ASPIRE PARK, QATAR

Featuring Wagyu Mushroom Melt and Wagyu Majestic Double, along with our sweet potato fries, onion rings and lemonade tea

The bread was soft, in a goo way because it was a great combination.

Next to Burgeri is Sugar and Spice, a dainty pretty fairytale-like decorated candy house cafe serving western food and desserts. D said we could go there for some desserts after our lunch. Highlight of the day! Heehee.

Ain't the cafe cute!

The interior is sooo pretty too!

Thankful for this man. He pampers me like a princess most of the time, feel so blessed to have him in my life.

There's two other cafes in Aspire Park as well, which we didn't have the chance to check out due to time constraint. However, Burgeri is definitely a must-try, along with Sugar and Spice! :)



We did a traditional photo shoot with the Qatari local costumes just a night back, and it's super cute!
Don't think we can pass them off as well as the locals do, but it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience.

Dear went for the Saudi Arabian style, which I stuck to the stylist's recommendation.

By the way, we did our shoot for QR80 (around SGD 30) at Mia Bazaar, just located right outside The Museum of Islamic Art :) It's a fortnightly weekend market that happens every once in a while, with many vendors selling food and handmade stuffs!








So much fun doing the shoot because we've never done such a photoshoot wearing traditional costumes before! People started gathering around us and taking photos! We were sweat profusely - not sure whether because we were abit nervous or the warm night. Hahaha.


Loving Doha so far :)

After 4-5 days not seeing the outside world (other than our compound, of course), I was absolutely thrilled to be out again, exploring the other parts of Doha!

One of the places that I’ve been talking about the entire time we touched down in Doha was the Sand Dunes Safari! Pictures of the Arabian Desert, cute little camels and land cruisers can be found on every touristy magazines and of course, it’s a must see and do when you’re in the Middle East. D was sooo sweet by accommodating to my request though he's already having lots of stuffs on his plate. :(


On Friday morning, our guide, MJ picked us up from our accommodation and we headed down South, about an hour’s drive to the Sand Dunes. Throughout the ride, MJ was really friendly and tried to get to know us better throughout the journey, keeping us entertained and laughing all the way.


Upon arrival, the first thing we saw were CAMELS. Lots of them, all sitting under the (very hot) sun, just chilling like everything’s cool. Hahaha. It was our first stop whereby our car's tires were about to get deflated (to reduce traction in the sand) so we were given 30 mins to hang around the area, go for the camel rides if we wanted to and enjoy some karak tea in the meantime.

The camel rides were not part of our packages, but it only costed us about QAR 20 (about SGD 7) for about a 10 mins ride?  D told me to go for it since he’s already tried it in Abu Dhabi.

Poor little camels had knitted "beanies" over their mouths. Not sure why but it could be to prevent them from attacking people. I didn't like the idea of the knitted stuffs over their mouths, because their skin was bruising and cut from the ropes too.

A local helping me to get up the camel.. So excited!

And finally, my dream of becoming a desert princess for 10 minutes came true... Hee hee.

And that's what went behind the scene. The local Qatari guided the camel and we went around a fair bit for just 10 minutes.

Look at how tamed and gentle they are!

The Qatari told us to touch them, and we were pretty surprised because they didn't even budge when we try to pet their head!

Heading back to our resting area for our karak tea.

We were served hot Karak Tea despite the extremely warm weather, but that didn't stop us from enjoying their tea. Their local Karak Tea is a MUST TRY when you're in Qatar! It's so good I dream about it everyday and nag at my boyfriend to bring me out to drink it. Hahahaha.

And here's a shot with our guide - MJ

About 10 minutes later, we set off for our sand bashing adventure!

Look how tight I'm gripping the car handle. LOL

Most of the sand dunes were enormous and were up to 60 metres in height. We scaled them all, and MJ slowly increased speed while I was just holding onto my dear life. D was really chilled about everything and occasionally laughed when I whimpered in fear.

Finally, we reached the Inland Sea aka Khor al Adaid, one of Qatar’s most impressive natural wonders. This site is a UNESCO recognized natural reserve and it is the only place in the world where the sea is surrounded by the desert! It's inaccessible by road, so the only way is by across the rolling sand dunes. Such a serene sight, surrounded by mountains of sand on all sides.

My handsome one with his GoPro

 And trust me, I made a poor choice of wearing slippers because the sand was BURNING my feet!

MJ and us. And see how scenic the entire background is. Ahhh.

No clouds, just clear blue skies and the sun shining mercilessly at us. Thankful that our scalps were not burnt. Lol.

After wading in the water for some time, we headed back to a nearby station with the others to inflate the wheel tires again behind hitting the road back home.

As part of an early pre-Valentine's Day celebration for my boyfriend (and I happened to have replacement leaves to clear too, hahaha) we booked a short 2D1N getaway at Canopi Resort just right across sunny Singapore - Bintan!

I made the reservation directly on their site, and booked the Lagoon View Tent Deluxe with a Jacuzzi right outside 😊


Since Darren and I have been on so many trekking and camping adventures together, I figured that a glamping would be a nice experience as well. Glamping = Glamorous Camping. 😂



It was a short 24-hour stay, so right after his BodyPump class at Celebrity Fitness, we headed straight to Tanjong Pagar Ferry Terminal to board the ferry. He thought I was quite kia-su to rush there, but I'd rather us be early than to miss the ferry - since the next ferry was like 4-5 hours later!

