Category: Going Places

My travelogue.

[Vlog] 6D5N Penang – Ipoh – Cameron Highlands Road Trip (July 2019)

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on [Vlog] 6D5N Penang – Ipoh – Cameron Highlands Road Trip (July 2019)


[Day 1 – Thursday, 25th July 2019]

  • Kuching to Penang with Air Asia AK5437, departed at around 22:30.
    Did you know that Air Asia has direct flight to and fro Kuching from Penang? It’s been around for ages but many didn’t know about it. 14 flights a week!
  • Check in G Suites at Mansion One (57-11-13, Mansion One, Jalan Sultan Ahmad Shah, George Town, 10050 George Town, Pulau Pinang)

[Day 2 – friday, 26th July 2019]

  • Breakfast at Hot Bowl White Curry Mee (58-C, Jalan Rangoon, 10400 Penang).
  • Drove from Penang to Ipoh.
  • Lunch at Restoran Delicious (37-45, Lorong Taman Ipoh 1, Taman Ipoh selatan; 31400 Ipoh, Perak) for lunch. *Typo in the video
  • Drove from Ipoh to Cameron Highlands.
  • Check-in Imperial Court Apartment (Brinchang, 39100 Cameron Highlands, Pahang), can fit 10 pax in it. Free WiFi and parking available.

[Day 3 – Saturday, 27th July 2019]

  • We brought our own breakfast to Cameron Highlands.
  • Visited Cameron Lavender Garden(59, Brinchang, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang). Spent 1 hour 15 minutes there.
  • Then, it rained. We had to go to Cameron Square for lunch instead as we’re traveling with a toddler and a baby.
  • Lunch at Xin Teh Bak Kut Teh(Lot G-18(B), Cameron Square, Jalan Aranda Nova，Greencow, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang).
  • Then bought a Cendol cheesecake from Strawberry Cottage(Lot G-13, Cameron Square, Brinchang, 39100 Cameron Highlands, Pahang). It was awesome! Tasted great, beyond our expectations.
  • Went to MR AISU Ice Cream Cafe(C-G-29, Barrington Square, Jalan Golden Hills 1, Taman Cameron Golden Hills, 39000, Pahang), only opens on Friday and Saturday. Another outlet(No. 5, Gerai Berhampiran Pasar, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang) opens daily except Wednesday.
  • When the rain stopped, we went to Brinchang Weekend Night Market(only available Friday and Saturday) for a walk. It is just opposite MR AISU.
  • Dinner at Delicious & Happiness Kitchen(No.16, Bawah Jalan Angsana 1, Brinchang Point Cameron Highlands, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang)

[Day 4 – Sunday, 28th July 2019]

  • Check-out Imperial Court Apartment.
  • Brunch at Restoran You De Chi (can’t find the address in Google hmm…), same row as Harmony Inn(No 10a, Jalan Angsana 3, Brinchang, 39100 Brinchang, Pahang).
  • Drove back to Ipoh.
  • Check-in Prima Condominium Ipoh.
  • Dinner at an unknown Chinese restaurant in Ipoh ;p Was tired and was busy entertaining a toddler hahaha… So I didn’t bother to take much photos or video.

[Day 5 – Monday, 29th July 2019]

  • Check- out Prima Condominium Ipoh.
  • Go to Concubine Lane for snack. The place is hard to find parking, we ended up parking at a private car park where we were charged RM5 for 2 hours. Do go there on weekdays before 11am to avoid the afternoon sun which can be very hot and also avoid the crowd. The earlier you arrive, the better chance for you to secure a parking. It took us quite awhile to look for parking.
  • Ding Feng Tau Fu Fa aka Concubine Lane made up of 3 streets but we only went to 2 because there’s really nothing much, the most happening is at is the Concubine Lane aka Lorong Panglima. Wife Lane and Second Concubine Lane has some wall paintings and decorations for photo opportunities and without the crowd.
  • We took a break at Cups & Cubes Cafe(No 10, Jalan Panglima, 30000 Ipoh, Perak) for Assam Laksa, just to try it out.
  • Then we moved to Concubine Lane Tau Fu Fa(8, Jalan Panglima, 30000 Ipoh, Negeri Perak) for Teocher Tau Fu Fa. Not bad! Not expensive too.
  • We then walked to Market Lane aka the Second Concubine Lane for a quick photo. We didn’t go to Wife Lane.
    Went to Chooi Yue Dim Sum(2, 4 & 6, Tingkat Taman Ipoh 12, Taman Ipoh Selatan, 31400 Ipoh, Negeri Perak) for dim sum lunch.
  • Before heading back to Penang, we went to hunt for some durians. After the durian feast, we continued our journey to Penang.
  • Stopped by Xing Fu Tang Bukit Mertajam(13, Jalan Juru, Sentral, Juru Sentral14000 Bukit Mertajam, Pulau Pinang) for milk tea break.
  • Continued driving to 77 Bali Bali Cafe(Sungai Dua, Penang) for dinner.
  • Check in Econtel Queensbay(64, Persiaran Bayan Indah, Bayan Bay11900 Bayan Lepas, Pulau Pinang). OMG! It’s just opposite a music lounge. If you need to sleep, you really don’t want to stay here. The music and singing was loud till you could feel the vibration in the room. You thought you were inside the lounge -.-” music didn’t stop until after 1am.

