I didn’t plan on blogging about this, but after the surprising amount of likes on facebook and instagram, I thought that I’d just share with you on making spezzatino di manzo con patate.
In Italian, spezzatino di manzo con patate means little pieces of beef with potatoes. And this was a dish that was love at first bite for me. Interestingly, the first time I had it was actually in a vegan restaurant, which makes it ironic. Hur hur hur.
Traditionally, beef is used for this dish, but you could also use other types of red meats like mutton, Â while vegetarians can sub the beef with seitan.
(This is the one Cart made)
Fry some finely chopped onion, carrot and celery in extra virgin olive oil. (This is called a sofritto by the way)
When the vegetables look soft and the onion more transparent, add in the cubed meat and let it brown.
Then add rosemary, sage, thyme and bay leaf and then add in enough stock to cover the meat.
If you like, you can add a little tomato concentrate or tomato sauce.
Finally add some cubed potato pieces to make the broth even heartier.
Let the broth simmer on low fire for about an hour and you’ll come back to a most amazing and yummy dish!
(Don’t brush your teeth with this tomato concentrate)
You could pair the broth with polenta, or mashed potatoes. But I just eat it as it is! So yummy! In fact, greedy me actually finished a whole (small) pot by myself!
I do hope that you give it a try. Even though the simmering time takes a while, it’s a really easy dish to make, but so yummy and robust đ
I took a break after that, before starting to jog casually again. It was only then when I realised that I had pains in my left knee – it felt as if the muscles in my knee were made of multiple rubber bands and it hurts when I tried to extend it. So I hobbled a bit and it disappeared a few minutes once I start jogging. The feeling wasn’t like KILL! PAIN! DESTRUCTION! RAGE! But I was of course, concerned.
While I was in Singapore, after picking my race pack for my 15km run, I happened to walk past a booth that was promoting their physiotherapy company. I was Intrigued because of my knee, so I walked up to learn more and I met with Ben, who was very knowledgeable and patient.
One of the first question that he asked me was, “Do you do stretches?”
Sheepishly, I admitted that apart from some sun salutations, and some ankle and knee rotations, I did little stretching.
And then he asked me to do some moves, like a one leg squat and that was when I realised that I felt tightness in some area. He also started to put a little bit of pressure with his hands on my legs, and I almost screamed when he pressed my left thigh. It was painful!
(Interestingly, it didn’t hurt at all for my right side. Which was surprisingly unexpected)
At length, he diagnosed me as having a runner’s knee, which usually happens when you train for too much, and too quickly, which doesn’t allow the body to get adjusted in time. According to him, I also need to do more exercises to strengthen my muscles, not only for the legs, but also the glutes which is important to hold them together.
Basically, it’s a fallacy that just because you’re a runner, you need to only work your leg muscles. It’s good to have an overall strength for improved performance.
Cart was saying something interesting about footballers in the 70s looking like T-Rexes because of their stocky legs and tiny upper parts because their legs were the only parts that was concentrated due to lack of information during the times.
(I can’t get rid of the mental images of T-Rexes playing soccer, with their short arms. It’s too funny!)
In the end, Ben taught me how to do massages to help relieve the muscle aches that I had. I made sure that Cart saw it too, so he could do it for me (^_^) You could use those muscle rubbing gel on your skin, but regular body creams work too. And you basically push the ache in a straight direction with your thumb (a tennis ball works too)
Finally Ben used a kinesiology tape on my knee to help speed up its recovery time. Which come to think of it, was probably the reason why I didn’t feel any pain the entire week leading up to my 15km run. I did everything else pretty much the same.
(This picture was taken several days after the taping)
The irony is, I bought for myself a roll of that tape but I don’t know HOW to use it because the ache is now in a different location (more in the soleus than the thigh) ever since I’ve changed to my minimus shoes.
Today I’ll share with you the exercises that Ben taught me to do to strengthen my glutes. I normally do this before I go jogging :
Clamshell (3 x 10 reps)
Hip extention (3 x 10 reps)
Single leg bridging (3 x 10 reps)
Squats (3 x 10 reps)
Lunges (3 x 8 reps)
Single leg squat (3 x 8 reps)
And when I’m done jogging, I do these stretches to ease the muscles.
Quadriceps stretch
Hamstring stretch
Hip Flexors stretch
ITB Stretch
Gastroc Stretch
Soleus Stretch (I really feel this!)
For these stretches, you are supposed to hold the pose for 20 seconds each rep (5 times), so I use an app called the Tabata HIIT timer on my phone to help count for me.
So far, I feel a great improvement since I started doing these stretches and I’m always pleasantly surprised that I my aches are reducing to the point of being relatively pain free since a month that I’ve picked up jogging again back in Rome.
Of course, I’m going to take it easy, and not exert myself and slow down when I feel something about to act up. I really don’t want to completely damage my legs and end up in a wheelchair.
