Tag: Hotel

Macau: Inside Macau Galaxy Resort Hotel

Macau: Inside Macau Galaxy Resort Hotel – My Taipei trip didn’t end there as my trip continued on to Macau. The Macau Galaxy Resort Hotel was the place I stayed for 2 nights. Well, it does looks very grand and luxurious with all the glittering and shinny decoration as well as the very friendly service from their beautiful staffs.

Service was really good, and too the atmosphere and the scent that smells good in the hotel. Casino is bright and fresh, and there’s a variety of food and retail outlets to kill your boredom. Talking about food right, after arriving at Macau, the taste buds got turn on again, as I myself still prefer Macau-Hong Kong food rather than Taiwanese food!

Speaking back to the Galaxy Resort Hotel and a very simple wrap up of the place, the hotel room is quite small when comparing to the other Macau’s hotel – The Venetian Macau, and the interior of The Venetian has more of the European feeling which I more personally prefer. If you are heading in group, like a family, spend the night at The Venetian rather than the Galaxy for bigger room. But after all, the place is real cool! It just depends on whether you like a bright place to gamble or a dim and romantic place to place your bet. =D

Took the red one (TurboJet) from Hong Kong International Airport to Macau. During my visit to Macau back in 2008, I took the Cotai Water Jet before.

Heading to heaven.

Galaxy here I come!

Dropping of at the lobby. Something interesting I found about in Macau’s hotel is that whenever you alight or board a taxi, the concierge will pass you a ticket, which states the time you get in or off the taxi and the taxi number. I believe this is very useful whenever you have drop anything in the cab, so you can contact the cab company easily.

Long LIMO!

Giant Dimaond In Dancing Fountain. Besides being a welcoming piece, I know it’s definitely set up based on feng shui. Come on, this is China.

Welcome to Galaxy Hotel.

Inside Galaxy Hotel.

Reception Area.

A standard hotel room of Galaxy Macau. Looks very standard, and nothing special.

Another view of the hotel room.

Hotel corridor.

Overlooking Banyan Tree Macau, swimming pool and man-made beach. Although there’s a man-made beach, don’t expect that much, it’s really very small!

A group of model posing at the lobby. No idea what for, just posing and they looks like Thai’s ladyboy. HAHAHA.

Ladyboy-alike 1.

Ladyboy-alike 2.

Wishing crystals at the Crystals Hall. I know, I know, it’s feng shui again!

Say hi, to Nick Chan.

January 28, 2014

Klang Valley: Signature Cake @ Thirty 8, Grand Hyatt Hotel

Klang Valley: Signature Cake @ Thirty 8, Grand Hyatt Hotel – KL has so many nice food place to explore! I am starting to miss the time exploring those beautiful cafe & restaurant in KL already. Although they are rather pricey, yet, I try to spend it budget-ly and experience the ambience and food fully.

So Thirty8 @ Grand Hyatt Hotel, located just right beside of Kuala Lumpur Convention, the name seems to be very ‘atas’ high-end and it’s not overly high-end as I expected. Haha. It get a bit confusing at first because I was not welcomed by the hotel lobby once I stepped into Grand Hyatt, instead I have to take the elevator to go to 38th floor, where the real Grand Hyatt Hotel’s lobby is, pretty interesting.

At just a level down the lobby, 37th, it’s where Thirty8 is, the hotel’s lounge. Having a 360 degree view of Kuala Lumpur, the view from here is just magnificent, and you will just in love with it. Pick a good spot, facing the Petronas Twin Towers preferably and enjoy your moment there.

It was an afternoon for my and Clarice. I think it would be even better at night, but afternoon gets to photograph easily with plenty of natural lighting, but then night view would be stunning too.

So, our main purpose was just to try their Thirty8 Signature Cake @ RM25 which literally is chocolate cake, but it’s more like mousse cake which is very soft. The special part of it is the presence of dry ice that create the smoking vapor effect which ‘WOW’ people. Topped with caramel and side with a banana ice cream, this dessert is very sweet! Yes, I mentioned very sweet. So beware if you are not into super-sweet dessert.

Next time, if there’s a chance again, I would like to try their ‘Straight From The Oven Chocolate Cake, Raspberry Sorbet, Vanilla Anglaise’, which is a highly recommended cake too!

Thirty8 Restaurant & Lounge

Grand Hyatt Kuala Lumpur,

12 Jalan Pinang, 50450 Kuala Lumpur.

Telephone: +603-2182-1234

View Shiok Or Not : Food & Travel Map in a larger map

August 30, 2013
Ipoh // Sekeping Kong Heng

Lobby, I assumed, A common area too.

