Strawberry Tart at Kok Lim Strawberry Farm

Yummy yummy yummy.

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Day 2 of CH Trip

Went Big Red Strawberry Farm, what an eye opener. Lots of things to see like flowers, cactus and vegetables grown hydroponically.

Went to eat lunch at Tanah Rata (which the kids dubbed Tanah Ratatatouille), neat place, just fried rices for kids and (oops…I forgot what we eat, need to look at the pictures first..sorry ya). O did I mention they made a mean watermelon juice.

Drove around the area, saw the Tea Plantation, unfortunately it was pouring rain. So we decided to drive up, see what we can find. We first went to see another strawberry farm, but it was small. So we went to another one, this is because the very first one, Big Red says no children below 10, which we were a bit cheezed off with. Toured Strawberry Park Resort, now that’s a place to come back and stay. Also toured some houses, trying to imagine which it would be like to stay and live here.

Finally, found a promising stawberry farm called Kok Lim starwberry farm. What attracted us was the big sign saying Self Plucking! haha, we are chickens in need of plucking our feathers!

Pay RM20 for 500gm box and proceed to pluck yourself! In short, it was great fun. Bought strawberry jam, kids had more strawberry ice-blended juice, Abigail even went and bought one herself. Then we decide to head out looking for another steamboat place.

Then….

I manage to lock the car with the key in the ignition. Well done Toyota for the autolock system! Panic for a while, then ask a worker to find me the towkaynioh. She said not sure who can help, but she call her regular battery guy, and he showed up (after we waited nervously for 15 minutes, everything was inside, all our mobile phones were inside too!) he took 2 minutes, and I’m RM80 poorer, but heck, we didn’t have to abandon the car! Lots of bystanders for this sorts of things of course, they were all taking notes on what to do if it happened to them (this is related to me by Alice, I was oblivious to what was around me by then), especially if they drive a Toyota! Well done again Toyota.

We drove up after that to look for a place for steamboat, but none were attractive. We did dropped by a honey bee farm and bought a bottle of honey. So we double back to our hotel and ate at another steamboat restaurant. It was not as good as the first night though, I think the different was in the soup, but then again, it could be just novelty has worn off.

A full day we had.

Exhausted Arielle on Day 2 of CH Trip

Arielle exhausted partly because of disturbed sleep last nite.

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Selected Pictures from Day 1 – CH Trip

 

 

A Visit to Cameron Highlands (1st Time! for the girls)…ok, ok, 1st time for parents (as adults that is…)

Many a plans, but never materializes. We have decided to use this few months windows to visit as many place as we possibly could afford (both time and money).

It was a different kind of trip this time, having fought pitch battle with the viruses and baterias the past week, at one point having to decide whether we are going to make the trip at all. I fortunately felt good enough to drive (shsssh), then Abigail got sick in a major way tonight. Since that’s still fresh in my mind, i’m going to tell the story backward….till the batteries runs out…

Woke up at 11pm by alarm, time to check Abi’s temperature (by hand, since we had no clue that she’ll be sick on the trip! bummer!! 2x), she pretty much slept the whole trip, including the interesting drive up the mountain, the other two slept as well. So after the initial mayhem, there was peace and quiet! :)

We were so distracted by the peace and quiet that we missed the right turn to Simpang Pulai – Cameron Highlands highway after exiting the toll at SP.

Sorry…i promise to chronicle this in one logical sequence (either forward to backward) but i’m still jumping around, effects of too much drugs for the week (?) or it’s 1.38am in the morning.