Sometimes when I’m in my neighbourhood, I’d come across this car :
Instead of fixing the damages, the owner just duct-tapes it over. I’ve seen other cars with tapes over them, but not till this extent! I believe that the car is still functional as I see it parked in different places.
My computers have been bonkers for a while – my netbook just wont start (probably having motherboard issues) and the desktop will insist that there is no HDD installed (probably a Hard Disk Drive failure. I still would like to fix it nevertheless. I don’t want to throw it away)
So at length I got for myself a new laptop while I was in Singapore. My pre-requisites were simple – it should be powerful enough for me to do multimedia projects but shouldn’t cost more than $1.3K SGD . After all, I’m not a rich woman đ
Initially I had my heart set on the HP Envy Notebook PC since it seems to fit all of my requirements. After visiting Sim Lim Square and trying out some computers however, in the end I got for myself a Lenovo Ideapad Z500. (My brother wanted me to get the Y500, but at $2k SGD, it was way above my budget and I really can’t stand the obnoxious red backlight keyboard)
The specs between the Envy and the Ideapad are pretty much the same actually – both are running core i7 processor and has an 8GB of memory. The Ideapad had more storage though, and comes with a DVD drive. But what won me over was their keyboard. I type a lot, so the more solid keyboard from the Ideapad is better for me compared to the soft, rubbery one from Envy.
Nevertheless, I’m still trying to get adjusted to it. Mainly because after years of typing on a netbook, typing on this laptop feels like typing on a giant’s keyboard. I still feel the need to use Cart’s spare laptop when I have to type long posts like the Langkawi series.
In any case, I’ve been enjoying my new laptop. It has Win 8 OS but the clerk installed an app called Classic Shell where it makes the interface look like a traditional windows desktop, so it’s less confusing for me.
The computer is freaking fast by the way! It takes just a few seconds just to start up that it makes me go “ooh!” each time. And every program that I’ve installed takes such a significantly short time to process.
For example, I got for myself Adobe Premiere Elements 11. It’ll take a while for me to familiarize myself again, as there are a lot of changes since version 4. Nevertheless rendering a 1 minute video on that takes just a few minutes now instead of hours. So cool!
(Uploading is another story though, we are doomed to using Fastweb, which is actually slow and makes me even more unmotivated to make more regular video blogs as I used to do)
Other graphics intensive programs, such as Secondlife looks gorgeous to me. Looking at the small details like the water ripples, and the colours of sky makes it even more immersive and beautiful. That makes me want to try to play more games, maybe stuff like Tomb Raider or The last of us … except I’m a little scardey-cat when my characters risk to get hurt. Hahaha!
(Thing is, the direction buttons on the keyboard is kind of dinky. So it’s not that comfortable to move my avatar around)
Speaking of graphics, the screen seems longer at 1311×737 compared to the 1280×780 screens that I’ve been used to so it’s a bit of an adjustment seeing the wider screenshots in my computer. Maybe I should have gotten the smaller Z400 instead?
Nevertheless, I love my new laptop. It’s blazing fast, so editing and rendering is much more time efficient for me which in turn makes it more enjoyable for me to use. I hope to find a shop somewhere in Rome where they could do stickers so I could personalise my laptop with a rinaz sticker! Like how I did for my netbook đ
Sidenote : I would have gotten myself a tablet too, cos trying to use this in bed is really cumbersome, but the tablet I wanted, the new gen Nexus 7 wasn’t out yet. Bah!
I’ve been talking a lot about Langkawi but I haven’t really explained where Langkawi is :p
(By the way, loads of pictures in this post. So if you’re on a slow connection … grab a cup of tea while waiting)
Langkawi is an island on the North-West side of Malaysia, part of the state of Kedah, almost reaching Thailand. It is surrounded by about 99 smaller islands. The name Lang means Hawk in Malay while Kawi is a reddish brown colour. Which is why the hawk is the mascot for this island.
There is a legend here where it was said that on this beautiful island, lived a beautiful girl called Mahsuri. She was so beautiful that the Village Chief’s wife got jealous and spread a rumour that Mahsuri was unfaithful to her husband and having an affair with another man.
Eventually, the rumours grew so strong that villagers openly accused her and she was condemned to death. And she cursed the island to have bad luck for 7 generations.
In any case, more about that later in this blog post and for now here are some of the places that we visited in our 3 day stay there :
Helang Square
After settling down from our flight, apartment and lunch. The first place that we visited was Dataran Helang.
Located in Kuah, this eagle man made statue is huge at 12 meters tall. And from here, you could see pretty sceneries of the many islands in front of you. Interestingly, if you check from google maps, this place has a star shape from the top.
We would have explored more places, but we couldn’t visit anything more though, as it rained rather heavily after that. Bah!