Ipoh // Sekeping Kong Heng – NG SEKSAN, one famous landscape and building architect in Malaysia whose concept is based on raw materials. Sekeping Kong Heng is one of his masterpiece located in Ipoh, Old Town, on top of of a old school kopitiam called Kong Heng.

My classmate actually went there before on a class trip but I missed the chance last time. On my visit to Burps & Giggles, I accidentally came across it that this is connected with the cafe. They are just back to back.

Well, talk a little bit about Sekeping, it’s a modern type of hotel, or you might call it homestay, it’s totally different from the typical hotel with a luxurious lobby, nice hotel room with warm light and shiny marble floor bathroom. The Sekeping is a hotel series located throughout Malaysia and which most of them have their different identity or style, but most of them with design based on bare raw material. There’s one Sekeping Victoria in Penang too.

Well, side alley of the building.

Kopitiam Kong Heng in front. It’s totally different thing from the back of the building,

Corridor to the room.

Green wall shading the area and the room.

I was able to open up the louver window and snap a shot of interior of the room. Weird, cold, cool, open, raw feeling.

Located on the first and second floor of the Kong Heng Kopitiam shophouse building is the Sekeping Kong Heng hotel, there’s like 10 rooms on first floor and and there’s a mini lobby at the ground floor. The second floor is more likely the roof area is a leisure/gathering spot. The whole building is open for visit except the hotel room.

The sexy stairs.

Attic area where there’s two more bed up here.

Gathering, hangout spot at the roof.

A view of adjacent building. Truly old town of Ipoh.

It’s more likely something new that you haven’t experience before. Living so close to the local, you can hear the laughter of uncles drinking kopi-peng in the morning, chattering in local Cantonese dialect, a connection with the raw material and the original building, it definitely will bring up a lot of feeling and inspiration in you. Well, Sekeping Kong Heng is sexy, I would say. Yums.

December 11, 2012
Singapore: Day 1 At The Marina Bay Sands Resort

Singapore: Day 1 At The Marina Bay Sands Resort – Singapore, oh Singapore, it’s like my another home now. I was there like 2 months ago! And now I am there again. It’s my fourth time in Singapore for this year and in my mind, Singapore is just another part of Malaysia. HAHA.

Entertainment on the Aeroline coach. I guess I almost finish all the movie available.

I was very excited to go Singapore this time because my exam is over, I have no stress of assignment and the best part is to swim at one of the awesome-mest and tallest swimming pool in the world (at 57th floor of Marina Bay Sands Resort Singapore).

The trip to Singapore via a comfortable coach was tiring and long because of the freaking delayed at the immigration. Upon arriving at Harbour Front at 4pm, it took several change of subway to reach the Bayfront station (Harbour Front >Outram Park Interchange > Raffles Place Interchange > Marina Bay Interchange > Bayfront). Luckily, my brother guided me or else I will be spending extra time looking at the maps.

Interesting decor hanging at the atrium.

Marina Bay Sands.

The view from the hotel room. Lots of vessels on the Singapore straits.

Parents were there earlier already, dropped my luggage and first thing was to eat to cure my freaking hungry stomach. My first meal was on the bus, the second meal is at the Rasa Pura food court of Marina Bay Sands, after meal and it’s swim time! This one was fun because this was long-waited for me. Visitors have to pay S$20 to visit and you can’t go to the swimming pool!

It was windy, chilly and I have no idea where the sun was. A toe into the water brings a series of chill up to my body. A quick dip into the water send of a shivering all over me and after a while, I got comfortable. It’s 57th floor and no doubt that it’s windy up there. The view was just magnificent, it’s crowded with kids, babes, uncles, and aunties, it’s so different from the busy city life of Singapore’s CBD, this is call resort.

Pepper Lunch, the same thing I ate when I was a t Rasa Pura 2 months back. =.=

Brother.

Singapore, same shot everytime. This time with a proper camera, my Canon 60D.

Just a quick dip into the water then went to Rasa Pura again for dinner, nothing much cheap in MBS and that’s why the food court again. Window shop around Marina Bay Sands, visited the Louis Vuitton again, take photos of the Singapore’s city scape again (I’ve been doing the same thing everytime I go to Marina Bay Sands), and then I went to the swimming pool again with my brother, (again).

Ze swimming pool at night.