Here’s a list of things I did since woken up by the alarm at 11pm:

check abi’s temp, gave her water and PCM

re-pump nana’s air mattress, guess we can confirmed we did bought a dude mattress that’s leaking, not for the first time ya…sigh

gave arielle a second long-sleeve t-shirt to wear, she was cold….poor girl….and the hotel room got no air-con! hahaha…all natural air, imagine that, i guess the temp is around 14c. close the window to warm up the room

abi temp shot up suddenly, the only tool we had was the PCM given, we had no suppository, even the cool head pad we didn’t bring, and there’s no 7-11 at CH, OMG! crazy…my favorite most dependable little tuck-shop (ask my wife :), and they failed me when i needed them most…sigh…more sighing before the night is over…

Ari was coughing so I boil water for a Menthol aromatherapy session…hahaha…tired brain typing…very dangerous here…

toilet break…and then toilet break…sorry, too much steamboat soup..oops, jumping the gun on the next part of the story!

Did a quick check on the BB to make sure the stockmarket hasn’t gone beserk or anything…nothing…thank goodness…

took a long time to search for store locator for 7-11, 7-11 Malaysia, if you read this, please have a mobile site FCOL, this is the 21st century :@ when i discover the negative answer, my batteries was getting flat…

So i went down to the garage (which incidentally, only have 12 carpark bays for a hotel of 78 (need to check?) rooms!)

Well, the only substantive thing we did since checking in at the hotel was did a walk around the shops, visiting a few souvenir shops, we found the so called central market (which has 6 stores I think) was more expensive than the corner souvenir shop (manned by two teenage girls who didn’t know the pricing scheme at all, obviously the helper ran the shop:)

Of course, it would be a silly question to ask what’s for dinner. This is CH, of course we heard many stories about it, but one can only appreciates all the stories after you have being here. I suspect many for come for a day trip misses the one particular favorite pastime of holidaymakers here, steamboat!

Well…i gave it a 10 out of 10. Two Adults and 3 kids, we only paid RM43, including a pot of Chrysanthenum tea, 3 additional fish balls, and 4 bowls of rice. They use real charcoal (not electric wok all you pretenders!), had a neat micro chiney. All the lethargic kids woke up for a great meal. The children never fail a steamboat dinner thus far…but this is by the far the most original… just this reason is enough to make sure we come back to CH in a hurry! :)

Well I hope my readers can follow what i have just written, all jumbled up in sequence, coz i feel my nerve spasm attack (coz by sinusitis in case you are wondering) it’s coming back. time to take a pill and knock myself out…

see ya tmrw…

p.s. please pray for Abi’s fever. having being a recent, very recent! sufferer, I know what she must be going through, this wouldn’t be one of the holiday trips to be remembered that’s for sure…

p.s.s. o, did I mentioned strawberries? hahaha…this has really taken a good foothold as a niche marketing brand identity for CH, everything is strawberry theme, plus a smattering of cactus, rose, honey bees and tea in the mix. This of course suit the girls just fine as they are no. 1 strawberry shortcakes fans! with apologies to the families with boys only… but this is a privilege of families with girls only…hehehehe..

Dinner @ Eleven, Jalan Hang Lekir

CNY Day 1 dinner.

Finally a dinner with family. We picked the only aircon restaurant at Jonker Walk. Turns out the place was spread over 3 shops. We were directed to the bistro area, where the bars were! At first the waiters did not even bother to layan us, then we got a whole room to ourselves.

We had a great time, the kids had fun spending time with their cousins, and yes, the food was great!

After that, we had chendol melaka-style. All in all, a worthy night out.

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A Trip to Bangkok

At least once a year, I make the trip to Bangkok.  This would be my fourth visit to Bangkok.  It’s a fascinating city, i love to explore it, but I always feel not relaxed.

