Sushi King - Kota Kinabalu

 Sushi King 1 Borneo
1-Borneo Hypermall
C-310 & C-311, Concourse Floor
Jalan Sulaman
88400 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

RESTAURANT BUSINESS HOUR
10 am - 10 pm

 Sushi King City Mall
City Mall
DBKK No. S-1-1 & S-1-2
1st Floor Block A,
Lorong City Mall, Jalan Lintas
88300 Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

RESTAURANT BUSINESS HOUR
10 am - 10 pm

 Sushi King Warisan Square
Warisan Square
Lots No.B-01-04, B-01-05 & B-01-06, Block B,
1st Floor, Jalan Tun Fuad Stephens
88000, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah

For more information about this place , do check out their website below;

Sushi King Malaysia

Grilled Salmon Set

Fried Calamari with Mayonnaise Sauce

Their most popular bento set, 

Mixed Bento which included Grilled Salmon and Chicken as its main.

Grilled Mackerel

Side condiments, 

Prawns, Assorted vegetables and Sweet Potatoes

Heart shaped Miso Soup

Itadakimasu!

Santola Bar Cafe, Inanam - Kota Kinabalu

Anyways, I was glad to finally able to drop by this place for a visit with my family. We had a great tea break there on a lovely Sunday afternoon. The place was rather peaceful, not as noisy as other places, easy to get a table, wifi is free, parking is easy to get as the entire place is a private property. So convenient.

A little bit information about this place is, they take pride in their "Cap Kuda" brand coffee. In here, they serve quite a variety of beverages, be it cold or hot beverages. You name it, they have it freshly brewed for you. Besides that, they do serve a variety of pasta, cakes, sandwiches, pies and etcs.

Price wise, you can get a coffee and probably, a pasta priced below RM15 :) everything has a member and non - member price, so if you're a member you can enjoy your food cheaper! If I'm not mistaken, the membership only cost RM20 a year. Really worth every penny. 

Spaghetti Bolognese - RM6.50

Do check them out ;) because they're worth checking out.

Santola Bar Facebook

29, Jalan Kilang, SEDCO Industrial Estate, 88816 Kota Kinabalu

+6088 428 468 or +6010 931 6733 (Booking or Order)

English Tea House & Restaurant, Sandakan.

Fancy a place to have a nice tea break session chilling, catching up with friends and family while taking a break from the hustle bustle of a city life? This is the place to be. Apart from serving fine teas from around the world, they also serve a variety of cakes and pastries along with a la carte selections of traditional English specialties and of course local Asian favorites,  they do not sell pork though.

 a place where you can also have a game of lawn croquet and its free for both adults and children

This place is able to accomodate up to 250 guests and its a perfect location to held a large garden parties, weddings and other business or personal events. They also do provide a range of wedding anniversaries and birthday packages that can be held in one of their gazebos which also opens for public when there's not function on anytime of the day.

my lil cousin who is so happy with her soft drink 

 they do serve juices too, and its fresh :) not packaged or anything close to that

a very rich chocolate filled dessert with a cherry on top!

 New york cheese cake, which is simply oh so delicious.

Tuna  Club sandwich , they do serve a varieties of Western delights and the portion is usually huge too, you can share it with another person definitely .

 Their home made burger, look at the thickness of the meat patty and the portion of the potato wedges!

and of course, a varieties of tea sets. 

This set is the most expensive tea sets among all that is available there which is the Royal Tea Set.

 

If you ask me personally what do I think about the price of the food and beverages here, I can honestly tell you that the price is actually quite reasonable for a coffee house / a restaurant but not for all the items. What I meant by reasonable is because they're charging the food at a higher cost but the portion is huge, service is considered top notch and the food quality is definitely there. It all depends on what you're looking for.

Been there twice and it's still my favorite place and I'm pretty sure its the same for the locals and tourists there too as they always have customers patronizing this place despite of its price.

Experience the lush, tropical greenery and cool breezes while you enjoy spectacular views of the town and bay. Relax with a cocktail in hand, socialize with friends and family under a gazebo or enjoy a wide selection of beverages at the long bar.

