Berjaya Hills Day Trip

Hi all, have you thought of having a weekend getaway after a long grueling week?

I have a spontaneous day trip to Berjaya Hills yesterday with my family and I think it is definitely an awesome place to get away from the hustle and bustle of city life.

Berjaya Hills spreads across 16,000 acres of tropical rainforest and is located approximately 10 kilometres off the East West Karak Highway. It takes about an hour drive from Kuala Lumpur. You might wonder what you could see there. Well, the picturesque French-style Colmar Tropicale which is an replica of the original 18th Century Colmar Village in Alsace, France is Bukit Tinggi's main attraction and dominates its landscape.

Colmar Tropicale Gallery

Heading towards the entrance of Colmar Tropicale =)

Yes we are here!

The castle drawbridge with swan paddling lazily around the moat

Elegant swan relaxed by the square's fountain

Black Swan

Creative Horse Statue featuring the Chinese New Year that is around the corner

French village with Malaysian style 

Another awesome piece of art

Live show

Pheewit!

Swaggers~ woot woot

Oops! Yes that's us on stage

Okay that's it for Colmar Tropicale. Now how about going to Japanese Village. Yes you heard me... Japanese Village at Berjaya Hills. It would never cross my head before I visited Berjaya Hills since Japan and France has a bit of distance in the real world. But why not? In my opinion, Japanese village is an ideal place to rewind yourself from hectic life. The traditional tea ceremonies conducted and the exotic and opulent spa are just what you need to rejuvenate. However, just to give you a heads up that the spa could be a little pricey.

Japanese Village Gallery

Big fat Japanese koi fish <3

Couples in Yukata

After finishing visiting the Japanese village, you could head towards the Botanical Gardens which can be found besides the Japanese tea house. This four-acre garden has one kilometre walkway that weaves through towering trees and viewing decks as well as horticultural sights such as pears, apples and 7 species of strawberries.

Botanical Gardens Gallery

 That's Berjaya Hills. We had a really good day and it's definitely lovely for a day trip with family and friends. Hope you like this post.
Good day!

Flying with Qatar Airways

Hi all, I haven't been on my blog much for the past week because I was busy packing to go back Malaysia. Well, I have arrived safe and sound in Kuala Lumpur yesterday evening after 14 hours and 5 minutes of flying plus 2 hours and 20 minutes of transit. Yes.. it is quite a long journey I suppose. Currently it's 4.57 am here but I couldn't sleep any more. Guess it's the jet lag kicking in. Therefore, I am here blogging to kill some time. 

As it's my first time flying with Qatar Airways, I would like to share with you all my flying experience and opinions. How many of you actually thinks flying is a pain in the ass? Not to mention a long haul flight (> 6 hours) and flying alone. It's boring and most of your time in the plane you will be sitting at limited positions and cramming with many strangers, literally as though sardines in a can. Worse if there were crying kids sitting around you and have been crying every one hour. It's not as if it is easy to sleep on the plane and with the howling it just makes me feel like wanna [strangle somebody]. In a nutshell, flying long hours isn't always pleasant and the least we could do to improve our experience is to choose the right airline to fly.

Flight Transit at Doha International Airport

If you are taking Qatar Airways, it's most probably that you would need to transit at the Doha International Airport. For me, the instruction was clear and easy to understand. It is based on the colour of your boarding pass (blue/yellow/burgundy) that you know which station you should go down from the free shuttle that is provided. Instructions are given on the plane before you landed and on the spot with the airport staffs holding up colour board. I have no problem whatsoever finding my following departure gate once I reached there. However, just so you know that at the transit terminal it can get a little too crowded with passengers waiting and finding their departure gates. Other than that, the transit was thankfully smooth.

Flight transit experience rated 5/5

View from the window after I boarded

Once boarded, we were given refreshing towel and sweets. Headphones were given out and kids got some goodies. I was lucky enough to be able to get my hands on one Pirate Spongebobs plush toy for my youngest sister when I saw it was given out to the kids around. Thumbs up to the air hostess that gave me one :D

Refreshing towels and blanket

Pirate Spongebob Squarepants from Qatar Airways

The aisle

The interior of the plane was fairly new and the seats were quite comfortable. At least I didn't get too much muscle ache. Good spacious leg rooms considering I still could stretch quite easily when I wanted to.

Comfort level experience rated 4/5

My seat's screen

The controller

There was a big range of movies and games on screen that you could choose from. But I really think airlines should change the screen to touchscreen instead of having the controller as it wasn't always simple to select things with all the buttons. Besides, movies should come with subtitles because with all the noise around, it is quite hard to catch the conversations in movies. Hence,

Entertainment experience rated 3.5/5

because it's good but not great with the annoying buttons and no subtitles in movies.

Food menu

My breakfast - Tomato cheese omelette, chicken sausage and mushroom

All day snack

Spicy turkey panini and cinammon cake - AWESOME

I just took pictures for the food from Doha to Kuala Lumpur (morning flight) so as you can see, it's breakfast that was served. As a tea drinker, I was impressed with the quality of tea that they served. Love it! Love the fact that milk and extra sugar were provided without asking as it was not always the case with some other airlines that I experienced before. Overall, the food quality was one of the best among other airlines. See the spicy turkey panini and cinammon cake above. It was super delicious that I nearly asked for more. Couldn't believe myself.

Food quality and satisfaction rated 4.5/5

Lastly, in my opinion Qatar Airways provides excellent customer service. All the air hosts and hostesses that I came across were polite and smiley. They were ever ready to assist with any queries.

