Aurland - Snow Road

20th September - Sunny & Nice

As we parted with Sanden Pensjonat the next day, our journey for another day begins.

Life during travel is so simple. Wake up, eat, see as much as we can, then rest. I wonder if I would've done this for 3 months, what would I turn into. Someone with wisdom? Or nothing but a brainless idiots that doesn't even exercise a single brain cell...

Anyways, while I was thinking we should quickly cross over with the ferry, my dad thought we should try again with the Aurland snow road. This time round we start from the other side of the road.

Surprisingly it was nothing terrible as what we saw yesterday from the other side.

The scenery, it is different from what we saw yesterday and look just as gorgeous.

Aurlandsvegen

While we are still on our way up, there are some sheep still munching here.

Their owner will come search for them on a 3 day hike before winter returns. I ask the question why don't the owner just put gps tagging on the sheeps, especially these sheep are so vulnerable to predators like wolves, so the owner can find for them sooner, but I guess it is just the way how Norwegian love doing things just like their ancestors did. Tradition, in many ways, is a thing they tried to adhere as much I felt.

Snow road as its name depicted, this area has snow the whole year round as it is on the highland. But at the end of Autumn before Winter returns, there was very little snow left. I can imagine how high the ice must be to be able to supply snow the whole year round throughout hot warm summer even.

As our car climb higher, the scenery changes too. From lush greenery, surrounding gradually change to small short shrubs, wind blow very strong here. Eventually we reach plateau with large pieces of stone, with lakes made up of melted snow in between.

It feel like we are no on earth anymore, more like on moon as if...I feel so small in the universe after being in the Norwegian fjord.

I feel so insignificant, like I am nobody here compare to great mother nature. It is like paradise on earth really, like a place you'd never know it would exist at all, then you are here and when you see them everywhere you just sigh with the creation of mother nature...

Soon we started to decent, the view from top to down in the car is magnificent...

We then reached the At Stegastein, dramatically located with a spectacular view over Aurlandsfjorden, is the award winning viewpoint, designed by architects Todd Saunders and Tommie Wilhelmsen.

Took many pics here, then we decided to have a picnic here. Live like the westerners you see.

It is really not a choice as food is expensive, nearby no restaurants nor cafe, we are always on the go so it is no time for finding restaurant for lunch.

Notice that we are well equipped here with a large thermo flask as well. My mom initially detest the idea on me carrying so many things in my luggage, and she made sarcastic remarks if she could offer her fridge and microwave to tagged along as well.

Look here at the end who was the smarter one? :P

Later we continued downhill back to town, stopped by at the supermarket to refill on food supply. Still nice scenery, even just outside the supermarket. SIGH!!! People here must be living a long life!

Sanden Pensjonat, Lærdal

19th September - Cloudy

After the exhilarating experience at Norway in a Nutshell, we continued our journey towards the east side. We were wanting to get there through the Snow Road which was said to be very nice with views from high atop of the Aurlandsfjorden. Coming from Aurland side, we try and try to search for the road and our GPS keep pointing us on some off road through some people's backyard which is kinda scary since it look totally inaccessible by our car. I thought that road must be like a 4x4 experience.

So... as the end we had to cross that longest tunnel in the world, like 45km or so, and not see anything but a pitch dark cave all the way to Lærdal.

With such a small population of 500 people, it didn't take us too long to find Sanden Pensjonat in this small village. It is located just right next to the tourist office. And the whole small old touristy Lærdalsøyri area is empty with us.

Though the our lodging looks very petite from inside, but this old wooden building was very well preserved and stayed by a couple doing some artistic work. The rooms are very very cozy, fit for a smurfs! Not forgetting the bathroom, all revamped with nice hot shower and heated floors too.

We had very early dinner, as there was another couple waiting to use the kitchen too. I think they were amused with the amount of cooking we were doing. Can see their eyes rolling wide as I saw they were only planning to have only pizza and wine that they've got from the supermarket nearby. My mom on the other hand was just dishing out the yummy beef rending she prep the night before.

View from 2nd Floor

There are not much to do here at night. We just took a walk to the nearby river and took some pictures. Loud Malaysian like us spoke like thousand horses roaring over, and I thought we did startled some old folks that still stay around here. Haha...

We had some great time spent up in the attic throughout the night, with my mom gulping beer away and my dad cannot be parted with his free wifi access. I was just doing nothing scanning through pics that I've taken today.

Sick

In actual fact, I feel fine most of the time. But neither do the doctor (2 of them) nor I can pin point exactly what when wrong with my head. I feel very very very dizzy when I start to lay down on the bed.

Maybe god is trying to tell me that I rest too much, therefore it is time for me to be awake more often, so that I can get more work done.

