Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Weekends at Safari Night, Taiping and Ulu Licin, Bruas (29 January 2008)

Last weekend was a blissful holiday. Hubby and I went back to my hometown to join the family reunion hehehe… actually it was not really a reunion. My brother’s and cousin’s family came back and it was like a small family get together thing. The last time we all gathered were during last Hari Raya. My mum’s house was filled with joyfulness of kids’ voices. Haziq, Hanis, Syida, Syira and plus 6 kids which are the neighbors and happened to be my cousin’s kid made a really happening and joyous environment. FYI, my mum’s house is next to her brother’s with 7 kids and 5 grandkids. Really big family right?!!

On Saturday we planned to go to Zoo Taiping. Ehm… my mum was soo difficult, always with her excuses, “kome pegi le, biar mak jage ruma, banyak kerja kat ruma nie, nanti kome balik senang nak makan” a feeble excuse which I commonly heard from her. However my brother threatened, “mak tak nak pergi, aku nak baliklah…Lia jom kemas barang” which left my mum with no choice but to go. Hubby and I were pretty determined to take some kids to go with us with or without the other grownup. Finally all of us were going, but the bad news was that we reached Zoo not at the proper time. We arrived at 5.30 pm whilst the Zoo closed at 6.00 pm and plus it started drizzling, urgh!!. Then the idea came out to go for Night Safari, yeehaaa…. I’ve never been to Night Safari before and from the reviews that I got, it was all good. We hanged out at Tesco Taiping until 8.00 pm, and then we headed for Night Safari.





The visiting hours starts from 8.00pm until 11.00pm except on Saturday and eve of public holiday which they closed at 12.00am. The entrance ticket is RM10 for adult and RM6 for kid (3 to 12 yrs old). Not forgotten, the train charges is not included and you have to pay additional RM3 for adult and RM1.50 for kid if you want to board the train. I think this is scam… who would want to wander in zoo at night?? Sure people would go with train. At first I thought RM10 is inclusive with the train charge, but No No. For me comparing day and night time visit in zoo, I prefer the day time. I can see animal clearly and enjoy the green scenery as well. Where else at night I can’t see clearly what’s the H@#L those animals are doing!! Sure they put light for us to spot the animal, but I still don’t enjoy it. The vision is too limited. True some animals are nocturnal at night, but I think most of it because it was their feeding time. Scam huh!! Hehehehe... Well, bottom line the kids enjoyed themselves so much during this trip. I'm sure they had a terrific time at Tesco’s Kids Playland and Night Safari.





The urge for having more fun made us decided to go for a picnic on Sunday. Initially my brother opts for Teluk Senangin beach but it was blistering hot and glaring sun out there. So my husband suggested for cold, stream waterfall at Ulu Licin Bruas. Both places are like 30 minutes drive from the house. Sound so refreshing to me and most of the family members. And this time my mum supported with zero rejection at all. Surprisingly she wanted to dip herself in which I doubted this. We reached around 2.00pm and after indulge in the appetitive lunch; we soaked ourselves to the cold, freezing and refreshing stream. Due to the water condition, I soaked only half of myself…it was D@#M cold!! My mum (as I predicted), did not take part in self-soaking activity but she became guardian of our belongings. She managed to befriend one of the makcik which was doing similar part time job like her (stuff keeper, hehehe). In short it was really a pleasurable evening, and I knew the kids were having such a wonderful time. My brother was having a hard time to get Haziq out from the water. Haziq cried out loud and scuffled to get away from my brother. We spend about three hours there and we started to pack when we see the sky getting cloudy and dark. We predicted high chances of downpour!! (It was correct; on the way back to Penang about 2 hours later, it was heavy rain all the way from Pantai Remis to Penang.)



Thursday, January 17, 2008

Trip to Himeiji, Kyoto (25th - 26th Nov 2006, Sat-Sun)

Pada hari sabtu tu aku rasa penat sangat. Ini mungkin disebabkan banyak sangat berjalan dan main di Universal Studio. Aku bangun lambat hari sabtu tu. Hari nie tunang nak bawa aku berjalan ke Himeiji Castle, terletak di selatan Kobe. Jadi hari nie kami akan pergi ke arah yang bertentangan daripada biasa. Selepas makan tengahari kami bertolak. Tapi nasib tak menyebelahi, kami ambil bas yg salah dan kami telah tersesat. Jadi lebih kurang 2 jam dihabiskan di kawasan perkampungan Jepun. Sebenarnya Himeiji Castle tu dekat saja dengan stesen LRT, jalan pun boleh sampai. Agaknya tunang aku tak nak kasi aku berjalan sebab dia kesiankan aku, tapi mungkin hajat tak sampai. Kami sampai jugak ke Himeiji Castle pukul 4.30 ptg, tapi memang takde rezeki sebab dia buka sampai pukul 5 saja. Masa tu musim luruh, jadi pukul 5 dah nampak macam malam. Kami cuma dapat lawat kawasan taman di luar jer. Tapi aku tak terkilan sangat sebab menurut tunang aku istana tu macam Muzium... (bukan minat aku sangat)..




