Crazy for Photography

Hungry-less November

2011-12-29T14:37:00.001+08:00

Who love me the most? Of course besides parents, I do! I really know how to pamper myself… look at my lunch & dessert after lunch!

Once upon a time in November, I was craving for bak kut teh when I was in Kepong, then I came across this restaurant named 老彭绑线肉骨茶 (direct translation – old Phung tie string bak kut teh), this restaurant is this is exactly what I want. I ordered a bowl of their signature bak kut teh, the lady boss even advice me to take the small bone, I was not happy that she “underestimate” my stomach, so I ordered a bowl of yau char kuey and a bowl of rice too! ooooo… the bak kut teh was so yummy… but, the lady was true… there’s no way for me to finish the big bone, after finished everything, I was actually quite full, but as you know, lady also has 2nd stomach for dessert, so, I walked across the road to De Pastry Chef Cake & Cafe, one of my favourite cake house, ordered a slice of blueberry cake & a glass of pineapple juice (good digestive drink after a lot of meat).

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Once (or twice) upon a time in November, I need to work during weekend, at first I was a little depress but later when me & my teammate had successfully signed 2 deals with customers, I think we deserve a treat to ourselves, so, I brought her to visit this mille crepe cake house @ Kuchai Lama, which I wanted to try long time ago – Indulge Cafe (what an accurate name, indulgence indulgence indulgence!!!). We ordered a mango and a chocolate banana. Erm… comment? We prefer the Malacca one… check out my previous Malacca Trip blog entry.

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Once (or thrice) upon a time in November, my colleagues and I were craving for dessert and one of them haven’t been to Levain before, so we decided to meet up for tea! 3 of us shared a cup of Tiramisu and raspberry/ strawberry short cake… Taste wide, Tiramisu win!

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Once (or donno what’s next) upon a time in November, I was lepak-ing in a mall and saw this – Ninja Joe… I wanted to try this for a very very long time, but… when I was able to try… it gave me such a big disappointment… I thought the pork burger was similar to the Macau pork burger, just smaller in size (I can grab 1 burger in my small hand), but the meat is minced meat… not nice at all!!!

And because the portion was too small, I can even go for the tea right after. See the milo, so classic, milo drink come with another spoonful of milo powder and a piece of soda biscuit, NICE! But the otak-otak and fish stick are only so so…

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Once (…………….) upon a time in November, colleague invited me and another friend to her new house… we bought her a big bottle of Choya and bought some chips and sushi and sashimi and cheese to her for supper. We girls really know how to enjoy ourselves!!!

This version of Choya is super nice, I bet non of the girl can resist this drink… so far I only know it’s available in Jaya Jusco, no where else. Strongly recommend those who love drinking but hate the bitter after taste, or hate the burning sensation, you can try this, love at 1st sip is guarantee!

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Once (………………) upon a time in November, Garrett Popcorn opened an outlet in KLCC… yes, we are one of the crazy people queuing up to buy it!!! They said the caramel is the best… well, I’m not a big pop corn fans, but the taste is really nice and no residue or hard skin left in mouth after eating. Worth trying, although the price is few times compare to the normal popcorn in cinema counter.

Rakuzen @ Desa Parkcity

2011-12-18T22:32:00.001+08:00

After a few long-winded posts, it’s enough! Here come a simpler one.

I like Desa Parkcity, I think it’s a cool area, good security, variety of interesting shops, parks and lakes… However I seldom go there because it was a little bit far from where I stay. Thanks to my dearest friend, QiaoYi, I got a chance to dine @ Rakuzen in Desa Parkcity, and I always wanted to try Rakuzen too.

Monthly promo was Hokkaido Fair, so we ordered a Ishikari Nabe (aka salmon nabe, salmon stewed in a miso-based broth with vegetables in hot pot) (pic 3), spider maki sushi (pic 2), crab leg salad (pic 1), grilled scallop (pic 4) and baked crab leg (pic 5) with cheese… every dishes are so yummy…

This was also a birthday dinner treat to QiaoYi, I was sorry that this year I didn’t have time to bake her a cake, just bought a small one but we think that the cake has too much of cream, when I was choosing a cake, this one attracted me, because the strawberries remind me of the time when we both in Amsterdam. May those strawberries bring her lots of luck and make all her wishes come true!!!

What an “INTERSTING” island - Sibu Island

2011-12-17T16:26:00.001+08:00

I do not know from where or which media suggesting that Sibu Island is as beautiful as a germ in the middle of the sea and fun yet not as commercial as Redang, so we should be able to enjoy the exclusiveness and serenity… but we forgot the challenges before “happily ever after” in every fairy tale.

We departed around 12 noon, from map, we thought we might the slowest can reach the island in 5 hours time. So, we were taking our own sweet time, stopped over Malacca for banana leaf (luckily we did, reason will be reveal later).

Around 3.30pm, one of the reception from Sibu Island Resort called us, asking for our location and told us the last boat transfer to the island is at 4pm… what?!?! How could they missed out this important information to their guest? There’s no way for us to reach the jetty in another half an hour time, so, after ding ding dong dong discussion, they offer us chartered boat @ RM250, well, what to do? Or the payment that we made to the resort, RM, will be burnt…

We kept driving, driving, following the road sign, took wrong turning, called resort… ding ding dong dong again… we reached the jetty at 8pm!!! 8 HOURS JOURNEY!!!

3 princesses in their CHARTERED boat!!! Anna, Serrea and me

Because of all the calling, discussion and questioning, our names were immediately becoming very famous among all the staffs in the resort.

As dinner was not included in the package, we ordered a la carte – Fish & Chip (my favourite dish when I travel to beaches or island), mushroom soup and seafood pizza.

Mushroom soup and fish & chip were fine, not delicious, but good enough to compensate our tired souls and starving stomachs, but come to the pizza… tasteless… it’s absolutely a surprise how the outlook presented so differently from the taste. So, we asked for chilli flakes, but, the waiter has no idea what were we asking, and we were giving chilli powder… tasteless chilli powder… another surprise.

We were told the activity of the night was bon fire… we went there, I saw one of the staffs was playing a guitar and sing with 4-5 visitors clapping hands to show support… ahhhhhh, we were not interested.

We went in to the karaoke room, Anna & Serrea ordered a can of beer for each, we thought since there wasn’t anybody in the room, we can sing until our lungs out, but, the staffs were slotting their songs with ours… ahhhhhh, boring… end up we rather drink the wine that we brought in our room.

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Since there’s nothing much we can do in the island, we decided to sleep as much as we want, woke up just on time to take our complimentary breakfast.

tada~~~, girls can eat and drink! We were too exhausted the night before, we only manage to drink half of the bottle, so, we finished the other half during breakfast!

What can we do in the island? 1. Animal feeding. There are a lot of deer, goats and peacock.

2. People and scenery watching, shell animal bullying. I have no idea how these foreigner ended up in such an “interesting” island, there are so many other islands which have better scenery, better beaches, better service, more activities, e.g. snorkelling, diving

3. Continue drinking, reading (pretending only, sunlight is too bright for reading), camwhoring…

4. Napping & swimming

At last come to dinner time, we are trying to order simpler food and at least some dishes which are Malay specialty (the chef is a Malay), so they won’t go too wrong. We ordered a salad, satay, nasi goreng kampong and seafood spaghetti, phew~ the food is much nicer than the night before.

One of the highlight for the dinner was the live band, they were very professional and sing really good. Instead of having our wine and beer in room, we spent the night chatting & enjoying live band in the restaurant.

p/s: if you notice, we skipped the lunch, we had very heavy breakfast and had only beer, chips and ice-cream for lunch!

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Avoiding the mistake that we made on the 1st day, we checked ferry time and were trying to catch earlier boat back to the mainland, we wouldn’t want to be home late night, yet we were so sick by just thinking about spending another 8 hours of road trip in car.

Our room in the island

Beautiful island from far

The beautiful and most romantic KFC outlet that I ever see. But what bordering us was the road trip back home and petrol volume in the car tank, we worried that with the what we have in the car can’t last us to the nearest petrol station. Luckily we were able to get the staff from the island to bring us to a local convenient store which sell petrol.

Moral of the story: If you are trying to be adventurous, and planning to explore a place which non of your friend has come across, it’s best to do a thorough check up.

Water Rafting @ Gopeng (29.10.11)

2011-12-11T12:37:00.001+08:00

At first, I was a little hesitate about the trip, because I’m not an adventurous person, sports never like to befriend me and I seldom put myself in danger, therefore, no matter how much I admire people who has the courage to do bungee jump, or sky diving, I won’t! Water rafting isn’t as “dangerous” (some only think that these activities are high risk, they do not agree that they are dangerous because all of them do measure the risk and they have all sort of safety precautions to protect the participant), but still this is a game which need you to sign a consent to forego any claiming rights in times of severe injury or death, in another words, you have to be responsible for everything.

We, went in a group of 9, was separated into 3 groups, because only 4-6 people + guide can fit in a raft. Me and Heng Lee in a group, joining a Chinese couple and a Malay girl, 3 guys (Heng Lee’s friends) joining some people from a big group (if not mistaken, the group is from Coway, they are probably having their staff team building) and the remaining 4 (Shin Yen, Seok Bing, Seok Bing’s sister and brother in law) in a raft.

The water is neither calm or too rapid on that day, last rain was 2 days before our session. Yet, there’s a part whereby Seok Bing’s brother in law fell into the water and hit a rock in one of the falls. My raft was in front of them, right after that fall when we reached the calm part, I looked back the witness his fall into the water, it was so scary, because he fell and I saw his head hit the rock and disappeared in the water. Luckily he was alright and saved by a guide… no serious injury, got a little cut on one of his eyelid and bruises. phew~

Our raft has 5 participants and a guide.

(Our actual guide was holding the camera, the Malay guy in the picture is the guide leader)

Half journey break

Yeah! we managed to complete the journey successfully! Total time spent was about 4 hours.

End of the journey – floating (as shown in the picture) back to the shore.

This was my 2nd time joining this white water rafting, 1st time was years back in Kota Kinabalu (KK). I personally like this experience better than the KK one. And if you ask me whether I will do it again… this time, I will say YES!!! It’s fun.

Show Off Time!!!

2011-12-08T11:59:00.001+08:00

Show off! Show off! Show off! I don’t remember I have a lot of birthday treats before my 30s, last year I had 3, but this year I have 1, 2, 3, 4… In short, I had a whole month celebration!

