A nostalgic trip to Central Market and Petaling Street

After a failed trip to Hibiscus Garden (Taman Bunga Raya) in Taman Tasik Perdana which was closed for 2 days, 20-21 Sept for Hari Raya. We decided to head over to Central Market, the local centre for handicrafts, batiks and souvenirs, which is just about 1 km away. Driving in the city is relaxing on public holiday morning, when there were merely a handful of cars on the road.

It was still early, barely 10am, the centre has not fully woken up yet. As Max complained he was hungry, despite having oats and milk for breakfast this morning at 8am, we stopped by Old Town Central Market for breakfast part 2.

We ordered a Double Oldtown Toast with butter & kaya (4 pcs) for Max and thought of trying out Nan Yang Kopi ‘O’ and Rendang Chicken Rice.

The toast is crispy, toast crunch with real buttery (Old Town has partnered with pure butter, SCS) and sweet kaya spread. Max finished 2 slices and was starting on his 3^rd when he spied the Rendang Chicken rice his Dad was just tucking in. Sweetly, he said, “Dad, can I try your rice?” … and that’s it! He happily finished the spicy rendang and sambal, leaving red lips but no moanings of too spicy hot. So, Dad and Mom finished his toasts instead.

In the next couple of hours, we could hear roller-shutters rolling up signaling a busy business day ahead with more tourists coming in. Some could be seen selecting souvenirs, trying out beautiful & colorful batik outfits, Chinese cheongsams, silver trinkets and ladies accessories, wooden handicrafts & traditional musical instruments, hand-made kites, local delicacies & tid-bits.

Being Hari Raya weekend, some stalls are not opened. I bought an interesting interlocking wooden puzzle egg toy for Max to unravel. I love browsing thru’ the stall in search of some gifts and home decorative items.

I re-visited the bookstore that I used to frequent many years ago during my college days. The proprietor told me they have been around for 20 over years. I got to read Tom Clancy's, John Grisham's and Sydney Sheldon's book here to name a few. They sell new magazines too. You can buy these 2^nd hand books for a certain price and re-sell back to them within 1 month for a lower price after reading or you can choose to keep these 2^nd hand books. Being an avid reader especially novels, I find this an excellent arrangement without my bookshelves groaning and books littering everywhere in the house.

Next, we walked over to Petaling Street, the Chinatown bazaar with lots of bargains and yummilicious food. There were fresh fruits stalls, fresh roasted chestnuts, apparels, bags, watches, traditional cookies & biscuits, tid-bits, fresh flowers, roasted duck & goose, curry puffs, dried meat & meat floss, Nike & Adidas shoes…and so much more. There’s a charm about this place that draws the crowd, both local and foreign, not just the bargain items and mooncakes or lanterns as it’s nearing Mid-Autumn (or Mooncake) Festival...

We stopped by for a must-have at Chee-Cheong-Kai, the local Chinese called it (Petaling Street), Koon Kee’s Wantan Noodle. We finished the noodle before remembering to take pictures. The springy noodle with special thick dark soy sauce accompanied by the char-siew is our favourite and right in front of the partially hidden shop is an old man selling fresh-made Chinese pancake, some called it “Apam balik”, a flat 16” (diameter) large hot plate cooked batter liberally sprinkled with sugar and coarsely chopped peanuts, folded and cut in to smaller pieces, sold for RM0.70 each. He has been there for as long as I can remember.

A couple of stalls down, we bought our favorite “Shat-ke-ma”, which is basically crispy fried bits of batter, coated with thick maltose, cooled and cut in blocks. These were my grand-mother's favorite too.

We bought a lantern in the shape of Spiderman (RM8.00) for Max and a “Choo-chai paeng” (Basket piglet) for RM1.00 from Loong Kee, all in the spirit of the coming Mid-Autmn festival. We just couldn’t resist the variety of mouth-watering pastries from Foong Wong, and bought some egg-tarts, siew-paus and plain lotus-seed mooncakes.

We left mid-afternoon when the sun was just too hot, for the cool interiors of Central Market again, then drove home, the parking came to RM9.00 for the few hours. We snacked on the yummy & very satisfying pastries we bought, on the way home.

It’s been an enjoyable family day though we couldn’t visit Hibiscus Garden but we’ll try that again another day.

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Beach Holiday on Langkawi Island

Max got a surprise during the recent school term break.

Max loves the beach, sand-castle, shells, sunshine… so Langkawi it is, far enough to fly & short enough for him to enjoy his first ever flying trip. My hubby and I were re-visiting Langkawi Island for the 3^rd time.

A very memorable holiday for us, since it rained on Day 2 till Day 4…even when the plane lifted into the grey skies!

On arrival, we took a taxi to the hotel. The taxi ride is RM20.00 for the 15-minutes ride to Holiday Villa in Pantain Tengah, located in south-west of the island, with neighboring hotels like Frangipani, The Lanai and Tropical Resort. 

