Durian Malaysia, the king of fruits. Everybody loves them and many are repulsed by the offensive smell. But once they overcome the strong aroma and get the courage to try it, mmm…, that’s it, they are hooked!

The various variety of Durians in Malaysia

There are so many varieties of durian in Malaysia. So many that I’m not sure which is which. Sometimes the names are in Chinese, sometimes in Malay, sometimes in code, and sometimes it is from the place that it was grown plus the grade that grow there. It is like trying to decipher French connoisseur wines. It is as though a particular durian variety grown in a specific region will yield a different subtlety to it, just like wines. (more…)

I picked up the latest copy of Personal Money magazine from the newsstand recently as one of the articles was about Nuffnang and about online entrepreneurs. The magazine article talked about three companies namely Elevyn.com, Nuffnang.com and Popfolio.net.

These entrepreneurs are not like us infopreneurs, they try to make their concept work by dealing with real world products and services and hawking them online. (more…)

“Chinese New Year doesn’t feel like one if we didn’t make an outstation trip.” Lena said. So off we went for a travel destination trip to Kuantan, Pahang on the first day of Chinese New Year with Lindy and my parent-in-laws in tow driving in our Toyota Wish which would provide a comfortable trip. Our Uncle Tee has invited us to stay over because they have won a new LCD TV / Theatre home system set plus a new sofa settee from some lucky draw. Well it was a good excuse to ask us over, and a good excuse to make a trip to Kuantan. With the sun shining bright and hot in the morning, Lena and I also took opportunity to do some laundry and housekeeping. Before we made our trip, we had to drop by Uncle Michael house for a CNY lunch. They had organized a Lion Dance as a symbol to usher in prosperity for their business. So the balance journey time to Kuantan was rather tight. By the time we were ready to make our departure it was already four o’clock. (more…)

Make over your own web site page by page is tough. That’s how it is for my travel destinations related web site. It started out that way so I just left it as that. And since this is my most successful web site, I’m somewhat content to leave it at its current hosting location. Though I wish could do more like install scripts and such. Previously I couldn’t do so until my recent discovery of the use of CNAME function was I able to merge Sitesell Site Build It together with BlueHost to make a potent marriage. (more…)

What’s a visit to Australia without at least visiting one of the animal parks? So we made a detour along the way of our Swan Valley Food and Wine Trail and headed to Caversham Wildlfe Park. The road was off the main route and it was rather quiet. It was too difficult to find as the map provided by the car rental was really detailed. A signboard along the way pointed us to the right direction. (more…)

Arriving at Black Swan, we were still quite early. Just a little before noon time. Feeling not that hungry, but we were still planning to have our lunch meal here as the next stop would be the Caversham Wildlife Park. We decided we would order less. The Black Swan was a nice looking cafe. It was also a winery too as we could see the vineyard on its backyard. Rows and rows of new vines were planted on its ground. (more…)

“You must joking?!” That’s what my in-laws said. The weather was cold and we were going to eat Oggies Ice Cream? Well, that was one of the interesting stops along the Swan Valley Food and Wine Trail. Catherine said we must try their ice-cream, it was different. So we got off on our first stop to savour some cold ice-cream on a cold windy day. Despite the bright sun on a clear blue skies, the temperature was cool with a slight breeze. (more…)

Swan Valley is located to the north-east of Perth, Australia and takes an approximate 30 minutes drive from Perth according to the guidebook. However we were already smack right in the middle of Swan Valley with our accommodation in the Vines Apartment so no need to worry about the distance. On the other hand, there are over forty wineries, restaurants, cafes, farms etc. from small family-run ones to large scale international export class vineyards and factory. So how do we know which ones to drop by? (more…)

Fremantle is located about 30 minutes drive from the South-West of Perth, Australia. Fremantle was named after Sir Charles Howe Fremantle, a 28 year old captain of HMS Challenger who took over this area in 1829. Later on settlers from Britain came over and colonized the place and it became the Swan River Colony. Much of the charm of yesteryears still remain of this beautiful port town with its old colonial Victorian buildings and quaint little town houses. A visit to Fremantle is a must for those who plan to have vacation in Perth.

The Vines Apartment in Swan Valley was truly a great accommodation. Only problem was that it was located quite far away from Perth city, Australia. It takes about 50 minutes of driving from Perth. You may wonder why we ended in such an isolated accommodation. Well, sometime ago we joined Sara Worldwide Vacation Club which was affiliated with Interval International and decided to use up the points or it will go to waste. It seemed like a good idea at that time to join up, but like most timeshares, there were many restrictions and limitations. Though the apartment accommodation provide was superb, and the number of affiliated hotels, resorts and accommodation worldwide listed looked a lot but the actual number of available hotels and resorts for each specific region and timing were actually rather limited. (more…)