Happy belated New Year to all! I hope you guys had a fun and enjoyable holiday, as well as a fruitful year ahead.

After having gone out drank until late into the night the previous day, I still got up at 7am. Was supposed to meet TH and Sharon for mahjong at my place later. We were short of 1 person. Regular hang out group, Elaine and Sotong both got plans for the day and can't come. So I started asking pp to come my place play mahjong. That and doing a java project for some friends. Anyway, unfortunately, I can't find any person for mahjong.

Then, Elaine told me that she will play if we changed to Sunday (the following day) instead. So we decided to play on Sunday instead. But that leaves us with another problem. What to do for the day. I could have stayed home and do the java projects, but it's a bit, for want of a better word, sian. Sharon suggested going JB, yes JB again, and JB we go.

We met at about 3:30pm at Kranji MRT. There are very little people at the custom this time when we reached there. Those who wanted to go Malaysia for the holidays have mostly done that in the morning or the night before I guess.

I wanted to get this stripped shirt that I saw 2 weeks ago. It's sold in the Factory Outlet at City Square. Unfortunately, it's all sold out except for 1 L size which is too large for me. I wanted to get a S.

Sharon went to check out a Genting promotion where it's only RM$45 for 1 night's stay per person. It's quite cheap, but unfortunately, she couldn't get the tickets for a convenient time.

[IMAGE: Tickets to The Promise] - Show

Hide Image

Having done what we set out to do barely 1/2 hour after clearing the custom, what do we do next? Movies.

[IMAGE: The Promise] - Show

Hide Image

The story is a bit crappy. Overall, the story line is ok, but it's littered with ridiculous scenes. The ending could have saved the story, but instead of using it as a meaningful conclusion, they chose to turn it into another crappy event. Click here for spoiler.

Hide spoiler.

[IMAGE: Destiny]

The story is about a girl, Qing Cheng who became the most beautiful princess in the world but will never experience true love. Even if she did, it will be short lived. Unless the river flows upstream, the time goes backward, the dead comes alive, or so said the Destiny Goddess. The Destiny Goddess is a funny looking goddess. The hair is always flying up like there's a wind blowing from under. The skirt doesn't fly up though the tail (do you call it tail) is flying up. And there's a halo as well. The hair flies thru the hair halo.

[IMAGE: The General]

Guang Ming is a great but ruthless general. He used an army of 3000 to defeat an army of 20000. I may have remembered the numbers wrongly, but you get the idea, overwhelming odds. He achieved this by sacrificing 133 slaves that he bought specifically for this batter.

[IMAGE: The Slave]

He also had help from this slave, Kun Lun, who can run exceptionally fast. He can gallop faster than buffalo stampede while on his fours. Impressed by his ability, the general decided to keep the Kun Lun with him.

The general is tasked to rescue the King from the evil Duke. He is injured while on the way to the palace, and he tasks Kun Lun to take his armour and go rescue the King in his name. He Told Kun Lun the king is the 1 without the sword.

[IMAGE: The Princess]

Qing Cheng is now the King's wife. He is being held in a coup by the duke. He used Qing Cheng's beauty to mesmerized Duke's troops to put down their weapons. However, since he treated Qing Cheng badly, she turned the table against him by making all the troops points their weapons at him again. In a fit of anger, he raises a sword and attempt to kill Qing Cheng.

When Kun Lun arrived, he saw the King holding a sword attempting to kill defenseless Qing Cheng. Seeing Qing Cheng in danger, he threw his own sword at the king, killing him, and escaped with Qing Cheng. They were chased by the duke to a cliff. And there, Kun Lun jumps off the edge of the mountain in return for the duke letting Qing Cheng off. Qing Cheng is touched by his actions and fell in love with the general in the Crimson Armour.

When the general recovered, he rescues Qing Cheng in his own armour from the duke. He fell in love with the princess in the process and he retired. They lived together in a cottage in the middle of nowhere. Not happily ever after though.

[IMAGE: The Duke]

He was captured by the duke later and to be tried for killing the king. In the meanwhile, Kun Lun also discovered that the duke massacred his tribe, including his mum and sister. He learns the truth by running so fast that he manages to run backwards in time. However the river of time still stands between him and tribe and he sees them die right in front of his eyes not being able to do anything. He was very angry and aggrieved and vowed to take vengeance. He also learned that the duke has a magical robe that lets a human transcends time and cross the river of time.

