Day 4 in Langkawi on 8 Feb 2010 (Langkawi Cable Car and Langkawi Sky Bridge)

Going to Langkawi Cable Car is a MUST-GO attraction for those visiting Langkawi. This attraction is located at Oriental Village which is on the west side of the island pretty near the airport, Pantai Cenang, Pantai Kok and Burau Bay. The entrance to the Oriental Village looks very plain (we almost could not believe that this was the place) with just a simple signboard and a wooden bridge leading to the village. There is no sheltered parking either for cars or taxis so we had to leave our rental car under the broiling sun.


One has to buy tickets for this attaction. For Malaysians, upon production of MyKad, one is entitled to purchase one ticket for oneself at RM 15. All other nationalities have to pay double that price which is RM 30. One should also keep the ticket (which takes the form of a card and is the size of a credit card) safe because losing/failing to return the same after the ride would result in a penalty being imposed. Other than the base station (first station) from which one departs, (6 people to each cable car following the queue system of numbers on the floor from 1 to 6), there are two other stations. While it is possible to take photos from the cable car, I wouldn't recommend doing so because one is able to take far nicer photos from the other stations. This is a picture I took from the second station showing the way up by cable car and the oriental village below. Beautiful but not breathtakingly so.

From the second station, one would be able to see the third and final station (Top Station) in the distance as well as the Langkawi skybridge as per the picture I took below.

It is most advisable to continue the ride from the second station (after getting down for a short look-see and a few photos, there isn't very much) all the way up to the top station. Here is a picture I took of the second station from the top station which gives you an idea how much further up the top station is.

According to this signboard, the top station is 652.5 meter above sea level, as is the skybridge. Now, a word about getting to the skybridge. It is quite a distance away and quite a climb up and down. Along the narrow winding way down to the bridge through the threes, we saw lots of overweight and elderly people sitting on tree stumps, panting and gasping for breath. Therefore, be warned that you need to be in reasonably good condition to climb down and up from the bridge in good time.

For those wondering whether the trek there is worth the effort, I would say most definitely! The sky bridge is indeed a magnificient steel structure with a paranomic and astoundingly breath-taking view of the ocean.

I'm talking about having a view of a huge expanse of the picture below where the sea is so blindingly pure blue that it appears to blend seamlessly with the sky in a picture perfect haze-like fog of different shades of blue and white. THIS, this is what makes every cent paid for the trip worth it, to be able to stand and marvel at the beauty of our planet Earth.

After about a million photos of the scene above, we made the journey back up to the top station. Unfortunately, my travel companion was overweight and therefore was too winded to take another step after the trek up. Hence, I went alone to one of the two observation decks which are a couple of long flight of stairs up from the top station. There is a sign on the deck which says 703metres above sea level and it was pretty empty up there. The view from the deck is pretty much the same as that from the sky bridge except that one can take a shot of the other observation deck as I did. The wind up here is pretty strong though so secure your hats.

I also took a picture of the Langkawi skybridge from the observation deck. Quite a marvellous structure it is.

The Slog Reviews: 10/10. Do not miss going to this attraction if one is at Langkawi and one should bring a really good camera too!

Day 3 in Langkawi on 7 Feb 2010 (Fishing for trevally, first time catching a fish on lure and dinner again at GLK restaurant)

Due to our feasting the night before, my friend Z could barely get out of bed and we ended up going fishing at 10am instead of 8am. We had the same deckie and the same boat as the day before but this time, we headed for Datai Bay instead to target Trevallys, usually called GTs or "Airbags" because of the wheezing sound they make when they are caught. Datai Bay is beautiful and dotted with these low clifflike structures which provide shade and shelter for the fishes.

This time, we did not use any live baits at all (in fact, the day before only the deckie used live bait for the handline which yield just one coral trout) but concentrated on pure luring - Casting and retrieving artificial baits. Now, a lot of people think fishing is a passive boring hobby (at least that is the feedback I get) but it isn't. I will write an entry later about why I love fishing but suffice it to say for now that fishing can be very physically and mentally stimulating and tiring. Imagine having to cast (arm power!) your line and fake bait as far as possible to the exact spot you are aiming for. As far as possible so that when you retrieve back the artifical bait by winding the spool (as if you caught a fish), you are able to cover as much ground as possible and increase the possibility of a fish taking your lure. And when I say exact spot, it's no use at all casting to areas where the isn't likely any to be any fishes - it is a fine technique I tell you - having to cast near the rocks and NOT get your lure stuck on the branches or rocks.

