Sincerely, Alison: Sarawak

Bla Bla Bla Restaurant

12:41

It's been years since we last visited Bla Bla Bla that I don't even remember the last time we came here.

My dad wanted to have a small gathering with a few of his friends so he chose this place since they got it renovated and added another place for drinking. They gave us a private space for our dinner. Dinner was so so even though the presentation was pretty. But the lamb and fish dish is really good and totally recommended. My brothers and I invited a few of our friends for second round after dinner.

Black chicken soup

Fish head dish

The lamb and fish dish. The must-order dish.

We headed to their newly renovated space beside their restaurant for drinks after dinner. They had a karaoke setup so drinks and k-session for the night!

This is their location for those who wish to visit their restaurant :

The same row as The Junk Restaurant

Address : 27, Jalan Tabuan, 93100 Kuching, Sarawak

Tel : 082-233 944

beach

Homestay at Kampung Telok Melano, Sarawak

00:46

//edit// Post was written in 2016. You can now drive to Telok Melano as opposed to using a speedboat like we did.

Ever heard of this place before? No? I don't blame you. To be honest, I'm Sarawakian and I myself have never been to nor heard of this place before.

So when dad suggested we head there for Gawai holidays we were like where?

To get there from Kuching, you need to go to Palm Beach Resorts (1 hour + by car/bus) then a around 40 minute speed boat ride to reach the Kampung.
Telok Melano is actually a homestay programme.

Here's a video snippet of our trip.
I initially wanted to film the whole trip but I forgot to bring an extra memory card and there was only an hour left of filming. So we ended filming just the start of the journey.

We woke up quite early that morning and headed out at 6am because they told us the boats would be waiting for us at 8am at Palm Beach Resorts, Sematan.

But when we got there, the boats were not able to run yet because of low tide and we had to wait it out for just a while.
I was the only person with sports shoes on on the beach :/ because my dad told us that we might go jungle trekking and I thought might as well wear to the village and directly go trekking. But I ended up taking my shoes off half way to the boats because I knew they were going to get wet and I couldn't find my sandals.

The journey from Sematan to Telok Melano took us around 40 minutes and we had three speed boats take us there. I was so afraid that I might drop my phone and camera into the ocean and I'll never ever see them ever again.

Halfway to Telok Melano we passed by a sea turtle but we were going too fast to see it and too far to turn back.

No words can describe how beautiful the place is. White sandy beaches and clean clear ocean water. A hidden gem in Sarawak.

This was our homestay for the night. The hosts stayed on the ground floor and we stayed at the 1st floor. The management of Palm Beach Resorts helped arranged lunch and dinner to be provided for us.

Phone services are very restricted and in some location you'll have very low signal and some places totally no signal at all. Something we didn't expect was power restriction. You'll only have electricity from 6pm till 2am and at a certain time in the morning which means that we'll only have wi-fi at that certain times.

Lunch by our gracious hosts.

After lunch we all headed jungle trekking from the fishing village to Tanjung Aru. We had a guide lead the way since there was no trail and you would likely get lost without one.

The trial is around 4km but it literally took us almost 3 hours to reach our destination.

Tanjung Aru visitor centre

We had two speed boats to pick us up back to Telok Melano because it was the quickest way back and also we did not want to trek back.

Our hosts preparing dinner

We stayed in the next day since it was raining until our boats came to pick us up. And boy are we so eager to get back to civilization.

Lunch at Palm Beach Resorts

Chinese New Year

CNY 2015

02:33

Quite an outdated blog entry I know but I've just gotten to transfer all my photos and videos from my phone to my laptop. For some reason, not all my photos were backed-up on my iCloud so I had to transfer all of them via WiFi.

This is somehow going to be a quite a long entry because I'm combining all the photos for cny.

Unfortunately, my big brother couldn't be back home for cny because of work. :( #marineengineerlife

It being cny, I thought that I could sleep in a little but that was not the case. Dad woke us all up at 8 because the lion dance would arrive at 9.

I didn't take many photos on the first day because there were so many people.

The earliest to arrive.

Grandma (mother's side) with her grandchildren.

The ladies.

The men

My brother trying to photobomb me but i think the photo turned out not bad.

What is cny without some blackjack? Grandma likes being the dealer. lol

The next door cousins

Skyping with the Harrys in Canada. Most of my aunt and uncles on my father's side were at our house so my brother helped setup Skpye on the tv for them to chat.

With grandaunt and her family

With the cousins

Ootd for the second day. All my outfits for cny were bought online here. Its always hit or miss when you shop online. Fortunately they all fit. I didn't have the time to go out shopping because of finals.

Auntie Winccy invited us to her house that night. Aren't her dogs so adorable?!! The one on the left is Messi and the one on the right is Poppy.

Got to hang out with my friends on the third day.

After that we headed to Sophia's house and later my house. I told them I had to be back home at for dinner and that they were welcomed to join.

Photo session with the girls. We took lots but I'm just gonna post a few.

We had a birthday celebration for grandma at home.

Grandma's 75th birthday

We headed to granduncle's house at the countryside the next day. The last stop for grandma, uncle and his family before they head back to Singapore that night.

Believe it or not, the house granduncle is staying in was built by himself when he was 30. Now only him and his wife live there. His kids now live in Singapore.

He's the type of person that doesn't ask for much. He plants his own vegetable and harvest his own rice to eat. His income comes from selling the fruits and veges he has in his orchard around his house.