Holiday - The Journey and Day 1 at Bukit Tinggi

We have not been travelling together, all the 4 of us. The furthest 弟弟 have been with us is to Taiping Zoo (Gosh this reminded me I didn't put up a post about last years' visits - so backdated now! That time I was not that into blogging).

Back to the recent trip. It's a super busy work time for me, and 爸爸 promised to plan and organize everything. We'll be going to Bukit Tinggi and staying at Colmar Tropicale for one night (everyone keep saying there is nothing there and not worth it but we'll give it a try). Then we'll go to KL and stay 2 nights there, with a trip to KL Bird Park thrown in, KLCC and not to be missed IKEA. On the way there and back we'll stopover at Ipoh for breakfast and dinner. He borrowed a GPS from friend. To my surprise, he did not print out one single map and did not bring any map for the matter. So confident you know....

Going to Ipoh and looking for the breakfast place (I should say brunch) is not a lot of problem. The GPS (using software called GARMIN) did the trick. We have our food at Nam Heong 南香. One thing about eating in Ipoh town is the difficulty of finding parking. We have to walk ~2 streets just to get there. Wow~ the coffee is good! I keep dreaming about it even after coming back. The signature egg tart is delicious. I told 爸爸 to order egg tart and chicken puff, but ended up he ordered 叉烧包. 姐姐 loved the egg tart so much and ended up eating most of it. 弟弟 preferred the 叉烧包. So in order to have a taste of the chicken puff we ordered takeaway with more egg tarts.

On our way to Bukit Tinggi, 爸爸 say we should take the Tanjung Malim route (via Genting) instead of following the GPS which route us via KL. He say it's faster that way. Ok he is driver. The GPS keep "advising" to turn back and go to KL, turn back! No, our determined driver keep driving on.

弟弟 and 姐姐 in the car... playing costume with the sun shades. 姐姐 sleep the other way round as we "pad up" the foot path with pillows/bolsters.

Finally when we are nearing the junction to Genting, GPS finally calculate the route to Bukit Tinggi from there. All along, both children have been asking where we're going and why it takes so long. Explained again and again the "hill" is very far away. When we turn in the road leading to Genting, and seeing that it is really looking like "去山上" they relaxed and slept. By this time it's near to 12pm.

So we go along with the GPS, until one fine small 交叉路口, one pointing to Kuantan (and many others) and one to KL (or something like that). GPS says "Take the right lane and turn right". As a few cars behind us driving fast and no time to think we took the right lane. Alamak, biggest mistake! We ended up going along Karak Highway, taking the direction to KL!!! Wah memang pergi Holland. And the cheek of the thing asking us to take a "sharp turn on your left". When we near that turn, it is actually for vehicles coming out, not going in! Aiyo.... this GPS, you want us to have accident ka? By this time both 爸爸 and I were fuming. We go all the way through Karak Highway until a toll plaza, mind you, no U-turn at all. Then we go all the way back and there it is... the road sign that says "Bukit Tinggi". Going to Holland took us more than one hour back and forth through the same highway. And to make the matter worse, GPS is not (I repeat, NOT) suitable to use going through hilly roads and places with tunnels. Sometimes the satellite signal just goes off and don't come back on. Anyone going to get a GPS, think twice and twice again. And don't act hero like 爸爸 until one lousy paper map pun didn't bring and didn't even 研究 the route. Especially this GARMIN software, it doesn't show you the junction view. I won't mind going to Holland so much if it weren't so tiring for children. They have been couped up 2 extra hours more than necessary, because we go up the hill, like Jack and Jill "tumble" down and finally up Bukit Tinggi. Now some of the signs are reading "Berjaya Hills" now as Berjaya Corp have bought up the place. And unlike what 爸爸 had said that it’s dark at night, there are street lamps all the way (unless they don’t turn on the street lamps). We passed the horse trail, the rabbit park (which we're going the next day) and we finally reach the "toll gate" to Colmar Tropicale aka 法国村. Those who are not staying at the hotel have to pay a visitors' fee. 爸爸 say have to pay as his friend said so. But I insisted he say we're staying at the hotel, and quite rightly we don't have to pay. The lady operating the booth didn’t even look at our hotel booking confirmation and just waved us to go right through.

Finally reach the hotel after 3pm and it's quite nice European-looking buildings. Feels just like in a tiny little European old town with one street haha. Check-in service is slow as expected, it’s a public holiday for KL and there are quite a lot of guests (some company having a function there).

We’re staying at Block Euphorbia (whatever it means).

Photos of the one-room suite

Dining area:

The children have some cheese and jam sandwiches and shared the takeaway 南香 egg tarts and chicken puffs for tea.

Kitchen - see, 弟弟 cannot stand still

Bedroom

Then it’s time to make a move Japanese Village 日本村 as Japanese Tea Garden closes at 6pm. We waited to take the shuttle bus, there are quite a lot of ppl there. Finally we got on the shuttle bus. The route to Japanese Tea Garden is really steep and windy. And I was thinking maybe we could drive or walk there – no way! 姐姐 was excited as she thinks it’s like a roller coaster.

We reached Japanese Village ~5pm, first thing we see is the Souvenir Shop.

This is the entrance to Japanese Tea Garden. We need to take some steps before reaching the Tea House.

Inside the Japanese Tea Garden and I think the closest we'll get to being in Japan for the next 10 years. Actually there are kimonos for rental, but since we wanted to see the Japanese Village as much as we can, we have to decline. Also the Tea Ceremony is past, the last one at 4:30pm.

弟弟 say the water in the pond is murky, like barley water.

We made a turn at the end of the garden and walked along a path which is full of plants. Here are the flowers we saw.

And we finally reached the Japanese restaurant Ryo Zan Tei and Botanical Garden. Totally different from Penang Botanical Garden. As we are very tired after walking one round from Japanese Tea Garden, we just took a quick look and went back to the “bus stop” to wait for shuttle bus.

See the 鲤鱼 hanging in front of Souvenir Shop? Like the ones we see in Japanese cartoon. Resting on a rock after walking and carrying 弟弟. 姐姐 kept to her words and walked by herself all the way.

It’s already almost 6pm. The shuttle bus is too full and we had to wait for the last one. The children goofing around while waiting for the bus.

姐姐 is having a lot of fun going down the hill to the hotel as she still thinks it’s a roller coaster and goes “Wee!” all the way.

We reached hotel and started looking for some dinner. Luckily we’re staying at Colmar Tropicale and there are at least 8 F&B mini outlets. We settled for La Flamme (sidewalk deli) and it costed us ~$84 for regular Hawaiian pizza, prawn fettuccine, hot chocolate and apple juice. Both children only had a small amount of food – think they are tired.

After dinner it was a little walking around the place. 姐姐 wanted to go to the clock tower and they walked up 3 or 4 flights of stairs to the top.

This is the only family photo we have for the whole trip.

My night view photo from the clock tower.

After that back to the room for a well-deserved rest. The 4 of us shared a bed and even though it’s a comfortable bed, it’s creaking and croaking every time one of us turned. Both children fight in bed about who kicked who.