Trip to Cameron Highlands

Last weekend I went to Cameron Highlands with a tour group of 30 people.  We started the trip from Seremban on Friday night at about 11:45pm.  When we arrived at Cameron Highlands, it was about 6am on Saturday.  The weather was good.  The temperature was about 20degrees C.  We got down for breakfast at Hong Kong Steamboat Restaurant.  Breakfast there wasn't that great but that was the only place open at the time.  We were grateful to be able to get coffee and hot food at that time.

After breakfast, our first stop of visit was to Rose Valley.  There were lots of roses, flowers, cactus etc. etc...

The next stop was to bee farm.

This is where the bees live.

Next stop was to "Boh" tea farm.  The sign says "no parking here.  No entry" but all buses parked here and everybody entered from here!









After the tea farm visit, we checked-in to the hotel.  I am still not very good at taking pictures of everything and blogging yet.  I didn't take a picture of the hotel that we checked-in to!  I can't remember the name of the hotel either.  I will do better next time.  Anyway, it was a cheap hotel with no lift.  I shared a room with two friends.  We had to walk all the way to the third floor, the highest floor.  The beds were not bad but I wasn't happy with the bathroom.  I expected a proper shower in the bathroom but they don't have a proper one.  There was a shower but everything inside the bathroom gets wet when we shower.

After we checked-in, the three of us went out to lunch at a restaurant a few doors from the hotel.  Lunch wasn't included in the price of the trip.  We had three dishes.

Egg fooyong.  This is the best of the three dishes.

Chicken with mushrooms.

Dragon string veges with belachan.











We were all tired after lunch.  So we went back to the hotel room for a rest before going to pasar malam.

The pasar malam in Cameron Highlands starts quite early around 4pm.  We walked for a while before we had dinner.  Dinners for Saturday and Sunday are provided.  On Saturday, we had steamboat.  It was at the same restaurant where we ate breakfast.

This is all you can eat steamboat but we can only order as much veges as we like.  The meat are fixed.  There were lots of fish balls but not much meat.

The soup is divided between clear soup and tom yam soup.










Sunday morning we woke up at about 7am.  We had breakfast at a hawker stall next to the steamboat restaurant.  It was surprisingly nice and cheap.

Here was where we had breakfast on Sunday.

I had this "kon lo lo shi fun".













My friend had "gee cheong fun".

Another friend had prawn noodles.











With three bowls of noodles plus I had a coffee and one of my friends had a bowl of red bean soup, all of these cost RM12.60.  We were so happy we didn't go back to the same place.

Then they took us to a strawberry farm.  We were told that it was a pick your own strawberry farm and that we could eat as much as we want while we pick the strawberries.  I wasn't sure whether the tour guide was pulling our legs.  When we got there, the people at the farm told us that we couldn't eat any of the strawberries while we pick our own strawberries and the price per 500g of strawberries was RM20 and that we have to pick at least 500g if we want to pick our own.  Most people were disappointed and didn't want to pick their own.  I didn't do it either.

 This is the strawberry farm.

These are the strawberry plants.












This was the last visit at Cameron Highlands.  The next stop was lunch in Ipoh.

This was where we had lunch.

One of my friends had "ban mian".

I had "char siu" and roast pork rice.












Then we visited a cave in Ipoh called 极乐洞(Ji le dong).

According to the tour guide, this is a new tourist attraction.  There are lots of statues of Buddha.












After this last visit, we were on our way home.  We had dinner in Tanjung Malim just before KL.  We were back in Seremban at about 8:30pm.  It was raining.  My father picked me up at the drop off.  I will talk about some of the fruits I bought from Cameron Highlands.....

Breakfast at Soong Kee

This morning I went to breakfast with my parents at Soong Kee.  They are famous for "hor fun", rice sticks, and wonton noodles.

My parents had the "hor fun".

I had wonton noodles.











Then I ordered a bowl of "sui gao" but they didn't have that this morning so I ordered a bowl of their prawn wontons in soup.

A bowl of 10 prawn wontons.

This is how the wontons look like.











The bill for all the above was RM19.  We were not happy that it cost so much.  The noodle was RM4 a plate.  The prawn wontons cost RM7!  I haven't been to that place for a long time.  I think I will not go back for a long long time.....

Fruits

It is durian season in Malaysia again.  Since I came back I have had durian once.  I like durian but I am not crazy about it.  Although I have not had durian for a long time, I wouldn't want to eat that everyday.  I went to Jusco the other day with my niece.  There were lots of durian for sale in Jusco supermarket.  So I bought two packets because one packet costs RM25.90 and two packets cost RM45.  I couldn't resist so I bought two packets.

