My May 08 Trip, S'pore - KL II (6th day)

1. Changi Budget Terminal

As discussed previously, it would be inconvenient to go to Changi airport by MRT, as it is a weekday (would be packed with working people & students) & we have to arrive there at around 12 o'clock, so we decided to take taxi, turns out it's not that expensive, it cost SGD 15 (so it would be SGD 7.50 for each of us) and so much more convenient, coz to go to Budget Terminal (we are using Tiger air) would be a little bit more a hassle than just from Terminal 1 as when we arrive at Singapore using AirAsia.

We chose using Tiger Airways coz it's more cheaper than air asia at taht time, but that means we have leave from the Budget Terminal. S'pore's budget terminal is much more convenient & nicer than the one in KL... While waiting the time to check in (we came a bit too early), we had our breakfast at the only food court outside from the airport's passenger waiting area, finished with our checking in we went inside, and it's much more comfy than the one outside.

Oh.... this time I have the opportunity to take care of the GST tax return, turns out it's really easy, at the front counter we just show our receipt (which we have asked the shop to provide special receipt for GST return) and show the stuff we bought (that's why you can see I was carrying the Tangs plastic bag). The custom officer outside would chop the special receipt, than at the counter inside the passenger waiting area, I would show the receipt and would receive my cash (but this is only for first timer), the next time they would return our tax by CC.

Also inside the passenger waiting area, there are restaurants (which looks uch better than the one outside) and shops, one of them is a shop that sells SGD 10 for 3 stuffs, I chose 2 rings and 1 cute key chain. Finished shopping by the time, coz the announcement to board our plane came, it's really on time. I told Srie "I felt missing home already... it seems like we are boarding the plane to go back to Jakarta not to KL again hehehe..."

Time to say bye-bye to Singapore.... for sure I'll come back here again.... it's so hard to beat the sale there especially for Mark & Spencer's stuffs :D

2. KL - Baby Charlotte

Back to KL... time really flies, all of the sudden we are already on our last city on this trip. As usual, Tiger air is considered as budget airline, so we arrived at LCCT, but this time after having the last experience, before getting into the skybus we stopped first at McDonalds, I bought my favorite apple pie & fillet o' fish for lunch, tis sufficient as we have ate at Changi previously for brunch.

As before, skybus stopped at KL Sentral, from there we used taxi to my BF's sister. But today the traffic is quite bad everywhere, so there are no taxi from the ticketing system, finally we came to the desk nearby the taxis, turns out they are using ticketing system as well, but cheaper than if we bargain by our own, even cheaper than the usual ticket taxi we usually use. If I'm not mistaken we were charged for RM 15 to go to my BF's sister place. Truly it was quite a packed traffic we had that day, we arrived there in the afternoon, it is said that KL traffic in Friday is usually jam and to add the day it was raining so it worsen it (but in my opinion, this traffic is nothing if to compare Jakarta's traffic on Friday with rain).
he driver is very friendly, he talked all the way, finally he offered to drive us back to LCCT if we need a taxi, it will cost RM 80, coz it's quite far and he gave us his card to phone him if we need taxi service.


Finally we arrived at my BF's sister's apartment, it's very quite, while we were staying there we never met the neighbour, we even never shared the lift with anybody else, well probably it was just a coinsidence.
Once we get inside the apartment, after saying hi and introducing Srie to my BF's sister, my first target is Charlotte.... ufff the first time I saw her I became her fans :) she is such a cute little baby... laughing all the time... and active, it's ok for her to meet me for the first time and carry her right away.... :)

After playing around wth Charlotte, talking with my BF's sister, took a shower and everything, my BF's sister' husband came from the office and they took us out for dinner not far from their place. We ordered fried noodle, tofu in sweet, hot & sour sauce (tasted like thai food) and kwey tiao (if I'm not mistaken)... all is really delicious, especially when you are famished like I was :)
Done with dinner we stopped by at their friend's place to pick up mattress for Srie to sleep, then we went straight back to the apartment and sleep right away.

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My May 08 Trip, Singapore (5th day)

2nd day S'pore - Shopping @ Orchard, Ducktour & Suntec City

Today we woke up a little bit late... well... close to noon to tell the truth :P But with that lots of sleep we were really energized that day. We had our lunch at Tangs basement after looking around Tangs before, the food we had was really good, as appetizer (being really hungry) we had this chinese sandwich of mantao with lettuce and pork belly in soy sauce, then for main course we ordered packet of BBQ pork rib with yellow rice and pineapple pickles. Although we had to eat in standing position (they only provide chest high little round table and no chir or stool) but the food was incredibly good, especially the pork rib packet was really cheap, it's about SGD 5 and we were stuffed.

