Thursday, March 31, 2011

Weekend Splash @ Wa Wa Splash Tour, The Mines Cruise

last weekend, me & my wife went to The Mines to spend the weekend...the main reason was because we had to 2 free vouchers from the Palace Vacation Club to be spent on The Mines Boat Cruise and its all other types of cruise...we went for the Wa wa Splash Tour as its package had the most components, Wa wa Splash Tour+Dine at All Time Favourite Kopitiam+Animal Safari admission and the fact that the voucher's value was the highest :P ....we reached the Mines Shopping Fair at around 11~11.30 am...went straight to the Mines Cruise Counter to redeem the ticket...the Wa wa Splash Tour will start at 1.30pm so went to had our brunch first since we haven't took our breakfast...ate at a Vietnamese restaurant there and the food there was not bad and the price were quite reasonable...the name of the restaurant was Pho Hoa i think....after our brunch we then head up to IT Challenger to look around and do some window shopping of IT gadgets...my wife bought a couple of items and then it was then 1.20 pm...so headed down to the Mines Cruise Counter to wait for the guide to bring us for the Wa wa Splash Tour...




the guide brought us out of the Mines Shopping Fair to where the bus was waiting for us...it looked like a bus but there is more than meets the eye...that same bus can even move at the water!....some may call it an amphibious vehicle and it is actually an amphibious vehicle....it can move on land and on water...wow~....i think that was the 1st in Malaysia and i dun think we can find it anywhere in Malaysia other than at the Mines Cruise...here's the highlight of the tour from their website...

" The first Amphibious tour (Duck Tour) in Malaysia, offering Malaysians and foreign tourists a chance to tour Mines Resort City on land and on water. One of the newest attractions in the country that encourages domestic tourism and the arrival of foreign tourists. "

pretty cool and that was the 1st time me & my wife ever rode on an amphibious vehicle...was quite interesting...according to the tour guide, the vehicle has 2 gearbox...one for land movement and one meant for the movement during in the water...the moment the vehicle is in the water, it had to stopped for a while to shift to the water mode and vice versa when on land...the cruise departed from the Mines Shopping Fair and splashed its way to the lake next to the Mines Shopping Fair where the lake was also surrounded by the Mines Wellness Hotel, Mines Waterfront Business Park and also Sapura's office...the view was quite beautiful for a lake in the middle of the city...there was even water sport there...one would never expect to see these kind of things in the middle of the city...quite a brilliant idea by the Mines actually...






the amphibious boat took us round the lake while the tour guide gave a brief explanation of the surrounding buildings and the lake itself...the lake was actually a left over of a tin ore mining site...probably they got the name of the place as 'Mines' caused it was previously a mining site....hmmm, could be...hehehe...and also the depth of the lake was 200 meters deep!....wow~...it's that deep...no wonder according to the tour guide, most Malaysians dare not play the water sports there coz the lake was super deep...most of the regular water sports customers were foreigners according to the tour guide....and probably due the depth of the lake, there was also a small cruise ship owned by the Mines for the purpose of renting it out to those who wants to have functions on the ship....they called it as DME, Dining Meeting & Entertainment on water, also known as the Malaysia’s Most Premier Dining Boat...the cruise ship can accomodate 100 pax for a particular function....having a birthday party on a cruise ship at the middle of a lake, how cool is that....hehehehe...








after almost 30 minutes, the amphibious boat then made it's way back to land and dropped us back at the Mines Shopping Fair...went back in to the Mines Shopping Fair to have some dessert at the Sweet Chat cafe...ordered our favorite Durian pancake and a glass of drink...we shared since we were still full at that time...after that, went to do some household shopping and made our move to head back home...

btw, we did not used up the voucher to dine at the All Times Kopitiam since the kopitiam is outside of the Mines Shopping Fair, not inside...so was kinda lazy...and also for the Animal Safari, we skipped that due to laziness and the weather was hot that time... :P




i would recommend to have a try at the Mines Cruise Wa Wa Splash Tour...u can find more details on their website http://www.minescruise.com/wawa_splash/

till next time...cheers~...

