Our Christmas Day in One Page... 2014

While others would party till they drop on the eve of Christmas and continue to celebrate Christmas like how the world does it, minus the Christ whom everyone should be celebrating for, I have the most relaxing day of the year. We crawled out of bed thinking that we should arrive for the Christmas morning service at Jen Hotel somewhere half an hour earlier to get to the front seat. We like to park our arses at the second row. Oh, we ended up arriving just right on time and we landed ourselves way far behind the rented ballroom that could snugly sit a thousand in a congregation. That's just a rough number.

We took a photo with the Christmas tree. We will never own a Christmas tree because the tree would take up a space permanently in the house with no one to remove the 20-inch thick dust from the hanging decorations. The spiders would be celebrating Christmas everyday. We will never have any decorations hanging around the house according to festivities because we are just simply busy and lazy people. Then, we quickly drive home before the traffic started to move in a crawling motion as we were in the heart of town. 

I arrived home with messages from Watsapp. Apparently the coffee lovers had something brewing. The cousin finally returned call but I was so comfortable in my kaftan, about to plonk my head on the pillow with the air-conditioning system blowing snowflakes at 16-degree Celsius and hubby has started his snoring train. I am starting to enjoy naps and sleeps when the cousin said she will be arriving in half an hour's time to pick me up and then we would go off to paint the town red. Before she arrived, someone gave a surprise drop over.

Oh, to Malaysian Muslim Solidarity, an NGO organisation with many Muslims against them, your call for Muslims to NOT wish Christians Merry Christmas, my Muslim friends who are broad-minded went ahead to wish me and other friends. This good Muslim friend of mine even drove over to drop a lovely gift on Christmas. Such spirit of giving she has. God bless her and her family~! Please be more open-minded. I've never lash out on any parties so yours will be the last after I made some lashing to those who are warring against pig farms. Anyway, negative sentiments aside, I'm thankful for friends who are... well, being friends~!

Ahhh.... the three of us monkey-ing around. How wonderful was that. And I didn't bring my tripod along. I forgot but I was just outside my gate and I told the cousin I forgot then she said it's okay. So, that's it. We didn't get to have our awesome foursome photos together. I have the three of them together mostly as I'm the photographer. My cousin is a professional in taking blurry photographs. You can hold the best camera in the world, but if that camera doesn't belong to you, you can't make that camera produce the best picture.

This is Miss Artsy Sue, a food blogger. You want to have the number of patrons increase, you invite her to your place, set up the whole table with the best food you could offer, then she will write for you. Here, here.... let me give you her foodporn blog address My Tasting Out Loud By the way, we were at St. Presso at Elite in Bayan Baru area. Nah, don't ask me to do a food post on cafe. No matter how good a coffee or latte is, I would prefer downing a whole bottle of cough mixture. That's how bad coffee is to me. I don't care about the design. You can have 3-D design of a big fat pig floating on the latte, I would be happy to take photos but in the end it would be a torture for me to drink it. So, remember Sue, the food blogger...

Oh, after yakking away for a couple of hours, it's time to feed our tum tum. Hungry people is no happy people, friends or no friends. We need food. So, off to Siriwan for some spicy Thai seafood. Again, no food photos here. Please go to Miss Artsy Sue's food blog for such kinda post. I don't think she has blog about it yet as she's busy eating round the clock. I just know we had terrific green curry ostrich meat~! And then the cousin ordered some weird deep fried green leaves, I don't know what's that. I bet a cow won't even eat it. The beef was good but every dish has bird eye's chilli in them. The seafood otak-otak direct translation would be seafood 'brain' was really good. Judz and the cousin swallowed some bird's eye chilies, not me. I would be a drama queen if I accidentally chew on one. The whole restaurant will only hear my scream and only my scream.

