Chili’s : Singapore

Hello Hello!

Just decided to share some pictures from Chili’s Singapore.

During one of my visits in SG, My cousin took me for dinner at Chili’s. She recommends that I try their unlimited Nachos and Fajita. My response, “why not?!”. And there starts our adventure to Chili’s Tanglin Mall.

We decided to go after work, which is around 9 PM. However, it being a Friday evening, it was packed with people. We had to wait for about 20 minutes before we were seated. There was only the two of us so we can’t really order a lot. As my cousin had recommended Nachos and Fajita, of course, we ordered those two! Along with bottomless coke and a burger for sharing. Nope! No beer or alcoholic drinks for us. My cousin has to work the following morning and I don’t really drink 😓.   I think we did about 3 refills for the nachos, 3 for coke and the most awesome part? We had addition refill of Nachos for take-out (take-away, to go). How cool was that? We paid around 80 SGD for two people (P2640). Might be a little expensive. 😉

BTW: I went to SG  nearing the Christmas season that’s why there were Christmas decorations everywhere. 

Rating (out of 5) 

Price: 3 
A little pricey just for 2 people.

Ambiance: 4 
Instagram worthy 😉 (note: They serve alcoholic drinks so expect that there will be people drinking and catching up. I may be a little noisy.) 

Service: 3 
I'm giving a 3 (overall) just because we had to wait before we were able to find a seat. It was so busy! However, I'll give a 5 for their waiters/attendants because they really make sure that the customers are satisfied.  😁 

Food: 4 
Food is great.

Wizarding World of Harry Potter (Universal Studio Osaka Japan)

Day 5: Universal Studio Osaka

And I finally have the time to share these pictures from Universal Studio Osaka! After n’th years right?! 

As I have mentioned before, I LOVE HARRY POTTER. I’ve read the books, watched the movies and even read tons of fanfiction while waiting for the movies to come out. I’ve been a fan since I was in High school. Potterhead right? I ship "parings" depending on my mood, mix and match them, etc. During our planning, my travel buddies didn’t want to go to Osaka because they said that we don’t have enough time. We were only supposed to go for a 4-day trip but I insisted that we extend it and go to Universal Studio. They were saying that I’ve been to USS (Singapore) tons of time so what else will I need to see there? I was like, “but there’s Harry Potter World in Osaka”. After successfully convincing them, we decided to extend the trip to 6 days and include Osaka and USJ to our itinerary.

Initial reaction upon reaching USJ? With my eyes looking everywhere, “can we please go to HP World now?!” 😍

Unfortunately, due to the huge number of visitors, USJ had a specific entry policy for the Wizarding World of  Harry Potter (WWoHP). They will only allow a specific number of people to enter at a time. This would mean that you can’t enter the park anytime you want. The entry interval is every 30 minutes and once they reach the maximum number of people, they will stop distributing the tickets. There is no limit on how long you can stay inside the WWoHP, as long as you enter on your scheduled time. Better come early to have more time inside WWoHP. 😉

We stayed there the longest! We just love this set! 

I joined the queue and ordered three (3) Butterbeer for our celebratory toast! Cheers to finally being a part of the Wizarding World! 😆

We went to Madam Malkin’s to buy our school robes. Then to Ollivanders to get our wands. Of Course, we didn’t forget to buy our wizarding snack (chocolate frogs, every flavor bean, and pumpkin juice) from Honeydukes. ^_^

Kidding aside, there are 2 main rides in  WWoHP. The Flight of the Hippogriff and the HP Forbidden Journey. The Queue was so long! Minimum waiting time was approximately 120 minutes. That’s 2 hours of waiting! Heck! Since we’re already here, might as well join the queue…

And the waiting begins… I’m so glad that I always bring my Aveen spray with me. It actually helped lessen the heat while we were waiting. Keeps my brother cool and lower his temper as well. 💦

Unfortunately, we had to budget our time hence we agreed to forgo riding the Flight of the Hippogriff. We were very curious about the ride “HP Forbidden Journey” and I say we made the right decision on this one. It was so Worth it! We love it! If it weren’t for the long queue, we would have ridden it again. 

After the ride, we were just on time for the exhibition between Durmstrang and Beauxbaton  We love their performance! I was fascinated with their acting and I really enjoyed listening to the MC speak in English then translate the lines in Japanese. I was like “OMG! Ang galing ni Ate mag Japanese!”. I’ll share the performance video later in a separate post. 😀

AN: I really commend Universal Studio for having such great performers. I’ve been to two (2) of their theme park and I always enjoy watching their scheduled live performances.  

As much as I’d like to stay in WWoHP the whole day, I have to consider my travel companions and agreed to leave to visit the other attractions/rides. Just because my brother is so excited to buy a “minions” popcorn storage. And so, the search for the minion booth happened. It actually took us about an hour before we found it and bro-bear had to join the queue again. 😅

BTW: USJ also have their own version of Character Parade. It is usually at the evening an hour before the theme park close.

