1st Visit to Zoo Bee Cafe & 1Malaysia Cultural Village

Zoo Bee Cafe / Restaurant is one of the latest established eatery in Sibu located at Bukit Aup, just opposite Taman Jubli Bukit Aup, Sibu. The place is operated by Zoo Bee Enterprise Sdn Bhd, a local corporation.

Being to the place recently with Rojak Toh, Sparkish and Coolface just to feel the new place and taste the foods besides having some "guys talk". The eatery is basically an open air food court style where variety of cuisines, either eastern or western are available for orders. I heard there is a section which is fully air-cond, yet we didn't notice it on our first visit.

Foods' price in the cafe are pretty reasonable and at typical Sibu standard. However, I personally feel the waiting time for the food to be served ought to be cut down.

I had ordered a cup of ABC for RM 2.50. The price sounds very reasonable, but tasted not acceptable. What I got is just the over-sweet solutions with evaporated milk taste almost equal to zero! It was a big disappointment for me as well as my other friends!

We tried out some foods, just some simple foods. I had ordered Fried Mee Sua (Chinese string noodles) as this cuisine more hardly found on the market. RM 3.50 per plate is a very reasonable price and it tastes good too!

Sparkish ordered "Moonlight Char Kway Tiaw", Coolface tried out fried noodles topping with special minced meat source while Rojak Toh opted for fried vermicelli in Singapore style. All these foods are ranged at RM 3.50 - RM 4.00. Not much complain on the taste, they are as well very big portion, the only thing is some of these foods are just too oily! See the photo below and judge yourself!

We also tried the mix vege surrounded by deep fried mashed yam in medium size (RM 8) and also potato wedges (RM 5).

I personally like the wedges as they are not oily, just nicely fried with crunchy on the outer layer and soft inside. The mix vege tastes normal and didn't have much surprise.

There are also several Sarawak ethnics' cuisine which are available to be ordered such as Ayam Pansuh (chicken cooked in bamboo), a very famous Iban cuisine and also Umai (fish eaten raw, either marinated or with special sauce) which is Melanau ethnic's specialty!

After the eating and laughter, we then visited the so called "One Malaysia Cultural Village" just beside the eatery's premise and both are actually operated by the same owner. Our Prime Minister initially promised to attend the opening ceremony of this "cultural village" TWICE, but he somehow cancelled both the appointment at the very last minute for some unclear reasons.

Nothing much on this so called "cultural village" really. What I could see is just few nicely decorated pavilions represent different ethnic's culture and gorgeous landscaping design. Only portion of the place is opened for visiting at the night time. There is also a section specially built as mini botanical garden, but hide in the dark during our visit.

My advice is visit the place during daylight if you intended to see what is this "One Malaysia Cultural Village" is all about! For me, this name is a way too grand since it doesn't have too many cultural elements to be visited besides the pavilions with some cultural decoration touch up. A "Cultural Garden" would be more appropriate name in my opinion.

Anyhow, Sibu people has now a new leisure venue to go!

My Linsanity!

I guess most of you by now should have heard or at least come across the term "Linsanity"! It is a term given to a Havard boy, American born Chinese named Jeremy Lin who had been signed by New York Knicks initially as a bench warmer, but then had been given a chance to play at starting lineup following injuries by team's big name, such as Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudamire.

Lin then showed his talent and skills to the world as the team's point guard by scoring 25 points in his debut versus New Jersey Nets. His high performance doesn't just stop there, but he continued to bring the team to seven straight games victory! As a rookie, his outstanding performance was something unexpected. Since then, the name of Jeremy Lin had been spread widely and some of those never pay attention to NBA sports have now did so because of him! The impact brought by him to the NBA sports as well as the economy is something undeniable!

So, here is my version of Linsanity through the game NBA 2K12, my most favorite game! With latest rosters patch applied, I'm able to use Lin on New York Knicks starting lineup! With the overall skill points of 75 (of 100), Lin is not a super good player to use but with my believe of the power of Linsanity, he had became my primary player to dribble and score points for the team! (sorry to Melo and Stoudamire for been neglected! ;p )

[Lin's layout shot!]

[Lin's alley-oop pass to Carmelo Anthony!]

In my last night match, my Jeremy Lin had lead the team to win over Miami Heat, where Lin scored a buzzer beater to bring the team towards the victory!! My Linsanity!!

[The buzzer beater shot!]

[Lin's slam!!]

[Lin blocked Mario Chalmers's shot!]

[Lin passed the ball to Steve Novak for a 3-point shot!]

 [Lin's performance over the Miami Heat!]

Extension of Sibu Airport - The West Wing

It has been a while since my last post on this blog. I should truly feel shamed of myself especially when sometimes I shouted I'm "a blogger" in front of my friends yet I have abandoned my primary blog for such long!

Being lazy is one thing. Another thing is nothing new in my life to share about. Anyway I am back! I finally found something to share with all my readers! It is not something new, perhaps a lot of you may already saw and used it. What can it be then?

It's actually about the extension of Sibu Airport. Told you it is nothing new. Just that recently I had go and fro Sibu airport for few rounds, so I have the chance to take some photos on part of the completed structure. Just in case you haven't see the place, here we go!

The west wing of the airport is the earliest section to be completed and it is now partially functional. It is used as the departure hall for flights check-in and luggage dropping area.

