In The Water Pulau Redang

Snorkelling with sea turtles (0:10 - 2:00)

Turtle trip is not included in resort package, so this need to book on the same day that you want to go for the trip at snorkelling center after 2pm. You'll be inform about the trip when you're at Marine Park. The trip only available around Aug-Oct when the sea turtle is back to lay eggs.

It will cost you RM40 per adult and RM20 per children above 4 years old. Below 3 years old will be free. Even if you just want to hang out on the boat to see the sea turtles you will need to pay the same amount.

We head out by boat about 5pm and it takes about 15mins to reach the shore near Tarras. It's on the open sea so there's no beach front to rest. The water is deep for sure. The person in charge will lure the sea turtles up to the surface by feeding them squid, so even if you just sit on the boat to watch, you'll be able to see the sea turtles. Of course if you want a close up, best is to jump into the water and swim together with the sea turtles.

There are kids mainly above 8years old that join the snorkelling fun. Kyle can't swim but with life jacket and snorkling mask he got no problem snorkling and moving around in the water. The sea turtles are quite huge and it is advisable not to touch them or put your hand in front of the sea turtles' mouth as it might mistaken your hand for food.

We get to spend close to an hour there before heading back to the resort.

There are pop up stall along the beach that offers the same trip. I'm not sure how much it will cost but i think it is possible to haggle for price if you book the trip from the pop up stall.


Snorkelling at the beach front (2:01-3:06)

Along the long beach, there are 3 spots for snorkelling. One in front of Laguna Redang Resort, another 2 are on the left and right of Redang Lagoon Resort. There are boey surrounding the area that you're allowed to snorkle and it is highly advisable that you don't snorkle out from the boey barricade and also don't snorkle our form the 3 snorkelling spot as there will be boat coming in and out so it is very dangerous.

I personally never snorkle in front of Laguna Redang Resort, as according to big boss, there's not much fishes and it is full of seaweed.

On the left side of Redang Lagoon Resort, it is recommended for the kids, as it doesn't have many rocks and it is very far out shallow and lots of colourful fishes so kids that doesn't know how to snorkle can just stand and enjoy the fishes swimming around their legs.

On the right side of Redang Lagoon Resort, is where you can find baby shark. It is full of rocks so you may need to go far out a bit to get to the deeper area for a comfortable snorkle.

There are lots and lots of fishes here.

In any case that the waves is too rough or weather is not suitable, there will be red flag raise on snorkelling site. When the red flag is up means no going down to the water.

Also be careful of big monitor lizard around the hill side near the water.



Snorkelling at Marine Park (3:07-4:00)

It is compulsory to get Marine Park ticket at RM5 per person be it adult or children when you going into Redang. And the resort will arrange a 15mins boat ride to Marine Park for snorkelling. For Redang Beach, everyday 9.30am there will be a trip there so you just need to gather at the snorkelling center at 9.30am together with your ticket and you're good to go.

Bring along your life jacket, snorkel mask and anything else that you need in a waterproof bag as you'll be walking into the water a certain distance before you get to board the boat, so depending on the tide at times the water level is above the head.

You will not allow to wear slippers, so unless you have a soft shoe which i highly recommend to get one, you'll need to be barefooted.

You'll be given 1 hour and 30mins or so to snorkle around the Marine Park. There will be a pool of water for you to wash off, after snorkling before you board the boat back to the resort. Also there are designated locker just for Redang Beach patrons to use if you need to.

There's a beach, so bringing along the kids to play sand castle or just walking around the shallow water to look for fishes would be great.



Scuba discovery (4:01-4:54)

This is not included in the resort package. You do not need to know how to swim (as long as you're brave and calm) or have any experience in scuba diving to go for this discovery underwater. It cost each person RM170 and you definitely need to prebook it when you place your booking for the resort, as it is usually full cause it is a 1 to 1 coaching.

We booked ours when we reached the resort on the 1st day but it is full and we only get the slot on the last night of our stay. Lucky enough.

