Once again we are away from the comfort of our home. This weekend (starting on Friday afternoon), we are off to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort, Johor. Before I proceed further, let me inform that this is not another vacation. This is another tour of duty (job trip) of my wife. She has some kind of work related to her research alliance. Never mind with that. Luckily all participants or may I refer to as researcher was given a room. That’s so cool. She can bring all of us (the family).

We’ve never been to Pulai Desaru Beach Resort before. So, personally, I was anxious to see how good is this hotel. Let’s check it out…

General First Impression

My first impression… This hotel looks cool. It has a very huge hotel lobby. The roof is high and thus provide great ventilation. Wind from the sea is enough to provide the cool breeze at the hotel surrounding. There seems to be plenty of room available. Our room is in the second floor. We need to walk, perhaps 2-3 minutes to reach our room from the hotel reception counter.

This is the hotel – Pulai Desaru Resort, Johor. I missed to take the photo of the front gate where the hotel logo is clearly visible.

This is our room. The room is quite spacious with no carpets. Instead the floor is decorated with a 2′ x 2′ light brown tile. It’s very cold when we step onto it. Maybe the reason for that is because the hotel is at the beach! We have 2 double beds here, not that big for the 5 of us, but hey, we can squeeze in. Not bad. We requested for additional pillow since there are only 4 pillows. We need the extra one because there are 5 of us.

This is a different view of the room. There is a desk for work and also some comfortable looking double sofa to relax. The sliding doors are quite huge and provide more than sufficient sun light into the room. I consider the room spacious enough for all of us and it is larger than a typical average hotel room. This room is by far larger than the hotel room that we stayed in Shanghai (we’ll be covering that soon).

Another angle of the hotel room. I think this picture completes all the angle needed for you to imagine how this hotel room looks like. The TV is a 25″ Samsung bulb tube flat screen TV. Works fine but the remote control cover is missing!!!

This is the favourite place of my kids – the bath tub. Pretty simple. However, to our surprize, only 2 towels are provided. No hand towel, no medium size towel, not other towels. Only 2 bath towels!!! What the hack! So, we called the receptionist and ask. We assumed the room service guys may have forgotten to place those extra white towels. But, in actual fact after I asked the boy that delivered our towels, one room with two beds are only entitled 2 big bath towels, 1 hand towel and one medium size towel for the floor. That’s it!!! OMG, that is too stingy, I think. Common guys, give your guess more towels. That won’t make you bankrupt.

This is the view at our balcony. No see view, no pool view. We got the football field view…haha…No prob. It is ok. Those lucky one will get the sea or pool views which are nicer paranomically. But as you can see, the plastic table and chairs look to old that it need to be replaced.

This is the view of the landscape of the hotel. It is well maintained, clean and peaceful. I have no complains on this one.

A simple playground is available for kids excitement. However, my kids are not interested at all because they already set their destiny… which is to the swimming fool pool.

The swimming pool of this hotel is fantastic. I like! Thumbs up!!! Superb. It’s huge and creatively designed. There are shallow section for the smaller kids and deeper ones for the big boys. There is also one short slide which is sufficient to make us and the kids happy!!! This hotel knows how to please it’s guess when it comes to getting wet!

Another angle of the swimming pool. This section looks like the beach but it is actually covered with tiny pebbles. No sand what so ever so it maintains clean. However, I can smell some chlorine. Yeah… you cannot escape from that. The swimming pool needs it.

Some entertainment such as the pool tables are made available for those who want to test their sharp shooting skills. Some carom tables are also available. A ping pong table is also prepared for the guess as well as some arcade game which you need to insert some coins. Not sure which coins – old Malaysia coins or new Malaysia coins…haha…

The beach. Looks quite nasty with fierce wave stamping its edge. This beach may not be suitable for my kids to play. Oh, I would like to bring them to a crystal clear sea water and a white sandy beach… but not now. Soon… Maybe Tahiti, Hawaai… Any suggestions?

The view of Pulai Desaru Beach Resort from the beach. This was taken at about 6pm. The sun was ready to set…

Another good indirect view of the ocean from the swimming pool area. The hammock that you can see on the far right corner of the above photo is very comfortable and peaceful for relaxing. I need that in our new house. It will be a good way to seek for serenity. But I will need to find out where to buy that hammock? Any idea?

The Most Important Facility – Internet / Wifi

Regarding the internet, it is a pity that this hotel charged RM5 per hour for the internet. There is no free internet or wifi even in the hotel lobby area. That is very disappointing.

I was very close to securing my daily celcom broadband to get access to the internet. “Fortunately”, it failed. I don’t know why it failed but that’s good because soon after that my wife get an internet pin from her workshop. However, she have to share the same pin with another 8 person. That’s fine, at least we can use the internet for a while using that pin.

