So the night before I just couldn't sleep out of excitement and obviously nervousness, so groggy eyes I woke up the next day and got ready, booked a cab and reached the pick up place by 7 am.. We started the day by awkwardly introducing ourselves to the other travelers in the group and the bus finally turned up half hr late and we began our journey. I made friends with a girl called Carla and she and I sat together and talked the way to immigration😊
Now I have to mention the immigration process here, coz for the non Singapore or non Malaysian people, it's alsmot like a race against time! You'll see all the expats get off the buses and literally run to get ahead in those serpentine queues, and is exactly what fran ( another Australian traveler with us) and I did.. And it was quite fun😊
Finally, we reached our destination at around 8:30 am and all of us were super hungry and ready to dive in! Our tour coordinator- David , showed us around and have us a small tour of all the places we could eat at and after buying some bread and curry puffs and banana cake from the local bakeries, we decided to group out and each group went ahead to the place they wanted to try breakfast at😊
I went ahead with a group to eat roasted duck and soup and it was just heavenly! The barbecue sauce that the duck was roasted in was something I had never had before! It was so delicious! We had our fill there amid banter and getting to know each other a bit more and headed off to our bus to get to our next eating destination.
Our next stop was near a village outside the city centre, but we reached there in just about 20 mins and I was having serious doubts about what I could eat so soon, since I was already feeling full! So again, our really friendly and caring leader, David have us a quick tour of the places to eat at, and since I already had my mind set at eating dim sums, I changed my original group and went ahead with a different group to the dim sum place. You couldn't believe how crowded it was at 10 am on a sudsy morning already! We managed to get a table but I was having trouble figuring out what to order and how to order since everything was written in mandarin and the servers wouldn't understand English. Luckily for me, my group people figured out my problem and helped me order and also share some of my food so I could try more stuff😊 that's really nice isn't it?! So I ordered my latest favourite char siew bao- which is like minced pork in that amazing barbecue sauce stuffed inside a cake like dim sum covering.. It's just superb! We also tried a couple of other dimsums like prawn and rice cakes, and then decided to wrap it up with dessert at this really famous nonya restaurant😊
At the nonya place, all of us were dying to find out a place to relieve ourselves and it was funny since there was only one toilet which was at the back of the restaurant! It was really funny to see all the men and women stand in the queue, hold each other's bags and take orders for each other while we waited for our turns! It was hilarious! Bladders relieved, I went back and just a ordered for a lemongrass drink since I was too full and didn't want to over eat, while the others ordered some cucumber rolls , and the local Malaysian dessert cendol. I've already had this when I went to malacca, so I didn't need to try it again😊 we stayed at this place for a little longer to cool off with the aircon and headed back again to the bus.
Our 4th stop was at the ksl shopping mall, where we did some window shopping and 4 of us ladies went ahead and got awesome foot massages from men for just 32 bucks! I kept thinking, wow, go women- a guy is actually touching a woman's feet! Lol
Our next stop was again another mall, jusco tebrau city mall , where we did some more window shopping and had coffee and cake at Vivo pizza cafe, and talked to get to know each other a little more.. Great pastry😊 for just 20 bucks here.. Great conversation, also bought some tights and a ganjee for 50 bucks
Our 6th and final stop was at the street food market to have dinner. We also wanted to check out this famous night market that they have here, but sadly it opens only at 8 pm and we had to leave JB by 7:30 to reach back home on time, so we just walked around and I had some stuffed bread pakoda kind of thing for 1 buck at the street market since I wasn't that hungry yet. The group split up again and I decided to head off by myself for a bit and just walk around the city and wrap up at the mall for dinner and a visit to the clean loo there😏
I finally stopped at a Mexican joint for dinner and ordered some tacos and a lychee fizz for myself for dinner😊 but I had hogged so much already that I couldn't do justice to my dinner..
Nevertheless, dinner wrapped, tummies full and legs tired, we all headed back on to the bus and amidst more conversations, laughter and exchanged of promises to catch up on the next meet up, we crossed immigration, reached Singapore, got dropped home and I guess each one of us would've nicely snuggled nicely into beds to be ready to kick off the week😊
Live to eat! 😊