Award winning restaurant :) 

If you would like to know more about this place, do check them out at this link :) 

English Tea House , Kota Kinabalu

p/s: I don't know if some of you are aware of this restaurant in KK which is located near Jesselton but honestly, that branch can't beat the original branch that is located in Sandakan in my personal opinion. You really got to just try this place in order to notice the differences :)

Agnes Keith House or " Newlands" , Sandakan.

In 1934, she married Henry G. Keith, known as Harry. Keith, was an Englishman working as Conservator of Forests and Director of Agriculture for the government of North Borneo under the Chartered Company, and was also Honorary Curator of the Sandakan (State) Museum. He had worked in Borneo since 1925, and was based in Sandakan. Agnes spent an idyllic five years at Sandakan, sometimes accompanying her husband on trips into the interior of the country. Harry persuaded her to write about her experiences and enter it in the 1939 Atlantic Monthly Non-fiction Prize contest. 

It all began when Harry was ordered back to Borneo when war was declared on 3rd September 1939 from Canada. Almost a year later their first child, Henry George Newton Keith, known as George, was born in Sandakan on 5 April 1940. 

The Japanese invading forces landed in Sandakan on 19 January 1942. For the first few months of occupation, the Keiths were allowed to stay in their own home. On 12 May Agnes and George were imprisoned on Pulau Berhala near Sandakan, in a building that had once been the Government Quarantine Station, along with other Western women and children. Harry was imprisoned nearby. After eight months Agnes and George were sent to Kuching, Sarawak by a small steamer on 12 January 1943 and arrived on January 20 and imprisoned in Batu Lintang, Kuching. Harry later arrived at the camp and the camp was finally liberated on 11 September 1945 by the 9th Australian Army Division under the command of brigadier T.C. Eastick. All three members of the Keith family had survived their internment. In later years, Agnes and Harry had one other child a daughter, Jean Allison Keith, born on August 30, 1947, in Sandakan.

During the war times, although punishable by death if discovered, many inmates of the camp, both civilian and POW, kept diaries and notes about their imprisonment and thus all the information was used in her books and some pictures or old notes can now be found in this historical site. I found it rather interesting that they showed all kinds of equipments and furnitures used by the Keith's family in their house such as the fridge that mentioned they are the ones who introduced the first ice cream to the natives in Sabah, the doll that she made for her child during war to keep and hide all of her notes about their imprisonment which later was turned into famous books of hers, the settings of her house displays was kept like how it was before.

After the war the Keiths returned to Sandakan to find the house destroyed thus they built a new house in 1946-47 on the original footprint and in a similar style to the original. They named this house Newlands and lived there until they left Sabah in 1952. After nearly 50 years of gradual deterioration, first under tenants and then as an empty shell, the house was restored by Sabah Museum in collaboration with the Federal Department of Museums and Antiquities in 2001. The house is a rare survival of post-war colonial wooden architecture that was opened to the public in 2004 and is a popular tourist attraction. It contains displays on Agnes and Harry Keith as well as information about colonial life in Sandakan in the first half of the twentieth century, and is commonly referred to as the Agnes Keith House.

In this house you're also expected to see many old interesting historical images and there was also a theater room inside the house. One very interesting thing can be found in the bedroom of this house would be a book about Agnes's claiming she had seen something ( a presence of a local native woman ) around the house and one of the image shows that it was in the room when she was just awake and another one was at the staircase of her house. Too bad we're not allow to take any pictures when touring inside the house so be sure to have a lookout when you're actually there.

Apart from that, the Keith's was said to have planted a lot of Orchids back in those days around their house gardens and there were varieties of them. Nowadays, what's left are just those few that are still available in front of their house. 

 Outside the house

This place is definately worth a visit if you're interested and would like to understand more about the whole story of the Keiths family. English Tea House Restaurant is located just right beside the Agnes Keith House.

Address:
Agnes Keith House
Jalan Istana,
90000 Sandakan, Sabah.

Operation hours: 9 am to 5 pm daily

Admission fees:

Bangkok, Thailand - 2012.

