It’s Monday and I’m about to croak from all these deadlines.
Had a nice, relaxing weekend in Perak though. It was a little trip organised in conjunction with Shutter Asia’s (http://www.shutterasia.com) 1st Anniversary. Nothing fancy, just food, photography and friends. We stayed at this place called Cinta Alam Kelimat. Pretty secluded from the hustle and bustle of the city and loads of mosquitoes. Bring the industrial sized insect repellent!
We met up at Tesco Ipoh and then adjourned to town for some photos. It was fun! I wish I had slapped on some sunblock and wore a hat. My skin has gotten even more tanned and I’m not sure if it’s a good thing. Personally, I’m into looking as pale as a ghost =P
Here are some pictures taken from the trip….
Boy scouts walking across Ipoh Padang. They were amused by the swarm of photographers.
Painters reaching up to the top of the building. Don’t think it’s an easy job, could easily get heat-stroke.
We went into a barber shop which has operated since before Merdeka.
Can you spot me?
This old man was sitting by the window looking really nonchalant. Then he really warmed up and started posing for us.
We met a couple of shopkeepers who have been there since 30, 40 years ago. They were very happy to tell us stories about their shops and were showing us pictures of their more glorious era. These shops will eventually disappear because their children won’t take over and there are simply too many new and modern competitors.
Windows on an unidentified building. Love the shadows and the blue sky.
A less extravagant setting for the Gods.
They were just standing there looking out, minding their own business. And then the man in the middle turned to look at me and I took the shot. I did wave back but there was no response, maybe I was not welcomed =(
I love how this little green plant managed to creep out from the sparse parking lot.
Last one taken in Ipoh town before we stopped to rest. Tree, sky and clouds.
That’s all for now from Ipoh. Pictures from Kuala Kangsar coming up!
*Warning: Longest post ever in history of Narcissism is Necessary*
I’ve been an absolute procrastinator, especially when it comes to posts on the trips I’ve made. There are the follow-ups to my Tokyo trip, Perhentian Trip and Phuket Trip. I want to write on Tokyo first, since it’s the most delayed one, but the memory is kind of sketchy now so I will just write about Perhentian Island first.
The first part is here, if you would like to refresh your memory.
Picking up from where I left off, on the second day, we woke up around 9am. I had breathtaking seaview, roti canai and milo for breakfast.
Roti canai and milo kosong.
After breakfast, we took a walk at the beach, just chilling and taking pictures. It was really nice and relaxing.
The beach.
I love this picture.
Bad hair day.
Enjoying a coconut during a hot, sunny day.
With the Boo.
I also had some really poser-isque pictures taken.
Before we knew it, it was already dusks and we had dinner at the same chinese/thai restaurant. Right after dinner, just like the previous night, rain came early. So, we turned in fairly early again. We slept like babies.
We woke up pretty early on the third day. I had padthai for breakfast, again at the same chinese/thai (you notice how much like I like that place?)
Pad thai.
We decided to explore Perhentian Islands a bit and enrolled on a sight-seeing/snorkelling tour. The water was a little choppy but it only added to the fun. There were 3 snorkelling spots and the water was crystal clear. Not many pictures taken during this time as it was inconvenient.
At the last snorkelling spot around the lone lighthouse, our tour guide decided to get crazy and jumped off the bloody lighthouse! Check out the video I took of the jump.
Crazy man!
Check out the video of the jump.
On the boat. Walaneh, I look like crap again.
After returning from the tour, we showered and headed out for dinner at the same chinese/thai place. This time, we ate a little more luxuriously considering it was our last night in Perhentian Island. We ordered loads of food, the super fabulous grilled squid was a must-have. After dinner, Boo and I hung out at our chalet patio till late at night….just chatting, drinking and smoking (for a bit of a high).
On the last day of our vacation, I have pad thai for breakfast again. It was good! We checked out from the resort and wandered around taking pictures while waiting for our boat to come.
Camwhoring at breakfast.
The boat came at around 5pm. It was really late and we were told that the boat was late due to the choppy seas. I was slightly worried but thought nothing of it. I only wanted to get back to mainland (quite sick of the sun and beach by then =P). ”
The sea was FUCKING CHOPPY. Every time the boat slammed onto the waves, every girl in the boat screamed horror. Honestly, I thought I was going to die. I had tears welling in my eyes and I kept hoping that in the case that we fell off, we would stay afloat in the sea and that whatever random sea creature won’t make us their dinner. And that there’d be rescue team immediately.
After what seemed like an eternity, the boat captain told us that we had to turn back. All of us instantly agreed. Thought he would never ask. It was equally choppy on the way back but it was a shorter journey compared to the journey to mainland. We docked at Tuna Bay Resort. The captain said we would wait out the storm and resume our journey when the weather’s better. Well, the weather never got better and we were forced to spend one more night at the island.
