Batam Getaways

OK. I'm totally overestimating myself. or underestimating my work. Either way, my planning skill was horrible. I learnt so much about giving buffer in project, but never really thought of giving buffer in my life planning.

So I started with planning the schedule to Australia. Then I planned my training to be one week after the trip. Ad-hocly, I agreed to extend my leave to accompany my parents to HK. It still gave me one day in office after holiday before going to training afterwards. Well, the one day in office is root of all my sufferings.

The moment people saw me in office on Wed, they started to give me task to be completed before Monday. I kept explaining to them that I won't be around on Thurs and Fri for training, but guess it goes in from left ear and goes out from right ear. In the end, on my both training days on Thurs and Fri, I stayed until 2am just to finish what has been asked for. I felt so tired and I still have 1001 of things to do: my flat and toilet to be cleaned, my neglected emails to be replied, my cloths to be washed, my sister to be called, my friends' birthday to be celebrated, etc etc.

It would have been nice if I had weekend to handle all those, but alas, smart past Erlin planned for a Batam trip instead, which took away my whole weekend. In the end, I was so overwhelmed with work that I finally had to forgo most of my To Dos, even my friend's birthday party :( I'm really sorry, friends...

But! It doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy myself in Batam. I had been wanting to travel somewhere around Indonesia for awhile and it's finally realized :D

So on Sat, 7 of us (Fendi, Tomy, Handy, Henry, Inche, Winson and me) took Ferry to Batam at 10.20 AM. I felt sleepy and was quickly unconscious until we reached Batam.

We met our pretty guide, Florence, after we passed through the checked point. She seemed to be a bit surprised that there are Indonesians taking package tour to Indonesia ^^; After gathering all the people, we went to our first destination - Batam Layer Cake - to see the making of layer cake... which is a delicacy originated from Medan, Kue Lapis =__='' The taste wasn't even half as good.

Afterwards, we proceed for lunch @ Golden Prawn 933. The food was OK, but the service was kind of slow :(. It was almost 3PM SGT when we finished the lunch. The rest of the itineraries include Taman Mini Indonesia, Aroma Massage, GTS Local Product Shop, Factory Outlet, as well as Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya, before we finally went to Batam City Square Mall for dinner and shopping. It was around 9.30 PM when we finally checked in hotel - all tired and I finally slept at around 11.30.

Chili Crab! One of the 7 dishes from Golden Prawn 933 Restaurant Lunch

Taman Mini Indonesia with 27 different miniature houses from Indonesian Provinces 

Ginger Tea after my first body massage! 

Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple 

Our superlicious dinner at Citra Pempek

Cozy Mecury Hotel

Sunday, I woke up at 4.30AM, then decided to go back to sleep. At around 7 AM, we went for a swim, then proceed with buffet breakfast at the hotel. Guess what I found! Out of so many different local food, the hotel decided to serve NATO! I loved it to the max. I think I finished half the whole nato myself. Thanks Winson for letting me know :D

Watashiwa Nato Gasuki

After a filling breakfast, we went to Nagoya Hill for anotheround of shopping. We were there until around 12.00, then went back to hotel, check out, took a ride to Batam Center, and took our lunch at Bakso Lapangan Tembak. After one last round of shopping at Hypermart, we finally said bye to Batam and took the ferry at 5.10PM. Again I was unconscious throughout the ride and waken up only as it reached SG. After a dinner at KFC, we went back home and rest.

Bakso Campur - Bakso Lapangan Tembak

So that marks the end of my insane travel marathon. I have really no energy to plan my next trip to Korea right now T_T Hopefully the spirit will recover after few weeks. I'm missing my routine life of spending evening watching movies. haha...

Now let me take a look at long abandon mails,
ED