Batam trip

Reluctantly posting about the Batam trip, but I know I had to at least write something down, if not, the trip will be forgotten or perhaps half forgotten!

Ok well, I ate  medicine before taking the ferry, I have seasick D: Yup, not very serious type but better to be safe than to be sorry! Anyway, Thanks Ai Hua for the medicine xP I'm not sure if i'm feeling drowsy over the medicine or I was just tired, I slept through the whole ferry journey. And have got some unglam sleeping photos on the ferry, eeks! >.<

  TaDa we stepped on the plains of Indonesia, of Batam! The first time to indonesia! (Y) The ferry center at Batam was not really those very high class one (but usually ferry centre aren't as posh as airport, i guess). We hop onto a mini bus, where our 10min tour guide bring us from the center to the hotel, Planet Holiday. The roads and streets look pretty much like what you will see in JB, Malaysia. We had to check in at 3pm sharp but we were early so the hotel only manage to give us two rooms.

Ohya the hotel view is quite nice, you can see a small Marina Bay Sands from the room! We went out for lunch after that, and we tried nasi padang in a restaurant, it was rather packed at that time. Thankfully, it was air-conditioned because the weather is really hot! Anyways, we do not have to order the food we want first, the dishes are served after we have settled down. (Don't be surprise, cos this is the way this type of padang restaurant works xD ). Then, we will only choose and take whatever you want to eat and they will only charge you on the dishes that you have eaten or touched. Once touched, considered sold. LOL. They really do serve a lot of food, there's array of dishes that you can choose from, but most of them are spicy. If you can't really take spicy food, like me, don't worry, there's a lot of bottled mineral water that you can take (probably once open, considered sold). :D Or just order fruit juices or iced teh.

The drinks menu is in Bahasa Indonesia but you can roughly guess what's what for some drinks but not all, but no harm trying those unfamiliar names >:) Hmmm.. so how's nasi padang/ indonesian food, one word, SPICY. Ok because i'm not really a good spicy eater so it doesn't really appeal to me much because i was trying to contain the burning sensation on my tongue :( BUT, still it was nice, i like the fragrance of the curry, a good blend of the spices and curry :D I like their sotong in the brilliant red sambal? sauce, the chicken is nice too, I'm not sure if i was hungry or what, but the chicken taste especially nice, probably the chicken is kampong chicken :) There's this jackfruit in curry, the coconut milk's taste was quite strong, but i find the dish quite weird, like jackfruit that was supposedly sweet, is salty and in curry now. Ehhh not to my liking, but apparently my friend likes the dish a lot, so depends laa.

It's digestion time! My definition of digestion time = Shopping! We went to nagoya shopping centre! Had our free and easy shopping time at nagoya, okay I can draw a conclusion from there that Indonesia is hit by the Korean wave too~! The clothes there is pretty much Korean style and there's quite a number of posters, standing posters of Korean idols, I saw SiWon's!! LOL.

Well, before real digestion time, we went for post-lunch dessert, oops! We went to A&W and me and JY ordered the large root beer float. N years since I've been to A&W, used to go to A&W when I was young in Malaysia. Hmm...there isn't any  in SG right? and i don't see AnW in Msia leh, why?? :(

Seriously, not into the mood of shopping, or simply had no intentions to shop so most of it is just window-shopping xD Landed ourselves in J.CO after walking for a while, lazy bugs~ The J.CO shop is really humid, I wonder how the staff can tolerate the humidness and heat, they are wearing long sleeve shirts somemore. Kudos to the staff there! The J.CO donuts are really cheap as compared to Singapore's, Sorry I can't remember the price but it's really much cheaper. And i ordered cappuccino frappe, first time trying J.CO's frappe! Shall try it in Singapore if it's not that ex cos it's really nice :D

Then we went back to the hotel to rest for a while then off we go to massage at another hotel (cheaper and better), i think it's call Hotel 89?! It's my first time trying massage and full body massage. It's not the full body massage that I expected ( the one seen on TV), where you get to have one or two peeps in a classy room, haha the one we had is not at all similar to those on TV :( But you see since it's really cheaper (for almost an hour of full body massage, it's $10, for foot massage it's around $5). There are 8 cubicles in a room and the cubicles are separated only by curtain, so you can actually pull the curtain over and see the person beside you  :0 and the rooms are mixed gender :X Anyway, beside me are my female friends so it's less awkward.