Window shopping on a Christmas Day? Catching a movie? Oh, no~! The cousin had a better idea. We went to send some Christmas cheers to a boy. I will not share the story of this boy under construction to the public yet. If you happen to be a God-fearing person or a prayer warrior, you just remember this photo, picture this boy in your head and start sending your prayers up to heaven through Jesus. That much would do. You don't need his name because the Maker knows him. Thank you in advance. We had a jolly good time singing carols. Hey, we're good a capella singers. We can sing anytime and throw a ukulele or a guitar to Gracie, and with an empty luggage open on the floor, we could be street singers collecting money for our next trip together. Wouldn't that be great? 

Oh, after singing a few carols, we were hungry again. Off we went to Hammer Bay to hammer some sharks. The sharks didn't come to us so we ended up with a plate of blanched cockles while the cousin had a weird liking for food, she had a plate of completely burnt cockles~!!!! And she enjoyed eating that. I prefer cockles that were still dripping and soaking in their liquid iron, so that plate was considered overcooked. I know how to make a just-nicely done cockles. I have skills for that. You think we only have that for supper?!?!?!

We took a plane and fly off to Paris. Oh, not that way. Paris uprooted itself and came over to Penang. We flew the Frenchman in as well to make supper for us. Yeah, we're 'some' people you ought to look out for. We can't go there so we get them to come over. Don't mess with us.   

That's the best banana crepe. Hey, was that plate even call a crepe? It looks like upgraded high class apom to me. Again, please refer to Artsy Sue's food blog. Anything with banana, I jumped for joy~!! 

Thank you Paris Penang for the Christmas gift of two round scoops of creamy ice-cream with the marshmallows sticking out of their heads. Anything with peanuts and chocolate is delectable~! 

♡ Penang Island ♡ Wan Than Mee with a Twist ❀

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Fried wan than noodles...

Wan Than Mee is either served dry or soupy. I always have the dry ones with those little brains meat dumplings served in a small plastic bowl of anchovy soup. I have eaten Wan Than Mee my whole life. It's very difficult to satisfy my taste as I like the ones I had when I was young. There were two stalls at my flats there. The one in the morning was really good but recently when I tasted it, the taste has gone way out. Uncle, what happen to you? The one that's selling at night, went on to change job. The night one was really good. But now, I found a really good one near my new house, within walking distance. This uncle is new to this place but he was nice to me and said he would serve me differently. It's FRIED wan than mee. Of course it tasted like wan than mee but the fried version seemed to be better than the traditional version of 'tok tok mee'. I might want to go back to the traditional ones as I don't like sudden changes to the food I've tasted since I was small.

Fried prawn noodles...

The same uncle is selling fried prawn noodles. Too much bean sprouts. Next time if I want this I will have to tell the uncle I don't want bean sprouts. Uncle said the fried prawn noodles is one of the common hawker food sold in Singapore's hawker centres. I wasn't very sure about that because when I was in Singapore I only went to the hawker centre once or twice. The rest of my meals were done in restaurants and hotels. Blessed me.

This stall is at Yi Hong coffeeshop. There's a wet market at the coffeeshop, too and there's another old market across the road.

♡ Penang Island ♡ Chicken Rice & Char Koay Teow ❀

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Mr. Chan's chicken rice...

Hohoho~! So, what to eat for a simple lunch? The answer would be a plate of roasted chicken rice. I still prefer the white boiled chicken compared to the roast chicken. Again, if you're in Penang and you're on a food tour, you don't simply walk around aimlessly and walk into any Tom, Dick & Harry coffee shop. You see roast chicken hanging doesn't mean all of them are delicious. The best one in town according to me would be Mr. Chan's chicken rice along Datuk Keramat Road. 

He's not just any ordinary hawker who sells chicken rice only. He still goes to Penang Bowl for bowling sessions. If not mistaken, he used to train people up for bowling. My bowling skills come from him with strikes~! I'm a fast learner so I needed only one lesson. He does ballroom dancing and are very much into all sorts of dances. How I know? Oh, you just need to take time to know people.

