Notes from China (1) – Hong Kong

Ah, Hong Kong….

View from the Peak on a blessed sunny smog-free day

It is everything their TVB series depicts it to be, and so much more.

Red taxi!

There is a pulse about this island that just draws you into its arms.

Away from the tourist streets...

I loved everything about it – the clean and efficient public transport system, the yummy (though expensive) food that was on offer (roast goose forever!)…

And, the beautiful nature which amazingly manages to exist amidst all the chaos.

Crossing Tung Chung Bay to get to Lantau

Rewarded with spectacular views of the sunset on the return trip

2 nights on the Island certainly was enough to whet my appetite for more.

Whizzing lights

I’ll hopefully be back real soon!

Mt KK(1) – the ‘Before’

5 months after setting our plans in stone, D-day finally arrived and we found ourselves on MH 0384 bound for Kota Kinabalu.

'I believe I can touch the sky!'

Lis had given me a minor heart attack earlier in the morning when she phoned at 6.30 am bearing the worst possible kind of news – she had missed her flight. >_< But, an hour later we gave her a warm welcoming party at the airport and set off for some food. Food always comforts the stressed soul what.

X, Y and Lis.

I might add that it was round 2 of food for the rest of us as we had earlier killed the 1 hour waiting time by going for dim sum. Ahaks.

KK dim sum beats Kch dim sum hands down!

From there it was an approximate 3 hours’ drive to Mesilau Nature Resort. Our beds for the night were at Witti Lodge No.6 (not No.4 as someone in our climbing party mistakenly thought. Ahem.).

not bad, right?

This is actually my 2nd visit to Mesilau and I was glad to find things were as beautiful and well-maintained as I last remembered.

I can feel the stress disappearing...

The rest of the group were 1st time visitors so it was important to me that they liked the place too, otherwise they’d have my head for overselling it.

the mountain air entrances

As it turned out, no such problems occurred. The mountain air sucked them into the magical spell of the place during our pre-dinner walkabout.

non-edible paku

Dinner was ‘alcoholically’ merry and we went to bed in eager anticipation of the climb, blissfully unaware (on hindsight) of the adventure which awaited us…

only carlsberg would do...

The ‘During’ follows next…

R&R – SG(2)(3) – no end to the eating…:-P

Oh my goodness I am so behind in my blog posts it’s just not funny. >_< Well, time to do something about it before the backlog becomes a joke and I get hit by a ‘directive’ to clear all backlog before the year’s up.

In my last 2 posts the focus was mainly on colonial Singapore so I reckon it’s about time we showcase its present architectural highlights. Chief would be the Esplanade aka the Durian:

I am pointy!

Looking rather handsome from its side profile:

My flesh is yellow and creamy...

Coincidentally, it’s durian season here at the mo and I just had some LOVELY durians at Engkilili last weekend. Oops, sidetracking…. But not entirely also. Do you think this Singapore durian would be a D24?

After walking along the Marina, time for some grub at Marina Square shopping mall:

oh no, spinach....

Then we walked back towards Dhoby Gaut for some more grub:

a straw and 2 tarts

and encountered weird signage along the way:

ubah muka segera??

We gave our tummies a short break by having a quick glimpse inside the Singapore Art Museum :

artsy-fartsy

Li occasionally performs there as well as at the Durian and it was awesome to see for ourselves all these places. A form of belated moral support as far as I am concerned. And then it was time to end the day by food-hopping in Geylang:

prawn & mango puff

o-chien SG-style

frog porridge!

I say food-hopping because all 3 pictures were taken at 3 different kopitiams! Oh, Geylang was amazing to behold in terms of the variety of girls available. All shapes, size, and colour got. The term the place UN of Geylang or United Colours of Geylang comes to mind. Though if you get bored of trying to guess the origin of the various UN delegates, you could always play the game – “guess the number of hotels within these 100 metres”.

Entire album of Day 2 is available here:

SG(2) – 31.08.08

R&R – KL (1) – Feed me…

7 months into the year and I finally, FINALLY found time to go away for a proper holiday! Cue the gloating please.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

1 and a half hours later saw me speeding into KL LCCT where I was picked up by Ellis. The next day, we woke bright and early to satisfy one of my cravings which I’ve had for the longest time – pancakes.

Behold, I give you my ricotta cheese and blueberry pancakes. A wee bit on the small side, portion wise. But otherwise, absolutely yummyz.

After breakkie, we had a short intermission to watch Kungfu Panda (quite likely, the best cartoon movie released this year). And then, it was time for lunch.

Which was just as well because Ellis was about to start eating her chopsticks due to hunger.

Lunch was a simple meal of shanghai steamed dumplings. These were satisfactory, but nowhere as good as Dragon-i (more on that in my later posts).

They do have these giant steamed dumplings though, which I think I’ll order next time just for the heck of it – to see whether it’s really as huge as in the photos.

After that, it was another short intermission as Ellis had to go off to church. By the time I picked her up around 7pm, we were both starving. This, despite the fact that we had had lunch around 1-ish. I think generally people tend to eat more when they’re on holiday lah, no? I seriously don’t eat this much in my day-to-day life. Anyways, dinner was at a fantastic Balinese restaurant.

As testament to its popularity, it was full house that night but we were lucky enough to get a table by the window.

That worked out well as I could entertain myself shooting pictures of the street below whilst Ellis caught up on the day’s news.

Healthy grilled chicken salad for starters. And my dinner partner looking pretty fedap here because we’re all hungry and she can’t dig in until I finish taking umpteen pictures of the food.

Salad was followed by grilled fish with rice and some vege sides. See, all healthy stuff….except maybe for those huge pieces of yummy fried keropok on the sides which I devoured. *sheepish grin*

Just when I thought the eating was over, we found out that Ai Ling (Ellis’ housemate) had yet to have dinner. So we became pirates for supper. ARRrrrrrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrr………!

No lah, we went to this Cinak music cafe for supper. Appropriately, it was called Pirates. I’m thinking maybe its owners are (in)directly conveying their views on intellectual property rights?

With all that food and good company, Day 1 ended on a happy note..

And proved to be an indication of how the week to come was to turn out.

More pictures of Day 1 here:

Jul.08.KL.Day1

And oh yes, the addresses for the makan places:-

1. Paddington House of Pancakes

142 & 143, the Curve

Mutiara Damansara

2. NanXiang Steamed Bun Restaurant

G41A, the Curve

Mutiara Damansara

3. Bumbu Bali

18 & 18-1, Jln Persiaran Puteri 1

Bandar Puteri

47100 Puchong

Tel: 03-8061 8699

4. Pirates Ice Cream and Coffee Cafe
Somwhere near Ellis’ townhouse somewhere in Sunway Damansara. No worries, if you need to go, she can always take/direct youse there.