Friday, March 25, 2011

entering adulthood ep. 5

last 2 week, me & my wife went to Penang to attend one of my coursemate, Nurul Iman's wedding...the wedding was on sunday but we went to Penang the day before to do some sight seeing and look up some dvds at Batu Ferringhi...it was a 2 week school holiday so expecting a little bit of a heavy traffic...but luckily the traffic wasn't that bad...pushed off at about 9 am...the journey from our home and exactly to the hotel where we stayed was about 5 hours plus...instead of taking the ferry to the island, we used the bridge instead as i was a bit lazy to go to the ferry terminal and to wait for the ferry...

the hotel that we stayed at Penang island was Naza Talyya Hotel at Tanjung Bungah, Penang...we booked the hotel thru booking.com...total nett rate was RM121 including tax...but there was no breakfast included...didn't really need the breakfast as the next day we are attending the wedding...so can eat all we can at the wedding reception :P ....the hotel wasn't really bad at all for that price...the room was quite spacious and our room had the seaview....just perfect!....after checking into our room, we relaxed for a while and then went out to have lunch as we were already really starved...we went to Gurney Mall as it was the nearest that has a wide variety of food choice....had lunch at The Chicken Rice shop and after that walked around Gurney Mall...even though previously i was at Penang Matriculation College, that was the 1st time i set foot inside Gurney Mall....hehehe...








after about almost 2 hours at Gurney Mall, we then decided to head straight to Batu Ferringhi instead of going back first to the hotel...journey there took about 20 to 30 minutes...it was raining so couldn't drive fast...reached there and it was still raining...so we made a quick shopping of DVDs and my wife's brouch and straight went back to the hotel....reached the hotel, took our bath, watched tv and call it off for the day...

the next day morning, got up a little bit late...checked out from the hotel at 12 pm at straight headed to Bukit Mertajam....seriously, i did not know the way to go there and was not confident with the map given....luckily i have my thrustworthy & reliable Garmin Asus Nuvifone...the journey was a breeze...in around 1 hour, we were there at the wedding reception and we joined the rest of our friends there...

after 2 hours spent on photograph session, eating and chit chatting, we then left Penang to head back to KL...









congratz iman on your wedding~...



Travelling Tips

hola2...juz to share some useful travelling tips here...fyi, both my HK & Phuket trip were organized by us alone...juz ourselves without involving any travel agency...not to brag here but to share what we've done to plan our trip so that we can save up some of those cash for other purpose eg. shopping, instead of spending onto travel agency...some might think that it is hard to travel by themselves without guide from travel agency or tour guide and yes that's true but with proper planning and information gathering, it will be an easy task...so to those who plan to travel by themselves without the aid from travel agency or tour guide, u can rest assure that u can do it all by yourselves given that u've done the proper planning & information gathering....besides, you can have the luxury of your own sweet time if u travel by yourselves without needing to rush with the travel or tour agency schedule...here are some of the tips i would like to share...

1) Flight

Before deciding to purchase the flight tiket, do a proper survey that gives u the best offer...no doubt that most of the time, Air Asia provides the best deal compared to other airline company but there are times when MAS deals are more tempting than Air Asia....the point is, no harm surveying all available airlines...

2) Accommodation

hey...it's the IT era...almost everything can be done online including booking of hotels or resorts...for us, we usually prefer www.agoda.com or www.booking.com...but there is also www.asiarooms.com...however, so far the best deals & rates are from agoda.com...our accomodation at Macau & HK were both done via agoda.com...select your destination, pax & nights and proceed with the payment using a credit card...once payment done, a confirmation slip will be emailed to u and all u need to do is print the slip and present it at the hotel when checking in...it's that easy...but one thing about agoda.com is that if suddenly u need to cancel the trip, there will be no refund...that's one disadvatage to that...however, if u booked via booking.com, if something turns up and u r not able to go for your trip, u can cancel your hotel booking...this is because the payment of the accomodation will be done when u check-in at the hotel on your check-in date...but, during making booking at booking.com, u will still need to fill in your credit card details as it is a guarantee that let's say u did not cancel and did not turn up during your hotel stay, they will charge it to your credit card...so, that's the advantage of booking.com over agoda.com but the rates of booking.com is a little bit higher than agoda.com...u can try it out for yourselves...also, before making the booking or reservation, it's highly recommended for u to check the rating & actual condition of the hotel or resort that u r going to stay...this can be done via www.tripadvisor.com...go to the website, key in the name of the hotel and u can see other people's ratings and comments about that particular hotel...this is very useful as we can predict how the actual condition of the hotel is as the pictures of the hotel are taken and uploaded by people who have stayed there...the fact is that, u can 100% trust on the pictures of the hotel at that particular hotel's website...sometimes they aren't as they look in the website when u get there...but u can rely on tripadvisor.com as the information there are from those who have stayed at that hotel...








