Unlike the many people out there who have done their wedding research, I'm the complete opposite. I got my pre-wedding photoshoot (PWS) package on an impulse. It was just a casual shopping day when the guy suggested for us to take a look at the wedding photography booths since the poster had my favourite flowers on it.

So we voluntarily walked into the trap, and ended up sitting through all the sales talk. When we left the booth, we walked away with a wedding photoshoot package. The guy thought the price of the package was worthwhile, and after trying to google them to read reviews on them and looking through the photos, we selected the first wedding photography company we talked to.

The reason why we both readily agreed to it was also because we fell in love with the photography style. I hated the typical dreamy, cute, romantic, princess kind of wedding photos. And when we saw their portfolio, they had some really cool, dark, MV-kind of photos. And I really liked their oriental look. The 复古风 kind of feel? Also, since we always take our own photos when we are abroad, we wanted something special which we, ourselves, know we can't take.

Hualien, just 2.5 hours train ride from Taipei, gives you a great look at the natural beauty of Taiwan. It was a week long trip to Taiwan where I squeezed in 2 nights to travel and explore Hualien.

The most popular transportation from Taipei to Hualien would be by train, which only takes 2.5 hours. TRA releases their tickets online for reservation 14 days prior to the date of travel. We've been advised by our airbnb host to login early to purchase the tickets to ensure we get the good tickets and good timings. It's highly recommended to book your tickets in advance. Even for us, we did not manage to get our ideal tickets despite logging on early.

Upon arrival, we went to get our rented car. We've decided to do road trip for Hualien, exploring the scenic areas, taking on the drive by ourselves. We dropped by the information center to get some ideas on where to visit too since we did not fully finalise our itinerary.

We ended up with this plan for the 2.5 days we had in Hualien.

Day 1:
Taroko Gorge National Park

Day 2:
East Rift Valley National Scenic Area
East Coast National Scenic Area

Day 3:
Qixingtan Beach
Qingshui Cliff Scenic Area

I went to USS Halloween Horror Night 9 and it was amazing. To be fair, I went on a Thursday night, which explained why I could finish everything by 10pm. But nevertheless, the strategy is to plan your route, going for houses with the least queue first. So here's your cheat sheet for HHN9:
 

1. It only starts at 7:30pm 

Sure, your ticket says 7pm. But everyone is required to gather Zone B for the opening act to start before the rides and houses are open. Therefore, there's really no need to run into the park exactly at 7pm.

2. Clear the first house as fast as possible

The first house with 5 minutes, go into it! This puts you on an advantage because you can clear the house quickly, which allow you to get to your second house as soon as possible. Since everyone was rushing into the House 2 - Hell Block 9 after the opening act, we decided to avoid the initial crowd and went further down to House 3 - Spirit Doll. We were probably the first 50 people and the wait was less than 5 minutes.

3. Clear the second house

Clearing the first house quickly means the other houses are probably still quite empty too. Our second house was House 4 - Chalet Haunting and the queue stated outside was only 10 minutes. But we got in almost as fast as the first house.



Not recommended but we took a ride in the mummy because it was 5 minutes queue, which turned out to be 5 minutes of walking to the ride. No queue at all! We had all the seats in the row to ourselves too. And I'm not exactly sure why but the ride was significantly scarier than what I remembered it to be. It could be because we were spooked out from the first two houses, which made this ride scary too.

4. Avoid long queues

We wanted to get into House 2 - Hell Block 9 but the queue was 40 minutes, which we found to be too long. So we wandered down and saw House 1 - Curse of Naga to be only 5 minutes wait. And this was the main house I wanted to go because it was a collaboration from the directors of Thai horror movies (SHUTTER, Phobi4, etc). The house did not disappoint!



House 2 - Hell Block 9 is still crowded so we went to my least anticipated haunted house, House 5 - Twisted Clown University. I'm not a huge fan of clowns, neither do I find them to be creepy. The queue was 20 minutes, the longest we queued so far. Unless you're afraid of clowns, otherwise this house is pretty mild.



After the clowns, we went over to the Scare zone A. It was too crowded to be honest, which killed the mood. The decorations were nice but you're walking back to back with people all around. At least in the houses, they would control the amount of people entering.



Since we covered everything else, we are left with our last house, House 2 - Hell Block 9. It said 40 minutes but the wait was only 30 minutes long so it was tolerable. Definitely recommend this house!

5. Catch the show

We finished our last house at 9:30pm, and we realised the show was just starting so we quickly went in to catch the show, and to enjoy the air-conditioning. The show was very entertaining and a good change from all the haunting and houses. Highly recommend the show! We didn't have any expectations for the show but we left feeling entertained.

 

After the show, we dropped by the carnival and played a couple of games and took a couple of photos.



We left HHN9 at 10:10pm, feeling very accomplished! The thing we learnt is that a weekday is always a good idea for HHN9.

We had very low expectations for Halloween Horror Nights because our past experience was really horrible with the long waits in queues and crowds. This year's exceeded our expectations.

The props and decorations were brilliantly done, very realistic. The houses were spooky and thrilling. Very well-designed houses! My favourite house would be House 2 - Block Hell 9, followed by House 1 - Curse of Naga. The Spirit Dolls and Chalet Haunting were great too! Have to give it to Chalet Haunting because of how relevant and relatable it was for Singaporeans. I didn't enjoy the Clown house so I would put that as the least priority if you are tight on time.

If you're arriving in Soekarno–Hatta International Airport, there are many options on travelling to the city. My favourite is to hop on a Blue Bird taxi. It's affordable, safe and comfortable.

However, for first-timers in Jakarta, getting a Blue Bird taxi might be confusing. So here's how you can ease through the airport and hop on the taxi to your hotel in a budget yet comfortable way.

