The Famous Sarawak Cultural Village

Summary: Day 2: A very tired and fruitful day

After our simple breakfast, we took the a shuttle in front of our hotel and headed to the Sarawak Cultural Village, the journey took us about 1 hour. We were nearer and nearer to the Mount Santubong when we approached the Cultural Village.

Paid our entrance fees of RM60 per person and we were issued a passport to the culture village... I still think that the entrance fees is still in the high side. Took out our camera and started our snapshot journey... My first shot of the village 

There were 7 houses in total within this cultural village... so guess what house was our first house to visit?

House #1 : Chinese Farm House

For all the chinese... this might be familiar as some of you might said that it's looks like your grand parents house ... :) Errrr... my grand parents house was not looking like this ... :(

Chinese Farm House

House #2 : Malay House

This was a quite traditional Malay house ... it's a bit different from the house that i visited in West Malaysia... 

Front of the Malay House

Kuih Bahalu

We spent a bit of time in the kitchen to see the process of making Kuih Bahalu... I didn't know how it taste but it smell nice. Here is the clip.. traditional way of making Kuih Bahalu.

House #3: Melanau House

We didn't spend too much time @ Melanau House as we were in a rush since it was approaching 11:30am which we need to walked over to the cultural hall for its famous cultural shows in the village... So we just roaming around the house for a while and took a couple of shots ... 

View from the top front of Melanau house

House #4 : Orang Ulu House

Orang Ulu house was a very artsy house as there were so much of art and music.. there were painting on the pillar of the house which reflected that among all the houses, this tribe seemsto be more artistic :)

Passage to the house of Orang Ulu

Playing Sape - Orang Ulu traditional string instrument

I was sitting there enjoying the music from the Sape... click here to listen ... :) Jonzz tried to play the Sape and he said it's different from the modern guitar. I'm totally have no idea how to play the string instrument... blek!

House #5 Penan House

Penan House was the most simple house among all the houses in the village... the Penan house has no door... does this means that they welcome anyone? Errrrr... i don't think so... hahaha :)T The Penan house was built with just a few plank and it was built on top of trees or rivers... simple, nice and cooling... Reason being the Penan house was built this way as the Penan tribe was the hunter trip... they stayed deep in the jungle.

House #6: Iban House

This is the most familiar house as we had studied the house structure during our primary school... I still remember most of the fact...  We were welcome with a friendly guide that brought us wondering around and explained to us what is the day to day life of the Iban tribe... 

Jonzz was so interested on how the Kain Pua being made... there were one old lady who knew the skill of making Kain Pua since she was young... according to the Iban tribe ... this is a skill for a lady to get marry in the past ... :p

While she was doing this Kain Pua ... i managed to capture a video clip ... 

House #7: Bidayuh House

This is a quite unique house... and especially the path and the entrance to the house was so unique and nice ... The Bidayuh tribe usually stayed near the river so they built a bamboo path way to go into their house. 

Path way to the Bidayuh House 

Bidayuh House Entrance

We finished the whole village @ about 4pm... and we just chill out in the restaurant before hopping up the shuttle and back to Kuching... A tired but very fruitful day with lots of good learning experience... :) The seven houses with a spectacular cultural dance has took us the whole day... Anyway, i will have a separate entry on the cultural dance since i have couple of clip to share with all of you.... Stay tune eh!

On photographing @ Kuching Downtown

Summary : Hello from Meow Meow City

Reached Kuching International Airport (KIA) and we transit to Singgahsana Lodge via taxi... it costs us RM22 for the ride. Checked in and left our stuff in the lodge.. popped over to took our lunch... I had the oily and not tasty Char Koay Teow (Fried Noodles) opposite the lodge as the shop has ran out of Kolok Mee.

After the lunch, we bought some necessities @ the nearby shopping mall and dumped in the all the stuff back in the lodge and started walking and photographing... We walked along the Carpenter Street... Found that the Dewan Negeri Undangan Office was interesting from this angle, so we decided to walk into Bishopgate Street :)

Bishopgate Street off Carpenter Street

We took couples of pictures along the carpenter street until we came across the junction where the Post office building located... This junctions has marked the new meeting the old...  The Post office building was very beautiful... I toned the color down to shown it's old old building feature ... 