Some of those on the same boat as us were insistent on leaving for the mainland. Got work lah this lah that lah. I don’t know, they were probably vying for the Darwin awards. Few times I felt like telling them, “There’s a fucking storm and our bathtub motorboat will not take such violent waves. You want to DIE ah!?”.
I got a room at Tuna Bay Resort (RM200 a pop) but before I managed to pay, our boat captain approached me and told me he could get us accommodation for only RM30 a night and it’s only next door. So I apologised to the Tuna Bay’s receptionist and made way to the cheap nearby resort.
The place was, INTERESTING.
The bed, with suspicious stains.
The window that doesn’t open and a dressing mirror!
Our picture for aesthetic, framed with duct tape. Awwww…
Security is of utmost importance.
Terms and conditions.
A fan for you and I.
The toilet. With a one hole shower head. Who needs raindrops shower when a stream of water will do just the job?
We hung out till late at night, finishing our reading, smoking some keretek and snacking on tandoori chicken flavoured Twisties outside our room. It was not bad actually, except for the lack of clean towels (we didn’t bring any) and the suspicious stains on the bed.
We woke up really early for a ride back to the mainlands. It was smooth journey all the way, thank goodness.
Our journey back to KL was fun. It was about 7 hours of drive including the stops we making for phototaking and food. We stopped in Kerteh for a lovely lunch of rice and lauk-pauk at a malay restaurant. There were so many Petronas staff.
We headed towards Kemaman when we passed by a row of Lemang stalls. This is apparently a famous lemang area. Well, if I had known then, I would have bought so many more lemang and rendang coz the stuff was DAMN GOOD.
Lemang is a traditional Malay food cooked in a hollowed bamboo stick. Usually prepared for festivities such as Hari Raya Aidilfitri and Hari Raya Haji, lemang is made of glutinous rice and coconut milk, with salt added for taste. Some lemang recipes add corn. Lemang is usually eaten with rendang.
Rendang is made from beef (or occasionally chicken, mutton, water buffalo meat, duck or vegetables like jackfruit or cassava) slowly cooked in coconut milk and spices for several hours until almost all the liquid is gone, leaving the meat coated in the spicy condiments. The cooking process changes from boiling to frying as the liquid evaporates. The spices may include ginger, galangal, turmeric leaf, lemon grass and chillies. The slow cooking process allows the meat to absorb all the spices and to become tender.
It was nothing like the lemang we find in KL. The rice was soft and gooey and creamy and just slightly crispy on the outside. The rendang was just the perfect stuff to eat with the rice.
The long row of lemang stalls.
The sinfully delicious lemang and rendang.
I regretted that I didn’t buy more! I was still craving for more lemang after we’ve finished the ones we bought. So as we passed by Gombak toll and saw a few lemang stalls, I was elated. We stopped to buy more lemang and as soon as we bit into the rice, we spat them out. It was tough and dense and bland. Nothing like the Kemaman lemang =(
And that’s the end of my travelogue. Hope you’ve enjoyed reading this because it took me more than 2 hours to finish this!
Final word: Perhentian Island is a must go. Compared to Redang Island, they have better snorkelling areas. The conservation efforts also seemed better as only tiny bathtub boats were allowed near the shores. I thoroughly enjoyed my vacation there. I’d suggest you to drive up too, because it will be a very interesting experience. I’ve never seen real oil refinery till then and certainly have not tasted authentic kampung food. Oh the lemang…the lemang were to die for!
I’d meant to write my long overdue travel posts, namely on Tokyo, Perhentian Island and Phuket but I have so many pictures to organise, so that will have to take the backseat for now.
Let’s see what I’ve done in the past weeks. First, I had my very first Mille Crepe, after much taunting from KY. Immediately after he published his post on Food Foundry’s Mille Crepe, he wasted no time in taunting me about missing out on the delicious dessert over MSN Messenger. And I, just fresh from my vacation in Phuket and covered in eczema (thanks to my reaction to sun and seafood), decided to check out Food Foundry on the very day.
Deck out in some leprosy friendly garb.
Chocolate orange Mille Crepe.
Vanilla and cream Mille Crepe.
First taste of Mille Crepe.
Verdict: Mille Crepe in Food Foundry was okay. Too heavy, even artificial tasting (especially chocolate orange) for me. They told me perhaps I had an unlucky day or it could also be due to the lunch I had there prior to having the Mille Crepe, so I shall return with a clean palette. Don’t even think of ordering other food there, they aren’t worth your time or money.
+++
Then my friend cum personal trainer, Ming celebrated his 24th birthday. Dude’s got a 12-week “intense” (read: FUCKING BRUTAL) fitness programme lined up for me. It’s a great collaboration, I get to lose some flab and he gets to fulfill his sadistic desire to see fats melt off.
