Kuching Day 4

The second last day was mostly spent in the city. We planned to do souvenir shopping. We were at the Waterfront, walked a long the river and took some pictures.

We hunted for souvenirs at the row of shops parallel to the Waterfront. I know that it is a tourist area, but the prices were not too expensive. There are many things that has a local flavour, like wood carvings of cats, monkeys, tribal masks, paintings, etc. Spent the whole morning shopping for souvenirs and spent about RM50.

Next destination was the Sarawak Museum. It is actually a few museums collectively, namely Islamic Museum, Ethnology Museum, Art Museum and (Stuffed) Animal Museum. I managed to take some pictures from Ethnology Museum.

Taken at the Ethnology Museum

A painting from the Art Museum

A model made from recyclables

It was time for lunch. We headed to this circular-shaped hawker center and ordered laksa, siu mai, some vegetables and meat soup noodles. Finally I saw one stall which sells White Lady a.k.a. Snow White in Chinese. It's basically ice kacang, but with condensed milk, sago, pineapple and lychee with a twist of lemon. Very smooth and refreshing, but the rest said it was just OK / bland.

There is a famous fish ball noodles stall within walking distance, so we decided to try it. I know this was becoming more of a food vacation than a sightseeing / R & R vacation. But really, the fish balls were excellent; very authentic fish taste and good texture. We also ordered a plate of pork satay. It was also delicious.

After all the eating, we went to the Civic Center. It is one of the taller buildings in Kuching, with a very interesting design. It looks like a spaceship to me.

From the highest floor of the Civic Center, we could see the whole city of Kuching.

View from the Civic Center

One last stop to buy some snacks before dinner. No, not for ourselves but to bring back home. Bought some pepper for an ex-colleague, some biscuits and titbits.

Dinner was good. We had steamed red talapia fish which was very fresh. Had pork knuckles and another dish of miding vegetables.

Another day well spent. The next day was our flight home.

Kuching Day 3

We headed for the cultural village early in the morning. We got lost a little on the way there (there is absolutely no signage to the place!) and arrived at 10 a.m.

The place is quite huge. Entrance fee was RM60 and we got a "Passport" each, where we were supposed to get a stamp at every traditional house. There were also some notes on the different tribes, their cultures and history.

I will let the pictures do the talking.

Making "kuih bahulu". We bought them and they were good!

Inside the Malay house.

Things used in the olden days, from the Chinese House

The Melanau Tall House

The verandah of the Melanau Tall House

Tools to make blowpipes

Iban Longhouse

Inside the Iban Longhouse

There are two cultural performances daily, at 1130 and 1645. It was very interesting to watch the traditional dances, with the dancers wearing their tribal costumes. The dances were lively and the music was quite pleasing.

Two thing that irked me during the cultural performance. The MC's accent was terrible unidentifiable, hence what he said was impossible to understand. The other thing that I didn't like was this one dancer whom I felt was cocky. He wanted the audience to keep on applauding and applauding his spinning-on-a-wooden-pole stunt *rolls eyes*

We managed to finish the whole tour of the Cultural Village by 2 p.m. As we still had time, we visited the famous Cat Museum. There is everything and anything that are related to cats on displayed, from dolls, pictures, stories, teapots, sculptures to Doraemon, Hello Kitty and Cats the Musical. I don't remember seeing anything about the Pussy Cat Dolls though.

Quite an interesting museum actually. Some of the exhibits are really beautiful and unique. But Nyk commented that it seemed like a cat fanatic's exhibition of his vast collection of memorabilia from the interesting to the weird.



















When we were about to leave, it started to rain again. We had dinner with Lloyd's mum at this restaurant called Fook Xing. The dishes there were cheap and good. One of the unique dishes which we ordered was the duck wrapped with yam. Definitely unusual but it was great.

The mom mentioned a famous "kway chap" (mixed pork innards with kway teow) and Nick's eyes lit up. So we headed to the market where the stall is right after dinner. Nyk and I shared a bowl. It was good, but nothing spectacular. Nick loved it a lot though.

Feeling satiated and sleepy, we headed back to the hotel.

Kuching Day 2

The next day was fine weather, just perfect for our trip to Bako National Park. According to the websites I have read, it is a must-go.