Post office of Kuching... Old Victorian building

Opposite the Post Office, there was the location of the textile museum... The museum building was nice but something actually attracted me... "I thought i saw a pussycat ... yes i did i did... i did saw a pussycat " hehehe... I didn't see a pussycat but i saw two birdie... 

Birdie in Meow Meow City

Are you guilty? Errrrrr.... guilty of what? Not taking nice picture of this building. hehehe... this was the Old Court House located few steps away from the Post Office and Textile Musuem... It's a nice camwhoring place... Modeling is allowed in the old court house as long as you have your clothes on... No nude modeling allowed in that place ... Blek! Let's camwhoring in Old Court House eh!

Old Court House of Kuching

Corridor @ Old Court House

Cruising down the Indian street was another interesting scenario ... Lot's of people doing shopping along the street ... lots of bargain going on, of cause deal too... So Deal or Not Deal? You decide! At the end of the street, i managed to see another icon of Sarawak... the State Mosque... An old and unique architectural mosque, same same but different from the Putrajaya mosque.... So what is same? hehehe... color! :p

State Mosque of Sarawak

Kuching people said, "If you did not visit the waterfront of Kuching, you have not been to Kuching... " So how could we missed the famous waterfront of Kuching .... we straightaway headed towards the Kuching waterfront... It was approaching the Sunset, so according to the Kuching Photographer, UncleAwang... the best time to take picture was during the sunset along the river... hehehe...unfortunately we didn't wait for the throughly set as we were too early... We walked towards the Hotel area... snapping away along the way... managed to see the Astana on the other side of the river... 

Astana - Let's visit the Yang Di-Pertua

Waterfront Jetty to go over to Astana 

Please feed me... or else i will eat the living object @ Waterfront...

Walking along the riverside was enjoyable... but unfortunately the river was not very clean... once a while you could actually smell some unpleasant smell from the river.... One big improvement to the Kuching city council... Please Clean the River!

We had our dinner @ Tun Jaguh's foodcourt ... I ordered another not not not not tasty food at all ... in fact it's sucks!... So later we decided to drop by Coffee Beans for coffee as we had a suckie dinner... 

Oily, salty, eriee sizzling beef Sigh~ Sigh~ Sigh~

Despite of the food for our lunch and dinner... we had a very nice and tired day on our 1st day in Meow Meow city... we covered quite a bit of places by walking ... :)

1,400 ++ piccies from Meow Meow City...

I was having difficulty to process 1,400 ++ piccies from Meow Meow City... TZ was a bit restless and lazy after the Meow Meow City trip.... I was back to the same old life of mine in the city of mud with lots of rain... rain and rain... no wondered one of my friend have a love-hate relationship with rain.... kakaka :p Moreover, I back to an uncertainty life again with the four walls... :(

Anyway, I have completed process one of piccie to change the header from the city of mud to city of meow meow... So how's the change ... good? hehehe... I got a comment stated that looked like the picture from the history book...

Anyway, let me introduce you the first Meow Meow that i came across in Meow Meow city ... too bad i could not bring this meow meow back to the city of mud and gave Twilight as a gift ...meow meow ... Blek!

Folks... the piccies will be coming... Stay Tune eh! ... :)

Day 6: On leaving Kuching

I'm back to KL... The air quality in KL is so so so so so soooooooo bad... I just wondered can i have Kuching air quality, KL Salary, Kuching lifestyle.... :) I like Kuching so much... I like their kolok mee, sarawak laksa, pork satay, seafood... etc. 

Anyway, I'm back to KL after a 6 days of going away.... Anyone miss me??? This was a nice trip... The most enjoyable moment was i could meet a new friend Frankie and Alan... especially Frankie, I would like to thank him again for bringing us around the city, marked my 52nd outlet of Starbucks, bought us lunch and sent us off to the airport... Thanks Frankie :)

The flight took us 1 hour and 40 mins... now I was feeling like i'm having jet lag ... errrrr.... so so so so soooo sleepy and tired even though i had my ice cafe latte @ the 53rd outlets in Kuching International Airport (KIA)... hehehe... I managed to go all the Starbucks in Kuching ... blek!

