Sunday, January 22, 2017

RM1 Nasi Lemak

Went to the morning market in Sri Petaling and saw a bee line at this small stall along the shop's corridor. Out of curiosity I went over to join the crowd.


Ooohhh....nasi lemak.  Looks like pandan rice with a generous amount of ikan bilis sambal and a small piece of fried egg. I asked the lady in front how much is the rice. She told me " Only RM1, where to find nasi lemak for this price ".
So I join the bandwagon and bought 2 packets because one is definitely not enough. Everyone in front bought at least 5 packets. The sambal is both salty and sweet and not too spicy. Just that the rice is a little cold by the time I ate it at home.  I will probably heat it up the next time.

Nasi Lemak RM1......anyone?

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Gua Tempurung , Kellie's Castle and Ipoh

Another last minute decision on visiting Gua Tempurung in Gopeng.

I have been to Mulu Caves in Sarawak and found it rather nice although can't remember much but I know I enjoyed the trip there.

Since my kids have never been to a cave, I thought they would be fascinated with Gua Tempurung. If you are a first timer to a cave, you would be quite fascinated about the cave. In my case since I have seen something better, it wasn't so awesome..still I enjoy the trip.


Entrance to Gua Tempurung



We took the Level 2 tour - Top Of The World which brings us to the Top Of The cave. Initially I only wanted to do Tour 1 because after the Langkawi Skybridge experience I was worried I have no stamina to do this. However there were no tour guides ( which I learnt only for Tour 3 & 4 which is a wet tour) , so we took our time. Unfortunately there were no information in the cave itself to tell us what we are seeing. We were supposed to see all types of Cavern - Giant, Tin Mine, Universe, FallenWarrior,  Battlefield etc etc. We weren't able to identify those stuffs so we just enjoyed the weird looking formation of stalactite and stalagmites in the cave.   All in all we have suppositely climb 640 steps.

Our camera was not powerful enough to capture the interior of the cave ..so this is the best we can do.  Some samples

 

Oops...I actually am not sure if I got the pictures in the correct position. The water in the cave is so cool, clear and refreshing. If you ever do visit this place, do bring a pair of disposable gloves because the hand railing is wet and smelly. Won't be posting too many pictures so you can all go there and see for yourselves. Don't want to be spoiler ok?


Next we went to Kellie's Castle.
This is supposed to be a 'haunted balcony'.

Again, going here for the sake of my kids since they have not seen a real castle. I have seen many in Scotland, so this is pale in comparison to the real thing.

The next day, we went to Ipoh. As usual, we booked a budget room at the last minute. Again, the room exceeds our expectation. The Shamrock Guest House II is new, clean, lots of hooks for you to hang your clothing besides a nice queen bed, and a single bed and a solid bunk bed. We paid RM233 and the other day I checked , the price is RM299 for the same room. Besides, the location is near all the makan places.

In Ipoh, besides making sure we go to all the makan places that was recommended i.e Lou Wong chicken rice with their fatty taugeh (eh, why they don't serve soup wan hah?),  Funny mountain soya bean and michael jackson, Kong Heng ( chee cheong fun, satay, asam laksa closed that day !!) . Wanted to go Dai Shu Geok but it was closed that day. And of course everyone showing this (octopus below) in their blog, how can I not go.....
The octopus is nice and I love it but because everyone praise sky high on this dish, so my expectation was very high...thought it would taste heavenly but fall short lor.

Visited the 'Hor Yan Ho' museum. I don't normally 'appreciate' museums but this was not bad. Saw a very dedicated mom who took her broods there and each of them have an exercise book which they used to copy down name of herbs etc etc.
The kuali that they used in the olden days to fry the tea leaves.

We also visited the Trick Art Museum which I think was a waste of money for us because my boys were so shy to pose for photos, moi included. I used to see people posting very interesting pictures from Trick Art Museum , so I thought it would be fun but for not so sporting family like us...go one time enough already!
My boys wouldn't want me to show their faces so I put mine lor!

We also wanted to visit the 'Qin Xin Ling Leisure and Cultural Village' , unfortuntely it was closed till further notice. Maybe they are renovating.

That sums up our 2 days in Ipoh.


Thursday, January 12, 2017

Langkawi Dec 9- Dec 12

It was a very last minute decision to go Langkawi , so glad we did. I took the AirAsia package with hotel that cost us abt RM2600 ( tickets for 4 + hotel).

Of course with this cheap package, one can't expect much out of the hotel ...right? We put up with 4 days 3 nights at Cactus Inn. Each time when someone asked..where we stayed, I think their jaw dropped when they heard the name and some goes " What is that?".

I read the review though it is classified as 2 stars, it is definitely not. For 4 of us, we were given a small apartment like with 2 rooms, 2 baths and a living room. Very clean, well equiped and practical. When kids were small, we go for good hotels, but now that they are big, the facilites at the hotels are no longer important....after all we have swimming pools right downstairs of our condo. And with 2 teenage boys, we always have to book family rooms (read more expensive).
The boys loved the place, the two of them shared a room with a pullout bed.

When we first arrived, my boy was a little shocked. Looked like some 'pengemis' area he said. Actually, looks a bit like public toilet. ha!ha! But inside is very nice lah. Can google for their interior.
We rented this tiny  Kia Picanto for RM240 for the entire 4 days trip. It is so nice to drive in Langkawi, very few cars and definitely no 'jam'.

