ASIANish

Time to see the sights! Eleanor and I like to take our time and enjoy our vacations, but we still took in quite a few of the attractions today: the Cable Car, 7 Wells waterfall, Underwater World, Eagle Square and Jetty Point.

Breakfast, err Lunch @ the Westin

We woke up "early", but not early enough to catch the breakfast buffet. So we ended up having a nice lunch at Westin's outdoor restaurant, The Tide. Surprisingly, there weren't very many people around. Other than ourselves, there was just one other couple at the restaurant; So we ended up with great seats that overlooked the ocean and beach.

Eleanor had the club sandwich with salad, and I, of course, had the bacon cheese burger with steak fries. Since Malaysia has a strong Muslim influence, they don't serve pork in Langkawi. So my bacon was actually "beef bacon". It was sort of like deep fried beef jerky, but more tender and still very good!

We left Kuala Lumpur and headed to the beautiful island of Langkawi, which is one of the popular travel destinations in Malaysia.

After a 1 hour flight we arrived at the terminal in Langkawi, which was surprisingly much nicer than the terminal at Kuala Lumpur. Although the taxi situation isn't as dire as in Kuala Lumpur, we still had to book a taxi at a booth inside the airport before hailing a cab (30 ringgits = $8.57 USD). Actually, rental cars are pretty popular in Langkawi because the driving laws in Langkawi are fairly loose. However, a rental car is still 150 ringgits/day ($44 USD) and with cabs, you don't have to find parking, find gas, or worry about getting lost.

We left late Friday evening from Hong Kong, and we flew Air Asia (a low cost carrier) into Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Wow, the first blog post in a month! The large part of why I haven't blogged is because I've been preparing for my own engagement! (although, one week out of that month was because I had acute tonsillitis *cough, cough*)

The hardest part about planning the engagement was trying to do it, right under the nose of Eleanor. The only times when Eleanor wasn't around was when she went to work. Although that theoretically provided me with 8-9 hours, 5 days out of the week, I still didn't feel like I had a whole lot of time.

The other night, El and I went to the Tai Kok Tsui (大角嘴) area with her Uncle and Aunt to the best Hot Pot I've ever eaten. If you've never had Chinese Hot Pot, you've been missing out. Ever since my last trip to Hong Kong, I've been craving 1 thing, "Da Bean Lo" aka Chinese Hot Pot (火锅); and not from just any Hot Pot place, specifically Li Qi (力奇火锅) on Kok Cheung Road in West Mong Kok.

What is Chinese Hot Pot?

Basically, you start off with a pot of boiling broth in the center of the table. Order up a bunch of raw meats, vegetables, and seafood; then boil your way to a delicious meal. Since the meats and veggies typically arrive unseasoned, much of the flavor is derived from the broth and the dipping sauce.

I'm working on a couple of larger posts, but here's a glimpse of some of the good food we had over the past week.

Over the weekend, Abby, Danny, Sandy, Eleanor, and I were craving some fresh seafood. Of course since Hong Kong is a series of islands, one can find seafood at almost any restaurant. But we wanted something unique and very fresh. Both locals and tourists alike know that Lamma Island is one of those places you can find some of the freshest seafood in Hong Kong.

Lamma Island (南丫島) is one of the many small "outer" islands of Hong Kong. Like many of the outer islands, it has a very small inhabitance and much of the surrounding flora and fauna are well preserved. Although, there are hiking trails and other outdoor activities to partake in, we decided to forgo the nature hike this time, since we were heading out there in the evening and it's blazing hot in the summer.