Although this place has been one of the most popular tourist spot, somehow, the historical & cultural scene within this wall are well kept & maintain. Believe or not , it has last for more than a thousand years. There are still residents living in this water town, living on a simple life and doing some small business for living.

Take a look at the whole structure, its very classic with historical interest.  There’s only one best word to describe Wu Zhen, a peaceful water town.

Our tour guide, Xiao Yuan brief us some chinese beliefs in the olden days. In all the architectures built, they have their own reasons behind.

This little girl who also grow up in this town, earning by selling the handicrafts for living. Some of the houses are selling some local desserts.

The classic windows and doors which you only found in Chinese Ancient movie, but now the modern “us” are standing inside.

The structures of all the building are almost the same, but the most similarity would be their roof & tiles.

We enjoyed photo taking.

I love the street view.

I love the water town scene.

I love the old buildings.

It’s really a great place for visit.

At least for me, who has never grown interest with Chinese history, would gain a chance by witnessing by my own.

Somehow I dislikes the dinner provided. I think they purposely want us to taste what the locals are having. It looks so home cook right?  That’s absolutely right, the restaurant name were also very classic, it’s call Grandma’s Home, 婆婆家·  See, non of us appreciate the dishes, seriously I can cook 10x better than this.  Hahaha, don’t challenge me. :p

Sky is getting dark, we departed Wu Zhen around 7pm, and reaching Su Zhou 苏州 by 8pm.

Su Zhou welcome us with strong winds, I believe it’s reaching another 4′c coldness. We went to the lake side to have a night view of Su Zhou industrial park which is a project cooperation of  China & Singapore. No wonder, the buildings does resemble a bit like Singapore’s!

Then we witness the biggest LED Screen in the world , which is located at Su Zhou.  It’s located along the street and it’s outdoor type. Once again,an eye opener for me, woah, that’s really awesome! I truly understand, why people classified China as the fastest growing country.

We were staying at Liverpool hotel, where MU fans were also have to stay here. Ahaks! This is the hotel room that we’re staying. Although the TV program is not as good as previous, but its located so near to the Universities. We can access to all kind of student’s night life, and this is a great place for us to hang out.

Having our mid night supper at one of the restaurants. We’re not alone, there’s still a few student hanging out although it’s getting late.  Feels like we’re back to 18 again.

That’s conclude a long haul journey. Pretty tiring with running nose with me. Took a good rest and we’re going to visit lot’s of Su Zhou classical gardens tomorrow. Stay tune ya!

Our tour guide, Xiao Yuan tells us some great stories of china. I cited up here one of  the Chinese sayings, 生在苏州, 活在杭州, 吃在广州, 死在柳州.  I roughly translate it, born in Su Zhou, Live in Hang Zhou, Eat in Guang Zhou, Die in Liu Zhou. So why is that live in Hang Zhou? That’s because Hang Zhou is popular of its beautiful scenery. A lot of them find it peaceful to stay here compare to other developed city. In fact, they are very proud to be part of Hang Zhou.

The main tourist attractions in Hang Zhou would be the Westlake 西湖。It’s not only attracted tourist but during the public holidays and weekends the locals would get around. The city is build around the lake, which is around 600 hectares and there’s a lot of scenic place around which are worth for visits.

Our 1st destination of the day will be taking a boat ride around Westlake. It’s around 4′c and everyone of us were challenging the coldness with the rain!

The lake itself is very big, but by taking the boat, we can view up all the scenic spots and the tour guide will give us a little knowledge of the love legend of Westlake.  Seriously, I can’t recall of what I’ve heard.

By walking distance, we reach another attractions, 雷峰塔  , a pagoda which is built along the Westlake. There’s of course another historical story of this pagoda, but cut the crap, we are taking the lift and going up to the 4th floor. The great scenic view of the lake  was really awesome.

Shortly, it reach lunch time. I’m a bit worry of the food in China. You know, there’s always article saying that food in china were processed by unknown materials. We shouldn’t bother much, and I have faith with the travel agent they don’t dare to play fishy here. Isn’t it?