The sprawling Holiday Villa Beach Resort & Spa has a fairly relaxed setting in lush tropical garden with each of its 258-rooms open to own private balconies. Lots of bunga raya (hibiscus) as hedges leading to the beach and along the garden path, near the pool. I noticed there were lots of heliconias too. The beach is beautiful, not crowded, with quite fine white sand. If all you want is beach-sea-sand holiday, this is a good location. There are some restaurants across the road and further up.

We dropped our bags in our room, put on our swimsuits, slather on sun-block and head out to the beach. There’s something about the sea and small rolling waves that beckon to us to play in the surf…

The sunset on Day 1 weren’t perfect but we had a great time, making footprints in the wet sand, watching it washed away by the waves and we played a game of looking for buried slippers. Max’s happy laughter and chuckles could be heard as he played with his father.

Me, I’m just contented with watching the yellow ball of sun dipping further down in the horizon, slowly making way for total darkness of the nightfall. The warm breeze as it blew from the sea brought calmness to me… bringing back memories of my childhood days growing up in a seaside town. Having settled in the big city now, I realized I missed the beach so much.

The hotel’s Mario’s Italian Restaurant serves very good white sauce pasta and lasagna. We cleaned the plates before remembering to take pictures as we were just too hungry.

The next morning, we were up early at 7am, beautiful sunshine, very excited at the thought of spending the whole day at the beach. Looking out, we were pleasantly surprised to see a pair of naughty hornbills sitting at our neighbor’s balcony, knocking on the glass door. They were only 3m away. I think I had a good shot, but I was so nervous in case they flew away before I captured them in my little Canon. (Canon Powershot A700)

 

After a leisurely breakfast in Lagenda Coffee House, we changed & headed to the beach again. Max was playing at the water’s edge and scouting for seashells with his Dad. 

I was enjoying the lazy day on the sun lounger, wrapped fashionably in my colorful Noor Arfa hand-drawn batik beach pareo. A pair of sunglasses shielding my eyes, a copy of Elle in my hands and did I mention a glass of chilled OJ on the side-table? What an idyllic holiday…! I think I only needed a hammock to complete the settings.

Some young guys were enjoying the rush of adrenalin on jet-skis, a couple of guys trying out para-sailing, a few bikini-clad bodies & hunks toasting in the hot sun, lulled by the gentle sway of palm fronds overhead, I was beginning to think it’s paradise indeed…

Till my tummy rumbled, it’s lunch-time. OK, time to feed the little prince, somehow he has forgotten all about food while he’s busy building his sand-castle.

There was a humidity in the air that signaled an on-coming storm, a look to the right, showed grey clouds hovering near the airport direction. We were reluctant to leave the beach but ended up soaked to our skin, fleeing into the hotel.

We waited for the rain to stop but it didn’t, so we took a taxi to the Underwater World, wanting to catch the penguins-feeding. We were not disappointed. We saw a performance by the seals with their trainer and one in particular showed off to his audiences, zooming in the waters. It’s amazing watching those adorable looking African penguins getting fed. We could watch them swimming, as we walked in the glass tunnel. “Surf up” Cody, the rock-hopper penguin was there, looking quite wise with his yellow eyebrow.

We saw Mr Ray (the stingray character in Finding Nemo) gliding through the waters, some huge and bored-looking groupers and spotted a white-tip shark too.

Nearing the exit a very graceful white and translucent jellyfish with their ‘lacy’ tendrils could be seen in a blue tank and a moving seaweed, on closer inspection was actually a seaweed seahorse.

We took home Mumble, (Happy Feet) a small souvenir for Max.

“Oh, there’s still a drizzle, Mom” the discouraged voice of Max could be heard. We waited and shortly the sky seemed to have let up. A short stroll through the wet street of Pantai Cenang, air still damp from the recent rain, we found a small little restaurant serving fish-n-chips, surprisingly it’s quite good. We also had a strawberry milk shake for the little one. We left after that, disappointed that we couldn’t explore the street with the many little charming shops.

Day 3, was worse, it was drizzling, raining, pouring, trickling…well, wet the whole day. There’s no point renting a car to go anywhere. There was NatGeo education time on TV, 11-pages homework, Tom-&-Jerry on TV, Brain Teasers, Discovery Channel and story-telling… and more hotel food.


I decided to pamper myself with a blissful session at Amoaras Spa...

Day 4, was not better. After breakfast, we packed our bags, giving the beach one last look of sadness,“Dad, we haven’t finished building our sand-castle!” And, left for the airport intending to hang around there till our evening flight. One part of the road to the airport was flooded with 2 feet deep waters, the padi fields around there was like one large lake.

Our 4-days stay there weren’t too bad. I guess the warm friendly smiles of people somewhat made up for the wet-days. Apparently August is not a good month to go to Langkawi, wet season. I didn’t get any tan lines to show I had a beach holiday !

So, what are we gonna do this long weekend of Hari Raya...? Maybe paint the fence & gate and just might get a good tan! :-)

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