Saturday, October 10, 2009

Yen's Bdae 2009

The AF gang met up again to celebrate Yen's bdae! Yen's 面子 was so big that Marcus came along despite his busy schedule. We all assembled @ AMK's famous crab restaurant for this bdae meal. Business was so good that when we reached at 6.30pm, we were 20th in the queue.

Look at the crowd. There was still a queue at 9pm. Previously, it was just a stall in the coffee shop. However, business was so good that the boss took over the whole coffee shop and renovated the place.

The guys turned up unanimously in stripes. In case you're wondering, Marcus was wearing stripes pants, thus qualifying for this picture.

They refused to take pictures with me (in dots) as they said I was outdated, ^%$^#. However, being the ever-doting brothers, they obliged when I wanted a picture. I can be a tyrant at times :P

Leecher & Vanness formed the "partner" team. Leecher was secretly hoping that the AF guys will bring along their GFs in future, so he can be the grass amongst the flowers.

More pictures while waiting for the food to arrive. 1hr wait for the food after we were seated. Gosh, I'm famished!

Crabs galore! We ordered their signature crab beehoon and topped up 2 times! That speaks volume of the yummylicious-level. While the guys prefered the butter crabs, I was greedily savouring my chilli crab. However, the standard seemed to have dropped slightly.

Bdae boy Yen with the 3 difficult crabs that we ate.

Ta-dah! One more candle on Yen's bdae cake & may it be filled with love and best wishes :)

Sunday, October 4, 2009

Bali Day 4

Finally my turn to blog, haha - not that i didnt want to blog, but Leecher was happily blogging so I decided to let him have his way :) Woke up early to go water rafting @ Ayung River.

It was a 1.5hr journey from our apartment. While Leecher was busy meeting up with 周公, I was admiring the scenery.

Rice paddy fields that outline the Balinese landscape. I was disappointed that I couldn't cycle through the rice fields. I will definitely return to accomplish my task!

Finally, we arrived at the equipments' room. Being a non-swimmer, I was pretty scared at trying out rafting. However, the guide assured me that it's completely safe, so I decided to just give it a go.

I think Leecher's head looks super round here, haha.

All set & ready to go! It was a tedious walk from the equipments' room to the raft location. Along the way, Leecher took videos but once again, they were too large to be loaded.

Ok, no turning back for me at this point. Boy, I was actually getting excited by the seconds :)

1/4 way down Ayung River. That's our guide, Wayang. In Balinese culture, Wayang means the eldest child of the family, thus, it is also the most common name.

Our team mates :) It was their virgin attempt @ rafting too, so our guide had to work extra hard to navigate the raft across the rapids & currents. It was difficult to ignore the charms that the picturesque rice paddy fields & the cooling waterfalls held as we rafted along the river. No pictures as we couldn't risk getting Dent Dent wet.

We were pretty exhausted by the time we reached the ending point. I was slightly disappointed that we didn't try the steepest rapid drop. Another must-do on my agenda :)

Monday, September 28, 2009

Bali Day 3

It's the last day of our safari stay. Last chance to have breakfast with the lions.

Sometimes I wonder if animals are kept in captivity for too long, will they lose their instinct to hunt? Or what if the animals were born here, never taught how to hunt by its parents, will they be able to hunt and survive if ever release into the wild again??

Anyway, something to warm the stomach. Spicy ayam soto. I liked the savoury and spicy soup minus the yellow noodles.

Goreng pisang. It seems that Balinese like to grow their own bananas and they served this almost daily. I liked the batter but not the bananas inside. They were a bit sour not sweet.

Blamer is a die-hard mee goreng fan. I think this was her fav dish here, the chili was definitely a winning factor, I liked the salty and slightly peppered crackers though.

I dug into their English breakfast this time. Scrambled eggs on toast, served with bacon, sausage, hash-brown and slice of tomato. Sadly, my fav was the tomato which was slightly charred on one side. Bacon was a bit over done, too hard. Weird tasting sausage, eggs were just fine. Concluded, they are only good at doing room service foods. Wa ha ha, if not for the lions, maybe we should just order room service.

A dip in the pool. Since we are shifting accomodation later, doesn't make sense for us to venture out. Quite cool to watch the animals and relax on such a sweltering day.

They have a poolside bar (as seen behind Blamer), but too bad nobody was manning it when we were there. Maybe we were too early...

Eh... Sun tanning???

I think this was more like it... Ha ha ha, I heard that spotting a tan makes one looks slimmer....

Sad that we got to surrender our key today. Definitely will miss this place.

The helpful room cleaner help us take a last pic of the place.

Blamer happily posting with her new bag.

We finally managed to pinch the safari hat from the driver. This completed our safari journey.

Our next accommodation : Drupadi Studios. Looks ok from here...

With a mini pool.

And our modest bed. A far cry from the safari, but you pay for what you get, so nothing much we can do. However, the staff were very friendly and took great care to ensure that we had all that we needed.

After settling in, we walked around the area in search of their mini mart for supplies like drinking water, and also to have dinner at Sate Bali, which was among the top few rated eateries on trip advisor.

Some dips to go along with the crackers.

My appetiser which was gado gado served with a stick of chicken sate. (I think sate here has the same meaning as satay)

We ordered a combination of Kuta set and Seminyak set, although I can't really tell the difference or why they name it this way.

They served it with three kinds of rice. Normal white rice, yellow and brown. I liked the yellow one, can't describe it but there's a faint fragrance to it.

The individual dishes. To me, this feels like eating chap chai pung, which is rice with a few side dishes. I particularly like the greenish chicken, bathed in a rich coconut sauce. And their beef rendang which was very soft and full of flavour. Goes very well with rice. Their vegetables was so-so, very plain as they only boiled them in water, and drizzled some oil on them that's all.

Next comes the dessert, consisting of goreng pisang (again), some cut fruits, I think it is pulau hitam in the center and some tapioca cakes and some greenish kueh. I liked the greenish kueh the most, with the sweetened coconut shavings in the center.
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