You can add hard-boiled egg on your plate of rice. I have never added hard-boiled egg so I don't know how much would it cost. I'm not saying only this place has the best chicken rice to offer. If you're in Taman Pekaka area, the roasted chicken rice and roasted duck rice are highly recommended as well. The coffee shop can be found opposite Tesco Extra but this one is a recommendation for town area, if you happen to be there. It's further out from the Heritage Zone but you can easily just take the Rapid buses heading towards Penang Hill or Kek Lok Si Temple.

A delicious plate of chicken rice highly recommended by me. I love chicken skin.. hahhaha.... unhealthy? Oh, you can add 'char saw'... honey roasted pork to your rice.

That's for me alone. Sometimes good food are not meant to be shared. You need to get your own plate of good food. Have you seen people sharing a plate of char koay teow? No, right? You only share if you doubt about the quality of the food. If it's really good, after sharing a mouthful or two, you would stand up and get your own plate.

The 'chai boey' soup is for free. Chai boey has everything thrown into the stockpot.  I don't drink this. My kitchen used to make this and my kitchen crew love them. They are teenagers who came from the wrong generation. My kitchen crew seemed to eat things that I don't dare to eat at all.

So, that's all for me. I pushed that soup to hubby after snapping this piece of photo. I gave a few pieces of the honey roasted pork to hubby then the rest, he could only see but cannot touch.

Char koay teow....

You smell that? You smell that? Ahhh.... I know you're salivating all over. That's Ah Leng char koay teow. I don't have much to tell you about char koay teow but if you have read about Ah Leng char koay teow, you will easily find the chicken rice I'm talking about. They are just next to each other. Ah Leng would fry faster as he didn't fry plate-by-plate. He fried by bulk. I don't fancy char koay teow, Chinese style. I only like the Malay style wet char koay teow in Bayan Baru.

Uncle, thank you for allowing me to snap your photos. Some hawkers are really weird, they refused to let themselves be photographed. Uncle, famous leh... whole world can know you by now just by selling char koay teow.

Come to Penang, don't always look for expensive air-conditioned restaurants. Not all restaurant food is good. Always look for stalls which looked like it's almost going to collapse. I should show you a mamak selling the best mee goreng where his ladle was so worn out I think everyone is eating metal powder mixed together with the mee goreng but the mee goreng was so delicious, I don't mind licking from the ladle and the thick layer of stain on the wok. Okay... I sound pretty disgusting by now. 

Oh, ya... these two stalls can be found at Tong Hooi coffeeshop. Just next to Federal Place. Use Google map la.. confirm can find.

Day 7: Aboriginal Village Park, Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village...

~ 20th March 2014~

I'm really glad that I've finally come to almost the end of day 7. I have to seriously finish all the photos before the next trip. Maybe I should learn to take less photos... but I'm 99.99% sure that wouldn't happen. Let's take a quick walk around the Aboriginal Village Park. It's huge. We couldn't feel our legs after that. The pedometer showed that we have reached 20 000 steps for the day and our day didn't just end there. We still have a long walk to finish and other places to visit.

If you've visited Sarawak Cultural Village with the different houses for different tribes of people, then you could imagine how this place looked like. Of course, the longhouses that housed the different tribes in Sarawak looked more grandiose compared to the tribal houses of those in Taiwan.

That's not a pigeon hole, neither was it a postbox. A bird house of such would be nice to have in the middle of my small garden. That's actually a chicken coop. The different tribes mainly the Tsou and Thao or Ami, they have really weird tribal houses. The houses which looked like chicken coop or pig sty were actually for the humans to live in. The ones you thought ought to be for humans were actually for their animals. They must have taken good care of their farm animals as that's their livelihood and their rice bowls depended on those farm animals.

That old man was carving out a tribal drum. There were many activities that you could take part in but you need to pay accordingly. We were not rich enough to participate in anything. We were really tired from all the walking and looking at the site map, we were still very far away from the exit point.

