Part 2 of our Europe 2019 adventure was to Finland. After Russia, we took the train from St. Petersburg to Helsinki. The train was not full and we saw the wintry white landscape as we cross Russia into Finland. In a way we were excited to see what is in store for us in Finland where we have only a few days. Helsinki was full of snow when we arrived and we were fortunate that the AirBnB was not far from the train station although we took a taxi there. It was not difficult to wander around and find grocery nearby. The full day we had was spent with my…
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A long time coming, sharing here the travel journal I made for our trip to Russia. Actually this is part one of a series of 3 journals from our big trip to Europe last January-February of 2019. A big trip that took us to a lot of places in the dead of winter! Our first stop was Moscow. We flew in from Shanghai and arrived same day with heavy snow marking our arrival. We spent a couple days in the city and took in the important touristy sights, of course (!) like the Kremlin, the History Museum, St. Basil’s Cathedral, and more. Really cold and kids were pretty hyped to…
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Our recent company trip to Nagoya, Japan, last June was a good quick escape for everyone. Before the trip, I have been dealing with deadlines and juggling kids’ activities and finals hence I was not even sure what I wanted to do in terms of documenting our trip. I had planned on bringing along a TN insert which I have been doing a lot on trips. At the last minute, I changed my mind and ended up bringing a watercolour sketchbook my friend Jessie has given to me late last year. This sketchbook along with my other sketchbook dedicated for #the100dayproject (2019) went into my backpack. This is the very…
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My first “solo” trip in a long time without the kids. This year they decided to join their school trips and so I ended up going to Ho Chi Minh with my colleagues. Saigon is one of those places I’ve been wanting to go and it was great to have had this chance to explore places with the team and on my own. Definitely an adventure! On this trip I used a TN insert to document the trip and managed to get most pages done during the trip and added a couple full page photos when I returned. I did a lot of quick sketches which I quite love as…
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This travel journal was done a couple months ago but never got to share with so many things on my to-do list. This cover is a custom-made album cover which is 1 of the 3 I got made. For this size, I got the guy to etch the geotag and “GO” on the cover to see how it works. This is a different size from the other mini albums as I thought I’d test out a “personal planner insert” size. There is always room for adding little bits and pieces from your travels, so don’t limit yourself. I added some sand and some small seashells we gathered. This gives my…
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Only since our trip to Kalanggaman Island have I started getting even more curious to see what other places I can take my kids to that are within easy reach of Tacloban City. And I found quite a lot of options that has perked my interest. And one of these is Sambawan Island off the coast of Biliran in Leyte, Philippines. After seeing the photos, this was the place I set my heart to visiting last February over the Chinese New Year holiday we had in China. Getting the information has been easy… from other bloggers to the Biliran Tourism website and friends who have been there. DAY 1 From…
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On our recent adventure to the southern part of Leyte, Kalanggaman Island, I decided to create a travel journal after we returned to Shanghai as I didn’t get much chance to do it while there. Although this island is off the main island, somehow it still is part of Palompon. Getting there from Tacloban is not as difficult as I thought it to be. We hired a private van from Tacloban, which took about 2.5 hours. And then had a boat waiting for us in Palompon to take us to the island, which was another 1 hour. While waiting for our boat, the skies started to get dark and was…
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And now for part 2… This one takes more than half of the entire album and if full of postcards picked along the route during the road trip that spanned a few days. One of the page designs I made which is printed onto patterned paper. Will make this available for free download soon. These set of stamps from here were perfect for the trip. Postcards that double as photographic keepsake (above) and spot for journaling or photo (below) are my favourite. A lot of stitching on my sewing machine (above page) were added to give more tactile feel of the page. Thanks to my sis, Angie, for saving this…
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Here is another post about my travel album from this summer’s big trip to the US and Canada. This album is rather thick and have already limited the number of photos I have included in this post… and still I feel I need to create a 2-part blog post due to the amount of photos. The album cover is something I’ve had for years but just never got the chance to use. The inside has a painted pattern from a stencil using a thick layer of this medium. As with the travel albums I do, some pages have been pre-designed and patterned papers cut to size. I also designed a…
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For the first time in years, we traveled back to the Philippines during the Golden Week in China; this is that weeklong holiday, the last big holiday of the year… It was a very short trip but I was so glad that on this trip I finally managed to go to the Kalanggaman Island off the coast of Leyte, part of Palompon, a small city in southern Leyte. This was a perfect getaway – no internet, no electricity except for the power generated from solar panels, almost like back to basics. Here are some photos from our 2-day stay. DAY 1: Anticipating our arrival on the island after a 3-hour…