1st celebration: with my cute and pretty colleagues, Anna & Serrea, @ Chili’s Grill & Bar, Mid Valley. We ordered my favourite Triple Play! Yum…

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2nd celebration: with ex-colleagues, 3 October babies birthday celebration @ a porridge steamboat house opposite Maluri Jaya Jusco, Woon Ching, my 1st superior in life made us a blueberry cheese cake too… the cake is really nice, nobody gonna believe that the cake was made using a rice cooker.

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3rd celebration: with little “brother/ son”, Jeff Wan, @ La Bodega, Pavilion. This time I got to give him a big credit, I was really surprise when he suggested this restaurant. I ordered my favourite seafood Paella. This silly boy surprised me further by asking the waiter to prepare the cake for me, they were holding the cake and sang me birthday song out loud in the restaurant… .

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4th celebration: with one of my best girl friend, QiaoYi @ Dae Jang Geum Korean Restaurant, SS14. We both ordered a soup, chicken and pork belly BBQ, of course with a lot of complimentary side dishes/ starters too. This is my best celebration of all, the food might not the best, but she do. I really appreciate that I have so many good friends, QiaoYi is one of them who can really care and take her precious time off to spend time with me (I’m actually taking some parenting time from her to be with her beloved son). Thanks girl.

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5th celebration: with another good friend of mine @ Morganfield’s, Pavilion. We have been spending more than 3 years celebrating each other birthdays together! We always like to try out new restaurant in town during our birthdays. Although both of us, most of the time live a different lives (I hardly can think of many things that we share in common), but we care for each other. I wish, even if in the future, we have a busier lives, have already had a family or partner, we still can celebrate each birthday like that.

Oh, not to miss out the food part, the portion is very big, especially the chicken, I think the chicken was overcook but nice sauce, of course no doubt, their signature dish, the sticky bones, is one of the best rib in town and I love the clam bowl too, it is to go with bread, but I love salty food, I can eat it just like that.

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6th celebration: with Avan @ a Japanese restaurant, Leisure Mall (I forgot the name of the restaurant d). Been eating everything in town already, how can I miss out Japanese? Probably like what doctor said I was too stressed or tired, or probably due to something like flu virus enter the stomach and cause infection (if I understand him correctly), or the food was not very clean, I had gastric for few days after this. I never had such serious gastric before, it’s so painful that caused me “diet” the whole next day and a day after too. However, I had a nice night out with this friend, too much to catch with him d!!!

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7th celebration: with college friends aka A33 siao za bo @ Bread Basket Bakery, Kota Kemuning. They actually already celebrated my birthday early of the month, this was just another excuse for us to meet up and gossip again. This bakery is running by one of the za bo, Joanne’s family, I always order the same old 2 no matter how much time I spend by going through the menu. Fried rice with chicken cooked with special sauce and mango lychee cake. For the rice, I requested steamed broccoli add on… look at the colour combination… so attractive!

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8th celebration: with another best girl friend, Stephanie @ Ciccio Ristorante Bar Pizzeria, Changkat Bukit Bintang. I was craving for pizza, but Steph insisted we should eat something better than Pizza Hut… lol, so after going through the Malaysia Italian Restaurant Directory booklet (I’ve no idea where and how I get this booklet), I finally picked this.

I ordered a pizza and she ordered a Caesar salad, I ordered the starter – bruschetta and she ordered a dessert – tiramisu, what a best combination and best mate we are! We were too greedy, we need to pack half of the pizza to go end of the day.

I like the salad and bruschetta, the pizza is very authentic too, but I’m a bit, erm… dislike about the taste of rocket leaves spread on the pizza. After all, this was still one of the best meal I had.

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9th celebration: a casual celebration with Chris, my predecessor in work, @ Secret Recipe, we girls always meet up for lunch and gossip, celebration was just a smoke screen for us to continue lepak… lol

Birthday Trip/ Treat! (15–17/10/11)

2011-12-05T00:19:00.001+08:00

I haven’t been to Singapore for more than 3 years…

I only made up my mind and did all bookings a day before my departure. Such an “ad hoc” trip isn’t my style right? Actually the reason was, my birthday this year fell on Sunday, I thought I will be crazily party till late so I took a day off on Monday, which is the next day, but ended both of the plans that I made with my friends have to be cancelled due to “unforeseen circumstances”, but I can’t be sitting at home for that weekend, so, [light bulb], I am gonna to force my good friends in Singapore to celebrate with me.

This time, I’m talking the Aeroline, love at 1st sight, I took the bus which is depart from Corus Hotel, quite close to my house and I do not need to confuse myself whether I am taking the right bus or sharing the station with other passengers who are going to different places, I like thing to be straight forward and exclusive. Another plus points are, the fares are so much cheaper than taking an aeroplane, which both transportation providing similar or in fact, Aeroline’s services are even more exclusive, as there are lesser passenger, and there are plenty of departure time for you to choose, averagely 9 trips a day, 7 days a week. Those who are close to me know I hate taking aeroplane, buses are more “steady” running on the road compare to aeroplanes flying in the sky! You know what I mean…

RM174 (inclusive of tax) for round trip, 1 meal included for each trip, mineral water is provided, each seat is equipped with TV for movies, songs, games and etc... low density, if I’m not mistaken, less than 30 passengers in a bus.

I watched 2 Chinese movies that I’ve missed in cinema, I Know a Woman’s Heart by Andy Lau and Gong Li and Detective B+ by Aaron Kwok. The road trip was absolutely a pleasant one, all I could remember was I had my lunch in the bus, driver stopped at a R&R along the highway for toilet break, custom checks @ both countries, when I finally finished those movies, I was already in Singapore!!! (approximately 5 hours travel time).

The bus stop @ Harbour Front, just next to Vivo Shopping Mall and there is a direct MRT to my hostel, Hangout @ Mt. Emily, which is in Little India, and only 4 or 5 stations away from there. Of course, 1st thing 1st, check in to hostel. One thing I like about Singapore is, comprehensive map available in each MRT station, good security, Singaporean speaks English, hence I never have to worry about locating a place, getting myself in trouble/ danger when walking on the street or finding a place or language barrier when asking for direction.

I called my friend when I arrived, so, one of them (Soo) come to meet me @ the hostel and we walked to Rochor Rd where it is famous for the soya milk and fritter as tea. Well, I will think that I can get a better one in KL/ any place in Malaysia, but I’m happy that I finally got to catch up with friend.

We continued our journey (still walking) to Bugis where later another friend (Choo) was going to join us for dinner. We passed by this famous Guanyin Temple @ Waterloo St. (四马路观音庙), and it reminded my time when I was working in Singapore, the office was just a street away and every 1st and 15th of the month in lunar calendar, I will either go office earlier to pray at the temple or I pray during my lunch time. The day when I went to Singapore was Renunciation Day of Guanyin, so, the temple was jam packed with not only the local people, but tourists too…

After we met with Choo, we had difficulty in choosing a restaurant, 1st constraint was time, I’ve got a show at 8pm at Marina Bay Sands theatre (another friend, KaWeng booked me the ticket while I was booking my bus tickets) and they were going to watch Premier League somewhere nearby too. 2nd issue was, they were trying to brought me to the best they had, and they have so many in minds end up we went to this Chef Daniel’s Kitchen, because they said their signature cod fish and braised duck were the best in town.

We were the earliest customer, but, unfortunately, both of the dishes that they wanted to order to me weren’t in their menu that day… huh? What a “lucky” day, and mind you… this was just the beginning of my “lucky trip”.

This restaurant served fine Chinese dishes, we finally picked the 4, salmon, braised pork knuckle, spring chicken leg and pork belly… Soo’s friend joined us for dinner too, 4 of us, 3 guys 1 lady, frankly speaking, the portion were too big for us, we were trying so hard to gulp in everything, I think it wasn’t so bad if we had more time to taste the food. Moral of the story, don’t be too greedy and should take time as an important consideration when come to fine dining.

After finished the dinner, I was in trouble, 1st, Marina Bay Sands was quite a distance away, 2nd, it was rush hour, 3rd, I hadn’t change to a proper attire to the show (I was still in my shorts, polo T and sport shoes), 4th, I’ve got only 30 minutes to be @ the theatre, so, if I go back to change, I might not be able to go in until Act II, if I didn’t change, I doubt they allow me to go in. At last, I was few minutes late, but the show haven’t started too, and they allow me to go in with my shorts & polo. Woohoo!!!

The show is awesome, awesome… flawless, the actors interacts with audiences too, so you see sometimes elephants walked between the audience seats, birds flying everywhere, they even add in local language in the lyrics and all of them have great voices and expression and acting. No regret spending the money for the show.

Before sending me back to my hostel, we all met again @ Geylang for… dim sum supper, not women.

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I slept until I woke up by my biological clock, had my breakfast which was provided by the hostel, online checking my mail and fb updates with computer and internet provided by the hostel in the common and activities room. By then, actually both of my “tour guides” (Soo and Choo) had already finished they routine exercise, and we arranged to meet up for lunch before the tour to attractions.

I was craving for Thai food… so here we go for my 1st birthday lunch treat!

1st attraction in the itinerary - Esplanade. They asked me if I ever been to the “Durians” (outlook of Esplanade is like durians), they were surprised when I said no. Last time I was there to work, I didn’t travel much around the city.

The art displays in the hall.

We went up to the rooftop and saw some youngster hanging out there… Well better than they spend time in front of computer or loitering in some inappropriate places or doing some unhealthy activities.

wow… I’m really a tourist! with Singapore Eye at the back

2nd attraction – Merlion. Yes, sorry to say, I never been to Merlion before too!

The medium and small one, there’s another big one in Sentosa, where we will be going later.

Left pic: Captain Explorer – this unique transportation can swim on the water and run on the road, it brings tourists around to see the city, ticket isn’t cheap though.

Right pic: The city is beautify by creative arts, I especially like this wall which has a lot of faces making into a few beautiful paintings.

3rd attraction: Marina Bay Sands. My very competent tour guides even brought me to cross the Double Helix Bridge from Esplanade to Marina Bay Sands. Actually this bridge and painting that I mention above remind me of Melbourne, when I was there a year before, I saw the similar designs.

Marina Bay Sands, the 6-star hotel + casino + shopping mall, which has special exterior design, the local said, the ship which looks like a blue whale connecting the 3 towers has no tail, means, when people gamble in the casino, the whale only take in money with no “excretion”. LOL. There is actually a Sky Park and swimming pool, tourists got to pay, if I’m not mistaken SGD20 just to go up to enjoy the view from top. Of course, it’s not a must-do activity, I rather save the money for food.

For me, I like the lotus shape building sitting next to the towers, it’s actually an Art Science Museum which has not open yet.

