Friday, October 20, 2017

3 Days 2 Nights Melaka Oct. 2017 Trip (local Malaysian trip)

This is a planning trip proposed by me, and this trip is for anyone who wanted to have a relaxing trip, not rushing but just enough. Hope it would be a good reference to all. All the place names can be found in Google Map.

For the hotel stay, we will be going to stay at different hotel. So prepared to check-out on the second day. For the first night stayed, I planned to book a hotel which have breakfast included, so that we can stayed longer at hotel. On the second night, I planned to book a hotel nearby Jonker Street, so that we can stayed longer around that area.

Day 1 - Friday:

Is a weekday, in order to avoid traffic jams during the rush hour, late depart is necessary. Say, start depart on 10.00am from Klang Valley. Head towards Seremban for lunch.

10.00am --- 11.30am reach Seremban.

Seremban, target for Lou Shu Fun (老鼠粉), Two place to have
1) Pasar Besar Seremban's first floor food court, which i tried before.
2) Restaurant Yi Poh, new place i found in Google Map

11.30am --- 12.15pm finish lunch, hang around Seremban.

After lunch, place to visit is Lorong Seni, which is nearby Pasar Besar Seremban, walking distance 10 minutes. Lorong Seni has some wall paintings all the wall. Spend about 30mins here.

12.15pm --- 1.00pm (include travel time)

Lorong Seni, photos taken from Google Map

After Lorong Seni, we head ourself to Klebang for a chilling coconut shake. Driving duration is about 1 hour 30 minutes. 

1.00pm --- 2.30pm reach Klebang.

So happen that Klebang coconut shake will only open at 2.30pm on Friday. Due to it's fame, we may need to spend about an hour here.

2.30pm --- 3.30pm, for having coconut shake.

Klebang Coconut Shake, taken from Google Map

After Klebang coconut shake, we can head our self straight to hotel. But if we're hungry on the half way, we can stop by at Hing Loong Taiwanese Noodle.

a) 3.30pm --- 4.00pm if straight to hotel

b) 3.30pm --- 3.45pm to Hing Loong Taiwanese Noodle
    3.45pm --- 4.20pm feast
    4.20pm --- 4.35pm reach hotel

Hing Loong Taiwanese Noodle shop, taken from Google map

Once reach hotel, we'll have some quick rest.

Say, around 5.30pm we start moving to visit A'Famosa and St. Paul's Church, which about 15 minutes driving distance.

5.30pm --- 5.45pm reach and park nearby A'Famosa.

Spend around 45 minutes on visiting. At 6.30pm will go for dinner. Dinner will be going to Portuguese Settlement's Portuguese Square Restaurant. Driving duration is about 20 minutes.

6.30pm --- 6.50pm reach Portuguese Settlement.

Portuguese Square Restaurant, taken from Google Map

Suggest to spend about 1 hour and 15 minutes here. Since this place is near to sea, we can have a walk or sit a little longer by the sea.

At time 8.05pm there's 2 option.
a) to Jonker Walk
b) back to Hotel

Jonker Walk can be wait till next day.

Day 2 - Saturday

Sleep till enough, take breakfast at hotel. After breakfast continue rest in hotel.

Say about 10.00am we check out from hotel and start moving to Jonker Street.

It will take about 15 minutes to reach a car park nearby Jonker Street.

After parking, walk towards Jonker Street, which is about 10 minutes walk.

10.00am --- 10.20am parking --- 10.30am reach Jonker Street.

Places to visit in Jonker Street:
1) Mamee Jonker House --- worth visiting
2) Baboon House (cafe) --- Good for chilling, very nice environment
3) Calante Art Cafe --- Good for chilling, nice environment
4) Cheng Ho Cultural Museum
5) Baba and Nyonya Heritage Museum
6) Cheng Hoon Teng Temple --- Heritage Chinese Temple, well preserved

Mamee Jonker House, picture taken from Google Map
 
 Baboon House, picture taken from Google Map

 Calante Art Cafe, picture taken from Google Map

 Cheng Hoon Temple, picture taken from Google Map

But most important
6) getting lost in minor roads
7) bump into antique shops
8) taking pictures of heritage building

For lunch, we can try
1) Poh Piah Lwee --- Good popiah, dumplings & laksa
2) Restoran Anak Nyonya --- Nyonya food
3) Hard Rock Cafe --- Enjoy international cafe chain
4) The Daily Fix Cafe --- Good food
5) Calante Art Cafe --- Good laksa and some Malaysian food

Around 3.00pm, start moving to hotel and check-in. After check-in, we stay a while in the hotel to have a quick rest.

Say about 4.30pm, we go back to Jonker Street and start walking around the street. Since is weekend, there will be night market happening around Jonker Street. The night market will start at 6.00pm.