First day upon reaching, we headed to Chatuchak market which is a place where they always sells cheap  and reasonably priced goods and a heaven for affordable food :D went there to shop for a bit since its the weekend and Chatuchak only opens during the weekend, managed to try the unique foods available there aka that's the pink color pressured ice-cream from Japan, but its also available in Singapore since I saw it there :). It pops out the moment you cut the tube and it keeps flowing out non-stop until you see a small plastic tube inside; and the sweet potato balls was so tangy I love em' so much. I did not enjoy the white color coconut dessert as the taste of the coconut , very really different. More like a roast coconut dessert and imagine how weird the taste would be as coconut is supposed to be all sweet and milky but adding a roast burnt taste to it is totally, killing it. 


As for dinner, we researched on the internet that one of the best place that offers good authentic Thailand food is Cabbages & ; Condoms. I know as cliche as it can be for its name, this place actually offers really awesome and authentic thai food compared to those I've tried before. This place was built because it supposed to be a restaurant which serves food with a motive of educating the younger generations of practicing safe sex thus they actually sells various sex related souvenirs and also offering condoms instead of mints to the guests. They even have human size figurines all around this place with condoms covering them as added presentation. Oh, totally must try out their food here, especially the Grilled Pork Neck was our favorite among the rest. Price wise, it is quite reasonable for a restaurant. Highly recommended place to be and I will always go back there if I have the chance to someday.


On the second day, we headed to the Southern bus terminal to explore the floating market in Thailand. The most famous floating market which is the Damnoen Saduak Floating Market was a merely 2.5 hours journey away from Bangkok city itself. The ticket costs us approximately RM20 (200 baht) per person both ways.


Upon reaching Damnoen Saduak, the bus driver dropped us off at a place where you can charter a boat to explore the floating market. We paid about RM80 for 2 person (800 baht) as we chartered the entire boat to ourselves for about an hour after bargaining. The price was higher but it is advisable to bargain as much as you can and be there as early as 9am to get to explore the place at its best as anything later than that will delay your journey as there will be more boats and jams along the river. Well, what we experienced there was basically seeing people selling fruits and clothes on board the little small boats and tasting food but some things here are overpriced as it is a tourist visiting area, thus always remember to bargain each time you want to purchase anything- even food items! Oh, you can also pay in RM if you ran out of thai baht because their money changer is really limited.  I love how colorful everything is over there, totally an eye opening experience and we tried the fish noodle and the famous glutinous rice and mango. I really enjoyed eating the mini sized coconut pancake served on a banana boat leaf, and it was cheap! RM 2 (20 baht) for 8 pieces :D and saddest and yet funny thing was we ran out of cash by the time we needed to pay for a bowl of RM 5 (50 baht) noodle just because we did not change and expect to use so much more thus we got freaked out for a little bit there until we found the money changers, and luckily a bank at such remote area :D never imagine that we can be that broke during the second day of our trip but nevertheless that's what  makes this trip more fun and memorable.

We took so much of the public transports available there that I think we actually took every single transport available there in just four days. Since we headed to Damnoen Saduak earlier in the day for a half day visit, we came back to exploring the street markets nearby our hotel by the road side which sell delicious yet super cheap food for our dinner. Our favorite got to be the bird egg and soy sauce pancake roll  which was only RM2 (20 baht) for about 6 pieces. As an additional things, we got pork legs and some vegetables and other stuffs from the food stalls that cost us only about RM10 (100 baht). Unbelievable. 


Later in the evening, we walked merely 5 minutes to a nearby mall which has a unique theme - Haunted Mansion 7. Actually this place was newly opened, and a disappointment to me because I was hoping for it to be a huge shopping mall but it was actually just a factory size mall with a haunted house and some arcade games, restaurants with few clothes boutiques in it. However, since the theme made it unique and special so we end up taking lots of haunted scary pictures and no, we did not went into the haunted house because I was a chicken  girl with no guts :D the boyfriend thought we should head to the pub and get us some alcohol drinks and by then I will be daring enough to go in but heck no, I was still the same before drinking and then we left. Oh well, teehee.