The trip did not started off well, first I forgot to ask for receipt for the travel adapter and magazines at the airport, then the taxi salesgirl could not understand where i want to go.  Their English is really poor, I need to learn foreign language I guess.  Oh ya, while filling out the immigration card, a group of Malaysians, asked me for help on filling out the card (in Cantonese!).  My kindergarten Cantonese kinda got me through.  But what i wanted to tell you was they tell me that they don’t need to fill in the departure section because they are not leaving Bangkok. ??? Did I understand correctly?  I wonder…

After the runaround to find Mission Hospital (they pronounced it Mitchan, but when i say it, they still don’t understand…i must record myself next time…i wonder what accent i have…hmmm…

Got to hospital, got the guest room…errr…ok…maybe not a good idea?  it reminded me of 1950’s hotel… Time to get food, oh dear, went to the Commissary, it says close at 20:00, oh dear, the time is already 8:20pm, what to do….wait a minute!, it’s one hour behind, let’s buy some food!  Selection was interesting, they have more items then our Commissary.  More interesting items too, maybe this is just a tourist viewpoint…hahaha… I guess no hot food tonight, bought cereal and soybean milk, So Good! yeah, my favorite soybean milk from Sanitarium.  I wonder why Malaysia we cannot get this stuff, but you can in Bangkok and Singapore…

That’s it, time to call it a night.  At this the satellite television provided some distraction.  Watch World War Two documentary on Hitler…good preparation for tomorrow’s meeting?  hahaha…i think not.  Good nite…

The next morning, woke up 5:30am….wahhhh…going to be a sleepy day :8

Grab my cereal breakfast, and it was full of ants!  Yikes!  But since I was hungry, I patiently sieved out some of the ants and put soymilk in it and ate it.  Yummmy! 

After meeting, rush to airport, pleasantly surprise (for once!) the taxi driver was willing to use the meter (and without negotiation!)  When I got there, the counter was at the other end of the building…aidoh…believe me, the airport building is much bigger than KLIA.

Got there, the plane is delayed 20 minutes…haha…AirAsia is keeping a record of some sort, being continuously late? The queue to check in took 30 minutes, there were masses of people checking in.  Note to self: do not try to cut it too fine next time.  After check-in, the international gate is at the other end of the building (where I was dropped off)…my legs are starting to hurt.

After another 20 minutes of queueing for immigration clearance, i got in and check for my gate…guess what?  it’s at the other end of the building!  Did someone decided I need the walking… :@

I was soooo hungry I went looking for food.  Bought a chicken croissant, guess how much?  equivalent of RM16.50!  Boy, this trip is getting interesting isn’t it? 

The flight was supposed to be 20 minutes late, it took another 20 minutes before we flew.  Flight was uneventful until one of those scariest moments in flying, turbulence!  just before we land at Penang. 

There you go…one of the most exhausting trip I have taken this year.  Oh yeah, I did not get a good sleep.  One of those mattresses that did not agree with me.

I’m so look forward to sleep in my own mattress tonight!  Yeah!

A Visit to America 3

The sleeping pill kinda work (took 2 instead of 3 as directed, will have to take 3 tonight for full effect), woke up once a 2am, then 6:30am.  The sunrise was so beautiful, i hopped out of bed, grab the camera and out to the streets within 10 mins!

After a lovely morning of watching people jogged and cycled (apparently there’s a bike around the city event, there were so many of them!), photographed quite a few boats and ships, found out about the war ship museums, aquarium, and more museums (this is a historical city, mind you), had breakfast at one of my favorite place, Panera Bread…ah, must buy their stock liao :P, headed back to hotel via CVS, a 24 hours pharmacy/convenient stores, found lots of goodies, bought instant noodles (most important!), and came back. 

Decided to look at the program, and realize I’m suppose to be on a bus to visit a Planetree Designated hospital in 30 minutes!  Man, do i get mixed up with appointments/events this trip, soooo dangerous. 

Although with a bit of negative thought on the hospital visit, it was soon proved to be valuable once we got there (another definitive word, it took 1.5 hours!!), literally into another state!

A Visit to America 2

Touchdown in America!  Well, what do we get? A blanket of white mist, it’s not haze! 

Decided to have McDonald’s for lunch!  Very healthy Classic Grilled Chicken Sandwich…[ picture to follow]  The french fries has too much salt, i was given six pieces of napkins too.  Differences noted.  alamak! the price really hurts, USD$7.27 = RM25.45!!!

