Pulau Ketam 311216-010117

I spent my New Year on an island.. I bet that's gonna sound cool, I count down-ed in my sleep at a hotel room in Pulau Ketam with people singing karaoke at the hotel lounge right beside my room.. To be fair, they stopped singing at maybe 11.30pm.. So I would say.. Let me tell you how I spent one of my last countdowns in my 20s..

So, the plan started when the 4 of us were preparing for TOPIK (Test Of Proficiency In Korean language) and were so stressed out because we were totally not ready for it and took it just because we have been learning for so long, it is time to do something about it.. Before we attended the exam, we said that we will plan something after the exam to de-stress.. Yea, we seem pretty "mengada" about this but it was tensed.. Try taking TOPIK II unprepared, and you will know what I mean..

Then after the exam, we did came across some homestays via Facebook and discussed about our plan.. then we suddenly decided on Pulau Ketam.. I think it was my idea but I don't remember why I suggested.. anyway, Pulau Ketam it is..

So after the venue was confirmed, we had to fix a date.. and all of us being working adults.. It's pretty hard to get everybody together.. Me, especially *hides face* since I have been teaching on weekends, it's pretty hard to have an empty weekend for a 2 days 1 night.. We could have taken leaves but it was pretty inconvenient at that time and I forgot why.. anyway.. in the end, we decided to just go on the last day of the year and celebrate the New Year there..

And then.. we planned.. this is the boring part, which includes googling and whatsapp-ing so I shall skip to the day we put our plan into action..

The plan was to meet at KL Sentral at 11.30am, have lunch and go to Port Klang via KTM together.. and then everybody reached early, so we met at 11am, had lunch and head off to Port Klang at 12.50pm (coz the train only started moving at 12.50pm). It was an hour-long ride till we reached Port Klang.. and make our way to the jetty.. bought our tickets.. return air-conditioned ferry tickets for RM15. Waited again coz the boat will only move at 2.45pm.

We reached the island after a 30 minutes ride..

Here we are..

And that's the hotel we are checking in to..

Sea Lion Hotel.. you will see it the first thing after you jumped off the boat.. it's right at the jetty.. The Biggest Hotel on Pulau Ketam..

That's me checking in.. I have booked a VIP room for 4 earlier.. the guy was really helpful.. it's RM168 per night, including surcharge as it was a public holiday eve plus weekend..

I forgot to take photos of the room but it was decent, with 2 double beds, a TV, Hot Water Heater, Shower, and a Kettle..

It was drizzling slightly when we reached Pulau Ketam so we decided to stay in the room for a while until the drizzle cleared..

After hanging in the room for around 30 minutes.. we headed out mainly to decide where to have dinner.. I asked the receptionist for a map before we wandered off..

 

The first restaurant we set our eyes upon and became our dinner place that night..

Behold.. the colourful roads around Crab Island..

I love to look at colourful scenes.. and as you could see from the photos.. even the houses are colourful.. the villagers painted their house whatever colour they like..

Besides colours, there were pretty murals around too..










The island is pretty small, you could finish exploring within a few hours if you were to explore thoroughly.. if you are just glancing through.. then it may only take around an hour..
You could rent bicycles to tour around the island.. but we prefer walking.. it's just RM5 per bike per day... a different price for e-bikes.. I think it's RM20 per hour, if i remember correctly..

Besides mural and colourful houses, you will see quite a number of temples here as well since Crab Island's residents are mainly Chinese..

 

We stumbled upon a souvenir shop and decided to get some tidbits for the night as we count down.. we bought 9 packets of keropok that cost RM23.5..

And then, we became super hungry... so we bought a medium Oyster Omelette for RM10 from the stall next to the restaurant we had dinner at..

Yummy yummy yum... And behold.. our dinner! Which cost RM159.50

Salted Egg Crab

The crab was so good, it deserves 2 photos.. haha

Butter Prawns

Steamed Lala

Fried Veggie

And, we went back to the hotel after dinner, where we watched an episode of 도께비 and 竊聽風雲 2 while waiting for the clock to strike 12.. munching off keropok as we were waiting.. Our room was just next to the common area of the hotel and apparently there was a karaoke session going on and on and on... 

