A little virgin driving trip to JB

It took some dragging and domestic disturbance to wake me up again at 5.30am in the morning for breakfast with Missy before her morning shift. I am slightly burned out I guess. Its had been a long day of exploration at the Southern tip of Malaysia on Saturday plus catching up with Ricky and Sharon at their mini BBQ gathering in the evening. Apparently it turn out to be Sharon birthday and boy was the Seaview chalet an excellent location to hold the party!!! Check out the view from the front porch,

Sunset as viewed from Seaview Chalet

Garfield, Riccardo, Missy, Sharon and Ricky.

Breakfast as usual at our favorite "Hans - out", Omelet, Toast and Teh-Si. Dropped off precious cargo before 7 at NUH and headed off for my early morning run at Telok Blangah hill/Mount faber. I love morning run and observing the folks. Today I realized that I couldn't cover the usual distance I use to do... signs of ageing? hahaha. Today I saw a Malay Ah ma or I shall affectionally call her "Ma-Cik" joining the Chineses folks for a morning session of Tai Chi while Ah gong and grandson sat down round the corner to enjoy the morning air and scenery. I was like.....wow....Ma-cik, you are showing to all of us Singaporean that we don't need the minister or prime minister to keep reminding us year after year that racial and religious harmony are important. You shown us that we had positively crosses the divides in certain areas of life in Singapore to share our activities, practices and in this case Tai Chi Quan. Ma-cik was pretty good at it and the grand son was very very curious, getting in front of her and maybe asking her to teach him tai chi as well. It remind me of the Chineses joining the annual firewalk held by the Indian Temple and my old secondary school friend who joined all sorts of martial arts including Silat ( he did not become the next bruce lee but end up as a IT specialist punching keyboards).

Yesterday, Saturday... Missy and me decided to embark on a little oversea trip to our neighbouring Johore Bahru. Its my first time driving car into Malaysia and I guess its Missy first time joining someone who first time drive into Malaysia. Yikes! We lost our way real good the moment we exit the Malaysia side of the custom and had the unintended oppurtunity to explore some really Ulu roads. So much had change to their immigration check point that I hardly regonize the road and still assume that I got to do a U-turn to get to where I wanna go. Looks like their dream of building a winding causeway was dashed by our Gahmen and instead they built a winding road to the JB checkpoint. Giddy and thus lost our way. Technology saves the day, my mobile phone GPS help us find our way to Jalan Wong Ah Fok where City Square is located and its also the main road that leads to other nice places in JB.

The novice driver and his navigator.

City Square had already transformed into a "cater for Singaporean" shopping center. What you can find in Singapore can be found in City Square but not nessecery at a cheaper price. So do you research before doing your shopping here. Its inevitable, so many Singaporean enter JB nowadays, Johorian got to capitalize on the money making oppurtunity! If I were the boss of some shopping center in JB, I'll do the same. The power of currency, S$100 to RM$243.50. :)

After getting a bag at a great price at MANGO, we headed off for lunch...enjoyed losing our way on the Malaysia road again and eventually reaching Taman Sentosa where all the nice food are located. I think this is a favourite food hunt for Malaysian and Singaporean alike. Missy spotted Zhu Lin, a popular restaurant serving "Paper Wrap Chicken" - “子包鸡”. Its the corner, non-airconditon restaurant at the end of the row of shop house. There a rival restaurant beside it serving the same fare. Without further delay and more rumble of the tummy, we sat in and placed our lunch order, taken by a borded looking boy. "Paper Wrap Chicken" is a die die must try if you pop by Taman Sentosa (must pop by too!), I cannot describe in words how good the aroma and taste is but I simply give it a rating of 5/5. Its brewed with chinese herbs like red dates and "Kou chi zi". The chicken appear to be fresh and not frozen supermarket type. Must try! Next time we gonna try the Ba Kut Teh near by ... slurp.

Famous "Paper Wrap Chicken"

3 dish, 2 rice and 2 coconut for RM$39.90. Yatsui neh!!!

Another great thing about coming to JB will be the car snow wash over here! For RM$8, pampered your car with a snow wash, very very detailed and clean vacuum and good quality rim cleaning and tire waxing. Will definately not miss it...the car wash market is so big here that you literally find it anywhere and we found one operating out of a private house. The guys did a really good wash to a sparkle especially the dirty rims. The best part was the interior vacuum, months of neglect and laziness leave things pretty hairy and furry on the fabric seats, with the strong vacuum... its felt renewed and refreshed. Like the American way, I paid them RM$8 + an extra RM$2 tips. Hope that make an impression to them and they go the extra miles to clean my car on the next visit.

Its an F1 pit stop ....for cleaning only.

Last stop its Holiday Plaza, great place to hunt for "friendly" movie and games. We got "Quarantine", the movie Missy always wanted to share with me. There is also this car decal shop at the back end of Holiday Plaza selling nice car decals and they do custom make designs as well. We got something to put a little color to my black lancer...

We pledge our allegiance, To the flag, Of the Republic Of Singapore.

I kinda screw up the decal application though... there is some mis-alignment "Ben and Jerry" font style but you know...life isn't always perfect...we got to accept the imperfection and embrace the good we can find within.