Touring around KL!

Yesterday, mum and dad came to my house with my sister's friend, Rosemary from United States. A very nice, interesting lady who's currently a volunteer in a refugee camp in ChiangMai.

Since it was my day off, I decided to play tourist together with them! Sad but true, it was kind of my first real tour of KL, had never tried being a tourist in KL before.. :p ..

Early in the morning, we woke up around 7.30am, (phew! early for those who really knows me.. :)), had some light breakfast and we began our journey by 9am. Our first destination: Istana Negara - Royal Palace. We took some pictures with the palace guards and their horses and we even had the chance to see the shift change!



We moved on to our next stop: Tugu Negara - National Monument - in recognition of the glorious dead. Apparently, there were seven men on the monument to symbolise the seven leadership qualities: leadership, unity, strength, vigilance, suffering, courage and sacrifice. This place kind of brought back a lot of memories - the good old days when we studied about Malaysian history and also the time that I made the first visit to this place with some of my friends (this is my second visit).



Next, the Lake Gardens - we just drove around the park and enjoy the grenery of the whole place. Rosemary was pretty fascinated by the road lamps - a hibiscus shaped lamp.. :). We even took a picture of it!

After a long drive, we decided to have some beef ball noodles, more of a request from myself, since I didn't really have a real breakfast.. :). We parked around KotaRaya and walked to a rather famous Beef Ball Noodle shop around Pudu. After a hearty meal, we continued with our journey around KL.

Next destination: Masjid Jamek. In fact, this is not planned. As we were walking towards Dataran Merdeka, we passed a very nice mosque and couldn't resist to walk in and take a quick peek. There was a very nice old malay guy who insisted that we took the robes and skarf (unfortunately, I must say, it definitely needs a washing!) that we take a real tour of the mosque. The mosque was really pretty and well maintained, actually.



The moment we walked out of the mosque, there was a very nice shop, "Karyaneka" that sells very nice batek blouses. Since Rosemary needed a blouse for the chinese wedding (later part of their trip), we decided to try our luck with this place. Unfortunately, we found the right design, but not the right size. Ah well, better luck next time!

So we continued with our tour: Dataran Merdeka - Merdeka Square. After admiring the place a lil, our feet kind of started getting tired and the sun was beginning to shine, so we walked faster and reached CityPoint. Finally, an air conditioned place.. :). We decided that we would drive to the Railway Station later and we found another shop for Rosemary to try to locate her blouse, and I found a chance for me to rest my legs... :). Unfortunately, the shop didn't have anything that we wanted, but by accident or rather by luck, we found a shortcut to the Central Market.



Had a quick tour of the Central Market, they actually changed a lot after my last visit many years ago. Everything was very clean and organized. Very well done! And next, we moved on towards Petaling Street or also known as Chinatown and had the famous, Longan Drink. Ah.. it definitely feels good to gulp down the drink after a long day. And when I looked at my watch, it's only showing 1.00pm. What a busy morning we had!



Next we went back to our car and drove around the Railway Station for a quick peek and towards the Menara KL - KL Tower. Pretty jammed up though and it started to drizzle. Thank goodness we were in the car .. :). When we finally reached the place, I was beginning to feel drowsy with the lack of sleep, so I dropped them off for the tour of the place and parked my car and blissfully had my nap . o:).

2 hours later: I picked them up and headed towards the exit, but unfortunately there was a bottleneck in the exit way. My parents took the heroic role in taking matters in their own hands and directed the traffic, so after a full 15 mins, we were finally on our way again.

Since we were all tired, so we might as well go shopping for Rosemary's blouse, so we moved on to the Craft Complex - where Rosemary found her batek blouse.. :). and we met Kim and headed off for dinner at Omar Khayam - an Indian cuisine restaurant. The food was good and everyone was stuffed by the time we left.

Since Dad wanted to go over to KLCC, so when we reached, took some pictures, dropped them off and bid our goodbyes. So that kind of marks the end of KL tour for me.. :).

HO HO HO... MERRY CHRISTMAS!

It's been quite a while since I last updated my blog.

Well, it's Christmas today! It's not snowing where I'm at.. but it's raining. And the fact that I'm working today makes it even worst. But well, guess I'll just have to make the most of it by blogging my whole day away... :).. and probably play some Chrismasy songs in the office to make it better.. o:).

It's probably the end of the year season, we tend to think of what we achieved in the whole year, to make us reminiscence about things we had done, things that probably made us happy, things that made us sad, things we had lost and gained, things that we are glad we made the giant step forward or even things that we regret. I guess the whole year had not really gone the way I planned, lost direction somehow during the year and still probably trying to find the right path back, the right decisions to make, but I guess that's life so far.

In probably another 7 days, we'll be saying "Hello, 2008!". Here's hoping that the new year will bring all of us happiness and joy!

Trip to Shanghai - Day 8

Today is our last day in Shanghai. Looking forward to go back to Malaysia, actually. Rather miss my yummy finger food, after days and days of 8 course lunches and dinners!

