Let's dial-a-flight

School holidays are approaching. I believe most parents are already thinking where to go during the month long holiday. Well, I love travelling but I dislike the "to-do" list before the trip. The flight, the hotels, places to visit and the hotels. Do you agree with me that sometimes, planning for a holiday can be quite tiring?

I'm here to lighten your stress as I've found the perfect holiday destination for you and your family. Why not have your holidays in Canada this coming holiday? Visit the Niagara Falls, one of the great natural wonders of the world. What about taking a stroll at the Banff National Park to admire the beautiful nature? For those who wish to have a little adventurest holiday may head down to Whistler to do a little snowboarding and skiing. Haha..taking about all the things I can do in Canada makes me want to pack my bags now and head down to the airport!

If you would like to find out more about Flights to Canada , check out http:\\www.dialaflight.com for their latest holiday offers. After deciding youre prefered holiday theme, the flights and hotel stay, all you have to do is call and book your Flights to Canada through their UK travel consultants and everything will be arranged by these professionals professionally!



*This is a sponsored post*

Cactus frenzy

Remember the log I found yesterday? It's sitting right next to my little ducky & all my spiky baybees. :)

My cactus are multiplying pretty fast.. Must be the "organic spray" dad bought me from Cameron Highlands.

I didn't know gardening can be therapeutic!

Are you a durian fan?

I love durians. Be it Thai or Malaysian home grown. I love them all. The reason why I'm not indulging these yellow, creamy, sweet fruit often was because 1) the high calorie content and 2) I've no "kakis"(durian fanatics) to enjoy them with me here in KL. X-T is not a fan, my sister? hah! She hates the smell so much..she might even consider leaving town if I'm bringing home some for the weekends! Oh ya, this reminds me of a little durian adventure during my trip to London...

Hear ye, my story...

Drove to Loon Fung , a huge Chinese hyper mart near Greenford because Aunt Mary said there are durians there... (Happy & singing praises on my way to the store!) Lost my way because I didn't bring my map along but hey, after a few turns, I found the place.

Those are my hands letting go of the fruit when I realised that the cheapest range was £1.99/100gm! The bigger, better ones are above £3/100gm!!! Wah...mad! (Drove home with nothing but a bag of Chinese cabbage!). "Someone" was so happy when I let go of the fruit.

~The end~


Anyway....

...to satisfy my cravings [for a short while], I found a little kiosk right infront of Giant, Sunway Pyramid selling really really good durian pancakes. According to the lady boss, their pancakes were made fresh daily using only the best durians and fresh creme.

But hey...I'm still looking for someone who's ever willing to enjoy these fruits with me. Pathetic huh?

Croatia Rail Pass

Planning on a summer holiday? How about Croatia? If you think it's expensive, I'm here to share a secret with you! Travel with a Croatia Rail Pass.

There are basically 3 basic types of Croatia Rail Pass available.

If you're traveling alone, you might plan to purchase the "Croatia Pass". If you are traveling in a group, you can enjoy the "Croatia Saverpass" rates because it is very much cheaper. Both passes allows you to choose 3, 4, 6 and 8 days to use the pass within a month. For young travelers below the age of 26, show your I.D to purchase the "Croatia Youth Pass". With this pass in hand, you can enjoy unlimited travel time in Croatia. Wow! I wish I'm 26 again haha..

Oh by the way, you can even choose between a 1st class or 2nd class seating (depending on your choice)! I believe this is going to be good package deal for backpackers and savvy holidaymakers! With such reasonable rate and flexibility of traveling to Croatia using the Croatia Rail Pass, I might even consider Croatia for my next vacation!

Jamie Oliver's sundried tomatoes & pesto

I drove to Sainsbury's 6 hours before our flight back to Malaysia just to stock up on all the baking and cooking ingredients which I'll never be able to find here in Bolehland.

I bought bottle[s] of sun dried tomatoes in olive oil and pesto sauce.


So here I am back in Malaysia and photos of pastas sis and I cook with Jamie's bottled kitchen helpers.



Stir fry some garlic chunks with extra virgin olive oil together with some dried chillies (minced). Pour in a can of tuna chuck, add salt, add in thymes, parsley, black pepper and salt to taste. Lastly, add in a generous amount of sun dried tomatoes.



Cook some pasta of your choice. As for me, I boiled angel hair for this recipe because I love the finer texture of these pasta as compared to spaghetti. As soon as the pasta's ready, drain the water and pour it directly into the prepared tuna mix. Stir well.



Spicy Sun dried tomatoes tuna with angel hair.
(Those red long pieces on my pasta are not dried chillies, it's sun dried tomatoes)


Today sis and I decided to cook macaroni (with cherry tomatoes, sun dried tomatoes, chicken cubes [skin removed], herbs, cajun spice, extra virgin olive oil, bay leaf and mix herbs)



Spray a little olive oil in a nonstick pan, add in garlic, 2 pieces of bay leaf and chicken cubes[marinate with a little salt, pepper and herbs]. Next, add in the cherry tomatoes, Cajun spice and herbs [thymes, parsley]. Lastly, add in about a tablespoon of Pesto and sun dried tomatoes. Add salt and pepper to taste.