The new departure hall has plenty of spaces if compare to the old one. Now passengers or the airport users can have a more comfortable and cooler place to complete their check-in procedure. The place should actually fully air-conditioned, yet I believe as the construction is not fully completed, thus these air conds are also not fully functional too.

I couldn't feel the cold when I was inside, the standing air conditioners at the deepest end of the wall from the entrance seem didn't produce cold air but the normal wind. However, there are fans around to make the place less stuffy.

A restaurant and shop are available at the departure hall, yet with poor internal design. Couldn't it be better since the terminal building is such welly constructed?

There are total of 18 check-in counters compare to 8 before the expansion. Predicted this will reduce the jam during peak period provided that there are that many ground staff on duty!

At this moment of writing, the right wing of the terminal building already been opened to be used as the arrival hall with 2 luggage reclaim belts while the renovate and over haul works of the center part (the old terminal building) had just started few days ago.

Let us wait for the completion of the entire upgrading project of Sibu Airport which needs maybe a year to two.

Happy Dragon New Year 2012

Wishing all the Just Sharing readers a happy and prosperous Dragon year ahead. Thank you for all your supports by liking the blog and it is a great motivation for me to continue maintaining it! Enjoy the big day with your families and love one!

龙年行大运！

A Brief Review of Belawai Beach

Belawai Beach had now become among the most popular relaxation and family gathering spot for people around Sibu. With the completion of Sibu-Tanjung Manis road, which allows accessibility from Sibu to Tanjung Manis via land transport with only 1 hour of driving distance, the Belawai Beach which is just additional half an hour's driving from Tanjung Manis became the nearest seaside view reachable by Sibu people.

1.5 hours driving to the beach is an acceptable distance for Siburians. Before this, the nearest beach is at Mukah Division which required double time consumption of the current. Thus, during weekend or public holidays, Belawai Beach will be crowded with visitors and don't be surprised if big portion of them are from Sibu.

Currently, there is no resort operates at the beach side, but a company named Reki Enterprise which I heard is the land owner of one small part of the beach had prepared some basic picnic facilities such as picnic tables, barbecue set, wash rooms and restaurant for the visitors.

These facilities are chargeable. A picnic table with a barbecue set will be charged RM4 per session (until you leave the place). If you want to use the toilet, you need to pay RM0.30 and RM1.00 for those who wish to take a bath and clean up the body after playing at the beach.

During peak period especially public holidays, you may need to pre-book the picnic facilities or else you may go back with lots of disappointment. Shelters are limited so do prepare umbrellas just in case of hot sun or sudden rain.

 

The beach itself is clean but the sea water is light brownish in color which contributes to the imperfection. Anyhow need to be thankful as with the Belawai Beach, Sibu people can now have more chances to experience picnic and spending leisure at a seaside than ever before!

Famous Sunny Hill Ice Cream @ Kuching

I had been hearing about the name Sunny Hill of Kuching ages ago. There is a very legendary ice cream parlor here which is so synonym to the place, but I never being there before.

In the recent trip, thanks to PY for bringing us there to try out the legendary ice cream. Its location which is just beside the busy Batu Kawa-3rd Mile flyover and the narrow road in front of the shop made parking a challenge to the patrons. On the day of visit, we were lucky enough to get a parking slot or else we might need to leave the place without trying anything.

The shop was crowded with patrons at the time of our visit at around 4++pm queuing for their turn, but the service was quite fast. Thus the waiting time was relatively short. The shop itself has no luxury renovation or some sort, just an old-school canteen style with seats around.

There are actually very limited flavors to choose from, in fact, there will only certain flavors of sundae in sale on specific days:

     Monday to Tuesday - Strawberry
     Wednesday to Friday - Pandan or Corn
     Saturday and Sunday - Chocolate
     Everyday - Vanilla

There are few variations on how you wish the sundae to be served, either serving on cones, in a bowl with nuts or without, ice cream sandwich style (sundae with bread), banana split and etc.

As at the time of visit it was on Sunday and I had a bad throat condition, thus I only opted for plain vanilla chocolate mixed sundae served in a plastic bowl at RM2.50.

Other friends of mine had ordered vanilla topping with nuts (RM2.80), an ice cream sandwich and a banana split (RM3.90).

On my first trial, I didn't feel extraordinary yummy, but the strong milk powder fragrance attracted my taste buds! I personally like that milky taste, but it might not be the story for those not in favor. The sundae itself is super smooth, the smoothness that I never feel before having ice cream melting in my mouth. It is indeed cooling and refreshing! Apart from the nice taste, the ice cream was not too sweet! Thumbs up for this!

In a nutshell, the ice cream is nice... very nice in fact at the level that you will feel of go back and try again, but it is not super duper perfectly nice. That makes me curious why the small ice cream shop are so famous among the cat city's citizen?

After I browse through the web, I only discovered that there was actually a little story about the parlor. This little parlor had existed since many decades ago. So, many Kuching people were grown up with the companion of this ice cream shop. Thus, they have a very special love and childhood memories towards it. This had been passed from a generation to another. (Please enlighten me if I am wrong in this)

One more thing to mention, all the profits from the selling of ice cream of this shop will be used for the public service projects of the S.D.A. (Seventh-Day Adventist Church) missions.

The business hours of the shop is as follow:

     Sunday - Thursday   8.00am - 10.00pm
     Friday                      8.00am - 4.00pm
     Saturday                  7.00pm - 10.00pm