Archery. Couldn't remember how much it was and for how many arrows. I couldn't aim properly. Never learn the proper techniques to do so. Don't fancy trying it out as well. But I think as you grow older, the things you like took a 180-degree turn. You know what I enjoy doing?

Koi watching~! I found this really fascinating when we were in Guangzhou feeding those koi fishes. Blame it on my international travel buddy for introducing this kinda activity to me. You buy a packet of fish food and start feeding them. The fish would actually slide on each other's body and they would follow you around the pond. You could easily get the whole school of fish to follow you around. That's really enjoyable to do. Easier than rounding the sheep into a pen. The bright orange on their bodies look really attractive.

Along the stone walkway, you would see the marble carvings from various artistes. The marble carvings depict the livelihood of the tribal people. They hunted for food. They did farming. They did a whole lot of things that the urban people now had no idea how to do. What's that man doing under the tree? He must have problems of his own which he couldn't solve thus, he ended up being very emotional at the foot of the tree. Or was he just resting? There's not much to read so use your own imagination. Let your imagination run wild.

I find this rather amusing. Taking a bath with their pet pig? Piggy must be very loved or was that piggy's last bath before being sacrificed for porky meat?

You heard that advertisement with the song 'Naruwan' on television or in the Internet? I watched before but I never thought I would be going to Taiwan one day. I have lots of unexpected events in my life so couldn't do much planning. It just happened. We didn't get a seat because we have a phobia looking at a large crowd. It wasn't that bad yet until we reached the southern part of Taiwan. We got really afraid looking at big crowd. The tribal dance should be really entertaining but well, we just didn't bother to sit down and watch.

Oh, I stumbled upon a tribe with my name on it. That should be my tribe then? I have so many photos of this place but I only remembered how tiring it was to walk around. Not such a bad place after all but I still prefer the European Garden. I would enjoy the Amusement Isle rides if I don't have so many baggage sling around me. And I will need a lot of energy to scream my head off in those many rides. But I don't think my heart would allow that. 

Goodbye~! Very tired... need to take the ropeway back down... Need food.... Need to rest the feet but need to take more photos. Need to walk around other places. Still not done. By the way, we started walking around the park from the wrong way. One should actually start from this Aboriginal Village Park, followed by the Amusement Isle and the last and most relaxing one would be the European Garden. We did the round-island Taiwan Tour the wrong way, too. Most people would start travelling clockwise starting from Taipei, but we started on the anti-clockwise direction. Yeah, we never follow anyone. You could follow our ways or you could follow majority.

♡ Penang Island ♡ Dusk at German Heritage Trail in Penang ❀

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German Heritage Trail in Penang...

I have to admit that I don't even know the existence of the German Heritage Trail in Penang. And after walking along those trail, I find nothing that reminds me of anything German. The only German thing that I know of is German Bratwurst sausage. I have yet to place my footsteps in Germany.

So, what's this place exactly? I know this place as Padang Kota Lama or you might know this place as the Esplanade with a large field. I'm more interested with the sea compared to the field. There's nothing at the big field except for an English-style building which housed the City Council... if I get that right. You might heard of Fort Cornwallis or did you not hear about that place?

Fort Cornwallis...

It's an old fort with lots of old cannons. This was the fort where the fallen soldiers have fought really hard to keep this island from being attacked. There were many attacks from the sea. And to remember the fallen angels, a cenotaph was erected in a gated compound.

The cenotaph...

The year was that of the World War 1. Looks like I didn't study in detail our Malaysian History so I had no idea who attack us in the first World War. I know more about the Japanese occupation as we did a folio on that in Form 3. My other neighbour told me lots of stories as he had gone through a lot of hardship. If grandma was around, I would love to hear her part of the story. Most Chinese suffered tremendously as the Japanese has such hatred for the Chinese due to the war in China. The Indians were not tortured because the Japanese was trying to win their trust so that it would be easier to conquer India after having us fall straight into their hands. That's what I learnt through our history books. I didn't dig for further detail. The Japanese's dream to conquer India was futile as the Americans sent them two atomic bomb, one in Hiroshima and one in Nagasaki. That made them raise the white flag and many took to their own swords, 'kamikaze'... more like committing suicide to save yourself from further embarrassment. 