After massage we went to this seafood restaurant, seafood fiesta for dinner (Y)! I really like the garlic crab a lot, it's really sedap! :D Good good good!

Hmmm... the next day was quite short actually, we actuallt went back to the hotel 89, i went to do pedicure there, ermm haha it was actually quite a simple/basic pedicure, oh well, and i chose a very ugly green :( and then i went to buy kueh lapis! Their KUEH LAPIS is really nice!! I bought the Layers Kueh Lapis, i think really not bad!

Then ferry back, a bit dizzy, i think sea sick? Haha or probably i drank a cup of quite heavy coffee before boarding the ferry. Moral of the story: do not drink coffee before taking any ferry or what k!

Ok, that's about it! Selemat Tinggal!

The first overseas trip with friends!

Hello! It's been 2 weeks from the Genting trip! I went with rf and KX to Genting last, last thursday(24/5), yup exactly 2 week from today, haha! Time really flies, it has been 2 week!

Okay I woke up really early on the first day because we are suppose to reach clementi taxi stand by 6am, but I'm still the latest. My dad drove me there before they depart to fetch my uncle, aunt and cousin in JB. And my parents helped to bring the luggage up! HAhaha! <3

We got on to our coach, it's WTS CEO platinum cruiser or something, theres TV for us (Y)!

The first toilet/breakfast stop we had is at yongpeng, had one of my favourite snack, cup corn <3 haha then I was sleeping in the bus all the way zZzZZZZ

I saw my parent's car while on the way, how cool, but still they reached Genting earlier than us xD

We requested for a linking room but the hotel receptionist said that there's no linking rooms S: D: so either 3 of us in a room or 1 of us had to stay in a room.. KX seems to prefer to stay in one room haha cos she wants to train herself. I don't think I dare to sleep alone and haha I prefer everyone to squeeze in one room, like more fun and cosy? Lol.

We had our lunch, 煮炒 with my parents and relatives at the coffee shop beside magnum4d and old town, at the resorts hotel's basement. The curry fish is nice, especially the curry! They use stingray for the fish woh, but still its nice! 

Okay so after that, I think we went to my parents' resort hotel room, definitely better than first world! Just look at the toilet and you'll know! 

The three musketeers then started their theme park-shopping journey! Ok well, initially we wanted to buy the indoor theme park pass for the first day since we are not left with a lot of time for the first day but we bought the 2day all theme park pass. Indoor first night+all theme parks 2nd day=RM96, all theme park for two days=RM97, so we decided to pay 1RM more xP

The first ride of the trip, Flying Jumbo~! Haha i really like the ride a lot (Siince young), I like the cute jumbo and the feel when the jumbo goes up and down, haha, quite cool. I used to choose and aim the jumbo that can fly up and down while queuing (there are some jumbos who can't go up and down :( ), I used to do this with my cousins, pretty silly but still quite fun hehe! And guess what, my jumbo can go up and down but not KX's and Rf's!

I think we played another round of pirate ship again, is it? Or I think we went indoors cos there were small droplets of water falling down and the clouds were quite dark too. We queued up for euro express, the use to be the yellow indoor roller coaster but it is now red. Haha then played bumper car, it doesn't really matter if you know how to drive a real car to play bumper car, it doesn't make any difference anyway, I think. Ohya, there were this Indian lady and her son who cut our queue while we were waiting for our turn. &@"%~%•¥$'. Haha so we decide to take our revenge during the game, mission of the game : bump the car of the duo. Haha call us childish or what! But I didn't really bump their cars deliberately, i merely bump them when I see them, and we are not like some bad ass can, afterall the fun of bumper car is to bump at strangers and laugh sheepishly after u bump onto them on purpose. LOL. Ok end of bumper car, we only played once D:

Warning, this part about our buffet dinner is really long~ Next is dinner time! Makan loh! We went round Genting and resorts while looking for cheap and nice buffet and we found ourselves buffet dinner at resorts world hotel. Due to our wrisband( the theme park entry one), we get 10% discount (Y), if you're member of the casino u get further discount, I think. I think we spent RM45 for that. It's quite big, but barely one quarter of the place is occupied, so it's quite quiet,but the ambience is rather good. The off peak season probably explains the sparse diners or maybe the hotel isn't famous for dinner? There are 6 sections to the buffet: Chinese, western, malay, Indian food, dessert and salad bar.