Night time was fun because of the awesome night view, but it’s even colder than evening. I wonder why there’s no heater in the pool, perhaps to shoooo people away from it I guess.

Pool closes at 11pm and we went back to the hotel room to call it a day.

December 10, 2012
Bangkok: Departure From Penang & Ecotel Hotel

Bangkok Trip: Departure From Penang & Ecotel Hotel (Day 1) – One of the flight that fly from Penang to Bangkok is AirAsia which fly everyday in the afternoon at about 5pm. Penang International Airport is currently quite messy at the moment and noisy with the sound of construction going on at there.

With AirAsia, we’ve checked-in early to the flight early via the Web Check-In Service, but then we still have to verify our document and drop our baggage at the counter. There’s quite many people flying to Bangkok with us too.

After 1.5 hours of flight, I have finally reached Bangkok’s Survarnabhumi Airport. It feels the same as 4 years ago and the airport was so busy with travelers. After passing through the immigration, we went to buy some finger food at 7 Eleven. What’s best about 7 Eleven and mini mart in Bangkok, Thailand is that you can find many finger food especially sausage and pork burger.

Then I went to buy a sim pack for my phone which is the One-2-Call by AIS which costs 399Baht with 350baht of credit. After that we went to the taxi stand to hire a cab to bring us straight to our hotel. Taxi is charged by meter and there’s a 50baht surcharge and another 45baht for toll.

The journey takes about 35 minutes from airport to the hotel I was staying – Ecotel Hotel. You can find the best rate at Hotels Combined.

Ecotel Hotel is located on 1091/333-4 New Petchburi Road 35, Makkasan, Rajthevee, Bangkok 10320, Thailand. Its price is pretty affordable, at about RM120/night for standard room with breakfast. It has a English-style look in the lobby area. The room is quite simple, but most importantly, clean. There’s also over 70 channels on the TV, but most of them are in Thai and boring. Haha.

The hotel is very near to main shopping district of Pratunam, Central World, Platinum are like 3km away. Walking towards the mall is pretty far, but then taking tuk-tuk and taxi are very convenient. There’s many street food stalls outside the hotel and some nice Thai restaurant too. One can also walk to the night street market at Baiyoke Sky Hotel which is about 1km away.

Besides, 7-Eleven is just stone throw away from the hotel too! I realised many taxi driver does not aware of this hotel, you can tell the driver about Ramada Hotel which is a more famous hotel located right opposite of Ecotel Hotel only, then you can walk towards Ecotel Hotel.

February 9, 2012
Midnight In The Hotel Room

I am still not asleep when everyone as has already fall asleep. I am spending my own sweet time in front of the computer. The night is not really young right now and I want to get into the dreamland soon. I wonder what I will dream of tonight, or maybe just a dream that I will forget upon waking up. I dreamed about stock market and security last night which was pretty weird, and cool.

I look around, it’s a pitch black darkness, it’s only the computer that is shining my sight at this moment. Good night my fellow friends, and how was your Malaysia Day people? Happy weekends!

September 17, 2011
Mews Cafe At Muntri Mews Flashpacker Hotel, Muntri Street

The number of flashpacker and boutique heritage hotel is growing in heart of the UNESCO World Heritage Site, George Town. These flashpacker hotels don’t really offers accommodation to tourist only but they also have little cafe/restaurants which feature a heritage dining experience and some nice local food. It’s getting a trend of Penangite going to these place to dine.

Recently, I have been seeing people checking into this cafe of a boutique flashpacker hotel, Muntri Mews through social media like Facebook, FourSquare and Twitter. With much curiosity of these checking-in, I went to check out the cafe – Mews Cafe of Muntri Mews Hotel with my mom for lunch.

Parking was not really easy as the road is narrow, but I believe it would not be a problem if you don’t mine to walk further up a bit.

Upon entering the cafe, you will see a corner that serves as the reception for the hotel, and the cafe is pretty small, yet can pack 30 customers. The minimalist interiors and the usage of heritage furniture showcase the boutique hotel well.

Food menu wise is Asian and Western food starting from RM16. As Today’s Special for yesterday was the Ipoh’s Hor Fun (RM16). My last Ipoh Hor Fun was in Ipoh, it’s chicken slices hor fun with beansprout and shrimp, the soup tasted chicken. However, this Ipoh Hor Fun tasted like Hokkien Prawn Mee, just that’s the taste it’s not strong. The taste of prawn can bee tasted, with ingredient like fu chok, chicken, bean sprout, and shrimps. The hor fun can be be distinguished with local koay teow, it’s more thick and not so sticky like koay teow. Overall, it’s OK-good, but with that price range, I might not want to eat it again. Haha. A bowl of koay teow th’ng or the real Ipoh’s hor fun, cost as little as RM4, it’s like 4 times the price.