He attempted to rescue the general and engage his help in killing the duke, but the general has become disillusioned and chose to face the punishment for a crime that he did not commit.

During the trial, Qing Cheng discovers that Kun Lun is the one who killed the king and not Guang Ming. She is very disappointed in him. However, the 3 of them is now captured by the duke, who is going to kill them.

At the beginning of the movie, there's a scene where little Qing Cheng scavenging for food among dead soldiers. She was caught by a little boy who claims that the soldiers belong to his dad's army and thus all properties in the battlefield belong to him. Qing Cheng promised to be his slave if he unties the rope binding her, but she went back on her word and escaped.

At the end of this movie, the duke revealed that he is this little boy. He blames Qing Cheng for robbing him of his faith in the human race when she cheated him when young. Now, I liked this part, though half the cinema erupted in laughter when he said this. I thought this is a nice touch, but since the series of crappy moments in front turns this part into another crappy moment as well.

Anyway, Guang Ming manages to escape from his binds and had a fight with the duke. the 2 of them died in this fight. Kun Lun manages to escape put on magical robe and you see the river of time flows upward. Now Kun Lun can turn back the time. The river is moving upstream. Qing Cheng's true love, Guang Ming, is dead. The last ingredient to let Qing Cheng get her true love is to make Guang Ming come back to life.But alas, that's not in the plans of the scriptwriter and producer. Instead, they make Qing Cheng and Kun Lun fly to the sky like Superman and Lois.

Grr. At least the special effects not bad.

After movie, we went to Pelangi Plaza. I wanted to try rabbit meat again. The last time that I come, it's not cooked nicely. This time I am hoping to try another restaurant, but apparently, that's the only 1 left. So we gave it a 2nd chance.

We went there in a taxi. The driver offers to bring us to some disco that is offering free dinner and free drinks. Sounds like a good offer, but we are a bit skeptical, so we declined.

[IMAGE: Dinner] - Show

Hide Image

The rabbit is not nice. At least the frog is nice. The pork chop and veggie is not bad. Don’t think I'll go back there again after disappointing me twice. At least we saw some fireworks outside the restaurant though.

[IMAGE: Passport] - Show

Hide Image

After dinner, we make our way back home. Again, there are not much people at the custom. We cleared it like a breeze. TH wanted to sing, so we go to Tanjong Pagar Party World only to find that it will cost us $130+ which is very expensive. So we left. We had our countdown outside the party world. So happening.

[QUICKTIME: Fireworks] - Show

Hide Image

After leaving Party World, we managed to catch another display of fireworks. This is much better than those we saw up north earlier.

The 3 of us were wondering aimlessly around. We thought of going to the Boat Quay Coffee Club, so we slowly walk there. We bumped into Kristine along the way. She's going to some KTV, should be the Tea Lover House.

Then, we bumped into a Taiwanese couple. They have just arrived in Singapore for holiday this morning. They asked us for directions to walk to Orchard Road!! And they also enquired about walking to their hotel, which is at Tanah Merah. We were at Hong Lim Garden. Anyway, since we nothing much to do, we decide to bring them to Orchard Road. We barely walked 100m when the lady complained of aches at her foot. It must be her boots. The guy asked us where in the vicinity where they can buy a pair of slippers, of course we won't know, it's after 12mn. So they took a cab back to hotel.

And we continue on our way to Boat Quay.

We passed by a 7-11 along the way, and Sharon went in and find that they do sell slippers. :P

We reached the Coffee Club slightly before 1 am. It's full house. We walked along the stretch at Circular Road. All pubs are full. Just as we were about to give up and go home, we saw this:

[IMAGE: Pit Stop] - Show

Hide Image

Pitstop Cafe We saw the sign at level 1. It's at level 3. We climbed a very long flight of stairs before finally reaching it.

It's a decent place. I can't remember exactly, but I think the charges at Minds is slightly cheaper at $2 or $2.50 per hour. It's $3 per hour at Pit Stop. They don't normally open till so late, but since it's holidays, they made an exception. The people there are quite friendly. They recommend us games which are quite fun. They even teach us the games.

