SpeakingFrames ©: Genting Raya 2010

A week after completing my NS training is the Hari Raya celebration, celebrated by our fellow Muslims as a reward of completing their fasting month, Ramadhan. My family spend his holiday together with my 4th aunt's family at Genting Highlands.

Shot inside the car, best to describe "Going Genting Highlands!"

Getting a offer from my aunt's friend, we got a 3d 2n stay at Awana Apartments, Genting Highland. I think this is the only place I never stay before apart from the common Ria apartment, Genting Hotel, Highland Hotel and First World Hotel. Well, I guess I will be looking forward to stay in Awana and hopefully there's plenty of nice scenery.

Awana's signboard at night

Day 1 (10th Sept 2010)
We should check in by 3pm today and my mum suggested to depart at 11a.m., but we end up departing after 12pm. Total of 12 people in 3 cars, we head up to Genting Highlands, with full loads of stuff in the boot. Meet up half way to evenly distribute the passengers, as our car has six people in it. My mum was the chosen one to join my aunt's car. LOL!

Since its a public holiday today, it is expected to see heavier traffic than usual and it turn out quite true. Around 1pm, we have arrived at Gohtong Jaya and looking our way to Awana, Genting Highlands. We arrived a bit too early (1:20p.m.) and aren't allow to check in yet. We have no where to have our lunch that we brought up, which is chicken floss bread and fried meehun prepared by my aunt.

We have no choice but to sit/stand along the corridor to have our lunch, quite a scene if you ask me. Sorry, no pictures of this as it is quite an embarrassing moment, especially when people passing by looking at us. Picnic at the corridor beside the car park is some what, not enjoyable. To let you picture how the corridor looks like, without us of course.

Corridor between the apartment and the parking area

After the "picnic" session, we still have about an hour to spend before checking in. We have a walk around Awana, sight seeing. I've noticed that there is a tall building, which they call it Tower Hotel, and then there's rows of apartments. I guess this is where we gonna stay. Beside the lobby entrance will be the golf course and reception, together with the shutter bus stop and a convenient store. There's a three storey car park if not mistaken with tennis court on it.

Climbed up moldy areas to the rooftop to get this angle, a bit PP for shadows

The Tower Hotel from another angle

The lobby area has a small tropical garden in the middle, at the junction connecting the lobby with the hotel area.

There's a swimming pool next to the lounge, completed with kids pool and a water slide, or whatever names you call it.

Kid's pool

Near 3pm I start to see lots of people queue-ing at the counter checking in I guess. Saw my uncle and my dad in the queue as well. I guess we will be checking in soon. Oh well, here we are, at the corridor of the apartment.

The environment inside the the apartment is very warm, with all the warm tungsten lights. There's not florescent light inside except for bathroom. Which makes cooking quite inconvenient, but it also creates a very warm feel. The apartment itself is quite small and they used a lot of mirrors to create visual effects, making it looks more spacious. The master bedroom is a partition of the living room and the wooden slide screen can be opened to make more space for the living room when not used.

The toilet for the master bedroom is extremely big with a jacuzzi in it, perfect for couples if they came here alone without family. There's another semi-transparent plastic screen beside the jacuzzi, and when opened, you will be able to view the bedroom itself. This however, makes us uncomfortable to bath inside when your family members are all around. I got to try this jacuzzi once thou, not as relaxing as imagine, maybe due to the disturbance outside.

Hell yeah! Jacuzzi!!

To the toilet...

After settling down the luggage and stuff, it's already 4pm and it's time to prepare dinner. The dinner for today will be steamboat as always. Adults start to prepare the soup, the ingredients, cutting, washing, preparing. All sorts of work need to be done and everyone helped (well, almost everyone), and yes, I did help, even a bit.

Dai kah kap sao kap kiok lei zhu fan ah~

All wrapping wanton

And here's the result

Testing the soup

Dinner is prepared and the food looks yummy. Here are some shots for preview.

wanton

meat balls

meat

white taufu

special chili sauce

Those are my 1st set food photos using nifty-fifty, took a lot of tries in order to find the best composition, and to learn about the lens behaviour with different aperture. I think I learn quite a lot from just a few test shots.