To Fat Ming.
Birthday boy with his hot girlfriend, Jamie.
Birthday boy and Before Kim.
Eleanor and Kim
+++
On Friday night, ST, Kelvin and I drove up to Malacca for some hardcore food trip. We reached there around 9.30pm and we headed straight for satay celup. I haven’t taken a lot of pictures because I just couldn’t be bothered….my belly needed more attention. After satay celup, we had fish ball noodles and fish porridge and then some old school sweet meats (read: marinaded pork, pork spare parts, etc etc etc) on skewers.
After that we rested a while at a pub at Jonker Walk, where I had a bottle of Heineken, of which I promptly puked out along the street of Jalan Laksamana. Then we had asam ikan pari with rice and kangkung and salted egg. Perfect end to a night. We stayed stayed a night in Hotel Puri, comfortable and pretty good value for its price.
In the morning, Kelvin brought us to his parents’ infamous restaurant, Donald and Lily’s for their sumptuous laksa and ayam ponteh.
Laksa. Perfect start to the morning.
Kelvin, friend, foodie and gracious host.
ST, poser.
Kimberlycun, glutton.
After Donald and Lily’s, we continued our expedition. We had more cendol, some kind of rojak dish (diced fish paste, yam rolls, cucur udang etc), Mille Crepe (yeah they were so gawdamn good zomg) and popiahs. Lots of pohpiahs…
NON-HALAL. Stuffed to the max with pork lards.
I also didn’t miss the opportunity to shop. There were a lot of goodies at Jonker Walk.
[L-R] RM15 and RM30.
Earrings. RM5 for 2.
I have a weakness for buying accessories that I never wear. It’s a bad habit because I only wear the basic necklace and ring that I hardly take off. Every time I want to wear my new accessories I’ll make excuses not to, ie: lose my basic jewelleries, don’t match my ring, stupid things like that.
I bought these happy, happy summer wedge as well. Apparently the woven part is handmade. Pretty good for RM40.
Phew, been ages since I last blogged like this. Need to organise my travel pictures, can somebody tell me how not to procrastinate? Aiyayaya.
Tsentsen was in town recently and we hit the karaoke joint. The last time we sang together he’d got a bad sore throat so I had no one to duet with. Glad he could indulge me this time!
The duet.
We had so much fun! I wish I could karaoke every night. Tsen is an amazing singer, he’s performed in Carnegie Hall, ok!
After that, we adjourned to William’s for some supper. I had my favourite mushroom soup while Tsen got his dose of delicious cheese naan.
Camhoring at Williams.
The next day….
Went to Kulai to attend a friend’s wedding. It was lovely! One of those weddings that is done the way the couple wants it and not because it’s “supposed” to be like that.
Boo and me at the wedding.
We stayed overnight in Kulai. Had dimsum for supper at 3am. It was one of the best dimsum I’ve had. Big fresh juicy prawn dumplings and wholesome porridge. Errr…obviously forgotten to take pictures again because I was too into the food =P
I did however, captured the mesmerising dollop of chilli sauce.
Next morning, we decided to stop in Johor Bahru. It was a disappointing trip. The traffic jam was worse than KL’s and the food wasn’t even good. We ate at this place because we saw some pictures of Singapore’s quasi-celebrities dining at the restaurant. I should have known not to trust the taste buds of Singaporeans’. No offence really, but I’ve had my fair share of Singaporean food and they are quite frankly, really bad. So, I really wouldn’t blame our neighbours for actually enjoying the less than fantastic fare we’ve got to offer.
We wanted to go to Danga Bay after lunch but a massive downpour hit us and the traffic jam got even worse. Didn’t help matter that Danga Bay signboards also went missing after several turns. We decided to abandon JB and head up to Muar.
When boredom struck…
On our way to Muar, we called the Suan to ask for directions to the infamous otak-otak. But girl told me she’s in the Land of Smiles so I quickly cut short the conversation (I’m such a considerate friend, ok) and decided to hunt the place down ourselves. After asking a few people from different petrol stations, we got to Bentayan Food Court.
Had 40 sticks of otak-otak. They were AWESOME. I forgot to take any picture because I was too busy eating, obviously. After otak-otak, we drove around somemore to look for soto. We failed in our quest though, so no soto =(
And here are completely random pictures of my digits because I really love my nail colours. I bought the nail polish eons ago but never used it because the colour didn’t look good from the bottle. Glad I tried it on and I’m loving it now.
Just came back from Hong Kong. It’s amazing how a country only 4 hours away from ours can be so different. I was gasping at the sight of the highrise condominiums. They’re so high and dense, they seemed surreal. While I thought they looked absolutely majestic, I kept having this weird expectation of them collapsing at any moment. The buildings just seemed rather delicate to me, in a way.
