Another Day Trip to JB

We are all keeping our eyes on the year end holidays to visit Ah Yee in Europe. We will be flying in the end November for 12 days. #myneckgrownlonger

End November seems too far away, we needed something to help us hang on in the meantime. What is easier than a hop over the Causeway? The only challenge? We are all so busy, trying to find a common weekend is so tough. We finally decided and found last Saturday. We thought that the timing would be good, since it is before the school holidays, though secondary school kids are already off. Oh yes, Zaky is totally rocking his school holidays already.

We woke up at 5ish and targeted to leave the house at 5.30am. We left closer to 6am but that still wasn’t too bad. I had imagined that it will be smooth at the Causeway but forgotten that many other Singaporeans thought of a quick escape like us too.  

The jam was longer on the Singapore side and we were finally in JB after about 1.5 hours. The wait was ok, bcos the spirit was high and the Netflix was going strong. Our usual 1st stop - massage! 

Daddy Lim and I got the foot massage while the kids opted for full body massage. We were all looking forward to the session. I had back massage at the end and my neck and back cracked at so many places. 

Massages cause hunger. We went to the same tim sum. It was good and reasonably priced. Only RM137 for a lot of tim sum. 

Nana looked like she was savoring the nice spread; Zaky was stuffing himself bcos he was too hungry to go slow. Lol. 

The next stop was to Southkey for shopping. Nana said that she had a long shopping list. Zaky maintained that he had nothing to buy but still ended up with something. We went to JD, the kids bought expensive socks and Daddy Lim bought expensive cap. Hoho.

We left after 2 hours, bcos we had some game booked at Eco Palladium mall. The Eco Mall isn’t that far away from Southkey, or that was what I thought. However, it took us more than half an hour drive and I came to appreciate Singapore road infrastructure. Out of nowhere, the traffic will slow down to a halt. There was no accident, no plant pruning, no road works, simply somebody who decided that they will now make 1 lane disappeared or created the roads in such a way, that the cars on the left will have to zip zap to make a right turn in front and the cars on the right would want to do the exact opposite. 

I do see that the Government has tried hard on the cycling lane. However, whoever drew the cycling lane is very fixated and only had 1 job in mind - draw the cycling lane. 

It doesn’t matter that the cycling lane is cutting into the width of the road and now the road is now too narrow to fit a bigger car/ bus/ lorry. We also saw buses and cars parked on the cycling lanes. Anyway, we didn’t see any cyclists, so maybe the thoughtless cycling lanes don’t quite matter. 

While Daddy Lim and I were laughing at the cycling lanes, the kids were having their beauty nap. How nice..

This game that I have booked is somewhat like the paint bomb that we played in KL. There are a total of 5 mini games and each lasting 15 mins. They have the laser game too, which we easily beat the system and decided to end the game halfway. We were more interested in taking pictures.

The KL one was much more interesting. The experience of the Eco one was further diminished by equipment that didn’t seem to work too well and we were bored after a while. Maybe we should have ran around escaping the lava floor instead. 

We headed for an afternoon snacks. We had intended to skip lunch, and to keep our tummy for Korean BBQ dinner but it didn’t quite turn out that way. Once we started eating, we were hungry/ greedy and ended up with a full meal. 

The driver has worked very hard and needed to charge up.

We waited.

Nana wanted a popmart. Daddy Lim bought one too. At least nobody got an ugly one. Hint - the Mr Professor that I got. Zzzzz.. Lol.

We spent the next hour playing pool bcos Zaky said no more shopping. 

We played pool for more a long time bcos we were so bad and every game took such a long time. Lol. I ended up with such bad neck ache; all the benefits from the morning massage had disappeared. 

It was already 6ish when we left Eco. We battled the bad traffic to Austin Heights in search of Korean BBQ. Sadly, we found more Chinese BBQ than anything else. The only Korean BBQ restaurant that we found was super crowded. We ended up with Mookata instead. 

Hmmm… nothing to wow about but we weren’t so hungry anyway with the late lunch. 

