Xmas Lunch at Hardwicke House

Had a mini Xmas lunch gathering at Hardwicke House. I actually never went out with my former high school friends on Christmas before, so this was the first time ever we went out during Christmas after more than 10 years knowing each other -.-''

We decided to try Hardwicke House as none of us tried it before and opted for the lunch buffet as it was cheaper, haha.

Well, here some photos for viewing pleasure xD

Greeted by a statue of 2 white dolphins in the middle of the table, upon entering the entrance.

Our table was next to the wine shelves. Lots of wine selection offered here. You can order wine ala carte, it's not included in the lunch buffet nor in the dinner buffet.

Our choices of 3 differents drinks. Drinks are free flow, hot coffee and tea were served as well.

Ai Ling's first round of food.

Irene's first round of food.

Ai Ling and Irene's collections of desserts. I am not really a fan of desserts, so I didn't help myself to any. I only like taking pictures of them =P

My first round of of food xD

Ai Ling only managed to scrap this much ice cream. By the time most of the guests leave, the ice cream was almost gone as well -.-

I decided to have the coffee just to snap the words in the cup with some coffee in it, haha. Coffee was not bad, we get to choose between white or brown sugar and fresh milk is provided.

I didn't really get to take much photos on the food sections. Too many guests around and I don't really want to queue in between hungry guests just to take photos of the food. So I only managed to snap a photo of the dessert (part of them) when there were not much guests left.

The decorations hanging on the ceiling. I like the snowflakes =D

The food was only mediocre in my opinion. Not much selection on the main dish, but I guess it was because we were on the lunch session. I heard there are more food available on the night buffet, and bbq and grill food are also only available at night.

For those interested to try, maybe can try out the night buffet. Lunch buffet is at RM18++ (12pm - 2.30pm), dinner bbq buffet is at RM38++ (6pm - 10pm). They don't serve hi-tea, overheard a guest asking one of the worker, haha. Well, adress below in the photo for those interested. It's actually very easy to find as it's just inside Northern Tower.

Langkawi Trip - Part 2

Finally got my last few photos for my part 2 post from Eileen. Anyway, journey continue....

Our next destination was Pulau Singa Kechil, a place for eagle feeding. We were told that chicken skin would be provided for us to feed the eagles but nothing was provided. We were only there for like 10 - 15 mins, with lots of giant flying eagles above our boat. Can't really get a very good shot of the eagles, below are some of the better ones taken by Adrena.

Our last destination of the island hopping tour, Pulau Dayang Bunting which house the famous Tasik Dayang Bunting. Legend has it that you can get pregnant by drinking the water from the lake if you are having difficulty trying to be (for girls only, obviously)

The island itself, shaped of a pregnant maiden laying down.

Trying to take this photo with the island in the background. Kinda hard as the boat kept moving =\

Finally reached the island. Another bridge.

The pregnant maiden, taken from the lake. It was a very long climb up to the lake, very tired once we reach the lake, ughh. Either I am getting old or just lack of stamina -.-''

There is actually a spot where you can dip your feet in the lake and let the giant catfish nibble them. I didn't dip my feet though, the sight of the catfish scared me. It was HUGE!! Was afraid it would do more than just nibble =x

The solar boats, available for rent.

In our rented solar boat, hehe. We didn't plan to rent initially, but the people in charge there kept persuading us and decreasing the actual rate. I guess business not that good recently for them. In the end they rented us the solar boat for less than half the actual rate =P I know they are just trying to make a living, but hey, I was on a strict budget too.

Off we went, and very slow to be exact. The solar boat moved very slow despite we set it to maximum speed.

We only got 1 hour on the island, so after our time was up on the boat, we need to hurried down to the small pier. Luckily for us, going back to the pier was a lot easier than coming up the lake.

Our boat, waiting for us among other boats.