Since it’s my birthday, my tour guides were asking me to try my luck in the casino. I’m a tourist, I don’t have to pay to go in but they are PR, they need to pay an entrance fees of SGD100. So, I went in alone. At first, I wanted to place a bet, my budget is SGD50, mean if I lose, the most, SGD50, if I win, whatever the amount I win from the 50, I will take and go, the min bet in the casino is SGD25 per game, but all of the table with this min bet were all full, left those table with min bet of SGD50 and above available, but… lol I was too timid, and stingy too, I don’t dare to take out the money to bet… so, after few round of observation (observing how other people playing and appreciate the beautiful interior design in the casino), I decided to keep the money for my shopping of wedding gift to my god-sis who is getting married this Christmas. Phew~

5 attraction – VivoCity

Look at both of the displays, aren’t they very similar? Left: in Vivo City, right: in Shanghai (I was there in Aug). Coincident? Copying? or actually both was created by the same artist?

We just stopped by Vivo City to have our early dinner before heading to Sentosa Island. They introduced this authentic China cuisine which the food is really very unique and nice. (Side track a little, when I came back from Singapore, I saw new outlet of Putien is opening up in One Utama Shopping Mall soon!!! Yeah!!!).

Sweet & sour century egg (糖醋皮蛋)

Braised pig intestine (九转小肠) Signature Putien Lor Mee (莆田卤面)

We also ordered a vege and a crab roe with bean curd (forgot to take picture of the bean curd). Putien was celebrating their 11 anniversary too, so, we received this gift of appreciate when we settled the bill.

5th attraction – Sentosa & Universal Studio. There are 2 ways to travel to the island, by train or pedestrian bridge. We decided to take train in and walking out afterward. I was lucky at first, I’ve “earned” a 2-dollar note in front of the globe, then we found out that that day has no firework and Crane Show due to maintenance or something… I can’t believe to do their maintenance on a Sunday?!

Happy Birthday to the Best!!! Yes, I’ve made it!!! Thanks to my dad and my mom… bla bla bla

Came to the Casino, ok, was still thinking should I give it a try! I’m no a frequent gambler, although the min bet in this Casino is lower, if I’m not mistaken only SGD10 per game, but… haih~~~ I rather spend it somewhere, I don’t think I have luck in gamble. To reward my “coolness”, I bought myself a Hard Rock T-shirt!

I love the statues, Adam & Eve, did you notice there’s a small red apple between their legs? They are very cute!

While walking back to Harbour Front (VivoCity), we stopped by a wine house for drink… non of us is a wine drinker, we didn’t know which is good and which is not, decision was made by the manager, he recommended this Spanish wine, he said this wine which was made in 2006 is ready to taste now. He mentioned something like this wine was stored in barrel for 3 years and 2 years in bottle, so, it is in its best state to taste now, he assured that I’ll love it too… Nice? Nice gua… hehe, I am not a good wine taster.

Of course I can’t be letting the guys to pay the bills for the whole day, I insisted to get the bill.

What a memorable birthday! Thanks guys… Thanks to Choo’s girlfriend too for allowing her boyfriend to accompany me the whole day.

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I must also blog about the hostel that I stayed too. I like staying in hostel when I’m travelling alone, more cost saving. This time I stayed in Hangout, Mt. Emily, it is located in a very strategic location, it’s actually between 2 MRT stations, Little India & Dhoby Ghaut, walking distance to some pubs and restaurants too, I can even walked to Bugis Shopping Mall from there. I like about the room too, very clean and tidy, en suite, modern design, comfortable bed and equipped with locker too.

My bed and breakfast, only SGD40/ bed/ night.

The breakfast place

The lobby and check in counter

Laundry room, got to pay for doing the laundry but it’s free to use to iron.

Recreation room has a cozy corner to watch TV and has a pool table next to it as well.

Coffee and tea are free flow, has hot water supply and microwave oven too.

Computer and internet connection/ Wifi are compliment services in the hostel too.

The rooftop, although there isn’t any swimming pool, but it has this little shower corner, sun-bathing beds, tables and chairs for you to hangout.

The entrance and outlook of the hostel.

P/s: I lost my watch in the hostel, I was too careless. I took off my watch in the bathroom instead of locker, then I couldn’t find it again the next morning.

它给的。。。

2011-12-01T00:14:00.001+08:00

1990 - 1997

喜，它让我得到了一些骄傲的掌声，当我的手指在它的黑白键上跳动的时候；

怒，它让我牺牲了一些玩乐的时间，当每晚都得在它的黑白键上练习的时候；

2011

哀，它让我感受到一种强烈的不舍；当我盖上它的黑白键强忍着眼泪的时候；

乐，它让我得到了一种无奈的解脱，当我不必再对这黑白键感到愧疚的时候。

愧疚来自于对它多年来的冷落，解脱来自于我为它找到了比我更需要、更懂得珍惜它的新主人，

皆因我把它捐赠了给一位住在孤儿院的小女孩。。。

100 Years Old Restaurant

2011-11-30T21:35:00.000+08:00

I always laugh at old people who like to think back of their lives. A bit meaningless because those were the pass, I used to think we should live our lives now, but I think I can understand why they are doing so as I’m moving closer to that category. We laugh out loud when we were talking about how silly we were during school time, we sighed when we notice the generation gap is getting wider when we were talking with youngster. Lately there’s a very hit movie – You are the apple of my eye, I think the success story of the movie is it can bring back sweet (bitter and sour too) memory and remind us all the silly things that we did before (although I’m a bit disappointed when I came out from cinema, because I feel nothing, I have no resonance at all), so, the movie is worth watching if you are late 20s and above.

Back to the topic – as I’m approaching age of “always remembering of old times”, lately for unknown reason (not totally unknown, part of the reason is due to I see some people/ the government have no sense of reservation, they are trying to bring down historical building along Jln Sultan, and Pudu Jail was demolished early of the year), I need to show my tiny little supports to some old restaurants in town. So far I only been to these 2 – Yut Kee Restaurant, established since 1928 and Coliseum Cafe, established since 1921.

Yuk Kee Restaurant

Old fan, old radio, old style French toast with homemade Kaya jam

Swiss roll is Yuk Kee all time best seller

Full house even on a weekday tea time, there are variety races of diner in the restaurant.

P/S: this restaurant also famous for their Hainanese chicken chop and Hainanese coffee too.

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Coliseum Cafe

Used to be one of the finest dining in town years back…

Such a classic interior, but I think they should do some touch up to make the restaurant brighter and more presentable.

This cafe is famous for their stick and chop. The side dish has blended spinach which I never try before. Frankly speaking, this chop was too salty and I don’t quite like the way of preparation (the chicken was too dry and hard) and presentation.

Coliseum Cafe & Hotel, 98-100 Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman, 50100 Kuala Lumpur, Tel:03-26926270

Sad thing is, sometimes good thing doesn’t last, it’s either the young generation has no interest in running the business or the old generation cannot accept new idea, they do not allow the young generation to innovate the business operations, and gradually the business was eliminating by time…

Malacca Day Trip (25.09.11)

2011-11-29T17:36:00.001+08:00

I couldn’t remember how many Malacca day trips have I made throughout my life, it’s uncountable already, but I really love this place, and each time it gives me a whole new experience. This trip was made as a farewell trip to Anna, Malacca is also her hometown, so, she brought us around, visited Malacca in a “local” way.

We departed after breakfast @ Kota Damansara and reached our first destination – Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant for lunch about 11.45am, look at the queue, we were so lucky because Anna’s sister was there earlier than us and she helped us to reserve a table, so, we didn’t waited very long.

Usually we, tourists only go to (know) the chicken rice ball in town, this is not in town, it’s hidden in housing area. This is the local people favourite restaurant for Hainan chicken. The chicken is very juicy, tender and smooth, the rice ball is very solid and taste nicer. We kept reminded ourselves not to over eat, in fact we should only taste it, as we will not be only taking 3 meals a day, but we couldn’t help, we just want to stuff all the chickens in.

Huang Chang Chicken Rice Restaurant:

BB 376, Taman Melaka Baru, Batu Berendam, Melaka, 75350, Tel: 06-317 0299

Right after this heavy lunch, at 1pm, we continued our journey to Tong Lok Kopitiam (near Sam Poh Well/ Sultan Well @ Bukit Cina) for our 2nd lunch - Char Kuey Teow, of course this time we are smart, we controlled by only order 1 plate for sharing… the uniqueness of this Char Kuey Teow is to eat with sweet sauce, for me, erm… I still prefer the Penang style.

We girls always say we want to go on diet, diet, diet but we fail each time when we were seduce by food… After 2 lunches, it’s exercise time! Girl best exercise – SHOPPING!!

We didn’t shop long, we shopped until 2.30pm and we reached this restaurant – Jonker 88 for their famous cendol with gula melaka syrup. You should know lady always has 2nd stomach for dessert.

When we were walking out from the restaurant @ 2.30pm, we saw a lot of people eating Pai Tee, Pai Tee is just a starter, it didn’t consider a real meal, so, we packed one and “picnic” @ Jonker Walk World Heritage Park.

We are not the only group “picnicking” @ the park!

While walking along Jonker Street, we also had a stick of fried potato twister too… (no picture because we were all busy eating).

Yeah, yeah, yeah!!! Finally we were here @ Nadeje Cafe!! It was so crowded when we were there, we waited until almost 5pm to get a table. What so special about this cafe? It serves Mille Crepe Cakes!!! Variety of them!!!

We picked 2 – Mille Crepe Malacca & Mille Crepe Berry-Berry Strawberry… yummy

Nadeje, G-23 & 25, Jln PM4, Plaza Mahkota, 75000 Melaka, Tel: 06 2838750

When we finished the cake, it’s actually almost time for dinner… but we were very very very full… so, we decided to pay a visit to our Malacca colleague, Sherry @ her husband wedding planner office. She strongly and highly recommend the red wine and the Choya that she found. I must say, she really has a very good taste, I usually can’t take a lot of wine and liquor, but I love these 2. So, girl 2nd best exercise to burn calorie – GOSSIP!!!

We were too happy gossiping and drinking until we forgot about our dinner! Since we didn’t stay a night in Malacca, we must made a move to dinner and shall depart home before too late.

For dinner, we opted for Nyonya food. So, Sherry brought us to Amy Heritage Nyonya Cuisine. Probably because we were late, 9.30pm, there were actually not a lot of people in the restaurant, we let Sherry and Anna took charge of ordering because they knew the best for us.

I didn’t actually take down the name of each dishes, but they are fish ball soup with fried fish stomach, fried fish with sambal, steamed lady finger with special chilli sauce and stewed chicken with potato and mushroom. Very simple yet very authentic.