[Day 6 – Tuesday, 30th July 2019]

  • Check-out Econtel Queensbay.
  • Brunch at HK Boy Cart Noodle(Unit 73-1-1, Ideal@The One, Jalan Mahsuri, 11950 Bayan Lepas, Penang).
  • Off to IKEA(752, Persiaran Cassia Selatan 8, 14110, Lebuhraya Bandar Cassia, Penang) we went. Did some shopping spree here *LOL* I didn’t buy anything until for the past 5 days because there’s really nothing that fancied me.
  • Before heading to the airport, we went to Design Village Outlet Mall(733, Jalan Cassia Barat 2, Bandar Cassia, 14110, Penang). Bought nothing because it’s all too expensive because was comparing it to the UK ;p
  • Headed to Penang International Airport for McD dinner and to go back to Kuching with Air Asia, AK5436, departed at around 18:30.

Welcome back to Kuching, Sarawak.

I hope you will find this post useful in helping you to decide where to go when you’re in Penang, Ipoh, and Cameron Highlands. We didn’t go to many places because we have a baby and a toddler with us. It was also raining at Cameron Highlands.

Next trip… Maybe Sabah. Might just look around for pakej percutian ke sabah. That would save me all the troubles in planning for the trip *LOL*

Going Places, Pahang, Penang, Perak, The West Side

Layover at Plaza Premium Lounge Gateway@KLIA2

Posted on By sweet surrender 2 Comments on Layover at Plaza Premium Lounge Gateway@KLIA2

After we had our kaiten sushi at the Kansai International Airport, we boarded out flight back to Kuala Lumpur. Since we arrived at almost midnight, we decided to stay a night to get a good rest and freshen up before our next leg of flight back to Kuching in 12 hours.

We took the 12-hour package(room+meal) of Plaza Premium Lounge Gateway@KLIA2. It wasn’t cheap though. It was about RM220(it’s early booking saver rate from Agoda some more) for a room and meal for 2 pax. However, after flying in a packed flight for so many hours and need to wait 12 hours for the next flight home, that’s the best we can get. At least we had our meals(supper+breakfast) sorted and enjoyed our privacy rather than staying in the capsule hotel at the airport.


Our room came with a double decker bed. I dislike the bed especially when you need to climb up. The stairs isn’t user friendly at all. It’s quite dangerous for short people and with bad balance like me. It’s designed in such a way that the angle is 90 degree and there’s no handrail to hold. The only support you can get is pulling yourself up to the bed with the bar at side of the bed(which is quite far away) and the mattress cover. I almost fell when I got down from the bed because of the angle with no handrail to support, and the last step were blocked by the mattress which made it impossible to properly position your feet.

There isn’t window so it’s pitch dark if you switch off all the lights. There’s light at the wall next to each bed if you need to use it. The room is not soundproof though. The toilet and the bathroom are separated and spacious enough. All amenities are provided. The air-conditioning unit is centralized.

The food served was quite basic but better than nothing especially when you arrive at almost midnight, you are dead hungry.

Overall, it was an OK stay albeit the bad design of the bed. Whether I will stay here again? Maybe… If I really need to stay overnight at KLIA2. At least it’s convenient and with en-suite. There’s another airport hotel on the same floor which is similar, rate is similar too, I might try this instead depending on the rate. Capsule hotel is definitely a no-go for me.