We were brought to this restaurant which is also located by the lake. The eating hall looks grand, but dishes ain’t giving good appetite.  Maybe this is our first meal in China, we haven’t get used to the food.

1. It’s too salty

2.It’s too oily

3. Food ingredients are weird

4. The portion are damn HUGE

5. Their fish has a lot of BONES

Out of the above, actually we do enjoy the meal. Every meal, we would have at least 8 dishes on the table. Non of the meal we could finish up the whole portions.

Let’s continue our Westlake journey to the long bridge 长桥. According to Xiao Yuan, this is a lover’s bridge. So he advise us to cross the bridge by holding our partner’s hand tightly. Sweet & Romantic right? Not only that, it was still raining, we were walking under the rain and crossing the bridge. <3

After the heavy lunch, Xiao Yuan told us that the afternoon programs were mostly by foot and there’s a hill to climb.  What? In such cold weather, you expect us to climb hills?  He must be kidding right?

We did take a 40 mins walk around the lake, surrounded with beautiful peach blossoms.. I’ve almost forgotten the cold. Do you like the flowers? Let’s have a closer look

Hope you like it

The whole group of us refuse to go up to the hill, in fact we ask the tour guide, what could we see from the hill? He answered us, “West lake”. Enough, we had enough of westlake. So just take a photo at the entrance and we proceed to other places. At least we’ve been here, Gu Shan 孤山。

The next destination would be the “岳王庙” , the Temple of Yue Fei.
There’s some old folks story, but I’m totally blank of these. Alex knows better, he’s interested with all the historical stories.

It’s almost 5pm. Near to closing time.

Before we proceed to Dinner, we have a little street walk again by the lake.  The whole day program was totally all about the West Lake. There’s nothing much here, just crossing some streets, and take some pictures. Our dinner were somewhere nearby, so around 6pm we proceed to have dinner.

This time, the restaurant looks a bit classy. It’s on the 2nd floor inside a building.

As what we’ve been told, the signature dish in Hang Zhou are the dong po rou 东坡肉 and Jiao Hua Ji 叫花鸡。 However,  Xiao Yuan says that tonight they are unable to provide us, I don’t know what’s the reason behind. What to do, just eat what is provided. The size of the prawn are really pitiful. In Sarawak, we don’t eat such a small prawn, we’ll put it into dishes as side ingredients.

After dinner, we were given self activities hour. Of course it’s shopping time.

I did not get myself anything, I don’t know why, perhaps its just not my shopping mood?

We were back to Hotel around 8.30pm. The night is still young, but someone will grow older over this night.

We celebrated Robert’s birthday in his hotel room. It was suppose to be a birthday surprise, but so sorry, I spoiled their initiatives :p

Nvm, as long as everyone is happy, we did enjoy the moment!

Lastly, a closing to this post.

Our late night supper. This is is a Muslim Beef Ramen shop. Unbelievable that we found out Muslim shops in China.

We’re going to visit the most popular Long Jin Tea 龙井茶 factory tomorrow. See ya!

This China Trip were planned in July 2010, we grabbed the cheap tickets from Air Asia and the travel date was actually 10 months ahead. Initially we have 16 travel members, however, 2 of them did not manage to join in, hence we ended up 14 people in a group.

Honestly, going travel can be very tiring, especially when you are going in a big group. The lucky and sweetest thing is, all the travel members are all working adults, we ain’t the 1st time traveler, we don’t need a leader as all of us can take good care of our own. Some of us were close friends, friends of close friends and family members. We could get along very well and give the most co-operation all the time.

Here’s a brief summary of our Travel Itinerary before we start this Travelogue.

