this was my 4th time here, and honestly there is nothing much you can do at batam, but i am more than willing to escape singapore just for a short getaway. and the best thing is to have a short getaway with the person you love the most, who is none other than my darling.
besides having darling with me, the other things that i like most about this trip are:
1. the buffet breakfast at batam holiday inn (not say super fantastic, but is more than decent)
2. the massage at tea tree spa (always a place to pay a visit to when i stay at batam holiday inn). darling and i took the 1 hour head and shoulders massage, and it was so so so so good. it costs around S$42 for that 1 hour of awesome massage.
3. having a wonderful guide, William, to bring us around batam (his email address is williamoei1@gmail.com ). he is really a super nice guy. not only he drove us around, he also help us order the kueh lapis at batam layer cakes, gave us recommendations on where to eat for lunch, and even let us change our sg currency with him at a good rate of 1 sing to 9600 rupiah when we were running out of rupiah and all money changers were closed at that time.
4. the little niece who entertained us throughout the 3D2N. she always will come into our room and climb up onto our bed and roll around the bed with shrieks of laughter.
here are some advice from me:
1. before you buy stuff from the Chocolate House, make sure you only buy those that are only available at the Chocolate House, and not available at supermarkets, for example their signature tiramisu chocolates. chocolates that are available at supermarkets cost two times cheaper than the same type of chocolates at Chocolate House.
2. if you want to buy kueh lapis, but from Batam Layer Cake! it is so much nicer than Layers (the one with purple packaging). i prefer Batam Layer Cake because has many flavours - original, cheese, cinnamon, pandan, mocha, coffee, prune. secondly, and also because when i received the kueh lapis, they are still WARM, and when i open the box, the aroma came into my noses and omg i felt like i was in mocha and pandan heaven.
3. if you want to go try golden prawn for seafood, there are two side by side. one is golden prawn 555, the other one is golden prawn 933. go for the golden prawn 555. but honestly speaking, dun go for both. go for sei enam seafood restaurant! the seafood is good, and has gathered alot of positive reviews on tripadvisor!
4. go to 1st Factory Outlet! the clothes and shoes there are cheap. William told us that these are original goods from the actual brands that are made in indonesia, but because they got slight defects, so they are not being sold by the actual brands. famous brands include fred perry, armani, tokyo superdry, nike, adidas, and many many more. we spent like 1 hour at that factory outlet!
next stop, vietnam, with my colleague, mr tsg!
