Last Day In Paradise~ April 16, 2012

Well, nothing much to post about my last day in Tanjung Rhu. Everything was awesome of course, but nothing new that we did on the last day that I didn’t show you all earlier. The only awesome part that I want to show you is that we went to the Premier Lounge in the Langkawi airport! It felt really good, hahaha. With no further ado.. pics!

After being able to walk on the sandbar the day before, I really wondered if I could walk on it again the next morning… only bits and pieces of the sandbar can be seen….

More lush greenery around the resort.

Awesome buffet breakfast at Sands Restaurant again…. I am still missing the cinnamon peaches til today!

And this is Tron’s VERY unappetizing looking muesli! He insisted that I eat something similar so that I can have good bowel movement wtf.

Went to the Rhu library again to surf the Net… I know, such beauty abounds and we lock ourselves up inside. Well, it was too hot to swim! Unlike the foreigners, my skin doesn’t just turn red and peel off… I will be burnt black and remain so for YEARS.

This is in Starbucks at the airport already…

Love the pinhole filter!

Checked in to the premier lounge. You can only go in if you have certain credit card from certain banks. After this trip, I went and applied for one myself. Actually, only Tron had the card, and he told them that he would pay for me to go in. But I think they had so few people in the lounge (in fact – all staff) that they said I could go in for free! What a nice experience! They have a lot of business magazines, free flow of juices and food. I ate two plates of some spicy macaroni, and Tron scolded me. He said people so nice to let me in for free and I try to eat them out of house and home. Hahaha! But to be fair to me… there’s no one else around! If I don’t eat it, the food will go to waste.

Random photo of my shoes because Tron now calls them my “Perseus Shoes” cos it is so worn out that it looks like I have been fighting titans in them.

This is the bruise I got from playing archery.

Coupley shot.

Gloomy all the way home…

Adding more stuff to my alcohol stash. Calling my galpals….~~

Last Night In Paradise (Part 2 of Day 2 In Tanjung Rhu) April 11, 2012

Heh, sorry, I know it’s just one day in Langkawi, but I took so many photos that I had to split into two different entries! It’s mostly food pics and scenery pics because we didn’t go out that much. I mean, when you’re in Tanjung Rhu Resorts, you want to enjoy all the Tanjung Rhu facilities! Am I name-dropping a lot? Yes I am! And yes, I am heck busy at the moment, but learning damn a lot at work. Some of the things I learn makes me want to hurl my head against the wall, but most of the time, am really enjoying the learning process. When I first started work here, I felt so lonely. In retrospect, that is sooooo expected, cos I spent my whole working life in one place. But now when I try to “reminisce” about life before UVW Bank, I feel like I can’t remember anything! Anyway, I will write a more detailed post in another entry! Now I wanna talk about my ooh~la~la holiday just last month. :p

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After coming back from Kuah town and unloading all our stuff in the room, we decided to go to Sands Restaurant for lunch. Tron wanted to eat at Saffron again, but since we just had it the night before, decided to try something different. Sands Restaurant is the same restaurant that serves our buffet breakfast. It looks less impressive compared to The Rhu and Saffron, but still very nice. In fact, because it is so large and spacious, you really feel the cooling & relaxed atmosphere eating there. Oh, another titbit : all your in-room dining comes from Sands Restaurant as well. When we ate there, there was no one around, but we could keep on hearing the phone calls coming in to the restaurant! Everyone seems to prefer dining in their own room!

This is the games center, where you can play volleyball, rent a kayak, play some archery, etc.

My sister asked me where are the “beachwear” photos, er… this is a dress I wore, which Tron said too low cut. You will soon see what he gave me to wear instead. -_-”

Free bread basket. But oh wait, my whole meal *IS* free in the first place! LOLLERSKATES! The bread dip is sooo yummy that I ate a bit too much of this though I try to eat less carby stuff

Tron’s appetizer : mushroom soup.

MY appetizer : sashimi of local fish!

Tron’s green curry beef set. OMG, so spicy!!

My chicken cutlet in buttery sauce. Very good and super filling. However, it pales in comparison to the awesome baked grouper I had the night before.

Tron with “dramatic” art filter. As the “dramatic” filter seems to increase / enhance darkness in photos, it makes his eyebrows look massive! Hahahahhaha!

The awesome Sands pool!!! It was greatttt swimming here. Water is the perfect temperature too.

Another view… *sigh* Hope I can swim in it again in the future.

Cheesy tourist pic!

Lol, saw this iguana while walking back and Tron actually pushed me away in order to run away because the thing hissed at him! He says that the fact that I didn’t notice the iguana until he pointed it out to me shows how unobservant I am. (True to certain extent)

This is my most beachy beachwear I suppose.

