2D1N Desaru Trip

because my family is not around at home, and i feel particularly lonely, hence i planned a 2D1N desaru trip together with brotherhood! it was a pity that hw couldnt join us because he need to finish a 2000 word essay.

and i did the super unimaginable feat... driving in to jb! admist all the incidents that singaporean cars got hijacked, or the riots due to elections, i still dared to drive in, and it is my first time driving in! i admire my own guts. and i also admire fen's and nzj's guts for following me. haha. 

on saturday we set off at 1040 am. the jam was pretty bad at woodlands checkpoint. it took us about 1.5 hours to clear the singapore and malaysia customs. we were supposed to go to city square mall at JB Sentral to get our data sim card so that we can use gps to get to our desaru resort. but i made a wrong turn and we hor-lan-ed to this place called 'Southern City'! 'Southern City' is an amazing place that has a Giant hypermart, many eateries and many shops selling data sim card. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。hahaha. 

so we had lunch at one of the eateries. we enjoyed the friendly waiters' service. food was pretty decent. 

my penang char kway teow. fen ordered mee goreng and nzj ordered nasi goreng. we also shared a bowl of delicious mutton soup. 

after lunch we bought our data sim card, and we also did grocery shopping at Giant. and then off we go to desaru!

all thanks to gps, we can always go to the places that we want easily. nzj is the trusted vehicle commander again (previously was at taiwan), and mr xuehong as usual is the entertainer or when he stops entertaining us or we stop chatting with him, he dozes off to sleep. hahahaha. 

it was really quite a scenic drive to desaru, with the beautiful greenery and plantation on both sides of the road, and the majestic bridge.

the only downside is that there are a few potholes along the way and i have to swerve left and right to avoid these potholes, at a speed of 120 km/h, also making sure that i do not swerve into the vehicles travelling in the opposite direction. pretty exhilarating. :p

and finally we reached! :)

we stayed at lotus desaru beach resort. 2 bedroom suite, for 450 ringgit per night. 450 ringgit is around 185 sing dollars. compared with a deluxe room at mbs for 300 sing, it is pretty worth it right? but then again, you cannot compare lotus desaru with mbs. hahahaha. 

the bedrooms:

make a guess who took the master bedroom and who took the room with two single beds? 

living room:

also have a small kitchenette, a dining table, and two toilets. the suite has two balconies. one balcony at the living room, and one balcony at the master bedroom. 

we went to check out the water theme park and it was too packed with kids. so we went to swim in the pool instead. after the swim we came back to our suite to bathe and get ready for dinner!

dinner was at sungai rengit, famous for lobsters!

you can see this iconic lobster structure when you reach. 

after researching on blogs, we wanted to go to Jade Garden, which is really famous.

highly recommended by adrian pang and michelle chong leh! mai siao siao. but to our utmost dismay, there happened to be a wedding dinner at the restaurant! i checked with the staff whether can we get a table but she said the whole restaurant is booked for the wedding. super disappointed. xuehong said we can clash in the wedding pretending that we are the groom's classmates. hahahaha.

so we ate at this restaurant called 海景轩 instead. also recommended by a blogger.

lobster in superior broth! yum yum! this plate cost 140 ringgit. about 57 sing! but i think is considered cheap already, compared to singapore. 

sungai rengit is a pretty cool town that is well equipped with different shops. we spent some time walking around, and bought cakes from a confectionary, tau sar biscuits, coffee powder. nzj was contemplating buying fast food from marrybrown but in the end he didnt. 

ok that's it for day 1! i had a very good sleep on the queen size bed. just to clarify, i slept alone, all by myself, on the queen size bed. hahahaha.