The Nightingale - Review

When I read a historical fiction, I expect – of course – a historical fiction, not a soap opera with eye-rolling cliché and melodrama. The Nightingale is filled with exaggerated dramatic moments and chick-lit plot. It didn’t make a good historical fiction even if Kristin Hannah threw in a *SPOILER* rape element.

Few things.

1.    The Characters

None of the characters are really likable, especially the two protagonists Vianne and Isabelle.

Let’s talk about Isabelle. She was impulsive, hot-tempered, uncontrollable, irresponsible. She had not only once put her family in danger due to her childish thinking and behavior. When Beck billeted at Vianne’s house, she was rude to him thereby risking her sister’s and niece’s life. Had Beck not been a decent man, all of them would have been dead.

As for Vianne, she was just plain stupid. She hid Rachel in her cellar on the day of the deportation of Jewish, but only until noon. She couldn’t even wait till the end of the day before she thought it was safe to let her out. And Rachel, being even dumber, risked getting deported (which she did) for a bath.

“I went to town. Everything seems normal. Maybe Beck was being overly cautious, but I think you should spend one more night down there.” 

Rachel’s face was drawn, tired-looking. “I’ll need diapers. And a quick bath. Ari and I both smelled.”

In another event when Isabelle was shot and Vianne insisted that her sister stayed to be cared by her. Having killed Beck moments ago, she needed to be reminded that an injured woman in her house was going to draw attention. If she would have used her brain a little it would not be so much effort to figure out this rocket science.

“Enough,” Henri said, stepping between them. “She can’t stay here, Vianne. Think about it. The Germans are going to come looking for their dead captain. They don’t need to find a woman with gunshot wound and false papers. You understand?”

Sometimes characters were shaped in a way that they were not supposed to be likable. But in this case the result was that I ended up not caring much about what happened to them.

2.    The Writing

The writing style is generally flat and, yes, chick-lit. I don’t have anything against such genre. I even gave a high review for Me Before You and I specifically praised Jojo Moyes’ writing. But The Nightingale, is a chick-lit with historical fiction in disguise.

She was so surprised that she couldn’t think how to respond. He was saying he would die to protect Isabelle. He turned to her, gazed at her. Gazed, not looked.

There were things like these that reminded me of E.L.James’ infamous Fifty Shades trilogy. Kristin Hannah seemed to think her emphasizing of a “gaze” instead of a “look” would stun or awe the readers emotionally.

For the first time, Gaëtan smiled and Vianne understood how this scrawny, sharp-featured man in his beggar’s clothes had swept Isabelle off her feet. He had the kind of smile that inhabited every part of his face – his eyes, his cheeks; there was even a dimple.

That’s right, dimple is the answer to all questions!

3.    Fiction or imagination?

There were events and moments when I wondered did Kristin Hannah do her research properly.

Times when it was “freezing cold” when hiking through the Nightingale escape route. Now I’d been to hiking in Nepal. It was neither raining nor snowing, but the temperature was low, close to sub-zero. But when we hiked, there wasn’t an instant when we felt “freezing cold”. When we walked our body generated heat, especially when there was a uphill hike or up a flight of steps. At all times, we wore a layer of long-sleeve shirt during the hike. When we stopped for meals it was not until for a while that we needed to wear the down jacket. So when Hannah described the mountain scene, I had many doubts.

Times when Hannah explained Rossignol’s family financial status and asset. Julien Rossignol was a war soldier and a bookseller and he owned a property (Le Jardin) in Carriveau, a bookshop and an apartment in Paris. I am no expert of France economy in the 1940s but I thought that was a bit too well-off for a bookseller.

Overall I gave it a 2 star out of 5. This is the first book I read of Kristin Hannah’s and I will keep in mind not to read another one.

Passenger - Movie Review

*SPOILER ALERT*

What was it about?

Starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt, why was I surprised that it was, indeed, a love story? Well it was a romance packaged as a sci-fi, to be exact.