Checked out the library / lounge area of Tanjung Rhu. They have lots of books & DVDs for rent andddddd two computer terminals with wifi! Awesome!

All the decor around the library / lounge. At night, the string quartet will play here, and the music floats through the entire resort. So classy.

Views from upstairs… can surf web while enjoying these kinda scenery. *~bliss~*

Went back to the hotel to camwhore a bit .. hahaha. And Tron gave me his brand-new Uniqlo t-shirt to wear instead. -_- Goodbye sexy beachwear. And I had to think up of all kinds of way to make myself look more feminine when wearing the shirt. As Tron says, I could look like a penguin sometimes what the heck. -_-”

While walking over to Saffron for dinner, we saw a lot of the hotel guests milling around this part of the beach. When the tide goes out, this stretch of land appears and you can walk to the neighbouring islands! Of course we had to go and play as well, even though we were wearing jeans and shoes! (Cos cannot wear slippers to dine in Saffron — or so they say. I don’t think they’ll actually chase you out!). It was sooooo gorgeous, especially with the sun setting. I felt like it was something really magical! I know tide going in and out is like a regular way of life, but I never actually walked on a sand bar before, what more one located on a private beach. :`)

This is probably the one and only time I touched the sea when I was in Langkawi, hahaha.

Hipster Leech, only missing my hipster glasses. As I wrote on Twitter – when I actually do wear my glasses, it’s because my contact lens are freaking itchy and dry, and without them I’m freaking blind. People who wear glasses WITHOUT lenses for a fashion statement to be all hipster and shit are mocking me.

Awesome panoramic view… Tron actually switched to Facebook Timeline just to use this as his header picture, haha.

Hmm.. another poyo picture of myself. Cue Dave Matthews Band playing in the background~~

See, I told you my camera makes Tron a better photographer. He can take all these hugeass close-ups of me and not wind up making me look like a monster! Yay!

You can never take the Star Wars outta the Skywalker.

Tired out when we finally arrived at the restaurant…

=D Excited for food though!

Orange juice and apricot smoothie.

I just adore how the sky looks like here!

Crabcakes for appetizers. Very yummy, but portions are too small.

Poyo pic #2!

Luke’s seafood risotto… doesn’t it look awesome? And that is some olives on the baguette!

Spicy prawn capellini… it’s just like aglio olio actually. But really, really good aglio olio.

Saffron at night… once again, we were too full to have dessert. :X

Went back to our room and decided to have some drinks. Started with Gaymers, and then went on to Canadian Ice Wine, which was what I had with my gal pals in our last Langkawi trip. The Gaymers doesn’t taste good! Never again! I will stick to my Hooch in the future. As for the Ice Wine, you won’t believe it, but I drank the entire bottle because my boyfriend has a little bit of an alcohol allergy. :X

It felt really good to sit at the balcony, enjoying the live string quartet and drinking. With the sea breeze blowing, I think it’s harder to get drunk? It was very cooling, I didn’t get all flushed and heated up, haha.

Tron ordered room service since he wasn’t drinking, hahaha. Him and his spagghetti bolognaise

… so I asked him to get me a club sandwich as well!

Wah, really ate a lot during this trip… hahahha.

Second Day In Paradise April 1, 2012

Whoops, got caught up with work, so had a little bit of gap before posting about the 2nd day in Tanjung Rhu Resorts! In fact, there is wayyyy too many photos to post in one entry, so I have to split the 2nd day into two parts, otherwise it would be a deluge of photos! Many of them are just landscape photos… but really, even though I love my camera to bits, it simply doesn’t do the place justice. If you’re in Tanjung Rhu, it’s like everything will catch your eye, everything is just so breathtaking-ly beautiful… you would be as trigger happy as I am!

Surprised that the hotel also provides umbrellas for us in case of rainy days! So thoughtful!

Fishes in the pond! We are walking to the Sands Restaurant for breakfast (our first time there).

Morning beach view.

I kept telling Tron to walk along the beach, cos all the restaurants / resort rooms are facing the beach. But he insisted to walk along the road side. It is a more “jungley” view this way, but we would have to enter buidlings from the back! Like entering a restaurant from the kitchen — you know the view is not gonna be good. :#

Jungle walk view, haha. Oh yea, they have a souvenir shop here too, called Seashell Shop or something like that. But everything inside is quite price-y.

Tron insisted that I take a macro shot of this spider web…

Interesting plants.

Tanjung Rhu lobby… it’s so calming and soothing to step into the foyer!.

Nah, where I stayed at lol.