After lunch we can start our walk, started with Tangs, then we went to Border, looking for books that's hard to get in Jakarta and not missing the crazy sale Mark & Spencer held (even at KL when we looked around at Mark & Spencer Suria, they were not in sale yet), off course I shop like crazy hehehe... CC are swept, I'm sure it'll give me headache when I went back to Jakarta :P
Then after the long shopping around and with the heat, we bought the delicious local red bean ice cream, it truly is a good choice to do and really refreshing at that hot weather...

Not realizing the time we spent, we ran like crazy to get to the MRT for City Hall to go to Suntec city as we came to know that it's 4.30 PM already, because we want to ride the DuckTour there and the last tour is at 6 PM, thank God when we were there we could still get the ticket.
For those who don't know... Ducktour is a tour using amphibian vehicle from the old war, so it's quite exciting as we got tour on land and water, we could see lots of places in 1 tour such as the esplanade, which looked like a durian (it is said that if we see it from above the building lookdes like microphones),

we also saw the Singapore Flyer (which is claimed to be the world highest observation wheel), to bad it cost a little bit expensive around SGD 30 so we decided not to ride it, maybe next time... :)
besides that, we also saw the merlions (they called it the mama & baby merlion, as the one in Sentosa they called it the Papa merlion). Finished with the water tour, we got around a little bit more before getting back to suntec. Too bad for the last land tour it was raining hard already, so they pulled down the plastic cover and we can't see clear of the things outside, only hearing the explanation from the tour leader with the broken sound system that keeps going on and off hahaha...

Done with the tour, we walked around Suntec for window shopping, and just realized that it's already 9.30 PM... oh gosh... it's way too late, it's gonna be hard to find dinner. Thankfully some restaurants ares till open, finally we chose Pepper Luch coz it's much cheaper than the ones that are still open. After ordering we came to know why it's cheaper... hey... we have to cook it for ourselves, but it turned out quite ok, I ordered sukiyaki.
Looking around at Suntec I found my childhood favorite snack called Dragon Beard, it's like a white cocoon made from sugar and the inside is ground nuts, I just loved it :)

We didn't feel it till the end of our day, we were quite exhausted for what we did today :D but thankfully still in fit shape with all the vitamins and packaged of traditional remedy for cold. Today we have to go home a bit fast, coz we have to packed up again for tomorrow's flight.
After shower, our room door was knocked turns out it's our room neighbor who wanted to borrow our mobile charger (but turned out to be different from our charger so she can't borrow ours), she is from Indonesia too, but she came straight from Manado for skin treatment in S'pore and we talked for quite sometime.

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My May 08 Trip, Bangkok - Singapore (4th day)

1. Asia Hotel to Airport Suvarnabhumi

Nooooo...... I'm late!!!!! panic... panic... panic..... we woke up at 4 AM, finally done to go down for checking out at 4.30 AM, finished checking out at 5 AM, way way late from schedule. Thankfully we already booked the hotel taxi to airport, when we got to the taxi we were in for a surprise treat :D we got a Volvo as our taxi hahaha.... what a budget traveler we are... traveling in a Volvo cab, truly we were charged THB 900 (if I'm not mistaken) but it's worth it, the driver automatically drove fast when we told him we were late for our plane. Too bad we didn't have enough time to take pic with the taxi to proof that we used a Volvo cab :D

Luckily we arrived on time, as it was still early in the morning so there was no traffic at all, we even still have time to took some pictures before boarding and bought some snacks (durian chips)
Oh yeah... starting here from Bangkok, our baggage is overweight :P

Khap Khun Khap Bangkok... Hope to See you again soon.....


2. Changi airport (S'pore) & Lucky Plaza, Orchard Road

After constantly waking up and sleeping again through out the trip, finally we arrived at Singapore. Changi is quite generous with Air Asia, they didn't consider it as a budget flight, but using the normal airport at terminal 1 instead (as they have a special budget terminal too). After recognizing the area I just realized that terminal 1 is the old airport which they have using since I lived there as a child. Not knowing the cost of taxi from airport to the city we decided to use MRT (again... pls remember we are budgeted traveler) which is for sure much more cheaper than using taxi.

