Bird park album

A mini album showing the photos from the trip that Alex, Caitie and I took to the Bird Park in KL a few weeks ago.  Lesson learnt here - don't choose something really complicated or time-consuming for a mini album, you may well regret it!  All the stamping, together with cutting and inking every single leaf, took somewhat longer than anticipated!  Thanks for looking :-)

 

Pangkor Laut - a taste of paradise

Last week was spent on Pangkor Laut, a gorgeous, private island just off the western coast of Malaysia.  The tag line is "one island, one resort", which sums it up very well.  There are villas dotted around the island, some over the sea on stilts, a few by the beach, and some up the hillside.  There are also a few private "estates", ie extra-posh, extra-large villas with their own staff, grounds, pool, etc, where the rich and famous stay.  Pavarotti apparently liked it there, as did Joan Collins and Nick Faldo.

We were in a beach villa, with a beautiful view over towards the main island of Pangkor.  We spent our time just chilling out - swimming, lazing around, reading, eating - you get the idea.  Alex and Will also exercised in the resort's gym and squash and tennis courts.

There was only one beach suitable for swimming at (the others had nasty things in the water like spiky sea urchins!) - it is, however, rated one of the top ten beaches in the world.  Look at this photo (it's not been touched up at all!), and you'll see why:

It really was a taste of paradise, and somewhere we would never have seen if we hadn't moved here.

Birds, birds and more birds!

As we walked through the gate into KL Bird Park, our immediate action was "wow" - so many birds, brightly coloured with shimmering hues of blues, greens, yellows, reds - it was amazing.

The park is in Lake Gardens, a big "green lung" in KL city centre.  Apparently it is the world's largest free-flight walk in aviary.  We arrived there fairly early on a Saturday morning.  The rain was just stopping, and it was a bit over-cast - but the joy of this is that it was also relatively quiet, not many other visitors.

We ooo'ed and aaah'ed over a variety of birds, Caitie and I taking photos right, left and centre.  We loved the photo shoot booth, packed with all sorts of exotic birds, and couldn't resist the temptation to have our photo taken with them.

We fed some ostriches and emus - fortunately they were behind a big fence.  I say fortunately as they were really quite big, not at all shy, and VERY greedy!  They snatched the leaves from our hands, and were soon back for more.

Then we spotted some chicks and ducklings in the park's nursery - cue lots and lots of cooing from Caitie!

Caitie also got to feed some Lorys, very brightly coloured little birds who were quite happy to use her hands as a perch while they drank milk from the tiny cup she was holding.

Not all of them were interested in food though, some just wanted somewhere comfy to rest...

As you can see, we had a great time filled with some memorable experiences, I'm sure we'll return at some point.  I'll leave you with a fantastic photo that Caitie took.

For my crafty friends...

A couple of layouts.

This is the DLO of our trip to Sunway Pyramid:

There's a photo of Will at Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company hidden under the bottom left photo - didn't really fit in with the theme of the rest of the LO!

This LO just goes to show old stash is worth keeping - I've had that Egyptian paper forever...

This LO chronicles our chilly trip to Genting Highlands - the main pic shows the rain, the four at the bottom show Alex and Will having fun on one of the rides.  Apologies for the quality of the photo, still not found a good place to take them!  The little flag top right is reminiscent of the flags you used to buy from beach-side shops to stick in the top of sandcastles :)

Just like home!

A chilly sixteen degrees and pouring with rain - just like a British summer!  This was Genting Highlands, a hotel and lesiure resort about an hour's drive from Kuala Lumpur.  Set atop the mountains, it is higher than Ben Nevis, and when we went to visit it was shrouded by cloud all day.

We spent several hours going around the theme park, going on some of the rides.  It's not exactly Alton Towers - far fewer rides, and most not nearly as modern - or scary!  But we had a good time nonetheless. 

We had just decided to go home when the rain came - despite moving as quickly as we could under covered walkways, we still got wet.  But at least we weren't one of the poor sods who were stuck on the (very slow) log flume or the paddle boats - swimming would probably have been a drier option!

Walk like an Egyptian?

I came to KL fully (I think) prepared to expect the unexpected - but I must admit that I really wasn't expecting to come across pyramids and sphinxes while we were here!

One pyramid....

.... and one sphinkx, although technically he's probably just a lion, as he didn't have a back end!  He guarded the entrance to Sunway Pyramid, a large, Egyptian-themed shopping mall which is part of a larger complex that includes a big water park and hotels.

The theme continued in the main entrance area:

The further away from the entrance you got, the more muted the theme - and in one corner the mall went to the opposite extreme by having an ice rink, the biggest in Malaysia apparently (though it may also be the only one...).

Will, Caitie and I had a good afternoon looking round, and both of them donned skates and gloves to try their hand (foot?!) at skating.

Alex joined us for dinner at yet another themed place, right next to the mall entrance, this time one that whisked us off to America and the world of Forrest Gump - Bubba Gump's Shrimp Company!  To quote Bubba:  "...shrimp is the fruit of the sea. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, saute it. Dey's uh, shrimp-kabobs, shrimp creole, shrimp gumbo. Pan fried, deep fried, stir-fried. There's pineapple shrimp, lemon shrimp, coconut shrimp, pepper shrimp, shrimp soup, shrimp stew, shrimp salad, shrimp and potatoes, shrimp burger, shrimp sandwich. That- that's about it."

And that's about it for this blog post - thanks for popping by!

I did it!

It may not seem like much to some of you, but for me it was another step along the road to settling in - driving myself around.  New car, new city, new way of driving (ie you push your way in at junctions and when changing lanes - and consequently have to be prepared to brake quickly to avoid hitting someone who is pushing in! - and you are constantly surrounded by scooters/mopeds weaving their way in and out of the traffic, often with scarily few inches to spare).  By the way, I didn't take the above photo while driving - we were stuck in a jam at this point.

Our trip was a relatively short one, to Mid-Valley megamall, which lives up to the mega title - it is HUGE!  We didn't buy much - we were too busy being slightly overawed by the sheer number of shops!  Today we're off to a much smaller and nearer mall, for such glamorous items as shoe laces, printer paper and groceries!

I'll finish off with a fab photo taken by Caitie, with her iPhone, from our living room last night.