Amy Heritage Nyonya Cuisine: 75, Jalan Melaka Raya 24, Taman Melaka Raya. Tel: 06-286 8819.

We should have stay there actually, because it’s a bit tiring for us to travel back to KL after the late dinner and reach quite late at night, when I was driving home, I was stopped by a police @ a speed trap road block too, but he was kind enough to let me go because he knows actually I was driving home, single lady driving home alone at that hour is a bit dangerous.

Gua Gua Gua Gua

2011-11-22T00:29:00.001+08:00

First of all, I got to say something about my horoscope & personality: come to traveling, Libra tends to slow down and take an extra day to relax or to enjoy the smaller details of a new city. So, please don’t rush a Libra… and I might be a little adventurous (always curious about new thing, like to explore), but not strenuous exercise, to be specific, climbing…

After Mount KK climbing trip, I once said I will never ever climb a mountain again… so, I think this trip was a real mistake for me. At first a group of close friends of me were planning to visit to Mulu National Park, I thought it was just a sort of “back to the nature” or “appreciate to the mother earth” kind of trip, until somebody that we invited to the group insist we should visit to the Pinnacles. My understand to the “pinnacle” is limited, I thought it’s just a very nice scenery and “wonder of nature” until…

The trip wasn’t any ordinary cuti-cuti Malaysia trip, not only have to book very advance, more than 6 months in advance and it’s not very economical too, because of transport and accommodation limitation in the national park, which I think this is fine because this is a very effective way to conserve and protect mother nature.

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Day 1

When we arrived @ Miri Airport, we got to take the Fokker aircraft to Mulu Airport.

The fly & the flight

Our ground transport – rusted van Old friendsss

Left: Check point & information centre, right: 3km plank walk to the caves

1st Cave: Lang Cave

this place is famous for all type of living stalactite & stalagmite, vertical, horizontal (unknown reason). Important note: we are not suppose to touch them, because once touch, the stalactite or stalagmite will die (not grow anymore). If I’m not mistaken, I think the guide told us 10 years it only grow 3cm. Imagine how many years to take to become so big and tall as shown in following pictures.

From left: The famous giant jelly fish stalactite, neither stalactite or stalagmite, it’s spider wide formed by a type of insect to catch it prey, 18sx formation

2nd Cave: Deer Cave

Largest cave passage in the world. Full of bat shit too!!! Why it was named deer cave is because last time there used to have a lot of deer there, bat shit goes to the river and give mineral to the deer. But now there is no more deer because of aggressive hunting activity years back.

The most unique features to see in the cave are Garden of Eden and Abraham Lincoln’s face. For more information, click this: http://www.forestry.sarawak.gov.my/forweb/np/np/mulupic/deerlang.htm

Bat Exodus

Very spectacular show where all the bats in the cave emerging out during dusk hour (around 6 or 7pm), not flying out one by one, is by group forming black cloud in the sky, million of bat in the cloud!!!

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Day 2

We stayed in Park HQ the day before, very simple chalet with minimal facilities. This day, we need to take longboat to visit to a few places before going in to Camp 5.

Penan Settlement @ Batu Bungan

Used to be the long house for the Penan ppl, but was burnt down while one day a man came back and accidentally spilt the burning lamp. River is their life, early in the morning they wash their face and shower in the river, wash clothes in the river… Penan used to be nomadic ppl, but the government help them to settle in a place, teach them to plant, managing livestock and poultry, be more civilize (most important is, don’t burn the forest).

not in raining season, so, the water is very shallow. So, sometimes we need to get down to push the boat…

3rd Cave: Wind Cave

Special features about this cave are, there’s an area where you can feel the wind blowing toward you and the air is really cool, like a natural air-conditioner and there’s a place called King Chamber because the stalactite and stalagmite or pillar formations in this chamber are like the king’s sceptre.

For more info: http://www.forestry.sarawak.gov.my/forweb/np/nature/windcave.htm

Did you see anything in the picture in the middle?

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4th Cave: Clearwater Cave

As suggested by the name, the water is superbly cool and clear. I hope after washing my sweaty face with the water, I can get 5 years younger.

To get to the cave, we got to climb at least 200 steps of staircase up and down.

Left: The cave has a lot of mono leaf plants attached on the wall. Right: Saint Mary praying statue?!

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Camp 5

Longboat then sent us to Kuala Litut, then we got to walk 8km to Camp 5. 8km isn’t a short distance, mind you, to increase the lever of toughness, each of us were carrying about 10kg of backpack and we were suppose to finish the 8km within 4 hours, this is not cool at all!!!!!!

Reward after 8km of walk – shower in ice-cool Melinau river next to Camp 5 and seeing a beautiful sunset projection on Benarat cliff

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Day 3

Pinnacle

After 2 full days of non-stop “exercise”, I was exhausted, really… this day, we actually need to climb up to the Pinnacle, which a lot of professional climbers commented that this is much tougher than climbing the Mount KK… gosh, climbing Mount KK was already my limit, what now?! Of course, I knew I couldn’t make it to the top, and God asked me not to too, the night before was raining heavily and rain only stop after 7am, which is quite late already. The guide told us, we can still try, and he will evaluate our stamina and fitness and speed, because the guide said if we could make it to the top, we should allow another 8 hours climbing time back to the ground, or by 11am, we should reach the top. Actually it’s just about 3km, total journey, but you know, we took about 2 hours to the mini pinnacle, which is only 900m from starting point. There’s quite impossible for all of us to reach to the peak, no way. So, some of my group members already planning to come back the next time, however, I was already very proud of myself for being able to make it to the mini one.

Advice to climbing mania or whom who are interested to test your fitness, buy those cheap rubber shoes (RM7-RM9 per pair), they are proven and tested to be better than N*ke, Add*das…

Besides than leeches, beautiful wild mushroom all around the places…

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Day 4

Back to Miri

ahhhhhhh… 8km in, of course it’s turn to do another 8km fast walking out… we were told we need to catch our boat at 9am, so, we need to walk even faster this time, 2 hours to complete the 8km… I was walk “flying” too fast and I twisted my left shoulder when coming down from a suspension bridge.

Look at the room that we stayed, yes, no door, partial covered only, I was sleeping on the mattress where the blue bag sitting in the picture. Cool right?!

Our boat was late, the travel agency said it was due to some technical problems, so, we didn’t have time to eat our lunch and clean ourselves to catch the flight back to Miri, the longboat dropped us straight at Mulu Airport, where our the other half of the luggage was already there, after all the hassles, we finally boarded and back to civilization!

Group photo with our guide (the guy squatting in front), friends that we met in Camp 5 – Pakistanis couple (3rd from left and 1st from right, last row) and 3 Spanish (2nd from left, 2nd from right, last row and the girl @ 2nd from left middle row). The 3 Spanish made it to the top!!!

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Day 5

5th Cave: Niah Cave

In Niah Cave, the researcher found it to be the oldest recorded human settlement in east Malaysia. This cave is also well known for the birds' nest (Swiftlet) industry.

Gua Gua Gua Gua Gua… Gua again (Gua is Malay word to cave).

2 minutes boat ride from check counter to the plank walk to the cave… why not building a bridge, want to give a job opportunity to the local… (lame or good excuse?).

I read the info, there’s actually a harvest season for bird nest to protect the swiftlet population and the balance of the ecosystem… If the local really follow the system/ rules being set, I’ll be very proud of them. The rest of the time, the aboriginal will collect bat shit to sell to palm oil plantation, look at the big bags, they are full of SHIT!!!! The aboriginal sell to a middle man and the middle man sell to the plantation, so, I guess the aboriginal might not earning what they deserved to.

The aboriginal is plucking bird nest. One of the high risk occupation in the world I guess, no objection about it.

Beautiful rocks

Postcard always project this picture when come to this cave introduction.

OK… enough is enough… I don’t think I will go to any cave in my another 10 years… Burst my quota visiting to so many Gua at a time already.

HangZhou International Youth Hostel

2011-11-13T22:45:00.001+08:00

Since last year, year 2010, I travelled to Melbourne alone and stayed in a youth hostel, every time when I Google and do some research about accommodation to places that I’ll be going, I will first search “xxx youth hostel”. So, this time is HangZhou. Because I’m travelling with a friend, at the very beginning, I was browsing some hotel, but find that they are not very cheap. Then I came across this International Youth Hostel, the location is very strategic, reading comments and mostly positive, looking at the pictures and they all projected clean and safe environment.

When we reached Hangzhou, the cab driver didn’t know where was it, luckily I have the address and he managed to send us there. When I was doing the check-in, I noticed a lot of the worker there are very very young… (is it because this is youth hostel so they only hire young ppl?) The reception is very helpful, that evening was raining and one of them even helped us to carry our luggage. I know if you are too used to live in a hotel, bell boy service is all time available, but mind you, this is a youth hostel, you need to be responsible to your stuff because you are still “youth” aka young.

This Hangzhou International Youth Hostel has 2 wings, the reception and rooms, they are connected by a small alley. I like about the security, you need to have an access card to enter to each wing, modern (security) + tradition (interior & exterior design).

Our room is @ the 1st floor of “room” wing, no lift or escalator, narrow staircase a bit scary when you are taking your luggage up and down. Before all the rooms, there is this public place for you to hang & dry clothes and basins. Further in, there are laundry room, bath rooms, toilet and hot drinking water supply room, all for sharing.

Our room was the 1st room after all the public area, short ceiling, kind of small, a little bit crack on the wall, but for me I prefer this kind of setting, I don’t like big room. There is a small window on the ceiling, cover with a curtain, I think it’s for you too watch stars at night.

Left pic: You can also sit by the window, watching the koi in the pond. Right pic: it’s kitchen

Left pic: Living room for sharing too. Right pic: a balcony @ 2nd floor

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There's a cafe next to the hostel, I think they are running independently, but symbiotically. It’s kind of nice and when you were sitting in the cafe, you get confuse “am I in China, not France?”

Highly recommended if you were to go Hangzhou… West Lake is just walking distance away, you can wake up every morning and do a bit of running or tai chi there…

For hostel info, please visit this site: http://www.yhachina.com/ls.php?hostID=2&id=33

Rosemary Bites Restaurant

2011-11-04T23:16:00.001+08:00

(This post seated in my draft folder for months… suppose to be up in July… opps)

1st birthday celebration with colleagues in this company which I’ve joined 1 year ago (dated back to July, and when the birthday girl was still in the company, lol)… The birthday girl picked this restaurant and I think it is a good choice! Very obvious, this restaurant served American food, the interior can tell.