To my surprize the internet speed is quite poor and not constantly stable. Luckily I did not purchase the RM5 per hour internet facility. Yes, I did not intend to buy the internet service but it will be a frustrating experience to those who purchase it.

Early Remarks

In overall the Resort environment was clean. I did not interacted directly with the staffs so I cannot assess that part. AS this post is written I have no idea yet what the room rate was. I’ll make Part 2, a follow up for this to conclude my overall experience here. Hence, the Cyza Sector Hotel Rating will come later.

Nevertheless, if you are interested to check out further on this resort, which is a family member of Pulai Spring Resort, near my house, you can google it yourself or go straight to:

The Pulai Desaru Beach Resort
PO Box 29, Bandar Penawar, 81900 Kota Tinggi, Johor, Malaysia.
Tel: +60-7-822-2222 • Fax: +60-7-822-2223
Email: reservation@thepulai.com.my

Read Pulai Desaru Beach Resort Part 2.

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It is a festive season again as Chinese New Year will be celebrated tomorrow. Not only Chinese citizen but also the rest of the races in Malaysia used this splendid opportunity to go home to their hometown. We also decided to go back to my wife’s hometown in Kuantan as we have not been back there for quite some time. We started the journey in the afternoon. I actually wanted to start the trip in the morning but my wife wanted to spend the nice peaceful weekend to relax. She also has not started packing up our clothes and bag. As a result, we started to hit the north south highway at 12.30pm after having lunch at a mamak restaurant in Skudai.

I have anticipated that a heavy traffic jam will be waiting for us. And that’s true. As we entered the north south highway, we can already see a spectacular view. It’s the long traffic jam that we have not experience before.

I did not snap the photo at the beginning of the highway. It looked worse than this photo. This one was captured when we nearly reached the toll plaza to take the ticket.

And guess what. This is after exiting the plaza toll. The que and traffic jam is really enormous. Never did I experience such a heavy traffic jam like this before after exiting the toll plaza.  I witness many people snapping photos of this remarkable traffic jam as well. If I’m not mistaken after1 hour the traffic resume to a normal speed (90-110 km/h).

Now, I’m in Kuantan but I need to go to a local grocery shop. After getting back from there I’ll continue with the tips to avoid traffic jam ok…

OK, back to the real business. How to avoid traffic jam when returning back to your home town?

This is some of my brainstormed ideas. There are many more tips that you can find in the internet but some are not relevant to our situation (festive season) or some others are more related to traffic jam when going back and forth to work. So, here they are:

1. Take an early day off . This means that take an early holiday. Don’t travel the same time as others i.e. during the public holiday itself. You will be stuck with the rest that also plans to go back on that same holiday as well. By taking an early day off, you will save time and money because chances of you trapped in a traffic jam like me is greatly minimized.

2. Travel as early as possible (morning). If you cannot afford to take an early holiday off for whatever reason, then that’s still ok. What you need to do is pack your bags few days early and then when the holiday started, travel as early as possible. The earlier the better. If you can start your journey at 4 or 5 am, then there are huge chance that your journey will be smooth. This is because, more people tend to start their journey later in the day.

3. In Malaysia, it is wise if you follow PLUS Twitter Update. They provide 24 hours real time updates on the highway traffic situation. You can do that by following the PLUS Twitter service at www.twitter.com/plustrafik. If you don’t have the luxury of data package internet, then you can at least contact the PLUSLine at 1800 88 0000 which is available 24-hour every day. Please save this number into your mobile phones. If you are don’t have mobile internet data package and lazy to call Plusline number, then the next thing to do is just tune in to your favourite radio stations. From time to time, a report on the traffic condition will be aired.

4. Ditch your own vehicle and use public transport. One cool alternative if you are single or just married, you can choose to ditch your car and use public transport. A suitable public transport for this scenario is aeroplane and train. That will be convenient and probably more cost effective, depending on the distance of your hometown to where you are staying. If you are like me, having all together 6 person traveling, then public transportation may not be cost effective at all. So, just use your own vehicle to travel.

5. Get a GPS device with live traffic updates. These devices will usually cost at least $200, and some require an additional subscription cost. Some decent GPS that can aid you on this include Garmin Nuvi 265T and Garmin Nuvi 265 WT which provide the best value. This type of GPS is cool and can provide you with constant live traffic updates as you travel on the road.

I think that’s it for the time being. If you have any other ideas, maybe you can share it with us here. Sharing is caring, ain’t it?

Here are some more screenshots of the great traffic jam around us:

Sorry, this photo is quite small. I got this from Facebook. Somebody shared it there. This is one condition that happened if not mistaken yesterday (Chinese New Year holiday). Location, I don’t know.