Customer service rated 5/5

Therefore,

Overall experience rated  was 4.4/5

Well, it think Qatar Airways has done quite a good job. Anyway, this is my personal experience and the rating was based on the comparison with other airlines I have travelled with before. 

Hope you like this post and feel free to comment. Have a good day!

Strawberry Maniac!

I don't know about you guys but I am totally in love with STRAWBERRY.

It's my 'Godsent' fruit. Really, anything related with Strawberry, I would most probably love them.

Last December, I found a body care set that comes with strawberry range at The Body Shop while doing my Christmas shopping and instantly I just couldn't help myself but to have my hands on it. Okay... may be part of the reason was that there was a super-duper cute Reindeer wash ball calling for me to buy it.

Here you go

So this set actually hosts 

a 750ml Strawberry shower gel,

a 50ml Strawberry body butter,

a heart-shaped Strawberry soap, 

a Reindeer wash ball,

a travel-sized 60ml Strawberry showel gel,

and

2 mini bath balls.

So far I have tried the shower gel and the body butter. It gives me so much joy while using them. The shower gel's sweet strawberry scent that fills up the entire bathroom totally makes me have more motivation to take my shower especially when the day is so freezing cold like recently. This soap-free shower gel contains real strawberry seed oil and on the plus, it is so lather-rich! FUN! 

Normally I would take my sweet time applying the body butter in my room after shower. Just couldn't help to enjoy the delicious scent lingering around when I am in bed. Don't know if it is because I am totally psyched about it that I feel this Strawberry body butter is less oily and sticky compared to the other range of body butter from The Body Shop. Anyway, it smooths on my skin so easily and gives a pretty good hydration for my skin. Perfectto :D

In order to show my love to strawberry, I even bought the Strawberry fragrance oil for my oil burner in my room. However, one should be aware that if too many drops are used, this strawberry scent could be a little sickening. 

Before I end this post, I also would love to share the TWININGS' intense red fruit tea.

 As much as I love to have sugar in my English breakfast tea, once in a while I would go for this intense red fruit tea which has the pleasant aroma of Strawberry, Cherry, Raspberry and Cranberry. The reason being is that the sweet aroma simply enough to replace the sugar in my tea. Bliss. 

Well I hope you enjoy this post. Strawberry lover out there, if you think there is product related with strawberry that I shouldn't miss out, feel free to let me know.

Au Revoir 2013... Bonjour 2014!

2013 was a year I give myself some rest; physically and mentally. A year of rejuvenation. 

Honestly I was pushing myself a bit too hard for the past few years in order to get through my Medicine degree. Anxiety and depression kicked in from the stress I endured throughout. Besides, physically I wasn't all that healthy from studying late, irregular eating habit and infrequent exercise. Well the lists goes on. Believe it or not I actually caught a flu every 5 weeks or so. 

The reason I wanted to be a doctor was really pure naive like many first year medics which was to help people. Don't get me wrong. I really still want to do so but I learnt that the first thumb rule No. 1 is always help yourself. I am not teaching you to be selfish or self-centered or all that. But do hear me out. You can never be the best doctor or the best person to help others if you are always sick or mentally unfit. Unfit here doesn't really mean psychotic or anything severe. Mere anxiety and depression is ENOUGH to be categorized as unfit. 2012 was really a tough year for me as fourth year Medicine was so-called the toughest year of the 5 years degree. Hence, I decided to do something for myself that was to take a step back and take a break. May be you may think oh you're just weak. Bla.. di.. bla I don't care. It's my life. It's me who is living it. 

Anyway, 2013 gave me time to do things that I longed to do but had not gotten the luxury to do it. I rediscovered myself in swimming and running. Sports that I didn't think I could ever enjoy, well I did it. I pushed my boundaries and concurred my fear. Now I am totally in love and passionate in swimming and running. Besides, 2013 allowed me to do more cooking and baking. On top of that, 2013 gave me the luxury of time to go travel around Europe. I just love traveling. It just gives me a different perspective of life and broaden up my mind and soul. You know when life slows down, you kinda appreciate more the things that go around you. Things that I had hardly noticed when I was busy rushing through getting the life I want. But actually I had just missed out the life that I was having. 

Therefore, this post is a tribute to 2013. Although it was not a year of productivity, it was a year that I find my life back. A year to hold on and get ready for the bigger challenge in front of me.  Really it's a post to remind myself to always find time to slow down. Well, I am thankful. Grateful after a year of rejuvenation, I am ready to move on. 

2014 here I am STRONGER and full of HOPE <3

Random pictures from 2013

Carnival in Wattrelos, France

French Fries

Yay Baked some Oreo Cupcakes

Playing Uku in the park, Wattrelos, France

Beautiful day to read on the grass at Parc du Lion, Wattrelos, France

Red Velvet Cupcakes

Exploring the warrior inside of me (Budapest 2013)

Trying out the best food on earth (Budapest 2013)

Danube of Budapest

Relaxing day trying to find the passion of drawing once more (Wattrelos, France)

Running along the canal at the France-Belgium border

Ghent, Belgium

Zombie Walk in Lille, France

Malta 2013

Harrods, London 2013

Christmas Market, Hyde Park, London

m&m's world, London

Ice Sculpture Festival, Bruges, Belgium

Ice Sculpture Festival, Bruges, Belgium

Hope you do enjoy reading my post. Feel free to comment and Have a fab 2014.