2) Keesokan harinya aku pergi ke bandar Kyoto yang sebelum ini merupakan ibu kota jepun. Dekat Kyoto pun ramai orang, lebih kurang macam Osaka jugak.. orang berpusu-pusu dan ramai. Tapi yang bestnya dekat Kyoto banyak rumah-rumah jenis lama yang dulu banyak dipertontonkan dalam cerita Oshien dan Rinhanikuma. Aku pergi ke Kinkakuji ("Golden Temple") tapi aku tak berminat sangat dengan bangunan tu. Yang menarik nya keadaan dan suasana di situ, sungguh tenang dan daun-daun mapel nyer berwarna kemerahan. Menurut tunang aku, kalau musim sejuk ada sakura berbunga dan salji turun. Kalau aku nak tengok semua tu aku kena tunggu lebih kurang lagi sebulan.
Selepas tu kami pergi berjalan-jalan di sekitar bandar Kyoto dan beli cenderahati untuk keluarga dan kawan di Malaysia.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Trip to Universal Studio Japan (Friday, 24th Nov 2006)



This is continue from yesterday post

1) The next day we decided to visit the famous theme park in Osaka; "Universal Studio Japan". Since it was a weekday, we predict the crowd should be less and minimize the queueing time for the ride (actually this wasn't correct at all, the queue is still long). This time I went with my fiancee only and this was his first time to USJ as well. His friend did asked him to go before but he wanted to save this moment with me.. :D Thank you Sweet Heart. We took train from Sannomiya and headed to Osaka. The moment i reached Osaka train station, i was panic a little. This was first time I saw such a big crowd... " orang macam Ulat"... After went through some troublesome getting the ticket and to the correct platform, we managed to board the train and finally reach the place...

2) I loves the surrounding, musical background and basically just love everything about that theme park. The moment I reached there, there is an enthusiasm feeling... not to mentioned this is my second time being in Universal Studio. Before this I've been to Universal Studio Hollywood. Well, if you have opportunity, please..please go.. Plus the Christmas was around the corner and they are lots of decoration here and there. 1 not good thing was most of the show was in "Nihongo". I think 80% of the show is similar with what they have in US Hollywood.

3) The rides or shows that I went were Shrek, Terminator, Spiderman, Back to the Future, Jaws, Jurassic park, Peter Pan, Wizards of Ox and some parades... which was very-very entertaining. Time passed so fast, there were few more rides that I couldn't take. I think 2 days visit should complete all those. I forgot to mention about the entrance ticket, it costed ¥5,900 which is about RM180.

Trip to Japan (Thurs 23th Nov 2006)


This was more than a year, i just listed down what I'd encountered during the visit. Some good or bad experiences which i still can remember...

1) I touched down Osaka airport around 7 am. I'll need to take tram to get to emigration counter. It was cold like 11'C, I started to check me camera and adjusting. The terrible part was the camera started to behave evil, the power failed to ON. I checked last night it was fine. Bad! Bad! Camera... I got problem to clear the immigration, but i can,t remember why was that. One thing for sure, I spent some time just to clear thing with "DOESN'T SPEAK WELL ENGLISH" officer... How can they do that.. Luckily there was no major problem and i managed to go through emigration counter.
2) The moment i came out from the Arrival Door, there he is, standing with anxiety look. Ehm... I think he looked more handsome on that time, maybe because of the weather or maybe i haven't seen him for quite some time. Then we took a charter bus, specifically travel from Kansai Airport to Kobe city. We bought the ticket from special booth similar like ATM and cost us like RM160 for the one-way trip. Luckily he brought along his camera and I managed to take few shots a long the way.
3) The place that I stayed called Sannomiya and the train station is about 5 minutes walking distance from the hotel. After taking some rest, I ventured the Sannomiya and Kobe town. On the way, I looked for my camera battery. However i was in the state of reluctant and hesitant this time because I've been spoiling numbers of my trips with this camera, plus I have been spending lots of money getting a good battery for the camera. I keep on thinking "Why don't i get a new one?" This time get the BEST camera since I am in one of the most High Tech Country.. I finally made up my mind to get Canon Titanium 1000. During those time it was a new released model in Japan. Now i can see it been selling in Malaysia too; but the is Canon 900SD something (if I'm not mistaken) but it comes with Titanium color. During that time I bought it RM1600 and i surveyed in Malaysia, the price now is RM1699. The quality was great! It gives me satisfactory result until now, and so far it never let me down..
4)The place that I went on was Kobe city, Mosaic, Kobe Harbor land and few shopping complex around the city.

Get back into Weblog Business (16 January 2008)

Hi.... i come back with a new post after left this for more than a year.. As I was chatting with my cousin, she asked me to write about my pregnancy journey. I think this is a brilliant idea... i can share my stories. I hope i'll put persistant effort to make sure my blog is in colourful, cheerful and non-idlest state... InsyaAllah..

Actually I love to read blog created by my friends, personalities plus strangers too. It is indirect way for me to get to know a person. At the same time I can understand and appreciate life and others... So many stories, feeling, experiences which shared in the blogs. I know I am not that creative and savvy with wordings....but i hope as I go along I'll develop my skill in writings..

Ok, stop babling now... time to get back into business.I'll post about my last trip to Japan...I hope i can recalled all the memories that I acquired during the visit..