Putrajaya

Putrajaya, the new administration center for Malaysian government that was built about 20 years ago. It is a totally redesigned city that meant to operate as the capital of the country. From KL to Putrajaya, it is approx. 25km away. The infrastructure upgrade has been going on from time to time since 1990s. Quite a number of highways, railways, facilities projects, etc have been completed and there are more new one on the way. Even though today the capital city of Malaysia remains Kuala Lumpur City, but the development is slowly expanding to the southern part of KL and connecting to Putrajaya. Since the infrastructure is more advance here, cause head office of government ministries mostly built into a single place, that is within the small little island at the middle of Putrajaya, and the Prime Minister's Office is located at the Northern part.

There are a few bridges connecting to the small little island, this is the bridge at the southern part of the island. The design is unique. Most of the materials are sourced locally, very little construction materials were imported. The idea is to make the new city a real locally made. 

Convention centers seems to be a must have ppoint-of-interest for a world class city. This is the grand Putrajaya Convention Center, which is located at the southern part of Putrajaya, it is located after the bridge if you come from the island. On the left, there is a rest and relax area. In the evening, you can leave your car by the road side, and a jog in the park. There is a small hawker center in the park in which you may also then enjoy your dinner.  

This is the view of the city from the park, during the raining season, it is cold and windy in the evening. even though this looked like a lake that is surrround the island, but it is actually part of a river (if not wrong, it is part of Langat river) and the water is flowing from the left to the right side.

There are many high rise bulidings built into the small little island and most of them are government departments. 

The water in the lake will flow into a few large holes under the bridge. The design is quite unique, and I guess it will finally flows into Langat river.

Raining Morning

Raining morning. Cold and chill. It is an off day, not going to work. 

Christmas

Celebrating Christmas, not in the typical way, but with a cup of Chinese tea. 

Avani Resort (Palm Tree), Sepang

Avani Resort, a.k.a. the Palm Tree Hotel in Sepang. From Kuala Lumpur, it is about 1 hour and 15 min drive. It is one of the nice hotels in Sepang, I was told this is a five stars hotel, with beach and swimming pool. The environment is very good, but the location is a bit far from other tourist spots. But it is quite near KLIA (KL International Airport), which only about 20 min drive to the airport. This is the check-in lobby of the resort. But the strange thing is the hotel car park is about 1km away from the lobby, if you wish to park at the areas near the lobby, you will have to pay RM20 per day (hand over the key to vallet). But it will be alright to park in the car park, because the hotel will arrange shuttle to pick you up from the car park (upon request) at no additional charge. 

The hotel rooms are all built on top of the sea. Most of the rooms are about 1km away from the beach, except those on the main trunk. Including the main trunk, there are nine rows of rooms. The round circle at the middle is the club house. But the mobile phone signal is very weak, so the Internet access connection is very limited. Even though the resort provides free wifi access, but due to too many users, the speed is crawling as well. 

This is the studio type resort, it has three rooms, that is the living room, primary bedroom and secondary bedroom. Each room has a small balcony in which you can enjoy the sea view. These rooms are about half a kilometre away from the beach (where resort lobby located), but you don't need to worry about access to these rooms as the resort provides buggy service between the hotel lobby and the club house. In the event of check-in and check-out, where you may have large piece of luggage, you can request the buggy service to pick up the luggage at your room. 

It is quite relax to rest at the balcony area and enjoy the strong wind blow from the sea. This photo was taken from the first unit of the trunk, where you can view almost every unit of the trunk (one trunk is one row of units). 

This is the primary room and living room, with one king size twin-bed. The table is actually placed at the balcony, but because short of one dining table in the living room, I decided to move it together with the four chairs into the living room. The design is nice but not sound proof. As such, if someone watching TV in the living room, it may disturb the person who is sleeping in the room. 

This is the second room, also attached to the living room, comes with two single-bed. This room is smaller, the bath-room also smaller which does not have a bath tub, but it has a more spacious balcony.  

From the balcony, you can enjoy the nice sunset view. To have a cup of coffee and some biscuits/cakes at this time will be indulging. 

The roof top of the unit is made of "atap", make this look and feel more like a "kampong" house. There is a float in the balcony of the primary room, it can be used to save life in the event of emergency. 

This is taken at the main lobby of the resort, Those case parked along this road will have to pay RM20 per day. If you don't want to pay this "vallet parking fee", then you will have to park your car at the open air car park which is about 1 km away from the main lobby. 

At the right hand side of the lobby, there are two  restaurants, one selling Chinese food and the other selling Malay food. One of the hotel guess told me that the food here are quite OK, and the price also alright. I dropped by to have a glance at the menu, average is about RM20 per plate. 

This is the free buggy that is providing FOC ride to shuttle hotel guess between the check-in lobby and the club-house. But as usual, many locals don't like to jump queue, so while waiting for the buggy, you will have to be very alert. Or sometime, you may have to "remind" those waiting, but not in the queue to follow and respect those in the queue.

The is the swiming pool at the club-house. Other than this pool, there is a gym attached to the club-house, and two restaurants inside the club-house. One providing Chinese cousine and the other one provide Western food with buffet option. 

There are free riding bicycles provided by the resort which you can use to tour around the resort, but simply because it is free, the condition is not that good. But you can spend RM10 per day to book a "good condition" one, and a lock will be provided for you to lock it as-and-when needed to ensure it is exclusively for your own use only. 

Seriusly, if you plan to stay here for more than 3 days, you could get bore from 3rd days onwards. There is a beach here but it is not that a great one as compared to most of the beautiful beach in the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Not too far from this place (about 25 min drive) is a small new village, called Tanjung Sepat. The seafood here is good and the price is reasonable. The famous one is the "Pau" (bun), fishball and local made coffee. There are more than 10 temples in this place, and if you have time, maybe can spend a day in Tajung Sepat. 