The very next day, we headed to the Sai Tai Mai bus terminal and purchased our ticket to Hua Hin. Interestingly, our cab driver dropped us off at the wrong bus terminal and we end up paying extra cab fare to get to the right bus terminal. It got our mood really down because it was annoying how the people there doesn't understand English.  We went to the nearest 7-11 and bought our breakfast to be consume during the trip. Those croissants and puffs are fresh and relatively cheap we had like 4 pieces each. Our bus moved around 9am and we reached Hua Hin after a 3.5 hours ride. This time, we were really lucky because we do not know where the bus will stop so I was just keeping an eye all the time on our whereabouts while the boyfriend was asleep. At one point, I woke up and was looking coincidentally at the place we wanted to visit and immediately we alight. We visited Plearnwan, which was located just right beside the opposite road .

Plearnwan is a place with an old vintage theme to it. What a good place to relive the old times.It's like a small shopping areas featuring lots of vintage items and of course in a unique setting. Seeing shops that sells old vintage items mixed with the relatively modern items,  and the things there instantly brings us back to the fond memories as a little kid buying cheap snacks from the little van who visits our neighborhood, and also having stalls that sells candies and bubble pop bottles and more; we couldn't help but was so amazed that some things still exists since our childhood and being sold there.

Food was unique but not exactly reasonable. It is a tourist place after all. We had fish noodles that costs RM5 (50 baht) and the round rice ball thingy that is not-so-nice and I loved that blue and transparent white wrapped up dim sum kinda thing, don't know what they called it in Thailand but its filling was the sweet peanut sauce which was to die for and it only costs RM2 (20 baht)! They had this little ferries wheel that we thought we could sit on but it was closed since forever. Oh, and if you're looking for souvenirs this place offers a variety of unique souvenirs such as the dried / fried chili items like the soft shell baby crabs that we bought or sweet items like coconut candies that tasted like candle wax to me :/

Later in the evening, we were supposed to get a ride back to Bangkok. So we waited by the road side to get a tuk tuk because there were no cabs to the bus station and we couldn't get any until we walked for about 10 minutes to a place where there is a police guarding some house and sought help. He flagged us a tuk tuk within minutes and managed to ask the driver to drop us at the bus station. The bus station is actually an old shop which has only a counter for selling tickets and a few rows of chairs to sit. It's kinda creepy if you ask me but at this point, we totally bought it seeing its a small town , what to expect? I forgot how much was the tickets but I know we ran out of cash as we overspent at Hua Hin buying souvenirs and food tasting again :p  had to wait till about 8pm till the money changer reopens. Again reminder; keeping to your budget is important! Since we had like 2 hours to spare while waiting for the money changer to reopen, we end up exploring what Hua Hin night market has to offer. It was like a night market selling what Chatuchak sells, at a higher price as it is a tourist destination after all. Had awesome dinner at one of the shops there, very hearty authentic thai meal yet again, it was really cheap and delicious. I finally get to try out my Nutella crepe cake which I wanted to try out since earlier of this year when I was in France but didn't get to because I got freaked out when the person before me's crepe cake got burnt right in front of our eyes , and I don't trust them to make my crepe cake anymore. However, this did not disappoint at all,  tasted fan-ta-bu-lous and it only costs RM3.50 (350 baht)!

There's the handmade heart shape lollipop and the handmade wooden key-chain the boyfriend got us as a souvenir for ourselves from Hua Hin. He got me the bubble pop thingy too so I can blow bubbles, just like a kid again ;D

On the last day, we signed up for tours visit to various temples around Bangkok city. Our driver came to the hotel and fetched us to the first temple we went to which was the Wat Traimit Wittayaram, and met up with our tour guide. I couldn't recall her name. She was a friendly lady, quite talkative and a very curious type of person, but she was very informative.Wat Traimit Wittayaram attracts tourists because of its Golden Buddha which is the largest golden Buddha image in the world and it was made with pure gold weighing 5 tonnes!  She took us to Wat Pho which is the largest temple in Bangkok to witness the famed gold plated reclining Buddha measured 46 meters long and covered in gold leaf. Another uniqueness of the Buddha is that its legs are made of mother of pearls. Really unique and interesting to look at it just right in front of your eyes. Did a little donation as we are grateful for the things we have and how smoothly our holidays end up at the temple where the boyfriend bought me a bowl of coins and asked me to toss it into the stretch long of bowls along our way and recite what I'm thankful for. It was fun. There was this 12 animals donation box too, and we don't know what is it for but we donated to our animal sign anyways - the Snake.