That aside, imagine having to do all the above many times repeatedly without stopping under the broiling hot sun standing up on a rocking boat. Cast, retrieve, cast, retrieve. And knowing that during and after more than 100 casts, one is guaranteed of nothing. I have been luring since June last year (will write about my first offshore luring trip) about once a month with two months break...total less than ten times and each time I have ended up empty handed. While I have caught fishes, I hadn't caught anything from the sea before on lure until this trip.

So, given the extremely dismal performance yesterday and past few months where I was "fishless"fishing in the wild using lures, I wasn't expecting very much out of today either but I still go up and did my thing. It's sheer madness I tell you, caking on the sunblock, donning the UV protection shirt, the fishing hat and mask, and then casting the line out and retrieving the lure again and again and again and again. Anyway, after my 20-30th cast, I felt a take, a pull on my line while I was retrieving the lure, and I waited a bit and then struck. The fish at the end didn't put up too much of a fight ( I had a 30lb leader) but hey who cares! I got my FIRST FISH ON LURE after all those fishless luring expeditions! And my first fish on lure was a Garfish. Now, I don't care if Garfishes eat anything, but the point is, it decided to take my lure! And I managed to hook it up!

I almost wept with joy when I finally caught the garfish and no, I'm not kidding. Imagine the money I've spent on fishing trips, tackle and lures, driving 3-6 hours through rocky roads, the knots I've had to practice, squatting in the hot sun untangling the "beehoon"/"bird nest" from using my baitcasting reel, and having my faith in myself and my ability thoroughly shaken at some times. There were times when I was tempted to give up this whole business of luring and just bait where I almost always never end up "fisheless". And not having anyone who was supportive of my hobby made it all the more harder. My friends don't fish and are not keen to. So when I decided to take up this hobby, it meant having to make new friends again. What gets me most frustrated though is the absolutely discouraging remarks that I have to listen and endure from the people around me such as "Face it, you have no luck. Face it, you have not enough skill. Give up lar. You are not going to catch any fish". It got to a point where I just simply decided I wouldn't be around these ignorant fools anymore, especially not for fishing trips. I say ignorant because they aren't anglers and therefore have no right to criticize or make disparaging remarks of the aforementioned kind. Throughout all my fishing in Thailand, Malaysia and SG, I have found one thing in common - fellow anglers NEVER criticize or tell you to give up on fishing even if you end up fishless at the end of the day. Never ever. For any angler would have had a bad day fishing and knows that "fishless" days are part of the parcel. And they know how awful it feels to be "fishless", or how you could get a fish at the very last minute, so they never make such comments at all.

After getting the garfish and unhooking it from the lure, flush with success and glee, I decided to change lure and go for groupers. The first time I went luring with my shifu in Singapore, I almost got a grouper from the wild, it snapped at my lure but missed. Since then, I've been determined to get a grouper on lure by hook or by crook. So, I went back to casting and retrieving over this spot in Datai Bay. Groupers are always hiding in holes in and under rocks like the kind you see in the picture which I took below, as are green-eyed squids.

After about another 20 casts or so, and when I was quite resigned to the gar fish being my only fish for the day, as I was retrieving the lure slowly, I felt the lure getting "stuck". I thought that it was "sungkot" which is the malay term for the lure being stuck at the bottom between rocks. That happens very often when using diving lures because you need the lures to bump the rocks where the groupers are (no point having the lures above the groupers' heads) . Anyway, I gave a little jerk, and the "stuck" feeling went aware and I found I had a fish on my line. Again, because it was a 30pnd leader I was using, and the fish was not very large, there wasn't much of a fight if any and I brought in my first grouper on lure! I would have released it, given its size but as it was my long-awaited fish, I'm sorry to say that I thought it should be eaten.

Into the icebox that grouper above went, and I went back to luring over the same spot. We didn't get any more bites after that so I switched to eging/squiding by using an artificial prawn lure to get some sotongs but there were no takers. So, we switched spots and casted along the sides of each mossy island/rock thingy in the sea. And that is where I got my third fish on another lure (that lure was meant to target GTs) which was yet another grouper and an even smaller one than the first so I released it.

