Cameron Highlands 2008... End of Da Year Tripz [Day 1]

Date: 27th - 28th December 2008
Destination : Cameron Highlands
Participants : Me, Mr Dino, Mo-Chin, Korie, Ash, Ana, Madi-Boy, Kei, Ayop
No of Cars : 3
No of Cameras : 5

This is kind of a carefully planned trip (or is it? =p haha) , the only thing I'm... or we looked forward to all December... actually make that all December and half November. I am so ready to pack my bags and just relax n haf fun. Can't actually remember the last time I went to Cameron Highlands but what I know that it was with both mom and dad and my late grandma. It was a long time ago, maybe when I was just a lass bout 4 or so. Planning something is not easy I tell ya, especially when there are many people involve (many equals to > 3) but can't really put the blame on anyone on this coz that's one of the "beauties" of going on a vacation in group!

I kindda did a reserach on places to visit and studied the route based on the maps I found on the WWW. The more I research the more I think 2 days is merely not enuff to cover most of the interesting places there. I think if you really wanna take your time and savor the feel of being at CH and cover most of the places, give it bout 4-5 days. =D Definitely well rested after you came back (Mentally that is).

I suggest getting urself an updated map with all the recent highlights on places to visit in Cameron Highlands. I got mine at CH's petronas station for RM 4. Below is not exactly the map though, this one i got from the internet :D I'll scan them later if not bz

Cameron Highlands Map

The time is just approximately:

27 December 2008 (Saturday)
Location : Still in Selangor (from Ampang)
Purpose : Gathering at starting point
Time : 8.00 am

8 am isn't exactly the initial time planned for us to depart (it was actually 4 am :p lol gilo). Breakfast was the 'big D' and off we go to Cameron following the route of 'Simpang Pulai' (it's the new way and less winding... i think) but not without prior picture snapping.

Location : Kampung Raja, Cameron Highlands
Time : 11.00 am

Not bad... 3 hours journey or was it the drivers? =p

Location : Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : Lunch ^0^
Time : 12.00 am

Weee Tanah Rata! ^^ If ever anyone said they got lost at Cameron Highlands (direction wise) they're bluffing unless they drove in their 4wd and ventured into the forest or sumthing.

By this time we were all starving & time to hunt fer some FOODs!! Well initially the plan was to eat at this one shop called T-Cafe which got perdy good reviews on the internet but as we were approaching T-Cafe, the sign 'Full House' sat neatly on a wooden chair placed on their staircase... bummer! The shop itself is kindda secluded but that didn't stop people from coming. =D (it's just beside MarryBrown, second floor)

Since that was the case we aimlessly marched forth in search for other place to have our lunch. Inadvertently while walking we stumbled on one cafe which seems decent enough, Vintage Cafe's the name. We gave em a try *wink*

Darn Mr. Dino DSLR pic's missing T_T had to settle with cyber-shot

Yeah ... ok guys enuff with the kodak moment thingy, lets order! Starving already! If I'm not mistaken, damage overall was approx. RM 120 (around RM 15 per person). Someone even went for a second round... not bad huh?

Their hot lemon tea is so good it's only natural that I ordered a second serving.

Moments like this should be captured even though however hard we tried to make it last, it will eventually fades away and new ones will transpire... be it happy or sad. I can look back and travel down this memory lanes and tell to myself that these were the people who matters in my life, who inspired me, accepted me for who I am, willing to spend time getting to know each other, they are beautifully flawed, they are real people... they are true to themselves... they are not afraid to show who they really are... these are the people that I admire most, they are my sisters, brothers & my best friends...

Location : still in Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands
Time : 1.50 pm

We were supposed to check in our apartment by this time but was hindered by a minor prob... apartment wasn't ready yet at that time, so we've decided to go to...

We're not lost, mind you... that was our landlady & her man & their lil kid in the car :p

Location : Cameron Valley Tea - Bharat Plantations, somewhere between Habu (Ringlet) and Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : Take pictures & enjoying the view

Time : 2.10 pm (just a few mins drive from our rented apartment)

Woot! We're gonna be witnessing a helluva scene here! Vast and all around ya is green... green... green... and more green... a sight for sore eyes.

Time for some Bollywood actions... we practically dived headfirst into the tea plantations, playing our part as tourist. =p Climbing back to the top was a pain in the a#@ but I managed somehow lol, it was good exercise... I basically ran to the top coz we were having some sort of a race on who could reach the top first hehe. In the end I forgot who won... Heart rate increased, and sweating so much I can fried an egg with em.

