brief report on our family trip - 1

I apologise for not writing for the last one week. I am away for a vacation with my family and due to my limited internet access, I haven't been able to blog regularly.

We arrived in Tokyo on 21 Nov late at night and after spending some time navigating our way around at Shinjuku Train Station, also known as the busiest train station in the world, we finally got into Fraser Place Shinjuku Apartment at almost 11pm. The flight and train ride to Tokyo was great and we were greeted with a nice and spacious one bedroom apartment at Fraser Place.

As I won't be blogging the details of the trip yet, I can only say that no one would ever need to take any weight loss pills after a seven day free and easy trip in Tokyo! Walking to all the train lines and doing all the walks on the streets are enough to burn those calories and lose the excess pounds. You won't even need to worry about alli side effects or any weight loss pills side effects with this natural weight loss method! Take a holiday to Tokyo!

We spent 3 nights in Tokyo before moving to beautiful Hakone and Izu. Today is the second day in Osaka and for the first time, we are back in the hotel room resting and recharging... becos the stores are already closed at 8pm!

Hakone is such a beautiful place and we only wished we had more time there. The autumn leaves in Hakone and Osaka are magnificient... many people are traveling to these areas just to witness the wonders of nature.

I can't write more for now but I'll be posting more details on our family trip when I find time!



View from our ryokan in Hakone...

bound for Tokyo and more!

I'm so excited - we are off to Tokyo tomorrow! After all the weeks of forum and travel research, we are all packed up and ready to go! This has been a crazy week as I pack for our family vacation and run all the errands like going to the bank, sending DH to and from Vocational Bible School, fetch Clayton to and from Baobei and entertaining him in between.

I haven't had much time to breathe and therefore, I will be seriously taking a break when we are out of here. It's been very tiring for our family the last few weeks and DH too deserves a much needed break.

We are ready to comb the streets of Tokyo, Osaka, the ancient city of Kyoto, Hong Kong and Macau. I can be certain that no one would need any diet pills after all these walking during the vacation... and we are definitely traveling with our stroller!

Till then, I'll try to put up some our trip photos whenever I find time...

Tokyo here we come!

book hotel accommodation online

I'm a big believer for online accommodation reservations - I seriously do! It saves time, hassle and money! All you need to do is some research to compare hotel rates and if you need, read some travel reviews in the travel forums such as trip advisor or virtual tourist and you can get our travel planning going. It's that simple. Whether you are booking las vegas hotels or any asia hotels, online hotel reservation makes it so convenient and simple!

Of the so many travel search engines I frequently, hotels.com and travelocity top my list of travel booking sites. The nice thing about Hotels.com is that you don't need to make a prepayment and most hotel accommodations allow you to cancel 3 days before your arrival date, with no penalty charges. As for Travelocity, the Good Buy hotels require you to make a prepayment. In other words, you will forfeit your payment should any cancellation arises due to last minute change in your travel itinerary.

If you are planning to book your hotel accommodations this holiday season, check out these travel coupons and savings from hotels.com:

$20 off with 3 night booking!

$30 off with 5 night booking!

$50 off with 8 night booking!

$75 off with 10 night booking!

$100 off with 12 night booking!

Need help to search a hotel for your coming vacation, find the best/lowest rates here:

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toggling among a full list of tasks

It's been a very busy two weeks for me. I find myself toggling with many tasks on my plate. With the short time window to complete some work that requires full concentration, my mind is often torn and distracted once the clock strikes at 4pm. This is the time my active and chatty four year old will be shouting 'Hi Mama' from the door.

It's nice to hear his voice greeting me though that also spells, "there goes your personal time, Doris". You probably don't believe this but I'm still haven't penned down all my travel details for our upcoming tokyo trip next friday. My Firefox browser window has almost 10 windows opened and I often toggled one after another, depending on what my mind is after.

Oooh... I'm hoping to do another trip to SG this weekend before the long vacation. I just thought it would be nice to see mom before my trip. I'm back to my multiple browser windows for now... I need to find out how to reserve my shinkansen train tickets when I get to Japan! Does my hubby know that I'm working hard on our travel itinerary?

A bad cut on the chin - ouch!

How many mothers know that it's so heart sick when your child has a bad fall or has an accident?

My little boy slipped in the long bath two days ago and it traumatised him badly. It was the worse fall ever and he had a bad cut on his chin. He was screaming in pain and all I could do was to hold him close and pray. He refused any treatments and would struggle so hard when I tried to put a bandage over that cut. I almost thought he needed stitches cos I could see the open wound but I knew that he wouldn't allow that. Finally, after much struggling and 'forcing', I managed to put a op-site plaster over the cut.

Thank God the bleeding stopped and he's now back to his old tricks... I'm praying for a nice healing of the wound and that there'll no scar left behind. I'm truly thankful to God for His protection... it could have been worse...

finished our last workshop of the year

We finally ended our last workshop of the year - Writing Back by Ron Kaufman. We had a great turn out and it was even better to see participants enjoying their learning session with the customer service guru himself.

This workshop, I was spending most of the day with my preschooler since DH was capable of handling it on his own. After working with Mandarin Oriental Hotel Kuala Lumpur for more than five events, it was disappointing to note that service had paled in certain ways. Personally, I also think that the hotel rooms at Mandarin Oriental need some serious upgrading! While this is not a travel forum I don't intend to go into the details of reviewing the hotel room. I just hope that the carpet is cleaner and the shower head is replaced the next time I check in at Mandarin Oriental again!! Whatever the state of the hotel room was, my preschooler was having a ball of a time.

To all the graduates of Writing Back 2008 - thank you for your ardent participation and support. Keep those wonderful writing going!