While we were circling about the fishing spots, we came across this scene. 4 women engaging in extremely dangerous work. According to Z, they were lookning for oysters/clams which are stuck at the side of each mossy island. A wrong slip and they would end up in the waters below and lord knows what lies under the waters - rocks with sharp ages? Jellyfishes (we saw a few in the bay)? Predator fishes (we saw a baby shark at one of the fishing spots!)? It's amazing how some of us have it so comfortable in life, while there are others eking out a living like this.

In the afternoon about 2pm, Z, who hadn't caught anything until now, and was luring for GTs, caught a barracuda. It was a larger barracuda than yesterday's. Apparently, barras are attracted to fast moving lures too like GT, but that shouldn't be a surprise since both are predator fishes.

From 2 to about 6pm when the waters started to get so choppy that we could barely stand up on deck (the waves made the boat go up and down like a rocking horse), much less lure (need both hands - one to hold the rod, the other to wind the reel), Z managed to get 3 GTs! 1 of them was about 2kilos (the top one in the pic below) while the other two were about 1.1kg each. The size 11 sandal is placed there to give one an idea of how large the fishes are. For myself, despite changing lures thrice and retrieving at a fast speed with Z (which was extra tiring cos it meant that I had to cast more often given how fast the lures came back), I didn't manage to any GTs! BUT...BUT, I had a GT chase my lure all the way up to the boat! Z and I could see the flash of silver and the fish itself as it followed my lure all the way to the surface but unfortunately, it didn't take the lure. I cast out again but the GT apparently had lost interest and I didn't get any strikes or chasers. Ah well. Now with the grouper under my belt, guess what fish I'm going to go for next....the GT! I know, I know, I keep thinking if only too...if only that GT had taken the lure

As the sea was far too choppy, we went back to the mangrove/estuary area after 6pm and did some light trolling and casting. However, it was all quiet and there were no takers at all. This is a picture of the sunset over the mangrove area which I took from the boat.

I asked Z to join us for dinner about 8pm when we finally got back but he declined because he had other commitments. So we went back to GLK restaurant again where they cooked the fishes for us. Z offered me his barra to eat but I wasn't too keen on eating a barra because I wanted to eat the fishes I had caught - the garfish and the grouper. However, as from the pictures above, they were tiny things so I took one of Z's GTs too (the medium-sized one although he wanted us to have the largest one).

This is a picture of the Garfish I caught chopped and fried. Without its long mouth, the portions look rather pathetic. Heh. But guess what, I'm not complaining. The meat (yeah, there was meat to the fish) was white, soft and delicious. If you had clicked the abovelink to read about garfish (click here if you haven't), it is known to be a delicious-tasting fish! No wonder Z was trying to get some garfishes for himself too! The Slog Reviews: 10/10. Hey, I caught it - of course it's a perfect 10! :D

The picture below is of the GT steamed in sauce WITH the grouper I caught next to it. Without the head ( I wonder what happens to the heads of all the fishes - the threadfin we ate last night was missing its head too), the grouper looks even smaller. Well, still, I ate whatever meat there was on my grouper - a good thing there wasn't too much meat anyway because I was grinning with my mouth fit to split that I'd broken my "dry" spell and finally landed fishes on lures. :D I now believe more firmly than ever in the 10-000 hour theory. Go read Outliers if you haven't a clue what that is about. The premise behind the theory is that no one who is good at what he does spends less than 10000hours prefecting his craft while those who suck at what they do are shown to spend less than 10000hours on it. This, and only this thought is what keeps me going when I feel like giving up on something.

We also ordered butter prawns from the restaurant. The Slog Reviews: 7.5/10. The prawns weren't live prawns but from the freezer. The restaurant doesn't do a bad job of cooking the prawns this style but it isn't anything to rave about either. The cost of this dish was really cheap about RM 20+ if I remember rightly.

What was expensive however was the mantis shrimp which I had steamed. THIS, was caught live from the restaurant's tanks. It was such an hideous color of purple (from its original grey shade) after being steamed with the eyes being cooked white. Yikes, truely a nightmarish creature. The Slog Reviews: 7/10. Although I am of the opinion that fresh live seafood should always be steamed, I think that for the mantis shrimp, it would be wise to have it fried like I had the same done in KK (click here) or whatever other way as suggested by the restaurant. The cost of the mantis shrimp is RM 12/100gm.