One thing I notice, the escalators and travellators operates at a much slower speed than in Asia, wonder why?

If someone ask me what are some of the differences of Asia and US, i would say there’s a lot of emphasis on public safety, sometimes over the top…I’ll find an example.  There’s sign of don’t do this, don’t do that, all over the place.

Nearly miss the plane as I was in the toilet and announcement made, i was practically the last one.

The plane was small! one seat plus 2 seats, like Konsortium bus :)  When we got to the runway, the weather really moved in and we were stuck on the runway for 30 minutes.  It was interesting to watch all the planes line up and wait.  Big planes, small planes, all different types of airlines.

The ascend was amazing and scary, since we could not see anything.  Finally when we broke clear, we saw amazing cloud formation.  Alas, i did not have my camera with me, finally took some shots with  my BB, but the most spectacular clouds were over.

The descend was greeted by beautiful Baltimore, full of greeneries and rolling hills. The bay was nearby.  I was excited.

The first sight of baggage claim sank my heart – again! The same wheel that was missing last trip, it HAPPENED again.  :@  so many trips to Singapore, nothing happen. It always happen from JFK airport to another city.  Should I avoid JFK next time?  hmmm

Got the rental car without any trouble, drove out of the facility and nearly turned into the wrong lane….boy, left hand drive is dangerous!

reached the hotel, turn the wrong turn and made a big round before finally figuring out what happen.  I keyed in 800 instead of 700 for the street number!  And here I was ready to blame the GPS!

Reach the hotel room, lie down on the bed and promptly went to sleep.  Hey, give me a break, that was 37 hours since leaving home!

Good nite…

A Visit to America

A trip to America.  How does that sound? It’s interesting to get the reaction from colleagues, friends and family members.  The reaction ranges from “wow! you must be very excited” to “why are you travelling again?!”

I’m starting this blog in Frankfurt – a very strange land.  I’m also the only one not wearing a jacket or a coat!  Am I the only one who doesn’t think it’s cold? :-|

Highlights so far:-

- first time i used Terminal 3 at Changi, what amazing architecture!

- had an hour between flight so I did not get to see much, must come back!

- initial impression of my seat mates was WOW! No offense intended here, but they are so big, I could only use half my seat space.  And initially I did not know how long the flight was going to be, but when I found it it’s 12 hours, boy was I stressed out.

- i eat everything the stewardess offer, since I was very hungry, slept on and off, watch 2 movies, slept some more.

- the last 3 hours was more bearable as i started talking to my seat mates, actually it’s always recommended to start a conversation, because it helps pass the time so much faster, but an introvert like me would have used up enormous amount of energy…

- we ended the journey exchanging cards and promised to look each other up if we ever in town [so they could be reading this! so no more details for you…hohohoh…]

 

Well, at the point in time, that’s all I have to say….to be continued…

 

hmmm…forgot to bring my card reader…so no pictures for now :-|

Topic series (New!)

Just in case you are wondering what the previouis blog title was all about, I borrowed an idea from Tom Peters blog (check it out - www.tompeters.com).

I had the idea while in Singapore, I'm gonna start a couple of series in my travel blog. The first to get started is the Burger Tales, since I look for burgers when I travel. My focus will be fast food chain burgers, the burgers in restaurants is totally out of budget...sorry.

The second series will start next trip, coz I forgot to take a picture! It's called Hotel Hot Shower Rating. Why? Because one of the most important amenity when you check into a hotel is how the hot/cold tap work, I have seen brillant idea where you get the right temperature everytime to idiotic implementation where you never know what to expect! Wait for this... ;)

A third series that I'm comtemplating is toiletry containers. I always appreciate nice design, and my wife loves to collect them -- yup! the cupboard is full of them!

As usual, feedback are welcome...

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Burger Tales #1

This happen one week ago.

One of the highlight of travelling is to try new food. Me being not so adventurous type, will try new franchise fast food chain food.

