The coackroach porridge was from Hong Kong. I didn’t complain because I packed and had it in the office. 🙁

I was in Hong Kong with Mom2Ashley for a week for work from 30th March to 7th April. Our meeting ended on Friday the 4th. Mom2Ashely returned home on the 5th, I stayed on another night and slept over in my ex classmate’s house. A classmate I’d not met and contacted for almost 15years! It was really nice to catch up and meet up with her, her husband and her extremely friendly 2 sons!

Before you say, “Oh.. lucky you, another overseas work trip.” Hold it. The shopping was nice, but we worked hard. Everyday, we started at 9am and never ended earlier than 8pm except for the last day since it was a public holiday for our Hong Kong colleagues. It was a tough week, long hours, lots of heated discussion and even a shouting session. It wasn’t fun at all. Luckily, the shopping kind of make up for it.

My shopping partner, Mom2Ashley.

I’m still recuperating from the mental and physical exhaustion from the trip. Ha. Anyway.. here are some of the photos captured during the non working hours.

♥Food♥
Upon arrival, Mom2Ashley and I headed for the nearest restaurant for a bowl of wonton mee. It’s just the size of a rice bowl, and cost HK$26 (RM11) for it.

This is our only lunch the whole team had togather at the same table. Hosted by our Hong Kong colleagues.

Tuesday dinner was Vietnamese, in a very nice setting.

While in Hong Kong, you should not miss the famous Yee Shun milk custard (義順雙皮燉奶), I ordered the one with red bean.

Had the worst lunch in this Macau Char-Chan-Teng. I ordered Portugese curry chicken, yucks! The white chocolate coffee was good though.

The most expensive dinner was in this Teow Chew Restaurant. HK$1500 (RM630) for the below dishes for 4 (one vege dish is missing from the below collage), expensive!!

This is the exterior of the Teow Chew Restaurant.

Last breakfast with Mom2Ashley before she left. The stew duck was rather tasteless. The fish skin that can be ordered separately is my all time favourite.

My last lunch – Roast Goose noodle and La Fermiere yogurt (best yogurt in the world! Too bad only found this on my last day, or else I’ll be having this for breakfast daily, and won’t be having the coackroach porridge)

My ex-classmate treated me to lobster dinner on my last night in Hong Kong. It was yummy! Lobster with Bee Hoon (米粉/rice vermicelli).

My ex-classmate brought me to those neighbourhood shop, I ordered porridge (can’t have enough of them) and cha-liong (炸两), which is not available in Malaysia. Yiu-tiao (油条 or fried dough) wrapped with Che-cheong-fun (rice roll). Quite delicious.

♥Sights♥
Whatever time that’s left after dinner, we spent walking about the streets in Hong Kong. Around Causeway Bay, and Women Street (女人街) at Kowloon.

Since we stayed in Causeway Bay, spent our last day shopping in Time Square.

Fruit market at Causeway Bay, and fish market near Sai Wan (西环). Most seafood sold is alive and swimming.

Around Central, IFC Mall.

When you are in Hong Kong, you should try to go on the ferry ride to and fro Kowloon and Hong Kong island. It’s a cheap way to see this great view (I think it was HK$1.20 per ride).

View of Hong Kong side from ferry.

View of Kowloon side from ferry.

My ex-classmate’s appartment in Pok Fu Lam (薄扶林) has this killer view!

♥Strange Sights♥
Girls dressed up as angels hired to stand and block the exit of the building, so that people are forced to walk through the rest of the shops in the building.

Spotted a car decorated with Sanrio characters.

Day 1 –
I had fish slices and century egg porridge in a small restaurant, let’s call it restaurant A. After taking a spoon full…
Me : “Wow.. nice. You want to try?” *passed porridge to Mom2Ashley.
Mom2Ashley : *after trying* Mmm.. yah. Nice.
Me : *keep thinking while eating* “Don’t know how they make it so nice….”

Day 3 –
I had fish slices and century egg porridge in another small restaurant, let’s call it restaurant B. Mom2Ashley ordered the house special porridge too. After taking a spoon full…
Me : “Err.. this porridge, not as nice as the one from restaurant A.. very blend.”
Mom2Ashley : *after eating hers* Yah la, the porridge from Restaurant A is tastier.

