Sanbanto SS2

Couple of weeks back, just before Amy left for Singapore for work, we decided to give this porky dinner outlet a try. We have seen it quite a few times in the past but we never actually went in to have dinner. Basically it is actually a butcher that sells pork but also has a small restaurant in it. Apparently they are selling organic pork. I think it is one of those buzz words now Organic.

Anyway they do not really have many tables in the restaurant and when we were there, we had to wait over 20 minutes for a table. Usually I am not a person who will wait for a table but since we have been talking about it for a while and the person taking orders was actually quite friendly, I decided why not. After all I got Amy to accompany me.

After we got our table, Amy ordered the Pork Bolonaise, I ordered the pork burger with portobello mushroom and to share we ordered a pork salad with honey and mustard sauce.

Yea we were so hungry when the food arrived that we went at it before we even thought of taking pictures. The salad was so so. Nothing special and the sauce was maybe a little to sweat for my liking. The pasta was pretty good and the burger was fantastic. The patty was nice and juicy and very flavoursome as well.

Price wise it is ain't that bad as well at around 20+ bucks for the burger and the pasta was under 20. The service was fantastic as well because we got our food about 15 minutes after we ordered and you can see right into the kitchen which is really clean as well.

I would recommend this place to anyone looking for a meal filled with pork. Go early or prepare to wait for a table.

I am on the News Paper

Today I came back like normal but maybe slightly earlier then in the past couple of months. Anyway I was reading The Star after dinner and I found out I was featured in the newpaper. I didn't even know about it.

I didn't even know I was in Sibu and I didn't know that I was a secretary to Sarawak DAP Chairman. Do not know what I am muttering about? Think I have lost my marbles? Well check this out

Oh yea that is my name but unfortunately that ain't me. Cannot claim my spot in the newpaper. :( Oh well back to me plain old Jason Ting Siang Jin

Sydney Australia 2010

Well most of you might have already known that I went all the way to Sydney couple weeks back and I totally forgot to bring a memory card for my camera. So what to do, have to use the most expensive camera in the world but also forgets the most one. Lucky for me I got a spare.

The grapes in the glasses is quite a funny story. I bought  grapes from the supermarket, went home, washed them and realised there wasn't anything or anywhere for me to put the grapes which will ensure that it is clean. In the end found the wine glasses to thought that had to do. Ironic I know.

One of the nights, I went out with 2 of my uni friends from Perth who were working in Sydney. We ordered so much that we were so stuffed at the end of the night and the bill came up to AUD150. Madness. We ordered 3 full size pizza and a salad to go with it. We washed everything down with 1 liter of their house wine and followed by a Tiramisu and a Nutella pizza for dessert. Finally to top things off, Alvin and I took a cuppa of coffee each. It was great to catch up with this guys and we had quite a bit of fun.

Didn't take much pictures after that because most of the time I was quite busy until the last night when I went to my aunt's place at The Rocks. On the way there I noticed a cruise ship was docked in Sydney Harbour. On the way back I tried to take a picture.

Well at least there is the outline of the cruise ship. My camera phone was holding up pretty well for a small 2mp camera.

The nex sequence of pictures were taken at the airport as I waited for my flight. I was kinda bored but the good thing about this trip was that it was my first time using my Enrich Silver card. I could check in at the business class lane and the lady actually thought I was flying business. She gave me a express pass which allowed me to by pass all the queue at immigration and security check.

The pictures turned out pretty well for such a small and under functioned camera. Well it had to do for this trip I guess.

Underwater, overwater, just above water

Since we were heading to Krabi, we had the crazy idea of getting some waterproof camera and to go crazy with it. We only thought of it last minute and had to run all over the MidValley and Gardens to get it. In the end i found the cheapest at a shop in MidValley. Could not remember the name.

It is the most rudimentary camera that I have used to far. It doesn't have any auto focus, it doesn't have flash, it doesn't have any controls to control the shutter speed and it only has 1 lever to take a photo and a dial to advance the film.

Before taking it to Phi Phi we decided to try it out in the pool first.

That is Amy's face behind the float.

Once we were familiar with the controls, we have 54 shots to go nuts in the sea around Phi Phi Island.

Check out the nice clear water. Love the water around the Phi Phi Island. It is super clear and it was teaming with fishes. Unfortunately the corals were all dead or dying due to people like us I guess. The corals had no color at all.

While we were swimming at one of the snorkelling spots we spots a very very very rare water creature. Our captain told us that they only see it once in a blue moon. It is commonly know as the dugong. Amy had her camera ready and snapped away.

Yea this dugong was quite rare alright. He knows how to take pictures of corals one. Haha

Ideary

While we were at Krabi, we kept walking pass this really nice looking cafe a few doors away from our hotel. It caught my eye on the first day but becuase we were into the whole Thai experience we didn't really feel like anyhing western othen then the alcohol. Even that I drank mostly Thai brands of beer.

