Batam Day 1

Well, I guess we were slightly un-patriotic this year as we went to Batam on National day itself.

I went with my parents, my grandma and my cousin. This was us at harbourfront waiting for the ferry to arrive.

 

Our tour package included a flying fox experience and a paintball shooting range. When we arrived, we thought we were able to take on the entire obstacle race course. Sadly, we were only allowed to have a go once at the flying fox.

That's me!

We had to walk a distance to get back to the bus.

When I think paintball, I actually think of us holding paintball guns running after each other, trying to shoot each other with paint and feeling painful after the game. Unfortunately, it was just us trying to shoot bottle targets. Pretty fun though.

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We load the paint balls into that papaya container like thing before taking aim

I have no idea what is with my mom's expression (haha)

Cute indonesian baby

 

 

After that, we went back to the hotel to check in. There were these hammocks at the pool side and I happen to be colour-coordinated with them.

Our room had very tall ceilings. However, the air-con in the room doesn't seem to be working at all and it constantly felt stuffy. We really should have requested for a switch in rooms, which we didn't.

There were only 2 restaurants in the area, 555 and 933.Yes I know, what weird names for a seafood restaurant. In addition, they were probably both owned by the same owner!

Defried prawn with butter

Long beat fry with shrimp paste kangkong

Sauce fermented bean mussel

The dinner at 555 wasn't that great. I thought the prawns were good but they were so tiny! I shell my prawns whenever I eat them, so the meat I ended up eating essentially was so measly.

Some weird figurine at the souvenir shop

The hotel gave us a complimentary massage which wasn't very good.

These are dried seahorses. I felt so disturbed just looking at them. I wonder what they are used for? Soups or medicine - who knows.

I got really bored waiting for my grandma and parents because my grandma was seriously buying the whole shop and shifting it back to Singapore. I think she spent almost an hour odd at the small shop there picking out crackers to buy back home.

We went swimming but didn't stay for long as it was getting dark soon and the wind was getting chilly.

Anyway, these photos are taken using a set of filtered lenses that I bought from BKK. They are not photoshopped in, although it is highly possible and do-able. Just thought they were quite fun to play around with.

My mom initially didn't allow me to go swimming because it was the Chinese 7th month and being superstitious, I was to stay away from the waters. If you're curious to know why, just google it. However, I guess she relented but I ended up without a bikini bottom and ended jumping into the pool with my denim shorts. Thank god the pool security allowed.

After swimming, getting a shower and catching half of the National Day Parade on tv (yes, they had Channel 5 on their televisions), we grabbed a cab and headed for Nagoya Mall.

We decided to have dinner at this Singaporean coffee stall. Wonder if it's really being run by a Singaporean?

 I think my dad looks very young in this photo!

Ayam penyet

Mee Siam. I am not a fan of Mee Siam

This plate of mee-goreng was very flavourful. It was so good that we ordered another plate of it!

After dinner, my dad went to look for a hairdresser while my mom brought the ladies around the mall in search of the Wacoal lingerie shop. We finally got there and I managed to get some shopping done from there. I came back to Singapore to compare the prices and it was almost 3 times more expensive here in Sg.

Day 2 was more of sight-seeing and touring the area which wasn't very large to begin with. Will post day 2 up soon.