Island Hopping
Early next morning, we headed to one of the quays in Persiaran Putera to go boating! We explored 3 different islands in Langkawi. And I was so very excited.
In case you were wondering, our private boat with a driver goes for $250 RM while it would be $30 RM per person if you were going by yourself (but you’d have to wait for at least another 9 more people to fill the boat up)
In any case, we were lucky that we had a pretty good day and we crossed our fingers that we don’t get caught in the rain while we were out (perhaps we could try this superstition of skewing an onion an chilli on a stick to ward off bad weather the next time :p)
Nevertheless, it was very  relaxing, just to see the water and the islands (to me, it looked like a Microsoft Powerpoint Template … hahaha) and going up and down the waves. For some, it could be a little puke-conducive. But I like it.
Pulau Beras Basah
This was the first island we stopped at. By the way, Pulau means Island and Beras Basah means Wet Rice. This island is probably named that way because somewhere during the 14th century, with the prospect of Siam attacking this island, the islanders would rather throw the rice in the sea rather than having the enemies steal them (I could be wrong though)
Nevertheless, this island is so beautiful. Oh if only you could walk here. It’s like walking on soft powdery, lightest of brown sands, with the clear sea next to you. It’s not as transparent as the water in Capri, but its probably the next best thing for someone who can’t travel all the way to Italy
Check out how clear the water is from the jetty. You could see the fishes … and the bottom!
Little clams growing at the edge of the jetty. I’m having very vague memories of scraping them off the boat that my grandparents used to have while they were living in Pulau Tekong.
The “No Toilet here” is amusing. Especially with the 5 exclamation marks. There were at least 3 of the signs while we were exploring. I get it! I get it!
Camwhoring as usual. Hur hur hur.
It’s so lovely here, that I kicked myself for not bringing an extra set of clothes with me. My dad on the other hand just jumped into the water and swam happily about. He didn’t even had any other clothes with him! I should have followed his style.
This is such a gorgeous place. That I felt a little sorry that we had to leave it.
Pulau Singa
Our next island stop! Translated, Pulau Singa means Lion Island (Perhaps there used to be a lot of lions here?) Â And here is where a lot of boats stop by to feed the hawks with chicken parts and tourists could see the hawks up close if they are lucky.
To be honest, I am not sure if I support this activity so much, because feeding wild animals will only make them dependant on humans. Â Like the cats in Rome for example, they are fed so much that they don’t even catch mice anymore! (Plus the mice grow fat from the leftover cat food. Yikes!)
But ecotourism is a catch 22 situation. You know, tourists bring in income and create jobs, but destroy the ecology.
In any case, I didn’t really take much pictures as I don’t have one of those super high tech camera. So here is a video instead.
Just realised while editing the video, my mum was singing Sharifah Aini’s Terbang Helang (Eagle, Fly) Hahaha! She’s really feeling it, huh? It’s a very pretty song by the way đ
(And now I’m having an earworm while editing this post)
Pulau Dayang Bunting
Can you see the figure of a pregnant woman lying down in the picture below? Well, Pulau Dayang Bunting, means Pregnant Maiden Island when translated.
There is a legend that there was a bunian (I suppose its a sort of Asian Fairy?!) who fell in love with a human. She was about to give birth, but the baby didn’t make it shortly after it’s birth. She decided to bury her baby in the lake there.
It’s been said that if you drink the water (or bathe) from this lake, your wishes will come true. I am very sceptical of this, although I had a number of relatives telling me that they got pregnant soon after visiting this place, or their illnesses went away …
Getting here, you will be greeted by loads of monkeys. You should be careful at this point of time, because these monkeys aren’t scared! They will just grab anything that attracts them. One tried to steal my water bottle, but luckily my hands were latched to it.
At one point there was a monkey that grabbed and ran away with a woman’s bikini. I have no idea why!
I don’t like monkeys.
There are also mudskippers here. Those are quite interesting to see.
Getting to the lake is quite perilous as there is a very steep decline and I don’t recommend anyone wearing heels, not even a little bit! My mum slipped and hurt her ankle while we were about to leave, but luckily there was a hospital in the mainland and we were relieved that she didn’t get any fractures or anything serious.
And here is the lake! A freshwater lake, where there is no hint of salt, even though we were so close to the sea.
You could go boating here if you like, although we were all content at just dipping our feet in the lake. My dad on the other hand, jumped in the water and went swimming! And he looked so happy at doing that too!
Remember the legend about those who drink the water here, will get their wishes come true? Well, I got a water bottle and filled it up. It’s now left in Singapore though! Aww!
In any case, I did drink some (my brother Haikal was cringing though, “Why are you drinking water with a dead baby in it?”) just to satisfy my cynical mind. In case you were curious, I just wished for something generic – Happiness, Riches and Health.
Yeah balls!
