(i) Morco Milkshakes (ii) Xin Chao Vietnam - Publika

"What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again..." ~ Suzanne Collins

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Almighty.

Hello readers.

It's time for another foodie update.

(i) Morco

First up. Morco has come up with a series of insanely rich drinks. FSD tried the matcha one the other day. And my jaw dropped when I saw it.

The drink is at bottom, but before you get to the drink, be prepared to eat through the following:-

1. 2 bars of kit kat

2. Cornflakes (you can't see it from this picture but its there trust me)

3. There is an entire slice of cake on top of the drink (the original topping is supposed to be a doughnut, but was changed to a cake since the doughnuts were finished); and

4. A very rich layer of cream. 

It was all mind numbingly awesome and is a meal in itself. Ohh and there are other equally jaw dropping concoctions as well. See the menu below.

(ii) Xin Chao Vietnam

This is new vietnamese restaurant open where Bandariya Ayam Kampung once was. It's a few doors down from the Chicken Rice place in Publika.

Right now there is a lunch set where you order a main course and only add RM2.00 for a mini starter and vietnamese tea.

The restaurant is reminds me of the restaurants in Hanoi, look at the pictures adorning the walls!

My mini starter

My hot vietnamese sweet tea. Not bottomless unfortunately. But good on our current rainy days weather

The condiments. This sets it apart from Pho Hoa in Curve which has a different selection of sauces. This place for instance do not serve fish sauce like Pho Hoa. My absolute fave of the 4 condiments here? The pickled garlic and chilli. Yumms

And this is my noodle. I took the all in Pho with meatballs, tripe and everything thrown in. This retails at RM20.90. The basic normal Pho is RM16.90. It was yummy!

UPDATE:- On a dinner excursion to Xin Chao recently, I was approached by one of the staff and was informed that the manager read my post and immediately went out and made arrangements for fish sauce to be available as a standard condiment to their dishes in the restaurant!. Hehe. So just to update you on this readers!

Do give the places a visit!

Much love from Airiel and I

Peace and love to everyone.

Weekie 2016 - Avillion Admiral Cove

"Hotel rooms inhabit a separate moral universe..." ~ Tom Stoppard

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient and the Most Merciful...

Hello readers, a weekie update which is long overdue.

I went to the Avillion Admiral Cove with my family and my grandma tagged along.

So here is the picture of the hotel room.

I think I accidentally deleted the pictures. So here is one from Instagram.

The rooms were beautiful and spacious, although there were some minor problems like how the air-conditioner was dripping, the rooms were great to me.

This was the view from my room... awesome right?

I of course wandered around the rather huge grounds of the resort at night. It has its own little dock with yachts parked! How cute.

It has a decent sized, kids pool, baby pool and adult pool all smartly interconnected to each other as well.

The pros and cons are listed below:-

Pros:-

1. The rooms;

2. The pool; 

3. Breakfast buffet was decent; and

4. Nice and friendly luggage boys and doorman.

Cons:-

1. The front desk staff. Sigh, not one of my best experience with hotel staffs at all. Standoffish. Needs more training in dealing with people. My sister had to wait 45 minutes to CHECK OUT. Hadoiii; and

2. Hotel was not really handicap friendly.

I made my reservations from booking.com and my review is there somewhere.

Until the next update readers.

Much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.

Dr. Althea Cushion Review

"It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness..." ~ Leo Tolstoy

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Most Merciful.

Hello readers!

I was hinting on this awesome discovery I made regarding an awesome korean beauty product. It is just too awesome so I had to share it with you guys.

I have always had ultra dry skin, and it took years of finding the right compact powder and liquid foundation for me. But I can bypass all those products since I found the CUSHION.

Yes, it deserve a caps lock when it is typed.

The Cushion is a combination of BB cream, moisturiser, liquid foundation, compact powder all rolled into one.

For my purchase, I bought the Althea BB Cushion after extensive research online on what would work for dry skin.

I bought 2, since it was on sale. One called the Water Glow Cushion, Luminous Venus Cushion.

 How does the Cushion look like? I opened it up

See that little brown thingymajig, the cushion is there and it is moist, filled with the Cushion foundation.

 It has a special sponge that absorbs the liquid. It it amazing because it just glides on your skin and turns slightly powdery upon contact. 

The result of it on my skin is simply gorgeous. My skin literally glows and doesn't flake or dry up. And I don't have to use separate compact powder and liquid foundation anymore!

The top picture basically shows the cushion's effect on my skin. I just put some loose finishing powder on top and I am done!  I.Love.This.Thing.

You guys must try this Cushion! I bought mine on Althea. It is not really so cheap but if I compared it to how much I spend on my liquid foundation and compact powder (both Dior), its a steal!. 

Go check it out!!

Some requests from readers on my weekies. Let me update you guys on that later. Pinky promise.

Much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.

Salam Aidilfitri 2016

"Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men and women to win them..." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Most Merciful.

Salam Aidilfitri 2016 to all Muslims in the world!

Last year I spent my Aidilfitri in Turkiye. This year I decided to stick around in the country and beraya di kampung.

Airiel went back to his father's village.

I went back to Sungai Siput and Kuala Kangsar.

Despite missing Airiel terribly, I realised I have pretty much adapted to this new tradition.

1st raya in KL when I visit Akif's grave.

Airiel will beraya with his father.