We reached at the beach which we departed earlier around 5pm++ I wanted to catch the sunset, and our tour guide told us we can view direct sunset from Pantai Tengah. We went back to Pantai Tengah, the beach was a lot more crowded now. We went to a malay stall near the beach to have a drink and a quick bite. And guess what they serve...

Laksa!!~~ Ok, I know the it doesn't look that tempting but it actually tasted better than it looks. The laksa noodle were not like those in Penang which is springy, theirs are more like the thick pan mee, except they are rolled up and it was not springy. But the soup is not bad, despite no 'heh gor' was provided. How to call 'heh gor' in english anyway? -.-

Enjoying our Lankawi Laksa~~ lalalala~~ blek...

My empty bowl of laksa. Proved it was actually not bad =P

We went back to the beach after we finished our laksa. It was still too early for sunset so we look around for any other activities we can do. We settled for the banana boat as it was the cheapest among all other activities, haha. Budget ma =x We need to wait for our turn so we just hang out at the beach. My cousin's digital camera was in low batt mode, so I didn't snap a lot of photos there as I was trying to save it for the sunset later.

Finally, it was our turn on the banana boat. Was almost sunset then, judging from the sky. I was afraid I would miss it.

On the banana boat, getting ready.

The ride only took 15 mins but it was quite a rush. I never been on one before, so that was actually my first time xD It was fun, and less dangerous than I thought it was, haha.

When we got back to the beach, it was already sunset. I immediately get the digital cam and snapped some photos. I only managed to get a few shots though, as the battery run flat on me after that. And only 1 shot turned out ok, as the rest of the photos couldn't catch the details of the sun. Wish I had a better camera, it might have done more justice on the sunset.

We went back to our hotel after that. Our hotel is very closed to Pantai Tengah, so it was only less than 5 mins drove back. We cleaned ourselves up and get ready to head out for dinner. That was when we noticed something. We found that our luggage and stuffs we bought had been opened without our knowledge =\ We quickly checked through our stuffs and luckily nothing was missing. I didn't complain though, as I don't want to get into another argument and we don't have any proof that someone opened our stuffs. As long as nothing is missing, it's best not to cause a scene. But for sure, I am going to boycott that hotel forever, zzz...

All of us were already starving when we reached Boat Restaurant. We didn't go to any seafood restaurant, though they said it is a must to have seafood when in Langkawi. Nonetheless, we enjoyed our meal. No photos though as the digital cam was in our room regenerating itself and we were too hungry to remember to snap any, lolz.

Went back to the hotel after our dinner. Were too tired to go anywhere else. We slept quite early too. Eileen was the first to dozed off. She just jumped on the bed, less than 5 mins zzzZZZZ.... she was in Lalaland. The rest of us slept around 11pm++, we wanted to get up early the next morning to cover up more places to visit.

Will continue day 2 of our trip in the next post so stay tune xD End this post with the sunset at Pantai Tengah...

Langkawi Trip - Part 1

Went on a two days trip to Langkawi on the 10th November. Just wanted to relax myself somewhere not in Penang and it's been quite a while since I last went traveling. I was on a strict budget so my options are limited. So Eileen and I finally decided on Langkawi as both of us never been there and the travel costs would be cheaper than other places.

Initially, it was only the both of us but the night before we depart, 3 people decided to join us on the trip. Eileen's colleague and two of our cousins (Adrena & Audrea) decided to join us on the very last minute, lolz. That was a good thing as it helps to save more costs on the trip xD

All of them came over to overnight at my place as we departed very early in the morning, around 5am. Relying solely on the Garmin GPS which I installed in my cousin's mobile phone, we drove to Kuala Perlis Jetty to take our ferry to Langkawi. It's cheaper to take the ferry from there and less time consuming on the sea. We reached Kuala Perlis Jetty around 7.30am, parked my car and headed straight to purchase our tickets.

Managed to get hold of the 8am tickets and off we go to Langkawi. I was tired from all the driving to Kuala Perlis that I dozed off throughout the whole journey to Langkawi. Though the journey only took around an hour and we were in LANGKAWI!! blek

At Kuah Jetty, after we got off from the ferry.

