Things to do in Sekinchan, Selangor

Sekinchan is a major rice producing area in Malaysia. Located around 100 kms from Kuala Lumpur, the small town is a popular tourist spot on weekends and public holidays. The town is beautiful providing three different atmosphere- endless paddy field that change from green to yellowish in different seasons, simple fishing village that offers fresh seafood right from fishing boats, and slow-paced small town with eateries serving local dishes and shops selling local products and souvenirs. 

We spent two days in Sekinchan, explored the paddy field, walked down the village and the seaside, and tried the food there. A two-day trip was just nice to enjoy the relaxing atmosphere there. Let us share our stories starting from the biggest attraction in Sekinchan- paddy field.

Field with endless green paddy is breathtaking. The paddy field is around 5 kms wide.

Water is important for the growth of the paddy. The water will be drained during the harvest season.

Small roads are built along the water way. It is a great place for us to take a walk. 

Paddy Gallery is a must-visit site in Sekinchan (upper left). It is located at Malinja Road, in the middle of the paddy field. The gallery is within a huge rice processing factory (upper right). The visitors have the chance to learn more about the whole process of rice production, starting from the the growing of seedling to the packaging of white rice. The explanation is done through video and a tour guide. The gallery operates daily from 9 am - 6 pm. The entrance fee was RM 5.

The huge machinery for automated rice processing. Each white package on the far right contains 1000 kg of unprocessed rice.

We could buy different rice products at the end of the visit, including rice porridge and desserts (upper left), rice crackers (upper right), and rice for cooking (lower right). There was a planter machine located at the entrance. That machine plants paddy like a breeze.

A Ma House, or literary translated as grandma's house, is a small shop selling souvenir and snacks. The shop is located at Malinja Road (on the same stretch with Paddy Gallery), in front of a very big bird house (upper left). Antiques can be found in the shop (upper right), together with food and souvenirs (lower right). We tried some hand made cakes and shrimp rice crackers. The cake was soft, and the cracker was a bit salty.

Paddy field is located behind Sekinchan Town. We can't see much of it from the main road.

The second attraction in Sekinchan- the fishing village. The nickname of Sekinchan- "The land of fish and rice" (渔米之乡) revealed two important industries of the town. The fishing village however is not as pleasant as the paddy field. The air was not fouling, but  light "fishy" smell was in the air most of the time. There were several rows of village houses built along Bagan Road- the main street of the village. Redang Beach is around 3 minutes away by car. 

Redang Beach is the main attraction at the fishing village area. The beach area itself is small, either fills with coarse sand or sticky mud.

There is a small temple and a wishing tree nearby the beach. Many visitors happily hung their wishes on the tree. But we don't think the tree is happy with so many things hanging around its branches.

There is a Coca-Cola Souvenir Shop beside the beach (upper left). The shop is small, selling drinks, clothes, fridge magnets, key chains, and many other souvenirs (upper right). There was only one food stall in operation during our visit on Thursday (lower right). The tree house was recommended by many websites, but we found the tree houses there were not well-maintained. 

We found sitting next to the river mouth and watching the fishing boats returning back home was a great experience. The river mouth is just next to Redang Beach.

Fishing boats of all sizes were nicely "parked" along the river.

The entrance to the fishing village can be seen clearly from the main road (upper left). Shops (upper right) and temple (lower right) along Bagan Road. Motorbikes were the main vehicles in the village.

Ji Mei Lala Chien is located at the residential area beside the fishing village (upper left). The cook served nice fried la la clams with eggs (upper right). Although it was a small family running eatery, we found the fried la la clam and the fried stingray were special. 

We tried a few seafood at Guan Huat Restaurant (upper left). The stall is located at Bagan Road. It is a small simple wooden restaurant (upper right). We tried the shark meat sour spicy soup and stir fried shrimp with chili. The price, fair, and the taste, average. 

Sekinchan Town is located along the main road. There are many shops there, including several souvenir shops, restaurants and kopitiam. We tried a few of the restaurants there, and we would like to recommend 168 Restaurant and Tai Huat Restaurant.  

Kedai Kopi 168 is located along Tepi Sawah Road (upper left), nearby the paddy field. The wooden restaurant was small and simple, but always full with customers (upper right). We tried kung pau squid (lower right) and la la clam there. Good taste with fair price. We found that the restaurant next door also had quite a number of customers. You may give it a try too.

Tai Huat Restaurant, is located in the middle of the town (upper left), along Peria Road (upper right). The fried noodle (lower right) and chicken and barbecue rice were really good there. It is actually a kopitiam.

We visited Riri Fatt, which was recommended by many. Facing the main road, the restaurant, or to be more precise, kopitiam, is really easy to be found (upper left). The kopitiam had few stalls serving curry noodle (lower right) and prawn noodle. The curry noodle was average, but the prawn noodle was a bit disappointing. Well, that's our personal taste preference.