All in all, I had a very pleasant day and if you are in Langkawi, I highly recommend going island hopping.
Cable Car
The next day (our last full day), we got up early to head to the other side of the island (Datai bay area) so that we could get on the cable car.
Driving through the roads, you will be greeted by scenes like these :
Loads and loads of water buffaloes
And rice paddy fields. We were lucky that we managed to see one harvesting rice that day.
In any case, to get to the cable car, you’d have to pass through an area called the Oriental Village. It’s a pretty place, just rather manufactured looking and touristy. But there are loads of picture ops that you could do here. Like how the village looked like with the hills behind
We noticed something interesting by the way … a rabbit petting area, which I guess is great for kids. What amused me a lot was that big pot at the side. Is it for cooking the bunnies?! Oh my!
One big tip while going here is to always carry cash with you. While they do have a credit card machine, it wasn’t functioning that day which frustrated Cart and I a lot.
The cable car appears to be a very popular spot, and the day we were there, we had to wait for a while just to buy the tickets and then a very long time queuing up for getting on the cable car itself. Urgh.
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But as soon as you reach the top of the line, you’d see these placements on the ground where you were supposed to stand at. It was cute to see the row march forward one by one.
But at length, we were off!
And going up, you should be able to see a few of the 7 Well waterfalls along the way.
By the way, the cable car ride is very high! It’s the highest one that I’ve experienced to date! Even higher than the one in Capri. (Although the one in Capri would technically be a chair lift instead of a Cable Car)
I don’t recommend it to anyone who is afraid of heights. From the highest point of the cable car to the bottom is a good 700m. Almost a 1km drop!
This dude isn’t scared though. He’s chilling in his personal cabin (with no glass) like nothing.
From the top here, you should be able to see a panoramic view of the island with Thailand in the background.
Unfortunately for us though, it was a rather hazy day and we could hardly see anything. Oh well!
Nevertheless, the air was slightly fresher and cooler up here.
(Another Microsoft Powerpoint Template)
Hey, what’s this random lock doing here? Is there someone trying to start the trend of a love lock? Speaking of which, I saw one in Singapore and I was so surprised, I don’t know how to react.
After spending some time here, it was time to go to our final stop of the day
(As a sidenote, what do you think of different pricing for locals and tourists? A lot of the monuments have special pricing for locals)
Makam Mahsuri
Our last stop in Langkawi is the Mahsuri Tomb. While Tripadvisor doesn’t seem to give it a high rating, I think that it’s an interesting place to go to anyway.
Remember the legend about Mahsuri? It’s been said that when she was struck by a kris, while blood poured out and birds flew to cover her body (Odd legend, but who am I to judge?)
In any case, as soon as you enter the building, you’d be greeted with a group of girls playing the gamelan :
And then followed by a diorama, one of them being the condemnation scene.
And then there is the tomb itself, where she was buried.
Luckily, that wasn’t the only things to be seen (It would’t be worth paying $10 RM if that were so) Â There was also some traditional Malay village recreates here.
Like this platform, which was where people sat and chit chatted.
(By the way, I’m kind of iffy about the use of “Buka Kasut” Personally, I don’t think that’s right and “tanggal kasut” should be used instead)
Congkak! I really enjoyed playing this when I was a kid! It’s pretty easy to play. There are 14 small holes and two big houses. You put in 7 marbles in each small holes. And two players play simultaneously. Picking up the content of one small hole and putting a marble clockwise. The player with the most marbles in their house wins (It sounds complicated, but is really easy when you play)
And here is another place where villagers hang out
And here is a random picture of my dad playing on the swing
There is also a re-creation of the house where the chief, the general and regular villagers lived and this is where you could see how life was like then. I quite like it.
Unfortunately, a lot of the houses were closed to public. But there was still a few where we could go in and explore. Going around, it feels so secondlife-y! Haha
There are a couple of instruments for farming, which I am not too familiar with. But I’m sure that they have something to do with rice since there are a lot of rice fields in the area.
There was a house which was reportedly belonging to Mahsuri herself.
Pretty aye?
You could see that it’s very spartan in here.
This was her bed
This was her mekap table
This was the entrance to her kitchen
By the way, Langkawi, being on a tropical area is a hot and humid island. There were times when we felt quite uncomfortably sticky on the island. But believe it or not, it was very cooling in the houses.
This would be from all the ventilation in there, from the holes all around the house which is a great form of engineering considering the lack of technology during the time.
No need for aircon! Or fans for that matter!
I don’t mind living in a house like this (just as long as there is wifi inside)
(This happy little girl kept running in my shots and photo-bombing me, so I’m putting her in my blog. Hehehe)
Oh! Before I forget, this was the well where Mahsuri bathed in, which was said to give her her beauty and radiance. My sister and I immediately washed our faces when we read that. Hahahaha!
