the walk into parenthood: Cuti-cuti Malaysia to Port Dickson & Malacca

I almost forgot to write up about our Cuti-cuti Malaysia, 2nd part where we heading to Malacca. Life is ~~lazy~~ busy with a cranky toddler and short-fused me. All the things I asked him to do often fall on deaf ears. Grrrrr...... is every toddler out there is like this? Haaaiii...

Okla, part 2, here it goes....

We reached Malacca about 1 hour plus after we departed from PD and with help from Waze, we managed to find the location of our hotel quite easily.

This photo of Arenaa De Luxe Hotel is courtesy of TripAdvisor

Yes, this is it. Arenaa De Luxe Boutique Hotel. Boutique hotel? What's that? Some hanky-panky stuffs?Haha...at first Jk was a bit skeptical with the name and the price. Well, I found out about this hotel when I searched online in asiarooms and really got hooked with the price. Just for a slightly more than RM100 for a nice room in a nice hotel with city center, jonker street just around the corner. Well, it stated on the website that we can reach within 5 minutes but didnt say anything about the type of transportation. By foot or by car? Mmmmm........

Anyway, upon reaching the hotel, we were relieved. The outlook is decent, not a ghost hotel or mmm...hanky panky hotel :)

top-left: main lobby; top-right: lounge

bottom-left: reception counter; bottom-right: main lobby

picture source here

Very artistic, very boutique-y, very...hrrrmmmm WEIRD. Hahaha....

Anyway, we checked in to our room and upon opening up the door.....deng deng deng.......the room is so freakingdamnwtf small to fit in 2 adult (with one looking like a whale) and 1 toddler. It's TINY!!

Please pardon the 'mermaid' on lying on bed... :)

Goshhh.....basically there's no place to put our luggages and stuffs, a tiny wardrobe which never serve it purpose (dont even know why it exist in the first place), less than 20sqft space to walk around and we were trying so hard not pushing each other up the wall.

TV is mounted on the wall, by the way....

Wardrobe depth is only 8 inch and one hanger. You tell me, how to hang clothes like that?

There is one kettle, 2 cups and 2 bottles of mineral water.

Instant coffee sachet? What coffee?

Since the room is got limited spcae to roam around, he just settle in by watching lotsa Cartoon Network.

Sit like a boss

Helpppp!!!

Ok, enough about the room. We rested for awhile before we went to jonker street to grab some lunch. At first, I wanted to try out the famous Chicken Rice Balls at Hoe Kee but too bad, it was under reconstruction and was closed for almost one week (one local shop owner told us that), so, we settled down for another shop for Chicken Ball Rice. It was a hot afternoon, super-freaking-damn HOT!! We were burned, starved and tired... Kesiannya....

Famosa Chicken Ball Rice Restaurant.

There was not much left as by the time we settled down it was already past 3pm. I was really really hungry, so we just ordered a few dishes. A quarter roasted chicken, a plate of BBQ pork (char siew), a plate of bean sprouts and 6 pieces of rice ball. Jk feeling weird eating balls out from rice so he asked for a plate of normal rice.

Overall, the foods weren't really that remarkable. The roasted chicken and BBQ pork were a little dry for my liking. Well, I guess we can make a pass if we visit Malacca again.

We made a visit to East and West Rendezvous for Nyonya Cendol, instead of enduring insane-ly long queue at Jonker 88. It just ain't worth the time and the sweat and with cranky superbaby on tow? No way, thank you very much.

Picture source here

In fact I found this stall served a very good cendol too, especially with durian. Durian cendol. Really yum-yum. The sweetness was just right with generous helping of 100% pure gula Melaka and a dollop of real durian flesh.

The weather was soooo HOT! We really couldn't go anywhere else except to get back to the hotel to bath and switching on the air-con in full blast. Scorching hot sun. Can die, man! Just imagine yourself as a BBQ chicken or pork or whatever. ....

We went back to jonker for dinner a bit later that night as jk was still full. He said he can skipped dinner but with me and food-sucker in my tummy, how can?? Big one don't eat the small one also must eat la, right? So, we drove to jonker street again for some foods. As we walked through the crowds, we came to this restaurant.

Eleven Bistro and Restaurant.

Pictures source here

Complimentary appetizer from Eleven which consists of pickled papaya and anchovies, taste wise a little bit of sweet, sour and spicy.

For main, we ordered a plate of Portuguese Style Fried Noodles (RM10), Portuguese Deep Fried Squids(RM15) and Butter Prawns (RM20). Foods were just so so, pretty normal, nothing to shout about.
We walked for a while but there was nothing special to buy or to eat. Stuffed to the max already :)

The next day, we came down to have breakfast in the hotel but nothing seems appealing. So, we decided to go to somewhere else for nice breakfast. With Google searching for 'nice breakfast in Melaka' and Waze, we ended up here.

Hing Loong Restaurant......

Picture source here

....for their famous Taiwanese Porkchop Noodles.

It tasted alright. A lil hint of 5-spice powder in there and that's all I can remember. Pork chop was soft and tender and noodles just like any other pan mee's texture. Nothing's really special.

Went to Coral Wonderland at Dataran Pahlawan after breakfast just to kill time. Located at 4th floor, Coral Wonderland said to have the longest and largest LIFE coral aquarium in Malaysia and the longest touch pool in Asia where you can have a close up interaction and feel of the star fish, sea cucumber, sea urchin and even the bamboo shark. For me, I just touched whichever I feel is safe. Well, actually all are safe but me being 'kia si' ma.....haha

I think we spent almost 2h in there. It worth the experience if you haven't see a life corals and sturgeon before. Sturgeon....they are such a beautiful ancient creature and the fact that they already exist 200 millions year ago.
They are one of the oldest families of bony fish in existence and distinctive for their elongated bodies, lack of scales, and occasional great size: sturgeons ranging from 7–12 feet (2-3½ m) in length are common, and some species grow up to 18 feet (5.5 m). The fact that several species of sturgeons are hunted for their roe, which is made into caviar — a luxury food which makes some sturgeons pound for the most valuable of all harvested fish and are currently considered to be at risk of extinction, making them more critically endangered than any other group of species

(source from wikipedia)

Next we moved on to Ming Satay Hut for their signature pork satay. Pork satay is quite a common food in Malacca but I haven't taste one before despite numerous time coming here.

Situated a few doors before Nadeje Patisserie and so we can kill two birds in one stone. Nice.... The pork satay was very well marinated and the sauce comes with it was quite unique. Rather than the usual peanut sauce, they put some pineapples into it thus gave it a little tangy taste. Anyway, be prepared to forked out RM0.50 for a plate of cucumbers and onions (this is soooo ridiculous la!). Why on earth they want to do that? It supposed to be given free right? Chish!

This is Caleb enjoying his satay. Hahaha.....no, we didn't mean to give it to him in the first place cox I was worried it might too spicy for him. Although I was telling him 'it's lat-lat (spicy)' in the first place but he still insisted on having it. So, nah, take lar.... and he took it very well. Hahaha...in the end, he ate 3 sticks! *rolls eyes*

We went back to the hotel, packed up things and checked out at about 1pm. Overall that summarized our cuti-cuti Malaysia. Bet we won't have this chance again...no, not in near future.

You can find my part 1 here.