Batam: 27 July- 28 July 2012

It had been a long time since we'd talked about taking the weekend off.  So on Wednesday night, we finally decided to make the talking happen. Went into Agoda and booked everything within a couple of minutes for Batam.

I've never really put any thought into the itinerary for the weekend actually. The hub would shake his head to this unplanned holiday but I was actually looking forward to the unknown do-as-you-please.  (He would be shaking his head right now.) Batam= Beach= Sky full of stars- those were the only things that went through my mind and those were the only things that I really wanted to do. Basically, I was looking for a place to stone and I just wanted to see what Batam was like.

Woke up early at 7.15 am, had a quick Mac breakfast with the parents and the hub and we were ready for our weekend escapade. The 9.20am ferry was more crowded than I had expected and the ferry less shaky than I thought. I remembered the ferry to my last Bintan trip was a little way too choppy. By 11am (SG time), we were at the ferry terminal at Waterfront city waiting to pass the immigration. The hub was all ready to call the Resort up before the orange Harris Resort mini bus finally showed upto pick us. The resort was just 5 minutes away and in fact, we've both been to this place before for cable ski, which was just opposite the resort. Ha!

Reached the resort and was welcomed by a big dinosaur and a dancing crew and lots of cheers from the crew. It immediately reminded me of the Pike Place Fish Market and Morey's Piers. Somewhat.
Waiting for our room at the lobby day bed

Ugly dinosaur feet room slippers

In my mind I was thinking how many times this small bolster must have gone in between people's legs and I was quite disturbed. No big hugs for this bolster.

So here was my plan, initially. Reach the hotel, dump the bags, head straight to the beach, tan the afternoon away, massage at night, seafood dinner, watch the stars till late, sleep and repeat the same thing at the pool the next day until it was time to leave. I forgot about lunch in my plan. =X

We took lunch at the resort's cafe and was pretty surprised that the fish head curry turned out pretty good. I should have ordered one of their local food too; the mustard chicken sandwich was not fantastic. It started to pour midway through lunch and spoilt the pool-tan plan for the day. My only plan. =Z  So in board shorts-singlets and board shorts-bikinis, we decided to do a last minute change in plan and head to town.

We hired a cabby (It) who took us from Harris- Batam city centre - Indo Thai (massage)- Golden Prawn restaurant (seafood dinner)- Harris for the price of SGD$50 for a total of almost 7 hours. Pretty good deal I would say because he was our chauffeur for the rest of the day and we needn't care about transport at all.

The first stop It dropped us at was a mall at Batam City Centre that reminded us of the one at Batu Pahat. We were not keen on doing shopping at all and had started to feel bored. We ended up sitting at Coffee Town,which took up a third of the entire level, for toast, eggs and tea. Cheers to Coffee Town for its free wifi, we spent the next half an hour or so facebooking and whatsapping people for interesting things to do at Batam.

Surprisingly, I miss the teh susu.

Not too interested in taking photos on escalators. =P

Three magic words from the cousin- Cheap, Grocery, Shopping. We decided to check out what's the big deal just to waste time. She specifically mentioned 'Necessities' so we headed straight to necessities, the ladies' section and saw a double pack necessity pricing at Rupiah 32,900. Took out my calculator, converted the price and screamed at the hub,  "No.....way....! Are you kidding??" I took two steps back before looking at the price again. It was approximately SGD$4.50 there, which was well over SGD$10 even at offer price at home. Drove me crazy. I had to buy one pack -my achievement prize.  

(The cousin later told me that her boyfriend bought 20 bottles of a car shampoo that was going at SGD$1, which was sold at $10 at home. Lol. )

Street food at the tentage outside the mall. The nasi padang drove the hub mad while the kueh kuehs made me drool. I love malay kueh kuehs.

By recommendation from a resort crew, we were introduced to massage at Indo Thai at Nogoya Hill. Excellent, excellent recommendation. The 2 hours massage was SGD$32 per person and it was one of the better massages I had so far.

Dinner was at another recommendation by the resort crew. 5 dishes added up to SGD$45. I was expecting more rash from all the shells I ate but had only a small patch on my left eye lids. Luckily.

We woke up to Sunday in time to watch Michael Phelps in swimming. Spent the next 2 hours tanning by the pool, as originally planned. Drinking freshly squeezed juice by the pool on a hot day always feels like heaven.

By 4.30pm, we were well on our way home from Waterfront city to Harbour Front. Cheap escapade for a short weekend turned out to be better than I had expected.

Day trip for massage, I think it can be done.

