Oaks Lexicon Apartments – Brisbane CBD

While in Brisbane, I live at Oaks Lexicon Apartments. I rode a taxi from airport going here and the fare was around $50. Let me give you a tour to my apartment. For security reasons, the front doors to the lobby entrance are locked between 10pm and 6am daily. Building access, the black circular shaped attached to the keys, are required to enter during those hours.

Luckily, I arrived 11 in the morning. I paid first for the rent and the receptionist handed me the keys to my apartment. Payments can be made by cash, credit card or EFTPOS. All credit card payments will incur a service fee of 1.5%. If guests arrived between 10pm and 6am, special check in arrangement is made.

The key with an orange mark (picture above) is the key to my apartment while the other one is the key for the gym. Not all guests have the key for the gym. The receptionist asked me if I will use the gym facilities and I said yes that why he gave me a key.Two sets of keys for the apartment are available but I chose to keep only one so that in case I got lock out, I can ask for the duplicate from them. Lost keys will have a fee of $300 per set. The same black circular shaped attached to the keys will be used to access your floor at the lift.

Travelling to Brisbane from Manila via Singapore Airlines Part 2

[Read Part 1 here] Going to Brisbane, my layover was at Singapore. I don’t need to go through immigration check since I didn’t left airport. I just waited there for more than 4 hours until my plane was ready to leave. I already got my boarding pass to Brisbane before I left Manila so no need to check in again.

Inside Changi Airport, I wandered around to look for a WiFi password portal and flight connection information.

At the WiFi password portal, after the machine detected and scanned my passport. It generated a password that I used to connect to the WiFi.

Boarding gate was not yet indicated in my boarding pass. Since it’s still 4 hours before my scheduled departure, the flight schedule for my trip was not yet displayed on the flight connection information screen. I checked the boarding gate manually at a flight information terminal.

Travelling to Brisbane from Manila via Singapore Airlines Part 1

The purpose of this blog post is to document my journey so that in the future I have something to reminisce about. My flight was from Manila to Brisbane with a stop over at Singapore, both trips were via Singapore Airlines. For Part 1, I’ll be blogging about my trip to Singapore.

This is my first time to fly to Australia and the reason I’ll be flying was because the company I’m working for sent me to work in Brisbane. The model of the plane I rode going to Singapore was Boeing 777-200 Passenger. I was seated at the economy section of the plane. The number of seats for most of the rows are 2-3-2. Two seats on both sides and 3 seats at the middle.

Foot rest are available at the bottom of each seats.

At the back of each head rest, is a tv screen where passengers can watch movies or tv shows, listen to music, track the flight status or play interactive games.

The controller is placed at the side of the arm rest of each seats. Each seat also have a pillow and an earphone.

  

Travel Guide: How to Go To Boracay Island from Caticlan Airport with Pictures

 Happy Easter everyone! This is a very very late post. You will see in the pictures below, the dates were dated last February. Anyway, it is better late than never. 🙂

I’m posting this entry to serve as a guide to tourist who will be going to Boracay via Caticlan. I know there are already a lot of articles  related to this post, but this post will be a more detailed post with pictures. 🙂

 

 

From [1]Godofredo P. Ramos Airport to [2]Caticlan Jetty Port

 

Upon landing at Godofredo P. Ramos Airport, we entered the arrival area where we waited for our check-in luggage.

While waiting for our luggage, we were asked to register first at the counter. Only one person needs to register per group.

Exploring Vietnam: 5 Days Saigon Tour Tips and Itinerary

Money Changer. Your first concern when you land in Vietnam is where you would exchange your money to their local currency. We had our USD exchanged to VND at the airport. The rates at the airport is lower. So exchange a little, just enough for your first day.

Vietnam Dong

Then, if you still lack VND, I recommend you to have your money exchange at EXIMBANK – 135 Bong Khoi Q1 TP Ho Chi Minh City, they offer good exchange rate.

Money Changer – 135 Bong Khoi Q1 TP Ho Chi Minh City

Whenever travelling to Vietnam, people would often buy North Face backpacks because it is cheaper there and of course souvenirs as remembrance of their trip.

North Face Bags. The first thing you should know is how to spot whether it is authentic or not. Check for the presence of the whistle and the hologram inside the bag.

  

Here’s to give you an idea how much more or less you should spend when buying stuffs. The prices displayed here are the amount we paid when purchasing the products. If you can bargain for a lower price the better. 🙂 We bought the bags at Saigon Square. 

Exploring Vietnam: Cyclo Tour – Ho Chi Minh City Tour – Water Puppet Show (Day 4)

We only explored the city of Ho Chi Minh in our 4th day because we opt to cover the further places first. Also, since our 4th day falls on a Sunday, we wanted to include in our itinerary hearing mass at Notre Dame Cathedral.  Originally, cyclo tour was part of our 2nd day itinerary, however, it was already late when we arrived Ho Chi Minh City and our tour guide told us that it is better to have the cyclo tour during early morning.

We just sat there and enjoyed cyclo tour for 45 mins exploring the city. While having this trip, I noted down some of the shops that caught my attention and decided to go back there during my free time.

 TIP: Remember to put sunblock if you are going to do this activity.

L-R (1st row) Temple, School, (2nd row) Department of Transportation, Library

Our trip ended at the Notre Dame Cathedral just in time for us to hear mass.

We arrived at the cathedral, past 9 in the morning. The English mass starts at 9:30.

Dining at Vietnam: Ngon Restaurant [Nha Hang Ngon] – Dinner (Day 3)

For our dinner, we decided to take a walk to Pasteur Restaurant while waiting for the AO show to start. As we walked towards the restaurant, I can see that a lot of people were dining here already. I kind of expected that we need to wait to be seated but to my surprise, we were accommodated at once.

I love their interiors. They have a cool pond inside their restaurant.

They have a very spacious place and has 2nd floor to accommodate more people. We were directed to our table at the 2nd floor to be seated.

Dining at Vietnam: Thu Thao Restaurant – Lunch Day 3

The tour guide brought us here at Thu Thao Restaurant to eat our lunch. I think the reason he brought us here is because it is already past noon and this is the nearest “clean” restaurant from the temple.