After dinner, the adults decided to go uphill for a nice breeze and so we got on our rides and head uphill. Along the journey we saw a team of Subaru drivers driving uphill together, with the macho rev sound. The traffic build up as we are getting nearer to the top. Many people and cars can be seen along the road when we reach Genting. Looking for a parking now is PITA (google for meaning). However, we were in luck that night as an uncle quickly invited us to take his place when he ran downhill to get his car. Funny scene, it is.

They seem to be having an event there when we reach. We heard the cheers of crowd when we walk towards first world hotel. While waiting the others to meet up at first world hotel lobby as they are still looking for car park, we heard sound of fireworks suddenly. Everyone rushed out to see what's happening. Apparently its from the even on going there and everyone is enjoying the scene outside. I tried to look for a good angle for some firework shots while my brother is taking out and setting up the tripod for me.

Unfortunately the place we are at doesn't really have a good angle of view because most of the fireworks are blocked by tree or disturbed by street lamps. I tried to zoom in for a better shot but but fireworks will be outside the frame. Out of so many shots taken, only a few are usable and I selected just one to upload. Nothing much about it, really. Better luck next time during New Year's Eve I assume.

One of many firework shots

We went indoors and outdoors and there are too many pictures to upload here to share. For my friends, you can just visit my facebook album. The fountain outside Highland Hotel has a different theme this time. I think it's about recycle as you can see the recycled water bottles used to make a Christmas tree? I assumed.

Let's test out the performance of nifty-fifty under low light condition. Razor sharp it is.

We then head back to our apartment after all the walking and pictures. On the way back, I saw the night view of KL from the top of the hill and wished to stop down for a long exposure shot, however there's no way to park our car and it is very dangerous to do so as there is no street light along the way. A fast car moving might just bump onto us anytime.

Some light graffiti was requested by my sister and here is the result. Not too good as it is quite random without proper light source and the light from the living room was distracting.

Glowing alien, she is..

Well, that basically ends our first day.

Day 2 (11th Sept 2010)
The second starts early, as early as 12am when my cousins came back from Starbucks (actually they went to buy a cake for their dad), with a birthday cake, a Baskin Robbin's ice cream cake to be exact for him. It is his birthday today. So well, let the pictures speak for me.

On day 2, we are supposed to go uphill early today but some how just too sleepy to wake up early. We had our breakfast before dressing up for another day activity. We are going up by cable car today because we got 12 tickets from Awana, and we do not want to waste our time looking for parking there.

But I do know that the cable car will be packed with people as well, especially in major public holiday + weekend like this. As expected, the huge crowd at the cable car station is really a scene. Most of them were foreigners from different countries, including foreign workers and tourists. We even have to line up before going up the escalator to the queue up stairs (if you went there before, you will know).

An extension has been setup to accommodate the extra crowd, but the plastic chains have been broken and people starts to cut queue. Some voice out their unsatisfactory about it but the culprits just ignore and continue their cutting queue spree. We were stuck in between and was pushed by the people at our back. Everyone became unruly and starts to push around. This is a very shameful scene to be seen by foreign tourists. However, most of the people who cut queue are actually the foreign workers.

random shot without looking at viewfinder

After an hour waiting and pushing, we are allowed to wait at the waiting room instead of lining up like the others. I do not know why we have such privilege, probably we are from the hotel maybe.

Another half an hour wasted in the waiting room for our turn. Between this period, we saw many different occasions where the crowd yelling at each other, foreign tourist arguing with the Skyway worker. There is one scene where the Skyway worker speaks rudely to the passenger and a tourist from the Middle East, I presume, carrying his daughter, argues back with the worker about his bad attitude. Well, time like this really does test the patient of one to deal with the stress from the crowd.

We are let to go not long after that and we can still see the crowd is building up as we got onto our cable car.