The gorgeous Sands Restaurant. Of course, Saffron looks nicer (at night – and the open air area), but this is a lovely place. So “open”, lots of natural sunlight and breezes!

Tron stamping all over the fragile wooden bridge.

This is the gorgeous Sands pool. Swimming in it is AWESOME. The water is not super cholorinated, and Tron suspects that it is actually filtered sea water! But cannot be, it’s not salty! None of the guests frolic in the sea. Why would they, this pool is like a thousand times better! Plus no kids allowed, so you get total peace and quiet. We also drank juices on the lounge chair. All the tourists enjoy themselves so much that they suntan until they are lobster red!

Back to Sands Restaurant — this is the breakfast buffet.

More breakfast buffet… quite standard stuff, but they try to cater to all races. You can get Japanese food, Malaysian favorites, typical American big breakfasts, and all kinds of juices. <3

Started with beef murtabak and chicken curry.

Followed with my favorite fry-ups. And cold-cuts!

Honey stars with milk and fruit compote. Omg, they make this amazing cinnamon peach slices thingy. They soak peaches in their own juices and cinnamon sticks. It has a very exotic flavor. I ensured I had that everyday when I was there!

Die-die also tried to stuff in more fruits at the end of the meal.

Restaurant View #1

Restaurant View #2

Satisfiedddddd

Haha, I told Tron he looks like he has horns in this photo!

All views of the resort while walking back to the lobby, as we wanted to go to Kuah town! Need our fix of usual cheap chocs + cheap alcohol.

Weird plant we saw on our way.

View of Saffron restaurant (the one we ate in the night before) in the morning!

See I told you Tron likes to abuse the panaromic feature….

Taxi driver took us to Kuah town, but not quite happy cos he didn’t bring us to the cheap area, but to Billion shopping center. Which is linked to Langkawi Fair shopping center. Yeah, I guess it’s still cheaper than back in KL, but I think there’s more choices in other area. Not sure where the “other area” is, so didn’t really ask him to drive us around.

Camwhored in the taxi on the way back and was surprised it turned out to be such a “cute” picture thanks to the strawberry plushies behind! Hahaha, the taxi driver pan cute.

Rubber trees

Random couple on scooter….

View of Tanjung Rhu from the taxi

This is Tron saying, “Faster la, your stuff is heavy ok!”

Pop art filter!

The poolside towel hut for the lagoon pool.. it’s near our room!

Came back and saw that room service had cleaned our room and refreshed the fruit platter! The bad part was that they did not re-stock the mini bar. And since we get to eat everything in the mini-bar for free, we had to call them back to restock, but they seemed like not to believe us? Or maybe guests usually do not clear out the mini bar, so they forgot to check if it needed restocking?

Camwhore a bit

Spied on people in the lagoon pool from the comforts of my room

All the chocs that I bought! Completely distributed already by now.

Okie, continue more tomorrow, gotta sleep now! Taaaaaa~

First Day In Paradise (Tanjung Rhu Resort Pt 1) March 26, 2012

Yep, I really do believe that every day in Tanjung Rhu was like being in paradise! This is going to be a longggg entry, but I’m in a rambling mood, and there’s a lot to talk about! Firstly, my holiday in Tanjung Rhu was won from the Sustainability ESG facebook page. I wrote about it previously – but most of my friends didn’t quite trust me when I said that this Facebook page was giving away great prizes! In fact, until AFTER this trip, Tron still keeps asking me what did I do to win the prize. -_-” To be honest, I don’t quite know what I did to deserve such a great prize either, but I’m not going to reject it.

I booked tickets to Langkawi with MAS… can’t believe the flights are SUPER FULL and got a lot of weird people. The walk from the tarmac to the baggage collection area is also madly long… but on a good note — lots of good shopping in KLIA.

Tron was intrigued by the “dramatic tone” setting on the camera, so he had to take this photo of himself, hahaha.

I think Tron was nagging at me to stop camwhoring, haha. They have an e-portrait feature that apparently clears up all facial flaws so that you look good in videos. Lol!

Tron so happy with the airport transfer from the airport to Tanjung Rhu. It takes about 30 minutes, but you pass through a lot of amazing greenery, so it was a very calming ride to the resort.

Views along the way to Tanjung Rhu… the second picture is apparently a private beach for another resort around here. Not so nice because got a cement factory nearby also… I agree. Looks so desolate right. 

And voila.. this is my room, the Damai. This is the dressing area, closet, etc. Super spacious!

Super spacious bath area as well! ^_^

Bath tub… I don’t really like bath tubs, spells lack of hygiene to me. -__- And yes, if you are an exhibitionist, you can open up the wooden windows and let your friend see you frolicking about in the tub.