I only tried the first two and the latter two :/

Not that I dislike Malay or Indian food, but the food there just doesnt appeal to me. Ok im going to complain now. Everything looks Super spicy with the bright orange and red sauces and the dark brown-black gravy dishes just dont suit what I would like :X the roti prata looks okay to me but going to a buffet dinner to eat roti prata, erm I'd rather leave an extra room for other food cos I'm sure the hot prata from the hot pan at some coffee shop will be better(?) ( haha I'm not sure cos I didn't try it lol). Honestly speaking, there isn't a lot of food there, the variety is limited and there's no seafood! There's no prawn! :( they dont have cold drinks there, but I'm okay with just hot kopi, but the kopi tarik is super sweet. 

BUT, of course there are good points about that too! The roasted chicken is quite nice! The braised bean curb is not bad, Ilike the bean curb quite a lot, cos there are like many layers in the beancurb, overcooked bean curb with lot of layers is the best 😚

You can choose your ingredients and ask the chef to cook for you, like yong tau foo, but you can choose n number of pieces. Then my favourite of this buffet, western food. The beef chop with the pepper sauce is nice, the beef chop is rather thin so you can eat it effortlessly. The chicken chop is quite thick, but since chicken meat is usually more tender and less chewy, is still acceptable but would prefer it to be thinner. The corn on the cob is nice according to KX ,  me and rf didn't try because of our braces D: the potatoes is quite delicious too, the grilled potato with the flakes of dried chilli on top, Waaa simple but nice!

Then the dessert, I made myself a bowl of ice kacang! The staff was quite nice, he Assisted me in operating the ice blender haha! It doesn't really look appetising at all, I know right, but it's really nice, peanut With ice kacang makes a good combi actually! There's like burbur hitam, sweet potatoes, cakes, kuehs, quite a lot of different variety but taste soso. 

There were actually quite lot of variety of vege at the salad bar, different types of lettuce, cucumbers, guava, dried papaya etc. 6 or 7 sauce to choose from. How I wish the main dishes could have as many variety as the salad bar. Omg I think I'm writing more than enough for the food! Haha ive no idea why but ive so much to write lol! Ok to sum up, it's quite cheap for a buffet dinner at a hotel, but not so much for the variety, taste wise is okay. Service is vgood!

Omg I realise I have written so much on just one buffet dinner, okay shall stop!

Just two jokes to share that me and KX came up, why is there red and yellow watermelon?

The yellow watermelon dropped on to the ground and became red (bleeding).

Why is there red and white strawberry? The white strawberry is anemic. LOL

After dinner, it's time for shopping to aid digestion! Shopped at first world hotel plaza, we bought 3tshirts each at FOS for RM45! Don't shop too late because the shops are not open 24/7! After feeling the sore of our legs, we went to play the gondola ride. This is our pretty gondola :)

 When we pass by this statue, a little girl sitting on the same gondola as us said "Ah Mi Tuo Fo, hello!" HAHA cute ttm! trolololol!

After bathing, is it? We went to Starbucks, and I ordered my favourite cappuccino :) mmm.. <3 coffee haha! Feel so good to drink a cup of coffee and chatting with friends. Probably there's too many peeps fighting for the wifi at Starbucks, we can't go online ;( but it's okay the cup of cappu can cheer us up. We manage to sleep even after taking caffeine, that explains that we are tired or simply we are too piggy!

Morning! Morning! KFC's cheesy burger to wake us up and black coffee for me again. And the black coffee is free flow! Woah! Idk why, but i always find KFC in Genting to be super nice!

