Around Malaysia : Day 3 : Ipoh : Food, food, food

The third day in Ipoh started out with food hunting.
Most coffee shops open at 7am and by noon food will sold out. If you want to have a taste of Ipoh's finest delicacy, it's a must to wake up early. As they say, early bird catches the worms.

Our first stop is Thean Chun Coffee Shop.
This coffee shop is fame for their Ipoh Kai Si Hor Fun which translates into Ipoh Chicken Strands River Noodles.
It is a soup based dish served with flat rice noodles, strands of chicken and chives.

If you see red in the soup. Fear not, it's not chili or anything spicy.
The colour comes from prawn shells which serves as the stock of the soup to give the soup a rich and sweet flavour.

A lovely bowl of kai si hor fun, the flavours in the broth is very rich.

We are told that the Popiah from this coffee shop is great too and we ordered a wet version and a deep-fried version to try out.

I prefer the wet version better as I am not into deep fried popiah but both taste equally good.

A cup of Ipoh White Coffee and Caramel Custard.

This shop is not the shop for white coffee but we are already in Ipoh, we wanted to try it out to compare it to the fame Ipoh White Coffee shop that we will try later on.
The Caramel Custard is great, the smell of eggs is very strong and fragrant in this little custard. They didn't skim on the ingredients while making this sweet dessert.

After breakfast, we visited Concubine Lane.
It is said this place used to be the place where tycoons hid their mistresses thus the name Concubine Lane. Today, this place has turn into a tourist attraction.

There are lots of street arts around the place. You just have to hunt for them.
There's a map stating the locations of the street arts. If you still can' decode it, ask the locals, they would be happy to tell you the exact locations.

This piece of Street Art depictates how Ipoh used to be a tin mining town before it become the Ipoh we see this very day.

Time for more food. You can't just get enough food when you are out travelling.
This time around we stop by this shop called Xin Quan Fang for their curry noodles.

The dry curry noodles.
It's good but I am more a fan of Penang style curry noodles. So any curry noodles other from Penang is just alright for me.

The wet version.

Finally we stopped by Nam Heong for the fame Ipoh White Coffee. This is the moment I have been waiting for, this is my purpose for visiting Ipoh.
This has to be the best cup of coffee I have tried. It's rich and aromatic. The coffee leans acidic so it might not be for everyone but I really don't mind the acidity. In fact, the acidity is what gives this coffee its flavour.

This is our final food stop. It's the Mapo Wantan Mee Restaurant.
Wan Tan Mee is egg noodles.

At time point, I was too full to even eat. I left the tasting to the rest while retiring from eating for the day.

Dried Wan Tan Noodles.

Dumpling soup.

Our trip in Ipoh ended with this food journey all around Ipoh 

Around Malaysia : Day 2 : Ipoh : Sunway Tambun at night

The second day in Ipoh, we ended our night with a hot spring bath in Sunway Lost World of Tambun.
They had some sort of promotion going on that time, it was like buy 1 free 1 for the hot spring bath at night.
I was really excited as I never tried a hot spring bath before eventhough I visited Iceland and never went to the Blue Lagoon or there's so many hot springs just across the mountains near my house.

I did not take as many pictures during our hot spring session because I thought it won't be really polite to take pictures of people bathing in hot spring and we looked like we were ran over by the train at the end of the day.

The hot springs.
There are many temperatures for the spring ranging from 39-45 degrees. I kinda forgot on the temperatures available but there were 5-6 pools available. So there's enough space for everyone.
Different temperatures for different people. Different people? More like different human adaptation.

At first the spring water just felt too hot for us but after adaptation, we found it really relaxing. It's like being wrap in warm cotton wool.
I did tried the hottest spring but I felt it's still too hot for me. Guess I couldn't adapt to that temperature.

Aftermath of hot spring. I guess I did not look too bad with my wet hair and makeup into hot spring.
I would not have done any makeup if haven't I came to the hot spring from somewhere in the day.

That's how we ended our second day in Ipoh.

The next day I woke up really sore and tired as if I have hiked 12km the day before. Is this the effect of a hot spring bath? 

Around Malaysia : Cameron Highlands

This was a spontaneous trip. Since we were at Ipoh, we thought why not drive up to Cameron Highlands since it takes only an hour to get up there.
We drove up to Cameron via Brinchang which is the less dangerous route to take and the nearest from Ipoh.

We went up the highlands late in the afternoon so we ended up not doing much at the highlands. All we did was visit the tea planatation.

It took about 30-45 minutes to drive into the tea plantation from Brinchang. It's much nearer if you are coming in from Tanah Rata.

We visited the cafe to grab some drinks and desserts. We were lucky that we managed the cafe because we were there an hour before the closing time.