8 days 7 night – Go around China Trip

• 2nd April 2011 – Kuala Lumpur to Hangzhou. Arrive around 10 pm.
• 3rd April 2011 – Hangzhou day tour
• 4th April 2011 – Hangzhou to Su Zhou
• 5th April 2011 – Su Zhou day tour
• 6th April 2011 – Su Zhou to Wu Xi
• 7th April 2011 – Wu xi to Shanghai
• 8th April 2011 – Shanghai day tour
• 9th April 2011 – Shanghai back to Hangzhou , Flight from Hangzhou to Kuala Lumpur
• 10th April 2011 – 4AM arrive Kuala Lumpur LCCT

Prebook Meal from Air Asia. Asean Meal & International Meal

Air Ticket price : RM 540 (Kuala Lumpur – Hangzhou) by Air Asia not inclusive of baggage fee & food.
Travel Package Fee : RM 900 per person – Include of 4-5 star hotel accommodation, food & transport.
Ticket & Tips : RMB 350 / RM 175 – Extra tour fee for ticket entrance and some other tourist spot.
Cash money to spend : RMB 1000/ RM500 per person

Arrive Hang Zhou Xiao Shan Airport

After 5 hours flights from KL to HGH, finally we arrive Hang Zhou Xiao Shan International Airport. According to the tour guide, this airport was newly renovated 2 years ago. Basically it looks grand, far more improve than the 10 years ago when I firstly step into China. Very impressive, really impressive! By judging by the airport, Ive already put some expectations on the cities.  Let’s follow me!

China welcome us by rains. It is spring season now, which it is suppose to be around 11-17c daily. However, it welcomes us with 8c… this is really awesome when you see your own smoke while talking!

The travelmates, greeted by the young tour guide, Xiao Yuan

The one holding mic is our tour guide for the whole trip. In China, they will prefer people to add “小” xiao in front of their surname for us to remember them easily.  So as our tour guide, we call him 小圆, but of course this is not his real name.

Ramada Hotel

We were staying at Ramada Hotel. The hotel distance from the Airport took around 30 mins. This hotel locates quite far away from the city center, but I like the environment, it’s quite and peaceful. A great place for us to rest after the long hour flights.

The average rate for this hotel cost around RMB 890 / RM 445 per room, dividing into 2 person, its RM222.50 per person.

Remember, we only paid RM900 per person for our travel package. It’s worth right? We are able to enjoy the 1st class facility by paying little affordable amounts. Another credits the travel agent

Our Hotel Room, clean and modern.
The best thing, it comes with the  network TV, which acts like PPS. You have all the latest drama and movie from the list.  I’m loving it!

All of us were very hungry, we are looking for food but too bad most of the eatery place were close. The only place we could go is the convenience stall. All of us went into a little shop and bought a lot of foods from here. There’s a lot of beverage for you to choose. Variety choices of Instant Noodles that you hardly get it in Malaysia.

Don’t bother so much, the weather was freezing cold outside. It’s better we go back to our room, and grab a hot bowl of Instant Noodle while enjoying the full list of channel.

Let’s call it a night. After a long day of waiting and transit, finally we settled down in the hotel.  Till then, will try to update again by soonest!

Its been day 5 since we arrive china. Our first destination was at hang Zhou. Follow by wu zhen and soo Zhou. Today we are heading to wu xi before we reach the final or our main destination shanghai!

The weather has been very cold. If it’s raining, it’s about 4-6 c.. Average is about 10c!

The hotels are excellent, we’ve chosen 5 star hotels for the package. For the food, some are quite disappointing.

This has also recorded of days I’ve not been using Facebook!

Great, will be back blogging soon.

For reservations, please call 085-437799.

Imperial Palace Hotel sounds familiar as it is another sister hotel of Imperial Suites.  The 3 star hotel has just open for business in the early of September 2010. Here we take a chance and do some sneak preview.

The origin building of this hotel was previously known as M2 – Miri Square. However the shopping mall did not survive for over 5 years and has been vacant for a while. The location was great, its at the heart of Pelita Commercial Center, where you could easily access to Food, Fun and Entertainment.

The new Imperial Palace would definitely attract a lot of crowd. I forget to check out their room rate, but according to the public, as told, its about RM110++ only. For the facilities provided, location and environment, I bet this could be the most affordable hotel in Miri City.

Brunei people would love this hotel as they provide basement parking!

I was glancing through the window, and one of the waiter invited me to go inside the restaurant and take photo instead of looking from outside. Oh, I feel great, they actually welcoming the public to take a look at their newly open hotel.