We can stay at Jonker till night.

Day 3 - Sunday

Make sure sleep is enough, or wake up early to go for a chicken rice ball breakfast then back to hotel continue rest.

For chicken rice ball breakfast, we plan to go to Chop Chung Wah

 Chop Chung Wah, picture taken from Google Map

After breakfast, or having rest enough, we will straight head back to hometown. The reason to go back early is to avoid traffic jams.



= The End =

Wednesday, May 10, 2017

Japan Kyoto & Osaka Trip 2017 Brief

My brief travel itinerary, for my year 2017 Japan's Kyoto & Osaka Trip. I will periodically post my detail travel blog later on.

Day 1:

Reach Kansai Airport

Take train to Kyoto Station

Check in CMM Kyoto Ekimae (Stay for 2 nights), apartment like accomodation

Walk to the nearest bus station, go Gojo-zaka

Walk to Kiyomizu-dera

Walk around Sannen-zaka and Ninnen-zaka

Back to CMM Kyoto Ekimae

Walk around Kyoto Station


Day 2:

Take train to Saga-Arashiyama Station

Buy ticket for romantic train ride and Hozu-gawa river boat ride at the building beside Saga-Arashiyama Station (buy ticket now, don't buy later)

Walk to Tenryu-ji

Walk to Sagano Road of Bamboo Forest (Famous - main travel place)

Walk to Torokko Arashiyama Station, sit romantic train ride

The ride ends on Kameoka Station, walk out from the station and head towards the bus station to Hozugawa river boat ride (the bus got state, in English).

Enjoy Hozugawa river boat ride for about 2 hour 30 minutes (whole ride won't be boring, because full of nice scenery) and ends nearby Togetsukyo Bridge

Walk around Arashiyama Park, next to Togetsukyo Bridge

Back CMM Kyoto Ekimae


Day 3:

Go to Kyoto Station to buy bus ticket to Miyazu at 4pm

Back to CMM Kyoto Ekimae to check-out, luggage puts at besides lift, they loan locker for us.

Go to Inari by train

Walk around Fushimi Inari Taisha

Back CMM Kyoto Ekimae, take luggage to bus station

Sits bus to Miyazu about 2 hour travel distance

Reach Miyazu

Walk to Seikiro Ryokan, check-in

Walk around to find dinner


Day 4:

Loan bicycle from ryokan & book bus seats for tomorrow to Osaka at 4.50pm, with the help from ryokan's stuff.

Start cycle to towards Amanoshitade

Breakfast nearby entrance of Amanoshitade

Go to a place to sit cable car to the hill top buy a combo ticket where you can go up 2 different hills, the another one is at the other side of Amonoshitade. Location of first hill shown at link below.

https://www.google.com.my/maps/place/%E5%A4%A9%E6%A9%8B%E7%AB%8B%E3%83%93%E3%83%A5%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A9%E3%83%B3%E3%83%89/@35.5560771,135.1842001,19.46z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x887258de2a32f66a!8m2!3d35.555946!4d135.183964?hl=en&hl=en

Sits cable car, go to hill top, enjoy best view of Amanoshitade, enjoy the mini park full of sakura.

Sit cable car, go down. Start cycle into Amanoshitade to crossover to other side.

Cycle towards the second hill, this time sit lift chair. Location of second hill shown at link below.

https://www.google.com.my/maps/place/%E5%A4%A9%E6%A9%8B%E7%AB%8B%E3%82%B1%E3%83%BC%E3%83%96%E3%83%AB%E3%82%AB%E3%83%BC/@35.5829663,135.1953816,19.21z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0xe6110da9e1cb2a2c!8m2!3d35.583235!4d135.1953439?hl=en&hl=en

Reach hill to, enjoy best view of Amanoshitade

Sit lift chair go downhill, start cycle back to ryokan

Book tomorrow breakfast at ryokan


Day 5:

After breakfast, packup and check out ryokan, luggage drops at lobby

Sits bus to Ine

Walk around the beautiful fishing village, Ine

Sit bus back to Miyazu, walk back to ryokan take luggage

walk to bus station, sit bus to Osaka, travel distance about 3 hours

Reach Osaka

Check in Fuku Hostel

Walk around Dotonbori

Back hostel


Day 6:

Breakfast at Kuromon Ichiba Market (walking distance)

Take train to Osaka Aquarium Kaiyukan

Take train to Osaka Castle (you can go castle 1st, then go to aquarium, cause castle closed at 5pm, while aquarium closed at 8pm)

Back to Dotonbori for dinner + walk around

Back hostel


Day 7:

Breakfast at Kuromon Ichiba Market, and buy some souvenirs

Take train to Expo City

Go Orbi Osaka

Back to Dotonbori for dinner + walk around

Back hostel


Day 8:

Check out, go to Kansai Airport, sayonara to Japan


Saturday, March 12, 2016

Macau 2016

In this blog, I would like to record down my 1 day 1 night travel to Macau. Although the duration I stayed is very short, I find it quite interesting and much better travel experience from the past (FYI, this is my second time to Macau, first time at year 2010.

