A visit to Santa Paula

Let me share my 'adventure' in Santa Paula with you. It was mostly to accompany my hubby on his hour & a half drive to his client's place as well as be his navigator. I did look up on the town the night before we went so that I will roughly know what to do and expect.

Santa Paula is 45 minutes away from Los Angeles and it is located in Southern California's beautiful Heritage Valley. This area was firstly settled by the Chumash tribe of Native Americans around 10,000 years ago and it has a long history in oil and agriculture.

If you love old architecture, you will most probably love Santa Paula. There are many old buildings that are so beautiful!

Below, I share some of the photos I snapped with my iPhone4s. I didn't bring my Nikon out with me as my bag is already full with my sketching supplies and I'm on foot the whole day. Didn't want to overload my bag.

I stopped in my step to admire this clock. It is working! :)

Unitarian Universalist Church

 Beautiful murals abound in this town

 Santa Clara Valley Bank. I love the building!

The owner has Gone Fishing!

The Commerce Center 

 More murals :)

Oddfellows Clocktower 

Car Wash... look at the cute structure :)

This is a quiet, quaint little town. There is no hustle & bustle like in the big cities and sometimes, it is nice to take a step back and enjoy a town like this.

Eve

Travels : China

Of all the places in the world I thought I'll visit, I never thought China would be one I visit before Italy or Greece.. why? I don't know... I always thought visiting China is for old people... so I thought I will one day visit the "place of my roots" (well, 3 generations ago we were from somewhere in the Mainland), when I'm much older and wiser.

But I went to China on my birthday this year with my hubby and his friends. We went to Beijing and visited The Forbidden City, Tiananmen Square, scaled the Great Wall, walked in the Summer Palace and strolled in grounds of the Temple of Heaven. I also fell in love with Hunan dishes there. Then we went to Jiuzhaigou and was mesmerized by the beauty nature bestowed on Earth and was totally captivated by it. Our last stop was Chengdu where my palate was numbed by Sichuan pepper while we had 'Ma la' steamboat. We also went to the Giant Panda Research Centre where we saw a Giant Panda greedily gobbling up his bamboo shoots, some sleeping in various positions, playing and even some baby pandas!

me in the grounds of Temple of Heaven

I love history of all kinds and I was wrong to think that China should only to be visited when I'm old.. I would love to explore other parts of it and learn more about the history & culture of the people, monuments, places... Photos and stories of the places I visited will be blogged over time here. If you wanna know more, please do drop by from time to time :)

Quirky

My first chipboard album

There's going to be quite a number of pictures because I kinda took a picture of every page :P

Not sure how I was going to share it so I thought why not just post every page up, right? I hope the pictures will not bore you. The crazy sugar-charged squirrel is no longer super-charged. I need a nice, long nap :)
















What do you think? Not too shabby for a first try ya? :)



Quirky

Ipoh Jalan-Jalan Cari Makan

The whole family including the uncles, aunties and cousins went on a road trip to Ipoh one weekend. 4 car convoy. Had lotsa good food, stuffed ourselves until we could eat no more. Went to Ipoh Parade to hide from the afternoon sun, visited the Osim there and had our massages (on the chairs, whatchamacallit... you name it).

Took lots of pictures but only one with me in it. Thank God it was ok taken.... I think there's me in my cousin's camera. Will 'steal' the pictures from her soon :P

Love the run-down buildings...reminisence of the past

Some of the dim sum we had at Foh San

The only picture with me in it.... -___-""

Mum :)

The people

The ladies

Old safe... didn't know they are still around

My bro & my aunt

Best fishballs I've tasted in a loOoong time

How can I not take pictures of pomelo when in Ipoh?

Cousins attempting some stunt

And that's the end of the photolog :P


Quirky

My first collage attempt

I've been wanting to create a collage for the longest time. But being the noob that I am, I couldn't really figure out how to do it with Photoshop.

Bali Honeymoon 2009

It's a good thing then that I re-discovered Picasa (my brother introduced it to me once but it got wiped out when my laptop was reformatted and well, ...) and it's been giving me hours of fun!