The story started with Jim Preston (Chris Pratt) waking up from his hibernation, which was supposed to last 120 years. But due to a malfunction, he woke up 90 years earlier than scheduled. Alone on the unmanned spaceship, his attempts of putting himself back into hibernation failed. After a year of suffering, he then made a difficult decision - he broke another hibernation pot inhabited by Aurora Lane (Jennifer Lawrence), in desperation of company.

Did it meet my expectations?

For the record, I went into the cinema expecting a sci-fi thriller. Can you blame me or anyone that had watch the trailer? The trailer practically labelled it a sci-fi movie! I'd also like to say that the science of it was not very convincing.

Jim's space suit sustained the heat vent from the fusion reactor. Seriously?

Jim got thrown out from the vent and was travelling in the backward direction of the spaceship. He was still in vicinity after 5 seconds or so. Wasn't the spaceship travelling at half of light speed?

Jim threw the steel door that he used as shield in the backward direction, causing himself a forward thrust. Erm... I'm not really sure about this but, really?

I also thought the story would open at the point when Aurora woke up. And then she'd meet Jim and at this moment she (as well as the audience) wouldn't know yet, about his intentionally breaking her hibernation pot. As the story moved, she'd discover it from Arthur, and so would the audience. Hence instilling the suspense, the twist, and the flash-back story telling technique.

But instead the movie chose to do it the opposite way - bringing in the story from Jim's point of view. It probably wanted to portray Jim's stranded situation, his helplessness and desperation, which I thought was very successful.

Did I like it?

I loved it. Of course I was a little disappointed that the romantic element played a big part of it, instead of the sci-fi element. But the story was very refreshing that I was able to forgive a misleading trailer.

Elfen Lied - Anime Review

Anime has been one of my pastimes during the last few months. I've been watching some famous ones that anime fans would consider classic - Steins;Gate, Puella Madoka Magica, etc. Hours ago I just finished Elfen Lied. When you look for "greatest anime of all time" in YouTube, you almost always get Elfen Lied in the list. I'm not gonna lie - it got my attention due to its gory content.

I would have to say, it didn't live up to my expectations at all.

Well, here is my SPOILER review.

The Characters

The first thing I have to say is the characters are freaking flat. None of them is likable. None of them makes me feel emotionally attached to. None of them is really fully developed. 

We have Kouta, who had a dark childhood from watching his little sister and father being killed by Lucy / Nyu whom he considered as a friend. We have Lucy / Nyu, who as a child was bullied and betrayed by normal humans. We have Mayu, who was sexually abused by her stepfather. We have Kurama, who lost his newborn and wife, because his newborn was a Diclonius. I'm supposed to sympathize with these characters I guess. But they are so poorly-developed and so lacked of vibe. And the flashbacks didn't help either. At times I felt myself waiting for the emotional touch and it felt like it almost reach me, but then disappeared quickly.

What disturbs me most is, they didn't even try to explain why Lucy / Nyu was having split personality. I mean, she had been living her past few years in a lab facility and then suddenly when she escaped, she had split personality??? That's just too convenient for the plot, which brings me to the next point.

The Plot

The anime opened with intriguing gory scenes of a Diclonius escaping from a experimental lab facility. Then it built up to pre-climax with explanations on events in the past, including the childhood of Lucy / Nyu and how she befriended Kouta. There were little hints at the first few episodes signalling something happened in the past, and then flashbacks towards the ending which supposed to disclose the "twist". Well in short, the big twist was - *drumroll* - that Lucy / Nyu as a child was the killer of Kouta's family. I think this is the most interesting part in the whole of the series.

The gory scenes were, well gory, and that's it. They didn't leave a strong impression on me and neither were they disturbing, particularly #35 (Mariko) who was Kurama's daughter. I felt that more could be done to this character. She was supposedly raised in a lab since she was born and isolated from all other human beings. Her becoming of a blood thirsty killer and her attachment to the idea of Kurama being a father were not well-explained and simply unconvincing.

