Yummy Historical Walk [Part 2]

5 September 2009 @ Malacca

...continue from Yummy Historical Walk [Part 1]

JooLi and I walked around the Stadthuys Square, aka Red House. It's the another significant landmark of Malacca.

At the square, you can see the Christ Church, Queen Victoria's Fountain (right in the center) and Malacca Clock Tower. If you want to take a ride on a trishaw, there were quite a number of them lining up for you to pick.


I saw a little alley between the shops at Red House, and went in to take a look. Seems that the little alley leads to the Malacca River (Sungai Melaka). There's a stairs to walk down to the side of the river.


Beautiful weather, nice back-lane scenery, and a handsome model. *perasan* What can I do? Decided to take some jumping-into-the-river shots. Turned out pretty cool eh? Thanks to my pro photographer! =)


We also visited Holland in that short period of time! Yeah right, it's just a little windmill standing at the side of Malacca River. Haha! Would love to visit the real Holland someday.


After that, we crossed the river to reach near the Jonker street. JooLi suggested to buy tarts from this little shop on a narrow road - Tart Tart Bakery.


I ain't revealling what we bought till the end of the post. Anyway, we tapao the tarts and head towards the ship. Along the way, I saw a new structure.


It looks like a newly built/ discovered fortress or something. I don't really know what's the name of it, and I have never seen this thing before (a decade ago). Being the curious William, I climbed the stairs to snap a few photos. A few cannons were sitting on the top, and I sit on top of the cannon.


Another interesting I saw was the "Kincir Air Kesultanan Melayu Melaka". I wanted to take a photo with that thing but there were a bunch of indian teenagers hogging up the place. Losing my patience, I just took a photo of the watermill with those people inside.


Walk and walk and walk some more, we reached The Ship. It's actually the Maritime Museum, a replica of the Frol de la mar ship. In common terms, we just call it The Ship.

A couple of tourists wanted to visit the museum but it was CLOSED! The opening hours displayed clearly stated that it should be open at that time, but they closed it without any notice. I guess the people there are just too busy getting ready to break fast (it was fasting month for Muslims) and couldn't be bothered about the tourists in Malacca. Bad impression of Malaysia man.


Well, I managed to take a good photo here. And helped a couple took photo with the ship too!

After we left the ship, we saw our shadow on the road and wanted to capture it. The kind lady whom I helped to take her photo earlier asked whether I needed help to take our photo. I kindly rejected her help, we don't need it anyway.

*Note the top right corner of this photo is the lending hand of the kind lady. How nice of her*

While walking back to our hotel, we bypassed Taming Sari Tower (Menara Taming Sari). It's the first revolving gyro tower in Malaysia, measuring 110 meters in height.

going up!

Curious on how much it takes for a ride like that, I went in for enquiry. If not mistaken, it's RM10 for a 7 minutes ride. But for those who enjoy sceneries from high up, or those who are birds-wannabe, it should be an incredible experience to be able to see the whole of Malacca in one glance.

on top of the.. Malacca!

It was a really hot day. With tarts on in my hands, we stopped at the McDonald's to quench our thirst and munch our tarts. We bought 2 Portugese egg tarts, 1 cheese tart and 1 blueberry cheese tart. The tarts were so heavenly we decided to buy more before going back to KL on the next day.

From Dataran Pahlawan, we walked back to Fenix Inn for a quick rest before heading out again for dinner. We had a special guest who joined our evening session for dinner and more! Well, it'll be in my final post on this Malacca trip. Billy, out.

... continue at Yummy Historical Walk [Part 3]

Yummy Historical Walk [Part 1]

5 September 2009 @ Malacca

It was supposed to be a little gathering for JooLi's friends, but the plan were postponed. So I said, why not we stay with the plan and head on to Malacca since I've not really tour around since.... 11 years old? That was a decade ago! Well, she agreed. =)

JooLi and I departed from KL early morning. When we reach Malacca, the first thing we do is to try to check in. But we reached way too early to check in, we head for Chicken Rice Balls for brunch instead.


I can see the 3 words - "chicken rice balls" almost everywhere in Malacca. It has become so commercialized people started making their own balls. Nothing special to be, except the SHAPE of it.

We headed back to our pre-booked Fenix Inn and we're still too early. Luckily they have parking lots for tenants. We parked our car and walked over to Dataran Pahlawan Melaka Megamall for a walk. Never thought we'll end up shopping and buying stuff!


When it's about noon time, we checked into our little cozy room and head out to hunt for food again. We went to Donald & Lily Corner for "tea".


This shop is quite recognized in that area and was visited by the Ho Chiak food show on 8TV. Looks like it's really worth a visit.


The shop was not very big. We were lucky to be able to find a place to sit. Many people had to wait for a table as the place is really packed. The interior was decorated with many beautiful vases, teapots, statues and etc.

