Saffurawanders

A Summer That Never Slept in Russia Chapter 2:  14th June 2026 St. Peterhof Palace & Spilled Blood Church Two in the morning, and the sky is still bright like evening — that's St. Petersburg in summer, a city that never truly sleeps. Fajr had already arrived before our eyes could properly close, and the sky simply shifted from dusk back to dusk again, never quite touching darkness. They call it the white night . That morning, at seven, we went down for breakfast. The tables were full, and in one corner, a group of tourists from mainland China moved fast, scooping up food as if it would vanish within the hour. We just smiled — that's the nature of traveling in large groups. We had one extra day ahead of schedule, and the summer weather welcomed us with clear skies, almost as if it had cleared the way on purpose for our first destination. The weather was windy but hot, calm, and just right. Peterhof Palace, nearly an hour's drive from the city. Malaysians rarely stop by...

31st July 2025

Before I Knew It Was Lupus: My Vietnam Story 20th July 2025

  A Summer That Never Slept in Russia Chapter 1: Arrival in St. Petersburg.  13th June 2026 KL to St Petersburg Our flight was at around 10 am. It had been a while since I'd flown Emirates, and it was the first time in almost 10 years. The last time was when we traveled to Dubai. Things had changed a lot since then, especially with my dad and me requesting a wheelchair. The ground staff kept asking so many questions, and I got annoyed. She even asked personal questions, including about family matters. We waited almost 40 minutes for my dad's wheelchair, and by then everyone around us was staring. I kept thinking, is this her first time working here? We even had to show proof from the doctor at the clinic.  Meanwhile, when we went to Norway, everything was so easy — no fuss at all. Too many conditions, dear Emirates. Even the people around us started rolling their eyes. After we checked in our pushchair as oversized baggage, we went back to the counter to wait for the w...

A Real Pain (2024) ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I love the cinematography in here. The shot was in Poland.  Mismatched cousins David (Jesse Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) reunite for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. The whole film was shot on location in Poland mainly in Warsaw and Lublin, plus the town of Krasnystaw, which has a personal connection to writer-director Jesse Eisenberg's own family history. A lot of it was filmed in Warsaw's Muranów neighborhood, near the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews and the Warsaw Uprising Memorial, which grounds the story in Poland's Jewish heritage.  What stands out most, according to cinematographer Michał Dymek, is that the visual choice was deliberate and they wanted to show Poland as bright, warm, and colorful rather than the grey, somber way it's often depicted on screen. One reviewer specifically praised how Eisenberg captures the beauty of everyday Polish life through quiet, overlooked details such as street...

Welcome to my travel blog! I'll be sharing my travel pictures here a lot mainly as a personal memory, so I can keep all my favorite moments in one place. I'm a little nervous starting this, since English isn't my first language, so please forgive any grammar mistakes along the way! I've been traveling since I was four years old, always with my family (anak emas).  My first trip overseas was to Singapore in 2006 and honestly, I don't remember much from that trip at all.  So far, I've traveled to: Asia: Singapore, China, South Korea, Indonesia, Vietnam, Brunei Middle East: Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Oman, United Arab Emirates, Kuwait Europe: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Austria, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, Norway, Russia Balkans (Eastern Europe): Bosnia, North Macedonia, Türkiye, Albania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Montenegro,  Africa: Tunisia Oceania: Australia, New Zealand I also live with SLE (...