Friday, 18th July 2008
I had a short weekend (Friday to Sunday) trip with Li Xiang, mum and my uncle (mum’s elder brother) to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. My uncle drove there. It is about 340km from Singapore all the way to Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur. We supposed to set off at 2pm but somehow my grandfather GTAed the car without telling anyone about it. When we managed to contact him, it is already about 3.30pm and my uncle has to send him home first before driving the car. So we are late by about 2 hours.

On our way to KL, my uncle got distracted as we keep talking and he misses one of the turn on the highway. We reached KL, he also misses a turn to Bukit Bintang and hence we reached out hotel at about 8pm. My uncle is driving at about 130km/h to 140km/h, so technically we would need about 2 hours and 30 minutes to reach KL.

We stayed in The Royale Bintang Hotel. We only booked one room and the price is quite reasonably. We paid RM299 for the first night and RM279 for the 2nd night and it includes a breakfast for 2 excluding tax.

We had dinner at Outback which is located in BBPark just beside our hotel. Food there tastes the same as in Singapore but prices wise, it is definitely cheaper. I think it is also cheaper than Outback in Thailand.

After dinner, we went to take a introductory walk around our hotel. Most of the shopping centers are closed after 10pm, however the streets are still filled with people and cars.

We went back to our hotel about 11pm and Skype with my dad and to have an early rest. The Internet rate is quite reasonable, RM24 for 4 hours and it has to be used within 24 hours from the purchase date.

Saturday, 19th July 2008
Could not sleep the whole night and hence woke up at 7.30am. Had breakfast at Sunflowers Brasserie which is the hotel cafe. The food was lousy and the variety was quite little as well.

After breakfast went to visit “Thong Hock Toys & Foodstuffs” which is a shop/company which my mom’s company has shares in it. While my mum and my uncle talk inside, Li Xiang and I walked around and took random pictures as we are really bored.

Once my mum is done, we took the rail (Rapid KL) to Suria KLCC for our first shopping trip. We stayed there till lunch and then my mum re-joined them for lunch while Li Xiang and I headed to Sungei Wang Plaza to shop.

At about 5pm met up with my mum at The Pavilion. As my mom was early, I asked her to buy tickets for The Dark Night. We wanted the 11pm slot but it left the first 3 rows and hence we settled for the 12.30am slot.

We had a late lunch at Food Republic in Pavilion and the food is good and the variety is similar to that of Singapore’s Food Republic, just cheaper.

Joined one of my uncle’s friend for dinner at a restaurant called Restoran Overseas (Near Berjaya Times Square). The food is fantastic and the Soy Chicken has to be the best Soy Chicken I have ever ate.

Went to Berjaya Times Square to take a look as it is located nearby, was quite disappointed with it as there is nothing much to shop there. Maybe people go there for the Amusement Park only.

We went back our hotel after that to take a rest and left again at 11.30pm for our movie at Pavilion. At 11.30pm, the streets are still filled with people and cars and it was very lively.

The Dark Knight was fantastic and I love the underground level as compared to the bat cave. The show lasted about 2 hours and 30 minutes. My mum got confused after watching the movie and Li Xiang said the movie was boring and slept 3/4 through it.

I don’t like the facilities at the movie theater. The toilet is so small and even guys have to queue up for it. After the movie, we had a hard time finding a toilet and we found it only at the ground floor and it was crowded with people as the toilet is again, small.

However, the movie ticket is cheap, RM12 for a weekend ticket, which is only like SGD$5 and in Singapore the cheapest you can get is SGD$8.00 at Cathay.

But I think VivoCity still has the best movie experience especially the toilet part.

We walked back to out hotel at 3.30am and the streets are still filled with people and cars definitely much more than Orchard Road if we compared the timing.

Sunday, 20th July 2008
As usual, woke up at 7.30am and have breakfast at the famous Imbi’s Sun Hong Bak Kut Teh. The taste is slightly different from Singapore, it is more towards the herbal side while in Singapore it is towards the pepper side. But I like the way or the idea that they give you a big claypot of Bak Kut Teh and then you scope whatever you want to your own bowl rather than each a bowl in Singapore.

After breakfast we went to Star Hill Gallery which is located beside Pavilion as my mom wanted to take a look at Loewe. It is like a ghost town inside as I can hardly see a single soul inside.

On our way back to our hotel to checkout, we went to Gloria Jeans Coffees and the prices there are very cheap. It is about SGD$5.60 for a large GJ Ice Chocolate and if we pay using May bank, it is a buy 1 get 1 free offer. So that makes SGD$2.80 per cup, in Singapore the same cup will cost at least SGD$7.

We also pop by to Sungei Wang’s Giant to get some last minute supermarket shopping.

