SH Garden Restaurant at Ho Chi Minh City

During my last day on business trip, we had dinner with my friend from Indonesia who has worked in Ho Chi Minh for a few years in a very nice view restaurant, called Nha Hang San Vuon Son Ha (SH Garden) 147A, Hai Ba Trung, P.6, Q.3, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, phone: 08 3822 3566. We arrived around 19:15, all the tables next to the windows with city view was fully booked.

We saw one empty table with "reserved" signage, lucky us that the waitress was kind enough. She said if we could finish the dinner within an hour, we could use the reserved table as the guests would come at 20:30. That's a very good service, we agree to order and finish our dinner fast. The scenery was beautiful, there was a low glass window as the fence, we still could take picture from top of the glass to avoid reflection.

My friend who stayed in Vietnam was the one who selected the menu, we were busy to capture the colorful lights of Ho Chi Minh city at night. The green fountain in the middle of the street could be seen clearly from above, as there were many trees surrounding the fountain, it's difficult to see from the same height on the street. A beautiful REX hotel stood gracefully with yellow lighting and the landmark city hall building could be seen too.

We ordered some traditional foods, such as fried sticky rice, fried spring roll, crispy prawn, meat with vegetables. For beverage I ordered Vietnam coffee, while waiting for the food, they provide us a complimentary nice crispy cassava cracker, it's very delicious, the waitress was kind enough to deliver us when we ask for more portion.

We didn't want to waste our time enjoying the good scenery, many pictures were taken to capture the beautiful scenery, of course some of them with us inside the picture. The beautiful waitress was kind enough to take our picture together with the beautiful city view background.

When the food was coming, we didn't wait any longer to finish everything, because we were starving after a long walking distance to visit some tourism spot in Ho Chi Minh city. I like the fried sticky rice that was eaten with sweet sour spicy anchovy. My friend who stayed in Vietnam taught us how to eat the meat. We had to take 1 slice of the thin round crispy wrapping (such as plastic), then add with variant vegetables, put the meat on top of it, then rolling it such as spring roll. You could eat with the sauce if you like.

I'm not quite sure whether the restaurant was on the 2nd or 3rd floor, there was an antique lift to go up and down, that still used iron bar door and wooden door. Guests were not allowed to operate it by themselves, a waitress always stood by for accompanying the visitors. The lift is quite small, so we had to cramp inside. It's a rare experience to ride this lift.

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Majestic Taroko Gorge

I heard that the scenery in Taiwan is very amazing, so many wonderful natural heritage. When my friend asked me whether I want to visit it, I didn't think twice, I agreed to join 1 week tour, one of the most gorgeous place called Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park. The name, Taroko, means "magnificent and beautiful" in the Truku language, it is noted for its spectacular mountains and marble canyons.

It's noon time when we arrived there, many tourist buses going to this destination, the road was open and close on the certain time, as it's only one way. The bus should go around the area while the passengers could walk on foot enjoy the scenery. The guide gave us a nice color, light blue, helmet to protect us from the falling stone from the crag.

The rock now seen in Taroko began over 200 million years ago as sediment on the bottom of the ocean. As the sediment collected, it was subject to increasingly large amounts of pressure which eventually hardened it into limestone. Over the past 100 million years, tectonic compression between the Philippine Sea Plate and the Eurasian Plate supplied additional pressure that metamorphosed the limestone into marble.

After millions of years, the streams of Taroko Gorge still tell the story of its formation. Both geological uplifting and erosion by the Liwu River have formed walls hundreds of meters high, a phenomenon seldom found elsewhere in the world.

This is the most magnificent part of Taroko Gorge, where the sheer cliffs face each other. During the exploration stage, it is the especially difficult and dangerous part to explore. When the wind comes from the broad river valley to the narrow valley it is forced upwards when it hits the cliff face.

The Jiuqudong tunnel was constructed 1996, so that the visitors can view the rock folds, joints and faults of the marble cliffs. The two cliffs are so close to each other, and it looks like they are joining to each other if seen from afar. This section has the reputation of "Nine Turns of the Coiled Dragon". The distance between the cliffs is only around 10-meters wide. In the small gap in the rocks, the narrow Kelan River's rush by, forming a "Fish leaping across the dragon gate" scenery.

My mom and I went down from the bus to explore the rock by walking on the pedestrian street next to the cliff, it's very amazing. The wall rock with beautiful texture and different color was amazing. It's formed an astonishment scenery as God's beautiful creation that human could not defeat. We walked through a short tunnel, that we could peep the river from the small hole in the tunnel. After walking around 15 minutes, we saw our bus which was slowly strolled on the one way street in the queue. It's drizzled, so my mom and I returned to the bus as we had taken some beautiful pictures, and we had enjoy the walk, we're afraid that the bus would leave us behind, and we had to walk a long distance to catch the bus.

