Batam! Day 3

I slept better bocs I had a "new bed". This was it.

I slept on the sofa. The foot rest kept slipping away but the heavy chair solved the issue. I had to tuck my legs onto the bed and shared part of the blanket but Zaky didn't mind. He was glad to have the whole bed. Looks like our family holidays will soon require 2 hotel rooms. Daddy Lim said that the solution would be to exclude the kids from holidays. Hoho. 

We were again up early and wanted to start the day early to maximise the not so warm morning. So 1st off to bfast. The same selection but we are easy food people. The crowd was visibly smaller. 

1st stop - frisbee and then more badminton. We skipped basketball this round, deterred by the mosquitoes.

I had to head back to the room for a call at 9.30am. The rest took a rest in teh room bcos the heat had turned up. Zaky got bored and Daddy Lim brought him for a swim. Nana and I came and we headed to the beach for the final time. 

We finally got down to kayaking. Despite being late morning, the heat was tolerable, thanks to the cloud that blocked the sun.

 

The kids did a great job. While we kayak within the man-made lagoon, sheltered by breakwater, it was still scary as the tide was climbing. No, we didn't attempt to get out to the open sea. Daddy Lim and I kayak for a while and I had the honor to take the front seat; very scary. The water was slighy choppy and I was worrying about capsizing. I don't want jellyfish. 

It was almost 12pm when we headed back to the room. We had a late checkout at 1pm and had enough time to shower and pack. Our ferry was at 4.30pm and the bus was picking us at 3pm. We had an expensive lunch at the hotel's only restaurant, waited a good 45 mins only for the food to be served either warm or room temperature. I didn't bother to complain bcos we are on a holiday (though ending) and I am not sure if the staff understood what I would be angry at. Saved it. The total bill chalked up to $220. This is for all the sea activities and meals (excluding bfast) we had in the resort. Not bad lah, I was expecting a bigger bill.

The last hour was spent nuahing in the lounge and time passed so quickly, thanks to powerful WiFi. We might have missed the bus if I hadn't look up from my HP, coincidentally at 2.57pm, and to find that everybody else had boarded the bus. Heng ah. 

It was more waiting at the ferry terminal. This time, there was no more special service and we had to queue for the immigration. We were the very last to board bcos immigration was so slow. In fact, the ferry was delayed for the same reason. 

On the way home!

I was dreading the unpacking and puffy's cage and mochi's litter were still waiting for us back home. Zaky wanted to go cycling with his friends the next day and we had to fixed up the bicycles too. Zzzzz. Our car smelled really funky bcos we had the sweaty socks, skates and clothes from the skating session still in the car and boot and steaming in the hot car for the past 3 days. Hohoho. 

It was a pleasant surprise when we came home to find that Popo had helped with the cage and litter. I was still grumpy though. Maybe it is the post holiday blues. 

That's it. The end of our short, over the weekend holiday that had flew by in a wink. I now have to keep my eyes on the next holiday.  Hoho. Did we enjoy the holiday? Definitely. It was good time spent together as a family and we got to do things with the kids and realised how much the kids had grown. They are so much more independent now. Awwww..... 

Mummy Lim

Batam! Day 2

It was a bad idea to try to squeeze in 1 single bed with Zaky. I woke up multiple times and sometimes, my aching bones woke me up,  after sleeping in one position for extended time. At 5am, I decided that it was enough and moved to the little sofa, disturbing Daddy Lim bcos I needed to keep my feet on his bed. The moment I moved off, I saw Zaky spread and conquered the whole bed. He had an equally bad night.

I had a little snooze before Daddy Lim declared that he was awake and that the restaurant was opened for bfast. It was 6am. Zzzzzz. 

I needed to do my morning exercise anyway. So he accompanied me to do whatever I was going to. I thought of heading for a run, but was worried that the monster or bad people would catch me. I was told that the gym is still under construction. I did my favourite kickboxing hiit, one that doesn't require any movement lying on the floor.

We woke the kids for bfast. It was pick and choose bfast! It had been a long while since we had that. 

The selection and food was meh though but our family is easy food people. Daddy Lim and the kids were happy so long as there is buffet bfast provided. 

The weather was great and we loaned badminton rackets and then basketball from the activities center. 

We didn't last very long with the basketball bcos it was getting hot and there were damn alot of mosquitoes. Only Daddy Lim didn't get bitten bcos he was perspiring so much and playing with his top off. There was no way any mosquito can land on him and not slip off. 

We headed back, changed and the kids jumped into the pool while Daddy Lim snoozed in the room. 

Then back onto the beach. The beach was a lot more crowded this time. There was some company's family day taking place. I remembered the same thing happened the last time we were at the resort. Are they the same company? Hmmm... 

The sun was super hot. The kids wanted to kayak, which was basically baking under the sun. They eventually opted for the knee boarding for 30 mins. 

This is knee boarding. You kneel on the board, hold on to a cable that is being pulled by a jet ski.

The kids said that it was super tiring and they took turns. When it was too tiring, they simply let go of the cable and slowly sunk into the water. Then the jet ski will come "rescue" them. They had to come back to shore to start again, thus earning them free jet ski ride too. 

The kids were happy to return to the room, to change and rest before we headed to part 2 of the activities. 

They were almost falling asleep when we dragged them out to go to Nagoya. We had to pay S$40 for round trip taxi. Both kids fell asleep in the 40 mins car ride. The driver was to pick us up at 4.30pm, which was barely 2.5 hours later. We had to pay him an extra S$20 to extend 2 hours. 

