Moths in Kota Kinabalu

We went for lunch at this place at Bundu Tuhan. Apart from our group, there was no other customer. But there were a lot and seriously a lot of moth. None of those gigantic moth that we are seeing now in Singapore but small one, medium size one, plain one and colorful one and one odd shape one. Too bad I only had a compact camera with me and with the poor lighting indoor these was the best that I could manage.

This was on a door frame. It would have blend well if it was on a tree trunk

One of the smaller one but so beautiful

The biggest moth that we seen

Another one on a door frame. What with moth and door frame?

This small one looks like ready to take off soon.

The odd shaped moth. Very difficult to get it fully in focus with the compact camera

Another beauty

And this one is the brightest looking of the lot

I love the pattern on this one

This one looks like the same species as the first one but is more white

Can anybody name all the moths?

Weird Insects

Some photos of unusual looking insects taken at the 2 Butterfly Parks in Cameron Highlands

Giant grasshopper
 

Some sort of leave insects. If you can spot it that is
 

Another leaf insect. Can you find it?
 

A stick insect

 

Another leaf insect


Some sort of leaf insect or beetle

Which is the insect and which is the leaf?


A giant beetle

 

A white praying mantis


Somehow this one remind me of the Transformer

A beautiful red beetle
  

Langkawi Food Street?

Ok I be frank. I didn;t found one on my recent visit. Not something like Jonker Street in Malacca, Gurney Drive in Penang or even Jalan Alor in KL. But we did stumble upon a street in Kuah where there there a number of seafood restaurants which was as close to a food street as we could find. Maybe like Seri Selera Seafood Centre in Kota Kinabalu or the Top Spot carpark in Sarawak.  Most of the people eating here are locals. So they can't be wrong. Right?

We ate there on both nights ordering seafood from different restaurants each night

The restaurant where we had our dinner on our first night

Place where we had our dinner on the 2nd night

What did we ordered? Seafood of course and prices were very decent. The following photos are what we had for the 2nd night and they cost us less than RM150 and that is including drinks and beer.

Mixed vegetables

Black Pepper mantis prawn

Cheese crab

Steam egg flower Crab

Squids

I think the seafood wasn't fresh fresh but it was good enough. For the price we paid, I really cannot complain.

Pulau Payar, Langkawi

The highlight of the trip to Langkawi was the visit to Pulau Payar, a marine park off mainland Malaysia. To get there, we had to sign up with one of the many tour companies specialising in the visit there. The 3/4 day trip include the pick up from the hotels, ferry ride to the island, lunch, snorkeling gear and life jacket. There are unfortunately no bathing facilities on the island.

This is the main part of the beach where the tourists get to hang around and swim with the fishes and have their lunch and rest there too.

Although the tour guide said no feeding of the fish, they nevertheless still handed out bread to us to feed the fish. It was rather fun watching all the fishes fighting to eat the bread although I think it shouldn't be encouraged.

But the real purpose was of course to swim with the fish and that we had plenty of opportunities as there were fishes everywhere. The water was relatively calm and clear and we could see right down into the water.

But of course the best part was swimming with the fish and we don't even need scuba diving gear for that. But the beach do drop off quite sharply and it was overhead just mere metres from shore. So having life jacket on all the time is recommended for those who are snorkeling but it does make it more difficult to go deeper into the water to look at the fish.

And the Princess managed to took some amazing shots of the fish.

 Yes a shark!

 A puffer

Certainly this was more interesting than Redang Island which was much more rocky and the current was stronger. Definitely the highlight of the trip!

All photographs were taken by the Princess with the Nikon AW110 a wonderful little compact camera which can be used underwater!

Langkawi Wildlife Park

Went for a short trip down to Langkawi, Malaysia. Purpose was to see the Princess who is doing her internship there so first stop after check in was her place of work, the Langkawi Wildlife Park. 

Now coming from a place where there is a world class zoo, a unique Night Safari and a brand new super duper River Safari, the small little Langkawi Wildlife Park pales in comparison. But what it lack in size and the quantity of the animals, it more than made up for it with its super service fully justifying the Certificate of Excellence awarded by Trip Advisor.

We didn't announce our presence as one of their staff's parent. We paid the usual admission fee and strolled in. What hit was most was the sheer small size of the place and the exhibit. Frankly in term of exhibits, there was nothing much. Some birds, mostly parrots, macaws, parakeets and budgie, peacock and some fowls. There were 2 crocodiles, admittedly one of them was super huge, 3 donkeys, some snakes and monkeys and some smaller mammals. Nothing much but what bowled us over was the friendly zoo keeper. They were so friendly and they freely chit chat with the visitors and during feeding time, invited the guests to help with the feeding which is how we ended up with these:

M feeding the peacocks

Mum feeding the Cassowary with tomato

The Kid having a swell time feeding the rabbits

We also got to feed the donkeys and the ostrich and also got to handle the Oriental Whip Snake. The amazing thing was we were handed the snake by a teenager. We found out later he was the boss' son and it being the school holiday, he was there to help out.

But what we found most amusing was the many signs place all over the place. I can imagine that if they can come out with cute fun signs like this, the Management are definitely on the right track to make the place a truly must visit attraction in Langkawi.

We found 2 similar theme things and I thought it be fun to post it here. Can you see what are the 2 similar theme in both pictures?

And this is no photoshop image here. The monkey really has blue balls!

Food in Kota Kinabalu

Was in Kota Kinabalu a few weeks back and had a great time eating the local street food. We stayed in the Gaya area and there was absolutely the best food around. We went with the flow and ate mostly at the crowded shops although we did dine at some of the not so crowded and we immediately knew why they were not crowded!

Our first stop was dinner at this Bak Kut Teh place. The place was absolutely swamped with people from the minute it opened in the afternoon till it close at night.

This is the typical Malaysia style bak kut teh and comes with all sort of side dishes like pork ball, intestines, livers, stomach etc

Next up was breakfast at this place just across the road from the Bak Ku Teh store. There were 2 stalls inside the coffee shop, one selling Sarawak kolo mee and the other Sarawak style laksa. The kolo mee was the more popular stall. But I thought the laksa was not too bad too.

Kolo mee

Laksa

On the way back from race pack collection, we had lunch at this place that one of the guys recommended. The place was crowded and hot. There were many people ordering the noodles from one of the stall within but we went for the fried noodle stall and sadly the food were so so. Dinner was zhi char food at a shop next to our hotel but it was just passable and so all these shall not get a mention here. 

Breakfast on Sunday was at a dim sum shop. We had dim sum and noodle but these were normal and nothing to rave about. 

The only reason the dim sum shop get a mention and a picture here is that they used those 3-in-1 packet for the teh tarik that we ordered! Either they must be darned proud of their Sabah produced 3-in-1 tea or that is the way tea and coffee are made in the country but I don't really fancy those commercially produce tea.

For lunch we went to what must be the most famous Western food outlet in town, Little Italy! See we are kinda  weird, we do our carbo loading after the race and not before! Our party had pizza, pasta, salad the usual Italian stuff. Was the food really that good? I guess if there is a scarcity of such food in the country, it will be considered good and of course we wolfed down the food but frankly I think there are better pizza and pasta back home.