My last day spent in Singapore.

It's been a while since I last blogged for reasons that you have probably known, with some complications about friendships going on around my classmates that annoyed me a lot, I literally forced me myself to stay disconnected from the outside world whenever I was alone, partly to avoid being involved in whatever conflicts that were going on among the people. It really sucks to have finally experienced how people hide their true selves in the beginning of anything and to realize the changes only when something happens. At the same time, it feels great to have finally known their true colours eventually before one falls into the trap. Knowing that I'm not at any position to revenge nor am I a revengeful person to be very honest, I believe Karma will do its work one day to people who truly deserve some punishments. :)

The Badman and I woke up pretty early in the morning on the second day in Singapore, when Shannie, Peily and Robert just went to bed from spending their entire night having plenty of fun in Clarke Quay. Since we were given two breakfast vouchers per room upon checking in to the resort, we decided not to waste it for how expensive it was to be having meals in the country for students like us.

Strange though; unlike any other hotels or resorts where breakfast is commonly served at a fine dining restaurant with some simple buffet, Costa Sands Resort Downtown East had its breakfasts served at a mini coffee shop, Old Days Kopitiam, located at Downtown East, which was about five minutes away from our room.

Being a mini coffee shop itself, the portions of the breakfasts served were pretty small as well despite looking fine in the photos above. We stunned for a while before we decided that perhaps we could at least fill our empty stomachs a little while waiting for the others to be awoken in the noon.

We had our lunch at a food court nearby as soon as we checked out from the resort after getting calls from the reception counter, and proceeded to the main entrance to wait for the free shuttle bus to send us to the nearest MRT station for journey back to Malaysia. Mind you, those shuttle buses were so damn surprisingly punctual and they only stopped for a minute or two at each station.

As I mentioned here about how the Badman and I took the risk to purchase bus tickets for journey back to Kuala Lumpur yet ended up getting cheated by some real bastards, we obviously did not get our return bus tickets purchased beforehand. We went around asking for directions in Woodland, met some really kind Singaporeans who were willing to patiently answer our questions, and finally we arrived at Johor Bahru safely without being trapped at all. Truth to be told, as soon as I entered Malaysia only did I immediately realize things had gone completely different; Singapore was so ultimately clean while Malaysia was in a total mess, that's all I could describe about these two countries.

The overall trip was great I would say, with so many brand new experiences learned within just two days regardless of whether they're good or bad, and with me travelling overseas together with the Badman for the first time ever in my life with zero knowledge, it wasn't as bad as how you thought it would be from the way I blogged. I truly appreciated every moment spent in the country, observing every single thing around me from the culture to the livelihoods of the local communities just because I don't always get to travel in my own preferred way. :D

Next up; cruise inspection with my ex-manager! Stay tuned!

Part 1: Travelling down south to Singapore.

Part 2: Unfortunate incidents at Downtown East, Singapore.

Part 3: Visiting the Singapore town.
Part 4: Naeem's sister's wedding ceremony in Singapore.

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Naeem's sister's wedding ceremony in Singapore.

To all those who celebrate Chinese New Year, Happy Chap Goh Meh! Just in case if you are not aware of this festival, it simply means the fifteenth night, which is equivalent to the very last night of Chinese New Year, in Hokkien dialect. No more extra red packets or commonly known as angpaus by the married, no more firecrackers or fireworks to be seen everywhere in the country, more shopping on shoes as buying shoes during Chinese New Year is believed by the elders to be one of the many taboos, and beyond doubt, more limitations in food consumption after gaining weight crazily through the holidays. It's time to be back to the reality!

P/S: Speaking of shoes, I'm urgently in need of some suggestions of where I could get a pair of wedding shoes in purely white colour, and it is acceptable to have something silvery added, with no more than RM100, preferably covered and not too high, almost as similar as this or this. HELP! 

It was no earlier than 3pm as we started off our journey to Kampong Ubi Community Centre, by taking MRT that was of some pretty short distance from one station to another, and we walked some half an hour to realize how far it was as we arrived at the destination. Some of us were crazily sweating along the way; if I didn't prefer travelling with my slippers and bringing my high heels along, my legs would have been broken into pieces while we were still in the town.

Truth to be told, I liked how the MRTs in Singapore operated with lights being lightened on the board from the starting point to the ending point, with blinking lights whenever it arrived at one platform, unlike the Malaysian LRTs that they sometimes never even announce one single thing.