Going Places, KL/Selangor, Review It!, The West Side

Eaten My First Kaiten Sushi at Nigirino Tokube, Kansai International Airport, Terminal 1, 2F

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on Eaten My First Kaiten Sushi at Nigirino Tokube, Kansai International Airport, Terminal 1, 2F

This is my last post about my trip to Osaka in summer 2018. Guess what?!?! Heading there again in August ;p Finally… Took me almost a year to finish this post.


Throughout the 6 days in Osaka, I didn’t eat any sushi. My first kaiten sushi in Japan was at Nigirino Tokube, Kansai International Airport, Terminal 1, 2F. There were many eateries at the airport but since it was lunch hour, it was packed everywhere. This is the only eatery that had fast turnover and we didn’t wait too long.


People might be thinking we are crazy to eat so much raw food before boarding our flight hahaha… Oh well… We didn’t thought of this when we were there. Good thing, nothing bad happened to out tummy hahaha… Frankly, I’m not worry about this in Japan.


There were 5 of us. I don’t remember the total bill because I did not pay for it. These are the food we ate, some we took twice or even thrice. We walloped over 20 plates of sushi ;p Some I forgot to take photos too.


One thing to remember, once you took the plate away from the kaiten, do not put it back, otherwise the alarm will be triggered. Opppss… I did that ;p Lesson learnt. Decide what you want then take it. Do not even remove it from the kaiten even for less than 0.1 seconds. Once it’s not on the kaiten, it’s considered ‘sold’.


They were soooo good! I’m sure it’s cheaper here to eat all these. It will definitely cost a bomb if you are to eat them in Malaysia.


Nigirino Tokube serves genuine sushi made with carefully-preserved traditional techniques with specially-selected fresh local ingredients.


You can order from screen on your table which is multi-lingual if you can’t find the food you want on the kaiten and the sushi will be sent to you via special track next to your table, it will shoot out to your table via the track hahaha…

Klook.com


If you are at the Kansai International Airport and wondering what to eat and if you have strong stomach or you are not afraid of eating raw food before flight, you can consider this place.


I think I will likely come back here to eat next month before my flight departs to Kuala Lumpur provided I still have enough money left at the end of the trip :P.


It was satisfying… Burp…

Food Porn, Going Places, Land of the Rising Sun - Japan

What to Eat at Takashimaya Osaka?

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on What to Eat at Takashimaya Osaka?

Just going to share the two eateries that we’ve been to when we were in Takashimaya Osaka. You can consider going there as it was the locals who brought us there.


These are the street views around the area.

Kamameshi Hanakoume is located on 8F is where you can get various selections of donburi. Those I’m sharing here are only valid for summer 2018, it was the menu on offer.

These are the side dishes that came with the donburi. We ordered 4 sets of donburi. Each set was priced at 3,000 yen.


Left: Also one of the side dishes.
Right: I couldn’t recall what’s this, I think it should be octopus.


Left: Abalone? I’m not sure too hahaha…
Right: Unagi.


Left: This should be mix seafood.
Right: Our dessert, Matcha ice cream.

The price range for lunch is from 1,620 yen, while dinner is from 2,700 yen. The food quality is good. In fact, a set can be shared among 2 pax of small to average eaters.

Klook.com

Next, for dessert, we went to Lobby Cafe Fascino located on 7F. Very popular place for cakes and pastries. The queue was rather long.




Look! Do they look delicious?

We ordered 3 types of cakes…

Left: Muscat(grape) tart, the grapes was crunchy and sweet. The overall wasn’t too sweet. My first time eating this type of grape.
Right: The mix fruit tart was nice too.


Left: This is chocolate mousse. Good thing was that it’s not sickly sweet too. Very rich and creamy.
Right: Hahaha… It’s the mix fruit tart again. Just another angle LOL!!

If you would like to have tea or desserts in style, you can consider this place. The price range for drinks is from 720 yen, while light meals is from 750 yen.

There’s many other eateries in this shopping mall. If you have higher budget for meal, you can have your meals in the shopping mall. Otherwise, you can opt to buy your meals at the convenience store, that would save you a lot!

