The Hunt @ Melaka (16 - 17 October 2010)

view from my hotel room

Treasure hunt has been an annual affair for my bank for the pass few years. I still remembered the first treasure hunt that I went for, my team got a third placing :) It has been 2 years since I last had my treasure hunt and hence when this time the hunt was all the way to Melaka, it was simply too irrestible to pass on.

This time my team comprised all girls and we gave the name of our team as Chicas Superpoderosas which in Spanish means Power Puff Girls ..XD It was fun to be reunited with the past members as well as bullying my new young fresh colleague to be our driver...hehe

We were flagged off around 830 am and hunt all the way from KL to Melaka passing by my hometown in Seremban. This time around, we were not that gungho to look for clues and answers as the weather was too hot to bear and I guess we were too old for this kind of hunt. Somehow, we managed to finish on time. As we were driving to Renaissance Hotel in Melaka, we decided to swing by Jonker street for some cold sweet cendol and to our surprise, we were not the only team who had such thought! Practically, every corner in Jonker street was full of hunters hunting for food and drinks.

our driver

For the dinner, it was full of fun and surprises. Chicas managed to score 21st out of 60 cars. We were so happy as we thought we never made it to the top 40 as we had half of the answers wrong. Another team, our alliance, got 19th. We were too happy to complain..haha

The next day, we loitered around Melaka town for some shooting and makan before driving back to KL.

inside the orang utan shop






nyonya laksa












A Famosa

We had the famous chicken rice ball in this less crowded shop A Famosa chicken rice ball. The interior of the shop is perfect for photography, full of nyonya character though the food was only so so. The following photos were taken inside of the shop.

Then we headed to the famous Donald and Lily Cendol for their cooling cendol with gula melaka. Highly recommended as the shop is located at a corner and quite hidden from the rest of the tourists in Jonker street.

Batu Caves, Kuala Lumpur (16 Sept 2010)

the mighty Lord Murugan

Remembered the shooting expedition I mentioned on Dataran Merdeka and Tugu Negara?

Here's the continuation of the expedition to Batu Caves. Batu Caves is located near to the area of Gombak which one can reached via KTM komuter and stopped at the Batu Caves station. It is a holy place for the Hindus and especially crowded during Thaipusam. It is also a temple dedicated to Lord Murugan. To go up to the caves, there are over 270 steps to ascend and you will be rewarded with the amazing scenary of temples inside a temple or caves.

Along the way, one can see the place is not only crowded with tourists but with monkeys as well.

little kids running around


caught this little girl on camera after she ran around feeding pigeons






bubbles


view from the back


the way up. 270+ steps to be climbed


the monkey


inside the caves


love the lighting here




lime stones against the temple carvings

South African Safari - Part 2

Even though I had food poisoning the previous night, my diarrhea and vomiting stopped before the time to hit the Kruger Safari. We decided to wear our jersey lookalike South Africa tee that we bought in Johannesburg and were tad too excited to see the famous Big 5; lion, elephants, rhino, buffalo and leopard.

The first animal sighted when we headed out from our safari lodge was the elephant. We got so excited and almost shouted but luckily Cunnie, our guide stopped us from intimidating Jumbo, the elephant. We continued into Kruger and reached the safari just in time when it opened at 6am.

We managed to spot 4 out of the Big 5. It was quite a funny scene when we were so excited for the game hunt but were all falling asleep after 1 hour not sighting any animals. Each time Cunnie sighted an animal, he would wake us up and we excitedly took photos before continuing our sleep. Our limited knowledge on animals led to another funny thing when Cunnie told us there were some warthog in front of us but we couldn’t understand what animal was that until he mentioned Pumba.. LOL..
Since then Cunnie made reference to each animal that we spotted to the Lion King!

Overall, it was a really enriching experience to go for such game viewing. It was like watching a combination of Nat Geo and Lion King live !! My next target will be to go to Masai Mara in Kenya…

view of the elephant backside

colourful birdie

baby and mummy giraffes

rhino

the king of the jungle. people actually rush here after news of lion sighting. there's even a traffic jam.

zebras

trying out the Safari hat

Me, Adri and May

my jersey lookalike


view from the bridge

buffalos crossing the road

Lastly, for those who are curious on which tour company that I went to for this 7 day trip from Joburg to Durban (cost about ZAR 6000 which is equivalent to RM2500), it was Siyabona. When you do the booking, try to request for Cunnie as the guide as he's one hell of a cool and funny guide though he always curse in Afrikaans.