Travel

Bath, UK

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bath

Bath is a small city a couple of hours drive from London best known for the Roman Baths. It’s supposed to be the only hot springs around England when the Romans came. The town has a really unique character, largely due to the stones that the buildings are built with.

bath cathedral

The buildings in Bath are made with distinctive honey colored stones called “Bath stones” from quarries surrounding the Somerset area.

bath us

I took a day trip there to explore this World Heritage Site. It is a very popular destination – the place was packed even though it was off season and full of visitors thronging the main square.

the bath bun

There is a local specialty called the Bath bun – it’s described as a bun with a lump of sugar baked in the bottom and crushed sugar and raisins on top.

bath bun shop

The best place to grab one is at The Bath Bun at the main square.

bath bun

It’s simple but rather tasty, especially when it’s freshly baked.

sally lunns

I have also read about the Sally Lunn bun, and was determined to eat it before I left. Unfortunately, I had spent way too much time wondering around and nearly missed my bus so I couldn’t sample this other local delight.

bath square

I would say that a day trip is too short if you really want to explore Bath, Somerset. There are a lot of inns there where you can spend the night and I highly recommend at least two days to discover the quaint city of Bath.

Stonehenge Rock Cake

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stonehenge me

I made it a point to go to Stonehenge during my trip to England. My only regret was that Stonehenge is not located in Amsterdam. I think I would have gotten much more out of it if it were there. 😉

rock cake stonehenge

Anyway, I have lots of photos and videos of Stonehenge so I’ll do a full writeup of this place soon. I read in Wikitravel that I should not miss the Stonehenge rock cake after immersing myself in the mysteries of Stonehenge.

stonehenge rock cake

I don’t know who wrote that but I can tell you that I’ve eaten better rock cakes. It’s 1.99 pounds (about RM 10) and it’s nothing more than a marketing gimmick. Go to Stonehenge to see the rocks, avoid the rock cakes. 😉

Space cakes in Amsterdam

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amsterdam space cake

I have come here to highlight another gross violation of my good standing and name during my vacation in Amsterdam as well as to reassure everyone of my outstanding reputation which may have been tarnished with these revelations.

space cake cannabis

Coffeeshops in Amsterdam sells space cakes and space muffins for about Euro 5 (RM 20 or so). It differs from coffeeshop to coffeeshop – I assume they make it themselves since all the ones I’ve been to contain different packaging and sizes.

I bought and ate one as a snack one day. It tastes just like chocolate cake – what my mom would bake (no pun intended) in her very wholesome kitchen. It’s quite delicious really. My mistake was that I did not look at the ingredients before I naively consumed it.

space cake

The paper slip inside the space cake starts out with “Inexperienced marijuana users are advised not to eat space cake” and ends with the shocking revelation that the very item I was consuming contains 0.40 (measurements not indicated) of cannabis and gorilla glue weed.

eating space cake

I rushed to the toilet and forced myself to throw up by sticking two fingers down my throat. Hereby, with my stomach totally regurgitated of the vile cannabis infused muffin did I take stock of what just had happened. I’m glad I managed to completely empty my stomach by voluntary vomiting after unwittingly consuming spacecake. I just didn’t know what it was.

This is the second time I’ve been fooled in Amsterdam. Well, I never! Hmph. action

Pub food in London, England

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england draft beer

The closest thing to English cuisine is probably the food you get in pubs. Pub grub comprises of dishes ranging from bangers and mash to more elaborate Sunday roasts.

pub grub

I once asked a resident what the best food locals eat in London is and he quickly answered, in all seriousness, I might add – Chinese and Indian food. He went on to explain the cultural melting pot made curries and such a staple of modern gastronomy.

english pub

Pub food is probably the last bastion against the influence of globalization (not that I’m against it, it’s just that I want to eat proper English food, whatever that may mean, while I’m there). It’s best served with a pint (or three) of one of their local draft beers, which is nowhere near as carbonated as other beers – it’s pulled manually and comes up with a proper head.

england pub

One interesting thing I noticed about the pubs is that you can ask for an extra pull if you feel that the foam is too much. More beer. w00t.

