Eileen, Zhen and I made a trip to Batam during this one week school holiday in March! Zhen was the one who went through the hassle of booking and collecting tickets for the three of us so a big BIG thank you to you, Zhen! (Would you want a kiss from me? Just to show you how much I appreciate the trouble you went through?) This short trip costs us $96 (accomodation + ferry ride + guided tour)thanks to Groupon.
Anyway, we met up at the Harbout Front ferry terminal at 7am (erm, Eileen and I were late) and we began our day with Macdonald breakfast! We took our own sweet time and aimed to finish our meal by 8am because our ferry would only depart at 8.30am. Unfortunately for us, we failed to realise that the gate would close at 8.20am and on top of that, none of us gave a thought to the "queue" factor. When we arrived at the departure custom to board our train, I heard the name "Ho May Hui" being broadcast over the PA system and I immediately faltered, thinking that I did something wrong! It was mad funny!! During our mad rush to the ferry, my name was broadcasted a second time but this time round, to my great relief, I heard Zhen's and Eileen's name being announced too. It was honestly scary to have your full name be announced in public! I definitely would not want to go through this a second time.
Despite all the drama, we did managed to board the ferry safely. Here's a picture of the 3 of us as proof. :P
Thinking that the ride would take quite a while, we played bridge to help pass time but soon after, we arrived at Indonesia. :) We met up with the tour guide at the Batam Ferry Terminal then hopped onto bus 24 which was in-charge of sending us around the island.
Self-shot. What are you looking at, Zhen?!
Our itinerary was really packed for the first day. Our tour guide, Ah Heng arranged for us to visit the Polo factory where we can buy Ralph Lauren apparels at a cheaper rate. In general, the pricing is definitely lower compared to that in Singapore, however, a normal polo shirt still costs at least SGD70 so I was not tempted in the least to buy. I guess I am just unwilling to splurge so much on a single piece of clothing.
After our visit to the factory, we were brought to a local household called Diana Layer Cakes that sells Kueh Lapis. We arrived at the house and were given aprroximately less than 5 minutes to sample their Kueh Lapis and drink some water before being chased off. I was really surprised because I sort of expected to be given a tour around the kitchen or at least a short introduction or demonstration on how to bake Kueh Lapis. 2 flavours namely Original and Prunes were available for sale at SGD25 and SGD29 respectively. They tasted quite good so I bought a box of layer cakes with prunes for my family to try.
Kueh Lapis with Prunes
Up next, the Otak Otak outlet and here the same story repeated.
We went into the shop, got ourselves some toothpicks, began sampling without even knowing which is which and were told to move off! There was no introduction whatsoever. *Shakes head* Luckily this time round, the brave Zhen came to the rescue. She told the guide that none of us knew which flavour belongs to which and she courageously asked for a second plate of samples and for introduction to be made. Surprisingly, we were granted our wish! The 3 of us decided to share a box of 50 otak otaks in original flavour for SGD17. The tour guide attempted to sell the otak by telling us that if we purchased 50 otaks, we would get them packed in a really "nice" box that is easy to carry around and that somehow really made the 3 of us crack up.
After this, we stopped at a local store that is located just next to the place (933) where we would have our lunch - a 7 course seafood meal. We didn't buy a single item from that store. For some reasons, nothing appealed to us and left the store empty-handed. So what did we do while we were in the store? We fooled around with our cameras! Haha!
A collage of us at the local store. :)
Lunch was really meh~. The 3 of us hardly ate much. The 7-course seafood lunch consisted of glass noodle & fishballs soup, fish in sweet & sour sauce, fried sotong, chilli "puny" crab (haha!), fried vegetables, boiled "even punier" shrimps (haha!) and this strange-looking shellfish that the aunties seating at our table claimed is great-tasting.
With the exception of the fried sotong, I find everything else very meh! Eileen loves prawn and even she gave the "even punier" prawns a miss. To think this 933 restaurant is famous or "big" in Batam.
Here's Eileen holding that strange-looking shellfish!~
Close up~
This seafood tasted really bland. According to the aunties, it should be matched with some sauce but unfortunately for us, we had to eat this sauceless. To be honest, it did not taste bad. I think it has the potential to taste like pacific clams. Perhaps the chef should experiment with another method of cooking? Food aside, I really like the ambience in the restaurant. It definitely has that "Batam-feel" to it.
Look at this. Isn't it beautiful?
The name of the place where we had our lunch!
