Day Trip to Johor Bahru during the Long Weekend

Back from the Land of Kimchi, and here's a post to make sure that I keep to my word of blogging regularly so that my memories and pictures don't go to waste =) Shall work on writing about the Korea trip soon, lest work starts getting hectic and I forget about all my opinions or comments about the trip. In the meantime, a post on my long weekend a few weeks earlier!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11 September, Friday, was declared a public holiday due to Polling Day. And due to that, the weekend became a long weekend! What better than to make a day trip down to Singapore's dear neighbour, Johor Bahru, Malaysia, over the weekend?

Customs was a nightmare though, spent a full one hour queueing at the Malaysia Checkpoint waiting to clear Immigration! Luckily, I brought a book along with me and was kept well occupied during the wait.

A happy me after clearing Immigration! 

Used one of the eyebrow palette that I bought back in Japan today, can you see my more defined eyebrows? Usually, they are non-existent. 

First item to check off the list - LUNCH! 

Ate here for lunch - heard that they serve a good dish of Curry Mee

老次好, family opened stall

The Curry Mee! 

It is somewhat like a normal dish of Wanton Mee, but using Hor Fun as the noodles and curry as the soup base. Tasted delicious; noodles were neither dry nor sticky, meat was tender, and curry was surprisingly flowy and not so thick. Unfortunately, the only drawback is the price - RM 8. For JB standard, this price is considered a little on the high end. 

Next item on the agenda - Manicure and Pedicure for me! 

Was afraid that the shops would be crowded with Singaporeans, so we headed to AEON Mall instead of City Square, and even made an appointment with De Unique Nail. 

Part of the shop, it is a rather big shop, separated into 3 areas. 

1 waiting area, 1 area for manicure alone, 1 for pedicure (or both). 

This is the pedicure area, excited me! 

Colour palette of theirs

As I was doing both, I was attended to by 2 staff - 1 for manicure and 1 for pedicure. 

Felt like a princess with people waiting on me hahaha

As usual, the pedicure comes with a foot soak and foot scrub. 

Since JB is supposedly cheaper than SG, I decided to include designs for both my mani and pedi. Have never done it before as I found it way too pricey in SG, hence am pretty excited.

This is the work in progress for my pedicure! 

Final product! 

Got to say, I'm loving it =)

I was very happy with my experience here, for the below reasons: 

1. Environment was clean and very well maintained
2. They actually have a designated waiting area so that people who are accompanying can wait comfortably, along with a good sized TV on the wall screening recent movies to keep customers (and their friends) occupied. I am always very bored and fidgety when doing manicure, because I can't do anything with my hands. Even reading magazines can spoil the work-in-progress manicure. So I was happy to be occupied with the Jurassic World movie. 
3. Staff were well mannered and patient. 
4. Wide variety of designs available for customers to choose from, via iPad 
5. Price wise was reasonable and lower than that of Singapore. 

However, the only complaint I have, was that their charges were not made clear to me, even though I had made sure to ask the staff twice. When I queried how much it would costs to do the design I selected, I was told RM50 and RM60 for hand and feet respectively. So I took it as the all-in price, a total of RM110. Only upon payment, did I realised that it was for design fee ONLY. It has to be added on to the basic of RM84. 

Needless to say, I was rather appalled and feedback to the staff. After acknowledging that it was a miscommunication from both parties, they gave me a 50% discount for the design fees, hence the entire service adds up to a total of RM139. I would have been quite upset if they had forced me to pay up nonetheless, but because they were polite and gave a discount, I would still return in future. At least it shows that they are reasonable and do not force the customer. But it does tarnish the happiness somewhat. 

Moving on... Palladium Cafe! 

A glasshouse coffee cafe that gives off the Korean vibe

The cafe culture has been sweeping across many countries lately, and JB is not spared too. Many cafes have been sprouting out lately. When I was at Palladium, there were SO MANY youngsters taking photos and posing everywhere. 

It is located at one of the land marked for residential development - Eco Spring Show Village

Allow me to talk a little about the residential area developing there. I was impressed, to say the least. It is a Western colonial themed residential development, sales are ongoing now. From the outside, it looks like a Western country's vineyard or royal estate, with the design / layout of the land and building designs. Each house is like a bungalow, those that we enquired (for fun) costs about RM 750,000 onwards. Do not have pictures of the house models, but one of the special features is that they deliberately ensured that each house will have its own mini garden =) 

Entrance to one section of the estate

Photo from the side of the road. 

It does remind you of a vineyard doesn't it?!! 

Ok, back to the cafe. 

