amazing race asia season 2

i have been watching the above mentioned only very recently.

the first time i watched it was in @ease hotel in sabah. and i fell in love with the show.
this show gave me a more homely feeling, compared to the western version of amazing race. first, the host is allan wu, the singapore mediacorp actor. second, the contestants are asians, and the english that they spoke got the locality flavour. thirdly, the places that they went are singapore, japan, korea, and other countries in asia. i had been to some of these countries, so its quite exciting and interesting to see them compete in these places.

lastly, the added bonus.

this contestant from thailand, who is a famous celebrity. she is also a supermodel.

the most wonderful thing is that she put away her superstar status, become a normal girl, and put in her best in the competition. her pleasant personality, plus the determination and fighting spirit that she showed really amazes me.

i introduce to you, paula taylor.






there are also a few hot guys in the show. got this pair of gym buddies from singapore called adrian and collin, who always wear singlets throughout the competition to show off their muscles. another pair will be marc and rovilson, who are best buddies from phillipines.

but i will still watch paula taylor. haha.

magic~

since i was rotting at home today, i was able to watch some really cool magic tricks performed by this handsome guy called cyril takayama.

you will be amazed, trust me. :)

head magic, where he take off his head.




hamburger trick




glass magic




floating chopsticks




cake magic (got cute jap gals)

sushi tei @ vivocity

i love the ambience of the restaurant. the bamboo doesnt make me feel like a panda, but it does make me feel like a cultivated 仙人 medidating and eating in the high mountains. the breath-taking sea view outside the restaurant further justifies my point.



the food is of acceptable standard. probably i just came back from japan, and having tasted the really 正宗日本料理 over there, my taste buds became more fussy. but i must say that the food there do taste better than letter s and letter g jap restaurants. its a close fight with i _ _ iban.

the soup base of the ramen is very rich, due to the generous amount of seafood. there's scallops, big prawns, giant sotong, and lala. the soup bring an added tinge of spiciness which tickle my tongue.




the cheese hotate totally win me over. its always a must for me to try the cheese hotate in all the jap restaurants that i had been to. the cheese hotate here taste great. but i still rank the one at esplanade i _ _ iban as the top.



dun ever order this dish below. i think its called cheese gratin served in crab shell. i thought inside will have high grade 蟹黄 from japanese 大闸蟹. but i am so wrong. its just pasta baked with cheese, then they place it inside a crab shell. a bit disappointed i must say. but still must admire the chef's creativity for coming out with this 日西合并 dish.



teapot soup is nice. darling loves drinking it. =)



our dessert – strawberry ice cream. 3 pieces like this cost two dollars eighty cents. wth.



after lunch we shop around at vivocity. we hope to buy new clothes for cny, but unfortunately din bought any.

places like minitoon, toys r us and chocolate shops were filled with pple doing last min christmas shopping.

we watched 投名状. me and darling were collecting our tickets at the counter. and then the lady ask for darling's ic. hahahahaha. cos the movie has NC16 battle scenes. =p

well, that's how i spent my christmas eve. on christmas itself i will stay at home and rot. haha. must cherish it, because when sch reopens, i dun think i will have the chance to rot at home already.

wish everyone a merry christmas.

day 5 - sandakan town

today we are very excited, because we will be staying at this wonderful hotel for the night, called @ease boutique hotel!

it is a newly opened hotel, so got a special promotion of 110 ringgit for one room per night. if you want a room with sea view have to add twenty-five ringgit more.

the past few days we were staying in lousy accomodation, finally today we can stay in quality accomodation. yay!

(the lovely sea view from my hotel room)

we check-in at about ten am in the morning, laze around until afternoon, ordered kfc for lunch and ate in the hotel room. this is my first time eating kfc in a hotel room.

after that, we went to english tea house for a high tea session. its a very nice place. we stayed there for a very long time, from afternoon until evening. we even met the ang mor family from sukau b&b! wat a coincidence. =)

at night we watched "i am legend" at sandakan's one and only cinema. i forgot the name of the cinema le. =p

and we head back to @ease boutique hotel for our last night stay in sabah.

ok that concludes the end of my sabah trip. day 6 got nothing much to blog about, because we check out early in the morning and took a cab to the airport, and then its home sweet home already.

i love to go back sabah again. if there is a next time, i will wanna go to kota kinabalu, cos that is the state capital of sabah. maybe mr wolverine can be my tour guide. haha.

commercial time

let's take a break from all the sabah blogging.

presenting to you, one of the greatest singers of 2007, mr 萧敬腾.

performing 4 songs: 不能说的秘密，小茉莉，天堂口 and 小情歌，at Golden Horse Award 2007.

wonderful performance. miss it, you will regret.

