Weekend part at Lastcall Nha Trang

Friday night we brought our new friend Jon for New Zealand to try local back ally store which cannot be found on Google map. I think all of them is impressed with the low price. They also try the duck egg with us. 

Good food around the corner of hidden back ally

For dinner we ate hu tieu, then to jelly brew bar we play card games. I learn an ice breaking game that you put a deck of card on a water bottle and blow at least 3 cards off to the table. The person who end up blew off the deck will have to drink. 

To end the night we tried the last call bar near our hotel and they tried the laughing man and they seem to like it. But I just don’t like the feeling at all. Don’t know maybe I outgrew all these? Or maybe I afraid of the health impact of it?

Being cross our 40 yrs old mark. Life is feeling like counting down. Last time when we are young we are so used to try new things and take bigger risk. Now is about managing risk

Getting fatter in Nha Trang

Today was unlucky. We lost our hotel room card. After drinking Jackie lead me to track back all the way to the dessert place and back to the Pho place where we ate our dinner. Glad we found our keycard at the pho place. If not for her, I could have just given up and go back hotel to report lost. So today I clock >10,000 steps because of this. 

I realise I getting fatter after we reach Vietnam. Really strange, usually people slim down due to the food, I put on weight instead. I started to miss playing basketball alone in Singapore. That’s how I lose weight one. Today I went up to Prime New Hotel level 15 to do 8 small lap. I enjoyed it. I need to incorporate some exercise regime in my travelling plan. 

Found our hotel keycard

Next month we plan to move to Hanoi. Kind of want to go Taiwan or Japan to try instead. Since we getting to Hanoi which is a good place to cycle. Let plan to bring our Brompton. 

Read, exercise and love more. 

We stumble upon a good Pho Bo in Nha Trang

 

Having Kem Bo in Nha Trang

Today photo of the day at 10pm is eating dessert after dinner for Goat meat steamboat with Xavier. 

Today highlight of the day is that wonder around the town and stumble upon a Pho which was heavily reviewed 7000+ people go there and a lot of Korean, alomost full house for during lunch time. This place is a Pho Hanh Phuc. The Pho Cuon is very nice with the sweet sauce and the Pho Bo is served in a marble pot which ensure the temperature to keep hotter for a longer time.

Today I watch in the hotel the trump and harris debate and surprising to me that Harris had been hiding and prepare for very long. She felt very scripted and of course well prepared for the debate. I shall say she had performed better over her usual word salad but this performance is only good to prove her worth to her own base supporter. Since this is the first time she appeared online to answer question. However, the ABC news outlet moderator was heavily leaning to Harris by fact checking Trump only. If anything they should leave it to Harris to point out herself but not to beat Trump by 3 : 1. However I felt she still had not been speaking to the swing voter if any of her policy changes.

I felt asleep half way. Either way although I like Trump more, but if he is elected China will be very jialat which I don't want Hua Wei to be keep getting suppressed.

See hows the election goes...

Nice condotel and food around Anrizon hotel

 Today is the 2nd week. I rented the ebike for the second time in Nha Trang. 140k per day at motor4free. The service was fast as usual, got it in less than 10mins since I have the old record. 

Today we explored a new food for tea break banh beo, banh nam and banh hoi. The location is at Banh Beo Be Tu. Very cheap serve by local aunty, 3 dish for only 90k ($5.5SGD) in total only.

Then we went back to Anrizon side, north of the Nha Trang centre. Anrizon side is a condotel which we booked for 280k per night. Which is around $15 per night. The hotel is very clean and looks like a service apartment with daily room services. We reckon that we can stay here long term as per month rental work out to be only $450 SGD which most HDB room rental are able to cover with some positive cashflow. The cost of living is around 30% cheaper than Nha Trang centre. 

Anrizon condotel is 30% cheaper than Nha Trang Centre

iphone alarm to remind us to blog for the day

In case you don't know we are still 3rd day doing our daily blogging. You can find jackie's blog over here. 

For dinner we bring Xavier to eat Oc at Oc Zang 96 which is the local shell seafood which we recommend due to the cheap price for local. Cheap but good for of course which we had endorse for people who wants to come visit Nha Trang. 

Lastly, after dinner, we went to Anrizon hotel to drink the 1L Bia Tuoi a local beer brewed in Nha Trang. For the price of 29k for 1L. Like OMG. $1.80 SGD where can you find.