We also could see Swallow Grotto, the trail was separated from the highway by a simple concrete divider. The road was narrow, resulting in frequent congestion in the area. The pedestrian path also open to vehicular traffic going West only that must proceed slowly. Take a walk along the 1.4 kilometer-long Swallow Grotto Trail for breathtaking sceneries of potholes on the cliff surfaces, the springs that sprinkled along the lower parts of the walls, narrow cliffs above rush river, as well as the interesting rock formation, “The Chieftain’s Profile Rock” was very fascinating.

If you go there, it's worthy to walk through the pedestrian street. It's safe and not far enough to walk, also the weather was nice. You won't regret it as the scenery is very beautiful to enjoy during the trip.

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Mekarsari Tropical Fruit Garden, Bogor

During long weekend in Mar 2012, my mother with her friend, my sisters and myself visited Mekarsari Fruit Garden JI. Raya Cileungsi – Jonggol Km. 3, Cileungsi, Bogor, West Jakarta. We stayed in my sister's home at Raffles Hill, near to the place, anyway around 10:00 we still experienced traffic jam to reach the garden, my friend already waited for us in front of the gate. The entrance fee was IDR 15.000/person

The area was quite huge, there were some trains with car engine and wheels, to bring the visitors around the place, a guide would inform us the plant that we passed by during the ride. Before riding the train, we bought ticket to see Pongo show where there was an interactive movie with audiences. The Pongo monkey in the movie will call and talk to the audience facilitate by MC. Children would love to see it, some children would be selected from the audiences to dance together with some beautiful teenagers to perform in front of the audience. No food, drink and photo are allowed during the show.

Train ride is a good option to explore the most comprehensive tropical fruit garden with plant types around ± 78 family, 400 species & 1438 varieties. If you join the train ride, you will stop in 5 different stations. In each station you could change your ticket with some souvenirs, most of them are fruit. The first station was Melon garden, in the picture it shows different shape of Melon, unfortunately we only saw the normal round melon in the greenhouse, there were some slices of sweet melon that visitors could try. The first stamp could be changed for a small bottle of fresh juice.

The second stop was at snake fruit garden, there were many variants of snake fruit. The second stamp could be changed to 1 basket of snake fruit, the basket was very cute. My mom's friend loves it and she would like to take home to Surabaya for souvenir. The tree was full of thorn, so you have to be careful to take picture near the snake fruit tree. In this garden we found a real long green snake on the tree.

Star fruit garden was our next stop, here you also could buy other fruit such as papaya. You also could taste the very sweet star fruit, the third stamp was changed with one big star fruit. The train left us here around an hour, the weather was nice, some benches were provided for the visitors, also a couple restrooms. We sat on the bench enjoy the breeze, scenery and also eating our fruits while waiting for the train.

On the way to the next stop, we passed by the marvelous Mekarsari office with water fall. The huge lake with many air attraction was our next destination. There were live music at the field next to the lake. On the other side there were some children playground for small outbound. Some sellers were also available here providing snack, drinks, also souvenirs. Giant Bubble, Floating Donuts, boat, canoe and aqua bike were some options that you could select to go around the lake.

It's been around 14:00 o'clock and we were starving, we had to walk along the lake to reach the train to go to the last stop. At the last stop we could change our stamp with the souvenirs (sandals). There were some food stall crowded with visitors, we prefer to select KFC which's already having a standard for taste and quality. To stay overnight there was Leo’s Tree House located in the middle of the garden. The 5th stamp could be exchanged to a fruit plant that we could bring home to be planted at home. On the way to the parking lot, there are many fresh fruit stalls, there was also art stage with 2 persons play pantomime.

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Adventurous Desert Safari in Dubai

When we landed in Dubai, it's really early morning around 5 o'clock by night flight from Turkey. All of us who joined the tour, were still sleepy and tired because we could not sleep well in the economy seat which was not able to recline as bed such as in business class. We had breakfast at a hotel because it's fasting time, so not many restaurants opened. During breakfast we took a chance to wash our face and hand for refreshment, we were not able to take a bath in the closet :-)



After breakfast, we continued directly with Dubai city tour. Our destination was not listed in the itinerary, the guide was kind enough to fullfill tour participant desire, e.g visiting hotel which has a room under the sea level, called Atlantis The Palm Hotel in the Palm Jumeirah. It is located on Palm Island, a man-made island in Dubai, and is surrounded by waters of the Arabian Gulf. If we don't stay in the hotel, we're not allowed to go to the lobby. We could enjoy the gigantic aquarium, Ambassador Lagoon, by paying the entrance fee.


Going back to the city we stopped by to take photo with Burj Al Arab, the 7 star hotel in United Arab Emirat as the background, it's very hot around 45 degree Celcius. Although the sand and stone wall were hot, we kept trying taking pictures form different angle with various background.


