Ipoh horfan~!!

was away in ipoh over the weekend... u muz be thinking "siao boh" over the weekend go away muz be very rush... actually ok la... if mind rushing then where can we ever find time to go traveling then? quit our jobs mehz...???

we arrived at 5++am in ipoh and were trying hard to orientate ourselves... were expecting to be dropped at where all the long-distance buses were but we forgetten that we took bus with Grassland!! anyway we spend the morning till 7++am walking in circles (literally) to get our bearings right... good thing that yan doesn't seem to mind it a bit and was gladly enjoying the morning breezy walk with me! =) oh we had prata too! light breakfast with indian teh tarik.. nice and sweet!! sweet like nmalaysian style... in case u dunno, so far all the teh and coffee we had in malaysia were all potentially diabetic-causing....















the trees by the roadside were all trimmed into cubes!!

finally located our hotel of choice and tried to check in... but it's fully occuppied!! luckily we asked further... there'll be vacancies after 10am... hmm... u'll wonder how come ppl check out at 9am in the morning... anyway so meanwhile we go find breakfast part 2.... curry mee!! we sniffed out this stall (im serious!!) while getting our bearings right and wad better way to kill time other than eating?















curry n mee and lor meat!!


while we were at our breakfast pl we caught the attention of a family with 2 kids... apparently dad and mum realised we're from singapore coz we were speaking eng on and off... they wondered why did we chose to come ipoh coz there actually isn't much things to play ard here... not much tourist attractions, it's doesn't haf any worthy shopping arcades...

"we come here walk walk and eat eat lor!"

"then how u know that curry mee frem this stall is nice?"

"coz we got this book!! *points to Lonely Planet* actualli we followed our nose and the crowd that we saw lah..."

"that book actually got say where are the nice eating places huh?? then it got say the bean sprout chicken over there nice? *uncle points to an alley across the road*"

and the uncle/auntie goes on to telling us abt where to find good dimsum, chinese pastry, where to take bus if we wanna visit the cave temples of ipoh, which direction to go for shopping arcade etc etc... a couple of nice husband and wife huh...? oh and all the while they're talking to us, their kids were still finishing their breakfast at their own table...

after a short nap to catch up on lost slp on the nite bus, we went ahead and be tourists!! visiting the "holes"... they call the 3 temple caves shan dong.. the 3 holes... sounds obscene in english huh.. anyway i was expecting sth more majestic and grand from the 3 holes... perhaps my expectations were kinda high.. so they din live up to it...

Ling Sen Tong, at the entrance to Sam Poh Tong





















hey matching attires with the deities!! oops and some disrespects..
















li yu yue long men!! (koi leaping over dragon gate)

















so steep!! no wonder our legs got wobbly on our way back...





















told u we were getting wobbly.....!!

















some of the tortoises were huge!! the biggest was near a metre in length i think!!


getting tired.. and bored.... we decided to skip 2 holes!! haha... perak tong and kek lok tong.. but they did say that perak tong supposedly to be most popular of the 3... next time mayb... the tong won't run away right..

back for lunch!! bus conductor uncle pointed out a coffeeshop to us that looked quite secluded and i think usually we won't pay much attention to it coz it din attract too much crowd.. it's those coffeeshop that looks like it caters more to the local rather than the rich chinese population.. there's only like 3-4 stalls inside and ppl are very friendly.. mums bring their kids to pack lunch for families.. grandchild eating rice with curry sauce prepared by grandma at the stall... i mentioned to yan that i can spend a few hours juz enjoying a slow lunch sitting there looking at ppl..

ah boy awaiting for his lunch while ah ma (not in pic) prepares it...

our 1st ipoh white coffee!! boy she looks tired here...

more town exploration after lunch and gradually we made our way to Ipoh Parade.. the only aircon shopping area ard.. haa... spent money shopping... RM120... *pukes blood*

hehe... wanna know wad we had for dinner?? see!!!

look at the crowd!! (try to spot yan?)

short fat bean sprouts!!

yan's colleague says we HAF to try this in ipoh.. ppl call this ya chai ji, actually it's juz chicken rice with a serving of bean sprouts.. and instead of the chicken rice rice, it's either plain rice or horfan soup.. the latter is nicer of course!! anyway chicken rice is still better in malacca... chicken rice balls rulez!!

after that pasar malam shopping and buying of local produce.....

end of day 1........ *tired*