Wendy is like super impressed with Vietnam, she comment if not for us, she will never get to Vietnam in the first place. Let alone try "Street Food" or snail as she thinks it will be very unhygienic. Well we can definitely be a local tour guide or Vietnam ambassador.

To end the day, we throw a last final touch for supper. Our favorite Hu Tieu around anrizon. It cannot be found on google map as it is a night vendor like a pop up store which doesn't have any online presence. She operate just in front of bakeboy only after 10pm. I believe it is not legal to do business there? But damn, Xavier and Wendy was super impressed with our recommendation. 

If you stay around Anrizon, after 10pm at night, drop by bakeboy bakery, the vendor aunty is there. Don't forget to ask to have the pork rib. It is super tender. You will not miss it as the smell of radish pork soup linger at the vacinity.   

Our friend Xavier come visit at Nha Trang

 

Hosting Xavier and Wendy from Singapore

As spoken yesterday, we are supposed to blog on a daily basis and today we missed the 10pm blogging time again. Therefore we are supposed to take a picture regardless of what we are doing. Stop and reflect why today we are not on schedule again. 

Today, our friend Xavier and Wendy came over from Bali as they are just starting to enjoy their first trip after Xavier quit his full time job. 裸辞 and join Jackie to do their freelance SAP job. They are super impressed with Nha Trang Vietnam over Bali. They review is that out of their expectation they didn't expect Vietnam to be so clean, road so wide and not too much traffic. Food is very refreshing and cost of living is so low. They had express that they will return to do a long stay if they had the chance.

You see, that's why all my friend ask me why I keep returning to Vietnam. From my blog history you can tell that I am a long time Vietnam ambassador. I had been on and off staying in Vietnam for a period of 2 years. Been traveling south and north. Next stop we will plan for a Da Nang trip next year.

Today we also went to enjoy KTV in Nha Trang. Can sing Chinese song and 240k dong (~$15) per hour and 28k ($1.60) for 1 can of beer. Exchange rate is 100 SGD to 1,900,000 dong. That is super cheap. 

Enough for the ranting. Next week 4th Uncle and Father will fly to Nha Trang and meet us. So stay tuned we will post more of our Vietnam trip here.

Today is Monday hence is our "Me Time" day. We will spend one day away from each other and go experience Vietnam on our own. On track for our changes. Jiayou!!!

We coming back for blogging hopefully

 Finally, its time to come back and blog. 

Currently, Jackie and me is at Nha Trang for a one month getaway. For her is like a remote working for at a different country for her new freelancer job. For me is I am taking a semi retirement break (3 years) since my last job at RHB.

The reason why we are blogging is because we find that we are very lost at Nha Trang without much to do and she mentioned that if I were to be very focus at least on something I seem to be more appealing. As such since we enjoyed Nha Trang a lot and potentially we coming back for a 1 to 3 month short term rental here. We like to set up a good routine for our life. As such

Weekly outlook

Monday - "Me Time" day between 9am to 5pm where we are not allowed to disturb each other, we can work, go excerise, go play or go read book at cafe. Anything is fine but we have to spend time apart. 

Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday - This is our offical 4 days work week, where we suppose to work from 12noon to 4pm religiously. Hopefully we can do the dress up and show up at a cafe to work on her SAP.

Friday - TGIF, our dress down half day work day. Which we suppose to end work at 3pm to go for our date day, ranging for movie, dinner and couple discussion and weekly review.

Saturday - We shall reserve this day for event and meet up with other people and stranger community. This can be for leisure or work related. We shall mix some new blood in our systems.

Sunday - Will be our family day, this day is reserve for us only. We hope to adopt the Jew concept of strict no work day. To detox and what not.

On a daily basis

We like to add exercise and journaling into our daily activities. This is to I'mprove our physical health and mental health. 

We love to do the gratitude journal and daily blogging for appreciation and what not. We set 10pm to do blogging on a daily basis. In the event we cannot come online at 10pm for blogging then we have a take a picture of the day and do a description on that picture. For example:

Jackie is sick with flu and we brought pill at Nha Trang Centre.

Kulai Work Stay 流连宿 打工换宿 - List of place for work exchange

 Last week, we worked on the gardening part and this week we are more into the construction part. The owner Tai Soon will periodically need manpower to help him in building expansion of the guesthouse. 

