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!

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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!