The kitchen is an open concept sealed with the glass. By this, they will assure that their kitchen is always hygiene as they are being WATCH!

The staff were well trained, probably they were transferred over from the sister hotel.

I was told there were no buffet meals at the moment, meaning that this could not be our next Buffet Gathering venue. Haha!

Somehow I love the environment very much.

Now, lets  go to Level 3.
Ok. On the lift, you can only open access up to the 3rd floor. 4th and 5th you need to have an access card.

Take a look at the map. There’s roughly around 70 rooms per floor. But some of the rooms were in the middle so I bet that would be cheaper?

The view from 3rd Floor. Grand palace hotel and Servay Hypermart is just a few steps away!

Now lets take a look at the room.
The designs were simple. Come with a big TV but its a HUGE one not a FLAT type.

The room that I went into was the intermediate type. Where there’s no outdoor view but building views. Haha, if the room on the next row did not close their window, you could see them through! Ahak!!!

Toilet are spacious, come with bath tub. No transparent door. :p I didn’t try the water pressure, but I guess it should be fine?

This is the conference room. I don’t like the carpet, it looks old. They should have apply new concept, this is exactly the same as in Imperial.

I’ve been searching for the Mini Swimming Pool.

All the sign were not ready yet, in fact, I couldn’t find the sign of Swimming Pool!

We’ve been asking the Janitors, and they told me its on “tingkat 2″.. and still we don’t get it. Then when ask the second floor’s Janitor, and they say oh, its on “tingkat bawah”. Means that its on 1st floor. On the lift, pls press 1.

I don’t really like the mini pool. A little too creepy to walk through all the engineering rooms. Luckily its an out door pool, small enough to fit 2 -5 person to swim at one time. Unless you are like me, stay still in the water and don’t know how to swim !

Okie dokie.

Seems like I’ve covered 50% of the hotel. Looking forward for some feedback over it.

A few things to share and compare here.

• The Air tickets to International sometimes are cheaper than to KL.
• Lots of places like in Peninsular needed to access by car, if you don’t have a car, then anything else would be expensive.
• Hotels and tour packages for domestic are usually very expensive. Compare to those travel packages that offered for our neighborhood country, everything in Malaysia seems more expensive.
• Travel information are hard to get online

Anyhow, there’s actually lots of great places to explore within Malaysia. Cameron Highlands is one of the place that I wish to go but always ended up to other places. I’ve been study online for the information for the highlands, with the helps of friend who always travel up and down, only then I manage to get ourselves the free and easy trip!

Taking Bus Unititi to Cameron from Pudu

Maybe some of you might be thinking, drive from KL to Cameron easy only la, why make its sounds like you are going oversea? Excuse me, I’m really going over the SEA. To go Cameron Highlands, we need to travel from Miri to KL over the sea. Then only we could take BUS up to the highlands. Journey seems long to us, but its worthy for our never ending honey moon.

Arriving Cameron , Tanah Rata Tourist Centre

The very first important thing  we need to take note for the free and easy trip is you need to get a a simple local tour from Cameron. The one get from here seems good. I don’t need a luxury tour, but just bus transfer from KL, pick up, accommodation and simple country side tour.

Note: They charge extra RM50 during the weekends, same things goes to Hotel rate.

The Hotel that is provided is Hotel Chua Gin in Brinchang Town, a family run hotel. Its just above the shop lot, but the rooms are just nice. With LCD tv with Astro channels. Only thing that I don’t like is the toilet which is pretty small and the shower isn’t hot enough. Oh ya, Hotels in Cameron are all non-aircond. Its pretty cool, at night the temperature will go lower.

Then the 2nd thing is google it, see where are the best food located. The thing that we worry most is being slaughtered at a new place. People might raise the price just because we are tourist. So search for the most recommended restaurant , at least not a blacklisted one would be fine. Thanks to the Tour Agent remind us which are the shops that we shouldn’t try.

As we were there around 2pm, Alex and I were pretty hungry.

So just below the hotels, there’s lot of restaurant. Of course, not the one blacklisted. We choose to go those with lots of customers. But it was late noon, its already off lunch hour. We saw this shop who the owner were very keen to get customers and show us menu with price. Although its consider slightly expensive but at least I don’t feel being cheated and will be wise to order according to menu.