Sekinchan is busy during harvesting season on March and November (we can always call the homestay or hotel to confirm the exact harvesting date). We can see farmers working on the field while tourists amass to see the golden sea of paddy. Hotels and homestays are full, abd restaurants are packed with customers and stressed staff. However, if you prefer to have a quiet and peaceful trip, which you can enjoy walking along the paddy field without accompany by hundreds of visitors, and sitting in a restaurant and enjoy your meal peacefully, then you can opt to visit the town around February and October, like us. You will be able to experience the quiet side of Sekinchan.

Sekinchan is around 30 minutes away from Kuala Selangor by car. We took the opportunity to visit Bukit Malawati and Kampung Kuantan. We will share our experience there in our next post.

You can read more about our travel experiences around Selangor and Perak at:

[Kuala Selangor] [Sekinchan] [National Zoological Park] [Farm in the City]

[A Short Trip to Kampar] [Kellie's Castle] [Last Tin Dredge in Malaysia]

[All our Destinations]

A short Trip to Manila

We visited Metro Manila last month to attend HP Prime Summer Camp. Manila is the capital of Philippine that actually interconnects to 16 other cities, which are collectively referred as Metro Manila. 

Metro Manila is a mega city with approximate 24 millions of inhabitants. It is crowded with busy streets and roads that always packed with all types of vehicles. Shopping malls, hotels, and churches can be found around the city. According to a Grab driver, the streets are now safer and cleaner now in Metro Manila, but the slum is still a big issue to be handled.

We stayed in Holiday Inn Gallery at Ortigas Center, Pasig. Several shopping malls are located nearby- Robinson Gallery, SM Megamall, The Podium, St. Francis Square, and Greenhills Shopping Center. There is a MRT station there as well.

We went to Robinson Gallery almost every day. It is attached to our hotel (actually in the same building). Robinson Gallery is small (upper left) but Robinson Supermarket (upper right) offers many local products with very competitive price (lower right). We saw durian in the market. It was labelled as "native fruit". Interesting.

These products are really cheap at Robinson Supermarket.

Megamall is located around 10 minutes away from our hotel by foot (upper left). It is many times bigger than Robinson Gallery (upper right). Supermarkets, departmental stores, restaurants, fast food outlets, brand shops, souvenirs shops and many more are available. Kultura is a good place for us to get some local products and souvenirs (lower right).

There are various choices of food available in Megamall- fast food (upper left), food court with local delicacies (upper right) and restaurants (lower right). One of the buffet restaurant provided live unplugged performance with no extra charge.

Greenhills Shopping Center is our favourite. This two-storey mall is like a huge indoor air-conditioned marketplace (upper right). Clothes, foot wears, glasses, leather wares, watches, decoration items, souvenirs, toys, IT gadgets, hand phones, cameras, accessories, and many more are available at very attractive prices.

V Mall is attached to Greenhills Shopping Center. The mall is full with Vivo and Stephen Curry posters and advertisements.

The last day of our training, the organizer from Saint Pedro Poveda College organized a short trip to Intramuros. Heavy rain spoil our tour plan to take a long walk on the city wall. However, we did have a chance to walk around the UNESCO Heritage Site- San Agustin Church. There are many places nearby Intramuros worth a visit, including Rizal Monument Park, Fort Santiago, and several museums which can be reached by foot. We walked around Intramuros for one hour with umbrella.

San Agustin Church is listed as UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current church was completed in 1607. It was the third church built on the same site (the previous two was destroyed in 1574 and 1583). It is the oldest church in Philippines. We could see many cars there due to an ongoing wedding event there.

The church is not elaborately decorated on the outside (upper left). The giant "Goliath" door of the worship hall (upper right). The worship hall is beautifully decorated with the chandeliers imported from Paris (lower right). The church area is big, with the wall extends far beyond the church building. 

We visited a few colonial era buildings, with strong European style and influence. Unfortunately, most of these buildings within the city were destroyed by wars.

 The "Presidents' Gallery" is located beside the church. 

According to our friend, we could walk around Intramuros by following the Intramuros wall. However, heavy rain spoiled our plan. We could see some of the places around the city was flooded. We saw a few locals fishing at the flooded area.

Instead of walking around the wall by foot, we can rent a horse cart (upper left), trishaw (upper right), or a bamboo bicycle (lower right). We saw a mini 4 wheel drive beside a restaurant, as decoration, perhaps.

Bonifacio Global City in Taguig is a modern city built on former army camp area. The city is located around 10 kms from Ortigas Center. The most convenient way to visit the place is by car. Anyway, it is not more than a street mall with nice pedestrian walkway, branded outlets, nice restaurants, and nice buildings with beautiful landscapes.