Off to outdoor theme park! We realise that the four seater small boat that goes up and down is on maintenance in that day! Oh gosh! The game that we wanted to play!!! So we have learnt a lesson from it, do whatever you want to and not regret after it is gone. For myself, I really want to try the ride a lot, I haven't try it for even once and it looks super fun! :(

We played other rides, Ferris wheel was the first game for the day, if I'm not wrong. Haha enjoy the scenery and the cool wind! Reminder that your hair will be really messy after the ride! lLOL!

Played some other rides too.........

We settle down at this noodle restaurant beside hainan chicken rice shop and I ordered Penang har mee, it's the spiciest Penang har mee I've ever ate~

After shopping around, we went back to the hotel to take a nap. Haha, supposedly a half an hour nap but we slept for like 1.5 hrs in the end, because no one set any alarm and everyone was just tired.

After the short recharge, we went outdoor to play theme park again. Yep, we tried to sit on the last row of the pirate ship (Y)! I tried the flying coaster too, super exciting! Haha but too bad, i was worrying about the specs that were in my pocket during the game (i was trying not to add pressure on the specs, but lucky my specs is safe). I was screaming like mad, haha that scream was really from my heart, cos it was really quite scary. We had sweet potato for our dinner.

Then we watched a movie at the first world hotel theater, we watched the shadows of love, hehe Kwon San Woo acted with Zhang Bo Zhi, well it's a love story~ Anyway, the movie ticket was RM12 and the pop corn is RM3.50.

 

After that we played a game of Flying dragon, I think before we walk to the resorts hotel for out Sunner (supper+dinner) at old town white coffee. Playing Flying dragon at night is really cool, you get to see the theme park at night and feel the night breeze~~~ Woosh~

 Penang Har Mee for RF again, assam laksa for KX and toast with potato curry for me. Haha but i like the white coffee a lot <3

After that we shopped at this shop that sells a lot of accessories call SM Shopping (I think?). Bought some wires back, I mean the wire-hairbands.

As planned, we will have Coffee bean for today's supper at around 2 or 3am. Haha! The cheesecake was awesome! The warm chocolate cake was okay at first but you get a little sick of the chocolate after a while :( As for the vanilla, I don't really know because I don't usually drink vanilla xDI don't usually sleep so late so I was a little dreamy and very tired!! Haha so we went back to wash up and sleep. I fell asleep really fast that day! Ha!

Seriously, I hate the last day of holiday trip the most, the packing, the waiting for time for the bus and yet not to be late to check out. And basically, the last day of the holiday trip means no more fun, back to "reality", no more cool weather of Genting Highlands! :( Anyway, we stopped by at a shop that sells localities, three of us bought the green peas (it's the you will want to pop those green peas into your mouth one after another kind of snack).

Okay, I  think that's about what I can recall. A big regret of the trip is that I didn't take as many picture as I wanted (I forgot to bring the two pin adaptor :(  ) and that Ying Ling could not make it to the trip. But afterall, it was still a very fun getaway! :D

Thanks RF and KX for this fun trip!

JiangNan Trip! (Day 1+2)

Oh wells, I have finally uploaded the JiangNan trip photos into Facebook (Y) I always have the tendency to say ShangHai trip even though I've only been there for like 1++days? :X Yup, so it's JiangNan (HangZhou, WuXi， SuZhou, ShangHai) trip :DHehhe just want to share about this JIANGNAN trip in case I forget what I've learned and did there, even though there are pictures (but sometimes you will forget the stories behind the pictures).

Brief intro:We (my family and relatives) bought the coupon from groupon. Guess what? The coupon is only $40 for 5Days4Nights accommodation, meals and tour, but excluding the airplane luh. We bought our air ticket from jetstar to hangzhou(yep, cheaper :) ), it cost nearly $200 each. The travel agency actually wanted us to go to ShangHai directly, but we decided to take to hangzhou then take train to ShangHai, so we arrive 1 day in advance (so our trip is like 6D5N instead). Anyway, The insurance and the application of the visa cost $100 in total. $340 in total, but I spent more than that because there were optional tours that you can go, but you must pay for these extra tours. Shall tell you more along the way~

Day 1 (HangZhou):

Tada the jetstar air bus we took from SG to HangZhou... I ate the jap curry chicken rice in the plane for my dinner, it was quite okay for air plane's food, I guess, but the rice isn't the type of rice that I would like. XD ohya, by the way, I took the 6pm flight, and I reached hangzhou at around 11.30pm.