3) Food

if u aren't a Muslim, then u can skip this part :P...but for us Muslims, it's no easy task to look for Halal food at a foreign country...to share what we've done, before going to HK & Macau, we Googled Halal food in HK & Macau and print out the list of the Halal foods that are available there...and we also surveyed the way to go the Halal food places...this is important so that u won't be totally lost there to find the Halal foods...also saves up a lot of time searching & wandering endlessly....




4) Things to do

nowadays, there are many travel bloggers...so, u all can always refer to these blogger's blog...it's very useful as u have a rough idea where to go & what to do once u r at your trip destination...u won't be totally lost in the dark...when travelling, time is precious (unless u have all the time u want)...u can't afford to waste time when u r there...it will be time consuming if u only started planning where to go & what to do when u r there...so, plan where to go & what to do wisely...u can save lots of time there...

5) Own Itinerary

speaking of planning, it is advisable & i strongly encourage that u do your own itinerary....we've done that for our recent trip and we managed to go to all of the places that we planned to go...moreover, we even managed to go to other places which are not in our itinerary due to the spare time that got, all because of proper planning & drafting out our own itinerary...plus, we got to have our own leisure of time at each places due to proper planning and not tied up to travel/tour agency...it's very useful to have your own itinerary draft out as it will help us keep track on our trip activities...we will know how much time we can spend on one place and we will know where to head after that...but, if u have drafted out your itinerary, please do stick to it...otherwise your activities will be messed up unless u know & sure the change of plans will not affect your trip planning...

6) Budget

this is the most important thing that we should pay attention to (unless budget is non of your concern :P)...u need to decide how much cash u r going to bring...how much money u would want to use for food, how much money for transportation, how much money for park/entertainment admission...the best would be to Google the price or rate beofre going there as then u would know how much u will need to dump out for the entrance fee...also, always train yourselves to check the exchange rate...this is quite important as if u found a better rate, u will have that extra cash compared to a rate that is not favouring...i understand that sometimes we do spent over our budget...that's normal, but we need to bare in mind not to over spent too much....otherwise u will get a headache paying up those credit card bills :P

hopefully these tips will be of use to all of u going for a vacation especially to foreign countries...cheers~.... ;)

Thursday, March 24, 2011

honeymoon getaway : episode 2 part 5 (Back 2 KL)

woke up a bit early during the departuring day back to KL from HK....we went out to do some last minute window shopping of IT & electronic gadgets at Sham Shui Po....but it was raining and it limited our movement...also, most of the shops were still closed that time as it was still early...due to those reasons, we decided to go somewhere else...after doing some thinking and contributed by our starving, we decided to go for a 2nd round of dim sum at the Muslim Centre at Causeway Bay/Wan Chai...before that, we managed to bought some cleaning kit for our Nikon D3100...so the visit to Sham Shui Po wasn't really in vain :P....

took the MTR straight to Causeway Bay and straight to the Muslim Center...before we went out of the hotel, we checked out straight away so that we dun need to go back to our room...but we left our luggage at the hotel's concierge...so, when we arrived at the Muslim Centre, we straight away ordered a plate of yee mee and took a few plates of dim sum....the cuisine there was really delicious which explains why we went there for the 2nd time...hehehe...

