We left home at 9 in the morning and began our 5 hour drive to Kijal. On the way, we made a brief stop to empty our bladders before continuing to motor along.
When we finally made it to the resort, we had a 2 hour wait as our room wasn't ready yet. Poo!
5-star hotel, my hairy beanbag.
So some lunch was in order. That and a trip to the beach.
When the room was finally devoid of the cleaning staff, we quickly unpacked and took full advantage of the frosty air-conditioning.

We went back to the beach for a spell before our buffet dinner. After dinner, we went back to the room for a quick rest and returned yet again to the beach later that night to stare at the inky blackness.

Day 2- Beach, pool. lunch, tennis, dinner and fireflies watching. In that order.

Day 3- Made a last trip to the sandy shores of Kijal before packing up and returning to PJ. Ahh ... I'm tired. But a good kind of tired. Can't be bothered all that much to blog normally ^^;

What a day!
Went to all of the places on Ets' list and hopefully lost a fw pounds. Unlikely though.
First, we went to TTDI for breakfast. Had some laksa, fish paste noodles, koay teow, and pork noodles.
After that, we went to Batu Caves, climbed up all 272 steps and gawked at the huge golden buddha. In all honesty, I think the most interesting part of this trip was seeing all the monkeys there.
Next on the agenda was Thean Hou temple followed by Central Market. Managed to pick up some nice bracelets, a ridiculously flourescent orange shirt, some nice batik photo frames and a pair of chopsticks. A much needed break was in order and we sat down in the Old Town coffee shop to have some Ipoh White Coffee and some kaya sandwiches.
Quickly motoring along, we went to Mariamman Temple but only stood outside and looked in cos we were too lazy to take off our shoes.
Just around the corner from there was Chinatown where I tested my bargaining ability. I saw a nice t-shirt and asked the vendor how much it was. He told me it was RM45. I whittled him down to RM15. Then I found out that the shirt had a hole so I didn't buy it. After more browsing in other stalls, I found some other nice shirts and walked away with three and Ets bought a nice brown Puma tank top.
We took another break at the Selangor Club for some beer and a walk around Dataran Merdeka. We wanted to see the Sultan Abdul Samad building all lit up at night but as it was still quite bright, we went off to the Coliseum Restaurant in town for a steak dinner and then returned after that. Managed to take some nice pictures due to the main road being blocked off and some extra illuminations being put up for the upcoming Merdeka Day celebrations. Lucky us! ^_^
We're off to Awana Kijal tomorrow for 3 days and 2 nights of fun in the sun. I"ll be driving the 4 hours it'll take us to get there and Ets will be my lovely navigator. Hope we don't get too lost ^^;
As usual, the pictures will come later. Most likely after we get back to Nippon.

Went to KLIA at 5pm with my mum and dad to pick up Ets after which, we all headed back home to drop off her stuff and have a short rest before going off to Nam Heong in SS2 to have Hainanese chicken rice garnished with a healthy serving of char siew and siew yoke with some veg and assorted meat balls.

After that, we went off to the pasar malam near Chow Yang to let Ets experience something quintessentially Malaysian.

The next morning (ie. this morning), we went to have roti canai and some tosai which was really good seeing as I hadn't had it in almost 2 years. Washed it down with some teh tarik and then went to explore the new wing of 1 Utama which hadn't been finished when I was here last. Bloody place is huge. Managed to do a bit of shopping to take advantage of the sale and also picked up a nice bottle of umeshu to have for dinner with the Gang of Four (plus others) next Wednesday night.

Am going with Ets to choose a new pair of glasses for me and then going off to The Coffee Bean in Bangsar to meet up with PS.

Pictures to follow later.

I arrived last night at 1940 and I must say, it's nice to be back.
Ets arrives tomorrow evening and I'm really looking forward to it ^_^
I hope my uncle doesn't call her Sudoku too many times ^^;

Am looking into hotels and beaches for us to go to for a few days. Suggestions from my dad are Club Med in Cherating and the two Pangkor-based hotels, Swiss Garden and Pan Pacific.

In the meantime, I'm going to have my morning cuppa and read my book.

The annual Edogawa Fireworks Festival was held yesterday and was slated to start at 1915 for about an hour and a half. People in their thousands turn up to have fun sampling the array of festival fare and taking in the atmosphere.

Ets and I decided to be at the station at 1740 in order to get to the site early and possibly get a good place to sit. We packed up a tarp, some bug repellant, some snackables, a foldable cooler and, after getting dressed in our yukatas, got to Ichikawa station. In the middle of our 15-minute walk, accompanied by tons of other people, we saw some stalls selling cans of ... refreshment ... at 200 yen each, a smidgen cheaper than the exorbitant 500 yen pricetag that the vendors around the site were charging their captive market. So we stock up, fill the cooler bag and follow the throngs to the riverside where we see that we weren't as early we'd hoped. Luckily, we got a spot in front of a wall ... somewhere. Heck ... people as far as the eye can see on both banks of the river ... we didn't know where we were. I'm told that people get there the night before to stake out a place and this being Japan, the other people respect a mat left there overnight and leave it undisturbed. By an evern greater stroke of luck, the spot we got was just in the right space to see all the fireworks. Bonus! ^_^

It really is ridiculous how many people are there. Last year, there were almost 1.5 million people. Yeah ... just imagine when the festival ends and everyone is trying to get home. The police were out in full force coordinating the crowds to make sure noone gets trampled or crushed which happened a few years ago. They were also controlling the amount of people that got into the train station to minimise congestion. Fortunately for ets and me, I had the great idea of stopping by a nearby cafe to bide our time while the crowd disperses. Yay for me! ^_^
But even after 45 minutes, there was still enough people around to make getting back to our part of the world vexing. Yet even with the mad amount of people, the whole thing was worth it. After all, how often do we get the chance to wear a yukata?