Add in cooked pasta of your choice and mix well. Here you go, another simple yet nutritious meal in less than 15 minutes.

Cameron Highlands (Part 3) - Tea plantations & Scones

The trip to Cameron Highlands will never be complete without doing two things. One is to visit the tea plantation and secondly, to have tea and scones. So, we did it all... hah!

Here we are at the Boh tea plantation.

The alley that leads us to the Boh tea factory.



I was patiently waiting for this guy with the cute hat and blue coat to take me on a tour inside the factory. Oh well... I was disappointed that the one guided us that day was not as cute..

Foreigners choose to lepak outside the tea factory, enjoying the beautiful scenery and fresh air while we locals queuing up to buy Boh tea? We Malaysians are just a bunch of hilarious people, isn't it? We've cartons of Boh tea of all flavors displayed on our local supermarket and yet we never bother to look at them. We prefer to make a long queue up here in Cameron Highlands for the tea bags... For your information, these teabags were not even packed in Cameron Highlands. tsk... tsk... tsk...

We had our morning tea break at Cameron Valley tea house.

The tea tasted normal but never leave this place without having a piece of warm & fluffy scone with fresh creme & butter! Well, if you do not have a sweet tooth like me, you might consider leaving the strawberry jam alone....

Related post:

• Cameron Highlands (Part 1) -The Journey

• Cameron Highlands (Part 2) - A visit to the vegetable farm

• Steamboat Dinner at watercrest plantation @ Cameron Highlands

• Strawberries Frenzy @ Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands (Part 2) - A visit to the vegetable farm

Related post:

• Cameron Highlands (Part 1) -The Journey

• Cameron Highlands (Part 3) - Tea plantations & Scones

• Steamboat Dinner at watercrest plantation @ Cameron Highlands

• Strawberries Frenzy @ Cameron Highlands

Cameron Highlands (Part 1) -The Journey

*This is not a sponsored post by Nissan *

X-T didn't expect that his baby will be in for a tough "obstacle course" starting from Saturday morning. We drove all the way to Simpang Pulai to meet up with my parents to go up Cameron Highlands together.

That very morning, his left wheel rolled over a pile of cow dung on our way out to the Highway from my house. I believe the pile is rather huge because it splashes all over the mud flaps, covered the tires and some even sticked to the doors. *Blurks*

As we arrived Simpang Pulai, X-T decided to fill up the gas tank before going uphill. As he was about to open his car door to enter the car, he found bird poo on the car handle... DRIED and covering the whole handle.... *hah! must be his lucky day* & this is not the first time ya know!.. haha

The excitement begins when we need to travel on a narrow and bumpy road to Mrs Chong's vegetable farm.

We were following dad's 4WD from the back. Bumpy! bumpy! bum... bum...

First it was the cow dung and bird shit, what's next? YUP...a punctured tyre. One of his tyres were nailed. We believe she must've got it from bumpy narrow farm road. Grrr...

The nail was removed and we drove all the way up to the BOH tea plantation. It was a very dangerous drive. The road up the plantation was EXTREMELY narrow. I wish we never made that decision to drive up that crazy road.....not worth risking my life to go up a TEA plantation.....I'm a COFFEE person!

Surprisingly, our little "off road" adventure was kinda fun. X-T's 4WD went through "sh*tty" pile of dung, the rain, the shine, the bumps, the mud and a punctured tyre. Apart from all these , all the car needed was a little wash..OK it wasn't a normal wash, the car took a whole 2 hrs wash and some TLC after the trip and she's back on track, sparkling clean once again!

Related post:

Cameron Highlands (Part 2) - A visit to the vegetable farm

Cameron Highlands (Part 3) - Tea plantations & Scones

Steamboat Dinner at watercrest plantation @ Cameron Highlands

Strawberries Frenzy @ Cameron Highlands

Hotel Reservation.com

I love to travel as much as I love cooking. Since I'm a part time caterer, I realised that hiding myself in the kitchen baking and cooking the same few dishes everyday will definitely not bring me far in this industry. I need to get out of my comfort zone to explore the world with my very own eyes. Therefore, whenever I've the time, I'll make a point to leave my country to explore different styles of cooking, absorbing new ideas and usually after the trip, I'll be inspired to create something new in my kitchen.

Since I love to explore the world on my own, I hate joining a packaged tour. Mainly it's because package tours will not allow me to have the freedom to spend extra time on places I like, sometimes, I won't even get a chance to visit them at all! Everywhere we go will be timed. Tour leaders giving you the wake up call at 6:00am in the morning, expecting you to be at the breakfast table by 7:00am sharp. Hey look, I'm going on a relaxing vacation..... NOT an army camp training! I prefer to book my own air ticket, room of my choice and hire my own car. But then again, it's so tedious and well to be frank, I'm too lazy to surf from one website to another to make all these necessary bookings. Hah!