Day 5 –
I bought fish slices and century egg porridge (again) from Restaurant A again for breakfast, since it’s nicer.
While savouring the porridge, I kept wondering what they put in the porridge that made it so delicious.
Then I saw this………….
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Fried spring onion? Special root?
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o.O”

!!!#^!$^^($@#$!@%!!!

Back from my trip of 8 days in Japan, it was super! This is my fifth trip to Japan, but the 1st four was spending a night in Narita town while in transit to US.

I have always loved Japanese food and Japanese snack; so being there in Japan, was like being in ♥gastronomic heaven!♥!

I stayed 5 days in Hachioji (八王子) which is 1hr train ride from Tokyo downtown. We worked hard everyday, so there was no time to sight see. And then when we moved to Ueno (上野), which is in Tokyo downtown for an additional 2 days, we spent most of our time shopping. So most photos taken were food shot!

Breakfast is near the hotel or the office (walking distant from each other).

Breakfast menu : Green tea latte that beats any other latte; Mos burger; fruits (the dried one is persimmon, which is abolutely devine!); Noodles and Rice from Donut King

Lunch is always some where near the office, which normally comes in a set, about RM21 to RM30.

I have mainly fish or tempura. Delicious!

We have more time for dinner so we’ll walk further. Japan really have fantastic fish and seafood menu! One day, we had Sashimi, and even though the fish was sliced up with its head still in tact, its mouth was moving and its eyes were clear and silvery staring at us. It was difficult, but I still stomached one slice of that sashimi. Blech. I also discovered Sawa (サワー), Japanese cocktail. Love it, especially the one with melon syrup!

Try spotting the fish with its silver eyes, staring back at you.

The best meal we had was the king crab meal. It was expensive (but not as expensive as my crab meal in Shanghai); we took 2 sets and shared it among the four of us.

Boiled crab, crab roe (so delicious!), crab sashimi, BBQ crab (at your table). Delicious! 美味しい! Oishi!

The cheapest meal we had was a ‘fast food’ restaurant, where food is ordered through a coupon vending machine, coupon is then passed to the chef, and your selected meal will be served to you in a minute or two. No seats! Stand while you eat. But, quite Delicious! And then there was the RM30 green tea crème brûlée that I have which was oh-so-heavenly.

My RM12 Tenzaru soba; the coupon vending machine; the box that held my RM30 green tea crème brûlée; the box came with 2 small pack of ice to keep the crème brûlée fresh.

On our last day, while walking to lunch and realised there was actually a temple and a shrine just at the back of the office.

Some nice scenary around the office

We stayed in Hotel Park Side in Ueno (上野) on our last 2 nights. It was near to Ameyokocho, a shopping street for snacks, seafood and apparels.

Seafood in Ameyokocho, the last picture are Bonito pieces. You shave it, and you get bonito flakes!

♥Japanese culture♥
People are so polite there. They took the time to explain the menu to us with their limited English; they offered us help when we looked lost; they queue up in train station and wait for their turns; they seem to always have time for us when they are so busy! This is so different from the Shanghainese.

Our Japanese colleagues threw us a dinner party, and forked out their own money to pay for the party. We told them we were on expense and they should let us settle the bill, but we were told this is their way they show their hospitality.

In almost every toilet in Japan, you get this toilet seat with gadget! To be discreet, you can play a ‘flushing sound’ for 10seconds while you do your business. Your seat is warmed, and you get bidet, and a spray. One of the toilet we went to, even have blower to dry the royal a** after you are done! My bottom never remain so clean before!!

Toilet seat control panel

And just before I left, I got this!
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And everything went white!

Snow covered Tokyo! (and imagine dragging a heavy suitcase, notebook bag, handbag, 2 other hand luggages with all the shopping 1Km in this weather to the station!)

Japan, I really love it there!

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♥Happy Chinese New Year to all who celebrates! 新年快乐!♥

What a week it was. I put in 12hrs daily at work, slept at 1am 2am; even worked on Thaipusam day and still, I couldn’t finish what I should have finished.

Zara had really high fever last night, almost reaching 41degrees. Schools are the best places to pass on germs!
She was sweating profusely in her sleep one minute, and then another, she woke me up saying, “Mum, I’m very cold.”. True enough, her hands were cold and she was shivering.  I stayed up almost the whole night to watch over her, give her suppository, sponge her.