In memory of the fallen heroes....

Those are the 5 important historical events that needed us to remember the glorious dead. Sad to say, I don't know anything about those who died for this island but I only know roughly the story of Sir Francis Light. Historical facts apart, let's go back to the sea.

The sea...

I would say it's rare to sea the sea water crystal clear. It was too clean but after that when the tide rose, it became dirty again. That night the waves were really strong that the water splashed onto the walkway. The was the night that flood news in other states of Peninsular started coming in. Hey, do you know that you could bring your fishing rod to try your luck?

That fishing rod...

There's a Chinese man having a real good time getting his catch. I tried fishing there once but I ended up feeding the fish or whatever down below. I went with lots of prawns, fish and worms but I came back with nothing except for the fishing rods. But this guy was wonderful, he caught something other than a fish.

The flower crab...

He used a small fish as bait and he put a net around his bait and hurled up a flower crab. He said it's really easy to get one. I don't eat flower crab as I prefer the mud crab. But it's really amazing to see someone caught something. You tried fishing before? You will know the true excitement only an angler would experience. The sense of achievement was so great that even if you caught a puffer fish, you would feel elated, but that's only for the first two times. After that you get really irritated catching those puffer fish.

The accidental tourist...

If you have nothing better to do, just sit there but please don't fall over, you would create such a scene that the authority might ban the public from sitting there anymore.  The blowing wind was not always gentle. Well, it's not the place which I would sit around. We were actually heading towards another destination and we happened to be there because the car was parked quite a distant away. While walking, why not... get my local tour done with since the camera was with me.

Taman Kota Lama, there's a food court there where you can find really delicious 'mee sotong'... direct translation is squid noodles. It's fried noodles like that of 'mamak mi goreng'. You don't understand the local Malay language? If you can handle spicy food and you like fried yellow noodles, then give it a try. You can tell the hawker that you don't want it spicy. 

That's a group of our young local lads with musical talent. Not all youngsters are crazy mat rempits flying on their motorbikes trying to get themselves and other road users killed. These lads are learned people and they just enjoy sharing their musical pieces with the open audience. They don't have to spend money to rent a studio and don't have to worry about giving out fliers to ask or force people to see them perform. They just play whatever they like and those who happen to be there can choose to pay attention to them or ignore them completely. Win-win situation: They get to play their instruments in public, you get free live band.

A cat and a dog can share from a plate of food. What does that tell you? Think for yourself...

Oh, Pity Thee (PT3)...

I welcome the change for the students. PT3 is one good examination with the bars set up way higher than before. Now that the results are out, the students and parents especially have been dismayed with their results. Instead of pointing at how terrible and topsy-turvy our education system is for changing systems and implementing different kinds of styles for students, why not ask what kind of students do we have in Malaysia generally. I said GENERALLY, not to some who has fought a good fight and achieved their string of A's. Congratulations to those who have scored. Well done~! You deserve it.

What kind of students do we have:

1. Pure lazy students, so lazy to the cores that I almost wring their necks when I see them every week. They refused to even do their own revision and look through their books. They said they don't have revision books. So, I asked them to buy. They're not poor students who can't afford to buy a book. They said it's a waste of money to buy revision book. Fine~! So, I asked my other students who didn't need those books anymore and gave them the books. Lo' and behold... they refused to even open the book to read the Science facts. Fantastic, right? They have done those Science papers which needed high thinking order skills before the exams. Three months is more than enough if you know your facts~! So, why did the students get C, D, E and F for Science? Their heads are empty with no knowledge and simple facts at all. Did the school teachers teach them in school? The answer is YES so parents, stop judging the teachers thinking that teachers are incompetent. Start looking at how you raise up your children. They are just plain lazy.
2. I have parents calling me and complaining that their children are not doing well. Did I not guide that child? Yes, I did. Did that child co-operate? No, he did not. What did that child do? That child simply refuse to even move an inch to think how to get the answer. And the answer was right in front of the eyes if the child would care to read the full page passage. There were just so many words but the answers were there. So, is that paper really that difficult? The answer is again, NO. Malaysian students who didn't do well were just too ignorant to know their facts or to even put on their thinking cap. They are deteriorating. If I were to compare them on yearly basis, the teenagers I taught 10 years ago would still be better than this year's. Who to blame? Do you know that even one day before the exam when I gave crash course, they were still holding on to the Science book and flipping through the pages for the answers? They didn't even have their facts at their fingertips. And even if this PT3 is an open book exam, they wouldn't find the answer because they didn't know from which chapter and from which form. Sad, right? That's how terrible our students are, majority of them. Only a small fraction know what they're studying. Not only Science. In almost every subject, they do not know where to find their answers. Don't say there are too many subjects to study. All the long time ago students managed well. We know where and from which chapter so I was shocked that they did not know. I even tell them repeatedly from where yet when they came to almost the same kinda question, they still didn't know. It's like they have never seen the question when they just answered the question a week ago. Wonderful students we have...
3. No time to study and prepare for the exam. Will you all please stop bullshitting? They have all the time in the world to press the phone. They press the phone and press the phone. It's like without those smartphones they will die.  So, in the end it has been proven that indeed the phones are smarter than them~! They chat with their friends and they chat and chat and chat but they never bother to take out the books to read. The moment they open the books they said they wanted to sleep. They were tired looking at those printed pages. You ask them and see whether they have time to study or not. If we, the older generation could sit down and studied the whole day, why couldn't they. Aren't we all humans?
4. I told them if they don't buck up, they would fail. And yes, they failed literally with an 'F' then they became very sad and upset. Kids... you've been warned. Did you want to listen? No... You thought you would still score a string of A's like your seniors.
5. Why couldn't they even survive the Maths paper? Even if it's PMR, they still wouldn't score for paper 2. They were just too lazy to write the proper Maths working. I could spit out blood teaching them the correct working but only a few would care to follow and listen. Those who listened scored A. The whole entire school and only my boy here scored an A. I know he would get an A because I taught him the old style which I have been brought up with. He would be able to do well even without a calculator. And surprise... surprise... do you know that teenagers need calculator to do addition? Can't they calculate those simple two digit numbers mentally? 1+1=2... they need the calculator to confirm that the answer is correct. I almost fainted when I saw them doing that. They said just to confirm... just to confirm... and when we were in school, we didn't even get to bring the scientific calculator let alone own one. We only used the normal calculator in Form 4. Who created low confidence and incompetent students then?
6. Students want to be fed with answers. You give them homework, ask them to go home and look for the answers from their books and apply what they have studied, they came back with the same question paper without any answers. Reason being, they couldn't understand the question. You don't bluff me with that. I asked which question... did you read the question... the answer came back to me was NO, DIDN'T READ THE QUESTION. Too lazy... Laziness kills. 

So, parents out there. Stop blaming the system. This system is really good. Extremely good to gauge the students' ability to go to Science stream or Arts stream. You think it's really easy to go to Science stream when they couldn't even handle their PT3 science? Now.... there's no one getting A for Science in one particular school, are those getting C and D going to occupy the pure Science classes? If yes, then wait for them to fail in every exam. 