Day 1 - 27 February 2016

I arrived to Macau at 10.30am in the morning. A friend of mine, which reach Macau 1 day earlier, came to greet us and bring us to the hotel he stayed. Without delaying our schedule, he checked out and we head on to have our early lunch.

For our lunch, we went to a simple restaurant named AA 咖啡室, they served local food with reasonable price.

Below are the photos we'd taken while walking & finding our place for our first meal.


We passed by Rio Casino Hotel


Front view of  AA 咖啡室


The location is in between Rio Casino Hotel & Waldo Hotel (where we stayed).


The 2016 Macau first food that I tried is thin wanton noodle with fish cake. Although the amount is small, but i did enjoyed their food.


After we had our lunch, we straight away check-in our hotel and prepared for our journey to Ruins of St. Paul, our main travel objective.

Believe it or not, somehow we walked our way from Waldo Hotel to Ruins of St. Paul. While we're walking, we enjoyed our city view of Macau, below are some photos we taken while we walked towards Ruins of St. Paul.

St. Francisco Barracks at Calçada dos Quartéis



大利来记 pork bun shop, we didn't try.


Cafe e Nata Margaret's, where the Portuguese Tart was invented (as informed by my friend). The first shop who sells and doesn't have branches. The queue was so long, and doesn't moved at all. It's too bad that we did not try, hopefully we can try it on our next trip.




You can simply google the location of the shop, below shows the maps of it's location


You can also tried another shop, which i've been told to be Original too (came out from this shop and open a 2nd shop), 安德魯餅店 at Coloane Village. (I didn't try it)


we continued our journey, and reached Senado Square, it's a place where you can shop, dine and visit.

A very iconic Haagen-Dazs ice-cream shop, where you can use it as a place to meet-up if you're lost & separated from your travel group.


The CNY decoration is still here.


Me & my friends taking we-fies


Front view of St. Dominic's Church, we are able to go in and have a visit




Later, we continued our journey, to Rue De S. Paulo (or Rua de São Paulo in Google map), streets full of shops & people.







Behind Ruins of St. Paul, there's a museum where you have have a little history of it (we didn't visit, kinda not into long story), & a Na Tcha Temple.


A walk lane behind the temple, a residential area.


After this, we head towards Monte Fort, which is just a walking distance from Ruins of St. Paul (Google map it), in order to reach Monte Fort, we had to walk ourself to the hill.



At the peak of the hill, there's Macau Museum. We didn't enter the museum, we walked around the museum to have a view of Macau.


After we have our rest at Monte Fort, we walked down and have some street food.

Imitation shark fin soup (碗仔翅)


Che Cai Mian (車仔麵)


Pork Bun


After we feast ourself, we walk back to our hotel and have some rest.

At 6.30pm, we start our first night activity by walking around the street that we had our lunch earlier, we noticed there are some Portuguese Restaurant nearby and plans to try some Macau Portuguese Food. We went to Wai Kei Restaurant. Inside is cozy, and the lazy boss are friendly. Their Portuguese Style cook somehow have curry spices adding with olive taste. This is the first time I'd tried. We are quite satisfied with the dishes. (location is nearby AA 咖啡室)



After our dinner, we went to Macau Tower by Taxi to have a view. I did not join my friends, going up to the tower, as I was afraid of discomfort of the building swaying due to wind (maybe?) So i just walked around outside and feel the cold wind.

Later on, we take a bus to Grand Lisboa and take some night lights photos.




Day 2 - 28 February 2016

We had our breakfast at AA 咖啡室. this time we ordered more things to try. They also have fried noodle and also chee cheong fun for breakfast.



After our breakfast, we straight back to our hotel and checked out, then we headed to The Venetian Macao, famous with their indoor decoration.





When the time passed 1.00pm, we start our journey to Hong Kong. From The Venetian Macao, there have some free shuttle bus to airport and ferry stations. We went to Taipa ferry station, brought ticket and wait for ferry to HK.

= End =

There're some places which I did not visit, which I think is good to have a visit, below are the list of places (you can google map it and have to look):

A-Ma Temple, the temple where Macau has it's name.


Macau Fisherman's Whaft, where they have some interesting buildings like coliseum, a great place to take photos.


Guia Lighthouse. Folks said this lighthouse has been construct on the highest hill in Macau.