I am well adjusted and extremely happy with my life. Who would have thought I would have said this 2-3 years ago? But I have learned that time can heal wounds, the scars make you wiser, the healing forges old relationships and becomes the foundation of new ones.

I cherish Airiel, not everybody has the privilege of having kids.

I miss Akif, but I accept his passing and is content with the fact that he is heaven. Not everybody has the privilege to have all their kids with them at all.

I am in a good co-parenting relationship with Airiel's father and for this I am grateful. Not everybody has that privilege after going their separate ways in a marriage. I am hoping it gets even better with time and pray that it will last.

There are many things to mourn over, and yet there are so many things to rejoice in and be happy about.

I am excited about my family's NGO, we plan on helping, one life at a time. It is so true when people say 'Without suffering there is no compassion'. I find this to be so true. Without what I have been through, or what the family has gone through, I doubt that this NGO would have been born, or that I will feel so strongly about making a difference, no matter how small and be so determined to do it.

So watch this space for upcoming projects!

And last but not least. A meme!! A RAYA meme hahaha.

Wakakaka.

Damn straight!

I am also excited about this new Korean product which I have been using that is AWESOME.

Wait for it. Maybe I will update this next week kalau ada masa.

Much love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.

Fernweh - Letsgetlost 2016 - Journey to Sapa

"A story is like a moving train; no matter where you hop on board, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later..." ~ Khaled Hosseini

In  the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the most Merciful.

Oh my, updates are so slow on this blog it is now Ramadhan 2016!.

But I promised so I shall deliver!

Now its the epic train journey to Sapa from Hanoi where I actually threw up in..hahahaha.

For the journey I took the Tulico Express train. NIN and I decided that whilst the standard cabins bunk four beds, we will buy all 4 so we had the cabin all to ourselves. This was a wise decision.

Outside view 

Muka excited going on an overnight train haha 

 These 2 bunks were mine. Can you imagine if there were 4 people in the cabin? It would have been a tight squeeze. For us 2 it was just right.

It was quite cozy 

 Our bunks!

 The train provides, water, light refreshments which includes hot vietnamese coffee in the morning, wet towels and other items which you can order from the menu shown above. We just took the water and light refreshments. Coffee on a moving train was just too much for us and we skipped.

The journey takes the entire night and you will arrive at Lao Cai around 6 in the morning.  Here we are at the train station! After the train ride it was about a 45 min van ride up the hills to Sapa!

You can make your own bookings for these trains from Vietnam Railway. Their website is here.

Okay, this part is done!. I have some more foodie updates. Soon!!

Have a good weekend ahead and peace and love from Airiel and I to everyone.

Fernweh - Letsgetlost 2016 - Sapa Valley Part 2

"There's a whole world out there, right outside your window. You'd be a fool to miss it..." Charlotte Erikson

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the most Merciful.

Hello readers, 

It's time for Sapa Valley part 2.

I took a walking tour that required me to walk about 12 km throughout the Sapa countryside, through its indigenous villages. The people living on these hills are nowhere similar to the city in Vietnam. Their dressing and language is entirely different. What remains the same though I find, is the warmth they all exhibit.

This is Mr. Kim. His family was not pictured but the entire Kim family joined the tour as well. He was very friendly and I gather, extremely wealthy because he tried to pay for me when I bought some souvenirs in the villages. He was fascinated that a Muslim woman had decided to take a walking tour alone (actually NIN was sick so she couldn't join me).

 The sky was beautiful

 I started my walk down the hill which was about 4 km away from the Sapa Valley, this was about halfway to reaching the village

Paddy fields or decks, they would call it as the paddy here are grown on hill slopes

We descended further into the valley. The views, as you can see are absolutely stunning.

 And we have reached the first village!

little baby ducks!

The village was amazing. There were little goats, pigs running around. 

 We went through the village and descended further into the valley. By this time it was super hot and even though I ran marathons myself, I was getting a bit tired. The kids in front are the kids from the Kim family. We stopped for lunch.

I had lunch in a villager's house. Literally,  like smack dab in the middle of his house. As a matter of choice I make a point to never pick a muslim tour when I travel. Had I picked tours such as that, I would never have arrived at this place. Most of the time I would be the only muslim in any group when I am travelling (plus NIN of course). It takes you out of your comfort zone, it gives you a better understanding of other cultures, faiths and teaches you how to respect and most importantly to not judge others. It is customary for every home in the villages here to have a dog and this one had a free reign in the house I was eating in. The dog was so friendly but I supposed was also taught not to get to near to the tourists haha. The family was very welcoming and so warm and the food was delicious. I had all the vegetables, simply cooked but was wholesome and flavourful. What I find delightful is that people would just sit down in the same table as me and did not find it arkward although we could not speak the  same language.

 After an hour passed after lunch (the people here are laidback and the tours almost never finish on time) I walked some more.

 At the base of the valley, there were more paddy

 A water mill at one of the village houses. I have not seen this since I was a very small child. Tetiba teringat zaman kecik di kampung hehehe

More countryside. How awesome.

The tour ended after about another 4 kilometers and I was totally knackered. But my word, this place was beyond amazing.

Sapa Valley and its indigenous villages is a must visit if you go to sapa. The guide will be the villagers themselves, trained by the government to speak english and they will be dressed in the village's unique traditional dress, which is different for each village. 

Put it on your bucket list, travellers! hehe

Love from Airiel and I.

Peace and love to everyone.