Port Dickson 26.07.14 - 28.07.14

During the raya holidays, we went for a short trip with my in-laws to PD.

But the in-laws are going a day later. With a spare free day for us, we planned to make a pit stop to melaka on the way to PD since there won't be much things to do in PD anyway.

Driving to melaka during holidays us akin to suicide but lucky for us, the highway wasn't that jam on that day. We managed to reach in 2 hours though.

But melaka as usual was freaking hot and we're super hungry as we skipped breakfast. Planned to make a pit stop in seremban for breakfast but decided to give it a miss as it was jam in the seremban exit.

Being a long holiday, all the famous eateries were queuing will tourist. It was only after a while we managed to find a nyonya restaurant. And we only have an hour to eat as they are expecting a group of tourists too. No choice, eat lah! Isabel's was sweating from top down!

Got our ass up once we are full and we went for a walk. Got to know there's a new attraction in jonker street. Mamee house. More like a cafe though. Seems isabel liked mamee monster a lot, hugging it non stop. 

Next we went to the obligatory stadhuys. Melaka is not complete without going there huh?

Hello kitty thishaws seems to be the craze in melaka these days I guess. Most of it are adorned with hello kitty.

The weather is so hot that we left for PD after a cendol and a short walk. Isabel can't stand the heat anyway. Previously, wife and I would continue walking till we literally drop!

After another hour drive, we had finally arrive our destination, Regency Tanjung Tuan.

Isabel checking the around the apartment upon arriving.

For those who never been to this apartment, let me just tell you, don't bother staying there. There's no hot shower, the tv doesn't work. the air conditioning for our master bedroom doesn't work and when we called the receptionist on that matter, it took the technician almost 2 hour to arrive. and yet he failed to repair it. TWICE. We don't even bother to get him to adjust the TV. And the toilet are dirty too. It took the hotel more than 10 room service staff to clean an apartment but yet the apartment are not clean... We thought of changing the apartment but we decided not to due to certain reasons.

I have nothing to say if the apartment is rm300 per night. But no, it is rm600 per night, so I think we deserved more than that.

Enough ranting about the lousy stay. At least the dinner for our first night is something to be happy about.

Mother and daughter were busy checking on what to eat.

We decided to have Mexican food that night, something not associated with PD at all. The restaurant, El Cactus serves delicious Mexican cuisine at reasonable price. One thing though, remember to put on mosquito repellant as while you enjoy your quesadillas and tacos, the misquote will be having a feast on your legs!

We retire early after dinner as we were dead tired after the first day.

The next morning, we went to another popular breakfast place, PD Eating Point.

The place serves pork-free every day breakfast fare. You get the usual wan tan mee, English breakfast, noodles and nasi lemak all pork free. The food is normal to us but the staff are quite friendly. Price is a bit on the high side though.

With time to spare while waiting for in-laws to arrive, we decided to go to PD Waterfront for a stroll.

Isabel having fun walking around the car park while watching the sea in PD Waterfront...

I find this place quite nice. There's no beach for you to play water but there's quite a number of cafes and eateries for you to hang out. You can relax in Starbucks or McDonald's located in front of the sea. Nice...

Well, in-laws reached not long after that and it is time for lunch. We had no idea what to have for lunch but ended up settling for banana leaf rice. I don't remember the name of the place but it is packed! There's two banana leaf rice restaurant in a same row of shops but both are full house. I guess maybe Indian food are limited in PD.

After a short rest, it is Isabel's favourite time. After her vacation in Langkawi, she seems to like swimming very much. And there she was, swimming unassisted with only a float on her hands. Even the lifeguard was impressed! 

And oh before that we also had a walk along the beach. But she wasn't so fond of swimming in the beach. So we just settled with walking around.

If lunch time was considered packed with people, we totally were not prepared for dinner. After searching around the Internet, we decided to go to Weng Yin Seafood Restaurant as it is THE place to go for seafood. But woooah, the place was packed! We forgot it is a long holiday and the place must be packed.

No choice, we go to the seafood restaurant a few metres away. Same thing. It was packed too. Okay, now it is Plan B (actually there was none. Haha), that is to drive along the stretch of road until we find a seafood restaurant that was not so packed. A few hundred metres, there's one but still packed. Okay, so we drive again until we found one not so packed.

Or so we thought...

Yeah, we found a table the moment we walked in. But the place was so busy that the staff can't found the time to clean our table or take our order. Instead, we have to walk to the waiter to tell him our order. That is not the end of it though. The food took an hour to arrive. By the time it arrived, it was around 9.30pm. And Isabel had fell asleep by then. Food was so-so but we were not complaining as we were so hungry at that time.

The night ended with a late birthday celebrating with father-in-law before retiring for the day.

On the third day, I decided to have some me-time and take a small walk along the beach and relax along the way.

The beach in PD is not something to be shout about but it was good and peaceful enough on 7 something in the morning.