On the last day since we had an afternoon flight and had a couple hours to kill. We decided not to walk far because it was freaking hot and didn't really feel like sweating it out. So we decided to have coffee at Ideary.

The interior and exterior was nicely decorated and looked like a nice cafe in the States or something.

Both of us ordered our  cups of coffee and settled on the couch that was facing towards the outside of the shop

After awhile we stared to get creative and did some cam whoring since we were the only people in the cafe other then the lady who served us the coffee. I think she must have thought we were high on drugs or alcohol or something.

Note how the couch faces the outside of the cafe. It was pretty cool and we enjoyed just sitting there and watching people walk by and enjoying their day. We also were thinking that lucky we are in the AC and not outside in the hot sun.

Since I had on the 50mm, I also decided to do some portrait shots for Amy...

It was a nice place to hang and kill sometime and end our short holiday.

Phra Nang Inn

When Amy was planning our Krabi trip, I only gave her 2 conditions.

1. The hotel we stay must be right on the beach or within 2 min walking distance to the beach
2. It should be cheap

Well I can say that Amy fullfilled both conditions. Well actually I am not sure about the second condition. I paid for the thing but I do not actually know what was the cost of the hotel.

In any case when we got to Ao Nang, we checked into..

Apparently it is the first hotel in Krabi and has served customers for over 25 years. Recently they just renovated the place and it looks pretty good. Initially we were placed at the beach wing on the ground floor and basically we just have to walk out of our balcony and we can access the pool. However that wasn't what Amy ordered and they shifted us to the Spa wing.

This hotel is really nice because it is fully equipped. They provided bed room slippers, flip flops for going to the beach, 4 sets of towels (2 for showering and 2 for the beach and pool) and even sarong for when going to the beach. The best thing is...

Yup there is a bath tub in the room, not in the toilet but in the room itself. They even provided some spa stuff for us to use. Unfortunately we didn't really make use of the bath tub to do any spa things but we used it to soak our aching feet at night.

They had 2 pools and we only swam at the pool nearer to our room.

Most of the days we will be seen on the lazy chair IN the pool on the right side of the second photo. We will be seen there reading and getting a nice tan. 

The rest of the hotel looked pretty cool and yes if we walked by the back way, we would be on the beach itself already.

I would recommend this hotel to anyone who is visiting Ao Nang and looking for a relaxing holiday. Oh by the way it is lemongrass everywhere. The shampoo and shower gel they provided have lemongrass smell. Even the public toilet has a lemongrass scented oil burning and it really smells super good.

Ao Nang Krabi

Couple of weeks back, we made a very snap decision to go for a short holiday in Krabi Thailand. Amy was in between jobs and I had 1 week off from traveling for work. This is the first time we actually planned a holiday which we didn't plan anything at all. All Amy did was to book the flight and book the hotel and off we went.

Prior to going to Krabi, I didn't even know what was there to do in Krabi other then head to the beach. Basically that is what we really wanted to do anyway. Relax on the beach and just pretty much do nothing.

We ended up eating alot, drinking alot, go for lots of Thai Massage, walked quite alot of as well, sweat bucket fulls and ate alot of Pad Thai.

This is basically how Ao Nang looks like. It is one main street with loads of shops selling gift, suits, restaurants and a whole load of White people walking around. This place could be like a town in Australia or Europe becuase there were more white people then there were other people.

The other side of the street you get the beach.

It was a trully relaxing holiday. Majority of the day started with breakfast at the hotel facing the beach, going to the beach to swim in the sea and to tan ourselves on the beach. When the sun got to hot to be on the beach we gathered our stuff and headed to the pool which was shaded and we would lazy around and read our respective reading material. Once in a while when it got too warm we would just head to the pool for a dip.

After all the water activities we would head for a Thai Massage and our favorite place is...

It is one of the most expensive Thai Massage around at 300 bath (normally it is around 200-250 bath) but it offered the best massage and has the best ambiance as well. We like it so much we went back there twice (we would go more but we ran out of days) and we even tipped our masseuse.

We walked around the place and took photos here and there.

All those huts are actually massage places. They offered the cheapest massage around for around 200 bath an hour. However of course you do not get any of the comforts that we got at Sawasdee. No there was no happy massage. You think Amy will allow me meh?

One of the days we took a day tour the phi phi island and it was fantastic. We went snorkeling in some of the clearest waters I have ever been to so far.

There was one part of the day tour where they dropped us into the middle of the ocean. The boat captain pretty much said okay everywhere around you is deep water except this part where it shelves up. We were waiting for everyone to get off the boat from the back when the captain told me, well if you do not want to take the life jackets, you can just go to the front of the boat and jump off. I looked at Amy, she gave me the half approval and half are you sure look. I took it as a yes and WHEEEE!!!!! SPLOSH!!!!! For not taking the life jacket I actually managed to swim closer to the corals and fishes but on the down side is I drank a heck alot of sea water.

It was a great short holiday. Now I am kinda missing Krabi all of a sudden. I think we need another relaxing beach holiday.