CNY holidays Part 1: Crawl to Melaka

It has been so long since our last holiday that I was so looking forward to the CNY break. We were travelling to Mersing for my cousin's wedding on Saturday but had decided to go early (Thursday) just to make a roadtrip of it. 

Hamzah!

After finally managing to depart from Gombak at 10.30am, we excitedly made our way to Melaka. So it seemed did half the population of Malaysia. The road was jammed-packed with cars and we averaged around 60kmph with the speed dropping to 1kmph by the time we reached Melaka. After calling all the hotels we could think of only to find that every single one was booked (unfortunately nobody thought of calling ahead to make reservations), we managed to secure a room at the Orkid Hotel. A 3 star hotel which charged us a whopping RM300 for a tiny room with an extra bed. But we were thankful that at least we would have somewhere to rest our weary heads.

Lanterns at Mahkota Parade

First stop was lunch. Since it was almost 4pm we decided to just have KFC at Mahkota Parade. It was nothing like I remembered it from my high school days in MRSM Jasin. The surrounding area was all developed into shopping complexes and cineplexes with no Kereta Lembu to be seen since Dataran Pahlawan no longer exists. The kids had a great time taking photos with all the CNY decorations.

With the colourful 'beca'

Fountain at Banda Hilir

Had to chase him thru the flowers

Having fun

Cannon!

Labelled as "Kincir  air Kesultanan Melayu Melaka" but it's a fake reproduction of a Syrian Water-wheel (never existed in Melaka)

At Museum Samudera

Our next stop was Banda Hilir, where we mingled with all the local and foreign tourists. The kids loved the colourful and noisy 'beca' (rickshaws) and all the other landmarks. Everyone went back to the hotel still excited. It was quite a task to coax everyone to sleep. But sleep they did. As the holiday had just begun.

 

||HAPPY BIRTHDAY||

Today is my roomie Zil's Birthday (incidentally it is the exact same as our postgrad room extension number 728*). Happy Birthday Zil! May the year bring you joy, happiness and LOVE.

Birthday flowers from die-hard fan