Wednesday, August 30, 2006

My trip to Malaysia!!!

It's taken so long for me to finally blog this but here goes.
I should say that I took a million photos, but I'll put up 15-20 of the best just to give you an idea of the highlights of the trip. I'll break it down into days otherwise I might write far too much. It was AWESOME!

17th - Flew into KL at around 4:40pm. Immigration always annoys me. But Malaysia is SOOOO cheap! Hooray!
18th - Staying at Uncle Andy's house in Bandar Utama, woke up late, shopped (very nice), ate the most delicious watanhor and hokkien mee. All I can say is: I NEED TO GO BACK TO MSIA!!! Dad also arrived in the afternoon.
19th - Woke up really early (7.45) to travel to Ipoh on the way to Penang. 7 people: Me, Dad, Mum, Uncle Andy, Cheryl (cousin), Sa-Yi (auntie no.3), Be-Yi (auntie no.5). Ate curry mee in the morning, then at Ipoh ate the best chicken (from chicken rice), 47rm$ for 7 people! Got to Penang towards the evening and stayed at the Gurney Hotel, on the 33rd floor out of 36. THEN, ate at some nearby seafood place, aahhh....a crazy amount of seafood, pepper crabs, abalone, 267rm! About $100 for 7 of us!
20th - Ate a massive buffet breakfast, but buffets are never that good. Went around Penang, first to the Kek Lok Si temple. Then to the Snake Temple! Held some vipers, was in the middle of an 8m python and saw a King Cobra in a box get angry :)
21st - Drove a million miles from Penang (West coast) to the East Coast. Took roughly 7hrs. Watched pirated X-Men 3 and Poseidon in the car. From the east coast, boated to an island called Redang. The resort (Laguna Resort) is really cool looking. Like typical tropical resort, straw hut roofs, bench chairs, etc. Take a look at the photos. Didn't do much except eat 34 satays at the buffet dinner.
22nd - Woke up pretty early to go snorkeling at the Marine park, on the other side of the island. Was AMAZING!!! Fish everywhere!! The underwater photos don't do much justice. The most beautiful tropical fish I've ever seen. Then at 3:00pm, went snorkelning again to a different place to look more at coral. The coral wasn't as amazing but one of the instructors showed me some 'Nemo' fish, which were quite hard to find among the sea anemones (I thought they were poisonous, but I guess not).
23rd - again went snorkeling in the Marine park. This time saw two giant groupers (brown spotted fish in the photos) and three massive parrot fish. My shoulders are burning a little bit from sunburn. In the afternoon, I couldn't hack it so I slept most of the afternoon.
24th - Woke up early to take the ferry back to the mainland. Most of the day was spent in the car, all the way back to KL. But once we did get home, I did get to do more shopping. Bought some decent work shirts for $30AUD, CHEAP! EVERYTHING IS CHEAP!
25th - Woke up early yet again, this time to catch my flight and back to Japan....:(

Here are the photos: