Nico's Vacation - KL - Day 13, 14, 15, 16

25/12/2009 - Drove down to Gopeng super early in the morning. I'm the one driving :) - to and fro! A two hours drive got us to Gopeng and had 'lai fun' breakfast at the morning market. My annual dose of lai fun - I grew up with it!

never knew what this is called, but it's part of the accompaniment to the 'lai fun' - and still thinks this deep fried fish mash rolled in bean curd is the yummiest thing on earth!

Bumped into mum's sec bro (i.e. my uncle :P) who was on the way to Cameron...what a coincidence.

After breakfast, continued our journey up to Ipoh to visit grandma. Spent a good few hours there before heading to town for lunch at Lok Wee Koi - had Ipoh Chic Floss Ho Fun, Popiah and Rojak. Yummy!

Drove back down to KL after lunch and got home around 4ish. It was indeed tiring after driving for 4 hours in total and waking up at 5am! Took a nap before mum woke me up for dinner. It was Christmas day and it doesn't feel Christmassy at all in KL. We tried to find a decent restaurant for dinner, but everywhere's fully booked with wedding banquets - ironic! And the roads were quite jam packed with cars. Ended up going back to one of the restaurants in Pandan Indah. Uncle John and 'Teng Che' also came for a chat.

It was Christmas day after all. And as I said it doesn't feel like it at all in KL. In England, it is all dead, no one's on the road but it's completely opposite case in KL - everyone's enjoying their day off shopping, clubbing, mamaking etc etc.

26/12/2009 - Met up with MN and HL at Pavilion. Had lunch at Kampachi - ordered quite a lot of food but enough to last the catch up session. Shopped around with the girls after that and mall crawled a bit at Bintang. Went to T-Bowl which I failed to visit the previous time and had our late dessert session there. The food was not nice at all. The whole place does not even feel like a restaurant. The patrons were merely taking photos all the way - it is a tourist attraction site! Besides the food, the service is another thing to complain about - we waited for half an hour before our orders arrived! Plus, since it is relatively new, many of the items on the menu is not available - such a disappointment. But then again, it was a funny session - we had our fun moments taking pictures and criticising!

27/12/2009 - Insisted that I had to pay Hutong Food Court @ Lot 10 a visit! Dragged bro and sis in law to accompany me after mum and dad refused to go. I had the tauge chicken rice in which the meal comes in a bento box with tauge, chicken, char siu and tauge for RM13 plus a herbal tea. Bro had the Mong Sang Kor Bak Kut Teh while sis in law had the Honkee porridge. Also ordered other stuff like Luk Yu Tea House's prawn dumplings and You Tiao. While sis in law bumped into one of her friends there, I also bumped into SY! A popular place indeed! But the food court is a little different from conventional ones, it is rather a maze in there and you can easily get lost while searching for food and tables!

Window shopped in Lot 10 after that and then went up to Genting again that evening! Mum and Dad brought us in to Club Elite again and had steamboat buffet - such a luxury to be a Genting Platinum Card member! - simply unlimited food - all you want to eat!

28/12/2009 - Met up with Zay for a breakfast session at San Francisco Coffee @ KLCC and went to the salon for a quick wash-blow dry before packing up for my 6:45pm flight to HK...

Nico's Vacation - KL - Day 11, 12

23/12/2009 - Went all the way to Klang to eat seafood at Yong Tat restaurant - very nice Lala beehon, 'lai liu ha' and 'kam heong' crabs!

And then to Mid Valley to help Dad choose a threadmill. Conveniently bought some durian and cempedak pancakes from Lee Lee's Sumptuous Desserts (LG Floor @ Gardens) - they were heavenly!!!

Met up with YV that night and she brought me to try out a very nice Thai BBQ place in Taman Cahaya - Jimmy Thai - very nice Tom Yan and Baked Fish. They even have 'yau cha kuey' dipped in kaya! But our lil stomach just can't fit everything! It was pretty good catching up with her again. I've not seen her for xxx years!!! I think in this year itself I've met up with a lot of my high school friends - a 10 years meet up again huh...we were in the class of '99. Time flies. But as she said, a lot had happened, people changed, things around us changed, we ourselves changed - but not completely - I just felt there are still a lot in us that remained.