Most of the time, 1 or 2 volunteers are needed to water and harvest plant in the garden. But sometime he also need people to help in carpentry wood work or brick constructions. Like for example this week, all of us was assigned to dig (executvate), waterproof, laying of brick and mortar and then filling up with sand etc. He wants the pond to have a waterfall and plants growing around the pond.

Following is we are all getting ourselves dirty to maintain the fishing pond and remove some soft soil at the bottom (something like compost) and this soil will be used to build a outdoor oven for making plaza. So the intnetion to use soil over concrete is that in the even they decided to relocate or remove the oven, soil can be easily turned back to soft soil and removed. 

Beach

• Sea Turtle Research Unit (SEATRU), Terengganu Malaysia

• Laguna Redang Island Resort, Terengganu Malaysia
  

• The Gingerbread Cafe, Tioman Malaysia

• Tioman Dive Buddy, Tioman Malaysia

• Udive Tioman, Pahang 打工换证

• Barat Dive Centre, Tioman

Kulai Work Stay 流连宿 打工换宿 - Week 1

I am too busy to break down the experience at work for lodging program day by day so I decide to you know, compile and share these few days together.

Paku Pakis free veg in wild

Paku Pakis (Diplazium esculentum) is a type of wild grown fern and we were taught to harvest these fern from the wild and turn that into a dish that many Malay will enjoy. They have different grade depend where you harvest it and they also can be found in Singapore as the name 过山猫. You can cook it with salted egg as well. 

This aunty has a nice online cookbook for instruction how to cook sambal with Paku Pakis she can follow back easily in the future. Recommended format which I can try in the future.

Belacan and flour for fish bait

I was trying to hand reel catch fish at the local river at Kulai. Ah Ong shared with us that instead of using white bread as bait, we can try belacan mix with flour. I didn't think of that and I realise that belacan is made of shrimp paste and that why it will attract fish. 

Concrete Mix for basic construction

Well, as we all know that I studied civil and environmental in poly. Other than the short time (2 years) in Semborp I don't get to really practice my trade. Even during my ID time last year, I didn't really get to do site supervision job.

Then out of the blue, I got the chance to help out in the farm for the construction of swimming pool, waterfall and a outdoor baking oven!!!! OMG, who in the right mind build these things at home?? Don't worry Durian Guesthouse 流连宿 will be so crazy enough to build all these using raw material.

And we got to experience doing cement mix and concrete curing ourselves and do the whole 流水线 by ourselve. 

Thats all for today. Next week I update more on my work stay

Kulai Work Stay 流连宿 打工换宿 - Day 1

打工换宿

Okie, exciting. My friend Ben for the ID firm recommended me to try 打工换宿. Interesting concept from crouchsurfing!!! You can literally work / volunteer and exchange for lodging at different country, hence experience different culture from different country. Therefore, we decided to start our first experience at 流连宿.

流连宿

This self sustaining farm at Kulai is owned by Tai Shun. He used to work in Singapore as a mobile phone retailer and other job for many years but he ends up returning to Malaysia to start a homestay. His idea is not to keep chasing for the money and wants a farm that is fully substainable. He learn all the skill like electrical, plumbing, construction, carpentry and gardening from all around the world. More of his stories can be seen here. 

Direction

From Queenstown MRT to Kranji MRT > take SBS 170x to JB central > T30 bus for 40mins to Kulai. I went during Tuesday afternoon 12 as it was off perk and so it took me 2 hours to reach Kulai bus terminal from Queenstown MRT. No jam and straight through.

Day 1 

Banana tree only grow one branch of banana and they will weed. You can cut off the stem and sucker will start to grow from the base near to the original plant.

Compost method using permaculture, which instead of more modern industrialization method, permaculture is adopting a more traditional or natural method。

Good place as a 2nd home

Crystal shared that Kulai is a good place to start a homestay beside the hot and sunny weather which is the cons.

• - 40mins drive to JB if you want to enjoy some city time
• - 15mins drive to JB airport (small) which connects to the rest of malaysia via domestic flight. 
• - as a semi rural area, they still have good amount of facilities like police, fire, school and hospital around.

Brompton weight saving

 Jackie plan to make her Brompton lighter. The weight seems negligible, but every gram shave off from mean money out of pocket.

This post is to provide reference in the future for all the weight comparison. Will update as and when.

If useful can reference as well.