A remedy for de-stress, it's penniless!

If you happen to be all stressed out because that's how life is for most people, help yourself to de-stress by doing these:

1. Have a slow walk in the nearest park or better, have a nature walk at a jungle trail near you. There are a lot of nature reserves in KL, so there is no excuse to say that you live in a city and the nearest 'jungle' is far away from you. The fresh air, the sound of nature and the greenery helps to de-stress and bring out a better mood in you.

2. If you still can't find the 'time' for a short walkabout in the jungle, listen up to Birdsong Radio.com while you are working behind your desktop or laptop. Birdsong Radio plays specifically songs from singing birds. Yes, birds do sing and they have good melody too if you find time to listen to them attentively.

3. Alternatively, you can download  free mp3s by searching  keywords like Nature Sound Free downloads or visit my other favorite nature song website by Peter Mumme'. There are a good collections of nature songs from animals, oceans sounds, rainforests sounds and etc available at this site.

Try this remedy out and hope it'll help you to de-stress from your super hectic lifestyle. Happy jungle walking and listening!

p.s: I will share to you in future posts on the nearest jungle walk you can go to in KL. So do stay tune on Yasz Amzah.com!

Clearwater Sanctuary Wetland for Par 3 Golfing

I'm running out of creative juices for today, hence I'm letting you guys feast on some of my pictures while attempting some beginners Par 3 golfing over at Wetland - Clearwater Sanctuary Golf Resort located at Batu Gajah, a mere half an hour or so from Ipoh, Perak. This wetland sanctuary was once the filming location of the movie "Anna and the King". Most of the filming props have been taken down but this course has a really beautiful fairway and green, what more with a great ambiance of a true wetland environment.

The green fees for this Par 3 Wetland course is RM 30 for a 1-9 game. If you come in a flight of three, you get to pay RM 20/pax. Meanwhile, if you are looking for the real deal, 18 holes course, head on to the main golf course for a great and fun golfing experience. Enough said and let's just move on to the pictures. Happy viewing!

[caption id="attachment_665" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Sunrise view at 1st hole of the Par 3 golf course"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_666" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Lovely lake view at Wetland Clearwater Sanctuary Golf course at Batu Gajah"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_668" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="8th hole for the Par 3 course at Wetland Clearwater Sanctuary.One of the best views and most challenging hole because you have to tee off and hope the ball will cross over the lake."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_669" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Myself with the clubs failed miserably to tee off over the lake. Hence I resorted to snapping some pictures."][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_670" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="More lotus plants as you cross the path towards the green"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_671" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="If you are lucky, you can catch a sight of the local beaver rolling around on the green and watching over your balls"][/caption]

Sad truth about how kids are growing up today!

Have you ever sat in a fast food restaurant trying to catch a quick bite for lunch during your tight lunch hour with the place all crowded with hungry luncheons and not forgetting wailing little babies or kids scrambling noisily all over their young mum or dad for their food? Do you see anything wrong with this scenario? If you can't find anything wrong with this, you are fitting into the right candidate to spoil your future or current children with bad eating habits and helping to further promote towards overall unhealthy lifestyle for your kids.

I feel sadden and almost helpless to see this poor little babies, some are hardly a year old and young children being fed with high sodium, high fat and oil, all sorts of MSG and God knows what 'healthy' fast food ingredients  for lunch, dinner or probably even breakfast. Things have taken a huge change from how we used to eat and the kind of food our mums used to feed us when we were a toddler and just a kid. I cannot remember being fed junk food or eating fried food only ration when I was growing up except for just a once in a blue moon kind of thing.

Parents have to be particular about their children food intake and the type of food that the children are taking in because as we all should know children is constantly growing. Their brain cells are growing by the hour perhaps , of course I'm no doctor to prove that statement. However, it is most important for parents to really take care after their children diet. Their little bodies need to have the right amount of nutrients, vitamins, antibodies and etc to help in their growth. If most parents are taking this food issues lightly and have little knowledge on feeding the proper food for their children, then they have to be ready for the worse once the children gets older.

Children with bad eating habits are most susceptible to growing up being unhealthy with complications probably like obesity, diabetic, hyperactive,slow in learning and malnourished too. Of course there are other factors that influenced a kid's overall health but the one described are some of the common issues we are seeing more and more today. So the whole point here is if you love your kids so much, don't you ever dare to be lazy and feed them that super salty,fatty fries and burgers with an extra large coke.

The way you are taking care after these little ones are going to determine on how and what they are going to grow up to be. Lastly, some people just gravely in need to go for some parenting education to knock some proper parental senses and knowledge into their heads. I am not a mum and no I don't have a little toddler to raise, but I do know a thing or two about what's best and what's not for these little ones. For all the little children out there, good luck kiddos!

Mangrove Swamp Park, Manjung

If you happen to visit Pangkor Island at Lumut, you will be missing another awesome nature preserve if you do not pay a short visit at Manjung's Mangrove Swamp Park or locally known as Taman Paya Bakau, Manjung. The mangrove swamp is  located a couple of minutes drive from Lumut town or more precisely located at *Desa Manjung Raya, Sri Manjung.

You may be asking, what is so special with this mangrove swamp?

