M'sia trip pics

I have truckloads of overdue photos! Have been quite busy lately, but I suppose it's time I post them up before they're so outdated that they becomes irrelevant.
So here goes! Pictures from my trip to Malaysia:


The five star bus that we took there... solid double deck with a karaoke lounge on the first level!


It's very very comfy.. we've even got a personal tv and headphones set to ourselves, with 8 different channels to choose from!

Very scenic picture taken on the way...



Freaking lot of palm trees! You can see why palm tree products are Malaysia's main exports... I remember watching the channel 8 9pm show the other day, when this guy Martin got quite lost in a forest of palm trees while searching for his girlfriend Lulu's home, and was telling my brother the most unhelpful directions he could give in the the scenario: "Hello? Lulu! I'm lost! I'm currently in between two palm trees, can you come and fetch me?"


More forested land on our uphill journey towards Genting... It's a 7-frigging-hours journey! My 151 journey is peanuts compared to this. (And when I say peanuts, I don't quite mean it in the NKF way)


Relieved to be back in the hotel...


View from the hotel room window... It's terribly foggy!


It's windy as well. Freezing cold!


We went to the theme park...

where I accompanied my brother on kid-rides...


In the more romantic sense the misty Genting is like a city in the clouds, located way up in the highlands, with wind that rushes past in gusts and fog that wraps you up in a chilling embrace. But Genting indoors isn't that much different from the usual town, with its hotels and restaurants and shopping malls and arcades. The main draw is of course its casinos, which I obviously cannot describe in detail, being one year short of being an adult. I'm not complaining, though. I'd rather be a kid in a theme park than an adult in a casino.


We left Genting in a cable car. Happy happy. No more long twists and turns round and round the mountainside, and you get a paranomic view of the lovely lush forest and the mountain range.

We arrive at Colmar Tropicale in the late afternoon...It's a lovely French village located midway up the mountain, quiet, quaint, picturesque. (Yah, I know, I shouldn't resort to these tourist-y vocabulary, but I don't mean it in a derogatory manner in any way. I love the peaceful country feel of Colmar Tropicale more than I did the city-Genting.)




Upon walking across the drawbridge-like wooden pathway into the stone-paved street, you almost expect someone to go, "Welcome to Diagon Alley!" Pretty, isn't it?


The inside of the reception area, looking out into the 'street', with its pale yellow curtains and 16th-century suits of armour.


We've also got a four-poster bed, Harry-Potter style!

Colmar Tropicale boasts lovely surrounding attractions as well. There is of course the breath-taking scenery right outside your window:


a rabbit park,


where I made friends with this sweet little fella..


a Japanese garden,


and the Botanical gardens.

I love being surrounded with lush greenery and pretty pretty flowers! It's so soothing and so alive at the same time...

So that's it for my Genting-Colmar trip this December... there is a lot more to say, of course, and I'm being as brief as possible in letting the pictures do the talking, but ultimately visual images can capture beauty more so than words can, without retaining biasedness in the form of one's emotions that might otherwise colour the picture differently. It was a lovely trip, but all the same I'm glad to be home, for even in the midst of refreshing newness I seek comfort in familiarity. Perhaps 11 years of not travelling have taken some of the adventure out of me, or perhaps the reason of the trip as a necessary relaxation and a pulling away from the strains of worklife may have ignited some tension and worry, because sometimes it frustrates me that I cannot help my parents lighten up, but make things worse and spark tempers off in a series of unfortunate accidents... perhaps a lot of things, stuff that cannot trivialised into pretty words... But anyhow, all's well that ends well... I think. =)

So, till the next blog entry, ciaoz~