Daddy Lim was worried that there wasn't enough stuff to do to entertain us for 4.5 hours. In actual fact, time passed so quickly. We started with a drink and snack, then hit the arcade. The arcade is like a casino but they played with tokens. Maybe it is really gambling and they can exchange the tokens for cash? At the popular game machines, they even have staff helping the players to slot in the tokens. They played in such big quantity; we exchanged S$10 for 2 half cups of tokens while those players go on trays of tokens. I guessed easily S$100 per tray?

Arcade makes us hungry. Ramly burgers!

By then, we were only left with 2 hours and 1 hour went into massage!

Daddy Lim asked if 1 hour massage would be too long. Nonsense, the 1 hour few by so quickly and we had to rush for dinner. 

Korean food!

Then we had to rush to buy water and snacks from the supermarket to last us for the remaining night and day. 

We didn't even have time for shopping and was back at the carpark 准准 at 6.30pm. The sky was already dark and the uncle speed drive us back to the hotel, bashing through roads, even those without proper lighting. 

We got back safe and sound, rested and continued with another 2 games of pool. Nana didn't join us. She was tired and rather stayed in the room with her phone. 

This time, we heard the band. Pretty much oldies tunes unfortunately.

We were pleasantly surprised to catch the magic show. 

Zaky loves magic show, never too old.

We went back to the room after the show and called it a night. 

Mummy Lim

Batam! Day 1

It is the school holidays and that means that we can go for overseas holiday. I would love to go somewhere farther away, but the kids said that they would be busy and only had the weekend for us. We didn't want to be stuck in the custom jam and the next best option would be a ferry ride. 

After multiple searches and considerations, I booked 2 nights with the Batam View Resort. This is an old hotel, we had been there several times before covid and when the kids were much little. They don't remember much and in fact mixed up the Batam, Bintan and Bali in their head. They were recount a memory, only for me to tell them that that was Bintan/ Bali. So funny. 

Despite being just Batam, we were very excited; holidays are always exciting. Hoho. Our ferry was on Saturday 12pm and we should be at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal about 2 hours prior. I would imagine a lazy morning before heading to the Terminal and even skip the WWF ride. Turned out, we ended up at ECP for an early skate session. 

Start of our holiday, with McD bfast at ECP. 

We started late, arriving at the skatepark only at 8am. Daddy Lim and the kids took lesson while I went to cruise ECP. 

It was super rush, I didn't get to go far, clocking about 16km in all. We had to move everybody off at about 9.40am. Daddy Lim and the kids had fun though, telling them that they all accomplished some new stuff at class. 

The ferry terminal was crowded. We are obviously not the only ones going for a holiday. We had time for a quick snack but careful not to eat too much in case of rough sea. 

Yay! Holiday! We can smell it, but not for long bcos we were all knocked out after the early and tiring morning. 

We didn't get to nap long bcos it was only a 50 mins ride and it was soon time to disembark. 

Clearing immigration was super easier bcos the resort has this new service - they collected our passports and cleared the immigration for us. We only need to board the bus. Super nice. As we approached the immigration, the kids were like, "yes, I remember this place!"

The familiar yellow bus.

I had remembered that the resort was very far away from the terminal. Turned out, the ride was barely 10 mins away. Probably bcos it was the start of the Singapore school holidays and a normal weekend otherwise, the room was available and we didnt have to wait.

We went exploring after dropping the luggage in the room. 

It is a "resort" and is supposed to be self-contained. The only problem is that every other activity is chargeable. So I was super excited when the staff allowed the kids to try the ATV for FREE for 3 mins! It cost like S$38.5 for a 15 mins slot originally.

The kids only went around in that little tiny field but they had fun. I was more anxious than they are, in case one of them drive the ATV into some building or the pool. I don't have $$ to pay for an ATV. 

We spotted these little motorbikes too. 

Once upon a time, Zaky rode one of these. He also remembered riding it into some structure and cried a lot. Lol. 

The main reason for choosing this hotel is really this mini private beach that they have. It brought us down memory lane as we take the flight of stairs to the beach.

The kids has been talking about riding the banana boat for the longest time and rememberd doing so at the same beach. We would have gladly watched from the shade if it wasn't bcos they need a min 4 riders. So, we all got onto the banana boat. The staff asked if we wanted to capsize. Siao ah! Of course not. 

We did capsize once bcos it was windy and the sea choppy. The kids were very happy and trying to climb back to the banana boat was a workout on its own. Luckily, that was the only time. We paid about S$48 for our family to bounce around on the banana boat and thrown into the sea. Hoho. 

The kids had asked to kayak but it was super hot. They ended up with the striker. This was even more expensive at S$25 for mere few minutes but the kids said that it was damn fun. 

I saw them flew off the float at some point. Luckily, nobody got thrown off. 

After the exciting stuff, we headed to the newly constructed area on the beach.

Then back to the main pool for more monkeying around. 

We only left the pool bcos it was nearing dinner time. We were rushing for the sea activities and only had instant noodles for lunch. Nana wanted crab and we headed go the kelong restaurant for dinner. 

Unfortunately, the crabs were sold out. Dinner wasn't too bad anyway. This was very much Singapore pricing. 

We also headed to the all familiar jetty for pictures. 

We had games of pool at back at the hotel lobby. The kids are learning and are getting the ropes. This was us in action. 

Daddy Lim had beer while we had mocktail. Hoho. 

I told the kids that they should learn pool properly. In my times, the ones who can play pool well were looked upon as the cool kids. Hoho. 

There was supposed to be live band at 8pm but we were all so exhausted with the early morning, skating and a lot of swimming. Nobody had the energy to watch the band. 

We had a twin room and paid for an extra bed. As there were only 3 beds, I shared a bed with Zaky for the night. Good night!

Mummy Lim