Flashback Friday : Singapore Family Trip
The day before our Singapore family trip which is on the 25th Jan 2013 (Friday), my in laws (FIL, MIL, SIL & BIL) were supposed to crash the night at our place. However, my hubbee's grandfather (his father's side) suddenly underwent a minor surgery on that day at IJN to insert a pacemaker due to weak heartbeat. So they stayed the night in KL instead. We almost decided to cancel our trip because my parents in law were reluctant to go under the circumstances. Fortunately, the surgery went well & atok (hubbee's grandfather) was discharged the next day. Since luck was on our side, we decided to proceed to Johor Baru (JB) eventhough we left later than we planned. In the meantime atok will be staying with hubbee's makngah (FIL's elder sister) & when we return from Singapore, atok will be staying with my parents in law.
Now back to our trip. This is my 1st family vacation with my in laws (excluding my hubbee's sister who is in confinement at that time, her husband & children). Our ride to Singapore was my FIL's innova which was driven by my hubbee. I eagerly hand out the travel itenary & brief everyone in the MPV aaaaand.... quickly i became the laughing stock because it seems as if me & my hubbee were acting like a tourist guide (mana taknya. itenary ngalah travel agent. siap ada waktu solat bagai. hee...). I'm glad that we stick to most of the itenary although we did have trouble managing our time according to the schedule.
 |
| more itenary & costing |
 |
| The itenary |
 |
| Parents in law at JPO |
We spent the Saturday 26th in JB. Nothing much just shopping at JPO, had dinner at Stulang Laut & sleep at the Grand Hallmark Hotel (GH) JB. Initially me & hubbee wanna stay at The Zon Regency Hotel (ZR) JB but we made a last minute decision to stay at GH on the 1st night only coz there was an offer on group which entitled u to get entrance ticket into Sea Aquarium Singapore. We regret this now. It seems GH does not look exactly like in the website where the hotel building stands alone. We knew that GH is a small budget hotel but what made us taken aback is beside GH there's a night club & u can here the music from your room. In addition to that, we have to redeem Sea Aquarium tickets at Sentosa Island where the booth of the travel agency was very hard to find & was closed when we arrived (padahal operating hours belum abis lagi). Luckily, the lady from another booth (tp travel agency lain la) are willing to help us. She made some calls & she got the permission to give her tickets but i have to sign that i collect the ticket from her. However, we don't feel like the Singapore's Sea Aquarium is the largest oceanarium thus it was a let down (nasib tiket free.hee..).
 |
| Dinner at Stulang Laut (just behind ZR) |
 |
| They're siblings not twins.hee.. |
The next day on Sunday 27th we made a mistake of going into Singapore town thinking that they were not many Indians there celebrating Thaipusam. But we were wrong. Like in Malaysia, Singaporian Indians also do kavadi, a dance performed by the devotees during the ceremonial worship of (Dewa) Murugan. Upon entering Singapore u need to purchase autopass at the Woodland checkpoint but u can only pay SGD10. so u must ensure to top up ur autopass before u travel further into Singapore because most parking place & 7Eleven haven't update their system yet since the new autopass was introduced recently. Fret not coz there's one top up place near Woodland Garden not far from the checkpoint. If u've already had autopass from previous visit before they enforced the new one, u can just top up at any 7Eleven in Singapore. But if u're just like us, who use the new autopass its' better to buy cashcard at any 7Eleven in Singapore as backup to pay the parking (just in case ur autopass cannot be read. we encounter this problems at Singapore Flyer's parking).
Traffic at the checkpoint & in Singapore city sucks during our visit. The police traffic in Singapore was obviously lacking experience in handling this situation probably coz Singapore rarely had traffic jam. I feel like kamikaze when we braced our way to Little India during Thaipusam. But on the bright side, we get to see kavadi up close & personal from our MPV & I got 2 bottles of Elizabeth Arden Red Door perfume for SGD32 & my ipanema slippers.wuhuu!
 |
| Singapore Flyer |
 |
| Marina Bay & Mr. Merlion (or is it Ms.?) |
 |
| Singapore city |
 |
Zam Zam Restaurant (halal of course) opposite Masjid Sultan at Kampung Glam, Arab Street.
Famous for its baryani & murtabak singapore. |
After checking out from ZR & had our breakfast (its not hard to find a place to eat around ZR which is very convenient) on Monday 28th (in Malaysia if a public holiday is on Sunday then the holiday are brought forward to Monday), we were stuck again at the checkpoint due to traffic. So we changed our strategy. We parked at a shopping mall near Woodland MRT station & board the train to Sentosa Island (Harbourfront Station). We spent most of our time in Universal Studios Singapore (USS) & then we rushed to Sea Aquarium as mentioned above. We had fun in USS & the only good thing about visiting Sea Aquarium on weekdays is u also get free access to the maritime exhibition. We went back home later that night after dinner in JB.
There's just so much more I wanna share but I must stop now before this entry becomes more wordy than it is. I'll leave u with some pics & also the itenary I've made to give u ols some idea of what we did in Singapore. I've made some notes in the itenary such as Halal restaurants, MRT stations & nearby car park just in case we cannot find a parking at the place ;)
 |
| couple moment |
 |
| Fun time at Sentosa Island |
0 comments: