Long Awaited Trip to JB & Singapore

During the past Merdeka Holiday weekend, we took a short trip down south. Stayed overnight at my cousin's house in JB before heading over the sea to Singapore for 1 night stay at V Hotel. 

We drove in to Singapore on Friday morning, left the house at about 10+ am and reached V Hotel (at Lavender Station) at 12pm. The traffic at the custom and causeway was very slow. After getting our passports stamped at JB Custom, we crawled over the causeway to Sg Custom and took us a while to fill up all the dis/embarkation forms. After clearance, we were supposed to follow the RED Lane in order to get down to the VEP office to get the AUTOPASS card. There was no proper signage directing us to the VEP office, and we went to the GREEN Lane instead. The officer was very kind enough to let us make a sort-of U-turn to park our car and get our Autopass card done at the motorcycles only VEP office. It was a very quick process: filled up a form, presented the white slip of your road tax, paid S$10 for the card with a pre-loaded S$4.00 value. For more information about this, I found some info here.

The hotel room was small, but we were happy with it because it was clean and presentable. Left for USS on the MRT. Stopped at Harbourfront for a quick lunch and went to USS on a monorail. 

Reached USS at 2pm, it was drizzling but we didn't mind because it was not too crowded. Paid for 2 adults ticket, and Ziyi entered for free :)

The rest shall be presented in pictures:

Those above were taken at USS, while this was on the following day, at Garden By The Bay. We forgotten to bring our camera with us on the 2nd day in SG. Sucha waste! We went to the city garden and also Marina Bay Sands. Ziyi was very fussy as the weather was so hot and we were quite tired from all the walking. The city garden consist of 2 domes, but we only made it to 1 of them. Very interesting. A must visit attraction.

We hailed a cab to get back to the hotel. Slightly more expensive than the train but it's definitely a faster way especially when everyone of us were so tired. Headed back to JB in the evening, got stucked in the heavy traffic near the SG customs again.

Spent another day in JB, visited the Premium Outlet, nothing fantastic though. We left for home on the next morning. Spent a total of 2 days in SG and 2 days in JB. Need to make another trip down south for the Legoland and Hello Kitty Themepark. Must plan it on a non school holidays, non public holidays, and non weekends too!!

Merdeka Holiday

YES! This will be the last public holiday of the month and we will have to wait till December (me think) for more holidays. I can't wait for our long awaited trip this weekend, departing tonight by car. When was my last holiday trip? Hmm, can't really recall. 

Shall update on our trip after we are back and keeping my fingers crossed that the lil monster won't give us a hard time. Phobia :(

Happy holiday & Happy Independence Day to all.

Long Raya Break 2012

Our 4 days holiday break came to an end, now back to work. blehhhh!!

Anyway, a quick update of what we did during the 4 days break:

Saturday: 

Went for late breakkie around the neighbourhood and just hang around Carrefour for the lil one to have some fun playing at the kiddie arcade. Dinner at home as usual, with the rest of the Loh's family.

Sunday:

I cooked pasta with bacon and carrots + lettuces for lunch. I'm a green freak. Must have loads of vegetables in my meal, especially if it's home cooked meals. 

Went out to 1 Utama, reached there around 3pm, carpark and mall was super crowded! I thought most people would have gone out of town, looked like I was so wrong. We passed by Sticky the customised candy shop and showed Ziyi how they make their candies. I was surprised to find out they give out samplings pretty generously, they just left a square bowl on the counter and let you take as many as you want. We like it, because the candy was not too sweet and there were quite a lot of flavors to choose from. 

Then we dropped by Candylicious, another pretty candy store. Needless to say, Ziyi bugged us to buy her lollipops! I was not keen to get her those artificially colored lolly at all. We tried persuading her to go for Gelato instead but she refused. In the end I managed to convinced her to go for a Chocolate lolly, which cost us RM9! But I didn't mind because I think chocs are much better those colored lolly. I made her promised me to not ask for any lollipops or chocs or ice-cream anymore, but do you a 4 year old can keep her promise? Of course not! She went crazy when she saw another ice-cream kiosk later. I was very firmed with her this time, it took us a while to distract her and brought her to Toys 'r us and took her some time to finally "forget" about the ice-cream. We went to Uptown for the famous hokkien mee and roast duck. Ziyi had a small plate of mee + some duck meat and we headed home after that. 

The expensive lolly

Monday:

Left home in the morning to Morib for a short day trip. The sun was hot, we came back with a burnt back. They played kite and sand at the beach. when it was low tide. Headed to Tanjung Sepat for seafood, at the Ocean Seafood restaurant. Gosh, the crowd and traffic was crazy. Reached the restaurant at about 3pm and only managed to have our meal at 5pm. The kids were hungry. The food was not fantastic and price was not attractive either. Don't think we will be back. 

The famous Lover's Bridge

Reached home at almost 8pm, bathed and the kids continued playing at home when the "men" went out drinking, I had to babysit 3 kids and Ziyi was the happiest kid, having company to play with her. She knocked out at almost 12am. 