And I agree.

We had to take a boat ride out to the island. The river bank was lined with mangroves and we even spotted a crocodile sunning itself.







There were a few tracks to choose from and we decided on Telok Pandan trail, which is not too long. It is expected to take us about 90 minutes to complete the trail. There are two trails actually, one Teluk Pandan Kecil and Teluk Pandan Besar.

Both track overlaps except for the last part of their respective trails. Our main one is actually Kecil; Besar is just a 10-minute detour from the Kecil track.

Some of the sights which I saw:










At the end of the Pandan Besar trail, the view was beautiful. We were standing on top of a cliff and this was what I saw.





We turned back to the Pandan Kecil trail. It took us another 20 minutes before we reached this wonderfully tranquil and white-sandy beach. We also saw a dead jellyfish washed on shore (picture 2 below).








A boat came to pick us up from the Pandan Kecil beach. On the ride back, it started to rain and once again, we were drenched. That's twice in 2 days.

We went for lunch at a restaurant in a Malay kampung and ordered miding (local vegetable), chicken (fragrant and yummy), steamed white pomfret and hor jian. The hor jian is a little different from the ones that I have eaten. It's dry and there is crunchy prawn crackers around it.

I quite love it. Nyk didn't; he prefers them to be wetter. There is no starch but lots of eggs.

After that, we visited a temple nearby. And then it was time to head back to the hotel.

Kuching Day 1

Nyk and I arrived in Kuching on 8th November (Saturday) at about 1500 hours. The flight was pretty uneventful and there wasn't many passengers on board.

Kuching International Airport

Lloyd and Nick were at the Kuching International Airport to pick us up. First thing we did was to check in at this hotel called Hung Hung, which is right next to the General Hospital. Hmmm, so in case anything bad happened, we would be extremely safe.

Why did we choose this hotel? It was the most affordable one that I could find online, at RM70 per night.

Next up was to visit the Sunday Market. This market actually opens from Saturday afternoon till Sunday afternoon. There were some things which one doesn't usually see in a open air pasar, like cats, dogs, DIY hardware stuff like screws and hammers, plants, etc.

We were there for less than half an hour when clouds opened up and there was a heavy downpour. We were all wet under our tiny 1-person umbrellas. We spent another 20 minutes to get back to the car and we got more drenched.

Dinner was at this place called Hong Kong Noodles. We ordered roasted duck, some local vegetable (I forgot the name) and toufu. The food were all great and I enjoyed it.

Kuching shops closes at about 2100, so there wasn't much to do after dinner. I didn't know that the people here have such wonderful work-life balance. But actually the sunrise and sunset here are an hour earlier than West Malaysia. That probably explains why.

And so we retired for the day.

Kuching

I am blogging now from Kuching, in Sarawak. It has a very nice old world charm to it, with not many high rises. Most of the people here live in semi-detached and terrace houses in stark contrast to the HDBs and condominiums in Singapore.

I would be back in KL on Wednesday, so there will be no updates till then. Enjoy the weekend guys and gals!

My week with Nyk

We reached back in KL last Tuesday evening on a 30-minute delayed flight. Nyk and I had dinner together at a coffee shop near his house and all too soon, it was time to say goodbye.

It was our first trip together and it was memorable. We took many photographs together or in the words of Ritsuka from the anime Loveless, "create memories". I get to see him for 24 hours a day, with him beside me all day long, seeing him smile and cheery, never a dull moment.

The main reason probably is due to our distance and hence our time together is still exciting and treasured.

I got to see him on Wednesday night and on Friday for lunch karaoke. It was another first with him and we kicked off our duet with If We Hold On Together by Diana Ross. Not really a love song but it was a song we are both familiar with as it is always sung in leadership camps.

He went back to work and I watched Hellboy II. I have been a fan of Guillermo del Toro's work since Pan's Labyrinth. And I was not disappointed as Hellboy was a visual feast of weird and fantastical creatures.

After work, we went to this restaurant called DainTi Hill. It serves Japanese and Chinese dishes. We ordered pork, frog's legs, chicken, dragon roll sushi etc. Food was quite good and it was a good choice of eatery by Nyk.