[IMAGE: Galloping Pig] - Show

Hide Image

This game is called the Galloping Pig.

[IMAGE: Game 2] - Show

Hide Image

I forgot the name of this game. Everyday, 12 men will be executed. We supposed to choose which men to save. Different points are awarded to the people we saved and those with the most points after 3 days, wins.

Game 3 I forgot to take pictures. It's arranging blocks on the board in such a way that we cover the most territory.

The games we played there are quite fun. You guys and girls can check it out if you want.

We laze around at their sofa for awhile more before making our way to the bus stop. It's TH's first time taking night bus. He's always been taking taxi. There are a lot of people at the bus stop despite it being quite late. Such is the wonders of the New Year's Eve. Th's bus is NR1, and it came pretty fast. I can take NR5 and Nr8, but Sharon can only take NR5, so I forgo NR8. We waited a long time, and NR5 still do not come. Sharon concludes that it is going to be very packed when it did arrived, so she decided that she';; take NR8 with me to my place, then change to NR5 there. Hopefully the bus will be less crowded when it reached my place.

We reached the bus stop near my place at about 4:30am. We waited until 5am before NR5 came. It should be the last bus. And to make it worse, there's a slight drizzle, and there are a lot of ants crawling on the floor of the bus stop. Some of it climbed up my sandals and bit me. So Sharon and I have to endure the rain. Better that than being bitten by ants.

Finally the bus came, and I walk back and sleep. There's Mahjong next day at 2pm...

I arranged to meet a bunch of friends at the curry fish head place opposite Amoy Street Hawker Center. I had not eaten at that place for a long time. The fish curry there is really nice. There were 6 of us and I ordered curry fish head, minced meat, egg omelet, sweet chicken and spinach. Don't really know the names of those items, so it could be wrong. :P

While on my way to the place, I got a call from SW. He wanted to borrow a Sony Ericsson charger from me, but I left it at home. So I told him to get it from my parents at my house. After I hang up the phone with SW, I tried calling home to inform them but failed. I tried calling my mum's and my sis's mobile number but I can't get thru from there either. I was a bit worried then. I need to call someone at home so that they can prepare the item for SW, and to make sure they'll be home.

Then an idea struck me. I log on to MSN from my mopbile, and saw my sis there. I messaged her and asked to call me which she did. MSN on GPRS. What a nice technology.

After lunch, I went shopping at Bugis and Sim Lim Square with TH. We wanted to get something for Elaine as farewell present before she leaves us. Our plans is to get her a web cam, a Thai-English/Chinese dictionary/learner and a coin pouch.

We went to the Kinokuniya at Bugis for the Thai-English thingy but did not see what we wanted there. We also went to the Wallet Shop there. There's a coin pouch which I think is quite nice, after email to Sharon the picture, she said it's not nice. @#$%&*!

[IMAGE: Genius mouse] - Show

Hide Image

Then we went SLS and got the web cam. a Genius web cam.

[IMAGE: Thai-English Learner] - Show

Hide Image

After that, TH suggested the Popular at Bras Basah, and there we got the Thai-English Learner. This thingy comes with 2 CDs and 2 tapes. I told TH that we should rip the 2 CDs into MP3 so that she can listen to it in her mp3 player. Hmm... I wonder if the iPod Shuffle can play the tracks in sequence...

[IMAGE: Coin pouch] - Show

Hide Image

The last item we got it from 1 of the carts in Raffles City 3rd floor. We forgot to take a individual picture of it though. The pouch is chosen by Sharon. She say that design is cute. If it were up to me and TH, we won't buy that at all. Terrific guys' taste that we have. Haha!

We met at Plaza Singapura for dinner at Mos burger. Sharon wanted to register for the Starhub MaxOnline and get a cheap notebook. There's a very long queue over there so she decided to just register via phone the next day.

After dinner, the next stop should be the Eskibar at Boat Quay. We were supposed to meet PS at 8pm there, but TH was held up by some matters and we were waiting for him. At 9, Sharon and Elaine decided to go meet him 1st. TH came out soon after that and we go meet the girls. Eskibar was full, so we went to a nearby ktv pub to sing song and play dice game.

Later in the night, the girls wanted to go to Happy Pub, but TH refused. So we go to Eskibar. This time, there's seats for us. Daniel and Sotong joined us as well. We had a fun night playing 5-10 and some other games drinking whiskey. It's really cold there.

