Hairball my cat

Meet Hairball - my cat! :D She's such a big kitty now, I still remember when she came to our family. We found her in our mail box when she was just a few weeks old... HAHAHAHAHA long story. I will blog more about Hairball next time but at the mean time, just enjoy these few pictures of my annoyingly pretty fur ball <3

Hairball sleeping with one of her bears :)

Like a boss!

I LOVE CATS!!! :D I love cats so much that sometimes I think I'm cat woman, of course not as hot as Anne Hathaway :'( and I think in my previous life I was a cat too. A happy, fat, carefree, curious cat.

Like this: 

Maru the cat! <3

Cute right!!! You can click on the link to see more of Maru :) 

One of the things on my travel wish list is to go to Key West, Florida mainly because of Hemingway Home. Ernest Hemingway was an inveterate cat lover because he admired the spirit & independence of cats. He was given his first polydactyl (six-toed) cat, named Snowball by a ship's captain & the Hemingway Home & Museum currently houses approximately 40-60 six-toed cats. Some of the cats there are direct descendants of Snowball, how cool is that! I wanna see ALL THE KITTIES! :D

Source

Another must do thing for me in Key West is --- > EAT KEY LIME PIE!!! *cues evil laughter* Hahahahaha - one must not forget food! I'm all about eating one ok :p I don't think Key West is famous for their key lime pies though. I'm not sure but I figured since there is "key" in both Key West and key lime pie, it should reflect something something, NO? The key to unlock orgasmic pleasure in eating food that somewhat rhymes with the name of the place. Get it? Get it? Haha..... no? nvm *poker face*

Source

Another cute cat-sy thing to share. I want this, where can I get ah?!

O.o Cat goes dafuq?

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I can't help but to smile every time I see this :'D

Hotel Titiwangsa, Cameron Highlands

Early this year, we had a short trip to Cameron Highlands. After an exciting 1st half of the trip, we finally checked in to our hotel - Hotel Titiwangsa in Brinchang town.

Nothing fancy, just a good ol' basic hotel for us to rest and enjoy the cool weather. The hotel is located along the main road just right before you hit the town center. The front terrace along the ground floor is occupied by convenience store, bakery café, local restaurant, book store, fashion boutique, and a foot reflexology center. 

Check in was very quick & smooth, very friendly receptionist :) He explained to us that our stay was inclusive of complimentary steamboat/ hotpot for dinner and breakfast the next day.

Read from other reviews that their rooms facing the main road can be a bit noisy, so thank God our room was facing the other side - people's house/backyard/drain?... (-_-)" LOL.. Not much of a view from our room but hey, you get what you paid for right? :)

The view, nice or not?

The room was surprisingly clean! Basic amenities in the room - wardrobe, dressing table, TV, electrical kettle, shower gel, shampoo, & they provide towels as well. No air conditioning or fan in the room - with the cool climate, you won't be needing those.

Room was spacious enough for the 2 of us, not like we gonna play hide & seek in the room also :p 

The blanket was too thin for me cos I was very cold at night :(

The toilet was clean, heater was working fine, water pressure was strong enough to enjoy a good shower. Their shower gel smelled really good too! :)

Coffee, tea, and water cups are complimentary, cup noodles and bottled water however are chargeable :) 

Later that night, we went to try their steamboat. Just go down to their restaurant, show the manager your chit, choose your table and he will get the kitchen crew to prepare your food.

Here's the thing, commonly in other places, you will be greeted with rows of food  selections for your steamboat, but here in Titiwangsa Hotel, it is not buffet styled. Only vegetables (which are abundant in Cameron) are "free flow". You can take as much as you want. *Cow mode on!*

Vege galore

As for the rest of the ingredients, they have readily  prepared/ portioned it for you. When I was informed of this I was pretty sure they were gonna served us crappy food but boy I was wrong.

Better then expected la!

Prawns & fish fillets

Chicken & squid slices

Tofu & jelly fish??? o.O?

Fu chuk & fishballs

Enoki mushrooms & some sotong balls

The only served one kind of soup - clear soup. With cold weather like that they should have had spicy tom yam soup as an option. It will be extra yum then! We enjoyed the steamboat, chatting and laughing over a hot hearty satisfying meal. This is the only time during steamboat session where Stan chomps down those veges like a cow cos they were really nice! :)

If you are not keen to eat at the hotel, there are other restaurants too in town. They are like 5 minutes walk away from the hotel. After dinner we kinda just hung around the hotel lobby. There really isn't much to do at night here in Cameron, whole town seems to be asleep by 9pm! TV channels are pretty limited too.

We should have brought cards, charades or something to play with. Scrabble also can one ... So what to do, we all went to bed early that night FOL..

Breakfast the next morning was pretty good. They served up local breakfasts such as fried noodles & roti canai. They also served curry chicken, mini sausages, toasts & jam. Fruit juices, coffee, & tea were free flow. Food was warm and the kitchen crew were attentive to refill the food & drinks.

Overall, it is a pretty decent, friendly, no frills hotel. Some hits and misses here and there but I had a good rest and that's all that matters.