I am no geoscientist or a geologist but I do know that mangroves are not easily found anywhere except around the coastal wetlands of the tropical and subtropical regions. Mangroves are known to survive in both salt and fresh water. They play a major role as a vital provider of the habitat for animals and plants. Mangroves too help a great deal to protect the mainland from damages of the hurricanes and tidal waves besides working to avoid shoreline erosion.

With that said and  I am sure I have bore you peeps down just a little bit ( I hope not ;)) with a tiny history of a mangrove swamp, so let's just check out the pictures from this beautiful, mangrove swamp of Manjung.

[caption id="attachment_645" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The mangrove type is known as "Bakau kurap""][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_646" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="The nicely built pathway surrounding the mangrove area"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_647" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="This is a mangrove tree with its roots sticking out"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_648" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="More views of the mangrove swamp, Manjung"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_649" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Another view of the mangrove swamp towards the end of the pathway"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_650" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="A new edition of the park which is the hanging bridge"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_651" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Hanging bridge from the top view"][/caption]

Hope you enjoy the pictures and do pay this mangrove swamp park a visit if you happen to come down to either Lumut or Pangkor Island or Sitiawan. =)

* To find the exact location of this park in Google map, simply set the direction to Taman Paya Bakau, Manjung.

Pop Quiz: Are you the perfect travel partner?

As I am writing this so-called quiz, I am straining my eyes just a little bit because I am so exhausted. The internet connection has been a real pain in the butt lately and TM you suck big time! Boo! It's a love-hate relationship when it comes to dealing with them. Enough about my lament and let's get to the quiz shall we.

If you think you want to try traveling for the very first time to just about anywhere, you will most probably need a travel partner. Unless you are a true gutsy person and cannot stand traveling with another person or in a group, you can skip this quiz altogether. Let's cut to the chase and get on with my all time top 8 - "Are you the perfect travel partner quiz?".

1. When you are booking for a hotel, do you only look out for a

A : 3-5 star but preferably 5 star hotels.

B: anything with a clean bed and bathroom for shower will just do.

2. When you pack you luggage, do you pack them in a

A : the largest, huge-ass suitcase that you  can buy in the store to carry all your different type of day wear, beach way, dinner way, shopping wear, casual wear, club wear, night wear so you'll look like a real fashionable tourist during your travel.

B : pack as light as possible in a back pack so that you don't have to check in your bag and with the thought in mind to rotate the pants and tops a couple of times during your travel.

3. The whole point you bought your plane tickets for your travel is because

A : you want to shop, shop, shop, and shop some more and look like the perfect tourist so that you can get ripped off by the locals.

B : you just want to discover the particular country's beautiful flora and fauna,culture, language, food and tradition to discover about people other than yourself with the only souvenir to bring home is the new experience gathered through out the travel.

4. When you are looking out for food during your travel, you most likely will visit

A : either the Chinese/Indian/Indonesian- Malay restaurant in that country of your travel because you cannot eat without having a taste of your Malaysian food.

B : eat like the local and be adventurous with your taste buds just for the sake of experiencing a totally new cuisine from what you are used to back at home.

5. When you and your travel partner(s) ended up getting  lost in a foreign country, you will most likely be

A : yelling at everyone, be totally irritated because no one can read the map properly and resorting to fidget more and complain because you are too tired and have started to think of the worse to come because hey, you are lost in a country you have no idea about.

B : pull over to the side of the road and take 5 since everyone is tired, get your bearings correct again by reading the map over and over again, and keep going back on the road and use whatever gut feelings that all of you have to get back on the right track. The whole idea is to be calm and keep a positive thought that you will be on the right track pretty soon.

6. Since most travel involves a lot of walking, sometimes running too to catch a bus or train, you are

A : the least fit person ever. The only fast walk or run you have ever done is walking fast to chase the store in the malls.

B : always the type of person who walks fast and simply loves walking what more running just for the heck of it.

7. During your travel, something in the culture of the country you are traveling you find specifically odd and stand against your principle. So, you ended up:

A : bad mouthing the locals out loud in English without knowing that some of the locals do understand what you are saying.

B : just look, mouth zips shut and only speak about what ever that had happened once you and your travel partner are together with yourself.

8. During your travel, your travel partner just found out about a really must-visit place in that country which is not in your initial travel itinerary and the fee you have to pay for it costs a bomb but is boasted to be worth all your money. You choose to:

A: skip it right away because you would rather spend the money on something you can buy and bring back home.

B: ditch your initial itinerary for the day and go head on with the must-visit place ever in that country because it is a total waste to travel all the way without doing this one must-do thing in this country.

Okay, now you are done questioning yourself, which answer did you get the most? If you answer mostly A , frankly speaking, I won't even want to travel with you because let's face it, me and you have a total different meaning and mindset towards what travel is all about. Instead, if you answer mostly B, say, Yay! Let's travel together shall we?

* I was suppose to write 10 questions for this quiz but I was running out of idea for the 9th question. Hey, if you have other questions to add on to this quiz, why don't you share them in the comment. Probably if we have more question, we can help to filter 'unlikely' people to be your travel partner. You do not want to have a disastrous travel just because somebody else in the group has to ruin it. Hehe.