FRIM trip - Back to the Nature !!

George is tired of the normal movie and shopping weekend, so he suggests go hiking at FRIM. It’s his first time to FRIM; he was so excited and even purposely bought a pair of new running shoes for it!

FRIM (Forest Research Institute Malaysia) is located at Kepong, 16KM away from Kuala Lumpur. FRIM offers all all nature lovers a back-to-nature experience, in which can enjoying the flora, fauna, landscapes and the remains of an old Orang Asli settlement.

The entrance fee of FRIM is RM1 per adult, if drive in need to pay additional RM3. I, George and Holly got this healthy activity with the cheapest price!

We reached FRIM quite late, about 10am. However, we got no worries for the sunlight, because FRIM is a living museum of trees, the trees can cover us well from the sunlight.

For the sake of the first timer - George, we decided to explore on the Canopy Walkway, which located at Zone D. FRIM is quite big so I’ll suggest to go to the information counter for a briefing and purchase some brochures, before exploring the surrounding.

George did quite good preparation, he printed out map he found from web so we skipped the trip to information counter. You can see lot of signboard showing the Zone and place of interest around FRIM, and it’s make the way easier with map, even it’s kind of outdated whereby it didn’t show some of the new places.

To get to the Canopy Walkway, we took the short track -- Rover Track

Hike up this path,

Go cross this small wooden bridge.

It took about 35 minutes for us to get there.

Too bad the Canopy Walkway was closed for maintenance until 25 May!!

See, father and daughter from Poland was so disappointed. The little princess yawns: “Daddy, let’s go back!” I wonder why the management didn’t put the same notice at the entrance, so that the visitor won’t tiredly hike up and end up with disappointment.


Another thing to take note is we actually need to buy tickets to enter the Canopy Walkway, RM5 for adult, get it at Souvenirs shop, which located at the same building as the Information center. For those who skip the trip to information center like us, you might need to take note on the green signboard on the path to Rover Track; it actually stated the need for ticket, even though it’s not clear enough. The walkway is open everyday from 9:30am until 2:30pm. It is closed on Mondays and Fridays. The reason for its closure in the afternoon is because of the strong wind that blows in the afternoon.

We continued to hike.. up to 1000 kaki!!!

“Oh my goodness.. Now it’s the time to go down”.. My legs was shaking again….George knew that I have minor acrophobia problem so he get me 2 twigs to give me some support. I look so funny and even datuk nenek can walk faster than me, shame….



After ages, finally we reach the waterfall!! Feeling relieved from the stress, I can’t wait to open my shoe and have fun in the water. The water is refreshing and cool. See, Holly also cannot tahan and start playing with the water.



I felt so exhausted and suggest getting some drinks from Malay Tea house, which said to be 15 minutes away. We followed the path to camp site, I was damn tired and being left behind by George and Holly, they walked so fast!!

We met spider-man on the way…


Discover the many species of flora and fauna …




Lastly .. after the “15 minutes” walk – it definitely longer than that!!! We reached the Malay Tea House, it’s just next to the camp side.

The deco of this tea house is quite nice, very much malay kampung style..




and it impressed us with those antique like old hi-fi, radio, iron and telephone..




We have our tea at the hut outside of the tea house, to get closer to the nature.

This small mug of tea cost us RM6.

There’s a unique tree right outside of the tea house, the leaf are yellow in color! It made me feel like it’s autumn now….


It’s not exaggerated to say FRIM as living museum of trees, as we saw another special tree on the way back to car park. See, the trunk of the tree is so colorful.

The name of this tree is Encalyptus deglupta.

It’s time to fill up our stomach. Holly guided us to get her favorites curry pan mee at Taman Selayang Jaya** – Kam Gei..it’s just opposite Old Town Kopitiam.

We ordered curry pan mee and normal pan mee. This pan mee is too thick, not so nice.


We tried out their濑尿圆 (mean “Juicy meatball”) and cheesy meatball too. To be honest Holly, it’s not nice at all. I wonder why this shop so good business???



Some advice before getting to FRIM:

1) Remember to wear good walking shoes, bring along your towel, drinking water and some foodstuff as there are no shops up in the jungle.
2) Bring along a can of insect repellant especially if you encounter some mosquitoes or other insects along the way.
3) Go to the information counter for a briefing and purchase some brochures/map before you move on.
4) If you want to make it a group trip, a guide can be requested for a fee or RM80-RM100.

Operating Hours and Fees
The operating hours of the park is from 8:00am to 6:00pm daily. Take note that the canopy walkway operating hours is from 9:30am to 2:30pm. Please spare 30 minutes to 1 hour to get from entrance to the canopy walkway. You need to purchase ticket from souvenir shop for the canopy walkway.
If you are driving, the entrance fee to the park is RM5/car else the fee charged is RM1/person. The address and contact number of the FRIM Park:
Forest Research Institute Malaysia
Kepong,
52109 Selangor Darul Ehsan,
Tel : +603 6279 7000

Getting There
FRIM is located along the Selayang-Kepong Highway. Location map of FRIM:

SS20 Fish Head Noodle & Cendol Lunch

I like to eat fish head noodle very much, but what bothering me is the hassle to pick out all the fish bones while eating. If you have the same consideration as me, you’ll like this fish head noodle shop at Damansara Kim.

This stall provides more choices: Soong Fish Head, Fish Slice and Fish Paste. I always choose Fried Fish Slice Lai Fun, to avoid the hassle of picking out fish bones. Their soup is so tasty and it’s nice to eat with the “Q Q” Lai Fun. If you are on diet, you can choose to have Fish head + Spinach soup, I think this is why I always see lot of office ladies having lunch there.



Other than fish head noodle, another attraction to me will be cendol.