Love hotel bath stuff, and it comes in really durable aluminium bottles.

Living room area… oh, and they have a “in-room check-in”. They do the check-in at your room, so there’s totally NO waiting time to get to your room at all!

Welcome drinks in the form of Spritzer Pop, haha.

Mini bar — where you can eat or drink ANYTHING (non-alcoholic) FOR FREE.

Giant telly, where Tron kept on watching cowboys & indians related shows. -_-”

Just took this photo because the soap is really nice! Smells like lemongrass and all of those calming essential oils…!

View from balcony #1 – The Rhu restaurant which is a fine dining restaurant. You can only eat there if you wear formal clothes. Regret not bringing formal clothes, but would you bring pumps & a nice dress / skirt + top combo if you were going to the beach?

View #2 from the balcony… in dramatic tone! Actually, don’t have such a great view because of the giant coconut tree right in the middle…

View #3

View #4 without the fancy schmancy filters.

MeEeeee!

Ordered room service! This was our lunch and we were lazy, and over-ordered. Personally, I think that I exercised moderation as I didn’t order drinks and dessert! Just two appetizers and two mains. Tron kept saying, “Just because people give us free doesn’t mean we must be so over ok!”

My fish and chips..

Tron’s spagghetti bolognaise which he is quite addicted to

Vegetarian springrolls with 3 different types of dipping sauces.

Salmon and scallop salad. By the way, needless to say that the food was all freaking delicious. The fish & chips and the spagghetti may look plain, but it is all so so so so damn nice. We were so full after eating this, but was so conflicted because couldn’t take another bite but so greedy and wanted to eat MORE!

Testing out my new tripod! Hahah, this photo so happy and cheery, love it!

After napping, continued with MORE room service. Half a dozen sticks of satay.

Had a “strawberry spider” and Tron had a “guava blast”. Hehehe.

At this point, we then headed out to try the FREE non-motorised sports that they have around the resort, checking out the resort in totality and for SWIMMING. I didn’t bring out my camera because Tron told me that we were going kayaking. In the end, the sea was too rough for kayaking, so I totally missed so many awesome photo ops! We wound up playing archery, where I ended up bruising my elbow. Show you the horrible bruise in another entry!

There are also THREE awesome huge pools in Tanjung Rhu Resort. One of them is the sandy “Lagoon Pool” which I have shown in the views from my balcony. The other one is the Sands Pool which I will show in another entry and is an “adult pool”. Kids not allowed. How awesome is that!? They actually have another pool called the “Sunset Pool”, but it is currently under maintenance. Pity!

Tron took this photo for me We were preparing to go for dinner at the Saffron Restaurant. Aside from the fine-dining restaurant, the resort has the meditteranean-themed Saffron Restaurant and the Asian-themed Sands restaurant.

This is the “Lagoon Pool”. They have real beach sand and sea water here. Crazy huh? This is the “kids pool”.

See? Real sand!

Lagoon pool for the win!

Awesome sunset pic!! “Sunset Setting” on my camera. I told you they have all kinds of settings for dummies like me.

Awww, with this camera, I no longer have the problem with Tron not knowing how to take proper pics.

Beach view #1

Beach View #2

Continuing our walk to Saffron..

Random photo of me looking pissed off, heh.

Tron found the panaroma setting and proceeded to abuse it over the next few days.

This pool is not a pool to swim in, but a huge water feature in the hotel…. with fish inside that the kids can feed at certain hours of the day.

This building is where they have books and CDs for rent, free Internet access and a live string quartet every night!

And here we are at Saffron!

Real life ciku tree!

Romantic table setting in front of the beach

Tron pretending not to be impressed by all this.

Me pretending to be oblivious to the photographer. :p

Waiter so helpful to take this photo of Tron and I.

All our drinks! So over, right? Hahaha. I had the chilled longan, Tron had orange juice, lots of Perrier, and we indulged in Sauvignon Blanc and red wine.

Tron’s starter – rosemary lamb cutlets

My starter – seafood minestrone soup. It was sooooooooooo good. Like really big chunks of scallop, fish, prawn. Oh my God… best soup ever!

Happy diners!

Oh, and this is Tron’s grilled tenderloin. I had the oven baked grouper which I posted in the previous post, lazy to post again. All I can say is that it is mouth-watering, and reminded me of the awesome food I had in FRANCE. Yes, all my gastronomic delights that I partook of in France can be found in Langkawi!!

Final picture before going back home. I’m so happy that I could cry!

Outside our room. By the way, yes, there no lifts in this place.. so I pity the people who have to deliver room service to the room above mine. =p