Mulu Caves, Sarawak

Mulu Caves is located in Sarawak. We took air asia flight to Miri and then only fly to Mulu. We stayed at Royal Mulu Resort, that is the only chalet available. The resort was ok. Refer to the picture.

Introduction of Mulu :-

Gunung Mulu National Park is one of Nature's most spectacular achievements and the 'jewel in the crown' of Sarawak's expanding network of national parks. It is also the largest national park, covering 52,865 hectares of primary rainforest, which is criss-crossed by fast flowing rivers and clear jungle streams.

A plankwalk leads through the forest to Deer and Lang's Cave whilst Clearwater Cave and Wind Cave are reached by taking a longboat up the Melinau River, or by following a 4 km nature trail.

Deer Cave

Our Itinery :-

Once we reach mulu, we visited the deer and lang caves and then stay for bats' watching. You can see millions of bats will fly out of the caverns, a very spectacular sight. A MUST SEE when you go mulu. Look at the picture below, the bats is like a bee line.

We had our dinner at Royal Mulu Restaurant and the meal cost us RM30 per person. If you want cheaper meal you can walk across the bridge which you can get a decent fried noodle or fried rice at RM4. The price difference is the water that they used. You dunno whether they are cooking using the river water. Therefore most of my meals I ate in the Royal Mulu Restaurant as I got sensitive stomach and there is cultural performance at the restaurant.

We play games since there is nothing much to do. Each one will take a playing card and put the card on their forehead, whoever get the lowest points got to finish all the food e.g. peanuts and chips...ha!ha!

We woke up at 6am the next morning as we need to take boat to Clearwater and Wind Cave. On our way, we stopped at the souvenir shops. You really need to climb alot of staircase and alot of walking to do. Believe me, is worth the effort.

The Canopy Skywalk, the world's longest tree-based structure, in Mulu National Park allow visitors a glimpse of life in the treetops of the rainforest. 480 meters of walkway hang 20 meters above the forest floor, forming a circular route suspended between 15 trees with a separate exit tower. To keep human incursions at a sustainable level, visitor numbers to the Canopy Skywalk are carefully monitored. Therefore not everyone of us able to go. I'm lucky that we able to go for it. I always scared of height but I manage to complete the entire canopy walk. It was my greatest achievement..ha!ha!

 Our tour ended after 3 days. Guess what happen, our flight from MIRI to KL has been delay. We suppose to leave in the afternoon and delay for few hours. Therefore all of us slept in the airport cos we are exhausted. When we enter the boarding room, Air Asia staff distributing a snack box to us and we thot is KFC or Sandwiches....unfortunately is mineral water, chocolates and sweets...ha!ha!

My new hobby

I love to collect the miniature food item e.g. pastry, sushi, vegetables and etc when i first saw it in HK few years ago. Only recently has the time to collect. This miniature set I got it from Hong Kong recently. All of this is made in Japan. Everything look so real. I must said the art work is fabulous.

My miniature in my cabinet. This cabinet is full of my cow collection....

My cabinet is so fulled with cow items...who wants to volunteer to help me rearrange my cabinet...ha..ha..

MERRY XMAS & HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Wishing all of you a MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
LETS WELCOME 2009....YEAR OF THE OX...
MORE HAPPINESS, MORE MONEY AND MORE LUCKY STAR SURROUNDING US....

KUCHING, SARAWAK

We bought air asia tickets to Kuching during air asia 0 fares. Took 3 days 2 nites, stay at Hilton Hotel. The hotel is quite run down even though is 5 star hotel. We were dissapointed. Even the breakfast that they serve was cold. How can a five star hotel serve cold dish, where is their quality control? Cold porridge, cold noodles and etc. We could not eat and therefore we told our tour guide Felicia to bring us for local noodle e.g. kon loh mee.

We were so happy that our guide cum driver is as crazy as us...so all of us get along very well. She took us to Semelok to see Orang Hutan and Sarawak Cultural Village. We spent one day at Sarawak Cultural Village and we really took alot of pictures. Bunch of crazy people just came out from the jungle...ha!ha!

We had seafood dinner at CAR PARK, the hawker stores is located at the car park area. The food is ok and quite pricey. We did not order any crabs....ha!ha!

We shop at the street opposite the esplanade where you can get souvenirs.
Felicia took us to a place where you can buy BIRD NEST....only one of my friend bought....cos others scared of bird flu...hee..hee....

We also stop by at a bakery shop which is recommended by Felicia. We bought alot of moon cakes and biscuits home. Their mooncake is different from KL.