There was even a counter nearby where you could buy a bottle of the well water (a clean and treated version)
(Ohai! I am Steve Urkel the snake. Uhyuk!)
Night Market
Oh wait, now this is our real last stop for the day. A night market! You could find a lot of things here and it’s a feast for the eyes, seeing all the colourful wares. We were full from our dinner, but it was still nice to just walk around and burn off some fats.
The one that we went to was located in Kuah and it operates once a week. There are other night markets in other areas in Langkawi and you might want to check with a map that you could get at the airport.
You could get loads of things here ranging from clothes, to toys, to food. Like corn drinks (Which I doubt is popular outside of Asia)
Apam balik which is a type of peanut (not peanut butter) pancake
Fresh seafood?! That’s something new, even for me!
This scene is amusing. Instead of fanning the satays, they used an electric fan instead. Man, I would have gone for some nice satay if we weren’t stuffed.
And that was some of the places that we’ve seen and experienced in Langkawi. If I could turn back time, I wish that we could have done it differently so that we could have visited and done more things. Nevertheless, I had a very enjoyable time in this beautiful island and will always have fond memories of it đ
(Freaking heck, almost 3k words in this post? Okbai)
While we were in Langkawi, there were a number of eating places that we tried there – ranging from the swanky to the really off beaten places.
Like this platter from Arabica Restaurant. It was tasty, but rather pricey.
For today, I thought I’d share with you two of the food places that we’ve been to that I adored so much, that I wouldn’t mind returning back to Langkawi just to eat these foods again.
Firstly dubious burgers.
Dubious burgers are basically what I call for burgers which are made from a makeshift stall sold from the side of the road. There are loads of these in Malaysia. While they are many different kinds, typically, they are Ramly burgers, and they are absolutely delicious!
I was craving for a dubious burger, so we headed out to look for one. We looked around for one in Kuah, but we didn’t see any, so we had a quick dinner at McDougals near the Eagle Square in the end.
I didn’t eat any as McDougals is quite standard everywhere in the world.
Dejected, we headed back to our apartment once we were done. And that was where I noticed something that looked like a makeshift stall at the side of the road, somewhere along “Persiaran Putera” road.
It was a makeshift burger stall! I was so happy! My heart just sang!
Here you could choose different types of meat like chicken, fish, beef, lamb (No rabbit or deer or ostrich burger though :P) While it wasn’t Ramly burger, the style was still the same – they would add in various condiments like mayo, worcestershire sauce, BBQ sauce, cheese and topped with a fried egg.
But what made the place extra special was that they had a grilled version. Which was why I had to double check to make sure that it was a burger stall instead of a satay stall. I was so intrigued that I ordered one for each one of my family member. (Minus Cart who is a vegetarian)
(Speaking of vegetarians, it’s not that easy to get street food for vegetarians in Malaysia. A number don’t seem to understand the concept. Or even worse, give you a stink eye)
While there were not a lot of people around and the burgers took a while to make as grilling takes a longer time. And at $6 RM a piece, it was more expensive than your regular street burger. But it was totally worth it when I started biting into it.
I know that from looking at the picture, it doesn’t look very convincing, but the meat was thick and juicy and combined with the taste of the tangyness of the mayo and the BBQ sauce. It was the juiciest, meatiest, most satisfying burger that I had in a long time. It was exceptionally good. A piece of heaven in the palm of my hands.
I was probably ingesting a lot of calories, but it’s worth each bite. After all, it’s not every day that I’m on vacation and it was so delicious that I kept thinking of it for days and days after.
When you are in Langkawi, if will be a shame if you left without trying out their seafood. But with the numerous amount of seafood joints, which one do we go to?
Cart decided to check out on foursquare where we saw that Wonderland restaurant had the highest ratings for seafood. It wasn’t too far away from our apartment either, so we decided to give it a try on our last evening in Langkawi.
The place looked very nondescript – your basic stall with metal poles and plastic chairs. Nevertheless, you could tell that the place is very popular due to the amount of people there, while the other stalls on the other side were practically empty.
Coincidentally we were hungry, after spending the day trying to squeeze some last minute excursions before our flight the next day. We didn’t have lunch, so we had a good appetite! I think we practically ordered at least one thing from each segment.
The funny bit was when the lady who came to take our order quipped, “That’s a lot of food. Are you sure you guys could finish this?”
And here are what we got for ourselves :
Dry Chilli Mantis
I think these are Ginger and Spring Onion Clams
Sambal Squids
Fried Kangkong
I think these are Oyster Sauce Chicken
Cereal Prawn
Red Snapper, Tom Yam Style
Most of us had plain rice, as it’s better to taste the dishes with. My dad and my brother asked for an additional fried seafood rice instead.