All my problems resolved when I found out that I'm able to do a all-in-one booking at Hotel Discounts.

Now I can pick my choice of accommodation from reasonably priced bed and breakfast all the way to luxury hotel rooms. Not only that, I'll be able to save up to 70% off on bookings made via the website. What amazes me is that reservations can be done at any time of the day as it is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They even have a helpline which is also open 24 hours a day to assist me if I need to make changes in my itinerary. Nice eh?

So now, if I have the urge to plan for my next vacation at 3am in the morning, all I have to do is get hold of my credit card and start log in to Hotel Discounts and everything will be taken care of. All I need to worry now is to get myself a reliable map of the city I'll be visiting :)

An eventful 3 days holiday...

My church organised "Purple", a beauty conference for "ladies only" last Saturday. There're fashion shows, Hip Hop performance, Averine cosmetics doorgifts, Dermalogica skin care beeli baala by Mr Ben Lei, lucky draw, free makeover and heaps of fun.

The gurlz queing to enter the main hall.

The all gurlz band & the hip hop performance by the ladies..

Mr. Ben Lei surrounded by 400 ladies at the conference.. :P

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

After the conference, I came home to a bunch of roses and boxes of strawberry from daddy all the way from the cooling hills of Cameron Highlands. How sweet..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The next day, sis and I decided to celebrate mommy's birthday at La Bodega... for a change...we had breakfast. I just took the risk, I love La Bodega but I am not so sure if mom will like it too..

Parking was easy that morning because it was Labour's Day..

The "American Breakfast". This one came with beef bacon, sautéed mushroom a slice of delicious toast and scrambled eggs. A glass of juice (of your choice) and a cuppa coffee (of your choice).

You can actually pick and mix whatever you want on your place..

Meat::Beef bacon or chicken sausage or turkey ham

2 Egg::Sunny side up or fried egg or scramble eggs

Sides:: baked beans or sautéed mushroom or hash browns

The verdict: Delicious and reasonably priced. Oh ya, if you are using HSBC credit card, you can get additional discount too & NO, I am not trying promoting the bank! I just wanna save some $$ for my parking fee @ Bangsar Village shopping after the breakfast :P

& the most important of all, my mom LOVES it veli veli much :)

It was sucha relaxing day shopping around Bangsar that day..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

So, here's my Labour's Day well spent together with my family, hope your holiday was as wonderful :)

Steamboat Dinner at watercrest plantation @ Cameron Highlands

Initially, dad's plan was to drive us down to Tasek,Ipoh to have the best sweet and sour crab with steam mantou for dinner but somehow dad changed plans. We stop by Highlands Restaurant @ Brinchang to have our traditional charcoal steamboat. Bravo to dad, it was a good choice...

It was a cooling evening, having a steamy bowl of vege infront of the watercrest plantation..heavenly!! It took a while for the guy to light up the charcoal steamboat but it was ok for me because the scenery was so beautiful and yeah, I had time to go kacau "Barbie", the owner's shih tzu. She's so friendly and playful!

Here's our steamboat with lots and lots of vege...If I remember correctly, they gave us 6 different types of organic vegetables.

This is a MUST-TRY for all strawberry lovers. It's called strawberry passion fruit juice. Slurp!! They have other options such as the boiled watercrest juice, beetroot and other usual juices.

Oh, not forgetting to tell you the "pangsai" session the next day was a very "easy going" one too...muahaha

Strawberries Frenzy @ Cameron Highlands

WARNING: If you are allegic to strawberries and gets very itchy-bitchy by just looking at the fruit or hate the sight of strawberries. I would suggest you excuse yourself now and visit some other playground.. Don't say Ah Bee never warn you!!

Parents drove me up to Cameron Highlands for a day trip last weekend, just two days before the landslide. THANK GOD!!

Well, strawberries grown in CH are not as sweet as those we get from other countries BUT I don't really care. I can eat strawberries for breakfast, lunch & dinner :)) if possible, for the rest of my life. Life's too boring without these lovely red fruit!!

Paid RM20 (1kg) to enter the strawberry heaven to pluck my own strawberries. Here's my first victim, a juicey one shaped like Mickey Mouse 's palm ..SLURRPPP!!


More for me to harvest..



Mission accomplished!

My next stop will the the strawberry shoppee somewhere in Brinchang,CH..



Aren't these strawberry potties cute? I wish I can plant them inside my air conditioned room..


Rows and rows of dried strawberries in attractive packaging.. Guess how many boxes I grabbed? :p



Honey coated strawberries but a lil' too sweet for me..



Strawberry lollies..

Will talk about what we had for dinner at CH on my next post..