This morning when we asked if she was ok, and if we should bring her to see a doctor, she said “I’m feeling alright. I just feel very tired only.” How comforting to hear this.

Zaria woke up with a slight temparature too. Sigh! What bad timing, as I’ll be away for a week for work, and I’ll be worried about them. Tonight, Daddy will be looking after Zara, while Jelly will look after Zaria.

While I was packing, there was a thunderstorm, and Zara was accompanying me.
“Mummy, I don’t want you to go Japan.”
“Mummy has to, mummy’s boss wants to meet with mummy.” (can’t say ‘work’ because she told me I could work at home)
“Mummy, I want you to play with me.”
“Mummy will play with you when mummy comes back ok?”
Then there was a loud thunder, and she said, “Mum, you hear or not? Even the thunder don’t want you to go! See. Mummy, don’t go mummy.”

Wait till the girls are bigger, and both are able to say such things! *sigh*

Hope they will get well soon, and Daddy will take good care of them.

Continue from here.

This is the last bit of the trip. Bear with me as I don’t go on trips like these often, and I plan to record the trip in detail for my future reading/referrencing as my memory these days really suck!

♥Nov 9th (Fri)♥
Our last day in Shanghai and I was planning to do all the shopping needed on this day.

Our first stop was to change some money as we were running short of cash. Do you know that there’s no money changer in China (unless it’s black market) and besides hotels, the only place you can change foreign currency is from Bank of China and not any other banks? Also, not many shops and restaurants in Shanghai actually accept foreign credit cards; quite inconvenient for the tourists like us.

After getting some cash, we went to the Shanghai Science and Technology Museum (上海科技馆) in Pudong. Not to visit the Museum but actually to go to this shopping place opposite the Museum. This plazy houses lots of little shops selling counterfeit shoes, bags (Le Sport Sac mainly) and clothings, but it was quite dissapointing actually as the designs and items were the same in most of the shops. (What a contrast huh? 1 side it’s the Science and Technology Museum; directly opposite, it’s this place filled shops selling counterfeit goods!)

I bought a dress for Zaria and a pair of shoes for Zara (later I found out the quality isn’t really that good). That was all I got. Not a very fruitful shopping trip.

We then got out of the mall and walked about outdoor, where we could get a glimpse of the modern Pudong.

The modern Pudong : Dragon at the Science and Technology Museum, we caught sight of an airship cruising above; Modern buildings in Pudong; Century Ave (世纪大道); Old folks dancing outside of a mall, for some, they danced with their imaginary partners

It was then back to Nanjing and Fuzhou Road (福州路) for more shopping.

Brightly litted Nanjing Road; Last pic is a photo of our Motel which I took at 5:30am before we left for the airport

The thing I like about China in terms of shopping is the books, DVDs and CDs there are really cheap. Fuzhou Road (福州路) has lots of multi-level book shops. I was spending a lot of time there glancing at books and CDs. Daddy who doesn’t read Chinese, kept himself occupied by going through CDs so he didn’t mind the wait. I bought quite a lot for myself.

While glancing at books, I probably left my own guide book on the shelf and later could not locate it any more. Luckily, this happened on our last day of the trip, and I no longer need to reference it. Still, I was a bit upset because I like to keep my guide books as a remembrance/record of a trip. 🙁

Luckily too, we’d identified the restaurant to have our last dinner before the guide book went missing. We headed to an old restaurant Lao Zheng Xing (老正兴) on Fuzhou Road for our last meal in Shanghai.

Our last meal in Shanghai consisted of : Fried fermented or smelly tofu (臭豆腐); Toufu with crab roe; Fried local vege; Fish and turnip soup

♥Nov 10th (Sat)♥
We headed back to KL in the early morning flight.

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Because I speak and read Chinese and Daddy doesn’t (he actually speaks passable Chinese but he didn’t want to do any talking), I had to do all the ordering, enquiries, directions asking, navigatitions, ticket purchasing, forms filling etc etc. Tired, you know.