I hereby present a selection of the pub grub that I’ve had during my vacation there:

Scampi and chips

scampi and chips

This is a variant of the popular fish and chips – substituting scampi instead of fish. It’s served with slab cut potatoes and green peas. I also had a pickled egg on the side. It’s an acquired taste, pickled eggs. I love pickled eggs with my fish and chips when I was in Melbourne.

Traditional full English breakfast

english full breakfast

It has the works – bacon, portobello mushroom, grilled tomato and toast.

Chicken pie

chicken pie

This chicken pie is rather unorthodox as the filling isn’t INSIDE the pie. Instead, the chicken filling is served on the side and the pie crust is empty. The boiled potatoes fulfills the carb intake and is best eaten with butter. Delicious!

Sunday Roast

sunday roast

This can differ according to which pub you go to but it’s basically a choice of meat with gravy and some sides to fill you up.

Scrumpy Pork Hock

pork hock

Now this is one juicy and remarkable piece of work. A huge chunk of pork is served with mash and green beans. The pork is tender – it’s the cut near the leg, also known as pork knuckle. It has a lot of tendons in addition to the meat and fat, which makes it all the more palatable. The gravy is made of apple and cider sauce. Mmm…

Bangers and mash with black pudding

bangers and mash

Bangers and mash is traditional pub grub – it’s sausages with mashed potatoes and gravy. I also ordered some blood pudding to go with it.

black pudding

Blood pudding or black pudding is a type of sausage made with pigs blood and it’s as tasty as it comes. Definitely a must try in England. 🙂

South Korea and North Korea DMZ

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dmz

I’ve been reading with MUCH interest about the latest exchange between the two Koreas – what the papers would undoubtedly call a “souring of relations”.

dmz fence

The shelling and the drama. Hell, I wish I was back there.

dmz us

Anyway, I just came back from Korea over the weekend and one of the more interesting places that we visited was the DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) that separates South Korea from North Korea.

dmz stone

You can actually SEE North Korea from the border.

north korea

If you use the binoculars or if you have a really good zoom, you can even see the poor North Korean folks slaving away at the farms.

prayers

Part of the DMZ consists of a tunnel (one of many) that the industrious North Koreans built (or a ruse by South Korea, depending on your leanings and proclivities towards conspiracy theories).

dmz aud

We walked down one of the tunnels which was allegedly painstakingly dug from NK under the DMZ right smack dab into South Korea territory where they can march their formidable (but undoubtedly emaciated) troops through.

dmz me

I can’t figure out how that can happen though coz when we walked through the tunnel I kept bumping my head (which was wisely equipped with a mandatory safety helmet) on the top of the route.

dmz seoul

No one would call me a basketball player, I’m certainly not tall but I’ll be damned if it really was the North Koreans who built it.

dmz end

It would take a lot of effort to transverse the distance with firearms with your head hitting the ceiling every meter or so.

dmz photo

I managed to sneak a couple of photos of North Korea while at the DMZ – it didn’t turn out well since security was tight and some people got their digicams checked, but I pulled it off.

korea dmz

Not that there’s anything to see anyway. :S

dmz prayers

Well, I guess their prayers for peace didn’t work so well after all.

Greetings from London!

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london

Hello! This is the obligatory “I iz here” post. I am where GMT is exactly that – zero! I’ve been up for quite a while, my body thinks it’s 8 pm when it’s actually only 12 pm. T_T

alex sharon

I didn’t manage to get much sleep last night too but you know the oft repeated phrase “Small world, huh?” Yup, I bumped into Alex and Sharon in London! I asked them about a bus route and later we bumped into each other while waiting for the coach and he asked if I was sixthseal.com coz my face looks familiar. See you both in Amsterdam!