The nice thing is that you could even ask for a vegetarian version of some of their dishes and here was what Cart had :
Omelette with veggies
Stir fried veggies. I think he also had a plate of fried veggie rice, but I think I forgot to take a picture of that, or I was very engrossed in eating the food in front of me.
The food was so good. Think of the best seafood that you’ve had, and imagine it twice the flavour, twice the deliciousness and twice the juiciness. Every morsel that I ate, was such a joy. I was compelled to eat as much as I could, fighting with the rest of my family. If you eat slow, you’d left with nothing.
As strange as that sounds, I don’t mind it as there is just something very satisfying eating with your family. And in no time at all, we’ve devoured everything.
The lady came back and I was amused to see her look of bewilderment when she saw all the empty plates. Funnily enough, my brother Haikal chose that time to get for himself an additional plate of noodles.
The food left such a great impression on me, that I declared that this was the best seafood that I’ve ever had in the WORLD at this point of time. Cart seemed offended by this and huffily asked, even in Italy?
But at $193 RM for a group of 7 people, (about $8.5 USD a person) I don’t think you could get this fantastic seafood experience anywhere else in the world. I think it even beats the one I had in Pengerang.
So worth it. I wouldn’t mind going back to Langkawi just to eat this seafood again.
After we’ve booked for our Air Asia flight, it comes the other task of searching for lodgings. As always, I prefer staying in bed and breakfasts or homestays over hotels as they are generally cheaper and could accommodate more people comfortably.
And thus, I did some research online and stumbled upon Eylizar Homestays (the website is in Malay though) and poured over the different lodgings. I was finally intrigued in a serviced apartment called, Century Suria and wrote in an inquiry. They replied quite speedily and we got a quote for 250RM + 100RM a night for lodgings and a 7 seater car, which seems reasonable.
It was a bit of a challenge to make booking payment however, as for the moment, they were only able to do inter-banking payments and none of us had a Malaysian bank account.
We managed to solve this issue by using Western Union in the end, to transfer the money to their bank using a Swift Code.
—
It was a sunny day when we reached Langkawi and of course, I was very excited to be there, raring to explore this beautiful island. We were welcomed at the arrival hall, and the first thing that we did was to get a SIM card for our phones.
My brother Nazry and Cartcart got a Hotlink prepaid card each. It was pretty easy to get one by the way – just show your passport and they’ll handle the rest. I’m not too sure if it’s worth getting though, because the signal connection here seem very erratic. Although I have to admit that getting one would be useful just for having GPS to guide us on the roads.
After that we followed our usher to our rented car and , which is a Toyota Avanza. After checking Cart’s international license and the handing of our receipts and whatnots, we were off to drive to our lodgings.
Cart had to take a while to get adjusted to the gear by the way, as it was automatic while we’ve been driving manual cars all these while. But it was not a big deal, I think it would be more challenging for an automatic driver to get used to a manual! But I think the biggest thing that we had to get used to, was to get used to driving on the left side of the road. It’s the opposite for Europe.
By the way, you could also rent motorcycles there. My brothers got for themselves a 125cc scooters each for 40RM a day. I think it’s a great way to explore the island.
Oh! And before I forget, check out the prices for fuel in Malaysia :
Nice! I like that the Malaysian government gives subsidies for fuel, which is unheard of for in Italy and in Singapore. I guess the price has raised a little at this point of time, but you could never get 10 litres of fuel for 5 euro in Italy …
In any case, Apartment Century Suria is located in an area called Kuah, which is a good 20 minutes drive from the airport. Nevertheless, when we reached there, I thought that it looked quite pretty.
I liked seeing the high rise building and with the pool outside, it looked quite classy and modern and gave me a condominium feel. There was also a little corner shop where you could get snacks, which I appreciated a lot. We hanged out there for a bit, while waiting for the owner of the apartment to bring us to our lodging.
It was only when we reached our apartment which made me a little disappointed. I asked Mr Lai, the man who was taking us to our apartment (Translated from Malay)
Me : Which level are we staying at?
Him : Level 2
Me : Can we please have a higher level?
Him : Sorry, this is the only one available
That’s fine. We just have to bear with a lack of view. But the closer we reached our apartment, the most disappointed I got. The path leading towards the front door had broken tiles on it, and the apartment had this strange musty smell, as if no one’s lived there for a while.
There were missing remote controls and holes in the ironing board … Suffice to say, the place was just not complete. Â but what bugs me the most was that the floors were very dusty. Which was unacceptable to me, because we did booking in advance, which means that the place should be taken cared of at least a day in advance, right?
I’m not that fussy when it comes to lodgings, but cleanliness is very important to me.
Which is such a shame because I think that the apartment had such a great potential and would be so classy and be more inviting, if only the management did just a bit more maintenance on the place.
So I did read from tripadvisor but I didn’t really believe the bad ratings till I saw it for myself.