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How are the people in Shanghai?
Besides my colleauges, I think most people are quite rude or maybe they are too busy to be nice.
When we asked for directions, it was never nicely told. They would be pointing impatiently and said, “那边!” “”There!”
When we were blocking someone’s way, instead of saying “Excuse me”, they shouted at us, “EH! EH!”, like it’s your fault for inconveniencing them.
In those lower end restaurants, waitresses were impatient you took time to order or checked out the menu.
You find spit every where. People smoke in restaurants!
Men who are alone get approached by pimps offering them female companion in the busiest street. Daddy was offered that service from a very decently dressed man when I was not by his side for 1min!

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Do you wonder how Zara and Zaria cope?
Zaria was fine, as she’s used to us leaving her at home while we go to the market or bring Zara for her lessons.

Zara on the other hand was another story. The first 2 days, she eagerly waited for my return. When the door bell rang, she rushed to the door and happily announced, “My mummy come back already!”. When we called home, she came to the phone and said “Mummy, you bought me any surprise or not?” or “I miss you mummy. Are you coming home?” and then she’ll be sobbing.

Then on the 3rd day onwards, she used a different technique to fight her feelings. She kept telling Tuyam she didn’t like me any more. She said things like, “Ask mummy don’t come back any more!” “I don’t like mummy.” “If mummy come back, I will put her in naughty corner!”. She refused to come to the phone when we called home. However my maid said occasionally, she would cry sadly for no reason.

Both girls were very happy to see us when we got home.

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What happened to breastfeeding?
I expressed 3 times a day when I was in Shanghai. Morning and night was easy, because I did it in our room. The afternoon session can be a bit of a challenge. I did it in the toilets at the Museums (which is cleaner); did it in a quite corner of a restaurant with jackets drapped over me; did it in smelly toilets in restaurants. The worse was in the Shanghai Airport nursing room. It was labelled a nursing room, but it was also a place where cleaners store their carts with all the detergent and mops. In the 30mins I was there, many cleaners attempted to get into the room, even male cleaners! I had to be really fierce and shouted at them, and then they stopped stepping in and waited outside instead. 😛

I should have brought my nursing cape, which would make expressing easier. 🙁

What did I do with the milk? After this experience, I didn’t want to store and bring them home. I drank them all. Yes! Every bit of them. I expressed, I drank. No wastage! Daddy said I actually had better complexion and I glowed after a few days. Haha. Belief it or not?

Continue from here. (If you wonder how many more parts there are, there’s only one more left).

♥Nov 7th (Wed)♥
With an overnight bag, we rushed to the train station early morning to catch the fast train to Hangzhou (杭州). We got a first class ticket, the coach was really comfortable and it only cost RMB68 per tix. Daddy and I slept through the ~1hr20min ride.

When we arrived at the Hangzhou station, there were so many elderly ladies offering their help (accomodation? maps? directions?), but we just shook our head all the time. With the information listed on their website, we managed to take a bus from Hangzhou Train Station, walked for 10mins and arrived at Mingtown Garden Youth Hostel (明堂-杭州湖中居青年旅舍), located at West of Xihu (西湖), which is the best place to stay as it’s not as busy as the East (high rise and buzy streets on the East).

We had some problem checking in as Daddy left our passports in the Motel back in Shanghai. The staff in the hostel was helpful, although they could have rejected our stay; they called our Motel, requested the Motel to provide them with out info. Motel168 wasn’t very cooperative, in the end, we promised we’ll fax them our passports and Visas and they agreed to let us have our room (which was pre-booked by phone).

Just like what was written on the guidebook, and the website, the hostel is surrounded by lakes and gardens, absolutely beautiful! We have a room all to ourselves with ensuite bathroom (just in case you wonder if we needed to share our room or toilet). The room was very comfortable. Clean room, clean white sheets, beautiful pine wood ceiling and a window opening to the back garden. Best of all, it didn’t stink of cigerette smoke.

After our lunch, we rented a bike each, and started exploring the area.

We cycled up some slopes and visited the Dragon Well (Long Jing) tea plantation (龙井茶园). It was lovely, so green every where!

Then we rode through Xudi Causeway (苏堤), which cuts across Xihu from North to South (~3.5km), and then have dinner in Wei Zhuang (House of Taste) (知味观。味庄). This restaurant serves the best food that we’d tasted in our trip, every thing tasted so delicious especially the nice dainty dim sum dessert. Too bad I was running a flu, some of the taste were a bit muddled.