All four different dishes that we chose – Salmon fish & chips, steak, chicken chop & chips and chicken thigh with mashed potato. The portion is just fine for us, I mean we are smaller eater compare to those big sized Americans, and the price is very reasonable too. I like the environment which is not too noisy (or probably that’s a weekday so, they didn’t have a lot of customers), we were able to talk and laugh as much as we like. We were able to hang out in the restaurant for almost 4 hours, we were drinking their beer until they have run out of stock!! (or I think probably they didn’t keep a lot).

How could a birthday celebration without a cake?! I bake this mango cake for Anna and I’m happy the she love that! Most of them thought that the upper layer was chicken floss, no no no… it was crushed digestive biscuit!!

Right: Mango cake from Secret Recipe

Left: My home-made mango cake (I think I should be more generous with the filling)

Rosemary Bites Restaurant

A-G-28, PJU 1/43, Aman Suria Damansara, 47301 PJ Selangor, Malaysia.

For Reservation : 03-7805-2088

Website: http://www.bites.com.my

Last Day in Hangzhou

2011-11-02T22:07:00.001+08:00

Finally, came to the last day in China… as usual, Libran always has the same dilemma, eager to get home (can’t sleep at all at night due to cough, mind and body got exhausted already) but on the other hand, there are a lot more for me to explore in town, especially West Lake, it is a true beauty, I didn’t even have good time experiencing this man-made lake, crossing all the bridges while understanding the stories behind each of them, seeing the 10 must-see sceneries around the lake, surrounding the lake to walk at least a round (although this is quite impossible)…

Since I was not able to get quality sleep, I decided to get up early (West Lake was just behind the hostel), spend a serene morning with the local people and the lake. I thought I was early, but the local were earlier, at 6am, most of the parks facing the lake were crowded with people playing Tai Qi, dancing, running, brisk walking on the track. Some young working ladies or men were having their breakfast on the benches by the lake… security guards or police officers were also there to protect or maintain order I guess.

I was walking walking walking until I finally found an empty bench, although there were a lot of people but non of them making a lot of noises, now I understand why my Hangzhou friend, HuiJia’s husband used to wake up early just to come here to study during his school time… the environment is really quiet and nice, fresh cool breeze, bird chirp, green… you really need to be there to feel the lake with your heart…

After recharged with all the positive energy, I walked the hostel to shower, meet my friend, pack, check out and take our breakfast in the cafe attached to the hostel (because we have discount voucher to dine in). The breakfast was very very nice, look at the beautiful latte & our 5-star breakfast… the cafe looked simple outside, but has a beautiful and modern interior, will show the pictures in my next post.

Before heading to the airport, my Hangzhou friends brought us to walk a little in their newest mall, finally got a chance to spend some money and we had lunch My last lunch - 状元过桥米线, method to eat: 1. throw all ingredients (variety of vege, prawn, fish fillet & dried stuffs) to hot soup, after 2 minutes then throw in the mee. 2. soaked ingredients till cooked and served! Besides than the colourful combination, the soup was really nice too! At least this is not so “aggressive” to my stomach compare all the spicy dishes in every single meals that we had during the trip… mind you, the Chinese can be very “hot”!!! lol

Lastly, HOME SWEET HOME WITH A PAIR OF PANDA EYES AND A COUPLE OF SIZE UP! CHINA… I’LL BE BACK!

2nd Day in Hangzhou

2011-10-20T18:19:00.000+08:00

Day 2 Itinerary: ZhiWeiGuang Restaurant 知味观 –> Temple of Soul’s Retreat LingYin Temple 灵隐寺 –> The Grandma’s Restaurant 外婆家 –> West Lake西湖 –> ZhangGongGuan Restaurant 张公馆 –> HeFangJie Pedestrian Street 河坊街 –> Tea Buffet 茶楼

That’s the most contented day throughout the trip! My HangZhou friends are all very lovely, caring and passionate. They made my trip a colourful one.

ZhiWeiGuan Restaurant

Early in the morning, HuiJia and her husband came to picked us up for breakfast @ ZhiWeiGuan Restaurant. Her husband was so considerate, he had breakfast at home, so he could wait for us in car, and we could had ours in ZhiWeiGuan with his wife, because that place has no parking space… HuiJia knew I was coughing badly and she made me a liquorice water in thermo flask, knowing my sport shoes were wet by the rain and she brought me a pair of hello kitty crocs… I can’t be thankful enough for them…

The restaurant is something like our Chinese DimSum restaurant, HuiJia bought a book of coupon and started introducing the food at the food counter.

These were the dishes that we chose:

酱油鸭 (soy sauce duck) 蜜藕 (Honey lotus root with glutinous rice) *

猫耳朵 (Cat Ear, made of dough) 馄饨 (Wantan, small dumpling)

Salted Vege + Toufu* 炸酱面 (mee with thick gravy)

* are my favourite!!

After meal, HuiJia returned the remaining coupon and get back the cash. Interesting system.

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Temple of Soul’s Retreat – LingYin Temple 灵隐寺

Right after breakfast, 1st thing 1st, we went to LingYin Temple to pay a respect…

Nothing is free in China, no exception for this temple too. We need to pay to get in. When we were waiting at the ticket counter, we saw there’s a equipment which can help you to understand the temple more. It’s a device which it can detect your location and tell you the stories behind the statues/ places/ things that you are looking at.

Uncountable Buddha statues… root forming a Chinese word “heart”

The lovely couple HuiJia (most left hand side) & her husband (most right hand side)

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Lunch @ The Grandma’s

This Grandma’s that we visited is the flagship, it’s located at a same building as 2 of my HangZhou friends’ office, it’s very convenient for them to come meet us for lunch as both of them has no car.

All the dishes that they ordered are all very yummy… I love the chicken and the cauliflower.

茶香鸡 (Smoked chicken with tea leaf)

毛菜汤 (hairy leaves soup, lol direct translation) salty fried prawn

Fried cauliflower (very very nice) 豆腐鱼 (fish cooked in spicy soup with Toufu)

麻婆豆腐

Photo after lunch!!!

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West Lake

To describe the beauty of West Lake is beyond any word can do. I can’t even believe West Lake is a man-made one.

Initially, HuiJia’s husband suggesting us to see the lake by rowing a boat on the lake, but due to bad weather, we can only ride on the ferry boat, took us to a small island in the middle of the lake and walked around. I really like this place, very peaceful, harmony and romantic…

HuiJia & her husband started seeing each other in this place too!

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Dinner @ ZhangGungGuan

We have missed the dinner the day before, so, all of them decided to give us another treat! Because they need to OT in office to meet the deadline, they asked us to go to this restaurant near their office.

This restaurant served very authentic HangZhou dishes too, all of them were very tasty, especially the chicken feet and frog and fish from Thousand Lake.

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HeFangJie Pedestrian Street (like our night market)

We couldn’t walk a lot because it was raining that night, we just went in to one of the very famous traditional herb store and a bronze museum which shows collection of bronze art from the 5 generation of the family.

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Supper - Tea Buffet

This is one of the must-do in HangZhou, visiting to a tea buffet restaurant, tasting the premium tea and observing the beauty of West Lake.

The buffet charges is based on the tea that you ordered, for example, the tea that I ordered is RMB90, I’m paying RMB90 for the buffet. Unlimited refill of hot water and got a chance to change for another tea which is same value or lower.

To be continue… my last day in HangZhou…

5th Day in Shanghai/ 1st Day in Hangzhou

2011-10-03T23:50:00.001+08:00

Day 5 Itinerary: Shanghai Zoo –> 动车 High-speed train to Hangzhou

You are right, I went to the zoo… I understand visiting a zoo isn’t a “must-do” in most of the countries, but China, especially this is my first trip to China mainland, no doubt, it is a must because they have got PANDA!!!

Right after we bought our entrance tickets, 1st thing 1st, we checked out where are all these cuties located, with no further ado, we took a feeder “train” straight to the panda area.

Such a big different between small panda and giant panda

Panda is as lazy as koala (I think), they either eat or sleep… most of them were still sleeping when we were there, only this playful one was having his breakfast while playing with the leaves too.

After panda, we did walked around, but most animals were pretty lazy, they were either hiding or sleeping. But we still managed to see some interesting animal, e.g. Sun bears fighting, and we saw gorillas too, that’s my first time seeing gorilla too. They really act like us, human being, they look fierce but in fact I think they are quite harmless…

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Lunch

We have not had any Ramen in Shanghai yet, so, that’s what we were going to eat for lunch… We walked out from the zoo and this small restaurant attracted us.

We ordered ramen葱油拉面, kungpo chicken rice and 水煮鱼 (no idea what’s the English name for this) for sharing… the latter 2 dishes were only so so, I still prefer our version of kungpo chicken, but the ramen is really good… the chef made the noodle on the spot too…

After the lunch, it’s also time to bid farewell to Shanghai!!!

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Hangzhou Trip

Day 1 itinerary: 印象西湖 Impression West Lake –> Karaoke

I actually planned to reach Hangzhou by 3pm, because we really have not much time to cover Hangzhou. However we learnt our lesson for not doing much research on some of the details.

After Shanghai Zoo & lunch, we rushed back to take luggage, but my dear friend, she hasn’t packed her luggage the night before, at first we thought of taking metro to train station, but due to time constrain, we decided to take a cab. The driver said there are 3 train stations in Shanghai but we have no idea which is which, neither the driver know the exact station to take us to. End up, although he said he is pretty sure, but I guess, he just picked the farthest one – South Gate Train Station.

We got a shock when we reached South Gate after more than an hour in the cab, because from the digital board, all trains to Hangzhou on the day have sold out!!! Luckily my friend found an officer who know English, she told us we went to the wrong station, we should go to HongQiao Station which is quite a distance from South Gate, and her suggestion was to take metro better than a cab. Taking metro with luggage is no fun at all, “best” part was taking the luggage up and down the stairs for transit @ different stations.

After all the hassles, we managed to get our precious 2 tickets to Hangzhou, and the train is very comfortable, it remind me of Eurostar that I took from London to Paris in my Europe trip. From the info that we received in the station, the train will take 80 minutes to Hangzhou, but in less than 50 minutes, we were already in Hangzhou! (Should this a good news? The very terrible accident happened in Wenzhou in July was still vivid in mind).