Go over to the dive center at 4.30pm and the instructor will bring you into a room and give a briefing on what they will bring us to do and how we should do it. It is a very detail explanation, then you will wear the scuba gear and walk 2mins to the sea (left side beside Redang Lagoon Resort) and there will have a small training by the instructor on how to breath using the snorkle, how to blow out water from the mask, the basic sign language to communicate under the sea and how to not freak out if you see shark hahahaha.

Once you pass the basic training then the instructor will bring you under the water. All you need to do is keep calm, do the basic like blowing your nose to unblock the ear, blow the water off the mask, watching nemo, and get crazy when jelly fish floats near you. The instructor will always be on your left side and in case anything just sign them, and they will help you.

This is so much fun and i definitely recommend anyone and everyone to go for it. And if you got hook, you can plan your trip next to get a license for scuba diving.



Swimming Pool


If the kids got bored of the beach, there are 1 small baby pool and 1 small adult pool in the resort, so the kids can have fun playing and swimming in the pool. It is usually crowded so go early in the morning.



Please do not:

1. Please do not feed the fishes anything. You may see people feeding it, and convenience shop selling bread for fish but please do not feed the fish. It is not advisable to feed the fish as it will ruin the eco system.

2. Do not litter on the beach, please keep the place clean.

3. Do not take home any corals, dead corals, sand from the sea.


There will be a following post about the Resort itself and what else you can do there beside going into the water all day long.

How to get to Pulau Redang from Butterworth

There are few option to reach Kuala Terengganu from Butterworth, Penang. 1st option is by driving and there are 3 routes that you can take into consideration. Though the distance might be shorter and time frame seems shorter but averagely it will take 10hours to reach there. So plan your trip accordingly.

Last year we use Route 4 which is a windy mountain road and kampung road.. so tho distance may be short but we can't drive fast so we end up about 10hours + to reach. 

This year, my mom is following us so we decided to stopover at Kuala Lumpur for a day, as her boyfie can't drive long hours straight without resting. Then from Kuala Lumpur we head to Kuala Terengganu and rest a day before catching a ferry to Pulau Redang.

The ferry to Pulau Redang only available at early morning 8.30am and 9.00am so need to reach at least 15mins before that.

So what if you want to direct reach KT and take ferry on the same day? Start travel at 9pm today and reach by tomorrow 7am. I reckon it will be very tiring and it won't be very comfortable for the kids...

Another way of getting to KT is by flight - MAS or AirAsia but there are no direct flight from Penang so you need to either drive down to KL and take a flight to KT or transit at KL to KT.

As our headcount is high, there are 5 of us, so driving would be our best option and everybody loves road trip.. Tho it is a very long drive, the kids are behaving well. I got no issue travelling long hours with them. We do plan our time properly to avoid unnecessary traffic jam and also try to follow their sleeping and napping time and all would be well.

Our stay in KL 20/09/17

Airbnb - St. Mary Residences

Tho the wifi is not working which means no smart tv too, everything else seems good. Very easy access to anywhere by foot or taxi.

Our stay in KT 21/09/17

Hotel Sentral

Not the best hotel but with the price of less than RM100 for a night is stay-able. Just that our room is facing the road side so it is very noisy with the traffic and it was awal muharram so a lot of prayers throughout the night hence lack of sleep...

Budget Seoul Pt 2

After our lunch, we head off the other way from the hotel along the main street, about 500m away only not far to Bau Dog House. Among all the dog cafe I've research this one so far gain the most positive reviews, mainly because inside got a lot of big dogs... Oh i love big dogs...

The drink is compulsory per person and it's a bit on the higher end pricing as part of the money goes to maintaining the place and the dogs... price starting from 7.5k won for a drink. There are dog snacks available as well with price starting from 3k won. Highly recommended to buy the snack else you will need to go around and chase the dog haha..if you got snack they will surround you...

The place is clean and the dogs are all friendly...they will jump around you, lick you, manja with you... i can spend my whole day there...so much fun...

Here's the address

Bau House
Jeil Bldg. 1F
394-44 Seogyo-dong,
Mapo-gu,
Seoul, South Korea


We walk around and went back to hotel for rest before heading out for our dinner.. at meat-ing meat buffet and salad bar in one of the street at Hongdae. It's a buffet bbq where you can eat unlimited meat and salad. For dinner if i remember correctly it's about 11k won per person, cheaper for lunch tho.