The last stop of the day was the 娃娃机. It was literally throwing $$ into the machines. Lol. But we had good fun and at least Nana caught something after so many tries. 

Finally, the long drive home. We left at 9ish and the customs were still bad. This time, it was the Malaysia side but the kids slept through. Zaky woke up at the Singapore immigration and was surprised that he got to sleep through the Malaysia side. Ya, the officer didn’t make us wake them. 

It was almost 11pm when we arrived home to a hungry Mochi. The tired people turned in while I did the laundry. We had a day of fun. The kids had even bigger fun spending their parents’ $$. Hoho. 

On Sunday morning, Daddy Lim woke me up at 7ish to go for bfast. I thought we had a heavy dinner the night before?! Daddy Lim said that dinner was not that satisfying. Ok lor.

We went for bfast in his very new stylist cap. 

Europe next! 

Mummy Lim

JB Day Trip 2025

The original plan was to do a JB day trip before the CNY for new CNY clothes. However, we were all so busy and couldn’t find a weekend to do so. So we ended up with no new clothes for CNY but decided to still do the JB day trip post CNY for shopping. Now that the kids are teenager, shopping is no longer toxic. In fact, who doesn’t want free shopping? 

We last went to JB several months ago via the train. It is a nice way to avoid the custom jam but the good timing tickets were all sold out. We opted to drive also for convenience than have to take grab everywhere. 

The plan was to leave the house at 7am but we only made it out at about 7.30am. The traffic at the immigration had already built up and we opted for the 2nd link for the shorter custom waiting time. We barely got into the car and Zaky said that he was starving. So instead of a nice tim sum bfast in JB, we ended up with bak chor mee at a kopitiam near to Tuas. It was delicious though. 

The wait at the custom was about an hour. Not too bad especially when the spirit was still high. We were still worried initially about the need to burn time if we got into JB too early. We ended up arriving at the mall at about 10am. 刚刚好. This time, we went to the Southkey Mid Valley mall. Just before that, we had bfast number 2 when we took a toilet break along the way. The 4 of us had to share 1 nasi lemak bcos there will be a lot more eating ahead.

We shopped! Everybody bought something. Then, we stopped for lunch. Ya, eat again ah. I ordered a 2 to 3 pax set so that we can eat other things after lunch. Hoho.

By 3pm, we were dead tired. There was so much walking. We started finding places to rest our tired legs when possible. 

Zaky bugged to do massage but the only massage places in the mall were all full. We contemplated heading to another mall for message and eventually decided to drive to Austin Heights instead. We should be able to find massage places in Austin Heights and then settle dinner thereafter. It was a place that we are familiar with.

We finally found one - 3rd time a charm, and had 60 mins of feet and shoulder/ back massage. When the massage started, the masseuse was massaging all my sore muscles from Thursday hiit. Pain but also shiok siol. At some point, I heard somebody snored. I think it was Zaky. Haha. 

They gave us ginger tea and red bean soup after the message. Only Daddy Lim benefitted. We were saving our tummies for dinner. 

We had wanted to have Korean BBQ, even though we also had Korean food for lunch. Look at the wide array of side dishes! Refillable somemore.

We had plenty of meat.

The dinner cost us less than RM200. How to find this kind of deal in Singapore? 

While we feed ourselves, we remembered the lonely Mochi back home too. 

We gave him some kibbles via the feeder to tahan until we were home. 

Dinner was just nice and we didn’t have to overeat. So we went for dessert and to use the restroom before we head back to Singapore. 

Daddy Lim decided that we would go home via Woodlands bcos the custom waiting time, though 20 mins longer (according to SG checkpoint), is nearer to Austin Heights; the 2nd link was 1 hour drive from Austin Heights.

I am not sure how much we can trust SG checkpoint. We definitely waited longer than the predicted 45 mins. My body ached from being confined in the car but at least I had my massage already. Hoho. I asked if the shopping was worth the custom jam and the kids said “yes”. Daddy Lim said that it was the Korean BBQ dinner that made it worth. Haha.

Mummy Lim