The cendol is smooth and I like the gula melaka so much!! The amount of santan is enough for me, to cover the sweetness of Gula Melaka, but have to admit it's not so healthy..

SS20 Fish head noodle is located at Medan Selera MBPJ Damansara Kim, it’s operate from 10am to 4pm. Try it out and hope you’ll like it too.

KL Tower - Wedding dinner banquet

After 5 years stay in Klang Valley, my very first visit to KL tower was to attend Andrea’s wedding dinner. I felt so excited when I received Andrea invitation, because finally I got a chance to visit KL tower for free.. LOL..

Frankly speaking I got really limited knowledge of this tower, so I did a search to know more:


“From Wikipedia,

The Kuala Lumpur Tower (officially known as Menara Kuala Lumpur; referred later as KL Tower) is a tall tower located in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and was built in 1995. It is used for communication purposes and features an antenna that reaches 421 m (1,381 ft), which currently makes it the fifth tallest tower in the world. The roof of the pod is at 335 m (1,099 ft).

The rest of the tower below has a stairwell and an elevator to reach the upper area, which also contains a revolving restaurant, providing diners a beautiful view of the city.”


It was really a nice and memorably experience to have wedding dinner there. The wedding dinner is held at banquet hall of Mega View deck, so we are able to admire the panorama night scene of KL city from the top.

The wedding dinner layout also romantic and heart-warming, however one of the cons point is due to the tower structure, the stage and guest table arrangement is not appropriate, a lot of blockage, that block guests to view the stage programs..

We received special small gifts for the wedding dinner.. a key chain and a KL Tower shape bottle of mineral water with the bride and bridegroom photo on it..


The last dish of the dinner was KL Tower ice cream!!

After the dinner, we admired closer view of different colors of KL Tower :)

Continued.. Rooms Type of Austin Hill Golf Resort

Shelyn asked me few days ago “Why Super suite is cheaper?”, after she check out my recommendation on Austin Hill Golf Resort.

Quickly I browse through the website of this resort:

http://www.austinhillsgolf.com/accommodation.html

*Fantastic* website, it shows only few photos for the rooms, without relate to photo to the room type. Attached also the table of room charge, again, without put in description what is Suite 1, what is Suite 3, why is it call Super suite. I start to understand why Shelyn asked me that question.

I remember I got a brochure for this resort, which is much more details than the website. Went home and search around … Luckily found it..

Okay.. the different between Suite 3 and Super Suite is: Suite 3 is make up of 1 master room attached with Jacuzzi + 2 Small rooms + Living Hall but Super Suite is just 2 master room attached with Jacuzzi + Living Hall , so it’s RM50 cheaper than the Suite 3..So Shelyn, does this answered your question? LOL..

Austin Hill Golf Resort

Without second thought, I recommended Austin Hill Golf Resort when Amanda asked for my opinion on where to stay during her wedding day, at Johore Bahru. This is the best resort i ever stay in JB.

I went to this resort 5 years ago, and it impressed me by the huge room, fantastic facilities and nice scenery. So, I told Amanda to go have a look since it is just nearby her house at Desa Tebrau. As expected, Amanda loves it and rented Suite 3 for us.

This resort looks no different after 5 years! It’s still looks elegance and nice. We checked in quite late that day, because we helped Amanda to decorate her room for her wedding.

The swimming pool..

The lobby.. and lift entrance...

Wow.. the Suite 3 is even bigger than the room last time I stayed. It make up of 3 rooms, one huge living room and one small kitchen. The living room is huge and with the panorama view of the golf field.. I bet the living room itself can easily fit in 30-40 people!

The master room is bigger than expected and attached with Jacuzzi + sauna facilities some more! See, Paul can’t wait to jump into the Jacuzzi bath tub!

I got no time to grab the photo of the master room, but you can imagine.. The master room is even bigger than the room in this photo. I grabbed this photo from web, and if not mistaken, this is the room for Suite 1.

On Amanda’s wedding day, we wouldn’t want to waste the nice scenery of this resort and decided to spare sometime to take photo around this resort.

Too bad.. half way taking.. the staff stopped us and told us we need to apply before we can take photo in the resort! This really puzzled us, what a weird rule!

After all this is really a nice resort and worth for the price. Will update the room rate and it's decription...
The location map of Austin Hill Golf Resort:

http://www.austinhillsgolf.com/location.html

The best “Bat Kut Teh” !!

This is definitely not the 1st time I recommend my friends about this Bat Kut Teh at my hometown, Kota Tinggi. This is really the best Bat Kut Teh I ever tried so far. Those in Klang cannot compete at all!!!

Kiang Kee Bat Kut Teh, located at Batu 3 on the way from Kota Tinggi to Mersing. It is quite easy to be located as it sat on the roadside, which you can always see lot of cars parking nearby, and a big yellow signboard with name “Kiang Kee”.


The small pondok on the roadside is so obvious and you can’t miss it. They have extended their shop and now even have uniform!

The must have to eat with Bat Kut Teh : A pot of Chinese tea, Garlic, Chilies with Black soy sauce and Yao Cha Kuih!


The uniqueness of this Bat Kut Teh is you can request the boss to add wine and chilies in it.. By adding wine made the soup even tasty and the taste herb even stronger.

With the generous amount of "Bat Kut" and those inner parts.. it really comes with limited amount of tasty thick soup... You can request to add soup, but it's really depends.. sometimes they will allow to but sometimes not..

Another uniqueness is they still use wood charcoal to cook Bat Kut Teh …

This is the boss.. who always busy cooking..

A lot of Singaporean comes all the way down for this Bat Kut Teh… during peak season normally need to queue for an hour for the Bat Kut Teh.. As the regular customer, we will normally ring up for reservation before that.

Believe me, it's really worth trying if you happen to be at JB!