And what was the experiments conducted in the lab facility anyway? What exactly were they trying to achieve? It didn't seem to be solely for academical purposes. Towards the ending it was shown the director of the lab, Kakuzawa took off his wig and revealed that he, too was a Diclonius. Quite a reveal but I needed to ask - and then what? And in the same scene we saw that Arakawa decided to hide the identity of Kouta, being related to Lucy / Nyu - again, for convenience of the plot.

The character of Bando seemed very redundant as well. He didn't make any significant contributions or advancements to the plot. And the part where Kurama fixed his artificial hand in exchange for him to kill Mariko - first of all, why did he think Bando can kill her when she is so-all-powerful? Second of all, how did he even know Bando would be at the beach? 

The Ending

I found myself asking "that's it?" towards the last scene - surprised to find that it concluded with a mere 13 episodes. I've always liked short anime but, this one just left you hanging. Its open ending is the worst in the history of open endings.

The last scene led us to believe that Lucy / Nyu survived and came back to Kouta. If so, how? The organization behind the experimental lab facility appeared to be having quite the influence with the government, the police and the special forces. It couldn't be this simple that they left her alone after all these hard work of capturing her alive. 

All in all, Elfen Lied was a total disappointment and certainly overrated in my opinion.

Me Before You - A Book Review

I had just finished The Witcher 3 (minus the expansions) on PS4 and there was no good free games available for a few months now - damn you Sony. Hence recently I've gone back to reading. It felt like high school again. I used to drive to my friend ST's house to borrow some books during the school holidays. Normally I came back with 5 or 6 and I would stack them neatly on my study table and evaluate which one to start.

I have no idea why this book in particular could squeeze a review out of me. But here I am, back with a new post on my blog that I have abandoned since... let me check... January 2015! That was more than a year ago! And I should be ashamed that I didn't get to finish what I started. Well, in my own defense I would like to clarify that my blog is not exactly intended for popularity purposes. It's actually like a personal journal which I don't mind letting anyone read. So that means I could just come back and write something whenever I feel like it, and not write anything whenever I don't feel like it, right? Right?

Okay, back to the review. Before you proceed, I should just warn you (if anyone is reading at all), that this is a SPOILER review of Jojo Moyes' Me Before You. Proceed at your own risk!

First of all, I think it is quite well-written for a romantic novel and it's so refreshing to the eye. Well maybe it's because I have never been exposed to too many novels of this genre. I distinctly remember reading some during my teens. I remember A Greek God At The Ladies' Club by Jenna McKnight, Message In A Bottle by Nicholas Sparks, and some book which I can't remember by Nora Roberts. That was pretty much it, and they were so bad I needed to drag myself forcefully towards the last page, in between countless eye-rollings and frustrated outbursts. Oh, not forgetting to mention the ever so popular Fifty Shades Of Grey that everyone made a big fuss about. E.L.James had so limited vocabulary that the whole book had repetitive sentence structures and repetitive words. What I'm saying is, I'm pretty happy with Me Before You, given my experience with books of this genre.

The story was told with Louisa Clark's narration, with a few chapters from different characters point of view. There was one from Camilla Traynor, one from Steven Traynor, then Nathan, and one from Katrina Clark. These chapters, I felt, were entirely unnecessary and pointless. They didn't contribute anything to the whole story. It was as if the author worried that it would be too bland and so she tried adding some salt and pepper. But totally unnecessary.

I felt a little depressed upon finishing the book. I guess it's because prior to reading Me Before You, I was on Khaled Hosseini's A Thousand Splendid Suns, which is super depressing! That might have affect my mood a little. Well you could probably guess that Me Before You is a sad ending. But as much as I hate it, it actually makes perfect sense to me. I can totally understand why Will Traynor had to do what he did. It's a little selfish, yes. But let's face it, you gotta live (or not live) for yourself. It is an interesting issue to explore - whether it is right to take your own life.