Since is our birthday therefore we requested FELICIA to bring us to a chinese restaurant where they serve good food and we also invited her to join us. The food was great, we really order alot. Even thou we did not drink any wines or beer but everyone was so high....and starting to talk nonsense. Luckily the captain of the restaurant gave us a room cos we were so noisy. Guess everyone was so stress at work. I must said everyone enjoy this trip. Sorry I can't remember the restaurant name.

Well, if you want to go to Kuching, let me know and i will give you Felicia contact. She is the best tour guide we ever had.

BEIJING

We joined 8 days tour to Beijing via Apple Vacation Tour, 2006. I must said I'm really dissapointed with this tour. The food and places that they took us was horrible. Not worth the money. To tell you the truth I would never visit Beijing again unless I got a local friend who can take me around.

Visited Great Wall of China located at Ba Da Ling. My friends did not want to walk all the way up to the Great Wall therefore i ended up walking alone. At the end, join the tourmates for group pictures and slowly get to know the tour mates. It was fun afterall eventhou i'm exhausted and damn thirsty. At least i walk on the Great Wall.ha!ha!

Summer Palace was ok but when we went that time alot of renovation going on to rush for the Beijing Olympics. The place is so huge and you will be wondering why the Empress Dowager want a huge summer palace for herself. You will be wondering how those worker transport the teak wood and furniture up to this hill. I salute and respect the worker.

Forbidden City is another place that you MUST GO. Imagine we spent few hours just visiting a small portion of the imperial palace. The work crafting is so fine and beautiful. The largest ancient palatial structure in the world. No words can describe it. You must see with your own eyes.

As for food, it was sucks...the food was so oily. The fish got too many bones that you would not want to eat. The beef or pork is either fried with onion and you can see the entire beef/pork is soak in the oil. The vegetable is even good, fried corn with cucumber. Fried cucumber with tomatoes. What kind of dish is this? Gosh!! Wait till they serve us soup. Or so called the soup is so clear that you may think is for you to wash your hand...ha!ha! Inside the soup you can see few peices of seaweeds and two slices of tomatoe. Oh another so called famous dish is deep fried egg with flour top with icing sugar. So oily...gosh!!! Well, the only best thing is that they serve you few bottles of coke in every meal. Guess after this trip we either get high cholesterol or diabetis.
The only food that we enjoy is Peking Duck.

We visited Tian Jin and they brought us to eat the so called famous Gou Bu Li steamed stuffed bun@pao which is a traditional and delicious Chinese food in Tian Jin. Gosh, I think a first timer making pao is alot better than this store. The pao is tough and is horrible, none of us able to finish the pao and the food at the stall. What an experience?

Well, everyone start buying the so called famous snacks - Guifaxiang fried dough top with sesame. We tried to eat but I don't really like it. The dough is so hard. Anyway me and my friends decided not to buy any food. One of the auntie bought 6 boxes of the guifaxiang and saw the cashier put all the 6 boxes in the bag before she leaves. When she went up to the bus, she only found 4 boxes. They actually swap your bags at the counter.

The guide took us to Wang Fu Jing, the famous food and shopping street in Beijing. We did not dare to try the local food as we scared we will be cheated therefore majority of us ended up in MCDONALD. This is the safest choice.

As for shopping, we visited the SILK STREET MALL. You need to learn the art of haggling when you shop. Well, we bought thumb drive 8 GB for only RM60 and we thot we are smart cos we ask the promoter to test every of the thumb drive by copying files from the notebook and also check the file size in the properties. Guess what, we are wrong. We are not as smart as the CHINA men. The thumb drives that we bought can only last for 1 week and after that the entire drive become 0KB file size. We bought 9 thumb drive and none can be use. I swear no more shopping in CHINA no matter how cheap is it.

Oh, the toilet experience. Either the toilet got door or no water and damn smelly. We are talking in the mall toilet and outskirt. Even in Tianamen Square, when you queuing up, is your turn to enter to the cubicle, guess what happen, an old lady barge in and u just stunned. What a culture? Even there is door, ladies don't even bother closing their door. Can you imagine it. Gosh!!! One of our tourmate rather don't drink water and she will only use the washroom at the hotel. I respect her for that....how could she stand 8 hours without going to washroom.....We were joking with other tourmates that we need to wear pampers when we come to CHINA...ha!ha!

Well, this is my worst experience in Beijing and I don't think I will want to join tour to visit China unless someone brings you to local places.

My friend said maybe is the tour agency problem. Well whatever is it, I dont plan to go to Beijing anymore.

JAPAN

Went to Japan for 8 days and follow Apple Vacation Tour. I must said Apple Vacation tour to JAPAN is the best. Food and accomodation was great. But do not join their tour to Beijing.