I actually has a group of China friends staying in Hangzhou, I know them in my Langkawi trip in March this year, although we know each other not long ago, but it seems we are already very close friends. Before I go to Shanghai, I actually told them I will reach Hangzhou on that day around 3pm, so, they had booked a table at a very fancy restaurant named Lou Wai Lou 楼外楼 to welcome us. I felt so sorry for their effort being wasted, because we were there late. Some of them were actually doing their OT in the office and squeezed out the time for the dinner. I felt so touched but at the same time very guilty for not letting them know earlier that we were facing some difficulties in getting the train and we will be late.

Photo with the guys before they were getting back to their office to work.

We missed the wonderful dinner and this was what I had that night “Old Beijing" Chicken Roll” & citrus tea @ KFC.

1st surprise from my Hangzhou friend – HuiJia & her husband ShenKai, they bought us tickets to watch “Impression West Lake” (印象西湖), directed by the famous director, ZhangYiMou (the director who directed the opening and closing ceremonies of 2008 Beijing Olympic). It was an amazing show! Very breath-taking and everything seems perfect, music, lighting, dance, coordination...! Can you imagine the stage is in the middle of the lake? I strongly recommend this show if you have a chance to visit to Hangzhou. http://www.hzyxxh.com/en/

Half way watching the show, rain started pouring down, the rain give a prettier impression to the scene and draw a more touching picture to the story.

a a a... that's not the end of the day, 2nd surprise coming up… HuiJia booked a karaoke room for us to sing our lung out too!!!! Exhausted and a day full surprise (bad and good), more exciting Hangzhou travelogue coming up…

4th Day in Shanghai

2011-09-24T11:39:00.001+08:00

Day 4 Itinerary: Dongping National Forest Park 东平森林公园 – The Bund 外滩 – Shanghai Xin Tian Di 新天地

Dongping National Forest Park

Beautiful Sunday! We planned a trip together with friend’s sister to Dongping National Forest Park, which was highly recommended by her colleague. Getting there need various public transportation, metro, bus, bus, ferry, bus again… (this route was suggested by that colleague too) but, when we reached there… there is actually a direct bus to Shanghai City from ferry harbour. |||

Before entering to the park, there are people in their scooters, asking us if we are looking for local home-cook food (农家菜), their house is just nearby. Logically, we shouldn’t follow somebody home just like that, but since both of them (my travel partners) agreed, ok, I had no objection. Then they took us back home by their scooters. I had hesitation (typical city girl doesn’t trust stranger easily, was trained since young), but they seems nice and sincere, so, I tried not to think on the negative side. When we reached there, there were another group of people, dressed like city, leaving their dining, so, I felt sort of safe.

They suggested a lot of dishes, (they even had a proper menu), at last we ordered a cold appetiser (cold chicken), pumpkin slices, Chinese yam, celery and a stewed pork. I think the stewed pork is the nicest, but I was too eager for the food and I forgot to take picture. I admit I’m really a carnivore. Taste wise, ya, they are quite different from what we have eaten in the city, they tasted less MSG, less salt and some you can even taste the “burn” smell from the wok.

The Chinese yam plant Their kids

Shoots, like eating sugar cane, peel the skin with teeth and chew the stem for juice. I think this is kind of cool, remind me when I was very young (I grew up in village too), my grandpa used to teach me eating sugar cane this way.

On the way to their house, we passed by some vineyards and there were notice board saying they welcome visitor too. We asked the man who was sending us if they have their own vineyard too, they said they don’t have but their friend does. Unfortunately my partners were not interested to go, so, the man sent me there, they waited for me in their house.

The vineyard that I visited isn’t the biggest, I guess, but I think I was lucky, I never visited a vineyard with grapes bearing on the plant before this, and I was very happy to be able to pluck grapes from the tree while walking around the yard. Since I was there, and the owner said he can helped me to pack the grapes for me to carry back, so, I bought some, but when I brought it to Hangzhou, carried the box up to the plane and back to KL, some of the grapes turned bad and the box smell like wine!!

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Back to the city!!

Dinner – At first we wanted to try XinXiangHui 辛香汇, a restaurant strongly recommended by my friend’s sister’s Shanghai colleague, she tried to book a table a day before but unfortunately, they only accept booking a week before, gosh… a week before!!! The restaurant people asked us to try our luck by walk in, so, we were there about 5.30pm, you know what? There were still 98 tables before us… We thought it might be very fast, but after an hour of waiting, there were still about 45 tables, plus my friend’s sister wasn’t feeling very well, so, her sister decided to go home to rest earlier and we decided to eat elsewhere…

This XinXiangHui is located at the top floor of a 6 storeys building in Pudong and all the tenants are running restaurants in this building. I don’t mind waiting for nice food, but I think the queue is ridiculous, so, if next time I were to go again, will definitely make booking, a week before.

When we went down to ground floor, we see this interesting restaurant, DaNiang Dumpling, plus point, not too crowded (believe me, even the whole building are restaurant, most of them are super crowded, this is China), so we went in and valentine’s set attracted us (although we both are not valentine to each other but who cares?). RMB54 for 4 satays, 1 bowl of glass noodle with big bone, 1 bowl of beef noodle and a big big bowl of dumpling (we forgot to count how many, but I guess about 20 of them), don’t you think this is a very good deal? I especiallu love my bowl of glass noodle.

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The bund!!! Finally!!!

How can you not visited the bund when you travel to Shanghai??? The night views were very breath-taking, I think it’s the nicest among all places that I went (at least nicer than HongKong and Melbourne).

Shanghai World Financial Centre (tallest building in Shanghai and 3rd tallest in the world) & The Pearl Tower

Pedestrian bridge crowded with people taking picture

@ Pudong (Eastern bank of HuangPu river) viewing over to PuXi (Western bank of HuangPu river) – Very classic and grand

Colourful & happening NanJing Road Pedestrian Street 南京路步行街 where a lot of people, especially the elderly practicing ballroom dancing and singing @ the street! What an interesting culture where the elderlies have their own happening and healthy activities while the young ones hangout somewhere in the city.

@ PuXi viewing over to Pudong (very colourful and modern sky line)

There are a lot of tourists @ the bund, when I was resting my poor legs (continuously walking for more than 3 hours), a white from South Africa who was sitting next to me thought I was a local and started chatting with me. He is an interesting man and we had nice chat, exchanging travel information and etc. That is part of the reason why I love traveling, you never know who and what interesting and surprising people and things will you be meeting or seeing… the world has become so small and it seems everyone in the world are friends!

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Shanghai Xin Tian Di

Most metro lines close at 10pm, after that, the most convenient public transport would be the cab. From Puxi, I hopped on a cab and I was thinking whether I should head home or go Xin Tian Di, I asked the driver will it be late to visit Xin Tian Di at about 11pm, he said that’s a place never sleep. So, there I go.

Actually I was curious, a lot of friends and sometimes I read in the magazine or entertainment news, a lot of richer 2nd generations will be hanging out there, this place is like our Bangsar/ Hartamas where a lot of pubs and posh restaurants. Of course there will be a lot of young, pretty and hot girls hanging out there… some probably trying to hook a rich husband, lol. But I got a bit disappointed with my high expectation to see some really young, rich, handsome/ well-groomed guys (yes, I watched too many soap dramas), pretty, hot and sexy girls and posh and expensive sport cars… but…, this place is happening but not like what I expected or probably that’s Sunday late night, happy hour ended earlier? It’s still an interesting place to watch the yellows act like the white there… Don’t believe? Buy a cup of latte and sit outdoor, not a bad idea to spend a night watching people there.

3rd Day in Shanghai

2011-09-11T13:11:00.000+08:00

Day 3 Itinerary: Zhu Jia Jiao – AP Plaza Shopping Mall (@ Shanghai Sci & Tech Museum metro station) – Tian Zi Fang (@Tai Kang Road)

I think I don’t have to explain this, this is the crepe that we have the day before but today we asked the boss to add YouZaGuai + the peach that I bought the night before when we passed by a fruit stall after our reflexology (so cheap, it was only RMB40 for 1 hour reflexology + shoulder massage).

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Zhu Jia Jiao

How to get there?

1. (From where we were staying) Take bus no. 455 @ Pudong Avenue, Qiancang Road --> Pu’an Road, East Yan’an Road (only 4 stations away), then

2. Take Hu Zhu Express Bus (Pink bus) all the way to Zhu Jia Jiao (has only 3 stops because this is express bus)

There happened to be very very crowded when we were @ Hu Zhu Express Bus stations, everybody were queuing and we estimated we need to wait for 1 hour before we can get in to the 3rd bus (interval time for every busses to depart from station is 20 minutes). When we were “sun-dried” with other ppl in the queue, the conductor asked if anybody doesn’t mind standing, they can get in the bus too. Me & my friend quickly run up, because we were planning to sit on the stairs rather than continue sun-drying ourselves. But when we got up, the stairs were almost occupied, only one of us can sit. But after the bus move a short distance, we saw the conductor were scolding 2 passengers, I think probably they refuse to pay so, the conductor asked them to leave, and yea… we were lucky, we were closest to the seat and we got to sit already!

About an hour plus of bus trip, we finally arrive @ Zhu Jia Jiao, the China’s Venice.

Such a beautiful water village

The dumpling and this pork knuckle, everywhere in the village… I didn’t try the dumpling, I see the knuckle is interesting, I only bought one small piece to taste, it taste a little bit like marinated pork in our version of dumpling, and the fat layer can really melt in mouth… so, it can’t take too much at a go if you are not the fat lover. They can help visitor to vacuum pack too, convenient for the visitor to brought it home.

Because of the morning rain, we got to eat our lunch earlier too. We were buying the Chinese traditional ink painting as souvenir and the artist’s wife recommend this restaurant to us, she said the famous one is not the nicest…

We saw everybody were having the chicken soup, we think it must be the signature dish. But the smallest portion is half chicken, so, initially we thought of ordering 1 chicken soup and a dish of vege. For the vege, the waitress recommended their homemade 面筋 (no idea what’s the English translation) with vege and insisted we should also try their prawn cooked with wine too… at first we don’t want, but since she insisted, we agreed. They served the prawn first, the prawns were so tiny, has to eat with shell, but I think the dish was really tasty, then came the vege, also very nice, we were eating non-stop until we got a big shock seeing the chicken soup!!! The soup can served 4 actually, we were also half full! No doubt, the soup also very tasty, although the chicken meat was super “elastic” like chewing gum. We counted, there were altogether 8 bowls of soup, each of us took 4. Our stomachs were almost bursting when we left the restaurant.

Must-do activity in Zhu Jia Jiao – Cruise around the village

The cruise fare is counted by boat, each boat RMB60. When we were at the counter, we saw a couple were also checking out the price there, we exchanged a sight, and we agreed to share the boat. At first we thought they were Chinese but they are actually Korean… They must be thinking the same, but we are Malaysian Chinese.