Finally, here's a trailer to the movie that's coming out in June this year. I don't think I would be able to watch it alone so I guess I would have to drag Feeder into this. Sorry!

P.S. This is the first time I'm blogging since I bought my Surface Pro 3. And I just gotta say, the keyboard is amazing!

DO NOT HIRE DANIELLE CARSON THE HAIR STYLIST IN PARIS

Last August, I was sent to Paris for a 3 months short-term assignment, together with a few of my colleagues. Seizing this opportunity, I asked my colleague, a semi-pro photographer, to help with my pre-wedding photo shoots.

Feeder was going to travel to Paris, bringing the wedding gown which I have booked from Malaysia. I would need to hire a make-up artist and a hair stylist in Paris. With the help of Google I settled with Charles Gillman. He had good testimonials, experienced with Asian facial features, responsive in emails, reasonably priced (85 euro for photoshoot), and most importantly, he could speak English.

In our email correspondence I asked for reference of a hair stylist and he introduced me to one whom he always worked with. Her name was Danielle Carson, charging at 80 euro. I paid Charles the deposit, confirmed the appointment, and scheduled for them to arrive at my hotel at 6:30 am.

Therefore I had all the items on my list checked, or so I thought.

On the day of the photoshoot, at 6:30 am I checked my email, and saw this:

From: Danielle Carson <danfrancar@gmail.com>
To: shinloo <shinloo@yahoo.com>
Cc: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com
Sent: Sep 28, 2013 1:08:21 AM

Dear Shinloo,

How are you? I hope you read this e mail in time, I am right in the middle of fashion week and I had a show booked on the day of your shoot at 10 am. Unfortunately they changed the call time to 6 am just today. I am just e mailing you now because I just got in from doing three shows and haven't had a second to stop all day and they just informed us a couple hours ago.

What I can propose is I can do your hair for you at 5 am today, if you read this in time, but unfortunately it's impossible to cancel the show.

I'm really really sorry this has never happened before I will happily try and accommodate you at 5AM and I tried calling other hairdressers I know but unfortunately it's too last minute.

I hope we can figure something out in time,

Again I am so sorry,

Danielle Carson

I stared at it for 2 minutes. Re-read and re-read. The email was sent 5 hours before our appointment. I almost cried. What could I do without a hair stylist?

Then I started calling Charles, who told me he went to the wrong hotel branch. He was supposed to come to Residhome Hotel in La Defense, but instead he went to another branch in God-knows-where. But fear not, as he was on his way. He said he couldn't get in touch with Danielle and then I told him about Danielle's email.

At about 7:30 am he arrived. We wasted some time to discuss whether or not to go on with the photoshoot. And then we decided to get the make-up done first and think of the hair later. Charles was nice and helpful. He tried to search for a salon nearby that I could go to. And he kept apologizing on Danielle's behalf.

Charles working his magic hands on me.

After Charles left, my colleagues and I spent some time having brain storming session on what to do with my hair. Couldn't have done it without them. =)

From left - Nicole, Chloe and SeeYee. Me sitting in the middle.

In the end I still decided to leave it to the professional since the salon nearby was already open for business, which, as far as I know, was very unusual in France. After some hand-waving and picture-showing we finally got the salon to understand what we wanted.

Me and Feeder, in front of my office building in La Defense.

This was how I began a long day of pre-wedding photoshoot in Paris. 

Hence fellow brides out there, heed my warning! DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT hire Danielle Carson the hair stylist in Paris. I pray that the same fate will fall upon her on her wedding, and her birthday, and her prom night (I guess she's too old for that), and any important event in her life!

Don't get me wrong - Charles Gillman did a fabulous job! But this Danielle, she's irresponsible, unprofessional and useless! Below was an email I sent after the photoshoot:

From: shinloo

To: Danielle Carson <danfrancar@gmail.com>

Cc: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com

Sent: Oct 4, 2013 6:18:34 PM

Danielle,

Sending your email 5 hours before our appointment, I am sure you already knew I will not be able to read your email in time. This is equivalent to not showing up at the last minute and totally unprofessional. 

