Travel Sabah- Gaya Island Resort, KK & Kundasang!

Big thanks to our buddies- Ivan Tan and Bo Xing for touring us around ! We had a great time at the island of Borneo- Sabah. Our direct flight from Penang to Kota Kinabalu took about 3 hours. Our first station at KK was Fatt Kee Seafood Restaurant. 
I tried on 清汤米粉 and to my surprise the clear soup was very flavorful, it was cooked with lots and lots of fresh tomatoes. Hot tomato soup with 4 big pieces of fried fish. Yummy-licious. Bey tried on 干捞面 with tom yam soup. The tom yam is not so similar with the one that we usually have, it is more towards the curry side. We also had fried 鱼腐. It was so good that Bey can't resist to order another set.

Left: 清汤米粉; Centre: 干捞面 with tom yam soup; Right: 鱼腐

Our next stop was Jesselton Point. During last January, we held our wedding dinner at Vistana Hotel Penang, they offered us  a complimentary honeymoon stay. We chose Gaya Island Resort among 3 other YTL Hotels. Hence, we have FOC  3 days 2 nights stay at Gaya Island Resort!!  (if you are planning for your wedding, do read this post .) It took about 15 minutes speed boat ride from Jesselton Point towards Gaya Island Resort. Upon arrival, we were welcomed with a lush of greenery, beach and ocean.

Waiting room at Jesselton Point 

Greenery; Beach; Ocean

The staffs were super friendly and greeted us every time. We were guided to our room which was Bayu Villa. It was situated at a higher hillside, we needed to climb up stairs to get there. I love the surrounding of our villa, we were surrounded with leafy trees. Let's take a room tour!

This was our villa and we were lucky to stay at the upper floor.

Nice balcony view
But, I didn't like the outdoor sofa; it was full with mold because of the rainy + sunny weather.
I dared not to sit on it. It will be nice if it's a bamboo chair.
Hope the resort will take this into matter :p

Hallway towards the bathroom

 I am deeply in love with the spacious bathroom, it has a huge bath tub which can fits both of us in.
Hooray! (sounds like coming out from jungle :p)

These days, we just relaxed on the beach and spent some time in the pool. Beautiful time spent. :)

Beach towel provided 

Quiet pool when everyone is not awake yet. Sun rises very early at Sabah as early at 6am. 

I would say the only cons for my stay at GIR was food. There were 3 meals inclusive in our stay, which we can choose to dine in at either Feast Village or Pool Bar. The food at Feast Village were served in buffet style, there were a variety of food range from western, oriental, local. But only a few of them met my expectation. We were thinking of dining at the other 2 restaurants at the resort ; but the price per meal was RM195 per pax.... (highly over my budget). There was also no ala-carte menu... so sadly, we did not have great food at GIR .

When we were back to KK, our main aim was to look for good food.  * the only restaurant that we don't like was Fong Ip Cafe. (food not nice) * We had great seafood  at Welcome Seafood Restaurant Penampang. At the restaurant, we got to choose raw fresh seafood from the aquarium. The fish was really good; fresh, soft, silky. Thumbs up! We also had a local vegetable dish known as sayur manis; must try.

The next day, we had tuaran mee for breakfast at Kantin Bakut. In my opinion, tuaran mee tastes more or less like mee goreng texture which is springy. We ordered gan lao version tuaran mee which was served along with a bowl of seafood ingredients soup. I got to say that Sabah food portion is huge compared to Penang. The price range of noodle is around RM6- 8 but double the portion of RM4 Penang noodles. Kantin Bakut serves no pork so you can see a lot of different races eating together, they were also very generous with the portion of seafood such as fresh fish slices, fish cake and prawns .

Then, we continued our journey towards Kundasang. On the mid-way, we stopped by at Pekan Nabalu that has a good view of  Mount Kinabalu. We were lucky to have sunny day to be able to see the peak of it.

We arrived at noon. So I looked dark and with shadow in this photo. But who cares, look at all the peaks at  Mount Kinabalu that can be clearly seen from distance. 