　

day 4 - turtle island

departed sukau at 6 am, and took a 3 hour car ride to a jetty at sim sim, where we will be taking a boat to turtle island.




the boat ride is super turbulent, because the waters are very choppy. i nearly wanted to vomit. luckily i din.

our place of residence at turtle island.




the beautiful beach.











the hatchery where the turtle eggs are being kept.



malaysia national flower

leaves with red coloration

sadly it is not the turtle season now. so its highly unlikely for us to see the mother turtles come up on shore to lay their eggs. normally the mother turtles will come between 12 midnight and 4 am for nesting.

we only saw the release of the baby turtles. its amazing to see them crawling their way to the sea. wanted to go and touch them but everybody came to squeeze in front of me so i got no chance. haiz.

we then waited at the holding area until 12 plus midnight, and we cannot tahan already, so we went to sleep. next morning the person told us that only one mother turtle came at 330 am, but there's no nesting.

so luckily we din stay up until 330, otherwise we will be so disappointed. but i guess getting to see the mother turtle is already good enough.

day 2 & 3 - sukau (part 2)

on day 2, we went for a river cruise. saw many animals. there were macaques, proboscis monkeys (with the big red nose and beer belly), orang utan, monitor lizard, and snakes. disappointed that we din see any pygmy elephants. and luckily we did not encounter crocodiles in the river.

that's the proboscis monkey.

this two ropes are for the monkeys and orang-utans to get across the river bank, cos they cant swim.

the beautiful sunset

at night, we went for a night river cruise. the sky is very clear, and we saw the stars and the moon, shining very brightly. it was simply magnificient. we saw a few animals too. suhairi, our guide, has very good eyesight. he has this wonderful ability of spotting animals in the dark. of course he has a strong torch to help him, but he always spot the animals first. we saw kingfisher. the birds are very beautiful. their feathers are blue, and they have a yellow belly. we also saw owls and monkeys. we din bring our camera, because we thought that we are unable to take good pictures in the dark. but the light from the torch is very strong, and we were so close to the kingfisher to the extent that i can actually touch it, because the kingfisher is sleeping. aiyah wat a waste! =(

for day 3, we went jungle trekking. suhairi was our guide again. he was covered from head to toe. deyang also. the two girls and i had minimal protection. i am the most garang one. or should i say the most stupid. i wore singlet, shorts, and sandals! wow. so it comes to no surprise that i kenna lots of mosquito bites.

the entrance of a cave

cave rocks with traces of erosion by the rain

chilli plant found at the entrace of the cave

when we walk into the jungle, it just stopped raining. so suhairi told us that we may not see any animals, because animals dun like to come out after a heavy downpour. i think it goes the same for us humans too. then one hour later, it started raining again. luckily the trees provided natural cover for us. otherwise we will be drenched to the max.

we really din see any animals. the only animals that we saw were insects, such as mosquitoes, millipedes and leeches. yucks i hate leeches! a big leech stick itself onto my shorts. at the groin area some more. and it was climbing its way up to my stomach. i was so freaked out. luckily meishan came and remove the leech. wat a scary experience.

and the most disgusting thing is that there is a leech on my foot for quite some time and i din realise it. only when we finished the jungle trekking, and when i remove my sandals and cleaning my feet inside the river, all the mud stains were washed away, then i saw something on my foot. and i discovered its a very small bloody leech! arrghhhhh! dunno it has sucked how much of my blood. arlene also discovered two leeches on her body when she went to bathe. omg.

the fuji camera that i am using is very lousy when taking night shots. the pictures always dun come out very clear. and its like there are ghosts in the picture. scroll down and you will noe wat i mean.

the normal picture:

the eerie picture:

i took both pictures at the same spot. for the second picture the ang mor guy and his daughter were walking towards us, so i snap a picture of them, and it came out like that.

this is like the "qi" being sucked out of my body. haha.