Okay, I will try to download my picture to the computer and start posting some shots to show all of you... let me go ZZZZZZZZZZZZZ before i sleep on top of my Macbook keyboard... Ciao~

Day 5: On paying for Sunset

Planned change on heading to Bako National Park as there was some uncertainty involved... Since we changed our initial plan, Jonzz and I went across the river and visited the Fort Margherita and Astana which located over the other side of the river... we chartered a tambang to cross the river from the old court house to Fort Margherita... cost RM4.00

Later we walked over to Astana ... just wanna to take the near shots of Astana and took a tambang back to the waterfront. We visited the textile museum too.

Later in the evening, since the weather was so good... I decided to charter a Tambang again to get the Sunset shots... I was asking around for price and found that their charges was RM45 / hour... so i decided to take the Kuching River Cruiser instead since it's only RM60 for 1.5 hours.

They served drinks and some snacks on board while we could enjoying sunset on board with the traditional dance ... * Two Thumbs Up* Will show you the picture that i took later eh!... After the cruise, I joined Jonzz and Chris for dinner @ Bla Bla Bla.... it's really bla bla bla as their food was so so only... but the environment is superb... so just bla bla bla :p

Tonight is the final night in Kuching, will be back to KL tomorrow... Bye Bye Meow Meow city... i missed the nice people in Meow Meow city and its nice environment... how's the environment in the eyes of a tourist... guess what? We bumped into a tourist from Holland and she said "Life in Kuching is kind of layback"...

Kuala Lumpur... I missed you....

Day 4 : Being lazy in Kuching ...

Today was a day that we didn't do much... Just lazying ....

Morning, I was so relax without going out to walk around the city... We only went out when we need to get our lunch... had my first Kolo Mee near the 2nd cat status @ China Town. Later we were roaming around and walked over the 1st cat status near the HSBC bank. Took some shots of the Cat in front of the arch... which according to the kuching people that this cat would wear the custome according to the festival... so what's the cat wearing now??? :p

We stopped by Coffee Bean to chill out and headed back to the Lodge to take a nap. Late in the evening, we went over to the waterfront and tried to take the sunset picture but it was a very disappointed Sunset. Took our dinner @ Top Sport seafood place again with different type of seafood... prawns etc.... After the dinner, I went for a night shots around the waterfront.... it was a challenging shooting without the tripod... Will share my shots when i'm back to KL :p So please be patient ... another 2 more days only :)

Tomorrow will be my last day in Kuching ... Our initial plan is to go to Bako National Park... but after we done some research we decided to stay back with the Kuching city... maybe will cross the river to the other side ... visit the Fort Magherita and Astana.

Day 3 : Visiting friends in Meow Meow City

I woke up @ 6:30am just to go to the Semanggok Wild Life center to meet my Kuching friends @ 9am. Who are the friends of mine? hehehe.... there were the Orang Utans.

The travel agent came and picked us up @ 9am... The journey took us 35 mins from Kuching downtown. We managed to reached the place 20 mins before the feeding time started. Managed to walk around the surrounding area... At 9am sharp, we were brief and instructed to follow the park ranger to the spectator platform near the feeding place. Took lots of snapshot of the orang utans... Sorry no picture shown... line was extremely slow over here :(

I was having the dinner appointment with a Sarawakian blogger Frankie . He came to the hotel and picked Jonzz and I for dinner ... We managed to meet another blogger Alan. They brought us to a food court near Sarawak Museum which famous for its Beef Noodles and Siew Mai. We chat during the dinner... After the dinner, since i was so eager to mark my 52nd outlets of Starbucks in Kuching @ the Spring. Frankie drove us to The Spring and we had coffee until about 12am...
Thanks Frankie for the dinner and showing us around Kuching city... :)

That's all folks... gotta hit the bed now...