The menu

Maybe because they are a new cafe and still fairly small, the cafe only offers drinks with 2 types of cakes. Either they are still in the works of developing their menu, or the glasshouse is sufficient to bring them the demand they can handle at the moment. 

The barista

Me taking photo while waiting for our coffee to be ready

Here it is! 

As you can probably tell from the glasshouse photo, it is really a tiny house. The interior only has 3 tables. So most of the guests were seated outside at the alfresco area, which was also well decorated, though simple. 

I like this the most - We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.

Another section of the alfresco area. 

Think the lights will look really pretty and romantic at night! 

We did not stay long, for we had an upcoming spa appointment at Spa Manja =D 

Reception area 

Part of the reception area decoration 

Were given a cup of warm ginger tea each while waiting and while selecting the spa / massage that we would like to have

Another section of the vicinity - the place is super huge! 

Our room =) 

We chose to go for a 2 hour spa cum massage package, which comprises of a body scrub, steam, jaccuzi, and then finally, a 1 hour long massage. Heard from my friend that this company is very well known and fully booked most of the time whenever friends visit JB. So lucky that I got to try it even though the appointment was made at a very last minute! Heh. 

Here's their namecard with their address: 

A very lengthy post on the day trip, but spammed with many nice photos. Yay! 

Singapore Grand Prix 2015 - Formula 1 Night Race

The past weekend had Singapore in a flurry of activities, with the F1 night race taking place!

F1 has always held fond memories for me, ever since my school mates and I were kindly volunteered by our tertiary institution to work for free as part of an attachment, to gain experience and exposure. It really gave me an eye-opener, for I stepped into the Paddock Club for the first time, got allocated to the Ferrari suite (which then sparked my love for the Prancing Horse), and stood side by side with racer Kimi Raikkonen. The rubbing shoulders with superstars did not stop there, I also got to see Lewis Hamilton close up during a charity gala auction dinner.

But ever since that very first F1 held by Singapore, which was also my first, I had not been part of the action. Attempts to ballot for the free tickets dished out by my company had been futile, I have never been 1 to have such luck. This year, 2015, due to Maroon 5, I bought my very own F1 Walkabout Ticket!

Very proud owner, even though it is just a walkabout ticket

Had never been to the walkabout carnival area, and after exiting City Hall MRT, when queueing up to enter, you can hear the sound of the engines! 

Paid a visit to the dear title sponsor, Singapore Airlines' booth 

They had this damn awesome mural wall for people to take photos, 

totally love the vibrant colours! 

It was a rather good initiative to make the exhibit more interactive; if you look closely enough, you can see that it actually also functions as a photo screen for people to take photos! Unfortunately, the background is not very nice, you can see passer-bys walking around at the back. Would have been so much better if it was a standard background. 

But of course, they are not the highlight. The qualifying race was going on as we went about exploring and trying to find the best spot to watch the cars. Eventually, we settled here and camped out. 

The straight stretch of road in front of Esplanade, with a sharp bend coming at the end of the stretch (translate: cars will slow down as they approach the end of this stretch, so we can get better views!)

Can you spot the Ferrari?

Or the Mercedes? 

We had fun spotting the cars and identifying the team at first, but soon advanced to spotting the driver. How? By spotting the colour of the helmet! So you need to identify both the car AND the helmet within that split second when the car raced past. The challenging part about spotting the helmet is that, some are very similar. At certain angles, you may miss the identifier or unique trademark of the helmet and recognised the wrong driver. 

The spotting guide that came with the booklet, our mantra for the race 

No secret that many of the crowd came because of Maroon 5, so after the qualifying was finished, we quickly headed to the Padang to get a good spot for the concert. Our definition of good spot = behind the mega huge screen (since it is impossible to be at the front such that we can see them clearly), but yet as close to the stage as possible. 

This was the spot we picked in the end. 

Check out the crowd waiting eagerly for the band! 

We actually waited one hour for the concert to start, and luckily everyone was seated down and no standing was done until the concert commenced. Adam Levine shaved his head bald, which in my opinion, reduced his sexiness and appeal a bit, but his awesome crooning and hot bod totally won many girls over. 

CAN YOU SEE HIMMMMM

Goshhhhh, just a human being, but able to command such a huge audience

Crooning away~~

At one part of the concert, he actually put on a bright flamingo pink electric guitar and started strumming away, running around on stage, and singing at times with it. 

