Saturday Morning @ Batu Ferringhi, Penang

No running ! Weee! Woke up early anyway as Li Yen decided to do a photo shoot session by the beach today. Of course I wasn't the model. ( Too ugly to be one) Yoon Yan was the model while Teng Sun was the co-photographer [suppose to be Li Yen's documentary person ]. Chin became the make up artist. Me ???! Well just the helper around...Li Yen appointed me to become the hairdresser for Yoon Yan initially but I chicken out. Unless Yoon Yan decided to turn into witch then..perhaps I will volunteer! Tsk Tsk..Click Click Click! The photo shoot began.. after about 30 mins came this guy with a horse. He looked so friendly and offered to snap the pics for us with the horse. Keep asking us to give the camera to him so he can help us to take.*FISHY*. Yoon Yan spent quite sometime posing with the horse, next was Chin and myself. Felt a bit reluctant at first...and thought he is such a nice guy and haven't sat on a horse for ages thus told my myself..HECK why not try it! Took a couple of shots. Next was Teng Sun and Li Yen. FINALLY the black side reveals! He asked us for payment. At first he wanted to charge us like RM40/head. Was hilarious seeing Yoon Yan sitting on the chair with sunglasses trying to reduce the price with him. Got it reduced to RM20 per person if not mistaken. BLOOD SUCKER! Anyway all in all it was quite a fun experience. BLARGH!

Pre session :) Getting ready for the photo shoot session...

Photographer in action - Li Yen

Everyone has their turn on the horse..

Random pictures...

Adjourned for BREAKFAST next... went to Toh Soon Cafe. Situated at one of the side street at Campbell Street. This place served only toast bread [varieties type of bread - wholemeal bread, low calories bread, coffee bread, chocolate marble cake and Hainan bread] and half boiled eggs. Being a small cafe [not exactly a cafe - a shop made alongside of a side lane with around 10 tables] its popular in the morning. Business is good! What I loved of this place is because they still use the traditional way of toasting their bread. They toast their bread in a fire pot with charcoal. Due to this, its hard for them to do mass production of the toast bread. [You need a little patient for the bread and even the half boiled eggs to be served - if you're hungry you can eat the "nasi lemak" packed ready and served on the table] Don't miss out on their coffee. Though I'm not a coffee person, normally I will order Milo-0, I tried their coffee today and it was rich in taste. [good for my liking].

Coffee...roti bakar..half boiled eggs....

Apparently the coffee here was recommended in the STAR newspaper as well

"In Penang, the Toh Soon Cafe on Campbell Road is popular for its coffee, which is kaw or thick, and milky, which they say can keep you up and running for at least half a day before the next fix." - extracted from Addictive Brew- Sunday Metro 03/09/08

Finally after a few visit to this place, today I finally took pictures of the bread and half boiled eggs [grin]. Guess every time I was too eager to eat them and only realized it when I was already 3/4 finishing them. Besides toast bread, they also serve steam bread [bread placed over the same pot they toast the bread but instead using the steamed from the hot water]. We chat for a bit before Teng Sun drove us back. Spend the rest of the afternoon bumping around before dragon boat practice in the afternoon.

Ribbit

Phuket Vacation 5th to 10th March

I took a vacation to Phuket with Alan, Kenneth and Liyen. Alan, Kenneth and I arrived there on Wednesday and Liyen flew in to meet us on Friday.

We stayed at the Little Buddha Guesthouse (http://www.littlebuddhaphuket.com/) which cost around RM50 a night and came with air-con and attached bathroom. Very clean and nice. Affordable too. It was in a very convenient location as it had a 7-11 beside it and was near the Jungceylon Mall. It was near enough to walk to everything but far enough to be away from the bustle.

