Uncle Joe Durian @ Chin Swee Caves Temple [Genting Highlands, Malaysia]

Before the allure of gambling started to take root in my adult life, my best memory of Genting Highlands was actually the charming Chin Swee Caves Temple, which I had not visited for a long while.

There were two objectives in mind for my recent trip. One was to climb up the 10,000 Buddhas Pagoda [万佛塔]; sadly, it didn't materialize as access was no longer allowed! 

Let's proceed to the second objective then; checking out Uncle Joe Durian that had a high 4.9 review score on Google Maps from almost 150 reviewers! Now, Genting Highlands is situated in the state of Pahang and in close proximity was Raub and Bentong, known for their Musang King durians! 

Coming from Singapore, a major importer of Malaysian durians, and being a huge fan of the king of fruits, I am appalled that prices here weren't that much of a difference from back home! To be fair, Genting Highlands are not known to be cheap.

Loving the fact that there were tables and chairs for customers, with a view of the gondolas travelling up and down the Genting Highlands Premium Outlets Cable Car, and blessed with a cool temperature. 

Additional decoration to make us "feel at home" with the durians. 

Fake ones obviously yet a total great photo prop.

Served in a basket and beautifully displayed, accompanying our order were a pack of plastic gloves and a box of tissue paper! Helpful for some although plastic gloves are not my style as I love to lick my fingers that had remnants of durian pulp! 

Now our durian, which was the most expensive black thorn species at Uncle Joe Durian that day; costing RM 86 a kilogram, this gorgeous, wrinkly beauty was priced at RM 157, almost S$50! Oh well, I don't mind the price so long the taste would be out of this world!

We were already informed that black thorn durians were sweeter and the pulps didn't disappoint with its creamy, flavourful sweet richness even though the texture was a tad too mushy. It was a good durian; however, we had higher expectation given we were so close to the homeland of durians.

11 seeds in total.

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Address

Lot G-S11, Chin Swee Caves Temple, 

69000 Bentong, Pahang, Malaysia

Map

As above. 

Additional Information

If you see rose apples at Uncle Joe Durian, get them! The pre-sliced rose apples we bought at RM5 a pack were crunchy, lightly sweetened and without the tartness! 

Fenqihu Old Old Street @ Taiwan

The old street of fenqihu is well known due to its close proximity to the forest railway station but do you know there's an even older street in the small town?! Following the directions past the famous donut shop, we hastened our pace as it was almost 5pm! 

Looking ahead to the view as above, I was wondering if we were on the right path as nothing particular stood out and I didn't want to venture too far in case we have to return back to our hotel in darkness.

Thankfully I can read Chinese characters to know we arrived at the entrance! Direct translation would be Fenqihu Old Old Street; guess to differentiate with the Old Street of Fenqihu.

Stepping in, I did wonder if I had misread the directional arrow. 

How come it felt like I was trespassing a factory?! 

Alright, the above gave a more correct vibe although I wouldn't want to step in after dark. For an urban dweller who love paranormal movies and stories, my imagination would have run wild! 

It didn't help that it was so quiet! For a place that was said to be steeped in history, the only excuse I could think of for this lack of tourists was that I might have visited a bit too late since many tourists treat Fenqihu as a stopover. 

Frankly, the area seemed to have stopped in time, featuring old school signage and decoration that existed way before I was born (mind you, that's actually quite long).

Amazingly, there was no human, except a gentleman for who was ahead of us when we reached the old old street. I believe coming during noon would have revealed a more vibrant side.

Pretty cute animal carvings! 

Tiger was ferocious yet it was an adorable corgi-sized.

Home grown pearly guava! By the way, it's not three for NT$100. The unit of weight is jin in Taiwan is equivalent to 600 grams. Hence, it would mean 1.8 kilogram for about S$4.30.

Last few looks of the century-old Old Old Street! 

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Location Map

As above.

Click HERE for 11 Days, 10 Nights Taiwan Trip: Summarised Itinerary for Chiayi Alishan (嘉义阿里山) - Kaohsiung (高雄) - Tainan (台南) - Taichung (臺中)

Pork Cutlet Bento Lunch from Yahu Ekiben (雅湖鐵路便當) @ Fenqihu Railway Town [Taiwan]

Back in 2024, I had wanted to check out the popular railway bento from Yahu Ekiben but the tour company had already prepared lunch at Fenchihu Hotel. 

Therefore, now that I am back again in 2023, I made it a point to visit! So here we are, seated at the alfresco area since there wasn't any indoor seating. However, a sad news hit us shortly; their popular braised pork belly was sold out!