after brunch, we then headed back to the hotel to collect our luggage and went straight to the airport...it wasn't an easy task carrying those 2 huge bag especially going down the flight of stairs to the Yau Ma Tei station...but luckily after that, all of the stations have elevators...phewww~...as we reached the airport, we walked around & hanged around there till our 5.30pm flight...however the flight was delayed and only after almost an hour, we managed to board our plan back to KL...








this trip was by far the best trip i had compared to the previous trips...the only down fall to it was our hotel room size at HK and the Ocean Park visit as we couldn't really explored it due to the weather...if u ask me, i'll definitely want to visit HK again...there are still many other places to visit & to explore...even the Disneyland we did not managed to go to each attractions...so Hong Kong, wait for us...till then, cheers~....

Monday, March 21, 2011

honeymoon getaway : episode 2 part 4 (Hong Kong Disneyland)

hola...i'm back...was quite bz lately...haven't got time to update here...anyway, would like to take this opportunity to convey my condolences to the people of Japan as the recent earthquake & tsunami had hit Fukushima and caused an aftermath of the nuclear leakage on the nuclear power reactor...this has been by far the worse nature disaster that ever hit a nation...however, my utmost respect & admiration to the citizen of Japan as they were very calm and unite as one to face this disaster...no crime happened nor did anyone took any advantage during this hardship...no one cause chaos...everyone helped each other and everyone was calm...kudos to the Japs....lets pray for their well being and pray so that they could overcome this disaster....

now, back to my post....it's Disneyland time!....we went out of the hotel at about 9 am in the morning...it was monday february the 14th and it was valentine's day...so, expecting a little crowd there at disneyland...from the Yau Ma Tei station, we took the MTR to the Lai King station via the Tsuen Wan Line....then interchanged to the Tung Chung Line to head to Sunny Bay....at Sunny Bay we then interchanged to the Disneyland Resort Line to head to Disneyland....as we arrived, the crowd has started to built up....but the crowd wasn't massive as it was at the Ocean Park the day before...probably due to it's a Monday....it's really a good idea going to the Disneyland on a weekday....before purchasing the tickets, we took a few snaps first at the entrance area...the price ticket for an adult was HKD 350, around RM 140...as we went in, we could see Mickey's face made of flower arrangements....we then headed in to the Main Street USA....it was like a town in there...it was really nice & beautiful in there...it resembles a town with shops lined up...at there, we only managed to take a snap with Daisy Duck as the line up to snap with Mickey & Minnie was super long....after taking a snap with Daisy Duck, we then walk through the Main Street USA to go to the Tomorrowland....basically, there are 4 sections at the Hong Kong Disneyland...Main Street USA, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Fantasyland...






















as we arrived at Tomorrowland, we then queued up to take the Orbitron ride...we did not had to queued up long as the crowd wasn't that massive...it was kind of fun riding the Orbitron...after that, we headed to take the Space Mountain ride...it was a mini rollercoaster ride in the dark indoor space as it though it was a ride through the outer space....i think by far that was the most thrilling and crazy rollercoaster ride that i had...even the Genting Highlands rollercoaster was no match for the HK Disneyland Space Mountain ride....the rollercoaster was super fast that i couldn't even manage to scream....hahaha...after the ride, i had a headache...hahahaha...after the Space Mountain, we then headed to the Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters....this one was quite fun too...we ride on the so called like space mobile where it is actually just like a giant cup equiped with laser guns for two to shoot down the nemesis of Buzz Lightyear....it's just like a video game where we shoot the bad guys and at the end of the game, there will a score that shows how much we scored during the game....kind of fun and a good way to relax after the thrilling Space Mountain ride :P .....