Bestest duck! A cold dish, but very delicious; prawn triangles; I didn’t like the fish (baked and accompanied with home made creamy sauce), but Daddy thought it was uniquely prepared; the dainty dessert : some pastry with lotus filing and chestnut stuffing rolls.

After the yummylicious dinner, we cycled another 5Km in the dark to get back to the hostel. This was when we could really feel the chill, but it was still bearable with just a light fleece jacket on.

♥Nov 8th (Thurs)♥
In the morning, we woke up to birds chirping outside our window. We had a simple breakfast at the hostel and started exploring the gardens around the hostel by foot. The gardens are actually very beautiful, with lakes and bridges and streams everywhere. We also took an hour boat ride (battery operated so we just needed to ‘steer’) at the lake, pretty relaxing.

Beautiful views around West Xihu

Some of the plants and objects I found in the gardens

Then it was time to check out. We left our baggage in the train station, and explored a bit of the old town. Things here are actually cheaper than Yuyuan, and I was really amused by the street food available. 10 fried scropions for RMB5 anyone?

We didn’t try any of these, but we saw quite a lot of people buying them.

♥A Chinese Medical Hall which has been listed as Historical Heritage in Hangzhou, they were giving away free herbal tea, which Daddy and I took two cups each.♥♥Street performer getting to work♥♥Xihu beer that Daddy took with words : Free From Formaldehyde (do they actually brew beer with Formaldehyde in China?♥♥Hangzhou station, people were trying to get into the platform to get into the train♥

We headed back to Shanghai on the 5:20pm train, and back to the smokey Motel168.

continued from here

♥Nov 5th (Mon)♥
Breakfast was streetfood. Although breakfast was included in our Motel rate, it was lousy. Our Motel is nearby Yun-Nan Road (云南路) which has many small local restaurants. In the morning, lots of stalls are scattered along the street selling green onion pan cakes (葱油饼); You-tiao (油条) and other savoury and sweet pastries. I’m able to fill my stomach with just RMB2 or less, what a steal. Daddy on the other hand, has too much concern over the hygenes level of the food, he preferred having fruits (he’s the healthy eater at home).

We started with a stroll to HuaiHai Road (淮海路), which is like our Bukit Bintang. Lots of high rise and super big department stores.

Around Shanghai :
♥Maple Leaves♥ ♥A muriel outside a toy shop, I thought this looked like a work of a Malaysian Cartonist♥/span> ♥A sign appearing in all underpass “Beware of Slip  – Shouldn’t it read : “Beware, slippery” or some thing else♥
♥Sun Yat Sen former residence (孫中山故居)♥ ♥Daddy slurping some grass jelly/cincau in a Taiwanese cafe. He loves this♥
♥Seafood available on Yun-nan Road. Can you spot the cage of exotic birds with another cage of snake above them? (I can imagine the stress these animals feel)♥

We visited the Shanghai Museum in the afternoon. It was quite good (it was more to make me feel good that I visited places other than the malls).

Items which caught my attention in the Museum

♥Nov 6th (Tues)♥
We were off to Zhouzhuang (周庄), one of the most famous old water township in China.

We initially wanted to take a bus to Zhouzhuang and do our own walking, but it so happened that the next available bus came with a tour guide, and we only had to pay RMB5 extra. It helped to have a guide, as we were able to know what is famous in Zhouzhuang and the history behind the town.

♥Lunch at Zhouzhuang : The vege tasted something like a cross between water cress and choy-sum; the prawns small but sweet; the omelette was fried with local white bait; and dish in the middle is steam Ba-yu (巴鱼) which translates to Palm Fish as the fish is the size of the palm, only available in Zhouzhuang♥ ♥live Ba-Yu, a fish which is not fully evolved from a reptile, so they have lungs. Emperor used to eat only the lungs as a delicacy (LB, any for you?)♥ ♥Famous pork knuckles (for sale everywhere around Zhouzhuang, all claimed to be ‘original’)

Zhouzhuang is made famous internationally by a famous Chinese painter Chen Yi Fei; old bridges, waterways, boats, willow trees lining the walk way. No cars are allowed in the town. However, recent years, the place has become very commercialised with everybody trying to push their wares to tourists visiting the town.

