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29 December 2010
Malacca 27 to 29
Woot! I'm just back from Malacca! 3 days 2 night. Tiring but fun. It has been a long time since i went overseas, not mentioning Johor Bahru. The last time i went Malacca was when i was very very young, this time i went on company trip.
The journey to Malacca was fairly long, roughly 4 hours bus ride from Singapore. I slept on the coach along the way, only came down for a short break at Yong Peng. There was no washroom on the coach itself so everything must be settled during the lunch break. Along the way to Malacca on coach, i saw a lot of trees and mountains on both sides of the road. At the start it was interesting to see mountains, but it gets boring after some time.
I had lunch at Ole Sayang restaurant before arriving at my accommodation, Avillion Legacy Melaka Hotel. This hotel looks like a castle on the outside.
The interior also looks very english style, look at its ceiling. Does it look like Rome architecture?
They still display Xmas tree even though Christmas was already over. This was the best Xmas tree i had seen this year. Why? Look closely, this is a real Xmas tree! Yes they used a real tree! Nothing beats the beauty of a real tree.
My room. Got Starmovies channel, whole day playing movies. Got bathtub also. Nothing more to ask for. I had sumptuous meals at the hotel, all buffet style. The food was OK, with fair amount of variety.
On my first day here, i explored Jusco (just nearby my hotel) and the famous Dataran Pahlawan. One thing to note, i took taxi to all the destinations, and the taxi doesn't go by meter, they go by a flat fee requested upfront by the taxi driver. So sometimes the fee was different for travelling the same distance. Jusco is just a big shopping center by itself, there was nothing around its vicinity so it was not worth going all the way there. The shops inside Jusco were very common like Daiso, KFC, Bata, no cinema, nothing special. The next stop we went to Dataran Pahlawan. This place is also a place for shopping for gifts. You can find hometown goodies, clothes, gifts here. Don't expect to find branded stuff here though.
Streets of Dataran Pahlawan. I like the chinese name: 英雄广场.
The famous 三叔工 shop is here. Alot of people came here to buy its white coffee and goodies.
One of the must-try foods at Malacca is their Satay Celup. Satay Celup is not the normal satay we had in Singapore. Satay Celup is also call steamboat satay, where an assortment of raw and semi-cooked seafood, meat and vegetables on skewers are dunked into a boiling pot of satay sauce.
The most famous Satay Celup is from Capitol. There were always long queue outside. I tried the quiet stall beside, too lazy to queue. They were so popular that they even put up a signboard to "warn" people of imitation. Haha.
Feel free to take the food you want from the fridge. They cost 6 ringgit each skewer.
Day 2. A friend told me that if you go to Malacca on December, you must visit Portuguese Settlement because there got the best Christmas decoration! Their decoration will last until end of the month. True enough, when i reached there i saw a street filled with glittering lights!
The residents here living in the Terrance houses decorated their houses very beautifully just for Christmas! Look at their houses! Their decoration will put orchid road decoration in shame!
These were all private houses, the owners really spent a lot of efforts dolling up their house.
I got a Santa in my house!!! Wow!
Portuguese Settlement is also a place for people to play with firecrackers. The firecrackers cost as cheap as 1 ringgit.
This is a firecracker that sparks on the ground.
This one shoots up into the sky with a bang. There is another firecracker that shoots multiple times to the sky, but i think it cost a lot.
I ended the night chilling out at a KTV pub by the riverside.
I missed out going to Jonker street. My opinion, Malacca is a quick getaway from the modern city. No branded, no city lights. And a good place to try out their local food too.
Merry Christmas! How did you guys celebrated your Christmas this year? Haha. This Christmas i celebrated with my friends at Studio M hotel @ nanson road. 1st time tried this hotel, its more of a studio apartment. Location is not easy to locate if you don't frequent Clarke Quay. We took a cab in.
We booked Studio loft room, cater for 5 people, double storey. There was only one master bed and a sofa bed for us all, so we have to squeeze. The bed was obviously dominated by the girls.
Even though it was a fairly small studio apartment, the setti was neatly set up. The long poster behind the bed stands out well.
The TV was our main entertainment, watched it all night! I managed to grab a small portion of the bed, the rest can only sit and watch TV. heh heh.
Sofa bed on top, for the guys to sleep.
We had light dinner for Christmas. Pizza, potato chips and wine! The special Christmas cheesy pizza was indeed very cheesy. Full of cheese! Eat one slice already felt very full. Joe1 called it Indian pizza. You can see the always popular Hawaiian pizza finishing on the left.
The top was very narrow, so most of us had to stand to eat! Poor thing.
Wine is a must for celebrations! Our wines was not enough this time round, 3 wines but each person only drank like a few cups haha.
Found this nice signatured wine cork.
We had our gift exchange award ceremony. We all gotten cups for our gifts except for Chris. He got a special clock from Joe0 which projectiles to the ceiling displaying the time. The picture below shows the time displayed on the ceiling. Pretty cool huh.
One of the reasons we chose here were for its facilities. There's gym, swimming pool and jacuzzi. Free for guests. We only tried out the gym though. Pretty minimal space and equipments here, lucky not much people uses it.
Found this piano beside the swimming pool. Great pose!
Before checking out the next day, we had breakfast at TCC! Not much places available for breakfast around our hotel. Overall Studio M is a great place for gathering, but not recommended for too much people due to the limited space inside the room. Oh by the way there's Clarke Quay Arena nearby if you like to get crowded.
How to get there: Alight at Clarke Quay MRT then walk 10mins. Address: No. 3 Nanson Road Tel: 6808 8888 Website: http://www.studiomhotel.com
Ah Ha! Its my birthday again! That means its tang yuan (汤圆) day too! My birthday = 汤圆, 汤圆 = my birthday! Every year without fail i would have 汤圆 for my birthday. My breakfast would be mom-made 汤圆 instead of my usual oatmeals. Mom would buy the raw flour and prepare the 汤圆 the night before. I like mom's 汤圆 best, small balls without any filling inside. They tasted spongy and chewy. This year she bought some ready made ones from outside to add.
The white ones are mom-made. Pinkies are peanut ready made. White tasted nicer!
Christmas Tree at Plaza Singapura was nothing out of the ordinary. Simple traditional Xmas tree standing outside the building. There's another charity Xmas tree made up of paper hearts inside.
The Xmas decoration inside Plaza Singapura were long stripes of "chains" hanging from the roof. And its damn alot! The chains almost covered the entire view of my camera!
If you ask me, i say the trees outside Plaza Singapura were way nicer than the Xmas trees and the building's decoration. The trees with lights looked very romantic at night. Always got many people sitting under the trees chill out.
Cathay Cineleisure Xmas Tree! Today i happened to go there for movie so i got the chance to shoot the Xmas tree. Actually i used to went for weekday movies at Cineleisure, but nowadays always frequent Suntec City for movies. Suntec is cool without the crowd.
They got a cute Xmas tree at the basement inside, not outside Cineleisure building. At least this Xmas tree is something special out of the ordinary.
Hahaha! I passed my IPPT yay! This was my 3rd attempt this year, previously failed running. I always fail my 2.4km running, not that i can't run finish, but i can't meet the passing timing. This is today's results! :)
After IPPT i went to try out Nando's at Bugis. 1st time eat there. There is mostly chicken. When i looked at the menu, i discovered that the price was quite steep. We order chicken set meals with side dishes; salad, galic bread, soup, mash potato and strip chicken breast. Our price for 3 person came up to be a whopping $94! Wowwwwww! Each person more than $30 here. Unbelievable.