After our hotel check out, we went to Low Yat Plaza to get some IT Stuff. Some of the electronics there are MUCH cheaper than in Singapore. 2 weeks ago, I bought for my mom’s the Microsoft Lifecam VX 3000 for SGD$83 and at there they are selling it at SGD$50 which is almost half price. My uncle immediately bought 2 of it.

My uncle also bought Canon IXUS 800IS for RM599 = SGD$249.47 and I bought a Canon IXUS 860IS for RM1180 = SGD$491.46. The latest pricing for Canon IXUS 860IS in Singapore is SGD$540, see the difference! On top of that the warranty is international.

The last thing my uncle bough is the Canon Pixma i1880 for RM139 = SGD$57.91. In Singapore, it is selling for SGD$99, but the down side is that the warranty is in Malaysia only. But for SGD$58, once it is spoilt, you can just throw it away.

And all the while I thought electronics in Singapore are cheaper.

We left Bukit Bintang at about 1.30pm and we reached Singapore at 3.30pm. This time my uncle is driving 150km/h to 160km/h and hence it only take about 2 hours to reach.

The bottleneck is always at Singapore side regardless whether you are going into Malaysia or coming back into Singapore. It is ALWAYS the Singapore custom holding the queue. I seriously think that Singapore custom need to do better than that.

Petrol in Malaysia is DIRT CHEAP, 1 litre of petrol only cost RM2.70 = SGD$1.12 and in Singapore 1 litre of petrol cost at least SGD$2.20. Malaysia’s government can subsidize so much for their petrol and I wonder why Singapore’s government can’t do that. I only saw Singapore registered cars pumping petrol in the last petrol station when coming back to Singapore.

Overall, I love and enjoy this short trip! Hope there is more to come. I shall learn how to drive to KL someday.

Had a short trip to Kukup, Malaysia with my 9 of my polytechnic friends, Li Xiang, Laily, Suqin, Wayne, Robert, Kee Yong, Serene, Terry, Wenxin.

This is my second time to Kukup, the first time was 11 years back, in 1997.

About Kukup:

Kukup Laut, a very unique and a century old fishing village built entirely on stilts on the sea surrounded by water, is the southernmost village found at the southwest tip of the Peninsular of West Malaysia, and suppose to be the southernmost village found in the Continental of Asia. Located about 70 kilometers away from Johor Bahru, and 20 kilometers from Pontian, Kukup Laut has only one road to access by land. It may be reached by sea boarding ferry leaving World Trade Center in Singapore daily. The entire village is linked by jetty also built on stilts on sea. This place is famous of its seafood. It’s geographically and ideally shadowed by one of the world’s largest mangrove swamp island - Kukup Island along which numerous fish-farms bob up and down on the surface of the Kukup Sea.

Google Map: Kukup
Source: Kukupnet

We paid SGD$70.00 per person for a 2 day 1 night stay there including transport to-and-fro from Singapore and 4 meals (Lunch and Dinner, Breakfast and Lunch for the next day) The pickup point can be either Jurong East MRT station or Kranji MRT station as both of these stations are near to Woodlands Checkpoint.

We met at 9am at Jurong East MRT, Wayne was late a little and Wenxin forgotten to bring her passport. So we told the female driver to go to Woodlands Checkpoint first while Terry accompany Wenxin home to take her passport. There was a huge jam (as usual) at Woodlands Checkpoint, we cleared the custom eventually and waited a while before Terry and Wenxin cleared the customs. While waiting, the female driver keep coming to tell us are we ready or not but we keep pushing her away saying 10 more minutes. Seriously she got a fucked up working attitude problem right from the start when she picked us up at Jurong East.

When we got into the mini-van, Terry apologized to us and the female driver mumbled something in Malay which we don’t understand.

Anyway, it takes about 3 hours drive to reach Kukup and we reached Kukup about 1pm. Our “water house” was quite deep in, so it took us about 10 minutes to walk in.

Our first impression of the house was, it was huge. The house has 4 rooms and can easily sleep up to 20 people and contain at least 30 to 40 people. And since there are only 10 of us, it was a good thing as we have a lot of space.

While waiting for the late lunch at 3pm, some of us played Mahjong while the rest played Saboteur. Lunch was fried beehoon and chicken curry and the desert is green bean with sweet potato soup.

After the late lunch, we went to take a walk outside (the place we alighted earlier on) as there are some shops and an under construction new jetty. Bought some drinks, snacks and ice cream.

Dinner was BBQ seafood and it is served at 7pm. Dinner consist of stingrays, prawns, satay, otah, fishballs and chicken wings. The chicken wing there is very nice.