Naturally, the first picture I took of Hong Kong is bamboo scaffolding. It’s the 21st century and they’re still using bamboos and churning out futuristic looking buildings. I think it’s too cool.
Bamboo scaffolding.
Then it’s off to delicious dinner of sui kao meen (dumpling noodle) and tung ling char (ice lemon tea).
Sui kao meen and tung ling char.
Camwhoring in the restaurant.
Absofuckinglutely orgasmic. I was tempted to order another side of dumplings only but I refrained. I had wanted to reserve more belly space for dessert. Wise move indeed.
On the way for dessert, I passed by what I assumed was an over-ambitious brothel as it addressed itself as a “club”. Anyway, I took picture with it. Too bad the signboard wasn’t in yellow colour otherwise it’d have been more apt.
Wan Chai Club. Oooh sucky, sucky, onri 5 dorras.
Vintage pimpstress with the face of a kabuki mask prepositioning unidentified male.
I got over my fascination with Hong Kong’s sex industry and adjourned to the dessert house. It’s called Shu Liu Shan or something like that.
Mango pudding with ice cream.
Something made out of pomelo/sago/mango/coconut cream.
This dessert house must be the creme de la creme of mango based dessert. After having them, I can assure you that you can die happy. Aside from mango based stuff they also have shuet kap gou (hasma), bird’s nest and goodies like….
Curry pork tripe,squid, radish and fishballs!
Pork skin RAWWKKKS. (rotflol, sorry inside joke)
I wasn’t contented with leaving just like that. I had to tarpao something!
At Lock Road.
Colourful Tsimshatsui.
Back at the hotel, I couldn’t sleep so I ate takeaway I bought earlier on from the dessert house.
Mochi with fresh mango filling.
They were so good I finished all of them at one go.
Still, I couldn’t sleep. So I started harrasing my boo via sms. Got him to make a 30 minute long distance call. For 30 minutes he listened to me sobbed and burped and farted and rambled. Thanks boo
I hate it when people give me unsolicited advice regarding relationships. Well, actually I hate it when people give me unsolicited advice regarding anything really. I mean, just because you’ve been burnt or dumped or conned, doesn’t mean other people are as weak or as dumb as you so really, STFU. SHUT THE FUCK UP.
I’m glad things are slowing down a bit. My eczema’s threatening to flare (of all places on my friggin’ breasts -_-)and I’m on a semi-food binge because of the stress. My skin looks like they belong to a 70yr old due to the dehydration. I clocked more than 60 hours of flight time, to Manchester and back, then KL and back then Brisbane and back. The last two weeks really took a toll on me. Lets not even begin on the the flight delays. Practically got molested in Manchester Airport, had to take off my shoes and shit for security. The queues in Australian airports are enraging. Flying is such a bitch nowadays.
Anyway, being home albeit for a short period of time really did some good for my well-being. Boo bought me two new pair of sneakers, both Pumas and I love them. I told him that my old pair was making my feet stink to high heavens and the next thing I knew we were in a store shopping for shoes. I don’t know about you but I’m happy (and smug) that neither of us are insecure individuals who constantly need to be reassured with expensive flowers or surprise jewelleries. We’re so practical it must sound really boring but the truth couldn’t be further from that. We’re thoroughly digging the only-gifts-i-want movement.
I had a field time in Manchester in spite of having work constantly breathing down my neck. I was so impressed with Sainsbury, Tesco and Marks & Spencer for their selections of delicious goodies. I think I must have gained 5 kilos downing bacons, sausages, cream cakes, scotch eggs, trifle, donuts, pork pies, eclairs and etc. I went berserk shopping in Primark. Got myself some lingerie, bag and socks and my best buy must be the £8 satin corset top.
I’ll have fun driving one of these.
Went to Old Trafford too of course. Took a £2.50 tram ride from Market Street to Old Trafford.
Saw Kellogg’s HQ while walking to the stadium.
Only saw the outside of the stadium but paid the Mega Store a visit. The enormity of the Manchester United merchandising business hit me when I was in the store. It’s a bit….I don’t know, freaky? That people are willing to pay premium price for products with mediocre quality just because they’ve got ManU stamp on it.
From jerseys…
…to lollipops.
Then I went for authentic English food at The Trafford Pub.
The Trafford Pub menu.
Fish & chips and mushy peas.
Delicious vegetable soup.
English tea in a chipped cup.
I received several emails asking about what I do for a living. From the very beginning I have maintained that I will not speak about my job so, I’m sorry, I ain’t telling….getting dooced is a real and constant threat nowadays. All I can say is, look in the newspapers. I got my job just like everyone out there, scanning the papers and sending my CV to potential employers. You just can’t write to a blogger and expect to have a job fall onto your lap. So yeah, good luck.
I need a vacation. I need to run away to some deserted island and frolick in the sea. Boss, please approve my leave!