The ongoing wedding ceremony had brought the crowds to a certain climax as we arrived at the community centre. As soon as we were seated, we had some conversations with Naeem before we were served with foods by the young caterers.

I thought I was lucky enough to be invited to attend this wedding ceremony that I finally got to savour such delicious Indian or Pakistanis foods with their significant long grain rice known as basmati according to Wikipedia, for the first time ever in my life. Despite being cooked with beef which I don't eat, I couldn't resist the temptation to eat plates of rice together with some spicy chicken as well as the vegetables served.

That was Naeem, with this little girl staring scarily at me; damn.

Three singers were invited to sing throughout the ceremony, right in front of the stage, with some volunteered singers performing during their breaks as well, to entertain the attendees.

People, spot his electronic instruments; heck, cellophane tapes were everywhere yet they were still functioning as well as how the new ones would function.

Finally, here is a photo of the bride and the bridegroom, whom they're both so tall being one of the most obvious features in their families. Honestly, I personally thought the beautiful bride looked like some western artists and this had been agreed by some of my friends who attended the wedding ceremony. :)

When the entire ceremony was about to end, somehow Naeem was given an oppotunity to sing in front of the crowds with the beautiful lady leading him with the lyrics.

Believe it or not; this freaking awesome limousine was their wedding car of the night that drove the newlywed and their direct families back home, with a policeman leading in front.

The ultimately awesomely awesome interior of the limousine!

As soon as the couple left, we bid goodbye to Naeem and started walking to the MRT station for journey back to our resort. I was way too exhausted for being restless since the approximately 4 hour journey from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore and I literally fell asleep when they were leaving to the town to have fun with Naeem, hence the Badman decided to stay with me and we had some really good rest throughout the peaceful night. That was basically how our day was spent, with most of the time wasted on walking.

Stay tuned for the very last post of this trip in Singapore! :D

Part 1: Travelling down south to Singapore.

Part 2: Unfortunate incidents at Downtown East, Singapore.

Part 3: Visiting the Singapore town.

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Visiting the Singapore town.

To those who celebrate Chinese New Year, Gong Xi Fa Chai! :D To be very honest, my Chinese New Year hasn't been as good as I thought it would be, ending with bird pooping on my hair up until this moment as soon as I got down from my brother's car, right before I headed for breakfast with my family. Yuck! I'm no longer looking forward to having any better day to lessen the disappointments; hopefully though, things could work relatively well in terms of academic, and not to mention the ongoing relationship of me and the Badman.

Busyness being one of the most common excuses to explain my disappearance from this blog since I last blogged, I finally get to type a few paragraphs to continue with the missions that are yet to be done. We travelled all the way down south to the city to walk around before we continued our journey to attend Naeem's sister's wedding ceremony in the late afternoon.

H&M, being a newly launched outlet in Singapore, was having huge discount at the moment and they couldn't resist the temptation to tour around the shop, leaving me and the Badman standing right outside for almost half an hour.

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It was truly an eye opener to be in Singapore without the parents' company, with so many things to be observed that we realized how Malaysia still has a whole damn lot of improvements to be done. Just by looking at how the passersby behaved while crossing the road where its traffic was almost as heavy as that of in Kuala Lumpur city, you know what to say. 

After a few hours of being in the country, to our surprise, we had came to realize that Hyundai Sonata was one of the vehicles that was commonly used as a cab in Singapore, just as similar as our Proton Saga in Malaysia. Apart from that, we were very much impressed to see vehicles like Mercedes Benz, Toyota, and any other cars that were said to be expensive for us Malaysians, being used as cabs too despite the higher rates as compared to the others.

We supposed some blood donation related campaign was held somewhere nearby the area. Spot the cute blood drop on the street! :D

She requested for this photo because she thought she looked like an ice-cream seller. LOL! 

After they had finally done with their businesses from one outlet to another, we finally started moving our asses off to attend the wedding ceremony of Naeem's sister. We were initially told to be there at Kampong Ubi Community Centre by 3pm but by the time we started off our journey by taking MRT from one station to another, and asking around to get the right direction to that place, we arrived at no earlier than 4.30pm; that's the typical students of DT37. :P

Stay tuned for photo of the bride who looked so extremely gorgeous on her very special day!

Part 1: Travelling down south to Singapore.
Part 2: Unfortunate incidents at Downtown East, Singapore.