after that, we walked around Tomorrowland a little and then started feeling hungry...asked one of the officials there as whether there is any Halal food in the Disneyland there....according to him, there's no Halal food but there is a vegetarian food place at the Adventureland...the officials were helpful and the info given was very informative too...kudos to them...so, headed to the Adventureland to have our brunch...as we arrived there, the only dining we could had was at the Tahitian Terrace and the both of us had Indian vegetarian meals....there was rice together with the meal so we had quite a full and proper meal....after meal, then went on to explore the Adventureland....then went to the Tarzan's Treehouse...didn't took the Jungle River Cruise as the queue was super long....wanted to watch the Festival of The Lion King but it wasn't the time yet...so head to the Fantasyland to walk around to waste some time before the Flight of Fantasy Parade starts....then at about 3.30 pm, the parade then starts...they came out from Tomorrowland and to the front entrance of Fantasyland and continued towards Main Street USA...almost all of the Disney characters were there...Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy & Goofy ofcourse...then there's Buzz Lightyear, Stitch and many other more...after 20 minutes, the parade then ended and we then headed back to Adventureland to catch the Festival of The Lion King...the Festival of The Lion King is actually a theater of the tale of Simba, the Lion King...it was a short theater of The Lion King actually...the show was about 20~30 minutes in length....










































after the Festival of The Lion King, we then went to explore Fantasyland....we first went to watch Mickey's Philharmagic...our timing was perfect as we arrived there, the doors to the theater was opened...it's actually a short 3D show of Donald Duck's journey to the magical fantasy land...the show wasn't just any ordinary 3D show like those at the movies....when there's a scene where Donald fells into the sea, we as the audience were also splashed by real life water!!!....but not that much of water which could soak you...just a few sprinkle of water...and when there's a gush of wind scene, we the actual audience felt it too...and when the bottle of sparkling water juice was opened in one of the scene, we the actual audience could even smell the aroma of the sparkling water juice too!!!....the 3D picture was so real that it felt Donald was right in front of us...it was a very interesting and fun experience that you can't feel else where other than Disneyland...i wonder how it would feel at other Disneyland....hehehe....










after that, went to The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh...we had to queue up and the queue at that time was very very long...we had to wait more than 30 minutes to get onto the ride to see the Winnie The Pooh Adventures...nothing much interesting there....should have went to watch The Golden Mickeys instead...a bit of regret there...and to make things worse, our camera battery went dead after The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh....argghhhh....crap!....so, the rest of the pics & videos were caught by my thrustworthy Garmin Asus Nuvifone phone....lucky my phone's battery was still full....




we then continued to the "it's a small world" boat ride...this ride was much more better and interesting to watch rather than The Many Adventures of Winnie The Pooh...lucky when we arrived there was no crowd at all and there was no queue at all....hahaha....it was some sort of boat ride, an enchanted journey around the world to enjoy the scenes of costumed dolls and Disney characters singing the classic tune, "it's a small world"...it was really nice & beautiful in there...the costumed dolls were very cute indeed...no choice but to use my phone's camera to shoot the video of the ride...luckily the camera wasn't that bad and the video & picture were quite okay...the ride was about 15 minutes....










after the ride, we then headed to the front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle to watch Tinker Bell Castle Illumination which starts at about 7.15 pm...it was actually an illumination light show with the background of the Sleeping Beauty Castle....it was very nice...much much more better than the laser light show at the Hong Kong arena of stars...hehehe...the illumination light show wasn't that long where it was only about 10 minutes....after that, we went to the shops to start doing our shopping for souveniers...didn't kept track how much we spent there but it was at least 400 ringgit Malaysia...picked up the things that we wanted to bought, made the payment and went to the store next door to grab a few other things...but there wasn't much time to make the payment as the queue was long and the much anticipated "Disney in the Stars" Fireworks was about to start...then at 8 pm sharp, an announcement was made announcing that the "Disney in the Stars" Fireworks was about to start...so everyone went out to the open space to get ready and witness it....after several minutes, the fireworks show then starts....i must say that it was the most beautiful firework show that i have ever seen so far...together with the background music of Disney's all time favorite songs, the show was just perfect...the show lasted for about 20 long minutes and was very very satisfied with the "Disney in the Stars" Fireworks show....




after that, went back to the shop to continue our souvenier shopping and then headed back straight to the hotel to call off for the day...there are still many things that we haven't watch, seen tried & explored in the HK Disneyland...so this will be a good excuse to come again in the future.... :P see u again next time Hong Kong Disneyland....