So, we had to relegate to this lower option; the pork cutlet bento. To be honest, it was overflowing with ingredients! For a cutlet, it wasn't deep fried with batter. The meat was just a thin slice, albeit a bit too thin for satisfaction and only lightly seasoned which wasn't a bad thing. Maybe it's the standard here, why the need to add bamboo shoots! 

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Map

As above.

Menu

As above.

Pricing

Pork Cutlet Bento - NT$120

Click HERE for 11 Days, 10 Nights Taiwan Trip: Summarised Itinerary for Chiayi Alishan (嘉义阿里山) - Kaohsiung (高雄) - Tainan (台南) - Taichung (臺中)

Handmade Mochi @ Fenqihu Old Street in Taiwan

Both Alex and I love muah chee, and you can vividly sense the longing in Alex's expression when we walked past one particular store along Fenqihu Old Street; that "gosh, this looks not bad" look on his face.

Onz, let's just order even though I am not as excited about mochi. Although there are similarities between the Singapore muah chee and the Japanese / Taiwanese mochi, the latter was larger and came in fillings not as memorable as the traditional peanut ones we are accustomed to.

But this seemed promising!

At NT$15 apiece, this looked like a big-sized fish ball (or a foochow fish ball). I was hopeful and can't wait to sink my teeth right in the middle, so that I can accurately secure the immediate burst of nutty goodness! 

Boy it didn't disappoint; this mix of peanuts and sesame seeds, with fine grain sugar of course, was delicious and so satisfying! It didn't feel as if the mochi was too much and I was glad it didn't stick to my teeth! 

Peanuts one was as good; I would say this would be like an enhanced, enlarged version of the pint-sized muah chee we have in Singapore, given that it has a filling whereas the ones we have in Singapore are more wrapped with peanuts. Since I have a home recipe for muah chee, maybe I can recreate this Taiwanese mochi! 

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Location

Along Fenqihu Old Street,

Chiayi, Taiwan

Menu

As above.

Click HERE for 11 Days, 10 Nights Taiwan Trip: Summarised Itinerary for Chiayi Alishan (嘉义阿里山) - Kaohsiung (高雄) - Tainan (台南) - Taichung (臺中)

Sapa Rose Valley @ Sun World Fansipan Legend [Vietnam]

The mist was heavy when we arrived at Hoang Lien Cable Car Station from Fansipan Station but instead of going straight back to Sapa Town via the Muong Hoa Funicular; we decided to venture out of the station! 

Greeting us was the above; a place, devoid of other humans, shrouded mysteriously in a cloud of mist, reminding me of the scenes in the horror movie, Silent Hill. 

Seriously, if not for the daylight, this would have been darn eerie. 

Advantage; no one else was there except for our family of six. Even though it was only about 2pm, I was kind of surprised as all other areas at Sun World Fansipan Legend were crowded with people, and this rose valley was right outside a cable car station! 

Only reason I could think of was visitors' focus on conquering the 3,143-meter summit of Fansipan and decided to ignore this mid-level attraction, only to realize they were too tired to explore once they were done with the summit.

Plus, it was freezing near the summit! It wasn't as cold in the rose valley although it was drizzling very lightly. Above was a display of water droplets on a spider web.

A pity for those who miss out on exploring this place as there were plenty of photo spots! A luxury for us since it was just us in the area, with no one jostling to take photographs.

There's even this staircase to heaven!

Unlike a clean staircase, it was like the arduous, torturing journey to reach the top! Kudos to both my sister and brother in law, who didn't seem to be too bothered with scaling the height! 

I stopped halfway with the view as above. As I get older, I am not afraid of death but the staircase was slippery and being badly injured would be worse than dying!

Photograph of dad from the middle of the staircase. For a rose valley, I must admit that I don't really see a lot of roses. Maybe it was too cold for the roses to bloom. 

In better weather, I presume it would be a prettier sight. 

Woah, a lot of roses! Maybe I was wrong about the weather!

A closer look revealed they were all fake! :( 

My elder sister is known for being very expressive when she takes photographs. What a lot of people didn't know was that my serious-looking brother in law can also be expressive! Must be the influence from the wife.

Can see that my dad absolutely loved this trip! 

And even till now, he is still talking about Sapa! 

Photographs of my family, without me as I am the main photographer! Last photograph shows how close the rose valley was to the Hoang Lien Cable Car Station.

Rare photograph of my younger sister with my dad! 

My sisters with my dad, using the available props for photo-taking! And I totally adored the second picture, where my elder sister was trying to tame a raging stallion! With the youngest of us already above 40 years old, we were behaving like we were kids! 

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Click here for my summarized itinerary of my 3 days trip to Sapa