Took a night flight and arrived Japan in the morning and straightaway we went to Tokyo Disneyland. We spend whole day and we only able to visit It's a SMALL WORLD and Sleeping Beauty attraction. Other times we spent chasing cartoon characters e.g. mickey mouse, minnie, chip and dale and etc. Of cos we shop for disney souvenirs.

Stay over nite at one of the hotel at Mt Fuji , so sad we did not able to see Mt Fuji due to the weather. Our guide is so funny and he show us the Mt Fuji picture and ask us to stand at the peak there and see the picture, this is how Mt Fuji looks like....aiyoh....so pathetic. We enjoy shopping at the shops located at the peak. We bought grill squid to eat...it was delicious.

Visited Ginza, Shinjoku and we even try the best Ramen shop in town. Every thing in Japan is about Vending Machine. Even to order a bowl of ramen, you got to order via the vending machine. So prepare for small notes. Ginza sells all the high-street brand.

Went to Universal Studio and we able to went for all the rides. E.g Spiderman, Back to Future, Jurassic Park and etc. You must try their turkey drumstick. Bought a dinossour and ET tumbler, so cute. Even thou is expensive but worth it. You can also collect those popcorn case....different stores sell different character. Yeap we also shop till we drop at the souvenir shop. Remind us when we are kids.

Took a bullet train to one station to have the feel of sitting in the bullet train. One station cost us RM50.

We visited few temples and outside of temples definitely got stores for you to shop. As usual we shop alot until our tourmates ask us to recommend what to buy.

Even they drop us at one of the shopping centre and we bought quite a number of BANDAI toys, Thomase the train....it was so cheap.

The best thing is that we got to get empty boxes and put our stuff in cos our luggage is fulled. People said JAPAN things are so expensive and you would not buy. I think they are wrong....Even i bought Hisamitsu Salopas and the quality is really different from KL. Now whenever my friend goes TOKYO, i will always ask them to buy Hisamitsu for me. Ha!Ha!

Food was great and even i took rice for breakfast. I really miss it. I did not have any stomach problem when i was in JAPAN. Guess JAPAN really suits me and i don't mind going again.

KOREA

Follow tour to Korea for 8 days. Friends always recommend to go to Che Ju Island, so called Asian Hawaii. Therefore the tour that i joined must go Che Ju Island.

When we arrive to SEOUL, we went to Che Ju Island. I was really dissapointed, where is the place that everyone said must go, ASIAN Hawaii, all koreans will go to Che Ju Island for their honeymood....this place must be paradise. Unfortunately not....the place is quite dirty and you see rocks most of the time. They took us to a park which you see mostly rocks and trees....well for while you will like it but 2 hours there is really waste of time. There is a road which known as ghost road. We did a test and the bus driver off the engine and eventually the bus will go up the hill. Basically is about gravity.

We left Che Ju and went to SEOUL. Places visit are Lotte World and we able to watch the in door parade. The costume, the floral float was amazing. No way we can do this in KL. The next destination was Everland Theme Park. We did not have sufficient time to finish all the rides and attraction even thou we spend one day in the park.

As for shopping sites are Dongtaemon and Itaewon. None of us able to buy anything at the area. They took us to one of the shop where they sell imitation bags e.g. prada , LV and etc. Once you enter to the shop you are not allow to exit until everyone finished. Is a hidden shop that you need to enter via few hidden doors.

As for breakfast, every day we had abalone and anchovies porridge. Lunch and dinner, most of the time we had bbq pork, lamb or ginseng chicken and of cos kim chi.

Overall Korea is ok.

MACAU

I been to MACAU twice and most of the time i go there for day tour.
Last 2 years, I join the day tour from Kowloon Hotel, Tsim Tsa Tsui. I paid RM300 which includes :-
a. transportation to the pier
b. ferry ride
c. one lunch
d. tickets to MACAU TOWER
e. city tour
f. shopping for biscuits
g. AH MA Temple
h. half an hour in SANDS casino, maybe now they will bring you to Venetian
i. TAI SA PA

We love to shop for food in MACAU. We bought alot of almond biscuits, peanuts biscuits and etc.

You can buy the almond biscuits, there is a type of biscuits which wrap with chicken floss, that is nice. One box is RM25. You should try. You can get all this at Choi Heong Yuen Shop opposite TAI SA PA. You would not miss it.

As for Peanuts biscuits, you can get it at this shop near the AH MA Temple. At the side road of the temple you able to find the shop. Other shop such as Koi Kee is located at the town area.

My friend recommend us to stay at Casa Real and Casa Rio.

I want to try their Portugese food the next round.