We had an eventful start to our trip. We finally arrived at our guesthouse, which in the end took 3hours (supposed to be 1hour from the airport) as our driver didn't know his way around Phuket at all. He had to stop for directions for each passenger. He almost didn't find our guesthouse! We were so hungry we headed straight out to the nearby mall to visit my favourite Japanese restaurant in Thailand, Fuji (http://www.fuji.co.th/wwwfuji/). So affordable and yummy! I discovered Fuji on a trip to Bangkok last year. A bento set with salmon on 220Baht.

Kenneth's bento set

Activities we engaged in while in Phuket was the Phang Nga Bay full day sea canoe tour. With that we also visited Hong Island and James Bond Island. James Bond Island was really just overhyped since it was used in the movie starring Roger Moore, "The Man with the Golden Gun". I actually enjoyed the sea canoe tour as we got to squeeze through narrow passages and slip through water caves, where we were made to lie down flat against the bed of the canoe. That was because the the ceiling of the cave was just above me. However, I wish there weren't that many people there and if only I could paddle myself.

Squeezing our way through the caves

The sea canoe company was actually very, very decent and cost on 1400Baht. You can look them up the next time you are in Phuket: http://ppt-tour.com/amazing_krabi.html

Me and James Bond island (nothing but a rock)

We also visited almost all the beaches along the southwest and southeast coast of Phuket. Patong Beach was where we stayed and it was overcrowded, touristy, full of Western restaurants, massage parlour, street stalls (like Malaysian pasar malam only, nothing special). The beach is still nice and clean considering the amount of people that past through it. In fact, I had two pretty decent running experiences up and down it. I tend to run every where I visit so I did run on three out of five days I was in Phuket.

Karon Beach is south of Patong and is much nicer and fancier. It has the glamour resorts lining the beachfront and the crowd here seems older. The beach is much nicer than Patong with very fine sand. It is also definitely less populated.

Kata Beach is by far the smallest and narrowest of all three beaches on the southwest of Phuket. Nothing much here. The longtail boat park really close to your beach towel though. We had some pretty decent Thai "chap fan" on Kata which cost 50Baht for three dishes.

Patong Beach which is packed with beach umbrellas

Alan looking cool on Karon

Kata Beach

Liyen arrived by Friday evening. We just spend a relaxing evening having dinner, and strolling around Patong doing some souviner shopping. The next day we took a tour that would take us to Phi-Phi, Maya Bay and Khai Island.

Our first stop was Khai Island where we spent an hour snorkelling. The water was amazing! So clear and there are fishes very near the shore. The island is tiny though. You don't even have to snorkel much to see them. Sadly, the beach of Khai Island was riddled with dead corals so it was painful to pick your way through. There weren't much live ones in the water either. I saw plenty of sea urchins which freaked me out a little.

Basically Phi-Phi is made up of two islands, Phi-Phi Lay and Phi-Phi Don. Maya Bay which was the film location for the Leornardo Dicaprio movie "The Beach". Maya Bay is National Park and very clean and nice but spotted all over with tourist. There really isn't much beach area. And the island is really small.

iyen and me on Khai Island (at the request of Liyen I am using a photo she chose instead)

View of Phi-Phi Lay bay from our lunch spot (which was just a regular buffet with nothing impressive and really bad spaghetti)

The beachfront of Phi-Phi Lay

Beach front of Maya Bay (spot Liyen and Kenneth)

Me on Maya Bay

Kenneth (spot Liyen in the back ground)