It's now Picasa3 and I think there's more eye candy to it compared to the last version. Try it out. It's simple, hassle-free and easy to navigate. Except for a few effects that I'm still working on......

So, what do you think of my collage? :)

Quirky

of a Guy, a Girl and 2 cops ....

I'm in Penang! Oh, right... I already told you that in the short-talk I posted yesterday evening :)

But guess what? We drove here, and this being my virgin visit to the island of Penang.. hehe. I know. In all my 20+++ years of life (wat?? I put a lot of + behind the 20 already.... >.<), I have never stepped foot up this side of Malaysia. I've been to Kelantan and Terengganu in my teens during a school trip but I've never been to Perak, or Kedah or even Penang... sad, huh? Well, you get some, you lose some? :P

Anyway, the Mr. has been to the Pearl of the Orient before but this is his first time driving up here too. So, it's kinda like the blind leading the blind here, huh? :P

We started journey about 10pm last night as he wanted to be here so that he can see his client early the next day. So we made some calls to our Penangite friends and got some directions. The Mr. got a map too and after we grab a cuppa from Starbucks, we drove..... (brave, hor?)

It was quite easy, really. Just follow Ipoh... and after you pass Ipoh, you just follow Penang...and Georgetown (that's where we're headed). The tricky part is after the toll on the bridge into the island.

My friend gave pretty clear directions.... but we missed the landmark! Maybe it's super dark in the night (we reached about 2+ am) but we didn't see Tesco and so we didn't turn left... we just went straight. Ended up way past the roads my friend wanted us to take but was somewhere near the vicinity of the hotel we're supposed to stay in. And the Mr. did something quite daring. Ehemm, he stopped at the side of a ,hmm, roundabout. Clever, right? Cos he's not sure which way to turn.....

Called my friend and he was like, "hey, I am coming to get you guys... Just wait for me." But we didn't really want to trouble him out of his house... and that's when a police car pulled up beside ours. Of course he asked why we stopped so dangerously, to which we sheepishly looked at him... "sesat" (lost), I told him.. Anyhoo, he tried to explain the directions to us and we just kinda stared at them... and his partner, so nice I tell you, said "why don't you follow us? We'll lead you."

Wow, I tell you. I don't know about you but I rarely have conversation with cops. And we were so blessed to meet such nice cops yesterday night! Called my friend immediately to tell him not to worry and followed the police to the hotel :) Not bad, got police escort :P

So, we reached safely, washed up and plonked onto the bed... Gonna meet my ex-colleague for lunch later. Will give my friend a call as well.... might not be able to meet up with them too but he's really so kind to wake up in the middle of the night for us! Thanks man, you know who you are!!!



Quirky

Our honeymoon in Bali

More to come, I hope :)

Honeymoon is not only for the newly-weds, right? I mean, it can happen anytime during the marriage.

We went to Bali for our 'first' honeymoon. Overall, it's a nice place. If you like beaches and temples (lots of them) and sightseeing, then Bali is not too shabby. Things are not exactly cheap, though. Most things are in USD and when they are not (meaning in Rupiah), it's so hard to calculate... too many zero's in their currency :P Saw a couple of foreigners with calculators in their hands! Unfortunately my phone's calculator can't fit all the digits needed, most of the time we have to rely on our brain.... haha.

I will write more on our adventures and 'misadventures' in Bali in the coming days/weeks There's always something to learn when you go to a foreign country, even if you do understand what they are bitching about the tourists... yes, Bahasa Indonesia is quite similar to Bahasa Malaysia (BM) and I am from the national school = I studied BM since I was 7 :)

For now, let's give the pictures a chance to do the talking :)

Bright sunny day.... & us

Making yarn..... Barong dance

Horse ride...... us @ Barong dance theatre

Wood Carving...sunbathing terrapin

Rice Terrace in Begalalang

Hubby & a turtle

Us and eagles, hornbill :)

Scenery in Uluwatu

In Uluwatu

Tanah Lot

Hubby drinking coconut juice....Tanah Lot

Sunset in Tanah Lot

Boy & his kite...giraffes

Trinkets

Hope you enjoyed the pictures :) Travelogue coming soon .....



Quirky