The cost of the meal above was about RM70...I think the boss forgot to charge us for the cost of cooking the three fishes. While GLK restaurant was relatively empty while Wonderland next door was packed, I would recommend GLK restaurant still for its excellent service. Maybe the food at Wonderland is really much nicer (given the crowd) but if one cannot wait to try out the food there, GLK is just 4 steps away.

Day 2 in Langkawi on 6 Feb 2010 (Fishing for Threadfin, GLK Seafood Restaurant)

The main purpose of this Langkawi trip was to go fishing with a fishing kaki, Z, who is a Malay Malaysian running a tour agency on the island. Z offered me a great rate of RM1000 for two eight hour boat trips which is about SGD 50 more than what I pay for an offshore trip here on a cost-sharing basis with other anglers. Sometimes, I amaze myself with how far I am prepared to go for fishing - like waking up on a holiday at 6am. Z was punctual picking me up from the hotel at 8am and off we went to where his 4 boats were docked at Tanjong Rhu.

I didn't want to risk losing my own fishing gear and the hassle of watching over the same so I asked Z to provide all the gear, lures and bait. Thankfully all his reels were spinning reels - I really need far more practice using the baitcasting reels :(. We started off fishing near the nearby islands using lures. The picture below is of the shallower waters near one of the islands (Langkawi is made up of 99 islands). The beauty of the different colors of water, green in this case, never fail to astound me.

Here is another picture which I took to share the beauty of the sea. If you look carefully at the picture (which of course has not been edited in anyway), you can see the two distinct different colors - the deep darker blue and the lighter blue-green hue of the sea closer to shore. On the Pekan fishing trip, I saw three different colors meld into each other- brown, light blue and dark blue and that was what made me determined to get a waterproof camera.

And below, is another picture which I took when we were further out on the open sea. As I said, one of the reasons why I love offshore fishing trips is because of sights like this that one could never otherwise see except in pictures.

Our target for today was threadfin so we did light jigging. I had a couple of pulls on my jig but nothing. Z also had 4 strikes but nothing. It was only about 3.45pm (before that, all that we caught was one medium coral trout on handline using squid as bait) that the deckie who was also jigging caught the first threadfin! That's the picture of him and his first threadfin. In the next half an hour, he caught two more threadfins about the same size. Z and I continued pumping and jigging madly away but alas, we did not catch any threadfins at all :( Most disappointed.

About 6pm when it was clear that we weren't going to get any threadfins (the deckie didn't catch any more threadfins after the third), we turned back to the mangrove area. The sea was getting really choppy besides. We switched from casting to jigging. Z managed to get a small barracuda on lure about 7+pm.

Here's a close-up picture of the barra caught on a rapala lure - frankly, I'm scared of barras - I've heard that the large ones can take a man's arm off and from the picture below, I don't think that story is a myth - unlike other fishes (say, peacock bass), the sharp teeth of the barra are located at the front of its mouth (as opposed to the back of the mouth behind the lips).

One of Z's "bros" (they call each other bro and sis here) suggested that we take one of the threadfins caught by the deckie to Wonderland Restaurant. However, when we got there about 9pm, the place was packed. As in, all the tables were taken. Appears to be wildly popular even amongst the caucasians. As I was tired and stinky (try standing under the broiling hot sun luring (cast the lure as far as possible (or rather, to the desired position) and then retrieve and then repeat like a million times), I didn't want to wait for a table so we decided to try the restaurant just next door.

The boss is a large "fattish" chappy who speaks English, Malay and Chinese. He is also very sociable, circulating from table to table and interacting with his customers. He was agreeable to cleaning and cooking the large threadfin for us too (weight was 2.4kg) so we decided to have dinner. The threadfin was so large (there were 3 of us) that he suggested cooking it in two different styles. This is the first half of the fish steamed the way I like it best - in sourish soup. The Slog Reviews: 10/10. Come on, freshly caught fish from the sea! How can that rate lesser than a ten? And the restaurant's efforts - ahhhh, what can I say about the bitingly sourish hot soup that lends its own flavour to the fish (which was cooked so well it didn't have any fishy taste) ?A Must try if you go to the restaurant...although, you'd better bring ur own freshly caught fish as the restaurant does not have any live fishes in tanks waiting to be cooked.