Cobbled street, water ways, boats, bridges are all famous sights in Zhouzhuang

That day excursion was good, not too taxing for Daddy, and we were able to take naps on the bus journey (~1.5hrs to fro).

When we arrived Shanghai, we rushed to the Wang Bao He Restaurant (王宝和酒家). I have a few team members who are located in Shanghai, and my boss suggested we meet and have a team dinner. Since it’s hairy crab season, we went to the most famous crab restaurant in Shanghai, and had the ‘crab banquet’. There were like 12 or more dishes all prepared with something from the crab or to compliment the crab. And the final dish was a hairy crab each. It was a very expensive dinner, costing RMB550 per head. Fuyoh!

These were some of the dishes I managed to capture. The rest ended in the stomach

It was a good meeting with the team members, all of whom I’ve met for the first time.

As for the Hairy crabs, I still find Malaysia’s crab the best! I’m not so much of a crab roe/egg person I guess.

♥Oct 30th (Tues)♥
After all the late night ‘fights’ and ‘quarrels’ Daddy had with Krissflyer, finally we got our flights confirmed.
This time, only Daddy and I were flying, our very first trip away without the kids after Zara was born.

♥Oct 30th (Tues) ~ Nov 1st (Thurs)♥
With China colleagues’ as well as some other friend’s help, managed to find and book suitable accomodations for our trip.
Prepping Zara for our trip, telling her China is cold, not suitable for kids, I’m going for work together with Daddy so can’t take care of her etc etc. She got quite upset, but I guess what can she do to stop us from going?

♥Nov 2nd (Fri)♥
Daddy picked up MIL from her place. She’s been enlisted to help keep an eye on the maids while we’re away.

♥Nov 3rd (Sat)♥
Said good bye to the girls early morning and left for the airport. Zara’s eyes was a bit wet when I hugged her.

A long 5hrs transit in Changi, luckily, there is so much to do there.

Reached Shanghai at 10pm. By the time we got our luggage and checked into our hotel motel, it was already close to mid night.

Since kids are not with us, we chose cheap but clean accomodation, we stayed in Motel 168 Jingling Road (莫泰168金陵路). Everything is within walking distant, even the famous Nanjing shopping street (南京路步行街). For RMB358, we got a room with a computer. Ha! Room is clean and small, but it stank of cigerrette smoke (from other rooms)!
When I called the Motel and to reserve a non-smoking room before the trip, I was told, “All our rooms are non-smoking.” Non-smoking my a***! But for this amount we paid for, I can’t expect Datai’s service, can I?

♥Nov 4th (Sun)♥
Arranged to change to a room without a computer which cost RMB40 less.
After breakfast in the motel, with a map and my guidebook on hand, we started our journey.

The first few sights I took in after stepping out of the Motel

Our destination was Yu Yuan (豫园­). Gosh, there were so many people there!! It’s packed! It’s a shopping area for tourists and out-of-town folks, and the prices were of course tourists’ price.

Around Yu Yuan Shopping Street (豫园):
♥Big red lanterns everywhere♥♥Multilevel Jeweler (do they have really so many different jewelry to sell?)♥
♥Famous Xiaolongbao Shop Nanxiang (南翔) : a 200m queue has formed for take away while we were there♥ ♥genuine juicy pao (so juicy you are given a straw to suck the juice)♥ ♥a man having his juicy pao♥
♥NingPo Rice Ball Shop, wasn’t able to squeeze pass people to enter the shop, don’t know what they were selling♥ ♥Having a black glutinous corn (which was rather coarse and tasteless)♥ ♥Good and Cheap Lunch at Xishi Beancurd Shop (西施豆腐)♥

Note : We are non-pork eaters, so we didn’t try the Nanxiang Xiaoloongbao or the street side juicy pao. 🙁

We visited the Yu Yuan Garden which is a 400yrs old clasical garden. I love the willow trees and the tranquility (just outside the wall, the crowds in the shopping street can be heard).

Yu Yuan Garden (豫园) :

After that it was back to the Motel for a nap, and at 5:30pm (which got dark totally), we went to The Bund (外滩) for a walk. It was nice, and although extremely crowded, the breeze we got and the view made up for it.