Charles, 

I am grateful for your effort to try to help. I believe it was a bad day for both of us. I hope you will be wise in selecting your partners in the future. 

Shinloo

Below was Charles' reply:

From: charlesgillman@charlesgillman.com

To: shinloo

Sent: Oct 7, 2013 1:44:50 PM

Hello Shinloo,

Sorry for the delayed reply, this weekend’s been rather busy. I just wanted to thank you for your email and I really hope that your shoot was enjoyable despite the actions of Danielle that morning. I wanted to let you know that we had a firm two hour discussion on Tuesday morning to follow up on her bad client service with yourself. Following on from this, we’ve made a decision that she will no longer be working with Charles Gillman Cosmetics – Paris, as she doesn’t fit our philosophy of superior customer service. 

Once again I apologise profusely, it was lovely to meet you and I hope that you enjoy the rest of your stay in Paris.

Kindest regards.

Charles

Great! Serves her right! I hope this ruins her career!

The Wind Rises - The Review

Le vent se lève! ... il faut tenter de vivre!
~ Paul Valéry ~

*SPOILERS ALERT*

It's a story of a man who put his aviation dream in the first place, and the love of his life the second. At least, that's how I interpret it.

Jiro Horikoshi was a aircraft designer who created the Mitsubishi A5M, to be used in the war - a war which he strongly opposed to. None of the aircraft survived. 

Knowing that his dream and career were always more important, his wife still support him nonetheless. She chose to leave him so she could die alone from tuberculosis, which was incurable.

I guess it's supposed to be inspiring. But to me, it is just damn sad. It may looks like he had accomplished a lot, and that he succeed in his dream. But I feel otherwise.

Below is a trailer of the movie, with the soundtrack that I really like.

Her Fearful Symmetry - A Book Review

*SPOILERS ALERT. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.*

You have a demanding, controlling twin sister and you are sick and tired of her bossing you around. Would you kill yourself, and entrust upon your dead aunt (who is now a ghost haunting you) to resurrect you? Bear in mind that the resurrection is no guarantee to be successful. Worst case scenario, you'll be dead and trapped haunting an apartment for eternity. I don't know about you guys but for me, that is like the last thing I want. Unless Niffenegger is trying to portray her character Valentina as an idiot beyond hope.  I mean, come on, has the option of leaving your twin sister ever occur to you? This itself made the final 100-or-so pages of the book painful to get through.

Next, meet Martin - a poor soul suffering OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). His wife Marijke left him, tired of his symptoms (which includes excessive cleaning and bleaching, insisting that she enters the bedroom with left foot first, refusing to leave the house etc.) and his refusing to obtain treatment, which is also one of the symptoms. This is all very interesting but WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH THE MAIN STORY? Sure, occasionally Martin crosses path with Julia and Robert but I can't help feeling the events seem forceful and pointless. To me, these two characters are just redundant. In the end Niffenegger had to cure Martin and send him to live happily ever after with Marijke just to get rid of them.

I had to question Niffenegger's creativity and imagination when she described the haunting. Invisible hand? Writings on the dust? Ouija board? How cliche is that. *yawn* Stealing another's body? Ghost kitten? And best of all - the ghost has to leave the apartment only via a person's mouth? Give me a break!

I've heard great reviews on The Time Traveler's Wife also by Niffenegger. I simply couldn't bring myself to read it because the movie was so tragic. But Her Fearful Symmetry was undoubtedly a failure and disappointment.

Kyoto - Tofukuji Temple 東福寺

The whole place looked like it was on fire. That was the expression my friend told me, and she was not exaggerating.

This was taken in Kyoto 東福寺.

And this was the price we paid to get a good shot.

