Congratulations on your long call, @jasyu257 ! I know how important this morning was to you. And I'm so happy to have been able to be there to witness this momentous occasion for you just as you have always been there for me as well. Know that we'll always be here to support you no matter what it is no matter how crazy life becomes. Yay for you, darling!!!

Jasyu and I have been friends since the first day of school in Form 5 at Ipoh International School. She was the 'new Malay girl' taking my title (thank God!) and we hit off instantly! We always had lunch under the trees near the gate beside the field along with Dee, Nasyim, Miel and others. We went to prom together and we were late because her dress malfunctioned. Eat pizza some more! Haha.

Fast forward 7 years, here we are, law graduates living in Kuala Lumpur. It's like almost all my best friends from Ipoh decided to move to the big city and here we are, two cities together in one lifetime. I honestly am so blessed to have this darling girl in my life.

Last month, Jasyu went to New Zealand after working hard on her pupilage. So before she went, we had dinner because she spent her birthday there. But I planned a celebration for her with Mai for when she got home anyway. Because we can never see too much of each other. Haha. We gave her a list of venues to choose from like London and Paris  (read: Port Dickson and Malacca) and she chose freaking KL! *eyerolls please* 

"Let's have a staycation!"

So that's what we did.

She came to my place in the evening, and we picked Mai up from Mandarin Oriental to head to NU Sentral. The first item on our agenda was to play Breakout, an escape room game. This was my first time and man, we were TERRIBLE at it! It makes me wonder where did all our education go.


After, we headed for dinner at Jibril SS15 where we ordered like 5 drinks because we love pretending to be sipping cocktails. And we ended the night in CHAOS, a boutique hotel at Fahrenheit 88. We chose that hotel because its perfect for a night out. We could walk around Bukit Bintang and have a late night snack while enjoying the city. But of course, none of that happened. We checked in and fainted!

In the early morning, Mai woke all of us up to go for our morning walk (jungle trekking konon) at Bukit Nanas Forest Reserve also known as KL Forest Eco Park. It was a good walk because we're not fit and all the trails we went for were easy. We ended up topping up our burnt calories with roti canai because we're so YOLO.


After checking out, we walked a bit around Pavilion and when we saw all these gorgeous (but totally inappropriate) bikinis, we shot back to my apartment for an evening lounging by the pool and jacuzzi.

It was the best staycation I ever had with my darlings.

I wanted a Euro Trip as my graduation trip since forever. Funny enough, a few weeks before our final semester began, I bought a notebook from Typo, with the Europe map as the cover.

"This," I pointed at the notebook cover, "is why I will ace this semester!" And everyone knew about it.

And our budget for an 18 days trip was around RM14,000 for two all inclusive. 

Mind you, we did NOT go backpacking. We stayed in hotels only because girl needs the comfort. My luggage weighed around 16kgs (fashion blogger here please no judging). We travelled using intercity trains only. Sometimes we used UBER and such. And we ate out at least once a day. Not so luxury but definitely no 'roughing it'.

So this is how we planned it:

1. FLIGHT TICKETS

Flight tickets was the first thing on my list. Because I need to know when I'm going to be there to be able to book anything. Like before I book the hotel, I need to make sure I'm actually going to be there, right?

So sometime in March, (mind you our trip was in August) KLM had their Dream Deals sale. I just clicked on whatever date is the cheapest that year for KUL - CDG - KUL and got them at around RM2,100 (including tax and credit card charges) per person for 1 August 2016 - 18 August 2016 (arriving in Kuala Lumpur on 19 August and went straight to KLFW that night).

2. CHOOSING THE ROUTE

So now I know that I will be in Paris at the beginning and the end of the trip, I had to plan the round. I researched a lot via travelling blogs and also talked to family and friends. We really wanted to go to Paris, Amsterdam and Den Haag aka The Hague (because law students, hello!). And everything in between was from the research. I also had to make sure we could reach everywhere via InterCity trains and they are not too far apart.

Paris (4 nights) -  Brugge / Bruges (3 nights) - Amsterdam (1 night) - Den Haag / The Hague (3 nights) - Brussels (2 nights) - Luxembourg (2 nights) - Versailles (1 night) - Paris (1 night)

The hotel prices also played a huge role in our decision on travel time. For example, we slept in Brugge the night and immediately left early morning to head to the very expensive Amsterdam and planned on leaving Amsterdam very late at night for the cheaper Den Haag to be able to enjoy 2 full days in that city.

3. BOOKING THE HOTELS

This can be tricky. I literally opened every website including the hotel I am booking to compare prices. I found that since I was booking everything waaaaayyyyyy in advance, being a member of a hotel group works wonders. I am a member at AccorHotels.com and found that I got the cheapest price there for hotels that are in that group.

However, I was not picky on the price so much as long as it's within my RM200-RM300 budget. I saved a lot in Paris and Brussels, so I could spend more on hotels in Amsterdam and Luxembourg. I was picky on the location of the hotel though. Because if it's not in the city, it's going to be difficult travelling.

Word of warning: Do your research on the hotel before booking because we almost booked a hotel with terrible reviews. But I only found the terrible reviews on one website. I didn't want to take the chance, so I booked elsewhere.

4. TRAIN TICKETS

Again, as we booked WAAAAAYYYYY in advance, purchasing the tickets direct from b-europe was cheaper than getting those rail pass. 

Caution: PLEASE CHECK THE DATES, TIME AND DESTINATION OVER AND OVER AGAIN because The Husband accidentally bought tickets the other way round. But we were able to get a refund, thankfully!


5. FOOD

You have to eat so say hello to Maggi Mee because eating is expensive and you really need to eat when you're travelling. But depending on city, you can definitely get cheap food here and there. We spent an average of 5 Euros per meal per person in Paris, 3 Euros in Brugge, 6 Euros for THE BEST EVER KAPSALON in Den Haag for 2 people! Amsterdam was expensive though.

But do me a favour, don't limit yourself too much. Because you should enjoy where you go, so splurge a little here and there! We bought chocolates and we had hot chocolates and waffles at all these amazing places with great reviews because that's part of the fun of travelling!

6. FREE WALKING TOURS

THIS! This was our saviour! Every city has at least one free walking tour and you MUST go for it. Choose the ones you want to go for and you will learn A LOT about city. Of course, for each and every tour, we gave tips, but its up to you how much. The better the tour, the more we gave. Or if that's all we could afford that day, we just give it. Because you make friends here too! I know I did!

7. TRAVELLING AROUND THE CITY

We travelled differently in different cities. We walked a lot! But we also used UBER for safety reasons or for speed and comfort. We used busses and subways too. Do your research, do your calculations and you'd be able to spend within your means.

That's it for some of my tips for planning and budgeting for a 3 weeks getaway! I hope it helps you and I can't wait to share more about travels with you especially since I travelled a lot during my gap year last year! Let me know if you want me to talk about anything specifically, okay?