There are a good selection of tea or infused tea drinks and also cakes and pastries.
The cakes are made infused with the tea from the plantation. It's quite unique and special to them.

We ordered iced milk tea, strawberry tart and boh tea infused cotton cheese cake.

I do not know if it's tastebuds trciking me but I can't taste or even smell the tea in the cheese cake. It's like a regular cotton cake. Even the cheese tasted so faint.
It was disappointing.

Nothing we ordered was notable.

Walking down to the plantation from the cafe to get some pictures but the view here isn't so great because there are trees blocking the view of the valley of tea.

It's too far to walk into the plantation for great view and it isn't safe to walk into the deeper parts of the plantation since you do not know if there are any creepers hiding in the bushes.

While driving out from the plantation, I did manage to stop the car by at the side to catch a great picture.

This portion is a few minutes drive from the cafe area , the view is much more magnificent without any distractions. Just purely tea valley.

Actually it was about to rain, I am glad I managed to get this shot before the rain started pouring. We got a few drops of rain on us but nothing major.
We left as fast as we could to counter the dark clouds but unfortunately the clouds got to us before we managed to arrive on flat land.
We had to drive through the rain through the slopes and sharp turnings down the Ipoh. It was really scary experience but glad we had a professional driver with us.

We managed to arrive back to Ipoh safely at the end of the day.

Gunung Nuang hiking experience

Gunung Nuang is the tallest mountain in the state of Selangor. It stands 1,493m from sea level.
Comparing to many mountains in Malaysia, it is considered a tiny mountain. Even so, this is one unforgiving mountain to hike. It requires a lot of stamina and most important, mental strength.

There are two hiking trails to the peak from what I know, via Pangsun and Janda Baik, the latter being the easier trail.
This time I am hiking to the peak via Pangsun which is much nearer to where I live it's about a 30 minutes drive from my house to Pangsun.

So, the things I prepared before the hike are just 3L of water, towel, bread.
Also, before the hike, my friend had warned me about leeches, so I wore a knee length socks under my training pants and another shorter socks over it. All are so tight fitting, so now I can hope leeches don't find their way into my pants.

7am, I started my hike.
There are 4 important check points, Kem Lolo, Dataran Pacat, Puncak Pengasih and Peak.

The first part is the "never ending road", this stretch is nothing hard, just some steep up and down hill walk with lots of greens surrounding but you definitely will need the mental strength to push through this 5km. This stretch took me about one and a half hour.

From this part to Kem Lolo is 1.2km. It is no more a flat road but it is still considered quite an easy hike up. Took us about an hour to get to Kem Lolo.
This stretch has four river crossings. There are ropes to cling on to if you are afraid of falling into the river. The rivers aren't deep and the current is not strong. Just that, we do not want to get our shoes wet.

The last river crossing, is the route to the 2nd checkpoint, Dataran Pacat. This is where the adventure begins, it is about climbing up and up. This stretch is 1.2km. It took forever. I took about an hour and 45 minutes up.
While climbing I was more worried how I am going to descend down later, because the incline is pretty steep and the red clay ground is pretty slippery. I am terrible at descending, I can climb up and it is easy for me but descending feels like a nightmare to me and my poor knees.  At this moment, my towel was so drenched.

Finally arriving at Dataran Pacat (Leech(, I would name this place Dataran Lebah (Bee) instead. There were so many bees and I dislike them. We stopped by this place to take our breakfast to give us more energy for further hike.

Everyone who stops at Dataran Pacat took a picture with this tree. So, I guess I will just follow.

Okay, the next push is to Puncak Pengasih. This moment , nightmare behinds. It was rocks over rocks. I was basically rock climbing my way to the top. It was huge boulders and steep inclines up.
Let's not think how am I going to descend later. I think I rather tumble down at this point.
1.2km feels like an eternity. I took about an hour and 45 minutes at this point.

Puncak Pengasih aka False Peak. Too early to be happy, now it is time for a downward hike over mouldy rocks. I love the trail along the false peak to the peak. All the mould covered rocks gives a mysterious and ethereal feel. I could like imagine suddenly Totoro appearing out of nowhere.

This stretch isn't anything too hard since there isn't much not a steep incline. Felt like an obstacle hike, crossing over fallen trees and big mouldy rocks (not a huge as the ones at the route from Pacat to Puncak Pengasih).

Before reaching the peak, there's a literally vertical rock. To me, it looks very vertical and gosh I didn't know how to get up. If you asked me now how I managed to get up, I can't explain. Just used some 'magic' called willpower.
I am so close to the top, I can't just give up right now.

Finally I have reached the peak.
We rested for about 15 minutes before we start our descend. We hope to reach the parking lot before the sky turns dark. Not much time to waste.