Seizeriya : Singapore

Because Kopitiam doesn’t count as a restaurant. I can say that Seizeriya “is my favorite restaurant in SG!” I always eat here whenever I visit SG. The food tastes good, their staff are friendly and the price is affordable. They also have big servings so you can do sharing. The Budget is about 60SGD for 4 people (P1980). That’s for set meals including salad and drinks. Here are the dishes that we always order. 

Photos were compiled from a couple (or more) of times that we’ve eaten there.

Rating (out of 5)

Price: 5

Very affordable! They also have a set menu. This includes the main dish, salad and drinks.

Ambiance: 5 

Instagram worthy 😉

Service: 5 

Very fast. Everything is cooked once orders are made. Serving time is around 15-20 minutes. 😁

Food: 5

Yummy! 

Ilmi Korean Restaurant : Pampanga

My sister needs to drop by her University to get a few documents for med-school. When she finished, we decided to go to Ilmi Korean Restaurant for lunch. My sister said that they often go there whenever they crave for Korean food.

Ilmi is a restaurant located in Angeles, Pampanga. They offer a variety of Korean dishes including bibimbap, spicy soup and (of course the reason for our trip) unlimited samgyupsal. You can choose between pork or beef.  We opted for their unlimited Pork (because I don’t eat much pork in Australia). Unlimited side dish and ice tea are included as well. All for just P270 each! 😆

Location and Parking: It is located on a busy road with limited parking space (5-6 cars). Luckily we came early!

Price: P270 each. Very cheap for unlimited pork, side dish, and drinks.

Ambiance: When you look outside it doesn’t look appealing. The restaurant only has its name printed in a tarpaulin and located on top of the building. Inside, you can see normal wooden tables with space for the charcoal grill. No exhaust fan as well, get ready to smell like grilled meat after eating. 😅

Taste: I love it! I’ve always loved eating samgyupsal. Korean food really suits my taste. I especially love their baby potato salad and kimchi. ^_^

Service: The service was very fast. There were only a few tables occupied when we arrived and we were seated and served our food immediately. Also, the servers were very attentive. They were very prompt on refilling our pork samgyupsal when we asked for it. 

Note: We went during lunch time on a weekday, that may be the reason why there aren’t a lot of people. 

After 3 refills of pork, 4 for lettuce and 3 for side dish, we left the restaurant with a full stomach and an experience to remember. 

The experience + the price makes this a right choose for lunch. If you’re around the area, do drop by and try their unlimited samgyupsal. You can also choose unlimited beef for P330. 😉

Samgyupsal King : Pampanga

One day while doing some errands, we decided to try Samgyupsal King in San Fernando Pampanga. It’s located along the Highway with enough parking space for customers. Unfortunately, they only offer a limited choice of Korean dishes. Their Menu includes Bibimbap, Ramen, and grilled marinated meat (spicy and honey). Each order of meat comes with an unlimited side dish (kimchi, veggie salad, lettuce, egg salad, marble potato salad and a pot of steamed egg). What did we order? Two servings of marinated meat (1 honey and 1 spicy), 1 pot of Ramen and 1 pork bibimbap. Total bill was P789 for 3 people. BTW, they offer free ice tea as well! 😀

If you want to taste basic Korean food at an affordable price, you can try Samgyupsal King in San Fernando, Pampanga. 😉 

Tokyo Disney Land

It’s the Happiest Place on Earth! Tokyo Disneyland! Yay! 😆

When we booked our accommodation for this trip, we decided to go for hotels near our point of interest. For Tokyo, our hotel is located one train station away from the Disneyland (just because we love Disney). After getting ready and having our breakfast, we went directly to the park to experience a whole day of being a kid again and enjoying the day with our favorite Disney characters. Hey! No one and nothing is allowed to destroy our happy mood. Not the heat, not the crowd and not even the expensive merchandise 😉. “Kuya (older brother) let’s go to the castle”, “Ate (cousin) let’s go ride the teacups”, “OMG! That’s Tinkerbell!”. There was even a summer matsuri where Mickey and friends are dancing and playing with water. If you are seated in front, be prepared to get WET! Until now, I still don’t know how to describe how happy I was on that day. I was like “dreams do come true” and like “thank you fairy godmother (my mom) for allowing us to go to Japan”.

Our favorite ride? “Treasure hunt”. It was a long queue but when it was finally our turn to experience the ride, it was all worth it! (Note: You’ll probably see the same lines when I post Universal Studios Osaka just because I was able to go to Wizarding World of Harry Potter and I’m a Potterhead 😉)

Aside from my usual photo dump/gallery, I’ll be posting the video for the "summer matsuri" parade.

Planning on coming back for “Tokyo Disney Sea”.

BTW: While planning this trip, we agreed that this will be a budget trip and that we will try to save as much as we can on hotels and airfare. This does not include shopping and food trip though. We love trying new food and we have no self-control when it comes to shopping (especially if the price is way cheaper compared to the price in the Philippines). Hello Uniqlo!