On Saturday, SK, Nyk and I met up again for one last time. I needed a haircut and he brought me to his hairstylist for a quick snip snip. We headed back to my house as we were too tired to go anywhere else.

Surprisingly, my mum never mentioned anything about Nyk during and after his visit. She did seem to take a liking for SK though LOL

Nyk and SK were invited for dinner but they declined.

I headed back to Singapore on Sunday. After a week long break, it was finally back to work on Monday.

A very relaxing week away from work and more importantly, with my dearest. I came back refreshed, recharged and rejuvenated.

Looking forward to our next trip in November.

Phuket Day 4

Sunday, 29 October 2006

On the last day, I signed up for the Phi Phi island trip, which was made famous by Leonardo DiCaprio in the movie The Beach.

We were told that the pickup to the pier would arrive at half past eight. Breakfast is usually served at eight, so the timing was just nice.

But unfortunately, the driver arrived at eight. We wanted to have a quick one for breakfast, but he was impatient and insisted that we leave immediately.

So we didn’t have any breakfast.

That wasn’t the worst part. When we arrived at the pier, we had to wait an hour for the Singaporeans and Hong Kongers to arrive, which presumably their pickup was as scheduled at 8.30 a.m.

Anyway, we left the pier at about half past nine. The speedboat ride to Phi Phi was an hour. It wasn’t a smooth ride and we were bouncing on hour seats most of the time. Whenever we hit a wave, someone in the boat would scream.

That was fun.

As one of them said, “A bunch of screaming queens.” It was not meant as an insult.

Phi Phi island consists of two islands, one bigger than the other. The first stop was smaller one. We didn’t step foot on the beach, as we had to pay an additional 200 baht to do so. Thus we snorkeled about 500 meters from beach.

Green hills on the first beach we went to

The water was crystal clear, with fishes so colourful they looked as though they were hand-painted with striking colours. We spent about half an hour here.

Next, we went to another beach, which was just as beautiful but there were less fishes. Probably there is not enough food, thus less fishes, which explained why some of us including myself were bitten by the fishes! It wasn’t very painful, but still, we are not fish food!

Scenic and idyllic

The subsequent stop was Monkey Island, where we had the opportunity to feed the monkeys with bananas. We didn’t need to peel the bananas for them and some of them astutely grabbed the bananas right from our hands!

I had a picture taken standing very close to one. I was a bit jittery doing so, as we were told by the guide that they could turn aggressive, especially if our backs are turned to them.

This was followed by lunch. We had international cuisine buffet. Seriously, I don’t think I had any authentic Thai food since I came here. A lot of things are catered for the Western tourists.

After lunch, we hanged around a bit, with most of the Singaporeans and HK people playing beach volleyball.

Our last stop for the day was the bigger island. I snorkeled while most of the others played beach volleyball.

The water is clear and clean, with the fishes clearly seen. The brain corals and

Random cute guy whom I noticed, with his girlfriend

Two of the HK guys actually swam around the island and had the opportunity to see more amazing fishes and corals. Apparently, the marine life on the other side of the island was even more interesting and mesmerizing.

Oh well. At least I know what to do the next time I come to Phi Phi again. Which I think I most probably will.

When we arrived back in Phuket, it was supposed to be time for the tele-matches. I was pretty tired from the island trip and decided to give it a miss.

Back at the Phuket pier

Based on a recommendation from the owner of the hotel, I headed for a massage. This time an authentic one, without the hanky-panky.

The masseuses were all sitting in front of the shop. When I said that I wanted a traditional Thai massage, they immediately pointed to one person. I asked is she good and they replied, “Number one.”

With that, I was convinced.

I was pestered into signing up for a two hour massage, as she kept insisting that an hour was not enough. I actually preferred one and a half hour, but the price was ridiculously unreasonable.

She said an hour was 250 baht, one and a half was 450 baht and two hours was 500 baht.

Finally, I agreed to a two hour massage.

It was a two hour well spent, with all the creaks and stiffness massaged away. There was some aches and pains when she pressed at some points, but I think those were the good pain. She was good; she knew I had walked a lot that day from massaging my lower legs and that I face a computer screen at work from massaging my shoulders.