But anyways, I am getting a day off tomorrow under doctor's recommendation so I am all ready to rest and was told to relax. :P

Guang Zhou Food Hunt - 广州银记肠粉店

Rachel's friend came meet us up while we were walking around the Beijing walking street mall 北京路步行街.

She then lead us to this shop which I won't have any idea how to get there unless someone tells us where it is. There were like thousands of shops around and I could have miss this shop easily.

银记肠粉店 (Yin Ji Chang Fen Dian, directly translate as Yin Ji steamed cheong fun shop) is where she led us to. It is just behind the Beijing streetmall.

The shop was filled with people for breakfast, lunch and dinner selling on few things.

Hand made steamed chee cheong fun, with cabbage and stirr fried beef inside. The cabbage and beef combination is gives really surprising good flavoring, coupled with thin but stretchable steamed rice skin. I have not tasted good Canton style steam cheong fun for very long and I really like this.

The Canton porride is known for their savory tasting and has combination on century egg + mince pork, or just fish, or plain chicken. The main character of a good cantonese porridge would be the finely boiled rice till a point you don't see the grain. This shop has very good porridge that is hardly too salty, very healthy.

Of course, Cantonese porridge won't be complete without the deep fried You Tiao 油条.

We had a very good appetizer as well - Stewed beef brisket in secret sauce (I named it myself, heh)

Even the HK food critic Choy Lan, 蔡澜 came here before. This place has won many awards and they decided to hang it all up. Heh...

A must go I'd say when you are ever around this part of the town.

Posting from Guang Zhou China

Came to here for a week as we were having a Gene Expression instrument training. I was already knowing this is not gonna be easy when I search the Wikimapia and found the training location is at a distance from the main Guang Zhou city...

It is lcoated at this University City 广州大学城, which is like an Island between the river, with like few universities all moved into this new place. Rather spacious, rather isolated.

Very quiet here, since students have yet to return from holiday.

I don't think anyone cares if I decide in the middle of the road, no cars, no taxi, bus comes irregularly...

To my surprise, the hotel is actually decently built. But still the breakfast is bad... imagine for chinese breakfast you are given watery rice porridge, as well as a plate of noodle fried noodle (.i.e. mee goreng kosong?)

To walk to class, it is 15min.

Mango Tree

To walk to nearest store, is 10min

To walk to nearest eatery, is 20min

To walk to nearest subway, is 30min.

My leg aches on the last day I am here.

We hurried to town on Wednesday, by first walking 30min to subway station, then change train 2 times, and then took a 10min cab to find civilization. Came to this famous Cantonese restaurant 彩衣酒楼 at 天润路.

Think Anthony (orange shirt) and Tony feel great relieve with decent palatable Cantonese cuisine is served. Anthony is quick to snatch the menu to order great food. I think he deserve a credit for that.

But the food didn't come cheap, we paid like RMB 600 for such few dishes... but Anthony thinks it is normal...

Cantonese style mushroom soup

Guangdong pride fish - Guai Fah Fish 桂花鱼

Stewed Chinese Bun

Strange food serve here again, crocodile meat for soup...

But class was fun. Managed to learn many important yet new things. Met some nice people from here, like Tony from Taiwan, and few China base staffs, and customers

Almost like having a Chinese cultural crash course. Finding Malaysia mandarin are so rojak that I must always translate the word in english to chinese so they can understand me. Learn many new chinese science terms too, haha...

Since this place is out of no where, pretty much have to get lunch delivered to us. Though isolated, there's a fairly big shopping malls for the student about 5km away that has fast food restaraunts.

Some days we had this Chinese fast food call Zhen Kung Fu 真功夫. It emphasize on their food nutrient is maintain as they are all steam. Set usually comes one meat dish, veg, rice and a bowl of double boiled soup. Taste good actually.

This month promotion, mushroom abalone sauce as appetizer

Some days we ended up with KFC. I think China people actually like to eat fast food as I have a feeling that these junk foods are a luxury around here.

KFC here doesn't taste good at all, the coating taste nothing but bland. But the chicken taste better without the chicky taste. Thus I like their zinger burger actually.

We went to town again on our last day here. Managed to walk around and shop too.

At Beijing Walking Streetmall 北京路步行街

Rachel's favorite, double-skinned steamed milk custard 顺的双皮奶

I was happy to get some chinese novels. Book price in China is really hard to beat. I'd load my whole suitcase with them if there wasn't this 20kg weight limit from Airasia. Apart from that, I've also bought a lot of tidbits and instant mee. I know I know, don't start me with the China made goods are dangerous okay... :P

Rachel's routine grocery shopping in China ?!

We went for foot massage on our last night as well in town.

Foot massage center here are very different from Malaysia, it is more like a health club.

Blame its bad quality on the incapability of Nokia N73, grr...

Its front is a tea selling counter, and behind they have foot massage room, mahjong room, card game place room which can also be a discussion place while sipping tea. I suspected gambling is a known activity around here... heh.