Some people recommends visiting the museum before visiting Angkor Wat, but I think visiting it after Angkor Wat also can give you insight of what you’ve seen at the temple. It might answer your question about the temple as well, if you have any.
Angkor National Museum entrance to Galleries
Our last destination for the day was floating village by the lake. It took around 42 mins from the city by car, or about 1 hour by remorge. Sitting on the remorge for an hour was quite a journey. The wind blew so hard on our face but the good thing was it made the weather less hot 😀 (although I was afraid I might catch a cold lol). I think it even rain that time..
On the way to Floating Village
We stopped by at the ticket counter to buy our entrance ticket. We paid for US$23 per person for the ticket. Quite expensive but we had no complaint since we got our own boat with noone else around. Lovely private trip 😀 If you need to go to the bathroom, this is the time because there will be no more bathroom after this point. After we got our ticket, we continued our journey.
on the way to floating village
Almost there
Boat to go to floating village
We boarded on our boat and went to Floating Village. I wished our guide, Mr Bun Rong, was with us. He can speak English very well. Floating Village is not my favorite place to go. Not because of the view but because I’m scared being on a boat 😅 I don’t like to get on a boat that is shake so much. This boat was actually not bad, but whenever we passed by another boat it would shake because of the wave. Thankfully, I was busy enough taking photos so the trip was not too bad for me. Although I must say it is better to go there near sunset time. For the other time, the view is just like a normal floating village, no special lighting 😀 The villagers have to live and do their daily life from boat to boat. Temples and schools are on top of water as well.
After about 30 mins boat ride, we arrived at sunset point. It was an open space with a lot of other boats around. They were also waiting for sunset like us. We stopped by at one spot and just waited there. There was a small boat approaching us and turned out she was selling drinks and snacks! 😄
Drink seller on boat!
It was a bit cloudy near sunset time so the sky was not as we expected 😔 There was no orange sky in the horizon, but at least we could still see some yellow-ish and magnificent sky. Ah~~ I love sunset! We enjoyed it until the sun almost gone then decided to head back because I didn’t want to go back too late.
Beautiful floating village at sunsetSunset on the boat at Tonle Sap Lake
Thank you for reading, my story! Have you been to any of these places? What do you think about them? Let me know in the comment 🙂 Bye for now! See you on day 4.
Hi everyone, I’m in Nha Trang at the moment and will post everything I know about this city to help you or your friend. Meanwhile, please enjoy this photo and imagine you are here as well!
(To see my photos from previous days please visit my facebook page here. Thank you)
Today is day 50 of my photo challenge this year. I took this photo on Le Thanh Ton street. Was curious about it for a while since I saw it on pokemon Go as one of the pokestop. Apparently it is only a small street with 2 mural arts on it. One of it is this picture, and I think it is quite nice and unique.
I’m lucky to be able to capture the gold reflection on the buildings from the sun. There is no way I can watch sunset from my apartment. Tall building is there, to block my view