Stop crying over spilled milk. It's time to use thy brain and stop pointing fingers. And some news that reported how well the students' scored, why not report on the number of failures. There's this one school outside my house with 122 students and more than 80 of them literally flunk the Science papers. Again... school lousy? The answer is NO... that school is well-known for having students with lots of disciplinary problems. The teachers sometimes use microphones to scream and yell at those students who created so much problems and headaches to the school. NOT TEACHERS DON'T WANNA TEACH, STUDENTS JUST REFUSE TO LEARN. If you think your child is an angel in school, your child is a good actor or actress. Yo, I didn't say all are like that. Some are really good and obedient, but only a small fraction. I've seen so many types of humans. I start to close both my eyes and just do what I need to do. Parents are just being ridiculous... oh, don't say it's good parenting skills without the cane, my hubby has seen more than I do. The roots of everything do not come from students, but parents.... whose fault now... whose fault now.... 

THIS TIME ROUND, DON'T BLAME THE EDUCATION SYSTEM...

Day 7: Lavande D'Amour, European Garden...

~ 20th March 2014 ~

Welcome to the European Garden....

The best part of being Chinese illiterate is, I need not plan that much or look at the map of the theme park. My international travel buddy has to do all the work and I just walked blindly. I will only use my brain when needed, for example when we get lost. I have better built-in compass in my head. Actually, we both are very good with directions. The Eurepean Garden nestled comfortably on the east side of the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village. It's on the east side from where we were standing. The Amusement Isle was right in the middle of everything. After we got down from the extremely slow kiddy ride, we saw that massive structure of a building. We thought it would just be a small place with nothing much to see. At that point of time, I still have not build up my love for fresh flowers.

The white and purple sheep....

Until you walk in, you would never know. The place was mammoth big. If you were to walk the whole round, the beauty of the whole European Garden would take your breath away. This makes me want to travel to Europe. If the European Garden in a Chinese land could be so beautiful, what about the original ones? The theme for spring season was Lavande D'amour, translated from my poor Italian terms should carry the meaning... Lavender Love. Even those man-made sheep has their coats covered in the purple of lavender.

Roman fountain...

There are a few notable features of the garden which everyone should take note of. Stop taking selfie and miss out the important points in your tour. That's the Roman fountain. I like this piece of photo taken by yours truly. I don't really fancy those stone-build miniature statues, whatever you call them.. It's too eerie to enjoy looking at but I do like that cascading water.

That's Ritz Palace as the backdrop. Pardon my tongue-out photo. For spring season, it's really hot. It's as hot as back home and we were not that comfortable walking around. When you're walking around with the scorching sun burning your head and all over, it also feels like your energy has been sucked out of you right from your pores. We tried to have a quick walk around but you know, it's just too beautiful not to stop at every few steps to freeze everything into a rectangular frame.

That's the Gothic clock tower. It was mind-boggling why I did not walk nearer to get a towering photo of the clock tower. It must be lazy us refused to move to the other side of the gigantic widespread garden. I love those red bushes and I found 'em beautiful red leaves in one of the nurseries and now I'm very tempted to have them in my garden.

There were train tracks but the miniature train was not to be found. It went chugging off into the woods I guess. Thus, we didn't get to ride on the miniature train. It was okay though. It's not like we've never boarded a train before.

This is where I fall in love with plants.... not in a bouquet and definitely not in a vase or worse still, plastic plants. Red and pink are my favourite colours. Trust me, if I have all the time in the world and the sun was not burning my skin, I would spent my time in this garden, doing nothing. Oh, maybe walking around and taking more photos with my travel buddy as the model. She has perfect slim-fit body even after she just swallowed a horse and a cow plus a zebra. 

So, I think this is where I fall head over heels with flowers. I wish my garden is as huge as this then I will hire a few gardeners to turn them into those like what you have in Hong Kong Disneyland, flowers made into Mickey head, and lots more. Maybe I will come out with a theme every few months. Nah, I can't do them all on my own. 

Then, we were getting out of the place already after spending an hour plus there. If only we have more time... if only we have more time.... 

That's the overview of the place in panorama. Hey, it's Lavender Love... aren't you wondering where's the lavender?

There you go... the lavender... and I have to admit that I don't really like them, those Spanish lavender. But the combination of striking colours are really mesmerizing. I ran out of vocabularies to describe the beauty of nature.