Tzu Chi, Kepong

This place is grand, one of the famous global charity organization, Tzu Chi. This is the main center in KL, located in Kepong. Not too far from AEON-Jusco in Kepong. The design of the building is special and does not look like a typical temple even though this is a Buddhist Charitable organisation. 

This is the main entrance, photo was taken from the main hall. The doors are huge and heavy, made of wood and with craft, make it looks grand. Arrive at the entrance, you should take off your show, and a show bag is provided for you to keep your shoe with you. That's why even with many hundreds of people inside the building, you can't see shoes at the front door. Because those shoes were carried by the owners with the shoe-bag provided. But before you leave the building, please return the shoe-bag. 

There is a book cafe in the bulding, and you can buy book from here. You can also consume tea or coffee, but no beverages. It may be a good place for your past time, and to have different feel of cafe other than Starbucks, Cofee Bean ect.

Kuantan, Pahang

This is the new building for me since my last visit to Kuantan about five years ago. This is a convention centre, and it is attached to a hotel. It becomes the landmark building as you can see this unique building in the whole Kuantan city. Without research, I suppose this is the tallest building in Kuantan city.

Opposite the convention centre is a shopping mall. You can find Starbucks, Parkson, Big AEON, etc here. Today is a busy day for shoppers, I was queuing with the rest of the car to enter the car park. But the car park was not well designed, it is difficult to park, and only one floor indoor, the rest are outdoors. With this hot weather at the middle of the day, it is very hot, and sun is burning your skin.  

In the food court, I managed to find this, "clay pot chicken". Not as expected, the taste is "so-so" only. But my son seems enjoying it. 

This is from another stall, "Nasi Lemak" with "Ayam Goreng". The fried chicken is nothing special, but I like the rice, it is quite special. I finally ordered another two more plates of rice, with just rice only, shared with my wife and kids. I was told the "sambal" is good, but I don't like "sambal", so I didn't try. 

Berserah Beach, Kuantan, Pahang

After about five years, I am back to this hotel again. It is located at along Jalan Berserah, I think it is rated as four stars hotel. Quite well maintained, considered one of the good quality hotel in this area. Behind the hotel, it is attached to a long beach. Today, we manage to catch some small crabs in the seaside. This is not for dinner, it is just for fun. 

Not too much change to this beach, but the water becoming yellowish. And not so many people are swimming in the sea now, maybe everyone aware of the pollution is turning worst. 

Low tide time, we can go further into the seaside to hunt for small little crab. What I noticed is that the crab size are getting much smaller as compared to five year ago. 

Pulai, Gua Musang

Shui Yue Temple. With reference to a newspaper cutting inside the temple, this is a 600+ temple in Malaysia. This is at the middle of jungle, and few hundred kilimeters away from Kota Bahru port, can't imaging how this temple can be built at 600+ years ago. 

With the help from government, it was re-novated recently. It is located at the entrance of Pulai new village. Most of the people here speaks "Hakka" dialect and Mandrin. Mostly chinese who work in rubber estate.  

In front of the temple is a river. Opposit is another small temple called "ZiXia Dong", or "ZiXia" Cave. We can either walk over the bridge to reach there, or drive there through a very narrow road. The view here is spectacular, but with the recently development, the water is a bit yellowish. 

Inside the "ZiXia-Dong" there is a Buddha statue crafted from natural stone inside the cave. To reach the cave, you will have to walk up a 5 floor staircase. 

The 30 feets tall Buddha statue is facing the river.  

From here, you can see ShuiYue Temple is at the other side of the river. 

Infront of the staircase, there is a small pond with "Jiang-Tai-Gong" status. There are fishes inside, but the water is a bit blur. 

Gua Musang

Gua Musang, a town at the middle of peninsular. When arriving at the town, the land mark is this rock mountain. The are a few this kind of mountain in this town, and this is the one next to the train station. 

The development in this small town only take place recently with some people from other states. There are quite a number of low cost hotel/motel in this town, and most of these hotel are targeting out station traveller who are forester and miner. 

 Many years ago, it was still a small Chinese village, but today the new town is growing into double of its original Chinese village size. There is a super market in the new town, called Econ Jaya. And most of its customers are foreign workers who work in the forest or quary. 

In the Chinese village, most of the residents are Chinese, and some are running restaurant from their own house. The price of the food available in these restaurant is quite reasonable, and mostly are Chinese food. 

Outside the new town, there are some Indian staying in the estate. 

For tourist, spending a day here is good enough. But as compared to Kota Bahru, this should be a better place to visit. 

Genting Highland - Chin Swee Temple

Genting Highland. Chilling air, casino and theme park. Not many people talk about the nice temple, called Chin Swee Temple on the way up to the highland. From the Theme Park Hotel, I can see both the temple and another hotel, that is Awana Hotel. 

Not sure when the Chin Swee Temple was built, and how it was originated, maybe it was originally built to protect those workers who were employed for construction work in this highland. But now, it has become a tourist spot, and the cable car service provides a station at the front entrance of the temple. Many times, on the way up the highland top, I stopped by this temple to let myself to enjoy the chilling air and also let my car take a breath. There are vegetarian restaurant in the temple and at reasonable price as compared to the price at the highland top. 

Viewing from the temple, you can see the casinos and hotels that is less than 15 minutes drive when the weather is clear. You can easily spend 3 to 4 hours in the temple before you go further up to the highland top. But if it is a rainy day, then you should proceed straight up to the highland top instead.