We visited Bonafacio High Street after we left Intramuros. We felt like moving through a time tunnel.

The high street is about 500 meters long, and still growing (upper left). The whole pedestrian street is well designed and beautifully decorated (upper right). Modern buildings and sky scrappers are built around the high street (lower right). We found a few well-fed cute kittens there. These kittens were tame and active.

We tried some nice traditional food in Manila, thanks to the arrangement by San Pedro Poveda College. Of course we had tried Chinese food, Japanese food, Western food, and many more in the shopping malls.

Inasal, or grill marinated chicken with ginger and spices (upper left), turon, the giant fried banana wrapped like a spring roll (upper right), stir fried rice noodle (lower right), and puto, rice cake with cheese and salted egg were some of the food that we tried.

We tried several other local dishes in our hotel (upper left). Beside local food, we tried Japanese food in Megamall (upper right), satay in Marco Polo Hotel (lower right), and some fast food at Jollibee.

Jollibee is a local fast food chain in Philippines. It has more outlets compare to McD in Philippines.

Last but not least, we would like to share our group photo with our friends from Philippines, Australia, United States of America, and Singapore. Hope we can meet again in our next summer camp.

[All Our Destinations]

Getting Around Tokyo

Tokyo is a metro with population exceeds 13 millions. The streets are packed with high rises, and the subways are interconnected with many different lines commuting thousands of people at the same time. We would like to share our experience in accommodation, food, transportation, and shopping for our 6-day trip in Tokyo.

Accommodation

Room can get very expensive in some of the places. Lucky we found a nice apartment via Booking.com. The price was very reasonable- three rooms, one small kitchen, laundry facilities, two toilets, and one bath room, with around RM 450 per night. The 2-storey apartment is located in Ikebukuro, 10 minutes by foot from Ikebukuro Station. There are several convenient shops nearby, and the major shopping malls at Ikebukuro are around 10 - 15 minutes away by foot. The nearest food street is just two blocks away (around 5 minutes by foot).

Outlook of the apartment (behind the blue vending machine).

Peaceful neighbourhood.

The kitchen with cooking tools (upper left), small dining area (upper right), laundry washing machine with detergent (lower right), and three bed rooms with air conditioners.

The north entrance of Ikebukuro Station (upper left). From the station, we can access to most of the places in Tokyo. We can see Tobu Mall with the blue signage from afar (upper right). Tobu is one of the big malls that sit right above Ikebukuro Station. The streets around Ikebukuro were busy. Mega Donki with a blue penguin sign provides huge range of local products. The shop can be reached via east gate of the station.

Night market and food street at Ikebukuro (upper row). The street is located outside of the north gate of Ikebukoro Station. If you wish to have a night stroll to experience the busy marketplace in Japan, you can explore the shopping area and pedestrian streets opposite of the east gate of Ikebukuro Station. 

Ikebukuro is relatively quiet and peaceful compared to the city center of Tokyo. The station, however, is the second busiest station in Japan. It is the second busiest station in the world as well. The station converges several railways and Metro Lines, thus it is very convenient for us to travel to other places in Tokyo from the station. 

Food 

We like Japanese food. Japanese food like sushi and sashimi are unique, but no more indigenous due to globalization of Japanese cuisine. Is there any difference between Japanese food in Malaysia compared to Tokyo? Not much difference for us, except for sushi and ramen. 

Ramen in Tokyo really different from what we have in Malaysia. First, the noodle is more elastic, and the broth is more concentrated. We have various of choices as well, such as beef, anchovies, and pork. We visited three ramen shops in Tokyo, all of them had their own ramen with special flavour. The ramen shops were small, with only one single row of seat like a bar (upper left). We have to select and pay for our food at the payment machine before entering the shop  (upper right). Ramen was served in soup (lower right) or dry. Ramen is definitely a must try food in Tokyo.

Sushi is another must try food in Tokyo. The fish used for sushi in Tokyo was more juicy and creamy, and the rice ball tasted better and less sticky compared to what we had in Malaysia. We tried sushi at Ikebukuro (upper left), where sushi were served on rotating conveyor belt (upper right). The price was determined by the colour of the plate (lower right). We bought sushi from the supermarket as well. The taste was good as well. The taste of sushi bought from convenient shops however, was disappointing. 

We tried rice with salmon sashimi (upper left), red tuna (upper right), fried chicken (lower right) and pork chop at Shinjuku. The dishes with sashimi were good.

We tried beef rice (upper left), rice with seaweed (upper right), takoyaki (lower right), and dry udon with onion and egg at Solamachi food court. 