So after brekkie, we checked out and before heading back to KL, we went to this strawbi-fied cafe that I wanted to try the day before but was too stuffed! *devil stare at tummy* SIGH T___T

Day 1 @ Cameron Highlands 11.02.2012

Super delayed post but better late then never I say. So for Valentine's Day this year, we decided to drive up to Cameron Highlands for a short trip. The four of us - Mic, Hui, Stan, & I carpooled and started our journey around 9-ish am. 

Just before 11 am, we reached Lata Iskandar is a waterfall located along the road from Tapah to CH, approx. 25km before Ringlet. You definitely won't overlook this as there will be a lot of cars parked by the roadside before you reach Lata Iskandar. Most tourists will make a stop at this multi-tiered waterfall to camho have a short rest before continuing their drive up to CH.

Some will also take the opportunity to go for a short dip in the cool water of the waterfall pools :)

Lata Iskandar

Hui & I

Then Stan busy was busy playing with his camera to get nice shots of the waterfall.

Nice or not? :D

 But he still lose to this fella. See, people go in the water to take photos one ok? LOL...

So anyways, there are also shops and stalls that sells ethnic handicrafts/ souvenirs, herbs, foods, etc.

The stalls

Things that you can find

OK, before I continue, I have to share this OMG story that happened while I was going through one of the stalls. This was what happaned:

Stall owner: Hi, tengok la. Banyak barang ni dik. You suka yang mana? You cantik ah!
Me: Smile *I was being polite ma*
Then move closely towards where I was standing.

Stall owner: You datang sini holiday ke? 
Me: Ye la :)
Stall owner: You nak phone number I tak? Nanti malam you sunyi boleh call I? *grins*
Me: Er .... *T__T.... WTF IS STAN???* 

Then my brain went into some random mode and I said out loudly to Hui "Ah Hui, ni kan zhe ge, hen mei eh!!" *frantically points at - God knows what I'm pointing at that moment*

Stall owner: La, you Cina eh??? Ingatkan Melayu... Then he walked back to his seat.
Me: Phew... *Power walked away, now where is STAN??!...* LOL

He was across the road buying one of the thing that I detest most! (-_-)"

Lotus bulb

There is a story why I hate this thing. I will share them next time.

After the drama, I told them to hurry up but not before buying some pisang goreng & cempedak goreng :D Hungry ad ma!

The next stop was here:

Bee farm

As we enter the premise, we we greeted by this heart shaped pool. 

What else would you expect from a bee farm? Bees la!

Another geli thing... urgh :( not the bees, but the comb. Honestly, there wasn't much things to see or do here, I would give it a skip. The boys got themselves a box of cherry tomatoes - it was super sweet and very cheap too.

We made another stop - Cameron Valley Tea House. Just another place for you to stop for some food and drink. But we didn't try as the place was full. So we just enjoyed the view a bit & continued driving up CH.

Finally, we reached our hotel in Brinchang. But we were too hungry to even bother to check in so makan we go 1st. You can read about our meal here. After makan, we checked in to our hotel and rested for awhile.

After much resting, we headed to Big Red Strawberry Farm - admission is free, opens daily from 8.30am to 6pm.

This farm focuses on growing their vegetation hydroponically.

Everything is so organized and so clean!

Walkway leading to the farm's the gift shop and cafe. Their menu is already strategically placed along both sides of the walkway so while walking you would roughly know what they have to offer.

The cafe walls are also plastered with their menu so just point out to the cashier what you want, pay, collect your food and enjoy :)

This is what we had:

Strawberry Pancake - meh, I had better ones. It was too thick and dry to my liking, and the strawbie bits in it tasted funny.

Fried Ice Cream - passable. Crispy skin and once you cut into it, delicious cold strawbie ice cream. Wished they would have the ice cream in other flavours too - choc chip mint maybe? Too much strawbie going on the menu.

Last but not least:

Yoghurt with fresh strawberry & honey - OMG THIS IS THE BEST!! T___T

This is probably the best strawbie related dish that I had on this trip.It was a very light & refreshing combination. The tangy sourish starwbies add much zing to the plain jane youghurt & the sweet honey just cuts and balances the sourness of the strawbies - perfect, for me at least :) Very gentle on the palate. I love how simple ingredients such as these 3 can just create such beautiful flavours.

You also can pick your own fresh strawbies here on the farm.

Just next to the cafe is the gift shop. Everything is strawbie related.

Cameron Highlands is like the strawberry heaven in Malaysia. Really! Even the pathways & toilets need to be strawbi-fied. Hahahaha......wtf.

So after makan, we walked around their garden and headed off to Brinchang pasar malam.

Flowers here are much more pretty most probably due to the cooler weather

Brinchang pasar malam is just like any other pasar malam that we have. The difference would probably be that their local fresh produce (vege,fruits, tea, strawbies, & flowers) are much cheaper. It is also a good place to go food hunting as there are many hawker stalls that cook up local favourites such as fried noodles, chicken wings, chicken rice, etc. It happens every Friday & Saturday from 4pm onward.

We were still too full from all the makan action before so we didn't buy much stuff. We just bought some roasted chestnut (super fragrant & delicious btw), sweet corn, fried oyster mushroom, and sweet potato balls. 

Sweet Potato Ball

After bracing bad traffic from the pasar malam, we got back to our hotel, freshen up, rested and got ready for a steamboat/ hotpot dinner complimentary of the hotel we stayed with. 

Makan again... fei si wo :(