Sunday, November 2, 2008
set off for habourfront quite late bcos i thought they will be late ... ok i misread the time sent by joan. she wanted to meet at 8.15 which i thought was 8.30. at 8.15 i'm still in mrt at jurong east ... hence had to immediately rush out of mrt to take a cab. reached at 8.35 to find that the ship onli leave at 10+ lol ....
d ferry to batam is very fast tat's y d name of the service to batam is called 'batam fast'. haha dun get the joke nvm ;P
reach within 50mins and it's d first time i've stepped on indonesian shores. it's pretty relaxing as wat u would expect of a seaside charlet. our hotel, holiday inn is juz 3 mins drive from the harbour. the shuttle will be there every 10 mins to fetch passengers to the hotel. hotel is very new and nice all else, ie the surroundings outside the hotel is way backward ... dusty and no much civilisation.
the room is large ... a living room a dining table and two bedrooms .... looking out to the nice swimming pool view below. it's comfortable and besides taiwan this is the only place i've seen with so many tv channels. pretty much like my home with free-to-air tv and cable tv. unlike malaysia which only has a few cables and mostly in malay.
oh ya there's a polo shop (ralph lauren) in our hotel as well as the harbour. they are fake if you define them according to descriptions online. however, amanda corrected me tat they are not fake. just another brand called polo which only caters to indonesia. quality is not too bad. however i still felt it's pretty expensive to pay sgd ard $100 for a polo even though they are already cheaper then sg. somemore if it is deemed to be a 'fake'.
went for the hotel spa (tea tree spa). it's my first time doing spa everything's refreshing but pretty unknown to me. esp since i was told i have to 'bare it all' ... =(
while waiting, we sat at the open air jacuzzi. as me and amanda took a couple package, we were to share the same room for the massage. conclusion on the spa ... weird to have someone pressing here and there and even more weird to have someone serve you like a queen ... haha
almost fell asleep halfway thru bcos it was such a conducive environment but woke up bcos the facial was so painful. she squeezed at my pimples without mercy 0_0 ... in the end i felt more tired than the person who served me bcos i kept trying to hold back laughing as she poke my sensitive spots (which is my whole body ;P)
took a cab out for 16sgd (charged it to hotel). road is bumpy with holes on the ground car is old seldom see any new or fancy cars there. the houses by the road are either built halfway or made with flimsy metal planks. but upon nearing the ngoya shopping center, situation is not tat bad. there are even good looking warehouses which looked much like those jtc warehouses.
shopping center is big. almost the size like imm. a lot 'counter-freits'. u can see nike, addidas, gucci and a lot of things are rather cheap. clothes are mostly ard 10sgd. normal food is cheap. a&w is x.
the cab ride back is wat i'd call an adventure ride. the cab driver juz siam here siam there and weave thru the traffic in the midst of lots of cars and motorcycles. even though there's lines on the road but no one paid attention to them they juz drove in the middle of the road till someone horned them. no street lights so you have to depend on ur car lights. i kept fearing where the taxi driver will drive us bcos we can't see outside which is too dark. finally reached hotel phewed ... i've survived a taxi ride wohoo ...
managed painfully to stay awake to play mahjong. in ard an hr mi already fainted.
checked out and took cab to batam shopping center. there is an international ferry there but i'm not sure y we din take the ferry there. anyways, all shopping centers are abt the same. rushed back to hotel to collect our stuff den took ferry home. pity its only 1 nite trip. back to normal life...
--lamb--
11:47 AM
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