Hide Image

To end the night, we went to Mohd Sultan. Not for more disco. To have our supper. Sharon wanted to eat Bak Kut Teh. She say it's nice but the rest of us disagree. Sharon, Elaine and I took the night rider home, while Daniel send the rest of them back.

Cameron for Christmas

My friends wanted to go Cameron Highlands in Malaysia for the Christmas period and I decide to tag along. Unfortunately, they made the decision quite late and are not able to get any transport to Cameron Highlands from Singapore. They all sold out when we enquired about it about 2 weeks before Christmas. There are also no answers from the hotels that we asked about. If they did, it's to tell us they have no rooms.

They decided to just go Johor Bahru the week before and see if we book get any coach from there. The hotel we can hunt for it when we arrive at Cameron Highlands.

[IMAGE: Tapah bus ticket] - Show

Hide Image

We did managed to get coach tickets, but it's not to Cameron, but Tapah. Cost us RM$60 each. Tapah is about 2 hours away from Cameron. We can get a taxi or bus ride from there. Pretty exciting plans I must say. And we have not settle the trip back. Elaine wanted to get back on the 26th, but Sharon, Sotong and TH wanted to come back 1 day later. I will accompany Elaine back on the 26th since she is scared of traveling alone. :P That and also I have to settle some work stuff ASAP.

[IMAGE: Kranji MRT] - Show

Hide Image

The coach leaves JB at about 9:30 am on the 24th. We decided to meet at Kranji MRT at 5:40 am. That's the 1st train from Ang Mo Kio. The 1st train from Jurong East is about 10 minutes earlier. Unfortunately, the 1st train from Bouna Vista to Jurong East is 6:10 am, reaching Kranji about 25 minutes later, which is too late.

So I packed my stuff to my sister's place at Yew Tee the night before. I reached home at 11:40pm on the 23rd. hurriedly packed my stuff and rush to the MRT station. I need to take the train by 12:05 in order to catch the last train to Yew Tee from Jurong Est. In my haste to get to my sister's place, I forgot to bring sandals along. And instead of wearing track shoes, I wore leather shoes. Grr. And I left my hand phone charger in my sister's place when I left the next morning. Talk about having a bad start to a holiday. At least I am not late this time. I met Elaine on the train and we were 10 minutes early. Sotong and Sharon are about on time, with TH being the only 1 late. By 10 minutes. But that's because I smsed him earlier to ask him to bring for me a pair of slippers. :P

Since we are this early, we managed to clear the customs pretty quick. There's a bit of jam on the bus ride to both customs, but the queue at the customs is not that long. We went to this coffee shop and have our wanton noodle breakfast. Except for TH who said he wanted to have prata instead. So after we had finished our noodles, we went to the prata shop to for a second round.

[IMAGE: Wait at tour agency] - Show

Hide Image

By the time we finished our breakfast, it's still only 8+am. The shopping center is not opened yet, so we went to the tour agency where we booked our tickets and wait.

[IMAGE: Toilet Graffiti] - Show

Hide Image

The toilet near the tour agency has quite a number of graffiti. :P And some of it are of gay theme. Hmm... I thought gay is a definite no-no in Muslim countries?

[IMAGE: On the bus] - Show

Hide Image

Sharon is very nice and kind to gives us a star shaped cushion each as Christmas presents. The blue dino in the picture has been her companion to a lot of places. The Tigger is Sotong's Christmas from her brother. I have brought my Spotty along. :P

[IMAGE: Rabbit Satay] - Show

Hide Image

It's a long journey to Tapah. There's quite a number of stops along the way. Almost 1 every hour. We reached there at 5pm. At 1 of the stops, 2nd I think, I saw this board at the stall. They've got a lot of kinds of Satay there. And under the special (istimewa) Satay section, the last item, it's the rabbit Satay. Sounds yummy. I like rabbit meat. *slurp*

[IMAGE: Tapah bus station] - Show

Hide Image

We wanted to take a taxi from there to Cameron Highlands. It cost RM$70, and they take only 4 persons per taxi. There are 5 of us. 2 taxis seem to be too expensive, so we took the public bus, which is only RM$6. The seats are lousy.

