#CikKentangTurns26

So here I am sitting in my room trying to write about my birthday/ turning 26 and feeling uninspired to write long lengthy posts about it..

Instead I shall do it in "bullet points" form..

26 Things about Turning 26

Bangkok 2018

Helllloooooo! 

Yes yes, I know, I've been MIA, again, but that's just life you know.. One minute you just came back from a holiday all ready to blog, then life catches up and 3 months (since you last blogged) just passes by like *woooosh*. 

But as I promised, if there is a travel, it would appear on my blog! And post-London, my next travel destination was

..

....

..

Bangkok! 

It was sometime end-April and it was for the company's group trip. This was my second year in the organising committee and this year I took a more active planning role than I did last year which partly explains why there was a significant gap between my Part 3 of the Spain trip and the UK 2018 posts.. Hehe! That and Yasmin's surprise party (if I have time, I'll blog about this..)

As the Entertainment Team Co-Lead, I got to travel a day ahead of the group trip to recce the place and it was great! Because it gave me a day before all the storm started.. 

26 April 2018

We arrive in Bangkok all ready to do our site recce! 

UK 2018

I am so sorry for the delay for the last part of my UK-Spain travelogs but I'll save that for another post (about what I've been up to in the last 1.5 months..). 

Anyways! 

On the 5th of January, we made our way back to England. And we were quite happy to leave because Seville was getting rather gloomy.. We arrived back in Brighton about late evening and after a slight unpacking (we just grabbed our toiletries) we proceeded to doing what we do best - watch Friends while waiting for dinner to be delivered to us. We had Japanese and for a moment there a I was reminded of the usual E11 Japanese dinner ritual.. #rindu 

After dinner, we continue to laze around and eventually fell asleep, note: Best. Sleep. Ever!! 

Not for Zoe however as she had to wake up early to fetch Faiz from the train station, and he was arriving at 8am-ish. Zoe tried her best to convince me to follow so we can all go for breakfast afterwards but I am me, I don't wake up before 8, ever - especially on holidays.. 

Once I did wake up however (some time pass 8ish) I decided to do some light unpacking and repacking while waiting for them to come back (cause they did eventually go went to grab some light breakfast - they came back with like croissants and some other pastries #beggarscantbechoosers) 

Ever since Zoe showed me one of her specs casing that she said she got from a museum, I've been obsessed in finding pretty casings like these and when I found them almost at every touristy spot in Seville & Granda - I just had to get them.. I know 4 seems a little bit extreme, but trust me, within minutes of arriving home and unpacking, I lost half of it to mother.. (and this was on top of the Kindle cover, some coasters, and lipsticks that I got for her.. #birthdaypresentsettle)

Once I heard voices I made my way downstairs and we had our breakfast together with our mug of Milo each, courtesy of Ms. Chia hehe.

Spain 2018 (Pt. 4) - Hidden Gems of Seville

Considering the adventures we've been having the past couple of days, our 4th day in Spain consisted of "waking up naturally with no alarms".. And finally after what felt like weeks (probably is), I woke up at normal human hours like 9AM around there.. AAAAAAHHHH! Lega man!

The agenda of the day was just to shop, have lunch and just lounge around see where the day takes us. 

First stop of the day was of course, ZARA. To be fair, it wasn't like I needed to shop for myself much (surprisingly ZARA Spain wasn't having their sale, so it didn't much different whether I buy it in UK or in Spain) but Anis wanted a pair of heels that she claimed could only be found in Spain. So I literally made a point to find nearest ZARA within whatever area I was in just to look for her shoes. Found her shoes, but unfortunately wasn't in her size and I felt so bad cause I texted her saying I found it!! Only to realise it wasn't her size -.- 

But still, Aisya & ZARA, we have a special bond, so of course I still found some stuff for myself despite how many times I've walked in the store before this hehehe. 

Also next to the ZARA near our hotel was Amorino, so you know I don't say no to ice cream....

ZARA & ice cream, always... ;) 

Spain 2018 (Pt. 3) - A Day in Granada

About 10 years back, my parents took our family to Spain. I remember falling in love with the Alhambra so much, that I made it a point inside me that I'd come back and visit it again. 

When Zoe & I decided that we'd go to Spain I thought we could squeeze in a trip to Granada as well, but given that we only had 5 days it was rather hard to cover two cities. But after much spamming of Alhambra pictures by me (thanks to @spain.vacations on Instagram, they have some really nice photos of Spanish cities and its attractions guys!) and a well thought-out itinerary based on what we want to cover and how convenient it was to get to those places from our hotel in Seville, we found a full-day where we can spend visiting Alhambra in Granada instead (which was 3 hours away from Seville by bus/ train). 

Since we only have a day, we really should maximise all our time and so one fine day I decided to check for Alhambra entrance tickets (previous experience reminded me that we had to buy tickets) and to my dismay, THEY WERE ALL SOLD OUT! 

-__________________- 

And mind you this was after I bought our bus tickets (because I read online that the bus were rather comfortable too and since it was half the price of a train ticket but the same amount of time spent travelling, I thought why not) so I'm like "What are we going to do in Granada?!" (based on my deteriorating memory, I didn't have much to do in Granada other than Alhambra). Thankfully the tickets were returnable because based on the travel tips I got online, Alhambra tickets should be booked 6 months in advance of your trip to avoid disappointment as they do limit the number of visitors per day to the Nasrid's Palace as it's an old wooden structure and when this happened it was just slightly above a month before our trip... 

But what I was even more thankful is this little voice in my head (it could be gut feel, or it could be a guardian angel - I prefer to believe in the latter) told me; "Aisya, before you return the tickets, make one last check and see if you can find any more tickets".

So I actually Googled "Alhambra tickets sold out, what do I do?" and to my surprise there are many more other people like me and there were actually a lot of articles suggesting on what to do! Lol, guess I'm not the only one who plans a random trip to Alhambra last minutely.. 

The article told me to book this other Granada history sites tour (Dobla de Oro) that would also include entrance tickets to Alhambra and thank the lord some of these tours are based on allotment basis rather than live integration with the main ticketing system cause otherwise I wouldn't have tickets to Alhambra! 

Even though the tour tickets are slightly more expensive that the Alhambra tickets only (as it includes tickets to other sites too obviously), but given we have saved so much more on our transportation tickets the extra EUR 4 is negligible.

After seeing the Alcazar and on the way to Plaza Espana Zoe & I were having this conversation about what's the most beautiful monument I've seen. Safe to say Alhambra was one of them (Kaabah isn't beautiful structurally but looking at it will give you a feeling that no other other structure can't compare) for me and upon hearing this Zoe was even more excited to see the Alhambra the next day to see if it lives up to the expectation. 

That morning we both had to wake up rather early as our train to Granada was at 8.15AM and it takes about 20 minutes walk from our Hotel to the train station (pagi-pagi, sejuk-sejuk this girl wants to walk to the station.. Sabo jer lah...). 

As Granada was slightly chiller than Seville, a thicker coat was required (and thankfully both Zoe & I found the perfect one in ZARA on the day we arrived #sempatlagi)