Birthdays are meant to be special...

Piggilot goes to Port Dickson...

Waking up to the fact that I'm about to reach another decade/chapter in my life, recently, I've decided to celebrate it by going away from the rat race lifestyle. Taking a baby step, I took the path to visit Port Dickson for a getaway of 3 days 2 nights.

*caution: Author decided to take many goofy pictures. Please contain laughter and ignore silly poses.. Lol And this post is more descriptive and elaborate than usual*

Seremban Beef Noodles

Hearing negative remarks about nothing much to eat in PD, we decided to drop by Seremban for some beef noodles. No... I didn't dine at the famous one in the market; instead we dropped by the one nearest to the Seremban Highway. It's a corner shop called "Quinn". Check out this blog for more pictures.

Piggilot eats beef noodles

Quinn Seremban Beef Noodle
108, Jalan Toman 6,
Kemayan Square,
70200 Seremban.

Food was average and not memorable. (you can see how I simply took a picture of the dish... haha) Instead, I really missed the Tangkak beef noodles I used to eat on the way back from hometown. What's the difference?

This Seremban beef noodles taste better in dry style with its dark sauce. What's disappointing is very little ingredients despite paying RM6/bowl! The noodles didn't taste all that wonderful with the sauce.

What I missed about Tangkak beef noodles? Ooohhh the beefy clear soup and the internal cow organs!! Lol. They will serve a nice portion of beef, stomach, tendons, mmm... Pardon me for being so "chinese" for having a penchant for guts. Currently, I'm salivating at this picture below!! Yummy!

Picture borrowed from http://choopaulo.blogspot.com/2006/11/tangkak-beef-noodles.html as I have not been there in years!

***
Armed with a list of places to visit, we dropped by the tourist spots to check out the historical significance of these places.

Kota Lukut

There was a museum at the foot of the hill and the fortress (Kota Lukut) was a drive-up in a winding small off-beat road. In fact, we didn't realised there were steps up to the fort from the museum, that we drove all the way up to the fort before we went to the museum. I was a little worried we will end up to no where.

Piggilot tries to climb Kota Lukut

Some pessimistic people might say, "Hah? Kota Lukut is just a pile of rocks. What is there to see?".

However, I beg to differ ... look at the lovely red rocks they used to build the fortress. Look at the workmanship and most importantly, imagined how it functioned as a sturdy strong fort against the attack of enemies. There's a 2-3 metres deep moat around the fortress. There's even a well at another corner; not sure if it's the poisoned well as mentioned in the description at the signboard.

Piggilot loves red rocks

There's the Lukut Museum which is open to public and free admission. It's a 2-storey building made of concrete and bricks at the lower floor with wooden structures on 1st floor. You can see local traditional attire, music instruments and some historical events of the town. (Off-hand I can only remember these items)

Piggilot visits Lukut Museum

Avillian Admiral Cove, Port Dickson
What's a holiday without nice accomodation? We chose this place because it was within our budget and had quite reasonable comments from Tripadvisor.

In fact, the sad thing I personally feel about hotels in Malaysia is the bad upkeep despite exorbitant prices. We can get nicer hotels for half the prices in Bangkok (after conversion). In fact, I'm not that particular about the cost - if the hotels were decent, clean, tastefully decorated with good service from the staff, I wouldn't mind paying more. Somehow, you can't find a nice affordable boutique hotel to runaway from urban life once a while.

Avillion Admiral Cove PD's rooms were about half the price of their sister-hotel Avillion. I suspect because of this, they provided very basic facilities. The lobby itself was small, cozy and not overbearingly grand like most lobby. It overlooks into the cove beside. Staff were quite efficient although they kept asking for print-outs of our booking particulars when we checked in. We've booked online and paid with our credit cards... Why do we still need print-outs when we have showed the credit card? Hmmm...

Recognise the hotel by the colour of the buildings. Looks and feels more like a serviced apartment.

Our deluxe room in the vista wing (the newer wing) was decorated in a modern style with a black dark feature wall at the back of the bed. At the corner was a feature pendant lighting above a table and chair for business men to do some paper work or have some light meals. Next to the window, was a daybed which was bigger than a twin sized bed. It's enough for another adult. However, it might be hard to sleep there as the access door to the air-con ledge is just next to the daybed. There is no insulation to buffer out the noise of the air-con's compressor.

Other items found in the room was the LCD tv with limited Astro channels, a pantry in the bedroom with a sink and mini bar, a wardrobe with ironing board and iron too. Oh yes, there is even internet connection in the room through cabling and not wi-fi.

spacious bedroom with nice little touches

small pantry style incorporated in the room

The bathroom looks spacious as there is only shower and no bathtub. I noticed most modern designs are heading to this direction. The circular shaped iron-wrought towel railing is different from the traditional stainless steel circular hollow rods.

don't know why the picture autorotates itself.

The toiletries provided were very minimal and feels quite dismal; small soap, a small bottle of conditioning shampoo, shower cap and cotton buds.

More pictures of the hotel can be found in this review.

We strolled along the beach before dinner. Oh yeah, technically, Avillion Admiral Cove do not have a beach but they share a small portion of the beach next to the hotel. You can see in this picture that they placed potted plants to demarcate the boundary for the beach.

Birthday dinner
After googling for places to eat in PD, the name "El-cactus Mexican Restaurant" popped up and we decided to check it out since we passed by it on the way to our hotel. The restaurant is just along the road and has a large signboard which you cannot miss. Beetrice reviewed here about the food there.

piggilot dines in the sunset

I had a lovely large portion of lamb shank and a strawberry frozen margarita. Not all the drinks on the menu was available. The price is equalavent to Chilli's but the meal was of a larger portion. I just love the smooth meat of the lamb with its gravy. I know - I'm not good at describing food in detail. Lol. But I enjoyed my meal immensely. :)

Caution: If it just rained, try to avoid sitting next to the shrubs. The mosquito had a nice feast sucking my blood too. Lol.

Birthday cake
Call me traditional but I think all birthdays should be celebrated by blowing a candle and making a wish. Since the hotel was very basic, we couldn't get any cake from the hotel. (Don't get me started on the very basic minimal choices of the breakfast spread the next day. But it's edible - just very minimal choices)

Anyway, we went round PD town looking for a cakeshop with a decent piece of cake to fullfill my birthday requirement. ;)

After driving for almost half and hour, we spotted a corner shop which sold cakes and western-cum-asian dining. Guess how much does a piece of cake cost me? RM7/slice! Gosh.. the prices sure have gone up.

piggilot is satisfied that she finally found her slice of birthday cake

I'm glad despite everything... I had a nice birthday. Thank you Lord for allowing such an opportunity to arise.  :)  Will continue to blog more about the rest of my visit and food reviews! :)