Anyway, back to London, it looks old…er, I mean it has character at first glance. The skies are a little bit gloomy and it drizzled almost non-stop. >.<

kind local

I have a very good first impression of this city though. I got a little lost on my way to the hostel where I’m backpacking and asked a hurried looking woman on the street the way. I expected her to walk on saying she didn’t know but she stopped, rummaged around in her handbag for a book and patiently consulted it and told me where to go. She said that book/map is the only way she manages to find the way around the city. Good first encounter with the locals – willing to help despite being in a hurry.

I’m waiting to check into my hostel right now, having a pint of their fine local draft beers. Let me just give you a brief run through of what happened after I got here:

breakfast

Grabbed a full traditional English breakfast with two pints of the local ale. Where else can you have a pint at 9 am in the morning without having weird looks, nay, with other people doing the same thing! =D

milk

Went to the local and bought some essentials and this creamy milk – it’s unhomogenized fresh milk from Jersey cows and it tastes awesome!

I made a huge mistake by exchanging the bulk of my currency at the airport. I got a 5.8 exchange rate instead of a 5.1 exchange rate in KL, resulting in a loss of GBP 80 (around RM 400). I saw that the exchange rates are more favorable in town so it’s still okay to change your money here, just not at airports.

roulette

Anyway, I decided to take matters into my own hands and get back the GBP 80 by stepping into one of the many betting places over here. They operate kinda like the Aussie betting spots – horses etc with a couple of pokies machines thrown in. However this one offers Bacarrat!

roulette win

I inserted GBP 100 and bet GBP 40 on Red – and won! I bet another GBP 40 and lost, and the losing streak continued till I finished my GBP 100. I put in another GBP 200 (swearing that if I lost this, I’m going to go) and started betting consistantly GBP 100 (about RM 500) per spin. I kept on losing and winning and lost the GBP 200.

winning slip

I damn won’t give up lor and put in another GBP 200 (for total buy in of GBP 500). I bet GBP 100 each round again and kept on losing and winning and was about to give up and just write off the GBP 500 (RM 2,500) loss until I went on a winning streak.

It was a tough battle but in the end I managed to get GBP 600. w00t!

pound winnins

That’s a GBP 100 (RM 500) net profit after my GBP 500 buy in. I managed to cover the GBP 80 loss in exchange rate and have a nice breakfast and a couple of pints courtesy of the machine to boot. 😉

600 pounds me

God Bless the Queen! =D

pints

I’m heading down to Stonehenge and the Roman Baths tomorrow. Catch you on the flipside!

Posted: 1:11 pm London time

Golden Palm Tree Resort, Sepang

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nice photo

Golden Palm Tree Resort is located in Sepang and consists ENTIRELY of water villas. This 5 star resort is a great alternative instead of Port Dickson since the drive is a bit shorter. To be honest I was a bit dubious about this when I drove down with Lainey bff.

sepang gold coast

I had expected an empty resort…

lounge

…but the place was PACKED with tourists, both local and international. We stayed in the Travelers Palm Villa and this is what the room looks like:

bed

The double twin bed is Michelle‘s doing. smirk

room

One interesting aspect about Golden Palm Tree Resort is that the place is exactly shaped like the fronds of a palm tree with the water chalets fanning out into the sea.

map

It’s a long walk from the reception to the dining area but fear not – there are heaps of buggies which you can hail down and hitch a ride from.

mermaid

They all have interesting names too.

tea

We arrived there slightly after lunch so we grabbed some tea.

tea time

There is a Club Med style package where all F&B is free so you can eat all you want without worrying about having to pay extra.

infinity pool

The one thing about Golden Palm Tree that completely trumps Club Med is that liquor is free too!

fronds

Gin and tonic? Vodka on the rocks? Neat rum? No worries, it’s included in the price! =D

water chalets

Anyway, we chilled in our room for a while before heading out to the mangrove tour.

balcony

It has an awesome balcony…

shower

…and a shower that I really liked coz you can sing while you soap yourself for all and sunder to see! smirk

resort

You can also jump from the balcony but I seriously do not recommend it. Do it at your own risk. 😉

pool

The infinity pool! *refrains from saying “To infinity and beyond!”

boats to depart

Back to the mangrove tour, this is different from the mangrove tour I’ve been to in Langkawi – they have different species of mangrove over here.

me lainey mangrove

I’m on a boat!