After dinner some of them went to sing Karaoke which either the pirated discs are spoiled or the player is lousy as the song skips and some of them are out of tune.

Eventually we went to put firecrackers which we bought earlier on. We spent like RM$108 on the firecrackers. It is illegal to sell or put firecrackers in Malaysia and Singapore but I think since this attract people from Singapore to go over to Malaysia just to put it, the government of Malaysia are not really bothered about it as it helps them boost the tourism.

We watched Lord of The Rings: Return of the King on Channel 5 and after that Guess Guess Guess on Channel U. Some of us concuss while watching Guess Guess Guess while the remainder went to sleep after that.

Woke up at 9am on the next day while we have Nasi Lemak and Roti Prata for breakfast. After breakfast, we went to pack our things and gathered in a room for chitchat and to calculate the expenses we spent.

Left the house at 12.30pm for lunch at the seafood restaurant. I am curious why there are so many Singaporeans who drive all the way there to eat seafood as there are a lot of Singapore registered cars parking around it. Personally, I think the seafood there sucks or perhaps we are not used to it. Long Beach in Singapore can beat it anytime.

The lady boss told us that we still got a boat trip perhaps to the fishing farm but we told her that if there is time we will go as the mini-van is coming to pick us up at 2pm. In the end, we did not go.

On our way out of the restaurant, we saw our neighbours whom just stay beside our water house. We started a conversation and realize that they are only paying RM$70.00 which is like half of what we are paying. But then, they are Malaysians and they drive there so no transport is provided for them.

The driver this time was a young male Chinese driver and he is the exact opposite of the female driver that we had yesterday. His service was excellent and he even brought us to eat durians at the road side and no he is not earning any commission for bringing us there.

The traffic was ok when going back to Singapore except there is an accident along a highway in Malaysia that makes us stuck in the jam for 30 minutes.

We reached Singapore at about 5pm. We asked the driver to drop us at Causeway Point was we wanted to watch Hancock. The movie starts at 7.45pm but lasted only about 85 minutes. The movie was not bad and the visual effect is fantastic.

From now onwards, I shall bring my ez-link card and at least 1 credit card as it felt terrible when I got only about SGD$20 with me, somehow I don’t feel “safe” at all.

If you asked me will I visit Kukup again, I would say perhaps 10 years later as once you are there, there is nothing much for you to do and maybe that is the reason why all the package are only 2 days 1 night.

Check out the photos taken from my camera:

I think I blog faster than Li Xiang as from what I know she only finishes Day 1 of our trip and here you have it, “My Version” of the Genting Trip.

Day 1 - Wednesday, 2nd January 2008
Reached Golden Mile Complex at about 6.30am, took Grassland Bus and it set off at 7.15am. The bus ticket cost SGD$65.00 per person for a 2 way trip. After much winding around the mountain, we reached Genting about 2pm. Checked into Resort Hotel to room 6154. It surely has a terrible view and not forgetting noisy because the room window is directly above the exhaust fumes that sit on the roof top 3 levels down. The hotel room cost RM160 per night for a standard room. After unloading out luggage, I immediately went down to Coffee Bean because they have free wireless Internet there as I need to bid for my modules.

We caught up with the rest for lunch at Causeway Bay restaurant located at First World Plaza. The food was not bad and one of the better restaurants located in Genting. After a late lunch, Wayne showed us around Genting Highlands and helps us apply for the Genting World Card. After that we went to take a look at the Casino located at First World Hotel and I played and lost RM10 to the slots machine. We parted with Wayne there as he becomes the god of gambler while Li Xiang and I shopped around First World Plaza. The shops there are quite limited and hence it takes us about 3 hours to finish our shopping. I got myself a Nike Dri-Fit T-Shirt and Li Xiang got herself a Diesel Blouse.

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I am back from my 4 days and 3 nights Genting trip. This is my 4th visit to Genting. The first one was in 1990 when I was 6 years old, the second one was in 1993 when I was 9 years old, the third one was in 1997 when I was 13 years old and 11 years after the last trip, I am now 24 years old. Time really flies. I was looking through those old photographs and realized that Genting did change but not that much over the last 15 years. At least 1 thing is for sure, the weather there is still as cooling.

We took a bus down to Kuala Lumpur on the 2nd day as it was very misty in Genting and hence they closed the theme park and because of that, there is nothing else we can do because we do not gamble and we have finished shopping in Genting. So off we go to KL.

I hope Li Xiang will type a detailed blog entry for each of the 4 days we spent there because I am kinda lazy. But nevertheless I have uploaded all the pictures we took (354 photos) for the whole trip to this site. Enjoy!

Genting Highlands Trip (2th January 2008 To 5th January 2008)