The staff handed us a plastic bag to store our jackets and stuff so that our jackets wont smell bbq...

There're many types of meat to choose...from few types of pork, beef, etc...definitely eat until full and worth the 11k won...

More walking after dinner... we went to sneak peek at Haha's restaurant but we didn't dine there because we can't find a menu outside the restaurant and black jeju pork to us it will be costly... our target per meal per person per day is 20k won so we try to stick to our budget...





The next morning we woke up about 9am and prep ourselves...there's so many things to do in cold weather... like sapu body cream all over the body so that we won't get cracks and rashes, make up, bathe etc.. even at 2c we still mandi everyday..2 times or more... hahahahaa....

We head out to the same kimbap shop for our brunch before we take subway to Digital Media City. It is where all the broadcasting channel situated. SBS, MBC, JTBC etc...

Most of the drama is film here... and too bad we didn't bump into any celebrity so i snap some photo with standees haha... better than nothing ye? We walk around snapping photo and even a reporter came to us wanted to interview us but left after realise that we are 'waegugi - alien / foreigners' hahahaha...












After Digital Media City, we head to Ehwa University..where we walk and walk around for window shopping.. due to starting of winter most of the shop is selling winter clothing so nothing much for us to buy since we can't wear any of it in Penang...

I got myself a pair of boots made in korea for 45k won (roughly RM180).. the oppa (promoter) said he's a big fans of lee chong wei so from the original price of 55k he give discount to 52k but i manage to haggle until 45k... hahahaha...

I then walk around go in a few hair saloon to inquire about perming my hair. They call is magic perm because the perm last long, practically won't wear off unless you cut it away...

I end up in We Hair because the hair dresser able to speak well mandarin so making it easier for me to ask about the price and how to style my hair.

It cost me 150K won (RM585) for perming my hair and 4hours of sitting in the hair saloon while hubby sendiri stroll ehwa...end result... I'M LOVING IT...

I just need to show her the type of hair i want.. i got a photo of park shin hye in my phone and i said i want that style... after checking my hair etc they said my hair length and hair condition is okay to proceed... they usually won't do for you if you have damage hair etc cause after perming it wont look good..

I did survey other celebrity frequent and top rated saloon like juno, soonsiki etc but the pricing is ridiculously high..almost double the price that i paid... so ya..i'm not going to spend more than 1k on my hair.. my budget won't allow me to do so...

Usually if you said you'll pay full in cash, they will give you more discount so if you have the cash around just ask for more discount..










After that we head for our dinner in one of the kimbap shop in Ehwa..we ordered kimchi jjigae and soondubu jjigae...there's english menu pasted on the wall hence make ordering easy...

Budget Seoul Pt 1

We had plan to go oversea for our long overdue honeymoon on our 10th wedding anniversary...we did it a year earlier...because hubby just can't wait...so our chosen destination is Seoul Korea. 10 days 9 nights trip with a budget less than 10K.

We drove down to KL, stopping over Ipoh for 1 night because hubby got a free 1 night stay hotel voucher..after check out we direct drive down to KLIA..and waited many hours in the airport because our flight is 11.59pm hahaha....  we are taking Korean Air direct KL to Incheon... cost RM2009/person returning flight. At first we thought of getting Vietnam airline, with a stopover at Hanoi which cost only RM1.5k++ but then not very sure about the condition of Vietnam airline, and I meant the service. To update, an online friend of mine recently took Vietnam airline to Seoul, stopover at Hanoi, codesharing Korean air from Hanoi to Seoul. She said it's only 1hour or so trip to Hanoi and Vietnam air is okay but of course compare to Korean air, Korean air is way better. So if we plan for our next trip back to Korea, we might consider taking Vietnam air as well since it's cheaper...

The service on flight is good tho they mainly speaks in Korean, the cabin crew can understand english and speaks english too... Food is good too... Entertainment also good cause got many latest movie and songs to listen to...