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Unfortunate incidents at Downtown East, Singapore.

Good day folks! Tomorrow, the 1401st day of being together since 6th of January, 2008 according to my counter, is finally going to be our 4th anniversary, which reminds me the fact that we have been through things together for a total of four years and are heading to the fifth, sixth, seventh, to no end; hopefully it doesn't just end there. There are people who have faith in our long term relationship; there are people who look down their noses at it instead; this relationship has since been publicized through the internet and rumors that most of my extended family members have already known about it from the start, with nothing said. I'm looking forward to the special day, never about the celebration or the present he would be giving me though; it's the undying affection that keeps me excited. :)

To continue with my trip to Singapore, if you have read my previous post, I guess that either you're still guessing about what we had done upon arrival at the resort, you have given up guessing, or you never felt like playing the guessing game at all. Oh well, either one, I'm pretty sure your answer was wrong; instead of checking in to the resort immediately for an early nap, unbelievably, we stayed at the nearest McDonald's, slept on the chairs, shivered under the freezing cold air from the air-conditioner, had our first breakfast in Singapore, and waited until the reception counters opened at 10am. Heck, this post is to tell you how helpless we were to be in a foreign country, with no one to be contacted, and with no one helping us out in the middle of the night.

We ordered two breakfast sets that came with a cup of hot drink each to keep us warm before the sun rose.

Our resort, Costa Sands Resort Downtown East, was located right beside a mall known as Downtown East, which was as similar as our Kepong Jusco with a little more interesting activities, facilities, shops, and restaurants. To avoid boredom and to kill time a bit, we walked around the mall together with our luggage along when none of the shops were opened besides 7-Eleven and KFC.

While walking around the area, time was the only thing I concerned the most because I was so eager to take a short nap on a bed comfortably. However, unfortunate incidents didn't just stop there; as soon as the reception counters were opened, I went to ask about where Shannie was staying with her full name given to the receptionist. For your information, knowing that we would only be arriving in Singapore on Saturday, I only booked for one night to save cost. Not sure if it was the system that had the problems or it was the other receptionists fault for not keying in the details correctly, Shannie's name was not found that I had to call Mr. Nantha, being the person who made reservation on behalf, to ask about everything. After some hassles that we went through in the morning, with a bit of waiting (we were allowed to stay in Shannie's room until check-in time), we finally checked in to our room at around 11am; thanks to the kind receptionist who helped us out despite the amount of works she had to go through just for us.

We initially requested for a double room while making reservation, but we ended up getting a triple room instead. We switched the cupboard and the bed to combine two beds together while leaving another bed empty. There wasn't any refrigerator or a mini bar in the room; only the usual facilities that could be found in any other ordinary hotels and a ceiling fan. Despite the scorching hot weather during the day, the entire room did a pretty good job in cooling us off.

A water dispenser was provided right outside of our room as well for our convenience.

Poser! :P After resting for just a while, all five of us decided to leave the resort to explore around the city before heading to where Naeem's sister's wedding ceremony was held at; more walking was definitely required! It sort of killed me for being so exhausted since the early morning, but I played hard before I sacked out early at night. Honestly, it's really rare that I could fall asleep so deeply that early during a vacation but I made it during the trip which I thought it was a little wasted, while the others had fun in the city throughout the entire night.

Anyway, being in the city was truly an eye-opener about how life in Singapore was like, that most of us were shouting to move to Singapore even after we left. More to come on the next post; stay tuned! ;)

Part 1: Travelling down south to Singapore.

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Travelling down south to Singapore.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! :D I intended to clear all my pending posts in 2011 initially; very much thanks to all the happening days and nights that I couldn't fulfill my wish at the end, which pretty well explains the procrastination beyond the year. Never would I want to give up proceeding though, to at least get things completed before my classes resume on the next coming week. Hopefully my dearest readers, if there is even any I suspect, are still being as supportive and stay together with my blog until no end. ;)

This trip to Singapore was planned as early as August 2011 but things just couldn't be decided that soon that we ended up making all the related reservations at the very last minutes, with only 5 persons including me myself joining at the end. Surely, problems occurred everywhere since the decisions were made, from transportation to hotel, and to fears of getting lost in the foreign country, we still managed to come back in one piece in two separate ways.

When we decided to depart on 9th of December, 2011, being like any other ordinary Fridays when the Badman had to attend classes, we decided to depart at night while Shannie, Peily and Robert were already enjoying themselves in Singapore. Our tickets were not purchased until the day before when we finally found the best bus schedule with the best fare, and we immediately booked online via busonlineticket.com.

We rushed all the way back to the Badman's house right after he finished his classes without getting any meals, for him to get prepared before his mum sent us to a nearby LRT station; it was known as one of the best ways to avoid traffic jam. Surprisingly and unbelievably, we took only less than 10 minutes to arrive at Terminal Bersepadu Selatan (TBS), with an extra one hour for us to wander around the building after dinner at KFC. Their Zinger Burger was so disappointing in my honest opinion, as if the piece of chicken shrunk.

Being a weekend on the next two days followed by a public holiday on Monday, I expected the entire building to be packed with people who were struggling to be back to hometown, turning out it was almost unmanned instead. By the way, those compartments in white were the ticket counters that were of some random tickets without qualities guaranteed, while the ticket counters with companies stated were located almost at the far end of these counters.

Aaawwwwwww! That's my bumblebee! :P

About 15 minutes prior to the departure time, we waited at the hall with fear that the bus was not going to show up or we would had been cheated by the bus company, as we, having less knowledge about all the intercity buses, had never heard of Starmart JB Express.

It was not even appeared on the screen that showed all the buses that would be arriving at different times.

We thought it could had been delayed until a young Indian man approached us less than an hour later, telling us that the bus was delayed to as early as 12.30am and the person in charge would be getting us the other bus tickets that were as similar as which we had initially purchased. I ran all the way to the ticket counter just to confirm that it was true. It was not until when I got the other two tickets that were of Five Stars Tours with some discounts given for the inconvenience they had caused, that I realized that the young Indian man was one of the staffs as well.

The bad thing about this place was that the hall was almost empty with no staffs could be seen helping out those who're unfamiliar with anything related like us; even if there were, their attitudes weren't right. That was the Badman talking on the phone with Andrew from Johor who had been giving us quite some useful information the days before, because he thought that we were supposed to be in Yong Peng already at the moment.

It was then finally on the screen that I felt a little relieved!

We called our respective parents to tell them a little about the incident before boarding the bus.

There we were, arriving at Johor Bahru Customs and Immigration Checkpoint about 4 hours later, with only less than an hour of sleep in the bus because we enjoyed watching some movies like Marley and Me, Fast and Furious 5 and some random Chinese movies with personal televisions behind each seat that you could choose your own favourite movies, throughout the journey. Honestly, I regretted not sleeping in the coach instead because then only I realized it was so freaking comfortable. Coaches under Five Stars Tours are already in my favourite list ever since! :D

Those were basically how we went through all the hassles we had faced during that memorable midnight, but problems didn't just stop there, still. It was our first time travelling to Singapore by purely public transportation, thus we were totally clueless about how to even get a taxi to our resort; to ask if they could send us to the destination, or to just sit inside the car and tell them where to go? Really, we stood in front of Golden Mile Complex as soon as we arrived from Kuala Lumpur and decided what to do next for a while. The worst thing was that we were not able to contact any of the three of them, not even Naeem who invited us to his country as I had lost all the contact numbers.

Nervousness attacked; we walked towards one of the queuing taxies and asked if he could send us to our resort. Unlike any other ordinary taxi drivers in Malaysia who would've showed us some annoyed faces, the kind taxi driver efficiently keyed in the name of the resort into his GPS and welcomed us into his car. With an awesomely clean car despite its old looking from the outside, and a taxi driver informing us which way he would be using to reach our resort even though we couldn't even understand, as well as trying not to make us feel bored throughout the way, we had a big shock and were comparing all these situations with what we're having here in Malaysia, as if we're some indigenous people.

What we had done upon arrival at the resort could have shocked you to bits; stay tuned!

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Konsortium Bas Ekspress Semenanjung.

It's been a few days since I came back from Singapore as I mentioned earlier, but I haven't have the chance to continue clearing my to-be-blogged list due to the lack of finer internet connection I have at my apartment. I miss the marvelous UniFi back in Kepong; otherwise I could only depend on the one in my workplace which is limited only between 8am to 6pm. Anyway, my trip was pretty much an adventurous one for two persons who had never been to Singapore without a private car, with none of my friends who were already in Singapore one day before holding a mobile phone with international roaming activated, without any contacts that allowed me to contact Naeem in Singapore, not even any beforehand researches before travelling. Despite being an almost entirely planned trip, we still had a lot of last minute decisions upon arrival in the country.