Once we got out from the jetty area, we were mobbed by people asking if we wanted to rent a car. Too much booths, so many options but not much time to think. Those people kept persuading us to rent their cars. We did a VERY BIG mistake when renting the car. We should have aggressively requested to look at the car first before we actually pay them. I requested a few times but they just pointed out towards the car park which I thought was where they park all their cars.

We paid them first, and when they passed us our rented car, it was almost like a piece of junk -.-'' Two of the doors cannot be opened from inside, one of the lock is broken in half, the bonnet is damn dirty and there were big red ants crawling out from the air con if I turned it off!! What the....?!? Not worth the RM100 which we paid to rent the car (supposed to be cheaper but my cousin was too careless and conned to pay RM100 for it, zzz) I actually didn't stress on requesting to see the car because I didn't expect it to be such a wreak, ughh. Anyway, lesson learnt, no more such mistake next time.

Clearly dissapointed, we got in the car anyway and drove straight to search for our hotel. Following the GPS we reached our hotel without getting lost. We stayed at Aseania Resort and I would NOT recommend this hotel to anyone. I had a small argument with the receptionist there about getting our room which was kinda frustrating but that was not the main issue. I'll get to the main issue later on.

We were all starving by the time we reached our hotel. We had a quick lunch of nasi campur at a malay stall just opposite Underwater World. We didn't went to Underwater World but instead we went to the duty free shop just beside it to shop for chocolates. After we are done with our choco shopping, we headed back to our hotel to put our stuffs and changed to get ready for our mini island hopping tour.

At 2pm we were at Pantai Tengah waiting for our so called tour guide. We followed the van to another beach and waited while he went to fetch more tourists. Our mini island tour consisted of visiting 3 islands and the tours took roughly around 3 hours and a half. Took some photos while waiting for our tour guide to come back. Here are some which I shared, going to upload most of them into facebook soon after I finish with the Langkawi post =P

Don't know the name of this beach but this is our departure location for the island hopping tour. It was kinda dirty compare to Pantai Tengah, lots of rubbish can be seen on the sand.

I like the rocks at the side. Kinda nice with all the 3 different colors, haha.

Eileen promoting the beach, haha. Actually she was trying to make it look like she was holding the boat, but failed in vain =x

We asked a Japanese uncle to help us snapped this photos. He took 2 photos of us and both photos have his signature in them - his finger covering part of the photos. His finger accidentally covered part of the lens when he snapped it. The photo above is the best between both photos.

On the speedboat with our life jackets on, on our way to our first destination xD

Our first destination - Pulau Beras Basah. Not sure why it's called that though. Nothing much to do here, except taking photos and feeding the fishes. The island has the softest sand on the beach I been to so far. The sand is so soft and white that it felt just like powder touching it. Very clear water and lots of fishes swimming around. Won't be able to see this kind of beach in Penang, got to hang it over to civilization to destroy beauty of nature.

Took some wacky photos on the bridge. All those poses were not my ideas. I only took the posing 'advice' from my cousins and tried my best to pose them, haha.

Done taking photos on the bridge, it was time to take from the side of the bridge.

And not to forget, underneath the bridge =D

READY! GET SET! .....

JUMP!!~~

JUMP AGAIN!!~~

Tired from all the jumping, I decided to just stick to photo shooting, blek.

Our shadows reflected from the clear green water. Nice~

Adrena asked me to sit at the corner and act like some lonely depress person trying to jump into the sea. I think I looked lonely and depressed but not suicidal. Doesn't look like I may jump into the water anytime soon, hehe.

Pulau Beras Basah, nice place if you just want to relax on the beach. Far away from civilization, laying lazily on the soft sand, listening to the gentle sound of the wave hitting the beach, it's paradise, haha.

Well, I guess I end my post for part 1 here. Stay tuned for part 2 =D