In the end, we called up Eylizar to give them our feedback and they were very apologetic about the whole situation, saying that they were not aware that the apartment management has changed owners and we were supposed to get the 5th level (with complete facilities as reflected on the website)
The next morning, we got to change to another apartment in another location in Kuah called the Sri Lagenda Apartments.
It was actually a blessing in the end as I liked the location better. While we didn’t have the view of the sea being on the 4th floor nor an elevator, there were a lot of facilities around us as we were in the heart of the town of Kuah – it was easy to get to the market, the shops and the likes.
I was starting to have sore throat (probably from my 15k run a couple of days before) but there was a pharmacy just a short distance away from the apartment. Oh! And I had the most awesome food in this area! And I’ll blog about it soon đ
Our apartment was really cosy by the way. It was like being in someone’s house, so you know things were taken cared of. Everything was complete there – there was a functional kitchen, complete with basic needs like a water heater, rice cooker as well as condiments, which I appreciated)
(But even if there wasn’t, I know my parents enjoy going marketing in Malaysia and get more than enough stuff to fill the fridge up anyway!)
There was even a washing machine there where we could do our laundry. Cart and I travel light, so it was a big advantage to reuse the clothes that we have and wear clean outfits on a daily basis.
(Freshly laundered clothes takes a short time to dry anyway, due to the hot climate)
In the living room, the sofa was really comfortable to sprawl on as we watched their flat screen TV. There was supposed to be Astro, a Malaysian cable but we had no idea how to use it, so we managed to watch the accompanying DVDs instead.
I tell you, it was so comfortable just lying there that I dozed off while my siblings and I were all watching Fast and Furious 6.
And something very important to Cartcart … there was air conditioning in the living room as well as all our rooms!
I love how pretty the entire apartment is furnished, with little touches of roses here and there. Our beds were comfortable to sleep on and probably an odd thing to notice, but I liked the bedsheets and there was a towel ready for each of us.
(Speaking of which, the pictures below are taken on the last day, so it’s not pristine … ehm)
But most importantly though, is that the place was clean.
One small critique though, is that the bathroom should have a completely closed window to prevent the mosquitoes from coming in. Â In a humid tropical climate, there is always a risk of getting bitten by mosquitoes.
All in all, I enjoyed our accommodations. It was really like home away from home to me, especially during the mornings when I saw kids in school uniform running off (presumably to school) and it brings happy memories to me, thinking of when I had to do the same too, once upon a time.
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It seems that each time when Cart and I go for a visit back to Singapore, it is starting to be a tradition for us to do a family vacation.
The last we did it was in Cameron Highlands and I enjoyed that tremendously. This time round, the decision was a fierce toss up between Langkawi and Brunei (I can imagine you raising an eyebrow, but I think it’s an interesting place to go to)
Langkawi won in the end, as it is faster to reach to from Singapore. Moreover, no one in my family has ever been there so it’ll be something new for all of us.
I shot this at one of the many smaller islands in Langkawi. Gorgeous isn’t it? But because this post is going to be quite long, so I’ll divide it into different posts and today I’ll blog about getting there via Air Asia.
There are many ways of going to Langkawi – by car or by train (I would have tried this option if we had more time. I love taking trains!) Either way, you’d need a connecting ferry to reach the island.
Or you could go there directly by flight, which was what we did.
There are a number of alternative budget airlines in Singapore, but it seems only Air Asia is the only one that connects from Singapore to Langkawi with daily flights. By the way, they also connect you to places not only in Asia, but also to Australia and Saudi Arabia(!)
(I heard of rumours of a possibility of budget airline connecting to Italy but it has been a couple of years since and nothing seemed to materialise out of that)
I was a little nervous because I’ve heard a lot of feedback in my social stream about Air Asia suddenly just cancelling a flight and not refunding fees. Yikes! But we crossed our fingers that nothing wrong will happen that we’d miss our flight back to Rome.
By chance we were able to get our tickets for the summer offer and we managed to get their promo price.
The thing about budget airlines though, you’ll never know the final actual price until you hit the booking button – there will be security fee, service fee, tax fee, levy fee, fuel surcharge, insurance fee, baggage fee, processing fee … BLA BLA BLA BLA! Heck you even need to pay for choosing a seat.
In the end, don’t be surprised to see that you’d need to spend more than twice what you thought you’d pay.
(On hindsight, we should have removed the 20kg additional baggage since we travel light anyway)
On the day itself, we took a maxi-cab to take the seven of us to the Changi Airport – terminal 3.
All the Air Asia check in counters looked very busy, and there were already loads of people queueing up there. It was rather chaotic. Luckily for us, we arrived early so there were plentiful of time for us should we have queued there. Nevertheless, before we even started to walk towards the counter, we managed to get ourselves ushered in another smaller queue which was reserved for groups. And in no time at all, we were all done!
Here is my boarding pass!