Buying durian like this has all the advantages I think.  First I get to choose the taste ie. sweet only or sweet with bitter taste.  I chose the bitter sweet one.  Then I don't have to get rid of the durian shelf myself and they are guaranteed nice.







After I bought the durian, my cousin visited me and brought me more durians.  My cousin brought me durians from Simpang Peretang.  The durians were from my cousin's durian estate.

These are nice too although not as nice as those that I bought from Jusco.















Other fruits I bought recently were dragon fruits and mango.  Last Monday night, I went to pasar malam with my sister.  We bought five large dragon fruits for RM10.  I think it was a bargain.

Since most people prefer the red dragon fruits, I don't see anybody selling the white one anymore.

This is how I serve dragon fruit.

I bought this mango from Jusco too.  I was impressed with the size of the mangoes when I saw them in Jusco.  They were very big.  I haven't seen such a big mango for a long time.  This weighed 1.09kg and it costs 1.19 per 100g.  So I paid RM12.99 for the mango.  It was very nice but my father said probably I was the only person buying it from Jusco because he thinks it was quite expensive!

Home cook meal

Since the start of my holiday, yesterday was the first time I cooked an unusual dish at home.  I usually cooked chicken or pork and a veges.  Something very simple and easy.  Yesterday I cooked stuffed eggplants.  The eggplants were from my garden.

The eggplants were young and fresh from the garden.

These were all the eggplants.  I used 300g pork mince, 1/2 t salt, 1t flour and 1t cornflour for the fillings.

There was some left over mince from the eggplant. I cooked it in soup with 夜来香, also from my garden.  The soup was sweet and nice.

Other than these, I also cooked fried eggs with bitter gourd and carrot.  Bitter gourd and carrot were not from the garden.  More home cook meal to follow.......

Lunch with sister and b-in-law

I went out to lunch with my sister and brother-in-law yesterday.  We went to the infamous "林木街" in Seremban.  This is a hawker place with a lot of good food.  We spent RM17.50.

Stuffed eggplants, stuffed tao foo and fish balls cost RM4.20












Curry noodles (板面) costs RM3.50.  The curry was quite lemak and tastes good.

Two hainanese chicken rice cost RM7.  The chicken was nice but the rice wasn't as good as it used to be according to my b-in-law.  I tasted this the first time so I think it was good enough for me.  The chili was very good.

Then two coffee and a glass of herbal tea cost $2.80.












It was quite economical and tasted good.  The place is always full of people over breakfast and lunch.  Lots of parking spaces.

Gardening

Part of my holiday agenda is to work in my garden and to grow some veges.  My parents live in the house since day one which was about two and half years ago.  My mother grows two longan trees in the garden.  They are doing extremely well.  She also grows passion fruits, cestrum nocturnum (夜来香), aloe vera, calamansi and leonurus heterophyllus (益母草).

This is one of the longan trees.  The tree is not tall but produces lots of longans, at least twice a year.  The longans are big and sweet.

I cut a branch of longan yesterday morning.  They taste really sweet.  Sometimes the bigger ones are not as nice as the smaller ones because the seeds for the bigger ones are also big.

This is one of the big ones.  Sweet but the seed is also quite big.

This is how big the seed is.

On the same branch, we get different sizes of longan.  The best ones are the ones with small seeds.

Calamansi tree.  The fruits are not doing very well now.  They are very dark in colour.  I think maybe it is because there are too much weed around the tree.  I tried to clear the weed since I came back but it is raining everyday and I couldn't do much.

This is aloe vera.  There are lots of babies all stuck together.  I need to clear the weed and spread the plant properly.

This is cestrum nocturnum (夜来香).  The flowers or the buds are what we eat from the plant.  My grandmother liked to cook these for us to eat when I was young.  So when my mother started growing veges in the garden, I requested her to grow this because I haven't eaten these for a long long time.  My mom couldn't find the plant anywhere.  Then a friend told me that her mother has in it in her garden.  So she asked her mother to gave a plant to my mother.  Now the plant is doing very well in my garden and it has also multiplied.

We cook the flowers in soup, Chinese style.  My mom will make pork soup and when the soup is nearly ready, add the flowers or buds in the soup.  The soup has very nice fragrance and taste very sweet.  It is supposed to be good for our eyes and vision.