The Nasi Lemak Bento (RM16) is one more the most discussed topic on the social network and I have been hearing many good review about it. I ordered this for my lunch meal to check out whether it’s up what I expected. The presentation looks really awesome as it blended the Malaysian and Japanese culture. Nasi Lemak usually is placed on banana leaf and being in the Japanese bento box is my first time see it. It separated the rice, omelette, curry chicken, sambal sauce and shrimp, ikan bilis, nuts and cucumber well.

Usually nasi lemak uses hard boiled egg but with this, it uses omelet instead. Well, how about the taste? The shrimp and the sambal gravy were in fact good, but than the portion of serving was too little. As for the rice, it’s not lemak enough, so do the curry chicken. Unable to conclude that it’s not good, it’s still good as I like the sambal gravy quite a lot.

RM16 per meal for Nasi Lemak, is again, not that good, as you can actually buy 16 packs of RM1 mini Nasi Lemak packs. But with the dining experience in a boutique hotel, and enjoy the atmosphere being in the middle of the UNESCO World Heritage site, it’s good.

Muntri Mews
77 Lebuh Muntri
10050 Georgetown
Penang, Malaysia

Tel : 04 263 5125
Fax : 04 263 4125

Email : info@muntrimews.com

[googlemaps https://maps.google.com.my/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=215278323465761497274.000469feb8850ec72b675&ie=UTF8&ll=5.42153,100.335592&spn=0.005127,0.006866&z=17&iwloc=0004a6b4fa8602713d40f&output=embed&w=640&h=480]

June 28, 2011
First Day With Sigma 8-16mm At Hard Rock Hotel Penang

This is what I did after getting my new Sigma 8-16mm super ultra wide angle lens for Canon mount last week. =D I asked my girlfriend, Hueisean together to go to the Hard Rock Hotel to try some shots with the latest lens.

I think I can be the ambassador for Hard Rock Hotel Penang because I always go there to take photos and walk for fun, then post onto my blog. =D I guess that’s the best relaxing place to take photos and because they have parking spaces too!

You see the lens, it’s so wide that it can capture almost everything with little and unnoticeable distortion. It was a quiet afternoon with no live band at the lobby as live band is only available during the night. Though, the laughter and shouting of kids and adults playing at the pool can be heard. What a lovely evening.

It was close to sunset but sunset was no where to be seen. It’s not super hot yet, sun shines on our faces and the warm sunlight touched our skin. We spent a little time at the beach, taking photos and chit-chat with each other, at the same time see people playing water sports.

The ivory golden sandy beach outside Hard Rock Hotel is no doubt the cleanest beach in Penang. The other beaches are dirty.

She jumped.

Perspiration started coming out from the pores and it’s also the time for us to leave the hotel for some cooling in the vehicles. It’s nice to try out the lens at this place but what I wanted to shoot most is some nice interiors.

Interiors like something below:

The lobby and a male toilet. =D I’ve no regret of getting this lens because it’s serve me well as a interior design student and a photography enthusiast. Welcome to Hard Rock Hotel.

June 2, 2011
Malacca Trip: Tang House, A Good and Cheap Guesthosue

On my visit to Malacca few weeks there, I spent a night at Tang House. I found it throught Googling and the rate is quite cheap and affordable in my opinion. The best of all is it’s located at the end of Jonker Walk and the room is pretty clean.

I booked the room a month in advance via email and they put my name in the list. A room for 2 is only RM55. Don’t expect TV or big bed, it’s just 2 bed, air conditioned and free WIFI. =) Free wifi is awesome as nowadays big hotel don’t even provide free wifi.

Although there’s no attached bathroom in the room like hotel, there’s 2 bathroom on the upper floor which is clean and have water heater. The Tang’s family who run the guesthouse was kind and lend us 2 towels because we’ve forgotten to bring along.

There’s no free breakfast but they do prepare you some light meal at an affordable price. I didn’t eat out at there though.

There’s parking behind the hotel and the uncle collect RM2 per day parking. Be aware that if you park on the weekend, you are unable to move your car until midnight because the road is close for the Jonker Walk night market.