Today I tried MOS burger. Compare against the industry standard, McD (ok, ok, some of you are going to differ, but really, the result is the same), 100% healthier! Except...except...look at the size of it! 50% smaller, I think 100% smaller than a Carl's Jr (btw, my current favourite).

So here's my rating:
Healthiness: 4 out of 5
Presentation: 3.5 out of 5
Value for Money: 4.5 out of 5

Overall Rating: 4 out of 5

(I'm still working on the rating components and categories, I welcome any suggestions ya)

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Taxi in

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Dinner with JoJo

Josiah and his spaghetti!
Dinner with Jennie & Matthew at Tomo, Marina Square.

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Day 4 in Singapore

A wet and rainy to start the day. Too bad about the solar eclipse...at least the world is still intact...there goes another proclamation about the end of the world...

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Penang Road...in Singapore!

Nothing like being homesick when u travel, and I was just been away for a mere 10 hours...hmmm

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Looking out the taxi window #1

One of my favorite past time when travelling is looking out of taxi windows and watch the world go by. The other passionate past time is to look for interesting juxtaposition of different signboard and advertising board.

This morning while travelling down the Federal Highway, I observed something interesting. I have drove by this place a few times but never saw it.

Avon has their headquarters at PJ alongside the Federal Highway, and like all good companies, they rent out unused office space. The company? - Huntsman. Why is it so funny? Avon has a tagline beneath their logo, the company for woman. So you have Avon: the company for woman, Huntsman...

I rest my case...
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Nana’s Birthday Trip

The big weekend finally arrived. We have been planning this for 6 weeks.

The trip down was interesting. With grandma fretting endlessly that Daddy cannot cope with 3 young ladies in the car! Why would she think that?!

As it turn out, a relatively uneventful trip except for a few funny moments. The most interesting one was when the girls starting saying what Chinese zodiac sign they are. Arielle insisted that she like to be a pig, even when the rest of the occupants in the car told her she’s a chicken. She said “I like pig!’ with such finality that there will be no discussion. Then Abigail started saying that she was born in Kuching, and I said that Nana also. Arielle suddenly piped up and says that she was born ‘all by myself’!!! That cracked the whole car for 5 minutes. It was another memorable moment. :)

A few weird thing happened. One of the most dreaded thing for long car trips is toilet breaks. As it turned out, Daddy had to go 3x, the rest once, and Nana did not go for 7 hours! I had no idea why, because she did drink water in the car!

A trip that started out from the hospital at 1pm, ended at Bukit Tinggi at 7:15pm, and finally reached our room at 8pm. Then I had to perform superman effort to bring the luggage down to the room….shucks!….no lifts! Have to walk down 6 flights of stairs, and 5 trips in all….

Berjaya vacation club facilities is getting worse all the time…each time we use our entitlements, it’s another confirmation that we made the wrong choice :( Meranti Park Suite was pretty ordinary, the aircon controller was missing, there were no extra pillows in the closet, bathroom was moldy, hot water was not hot, the corridors were full of dead insects, as since it rained, the walkway were muddy and sandy. Oh ya, having to wait 45 minutes to get the room key was no fun either, since we arrived after 7pm, we had to go to Tropicale Colmar to get the key.

My verdict: unless there’s no other option, like this trip, take this one. The only consolation is it’s a home resort. Frankly all the home resort are pretty pathetic, like KL Plaza.

Good nite!

Please see http://raisingourgirls.livejournal.com/6484.html for the rest of the story.

Koh Samui Escapade - Part 5

Day 2

Next morning...a bright new day. Not sure what to do, but will have breakfast first. Very healthy breakfast (did not take a picture of it on the first day). See next day's posting.

In taking this picture, I discovered that my DSLR's battery was flat! Oh no, what a bummer, no spare battery, no charger. Good planning save the day. This picture was taken with my Pentax compact camera - the rest of the pictures was taken with the Pentax.

This lady was painstakingly gently putting flower petals on top of the water. We were so impressed we asked to have a picture taken with her. This is a second pose as I had to go back to the room to get the backup camera.