Beside eateries and food courts, we tried the food purchased from Tobu Supermarket and convenient shops as well. These food required preheating with microwave. Some of the food we tried- stir fry squids with vegetable (upper left), rice with sashimi (upper right), rice with pork (lower right), and dumplings. The price, around 300 to 700 Yen. 

We had a buffet lunch at Buffet Restaurant Supreme (upper left). The restaurant located at 11th floor of Tobu Departmental Store, right above Ikebukuro Station. The atmosphere was relaxing (upper right), and the variety of food was good (lower right). The price was 2200 Yen per person, with time limit of 90 minutes per session. There was an extra charge of 200 Yen for soft drinks.

We tried many street food and snacks as well, including the grill beef and pork at Shibuya (upper left), kibi dango at Asakusa (upper right), Hello Kitty popcorn from Hello Kitty Shop (lower right), and dorayaki from convenient shop. The grill beef and pork were nice. The rest, well, you can just try it for fun.

One good thing about eatery at Tokyo- many of them have the food display outside their shop. The portion of the real food was more or less the same.

Transportation

In Tokyo, there are two choices for transportation. Either we use the metro transit, or we walk. The taxi fee is really expensive and we just want to save the money for anything else. Staying somewhere nearby Metro Station or JR Station will make our life much easier to travel around Tokyo. We stayed at an apartment nearby Ikebukuro Station, which we could access to both Metro and JR lines.

Tokyo Metro offers 3-day hop-on-hop-off unlimited pass, with the price of 7200 Yen. However, there is a better deal. We bought Tokyo Subway 72-hour unlimited pass from Haneda Airport with just 1500 Yen! The pass is valid for 72 hours, for Metro subway and Toei Subway in Tokyo. We can buy the ticket from the Tourist Information Center at Haneda Airport.

We can buy the unlimited pass for subway from Tourist Information Center at Haneda Airport (upper left). The ticket will be activated upon our first usage. We didn't want to activate the ticket for the first day, so we bought one-way ticket from airport to Ikebukuro (upper right). It cost us 260 Yen per person. Boarding on the right train was challenging at first, as English signage was limited. It turned easier after a few rides. The couch was filled with advertisements, mainly in Japanese (lower right). It took us around one and a half hour to reach Ikebukuro.

The subway system in Tokyo is integrated with shops, stalls, supermarkets, and connections to shopping malls and offices.

Eateries at the underground level of shopping mall, which can be accessed easily from subway station.

The walking underground is a comfortable choice in Tokyo. We can move from place to place without exposing ourselves to nature elements. However, we will miss the scenery on the surface. 

Exit to the surface brought us the view of Tokyo Railway Station. We would have missed this historical building if we continued to walk underground.

Be mindful that our destination might not be exactly on the top of subway station. We might need to walk for 10 - 20 minutes to reach there. Lucky, the street was safe and friendly for pedestrian.

Shopping

We didn't do much shopping in this trip. Anyway, we found that Shibuya was a good place to hunt for fair price items, especially at Mega Donki and Daiso. There is a Mega Donki store in Ikebukuro as well. We found that overall price for the food and souvenirs were cheaper in Ikebukuro, compared to Shinjuku and Shibuya.

We shopped a lot in convenient shops- snacks, rice, noodle, sushi, coffee, milk, fruit juice, sandwich, fresh vegetable, fruits, yogurt, Coca-Cola, and many more. Beside well-known 7-11, we could find Moles and Lawson Store around Ikebukuro. Lawson 100 is the one we like- most of the items were sold with 100 Yen.

Another shop with all the items sold with 100 Yen is Daiso. The shop is located in Shibuya. From the station, we need to brave ourselves through the Shibuya-crossing to reach Daiso.

Daiso is located at the end of the main street at Shibuya. Compared to the Daiso stores in Malaysia, the items available are a bit different, and the price, cheaper.

Mega Donki is another store that we would recommend in Shibuya. The store is available in Ikebukuro as well.

Shops with cute items, toys (upper left), special cartoon brand (upper right), comics in Japanese (lower right), and even shops for clip-doll-machine (or claw crane, skill crane, teddy picker) are available along the street. Of course, there are stores selling tech gadget, such as Bic Camera, stores selling various of objects like Tokyu Hands, clothes such as Uniqlo, scatters along the street.

Last but not least, Tokyo has various vending machines, selling various items, from drinks, snacks, toys, to many more other things that beyond our imagination. 

Most of the people we met in Tokyo could merely speak in English. However, we could still communicate with each others using photos, body language, translation apps, and a lot of expression. The people were friendly and polite. 

We might share more  about our experience staying in Ikebukuro, well, stay with us :)

[Tokyo DisneySea] [Asakusa and Sky Tree] [Tokyo Tower and Imperial Palace]

[Ueno Zoo and Museum of Nature and Science]

[Tokyo Accommodation, Food, Transportation, and Shopping]