[IMAGE: Waiting for bus at KFC] - Show

Hide Image

We've got 1 hour before the bus leaves, so we goes KFC for some snacks.

[IMAGE: Cameron bus ticket] - Show

Hide Image

The bus to Tanah Ratah, the Cameron Highlands town where our hotel is, takes more than 2 hours. We reached Cameron Highlands at about 8pm.

[IMAGE: View from Tapah bus] - Show

Hide Image

The bus is quite lousy. No aircon, but that’s not really that important as it gets cold as we goes higher up the mountain. The seats are really uncomfortable though.

There's a tour agency at the bus station. We booked a 1/2 day tour (RM$20 each) from there and the return bus ticket as well. They do not have bus to Singapore, so we bought the ticket to KL. The guy, he looks like he's the boss, told us there are seats available on the 26th 12am for me and Elaine. And on the 27th, it's at 9:30am. Unfortunately, the tickets for the buses are in other offices which are locked and he says he doesn't have the key and that he'll bring us the tickets the next morning when we go for our 1/2 day tour. The boss doesn't have the keys to his office. Hmm...

[IMAGE: Steamboat dinner] - Show

Hide Image

Anyway, the guy offered us a ride to our hotel, but he's busy working at the moment, and we have not eaten our dinner yet and it's about 9 already, so he brings us to a steam boat restaurant nearby for dinner. The items are mostly yong tau hu stuffs with little meat, and it's fixed quantity. Luckily there are not many heavy eaters among us and the quantity is enough to fill all our stomachs. Elaine, Sharon, TH and me shared 3 bottles of beer with me drinking the most. :P

[IMAGE: Hotel] - Show

Hide Image

This is our hotel. It's not really a hotel, more like a guesthouse. In fact, it's a retirement home. Looking at the 3rd storey, you can see the name, KRS Pines Retirement Home.

[IMAGE: KRS Pines collage] - Show

Hide Image

We actually looked for Twin Pines Guest House, but they are fully booked. And they refer us to their sister company, the retirement home. We've got 2 rooms. Me and TH share a room, while the 3 girls share another. The girls room is actually 1 room with 3 beds in it, not those kind where they add a temporary bed to the room. There's no TV in the room, just 1 at the reception, and it's got Astro. There's no balcony in the rooms, but there's 1 for every floor. There's a bath room in the rooms and hot water for bathing. Overall, it's a good enough place to stay in. There are still a number of rooms left.

[IMAGE: Christmas Tree] - Show

Hide Image

They also have an interesting Christmas tree at the reception counter.

[IMAGE: Lift] - Show

Hide Image

They have an interesting lift. There's a lift door on each floor, but there's no door on the lift itself. So if u sticks your fingers everywhere, you can get it stuck between the lift and the wall.

[IMAGE: Gift exchange] - Show

Hide Image

we have a gift exchange that night. The biggest present is from Elaine. My present is not wrapped, so I reused Sharon's wrapping for the star cushions. : P


We played a dice game that night until quite late. I supposed we made quite a lot of noise. I wonder if those Indian other fellows staying in the same floor are complaining. : P

[IMAGE: View from balcony] - Show

Hide Image

Woke up early the next morning. The 1/2 day tour starts at 8:45am.

[IMAGE: City view] - Show

Hide Image

what the city looks like during the day.

[IMAGE: Twin Pines] - Show

Hide Image

the coach is supposed to come pick us up at the hotel for the 1/2 day tour. But the road to our hotel is quite bad and the tour bus can't go there. So we walked about 100m out to this place to wait for the bus.

[IMAGE: Smart Reader Appointed Center] - Show

Hide Image

Saw this building on the way to Twin Pines. Smart Reader Appointed Center. Hmm.. Wonder what it's for.

[IMAGE: Temple] - Show

Hide Image

The 1st attraction that we goes to is a temple. It's a temple like other temples in the region. It's certainly not the grandest or nicest. It's just a temple. Since this is an Asian country, I guess they tour agency feels they have to bring us to a temple. Even the guide is not too interested in this temple. We stayed here for only 20 minutes. Just to take some pictures.

[IMAGE: Cactus Valley] - Show

Hide Image

The next stop is at the Cactus Valley. They have a lot of cactuses and flowers and fruit plants.