Yeap... We'll be back alrite... maybe next time is with our kids or grandchildren :p Time to say good bye! Bye 'Bharat Tea Plantations'!!

Location : Heritage Apartment at Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : Check in Apartment & freshen up before next activity
Time : 4.30 pm

Actually we booked an apartment under Jurina Hill Lodge but since it was all fully booked (peak season maa) we were given an apartment at Heritage Apartment...or was it hotel =/. It has 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a kitchen, TV, radio and a small place for BBQ (all for RM 350, approx. RM 40 each for 9 people. Bear in mind that it was peak season).

Location : Brinchang Night Market at Brinchang, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : Main purpose is to stock up on vegies for BBQ later on & it doesn't hurt to window shop and probably hunt for other stuff while we're at it.
Time : 5.15 pm

You can find lotssa stuff here at the Night Market from food stuff, clothing, plants, toys and even entertainment (Ferris wheel =D).

Cameron Highlands is like heaven for Vegans! Vegies are uber cheap!

... and just before we leave, I bought myself a deck of UNO cards... =p Somethin' trivial like that can actually make peeps happy! We actually stayed up until bout 1- 2 pm playing UNO!!

Location : Ye Olde Smokehouse at Brinchang, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : Take pictures & enjoying the view
Time : 7.00 pm







Location : Heritage Apartment at Tanah Rata, Cameron Highlands
Purpose : BBQ for Dinner! & call it a day
Time : 8.30 pm

That basically wrapped up day 1 activities!

to be cont...

Friendster Horoscope for December 17, 2008

The Bottom Line

Put your energy toward people who like you. Stop courting folks you don't get it.

In Detail

You are a friendly person, but you can't be friends with everyone -- and trying to do this will only get you overextended and over-stressed. You should definitely stop wasting all of your energy trying to charm a certain person who just doesn't seem to get where you are coming from. No matter how hard you try to break through and connect with them, they just aren't capable of it. So put your energy toward the people who are more like-minded. Seek out people who deserve your time.

Sometimes... Friendster nyer horoscope really freaks me out... :p so freaking true sometimes =_= but dun get me wrong, I'm just reading them fo entertainment purposes only.

Check Your Sign... Mine is TAURUS

Nuffnang vs. Advertlets vs. Adsense (Wohoo! Nuffnang status back to Glitterati.)

My hands itches to go and cramp my blogspot with Advertlets & Adsense... =_= without properly reading the terms & conds / faq of Nuffnang prior to adding them. Nuffnang crawler was most apt for being able to detect my 12 hours fling with advertlets. Added them in the morning & quickly brought them down in the evening after a brief explaination from a friend. It seems that the crawler crawls within 48 hours or so... automatically to check the status of ur webbies/bloggies and check whether you have any other competitors from South East Asia. If you do then ur back to being a 'non-exclusive' member, without the extra benefits & long queue. Why should your membership status be Glitterati? <-- Yes read that peeps

Nuffnang + Advertlets = Not advisable!
Nuffnang + Adsense = Happy Family!
Advertlets + Adsense = Please Update! hehe

AIGP @ Sepang - Grand Finale 2008

Racing? erm... Not interested. I mentally noted. I don't see why many people would wanna watch or bother with things such as racing (Please don't bash me *duck* hehe)... Basically you just see people driving, looping around the same track for gazillion^th time and that's it. People who know me know that I like to reason & my list of reasons is full of Maybes. So lemme reason with this to make it more optimistic...

• Maybe the involvement in such event is for the purpose of entertainment, like when you see action, martial art movies (Jet Lee! Jackie Chan... anything) you'll be really excited & coming out of the cinema feeling like you could take down a whole Yakuza mob by yourself sorta like sumthing that triggers your adrenaline rush. *vroom* *vroom* *Vroooooom*.
• You like to pose for the camera.

One should Dream BIG!

• You're one of the Pit crews. (Director/Manager/Race Engineer/Race strategist/Data Engineer/Mechanic/Trucky)

• You're the official cameraman.

• You have to follow your friends/spouse/family just to accompany them?
• You're a photographer or a Paparazzi and you wanna practice panning! (Panning who... I dunno)

• Maybe you've never been to Sepang & this will be your first time watching a live race.

Yes! I'm Here!

• Your house is basically next to the Sepang Circuit & the entry is free, you just need to print out the online ticket.
• You're a clown... who entertains people.