15 minutes hanging in the air and we arrived at Skyway, Genting Highland. The adults wanna go some where else, my cousins going starbucks except for the younger ones and we are left alone to walk about.

Due to the fact that it is a public holiday, heavy crowd should be expected and we have no intention to go to theme park. So we took our time walking around Genting, again. Yes, AGAIN. Been doing the same thing few months ago when we came here for the buffet at Coffee Terrance.

Full zoom out at 135mm, PP-ed for shadow, natural light fall-off at edges

Around 4pm+, tired of walking and enough of sight seeing, we went to meet up with our parents. They wanna go back down to prepare dinner, and also to avoid the build up of crowd later at Skyway. However, the crowd is already there, lining up for Skyway. This time the crowd is much more discipline than the ones at Gohtong Jaya, maybe due to the steel framework here compared to the plastic chains there.

Accidentally focused on my dad's head when trying to snap the crowd hand held above my head

The queue here is faster and everyone follows their line peacefully. It's just matter of time till our turn and the sky is raining. Heavy mist can be seen around the hill as we travel down.

We reach Awana not long after that and me, my gf and my bro went to walk around the area to discover the facilities that they provide as well as taking some photos of the natural surroundings.

The evening continues with dinner and later on a night walk around Awana to see how the night life is here. There were two internet hubs available but unfortunately was occupied. Luckily there's free Wifi around where my brother can use but onli barely usable due to the slow connection.

The night life here considered not bad with a lounge next to the pool side with people drinking and singing inside. There are also some tourists who checked in late, seems like from travel agencies, arriving with travel buses.

Better view at night than day time

Collection of bugs/beetles?

My cute assistant

soft-focused on the cute expression

After that we returned to our apartment and rest for the day.

Day 2 (11th Sept 2010)
The last day of this so called Genting trip, which we spent most our time in Awana instead, LOL. Suppose to wake up early to see the sun rise but I just can't help it to sleep longer. Since we are going back today, everyone decided to have some shots around Awana. After we packed and checked out around 11am+, we walked around for some group photos.

View across the golf course, PP-ed for shadow

Along the road..

Golf course's entrance at not very wide 18mm (eq. 29mm)

Group photo, forget to drop down the aperture to increase DOF, on tripod.

Aunt's family

My family, and yes, I tilted my legs

Candid?

The 2 sisters

The 2 cousins..

shot through a very cheap filter, a.k.a. sunglasses

After all the spam shutters, it is time to leave Awana and Genting. The adults suggested to stop somewhere for lunch and they decided to go Ulu Yam Lama for the Loh Mee. It has been some time since I last came year, should be years ago. I used to come here often with my family last time, and their Loh Mee was good that time. However this time turn out to be very disappointing, the noodle, we suspect they cook it in bulk and just heat up and serve.

The tauke

The boss suggested a few dishes which include Loh Mee, Hokkien Mee and Pork Belly Meehon (扣肉米粉) and claimed it is recommended by TV shows, which I highly doubt the credibility of the show -- HoChak. As expected, all the dishes he recommended were total disaster.

The Loh Mee, as I mentioned, taste normal, cooked in bulk, starchy. The Hokkien Mee is the worst, totally tasteless which heavy alkaline taste of noodles. Can't get myself to eat more than half a bowl of it. The meehon is too salty and wet, and perhaps too common. Just open a tin of Pork Belly and mix with meehon will get more or less the same taste. Totally different taste from what I had few years back. The quality degraded a lot, I think any stalls at KL can do better than them. This situation often happen to over rated shops/stalls and this is no where different, perhaps worst. They think consumers are dumb, do they? At least they should maintain their food quality if they wanna keep their business. I notice there are a few restaurant at the same road selling the same thing, gosh.

Not so gooding Loh Mee

The lime sour plum juice is average at a price of RM3 and the fish cake is just plain normal. Nothing to brag about being the FAMOUS SAITO FISHCAKE.

Next stop will be a damp near Gombak if not mistaken. Been here before last time when we went for Ulu Yam as well. I will use the caption to do the talking instead of writing more.