Or maybe it wasn’t that difficult to arrive at those conclusions simply by looking at me. They are after all the most common profile of a tourist.

For such a good job, I tipped her 100 baht.

It was a little past seven when I went left the massage parlour. I had to rush back to the hotel for dinner at half past seven.

Took a quick shower and had a half-glass of red wine and Patrick, one of the Thais took us to a restaurant only the locals know.

It is one of those places with extremely good and cheap food where tourists wouldn’t know, unless you know a local.

We had seafood – crabs, prawns, fish – and they were very fresh. I was too hungry that I forgot to take photos of the dishes. ;P

More pictures here.

End of Phuket Day 2

I think what makes a trip wonderful, besides the place itself and culture, is the people you go with. I had a lot of fun just chatting about everything and nothing with the Malaysians and Singaporeans.

Especially one Singaporean ;P

I miss being openly affectionate in public, where I can lie on my friend's thigh or on his back or letting my inner queen out. I can never do that in front of my straight-laced colleagues.

Everyone felt the same too. Which partly explained why Malaysia and Singapore weren't that keen to organise next year's TSG. The openness and environment factor was one drawback. Hong Kong is out due to the cost factor.

For next year, the TSG organisers said they will try to get Australians and Kiwis to participate too.


Friday, 27 October 2006

And yeah, I did come.

Being the gentleman that I am (ahem!), I offered to return the favour. Earlier, I had asked whether the customer before me made him come or not and he said no.

Anyway, he stopped me from proceeding further and said "Cannot. Must go back to sleep." (They are referring to their cocks. And it was not the first time I heard Thais said it in such a way. Pretty cute way of saying it, I think ;P)

By the way, I paid 400 baht for the massage and I tipped the masseur 100.

For my other two friends, their experience were even better as their masseurs were bolder. One of them had his hand placed on the masseur's crotch and the other guy's masseur stripped naked totally and was hard all the time.

But both of my friends had their underwear on and didn't have a "happy ending", as they rejected for reasons of their own.

After that, we had dinner as we had made bookings to watch Simon's Cabaret at 9.30 p.m. This is quite a famous cabaret show and was recommended by a friend, so we decided to check it out.

It was quite an entertaining show, very flashy and well-coordinated. It was fun, but was quite short at 70 minutes. I paid 600 baht for it.

The sets were quite good and it changed from one to another almost immediately. This caused the whole performance to seem rushed, with not much of a breather between acts. As soon as the curtain fell, it was up again with the next performance all ready.

I didn't bring my camera, as I thought one can't bring it to live performances. Unfortunately, quite a few of the audience did. I made do with my Sony Ericsson K750 camera and snapped these.

Those that seemed over-exposed is because the pictures coincided with the flashes from the other cameras.

Although the she was lip-synching to a Mandarin song, she did it so well that it really looked like she was singing it.

More dancers came on stage later. Very Chinese performance. I was impressed!

Upbeat performance and dance to the song Havana.

They were singing and dancing to a Korean song.

I liked this a lot. It was a Chinese song called Mei Hua (Beautiful Flowers) and they performed in the dark with those fluorescent umbrellas with flower shapes.

For the finale of this performance, the large petals just appeared out of nowhere! Amazing!

A Tina Turner impersonator! But she was extremely good! She's simply the best!

Indian-themed, I think.

I don't know who which singer she trying to imitate.

Egyptian theme also got!

They were singing a song about Cleopatra.

This was supposed to be Brazillian.

End of the show.

The boys weren't that cute, even though they were slightly better looking than those working at the bars.

My friend commented that the cabaret show in Chiangmai was much better. Have to keep that in mind if I go there one day.

After that, we went for a supper and then retired for the night. As it is, I swam quite a bit in the morning and was feeling tired. And I was a bit pissed that I was offered unsolicited advice on how to swim properly.

The plan for tomorrow morning was to check out the beach, which I haven't done so. It would be so embarrassing to tell people that I haven't been to the beach after two days in Phuket! They would surely be wondering what have I been up to all these while.

Before I forget, Singaporean Team B emerged as champions for the volleyball competition. The Thais got second and third places.

Almost all of the cute participants play volleyball. I would so take up volleyball just to be able to get closer to them ;P

So shameless hor?