As for the other half of the fish, this was also steamed but in black sauce. Equally delicious. The picture below shows the thickness of the flesh of the threadfin. The Slog Reviews: 8/10. Heh, it goes without saying the fish was fresh (we caught it!), the sauce was fine, nothing wrong. But I guess my tastebuds were spoilt by the way the other half of the fish was cooked so I didn't really like this dish as much (this dish can be a bit too salty too).

The cost of cleaning, cutting and cooking the fish was RM 20. We also ordered crabs. The restaurant has live mantis prawns, live crabs and some other smaller live prawns. The cost of the three crabs below was about RM 70. The owner was so sure 3 of us wouldn't be able to finish so much food but hey, we did! Every single morsel too.

The Slog Reviews: 8/10. The crab was fresh of course, freshly slaughtered but it was cooked so well that its flesh (see pic below) was firm quivering white and sweet despite the dish being a "crab fried in egg yolk dish" I would usually recommend against having fresh seafood fried but I'll tell you that this restaurant did such a fabulous job of cooking the crab in egg yolk that the meat in the crab tasted so good as if it had been steamed. And the egg yolk batter fried with the egg added a tasty melt in your mouth crust on top of the tender white meat. Definitely a must-eat!
The total cost of the meal below (together with about 6 cups of lime juice/lychee juice) was just RM119 (SGD 40-50). A satisfying end indeed to a "fishless" day.

Day 1 in Langkawi on 5 Feb 2010 ( Car Rental, Bayview Hotel, Night Market and Orkid Ria Seafood Restaurant)

The flight from Singapore to Langkawi by Tiger Airways took one hour and twenty minutes. We reached Langkawi International Airport at 4.25pm on Friday. The airport terminal is a two storey building and one is required to walk across the tarmac from the plane to the building. Thankfully, it wasn't raining but it sure was blazing hot. This is the huge signboard that greeted us when we got down from the plane. Langkawi is a tourist island (there is only one factory on the island, a cement factory) where the population is 90% Malay and almost all the locals are involved somehow in the tourism trade.

Clearing customs was a breeze with about 6 counters opened. While waiting for the bags to be loaded on the conveyor belts, one can drop by the many car rental companies booths located a stone's throw away. Be warned that although the companies are different entities, the staff of the companies are on very good terms with each other so pitting one co against another co isn't a good idea. I was offered the rental of a honda city at RM330 for three days (5pm Fri to 5pm Mon) which 1 of the co claimed was at a 50% discount. However, I thought that it was still beyond my budget of RM100 a day so I looked around some more and after haggling for half an hour and being offered a variety of cars (rejected all the proton cars esp the waja because that isn't fuel efficient), I settled for an automatic Mitsubishi Colt at RM270 for three days. Below is a picture of the car. Driving it took some getting used to because it was the gear was located next to the wiper stick (my hand kept dropping to the empty space in front hah) and the hand brake was next to the brake pedal. The interior of the car is rather cramped though I must say (the backs of the front seats almost touched the back seats).

I had wanted to rent a GPS to go long with the car initially but the car rental staff were quick to assure me that the roads in Langkawi are very easy to navigate and there are sign boards along the road for all the touristy places. And true enough, it was very easy to drive around Langkawi to get to the attractions marked out on the tourist maps. The roads are all one lane (in each direction) and I saw police road blocks every single day I was out. Maybe it is because Langkawi is one of the two duty-free places in Msia (the other is Labuan) so liquor and cigars are dirt cheap or maybe the crime rate is so low that there isn't much else for the police to do.