Tuesday:

Ziyi must be extremely tired from yesterday, she woke up at 9+ am, and this rarely happened as she is an early person. While she was still sleeping, I prepared the ingredients for making beef stew. My first attempt at beef, besides minced beef. Dumped everything into the slow cooker. Easy peasy. Will post the recipe later. 

Hubs and I went out for a movie while Ziyi was out with her grandparents. We went for lunch, a quick shopping and we watched The Expandables 2. Great movie and it was only RM8 per tix for Citibank card holder.

That was it, our long (or short?) holiday break. Time past so fast and before I knew it, I'm now back at work...yawwnn :O

Cuti Cuti Klang Valley

We spent a few days holidaying in Klang Valley during the final week of 2011. That was because my cousin's family came up to KL for a short holiday. It was a 3 days 2 nights stay at Royale Bintang KD. But hubby didn't join as he was unable to take leave. It was just me and Ziyi, and my cousin's family.  

We were supposed to bring the kids to Sunway Lagoon but too bad, the crowd and the queue at the ticketing counter put us off totally. So it turned out to be a shopping trip for us. However, we managed to bring the kids to play at the hotel's swimming pool though. 

The entrance of the suite.

Room with a double bed

The other room with a twin bed

Actually the so-called rooms were just separated by a partitioned door at the centre of the room.

The kids were the happiest in the room. Hopping, jumping, running and screaming in the room. Thank God we did not receive any complaints from other hotel guests. Can't wait to see them again during this coming CNY. 

Amongst all Ziyi's friends, she likes Nathan the most. Funny, she likes to play with boys! They played, laughed, fight and cried each time they see each other. Chaotic but happy to see them together :)

short vacation to Pangkor Laut Resort

when my cousin came back from the US last month, we planned for a short trip to a beach resort. our initial plans were to Phuket, Krabi or Pangkor Laut Resort. since our kids had to tag along and our husbands were unavailable during this period, we chose PLR for convenience & safety reasons. we booked for a 3 days 2 nights stay at PLR @ RM799 per adult and kids @ RM499, from 18-20 May. there were altogether 4 adults & 4 kids, including my cousin's sis-in-law family. 

we hired a 9-seater van with driver to drive us from KL - Lumut jetty - KL. the journey took us 3 hour 30mins single way + 30 mins boat ride. 

we arrived Lumut jetty at noon and were asked to wait in PLR's waiting room while waiting for our boat.

all our belongings are being taken care of. we had to take a short walk across the road to board the boat.

ziyi's first boat ride experience. the life jacket reminded her of Dora's cartoon 

lobby area

our room, both ziyi & nathan (my cousin's son) were busy playing with the stones available in the room near the bath tub.

we added extra day bed (the one on the right in this pic) @ RM180 per day but it was not used at all. 

the kids need to be entertained with iPad 2 and cartoons on the portable DVD player so that we adults could have a peaceful meal.

the koi pond near to the coffee house

2nd day - went to the beach after breakfast. scenic view at the beach

we were one of the firsts to arrive at the beach. we need to take a 15mins ride on the resort's shuttle van 

ziyi tried to build sandcastle here

need to refill her watering can

the kids were busy running around and doing their own version of chicken dance

the 3 days trip were too short for us. didn't really get to enjoy much, we should have extended an extra night! 

my review for this resort: 

a very nice resort indeed, with 5 star service from all their staffs. food was average, we had 2 buffet breakfasts, 2 lunches (ala carte) and 2 dinners (ala carte). not a very child-friendly resort and we realized we were the only family bringing kids! 

must bring lots of mozzie repellents. we used cream, roll-on, band & ultrasound type. kiasu hor? there were also a lot of flies everywhere at all their restaurants. very irritating during our mealtimes. 

compared to Tanjong Jara Resort in Terengganu, i still prefer TJR. however most people will say PLR is a nicer resort. individual preference i suppose. 

our free stay at Resort Suites, Sunway

we got a free night stay at Resort Suites, Sunway after attending some talks at Sunway Healthy Lifestyle. spent slightly more than an hour for the talk and we were presented with a voucher at a destination of our choice (under Sunway Group).  we chose this hotel as we didn't want to travel far and it was meant for ziyi to play and have fun at the swimming pool. we checked in on the 5th day of CNY.

lil monster officiated the bed

getting ready for a wet experience!

cheerios for her while waiting for daddy to get changed and go for dinner.

we went to canton-i for dinner. i was quite disappointed as i wanted to eat their dimsum dishes but it was not available during dinner hour. after dinner, we bought 2 slices of cakes from Secret Recipe, 1 cheesecake and another chocolate cake (specially requested by lil missy)

we had a pleasant surprise when baby leanne came visiting too.

overall, we had a pleasant stay and i like it for its convenience as the shopping mall is just next to the hotel. hubs was commenting that we could go for a late night movie if ziyi wasn't with us...muahahhahaahah

bad parents!