A beach getaway!

Hi! I am back from a wonderful getaway at Awana Kijal Golf, Beach & Spa Resort, Terengganu. Terengganu is one of the state in Malaysia, situated at the East Coast of Peninsula Malaysia. It is well-known of its beautiful sea sides and beach attractions. Awana Kijal is one of my wish-to-visit resorts, after listening to many positive reviews from friends and online reviewers, we decided to pay this well recommended resort a visit last weekend. Awana Kijal is situated in Kemaman, one of the town in Terengganu. It was a 3 days 2 nights getaway from the busy urban city to a slow and relax town. This place is famous of the "turtle watching" activity at night. The resort is providing local trip packages to few attractions around the town, such as turtle watching (seasonal), durian trip, firefly watching, village tour and city tour. Thus, you can visit those places without any hassle.




After driving for about 5 hours from our home, we finally reached our destination. We were impressed by the architectural of the lobby and the top view from the highest floor of the hotel's room. Over seeing the golf course, the beautiful sea & the jungle, we were amazed and understood those good reviews from the previous guests. The resort has a huge & beautifully designed swimming pool, outdoor jacuzzi and also children pool with water slides, we definitely enjoyed the swimming pool especially my little boy. After the pool, I headed to the sauna room to get some refreshment which I longed for a long time. The following day, we headed to the sea for a dip and followed by our favourite beach sand castle building activity. The weather was beautiful during our stay there, it was just the right time to enjoy beach activities. So, we waited no more and rented 2 bicycles to ride along the beach and the resort.



The resort is also providing plenty of water activities such as banana boat ride, water skiing, jet skiing, parasailing, fishing trip and boat ride. Nevertheless, these activities are depending on the season. Most of the water activities can't be carried out during monsoon season around end of the year. Apart from the water activities, they also have beach activities, such as beach soccer, sepak takraw, volleyball, basketball, sand castle building and kite flying. It will be fun if you are coming with a group of friends or family.


There are giant size snake & ladder game and chess game painted on the ground for adults and kids to spend some childhood games together. It is a fun way to gather friends and family together while enjoying this beautiful resort.


We thought it will be difficult to find Chinese restaurant in this town since this town has majority of Malays restaurants, we were surprised to find 2 Chinese restaurants and a KFC (Kentucky Fried Chicken) branch just beside the resort. Thus, we headed to one of the Chinese restaurants to try it out. They have a wide range of food and was as good as those restaurant's standard in KL. Moreover, their price is reasonable. We had our lunch and dinner there for 2 days and we still find the food was awesome!

Nevertheless, the resort's breakfast was good too. We got to taste their local famous nasi padang with tuna curry (a Malays traditional food) and lemang with beef rendang. (Lemang is a traditional Malay food made of glutinous rice and coconut milk and cooked in a hollowed bamboo stick lined with banana leaves in order to prevent the rice from sticking to the bamboo. Reference from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemang). Along the way, you can find plenty of hawker stalls by the roadsides selling fresh-warm lemang, grilled fish in banana leaves, deep fried chips (keropok), satay, curry noodles and many more. All of them are absolutely mouth-watering if you prefer spicy, rich and authentic Asian food, it gives you the taste of the authentic village food that will definitely boost your appetite!

We really had a great getaway this time according to our pace and choices. We will surely return to this resort again the next time.

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Lemon Yoghurt Cake

Recently I am up for baking cakes again which I have left behind for sometime. I chanced upon this recipe from one of the "Flavours Magazine" and it catches my attention as the recipe called for lemon and yogurt which are my favourite ingredients for cakes. As mentioned by the author, this cake wasn't a rich cake and it wasn't too sweet as well. It is some sort like those sourish cake with compact texture. Thus, it is best to serves with some fruit jam, fruit sauce, maple syrup or honey. In this way, the condiment compliments the cake with a touch of sweetness to the taste. I have tried both no sugar added and sweetened fruit jams, I would say the sweetened fruit jam makes this cake tastes better. If you prefer a sweeter cake, you may increase the sugar amount, reduce the lemon zest or use sweetened plain yogurt. As a personal preference, I like to savour this cake with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and drizzle with strawberry sauce. Try whatever ways that suit your taste bud for something more exotic and delicious.


Since the baking mood is back again, I hope I can bake more cakes to share with all of you. Nevertheless, I still have a lot of to-do list pending in my folder. It is time for me to sort it out and carry on the baking experiment again! *LOL*. Till then, catch up with all of you again and have a nice weekend.

Ingredients: 400g plain flour (I used cake flour) 2 tsp baking powder 2 eggs, lightly beaten grated zest of 3 lemons 250g caster sugar 1/8 tsp salt 100g butter, melted 200g plain yoghurt To serve: Fruit jam or preserves Methods: 1. Preheat oven to 180ºC. Line a 20 cm round cake pan with greaseproof paper. 2. Sift together the flour and baking powder in a mixing bowl. 3. In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, lemon zest, sugar and salt. Mix with a whisk. Add the flour, butter and yoghurt; stir to combine. 4. Pour batter into the cake pan and bake in middle rack for 30ins, or until an inserted skewer comes out clean. 5. Cool the cake and serve with jam or fruit preserves. Note: • You may reduce the amount of lemon zest if you prefer a less sourish cake. • You may increase the amount of sugar if you prefer a sweeter cake. • You may also use sweetened plain yoghurt to increase the sweetness of the cake. • Serve this cake with fruit jam, fruit sauce, maple syrup or honey.

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