On the next day was the most interesting journey, we picked up by land rover which contained 4-6 person including the driver. We went directly to the desert, stopped by in the small store next to the desert to go to restroom and buy drinks, snacks or souvenirs. Now it's time for advanventuror desert safari, the driver was reducing the wheel pressure to make it run well on the sand.


The scenery is very amazing, everywhere just sand, with hill and valley. We stopped on the hill to take group pictures. The sand was very hot, we could not wear our shoes or sandals, so we walked with bare foot. It's very soft sand, as if you're walking on the hot soft sand for theraphy. I was in the same car with the local guide and an old couple with their sister. All of them were very scared with the dune drive journey, because the driver brought us in a full speed off road to climb the sandy hill, it made the land rover was almost tumbled. My sister and I really enjoyed it, we laughed a lot all the way because the old's couple sister was very fear until she made a very loud and rhtymic laughing. Unfortunately I could not take my mobile phone to record it, as we had to hold tight the car's handle to avoid falling down.


Finally after some manuver by the very skilled driver, we stopped on the hill to watch the sunset. It's very beautiful. Some of our friends in the tour were racing to go down the hill, one of them was very eager to win till he was fallen rolled on the sand. All of us were very enthusias to tell others about the exciting dune trip.


After sunset we went to the camp to enjoy the Arabian barbeque dinner, unfortunately it's fasting time, so we could not see the belly dancer. Beautiful henna painting was put on my hand, it's beautiful, the woman could draw it fast, some of my friend put on the feet or shoulder. There was also camel, you could ride and take photo with the camel by paying some fee. Cold soft drink and water were distributed free of charge, we could enjoy and feel how the people live in desert.


An unforgetable memory of thrilling ride to share with my family and friends back home, because the desert safari I can't find it at home. If you would like to test your adrenaline you should try this fun activity when you had a chance to visit Dubai, I'm sure you won't regret and you'll love it.

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Leisure in Manila

During weekend my friend from Manila was kind enough to show me some interesting places in Manila as that's my first visit. We visited the bay, some churches and ended with traditional dinner in a unique restaurant


The first visit was to the reclaimed land where the Mall of Asia (the biggest Mall in Philippines), some modern offices, many restaurants and also hotels with beautiful and sophisticated architecture are built. It's a natural harbor which serves the Port of Manila (on Luzon). We didn't stop by in the huge mall, because I only wanted to enjoy and explore Manila scenery instead of shopping :-)


When passing by the baywalk, I was interested in stopping there, so we turned around and entered the parking lot. It's called "By The Bay", the popular recreation area for Metro Manila people. There were various restaurants which has open air area and also indoor. They provide various food such as western food, local cuisine, etc. Some foodstalls were also there, attempting visitors to taste snack, ice cream, drinks, etc. It's full of music, so many people hung out in that area, sitting on the edge of the bay waiting for sunset. My friend informed that sunset is very beautiful from here, so Philippinos people like to enjoy it, bringing some food and snack together with friends or family.


After passing by some restaurants, we went to the park, there was a small amusement park, where children could play with the swing, bike, etc. A small fountain decorates the promenade, with some statues accross the fountain. A big wheel such as London Eye or Singapore Flyer was also there to enable people viewing Manila from the height. At the other side of the bay, there was an exquisite yacht club area where many private yachts anchored.


The park was quite spacious, it enabled people express themselves. Such as that day there were two young boys play pantomime. It created crowd in the middle of the park to see their actions. It's good to practice and test their art performance in front of the real audience before going to professional. On the way back to the parking lot, we stopped by at Hooter, the famous bar & restaurant with beautiful and sexy waitress. Unfortunately the delicious chocolate cake we wanted was not available, so we canceled the visit for eating. The waiter was very friendly, they kept smiling at us and allowing us taking picture although we didn't buy anything.


At the edge of the bay near to the yatch club, we could see some temporary wall to close the ruin places because of the typhon last year. After passing through the main road of Manila, Roxas Boulevard, where there were some big five stars hotels, government offices, also US embassy office by the bay, we arrived at Cathedral. There was a mass at that time, I also prayed for a while, asking for 3 wishes to God. The mass ended so fast, the electricity inside the church was off after the mass had finished, lucky that I've taken some pictures before it's totally off. The cathedral's door was very beautiful, it's made of wood full of carving of the holy pictures. If you're hungry, you just need to go accross the cathedral, a unique restaurant provided various menu of cardinals' favourite meal.