Dinner was the famous ShaoXin Chicken (绍兴白切鸡). It’s just basic steam chicken but the sauce was just so delicious. Daddy didn’t like it, so I was the one who finished the plate of chicken with a bowl of porridge.

We almost stopped a cab to get us back to the Motel, but spotted our Motel just a few steps away!! Haha.

Daddy was so knackered he almost wanted to go on strike and stay in the Motel the following day.

Yes, we went to Penang! Most people got it right. 🙂 Why so soon after the previous? We had to do it before the girls’ birthdays, and I didn’t want to wait till school holiday starts.

We make a trip to Penang yearly before Zara’s birthday. In 2003, I was really worried about history repeating itself when I was pregnant with Zara; my dad suggested that we asked for St Anne’s blessing and protection, and since 2003, we’d been going to St Anne to give thanks yearly.

First stop was of course St Anne. It’s really a nice and tranquil church. Zara had so much fun splashing water from the water tap (St Anne’s water) and fountain, and running around.

We had the bestest dinner in Bukit Tambun. Daddy wasn’t convinced when I showed him Michelle’s post. After much persuation (another Penang colleague also highly recommended this place), he drove us there after our visit to St Anne. For RM70+, we had baked crabs (just seasoned with salt, but so delicious, fragrant or ‘hiong’), fried ‘red lion’ fish, poached ‘spikey clams’, honey baby octupus and a vege. Seriously, that was the best crabs we’d eaten in our lives!

We brought along Tuyam this round. Booked a big family room (1 super King + 2 single beds) in Bayview Beach Resort. A hotel with worn out furniture, and stained toilet! I didn’t dare to have Zaria crawled on the carpet; and when I bathed her, I let her sit on my lap instead of the tub. Blech! We chose this hotel for the price, the pool, and the big L shaped room; another reason was for the beach where Zara could do horse riding. Zara even remembered the name of the horse she rode on last year(Ima), and asked to ride on the same horse.

My girls just love horses!

Everyday, we spent 1st part of the day in the hotel, have long breakfast, let the girls do a bit of horse riding and swimming; and then it was off finding a good place for lunch (we arrrived town at 2pm daily, good food was all sold out!! Hmmph!), and exploring Penang.

Zara befriended an older Australian girl in the hotel, and spent quite a while chatting to the girl. I wonder if they understood each other. Zaria happy to be eating fruits from the breakfast buffet and playing with things on the table

We went to Cheong Fatt Tze Mansion on the 2nd day, but too bad we missed the 2nd tour by 1 hour, so we couldn’t visit the mansion but could only see from the outside. Then it was off to Penang Botanic Gardens.

Zaria dozing at Cheong Fatt Tze; Girls love the monkeys, the stream, the trees and the stroll in the Botanic Gardens

On the 3rd day, we were off to Penang Hill. It was raining cats and dogs once we boarded the tram. Dang! They allowed too many passangers in, so it was very crammed, and most people had to stand. 2 nice local young men gave up their seats to the girls. Half an hour later, we were up the hill, but since it was pouring, we couldn’t walk about and just waited for the next tram down. What a waste of time.

We met 3 Arab men who were really male chauvinists. They pushed passed us to get into the tram first, sat on the seat, and even though I was carrying Zaria who was sleeping in my arms, they didn’t offer me their seat. What more, 1 of them suddenly grabbed Zara, and placed her seated next to him with his arms around her. Zara was in shock, and Daddy quickly picked Zara up and carried her in his arms for almost the whole 30mins journey down.

A glimpse of us in Penang Hill; the girls waiting for the next tram down.

Dining in Penag was really good. We were in Pang Hainanese Seafood Restaurant, along Tanjung Bunga, on the 2nd night. The food was cheaper and better quality than KL restaurants. 3rd night, with DR‘s map, we managed to find the relocated Nonya Breeze and had a good dinner there. This place never dissapointed us, 3 years in a row in Penang, they served us the best nonya food which is value for money. But the best is still the crabs in Bukit Tambun! *drool*

Yes, another holiday, so soon after the other. That’s because we want to do this before the school holidays where every where will be crowded and hotels will be charging more.

We were in the land of good food and a place rich in culture for the last few days. Guess where we went?

Pst! I may start posting paid post here and there, so please bear with me, ok?