I decided to walk towards the end of the beach to see what is beyond there. Feeling a bit adventurous in the morning. Hehe.

And woah! So this is where the rich people in PD stay. With their own yacht and all that.

And so before we left for KL, we went for another walk in the beach.

And surprisingly she wanted to go to the sea with her Tata! But she is still unwilling to dip her body inside the sea water. Oh nevermind, she'll have her dose of swimming pool water not long after that.

After a quick dip in the swimming pool, we depart separately with our in-laws as we wanted to get something special from nearby PD. 

This is the thing we are looking for, Lucky King Bun in Lukut. Basically it is a curry chicken wrapped in a big bun. No photo of it opened coz our photography skills sucks. The price for it us quite reasonable (forgot the price though) and you can choose a few other flavours too. We choose curry and Dong Po combination. Taste good especually the curry flavour. The queue will be very long especially during long holidays. So the trick is to go to the back of the shop to buy it! We accidentally found about this trick as our gps led us the wrong way earlier. Talk about blessing in disguise!

And oh, we also went to get seremban siew pow on the way back but the place was full of people. Parking is hard to get too. I don't bother to take a photo of it. Note to self, do not bother to go there during long holidays unless you like long queues.

Overall it was an enjoyable trip for the whole family except for the choice of accommodation. When will be our next trip? Haha.

Seremban > Port Dickson > Melaka 18.09.10 – 19.09.10

it a continuation from or trip in Seremban anyway. since the previous post is quite long, it’s better to make a separate post.

after the  food hunt in Seremban, it’s time to head to our next destination – Port Dickson

the place that we are staying for the day here

the place is actually quite a distance from Port Dickson town (around 9km away). but for those who don’t mind the distance (and the price!), this place might be suitable for you.

some photos of the deluxe room that we stayed :-

the living room and with ASTRO!!! important for my weekend football fix you know?

the dining place

the kitchen. but no cooking are allowed

the bedroom with a double bed and other necessities

bathroom and the toiletries

and… there’s a balcony too!

    fishes from below the balcony

this is how the rooms look like from outside. there are two storeys

swimming pool #1

   swimming pool #2    

there’s a beach just outside the resort too. but it’s not so clean on the day we went there. not because of the rubbish, but roots, plants, etc. i guess it was low tide at that time?

looks nice eh? that’s because i have omitted some unpleasant parts of the beach. haha!

not long after checking-in, it’s a 1 1/2 hour agonizing drive to Melaka via the old road.

it is another food hunt upon arriving in Melaka.

1st stop, getting our fix of Baba laksa & cendol in Jonker 88. that is our usual haunt in Melaka! be prepared for a long queue if you are going there on weekends. the queue never stops till night!

 

Baba laksa

 

and not forgetting Durian Cendol and mango ice kacang

Since there’s still a lot of time to spare, we decided to wander around…

i never find anything special at this wall (A’Famosa), but will camwhore with it in the background anyway to show that we are in Melaka.

 

when the time (and the temperature is right), it’s time to head back to Jonker Street

i know this is a lousy photo shoot…

 

taking some photos while GF buying some knick-knacks

    

some activities organised during the weekends on Jonker Street

i missed the chicken rice balls earlier as we did not know that the shop closes as 4pm. damn!

before leaving Melaka, it’s time for Satay Celup in Capitol.

BUT BUT BUT…

the queue was so bloody long outside the shop, we decided to give it a pass and head to another Satay Celup shop in Jalan Ong Kim Wee - Ban Lee Hiang.

over here, there was a long queue too, but not as insane as the one in Capitol.

*there’s a tip for you, they do allocate tables behind of the shop, so do go there and try your luck there as most of the people does not know the existence of the ‘extra tables’.

what you see here is only the beginning, at the end of it, we had at around 30 sticks each. the price is still quite reasonable (60sen each), with the usual fishball, kankung, shellfish, meats etc. but most of the time, we dig for the prawns (which is VERY fresh and crunchy) and also taiwanese sausages (our favourite).

for me, there’s nothing really special with satay celup and some of the people with not like to eat it as it seems unhygienic as they do not change the satay sauce every time the previous customer from the same table left.

but hell, the experience of dunking the sticks of meat in satay sauce (albeit a recycled one) is a fun thing to do!

after the dinner, it’s another 1 1/2 ride (almost) back to Port Dickson using the highway + trunk road. funny that the time taken to and fro is the same although the route taken is different, right?

left early the next day as we are scared of the jam in the highway (as it as a 3 day holiday on that weekend). no breakfast were provided for us as we stayed there using the complementary coupon.

thought of taking breakfast in the town as i know there’s a few good place there, but laziness got over us. so we end up having this for breakfast :

 

HOW CAN YOU FORGET SEREMBAN SIEW PAU??!!! haha!

and this is the final touch of our trip.