For me, I love to see and experience a place slowly, walk around, sit in a nice coffee shop or tea house to observed how the local live their lives, see the place in day and night. But this time we only planned to do a half day trip, so, we need to catch the bus back to Shanghai city before the sky gets dark. Next time if I ever have a chance again, I will surely spend a night there…

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Shopping @ Shanghai AP Plaza – for those who like to do wholesales shopping, you can either shop @ Qi Pu Road (Metro station: East Nanjing Road) or AP Plaza Shopping Mall (Metro station: Shanghai Science & Technology Museum), both of the places are easily access by metro. Reminders to shopper: 1. bargain, bargain and bargain, cut at least 50 - 70% of the 1st price they offer to you, you got to be more daring, walk away if they can’t give you the price that you ask for, they will either give up and you win the bargain or there are plenty of shop selling the same thing, ask around if you have ample of time; 2. be aware of the quality, especially the buttons, I bought 2 tops, I even asked for new piece which is with plastic cover, when I brought home and check, all buttons need to re-sew; 3. most shops do not have a fitting room, you can’t put on to try before buying them, so, you need to be very sure about your measurement and what suit you best.

For me, erm… I am not good in bargaining, I like quality stuff, I need to try and be sure that the cloth really fit me well, so… sometimes I rather pay more and save time for other sightseeing (unless the trip is really meant for shopping).

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Dinner – Food Court near AP Plaza

I was coughing badly during the trip, so, I usually opt for something with hot soup or something light. Everything seems nice in the food court and this has given a libra a lot of headache. Finally I chose Fish fillet noodle with sour vege… who knows, the soup looked clear but it is spicy. My friend ordered dried pot, which is very interesting too, you can pick whatever you like over the counter, pick a spiciness and they will cook the stuffs that you pick, rice and soup are FOC. The serving of everything are big, China ppl has bigger stomach?

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Tian Zi Fang

This place housed a lot of young and talented artists. They are selling their master pieces (clothes, handbags, toys, paintings, handicrafts, etc.) in old buildings, so, it seems traditional but yet modern inside. I always appreciate original and arts, I really like this place, but we were there quite late, we only has limited time to walk around. There are a lot of restaurants, cafe and pubs too. I’m glad that my friends were willing to accompany me to drink a cup of latte before leaving such a nice place.

P/s: little tips to tour around Shanghai city: always check the last train going back to the place that you are staying, most of the lines close at 9pm or 10pm. But taking cab is very convenient, the fees is very reasonable too, beware of those maroon cab, they don’t charge accordingly.

2nd Day in Shanghai

2011-09-06T23:58:00.001+08:00

Although we slept quite “early” in the morning, just 5-6 hours of quality rest was adequate. Our itinerary for the day was Hall of City God – Yu Yuan Garden – Shanghai Old Street

Breakfast – Shandong Crepe

The crepe is very delicious, it is savoury, with egg, crispy toufu skin (this is only my guess), spring onion and etc. It is very nice to go with soya milk and because I see a lot of ppl also buying the bao, so, I picked one vegetable pao too, inside it is really full of chopped green leaves. Don’t underestimate the portion, a crepe is actually filling enough.

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1st stop – Hall of City God

1st thing 1st, top up the subway prepaid card, equipped a city map and subway map in hand is also a must. Unfortunately, we only have subway map, (I was surprise that Shanghai, being one f the most tourist visited cities in China, we hardly find free map or booklet of attractions @ subway station). Luckily, we both speak Chinese, so most of the time, we either spent time reading framed map on the wall of the station or asked around for direction (usually there are more than 3 exits in each station).

I like this direction sign by the street, we read Chinese, so, it’s very easy to us to get to where we want.

Contrast of the Modern & Old building

Chinese believe the City God can fulfil whatever you wish for, for me as a tourist, I just want to pay respect and wish that we will have a safe and nice trip!

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Lunch – Nanxiang Steamed Stuffed Bun

This restaurant has more than 100 years of history, although the local said their stuffed bun isn’t the finest and tastiest, for me, I already think that it is the best already (compare to those I ate in KL). The restaurant has 3 different halls, ground floor, only has a to go counter, usually jam-packed with ppl, because the bun is cheaper (has only 1 type, the small one, wrap with only pork meat). Upper floors, there are 2 hall with proper restaurant setting, one with minimum spending of RMB30 per pax and RMB60 per pax, you can order everything in the menu, but usually more pricy, of course the stuffing is not the same as ground floor, they are more premium. I don’t mind paying more, because it is a must eat in Shanghai. I don’t know how to translate these, but we had 蟹黄灌汤包（RMB22）and 招牌小笼（RMB48）, my personal preference is the latter, trust me, they are really yummy and addictive…

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Shanghai Old Street

Will never miss the street when we were walking around the Hall of City God and Yu Yuan Garden, they are connected to each other. For tourist, you can actually see a lot of unique stuffs there, like paper art, stone art, calligraphy, Chinese traditional clothes, accessories and etc. If you are not into shopping, there are a lot of local snacks too. There are a lot of shop doing wholesale too. If you like those Chinese traditional house deco, yarn, stationaries, you can get a pretty good bargain there.

Even Starbucks Coffee is very China & classic

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Dinner – Hunan Cuisine Restaurant 要得湖南湘菜馆

If I’m not mistaken, I think I came across this restaurant in one of the food introductory program hosted by a famous chef cum food expert in HK. My friend’s sister brought us there, and when we entered, the restaurant was already jam-packed with ppl. We were lucky and got a small table at a corner. She ordered all the signature dishes (mostly spicy except the celery), I forgot most of the name but I like the fish head. It was very special, a head served with 2 different sauces. The texture of the meat, frankly speaking is incomparable to the fish in Malaysia, we are surrounded by so many good fishes, but I would say that, the sauces are special. And this dinner had actually opened my eyes, China ppl can eat spicy!!! They can take very very spicy food compare to any other races!!!

That was the end of the day, we went back right after dinner to plan for our following days itinerary…

1st Day of My China Trip – Flight Catching Fright

2011-09-06T09:41:00.000+08:00

1st day: Flying day. Our flight to Hangzhou was in the late afternoon, but I was taking a day off, just to give myself ample of time to prepare. My plan was to take KLIA Transit @ Bandar Tasik Selatan to LCCT, but when I was about to leave my house, unfortunately the rain was pouring down, I called my friend and she said her bf can give me a lift. What I never expect was, by the time we reached Bandar Tasik Selatan, we missed the train, we quickly checked in via phone (by doing this, you don’t have to be physically in the airport 2 hours before departure), instructions mentioned we need to be there an hour before. We calculated and crossed our fingers, hoping there isn’t any “surprises”.

Thanks God, no surprise, but we were still 5 minutes late to check in our luggage. We were trying to negotiate with the staffs, promising we can carry our own luggage on board (my luggage was quite small, so, it fit to the hand carry requirement), but my friend luggage was oversize, and I didn’t know my friend only purchased 15kg of luggage for both of us, hers was 7kg or 8kg, mine was about 12kg. End up I need to remove most of my stuffs (luckily I packed everything in vacuum bags, so, it’s easier to take in whole) from my luggage to put in my backpack, then bla bla bla bla… the AirAsia crews softened a little and allow us to carry our luggage to the flight and pass to the crew to put in the luggage cabin.

But after all the time we spent in the negotiation, we still need to run up and down (bear in mind, with luggage) to custom counter, hand luggage scanning machine, waiting area and flight. I swear, I will never, never ever do such thing to myself again, I’m not a person who can rush like that, not only we were sweating by the time we reach the flight, but throughout the 5-hour flight journey, I was worrying about our luggage, was it really in the cabin?

My heart was pumping hard when we were waiting at the luggage belt for our luggage, and yes, our luggage came out last, at last! Because we planned to tour Shanghai before Hangzhou, the only transportation to Shanghai at that time (11pm) was AirAsia bus, the fare is quite expensive, RMB100 per person. I actually haven’t had my dinner in the flight, so, again, I need to run (hate myself running again) to the nearby McD, grabbed their latest chicken burger (something similar to our McChicken Delux) and eat in the bus.

After 2 hours, we reached Shanghai, it was too dark and I have no idea where were we, we were told not to take the maroon cab (they don’t charge by meter). So, we waited for a while, hopped in one of the white cab, my friend gave him her sister’s apartment address and finally, we were “home” safely, end of our 1st day of adventurous.

I’m Back!!

2011-09-04T12:00:00.001+08:00

I’m back! Been MIA for a very very long time, I had a busy yet wonderful, colourful, story-ful August! I can foresee, I’ll have another busy September writing blog post…

13th – 17th August 2011

Miri/ Mulu National Park, Sarawak

25th – 29th August 2011

Shanghai, China

29th – 31st August 2011

Hangzhou, China

Penang Trip (09.07.11–10.07.11)

2011-07-28T20:11:00.000+08:00

Very soon Penang will be my 2nd home, since I go Penang so frequent. Initially, my friends were asking me to organize a gathering and later they decided to do a short food trip to Penang. When we reached Penang, it’s already late afternoon, 1st stop, at about 3pm, we ate the Penang Asam Laksa @ Ayer Hitam, near Kek Lok Si (temple). We were too hungry, I even forgot to snap a photo before eating. 4 of us shared 2 bowl of laksa, then a big plate full of fried stuffs, e.g. Lobak, fish balls, spring rolls…

Along the way, we saw notice board showing there’s a durian festival in Balik Pulau, so, after seeking direction from a few hawkers, and a Penang friend of mine which apparently he does not know that place so well helped me to Google a little, we managed to find the place. Such a disappointment because we thought it will be very happening, especially during weekend. But there’s only 3 stalls selling limited durian and other fruits too.

Although it was a festival or something, but quite pricy too. I’m not a big fans to durian, I only ate a little.

Then we checked in to the Northam All Suite, we really love the suites that we booked, very spacious and comfortable, most importantly, it’s a good deal we got from Air Asia website too.

We allow our stomachs to rest for a while and we went out again to hunt for our dinner, this time, Ah Leng Char Koay Teow, @ Ayer Hitam too. We ordered the special one with duck egg, RM10.50 per plate, and this time, we didn’t want to share, each of us ordered 1 big plate. So greedy. But this Char Koay Teow is really very very nice…

Anyway, although that was a food trip, but we can’t be eating non-stop. After dinner, we booked movie tickets @ Queensbay Mall, best still, we maximizing our objectives by eating ice-cream before going in to the cinema.