Eventually we decided on rental a car from the hotel desk after checking out a couple of freelance shop across the road, but nobody was home! The rental was B1000 per day, not a bad deal we decided. Pumping petrol was an experience in itself.

Orientation of the island was still terrible for me, we decided to head in one direction and hope for the best outcome, not an ideal situation for me since I don't do serendipity outings well if not alone...urghhh....

On Photos Above.

1. Our first sight of town - Nathon.

2. Something familiar! Tesco! Bought some snacks for the day. Prices are comparable to Penang.

3. The rustic feel of the street walk was truly touristy! Although the picture does not suggest it, it was very dusty, we won't think of buying any of the fruit on display.

Ahhh...shopping for shoes...exquisite, plenty of choices, but have to bargain rabidly...not my favorite activity...but what an experience to roam to shops and check things out...

There were general grocery stores, but mostly shops catering to tourists such as clothes, shoes, bags, souvenir shops etc.

oh yes, we did have lunch. What a nice place to have lunch, but it took us walking up and down the entire stretch of the town to find it. And yes, I think we got killed on the price. Nice noodles though...

After this, we did some more walking, this time along the pier where lots of cruise boats going to the neighboring islands.

But then we treat ourselves to a two hour massage, very painful but very cheap...hahaha...B800 for two person for two hours.

It was a good day so far, and so good that I had to go to the ATM to get another B1000, not enough cash for the rest of the trip.

More to come....

Koh Samui Escapade - Part 4

We were hungry after that. So we thought we will walk around and see what's there for food. After 5 mins of walking East, we decided to turn back because it was pretty desolate. We walked back to the hotel and asked the receptionists where to eat. Her English was so difficult to understand, so we made her write it down. There's a seafood restaurant within 10 minutes (which we did walked but decided it's not worth it), Maenam town (which sounded alright to us), and Fisherman's Village (reminds me of Fisherman lozenges!).
After deciding that the seafood restaurant wasn't worth it, we decided to flag down a 'tuk'. As usual, we couldn't communicate at all, I was trying to point to the word Maenam, but the driver seize upon the word Fisherman's Village and said, "ok we go Fisherman's Village". ehhh...I guess we are going to Fisherman's Village then ;-)
The psychedelically decorated 'tuk' was amazing. We could see the efforts to goes into the decor of the essentially a truck with a cover on top. It has a buzzer for ringing to stop (although it took us quite a while to discover it). A little red light came on just after we started the journey. It took us pass many shops, hawkers and restuarants, and we are thinking "oh I want to stop here, oh I want to stop here too'. But alas, it was not meant to be. We felt we pay (I think it's 300B, memory failing already after 3 weeks!) so we might as well enjoy the full distance the driver is planning to take us.
That 25 minutes ride was painful, because we had no idea where he was going! When we reached town, we were happy, but he didn't stop! Then it gets darker and darker, and we get worrier and worrier. Finally, he stopped and says 'Fisherman's Village'. It was dark!
Anyhow, once we started down the street, it was quite touristy. So the hunt for a good restaurant begins.... There were lots of massage places, souvenir sellers, and interestingly, tailors from India to make anything from suits to evening gowns...oh, they keep your measurements for 5 years...maybe a good marketing strategy, but who would maintain the same proportion for 5 years....I think mine would be 3 inches wider...hahaha...
Dinner? Hungry stomach?? oh, ok, eventually we did find an interesting looking restaurant, called Starfish and Coffee. No, we didn't have starfish for dinner!
The lighting was just nice, the atmosphere was one of the best we have experienced in restaurant eating. Very memorable...
The food was just ok only though... Well you can't have everything can you? But after the 'suffering' we had to get dinner, we couldn't complain can we?
Here you are, a little fish and a little chicken...sorrylah...can't remember what it's called!
There you have it, an eventful first night.
The adventure of Koh Samui continues...