Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Exorbitant Singtel roaming call in Malaysia

To receive incoming call in overseas = SGD 1.29 per min

To call locally in overseas = SGD 0.50 per min

To call international in overseas = SGD 6.1 per min

To send SMS in overseas = SGD 0.31 per sms

Moral of the story is to use a local sim card in Malaysia.

Saturday, February 16, 2013

A day trip to nostalgic Ipoh by hou liu KTMB 2013

On the 3rd day of Chinese New Year, we made a trip north to Ipoh by ETS, Electric Train Services. ETS was first introduced in year 2010. The Hyundai Rotem train was built in Korea and the service is managed by KTMB. This fully electrified train ride took about 2.5 hours with about 10+ stops in between KL and Ipoh. It can travel up to 140 km/h speed.


It was a last minute decision to visit Ipoh. So we bought ticket a day before the trip. Father seems to be more excited than we do. He woke us up at 5.30am wanted to send us to KL Sentral. Our train was scheduled to depart at 8am. The journey from home to KL Sentral is only 15 min. we end up arriving at train station almost an hour earlier than our original plan.
We reached Ipoh at 1030am and started our sightseeing tour by courtesy of Kp. He chauffeured us around Ipoh old town, new town, golf club, huge houses etc. Some old buildings age more than 100 years old.



Highlight of the day only started at the big-tree-trunk place. We had some fried yong tau fu appetizer  That place is literally a battle field. Although the price is 40% higher than normal days, the freshly fried yong tau fu got snatched up almost immediately. After selected the yong tau fu, there is another long queue waiting for the noodles.


Next stop, 老王 famous bean sprout, chicken with horfun. The bean sprouts are thick, the chicken is tender and Horfun is smoother than silk. The food portion in Malaysia is very generous. That's all we had in Ipoh.
Later in the afternoon we visited Joanne at Menglembu, Banjaran Hotspring,Tampun Lost World etc.