Doing our part! *proud

planting mangrove

We’re planting mangrove seeds for it to grow.

Next on the itinerary was The Search for the Holy Ketam. I was one of the few to step off the boat and into the nearly knee high deep (at times) mud.

yellow crab

There are yellow crabs…

one armed crab

…and a very interesting crab with a immense left claw.

ketam

It took a while but we finally managed to find ourselves one of them. w00t!

gpt got talent

It was back to the resort after that for dinner and an awesome show by the talents at Golden Palm Tree Resort.

It’s called GPT’s Got Talent and it’s an awesome and interactive night entertainment program. YMMV though, they have different events running at different times.

Me and bff Lainey kept on supporting the good ones but alas, it wasn’t enough.

We had a lot of fun though and met a lot of different people.

The latest way to take a group photo is via video.

Okay la, I set it to the wrong settings. :p

love this photo

I particularly liked this photo. Heh!

We then adjourned back to our hotel where Nicholas and Lainey sealed the deal. *stamps I WAS THERE smirk

it support

I had problems with the Internet at around 1 am in the morning and two of their IT staff came over to fix it. At 1 fucking AM!!! (deserves more than 3 exclaimation marks to be honest)

Now this is what I call excellent service.

The next day…wah damn hard to wake up lor, Lainey was up and I took my time and had a couple of swigs neat from the Absolut Raspberry I brought up before I could properly wake up.

lainey wakes up

Lainey wakes up like this.

i wake up

I wake up like this. T_T I could only drink a beer and eat a banana FML.

watersports

The eco friendly water sports were not running that day due to the lack of wind so we ended up…

spa

…touring the place instead!

escapade spa

There was a massage session scheduled for us after that at escapade spa. I love massages and I opted for full strength as did Lainey bff.

foot rub

It is a very relaxing environment and puts you at ease and takes all your stress away.

We got into the couples room and it started with a foot rub before the actual massage.

lainey semi nude

Here is Lainey semi nude. Lainey sez: WA who’s that hottie wei! I was wearing nothing but boxers too.

elaine loh

It was in this totally chill place where the masseuse worked her magic and I completely dozed off after she did my back and moved to my front.

It was an awesome massage though. First class treatment. It can’t get any better than this.

contented smiles

*contented smiles

steamboat

It was a steamboat lunch after that before lazing around the resort and packing our bags to get back home. I had a huge backpack which I lug around when I travel. Lainey bff travels lighter than me! We really didn’t want to leave. It was such a chill place that we had a discussion about taking leave the next day and just chilling here for one more day.

group

I love Golden Palm Tree Resort – you can’t ask for more in this 5 star getaway just an hours’ drive from the city. I thoroughly enjoyed myself there. The drive back was quite sad though coz Lainey bff pasaut in the car and I missed the short weekend in Golden Palms. 🙁

pasaut

It definitely warrants a return trip back if you want to chill and get away from the stress and hustle and bustle of the city.

end

Get more information at the Golden Palm Tree Resort official website. I <3 it.

Balcony jumping in Sepang

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balcony jumping

Okay, this is a rather ill conceived idea that got into my head ever since the mangrove tour guide guy told me the water was 5-6 meters deep from the individual water chalets. I’ve done cliff jumping in Ton Sai and bff Lainey knew that I was gonna do this from the way I pondered and reccied the exit points.

There is an emergency ladder system about 100 meters from our water chalet and to be safe I deployed the life buoy (standard in each chalet). I didn’t know how deep the water was or whether there are any rocks under it so I needed the life buoy as insurance just in case I jumped into rocks and can’t resurface.

I must let it go on record that this is not recommended at all! It was a lot of fun for me but the water at high tide is only 1 meter deep (!!!). It’s a good thing the bottom is sand or else I’ll be in a shitload of trouble from jumping from the balcony into the sea.

The video is funny from bff’s commentary and how I kena tiu by the security guard when I appeared seemingly out of nowhere…in my briefs. smirk

Go watch! =D