Back to the food there. We had cendol, laksa and Tau Kua. Laksa was really good, though I was sweating through my pores, eyes and nose. The cendol was great for a hot day. But I don't really like Tau Kua, as I don't really fancy eating tofu.


After eating, headed back to the hotel again, just to park our car there. We then walked across Dataran Pahlawan, towards A'Famosa.

One of Malacca's unique - colourful trishaw

The landmark of Malacca - A'Famosa Fortress

I still remember the last time I came here, was with my classmates when we were 11 years old. An ang moh (foreigner) was playing his guitar at the top of the stairs. My friends were so entertained by him that they gave him a lot of their pocket money. I wasn't one of them.


Up the stairs, we reached St Paul's Church, that is sitting on St Paul's Hill. I didn't have much memory at that place besides a caged hole. That's all I could remember. I think it's because my friends and I spent too much time listening to the guy on his guitar 12 years back. Blerh!

JooLi with the caged thing that I remembered

Jump shot is a must

We came down from the hill and walked over to Stadthuys (old Dutch spelling meaning "Town Hall"), also known as the Red Square.


Built by the Dutch as early as the 16th century, it's one of the significant sight in the heart of the Malacca town. We went to say hallo to Oliver the Bulldozer and some kind of old fire engine. Don't really know them or their history, just want to see them because they're really old.

Malacca view from hilltop

It's a long long post, so I'm going to split them into a few posts. This is the end of Part 1, more photos of Stadthuys and yummy food coming up in the subsequent posts. Stay tune! Billy, out.

... continue at Yummy Historical Walk [Part 2]

A Fun-Filled Loooooooong Day

30 August 2009 @ Neway, One Utama & Wong Kok Char Chan Teng, One Utama & Taman Bukit Maluri & Station One, Aman Puri

We didn't manage to sing karaoke the last time we went out, due to some external factors which I do not wish to include here. *Ahem* Let's just say that we did make up for the loss. Had a karaoke session early in the morning, before the birds even start chirping.

All white shoes - Note Uncle Wong's shoe is similar to mine! Sama brand lagi..

The gang comprises of 3 people who didn't contribute to the national economy growth, plus one who contributed too much to Malaysia's cash flow. And because of that, we had to take the early bird karaoke session (which is the cheapest) and we get to sing for 2 hours ONLY!

Aunty Bee aka Indian Pretty Lady (IPL), Aunty Cheng aka Cheng Yee, Uncle Wai or Uncle Wong, Me!

Luckily Neway serves buffet breakfast. At least the food covers back the money I paid for singing.

All of a sudden, a pinky freaky monster ambushed into our room. I was sitting facing the door and screamed on purpose. Mana tau... these people screamed too, when they saw the monster. I really laughed out loud.

it's actually collecting donation for some disaster thingy

Not really satisfied with our karaoke, we head on to Wong Kok Hong Kong Restaurant for a drink. We talked and talked and talked... and someone started abusing the pencil and papers for patrons to take order.

Ta-Da!

Well, couldn't deny that she can really draw something.


Later on, Uncle Wong tried his luck on drawing too! Which turn out... he's good in imaginative art! Aunties and uncles took turn adding this and that to spice up the drawings. So this is the final product after sitting there for about 2 hours? 3 hours? *I lost track*


In the late afternoon, I went to visit my granduncle. Then, head back to Aunty Cheng's house for BBQ. These girl who organized the party, marinated the food, prepared everything, invited people, but doesn't have a BBQ pit! and nobody knows how to start a fire!


Poor William gotta do all the dirty job while Bryan tried to kick him. Hmmph!


The Indian lady and the UK boy went back to rest and changed before joining the pack for the dinner. A few more friends of theirs join in.

The 3 chickenwingeers?

Bryan, ChunHao, me, SokBee, SiawCheng and Stewart (squatting)

Everyone wants to get a hand on cooking the food. So does the indian lady who couldn't control the flame on the pit and kept burning her food. Perhaps she likes it BLACK, just like her name applies.



The after dinner activity is more talking and playing cards. They were playing some sort of confusing game with a lot of shouting and laughing.

The SMKTBM PPS (Pengawas Pusat Sumber)

We were making so much noise that we were afraid that we'll get smelly tofu and rotten tomatoes being thrown at us. So we decided to head on to Station One at Aman Puri to rock on the crazy night.


Once there, we asked for 2 decks of cards and started playing Chor Dai Dee. Non stop playing and non stop losing for ChunHao and Calvin. Bad luck day for them.

I think it was around 3am or 4am when everyone is finally tired and barely keeping their eyes open. I went back home, dropped down tired. Flat.

Anyway, it was a really fun outing with the people, especially the 2 that I can only meet once every year. (that is if they come back to Malaysia) I started working and SiawCheng had her studies, so we didn't go out like crazy last year. But I still hope that we can meet up to have fun again next year.

Till then, all the best to you guys in your studies. And I mean you, you and you. Ganbatte! Billy, out.