Upon arrival at Incheon airport, we head to SK telecom to collect our wifi egg. We pre booked it online and with promo price. It cost only 5k won per day with unlimited data... This is a must, tho most restaurants and cafe in Seoul provide free wifi, still while we on the go we needed wifi to look at maps etc...overall 5kx10 with 10%tax 55kwon so roughly RM220. (using 3.9 exchange rate)

Then we went to convenient store to get ourselves T-money. It's a must because we're mainly travelling via subway train... The card comes in lotsa design, the cover we bought from Daiso RM5 ^^. Besides T-money there's other option of card like Seoul City Pass and Seoul City Pass Plus... which come with vouchers etc...Minimum reload at the automated vending machine is 1k won.

There's 3 option to get to Seoul from Incheon. 1 - bus which cost 10k won roughly 1 and half hour ride. 2 - Express subway train with no stop to Seoul station 8k+ with roughly 1 hour ride (can't really remember the exact price). 3 - Subway train that stop every stops cost 4.4k won..

We took option 3 because we didn't want to stop at Seoul station but at Hongik U station and it's lower cost.

The min fare for subway train is 1250 won, you can transit line or bus without any extra charges if your check out time less than 30mins (did i make any sense here.. means let's say im from blue line transferring to green line or from train to bus, within 30mins from last scan on getting out from the platform, when you scan to get in another platform there will be no deduction on the card)...

Recommended to download some subway apps and see which suit you the most... it is very helpful...

So we somehow found our way to Hongdae and manage to check into our hotel 'benikia premier marigold hotel' it's a hotel under the korean gov tourism so pricing it's a bit cheaper...less than rm250/night (if i remember correctly). We booked via agoda. The hotel is right smack at the center of Hongdae so going in and out and about is quite easy... The room is spacious and i especially love the bathroom...it comes with a jacuzzi bath tub... the design is like their love love hotel which they call it designer boutique hotel design...

After settling down we head out for our lunch at a kimbap restaurant. Generally kimbap restaurant doesn't only sell kimbap, they sell a lot of other things like kimchi soup, noodles, rice etc... we found one small kimbap shop down the lane from our hotel... as Hongdae is quite a tourist sport, the ahjumma did prepare some pictures with chinese wording for us to choose as we speak half tong shit korean language hahaha...

We ordered steam mandoo 4k won, spicy stir fry pork with rice 6k won and cheese ramyun 4k won.. roughly rm54.60 for our lunch...

CNY & Vday Trip to Pangkor 2016 Day 2

The very next day, we head back to town for our brunch at one of the chinese kopitiam... One word of caution, everything taste sweet in Pangkor especially the drinks...even if you order less sugar it will still be very very sweet...so i ended up ordering without sugar most of the time....

After brunch we went to dutch fort just to jalan jalan...since already in Pangkor definitely have to walk all the attraction yeh? ... Nothing much to do there but to let the kids run around and snap some photo. Then we walk to the batu bersurat (historical rock) less than 3mins walking from dutch fort... It's a big rock with ancient writing... bil said the real ancient writing/drawing is the tiger sort off, the rest of it as add on later on...

We head back to chalet and let the boys rest as our rented motor is difficult to start and totally got no power to go up hill... there's a few places that we didn't go because we scared the motor cannot make it hahaha... so we rest in our chalet where bil n sil went for side seeing...

We booked our island hoping boat at 4pm, which suppose to be at 8am but haha we don't think we can get out from the bed by then... It's rm80 for boat with shades so roughly RM15 for adult, RM10 for children... if were to take without shade it's only RM60.

We head out for our late lunch tho already had brunch but i feel so hungry at 3pm and later we are going to play water I need some food ^^. Nice view from the place we had our late lunch.

I kept my phone in our waterproof bag so no picture taken when we are snorkelling and island hoping as well as beach play at the place we played yesterday... snorkelling was fun especially for Keith... He enjoyed feeding the fish with roti while Kyle the scaredy cat talk and scream till no fish dare to go near him...We had to chase him up to the shallow area and ask him to stay there ^^.

At the beach i manage to korek a lot of siput... but i release them after that since there's no chance for them to stay alive if were to bring them back to chalet...