It was really crowded in the temple - with the locals as well as the foreigners - despite that we came before its opening time and waited in queue to purchase the tickets. As soon as the gate opened, people rushed into this bridge to the most strategic spot for a picture. But the Japanese are really civilized people. There were limited pushing and shoving despite the crowd. Things will only get ugly when the Chinese (read: from Mainland China) comes in, no offense. :P

Can you believe this? It's blood-red!

Well not everything was red. See! Greenery!

This is called a 枯山水 karesansui. It's supposed to have some religious symbolism to it. Most of the temples in Japan have it. Don't ask me what happens when it rains.

枯山水

Kyoto - 银杏

During fall in Japan, one of the things you simply cannot miss, is this.

 银杏

Google told me it is called ginkgo biloba. It was close to sunset and the light made the leaves looked shiny gold.

 This was how the leaves looked like up close and without sunlight.

 Took us more than 10 times of trial-and-error to get this picture.

This was within walking distance from the Kyoto station, right next to 东本愿寺.

The Big Thing - Proposal

Who - Mr. Chin

What - the proposal

Where - 若草山 奈良 京都 (Nara, Kyoto Prefecture)

When - *checking calender* 20th Nov 2012

Basically the above explains everything. *wink*

 Hiking up.

 Scenery along the way.

 Reached the first level 若草山一重目.

 Finally reached the top.

 若草山三重目 - a mere 342 metre above sea level. It was a pretty easy hike.

 In Nara, deers are like dogs - they're everywhere!

The ring.

Kyoto - 中村藤吉 Green Tea Ice-Cream

Note: After procrastinating for more than 4 months, I finally have enough motivation to start to blog again (hopefully). The motivation came from my colleague, who asked me for help to plan his trip to Kyoto. As I struggle to recall the name of the train I took from Kyoto to Osaka, I told him it has been a year and I've forgotten the details, only to realize immediately that only 4 months had passed. If I don't write now, I'm going to forget everything! I couldn't take the pressure and panicked. But you don't have to write everything, Mr. Chin said, just write whatever you like. So I took his advice, and here goes.

This is something one must eat in Kyoto station - Nakamura Tokichi Honten 中村藤吉 is the name of the shop.

Located on the 2nd floor in Kyoto station.

 This is a must-eat - green tea ice cream topped with fresh red bean and some unknown flour-like balls.

 

Satisfaction.

This was 350 yen (approx. RM11) which was almost the price of a Haagen Dazs. I had Haagen Dazs green tea ice cream once but I thought it was no match for this. This was the soft and creamy type and Haagen Dazs was the hard frozen type. And besides, red bean is the soul mate of green tea flavour. It brings out the taste of green tea yet suppresses its bitterness - perfect! It still makes me drool merely by looking at the pictures!

那些年，我们一起追的女孩。You Are The Apple of My Eye

“成長，最残酷的部分就是，女孩子永遠比同年齡的男孩子成熟。“
(The most cruel thing about growing up, is that the girls usually mature earlier than the boys.)

It was not the type of movie that melt your heart, nor the type that feed on your tears. But it somehow managed to leave a profound impression to the audience. After the movie ended and the credits rolled, you remained at your seat, reminiscing about your first love, your young stupidity, your cowardice, things you should've done that just might change something.

My male friends told me they can very much relate themselves to the movie - the love that slipped (那些年错过的爱情).




Ke Jing-Teng (柯景騰) was a prankster and a mischievous student. He was caught masturbating during class and therefore was punished to be seated in front of Shen Jia-Yi (沈佳宜), a pretty girl famous of her outstanding academic achievement. They despise each other at the beginning but eventually developed mutual feelings for each other.

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga

"The dreams of the rich, and the dreams of the poor- they never overlap, do they? See, the poor dream all their lives of getting enough to eat and looking like the rich. And what do the rich dream of? Losing weight and looking like the poor." ~From Aravind Adiga's The White Tiger~

I had been procrastinating about reading this book for a very long time. It was actually an easy book to finish, considering the time I took while having a nine-to-five-job.