It’s the first time that I’ve ever had a slip of paper as a boarding pass. Cost effective, yes?
We had quite a bit of free time, so we explored the terminal a little bit. There was this area called the social tree, where you could take selfies, put stickers and then upload it for everyone else to see.
This is one of me :
And this is one of my sister and mum :
It reminds me a lot of those neoprint machines which was popular in Singapore about 10 years ago.
Apart from that, I find it adorable that there are a lot of these types of machines asking you how the service was. There was even one at the toilet! (Which is beautiful by the way. But I didn’t snapped any pictures because I am self conscious when there are others inside)
(Take note that it is sanitised regularly đ)
We went through the gate (and waited for a bit, but there was wifi there!) and finally boarded the plane (on an aerobridge!) and quickly searched for our seats.
The seating space for the were alright. You can’t move the arm rest up, but it wasn’t such a big issue since it was a short 2 hours flight (I think you’d have to pay extra for that?) Which was also the reason why we didn’t get for ourselves any in-flight food either – although the menu did looked interesting.
(Which idiot tore this out?)
It’s been said that the in-flight menu is based on where you were going to. Since we were going to Malaysia, I remember seeing Satay and Nasi Lemak in the menu.
Also another thing to note was that there are seats with red covers, which I assume are the ones with bigger legrooms. The interesting thing was that, no one were sitting on them on both the times we were on board.
I managed to get a window seat and the entire duration of the flight, I kept looking out of the window and admired the view outside. It’s a really pretty view the entire duration – seeing urban landscapes changing into the rural. Cart on the other hand, played Candy Crush. His latest obsession and my new nemesis.
I’m not sure what the rest of my family were doing as they were sitting quite a few rows away from us.
Speaking of seats, I’d recommend you go bring your own pillow on board since they don’t provide one. It’ll be more comfy. Â Cart got me this cute travel pillow which looks like a krueller, a flower doughnut where you could twist it into different shapes, which I thought was cool.
In a surprisingly short time, the captain announced that we were about to reach Langkawi. It could be from all those long haul flights that I’ve taken, but my first thought was, “Woah so fast!”
Nevertheless I was so happy I clapped my hands as we landed, Â excited to be in this beautiful island for the first time, safe and sound. Haha! I am slowly embracing this strange Italian culture of clapping while landing. IRONIC because Cart NEVER does that! :p
All in all, I had a pretty good first time experience with Air Asia. We were lucky that we didn’t experience the bad luck that some people had. The steward/ess were all polite and professional and unlike those horror stories of how budget airline pilots driving t the planes bumpily, I found the experience comfortable. Just as if we were taking a bus.
I’d take Air Asia again, but of course, we’d have to cross our fingers as always …
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While Cart and I were passing the Lakeside MRT station, we both saw a most interesting sight – it was a double tiered bicycle stand and it made us so intrigued, we had to stop and look closer.
I liked how rather space efficient it is. You could put twice the amount of bicycles in the same amount of space. I remember some years back, the area would be all full of bicycles, haphazardly strewn around. This looks so much tidier.
We were puzzled however, on how it functions though. Are you supposed to lift the bicycle up on the second tier yourself? That sounds challenging for me, considering that a regular bicycle can weigh about 10 – 20 kg.
It was only later that we found out that you could pull and slide out a lever to the ground where you could just push the bicycle in. Genius! And I think it’s free to use too.
There is also an interesting way how bicycles are parked in Japan, which I really like. Here is a video explaining about the process. It’s about 4 minutes long, but I was so impressed the entire duration.
The service is not free, but the good thing is, the bicycles will be protected from natural elements such as rain, and also the risk of thieves running off with it.
I really like that there are so many people around the world that use the bicycle to commute. I think it’s a very cost effective way as well as a very healthy way of travelling. It’s not only an Asian phenomenon, but also in certain European countries such as Finland, where Juli was at, not too long ago. And she told me how almost everyone there cycled everywhere.
I don’t really see much of this in Rome though. Not to say that there isn’t, there are. But the amount is minuscule. It seems that most prefer to commute using cars or scooters. I don’t even see kids and teenagers using bicycles to get to school. Instead, the vehicle of choice (apart from public transportation) would be a 50cc scooter or a those 50cc microcars.
It probably has got to do with the frequent strikes that we have in Rome that makes people lose faith in taking public transportation. Or perhaps the risk of bad weather in Autumn and Winter.
I myself don’t have a bicycle as I travel a significant amount of distance, which makes a scooter (or the car when it is raining) more practical.
Nevertheless, I’d love to have my own bicycle (one with a pannier would be ideal) at least for going around the neighbourhood, getting some groceries and whatnots – it doesn’t seem to make sense wasting petrol just for the sake of getting some milk and bread.
In any case, I see more and more people in my neighbourhood each day, taking bicycles while going around. It’s a good sign.
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