This is a traffic congestion in Beijing. I also took this from Facebook. Somebody has posted this. How true or how real, I’m not sure. I just sharing a good example of a bad traffic jam!.

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This entry is actual my journal record continuation from the previous post. I did not finish writing the journal because I was too tired (that time in Shanghai). I will gradually post and add my write up. However, for this entry, the following is again, i stress, the actual  journal record typed in our ipad.

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19/12/2011 (Monday)

We woke up that morning still relatively exhausted because we just had a short sleep earlier. Thinking that it might be difficult to communicate to get the shuttle via the telephone (in room), we walked from our room to the lobby. It’s quite far and it’s really cold. While walking we snapped some photos with beautiful scenary of the Qingpu river. Slightly more thahalfway walk to the lobby, a shuttle bus stops next to us dropping half dozen of people. Then we ride the bus and went to the hotel lobby to have breakfast.

Posing at one of the exit/entrance of the subway. I forgot the name of this place. haha.

This is easy. It is Jiujiang Road as stated.

Surprisingly, I stumbled across Tom Cruise. He was alone on vacation. At least a speaks English and we were glad.

After a while, I came across Brat Pitt and Angelina Jolie. They were in one of the malls promoting some kind of movies… I’m not sure and I don’t care the details. After queuing up so long, we finally managed take pictures with this lovely celebrity couple.

Posing with Rocky a.k.a Sylvester Stallone. Mr. Stallone is so relax and cool guy although he was a little bit exhausted after the match with some boxer in Shanghai.

I never expected this day to be that amazing. After accidentally stumbling with world greatest celebrities, I met one of the world top leader. Yes, it was President Obama. He has just finished delivering his short message to the press regarding the Green House Protocol and his response towards EU charging aeroplanes flying in Europe as compensation from releasing emission air. But, I believe now you already realize why I managed to met all of this big shot!!!

After a while it was time to pray. We combined our prayers, Zuhur and Asar.’ We found a mosque and took prayed there. However, the water for wudhu’ is very cold. No heater is available during the winter.

For dinner, we managed to find a muslim restaurant (after 30 minutes of walking and searching). My wife ordered this hot meal. It taste good and our tongue can adjust to this cuisine. 

This was what I ordered. This is the closest food to our traditional fried rice. Taste ok. It was served with some meat. This was the cheapest and logical meal to me available in the Shanghai Muslim Restaurant.

We drank hot tea (free) and a can of Coke. The food in this Muslim restaurant is reasonable. That’s why the following day we came again to this same restaurant for dinner.

At the end of the day, we took the subway to get back to the nearest metro station to our hotel. It is Dongjing Station.

Back at the hotel after a long exhausting day. Calling our kids using Skype at the hotel lobby.

At the hotel lobby, we met Mr. Steven Lee. Wearing nice all black suit, we think he is an assistant manager who can converse well in English. We were extremely glad to meet him. He helped us translate and pronouce several chinese words which we believe will be crucially imperative for us when we travel in Shanghai city later. Some examples of the words and phrases are: yes, no, correct, not correct, straight, left, right, how much, where is…. Etc.

Then we went to have our breakfast at a Members Restaurant in the lobby hotel. Wow…it was very challenging to explain to the restaurant staff what we would like to have for breakfast. Luckily Mr. Steven assisted us and explained to the restaurant staff our requirements. We basically asked for food without pork, lard, chicken and meat. After a short wait, we were served with a combination of egg, onion ring, bread, rice poridge and coffee. The breakfast was good and we were full and happy after that.

After breakfast we were fetched by Mr. Soh, the driver who has waited for us in the lobby. We have asked him to send us to the nearest Metro Station – Dongjian station which is about 30-40 km from Sun Island Resort. The fair charged by Mr. Soh is 80 yuan. Initially he charged 100 yuan. But we managed to bargain with him down to 80 yuan. We thought that was expensive. However, after talking to other people these few days, we finally discovered that Mr. Soh’s charge is cheap. A group of Indian professors who came to Sun Island Resort from Dongjia Station was charged 300 yuan by the taxi (the taxi meter however showed 180 yuan). In other word, the Indian professors were charged so high!!!

At Dongjian Metro Station, we purchased the Metro train one day passed. Each one day pass cost 18 yuan only. I think that is quite reasonable. We switched train at an interchange (I forgot which one), and finally arrived to our first stop which is the People Square. Why this stop? Because my wife already studied the places that we shall visit. The first one in the list is Shanghai Maddame Tousou. Searching the building with Maddame Tousou inside it was challenging as well. We have to asked many people for directions. Communicating with people here is so tough because almost nobody speaks English. We have to try and speak chinese with them using the words and phrases that we obtained from Steven. My wife did all the talking because she pronounce chinese better than me.

To make long story short, we finally arrived at Maddame Toussou which is at the 8th floor of the building. It…

……………………….

