Kellie's Castle in Perak, Malaysia

On the way to Cameron Highlands through Gopeng, we saw a magnificent building along the road, one you hardly see in Malaysia. Is a bungalow that looks like a castle. 

The entrence fee is RM5 for Malaysian and RM10 for foreigner. It is a tourist spot that is getting more and more attention especially people who like photography or history. 

One special feature of the this house is it has many secret passage way and staircase ready for intrusion or emergency. It records even a secret tunnel that leads to an Indian temple about 1km away. 

The castle is a 5 storey building that was suppose to housed the first elevator lift in malaysia. The owner intend to entertain his guest on the roof top, so now you can stand on the rooftop to gaze upon the surrounding hills. 

The owner pass away due to illness before the house was complete. His wife abandon the unfinish project and went back to their own country. 

9 days trip in Osaka, Kyoto & Shirahama - Day 1 (Kansai Airport - Kyoto)

Our family had a 9 days self planned holiday in Japan. We visited Kyoto, Osaka and a last minute trip to Shirahama which turned out to be very pleasant. First of all Air Asia flight ticket to Osaka can really vary a lot in its price. We booked ours more than 6 months earlier @ RM1200 per person two-way, but our friends could get the tickets @ RM700 plus two-way. So TIP 1, the tickets can go as low as that, and buying early doesn't mean good bargain. Here are some highlights of the trip......

At Kansai Airport, spend quite some time here as we have to settle all the special transport passes which we booked thru the net. TIP 2 special passes is utmost important when you tour Japan as their transport cost is very high. Many of the passes come with free entrance ticket or promotion prices for tourist attraction. But you really need to study which type of pass will best benefit your itinerary because there are too many choices. When we are done, we took a JR train straight to Kyoto....

First stop in Kyoto, Nishiki Market. a variety of finger food from seafood, sushi, omelette to fruits and dessert. Recommended food: huge octopus with tiny egg stuffed in its head, and a very fresh and tasty fruit mochi (the longest queued stall in the market)

Next, we took a bus to Nijo Castle. We were a bit late as the main palace building closes at 4.30pm. We quickly hurried through the palace. I am not a very historical person, so the palace didn't really amaze me, what draws me more were the landscape and scenery around the castle. As you can see we didn't spot any yellow or orangy and red leaves around, because it was early autumn. And this ends our first day in japan.....

Ipoh

During the Labour's Day long weekend, we got a chance to travel up north to Ipoh. Despite the horrible traffic jam and unwanted crowd in Ipoh town, there was much pleasant surprise around it's corners. If you only have few hours to spare in Ipoh, I would say stop by "Jalan Panglima"!

Street art around Jalan Panglima

 

It seems that Street Art is the "in" thing now for tourist attraction. You'll find towns like Penang, Melaka and Ipoh being revived after the invasion of street art. It will be an interesting activity if visitors to Ipoh can organised a street art hunt, locate all the art, take pictures and win.

"concubine lane"

 

The "Concubine Lane" is the name for this special side lane that features souvenier shop, special handy craft shops, desserts...etc. I wonder if there will be more male or female in this lane?

 

"special shop that promotes D.I.Y"

"original-traditional looking shops"

Next stop is an old abandoned building that is now used as a market square for hand-made items. You can easily spot the named "Plan B" which is a very nice decorated restaurant as you walked along Jalan Panglima, and the small market square is just next to it.   

vendors selling their hand-made products

old run down building becoming a boutique