I can’t recall the name of this vege, but they claimed its from Cameron. But I confirm its from Ipoh la~

Fried Mushroom, taste like Chicken!

Guiness Pork Rib, very nice..

Total sum up around RM40. Phewwwit, but the food are special, and I like it! =)

3rd thing, other than the places that included by the tour, we should see is there any other entertainment available around. So indirectly, it relates to the location of your hotel. If you stay far away from town, you might need a taxi to travel around the town.

We just have a walk around Brinchang town area. Its just a few rows of  shops and further up its the country side.

Suddenly, I feel that I’m not in Malaysia!

There’s more activities to come in the next post. Till Here! Tata!

So far, Tune Hotels are expanding. We’ve stayed in KK (one borneo) , Kuching (waterfront) and the latest Penang (Downtown). If its not because there’s an option to stay at 5-star sleeping experience at a 1-star, I bet all the above places I couldn’t have visited.

The most recent trip we’ve done was to Penang. Like I mentioned before, we were supposed to go Phuket, but we have change our mind and reroute to Penang. The room was booked 1 week earlier, and to my surprise, the room rates is only RM36 +/-. (tax / aircond 12 hours incl.)

HDR photos of Tune Hotel Downtown Penang

Getting There
We took a local bus from the Sg. Nibong Bus Terminal. You may choose to take a taxi but I think that would be much more expensive compare to RM1.50 per person.

Rapid bus: T304
Destination: Jalan Burma (Tune Hotel)
Fare: RM1.50

Tune Hotel Down Town Penang:

03-7962-5888
View Larger Map

Check-in to Tune Hotel Downtown Penang

Welcome to Tune Hotel Downtown Penang.

The lobby area is located at the 1st floor of the building.

We were there just on time to Check In, you can’t be there too early, they won’t entertain you. That was my experience in KK where they are quite lenient in cases like this, so don’t ever think to gain more hours of stay by go there earlier. This is not the same as other hotels.

The check in process are simple, and fast but then you gotta pay RM10 as a deposit for the key card then you’ll get the refund when you check out. Also if you would like to rent for the towels and toiletries, do let the service staff know. They will help you on that.

The staffs are well trained and very friendly, regardless of race.
We’ve always face situation where the service industrial will be biased in between foreigner and local customers. But this could never happen at Tune! Well done!

Let’s show you around the Lobby Area.


Other than the waiting area, there’s also a small cafeteria for a cup of tea.

You can also grab some travel leaflets and plan ahead your trip in Penang.

The best part, there’s free internet service. To be fair, you can only have 10minutes per use. At least can update my Facebook saying “I’m here in Tune Hotel Down Town Penang!“.

Check In is done, let’s go to the room! *wink*

I guess the lift is sponsored by Nippon Paint =.=

As advertised, there are 5 reasons to stay at Tune Hotels.

Let’s check it out, how true could that be?

5-star beds

Seriously , it is so comfortable that you wish to bring the bed home !

Although the room might not be as spacious as the other 5 stars hotel, but I think it consist of everything that I need and cut off all the unnecessary!

These are not wallpapers but its painted! Nice!

Power showers

I really like the bath room, especially the power showers. This would be my concept bathroom when my house is ready. Neat and the glass door would be nice for someone to peep you while you are taking bath. Ahak!

Central & convenient locations

Every Tune Hotels locate at the best and strategic place in town. For instance, we have all the best food surrounding us, and it was just a few minutes walks to the heritage site and shopping malls. Check out my food hunting post, and you’ll know how convenient it is.

Penang Eat Only Trip | Jalan Selamat | New World Park
Under the same building of Tune Hotels, there’s also 7-11 convenient store , CIMB Bank Kiosk, Captran – tour assistant and also a massage center.

Clean environment

I would say that the rooms are well maintain, and the cleanliness are always top. At Tunes, they care about Earth Resources. Less Waste, More Earth.