That’s the end of the live journal recording. After this, the next post will be more based on photo and little description. I hope that is sufficient to show our well being in Shanghai.

Read the Part 3 of Shanghai Trip.

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Following is the real journal recorded by myself in Ipad when I traveled to Shanghai with my wife to attend a conference last month (last year) unless notified otherwise. The kids stayed at home while we stayed apart from them for 6 days. That was the first time both of us were separated from our kids.
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18/12/2011 (Sunday) – 2038 hours – in the clouds (flying)

Today we travel to Shanghai via AirAsia X flight number D7 0306 which took off at 5.35pm Malaysia time. We were expected to reach Hangzhou Airport at 10.35pm local time. The journey takes 5 hours. In the flight we ate some tasty Nasi Lemak with chicken rendang. Our seat number is 32K and 32J. I spent some time reading the 360 AirAsia magazine. One of the content that caught my attention was how AirAsia business evolved after 10 years. Ok….to be continued soon… I want to try and have some brief nap.

Me and my aeroplane. Still in LCCT…

This is the famous Nasi Lemak Pak Ali for Air Asia X (international flight from Malaysia). It looks like a normal nasi lemak but believe me it taste damn good.

19/12/2011 (monday) – 0032 hours – in car somewhere between Hangzhou Airport and Sun Island Resort

We were fetched by Mr. Soh, the driver which the hotel arranged to pick us at the airport. We were glad to see him. But then, we realized that we cannot converse with him. He cannot speak English. So, nothing much to say, to talk. He drove a Volkswagen sedan. It was a pity because we cannot enjoy the scenery. It was dark every where accept some signage or billboard next to the highway. We are so sleepy but we dont want to sleep before we arrive at Sun Island Resort. We are worried if our driver who we believed is in his 50s becomes sleepy while driving. Oh yes, just now after the plane landed, my wife had already text my mother and son that we have safely landed. We also got a new friend in the plane. Who else if not the guy who sat beside me. He is a manager working for a multinational cement company. His a Malaysian chinese who works in China since 2007. Ok enough for now. I want to observe the road to Sun Island Resort. Ending this at 0043 hours.

The guy pushing the trolley in front of my wife is Mr Soh. He was our driver who fetched us from airport. It was really blazing cold. The temperature was probably below 5 degree celcius.

This is somewhere in Sun Island Resort while walking from our hotel room to the lobby. It was really far. For this time only we did not call for a shuttle bus. After this, we always call the shuttle bus. It’s really cold.

We communicated with our kids and my parents using Skype. We skyped using the ipad. So, there’s no need for us to purchase a phone card or use our mobile phone while our stay in Shanghai. The skype is free since I managed to get a one month promotional offer.

22/12/2011 (thursday) – 1030 hours – in hotel room. Resting.

Yeah…i know it has been 3 days since i recorded our activities in Shanghai live. I intended to post this in my blog but due to limited internet access, i cannot do so. Sun Island Resort is a huge resort, maybe can be compared to Afamosa Resort in Melaka. The pass few days were packed, tight and tiring for me and my wife. That’s why i did not write and post in this travelog. Our room is equipped with broadband internet access but my wife’s ipad cannot connect with the wired broadband. That’s why we can only access the internet at the hotel lobby which is 800 meters from our room. With the internet access, we are able to make free Skype calls to our kids and parents at home (Johor).

Our room looks fine and is warm enough. The room is comfortable enough for us to stay for several nights here. No prob. However, the only thing we realize is that this hotel is too far from Shanghai city center. Wait there are more stories to come soon…I’ll try my best to describe our journey as structured and with smooth continuity. Please bare with me ok. From now i may flash back to stories happening on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Then i will continue back to Thursday.
………………………………………………………..

Journal to be continued…

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Just now, my colleague shown me a strange sound that was caught by somebody in Samarahan, Borneo. There was no visual and what we have is only sound. At first I think it was like a joke. It sounded a little like alien invasion, sci-fiction, predator, transformer movie combined. At other angle, it also sounded like a terrifying horror movie. I’m not sure what sound it is nor do I believe the scientific explanation and theory postulated by certain group of people.

What is it actually still remains a mystery. I hope it is not a sign of something fishy or bad happening to us. I hope it is just nothing. I hope our country and world will still be a peaceful and safe place for us to live our life.

If you have not heard the strange weird mysterious sound, what are you waiting for. Listen to it down here.

The second incident occurred on the morning of January 12, 2012, the sound is heard for three hours and the noise that appears every three seconds from 3 am until dawn. This audio is successfully captured by one of the people of Kota Samarahan.More information can be read here link.

You can read further explanation about the voice which has hit the web from this link. There are tonnes of other links packed with information that you can google it for yourself.

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