Solo Training

Since I am not able to join my running group to run tomorrow as I will still be at the Relay for Life event walking, I decided to do run today. Chin is still in Phuket and I didn't want to do a long run over at my place after the bad experience of mom's car being force opened at the park.[Those damn thieves!], decided to go over Penang to run. Was not feeling well yesterday, so I was doubt if I could run today. Did tell my mum that I wanted to run this morning, at 5.50am, mom came into my room to wake me up [so sweet! not so nice on the other hand because I couldn't find an excuse of not waking up :P] Drank a cup of drink and then went over to Penang. By the time I reached the clock tower [my starting point] it was already 6.30am. Warm myself up and ran. Legs had been pretty sore for the past few days. Thanks to the fartleks training on Wednesday with the dragon boat team mates I think. Pushed tad bit too much. Started with a slow warm up. I felt pretty alright when I reached Gurney Drive though I could feel that I wasn't going on my normal half marathon pace. My legs just couldn't push...was kind of frustated. Anyway tried not to stop until I reach the mosque. I managed to reach the floating mouse in about 1 hour [legs starts to hurt a little]Pushed myself not to stop but then my body and legs couldn't stand it anymore, decided to stop for water and ate my Luna gummy[yucks...taste awful- I guess I will keep to my jelly beans in future] Continued on running after that, tried to sustained running. Guessed when I hit around 19.5km I couldn't push any more, decided to walk. My legs felt like they are loaded with lead. GOSH. Tried to do walk run walk. Not sure how long in total I walked. Perhaps 2 km . If only someone stopped and sent me back to my car..I would be very happy...Hahahha... Completed my run in 2:29 [bad time for a 22.85km [as plot on google map ] Not sure if I can do a sub 2 if I continue running like that...sniff. Felt like my running had went back to square one. How disappointing...

Full detailed map

Relay for Life 2008 in Penang

Heading out for Relay for Life event. Chin was supposed to be joining too this year but the SO smart me forgot to let her know that her Phuket trip clashes [SoRrY --sigh :( ]

Pic from last year. All of us will be there again this year...

The last part of our KL Trip

I guess I better try to update the last part of our KL trip before I get lazy. [wait a minute...I'm lazy now actually...hmmph] After the "food feast" yesterday, everyone woke up early that morning. We need to leave the house same time as Si Wan and Meryvn left the house for church. Everyone was pretty much alert [perhaps just good enough to wake up , get shower and changed :)]After exchanging thank you and hugs with Si Wan and Meryvn with their nice hospitality, Chin, Pinny, Bins and Lean Seng and myself left. Headed for breakfast somewhere in TTDI. Didn't hit me at that point to remember the coffee shop name. All I remember was the coffee shop is opposite a bank. Blargh. All of us ordered the pork balls noodles. The noodles and the pork balls [don't get it wrong for the part of pig..please] are served separately. I think they included 2 slice of pork salami [thats what I thought it was...haha]

The pork balls and the dry bowl of noodles

After breakfast, we headed over Bangsar to drop off Bins and Seng. After stopping by for a while and getting direction from Bins, the remaining 3 musketeers headed over the new shopping mall - The Pavilion Kuala Lumpur. The first thing that we did before we even walk around was to head over to JCo. donuts [yum!]. Just couldn't resist the soft fluffy creamy donuts...besides we didn't want to be stucked in a long queue if we go there later. We walked around quite a bit and all 3 of us ended up at Espressamente Illy coffee house. All of us ordered the recommended Fondente [Latte!]. To be honest, it was a nice drink. Not just normal plain diluted Latte [bluek]...SLURP.. OOOoo.. Pinny ordered Neve Fondente[Cold Latte :P]

Just realized I forgot to take the pics after drinking the Fondente..Wopps

Recommended!
Espressamente ILLY
Add: Lot 3-10-00, Level 3, Pavilion @ 168 Jalan Bukit Bintang, KL

Spent about an hour there before we headed over Yut Kee Kopitiam in Dang Wangi for lunch.Called my brother to ask for direction. :) Checked out the route as well from the net [of course not me who did the map reading - I try to avoid doing it if possible - grin]

It was around 2pm when we reached there, the shop wasn't so crowded. Though I could say most of the tables are occupied. I was sad when they told me the p0rk chop has finished :(. We ordered a few type of food as per recommended by some food blogs.