24-hour security

For security wise, other than using the new key card access system, they also have a small safe deposit box inside the room. There’s also security guarding the hotel entrance. If compared to KK (one borneo)’s experience, the Penang’s is doing far more better than my expectations.

Thumb Ups for Tune hotels, and double up credits to Tune Hotel DownTown Penang.

Tune Hotel during day time

Tune hotel at night..

This has been my best experience staying at Tune Hotel. Have you plan your next travel destination? If not, do consider Penang, there’s no regret on it.

It would be a wise choice if you choose to explore this little town by your own. Everything is convenient which is truly can be called as Free and Easy.

Our Hotel : Backpackers in Paradise
Yen had pre-booked the hotel thru their website, we go for the One Room Apartment, where its air-conditioned, complete with toilet and kitchen.

We arrived in Gold Coast around 8am Australia Time. The airport transfer dropped us right in front of our hotel and we’ve waited eagerly for the check-in. 3 of us feels collapsed but its not due to jet lag , its just that we could not get a good rest in the plane.

Blame AirAsiaX for giving us such a discomfort seat!
Sigh!What to do, you get what you pay!

This is the Apartment that we’ve booked earlier. We got one unit upstairs.  It looks more like my grandma’s kampung house. That’s my very first impression.

The check-in procedure makes me feel that Gold Coast does not welcome Asians. The receptionist are mostly young people. They don’t really entertain us, the Asians. From their service attitude, its proven, they are quite racist.The big boobies ladies only entertain those beach boys visitor, while looking at us the yellow-ish skin people, they don’t even give a glance!

The poor thing is we felt like cheated as they told us its now the Peak Season, okay, it’s Easter Holiday, so they have to increase the room rate. They have no right to call the rate without notifying the customers in advance. We have all our booking confirmation, but we are just tired of argument, so just don’t give her a damn! It will just spoil our holiday mood.

Before we could go out and explore this little town, its better for us to get some rest in this kampung house. See, this is the bedroom of Yen & I.Ooops sorry I forget to clean up the bed.

The toilet seems to be very simple, which at first I feel its a little bit unhygiene. Okok. Kampung House, cannot compare with 5 star hotel.

This is the living room, which the sofa was turned into a bed, which is for Eet. Poor boy… but its equipped with TV and Aircond. While we in the room don’t even have airconditioned.

From the other corner, there is the Kitchen equipped with all the kind of utensils. Even if you want to bake a cake also can! At least this makes me feel worth for paying so much.

This is the balcony view, hmm, just the other residential suite next door.

Life in Gold Coast is real bored. I feel myself like an old nanny here.  We don’t have internet access in our room, so we have to entertain ourselves everyday. Hmm…

Their TV programmes were mostly news during the day time, I could only catch up good movies at night.

What else, reading my readers digest to kill time, while Yen crazy about her Sudoku..

How about him? He is the TV operator all night long. Getting bored.. getting bored..

One good thing about renting this Apartment, at least we can cook at home. We do have home meal almost everyday!

Tada! This is the best meal , Eggs + Ham, Vege + Maggie Curry (Made in Malaysia). Hmm, don’t play play, at least it saves us a few bucks!
Hey, wait a minute, we do have visitors here in Gold Coast.

Hi, this is MeoW meoW! ~ haha, she didnt tell me her name la..

She is fury and fat! The cats are even friendlier than those receptionist downstair.

Meow Meow trying to peep us, seeing what’s cooking inside. Sorry la, no fish today! We only have Maggie Mee…

Although from the first impression, it was quite disappointing. But after the 6 days stay here, I feel that I’ve get used to it. Although the receptionist are not friendly, but why do I have to bother so much. Just take it easy..

Coming up, I’ll be cover up my visits to the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and also the exciting Theme Parks!

This is where I wait for my pre-booked shuttle bus service everyday, but everyday we also miss the bus!

Look, the weather seems so good!

Bah! Catch me soon.. I’m going to catch my bus before it rains!

Budget list:
AUD $ 554 for 6 night accomodations.
AUD $ 185 per person.
Food: Got it from local Supermarkets. Prices are more or less the same in malaysia, just that they are in AUD $. :p