The Things You Do In Cape Town

When in Cape Town, you :

1. Go up the Table Mountain. Table Mountain helps put Cape Town on the map as one of the must-visit cities. Why is it called Table? Because of its flat top, that's why. You either take the cable car or hike up to reach the peak. Cable car takes you up less than 5 mins but be prepared to spend at least an hour if you were to hike.

2. Go to Cape of Good Hope at Cape Point, a place of beautiful scenery and dramatic landscape. I believe any picture taken of the cape will not do the place justice. The best way to reach Cape Point from Cape Town is to go on a road trip. We rented a car and drove 50km down south of Cape Town to this southern tip of Africa which was once believed the meeting point of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Take the funicular up to the top for an incredible view. An alternative is to hike up lah. It takes 3 hours to hike up.

3. Shop and dine al fresco at the the waterfront. You'll find Victoria Wharf and Albert Mall, named after Queen Victoria and Prince Alfred from England from the 1800s. It houses shopping malls, restaurants, cinema, aquarium, craft market etc. This is like KLCC to the Capetonians. The place to shop for souveniers is definitely the Greenmarket Square. Things in South Africa are expensive I tell you, so nak beli stuff as ole2, the market is the place to head to ;)

4. Eat lotsa seafood. Seafood is abundance in Cape Town. Not forgetting, halal food is so easy to find too. Muslim population in Cape Town is rather high, and wait! Malay population is rather high too! Seriously? You'll find people who look like Malaysians walking around town and you'll wonder whether you've seen them in KL? To understand this, refer to the next point ;)

5. Visit Bo Kaap (Malay Quarters) . The colourful Bo Kaap area is the residence of many Cape Malays and Muslims in Cape Town. People staying here are mainly descendants of Malaysians, Indonesians and Indians captured from their tanahair and enslaved by the Dutch in 17th and 18th centuries. Being slaves and leading miserable lives, they decided to paint their houses with striking colours to lift their spirits and morale. That's why you'll see Malaysian-looking people in Cape Town rupanya..

6. Buy polished gems and semi-precious stones. Head to the numerous jewellery stores around town. My favourite is the The Mineral World & Scratch Patch. You'll find all sorts of gem stones such as tiger eye, onyx, rose quartz, amethyst, jasper, agates and crystals. Also semi-precious stones like topaz, rubies and sapphires. Diamonds pun ada you! You can either buy loose stones or those already set as jewelleries. The best thing is that you can kill time lepakking at the area where they throw all the gemstones on the floor. You can then buy those stones in containers for a certain price, depending on the size of the containers. What stones you put in the containers is all up to you ;). By the way, this applies to the tumble polished gemstones aje. Diamonds and the semi-precious ones kena beli over the counters ya!

6. See wild penguins at the Boulder Beach. I was like a kid in the candy store seeing these little cute creatures running by the beach. I've nothing else to say but they are just too darn cute! And do becareful when you're about to drive off from the beach, kena check whether there are penguins underneath your vehicles ;)

7. Go whale watching. From May onwards, the whales will be seen in Cape Town. We went to Hermanus, a small, quiet neigbourhood situated 2 hours from Cape Town. These whales pay homage to the warm and shallow waters of Hermanus to calf their young and mate. I was seriously awed when I saw the whales fluking and blowing both from the land and during our boat sail. They're just magnificent!

9. Dive with the great white sharks. In a cage, that is. Matilah kalau dive freely in the water kan? South Africa is one of the few places in the world that offers shark cage diving. We went to Gansbaai, another small town situated 2 hours from the city to do this. We were brought on a boat to the middle of the sea, the skipper dropped the cage, you went in the cage and witness great white sharks swimming around you! Mind you, the place where we were brought to i.e. the stretch of open water between Dryer and Geyser Islands, you'll see no other sharks except the great whites! The ultimate, lean and mean beasts!

p/s: I'm one of those in the cage tu ;)

All-in-all, these were the highlights of our trip to Cape Town. Will post entries on Johannesburg pulak soon ya ;)