I headed to Harbourfront Cruise & Ferry Terminal to meet lc. It's quite lame that Batam is only 40 min away from Singapore and yet we haven't gone before? [But then again, I haven't been to JB before T.T] Our ferry was at 9am. It was pretty crowded and we didn't get to sit together.
After arriving at the Sekupang Port, we passed the security checks via the priority line - the perks of going on a company tour. I didn't even need a visa-on-arrival! We went on a half-day tour around Batam right away, and by noon, everyone was dying to go back to our resort to rest. It's a bit stupid that they had to bring us around for such a long tour when the resort had so many facilities for us to use...
So we went to play flying fox/shooting/etc. early in the morning (Batam time is 1 hour behind Singapore's). We played archery first, 15 arrows for 60,000 IDR (9,800 IDR = 1 SGD). If we hit the bullseye, we could get a free flying fox, but it was too hard lol. I don't think anyone managed to do it.
Initially both lc and his sis wanted to do flying fox but he backed out cos it was too hot! His sis went up by herself, together with another small girl and her dad. I think the girl wanted to do it with her dad, but she ended up with lc's sis, maybe cos their weights are similar?
Afterwards, we also had the chance to play go-kart but almost no-one went cos of the weather.. I don't think I'd want to wear the smelly helmet that so many people had worn before lol.
The guide brought us to this shop to buy some local snacks. We only bought 1 packet to share on the bus since we weren't planning to do any shopping there. We then had seafood lunch at an adjacent restaurant. The food wasn't nice at all :/ The prawns and crabs were not fresh. Only the fish was good because it was fresh from the pond outside.
After lunch, we dropped by a canal to take a group picture. I have no idea where that was though :P
The whole Batam is pretty run-down and there are a lot of illegal squatters on the island. Too many immigrants onto the island in the past decades.
Our last destination for the tour was to the Maha Vihara Duta Maitreya Temple, a laughing Buddha temple. It was quite big and you would really see a lot of Buddhas around.
We were supposed to go to a famous kueh lapis shop but since nobody wanted to get off the bus, the guide decided to take our orders and get the shop to deliver them to us the next day. Anyway, the kueh lapis is really damn good! A cake sized kueh lapis costs 250,000 IDR. It's very soft and not dry at all, I guess because of all the oil (that will cover your hands if you hold them for just a second) but it's not greasy at all when you eat it.
We finally checked in to our Harris Resort Waterfront at about 5pm. It was a 4-star resort.
The first thing we did was to sleep for an hour before dinner time. Haha. At 6.30pm, we woke up for a BBQ dinner beside the pool. The environment was a bit too dark... Couldn't see half the things we were eating. And the food wasn't really nice. I only liked the raw vegetables and noodle which you could pick and ask the chef to cook on the spot, and the desserts.
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| Live band performance. Look at how dark it was... |
Our buffet breakfast was from 6am-10am. We went at 9.15am and ate till 9.50am when we had to leave. The breakfast was not bad.
We were taken to a massage salon. Most of us did the massage, which was really cheap - 180 min for only 200,000 IDR for either foot or body (cream); 300,000 IDR for body (oil).
After the massage, we went to the shopping centre on the other side of the road for lunch. First thing we saw inside was this:
It's like a fake KFC? LOL. Apparently it stands for Best Fried Chicken. We went upstairs to eat at a local restaurant.
The prices were super low, but so was the quality lol. None of the things we ordered was nice. The laksa was totally not laksa, more like thai flavoured bee hoon. Only the watermelon juice was okay. We only saw the real KFC after lunch! T.T
After lunch, it was already time to go home... The trip was a bit too short and the city tour was a bit too long... I wish we had more time in the resort!
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