Yut Kee Kopitiam
Add: 35, Jln Dang Wangi, Kuala Lumpur,Wilayah Persekutuan
Tel : 0322988108

From top left hand corner : Hainase Chicken Chop [Chicken fillet fried in a batter with a mix salad of onions, peas and potatoes] kaya roll, marble cake, stewed beef noodle, fried hokkien mee [we wanted Hainan mee...guess we mixed up our order] and the soup which came with the noodles [radish soup].

Of all the meal I enjoyed the Hainase Chicken Chop the best, followed by the stewed beef noodles. Didn't enjoyed the fried hokkien mee, guess Penang hokkien char taste much better. [Bah]. Chin and Pinny didn't enjoy the fried noodles as well.

After lunch, its time to head over to Semenyih to drop Pinny back. Pinny keep saying the place is "ulu" (malay word for remote/backwards )..HAHA ! Well I guess in somewhere..since the place is just houses and small shopping mall. Look much like Butterworth and grandma's home town. Took about an hour plus to reach Pinny's house. Spend sometime there to set up her new pc [Wooo]. I was so blur...plugged the monitor cable into the wrong place and took me about 15 minutes that I wasn't plugging into the correct place.[*sweat*]Luckily we didn't move the CPU to her friend's house down the road and figure it out. [That would be so embarrassing!]. Chin and myself left Semenyih at around 6pm plus to head home to Penang. Chin's was sad to leave her sister behind [hugz] Well totally understand since I always have the same feelings when my bro comes back to Penang and its time for him to leave. [call it siblings bonding]

We stopped by Ipoh to have dinner. We went to "Tong Sui Kai"[Dessert Street/Rainbow City] for dinner. Thanks to Ann Chien for directing us there through the phone. There are varieties of food here. Its located opposite Sam Tet Primary School. Chin ordered a fried rice from one of the hawker stall - the lady wasn't too nice :(. I hate grumpy hawker sellers! Both of us ordered the "fu chok yee mai"[bean curd, barley with ginkgo - basically they boils the bean curd until it dissolve into water form]

Fu Chok Yee MaiFried Rice

-Lynn-

Dinner at Riblees

Had dinner at Riblees in Desa Sri Hartamas ( located at the first floor of Bank Islamic - No 41-1 Wisma CKL (1st Fl.) Jalan 23/70A Desa Sri Hartamas to be exact ) with Chin, her god sis - Si Wan and her husband Mervyn, Si Wan's sisters - Si Jun and Si Peng, Pin Pin, Bin Bin and Lean Seng. Sort of a mini reunion for Chin. I ordered the Baby Back Rib which is one of their signature item. Came in a very large portion [for my standard of food portion]. Most of us ordered the different type of pork ribs. Being a person who normally don't take much of ribs and steaks, I did enjoy the baby back rib. YUM! Just need to put some effort into cutting them *sweat*. The charbroiled nd specially marinated ribs arewith are served with curly fries, corn on the cob and portion of salad and barbecue sauce. The ribs were tender and juicy.

We had a couple of wines for that night too :) [with main course: Cabernet Sauvignon 1998 and couldn't recall the other bottle ] Chin ordered the American Babyback ribs. Still could beat the ribs she had in US *grin* . But I guess given a rating, she would rate the ribs slightly above average for a Malaysian standard. All of us shared a couple of dessert after the main course - Mervyn ordered a slice of Oreo ice cream cake, trifle and chocolate cake. Everyone enjoyed the trifle the most. The chocolate cake tasted burned.. :(. To pair with the dessert, we had 2 wines - a reisling [Domaines Schlumberger - Les Princes Abbes 2004 ] and a petite syrah [Bogle Vineyard - Vintage 2004] . I guess I enjoyed the petite syrah the most that night after sipping it for the 2nd time. It didn't gave me a good taste during my first sip of it. Thought it was too tannic...but eventually I began to like it... Overall the dinner was good and would definitely go back there. Would like to try their other food on their menu.

The Menu

[middle pictures]Classic American BabyBack - [right hand corner] Riblees Baby Back Ribs
[left] wine to pair with dessert after the main dinner


Petite Syrah and Riesling

Night scenery overlooking from the balcony where we sat.