We cleaned ourselves up after that then head out for our dinner... in an ikan bakar stall... 1 set cost us rm75 for 4 persons...laughing at the portion of the chicken kunyit >< .. it was such a small plate...

I tried jagung bakar..it looks fantastic but taste uggghhh... it was coated with lotsa planta and sugar...yes u heard me right.. sugar and not salt.. it's sooooo sweet and sugary sweet while the jagung totally dried...

After a long day, we went to bed and next day morning we went for our breakfast then return the motor, check out and hop onto the ferry and home we go...

We plan to go there again on this coming March holiday, tho we wanted Redang but it's a bit out of budget...and it's far while Pangkor is only less than 3hours drive from where we're from... and fall in our budget range... 3 days 2 nights all in all less than RM800...

CNY & Vday Trip To Pangkor 2016 Day 1

It's my first time also hubby's and the boys first time to Pangkor Island... It was a ad hoc decision...We did plan to go somewhere but almost anywhere that we want to go doesn't fit into the budget we have...

It's been awhile since my boys last went to the beach so we thought going to an island would be a great getaway... It was CNY day 2 at our reunion dinner in great grandma's house, hubby talked to his bro about his plan...and bil said why not Pangkor... it's cheap and water is clean... not see thru type but at least way cleaner than the beach in Penang... So yeah that's how we ended up in Pulau Pangkor on day 4 of CNY...

We set off early, about 7am to Mcd for our breakfast then off we go to meet up bil at Taiping RnR...we reached Lumut jetty about 11am+ then took the ferry off to Pangkor Island... the ferry cost RM10 for adult, RM5 for children aged 4-12y, below 4y free of charge... and it's for two way... ^^ cheap hiakhiak...total cost us rm25 (2 adults, 1 children + 1 free toddler). It takes about 30mins to reach the island... The ferry actually stop at 2 stops. First stop is at a jetty near the town area which mainly cater for the locals, and second stop is for tourist because there there's taxi ^^.

Upon reach we hop onto a pink taxi cost rm20 (as we are going at peak season else bil said it usually cost him about rm12 at low peak). The taxi driver is crazy taxi driver...he tailgate, he overtake at sharp corners and he almost knock over a motor...scary ride...but Keith fell asleep inside the taxi.

We dropped our luggage at Seagull Chalet...an inn own by my bil's friend's father... It cost us rm130 per night for a family room with 1 queen bed and 1 single bed... equip with lcd tv, fan, aircond and a toilet with water heater..the water pressure is good... we then head out for our lunch...we just cincai hop into 1 stall and they only serve nasi kukus (steamed rice) with ayam goreng (fried chicken)... comes with curry and chili sauce... per plate cost us rm7...

After our lunch we went back to chalet for a quick rest, while hubby and bil went out to search for motor for rent...they manage to rent it after some time...due to peak season..everyone is snatching it... cost us rm80 for 2 days...(rm40/day).

My scaredy cat Kyle screaming all the way from chalet to town area... It's not his first time taking motor (he did when he's below 3y so i guess he must have forgotten)... while Keith enjoying the ride so much... We went to town area for some walking and side seeing then went Fu ling kong temple to walk walk... The sunglasses is cheap only RM5 for kids and adult, ice cream also cost rm1 only... the magnet souvenir also very cheap which i bought some for my mum.. Bought a cap for Kyle only RM15... In town area i also bought some homemade mee sua and mee teow... RM12 for 4packet of 200gm each...

There also got a mini great wall of china which we didn't climb.. it's mini but it's not that mini... it will take some strength to climb it hahahaha... so we just took some picture from bottom....

On the way in to our chalet there's an inn Hornbill Villa, there will be lotsa burung enggang (hornbill) around at 6.30pm due to feeding time...they said every 6.30pm the birds will automatically comes and wait... it's been going on for many many years... tourist gets to feed the birds with banana... it's fun to have a close range with the birds...

It's almost 7pm, the boys went for a dip in the water at the beach... we choose the beach upper part of teluk nipah... it's clean and sandy... we play until almost 8pm, before we head back chalet to clean ourselves then head back down to the beach area daddy's cafe (just at where we play just now) for western food...

After dinner, balik chalet tidur ^^...