After another 1 hour, we arrived at Desa Cattle Dairy Farm. The weather started to change cloudy, misty, and windy. There was a herd of cow mooing and eating grass at the beautiful green pastures which created the illusion of being at New Zealand . You can feed calves and goats in the farm, but I preferred not to. We tried on Gelato, milk, and also yogurt at the cafe. All of them were made from fresh and pasteurized milk; tasted good too.

Spot the cows on your right . 

The next day, we strolled around at the city area and visited shopping complex Suria. We took Grab car/ Uber to travel in the city area, which was so convenient (charges around RM3 to RM5).

Photo check point"I love KK" at Segama Waterfront. 

In the evening, we went to Jalan Sulaman for kelapa bakar and coconut pudding. There were a lot of stalls at the roadside, selling the exact same food. We chose on the stall that has a banner of 阿贤人情味. The kelapa bakar was worth trying, the coconut was grilled and served hot. It tasted more like soup instead of a drink. I preferred coconut pudding, it was so nice, creamy, sweet and refreshing; a perfect dessert on a sunny day. 

We then went to Shangrila's Rasa Ria Resort for sunset view. Although we did not stay at the resort, but I would love to introduce it to anyone of you. It has large spacious beach, great garden, and also huge swimming pool. It will be in my top selection for my second visit. (but i need to save money first)

Although we did not manage to see the "egg yolk" sun setting down into the sea;
 blocked by some clouds but the sunset view was still breathtaking. 

I am glad to have you  <3 

I truly enjoyed this relaxing trip. See you again, Sabah!

Love,
Yvonne

Travel Seoul during Autumn 2

More about food ! Dining in a restaurant at Seoul will cost you a bit more than you expect. But, who does not like good food. LOL

My favorite list as below:
Even though it was cold outside, we still craved for desserts. We stopped by at Sulbing Korean Dessert Cafe.These two bowls of snow ice were absolutely GREAT ! The shaved ice were soft like snow. I chose on mango and tiramisu toppings.  The mango snow ice came along with pale yellow cubes, Bey said the cubes were butter, I said the cubes were cheese. Anyway, the cubes were flavorful and creamy , perfect match on the fruity snow ice.

Interior of Sulbing Korean Dessert Cafe

Craving for BBQ ?  This grilled pork is $$$ expensive but it's a must try. It is 黑豚家(明洞店), located underground at Myeong Dong. The black pork is known to originated from Jeju Island. There were not a lot of side dishes, but their pork were really really GOOD !

We also had 陈玉华一只鸡 at Dongdaemun. Basically, the whole chicken, potatoes and green onions were cooked and boiled in a pot of clear soup. It looked simple but it tasted AWESOME. You can also add in kimchi or spicy sauce based on your preference. Later on, when you are almost done, you can add in noodles and rice cake and cook it with the remaining soup.  

When we were walking around Insadong Street, we spotted this dumpling logo, and gave it a try. Dumpling is known as Mandu in Korea, it is a perfect snack dish. We ordered a platter that had both steam and fried dumplings, the ingredients in it were minced pork, vegetables and also tang hoon. 

After tired walking at Myeong Dong, we stopped by OSULLOC cafe. This cafe serves a range of green tea food from dessert, hot tea, smoothies, parfait. It was a relaxing cafe !

I believe that there are still lots and lots of good food in Seoul waiting to explore!

Let's continue with
Day 7 
We departed early in the morning to Nami island by taking ITX train from Cheongyangni station to Gapyeong station. We then took the shuttle bus from Gapyeong station to Nami island ferry station. It is a big island, where you can spend your whole day here, bicycling, strolling, eating.

At the entrance 

Beautiful autumn leaves at Nami island; but too bad; people mountain people sea.
Bey said there were more people than trees

One of the tourist volunteered to help us for a photo. Greatly appreciate!
Winter sonata shooting spot - checked . 

When we were there, there were none Jinko leaves on tree.
But, it was still very romantic to have the right person with me >.< 

Look! What's Bey doing? He was shaking a metal box vigorously !

Dada! It was a bento box with kimchi, rice and egg. It tasted super duper good!!!
After we shaked it, look how well all the ingredients were mixed.
Must try this at Drama Cafe. 