Finally we had dinner in a traditional restaurant Bakahan at Manukan, Roxas Boulevard near corner Gil Puyat Avenue, Pasay City, which held cook & waiter singing and dancing. It's fun and a different ambience, all of them could sing and dance beautifully, without microphone their voice was loud enough to be heard by all guests. I enjoyed the ambience, although it's rather noisy. My friend suggested to order gisa monggo (green bean soup), and Adobo manok (chicken). For beverage, she said that the popular mango shake ice was very nice, it's true, I like it very much, one glass was not enough for me :-). The green bean soup is unique but delicious, contained of vegetable, chicken, and pork. We enjoyed the food accompanying with their live music. If you visit Manila/Makati, you should stop by at the restaurant to feel different ambience.

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Beautiful Gili Islands in Lombok

Lombok is an island next to Bali, you could reach it from Bali by boat. A new international airport just launched in Nov 2011, it's further from city area. It takes around 1.5-2 hours driving to Senggigi, the most popular place to relax and stay in Lombok.



There are 3 islands that you should see if you visit Lombok, they're called Gili Air, Gili Meno and Gili Trawangan. Many boats are available to rent or just pay around IDR 20.000/person if you want to use the public boat and share with other people. The capacity of the boat is various between 10-40 persons depend on the boat size.


You have to go early if you would visit the 3 islands. The nearest one called Gili Air, which has the most population of people who live and stay in the island. Snorkeling and diving are the most popular activities here, so many seafood restaurants are available. A few hotel and villas with free breakfast are available too for staying overnight and enjoy the peaceful paradise.


The second is Gili Meno, there is only few people living here, the island size is not too big, just take less than 2 hours to walk around the island. It's quiet, the scenery and beach are beautiful with its white sand beach and pines, you could relax here without many interruption without any noise, just enjoy the sun and wind breeze. It's suitable for honeymooners, there are some small hotel or bungalows, simple shops and internet cafes which are used generators as the power supply.


The last one, is the biggest island called Gili Trawangan. You could depart directly from Bali by speed boat from Padang Bai or Serangan harbour, it takes around 2 hours depend on the sea condition. It cost IDR 690.000,- one way while IDR 1.300.000,- return. There are many hostels with competitive price for tourists. You don't need to worry to bring your own food, there are some restaurants available provided various food such as western, seafood with beautiful scenery of the blue beach. So many chairs/benchs of the restaurant on the seaside, so you could taste the food while enjoying the beach scenery.


In Gili Trawangan you would find many people selling magic mushroom. Why is it called magic? Because when you eat it, you will feel happier and more relax. My friend said that if the person is in sad mood, he/she could cry a lot, if the person is happy, he/she would often laugh, they could not control their emotion anymore, even they don't realize what happened to them. The mushroom actually grows on the cow's dung then people will shower it everyday. It will cook with egg such as omelet, it's tasteless. It won't make people addicted. Do you dare to try it?


Beside the food, you also could do water sport such as snorkling, kayaking, and diving. The underwater scenery is quite beautiful with colorful coral and fish, some turtles also available to see. To go around the island you could just walk around 2 hours, rent a bike or riding Cidomo (traditional cart with car tyre pulled by a horse) costs around IDR 50.000,-. There is also a hill that you could climb to see better scenery of the sea with Mount Rinjani as the beautiful background at the West side while Mt. Agung at the East side. No motorcycle or car are allowed to operate in the island, so the weather is very fresh and clean. It's pretty crowded during peak season (Jul-Aug, Dec-Jan), so better you order the accomodation in advance.

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Sparkling Pearl River at Night in Guangzhou

After an hour drive by bus from Nansha where we had APCCAL Expo 2011, finally we could reach the pier in Guangzhou. The scenery from the pier was very beautiful, so many boats with colorful lights were going through the Pearl river which was the third largest river in China. It's already very late for dinner, so we didn't have enough time to take pictures from the edge of the river.



Entering the cruise we welcome by four beautiful young girls in lovely white dress playing western music with violins. With three decks in total, the ship can hold 250 visitors. The first floor featured a coffee house and a small ballroom provided buffet dining. They also provided red wine in each table to accompany the meal. Because we were starving, we started to take meal without waiting for any further instruction.


The boat starting to sail after all of us finished eating. The cities at both sides of the river were very illuminated with colorful lights which made the scenery more magnificent. Some bridges were also decorated beautifully with the twinkle lights. After having dinner all of us were spreading out of the boat, busy taking pictures.


A Chinese style banquet hall on the second floor of the boat, there were also 4 beautiful girls with traditional Chinese red costume playing traditional music to entertain the passenger who ate on the second floor. A sightseeing platform on the third floor were attracted some of my friends to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. The night cruise is even more fascinating under the sparkling lights, some of the lights were reflected on the river.


Views along the Pearl River in Guangzhou City were charming and gentle. Historical sites and unique architecture scattered along the Pearl River were numerous and were a goodly reflection of the Guangzhou culture. It took around two hours for the cruise trip, it's a good option for you to enjoy the night scenery when you visit Guangzhou.

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