I'd booked a room at Bayview Langkawi for less than SGD80 a night. The hotel is located at the far end of Kuah Town but with a rental car, the hotel location isn't a problem. In any case, the hotel is next to Plaza Langkawi which is a rather dismal shopping mall with nothing very much. There are many shop houses selling hawker food, silk clothes and local products around the hotel. The Slog Reviews: 8.5/10. Alright, this hotel isn't luxurious but it is decent enough. Clean, spacious, with a mini fridge, safe, coffee-making facilities, a bathtub and a TV (not LCD or Plasma) with some cable chanels like cinemax. Truely value for money, especially since the price of the room included a pretty nice buffet breakfast. The picture below is a pic of the breakfast area.
The reason why I would recommend this hotel is because of the excellent customer service provided by the staff. When my flight was cancelled, I called the hotel to ask for a change in dates and they not only agreed to let me change dates without any cost but even called me from Malaysia to confirm the change. The counter-staff are polite and speak English so checking in and out went very smoothly. The picture below is of a normal standard room on the 9th floor.

I had a choice between booking a sea-facing room and a hill-facing room which is slightly cheaper. Figuring that I wouldn't be in the room very much if at all, I'd picked the hill-facing room. The picture below is the view from my room (the windows cannot be opened but the rooms do not smell stale.)

After leaving our bags in our respective rooms, we took the Colt for a spin to catch the sunset at the beach along the way to Tanjong Rhu as suggested by the car rental staff. This is a picture of the stretch of public beach which we stopped at.

This beach is a sea-shell collector's heaven. There are many types of pretty and almost perfectly formed shells littered along the entire stretch of beach. Despite my resolve not to collect stuff that I don't need, I ended up picking quite a few sea-shells to take home.

A picture below of the sunset from the beach. We couldn't really see the sun go down because of one of the islands but I still enjoyed the beauty of the skies changing color. There were a few families playing on the beaches and little kids swimming in the sea. A peaceful place indeed.

The next stop was the night market which was 5 mins away on the other side of the roundabout. The night markets in Langkawi are held at different locations on the different days of the week. We had intended to go to the one at Kuah Town on Saturday but since we were around the area, we went to this night market instead. Parking was a bit of a hassle because of the number of cars parked along the side of the roads so we parked a fair bit away and walked back. The night market on Friday consist of stalls lining two sides of a lane/road per the picture below (I took this picture from the "entrance" to the night market.)

As you can see from the picture below, most of the stalls at the night market sell food. All types of food. I took this picture because I'd never seen such huge woks/cooking pots before. If not for the fact that we were going for seafood later, I would have tried out the noodles for they looked so delicious.
This is the first time I'd ever seen ketam goreng. Ketam means crab in Malay and Goreng means fried. It didn't look very tempting though despite the color and I didn't dare to try it besides because one never knows how fresh/stale the food is if it has been deep-fried.

The only thing that I ended up buying and eating from the night market was the pulut durian. Unfortunately it wasn't the durian season in Langkawi so I didn't manage to get any of my beloved fruit despite walking through the entire market. This was the closest to satisfying my urges. Pulut durian consist of a single fleshy durian seed on top of sticky rice and warm coconut milk poured over the mixture. Yes, a rich warm calorie-concoction but it was good! Maybe it's because I like durians anyway but durians, coconut milk and sticky rice...that combo is something I'll like to replicate in Singapore again on my own.

After the night market, we went to the renowned Orkid Ria along Pantai Cenang for our dinner. Parking again was an issue as most of the lots were taken up even as late as 8.30pm. The restaurant was crowded and we had to take a queue number. This restaurant is ranked number 11 by tripadvisor.

While waiting for a table, we had to stand around the entrance of the restaurant. Some of the restaurant's selection of seafood are laid out there (to attract tourists). The tiger prawns are almost as huge as the lobsters and this is the first time I've seen lobsters priced at the same price as tiger prawns too!

Because of the Pulut Durian I'd stuffed myself with and because the lobsters and tiger prawns were dead (and therefore not as fresh as caught live from the tanks), we decided to have fried soft shell crab, beancurd, sambal kangkong and butter prawns. While the drinks were served relatively quickly, we had to wait a good 40 mins before the food came. It wouldn't have been so bad if the food was good, but it was not and they gave me prawns in egg instead of butter prawns. The Slog Reviews: -1/10. This must have been one of the worst meals I'd ever eaten overseas. The person who reviewed this place as a tourist trap is absolutely right on. The softshell crabs were flour-like lumps that were so hard and tasteless that it didn't feel like I was eating softshell crabs and I left 7/8 of the dish untouched. It was that bad and an absolute waste of money. The kangkong was below mediocre leaving no taste at all in one's mouth, the beancurd was a soggy mess and the prawns did not taste fresh at all. In fact, the flesh of the prawns were so far from firm that they were just mushy tastless meat in the shells. What an absolutely waste of time and money! I'll bet that the people who have reviewed Orchid Ria and thought that it was a great place to go to must have never eaten before at Hua Hing Restaurant at Sedco Square in Kota Kinabalu! I do not agree that Orchid Ria at Pantai Cenang in Langkawi is the best seafood restaurant in Langkawi and think it nothing more than a tourist trap.