24/12/2009 - A lazy and unproductive Xmas Eve for me this year. A little bit of me wished I am in London building snowmen now but thinking twice, I enjoy the sunshine in KL more :). Went for facial pampering session in the afternoon after lunch at Papparich.

Mum cooked garouper fish congee and fried beehon for dinner - yummy!

Nico's Vacation - KL - Day 8,9,10

20/12/2009 - A 5am morning call woke me up and got ready to leave for the airport. Flight back from Siam Reap to KL was delayed for about half and hour. Dad bumped into his ex-supplier co-worker. What a coincidence! How often do you bump into people you know even if you are in KL! Bro and sis in law came to fetch us at the airport and went for lunch together. Got home after that, unpack a bit and I was out again to the Curve. Met up with SY and gang and then dinner at TGI.

21/12/2009 - My KL days normally starts with a morning market session to get breakfast - yummy chee cheong fun and egg tarts!!! Made 'tong yuen' for tomorrow's 'tong yuen' day. My teddy tong yuen...:

And then had lunch at Kim Gary @ Jusco and shopped a bit to pick up some random blank cds, shampoo etc and a quick hair fix at the salon there. Drove up to Genting later that evening where mum brought us into the Platinum Club Elite. No wonder mum put on weight - the food in there is pretty good! With a reasonable selection of canapes, sushi, sashimi (ok maybe not as fresh), scallops, and of course other normal stir fry stuff - unlimited food and fruits that you can order! And the desserts! God!!!

22/12/2009 - Another early start day - grabbed a Starbucks ice coffee and went to watch Avatar at Pavilion. It was a very good movie. Somehow I felt very 'Titanic'y feel to it. Maybe it's the music and the whole romance plot! But the graphics is pretty amazing. Was meant to have lunch at T-Bowl @ Sungei Wang but unfortunately it was closed for a couple of days for renovation! Dear me! Went to a Formosa Tawainese restaurant next door instead. It's also a newly opened restaurant and they mixed up some of our orders - can't really blame them I suppose. Since it's a 'Go Tong'/'Tong Yuen' day - we booked in for a family dinner at Chef Choi, Jalan Ampang. The only 2 things I like were the Aromatic Duck and Almond Milk with Papaya. Other dishes were just normal.

Nico's Vacation - Day 7

19/12/2009 - It was an Angkor Temples day. After breakfast, we set out to Angkor Thom and started the temple crawl from Bayon. There were already a lot of people on each site even though we started early. It was quite hard to take pictures dodging those tourists. But then again, I suppose those tourists also thinks that they should start early to avoid crowds. It's just quite amazing that Angkor has so many visitors every day and yet there are still some parts of it that is quite run down - particularly some paths to the temples which are still sandy roads. I suppose the boom has just started a couple of years back and possibly it will turn better in the years to come.

It was 1ish when we finished Angkor Thom - the place is really big, luckily we are on the mini coaches that drove us around the temples. Otherwise, I would imagine it will take almost a whole day to cover the temples. Drove back into town and had lunch at a Cambodian Chinese restaurant before being dragged into a gems store where the only thing they do is give you free cambodian coffee and tries to con you into buying their gems and jewelery!

Next in the itinerary is Angkor Wat itself! The scorching sun hold us back. Went back to the hotel to freshen up and relaxed by the pool for about an hour before heading back out.

As the bus turned into the junction nearer to the sacred building, the moat was the first insight. The moat itself is pretty amazing. I felt very peaceful and calm and as the building itself came into view - there is just a very 'sacred' and 'holy' feeling that I don't quite know how to describe - serenity is the word. It is quite evident how grand and amazing it is. We got to Angkor Wat around 4ish and it took about another one hour to visit the temple. The crowd has subsided then. There are still a fair amount of visitors but not as busy.

Headed for dinner buffet and cultural show at a restaurant called Amazon. There were a lot of cambodian, vietnamese and thai food. I particularly like the vietnamese Bang Sung. The cultural show was a bit boring and so we left after half an hour of the show and went shopping at the Night Market instead!

Angkor Night Market is another buzz. A lot of tourists having their beer and fish massage sessions. Most of the stuff they sell are souvenirs ranging from handicrafts, bags, clothes, local produce etc.

That is it for a 2 days in Siam Reap...

Will be looking forward to another visit - a photography expedition!