Xiao Zhong brought us to another shopping haven! - Shanghai Lao Jie (The Old Shanghai Road) and Cheng Huang Miao (This time is for real, cos everything here is so cheap compared to other places that he brought us to previously.. :) .. )




And we found our finger food here! The Shanghai dumplings apparently seems to be good, the line was so long. But since Kim is sick, we ended up with some other choices, which was equally great in taste.. :) - Sharkfin Soup Dumpling and Crab Fillet.



We went round getting our souvenirs and we ended up in a pottery shop and got ourselves very nice plates .. :) .. That made us very happy indeed! Hehe.

Anyway, it's time for us to head for the airport. And after a delay of 3 hours, our plane finally reached and we safely reached KL at 4am in the morning - marking the end of our trip.. :) .

Trip to Shanghai - Day 7

Day 7: Woke up feeling much better, this hotel has just newly opened for a week or so. Everything is so new and the toilet look really nice.. :) ..

And since we (unexpectedly!) woke up feeling really fresh, we managed to go out for a morning walk.



After breakfast, we moved on to visit the Pearl Factory and officially visited the famous Tai Hu. Not as pretty as Xi Hu, but I guess because of the vastness of the lake, it is very important to the people of WuXi.




After which, we headed back to Shanghai once again.. :) ..
The restaurant that Xiao Zhong and Zhen XiFu (the driver) brought us to was very very nice!



And tonight we will going for another cruise! And this time, we will get to see the night view of Shanghai and after which, we will proceed to visit the Oriental Pearl of Shanghai. Just a personal opinion, both places actually has similar view, so, if you are running short of time or cash, just visit either one is sufficient. :)




After going round Shanghai Beach (so called Shanghai Tan), we headed back to the hotel. Wanted to go round for a drink, but Kim was sick, so ended up packing the whole night long. Well, I was doing the packing and Kim was doing the supervising. Hmph!

And finally after 3 hours of packing and unpacking, we finally got everything sorted out and called it a night. Phew!

Trip to Shanghai - Day 6

Day 6. We are moving from Nanjing to Wuxi.

But before that, Wang Sir brought us to see the Crying Rock Turtle, well, they have a name for it, but can't seem to recall it at this moment.. :) . But apparently, the legend of this turtle has is that every time prior to a disaster, the turtle will shed a tear to indicate his sadness over the sorrows to hit the country.



Next, we went to a Jade Museum. Unfortunately photos are not allowed, so could only take pictures of the entrance. Didn't get anything though, everything seems to be so expensive, and we are running short on cash by now.. :( ..



Next we said goodbye to Wang Sir and moved on to Wuxi, where we met Xiao Qian, our local guide. Pretty lil' gal and she's been to Malaysia.. :) ..! We went to the entrance of Ling San Ta Fo, the status of Buddha is said to be 88 ft high! Phew! Impressive.



Next, as we moved towards the town centre, we past by the famous Tai Hu. There seems no ending to this lake, and it is said to be as big as 4 Singapore. Fu-wah.. so keng and it really really looks huge! It definitely looks more like sea than a lake!



After a long ride, we finally reached our destination - San Guo Cheng where they filmed The Romance of the Three Kingdoms.



Took lotsa pictures when we went on the cruise:



And we visited some of the filming sites:


After a sumptuous dinner, we went to; cheng cheng cheng~~~ : PARKSON! *_*" Haiyoh, a total waste of time! Parkson is FROM Malaysia. Ha ha! We ended up walking outside and took some pics .. :) ..



Finally, after a very long day, we reached our hotel.

Trip to Shanghai - Day 5

We are now on Day 5! I'm sick .. :( .. coughing and having slight fever. Boohoohooo .. :( .. But well, we are still enjoying the trip.

We had another local guide today, forgot his name. Anyway, don't really like him anyway, so it's all right. He brought us to HanShan Temple; I've included a link on the legend of this place - http://www.chinapage.org/poem/hanshan/hanshantemplelegend.html.



We even made a wish by ringing the bell in the temple .. :) .. hehe, you will have to ring it 3 times ONLY. If you ring it 4 times, apparently it means you are wishing for the monks to shave off your hair. Haha! Fortunately, Kim didn't do that!



Next, we went off to the Silkworm Factory. The local guide was telling us on how fortunate we are to be able to get a chance to visit this place, as the price of silk will be rising in a few weeks time and how this factory only allows 10 tours a day. What a joke! Cause it seems there were like more than 10 tours there when we visited the place!

But it was interesting seeing the way silk is being manufactured and made into goods.. :) ..



Once again, after lunch we headed off to Nanjing, where we were greeted by Wang Sir; a lecturer in a university in Nanjing. Serious guy, and utterly emotional when he was telling us the history of the Nanjing Massacre. We toured the city of Nanjing and visited Nanjing Ta Qiao (the Bridge of Nanjing).



But what really caught my attention was the works of art by Master Gao; who paints drawings in crystal balls. Here's some work of his and it seems really amazing to watch him paint intrinsic drawings with no effort at all!



We had the famous Salty Duck for dinner. Apparently, Nanjing doesn't serve chicken at all due to some legend about broken promises and stuff. I'll update more when I have the time to remember what Wang Sir said. Hehe .. :) ..

I guess that's the end of Day 5!