[IMAGE: Flowers] - Show

Hide Image

They have so much flowers in there that I lost count which is which.

[IMAGE: Cactuses] - Show

Hide Image

Cactus of various shapes and sizes can be seen there.

[IMAGE: Pond] - Show

Hide Image

Elaine and I were busy looking at the flowers and taking pictures that for a moment, we lost the others. They had gone ahead without us.

[IMAGE: Wind vane] - Show

Hide Image

I asked Elaine the term for this thing in Mandarin, and she told me 风车 (windmill) ...

[IMAGE: More Cactus] - Show

Hide Image

More cactus. There are just so many of them.

[IMAGE: Souvenirs] - Show

Hide Image

This dice soft toy keychain has lovey messages on all sides except for 1 side that say "My friend". Ouch.

[IMAGE: Big flower] - Show

Hide Image

This flower is pretty big. Either that or Elaine has small hands. It looks like Hibiscus to me, but I am not sure. There's no labels.

[IMAGE: Small flower] - Show

Hide Image

Nice colours this flower have. Maybe Elaine's hand is not that small after all...

[IMAGE: Apple?] - Show

Hide Image

Some fruits. I think it's an apple. Can't remember exactly...

[IMAGE: Tomato] - Show

Hide Image

At first I was puzzled about this tomato tree. I thought tomatoes do not grow on trees. On closer look, I realize that there's a rope running from the ground to the top and the tomato plants are coiled around it.

[IMAGE: Ipoh apple] - Show

Hide Image

The yellow-colour-with-black-strips fruit is the Ipoh apple. Doesn't look like an apple to me. Tastes like a mixture of starfruit, apple and honeydew.

There are a lot of things to see here. We spent about an hour at this place. The longest we spent in a place.

[IMAGE: Strawberry farm] - Show

Hide Image

The 3rd place that we visited is the strawberry farm. There's nothing much to be seen here, just strawberry plants, which we have seen in the Cactus Valley as well.

[IMAGE: Yummy strawberry products] - Show

Hide Image

The strawberry ice-cream is yummy. The milkshake is not bad, a bit sour though. The jam is nice as well.

[IMAGE: Among the strawberries] - Show

Hide Image

The sections where we were allowed to go to are where the strawberries are not ripe. So that we can't pluck them to eat.

[IMAGE: Me and Sharon] - Show

Hide Image

The main reason for being here is to eat the ice cream and buy the jam. We spent slightly less than 30 minutes at this place.

[IMAGE: Boh tea plantation] - Show

Hide Image

The next place is the Boh tea plantation. According to the tour guide, a tea plant can be productive for 120 years. This plantation is 70+ yrs old. In recent times, not so many locals want to work in the tea plantation anymore. So, most of the workers are foreign talents. Wonder what this part of Cameron Highlands will look like 40 years later.

[IMAGE: Bus] - Show

Hide Image

This is our bus. :)

[IMAGE: On the bus] - Show

Hide Image

That about concludes the interesting part of the tour. What's left is a honey farm and market place. There's actually an insect farm that we visited before Boh. But we did not go in as there is an admission fee, and we feel that we have seen the insects in Sentosa. So we bump around in the souvenir shop outside.

[IMAGE: Honey farm] - Show

Hide Image

Nothing much here. We go there listen to the pp introduce the farm a bit, then drink 1 free shot of honey water. It's raining at that time, so we did not go explore the place.

[IMAGE: Act cute TH] - Show

Hide Image

It's drizzling, and TH wrapped his windbreaker over his head.

[IMAGE: Marketplace] - Show

Hide Image

It was raining quite heavily, and there's no shelter for the customers in this stupid market, so we did not walk around much in this place. But from what we had seen from the outside, it's not interesting at all.

[IMAGE: Tour guide] - Show

Hide Image

Having mentioned him a few times, this is what he looks like. With that, the 1/2 day tour ended.

[IMAGE: Lunch] - Show

Hide Image

We had our lunch at a public listed restaurant in Cameron Highlands! Haha! Anyway, the food is lousy and takes a long time to arrive. What’s worse is that I ordered additional items, and they never record it. Despite the waitress coming back to me for confirmation after I made the order.