We also visited the Petite France. But, let me tell you, if I knew it was a small place like this; I will not spend extra bucks to visit it. Not too much here. Just colorful buildings and some shows. I did not enjoy the place and we headed to our next stop: Morning Calm Garden

Morning calm garden had less crowd. It was a peaceful garden.

In the late evening, the weather started to change gloomy and chilly.
 But, it was just nice to have our day trip ended here. 

Day 8 

It was the last day of our trip; we started shopping at Myeong Dong. I am not too fancy about cosmetics or skincarse; but, I still bought some basic ones from Innisfree and Etude House. We also tried a couple of street foods. 

I think this is the most special one - egg bread !
 It was served hot, fluffy soft bread with an egg inside. :p

We also tried hot teokbokki (spicy rice cake) and odeng (fish cake) at this stall.
People just stand and eat. Kinda like our rojak stall. lol
The hawkers are aggressive, they speak Mandarin and persuade you to try on everything. 

Of course, must take a photo with this huge line bear. Grin widely :) 

At night, this place was so happening.
Even more food stalls, even more crowd, even more music, endless night... 

Before packing our lugagges, we had a late night supper at our hostel. We dabao fried chicken from Kyochon which is just a street opposite our hostel. We also cooked a pack of instant noodles. The best combination of all: fried chicken + beer+ instant noodles !!!!!I am now saliva-ing .....

Hope to see you again, Seoul! Tataz.

Click here for the first post Day 1-6
http://yvonneyeu.blogspot.my/2017/04/visit-seoul-during-autumn.html

Love, 

Yvonne 

Travel Seoul During Autumn

This is a throwback post of our visit to Seoul. If you are planning for your trip, this post gives you some ideas. During the last autumn, Bey and I went to Seoul for 9 days 8 nights. (6th Nov - 14th Nov 2016) We only visited Seoul, and it was more than what we expect. There are so many spots to explore. We planned to have a lazy relaxing trip; therefore, we stayed at the same hostel for 8 nights;  to save all the trouble of moving.

The first thing we did upon our arrival at the airport was to get our Wifi device. We had pre-booked the device earlier through this website Wide Mobile. Wide Mobile has very good service as their staffs speak English and explain very well about the details. The great thing is the wifi network speed is FAST and it can connect up to 5 devices simultaneously. Honestly, we can't survive without this wifi device!

Wide Mobile Roaming Center , 1st floor of Incheon Airport
(pick up & return your device here)

The next thing is to purchase our transportation card Tmoney. (i just realized that I don't have any photo of my tmoney; it is a limited addition of LINE character :'(  Anyway, you can get Tmoney at C& U Convenience Store (1st floor of Incheon Airport). At the same time, we also bought the well- known Banana Milk drink. It's flavorful; just one sip; you will feel the banana fragrance all in your mouth. There are also other flavors: melon & strawberry. Good to grab and go!

We departed from Incheon International Airport to Seoul by bus. We waited at bus stop on the 1st floor of arrival. Our host provided us a direction guide, so we just followed accordingly and doubled check with the ticket office. It took about 1 hour 30 minutes ride to reach our hostel at Dongdaemun.

We booked our hostel through booking.com. We tried to save on our stays, as we knew we were going to spend more on FOOD & shopping.  At the first place, I was struggling on which district to select on our stay. If you have done some research, you will realize that there are so many places to stay. After consulting with some friends that had been to Seoul, it actually doesn't matter on which district to stay but most importantly the convenience of transport. Hence, we selected Hostel Vanilla 1 Dongdaemun as it is within 3 minutes walk from Subway station line 1 & 4.

Let's take a tour at Hostel Vanilla 1 Dongdaemun 

We had free breakfast (including milks, juice, breads, jams, instant noodles, hams, eggs,and also citron tea) at this sharing area. I miss citron tea the most! Each room is provided with a mini basket where you can place your items in the refrigerator. We got to cook our own meal too. This cozy area made us feel like home. 

To maintain the cleanliness of the place, we were not allow to wear our own shoes in the hostel. We were provided with sandals and kept our shoes in cupboard. 