Too early to be happy because hell awaits after this. Descending is a total nightmare.
This is the time where your legs are already killing you, you are already exhausted from hiking all the way up. Now, you have to go down.
The slopes are more slippery descending, so it adds more burden to your knees.
It took me about 4 hours 45 minutes up but 6 hours descending.
At the end of the descend, I couldn't even feel my toes and knees. RIP.
I was beyond hungry and dehydrated at this point. All I wanted to do is to have a huge jar of isotonic drink, a big fat meal and sleep.
I burned a total of 4900 calories with this hike which is an impressive amount of calories with this 21km journey.

Oh yea. I didn't encounter any leeches during my hike. Maybe because it was a dry day.
Try to hike this mountain on a dry day, it's much safer without the extra slippery muddy clay grounds and also leeches.

Will I do Nuang again? Sure! but not so soon. I still need to recharge.
Easier hills for now. 

Around Malaysia : Ipoh, Day 1 + 2

Ipoh bound to visit a friend who is currently posted there. 

Drove all the way there. 

It took us about 3 hours to get there, so it wasn't too bad of a drive. 

We started out journey at 9am, arrived about 12pm.

The first day there was basically eat, eat and eat. 

We didn't do anything really interesting besides eating. 

Our first stop is Lou Wong restaurant. It is a famous Ipoh bean sprout chicken rice shop. 

The restaurant is so packed despite it was late afternoon-ish. 

I totally forgot to take picture of the chicken. 

We were totally famished. 

I think that's all for day one. 

We ended the day with a movie. We watched Star Wars : Rouge One. 

The next day we started our day with food again. 

Half boiled eggs on toast. One of favourite type of breakfast.

Yoo tiao with Coconut jam. 

After awhile we went for Dim Sum.

I wasn't joking when i said it is going to be food overloaded. 

We went to this oh so famous dim sum restaurant called Foh San. 

To be honest, I find the dim sum to be totally average. It's so overrated, not to mention it is pretty pricey. 

'

After our quick morning tea/lunch, we headed down to Kek Lok Tong. 

It is a Chinese temple inside a limestone cave. 

After visiting the cave we had this crazy idea and we drove to Cameron Highlands which is about an hour drive from Ipoh. I will keep the post about Cameron Highlands in another post since it is not Ipoh. 

At night, my friend took us to a nice American pizzeria - MichelangelO's Pizzeria. 

This place serves nice oven baked pizza. Hot from the furnace. 

Definitely one of the best pizza I have tried in Malaysia. 

The pizza is so flavourful, there is so much topping (they aren't stingy with their toppings) and each bite is so cheesy. 

We ended the night by visiting the hot spring at Lost World of Tambun since our friend lives nearby. 

We did not pay much for the hot spring since there was an offer for it if you go at night. 

Eating out Malaysia : Oribe Sushi

I was treated to a Oribe Sushi for my birthday lunch.
This restaurant serves in omakase style.
I have not been to such sushi restaurant before. It is a first time for me.

This restaurant is located at Vipod Residence. Parking is free if you tell the guard that you are gonna dine here.

Upon entering the restaurant, they will be waitresses to usher you to your seats. The ambiance of the restaurant is nice and quiet.
It is advisable to reserve a place in this restaurant as there are limited seats and it can get busy because it is located nearby to office areas.
We had reserved a seat in front of the chef's table.

We arrived at 12pm and we were the first customer of the day, so we could get a picture of the empty restaurant.

There are a few sets to choose from the menu. We chose the Iga set which comes with an appetizer, 8 chef specialty sushi, chawanmushi (steamed custard egg), a side dish, maki sushi and dessert.

The chef's assistant preparing our food right now.

The ingredients are specially chosen and air-flown from Japan by the chef. The ginger that is going to be served to us is homemade.

Every each piece of sashimi sliced to perfection.

Aburi hotate (scallop) sushi with yuzu zest

Toro (Tuna) Sushi

No sushi experience is complete without toro.

The side dish.
It is sushi rice with drops of shoyu with ikura (salmon roe), minced toro and uni (sea urchin) and grated fresh wasabi to top it.

Chawanmushi (Steamed Custard Egg) with little shrimps.

Miso shiru

Minced Toro Maki. 

Another round of punch of toro. There can never be too much toro. 

Toro is just so flavourful and it just melts in the mouth. Taste like paradise. 

The master chef, Oritsuki Hideaki preparing his masterpiece for other customers. 

To end the meal, Yuzu sorbet with Japanese peach 

Definitely a meal I enjoyed. I haven't tried omakase in Japan yet so I can't comment on how great or the difference between the ones in Japan and the ones we have here. From my point of view, this is one of the best Japanese meal I have ever had. 

Price point, it is on the expensive side. A luxury treat.