The temperature was around 15C when we reached there, quite cool, it reminds me of the weather in Genting highlands. Some drivers approached us to offer to drive us to our hotel (zhejiang railway station hotel) and they quote a price of RMB200 per car (I think it's per car, not quite sure). We rejected them and headed for the taxi stand instead. Woah their taxi is quite special, there's this plastic barrier surrounding the taxi driver's seat. I think they're trying to protect the drivers and probably the passengers too. He quoted a price of 100RMB and we agreed. It's actually cheaper because my cousin spent around 120+ RMB (using the meter).

We booked the 1st night of hotel ourselves through agoda ($60 per room per night).
There were still some stalls selling food outside the hotel at around 12+am (the railway station is nearby so I guess there are still potential customers). Not really sure if we will get use to the food they sell, and we just want to get to the hotel rooms to rest so we didn't try the food. (I shall skip rambling about the hotel and stuff but I suggest that they should have sofas or at least chairs for us to sit at the lobby) LOL.

 Day 2: Hang Zhou

Breakfast time! (It was still our Free and Easy time, so we walked on the streets to look for food near the hotel)

the streets of hangzhou

First meal in China: DaNiang Shui Jiao
It is a half fast food- half restaurant style (you order the food in the fast food way, but your food is served on your table).

Okay so after breakfast, we went back to the hotel and waited for our tour guide.
Then, we got on to this blue bus and the first site we visited was Xi Hu.

Pretty right?Breathe in the fresh air and let the cool wind blow on your face. Listen to the leaves rustle and look at the enery ahead. Haha omg, some narrative story huh? It's a great place for you to relax and calm your mind, and a good place for you to take pictures too :)There's a bridge there, known as long bridge (双投桥）. It's a little eerie but still a pretty site.

read the story of the long bridge (if you want)

 Next stop, WanSongShuYuan!
万松书院
What you see inside:  仰圣门、明道堂、大成殿
You will learn a little more about China's history, especially about the education system in the past.

Noon time! We will have our first lunch in china and the first meal we have with the tour agency. We went to a restaurant to eat(we went to rest for every meal except breakfast cos bf is in the hotel we stay in). Tried the dongpo rou, they serve the meat in a clay bowl. It's quite fattening, I think, because it's 70%30%fats and meat. Sorry no picture of sudongpo's rou(jk).After lunch, we went back to xihu again, but on the other side of the lake.

Ahahaha this time we took the boat to enjoy the scenery, the boat is battery powered.

the boat we were in

looking outside the boat

Enjoy the cool wind as the boat moves. Ohya, we are not required to wear any safety jacket, I think because the lake isn't that deep (average 2m deep). If you like to recite or make poems, this is a good place for you cos the environment and atmosphere there is really apt (there is this诗情画意feel).

After getting off the boat, we went to this garden, the flowers, the trees, the leaves and even the grass looks so pretty! It's really a wise choice to go China during spring, you will realise this fact when you see the colourful flowers, the green leaves :) If you love flowers, you will like the garden. Haha!

Walking further in, you will get to go to the peony garden, don't just stop there and take pictures with the big, brilliant red/pink/purple peony. Walk further in, there's more lovely peony waiting for you!

  

wThere's this  road leading to our bus, and from a place (they made this place for you to view the scenery (sorry i can't find a word for that place, it's just a ssmall stair case leading the road to the "depressed" area for you to take the pictures of the really nice scenery. End of the trip around Xi Hu, next up, we went to view the tea leaves plantation , the one we went is call "Mei Jia Chun", you cn really see some popo, elderly picking the tea leaves (they're carrying a wooden basket and wearing straw hats -- s) I heard that their work is part time, cos the tea leaves only can be plucked in around march-may period. It's a pity that we can't tour around the tea plantation :( , I was actually hoping for that more than their introduction of their products (Longjin tea leaves and chaduofen) When we reach this tea shop (ehh.. not really a tea hop, but i think it's another tourist spot)There's this uncle (his face is expressionless) and he is frying(??)/ cooking(?) the tea leaves with his bare hands and the wok is still hot (woah!).