After having our stomach filled, we went to one of my favourite place for the entire trip - Batam Miniature House! According to the tour guide, the entire "park" is constructed on reclaimed land. He went on and on about how we used to buy sand from them to reclaim our island but now they stopped selling us those sands and their government used these sands to make their island bigger instead. Politics aside, the park is really interesting! They is a wide variety of beautiful miniature houses that are scattered across the entire park. Sadly, we were only given about 10 minutes to take pictures so I did not manage to snap pictures for all the structures available. I would if I could! :P I picked a couple of my favourite shots to "showcase" here. (Love my Pen Mini~~~~ :))
Picture snapped using iAuto
Taken in dramatic tone!~ Isn't it awesome?!
Taken in dramtic tone too. I just love using this mode on ancient structures like these. :P
In grainy mode.
We were then dropped off at this place where we would be entertained by a group of local Malays performing astonishing stunts like eating flames/fire & glasses, tossing their body through a ring of fire and some cultural dance. One of their traditional dance kind of reminded me of our chinese lion and dragon dance? The performance seems to have combined the two into one because the prop used has a lion head and a dragon body. Interesting isn't it?
Flame eating!
Glass eating!
Jumping over the flame!!
Traditional dance~~ The music used was really really nice!
The tour guide brought the group of us to visit their local 大伯公庙 . We went in and Eileen and I prayed and even offered joss sticks. After this, Ah Heng got the bus driver to drop us off at Batam City Square (BCS Mall) for some shopping and this was our last activity for the day before we were sent to our respective hotel to rest.
I have to sidetrack a little for now. While the 3 of us were having breakfast at Macdonald that morning, Zhen did some googling to find out more about this Hello Kitty Cafe which, according to her colleague, could be found in Batam. She found out that there's indeed such a cafe located in BCS Mall.
When Ah Heng dropped us off at the mall, I took special notice of the name of the shopping mall so that we could visit again if we decide to travel to Batam again in future. Zhen also knew that the mall we were visiting is called Batam City Square but she didn't connect the full name to its abbreviation, BCS. Anyway, I decided to share the name of the mall with the rest of them (note that I fail to make the connection between BCS and Hello Kitty Cafe) and I introduced the mall as BCS and that's when Eileen became the heroine! Haha! She immediately pointed out that the HK cafe is located in BCS and the 3 of us began searching for it excitedly. Well, long story aside, here are some pictures of the cafe. :P
The exterior of the cafe.
Look at these cute chairs that are used in the cafe.
Camwhore shot #1
Eileen took this for Zhen & I.
Camwhore shot #2 (Haha, I was spamming self-shot whilst in the cafe :P)
Hello Kitty waffle with chocolate sauce.
Hello Kitty pancake with cheese and chocolate.
The food tasted really normal but we were really hungry at that point in time (due to the lousy lunch) and we gobbled these pretty desserts speedily. After filling our stomach partially, we went off to the supermarket to buy alcohol which is crazily cheap, tidbits and cup noodles. We wanted to buy a bottle of moscato but it was out of our budget so we settled for vodka and beer instead. Finally, we arrived at our hotel - Crown Vista. This is really strange because we would usually check in at the hotel first before exploring the country when we go for travel right? But for this trip, we ended our tour before we checked in at the hotel. Haha. I must say this is a rather refreshing experience. None of us expected our hotel to be located on top of a hill so when our vehicle began its vertical climb, we were caught by surprise. Luckily for us, we had no intention of venturing out of the hotel anymore for the day because we were dead tired.
Our hotel room.
Our package included a set dinner which turned out to be fish & chips. We were a tad disappointed but my hungry stomach could not muster enough strength to complain. :P
Looks decent right?
Since we were on a small hill, we took hold of the opportunity to take some pictures of the night view of the city but I failed miserably. It's soooo difficult to take pictures in the night!! I am definitely still a big noob when it comes to photography but fret not, I would not be deterred easily. :)
My pathetic attempts.
After this, we went back to our room to wash up, watch channel u and channel 8 (yea i know, what?!), drink & snack and mask before turning in for the night. A couple of black-outs actually happened while we were sleeping in the middle of the night! I was really spooked because it was sooooo dark that I couldn't even see my fingers when I placed them right in front of my face. Haha.
Nothing exciting happened on our second day. We gathered and were sent to the ferry terminal to collect our boarding pass. After which, we went to the shopping mall nearby to have a look. We dined or rather snacked in the A&W outlet there simply because it is not available in Singapore!:)
Ordered root beer float and curly fries.
We also visted the hypermart and we found out some really cheap deals there. The Vaseline body lotion and deodorant are much cheaper there so remember to keep a lookout for them. We ended our trip with lunch at Ria's Ayam Penyet.
The Tehbotol that Shan said we must try! Not bad!~
the really small portion of ayam penyet.
It was really fun to travel with my friends and I already can't wait to travel with them again! Being out with considerate and sweet people is the best experience ever. :)
Ending off with yet another camwhore shot! Hahahaha!!