I guess it's the age factor as we decided to countdown in our sleep.. However the karaoke session did not seem like it was going to end... Anyway, we ignored and just went to sleep.. Luckily, it ended at around 11.30pm. but there were fireworks going off during midnight which I heard but am too lazy to get up and look.. So that's how we made it to 2017.. haha

We woke up at around 9-ish and head out for breakfast.. 

Nasi Lemak, Crab Island style where its sambal is made from dried shrimps.. tasty!! It costs RM2 per packet, we ordered 2 to share.. RM4

And because we loved the oyster omelette so much, we decided to the to the same stall for clam aka "lala" omelette, this time we ordered the big one for RM10...

While waiting for the to fry the omelette, the owner of the stall told us that the restaurant we went to yesterday had a lot of bad reviews online and asked how was our experience yesterday.. Besides, there were people smoking around us, it's quite ok.. I am not sure if the food is pricey or not since we didn't compare.. but if I were to visit again, i will give this man (the owner of the omelette stall) a chance and try the food at his restaurant..

We brought our breakfast back to our hotel and ate at the common area beside our room.. and discovered that the view from our room was pretty spectacular though.. we did not even open our window to look..

After breakfast, we packed and checked out from the hotel.. and brought some dried shrimp sambal from the hotel.. they were selling for RM12 per pack. but we bought 5 for RM55..

While waiting for the next speedboat to arrive.. we have 붕어빵 alike ice cream.. rm5 per piece.. a total of RM20 for 4..

One last look at the crabs from Crab Island..

I didn't bother to zoom in but there were plenty of little crabs scurrying around...

And then, we board the speedboat back to Port Klang..

And too a picture with the Golden Giant Crab before leaving..

The Port Klang Train station still has this vintage looking pondok.. In contrast to the modern building on the opposite, see below..

And, that was how i celebrated the crossing from 2016 to 2017..

I sure hope that it will be a good year ahead.. at least be smooth..

I have not been making resolutions for quite a few years now.. should I be making some this year??

We'll see if I will in the next post..

As for now... signing off..
Toodles!

[V]ery Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas peepoes, if there are still any..
I have seriously considered to switch to vlogging since it seems slightly easier than writing an essay about my life.. however when i considered the editing part, I guess it was not as easy as I thought.. I am already so reluctant to type, i don't think i would be any way different with editing video.. So, I thought.. back to the old blogging.. I still prefer writing but just I sometimes am lazy to type them out..

Still pending... My Korean study tour posts.. Will be up, I promise but i can't promise when..

Oh well, it is Christmas.. Although I don't really celebrate but I love the Christmas atmosphere around me... Shopping malls with Christmas theme has something I can't explain that warms the heart.. Christmas to my is usually about toys.. I remember the Home Alone movies that usually come out during Christmas always have its ending of unwrapping presents and a heap of toys.. especially Home Alone 2 where there was a toy store, a huge one in the centre of NYC.. It has been my dream to visit a toy store that big... but i guess nowadays kids are more drawn to ipads and computers games than to play with toys.. besides, toys nowadays are darn expensive..

In case you haven't seen the Christmas decoration in Mid Valley.. here you go..

Cuckoo clocks... so nostalgic.. I wonder if people still use these..

Teddy bears on top, soft fluffy teddy bears..

Alphabet blocks.. all the toys from my childhood... How can I not love this??

And of course... we had a gift exchange thingy in the office.. so here's what I have gotten :)

The pillow, teddy bear and snowman basket was from the company's gift exchange.. I actually got a music box but then a colleague came with the teddy, snowman and pillow and asked if I was keen to exchange... I couldn't say no to the teddy bear so I exchanged.. I didn't know what to do with a music box anyway.. so I am happy.. the panda thingy is from the department's "secret santa" who turns out to be my manager.. I don't really understand why they reveal the identity of the secret santa but oh well.. it is small but at least it is cute and it's a panda so I like it.. The bigger tube is a hand cream from of the managers in my department and the smaller crabtree hand cream is from my GM... Last but not least, the starbucks card on the teddy's lap is a gift from the company...

And that's all for my update..
Signing off..
Toodles!

2014 Korea Study Tour -- TTMIK (Part 2)

Continued from the previous post...

I shall stray away from talking about classes from the start since I have only wrote about classes in my previous post.. Malaysians in kimchi-land... the main thing that we will be missing is.... nonetheless...

The food!!!!

and guess what, we actually had sambal and nasi lemak in kimchi-land!!! Thanks to our muslim friends who actually "imported" the rice and sambal over...

Yummy yummy yums... thousand apologies to the cafe staff... we brought outside food to a no-outside-food cafe and the staffs were kind enough to just ask us to enjoy our nasi lemak outside instead of kicking us out of the cafe altogether with our nasi, lemak and sambal.. A big thank you too!!! We will not do this again... We may be used to it but the smell of sambal might not be that tolerable to others... 미안해요....

And we did not have enough plates and utensils for so many of us so some of us have to use cups as plates and stirers as spoons.. and again.. I know we are not suppose to do this, so please don't try this at a no-outside-food-allowed cafe... Sorry again!!

This is the only day we had food from home.. during the rest of the days studying with TTMIK, our lunch will always have kimchi.. and sometimes (almost half of the times..) We will be spending our lunch at the convenience store nearby.. Too much ramyeon is not good for you but they have flavours that we couldn't find at home though... so... I'm still alive!!!

Alright.... back to classes... as mentioned we had 5 days of language classes and 2 days of outdoor culture activities where we get to explore and learn more about korean culture.. Here are some photos of the classroom...

There are 2 cute plushies at the back of the class... I just couldn't resist plushies...

And here's the front.. 

Hyunwoo seon seng nim taught us during the first 2 days of classes.. 

More photos of the classes ahead... because... i only have photos of Hyunwoo seon seng nim teaching... eeeksss...

He's a great teacher tho.. he even gave extra hours to teach students who were still new to korean...

The remaining 3 classes were taught by Kyunghwa seon seng nim.. but I didnt have any photos of her teaching in class, so just in case you're wondering.. here's how she look like..

Just ignore how awkward i was with the poses.. i just thought since she is posing i should maybe do something.. never actually expected everything came out as awkward.. oopss

She joined us during the first day to help Hyunwoo seon seng nim with a short quiz he was giving us..

Kyunghwa seon seng nim is as bubbly as you have seen her in the youtube videos of TTMIK... 

and just in case... you need to know.. here's a video of her "how do you say this in korean" series...

 

Her classes were lively and fun as she would sometimes unintentionally reveal the answer of the question and got shocked at her own mistake which was super cute... the teachers taught us a lot not only about korean language but the korean culture as well... 

these classes totally motivated me to wake up early in the morning even there are times when i only had around 4-5 hours of sleep, i still managed to wake myself up and head to class.. however, i think my sleepy eyes gave me away when KyungHwa seon seng nim suddenly asked if we were busy or did we have activities till late the day before because we looked tired.. I am not sure if i was the one whom she caught yawning or anything but i certainly did feel guilty... :P

There was another teacher during the trip.. Seokjin seon seng nim who also joined us during the first day for a brief introduction with Kyunghwa seon seng nim and helped out with the quiz..

He was with us during our guided culture tour around Seoul.. which I will blog about next time.. 

That's all for the classes part.. I have definitely learnt a lot and i think my korean listening skills has improved compared to the last time... 

Ah yes... I know they don't need much promoting but just in case...

I am not paid to promote anything but just... i thought it would be nice for more people to visit their website... 

One last photo before I stop typing....

Okay for now.. my next post will be about the culture activities during the study tour so stay tune till I grasp the mood to write.. hopefully that won't take too long..

Signing off...

crestfallen

Toodles!