Head to the website for more information. =)

March 19, 2011
Bandung Travel: Fly From KLIA To Bandung Then Check-In At Sensa Hotel

Hello people, I think it’s time to share some traveling post with you guys. As you know, I went to Bandung, the cheap outlet shopping heaven of East Indonesia. It’s also my first visit and first step into the simple red and white flag, Indonesia, the neighbour country to Malaysia. I never thought of going to Indonesia all the time until I met a few Indonesian friend in university, they share about their culture and life at home then I found it’s kinda interesting.

When talking about Indonesia, most people know about Jakarta and Bali, I am not sure about Bandung. I think it only started to be famous just recently with the bloom of fashion outlet business. Bandung is well-known for selling branded clothing at outlet store, don’t know authentic or fake.

Anyway, I went to Bandung. =D Instead of flying from Penang, we flew from KLIA, Kuala Lumpur International Airport. It’s my second time being at this airport, the first time was very very super duper young like 10 years ago? I don’t really remember the outlook and the inner look of my home country’s biggest airport.

I have been to quite a few big airport in the world like the Changi Airport in Singapore, Baiyun Airport in Guangzhou, Hong Kong Airport and so on. KLIA is huge but it made me disappointed because it’s not cool like airport at other country. The crowds were not there, it’s pretty quiet and I didn’t see much international flight. In term of airport shopping experience, there’s not many cool shop when compare to the Changi Airport in Singapore or even the Bangkok’s. Hope that they could improve their service and bring in more tourists and airport user.

So we took Malaysian Airlines to go to Bandung. As far as I know, Air Asia does fly to Bandung too and I don’t know already. Since Malaysian Airlines have almost the same rate as Air Asia that time, we picked Malaysian Airline because they have better hospitality on board with air-meals.

Forgot to mention the time that I went to Bandung, it was mid-August. =)

It was a afternoon flight and we were already there since 9am. Actually dad, mom and brother came from Penang to KL and I was in KL meet up with them. After checking in our luggage and ticket, we proceeded into the departure terminal. Due to nothing to shop or see in there, we spent our morning at Old Town White Coffee.

It’s a nice place to sit down and wait for flight as it’s just by the window, over looking the airfield and airplanes. Just sad that there’s not much airplanes going up and coming down and one funny thing is that it’s all Malaysian Airlines, I didn’t see other airlines, maybe that side was cater to Malaysian Airlines only.

From Kuala Lumpur to Bandung took about 2 hours. We got on the planes, sit for a while and the air-meal was served already. Not bad, kinda nice then I stuck my head on the windows all the time and didn’t want to take a nap, hoping that I could see superman flying in the sky. Haha, just kidding.

Sooner, I see lands and hills, a big piece of lands, different from hometown Penang where you will see seas, then I know I am there already. It’s hilly and the terrain are not flat. Bad urban planning and it’s buildings are not built “organizedly”.

The plane landed and I see a mini airport, looks a bit like the old airport of Penang, or the one at Phuket, Thailand.

There’s only a helicopter and our plane at there, no more and the cute thing is that there’s only one landing and take off lane.

Then we walked… No connecting bridge to the plane.

And get our passport stamped at the immigration. For your information, the departure and arrival share the same hall and counters. Go in and then out. It’s really a super duper duper small airport, but it’s international! I think Johor’s Senai Airport is bigger than this place man.

We then look for a cab to take us to our hotel, Sensa Hotel. Looking around the place, with old old buildings and people who don’t look Chinese, it feels like Thailand to me. But the local people are kinda tiny to be honest. So there are many different races in Asia.

Traveling from Bandung airport to hotel is like 15-20 minutes depend on traffic. It’s also the same left hand drive at Indonesia and the traffic at there not very nice. Weather felt a little bit windy, not very warm, I assumed it’s around 26 degree celsius, kinda nice.

The first impression of Bandung to me was like a little bit like Thailand, then it feels like Penang to me because of the houses and lots of trees. The bungalow and houses at there have the architecture of Dutch element because it was once Dutch’s settlement, long ago.

Sensa Hotel is quite a new hotel and it was ready 3 months ago before we arrived. We booked it online and it’s US$80 per night. Consider cheap, provided they have very good service, free WiFi, lots of cable channel, nice view, clean, and nice breakfast. =D

Hopefully the price would not hike and stay or even lessen. Another thing is that it’s located on Chihampelas Walk, which is a nice shopping district in Bandung. Though, traffic on that road is very bad, all the time, always jam!

Coming up, I will talk about shopping in Bandung, sightseeing and more! =)

January 5, 2011