Eve of Chinese New Year (Reunion Dinner Lo Hei and other traditions)

Happy Lunar New Year! It's the Year of the White/Metal Tiger now. In accordance with Chinese tradition/customs/practices for the Lunar Chinese New Year, I (a) bought new clothes to wear on the first day (b) have new red undergarments (c) spring-cleaned my office (d) spring-cleaned my bedroom (d) made sure that I had a full tank of petrol in the car entering the New Year (e) sent my car for a good wash (f) did my utmost to clear as much work as possible (wasn't possible to clear my inbox tho'); and (g) tried to clear my "debts" (whatever owed to others); That's My Precious after the car wash at Caltex at 5pm today. There was a horribly long queue and the 3 mins carwash cost SGD 8. After I got home, I had to clean the inside of the car myself and also, apply rainact solution on the windscreen. Unlike my previous car, a charming little Daihatsu Sirion which I nicknamed The Toad because it was green, I have never, until today, cleaned the car myself. It was always easier and cheaper to send it to a car wash for just RM8 when I go to JB (and that car wash vacuums and cleans the inside of the car too!). Maybe I should start cleaning the car myself as a weekly workout - I do so like the gleam after the wash. I would have pumped petrol in JB and washed the car there too this week if not for the horrible massive jams I've been hearing about- A lot of Chinese Malaysians are beginning to start the journey back to their hometowns for Chinese New Year.

Of course, per tradition, we had the reunion dinner this evening followed by rummy-o. My mother cooked curry chicken, chap chye, braised shitake mushrooms and scallops, sharkfin soup, cod fish and stewed pork. Frankly, I don't think losing weight is a very real possibility, given how much of her good food I've eaten and given that I have two buffets scheduled for tomorrow's lunch and dinner respectively! Argh! The pic below is of the second Lo Hei I've done this CNY and at home at that (the first was at the department's lunch)! My mum usually frowns upon having Lo Hei at all because of the mess - one uses the chopsticks to lift the ingredients as high as possible while uttering auspicious Chinese phrases and the end result is that the ingredients are strewn all over the table or the floor. It's fun, but there is a lot of cleaning up to do! I've heard that this Lo Hei tradition started in, and is unique to Singapore (but has since spread to Malaysia). Each ingredient in the dish is suppsoed to symbolise something - for eg, the sweet sauce is supposed to be mixed in when one is uttering a phrase to do with sweetness in one's life, and the crackers are supposed to symbolise wealth ie the Chinese traditional gold nugget.

The Wolfman (2010) Movie

I caught the sneak preview of The Wolfman. There weren't any other shows (too many Chinese shows in the days leading up to Chinese New Year) that my friend and I could agree upon so despite both our mutual dislike for horror films, we decided on this show because of the special effects and because of Anthony Hopkins.

There is a pretty decent plot summary of the show here and an even better one here so I shan't do my own plot summary as I did for the Percy Jackson movie.

The Slog Reviews: 7/10. Tragic ending - I thought the wolfman could be saved and not killed when the gypsy said that he could be saved by a woman who loves him. However, she meant saved as in set free, as there isn't any cure for his condition. The special effects in the film were great - watching the men transform into wolves - hindfeet bursting out of shoes, digits lengthening, snout appearing with sharpened teeth BUT and it's a huge BUT, the director went too much for the sudden effects scare. As in, the music builds up to a pitch and then there is the BOOM (close shot of hideous face, close shot of monster closing in etc). Too much of that kinda thing throughout the movie. As well as too much of violence, blood and gore. And, I mean, violence - werewolves decapitating people, ripping out some luckless fella's intestines, putting their claws through the back of yet another luckless fella's head...nauseating. This is not a show for children definitely or one who eschews violence.