RIBLEE’S
41-1, Wisma CKL
Jalan 23/70A
Desa Sri Hartamas

Short Weekend Trip to Kuala Lumpur

Went down to Kuala Lumpur (KL) for a 2 days 1 night trip last weekend. Chin was sending her brother back to KL for his new college semester so decided to follow her down since it has been sometimes since I went there. Started our journey around 7am. Chin did the driving. I was not fully awake yet *yawn*. We stopped by Ipoh famous place for food - Ipoh Old Town. Normally we will eat in Kong Heng Kopitiam, but this time we went to the shop beside it - Thean Chun, as recommended by our friend Aan Chien. We still ordered our regular "poh piah" (spring roll) from Khong Heng. Chin, Lean Seng and myself ordered the Ipoh "hor fun"[what is hor fun?]. I had mine dry while Chin and Lean Seng ordered the soup base. As usual the "hor fun" in Ipoh never disappoint me ( yet )

Thean Chun Cofee Shop
Location: Jalan Bandar Timah, Ipoh Old Town. Open mornings and afternoons only


From L to R: Soup Hor Fun, Dried Hor Fun, Poh Piah

We continued on our journey after a 2 hours break. By then I guess I was fully awake. Chin got tired along the journey, so I offered to take over the wheels. (Nervous! Reason being I had never drove Chin's car on the highway before and besides her car is auto. I find driving an auto car is much harder then a manual ! Weird... Anyway I SURVIVED! Bah!)
We reached KL around 12pm. Headed over to Bin Bin's place in Bangsar. Chin's being my GPS system *grin*. Unloaded some of the stuff out before heading out for lunch. We decided to try out Jackson's Burger in Section 14, Petaling Jaya (outside 148 Jalan 14/29 to be exact). A few blogs actually recommended this place for burger. To be honest, this place was hard to find. We got semi lost in the hunt for the place, with me being an idiot on maps. We stopped by along the way to ask people around the area. None seems to know where is Jalan 14/29. [GOSH] Anyway with Chin's being a better map reader person, she roughly figured out the route from the map I printed. [Phew!]. Each of us ordered a burger. Chin, Bin Bin, Lean Seng had the beef burger while I being the ought one had the chicken burger. The burger was pretty small [enough to filled my stomach though] My verdict on the burger : Nothing spacial of the burger, its a typical classic Ramly Burger (minus the lots of sauce portion in the burger). I still prefer the Hill Side burger in Penang.

Smile! - Chin and me
The burger...
After the long wait...finally the burger has arrived :)

We proceed to Chin's god sis place after lunch.

A Long Overdue Entry...

Haven't been blogging for about 2 weeks. Been struggling to juggle my time between work, running and spending time with family, love ones and friends. I'm totally bad when it comes to time management and efficiency. *sigh*.Anyway, since I had some time tonight, decided to do a quick update on the blog. Hope its not too outdated to get it posted. *blargh*

Few weeks ago, Chin Chin decided to cook for dinner. Engineer turned chef for the day. From notebook to pots and pans! She has a great amount of interest when comes to cooking. I can't even fry an egg nicely. *sweat*. She had put a great afford in making the dinner - 3 course meal. I would give 2 thumbs up for her cooking ( not being bias because she is my running partner ) . The dinner start of with delicious citrus-avocado salad with lovely toasted pine nuts. *YUM*. Next came the main dish Crusted Salmon served with sautéed mushrooms. We had Castle Rock pinot noir to accompany the salmon. Not too bad of a wine which is less than USD11 ( I think) I might be wrong..ahaha! Crepe with strawberries and muscat-yogurt was served as dessert. Not forgetting I got to try the dessert wine as well - 2002 White Riesling from Willamette Valley. Wooohoo!

panko salmon /w mushroom, crepes and the Riesling wine

-Lynn-