After movie, although we weren’t hungry but still looking for food, initially was thinking about dessert but we are not quite sure about the place, so we went to Gurney Drive where just 1 or 2 streets away from where we stay. It’s already close to midnight when we were there, most of the stalls already closed. We only managed to get fruit rojak, fried chicken and Chinese dessert (tong shui) for our supper. I was very guilty about my diet, but felt really satisfying… That’s why, I can never slim down to the weigh that I want.

My room is facing the sea… I don’t really feel like leaving Penang because the room was so comfy. Ours was a junior suite, 2 toilets in a suite, 1 living room, work station, 2 super single bed making a super super king bed, bathroom equipped with Jacuzzi, big wardrobe… RM200+ with 2 complimentary breakfasts too!!!

We had breakfast there, ya, I know it’s not a wise choice to have hotel breakfast in Penang, but we just want to kill our time while waiting for the other 2 girls doing their Jacuzzi.

We checked out the hotel with a little hesitation, then drove around Penang hunting for food souvenir. Round and round, we still couldn’t find the shop the the girls wanted to go. Although at last we found what we want, but we were already half melted. Next to the souvenir place, there’s this Lebuh Keng Kwee, and the very famous cendol stall is there. Of course 1 cendol couldn’t satisfy us, we order Laksa and Char Koay Teow again, but of course not as nice as those that we had previous day. So, altogether, we had 2 breakfasts in that morning.

What a best option to eat an icey cendol in a hot day!!!

We wouldn’t want to reach KL late, so we started our journey around lunch time. Last but not least, we decided to stop by Ipoh for our late lunch. And by default, we had the famous beansprout chicken there.

Do not underestimate girls, although most of the time we are complaining about our weight, starving and working so hard to slim down, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t eat!!!

Cheese Temptation

2011-07-21T23:07:00.004+08:00

Am I overrated myself? I never bake a cheesecake or see a making of cheesecake and I choose the most tedious and complicated cheese cake in the recipe to bake! Part of the reason, my friends jokingly requested me to bake this for them. Yes, I love baking, the more I bake, the more confident I feel, making me more daring to take challenges. Baking also a very good way to release my stress and kill my boredom during weekends…

I failed making this cake on my 1st attempt, fail terribly… the mousse was too watery and damped the biscuit base, the cheese smell bad too. I was thinking maybe I shouldn’t pick this at the very first place. But since I have a lot of left over ingredients, I give this a second chance last weekend.

This time, I was trying to take things slowly… read the recipe book carefully, line by line…

Digestive Biscuit Base

Ingredients
160g digestive biscuit (finely crushed)
80g melted butter

Method:
Mix all the ingredients until well-blended. Press it onto bottom of 20cm loose bottom pan. Refrigerate for 15 minutes or until firm.

Cheese Layer

Ingredients A
500g cream cheese
140g sugar
20g corn flour

Ingredient B
3 eggs

Ingredients C
50g orange juice
1 orange zest

Ingredient D
150g whipping cream

Method:
1. Cream Ingredients A until light. Add in Ingredient B, cream until smooth.
2. Add in Ingredients C, cream until well-combined.
3. Add in Ingredient D, cream until well incorporated.
4. Pour the cheese mixture onto the prepared biscuit base. Cover the outside of the mould with aluminum foil.
5. Place it over double boiler, bake in water bath at 160˚C for 60 minutes.
6. Refrigerate the cake for at least 4 hours.

Chocolate Mousse

Ingredient A
60g milk

Ingredients B
20g sugar
1 egg yolk

Ingredient C
80g dark couverture (chopped)

Ingredients D
2 tsp gelatin
30g water

Ingredient E
150g whipped topping cream

Method:
1. Cook Ingredient A until boils. Add in Ingredients B, mix until well-blended. Continue to cook for 1 minute. Add in Ingredient C, mix until well-combined.
2. Mix Ingredients D until well-blended and place it over double boiler, cook until gelatin melts. Add it into the above mixture, mix until well-blended.
3. Cool it over ice water to 30˚C. Whip Ingredient E until the soft peak stage. Add it into the above mixture, mix until well incorporated.
4. Pour it over the baked cheesecake. Keep it in the fridge for 2 hours or until set.
5. Pour the chocolate glazing over the chocolate mousse. Keep it refrigerated for 20 minutes to let it set.
6. Unmould and cut to serve.

Chocolate Glazing

Ingredients
150g cooking chocolate (melted)
40g milk
40g whipping cream
5g butter

Method:
Cook the milk and whipping cream until boil. Add in the melted chocolate and mix until well-blended. Add in butter, mix until well-combined. Set aside to cool to pouring consistency.

I felt so nervous when I unmould the cake... I was so happy and touched when I see the cake turned out exactly like what the pictures shown in the recipe book!!! The happiest moment is when my dad asked for another piece after he finished his 1st slice. (my dad has slight lactose intolerance, so, he usually don't like dairy product and never like a cheesecake!). Strongly recommend this recipe book, Baking Code by Alex Goh for amateur baker!!

The Truth About You

2011-07-12T22:28:00.001+08:00

This post has been “hibernating” in my draft for months. It’s either I trash it or post it, I just wanted to clear everything in my draft today… when you see this, I think you know what is my choice.

Actually I do not know how to choose a book, when I was in a bookstore, I just pick what attracts me, such as nice cover or I just walked to the bestseller chart and pick whatever in the chart. For example this, peaceful cover, “The no. one bestseller”… When I read the title, i thought this is something like helping you to understand the inner you, the secret lying beneath your subconscious or something… but nope… it’s a fiction. (I only noticed after few chapters, ya, I’m this clueless most of the time).

The interesting part about this book is all the twists and turns, I can imagine the story can turn into a soap drama like Gilmore’s Girl or Desperate Housewives… The story begin with a baby found on the doorstep of a cafe in town and some of the girls in town have their own secrets which haunted their lives.

Although I’m not a fan to fiction, but this book really very nice to read and sometimes the story kept me continue reading too, it helped me to pass a lot of waiting time to my customer.

P/S: do you have a secret too? A secret cannot be a secret if more than 1 person know about it. So, I can say, I have no secret, just a matter I choose to tell somebody but not everybody.

Whisk Espresso Bar/ Bake Shop @ Subang Empire

2011-07-12T21:29:00.000+08:00

Love at first sight!!!! This shop is very very tiny, so tiny I think probably can only fit in 15 customers at a time, but it’s a lovely shop. My friend, from Penang, was saying she read a recommendation from a blogger, saying the salted gula melaka ice-cream is very special in the shop, so, we decided to give it a try when she was in KL.

I especially like the floor…

The bar counter Cashier cum cake counter

The kitchen

Red Velvet Cake Salted Gula Melaka Ice-cream Hot Chocolate

I will definitely visit this place again… although that day the red velvet cake was only so-so, but I love being in this shop, probably order a hot chocolate or ice-cream and spend the whole afternoon sitting by the window, seeing people walking by…

2011 Father’s Day Dinner

2011-07-02T00:17:00.001+08:00

This was another dinner that I cooked for my parents during father’s day. Well, I mentioned I need practice and apparently, I still need a lot of training and practices. These 3 dishes were actually quick simple, compare to the dinner that I prepared for mother’s day.

Comment from parents: Both of my parents can’t stand very spicy food. I’m too careless that I prepared all 3 dishes which were spicy. They actually didn’t make a lot of comment during the dinner, mainly because they didn’t want to discourage their daughter.

(˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚)

Grilled Spicy Chicken Kebabs

Ingredients:

1 piece chicken breast meat, cut into cubes
2 onions, cut into pieces
½ cucumber
some satay skewers (bamboo toothpick)

Marinade:

2 tbsp chilli bean sauce (Toban Djan)
1 tsp sugar
1 tsp corn flour
1tbsp oil
1 tbsp water

Method:

Mix chicken breast meat with marinade and marinate for 1 hour.
Skewer the meat on satay stick and grill in a preheated oven at 200˚C for 20 minutes. Remove and serve hot.

p/s: this is quite yummy if you like spicy

(˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚)

Fried Eggplant with Fermented Soya Bean Paste

Ingredients:

2 cups oil for deep-frying
2 (400g) eggplants, cut into strips
50g minced pork
3 tbsp dried prawns, soaked and chopped coarsely
1 tbsp chopped garlic
1 red chilli, seeded and chopped
½ tbsp fermented soya bean paste (I changed this to chilli soya bean paste, which I think I shouldn’t)
½ tbsp sugar
1tsp light soya sauce
dash of cornstarch water, for thickening
2 stalks spring onion, chopped

Method:

Heat up oil for deep-frying, deep-fry eggplant until cooked. Dish and drain.
Leave 2 tbsp oil in wok, saute chopped garlic and dried prawns until aromatic. Add fermented soya bean paste, sugar and soya sauce and stir-fry until fragrant.
Add in minced pork, eggplants, chilli and stir-fry until well mixed. Thicken with cornstarch water and sprinkle with chopped spring onion. Dish up and serve.

p/s: The eggplant that I bought was too “old”, even after I’ve fried the strips and saute for so long, the skin was still plastic-like. I also make a big joke out of this dish, my mom asked me, where’s the seed? I answered, seed can eat mer? Both of my parents shook their heads. Then my mom checked the rubbish bin, found out the seed was actually quite big, as big as sesame, then she agreed, maybe the eggplant was really very “old”.

(˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚) (˚ᴥ˚)

Braised Pig’s Stomach with Salted Mustard

Ingredients:

1 tbsp oil
1 tbsp chopped garlic
6 slices ginger
300g local salted mustard, soaked and cut into pieces
8 dried oysters, cleaned
1 pig’s stomach, about 400g, cleaned and cut into strips

Seasoning:

2 tbsp oyster sauce
1 tbsp light soya sauce
1 tsp sugar
dash of pepper
1000ml water

Method:

Heat up oil, saute chopped garlic and ginger until fragrant. Add in salted mustard and stir-fry until aromatic.
Add dried oyster, pig’s stomach, seasoning and bring to boil. Lower the heat and simmer for 1½ hours or until pig’s stomach is tender. Dish up and serve.

p/s: I didn’t expect to be so tedious to clean a pig stomach. 1st of all got to flip over to clean all the mucus-like on the lining under running water, use salt to clean until the lining is less slippery, then soak in boiling water until the yellowish skin near the top of the stomach detach… I am so lucky to have my mom with me when I’m cleaning the stomach… or I can’t imagine how would I turn the kitchen upside down again.

But one thing I don’t get it, this dish was spicy too, although there wasn’t anything spicy in the ingredient. Probably the spiciness was due to the Sarawak’s pepper.

Recipe copied from Yum Yum book 52 & 63.