Food Porn, Going Places, Land of the Rising Sun - Japan

Went to Kobe, Didn’t Eat Kobe Beef but Found a Chinatown – Nankin-machi

Posted on By sweet surrender No Comments on Went to Kobe, Didn’t Eat Kobe Beef but Found a Chinatown – Nankin-machi

We went to Kobe. It wasn’t planned, it was decided the night before hahaha… That’s how free and easy we were. No plan prior to traveling. Just bought flight ticket and booked hotel. We only decided where to go on the night before or the day itself.


To Kobe we went… We took the train as usual. How we ended up wanted to go to Kobe was because one of our Japanese friends is from Hyōgo Prefecture.


We decided to go to Port of Kobe but did not bother to take any public transport once we reached the station in Kobe, we just walked *LOL* According to the map, it’s not far but hehehe… It’s actually quite far but anyway our plan was to go into shops along the way rather than walked straight there so it’s not too bad.


Since it was already noon, we ended up at McDonald’s haha… People go to Kobe for Kobe beef, we went to McDonald’s instead 😛 Both are pork burgers. We had lunch, rest here, enjoyed the air-conditioning, and for toilet break before we continue walking.


We shopped quite a fair bit in Kobe, how funny can that be ;p Anyway, we walked, walked, walked, and walked based on where Google brought us. We came across a Chinatown looking place, we didn’t even know it’s their Chinatown *LOL* We were like… Are we in Japan or China?


Many shops selling Kobe beef but we thought maybe we could have it for our dinner when we head back to our station instead of at Nankin-machi because we thought it should be easy to find places for Kobe beef anywhere in Kobe. Our main aim at that point of time was to head to Port of Kobe before evening came, we were not hungry too.

Source from Wikipedia:
Nankin-machi (Japanese for “Nanjing town”) (Japanese: 南京町; Simplified Chinese: 南京町) is a neighborhood in Kobe, Japan located south of Motomachi station adjacent to the Daimaru Department Store and is a major tourist attraction. Considered as Kobe’s Chinatown, the area has over a hundred Chinese restaurants, shops, and a Chinese temple dedicated to Guan Yu (関帝廟, Kanteibyō).


See… That’s the thing when you don’t do any research when you travel hahaha… We didn’t even realized we’re in one of the major tourist attractions in Kobe hahaha…


Continue to walk… Walk… Walk… We were a bit regret for walking so far away! *LOL* So tired! We saw the Kobe Port Tower from far and psyched ourselves that we’re almost there hahaha… Finally…


It’s a must to take photo of the tower LOL!! The tourist thing that anyone would do 😛 Hahaha… Next, our plan was to hunt down Be Kobe at Meriken Park.

Klook.com



Views of the surrounding…


Found Be Kobe! Look at the queue to take photo! 😀 Good thing that with the queuing, everyone got the chance to take photo by taking turn rather than just shove their ass in front of you even though you arrived first. Japan loves to queue! Hehehe… It’s my first time encounter a queue to take photo of a landmark hahaha…


Just quickly took few photos, kind of shy to pose in front of so many people and took such long time to take photo. The queue kept getting longer and longer!


Left: Saw the Mosaic Big Ferris Wheel located in Harborland. Was tempted to walk over there but we did not, was too tired, all we wanted to do was to find the nearest train station to go back to our hotel. We didn’t know what’s that building too! Haha… Apparently it’s a shopping and entertainment district between JR Kobe Station and the waterfront of Kobe’s port area. Now that I’m doing this post, then I know… Hahaha!

Right: While we walked through some old shops, we came across this sculpture, Girl on Dolphin(here’s the coordinate 34°41’8″N 135°11’6″E). We didn’t even know where we were!


We finally went back to the train station and decided to have our dinner there. Thinking that we might be able to find a restaurant serving Kobe beef but sadly there was none… Oh well… We just settled our dinner at one of the eateries. We had sashimi don(Â¥810) and beef don(Â¥810). The menu was all in Japanese, we just ordered based on the photos and some kanji in sight ;p We added miso soup & pickles for an additional Â¥100 and shellfish soup & pickles for an additional of Â¥150.

There you go… After dinner, we took the train back to our hotel. It was so tiring, we walked soooooo much! That’s the end of the story why we didn’t eat any Kobe beef when we were in Kobe *LOL*

Food Porn, Going Places, Land of the Rising Sun - Japan