Upon leaving the arrival hall, you will see some booths on your right for taxi companies. You would be tempted but I wouldn't recommend them as they tend to be twice the cost of a normal taxi you might get.

To your front, you will see a lot of people waiting by the railings. Turn left and exit the building before the crowd. You'll see a lot more people waiting around outside too. Ignore all of them and just continue walking. You would walk past the toilets and just continue going that direction. There would be a lot of people approaching you, asking if you want a taxi. Just continue walking.

Look out for a kiosk. The kiosk will be a distance away from the Blue Bird taxi queue. On the kiosk, you'll see two buttons. Click on the Blue Bird taxi and get your queue number.

There will be a guy in the Blue Bird uniform calling out numbers for the taxis. Walk towards him and standby. There is also a TV with the queue numbers but when I was there, it was not working.

Once your number is called, wave your queue number at the guy in uniform and he will escort you into the taxi.

My taxi cost only 160,000 out from the airport to the city center, inclusive of tolls and airport charges. Half the price of what my friend got from one of the guys in the airport.

Last December, I visited Philippines for the first time in my life. Was looking for a beach holiday getaway and realised that many of the places have already been explored by either one of us. Krabi, Bali, Phuket, Bintan, Langkawai, Tioman, Redang, etc.

In the end, we settled on Cebu, a place neither of us have been to. Flights were relatively cheap and we flew by Cebu Pacific. Since it was a midnight flight, we managed to reach Cebu early in the morning, ready to start our activities.

One thing to take note is that the traffic is horrible in Cebu and you should expect to spend a lot of time stuck in traffic. And it's always good to arrange for transportation with your accommodation!

Our Moalboal accommodation provided transportation services - an air-conditioned SUV for 3,000 php. It took us 3 hours to get from Cebu to Moalboal.



We had the most amazing guesthouse which we booked directly through them - to avoid airbnb fees. It was a little risky but we did our research thoroughly and decided that this was the safest, nice and cheap accommodation.

Honestly, if I were to ever return to Moalboal, I would definitely return to the guesthouse. The owners have 3 lovely, friendly dogs. They were pretty adorable and when I went on a morning walk alone, one of them even followed me (until a neighbour's dog started barking at it and scared it away).



They even have hammocks in the garden, where we spent every night of our trip lying there, admiring the stars and talking. We even spotted a couple of shooting stars! That's how amazing the visibility of stars were. As we were in the rural part of the country, there was hardly any light pollution which made the nights on the hammock amazing.

Drop a comment with your email if you're interested in the accommodation and I'll share it with you!

Canyoneering

One of the activities you can do in Moalboal is Canyoneering. That was our first stop - Canyoneering at Badian. It is approximately 1,500 php per person and last 2-3 hours long.

Equipments - safety helmets, life vests, and a pair of track shoes are included in the price, along with a simple lunch after your canyoneering adventures. Price also included guides (which we had two)!



Canyoneering involved a lot of waddling in the water, sliding down rapids, and the highlight - jumping off waterfalls and cliffs. If you're an adrenaline junkie, don't miss out on this! Scroll all the way down to look at our adventures in the vlog! :)



See the people behind on the top of the waterfall, that's where you'll jump off. It doesn't look that scary from here but when you're up there, looking down, I suppose it's kind of scary. I opted out of it due to health issues.

We even had a stop inbetween where we danced with the locals and took a swing into the water. Video below!



At the end of the trip, you'll find yourself at Kawasan Falls. There, you wait for your turn to get on the raft where the guides will bring you across the water to the waterfall, and let the waterfall give you a "massage". It's really really painful for the water to hit on your back honestly. But good experience!

Osmena Peak

After a tiring adventure jumping off waterfalls, we washed up and head over to Osmena Peak. We had a lovely guide bring us up, who also doubled as a photographer.



The amazing thing about Osmena Peak is all the tiny little peaks across the area. A great place to watch the sunset. And the hike up was really short, approximately 10 - 15 minutes (depending on how fit you are). Moreover, the hike wasn't that steep so it was a really easy climb for a really amazing view.

Island Hopping & Sardine Run

The next morning, after a lovely breakfast with our hosts, we went on island hopping and sardine run! We booked through our hosts and they managed to bargain the price down for us - telling the operators that it was one of our birthdays, which was true actually.



Honestly, the island hopping was not very memorable. The sea wasn't exceptionally beautiful or clean. One of the guides even showed us a starfish (plenty of starfishes in the sea there). We only managed to catch a glimpse of the sea turtle.

But the best part was the sardine run. The location was a little unexpected as it was really near the shore and the sea wasn't clean at all. But the sardines - they were amazing. It was like watching the northern lights dance, but in this case, watching sardines dance in the sea. And if you try to scare the sardines, they would quickly disperse and make another line.

White Beach

After the island hopping in the morning and a hefty lunch, we went to White Beach to spend the rest of our day chilling and relaxing. There's admission fee for White Beach by the way, and if you want to use any of the shades, it will cost money too.

We even caught the sunset by the beach. The good thing about our accommodation was that they also arranged a motorbike taxi for us whenever we wanted to go somewhere. The driver waited for us for 2 hours as we chilled by the beach, soaking in Vitamin E.



After a long day, out in the sun, we headed over to Panagsama Beach Street for dinner and drinks. Again, our driver waited for us to finish dinner and drinks so whenever we were done, we went over to the carpark and there he was. This made things easier as we did not have to look and hail for a taxi randomly.

Unfortunately, our stay in Moalboal ended the next day as we headed back to Cebu to send our dear friend off first, before we continued the next part of our trip in Cebu. If I could plan this trip again, I would have allocated more time in Moalboal and skip the entire Cebu part of the trip.

Definitely one of the best beach getaway ever, with a good mixture of chill and adrenaline rush.