Everyone knows that Maroon 5 songs are damn hard to sing - it starts low, goes higher and higher, and the beat / rhythm is catchy. Adam Levine was simply amazing during the live concert; his first few songs were a little off, but I believe that is due to his vocals not warming up yet. After the 5th song, it was apparent that he has gone into concert mode and started getting more and more high, along with the songs. Not only did he performed the songs well, managed to rah-rah the crowd, but he also made some impromptu changes to the tune of the songs on the spot. And of course, how could they end the night without performing the latest hit, Sugar? 

Here are some for enjoyment =) 

This was the only video I managed to upload successfully; have a couple more but couldn't upload it here as the video size exceeds the maximum limit allowed by Blogger. Nonetheless, enjoy!! Will see if I can upload it on Dayre =) 

Also, this is the last post before I jet off to Seoul, South Korea! Will utilise my camera more there, and snap more photos! 

Day 3: Weekend Bangkok Escapadeeee [Jun'2015], featuring Greyhound Cafe

It was a short weekend trip, hence day 3 was our last day in Bangkok (sadly).

Since it was our last day and we had quite some Baht left in our wallets, we decided to pamper ourselves with a good cafe treat! And so we headed to Greyhound Cafe.

Photo Credits: www.bangkokpost.com

Greyhound Cafe is one of the highly raved about cafes in Bangkok, and comes highly recommended by renowned bloggers like Daniel from DanielFoodDiary, Ladyironchef, and MissTamChiak. It is a fashion-meets-food cafe, reasonably priced. 

We literally went for a feast, even though that was the first meal (ie. breakfast for the day), and also the last meal before we board the flight! 

A photo taken from my side of the table

Ordered rice cause I am just a rice lover, and because I was craving for rice. Saw a lady from a neighbouring table having this, and it just made me salivate! The dish was not disappointing, the rice was flavourful and it comes with a generous serving of fat prawns, along with an egg and soup. Very affordable pricing, and portions are good. 

North of my plate you may be able to spot a half-devoured Prawn Bisque; which was utterly amazing. Thick enough, rich enough, gluttony enough. Other dishes were Fish & Chips, Complicated Noodle, pasta, scallops. Unfortunately, didn't have a chance to snap photos of them cause we were just so excited to tuck in! Will try to take more photos in future. Heh. 

Not an eventful day, headed to the airport shortly after and here's a mandatory airplane shot! I like this photo =) 

Another mandatory aerial view from the plane 

Realised that I did not snap much photos in BKK as I thought I had, hence not many photos to share. I should start snapping more! 

On a sidenote, will be heading off to Seoul, Korea, in another 3 days' time! Very excited, and can't wait for it! Been excited since 2 weeks ago, and somehow it is not fading off. Will definitely take more photos there, and create some blogging materials. *eggciteddddd* 

Day 2: Weekend Bangkok Escapadeeee [Jun'2015], featuring HealthLand

The next day was spent in a full out, chillax mode, what with everyone being tired from the late night out the day before and with the 'nua' monster out in full throttle. 

Had a good brunch at this pancake waffle place near our apartment:

With fillings of chicken

The usual with chocolate

Before heading out to the Chatuchak weekend market for further shopping! Was also disappointed by this market for shopping, for the same reasons like Platinum Mall. The extremely hot weather did not help too, perpetuating the heat in the stuffy market. Nonetheless, glad to have bagged the below items back! At least not empty handed =) 

A wall clock that I think will suit the house after renovation completes =) 

Chose it for the phrase 'LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL', as a daily reminder to myself.

2 long comfortable baggy pants and 1 work dress

It wasn't long before we were yearning for some indoor air conditioning again. Targeted mall - Terminal 21. Terminal 21 is a mall themed after travel and airport, with each storey featuring different countries and their unique nature. Eg. San Fransisco will be the Golden Gate Bridge, London will be the red phone booths etc. 

A mock Golden Gate Bridge in Terminal 21

Was rather impressed that they built the entire bridge across the space in the mall, at first I saw it from another storey and given its life sized, thought that we can walk on it! But sadly, it was not to be. Puzzling, why not make the bridge serve a dual function purpose, for both aesthetics and practicality? It is big enough for people to walk anyway.. 

And of course, not forgetting to eat (again) 

Last item for the day - massage at one of the renowned massage chains in Thailand! 

HealthLand Spa!

Did not manage to capture a panorama with the entire vicinity, where they have their own brand stand and an independent standalone building at the back. Was rather impressed with the scale of their business and their professionalism. Even though we had to wait for almost an hour for the massage, we were kept comfortable during the wait at their humongous lobby, where sofas and drinks were provided. No pictures of the massage itself, was too busy enjoying and... sleeping =P 

 Rounding off the nua day!