I was supposed to continue with my Penang trip followed by some other things that I would like to blog about; however, I find it necessary to blog about my encounter at Terminal Larkin Sentral, Johor Bahru before anything, which it ruined my mood on my return journey. This post is specially created to advise people to not get cheated easily by all the bastards out there who were earning money for the sake of their own damn benefits, and that I hope my fellow readers could spend a few seconds passing this around as a caution before anyone gets trapped like me again.

Below is an email sent by me to Konsortium Bas Ekspress Semenanjung to file a suit and I typed the entire incident that happened to me and the Badman on that day, detailed, with only our conversations changing from Malay to English. In order to get to know more about what happened before I move on, please spent some few minutes to read it.

P/S: Please click on the photos for enlargements.

In case if you're wondering how I could type in such detailed form, well, I recalled the same thing over and over again right after we left the bus, got all upset throughout part of the journey for losing the total amount of RM70 for two persons when all this while we had been putting so much effort to save money for our future usages, ranted about it repeatedly as the memory came back to haunt me again; I have no way to not remember as clearly as mentioned in the email.

Honestly, I had been searching up and down on Google to see if I was lucky enough to get a photo of that counter, realizing I have no way to get it, I found this photo of the McDonald's nearby the counter from Limsimi.com to sort of provide the exact location to whom I was complaining to, SK Law. I regret so much that we returned the previous bus tickets to the gang of oily fat people due to their gangster looking faces; no one would like to create any more troubles under such situation even though I never meant to be a troublemaker.

This SK Law was considerate enough to send me a sample of their ticket for my reference, before I create even more misunderstandings that were not supposed to exist. Not knowing what I should do to make further complaints to the related sides, I was speechless for a while before I could think of what to ask for some help.

With tickets returned to the liars, I have known earlier that I would never have any related evidences to file a suit with any of the related sides, not even the newspapers companies that I actually planned to do, despite that being such a minor issue. Go ahead for thoughts about me being overreacting; please bear in mind that once the complaint is published, the counter might have to be forced to close down, or their reputations would have gone completely. Without anything to be shown, blogging to spread the news is the only way I could do I guess.

By the way, we ended up purchasing a return ticket from KKKL, which was known to be travelling with only one stop or sometimes without one single stop, all the way from Johor Bahru to Kuala Lumpur Terminal Bersepadu Selatan. Thanks to Andrew for his recommendation, the Badman's friend who has been enjoying their services and finding them good.

Lesson learned; never ever purchase tickets that are of handwritten instead of computer printed no matter where you are travelling to, except for Genting buses where you could simply get a bus seat at Pekeliling Bus Station despite their scary driving skills. With a bus fare of RM35, I could purchase a return bus fare of a Double Decker under KKKL, with balance and much better conditions than that of which we were supposed to come back to Kuala Lumpur by. Despite being extra careful as soon as we arrived at Terminal Larkin Sentral, despite purchasing bus tickets from one of the counters, we still got cheated by those brainless bastards. If you happen to have to experience the similar incidents as mine, there are things you would have to be reminded of:

1. Request to check the bus before you pay one single cent, even if they assure you that the bus conditions are great and the bus companies are famous; those might just be some bullshit.

2. No matter which terminal you head to, never ever fully trust their big signboards because like my case, those signboards might be nothing but to attract more customers.

3. Make sure that the bus tickets are of computer printed because that is what most of the companies do nowadays.

4. If the similar incident happens to you one day, never ever return them your tickets even if they request for it because ladies and gentlemen, you paid for the tickets and you have every right to keep them as a memory.

5. Always take photos of the counters, the number plates of the related buses, ask for a photo with the related people if that's even possible to not get beaten up, if you happen to come across such issues; it always works better than you have nothing to show, and end up having to draw on a photo that is supposed to not be related. My mind only works better after all those shits; damn.

Those are the main five steps you would have to remember if you do not want to pay money for nothing; there should be more but my mind just goes blank whenever it comes to this point where I have to tell more than I do. I hope it helps, and I truly hope that you could as well share your experiences with me if you happen to come across such cases of being cheated by all the bastards.

I will be heading for a cruise inspection tomorrow together with my manager, Kak Nora, and I hope everything goes well. More updates are coming up soon! :)

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