The story revealed the "darkness" of India, told from a first person's point of view. Balram Halwai, who was born in the "darkness", told his success story as an entrepreneur in the form of letters to Wen Jiabao, the Premier of China. Adiga was sarcastic, funny and dark at the same time. He addressed some issues (political, corruption, caste system etc) in an exaggerated (or maybe not) manner, which made me wonder if these are still happening at this moment (at some part I simply gasped in disbelief).

I've always enjoyed books about other nation's culture like Amy Tan's where she tells stories of American born Chinese, Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha, Adeline Yen Mah's Falling Leaves: Return to their Roots. The White Tiger was not an exception - it was definitely an enjoyable read.

Krabi Trip Part III - Accommodation

We stayed in J Hotel in Ao Nang beach for a good deal - 900 baht per night. We booked online via Booking.com. Due to our budget, it was the cheapest decent accommodation that we could find. It had both good and bad reviews but I decided to give it a try.

My first impression was that the actual room conditions show exactly as its website promised - clean, neat and the furniture looked new too.

   Spacious.

 Lying on the bed.

 We discovered a LOT of mosquitoes hiding in the closet on the day before we leave. It was lucky they didn't come out to hunt.

 I was extremely satisfied with the bathroom - really clean and well-maintained.

 Not much of a view from the balcony but it was okay.

After settling down, time to plan for the activities. :D

Krabi Trip Part II - The Food

Pancake

Yes this is the infamous pancake in Krabi town. It tasted somewhat like Malaysia's roti canai, only sweeter (with the condensed milk) and more crispy.

 Yummy! Wished I had more.

 We only ordered one pancake, but they provided us free tea some more. :)

 The shop was located near the caveman traffic light.

It was a regret that we ordered only one piece. So we had another one the next morning near the place we stayed in Ao Nang Beach. But it wasn't the same.

It looked less mouth-watering than the one in Krabi town - it tasted exactly as it looked.


This one was with sardine.

Krabi Town Night Market

The night market that we went to was a smaller one. Seemed that there was a bigger one during weekends. But this one, was sufficient for our hunt for food.

The night market, very much similar to the pasar malam in Malaysia.

Corn - Mr. Chin's favourite.

Mango with glutinous rice - the infamous Thai food.

Our dinner from the night market - pork knuckle, curry chicken with rice.

Aree Ba Ba Thai Restaurant

I read a review on this restaurant from a blog so we decided to try it out. Nothing to shout about really - just a place to eat when you have no better choices.

The menu.

A bamboo environment - very tourist.

How is a Thai meal complete without the coconut? Not my favourite though.

How is a Thai meal complete without the tomyam? Beef tomyam, in this case.

My favourite egg, with chicken - my choice of course. Weird combination I know, and this was not related to Thai food in any way.

All kinds of mushrooms.

Our dinner.

McDonald's in Ao Nang 

A meal in McD was necessary, to fulfill my ambition of trying out all McDs all over the world. The McD in Ao Nang was like a landmark for the tourists because it was easily-spotted and well-known.

 

Fries with cheese - something we don't have here. Reminded me of fries with chili flakes we once had, and which I prefer.

The Samurai Pork burger - how rare for us Malaysians.

Fish fillet burger - it was our intention to order those that we couldn't find in Malaysia McD. And that was all.

The breakfast sets were exactly the same.

A picture with Ronald in "sawatika" was definitely a must.

The Last Breakfast

We stayed in J Hotel in Ao Nang which was more like a guest house actually. We had our breakfast in the hotel on our last day as it was raining and we couldn't really get out.

Breakfasts came with fruits.

Mr. Chin's croissant was hot and yummy.

This was mine. My first bacon in my life, believe it or not.

Drinks

I didn't know what was the normal price for Heineken in Malaysia but I supposed in Thailand it should be cheaper. Thus Mr. Chin bought this.

The mineral water bottle that my hotel provided looked like those of car battery water. Really, at first we didn't dare drink it, but we didn't want to buy new ones either, so in the end we did. Well, we survived.