[IMAGE: Chio bu?] - Show

Hide Image

I took these 2 pictures during lunch. I thought they look quite nice. The pictures I mean. :P

[IMAGE: The T Cafe] - Show

Hide Image

Sharon has been looking for this place. She wanted to have the scones for breakfast.

[IMAGE: Signs] - Show

Hide Image

And this is what we see when we reached.

[IMAGE: More hotel pic] - Show

Hide Image

It's back to the hotel to laze around a bit before coming out for dinner. We played mahjong cards while Sharon says she's sick and sleeps the afternoon away. We play 1 fan RM$0.10, with a max of 5 fan. Very friendly rates. I won RM$6.

[IMAGE: Dinner] - Show

Hide Image

For dinner, we walk around town and came to this bistro restaurant. I ordered steak. Looking at the setup, I did not bother asking for medium rare, nor did they ask me. The food is ok. After finishing our food, we played 3 games of pool. Me + Elaine vs. TH + Sharon. My team wins 3-0. :)

We had a walk around the town before going back to the hotel. Most of the shops are closed as it's almost 11. We found a night market, but none of the stuff on sale interests us.

It's more games at the hotel after that. Elaine went to sleep at about 12. The rest of us played mahjong cards again. Quite an exciting game. From the 1st game, I keep losing. Then I win a moderately big 1 which brings me near to break even, and then I keep losing again. Then I win another moderately big 1, which brings me to near break even point again. Then it's back to the losing streak. Finally, at the 3rd last game, I win a big 1 and become positive. Ended the game winning RM$0.80. TH is the only loser. He wins much more games than me, but they are all small ones. Lucky me.

[IMAGE: Breakfast] - Show

Hide Image

We went to a prata shop for breakfast. Sotong had mee goreng while the rest had nund. I ordered beehoon goreng. But they serve it very late, so I packed it and bring to eat on the bus.

[IMAGE: Going home] - Show

Hide Image

Going home soon. Actually it's only to KL. We still have to find our way back from there.

[IMAGE: KL Bus ticket] - Show

Hide Image

This is our ticket after it's torn by the conductor.

The ride is very long. And the seats are quite bad. As bad as the bus from Tapah to Tanah Rata. But that's only for 2 hours. This time it's for 6 hours. There are a few stops along the way, but I did not alight the bus, though Elaine did a few times. We played Jim Rummy (is that the right spelling) mostly on the bus if we are not sleeping.

[IMAGE: Johor bus ticket] - Show

Hide Image

We reached KL at 3pm. We managed to get coach tickets to Johor, Larkin, after going to a number of agencies. The lady told us the timing is 3:30. I have a hurried lunch at the shop beside the agency. And left my Timberland jacket behind. :(

When we went back to the agency, it's more waiting and there are no seats. I should have eaten slowly. After a long time, we were lead to the bus, except that the bus is not there. It's more standing waiting again.

[IMAGE: 5pm] - Show

Hide Image

When we finally board the bus at about 4pm, it still doesn't leave. Not until 5pm.

It’s another 4 hours bus ride to Larkin. At least the seats are better. But it's still a 40 seater. Cost us RM$30. Later I heard from Sharon that they got those 3026 seater coach straight back to Singapore. It cost tem only RM$35. Oh well. There are much more people going back on the 26th as it's the last day of holiday.

After reaching Larkin, which is after 10pm already, we took bus 170 to the customs. Cleared it pretty fast. Again, there's a bad jam for the cars. But the bus is fast.

By the time I reached Kranji MRT, I realize there will be no more connecting train to Bouna Vista. So I decided to alight at Bukit Gombak with Elaine and have my dinner there. It was about 11:30pm. Turned out I remember the last train timing wrong. Elaine heard the announcement for the last train to Jurong East for the connecting train to Pasir Ris. Anyway, we go ahead to have our dinner.

It's a long day and feels like a short holiday. Out of 3 days, 2 are spent traveling. But no matter what activity we are doing, the people we do with are always more important. So I can still say it's a fun trip. :)

[IMAGE: What I missed] - Show

Hide Image

This final collage is what Sharon, Sotong and TH do after me and Elaine left. Apparently they found a small waterfall, went to a neighboring town, took a 31 and 1/2 hour hike back and had beer and games in the hotel.


More accounts of this trip at:
TH: Days 1 and 2
TH: Days 3 and 4
Elaine Day 1
Elaine Day 2