There were LOTS of foreigners, especially chinese nationals. Thankfully Singaporeans have got an express lane, so we got to skip the horrendous queue. Yay! 😋

FYI, I pre-booked the tickets online on Bintan Resort Ferries website prior to our trip, remember to book the ferry from Tanjong Pagar Ferry Terminal to Bandar Bintan Telani Ferry Terminal if heading to Canopi Resort. (about S$125 for two people) The entire ferry ride was about an hour (one way) and I thought it's pretty comfortable too.


Upon arrival, the staffs from Canopi were there to greet us at the Ferry Terminal.

Apparently, we were the only ones arriving at that timing, so we had the whole bus to ourselves!


It's just a short 5 minutes bus ride from the ferry terminal to the Canopi Resort. We arrived and were like...... Wow. This place is HUGE.

Yup, we were both in sports wear coz we just finished Bodypump class, hahaha.

The water was soooooooooo blue, but do you know that the entire lagoon is actually man made?! The water is filtered sea water, and there's no marine creature at all but it can get pretty deep. It's so big that people actually pay to go around the lagoon. There were small boats inside too! 🛶




Checking in was a breeze, the staffs were all so friendly and quickly showed us to our room shortly. We had our welcome drinks (orange juice) as well.


Thankfully our tent was near the restaurant..

Loving our room! Safari feel, definitely 😋

I love our super soft & comfortable huge bed!

Here's our front porch.. and the view we get when we open the door :)

I didn't get to take photo of our outdoor toilet, but it's so gorgeous!

I super duper love outdoor toilets, coz it makes me feel like a cave woman. LOL 😂
Anyway, the amenities were pretty complete - shampoo, conditioner, moisturiser, body wash, hairdryer etc.

Thought it'd be nice if they provided a comb also, which they didn't.


We headed out to explore shortly - and because we were so hungry too!

Check out the turquoise blue water! 😍

Here's an overview of the entire lagoon!

Check out our badass ride 😚

Prices are really affordable. They will charge these activities to your room, so it'll be billed to you upon checkout.

After our airsoft game, we went for lunch! Just right outside the clubhouse, there's a row of temporary stalls serving some local cuisines like Ramly burgers, nasi goreng, noodles and others.

Food is just okay~ We were hungry so couldn't expect much. But prices are okay.

After that, we decided to do some water activities!!!!

Went to ANOTHER counter and purchase tickets for the Stand-Up Paddling (for 1 pax) but could be shared between both of us :)

It was our first time, thankfully the people there are really nice and helped us as much as they could!

Alright it looks really easy when other people are doing it, but it's quite hard to balance on the board! Hahaha

Anyway we fell into the water several times, but had so much fun doing it!

There were times D will purposely shake the entire board and make us fall into the water, but it was all cool since we had our life jacket on. The water can be pretty deep, but yup - life jacket to the rescue!

I think we played more than an hour... It was really fun!



After that, we went back to our tent, showered and went to the reception to call a cab. We requested for them to bring us to the nearby hawker centre to eat, because according to the reviews it's more authentic and cheap!

The taxi charged us $16 for two ways, but it was like a 5 minutes drive away from the resort -_-

But we wouldn't walk out on our own anyway, since it was really dark and there's no street light at all.

We had quite a nice dinner at the hawker centre - but realised it's actually the entire island's staff canteen! So they were looking at us as if we were from another planet.. D said it was the way I was dressed. Overdressed at a hawker centre 😂

The ayam penyet is really nice though! And the drinks costed us 80cents.. Food was less than $10. Super affordable! We then walked to the nearby supermart and bought some snacks to eat back at our hotel. The magnum ice cream was like only $1.50?! We ate two ice-cream each. 😂




The next morning, we went to the cafe for our complimentary breakfast.

We were a little disappointed with the spread, there wasn't much variety and it wasn't that great as well. Thought that the standard can improve and the food wasn't too appetising...

Nevertheless, service was great.

Resting at the lounge after our breakfast!

Really loving these sundecks! Looks like we're at Santorini. Hahahhaa.

We extended our checkout time to 4pm, so we had a lot of time to play at the lagoon again. This time, we bought admission to the obstacle course.

Yeap.. Those inflated slides behind us.

It was super slippery though! And I was a little scared to do them because I didn't want to fall into the water 😅 Phobia and from past experiences... Just wanted to be more cautious.

D was exploring every bit of it, and I felt a little sad that I couldn't join him 😔


Anyway, we still had a blast together, because we swam in the water for a while before going back to our room to pack up for checkout.

He says that I'm secretly very happy. Hahahaha. 😚

Also took this donut float.. We were supposed to rent it, but well.. It's soooo cute!

Both of us were sunburnt when we got back, but it was definitely a pretty awesome getaway for both of us 💋 It was quite a cool experience, and I really liked the jacuzzi right outside our room too! Ate and dropped some tapioca chips in it so we were literally soaking in tapioca-ed water. Haha 😂

We'll be back to check out the other activities too!