Paris-Italy: 1 Jan (12 Dec 2011- 2 Jan 2012)

Leaving Paris meant the last day of my 3 weeks break in Paris and Alv's last of his 4 months exchange adventures in Paris. Sadness. We could spend our whole lives together just travelling. As we dragged our luggages towards the Metro, we were absorbing the last of the Paris streets that morning. The Metro went underground mostly and though the suburbs and going into the Metro would have meant the last time we will be seeing those cobble stoned streets. So we left with sadness, had our last croissant and last pain au chocolat from a Parisian boulangerie in the train and reached the airport 3 hours early.

Couple of hours later in Dubai, we realised that both of us were issued to different flights although we had bought the same returning EK 432. The french staff had mentioned about the seats apart from each other but he definitely did not mention about the different flights at all. So at 12.47am and tryly annoyed, we looked for the Dubai staff for a change of flights for that mistake and spent at least 30min hanging at the counter. In the end, we managed to get our right flights back with the luggage stowed into the right flight and headed for our last leg home. It was the most tiring flight of all. For that approximately 8 hours, Alv did not stood up a single time and had fell in and out of sleep. I woke up for one bite of the panini snack with eyes closed before telling him I'm not eating anymore because I want to sleep. And through that 8 hours, I did not even complete watching the cartoon Bambi. Till now, I still don't know what's the ending for Bambi. Bleah.

So we've gotten home after a wonderful wonderful holiday and fighting against a jet lag.

Favourite cobble stoned streets of Paris on a coaster tacked to my wall.

And our 3 weeks route.

2012 and more adventures to come.

Paris-Italy: 31 Dec (12 Dec 2011- 2 Jan 2012)

New year's eve in Paris.

Venice that morning was cooling and sunny. Woke up late at 8.30am when we were supposed to leave by 9am. =Z I had made an alarm for 7am for a weekday, forgetting that it was already Saturday. My last holiday weekend. (Sniff. ) So we moved off by 9.10am, grabbed a couple of crackers and left for the water bus to the bus terminal. We were leaving for Paris that morning for New Year's Eve.

The aerobus #5 took us about an hour to get to the Marco Polo Airport. By that day, we had one suitcase, one back pack, one hand luggage and a new camper shoe to drag along. Reached early so we queued for check in earlier than required for a good 20min, only to be rejected by the staff and asked to lessen the weight of my 23 Kg suitcase. Damn it. Budget airlines don't give face. Bleah.

By late afternoon, we were back in Paris and shagged out like crazy from the flight and the Metro ride back to Paris from CDG. And Alv had a paper due by the end of that day that he hadn't completed.  =Z So while Alv finished up his paper, I was out trying to look for a Prada that was still opened. New year's eve evening and closed shops. And rain. Bleah.

Dinner was at a corner shop near the Berthillon ice cream cafe. Had our long awaited Berthillon ice cream and our last Paris dinner of Tar Tare and cheese burger with red wine, as usual. Enjoyed our outdoor seats with the heater, food, wine, cold, blanket and rain. After dinner, we joined a couple of Mexican and Spanish friends for our last 2011 moments with cups of 12 grapes each for the new year. Spanish tradition: One grapes for every strike of the clock in 12 seconds at 12am for a new year. We were late trying to get to the Eiffel Tower for the count down and had spent 12am of 2012 in the RER B. Passengers in the same cabin as us were cheering for the new year and going around saying Bonne annee (Happy New Year).  By the time we reached the Eiffel Tower, people were starting to move off. That was were we had our Moet champagne and 12 grapes and watched random fireworks. There were no big scale fireworks this year at the Eiffel due to a budget cut. Disappointed. The after party crowd at the Metros were crazy. People were queuing up just to enter the Metro and frustrated people were pushing doors down. In the end, we managed to find a quieter Metro line to get back to the Cecil Hotel. New Year's party in Paris ended at 4am for us.

Happy 2012~

Paris-Italy: 30 Dec (12 Dec 2011- 2 Jan 2012)

Verona

The only reason why I had chosen to have Verona in our trip was because of the movie Letters to Juliet I had watched during the planning of the trip. In the movie, Sophie came upon Juliet's balcony where love letters were written and left behind. Cobble stoned grounds, love letters and Italy sounded just too romantic.

Verona was an hour's train from Venice. Took an early afternoon train and had reached Verona at 4pm. It was planned as a one-day-turned-half-a-day trip. Unfortuately, we had not spent enough time there for me to say much about the place. There were only 2 places that we were keen on seeing- the Arena and Juliet's Balcony and those were the only two things that we saw. The Arena was a smaller version of the colosseum and the Juliet's Balcony was a compound packed with tourists and many love notes on the wall. Love locks locked onto rails and gates, as had been the practice in many other places. Frankly speaking, Juliet's balcony had looked more romantic in the show, perhaps because it was Amanda Seyfried. =X