Before entering our room, our host mentioned that Korea's rooms are small and not to compare with  Malaysia's room. I guessed he did not want me to feel disappointed. LOL. Not to deny, it is a small room ! As you can see from the photo above, our luggage filled up the alley space. But, no worries, with this relatively cheap price, we have a great stay ! The hosts are super friendly and helpful too.  

Let me tell you, we did not plan ahead of our itinerary. We went spontaneously to places by following the Seoul Official Tourist Guide guidebook. You can get the soft copy here and also get a hard-copy guidebook from the airport   It is very useful. We enjoy the feeling of searching through maps instead of apps. Ya. sound lousy, we got lost some times but it was fun. 

Day 1
We had a night stroll at Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP). We were lucky that there was LED rose garden exhibition going on. The roses lightened up the place; couples everywhere; very romantic. <3

It looked like a bed of stars behind me ***** 

Day 2
We went to Namsan Park and hiked up to Namsan Tower. Throughout the journey of walking up the stairs, we had a great view of Seoul city, this also saved the cost of entering the observatory deck. If you like nature scenery,  I would highly recommend you to walk up to Namsan Tower ; then,  take the cable car ride for the way back.

Walking up the stairs. Step by step, Namsan tower is nearer to us.

Upon arrival at the Namsan Tower, we were so hungry. We went to N Burger.
The burger is so-so, but the fries are REALLY REALLY GOOD ! 

Day 3
The main reason we traveled to Seoul was to have our pre-wedding photo shoot. Our first shooting spot was at OLYMPIC Park. Olympic park autumn scenery really mesmerized me. The park is very very big and spacious! If you would like to escape from the town that is packed with tourists, do visit this beautiful park. 

The Alone Tree

<3

Next stop, we visited Common Ground to have some casual photo shooting. As I recalled, we need to transit 3 times subway to get to the place. But it is totally worth the effort; the popping blue color of the large containers look trendy. Inside the buildings, there are designer stores and restaurants, there are food truck at the ground area too. See more photos at this post

Day 4
Before sunrise, we were at Bukchon Hanok Village. It s a quiet peaceful village. Beautiful architecture of the wooden houses are great backgrounds of our photos. The photos looked like we were in love in the past century. :)

We walked from Bukchon Village to Gyeongbokgung Palace. I saw a lot of them wearing traditional costume, and later know that the costumes needed to rent before entering the palace. There are no costume rentals in the palace. 

Before the sun went down, we managed to take great shots at Haneuel Park, World Cup Stadium. We rode a shuttle up the hill. We were welcomed with a sea of silver grass. The hill was like a maze, we were surrounded by tall silver grass, As the wind blow, the silver grass wave. And the silver grass shine in golden color when the sun set, totally amazed me. We will come back to this place again !

Day 5

We went to university district, visited Yonsei Uni, Ehwa Uni & Sinchon. We strolled around the campus as if we were studying there.  On the way from Ehwa Uni to Yonsei Uni, there is a Sinchon pedistrian-friendly street where there are a lots of cafes and shops for relaxation and shopping.

Yonsei University has beautiful vines growing on the building

What I love about Seoul is that there are a lot of juice bars. I don't drink coffee,
I love juices and there are a lot of mix options here.

At night, we went to Seoul lantern festival at Cheonggyecheon Stream. There are a lot of events going on throughout the year. So, do check on the website. 

Various designs of lights and lanterns  were all the way at the stream. This little home design is my favorite :) 

Day 6
We visited the craft area - Insadong. There are a lot of traditional handicraft stores and tea houses. I regretted that I did not buy any souvenirs at Insadong where items are sold in a comparatively cheaper price.

Insadong street 

Ssamzigil is a multi-storey complex with different art and craft stores

In the evening, we went to Hongdae area, it was a happening district with trendy youths hanging around. We went to a newly open entertainment store and won a Rilakkuma back home!! ( actually we spent a lot to win it home, but anyway the excitement matters !LOL )

day 7 & 8 .... to be continue...
Stay tune !

Love,
Yvonne