• You're selling foods & beverages...
• You know you can get CHEAP foods & CHEAPER at the end of the race!

Look only aaa dun touch!

• EyeCandy time bebeh! Keep em big and round... you're eyes i mean. (No pun intended)
  
• You're just a kid! A cute one for that matter! ^0^

• You're betting $_$
• You're a Gaijin chillin' on a Sunday...
  

• You are so ready to be deaf... because you can't stand to hear your wife/husband yakking all the time. (If no pls bring an ear muff / ear plug... next time)
  
• You're a HOT chick, Race Queen...

• You're a good fella who loves his/her country and this is just one of those events where could flaunt your patriotism spirit to support your nation! (Malaysia Boleh!!)

• You're a car freak, and everytime you see rare cars around KL area you'll become a monkey! (metaphorically speaking that is...)

It could haf been nicer from another angle but this is nice too!

• Basically you would like to do all of the above mentioned plus below, snapz some (make that alot) pictures and later mass uploads that on Picasa, Flickr, Fotopages or Photobucket.
• You just wanna have a damn good time since it's weekends and you have nothing better to do.

Hold on to your water bottle!

• Womanizer, woman-womanizer
  You're a womanizer
  Oh, womanizer, oh
  You're a womanizer, baby
  
  You, you, you are
  You, you, you are
  Womanizer, womanizer
  Womanizer

She's so Kawaii! ^^ buwhahaha Korie tgn kat mane tuh? =p

As for me... He urged me to go with him for the sake of photography! Oh well, that caught my interest a bit... what the heck! Sundae Sunday Bazaar can wait for another week or so. My so called "enthusiasm" was shared by Momo. See snippet below... =p

Now lets trudge forward ! ! ! (Some Random Shots of the Malaysian Team!)

FYI Malaysian team is yellow... so lets go to the race circuit and give them a lil bit of lovin'!

Our mistake was to not bring any ear plug, didn't know it's gonna be that earsplitting. Bye Sepang, We'll be seeing you again next year Maybe...

p/s - Thanks to Momo + Korie for some of the photos!

BooK : Fairest [YA]

Title : Fairest
Author : Gail Carson Levine [Wiki | Harper Collins Children's]
Target Audience : Young Adults
Info : Amazon.com | Knoxnews.com | Wiki
Based on : Snow White [Wiki]
Rating :

Sorry to disappoint you but I couldn't find neither e-book nor audiobook for this title which drove me mad & alas I have to order from Kinokuniya & waited half a month to finally flip the pages. The ending is kinda happily ever after but not the usual kind that you'll expect. True... external beauty is ephemeral, short-lived, skin deep... beauty differs for everyone, as the saying "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder", how very true that is even for me....& the prince o_O woops. Anywayz, this book is not bad, I would even say it's a good read & I got to know more bout Western European women's clothing. =p

You might wonder why the heck is she always reading all these books meant for teen/young adults bla bla... well I love fairy tales and reading em makes me happy! ^^ & I'm a kid at heartz!

Kewl Find # BookXcess (read more for less)

Initial purpose of going to AmCorp Mall is to accompany Mr Dino to the Sony Centre Warehouse Clearance. Since it's the last day, all the good apples have been eaten & we're left with the leftover skins and the accompanying Mr. wormies. Well anywayz... that's not the point here! I'm here to kepochi bout' an interesting place I accidentaly discovered while I'm roaming around with my fiance! I couldn't believe my eyes! Excitement meter gone up from 4 bars (meaning partialy excited) to almost 9-10 bars (uber excited... like I can't believe it's butter!). I can't believe places like this ever exist here in KL, first hand books with prices that make you say "Biar betik" or "You gotta be kidding me" or "arghhhhh" or just make your mouth drop with utter disbelieve, your eyes dilate & fill with exhilaration & you just feel like bouncing all over the place... metaphorically speaking that is. hehe. I'm so excited my eyelashes fell down (not that I'm wearing any fake eyelashes... ). I present to you . . . .

BookXcess!!

read more for less

Check out their website for the prices on books & what books are avail at the moment. Not the latest you could find but who cares! :p Not the latest but they've got quite a selection. Who gonna give you brand spanking NEW books for cheap these days? Give em a try!

p/s - AmCorp mall is also famous for it's flea market every Saturday & Sunday! That's another story

Webby : BookXcess
Location : L3-57, Amcorp Mall