So the very next day, off we went to Langkawi Cable Car or Skycab.  It was a very nice and windy ride.  The view is definitely a lot better compared to Genting. We went early but not that early either, thank goodness the queue was bearable.
(photo taken from internet).

Both me and my older boy adjourned to skybridge after that.  Actually, it was my older kid that wanted to go, the rest of us wanted to go for the next event. You can actually take the glider to the skybridge but I was too 'kedekut' to pay RM15 for the glider...so we took the stairs.
The glider....looks very fun actually.
The view was very nice from the skybridge. On the way back, it was pretty steep to climb the stairs , I almost pengsan!!! I just realised how unfit I was. I was almost breathless, my legs were wobbly and my head was spinning. Luckily, managed to come back in one piece!

Apart from Skycab, we were also ushered into Skydome. The tickets that we purchased is actually a package consisting of skycab, skydome and skyrex. Actually, I asked for the 6D cinema as well, don't know how in the middle of the transaction, my hubby ended up with the package without the 6D. So gerammmmm......


Skydome offers a 360 degrees panoramic view to its audiences and offers 3D image projections covering the wide perspective while watching animation films. When we were there, we are supposed to be on a rollercoaster. It was so fun especially for those who are scared of sitting on real rollercoasters, this is a good alternative.

Another interesting activity that we visited was Skyrex.  We were seated on a tram styled simulator and took on a 5 minutes fun filled journey that assaults that senses-physical platform drops, dynamic motion, blasts of air, water spray, vibrations, dramatic lighting, surround sound and 3D film projected to the front and both sides of the tram, combines to give the most realistic experience possible.

Skyrex. 5 minutes is just too short. If you visit Langkawi , then this place is a 'MUST' to visit.


The other less interesting place we visited were
Dataran Lang...the magnificent Eagle that someone wanted to abolish!!!!

Makam Mahsuri and some of the exhibits. Only my eldest went in as the rest of us were not interested...especially must pay somemore!


Beras Terbakar...sorry I forgot the actual story. We went looking for this place expecting a big field of burnt padi only to find this small spot.

We also visited the famous Nasi Dagang Pak Malau. So many people , we have to wait for our seats.

 The padi was so green and nice looking....at the Pak Malau's eatery.





We also visited their pasar malam ...their ayam percik is so delicious.

And finally, the Cenang beach.
The sand is so white and the beach is clean.

We should have stayed a day longer as we did not have time to visit the Klimforest or do island hopping.

And when we came back, my poor plant(birthday gift by my boy) did not survived. I was supposed to pump more water before I leave but I forgot!  Have to get the 'vendor' to 'replant' for me but they are too busy with new year's orders.





Thursday, January 5, 2017

Two Times Lucky


Ahhh....I have been procastinating again. Can never blog during holidays, too much distraction, too lazy to upload pictures, too much to write and don't know where to start.

Before that , "Happy New Year, Everyone"...though it's almost a week late!

Really need to Thank God for his mercies...even when it was negligence on my part.

Incident 1 :
This happen sometime in December. I dropped by 'wallet' which contains my IC, Touch n Go, driving licence ,gate access card plus some less than RM100 cash somewhere at my condo. Most likely I dropped it at the open parking. 

The last time I had the wallet is after coming back from the morning market. Then I went about doing my chores and everything else.

About 4 pm ish , my hubby called and asked if I had lost my wallet. I was shocked. I said 'No'. Then he said the management office called him and told him that a resident returned a wallet bearing my details to the office. It then strucked me that I have not seen my wallet which I used to put on the computer table that day.

I quickly went to the management office and claimed my 'property'. Everything was intact. I asked for the person who returned the wallet but the officer can't tell, just said 'a resident'. Too bad, I really wished to personally thanked the person for his/her honestly.

I guess the best part is the fact that I had no knowledge I lost it till someone tells me. Else I would be so 'stressed up' the whole day, not knowing what to do, feeling anxious and paralysed!  Should report police or not...etc. By the way, this is the first time I have 'lost' my wallet since I was born and hopefully the last too.

Incident 2 :
 
Because I was on holiday mood , I hardly logged into my facebook or mail. 
 
On the 4th of January, I received this message :



<< IMPORTANT : YOU HAVE UNUSED FUNDS IN YOUR PAYPAL ACCOUNT

During a recent review, we noticed you have positive balance in your PayPal account and haven't performed a transaction for 7 years or more. This means your funds may be subject to Malaysia Unclaimed Moneys laws.


What's going on?
According to Malaysia Unclaimed Moneys laws, funds in your Paypal account which has not had any transactions for 7 years or more may be considered unclaimed money. If you do not perform a transaction on your Paypal account by 3/1/2017, we will lodge the funds in your account with the Jabatan Akauntan negara malaysia (JANM). 
>>


Oh no! I know how troublesome it is to get the money back from JANM. My friend tried and gave up after all the requirements she had to go thru.

They asked me to perform a transaction on my account by the 3rd Jan, and it is already 4th Jan, when I knew about it. 

I quickly logged into my paypal, and was so relieved to see that the money is still there...not much about RM184 after conversion.....still it can get me a great meal okay. 

I did a transfer to my MBB and the txn was pending and not knowing if they will be cancelled after some investigation. 

Today, I found the amount credited to my account....yahooo........SAHM no money wan, so little bit also happy okay!

Phew....now I can go back to my chores!