To reach the MRT station, we have to go to terminal 2 by using the sky train from 2nd floor at terminal 1, and there... I saw this abstract statue which I recognized since I was in kindergarten!!! That was such a great nostalgia, esp because I have such a good time growing up there, so it's all good memories I have about S'pore :)

MRT from changi to city hall is very very comfortable, being the 1 station all of us got seats and it's not crowded at all. But when we have to change train from city hall to Orchard problem rises, as this is packed and we have to stand (which I don't mind) but made me felt guilty for my luggage coz it takes some space :P
But the comfort of using MRT to Lucky Plaza while bringing luggage is that we don't have to face ordinary stairs, if there are places that we have to go up they provide the escalator, so we don't have to experience the panic we had at Bangkok :D

room at Lucky Plaza apartment

By the time we reached Lucky Plaza I just realized that when I pulled my luggage it made this really loud thumping sound "gludug-gludug-gludug" like thunder in the sky, and almost every person I passed would look at me. The faster I pulled my luggage to make this embarrassing ordeal passed quicker, the louder sound it would make. Turns out my luggage wheel is falling apart hiksss.... :(
Finally we arrived at Mrs. Soh's apartment, as usual the one who welcomed us is "mbak Wati", she offered us rooms ranging from SGD 95, 90 (these rooms fits for 3 persons and much more comfier) till the 70. We took the SGD 70 room, though the room is compact, where we have to take turns to open our luggage), but at least there are TV, table, chair and little cupboard to hang our clothes and towel.

3. Sentosa

Finished with our stuffs, changing clothes, we went straight to Takashimaya for lunch, I chose rice with main dish and side dishes we can chose, mine was really good, but too bad Srie's food was poured with curry sauce which doesn't match with the food she ordered... she automatically stopped eating at a the point where the curry sauce has reached... when I tasted it was true... the taste is just horrible, coz the curry sauce was just very strong and overwhelming.

After luch we went to Sentosa by MRT till Harbor Front, turns out it was at Vivo city (said to be the biggest shopping mall in Singapore), there I bought Starhub SIM card, then we went to the highest level and bought the ticket to Sentosa for SGD 3, which includes an all day Sentosa Express ride.

Not knowing the field of Sentosa (I think the last time I went here when I was 6 or 7 years old!! and the condition was not as neat as t is now), so we went down at Imbiah station when in fact we wanted to go to sea the first show time of "Song of the Sea" where it would be much nearer if we went down from the train at Waterfront station, so were given a long treat of walking :)
But... it was quite ok coz we were given a chance to take a pic with the big big big Merlion, which the mascot of Singapore in a still fresh condition :)

What's funny about Sentosa is I think that it's a little bit pushing too much in making it as a leisure island, the concept itself is quite ok I think, for using it part as an amusement park, part beach vacation, part historical, part party, and part the spa thing (an all amusement island). But why I said that they are pushing it to hard? it's because part of the island's view is the crowded seaport on the mainland with lots of cranes and piled up containers just made my appetite gone to think of it as a leisure island such as Bali and a swimming or beach activities there will be a big NO NO for me.

After checking the show time and bought the ticket for the first show of "Song of the Sea" at 19:40 we just walked around Sentosa. I bought at Jakarta a flip flop with slink back special for this vacation trip, and for this Sentosa trip I decided to try it for the first time... BAD decision!!!! At first it was quite ok, but after walking with it for some time, gosshhhh.... it hurts sooo much.... I can't stand it that finally we mad a stop at the souvenir shop and I bought a normal flip flop, which made my feet way much better... and we started walking again :D

Looking at some people queuing, we decided to take a look, and decided to buy the packet for 2 shows of 4D Magix and Cineblast for SGD 29 (if you buy separately it would cost 32 or 35), turns out it's just like the Robocop show and the 4 dimension at Ancol, Jakarta but at Jakarta it would cos a lot more cheaper :P
But' it's ok... hey... it's holiday right... we can spend extra :D beside that our purpose of going to Sentosa is to try their rides and have lots of fun, hey... we did that :D

Finished watching the 2 shows, we rode on the bus, which is free, back to Siloso beach where we want to watched the "Song of the Sea", turns out to be a standard operet show what's really great about it is the special effect : lasers, fireworks, etc I guess that's why the show has to start in the evening, if they held it at noon it won't be good at all.

Going home from Song of the Sea we were exhausted, just imagine... we started the day by waking up in the middle of night at Bangkok to catch our early plain, I guess we can't have our dinner at Newton circus there's just no strength left :P so we decided to just have out dinner at Vivo city food court. I had my favorite dish Ba Kut Teh (pork rib soup with chinese herbal).. too bad we were too late, that I didn't get the best of this dish which is the garlic. It's really good having hot soup after spending the day with the sea breeze. After that we went straight back to the apartment and have a great night of sleep :D

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